Liberty House plans to submit a formal bid on Tuesday to buy Tata Steel's UK assets, which include the Port Talbot works employing about 4,000 people.

Article: Paintings by 54 artists, using materials ranging from Plasticine to industrial aluminium foil, have been selected by a panel of four experts.
The act of painting itself is a theme explored within several works, which will be showcased at Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery from 9 July to 27 November.
A shortlist of four artists will be announced in June, with the overall winner unveiled on 7 July.
The sources of inspiration behind the paintings are varied, ranging from George Orwell's Animal Farm to a statue of an assassinated politician.
Director of Art Galleries at National Museums Liverpool, Sandra Penketh, said there is an "especially vibrant use of colour" in this year's selection.
"We also see many artists addressing the topical issues facing our world today, touching on subjects such as migration."
The entries were whittled down from more than 2,500 pieces by jury members Gillian Carnegie, Ansel Krut, Phoebe Unwin and Ding Yi, and author and freelance curator The Reverend Dr Richard Henry Davey.
Previous recipients of the prize include David Hockney and, most recently in 2014, Rose Wylie from Kent.
Sir John Moores, the owner of the Littlewoods company and a keen amateur painter, founded the competition to challenge London's domination of the national arts scene.
It was first held in 1957 and is open to anyone.

Summary: The longlist for the John Moores Painting Prize has been announced.
###
Article: US scientists have tracked the animals for nearly 30 years and find they have increased their activity levels.
Their normal behaviour is to stake out holes in the ice, waiting to prey on the seals as they emerge.
But the thinning pack in the warming Arctic is now drifting faster than it used to, and the bears must travel further to get back to their territory.
"If the drift is faster, and that prevailing drift is to the west, then in order for an Alaskan polar bear to remain an Alaskan polar bear, it must walk further or faster to the east on the 'treadmill', or it will end up in Russia," explained David Douglas, a wildlife biologist at the US Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center in Juneau.
He was speaking here in San Francisco, at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union - the world's largest annual gathering of Earth scientists.
The USGS study he presented compared the movements of tagged female polar bears from the period 1987-1998 with a more recent group, from 1999-2013.
Their behaviours were combined with data on the status of the ice pack. This is now drifting through the Beaufort and Chukchi seas up to 6% quicker than it used to, as today's thinner floes get pushed along more easily by the wind.
The analysis indicates the 1999-2013 bears have had to react to this greater speed by increasing their activity rates.
"We find that the bears in the recent period are 9-13% more active to compensate for the ice motion," Mr Douglas told BBC News.
The USGS teamed up with animal physiologists at the University of Wyoming to try to calculate how many more calories the bears would need to consume in order to fuel the additional walking.
The specialists did this, but also converted the requirement into an estimate of the number of additional whole seals the bears would have to eat.
It is an increase of 2-7%, which equates to between one and four extra seals a year.
"Now, you might think that's not a tremendous amount, but you have to keep in mind that that's happening at the same time as their...

Summary: Polar bears are working harder just to stay in one place, as the Arctic sea-ice on which they hunt drifts away.
###
Article: London's Menier Chocolate Factory said the star would not appear in Wednesday's sold-out production after not taking part in Tuesday's show.
It added it would "take each day as it comes" and would "never ask nor expect an artist to perform in this situation".
Smith's father is reported to have been diagnosed with cancer.
The actress plays real-life comedian and singer Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, the role that made Barbra Streisand famous in the 1960s when she starred in the original London production.
The show is transferring to the West End's Savoy Theatre next month after its run at the Menier Chocolate Factory, which ends on Saturday.
Smith thanked fans on Twitter for their support and said she hoped to return to finish the run for its final two nights, but her "family come first".
She also wrote a message on Wednesday saying: "Thank you so much, my beautiful followers, sat here crying at your responses. Love your support."
The Cilla and the C Word star also promised fans she would arrange new tickets personally, also telling others she would provide them with backstage passes and even a train fare to see the show.
Smith, who has protected her tweets so only followers can see them, added her father wanted her to continue with the role and the show was her "escapism".
The statement from the Menier Chocolate Factory came after it was reported Smith had felt pressured into returning to the show.
A spokeswoman said: "Our priority at this time is to Sheridan and her family. Sheridan's primary concern is quite rightly her father's wellbeing, and we support her wholeheartedly.
"We would never ask nor expect an artist to perform in this situation, and ask that you respect her and her family's privacy at this time. She will not be performing in Funny Girl this evening, and we will take each day as it comes. Tonight's performance of Funny Girl will go ahead with her understudy Natasha J Barnes."
She added the show had been a "tremendous success", saying: "For those patrons who have tickets to any affected...

Summary: Sheridan Smith has pulled out of two performances of Funny Girl after her father became unwell.
###
Article: Special Report: The Technology of Business
Keeping the cyber thieves at bay
Nollywood finds its global audience online
Joining up Ghana's healthcare to save lives
Ivory Coast stallholders turn to digital marketplace
South African education goes digital
With more than half a million people in the UK dying each year, the funeral industry makes about Â£2bn in annual revenues, according to market research company Ibis World.
Nearly 1,500 businesses employ 20,105 people, and industry revenue is expected to grow by 4.7% by the end of 2014, as increased competition for burial space is slowly pushing up the price of cremations.
With such a large and lucrative market, it's no surprise that tech firms have been eyeing up the death care and funeral industry.
Your Last Will, for example, is an iPhone app that lets anyone create a last message for loved ones in the form of a "video will", to be viewed after death.
You create and upload a private video will and are then issued your own QR code - a kind of smartphone readable bar code - which you give to a trusted confidant who is likely to outlive you.
After your death, your confidant signs in to the app using the specified QR code and receives an email containing a link to your last message video. This link is automatically sent to your chosen list of recipients.
The company acknowledges that "in most countries video wills cannot replace written wills", but for an additional fee, Your Last Will does provide the opportunity to have your video submitted for legal review in what it describes as "an easy process".
"Death is obviously an unpleasant but unavoidable part of life and it's much easier to leave a last message or last will via video than in the traditional way, which involves a lawyer and witnesses," Wolfgang Gabler, chief executive and founder of Your Last Will, told the BBC.
He believes technology will continue to influence death care in the UK and across the world.
"There will be many new businesses around this theme in the near future. I already met with other...

Summary: Death is big business.
###
Article: Pte Cheryl James was found dead from a bullet wound to her head at the Surrey barracks in 1995.
Neil Vousden was questioned about whether there were inconsistencies between his account and other evidence at an inquest in Woking.
He said he found the body with colleague Tyron Bancroft.
Mr Vousden said he made the discovery after being sent by his Provo sergeant to see why Pte James had left her guard duty at the barracks gate.
"We saw a waterproof camouflage jacket behind a bushed area," he said.
"Tyron Bancroft approached the location, I was behind him. Obviously we saw that it was a body.
"Bancroft leaned down behind the head and took the pulse. There was no life, no sign of life."
Pte James, 18, from Llangollen in Denbighshire, was one of four recruits to die at the base in seven years.
Mr Vousden said he had selected Pte James to man the gate because she was "a very responsible young lady".
He insisted he was not aware of orders in force at the time that female soldiers should not do lone guard duty.
Mr Vousden said he had driven Pte James to the gate, to start her duty at 06:55.  He then returned to the gate at about 08:20 a few minutes after it was reported unattended.
But Alison Foster QC, representing the James family, accused him of giving an untrue account to make himself look more efficient.
She said other witnesses reported Pte James had walked to her post and questioned him about why the log of her final duty "CJ stag" was missing.
"There's nothing about 'CJ stag' in these papers, it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was destroyed. Did you have anything to do with that?" Ms Foster asked.
Mr Vousden said: "No."
Ms Foster said his account "recorded what you ought to have done and what ought to have happened".
"It wasn't an account of what actually happened on the day of Cheryl's death was it?" she said.
Mr Vousden repeatedly denied the accusation and insisted he was trying to look more efficient but was telling the truth.
Who were the Deepcut four? Background to the deaths and timeline of...

Summary: An ex-military police officer who found the body of a soldier at Deepcut barracks has denied his account of events was inaccurate.
###
Article: Liberty, headed by Sanjeev Gupta, was first to express an interest in the assets when they were put up for sale.
A spokesman for Liberty told the BBC that the firm had put together a team of advisers and financial backers.
"The formal process is to submit a letter of intent; it amounts to a bid. It will be done on Tuesday," he said.
In addition to the Port Talbot factory - the UK's largest steelworks - Tata's remaining assets include sites at Newport, where more than 1,300 people are employed, and Rotherham, which employs 1,200. Tata also has operations at Corby, Shotton and Teesside.
Macquarie, the Australian bank, was advising Liberty on a potential bid, and is considered a potential financial backer of any takeover.
Liberty House started life in the university room of Indian-born founder Sanjeev Gupta.
While a student at Cambridge University in 1992, the budding entrepreneur started what has since become a global steel and commodities business with annual sales of more than £2bn.
With operations in 30 countries, and headquarters in London, Dubai, and Singapore, Mr Gupta's Liberty has also emerged as a possible saviour of Britain's steel industry.
Liberty's focus is on recycling the mountains of scrap metal generated in the UK, rather than the historical method of producing steel in blast furnaces.
Last month, it acquired Tata Steel's plants in Lanarkshire. In recent years, it has reached similar deals for steel plants in Newport and the Black Country.
A management buyout team is also planning to submit a bid under the name Excalibur Steel UK Limited.
It has appointed investment banker Mark Rhydderch-Roberts as a non-executive director. He joins Stuart Wilkie, the head of Tata's United Kingdom strip steel business, and former Alcan senior executive and venture capitalist Roger Maggs, on the board.
The government has promised to support any buyer of the business by taking up to a 25% stake in a new business and making hundreds of millions of pounds of finance available.
Tata has not publicly set a deadline...

Summary:


A transgender woman has been found guilty of raping a girl when still living as a man.

Article: Though imposing, the 3.7m (12ft) cephalopod was much smaller than the 13m they can grow to.
It spent several hours in the harbour and was filmed by local divers on Christmas Eve.
Mitsuhiro Fuwa, a curator at the local Uozu Aquarium, told the BBC there had been more than a dozen giant squid sightings in the last year.
Giant squid are more often seen trapped in fishing nets than swimming near the surface.
Professional underwater cameraman Takayoshi Kojima told the BBC he rushed to the harbour from nearby Toyama city when a manager at the marina called him.
He helped guide the squid to a deeper part of the marina, near the exit to the sea, where it disappeared.
Mr Kojima said he did not know whether the squid made it to open waters but said it did not look like it would survive long.
Mr  Fuwa said that although the squid showed some signs of energy - squirting ink and trying to wrap its legs around the divers - it did not look very healthy, with its body pointing downwards and its legs up.
Mr Kojima said that with a rise in sea temperature, giant squid have moved north to waters off Toyama, from where they swim up from deeper waters during the winter season.
He added that most sightings happen between December and January.
Toyama is about 300km (186 miles) west of Tokyo.

Summary: Giant squid prefer the deep sea, so it was a rare treat for onlookers in Toyama Bay harbour when one swam in.
###
Article: In an attempt to make life more convenient, he bewitches a broomstick to mop the floor.
When that gets out of control, he tries to stop the whole process by splitting the broomstick in two - but that just creates two brooms, and doubles the problem.
Is that what retailers have done by offering traditional location shopping alongside online?
Click-and-collect is a fairly new battleground for UK retailers, and promises rich rewards for daring firms.
It has been hugely popular over the past five years, as customers embrace the convenience of being able to order goods online and pick them up in store or elsewhere.
John Lewis announced this week that it would start charging a £2 fee for click-and-collect purchases costing less than £30, after finding that its current free model was unsustainable.
Click-and-collect demand has boomed for the department store.
It now processes more than six million click-and-collect orders per year, compared with just 350,000 in 2008, and moves tens of thousands of parcels every night.
A spokeswoman said John Lewis had seen a 32% growth in demand for the service so far this year.
And the seemingly effortless method of shopping is anything but for retailers as it needs an army of behind-the-scenes pickers and delivery staff.
John Lewis is having to move fast to cope with demand. But it is not alone, according to Andy Mulcahy of online retail industry body IMRG.
It estimates a 20% per year growth rate in click-and-collect across all retailers.
For retailers that sell online and also have physical shops, click-and-collect accounted for 4% of online sales in 2010. That figure jumped to 17.7% in 2014, he adds.
John Lewis is in a position of strength, but this growth is causing significant problems for some retailers - especially UK supermarket giants, according to some retail analysts.
The phenomenon is adding to supermarkets' woes, rather than easing them, says Marc de Speville, the founder of Strategic Food Retail.
Free click-and-collect is "clearly a burden on supermarkets' already...

Summary: In the classic poem by Goethe, a young sorcerer's apprentice unleashes forces he can't control.
###
Article: Wales' main exam body, the WJEC, decided last year to stop offering the course in either English or Welsh due to a low uptake.
Regulating body Qualifications Wales invited exam boards from England to provide the course but did not insist it was available in Welsh.
The teacher behind the petition called it "linguistic discrimination".
Chris Evans, who established a psychology department at Ysgol Morgan Llwyd in Wrexham, wants the Welsh Government and Qualifications Wales to "change the policy".
Another exam board, Pearson, is offering psychology through the medium of English for students in Wales from September 2017 but would not provide it in Welsh, partly because it did not have "access to the expertise".
It means psychology is one of a number of GCSE subjects, including economics, available in English in Wales but not in Welsh next year.
A Qualifications Wales spokesperson said it was in discussion with two exam boards about putting Welsh-medium provision in place next year.
"As part of the reforms of GCSEs, GCSE Psychology was one of the subjects for which the potential number of candidates in Wales was too low for a qualification designed specifically for Wales to be viable," they said.
"A new A level Psychology for Wales was introduced in 2015 by WJEC and is available bilingually.
"As we have done for other low-take-up subjects, we have designated for funding in Wales three GCSE Psychology qualifications that have been designed for England. These are not currently offered through the medium of Welsh.
"We know there is a demand for GCSEs in this subject to be available in Welsh and we are still looking at how that could be achieved.
"We are in discussions with two exam boards, WJEC and Pearson, to see if there is a way of putting arrangements in place to secure Welsh-medium availability for next year."

Summary: A petition has been launched against a decision by an exam board to stop offering psychology GCSE next year.
###
Article: The deal with a Birmingham healthcare supplier is worth £250,000 over four years, enough to ensure continued support for GB at international level.
"Just three months ago, it really did look as though Sochi would be the last Olympics for our biathletes," said the British Biathlon Union's Andre Oszmann.
"Now we have a real chance to develop the sport in the UK."
Media playback is not supported on this device
The financial commitment from Aspen Healthcare Solutions exceeds the £200,000 figure the team had said was necessary for survival beyond next month's Olympics, where Lee Jackson and Amanda Lightfoot will compete for Great Britain.
All but one of the British senior team come from the military. Their continued participation in the sport's top events - World Cups, the World Championships and the Games - had been in jeopardy as the British Army cut its contribution.
"The reality is, unless a sponsor steps in, we won't be able to continue with the sport in Britain," Jackson had said earlier in January, before the deal was announced.
The British Biathlon Union lost its previous sponsor, Skandia, after Vancouver 2010.
"We are already looking forward to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Korea," said BBU chairman Oszmann.

Summary: The future of British biathlon beyond Sochi 2014 has been guaranteed after a new sponsor for the sport was found.
###
Article: They can control the movement of a floating ping-pong ball just by making a specific pattern of waves.
By changing the pattern, they moved the ball around the tank in various ways, including pulling it closer like the famous beam from science fiction.
The findings, published in the journal Nature Physics, have the potential to help contain oil spills or control and retrieve other floating debris.
"No one could have guessed this result," said Dr Horst Punzmann, who led the project at the Australian National University in Canberra.
"We have figured out a way of creating waves that can force a floating object to move against the direction of the wave."
Dr Punzmann and his colleagues used a very fast videocamera to record the water movements that resulted from a range of different shapes, plunged in and out of the water at various speeds.
They also covered the surface with floating tracer particles that allowed them to see the direction of currents on the water surface, which are distinct from the patterns of the waves themselves.
Simply dropping a cylindrical wave-maker - a bit like a long rolling pin - in and out of the water, gently, produces a predictable set of waves undulating away from the disturbance. The current on the water surface also travels away from the middle of the cylinder.
But if the size of the up-and-down movement is increased, that wave pattern breaks up into choppier pulses. At the same time, the central current switches direction, so that something floating near the middle of the tank can be pulled back towards the wave-maker.
As well as this relatively simple "tractor beam" effect, the team created and modelled various other flow changes that meant they could effectively move a ping-pong ball around their tank at will.
"We can engineer surface flows of practically any shape," said Prof Michael Shats, the paper's senior author. "These could be vortices, these could be  outward and inward jets - it's a variety of different flow configurations."
Prof Shats explained that his team started...

Summary: Scientists in Australia have produced a "tractor beam" in a water tank.
###
Article: The girl, aged 15 at the time, had met a man called David Ayrton in a Portsmouth garage in the autumn of 2004.
The defendant, now 34 and called Davina, denied the charge. She will be sentenced on 4 March.
Judge Ian Pearson remanded her into custody and said it was likely she would be held at a male prison.
He added: "If I were to release on bail there are substantial grounds to believe she would be a risk to herself and a risk of failing to attend for whatever reason.
"I will therefore have to remand in custody. It will have to be a male prison in Winchester but it will be an issue for the prison service."
He also told the jury at Portsmouth Crown Court: "It's been a slightly unusual case and it's not been an easy case."
The court heard that Ayrton, who has learning difficulties, attempted to commit suicide last summer.
Protocols have been put in place for her detention at the prison, a court officer explained.
During the trial Ayrton spoke about her sexuality, and said she she had not "made any physical changes or enhancements" to her body or taken any medication. She changed her name in 2012.
Portsmouth Crown Court was told she raped the teenager while two others were asleep in the garage.
The victim said she shouted and swore at Ayrton to stop the attack, but her friends had not woken up.
She had "only drunk a can and a half of Foster's" and clearly recollected the events.
The court heard that in 2014 Ayrton told a worker at the care home where she lived in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, about the attack.

Summary:

Article: {{document}}

Summary: ||| {{target}}


A group has called on Ceredigion council to delay plans to sell-off a former school site so it can bid to buy and retain it for community use.

Article: With such potential power, comes huge responsibility.
Demis Hassabis, the head of Google's £400m machine learning business and one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, has now called for a responsible debate about the role of ethics in the development of artificial intelligence.
"I think artificial intelligence is like any powerful new technology," Mr Hassabis, DeepMind's co-founder, told me.
"It has to be used responsibly. If it's used irresponsibly it could do harm.
"I think we have to be aware of that and I think that people developing that - us and other companies and universities - need to realise and take seriously our responsibilities and to have ethical concerns at the top of our minds.
"We engage very actively with [the artificial intelligence] community - at MIT, at Cambridge, at Oxford - so there are a lot of academic institutes thinking about this and we engage with them very actively and openly with our research.
"I think there are valid concerns and they should be discussed and debated now, decades before there's anything that's actually of any potential consequence or power that we need to worry about, so we have the answers in place well ahead of time."
Mr Hassabis was responding to concerns about the development of artificial intelligence raised, among others, by Elon Musk, the technology entrepreneur and a DeepMind investor, and Professor Stephen Hawking.
Prof Hawking told my colleague Rory Cellan-Jones that artificial intelligence could "end mankind".
Mr Hassabis is not at the "robots" end of artificial intelligence.
His work focuses on learning machines which are able to sift huge amounts of data and support human understanding of the exponential rise of digitised information.
"Artificial intelligence is the science of making machines smart," he said.
"If we're able to imbue machines with intelligence then they might be able to help us as a society to solve all kinds of big problems that we would like to have a better mastery of - all the way from things like disease and...

Summary: It is a technology so powerful that - on a distant day well into the future - it could mean computers that are able to advise on the best way to treat patients, tackle climate change or feed the poor.
###
Article: Owen Paterson has denied ministers were slow to react to the outbreak.
The Chalara fraxinea fungus, which causes Chalara dieback, has already infected 90% of ash trees in Denmark and has been found in East Anglia.
Mr Paterson said 50,000 ash trees have already been destroyed to try to prevent the spread of the disease.
Until earlier this week, the disease had only been recorded in a few nursery specimens.
Mr Paterson said: "We will bring in a ban on Monday. I have already prepared the legislation and we're ready to go. The evidence is clearly there."
The disease was first spotted in February, at a nursery in Buckinghamshire - a case that was confirmed in March, said the environment secretary.
Since then, examinations had been carried out at more than 1,000 sites and tree experts had been consulted.
Mr Paterson said ash trees were not imported commercially during the summer, so the amount of time that had elapsed since the initial discovery had not increased the risk that more infected trees had been brought in.
But Tim Briercliffe from the Horticultural Trades Association insisted the government's response to the disease had been too slow.
He said: "As a trade we're very frustrated about it, because in 2009 we saw it out in Denmark on trees and we said you should ban imports now.
"They didn't do it - they suggested that it was already endemic across Europe and across the UK, and since then the disease has continued to come in, and we believe it could be more widespread than perhaps we realise at the moment."
How to spot the signs
The Woodland Trust welcomed the ban but called on the government to set up an emergency summit to manage other diseases affecting trees in the UK.
Its chief executive, Sue Holden, said: "Ash dieback is only one of numerous tree pests and diseases present in the UK... it is crucial that the wider issue is tackled."
Ash trees suffering with C. fraxinea have been found across mainland Europe, with Denmark reporting the disease has infected about 90% of its ash trees.
Experts say that if...

Summary: A ban on the import of ash trees will come into force on Monday in an attempt to halt the spread of a deadly disease, the environment secretary has said.
###
Article: The 23-year-old former Hampshire and Middlesex player is due to arrive in June and stay at New Road for the remainder of the summer.
"I'm absolutely thrilled to be heading back to England in 2012," said Hughes.
"Worcestershire is a quality organisation and I can't wait to meet my new team-mates and re-acquaint myself with English conditions."
After being called up to the Australia team at the age of 20 in February 2009, the left-hander became the youngest player to score successive centuries in both innings of a Test Match - in only his second Test.
But Hughes, currently playing for Australia in their Test series against New Zealand, has managed just once more ton in his overall total of 32 Test match innings, in which he has hit 1,072 runs at 34.58.
He was part of the Australian side which lost by seven runs to New Zealand on Monday - but he is not in the best form, having had a run of scores of 9, 9, 88, 11, 10, 7, 4 and 20 in his last eight Test innings.
Phil Hughes is a heavy run scorer with a career ratio of a century every four games in first-class cricket
"My previous stint in England helped my batting enormously and I have high expectations that spending the 2012 Australian winter in the UK will do the same," he added.
"I look forward to helping Worcestershire be a force in all forms of the game in 2012."
Worcestershire director of cricket Steve Rhodes added: "To gain the signature of the current Australian Test match opener is a tremendous boost for the club and the players for the 2012 season.
"Phil is a heavy run scorer with a career ratio of a century every four games in first-class cricket.
"In 2009, he amassed 574 first-class runs in three games for Middlesex, including three centuries, which demonstrates his hunger for run-scoring.
"I look forward to working closely with Phil during the second half of the season."

Summary: Worcestershire have signed Australian Test opener Phil Hughes for the second half of the 2012 season.
###
Article: The hustle and bustle of a city going about its business is broken by the crack of gunshots, sending bystanders running and screaming. In the aftermath one man lies dead and another badly injured.
Further down the street, four security cameras outside a local resident's home picked up the sound of the exchange of fire between the two men, but no images of what happened.
Eyewitnesses reported seeing the pair standing just a few metres apart firing handguns at each other, but it is unclear which of the two perpetrators shot first.
In an attempt to unravel what happened, local police called Robert Maher, a professor in electrical and computer engineering at Montana State University.
Using audio captured by the microphones on the security cameras, he was able to reconstruct the incident shot-by-shot to reveal where each of the men were standing and who fired first.
Prof Maher is one of a small group of acoustics experts working to establish a new field of forensics that examines the sound of gunshots recorded on camera footage or by phones.
"Nowadays it is not uncommon for someone with a cell phone to be making a video at the time of a gunfire incident," he explains. "The most common types of recordings are from dashboard cameras or vest-mounted cameras carried by law enforcement officers.
"Also common are recordings from an emergency telephone call centres where the calls are being recorded and the caller's phone picks up a gunshot sound.  In some cases there are private surveillance systems at homes and businesses that include audio recordings."
Gunshots make a distinctive sound that makes them easy to distinguish from other commonly mistaken noises such as a car backfiring or fireworks.
A firearm produces an abrupt blast of intense noise from the muzzle that lasts just one or two millionths of a second before disappearing again. High-powered rifles also produce an additional sonic boom as the bullet passes through the sound barrier before the sound of the muzzle blast is detected.
Most of us spend our lives...

Summary: Pioneering work to extract detailed information from audio recordings of gunshots could give forensic case officers new avenues for solving murder cases.
###
Article: It was a devastating blow to a country still struggling to recover from another attack on tourists in the heart of its capital just three months earlier.
And it was claimed by Islamic State (IS), whose actions have spread fear throughout the region and beyond.
"We note that Tunisia faces an international movement," Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi said shortly after Friday's attack. "It cannot respond alone to this."
While much remains unclear about the extent and nature of the threat within Tunisia that the events in Sousse may expose, observers have pointed once more to two specific risks.
First, the threat posed by neighbouring Libya, a fractured country with porous borders that has been awash with weapons since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, and where Islamic State now has an established presence.
And second, the apparently large number of Tunisians who have left to fight in Syria and Iraq, hundreds of whom are estimated to have returned home.
Other countries in the region also face cross-border threats, and it is hard to get a truly accurate idea of how many Tunisians have been radicalised fighting abroad.
But Tunisia appears to be more exposed than its neighbours to high-impact attacks against foreign civilians.
Neither Libya nor Algeria have mass tourism, and though Morocco does, it also has a pervasive security network and has been politically stable.
Tunisia, by contrast, has a "big, soft underbelly", said Geoff Porter, the head of North Africa Risk Consulting.
"I don't think Tunisia does have a disproportionately greater jihadi problem than Algeria or Morocco," he said. "What Tunisia has is a security problem.
"It's simply that there are a greater number of targets in Tunisia and the security forces are less effective."
Full coverage of the Sousse attack
Before the uprising of 2011, the focus for those security forces was enforcing control under former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali - a job at which they were long efficient, developing a vast web of informers.
But security reform has been slow,...

Summary: The attack that killed 38 people in the resort city of Sousse has left Tunisia looking particularly vulnerable.
###
Article: Ceredigion council plans to auction the site of former Ysgol Dyffryn Teifi in Llandysul, which closed last term, for development.
The council cabinet meets on Tuesday to discuss the sale set for 30 September.
But a new group, Plant y Dyffryn, wants more time to draw up a bid to buy it.
The site has a price tag of between Â£250,000 and Â£300,000, with proceeds earmarked for the new-build Ysgol Bro Teifi school which opened this month providing education for three to 19-year-olds.
Leah Williams, one of the founders of Plant y Dyffryn, said "any developer could come in and squeeze the community".
She said: "Llandysul is so small and so Welsh it would just tip the balance.
"There are eight acres of land on a large site with plenty of potential," she said.
Plant y Dyffryn is looking at the example of the Cardigan community venture 4CG in order to raise funds to purchase the site, and then run it.
It took over the Pwllhai site in the centre of Cardigan in 2010, and turned it into a car park to generate income from parking fees with buildings and workshops leased out to small businesses.
A public meeting was held on Sunday when Llandysul residents voted to call on Ceredigion council to delay the process of selling the school site.
In response, cabinet member Gareth Lloyd said that if the cabinet delayed the process of selling, then they would consider offering help to the community with their application.

Summary:


Curzon will receive an outstanding British contribution to cinema prize at this year's Bafta film awards.

Article: Mr Murphy announced his intention to resign last month despite narrowly winning a confidence vote in the wake of Labour's general election defeat.
He had since been drawing up plans for reforms which he hopes will lead to the party's recovery in Scotland.
Labour lost 40 of its 41 Scottish constituencies to the SNP, including Mr Murphy's East Renfrewshire seat.
The party has also announced a timetable for the election of a new leader and deputy leader, with the result of the contests to announced on 15 August.
The leadership contest is expected to be between current deputy leader Kezia Dugdale and the party's social justice spokesman, Ken MacIntosh.
Speaking at a media conference in Glasgow on Saturday afternoon, Mr Murphy said Scottish Labour should better reflect modern Scotland.
He unveiled five proposals which he said had been agreed in principle by party's executive council.
These included electing a new leader through a one member one vote system rather than the electoral college system which requires a majority vote in at least two out of three blocks, comprising elected members, ordinary members and unions.
Mr Murphy was elected as leader despite opposition from the union college, which backed his opponent Neil Findlay last year.
The party will also reopen its selection process for the Regional Lists to attract the widest possible range of candidates for the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections.
This would "abolish the closed shop arrangements for list MSPs so that every Labour Party member has a fair chance of standing for the list, and so that incumbency isn't a guarantee of re-selection", Mr Murphy said.
Mr Murphy also said the party would consider establishing a national selection panel for local councillors, and consider the use of primaries in the selection of MP candidates in future elections.
And he said the party would do more to publicise a "little-known rule" which would allow it to waive the qualifying period before members can become candidates.
Mr Murphy added: "While commitment to the...

Summary: Jim Murphy has stood down as Scottish Labour leader as the party agreed to his plan for "dramatic" change.
###
Article: The talks come after Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court ruled the facility unconstitutional, overturning a deal reached between the governments.
Australia sends asylum seekers there under its offshore processing policy.
Papua New Guinea has now said it will close the facility, but it is not clear when that could happen.
Manus Island was first opened in 2001, and along with Australia's other offshore processing centres, has played a central role in Australia's controversial asylum policy.
Papua New Guinea's high commissioner to Australia Charles Lepani said the detainees were now Australia's responsibility, but Australia has remained opposed to taking any of them.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said on Thursday there was room for them at another detention centre on Nauru.
"There's capacity [on Nauru] but we're talking with the PNG government about what options are available in PNG and we'll continue those discussions with them," Mr Dutton said on Sky News.
This comes after an Iranian asylum seeker held at the Australian-funded detention centre on Nauru set himself on fire on Wednesday.
His actions were a "political protest" according to the Nauruan government.
Mr Dutton said the 23-year old man was in a serious condition and was evacuated to Australia for treatment.
Nauru is a small Pacific Island nation about 3,000 km (1,800 miles) north-east of Australia.
It was previously administered by Australia but gained independence in 1968.
What next for Manus Island asylum-seekers?
Manus Island: Australia's Guantanamo?
Australia's controversial asylum policy
Mr Dutton said that the man set himself on fire at a settlement outside the detention centre.
"He's in a very serious condition," Mr Dutton said.
"His outlook is not good at all."
He also confirmed that other asylum seekers held on the island had harmed themselves.
"What we've been very clear about is that if people come to Australia for medical assistance they'll be returning back to Nauru once that medical assistance has been provided.
"We have returned three...

Summary: Australia and Papua New Guinea will hold urgent talks next week over the fate of asylum seekers held at a detention centre on Manus Island.
###
Article: A document says chemical and biological munitions are produced at three main sites near Damascus and Hama.
It alleges that both Iran and Russia, the government's allies, are aware.
Western powers say a Syrian warplane dropped bombs containing the nerve agent Sarin on an opposition-held town a month ago, killing almost 90 people.
The United States launched a missile strike on a Syrian airbase in response to the incident at Khan Sheikhoun, which President Bashar al-Assad says was faked.
The intelligence document obtained by the BBC says Syria's chemical weapons are manufactured at three sites - Masyaf, in Hama province, and at Dummar and Barzeh, both just outside Damascus. All three are branches of the Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC), a government agency, it adds.
Despite monitoring of the sites by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the document alleges that manufacturing and maintenance continues in closed sections.
It says the Masyaf and Barzeh facilities both specialise in installing chemical weapons on long-range missiles and artillery.
The OPCW mentioned Barzeh and Dummar - also known as Jamraya - in its latest official progress update on its work to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons programme.
The watchdog says inspectors visited them between 26 February and 5 March and that it is still awaiting laboratory analysis of the samples that were taken.
The US imposed economic sanctions on 271 SSRC employees three weeks after the Khan Sheikhoun incident, accusing the agency of focusing on the development of non-conventional weapons and the means to deliver them.
It is promoted as a civilian research institute by the Assad government.
A source familiar with weapons inspection protocols says it is plausible that a government might only declare certain facilities on any given site to the OPCW and therefore only give inspectors access to those areas.
The intelligence document also accuses Syria of falsely declaring the work of one of its research branches as defensive -...

Summary: Syria's government is continuing to make chemical weapons in violation of a 2013 deal to eliminate them, a Western intelligence agency has told the BBC.
###
Article: He has thirteen "13" tattoos inked on his skin, and on Friday he is adding another one.
Having a superstitious symbol or 13 tattooed on Friday the 13th was originally celebrated as a symbol of rebellion.
Nowadays, the tradition continues, with tattooists charging Â£13 (or $13 in the US) on this day, making them highly popular.
But it is not just tattooists that feel the impact of superstition.
The housing market, the car industry, airlines and the film industry are all affected too.
Victor Miller also has ink on his skin.
"I have a tattoo with the number 13 on my right wrist, indicating that the number 13 has been fabulously lucky for me and my wife and two sons," he says.
Mr Miller wrote Friday the 13th, one the most successful horror screenplays.
Indeed, the horror industry loves to play on the macabre connotations of this date.
Desmond Lam, associate professor of marketing at the University of Macau, says superstition offers people an illusion of control, which in turn offers them hope.
At times, it is simply a part of their culture, a learned value or behaviour passed down from generation to generation.
"People generally want to have control over events and their lives, which often they don't, he says.
"So, they use superstitious methods in an attempt to regain some form of control."
Some industries are actively trying to control the number 13 and its impact. Take aviation.
Some airlines are keen to avoid the 13 symbol, as design agency Hoet & Hoet discovered when asked to change their stylised "b" tail design, made up of 13 balls, to 14 for new Belgian carrier Brussels Airlines in 2007.
Others, though not all, omit seating row number 13.
"United's planes as well as AirTran and Comair don't have one," says air steward Bobby Laurie.
"A lot of folks have a fear of flying or a fear of not being in control when they're flying.
"For them, sitting in row 13 could just add insult to injury, so they removed the number 13 to offset any seating problems they may encounter from passengers who refuse to sit...

Summary: "Friday the 13th is my favourite day," says Dan Gold enthusiastically from his tattoo studio in London's West Hampstead.
###
Article: Charlie's parents wanted a private medical team to care for their son in a hospice so they could have more time with him.
But Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) said it was not in his best interests.
Mr Justice Francis approved a plan which will see Charlie "inevitably" die shortly after being moved.
The judge added that no details about when he would be moved and where could be made public.
The story of Charlie Gard
Parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, and GOSH had until 12:00 BST to agree Charlie's end-of-life care. However, an agreement was not reached by the noon deadline.
The parents' lawyer, Grant Armstrong said they wanted to spend days with Charlie at a hospice before his death.
But hospital bosses said they could not agree to the arrangement as his parents had not found a hospice or a paediatric intensive care specialist.
The High Court order says Charlie will continue to be treated in hospital for a "period" of time before being moved to the hospice, which cannot be named for legal reasons.
It says doctors can then withdraw "artificial ventilation" after a period of time.
Everyone involved has agreed that the "arrangements" will "inevitably result in Charlie's death within a short period thereafter", the order adds.
GOSH said it deeply regretted "that profound and heartfelt differences between" Charlie's doctors and parents "have had to be played out in court over such a protracted period".

Summary: Terminally-ill Charlie Gard will be moved to a hospice and have his life support withdrawn soon after, a High Court judge has said.
###
Article: The cinema chain has "provided the British public with unforgettable, cinema experiences", Bafta said.
The awards will be held at London's Royal Albert Hall on 12 February.
The Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema award is presented annually in honour of Michael Balcon, the British film producer known for his work with Ealing Studios.
Previous recipients include Mike Leigh, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Working Title Films, Sir John Hurt and BBC Films.
Curzon's history stretches back to 1934 with the opening of its first cinema Curzon Mayfair.
Dame Pippa Harris, chair of Bafta's Film Committee, said: "I am thrilled that Bafta is honouring Curzon with the Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award.
"For over 80 years, Curzon has provided the British public with unforgettable cinema experiences, while championing independent, art house and foreign language film-making.
"I would like to thank everyone at Curzon for their extraordinary contribution to our industry, and for their unwavering commitment to bringing the very best in film to audiences across the UK.
Philip Knatchbull, Curzon's chief executive, said he was "delighted" at the award.
"Curzon has a long and proud history in the British film industry and many talented and passionate people have contributed to its success story over the years," he said.
"We think of ourselves as champions of bold and visionary film-making from around the world supported by our growing network of cinemas and home cinema digital platforms."
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

Summary:


Lawyers representing families in the baby ashes scandal have said they are to take legal action against Shropshire Council.

Article: The project aims to take a snapshot of current trends and map out the ways the public engage with music.
It is hoped the survey will help measure live music's cultural and economic value and identify future challenges and opportunities.
The 24-hour survey began at 12:00 on Thursday in Glasgow, Newcastle, Oxford, Leeds, Southampton and Brighton.
It has been commissioned by UK Music, the campaigning and lobbying group that represents the recorded and live music industry, and is being led by the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Newcastle.
Prof Martin Cloonan, professor of popular music politics at Glasgow University, said: "What is being proposed has never been done before and is set to reveal the true state of the UK's live music industry.
"Live music is a vital cultural and economic asset and it is important to monitor its health and to support it.
"The results will help to provide the clearest picture of the Glasgow live music scene yet, illustrating that vibrancy while also show issues which need to be addressed."
According to UK Music, the music industry is worth an estimated Â£3.5bn to the UK economy and creates almost 101,600 jobs.
The group said that despite the value of live music to the economy, the full picture of what the public is listening to and how they listen and interact has never been fully and accurately surveyed.
Dr Matt Brennan, from Edinburgh University, is leading the UK Census project.
He said: "Venues around the country have been telling us that they already operate on thin margins, so proposed increases in rateable values of up to 55% in some cases will have a significant impact.
"The UK Live Music Census will be very important in identifying challenges that the industry faces, such as rising rates and other issues.
"It will give us a detailed picture of what exactly it means to be venue owner, a musician, and a live music lover in 2017. Our hope is that the census will be a vital tool in strengthening a much-loved part of the UK's culture."
The census aims to cover 70 music...

Summary: The UK's first ever live music census is being carried out in six cities across the UK.
###
Article: An international study led by the university said there was "strong evidence" of metformin's anti-inflammatory properties.
The researchers said this "may prove significant" in relation to non-diabetic cardiovascular disease (CVD).
Metformin has been in use for more than 50 years.
The study said the drug "continues to reveal significant possibilities for treatments other than those for diabetes."
The drug is also undergoing new clinical trials to determine if it can promote healthy ageing.
The study is being led by Professor Chim Lang and Dr Graham Rena, from the university's division of molecular and clinical medicine.
Professor Lang said: "The anti-inflammatory effects of the drug were observed, not only in those with diabetes, but also in a cohort of non-diabetic heart failure patients."
Dr Rena said: "We found that this drug acts differently to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs by inhibiting a different target."
Dr Rena said the next step would be to establish exactly how the drug inhibits this target and to identify "specific non-diabetic" patient groups that benefit from the anti-inflammatory properties.
Prof Jeremy Pearson of the British Heart Foundation said: "These findings offer further evidence that old drugs can perform new tricks.
"Repurposed medicines can much more quickly benefit patients.
"If this existing and affordable drug can be repurposed as a heart disease treatment, then this is excellent news for the 2.3 million people in the UK living with the condition.
"We look forward to seeing how the research progresses in patient studies."

Summary: The world's most commonly-used Type 2 diabetes drug could be used to treat non-diabetic conditions, according to Dundee University researchers.
###
Article: It comes after nearly 500 animals at South Lakes Safari Zoo died over four years.
Local officials have said they don't think the zoo's conservation plans are good enough.
The zoo's owner has 28 days to appeal against the decision. If there's no appeal, then it's expected that the zoo will shut down.
Inspectors found the animals weren't being looked after properly, and there were problems with housing and overcrowding.
A keeper also died at the zoo in 2013.
South Lakes Safari Zoo opened in 1994 and has more than 1,500 animals, including giraffes and rare birds.

Summary: A zoo in Cumbria, north-west England, could close after the owner was refused permission to keep it running.
###
Article: Edinburgh was the only Scottish institution to improve its standing in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
But Glasgow, Aberdeen, St Andrews and Dundee all saw their ratings drop dramatically.
The editor of the ratings warned UK universities were in danger of falling behind Asian rivals.
The California Institute of Technology retained the top spot in the survey - with Oxford University coming in second.
The UK was the second best represented country overall in the rankings, and three English universities were in the top ten.
But while the University of Edinburgh climbed from 36th to 32nd, Glasgow University fell 37 places to 139th, while Aberdeen dropped 25 places to joint 176th.
St Andrews went from 85th to 108th, and Dundee fell out of the top 200 altogether.
A spokesman for the University of Dundee said: "While we are disappointed with the drop in our overall position in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, it is important to look at the context.
"Dundee actually recorded a slightly higher overall score than last year, according to the metrics used in the table. This includes higher scores for teaching, international outlook, and research."
Education Secretary Mike Russell said: "Scottish universities are well known around the world for the quality of education they offer.
"We have invested significant funding in our universities to ensure they can continue to offer a world-class degree and compete internationally.
"We will continue to deliver access to university based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay, and this year more students will be studying at our world-class universities - unlike universities in England where, overall, the number of acceptances has fallen."
However, Scottish Labour MSP Hugh Henry said: "Despite generous settlements for universities paid for with money from Scotland's hard-pressed colleges, this clearly shows that Scottish universities are facing major challenges both within the UK and internationally.
"Many universities are...

Summary: Scottish universities have slipped down an annual list of the world's top 200 institutions.
###
Article: They say it could cut the likelihood of fireballs erupting when aircraft and other vehicles crash, or are attacked.
It contains very long polymer molecules which stop the fuel forming tiny, explosive droplets, but break when it flows through pipes - and then rejoin.
It is described in the journal Science.
"Initial engine tests showed no adverse effect on performance and our hope is that these polymers will save lives in fatal crashes in aviation and ground transportation," said lead author Julia Kornfield, of the California Institute of Technology.
Efforts to produce explosion-prevention additives, including a major initiative following a deadly runway collision in Tenerife in 1977, have been hampered by twin problems relating to the chemistry of hydrocarbon fuels.
The obvious choice for such an additive is a long, chain-like molecule, which causes the liquid to hang together in bigger, less flammable droplets. But a fuel also has to be pumped and filtered and these forces readily tear up those long molecules into smaller, ineffective fragments - and, crucially, if the polymer remains intact and resists those forces, then it will probably hamper fuel handling or engine performance.
Prof Kornfield and her colleagues have solved this dilemma by designing very long "megasupramolecules" that break up when the fuel flows through pipelines, but then reassemble.
This rebuilding occurs thanks to "sticky ends" which the team designed in a theoretical model, before manufacturing and testing the additive. This design was no easy task, because the snapped ends must join back together to make long, straight chains, without forming circular molecules.
Once they had a polymer that looked promising, the team added it to both diesel and jet fuel and tested how well it prevented explosions - both before and after putting it through a fuel pump 50 times.
The results were promising.
"We shot a projectile at 140mph (225km/h) at a small fuel tank and observed the resulting mist using high-speed imaging," said Prof Kornfield, who...

Summary: Chemical engineers have produced an additive for jet fuel that reduces the risk of violent explosions, but - at least in laboratory tests - does not compromise engine function.
###
Article: About 60 families were unable to get their child's remains because of poor training and out-of-date equipment at council-owned Emstrey Crematorium, Shrewsbury, between 1996 and 2012.
Lawyers believe the crematorium breached the Human Rights Act.
The council said it was liaising with its insurers.
A spokesman for the authority said: "Shropshire Council confirms it has received a letter of notification in respect of Emstrey Crematorium and this has been passed to the council's insurers, who will deal with the matter confidentially in the usual way."
If the legal challenge is successful, it could pave the way for action against crematoriums across the UK where other families were not given their child's ashes.
A Freedom of Information inquiry by the BBC last year found the ashes of more than 1,000 babies were not handed to their parents between 2008 and 2013.
The scandal in Shropshire came to light following a BBC Radio Shropshire investigation.
The lawyers are representing families who have joined the campaign group Action for Ashes.
In June, an independent inquiry into what happened in Shropshire ruled a national inspector should be created for crematoriums.

Summary:


US investigators have closed an inquiry into whether To Kill A Mockingbird author Harper Lee was pressured into publishing a sequel.

Article: 18 January 2016 Last updated at 19:54 GMT
VPN services are useful for securely accessing your work computer systems while you are away from the office.
But they are also commonly used to circumvent government censorship, or location blocking on movie streaming websites.
BBC Technology reporter Chris Foxx explains what some people use a VPN service for.

Summary: A virtual private network (or VPN) is a secure connection between your device and another computer over the internet.
###
Article: The switch would save the government £768m, while the council say it could create up to 6,500 more jobs.
The announcement comes as a report said the HS2 project faced cost pressures.
David Higgins, of HS2 Ltd, said a revised route through South Yorkshire would be announced next week but would not comment on specific changes.
Live updates on this story and others in South Yorkshire
Ms Dore described the decision as "fantastic news for Sheffield".
"We are delighted the Government has concluded that a city centre station location is the best option," she said.
"We have been making this case for years because analysis shows it will create thousands more jobs than the Meadowhall option."
A spokesman for the Sheffield City Region Combined Authority said it welcomed the switch, adding that it hoped HS2 would consider building an additional "parkway station" in the region and a stop on the high speed network at Chesterfield.
The council has campaigned for an HS2 station in the city centre ever since Meadowhall was chosen in 2013, calling for it to be built on the site of the city's old Victoria station.
In 2015, it emerged the authority had spent £190,000 lobbying for the move..
It is understood the switch could see HS2 trains arriving and departing from Sheffield Midland Station, in Sheaf Street, via a spur line linked to the main HS2 line between Birmingham and Leeds.
Mr Higgens, the non-executive chair of HS2 Ltd, told the BBC's Today programme he had spent Monday with council leaders in South Yorkshire and details of a revised route through the region would be announced next week.
He described it as "a solution that's better for the communities to be served by the railway and will deliver savings".
Sim Harris, Managing Editor of the Rail News, said the switch would involve significant work to existing infrastructure, including building two new platforms, but diverting into the city was unlikely to affect the overall service, saying "speed would not really be an issue".
"I know Meadowhall is linked by ordinary...

Summary: Sheffield's HS2 station will be built in the city centre rather than at Meadowhall, according to council leader Julie Dore.
###
Article: The claim: The green belt is safe from an increase in development.
Reality Check verdict: The rules for developing green belt previously said that it was allowed only in exceptional circumstances. The government has now specified what would count as exceptional circumstances. It is not clear whether the new rules will be more or less strict than just letting councils decide what counted as exceptional circumstances.
A big question in discussions of increasing the supply of homes is whether planning regulations will be changed to make it easier to build on green belt land.
Green belts were introduced after World War Two to stop cities from sprawling and countryside being spoilt. About 13% of England is now covered.
This covers scenic sites open to the public, such as the Chiltern Hills and North Downs, but it also covers a lot of land that has limited public access and may not be particularly beautiful.
In the House of Commons, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said: "In 2015, we promised the British people that the green belt was safe in our hands and that is still the case."
So what has changed?
There has been little variation in the amount of green belt land since 1997, although data is not available for every year.
The Housing White Paper says the current planning regulations allow building on the green belt only "in exceptional circumstances" but that there is no detail given of what would amount to exceptional circumstances.
The government has now specified that before allowing development on green belt land, councils would need to rule out options including:
The White Paper also says that councils allowing the boundaries of green belt land to be changed would have to make up for it by improving other bits of green belt.
It also asks for suggestions of other things councils should take into account before doing so.
Read more from Reality Check

Summary: The government has described the housing market as broken, promised more affordable homes and said it would help people to buy and rent.
###
Article: Swansea West MP Geraint Davies tabled the idea at a parliamentary inquiry about the promotion of Wales as a brand and destination.
The names of singers Sir Tom Jones and Katherine Jenkins were also suggested at the Welsh Affairs Select Committee meeting on Tuesday.
The airport said it kept its options constantly under review.
Mr Davies asked tourism experts to back his idea at Tuesday's meeting, saying: "The re-branding of [Liverpool] John Lennon Airport increased traffic 10-fold. Even [Doncaster Sheffield] Robin Hood Airport did well.
"I was wondering what you thought of the idea of renaming Cardiff Airport Dylan Thomas International Airport Cardiff?
"The idea would be to tag it with a global cultural brand that's got longevity, to tag Wales as a cultural destination rather than another part of 'England'," he said.
2014 marks the centenary of the birth of Dylan Thomas, whose works include Under Milk Wood. He died in 1953.
Hotelier Mike Morgan, who was giving evidence to the committee, suggested "Tom Jones Airport or Katherine Jenkins Airport".
Cardiff Airport has seen an increase in passengers since it was bought by the Welsh government in March 2013 for ??52m amid concerns about investment by its former owners.
Mr Morgan told MPs: "The airport is critical but I would stress that things are going in the right direction."
A spokeswoman for the airport said the issue of renaming it has been raised previously and that it always kept its options open to review.

Summary: Renaming Cardiff Airport after poet Dylan Thomas could improve Wales's international recognition, says an MP.
###
Article: It started last week with several students and teachers of the school in the city of Kota Bharu claiming that they had seen spirits or had supernatural experiences.
School authorities shut the school and called in Islamic traditional experts, scholars and even witch doctors in prayer sessions and "exorcisms".
By Sunday, the school had reopened and school officials said things had gone back to normal - but questions remain and the case continues to generate intense interest in Malaysia.
The school, SKM Pengkalan Chepa 2, is located in the highly traditional and religious state of Kelantan.
Last week, a small group of students began claiming they had seen a "black figure" lurking in the school. Soon, more students and even teachers claimed to have seen the same figure or experienced a supernatural presence.
One teacher told local news channel Astro Awani that she felt a "heavy" presence was hanging on to her, while another claimed that a "black figure" was attempting to enter her body.
A student meanwhile told newspaper Sinar Harian (in Malay) that he felt numbness in his hands while his mind "was all over the place".
About 100 people, mostly students, were affected, a senior school staff member confirmed to the BBC.
"Our students were possessed and disturbed [by these spirits]. We are not sure why it happened. We don't know what it is that affected us," she said.
"But the place is a bit old, and these children can be disobedient and sometimes throw their rubbish around the school grounds. Perhaps they hit some 'djinns' and offended the spirits," she added, using a local reference to ghosts.
The school shut on Thursday and invited Islamic preachers to recite the Koran and conduct prayers in the school. Local education authorities are also sending counsellors to the school this week.
The Kelantan state education department did not respond to queries from the BBC.
Based on the media reports, Robert Bartholomew, a sociologist who has researched mass hysteria in Malaysia, called it a textbook outbreak in an email...

Summary: A school in northern Malaysia has had to shut temporarily to handle what local media have called a case of "mass hysteria".
###
Article: The Alabama Securities Commission led the investigation, which helps prevent financial fraud against the elderly.
After an agent interviewed Lee, the commission's head said he was satisfied she wanted a second book published.
The new work - Go Set a Watchman - will be the 88-year-old American author's first release since the 1960s.
The surprise move prompted some suggestions Lee was manipulated into publishing the decades-old manuscript, which was discovered by her lawyer in the author's possessions last year.
"We closed the file. Let's just say that she was able to answer questions we asked to our satisfaction from our point of view,'' said Joseph Borg, Alabama Securities Commission director.
The New York Times reported that the investigation was sparked by requests from a doctor that the state investigate whether Lee was capable to have consented to the release of the work.
Lee herself was "extremely hurt" by allegations she was manipulated, her lawyer Tonja Carter said.
To Kill a Mockingbird was published in July 1960 and has sold more than 40 million copies around the world.
Go Set a Watchman was written before To Kill A Mockingbird, and features many of the same characters, with an adult Scout Finch returning to her native Alabama from New York to visit her father.

Summary:


Scientists have begun the most detailed analysis ever carried out on a Stegosaurus skeleton.

Article: Inspectors also found the treatments handed out by custody staff were "unreasonable" and included the handcuffing of women and children.
Cells were found to be daubed with pornographic and racist graffiti.
The care of detainees, including those with ill health or who had been self-harming, was given "very little importance", inspectors found.
HM Inspectorate of Prisons' report said: "The condition of the court custody suites in Kent was among the worst we have seen.
"In many cells, there was scarcely an inch of wall or door that was not covered in graffiti. Much of it was obscene or racist, and some contained allegations against named individuals."
In one cell at Folkestone Magistrates' Court, there was a swastika and graffiti with the phrase "Muslim scum", the report said.
The Inspectors reported they were concerned to hear a custody officer refer to a transgender detainee as "it".
Another officer was found to have called a detainee with a mental illness "nutter".
The inspectors looked at two crown and eight magistrates' courts in Kent.
The report said the introduction of virtual courts, where detainees appear via a video-link, had the potential to reduce long journeys and cut waiting times at court.
Low staff morale stopped many workers from trying to improve the poor conditions for the detainees, the inspectors found.
Nick Hardwick, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, said the various agencies involved in providing court custody facilities in Kent rarely worked together and none had overall responsibility.
He said: "This report contains recommendations that we hope will encourage the various agencies involved in the provision of court custody to work together more effectively.
"Those detained at Kent courts should be held in a safer and more decent environment than is currently in place."
An HM Courts and Tribunals Service spokesman said inter-agency relationships had been strengthened since the inspection "to ensure that operations are run effectively and in accordance with the contract".
He said it would be...

Summary: Custody suites in Kent courts are "among the worst" seen by the prison watchdog, a report has said.
###
Article: The Traveller Movement complained after former host Jeremy Clarkson was seen holding a placard with "Pikey's Peak" while shooting in Worcestershire.
In March, the BBC Trust said it had been used to mean "cheap", rather than as a term of racial offence.
Ofcom said there was "sufficient context in the way the word was used to minimise offence".
The broadcasting regulator said it recognised that "some in the audience would perceive the word pikey as a derogatory term for gypsies and travellers".
It added: "We have advised broadcasters this doesn't mean the use of the word is acceptable in any programme in any context and that it is capable of causing significant offence in certain contexts."
The BBC also admitted the word could be "a derogatory term" but cited online encyclopaedia Wikipedia as proof it also referred to someone who "lives on the cheap".
In its complaint to Ofcom, the Traveller Movement said: "Had a more neutral word like "cheapskate" been used, it would not have had such a 'transgressive punch' ie provocative impact".
However, the BBC had argued "the issue in determining whether it is offensive in any particular case is the intention behind its use, and the context in which it is used".
In the scene, Clarkson held up the sign as co-presenter Richard Hammond prepared to test the performance of a used hatchback car by racing up Shelsley Walsh Hill Climb in Worcestershire, the site of a particularly steep racing climb.
Presenter Jeremy Clarkson mocked Richard Hammond for choosing a Vauxhall Nova, and erected a placard at the start line that read "Pikey's Peak", a play on words in reference to Pikes Peak, a famous hill climb in Colorado.
In its considerations, Ofcom had noted Top Gear was "widely known for its irreverent style and sometimes outspoken humour" and added the reference to the use of the term "pikey" was part of a "long running gag" on Top Gear and that "Richard Hammond had been linked to it on previous occasions".
It concluded that "it is likely that the audience would not generally have...

Summary: Ofcom has backed a BBC Trust decision not to censure the BBC over using the word "pikey" in an edition of Top Gear.
###
Article: The scarecrow, part of a Derbyshire village's annual festival, was on display at Scargill Primary School.
Head teacher Andrew Poole said the thieves scaled the fence and left only one plimsoll behind.
The school's production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat is due to open on Wednesday.
More news from around the East Midlands
Mr Pull said: "Each pupil put in about a day's work on each on their own bit of material that they sewed into an intricate pattern.
"One of our TAs spent about two days sewing it into a coat.
"It was the fact it was their hard work that was taken that makes it heart-breaking for everyone."
He said the school's Year 3 and 4 pupils were in the village touring the scarecrow trail and would be "keeping their eyes peeled" for the missing coat and Derbyshire police had been informed.
He added several other scarecrows had been damaged or stolen from the trail, which is in its ninth year. All proceeds are donated to charity.
Louise Trueman said on Facebook: "Each patch had a design on them that all year 5s had chosen and individuals hand sewed them on. Lots of hard work and time went in to this coat. Please please return."
Trail organiser, Pete Lilley, said:  "People spend a lot of time and energy in producing the 65+ scarecrows that are on display throughout the village during this week, and to see those efforts destroyed overnight through mindless vandalism, fills us with anger and despair."

Summary: A Joseph scarecrow wearing an "amazing" technicolour coat has been stolen from a school just days before it was due to be worn in a play.
###
Article: Lego Worlds is available now, at Â£11.99, via the Steam gaming platform. Its final release, featuring classic and modern playsets and popular mini-figures, is expected in 2016.
Features will be added in response to feedback from players of the game.
Lego already sells Minecraft playsets so gamers can physically build their virtual creations. And Lego Worlds will invite fans to do the same in reverse.
Tom Stone, managing director of TT Games, which will release Lego Worlds, said it "embodies the physical, Lego brick-building fun that consumers have enjoyed for decades, on a digital platform that delivers an entirely new type of experience with the beloved bricks".
"From the brick-by-brick editor, to discovering an expansive range of items, characters and creatures to populate your worlds - the creative possibilities are endless," he added.
Daniel Goldberg, who has written a book about the growth of Minecraft, said he "was surprised that it has taken them so long".
"Minecraft is exactly what Lego should have done 10 years ago," he said.
"I'm sure it will be a massive success for them."
Markus Persson, the Swedish video games developer who came up with Minecraft, has made no secret of his enthusiasm for Lego, and the admiration appears to be mutual.
Speaking last year, David Gram, Lego's marketing director, said: "Minecraft is digital Lego. We only wish we had invented it."
Mr Goldberg thinks Mr Persson, known as Notch, will be "flattered" by the game.
"Lego was his favourite toy as a child and was the main inspiration behind Minecraft, so it is nice to see things coming full circle," he said.
"I don't think that there will be any animosity. Games developers in general tend to be flattered when someone copies an existing game."
Lego is marketed at children but also for a hardcore of adult enthusiasts.
Minecraft, which was bought by Microsoft last year, has also managed to appeal to both adults and children.
"The audience for Minecraft, has proved itself to be quite big, so I'm sure there will be room for both...

Summary: Danish toy company Lego has launched a rival to popular video game Minecraft.
###
Article: The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said many sets were designed to perform well in government tests, but used more energy in regular use.
It said energy consumption could be twice the expected amount.
But the US Consumer Technology Association (CTA) said modern TVs were an "efficiency success story".
The NRDC said it found many television sets disabled energy saving features with little or no warning when a viewer adjusted other settings, such as the picture brightness.
It also found that a test video produced by the US Department of Energy to determine energy consumption typically used less energy than real-world television broadcasts.
The group suggested that the short scenes in the test video triggered screen dimming features in some televisions, lowering their energy use.
It also warned that energy efficiency tests did not analyse how a television performed when displaying high dynamic range (HDR) video.
HDR allows a much larger number of colours to be shown, but consumes more energy than standard high definition pictures. Manufacturers are gradually beginning to produce HDR-capable sets.
"In some cases, a TV's annual energy use will be twice the levels that manufacturers reported," said Noah Horowitz from the NRDC.
However, CTA president Gary Shapiro said "fundamental changes in video screen technology" meant television sets were now more energy efficient than before.
"Innovation is constantly driving TV models to become thinner, lighter and more energy efficient," he said.
He also defended the eco-friendly modes included on some sets, saying that they provided viewers with choice.
"The TV settings used in the energy efficiency testing processes can be and are used in the real world, unless consumers want a different viewing experience," he said.
A spokeswoman for the European Commission said: "The Commission is involved in discussions on a completely new test loop that will not only make defeat devices far more difficult to be conceived and implemented, but will also be able to capture...

Summary: Energy efficiency ratings on televisions are flawed and likely to mislead consumers, a US environment advocacy group has claimed.
###
Article: Researchers hope to learn how much it weighed, how it moved and what it used its iconic back plates for.
A UK team has scanned each of its 360 bones into a computer and has digitally reconstructed the dinosaur.
The specimen, nicknamed "Sophie", has been acquired by the Natural History Museum in London.
Although Stegosauruses are one of the most well known dinosaurs, they are among those that scientists know the least about. There are only six partial skeletons of the creature, which lived around 150 million years ago.
It could grow to the size of a minibus and the gigantic plates which ran along its back were its most distinctive feature.
Surprisingly, it was 100 years ago that the dinosaur's skeleton was properly assessed and scientifically described. Now, using medical imaging techniques and 3D modelling, researchers at the Natural History Museum hope to learn much more about this iconic creature.
Prof Paul Barrett, who is leading the research, said that they were particularly interested in finding out what stegosauruses used their plates for.
"We want to find out whether they were used for defence or whether they were used as a radiator to help the animal pick up or lose heat," he told BBC News.
Sophie is 80% complete and is thought to be the most complete specimen in the world. Dr Charlotte Brassey, who is working with Prof Barrett, helped to scan in its 360 bones and digitally recreate it on her computer as a detailed 3D model.
"I reconstructed the skeleton to see what it might have looked like and then began to reconstruct the muscles and how they connected with the skeleton. From that we can begin to say how effective its muscles were and eventually in the future we would like to reconstruct how it moved," she told BBC News.
Among the mysteries the researchers would like to solve is how the species was able to walk with such small front legs and such large back legs.
Follow Pallab on Twitter

Summary:


Security has been increased at France's interests abroad after a French satirical magazine published obscene cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Article: The film, starring Richard E Grant and Paul McGann, depicts the lives of two unemployed actors who spend a disastrous weekend in the countryside.
The copy of Bruce Robinson's novel, written between 1969 and 1970, is estimated to reach between Â£4,000 and Â£6,000 when it goes under the hammer.
It includes extensive handwritten revisions by Robinson.
He has described Withnail and I as "70% autobiographical" - and was living in a house in Camden, north London, where much of it is set, when he was writing the novel.
The work for sale also includes a page torn from a magazine featuring the author and his flatmates outside their house in the late 1960s.
Withnail and I was adapted for the screen in 1987, produced by former Beatle George Harrison's HandMade Films and directed by Robinson.
It also starred Richard Griffiths as the flamboyant Uncle Monty, in whose rural cottage Withnail (Grant) and McGann (I) stay.
While it did not make an impression at the box office at the time, it became hugely popular in the following decade - particularly with students.
It became famous for lines including Withnail's: "We want the finest wines available to humanity, we want them here, and we want them now."
The draft is to be auctioned as part of Sotheby's sale of English literature, history, children's books and illustrations on 15 December.

Summary: The first draft of the novel that went on to be turned into cult film Withnail and I is set for auction at Sotheby's.
###
Article: The independent inquiry is looking in detail at historical abuse of children in residential care in Scotland.
The inquiry has been separated into a series of phases, the first of which continues on 31 October.
Phase two starts on November 28 with a study of homes run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul.
Applications to appear in relation to this case study are now open, with a particular focus on Smyllum Park in Lanark and Bellevue House in Rutherglen. The deadline for applications to appear, for people with a direct or substantial interest in the hearings, close on 4 September.
Further case studies will be announced in due course.
More than 60 institutions including several top private schools and church bodies are being investigated as part of the probe, which is chaired by Lady Smith and is due to report no sooner than October 2019.
The inquiry states its purpose as being "to investigate the nature and extent of abuse of children whilst in care in Scotland", while considering "the extent to which institutions and bodies with legal responsibility for the care of children failed in their duty", in particular seeking any "systemic failures".
However, it does not cover children who were abused while living with their natural or adoptive families, while using sports and leisure clubs or attending faith based organisations on a day to day basis. The inquiry will also not examine allegations of children being abused in non-boarding schools, nursery or day-care centres.
The evidence given at hearings will supplement written statements taken from witnesses in advance, and the inquiry is continuing to take statements from survivors of abuse in private sessions.
The first phase of hearings, which began in May, heard apologies from groups who said they "deplored that physical sexual abuses could occur".
The inquiry, which had cost more than Â£7.8m as of 30 June, is taking place at Rosebery House in Edinburgh.

Summary: The second phase of hearings in the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry is to open with a case study centring on care establishments run by a Catholic order.
###
Article: It falls upon the fight for the Republican presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton's White House quest and the debate over the future direction of the Labour Party in Britain.
Even freshman politicians, like Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who was three years shy of heading to Washington when the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled in Baghdad's Firdos Square in April 2003, have been touched by its gloom.
Seeking to follow his brother into the White House, it was inevitable that Jeb Bush would be quizzed about the decision to go to war.
What's been surprising, astonishing even, is his fumbling response. After all, he and his team must surely have war-gamed such a predictable line of inquiry.
Over the course of four days earlier this month, he came up with four different iterations of his policy.
To start with, he told an interviewer on Fox News that he would have authorised the invasion, and then added buoyantly: "So just for the news flash to the world, if they're trying to find places where there's big space between me and my brother, this might not be one of them."
By the end of the week, he had flip-flopped, that cardinal sin of candidates seeking the presidency. "I would not have engaged," he now ventured, prompting much ridicule in the press. "I would not have gone into Iraq."
More unexpectedly, every Republican candidate is being pressed on whether they, as president, would have invaded Iraq.
Interrogated on the war question, again on Fox News, Mr Rubio offered what sounded like a reasonable formulation - that presidents never get the luxury of making decisions with the benefit of hindsight.
Yet that did not prevent him from getting a torrid grilling from host Chris Wallace, which damaged his campaign.
Even as the world is being buffeted by a geopolitical superstorm, with wars in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Libya and elsewhere, the prime question for Republicans has been a historical hypothetical.
With the race stuck in a sort of time warp, a war that started 12 years ago has become a litmus test of their...

Summary: On both sides of the Atlantic, the Iraq war continues to cast a diffuse shadow from which politicians are struggling to escape.
###
Article: The Lego Foundation has provided the university with £2.5m to fund a Lego Professorship of Play in Education, Development and Learning.
It has also provided £1.5m to support a play research centre in the education faculty, which will be led by the Lego professor.
Last year, Cambridge University advertised for a doctor of chocolate to study how and why the substance melts.
The Lego professorship post would be "open to all those whose work falls within the general field of the title of the office", the university said.
The successful candidate will lead the work of the Research Centre on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDaL), which studies the role of play in young children's learning and development.
The Lego Foundation was created to "build a future where learning through play empowers children to become creative, engaged, life-long learners".

Summary: A professor of Lego could soon be in post at Cambridge University.
###
Article: PC Simon Reynolds assaulted a 27-year-old man after the victim was arrested in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, in the early hours of 22 November, 2014.
He was found guilty of common assault after an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
Reynolds, 38, was sentenced at Swansea Magistrates' Court on Monday.
The inquiry into Reynolds' conduct came after a referral to the police watchdog by Dyfed-Powys Police in December 2014.
It related to the assault of a man arrested outside Bar Luna in the town centre.
He was taken to hospital for treatment to a cut on his forehead after the incident, the IPCC said.
As well as the sentence, suspended for one year, Reynolds was ordered to pay Â£500 in prosecution costs, Â£250 in compensation and an Â£80 victim surcharge.
The watchdog said its report into the conduct of Reynolds and another officer had been passed to Dyfed-Powys Police.

Summary: A Dyfed-Powys Police officer has been handed an eight-week suspended sentence for assaulting a man.
###
Article: French embassies, consulates, cultural centres and schools in some 20 countries will be closed for the next few days as a precaution.
Government ministers voiced concern at the Charlie Hebdo cartoons but defended the freedom of the press.
Riot police have been deployed around the magazine's offices in Paris.
The magazine has confirmed that its website has been attacked.
Its paper edition features caricatures which play on both the uproar in the Islamic world over an amateur video which mocks Islam and the row over the publication in France of topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge.
A tenet of Islam bans the portrayal of its founder, the Prophet Muhammad.
Some 30 people have died in violent protests which erupted early last week over the Innocence of Muslims video, which was made in the United States.
The dead include the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans, who died in Benghazi. US and other Western embassies have come under attack in mainly Muslim countries.
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said he was "concerned" at the cartoons and had ordered "special security measures... in all the countries where this [publication] could pose a problem".
By Christian FraserBBC News, Paris
The French schools are already closed in Tunisia. In Libya, French journalists are withdrawing from known hotels. And in the Muslim community of Belleville in Paris, they have been buying the latest edition of Charlie Hebdo just to rip it up.
No wonder the French authorities are concerned. The foreign minister acted quickly this morning in an attempt to suppress the anger, while articulating the government's frustrations. The decision to print the cartoons at a time when Western embassies are already threatened, he said, would only "add fuel to the fire".
Last night Charb, the editor of Charlie Hebdo, told me he rejected criticism that he was inciting violence, putting French lives at risk. He was using the cartoons, he said, to make fun of the film rather than the Prophet. But he would know what...

Summary: