A new study has found that the use of a smartphone to track the speed of a car is more effective than a GPS tracker.

A speed camera in Cardiff is the busiest in Britain - catching almost three times as many drivers each day as one on a busy Manchester motorway.

Article: A 53-page report has highlighted efforts to boost freight and passenger numbers as key drivers of success.
The business review document also places importance on Prestwick's bid to become the UK's first spaceport.
The Scottish government bought the struggling airport for £1 last year and later announced £10m in loan funding.
The cash was committed towards operating costs, a repairs backlog and to make improvements to the terminal building.
The long-term strategy has been based upon reports and recommendations from a senior advisor appointed by TS Prestwick Holdco Ltd, the holding company that was created by the Scottish government to buy shares in the airport and oversee its corporate governance.
The strategic vision said the Ayrshire terminal's association with Glasgow, some 35 miles away, was its "best asset".
A local campaign to change its name to Robert Burns International Airport, in recognition of the Alloway-born bard, would "damage the airport's business prospects, notably with inbound passengers", it said.
The vision also confirms Prestwick's bid to be the site of the UK's first spaceport, which it said will be "the catalyst for transformational change".
In the meantime, Prestwick faces some challenges including aged infrastructure, a maintenance backlog, a railway station in need of a £4.75m refurbishment, the need for a new primary radar within the next five years and Ryanair's expansion into Glasgow Airport.
The vision also said Scottish airports were "disproportionally affected" by air passenger duty (APD) due to their geographic location and Prestwick is calling for changes to UK aviation policy leading to a reduction in or removal of APD.
Prestwick chief executive Iain Cochrane said: "Our long-term vision for Glasgow Prestwick, which is shared by the Scottish government, is of a high-quality, exceptional value and vibrant aviation, aerospace and visitor hub.
"We aim to ensure that it becomes the busy and prosperous strategic anchor for economic growth and delivery in Ayrshire and Scotland that...

Summary: A long-term vision has been set out for Prestwick Airport - a year after it was taken into public ownership amid fears it could close.
###
Article: Last month, inmates at the Eastern New York Correctional Facility challenged the Harvard team to a debate at the maximum-security lockup.
The prison offers courses taught by faculty from nearby Bard College and the inmates have formed a popular debate club.
The friendly competition ended in a win for the prison's team.
This is not the first win for the Eastern New York Correctional team.
In the two years since starting the club they have challenged and beaten teams from the University of Vermont and the US Military Academy at West Point, with whom they have established an annual match and a budding rivalry.
The Harvard victory may be their biggest success; the Harvard team have won both the national and world championships.
In the match, inmates defended the premise that students whose parents entered the US illegally should be turned away from schools.
The debate was judged by a neutral panel.
Shortly after their loss Harvard students posted on the team's Facebook page.
"There are few teams we are prouder of having lost a debate to than the phenomenally intelligent and articulate team we faced this weekend,"' they wrote. "And we are incredibly thankful to Bard and the Eastern New York Correctional Facility for the work they do and for organizing this event."
At Bard, those who help teach the inmates aren't particularly surprised by their success.
"Students in the prison are held to the exact same standards, levels of rigor and expectation as students on Bard's main campus," said Max Kenner, executive director of the Bard Prison Initiative, which operates in six New York prisons. "Those students are serious. They are not condescended to by their faculty."
The initiative allows inmates to earn a range of degrees mostly taught by Bard professors all taught without access to the internet.
About 15% of all prisoners at Eastern New York Correctional are registered and some graduates have continued their studies at Yale and Columbia universities, according to Kenner.

Summary: A group of New York inmates have out debated Harvard University's team - the top-ranked club in the world.
###
Article: The Wellcome Trust team says a specific speech test accurately predicts whose stutter will persist into their teens.
About one in 20 develops a stutter before age five - but just one in 100 stutter as a teen and identifying these children has so far been difficult.
Campaigners said it was key for children to be diagnosed early.
Stuttering tends to start at about three years old. Four out of five will recover without intervention, often within a couple of years.
But for one in five, their stutter will persist and early therapy can be of significant benefit.
The researchers, based at University College London, used a test developed in the US called SSI-3 (stuttering severity instrument).
In earlier work, they followed eight-year-olds with a stutter into their teens.
They found that the SSI-3 test was a reliable indicator of who would still have a stutter and who would recover - while other indicators such as family history, which have been used, were less so.
It showed the test was highly sensitive and specific in classifying those with a stutter who would recover, those whose stammer would persist and those who were "fluent" - had no communication difficulties.
A fluency result is important because it shows the test can be used on unaffected children, which it would have to be if it was to be used to screen for problems.
This latest paper, published in the Journal of Fluency Disorders, looked at another 272 children with a stutter and 25 without, aged five to 19.
It showed that the test could reliably be used across the age range.
The researchers also found so-called "whole word repetition" was not a reliable indicator of persistent stutter.
Core symptoms were found to be prolonging parts of words, partial repetition of words or "blocking" on the first part of a word.
Prof Peter Howell, who led the research, said: "If we can identify children at risk of stuttering, then we can offer appropriate interventions to help them early on.
"Primary school is a key time in a child's development and any help in tackling...

Summary: A screening test for children starting school that could accurately detect early signs of a persistent stutter is a step closer, experts say.
###
Article: The camera on a 30mph limit junction of Newport Road  is catching an average of 71 speeding drivers every day.
A survey last year found a camera on the M60 in Greater Manchester caught about 26 speeding drivers per day.
The GoSafe partnership, which runs the Cardiff camera, said 99.5% of drivers at the site met the speed limit.
It said: "Motorists should comply with the relevant speed limit, which is there for a reason."
The body also insisted that placing cameras at a location was always "a last resort".
"The revenue from speeding fines is returned back to the government and not the partnership," said Chris Hume from GoSafe.
"There is a simple message - cameras are in place to save lives not to make money."
The camera was installed in 2012, but only went into fully commissioned operation earlier this year.
It has now notched up a staggering 13,624 penalty notices for speeding - and a further 146 drivers were caught for red-light offences.

Summary:


A man who killed a man when he lashed out with a kitchen knife while being attacked has been jailed for seven years.

Friends and family of a boxer with a "gentle smile", who died after being knocked out in his first fight, have attended a memorial mass.

Article: He accused Conservatives on both sides of the campaign of peddling the "politics of despair" and said voters wanted facts and "real vision".
In an appeal to Labour voters to back Remain, he warned that leaving the EU would expose UK workers to more "Tory cuts".
The in-out vote takes place on 23 June.
Voters will be asked whether they want the UK to stay in the European Union or leave it.
In a speech to union leaders at the TUC, Mr McDonnell attacked the Conservatives, saying the referendum had only come about because of "splits" in the party and "their fear of UKIP".
"As a result I think the debate has degenerated into the worst form of negativity and brought out the worst in Westminster politics. The negativity has been overwhelming at times," he said.
Mr McDonnell said voters had told him on the doorstep that they wanted "facts and real vision from politicians", and Labour needed to "rescue" the debate from the "Project Fear coming from all sides of the Tory party".
He added: "It's time to turn this debate around, drive out politics of despair and offer a vision for Britain in Europe."
Setting out what he described as a "positive" case for the EU, Mr McDonnell said it helped to protect workers' rights, tackle tax avoidance and climate change and to support British industries.
"This is a vision of Europe based upon hope and solidarity," he told the audience.
The Remain campaign sees Labour voters as crucial to winning the referendum, and it is trying to mobilise the party's supporters to turn out and vote on 23 June.
Pitching the referendum as a contest between left and right, Mr McDonnell said Labour voters considering backing Leave needed to know "what could be on the cards" if Britain quit the EU.
"In plain English, if we have a Tory Brexit then we have the likelihood of more Tory cuts to come," he said.
The shadow chancellor also defended the levels of immigration into the UK and accused EU exit campaigners of pedalling "anti migrant rubbish".
He said migrants were not to blame for the pressure on public...

Summary: The EU referendum has been "extremely negative" and brought out the worst in Westminster politics, Labour's shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has said.
###
Article: The European Commission said its new mortgages directive would prevent any repeat of reckless home loan lending of the past.
The agreement also includes plans to make it easier for consumers to shop around for their loan.
A lenders' group said the changes would have little impact on the UK system.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said that UK rules, which were bolstered recently, already had the greater consumer protection and information in place.
The directive, driven by the Irish Republic's presidency of the EU, aims to halt cases of mortgages being handed out without any background checks on borrowers.
The key feature is that any borrower across the 27 EU member states would be refused a home loan if they failed a standard credit worthiness assessment.
Other features of the agreement include:
"The financial crisis started with the subprime debacle in the United States where mortgages were being handed out with no background checks carried out on whether consumers could afford them, and ill-informed and often vulnerable consumers were encouraged to take excessive risk," said EU Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier.
"We have seen similar excesses in Europe, for example with the housing booms and the inevitable busts which followed in Spain and Ireland."
He said the consequences had been enormous, with many people losing their homes to repossession.
"This directive will help put an end to these excesses and foster responsible lending practices," he added.
"Consumers will finally get the protection they deserve. They will be better informed so they can choose the mortgage product which best meets their needs, at the best price, and fully aware of the risks they are taking."
In the UK, lenders have recently gone through a mortgage market review that tightened rules on applications. This has led to new rules, including affordability checks, which will come into force in April 2014.
Paul Smee, director general of the CML, said that the changes would create more paperwork for lenders and regulators in...

Summary: New rules will mean that borrowers across the European Union (EU) will be refused a mortgage if they fail a standard affordability assessment.
###
Article: Victim Robert Taylor and two friends had been looking for Kieley Davis's boyfriend over a threat made to Mr Taylor's daughter.
They attacked Davis instead after she came out of a flat in Lincoln brandishing a kitchen knife.
Davis previously admitted a charge of manslaughter.
Judge Michael Heath accepted Davis, of Woodfield Avenue, was attacked when she left the flat, but said "the case illustrates what can happen when a knife is introduced".
Sentencing Davis, 29, Judge Heath told her she was "unwise" to arm herself with a knife, but accepted she had done so because she was scared.
Mr Taylor died in hospital after being stabbed on 17 April.
Lincoln Crown Court heard Mr Taylor and two other men had gone to a flat in Walnut Place, off Lincoln High Street, looking for Bradley Taylor, the boyfriend of Davis.
Bradley Taylor was previously jailed for stabbing Robert Taylor, who was no relation, in 2012.
Prior to the stabbing by Davis, the court was told Bradley Taylor had threatened Robert Taylor's daughter.
James House, prosecuting, said Robert Taylor and two of his friends - armed with two wooden chair legs - then went looking for him.
When they arrived at the flat Davis was there with a friend, but Bradley Taylor was not present.
Robert Taylor, 39, then became involved in an altercation with the friend of Davis, before she emerged from the flat brandishing a kitchen knife.
According to an eye witness, she was hit three times with a piece of wood.
At some point during the melee she lashed out with the knife, fatally wounding Robert Taylor.
Phillip Shears QC, mitigating for Davis, said she had shown "consistent remorse" for what happened.

Summary: A woman who killed a man when she lashed out with a kitchen knife while being attacked has been jailed for seven years.
###
Article: Kuba Moczyk, 22, died in hospital after he was knocked out in an unlicensed fight at the Tower Complex, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, on 19 November.
A memorial mass has been held at St Mary's Church in the town.
Father Philip Shryane told the congregation Mr Moczyk' was a "good man" whose "life was boxing".
More on this story and others from Norfolk
He said Mr Moczyk was "a young man with a good heart, with so much to give and so much to look forward to... but always a gentle smile".
His uncle, Marcin Smigaj gave a tribute, in Polish, on behalf of the family. Mr Moczyk was due to be cremated.
Mr Moczyk, originally from Poland, worked at a chicken factory and lived in the town.
His trainer Scott Osinski said earlier that Mr Moczyk was winning the fight when he took the fatal blow.
His opponent is believed to be aged 17.

Summary:

Article: {{document}}

Summary: ||| {{target}}


The National Union of Teachers' conference backed a campaign to abolish the tests which are coming to many schools in September.

A man has been charged with murdering a man who was stabbed to death.

Article: It is the 15th consecutive monthly fall and the number now stands at 56,100.
The jobless figure has fallen by almost 9,000 over that 15 month period.
However, the percentage of the working age population claiming the benefit remains the highest in the UK. It is currently 6.2%.
The other measurement of unemployment, the Labour Force Survey, shows a quarterly rate of 7.2%, down by 0.1% on the previous quarter.
That remains above the UK average rate of 6.8% but is well below the Republic of Ireland rate of 11.9%.
The Labour Force Survey (LFS) questions a number of people every month on their employment status, and is the most widely used by labour market economists as it allows international comparisons.
The figures for April also point to a fall in long-term unemployment, down 13% over the year, and youth unemployment, down 2.5% over the year.
The economic inactivity rate, that is mainly people, who for a variety of reasons, are not looking for a job, stands at 26.8%.
It is unchanged over the quarter and down marginally over the year, remaining well above the UK average rate of 21.9%.
Last year, the Stormont Executive launched a strategy aimed at tackling the problem of economic inactivity.
It aims to get 30,000 more people into work over the next 10 years.
Part of the plan includes setting up a task force and incentive schemes for employers.

Summary: The number of people on unemployment benefit in Northern Ireland is continuing to fall with the number of claims down by 800 in April.
###
Article: Author Ian Rankin, actor Bill Nighy and comedian Miranda Hart will be among the 1,000 guests taking part in the annual 10-day event.
Other big names making an appearance include Mary Berry, Matt Lucas and Salman Rushdie.
Now in its 68th year, the UK's oldest literature festival will take place in October.
It attracts some of the biggest names from the world of culture, politics and sport.
The programme includes new Children's Laureate Lauren Child and children's author and illustrator Judith Kerr, creator of The Tiger Who Came to Tea.
Russell Brand, Sarah Millican and Peep Show star Robert Webb are among the comedians who will be talking candidly about their lives.
Also making an appearance will be author Michael Morpurgo, the original supermodel Twiggy and cook Nigella Lawson.
Nicola Tuxworth, head of programming, said the line-up was the "culmination of a very intensive few months of hard graft".
"We want to be a festival where people can scroll down down the list and all see something they want to go to," she added.
The festival will take place between 6-15 October at various venues around the Gloucestershire town.

Summary: The full line-up for the 2017 Cheltenham Literature Festival has been announced by organisers.
###
Article: Delegates at the National Union of Teachers' conference backed a campaign to abolish the tests which are coming to many schools in September.
Teachers warn the literacy and numeracy tests would stress young pupils.
Schools minister Nick Gibb said it was "extraordinary" that teachers' unions could not say "a single positive thing about England's schools".
These "baseline tests" in reading, writing and maths, to be carried out when pupils begin school, are intended to provide a starting point to measure progress against through primary school.
Ministers have argued that the assessments will help to make sure pupils leave primary school having made good progress in these basic skills.
The Labour party also supports the introduction of the baseline tests for reception pupils.
The Liberal Democrats support the tests and reject the way they have been characterised at the teachers' union conference.
But Sara Tomlinson, calling for a boycott at the NUT annual conference in Harrogate, said: "We actually have the chance to stop these tests. We need to step up this campaign and act promptly as a trade union.
Making an emotional plea against the tests she said: "Four is too young to test," adding that experts had denounced the tests.
"We have seen the reports on child mental health. What we are doing to children is absolutely disgraceful."
She described the situation in her school where children were tested so frequently it was like "death by testing".
The tests would be used by the Department for Education to track how much progress a child had made, she said, claiming that this would be used to decide whether the child's teacher gets a pay rise or goes into a capability procedure.
Alex Kenny, a union executive member, said the NUT was not opposed in principle to assessing children, but it opposed these baseline tests and how they will be used.
The tests are being introduced formally in September 2016 but schools are being invited to start the testing early this September. Schools and teachers will be encouraged by the...

Summary: Teachers have voted to ballot for a boycott on tests for four-year-olds in England, calling them "disgraceful".
###
Article: Kevin Paddick, 34, of Rosemary Road, Clacton, Essex, is accused of killing Danny Myers, 23, from Enfield.
Mr Myers died in hospital after he was stabbed at an address in Rochford Road, St Osyth, in the early hours of Monday.
The accused is expected to appear before magistrates later. A 29-year-old woman from Clacton, who was arrested on suspicion of murder, has been released without charge.

Summary:


The world's largest and most populous country, the United States, is a country of 1.5 billion people.
The United States is the world's largest democracy, with a population of 1.5 billion people.
The United States is the world's largest economy, with a GDP of $1.2 trillion

Polling cards were wrongly sent to at least 3,462 EU citizens who are not allowed to vote in the EU referendum, the Electoral Commission has announced.

Article: The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said nine inquiries were complete with 53 more ongoing.
It is currently investigating 211 allegations made against more than 90 South Yorkshire Police officers.
The complaints include alleged corruption and failure to act.
Rachel Cerfontyne, deputy chair of the IPCC, said: "We've certainly found things that have gone wrong and we've certainly found significant failings but in terms of the individuals, whilst we've got concerns around some performance, we've not found is any indication of misconduct."
She added that as a result of the inquiry at least one officer had been interviewed under caution but no charges had been brought.
An IPCC spokesperson said it had made "learning recommendations" to the force concerning the recording of information and the retention of archived materials."
Details of the nature of the allegations at the centre of the nine investigations have not been revealed.
However, Ms Cerfontyne said they related to "leadership, crime reporting and intelligence, as well as attitudes towards survivors and suspected offenders, and the ineffectiveness of police engagement with other agencies".
Inquiries began in November 2014 after South Yorkshire Police referred 13 officers to the IPCC and has now grown into the "the second largest operation" the IPCC has undertaken after the Hillsborough inquiry.
South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Dr Alan Billings, said the length of time the investigation is taking was "intolerable and unfair" on victims and officers and described it as a "denial of natural justice".
Ms Cerfontyne said Dr Billings concerns were "entirely understandable" but the IPCC's priority was to ensure all claims were carried out "rigorously and thoroughly".
She added the inquiry had been slowed down by a number of factors including the fact new allegations continue to be received, the most recent of which were lodged on Monday.
South Yorkshire Police has not responded to the IPCC's announcement.

Summary: The first inquiries into alleged misconduct by officers handling child sex abuse complaints in Rotherham have concluded there is "no case to answer", the police watchdog said.
###
Article: The low-lying cloud is seemingly so transient and intangible, and unlike rivers and glaciers it leaves no easy-to-read impressions on the landscape.
And yet, a Santiago team has been able to trace the fog history of the Atacama Desert by studying Tillandsia plants.
Their chemistry suggests strongly that this local fog has increased over time.
It is a period covering the last 3,500 years.
"I don't think there's any other place in the world where I've actually seen a record of fog, even spanning the last hundred years," said Claudio Latorre Hidalgo from the Catholic University of Chile.
"What little we know about fog is from measurement instrumental data that we have, and from satellite data that only spans the last 20 years.
"So, this is actually a unique opportunity to study the evolution of a fog ecosystem over the Late Holocene, and what are the major drivers and controls of the mechanisms that produce that fog in the long term - the very long term."
The palaeoclimate expert was discussing his team's research here at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union - the world's largest annual gathering of Earth scientists.
The Atacama is famous for its super-arid conditions; there are places where it has not rained for years.
But life can eke out an existence if it can exploit the fog that rolls in off the Pacific. Tillandsia are a perfectly adapted opportunist.
These wiry, grey plants have no roots. They clutch weakly at sand dunes, but arrange themselves at every spatial scale to maximise their capture of the fog.
They derive everything they need from the damp air - not simply the must-have water, but also all the chemical nutrients required to underpin their biology.
Dr Latorre Hidalgo and colleagues have dug deep into the dunes to uncover a multi-millennia succession of Tillandsia; and they have described a pronounced trend: the younger the plants, the more of the lighter type, or isotope, of nitrogen atom that they have incorporated into their tissues.
Analysis of modern fog suggests this lighter...

Summary: It is hard to imagine you could reconstruct a record of fog dating back thousands of years, but this is exactly what Chilean scientists have done.
###
Article: Lin Zulian will head the new Communist Party Committee in Wukan and organise elections for a new village committee.
His predecessor is under investigation for alleged corruption.
Anger in Wukan over land seizures by officials resulted in an open revolt against local party leaders in December.
The villagers' key demands - including removing two local officials from their posts - were granted by officials amid considerable public backing for the villagers.
The move was seen as a rare compromise by the Chinese government.
Mr Lin on Sunday replaced the incumbent Wukan chief, a businessman who had headed the village for decades but who local people accused of land grabs.
"This is a decision that everyone in Wukan supports and it is an important move that will help resolve the land and village finance disputes," a villager with the surname of Zhang was quoted by news agency Agence France Presse as saying.
Protests began to simmer in Wukan, in Guangdong province, in September and escalated into deadlock after the death of a village negotiator in police custody.
Villagers said officials sold off their land to developers and failed to compensate them properly.
They also called for an investigation into the death of Xue Jinbo, who died on 11 December while in the hands of local police. Police say he died of a "sudden illness", but his family say he was beaten to death.
In December deputy provincial Communist Party secretary Zhu Mingguo met village representatives and reached an agreement to end the stand-off.
There are thousands of protests over land grabs in China each year, with the Wukan protest becoming a symbol of public outrage at perceived injustices.

Summary: The leader of protests against land grabs in a southern Chinese village has been appointed its new chief.
###
Article: A software "issue" meant polling cards and some postal votes were sent out to some "non eligible" voters.
They are still awaiting responses from six councils so the number could rise.
Leave campaigners Iain Duncan Smith and Bernard Jenkin have expressed "serious concerns" about the "conduct of the EU referendum and its franchise".
They have written to the prime minister complaining of "many and varied" examples of EU nationals being sent polling cards.
On Friday, the Electoral Commission confirmed the numbers affected so far, and said the software provider had since "resolved the issue".
Any postal votes wrongly issued would be cancelled and none of those affected would appear as an eligible voter on the electoral registers used at polling stations, it said.
EU citizens from non-UK countries are not entitled to vote, unless they are citizens of the Irish Republic, Cyprus or Malta.
But Mr Duncan Smith has said a Nottingham City Council officer had emailed a Vote Leave supporter to say the council was unable to check whether people put their correct nationality on an application, and had to assume the information submitted was correct.
Kingston-upon-Thames council in south-west London said a Polish citizen in the area - whose case had been highlighted by the Guido Fawkes website - was sent a polling card because he had put "British" as his nationality on the electoral register.
British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK and many British citizens living abroad are entitled to vote in the referendum.
You can check with your local authority's electoral services team if you are worried that you are not on the register.
If you are not on the register you have until midnight on Tuesday, 7 June to submit an application for a vote. The deadlines for applying for a postal vote at the referendum are:
In England, Scotland or Wales, you can register to vote online anytime at gov.uk/register-to-vote. If you are a British citizen living abroad, you can register to vote online in the same way.
In Northern...

Summary:


The government has announced that it will introduce a new law to allow dual nationals to return to Australia.

Australia says it will reveal new laws stripping citizenship from dual nationals engaged in terrorism.

Article: The UUP left the executive last year due to issues surrounding IRA activity and paramilitarism.
Mr Nesbitt said his party had increased focus on the issue and "achieved what we want to achieve".
He also said he would meet with the three-strong panel set up as a result of the Fresh Start deal.
Mr Nesbitt was speaking at the launch of a document setting out his party's vision ahead of May's Assembly election.
It calls for a new era of belief - in Stormont, its politicians and their motivation.
The party intends to publish eight more documents before polling day on areas including health,  economy, education and animal welfare.

Summary: The UUP will decide to join the next executive based on whether it has a progressive programme for government and a collective will to deliver it.
###
Article: The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has agreed to approve the treatment, which is known as Prep.
Scientists have found that a daily dose of the drug can protect people at risk of contracting the virus.
It means Scotland will become the first place in the UK to routinely offer Prep to eligible patients.
Campaigners welcomed the SMC's decision, describing it as a "bold step" which could lead to a reduction in the spread of the virus.
They estimate that up to 1,900 people north of the border could benefit from the drug, which has the brand name Truvada and costs about £450 a month.
The anti-retroviral drug is already licensed for use by people diagnosed with HIV in Scotland.
However, the SMC's decision relates to its use on a preventative basis by people who do not have the virus.
The group said Prep was one aspect of a wider HIV prevention strategy and it should be used in combination with safe sex practices such as using condoms.
SMC chairman Dr Alan MacDonald said: "[Prep] when used together with safer sex practices may help to reduce the spread of HIV, which is an ongoing priority for the Scottish government."
It was one of series of drugs approved by the body, including Kadcyla, which is used to treat aggressive and advanced types of breast cancer.
Pre-exposure prophylaxis (or Prep for short) is a small, blue pill.
The pill works by protecting cells in the body and disabling the virus to stop it multiplying - should it enter the body.
Taking it once a day has been found to reduce the risk of HIV infection by 86%.
It is currently used in the US, Canada, Australia and France to help protect gay men at the highest risk of contracting HIV.
The decision on Prep was welcomed by a group of charities, including HIV Scotland and the Terrence Higgins Trust Scotland, which had campaigned as The Prep4Scotland Coalition.
In a statement, they said: "We applaud the SMC for taking this bold step to tackling HIV in Scotland.
"Prep provides opportunities to reinvigorate how people at higher risk of HIV exposure engage...

Summary: A "game-changing" drug which dramatically reduces the chances of being infected with HIV is to be made available on the NHS in Scotland.
###
Article: The British Medical Association's Dr Chaand Nagpaul said GP services were already at breaking point.
He will tell a conference that pledges to recruit 5,000 GPs in England would "fail dismally" as doctors were fleeing the profession.
The Department of Health said it was an "overly negative, pessimistic view".
During the election campaign, the Conservatives pledged access to GPs between 08:00 and 20:00, seven days a week, by 2020 in England.
The party also pledged everyone over 75 would get a same-day appointment.
But the proposals have been lambasted in the first major speech by GP leaders since the election.
Dr Nagpaul, the chairman of the BMA's GP committee, , will tell the annual conference of local medical committees: "The government must halt its surreal obsession for practices to open seven days when there aren't the GPs to even cope with current demands.
"It would damage quality care by spreading GPs so thinly, and replace continuity of care with impersonal shift work, and will reduce our availability for older, vulnerable patients."
He will argue no other country was attempting such a plan, while the NHS was pressing ahead with "fewer GPs per head than in Europe, while spending less on health compared to virtually all other comparable nations".
General practice is key to plans to shift more care out of hospitals into the community.
But Dr Nagpaul will use the speech to say demand on services has soared as practices are used as the "backstop for every problem in the NHS and beyond".
There were 40 million more GP appointments annually than five years ago, yet the proportion of NHS funds spent in general practice was falling, he will say.
Dr Nagpaul also pointed to a survey of 15,000 GPs which showed one in three intending to retire and one in five planning to move abroad in the next five years.
Many cited overwhelming workloads.
"It's absolutely pointless promising 5,000 extra GPs within this Parliament if we lose 10,000 GPs retiring in the same period," Dr Nagpaul will say, adding that it would be...

Summary: David Cameron needs to "get real" and ditch his "surreal obsession" with opening GP surgeries seven days a week, a senior GPs' representative says.
###
Article: The government said it wanted to ensure that militants with dual nationality who were fighting overseas could not return to Australia.
The laws would also strip citizenship from dual nationals who engaged in terrorism inside Australia.
The government said changes to the Australian Citizenship Act would be introduced to parliament on Wednesday.
The new laws could be applied to up to half of the 120 Australians fighting in the Middle East with Islamic State (IS), said Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
"The legislation will update the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 to ensure dual nationals who serve or fight for terrorist groups, or engage in terrorism-related conduct inspired by terrorists groups, automatically lose their Australian citizenship," Mr Abbott said in a statement released on Tuesday.
"The Act will also be amended to ensure dual nationals who are convicted of specified terrorism-related offences automatically lose their Australian citizenship," he said.
Last month, the government said it would give the immigration minister the power to revoke citizenship in regards to terrorism activities but that option was attacked as unconstitutional by many legal experts.
Mr Abbott said on Monday the new laws would not leave anyone stateless and did not exclude the role of the courts.
"This will enable a person who has lost his or her citizenship to seek legal redress," Mr Abbott said.
"If you are convicted of a terrorist offence, again, there will be an assumption that your Australian citizenship is forfeited, should you be a dual national."
Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security will examine whether the law should be allowed to operate retrospectively.
"Given that we have a number of dual citizens currently in jail after terrorist convictions, the committee should consider whether it should have retrospective operation at least in those cases," said Mr Abbott.
He said another review would consider what to do with people engaged in terrorism who were solely Australian nationals.

Summary:


The London Underground is to be balloted on strike action amid a row over job cuts.

The managers of the Olympic Stadium have been told to make public the details of a rental deal with West Ham.

Article: Prof Stefan Katzenbeisser made the claim at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.
The professor said that the systems which switch trains from one line to another could be shut down if encryption keys went astray.
He stressed that trains would not be in danger, but there could be delays.
Train-switching systems have historically been controlled by proprietary analogue systems.
At the end of the last century, more than 35 incompatible systems were used for railway communications across Europe.
A group of manufacturers met to address this and decided to switch to a single digital standard to ensure they could source replacement parts and make different companies' systems interoperable.
They developed GSM-Railway (GSM-R), a more secure version of the 2G wireless standard used by mobile phones.
It allows traffic controllers and train drivers to talk to each other, and for data to be transmitted recording the vehicle's speed and location.
When used with the European Train Control System, signallers can utilise the data to give the train permission to enter the next part of the track, theoretically making trackside signals unnecessary.
The technology is already being used in parts of Europe, Africa and Asia. Network Rail is rolling it out in the UK and aims to cover all Britain's rail lines by the end of 2014.
Prof Katzenbeisser believes the system is relatively secure from hackers under normal circumstances. However, the computer science expert from Technische Universitat Darmstadt warns that encryption keys, used to protect the communications, could pose risks.
"The main problem I see is a process of changing... keys. This will be a big issue in the future, how to manages these keys safely," he told Reuters news agency at the conference.
The news agency said the keys are downloaded to physical media such as USB sticks before being distributed for installation.
It said the risk would occur if one of them fell into the wrong hands. This could allow hackers to mount a denial of service attack by overwhelming...

Summary: A shift to a mobile communications technology could expose rail networks to hackers, according to a security expert.
###
Article: The Rail, Maritime and Transport union said almost 900 jobs have been cut while passenger numbers keep going up.
It accused Tube bosses of compromising "safety and customer service across its stations by cutting jobs".
London Underground chief Steve Griffiths said there were more staff in public areas and crime was at an all-time low.
The union said 3,800 workers were involved in an "on-going battle" including a row over ticket office closures and cutting control room jobs.
RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: "A responsible employer would reverse the job cuts and put staff back into station control rooms.
"If London Underground really cares about passengers it would reverse the ticket office closure programme."
The union said the Tube aspires to provide a "world-class service" but "a self-service railway that can't staff its control rooms to monitor fire alarms, lift alarms and passenger help points would struggle in League Two, let alone be considered world class."
Mr Griffiths, London Underground's chief operating officer, said: "The safety of customers and staff is our top priority and our hardworking people ensure London Underground remains one of the safest metros in the world.
"As the mayor announced last month, an independent review into the ticket offices is being carried out by London TravelWatch to ensure that it's delivering for our customers."

Summary: Workers on the London Underground are to be balloted on strike action amid a row over job cuts.
###
Article: The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said 7.3m tonnes of food was wasted in UK households in 2015.
The committee said shops should relax standards that prevent the sale of "wonky vegetables" to help cut waste.
And the next government should consider whether "best before" dates were needed, it said.
Committee chairman Neil Parish said: "One-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally, and in the UK over £10bn worth of food is thrown away by households every year.
"Economically, food waste costs households hundreds of pounds a year and causes increased disposal costs to local authorities, pushing up council tax bills.
"Socially, it is a scandal that people are going hungry and using food banks when so much produce is being wasted.
"And environmentally, it is a disaster, because energy and resources are wasted in production only for the food to end up rotting in landfills where it produces methane - a potent climate-changing gas."
Food waste costs the average person in the UK £200 per year, the report said.
The average household lost £470 a year because of avoidable food waste, while those with children lost £700, it said.
The report said about two-thirds of the potential reduction in UK food waste would need to come from action at a household level.
It said it would be "hugely challenging" to reduce food waste further and would require "a considerable investment of resource".
In their report, Food Waste in England, the MPs said:
It also called for a review of whether "best before dates" were needed at all.
While "use by" dates refer to food safety, "best before" labels refer only to quality.
Foods will be safe to eat after the "best before" date, but may not be at their best.
The report said current date labelling was unnecessarily confusing, and guidance should be issued to the industry by the end of the year.
The report also highlighted the issue of suppliers' food being rejected for cosmetic reasons.
It said up to a quarter of apples, up to a fifth of onions and up to...

Summary: The level of household food waste in England is "unacceptable" and householders have a key role to play in reducing it, MPs have said.
###
Article: Football supporters submitted a Freedom of Information request to obtain the tenancy agreement amid claims the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) would subsidise the rent.
An Information Commissioner has said LLDC, which denied the claims, must now comply with the FOI request.
LLDC had refused to reveal its rent on grounds of commercial sensitivity.
The decision comes ahead of West Ham moving into the stadium for the start of the 2016-2017 football season.
In reaching a decision dated 3 September, the commissioner said neither West Ham nor LLDC had been able to show how revealing the details of the tenancy agreement would place them at a commercial disadvantage or how this information could be exploited by a competitor.
The stadium was built using tax payers' money and is currently in public ownership.
LLDC manages the stadium and is believed to be considering whether to appeal against the independent commissioner's decision.
A coalition of 14 supporters' trusts from around the country called on LLDC head, London Mayor Boris Johnson, to waive its right to appeal.
They said an appeal would further delay the publication of the tenancy agreement, which they argue is in the public interest.
In a statement, the trusts said the deal raised issues over the apparent use of public money to "subsidise a commercial football business".
"It seems the taxpayer will be paying the cost of a series of overheads which every other club, rightly, has to pay for themselves," they said.
"It is important that the taxpayer is allowed to know exactly what has gone on here, and to judge whether it is a responsible and fair use of public money."
The supporters' trusts had argued the Olympic Stadium deal could give the Hammers a competitive advantage and asked the government to investigate in August, but the government said the deal had been "scrutinised" and rejected their request.
Previously a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said: "West Ham United has a concession at the stadium and their...

Summary:


The UK government has announced a £1.5bn tax cut for the first time in its history.

Sales and profits slipped at Boeing last year, driven largely by lower deliveries of its military aircraft.

Article: Shop Direct, which bought the Woolworths brand out of administration, said it had secured a legal settlement with the store in Dorchester, Dorset.
Wellworths will rebrand itself as Wellchester after failing to agree terms that would have let it keep the name but restrict its expansion.
Shop Direct said protecting its brand was of "paramount importance".
Wellworths, launched by former Woolworths manager Claire Robertson in March 2009, has been given two years to change its branding.
First-year profit
The branch was one of 815 that closed after Woolworths went bust in November 2008 with debts of Â£385m.
But Ms Robertson reopened the store, gave about 20 colleagues their jobs back and saw the business make a profit in its first year.
Wellworths said Shop Direct "initially supported the opening of the former Woolworths store in Dorchester as Wellworths, but then sought an agreement which would place limits on the growth of the business under the Wellworths name".
"Regretfully, rather than accept those limits, Wellworths have decided to replace the Wellworths name with Wellchester over the course of the next two years."
Ms Robertson said she was aiming to expand the brand across south and south-west England, in towns similar to Dorchester.
She announced her intentions in March, although other sites have yet to be found.
"We're really happy with the way things are going and have been extremely well supported by our customers in the first year-and-a-half," she added.
Mark Newton-Jones, chief executive of home shopping firm Shop Direct, said: "Protecting your brand is of paramount importance to every business and no less so to us with our Woolworths brand."

Summary: A former Woolworths store which reopened as Wellworths has been forced to change its name.
###
Article: Taxis and billboards across the capital have been daubed with posters claiming that Uber does not pay tax in the UK.
The Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) said the campaign is to "highlight what we are up against".
But Uber said the facts in the posters were "simply wrong" and that it complied with tax rules.
The posters depict Uber's senior vice president of policy and strategy Rachel Whetstone and Prime Minister David Cameron, with whom she is friends, beside a picture of Chancellor George Osborne - claiming that Uber pays no tax in  the UK.
A fleet of taxis covered in the posters lined up in protest outside Mansion House in the City of London, where Mr Osborne was speaking on Wednesday night.
The campaign will initially feature on 250 cabs and three advertising vans as well as being displayed on more than 25 digital sites across London.
"These ads are not anti-Uber," Steve McNamara, general secretary of the LTDA  told the BBC.
"The campaign is designed to highlight that the lobbying arm of Uber, a $50bn US company, has its tentacles embedded deep within Whitehall.
"The irony is that UK tax payers are subsidising Uber, a company that pays no tax in the UK, through tax credits and other DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) benefits paid to Uber drivers earning less than minimum wage."
Uber said in response: "The campaign is simply incorrect. We pay taxes in every country we operate in and comply with all local and international tax laws, this includes the UK."
"A lot of our growth is driven by referrals from drivers. The drivers recommend the job to their friends because they love working on the Uber platform."
Last year, Uber's tax affairs were referred to HMRC by Transport for London following a complaint from Labour MP Margaret Hodge that it was opting out of the UK tax regime.
Its European head office is in the Netherlands.
Many consumers like the convenience and affordability offered by Uber but cab firms in many cities feel aggrieved that it is not subject to the same stringent regulations as...

Summary: Black-cab drivers in London have started a poster campaign aimed at highlighting their struggle with app-based taxi service Uber.
###
Article: The New Policy Institute (NPI) said the statistics suggested that people claiming Jobseekers Allowance in Dundee were about 50% more likely to be sanctioned than claimants in Glasgow.
People have their benefits stopped or cut for a variety of reasons.
The Department for Work and Pensions said staff have no sanctions targets and that sanction rates are falling.
People who are sanctioned can have their payments stopped for four weeks, or as much as three years, depending on how many times the rules are broken.
Reasons for sanctions include being late or not attending Jobcentre meetings and training, or not applying for enough jobs.
The DWP said the sanctions regime is a necessary part of the benefits system, but a committee of MPs has twice called for an inquiry into how they work.
According to analysis by the NPI, the monthly sanction referral rate in Dundee in 2014 was 509, or 12.4% - 4.7 percentage points higher than in Glasgow (1,327 or 7.7%).
In Scotland as a whole in 2014, the average monthly sanction rate for those aged under-25 was 8%, compared to 3.7% for those aged 25 and over.
The NPI director, Peter Kenway, said there did not appear to be any good reason for the disparity between Dundee and Glasgow in terms of the claimants themselves.
He said: "You'd expect some random fluctuation but the difference between 12% of people every month and 7.5% every month can't in any way just be put down to random day-to-day fluctuation.
"It's a clear sign that although it's the same system on paper, things are being run very differently in Dundee from the way it's run in Glasgow. To have the benefits system run unevenly and unfairly is completely unacceptable.
"It's not that people want a soft system, they want a fair and straight system."
He added: "What we've got at the minute is a harsh system that's being applied very unevenly. And there's no evidence to suggest that Dundee's got it right."
"I started on Jobseekers Allowance in mid-December last year. I got sanctioned on 29 January because I was 15 minutes late...

Summary: Evidence of a postcode lottery in benefit sanctions has been uncovered by a new analysis of the latest figures.
###
Article: The world's number one aeroplane manufacturer made sales of $94.6bn, down 2%, and net earnings of $4.9bn, 5% lower.
It said revenues were likely to slip further in 2017, to between $90.5bn and $92.5bn.
But the US company also expects to deliver more commercial aircraft and to improve its earnings per share.
"Looking forward, our team is intent on accelerating productivity and programme execution," said chairman and chief executive Dennis Muilenburg.
In the period, Boeing made 748 commercial aircraft deliveries, down from 762 in 2015, claiming to have led the market for "the fifth consecutive year".
It also delivered fewer military planes - in particular, its new CH-47 Chinook helicopter and its F/A-18 fighter jet - while sales in the division slipped 7%.
Revenue also fell in the firm's space and services divisions because of weaker demand for satellites and aircraft modernisation.
However, overall group earnings surged 59% in the fourth quarter of the year as demand for the company's commercial planes ticked up.
Boeing also projected higher commercial deliveries this year of between 760 and 765 aircraft.
The company's shares were up by more than 2% in early trading in New York.

Summary:


The UK government has announced a new licensing scheme for shooting birds.

The price of everyday essentials such as food, drink and clothing would rise if the UK votes to leave the EU, former retail bosses have warned.

Article: The legislation also bans the use of agents, or any promotion of women willing to carry babies for others.
Last year the case of a little boy born with Down's syndrome put Thailand's surrogacy industry in the spotlight.
His Thai surrogate mother said his Australian parents abandoned the boy but took his healthy twin sister home.
Under the new law, only married Thai couples or couples with one Thai partner who have been married at least three years can seek surrogacy, and commercial surrogacy is banned.
Anyone caught hiring a surrogate mother faces a maximum jail sentence of 10 years.
Agents touting surrogate mothers would also face imprisonment if caught.
The case of the Australian boy - named "baby Gammy" - made headlines around the world after his Australian parents took his healthy twin sister home and left him in Thailand.
He remained with surrogate mother Pattaramon Chanbua, 21, and was later granted Australian citizenship so he can have access to medical care.
Concern about the industry worsened when a Japanese man was found to have fathered more than a dozen babies by different Thai surrogates, a case later dubbed "the baby factory".
It has been nearly five years since Thailand began drafting a law on commercial surrogacy. The bill had been stalled by successive political crises, but the plight of Baby Gammy, and then the shocking revelation of Mitsutoki Shigeta's 16 or more surrogate babies, spurred the Thai government into action. They were shamed by the moniker 'Womb of Asia' that Thailand had earned from its booming surrogate business.
The yearning of childless couples for babies will now probably move on to less regulated countries. But will surrogacy end in Thailand? The money to be made is so tempting for poor families that the business may still survive as an underground, illegal one, with all the dangers to the women of exploitation and poor health facilities.
Law enforcement in Thailand is famously lax. And there is still a debate over whether legitimate surrogates should be paid something...

Summary: Thailand has passed a law banning foreigners from paying Thai women to be surrogates, after two high-profile cases sparked debate last year.
###
Article: The conservation groups want licences to help protect rare birds of prey.
It comes after two cases against gamekeepers were dropped because prosecutors decided video footage was inadmissible as evidence.
But gamekeepers say any decision which could impact on jobs should be based on proof, not "suspicion".
The Scottish Raptor Study Group (SRSG), the Scottish Wildlife Trust and RSPB Scotland believe a licensing scheme will give protection to birds of prey in Scotland.
The RSPB said the illegal killing of birds of prey such as eagles and hen harriers was a "stain" on Scotland's reputation.
The call to work together to set up a licensing scheme comes after Holyrood's environment committee agreed to keep open SRSG's petition on creating the new regulations earlier this week.
Committee convener Graeme Dey has written to Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham asking her to look at "a licensing system for shooting businesses based on civil law".
Logan Steele of the SRSG said: "We accept that many within the shooting industry are law-abiding and are as keen as we are to bear down on the criminal element within their ranks.
"A government-sponsored inquiry, into how a licensing regime might work, presents an opportunity to work in partnership with forward-looking representatives from the industry, and other stakeholders, towards creating a sustainable upland environment where our birds of prey can thrive alongside legitimate shoot management."
The call comes after the Crown Office said video evidence provided by the RSPB in two cases was not admissible in court because it was filmed for the purposes of gathering evidence.
RSPB director Stuart Housden said the "illegal killing of our birds of prey has been a constant stain on the reputation of our country" for more than two decades and there was an increasing recognition that self-regulation had "failed".
A Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) spokesman said it, and others in the game industry, had put forward proposals to the Scottish government aimed at ending...

Summary: Conservationists are calling for game hunting groups to join them in creating a licensing scheme for shooting birds such as grouse.
###
Article: The first call, shortly before 11:00, was to assist an 8.3m yacht which had run aground near Glenmoriston.
Before returning to base, they were called to Temple Pier to help with a motor cruiser which had a rope caught in its propeller.
Shortly after returning to base at 14:45, the lifeboat was called out to a yacht drifting near Urquhart Castle.
A statement from the RNLI Loch Ness lifeboat station said: "A memorable day for the volunteers at Loch Ness boathouse in a year that is shaping up to be their busiest yet."
A lifeboat on Loch Ness was first introduced in 2008.

Summary: Loch Ness RNLI have attended three separate incidents on their busiest day ever.
###
Article: The ex-chief executives, who previously ran Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons, M&S and B&Q, said a drop in the pound coupled with supply chain disruption would cause prices to spike.
The average household could be £580 a year worse off as a result, retail union USDAW has predicted.
Vote Leave rejected the claims.
"Independent experts are clear, EU membership and the meddling court that comes with it have put up prices and hurt our economic growth," said Vote Leave chief executive Matthew Elliott.
"The EU is costly, bureaucratic and blind to the impact it has had on people's wages and soaring energy bills."
But the retail bosses, which include former Marks and Spencer boss Marc Bolland and former Sainsbury's chief executive Justin King, insisted that a UK exit from the European Union would be "catastrophic for millions of ordinary families".
USDAW said it had calculated its £580 figure based on an expected fall in sterling in the event of the UK's exit from the EU, together with expected new tariffs imposed on imported EU goods including food, drink and clothing.
The former bosses of Tesco, M&S, Sainsbury's and B&Q already warned last month that prices would rise amid a so-called Brexit, but their ranks have swelled with the addition of the ex-chief executives of Asda and Morrisons.
Richard Lloyd, former executive director of consumer group Which?, said he was now "convinced that leaving the EU will give ordinary British families a worse deal for years to come".
"My advice to consumers is clear - this could be an expensive mistake, don't risk it," he said.
Tough competition from discount rivals together with low inflation means that overall the prices of groceries has steadily fallen.
According to consumer research firm Kantar Worldpanel the price of groceries has fallen every month since September 2014, with the average household now spending £78.10 a week in the supermarket.

Summary:


The UK government has announced plans to cut the number of people who can afford to buy a home in the next five years.
The move comes after a report by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) found that the average price of a home in the UK is £1,000 less than it

Smoking could play a direct role in the development of schizophrenia and needs to be investigated, researchers say.

Article: Such a public  display of state brutality is unprecedented, but the ultra-secretive nature of the state means that observers can never really claim to know exactly what happened and when.
This is how the news came out.
When Kim Jong-il died in 2011 it was Chang Song-thaek, the man who married his sister, who stood right behind the young new leader Kim Jong-un flanking the hearse as it processed through Pyongyang.
He is thought to have mentored his nephew during that crucial transition. Analysts believed he was a powerful force, advising his nephew as he took the helm.
The extraordinary news coming from North Korea was promptly leaked to the media by an opposition lawmaker. South Korean spies told a parliamentary committee that he had been removed from key posts and that two of his close confidantes had been publicly executed in mid-November.
Within hours South Korean intelligence told media that they had indeed heard that Chang Song-Thaek had been removed as vice-chairman of the North's top military body, the National Defence Commission  and as a department head of the ruling Workers' Party.
Still without official confirmation from the north, it became clear that he had at least fallen out of favour when state TV edited him out of a documentary that had reportedly been broadcast nine times already.
When The Great Comrade aired the weekend after news filtered out of Chang's dismissal, it was without pictures of the leader's uncle.  He had been comprehensively cut out the film.
Finally, on 9 December, North Korea provided confirmation in an unprecedented manner by releasing images of Chang Song-thaek being removed from a public meeting.  Pictures released by the KCNA state news agency show uniformed guards approaching Chang Song-thaek.
The guards then appear to remove Mr Chang from his seat in full view of his former colleagues - some stare impassively at the proceedings  while others keep their eyes downturned.
The series of images played out on KCNA that day focused heavily on Kim Jong-un.
Some analysts...

Summary: News of the fall from grace and execution of the once powerful uncle of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un emerged in the space of 10 days.
###
Article: The permit will allow those living in Reading, Wokingham and Bracknell to use Smallmead Recycling Centre in Whitley.
But, residents west of Reading will be barred from using the site from 1 July due to cuts to funding.
West Berkshire Council withdrew Â£97,000 from its funding for waste disposal in the town, in March.
The authority decided the costs to cover the 75,000 visits to the tip each year, made by people crossing the border into Reading, were "too high".
This led to the establishment of Re3 - the recycling company which provides waste services to Bracknell, Wokingham and Reading councils - to bar West Berkshire residents from using the tips from July.
West Berkshire councillor Alan Macro said Re3's decision could lead to more fly-tipping in the area.
"What they have done wrong is that they have acted before they have an alternative for people who live in the general Reading area", he said.
Tilehurst resident Brian Pettiford - who uses the Smallmead tip regularly - said the changes will mean people living in Calcot and Tilehurst will have to drive up to 20 miles to access rubbish tips in Newbury as opposed to a 5 miles trip to Smallmead.
"I feel very bitter that we have to go to Newbury, which is over 15 miles away. It would be good if [Re3] would charge for a permit to use the tip," he said.
West Berkshire Council said financial challenges meant "some difficult decisions about the services provided" had to be made.

Summary: A permit will be needed for some Berkshire residents to dump waste under new rules being brought into force.
###
Article: First Minister Alex Salmond and shadow Scottish secretary Margaret Curran were concentrating on the drinks industry.
Campaigning has continued as polling suggested the pro-independence campaign may be closing the gap on its rivals.
It comes ahead of voters going to the polls in the 18 September Scottish independence referendum.
Tuesday is also the deadline for people in Scotland to register to vote.
Mr Salmond was setting out his vision of the gains of independence for the food and drink industry on a visit to Eden Mill distillery and brewery in Guardbridge, Fife.
"More and more people are waking up to the fact that Scotland has a strong and diverse economy on which we can build a more prosperous future with control of key economic levers," said the first minister.
"Scotland is currently in the international spotlight like never before, but the huge publicity generated by a 'Yes' vote - and the transition to independence - will be the opportunity of a lifetime for our food and drink sector to extend its global reach even further."
Ms Curran, who was visiting Glasgow's Tennent Caledonian Breweries, argued: "Around one million jobs in Scotland rely on companies based elsewhere in the UK and many more are with companies that rely on trade with England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
"Young people across Scotland can't afford to have opportunities cut off. We want a strong Scotland backed up by a strong United Kingdom. Being part of the UK means that we can share our resources across the country."
Meanwhile, the Yes Scotland campaign said support for independence had risen eight points in less than a month, pointing to a new YouGov poll indicating that, excluding "don't knows", 53% of those questioned planned to vote "No", while 47% would back "Yes".
Yes Scotland chief executive Blair Jenkins, said: "This breakthrough poll shows that 'Yes' has the big momentum - it's an all-time high for 'Yes' support in a YouGov survey so far, and an eight-point swing from 'No' to 'Yes' in just three weeks.
"We only need another...

Summary: Both sides in the Scottish referendum debate are focusing on jobs, just a few weeks ahead of the vote on the nation's future.
###
Article: The team at King's College London say smokers are more likely to develop the disorder and at a younger age.
Published in the Lancet Psychiatry, their analysis of 61 separate studies suggests nicotine in cigarette smoke may be altering the brain.
Experts said it was a "pretty strong case" but needed more research.
Smoking has long been associated with psychosis, but it has often been believed that schizophrenia patients are more likely to smoke because they use cigarettes as a form of self-medication to ease the distress of hearing voices or having hallucinations.
The team at King's looked at data involving 14,555 smokers and 273,162 non-smokers.
It indicated:
The argument is that if there is a higher rate of smoking before schizophrenia is diagnosed, then smoking is not simply a case of self-medication.
Dr James MacCabe, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's, said: "It's very difficult to establish causation [with this style of study], what we're hoping that this does is really open our eyes to the possibility that tobacco could be a causative agent in psychosis, and we hope this will then lead to other research and clinical trials that would help to provide firmer evidence."
Clearly most smokers do not develop schizophrenia, but the researchers believe it is increasing the risk.
The overall incidence of the condition is one in every 100 people normally, which may be increased to two per 100 by smoking.
The researchers said nicotine altered levels of the brain chemical dopamine, which has already been implicated in the psychosis.
Prof Michael Owen, the director of the Institute of Psychological Medicine at Cardiff University, said the researchers had made a "pretty strong case" that smoking may increase the risk of schizophrenia.
"The fact is that it is very hard to prove causation without a randomised trial, but there are plenty of good reasons already for targeting public health measures very energetically at the mentally ill."
The charity Rethink Mental Illness said: "We...

Summary:


A new study has found that the use of social media to promote a particular cause is linked to a higher risk of heart disease.

The Royal Mail has painted a postbox gold in the Oxfordshire town of Henley-on-Thames - in recognition of its medal winning rowing club.

Article: In a statement,the US Department of Agriculture saidschools buying beef from a central government scheme could now choose from a range of options.
The term has become used to describe a type of beef trimming commonly found in school and restaurant beef in the US.
Reports it was widely used in schools prompted a popular outcry, although the beef is certified as safe to eat.
Social media campaigns and an online petition sprung up to oppose the use of the product. The beef's producerled a campaignto explain it was nutritional and safe.
Last year, British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver publicly criticised the product on his now-defunct US TV show, and McDonald's recently said it would phase out the use of "pink slime" in its burgers.
The US agriculture department said on Thursday it would now offer alternatives to the beef - officially called lean finely textured beef - for schools buying meat through its programmes.
The department (USDA) said the change was "due to customer demand".
"USDA continues to affirm the safety of Lean Finely Textured Beef product for all consumers and urges customers to consult science based information on the safety and quality of this product," it added.
School administrators reacted positively to the change.
"Our district has long advocated for purity and disclosure in food products. And we will definitely be moving to the pure ground beef when that becomes available," John Schuster, spokesman for Florida's Miami-Dade school system, told the Associated Press.
"Pink slime" - a term reportedly coined by a microbiologist working for the US government - is a form of lean beef formed by reclaiming the small parts of meat from leftover cuts with a high fat content.
The beef is spun in a centrifuge to separate the meat from the fat, before the final product is treated with a puff of ammonium hydroxide gas to kill any bacteria.
Produced in bulk by a firm in South Dakota, the pejorative nature of the term "pink slime" has coloured the debate, some experts say.
It is "unappetising", Sarah Klein,...

Summary: Schools across the US are to be allowed to stop serving so-called "pink slime" beef to their pupils at mealtimes.
###
Article: In an interview with the Observer, Anne Longfield criticised the ways social media giants use to draw children into spending more time.
She said parents should be proactive in stopping their children from bingeing on the internet in the summer holidays.
Ms Longfield has launched a campaign to help parents with the issue.
She said: "It's something that every parent will talk about especially during school holidays; that children are in danger of seeing social media like sweeties, and their online time like junk food.
"None of us as parents would want our children to eat junk food all the time.
"For those same reasons we shouldn't want our children to do the same with their online time."
Use talk to tame online habits
US changes toddler screen time advice
The commissioner added: "When phones, social media and games make us feel worried, stressed and out of control, it means we haven't got the balance right.
"With your diet, you know that, because you don't feel that good. It's the same with social media."
Last year, industry watchdog Ofcom said the internet overtook television as the most popular media pastime for children in the UK.
Children aged five to 15 are spending 15 hours a week on the internet.
Ms Longfield said children should be helped to understand that sites encourage them to continue their use based on what they have previously been doing online.
A study earlier this year of screen time and mental wellbeing among teenagers suggested that moderate use of devices may be beneficial.
The research, which appeared in the journal Psychological Science, was based self-reported data from 120,000 15-year-olds in England.

Summary: Parents must intervene to stop their children overusing social media and consuming time online "like junk food", the children's commissioner has said.
###
Article: The European Commission has given Glybera marketing authorisation, meaning it can be sold throughout the EU.
It is a gene therapy for a rare disease which leaves people unable to properly digest fats.
The manufacturers say it will be available next year.
Gene therapy has a simple premise. If there is a problem with part of a patient's genetic code then change the code.
However, the field has been plagued with problems. Patients have developed leukaemia and in one trial in the US a teenager died.
In Europe and the US, the therapies are used only in research labs.
Glybera is used to treat lipoprotein lipase deficiency. One in a million people have damaged copies of a gene which is essential for breaking down fats.
It means fat builds up in the blood leading to abdominal pain and life-threatening inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis).
The only way to manage the condition is by having a very low-fat diet.
The therapy, developed by UniQure, uses a virus to infect muscle cells with a working copy of the gene.
The European Medicines Agency recommended the therapy was made available for the most severely ill patients earlier in 2012.
UniQure chief executive officer Jorn Aldag said: "The final approval of Glybera from the European Commission marks a major step forward in making gene therapies available not only for lipoprotein lipase deficiency, but also for a large number of rare diseases with a very high unmet medical need."
The company said it would apply for regulatory approval in the US and Canada.
China was the first country to officially sanction a gene therapy.

Summary: A treatment which corrects errors in a person's genetic code has been approved for commercial use in Europe for the first time.
###
Article: The town is home to the prestigious Leander Club, which has trained more than 100 Olympic medal-winning rowers.
Prime Minister David Cameron previously said the plan was a "very good idea".
Royal Mail spokesman Simon Fellman said: "We're delighted to do it and we're pleased so many people are delighted about it."
The Royal Mail has painted more than 50 postboxes gold following Team GB's gold medal haul at London 2012.
Originally it said it was only painting them in "winners' home towns, or towns with which they are closely associated".
Town mayor Elizabeth Hodgkin said: "We are the home of rowing... I feel very excited about it.
"I think it's wonderful news, it's a great thing for the town."
Mr Fellman said: "It's almost like the torch has come again. It's a piece of the Olympics coming back to people's doorsteps.
"The support for the boxes, it's kind of like the new tourist attraction. It's fantastic and I think people have really taken it to their hearts."
The Henley-on-Thames postbox was painted on Friday.
The town is holding a victory bus parade for more than 24 Olympians on 25 August, along with a civic reception.

Summary:


The Jersey women's team shot a record-breaking 66.5 percent from the floor in the women's 100 yards prone rifle event at the 2015 Island Games.

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

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

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

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

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

Summary:


The government is considering a new tax on the sale of alcohol, which would be introduced in the next parliament.

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

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

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

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

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

Summary:


The BBC's Victoria Hollins reports that the Conservative Party is in a "very difficult position" in the west London constituency.
The party has been in a "very difficult position" since the election, with the party's leader, David Cameron, saying he would not support the party's candidate in the constituency.

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

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

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

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

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

Summary: