Panic! At The Disco frontman Brendon Urie set for Broadway

Summary: Panic! At The Disco frontman Brendon Urie is leaping from the gig circuit to a Broadway theatre and joining the cast of the musical Kinky Boots.

The rock singer will don the show's flamboyant footwear to play Charlie Price, the young man who takes over his family's struggling shoe factory. He said it was "a dream come true" and will appear from 26 May for 10 weeks. His band had their first US number one and a Grammy nomination for best rock album with 2016's Death of a Bachelor. Urie is already known for his theatrical stage performances, so it may not be such a big step to become the star of a Broadway show. Kinky Boots has music by pop star Cyndi Lauper and won six Tony Awards in 2013. Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

पैनिक! द डिस्को में फ्रंटमैन ब्रेंडन यूरी गिग सर्किट से ब्रॉडवे थिएटर में कूद रहे हैं और संगीतमय किंकी बूट्स के कलाकारों में शामिल हो रहे हैं।


Jeffrey Epstein: The financier charged with sex trafficking

Summary: "I'm not a sexual predator, I'm an 'offender,'" Jeffrey Epstein told the New York Post in 2011 . "It's the difference between a murderer and a person who steals a bagel."

Epstein died in a New York prison cell on 10 August as he awaited, without the chance of bail, his trial on sex trafficking charges. It came more than a decade after his conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor, for which he was registered as a sex offender. This time, he was accused of running a "vast network" of underage girls for sex. He pleaded not guilty. The 66-year-old in the past socialised with Prince Andrew, President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton. But who was Jeffrey Epstein? 'Terrific guy' Born and raised in New York, Epstein taught maths and physics in the city at the private Dalton School in the mid 1970s. He had studied physics and maths himself at university, although he never graduated. A father of one of his students is said to have been so impressed that he put Epstein in touch with a senior partner at the Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns. He was a partner there within four years. By 1982, he had created his own firm - J Epstein and Co. The company managed assets of clients worth more than $1bn (£800m) and was an instant success. Epstein soon began spending his fortune - including on a mansion in Florida, a ranch in New Mexico, and reputedly the largest private home in New York - and socialising with celebrities, artists and politicians. "I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy," Donald Trump told New York magazine for a profile on Epstein in 2002. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. "No doubt about it - Jeffrey enjoys his social life." In 2002, Epstein flew former President Bill Clinton and the actors Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker to Africa on a customized private jet. He made an unsuccessful bid to buy New York magazine with then film producer Harvey Weinstein in 2003 - the same year he made a $30m donation to Harvard University. But he also strove to keep his life private, reportedly shunning society events and dinners in restaurants. He dated women like Miss Sweden winner Eva Andersson Dubin and Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of publisher Robert Maxwell, although he never married. Rosa Monckton, the former CEO of Tiffany & Co, told Vanity Fair for a 2003 article that Epstein was "very enigmatic" and "a classic iceberg". "You think you know him and then you peel off another ring of the onion skin and there's something else extraordinary underneath," she said. "What you see is not what you get." Conviction and plea deal In 2005, the parents of a 14-year-old girl told police in Florida that Epstein had molested their daughter at his Palm Beach home. A police search of the property found photos of girls throughout the house. The Miami Herald reports that his abuse of underage girls dated back years. "This was not a 'he said, she said' situation," Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter told the newspaper. "This was 50-something 'shes' and one 'he' - and the 'shes' all basically told the same story." "He has never been secretive about the girls," columnist Michael Wolff told New York magazine for a 2007 profile piece, as the case against Epstein moved through the courts. "At one point, when his troubles began, he was talking to me and said, 'What can I say, I like young girls.' I said, 'Maybe you should say, 'I like young women.'" However, prosecutors forged a deal with the hedge fund manager in 2008. He avoided federal charges - which could have seen him face life in prison - and instead received an 18-month prison sentence, during which he was able to go on "work release" to his office for 12 hours a day, six days a week. He was released on probation after 13 months. The Miami Herald says that the federal prosecutor Alexander Acosta - who was Secretary of Labour in the Trump administration - struck a plea agreement hiding the extent of his crimes and ending an FBI investigation into whether there were more victims or more powerful people who took part. The paper described it as the "deal of the century". Mr Acosta resigned in July 2019 over the scandal, though he defended his actions as guaranteeing at last some jail time for Epstein. Since 2008 Epstein had been listed as a level three on the New York sex offenders register. It is a lifelong designation meaning he was at a high risk of reoffending. But Epstein maintained his properties and his assets after his conviction. In December 2010, Prince Andrew, the third child of the Queen, was pictured in New York's Central Park with Epstein, drawing controversy. In a BBC interview in November 2019, the prince, who had known Epstein since 1999, said he had gone to New York to break off their friendship. He said he regretted staying at the financier's house while he was there, and that he had "let the side down" by doing so. An Epstein accuser, Virginia Roberts - now Virginia Giuffre - would later allege that she was made to have sex with Prince Andrew in the early 2000s when she was 17. Prince Andrew categorically denied having sex with her and said he has no recollection of a photo of the pair being taken together in London. Epstein was arrested in New York on 6 July 2019 after flying back from Paris on his private jet. Prosecutors were reportedly seeking the forfeiture of his New York mansion, where some of his alleged crimes occurred. Epstein always denied any wrongdoing, and pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. After being denied bail by the court, he was being held in New York's Metropolitan Correctional Center. He was taken to hospital briefly in July for what was widely reported to be injuries to his neck - which neither prison officials or his lawyers would officially comment on. At his last court appearance on 31 July, it became clear that he would spend a year in prison, with a trial no earlier than summer 2020. Prosecutors said they wanted no delay, and bringing the trial quickly was in the public interest. Now, Epstein will never face the trial at all.

"मैं एक यौन शिकारी नहीं हूँ, मैं एक 'अपराधी' हूँ", "जेफरी एपस्टीन ने 2011 में न्यूयॉर्क पोस्ट को बताया।" "यह एक हत्यारे और एक बैगेल चुराने वाले व्यक्ति के बीच का अंतर है।"


Have pictures of Muhammad always been forbidden?

Summary: The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has published an issue which commemorates the victims of last week's shootings in France - using an image of the Prophet Muhammad on the cover. Most Muslims say that pictorial depictions of the founder of Islam are forbidden - but has that always been the case in all of the Muslim world?

By John McManusBBC News (This article contains a historical image of the Prophet Muhammad) If you set aside for a moment the issue of whether satirical cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad are insulting, there's a separate and complicated debate about whether any depiction - even a respectful one - is forbidden within Islam. For most Muslims it's an absolute prohibition - Muhammad, or any of the other prophets of Islam, should not be pictured in any way. Pictures - as well as statues - are thought to encourage the worship of idols. This is uncontroversial in many parts of the Islamic world. Historically, the dominant forms in Islamic art have been geometric, swirling patterns or calligraphic - rather than figurative art. Muslims point to a verse in the Koran which features Abraham, whom they regard as a prophet: "[Abraham] said to his father and his people: 'What are these images to whose worship you cleave?' They said: 'We found our fathers worshipping them.' He said: 'Certainly you have been, you and your fathers, in manifest error.'" Yet there's no ruling in the Koran explicitly forbidding the depiction of the Prophet, according to Prof Mona Siddiqui from Edinburgh University. Instead, the idea arose from the Hadiths - stories about the life and sayings of Muhammad gathered in the years after his death. Siddiqui points to depictions of Muhammad - drawn by Muslim artists - dating from the Mongol and Ottoman empires. In some of them, Muhammad's facial features are hidden - but it's clear it is him. She says the images were inspired by devotion: "The majority of people drew these pictures out of love and veneration, not intending idolatry." At what point then, did depictions of Muhammad become haram, or forbidden? Many of the images of Muhammad which date from the 1300s were intended only to be viewed privately, to avoid idolatry, says Christiane Gruber, associate professor of Islamic Art at Michigan University. "In some ways they were luxury items, perhaps in libraries for the elite." Such items included miniatures which showed characters from Islam. Gruber says the advent of mass-circulation print media in the 18th Century posed a challenge. The colonisation of some Muslim lands by European forces and ideas was also significant, she says. The Islamic response was to emphasise how different their religion was to Christianity, with its history of public iconography, Gruber argues. Pictures of Muhammad started to disappear, and a new rhetoric against depictions emerged. But Imam Qari Asim, of Leeds Makkah Mosque, one of the largest in the UK, denies there has been a significant change. He maintains that the effect of the Hadiths, with their injunctions against any images of living things, is automatically a prohibition on depictions of Muhammad. He says the medieval images have to be understood in context. "The majority of these images relate to this particular Night Journey and the ascension to Heaven. There is a ram or a horse. He is on the horse or something like that. "The classical scholars have very strongly condemned those depictions as well. But they do exist." A key point is that they are not simple portraits of Muhammad. Asim also argues that the subject of many of the images is unclear. There is a question of whether all of these depictions actually intended to portray the Prophet or a close companion involved in the same scene, he suggests. Prof Hugh Goddard, director of the Alwaleed Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World in the University of Edinburgh, says that there has been a change. "There isn't unanimity in either of the foundational sources - the Koran and the Hadiths. The later Muslim community has tended to have different views on this question as on others." The Arab scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, whose teachings paved the way for Wahhabism, the dominant form of Sunni Islam in Saudi Arabia, was a key figure. "The debate has become much more vigorous - particularly associated with the movement of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. You had suspicion of veneration of anything other than God. That included the Prophet. "There has been a significant change over certainly the last 200 years, but probably 300 years." The situation is different with sculpture or any other kind of three-dimensional representation, notes Goddard, where the prohibition has always been clearer. For some Muslims, says Siddiqui, the aversion to pictures has even extended to a refusal to have pictures of any live being - human or animal - in their homes. The prohibition against depiction didn't stretch everywhere though - many Shia Muslims appear to have a slightly different view. Contemporary pictures of Muhammad are still available in some parts of the Muslim world, according to Hassan Yousefi Eshkavari, a former Iranian cleric, now based in Germany. He told the BBC that today, images of Muhammad hang in many Iranian homes: "From a religious point of view there is no prohibition on these pictures. These images exist in shops as well as houses. They aren't seen as insulting, either from a religious or cultural viewpoint." Differences in approach among Muslims can be seen along traditional Shia/Sunni lines, but Gruber says that those who claim a historical ban has always existed are wrong. It's an argument that many Muslims would not accept. "The Koran itself doesn't say anything," Dr Azzam Tamimi, former head of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought told the BBC, "but it is accepted by all Islamic authorities that the Prophet Muhammad and all the other prophets cannot be drawn and cannot be produced in pictures because they are, according to Islamic faith, infallible individuals, role models and therefore should not be presented in any manner that might cause disrespect for them." He is not convinced by the argument that if there are medieval depictions of Muhammad that suggests there is no absolute prohibition. "Even if it were that would have been condemned by the scholars of Islam." Twitter: @JohnMcM1

फ्रांसीसी व्यंग्य पत्रिका चार्ली हेब्दो ने एक अंक प्रकाशित किया है जो फ्रांस में पिछले सप्ताह की गोलीबारी के पीड़ितों की याद में प्रकाशित किया गया है-कवर पर पैगंबर मुहम्मद की एक छवि का उपयोग करते हुए। अधिकांश मुसलमानों का कहना है कि इस्लाम के संस्थापक के सचित्र चित्रण निषिद्ध हैं-लेकिन क्या पूरे मुस्लिम दुनिया में हमेशा ऐसा ही रहा है?


The Innocents: How Netflix series explores teenage life by shapeshifting

Summary: Who would you shapeshift into given the choice?

By Steven McIntoshEntertainment reporter For Percelle Ascott, the star of Netflix's new series The Innocents, which deals with the issue of morphing into the body of somebody else, the answer is obvious. "Will Smith," he says instantly. "I just like him as a person, as an individual." But, he adds diplomatically: "I'd like to shapeshift into any person, to understand a new perspective, and hope that that changes my perspective." That is very much the theme of The Innocents, which tells the story of a teenage girl - June, played by Sorcha Groundsell - who runs away with her boyfriend Harry (Ascott) to escape her repressive parents. Things get a little more complicated when she finds she has shapeshifting powers, which she doesn't quite know how to use. It's a device co-creator and writer Hania Elkington says was the perfect way to explore the difficulties of being a teenager. "Your body is changing, you're trying to figure out who you are," she tells BBC News. "Some elements of your emerging personality or psyche might frighten you or feel disconnected from you, so it's about self-acceptance, it's about unconditional love for another person, and shapeshifting seemed a very good way to explore that." Fellow co-creator Simon Duric adds: "Shapeshifting hadn't been explored, and I'm a bit of a genre hound, and I thought 'oh, there's a gap here'. The series, which is released on Friday, has so far received mostly warm reviews from critics. "Say hello to your new favourite Netflix show," wrote Ian Sandwell in Digital Spy. "It works because June's struggles as she navigates the perils of first love are relatable, even if her shapeshifter abilities take them to a whole new level. "Everyone gets a bit jealous, but imagine how it would be if your first love was technically kissing another girl after you shapeshifted into her?" Suzi Feay of The Financial Times was less positive, writing: "From the start, it's so disparate and oblique that it's hard to know what's going on." Variety said the show "gets that sense of dislocation just right," but added its eight episodes could have been "whittled down". "There's less tension than there is amplification; key points are repeated relentlessly, and the season's overarching plot, involving a cruel doctor (Guy Pearce) who wants to crack the secret within June's genes, has fizzled by season's end." But Gavia Baker-Whitelaw in The Daily Dot said: "The Innocents is one of the best Netflix Originals to date, partly because it lacks the structural pitfalls of so many other streaming shows. "With its self-contained episodes, sweeping Northern European locations, and a moody score by composer Carly Paradis, this could easily be airing as a primetime BBC serial." Sorcha, who grew up in Lewis in the Western Isles, is new to the world of high profile TV series, says she is going to try to avoid reading critics' comments. "I've never done anything that will be as reviewed as this. I think the last time I had anything to read of a review I was about 16 and I was just excited to be in it," she laughs. "I personally think I won't [read them], just because it can distract from what you feel happy with, you don't want that to then cast a shadow." Percelle says the key thing he hopes audiences pick up on is "the theme of identity". "That's a massive part of the show, and how shapeshifting is used as a device to explore that. Trying to find out who you are. Being comfortable in our own skin. "We shift in our everyday life, we evolve depending on the circumstances. And it's a question of who we are based on this new dynamic, this new experience, and trying to search for that, I don't think we ever stop searching for who we are in life." Executive producer Elaine Pyke says she was hooked in by the show's script when she first read it, and helped Hania and Simon develop the show and pitch it to Netflix. "I was compelled by it, I was moved by it, and I know that that combination is something you just don't read that often, she says. "I fell in love with it very quickly. And," she laughs, "I didn't want to lose it to another producer." In some ways, launching it on Netflix means pressure is high, with the company's seemingly endless stream of runaway hits. Stranger Things and 13 Reasons Why are among the shows to have set a high bar for subsequent dramas, with both developing huge followings and creating breakout stars. But there's one thing that makes it far less stressful than launching it on a traditional TV channel. "We won't get viewing figures," Elaine explains. "We'll get feedback from Netflix about how it's been received, and I definitely feel a certain pressure and a certain stress about it, I want it to land and for lots and lots of people to watch it. "But what I think is really different is you haven't got that overnight, all the pressure on one episode, you've got the whole series and are standing by the whole show." One way Sorcha manages to escape the pressures of a major TV series, is by helping out on her parents' farm in the Outer Hebrides. "For me it's the best possible way to manage this craziness, because it means I can leave London, leave the industry and go back home and be around people who have never heard of Netflix and don't have strong enough wi-fi to stream in any way," she says. "It's sheep and cows and badgers and ducks and it's nothing to do with this, which I personally really love, it can get quite stressful and quite crazy so it's nice to be able to have a break."

विकल्प दिए जाने पर आप किसे आकार देंगे?


Hamburg missing man: Dundee United player's appeal over Liam Colgan

Summary: Dundee United's club captain Willo Flood has urged people to share an online appeal to find an Inverness man missing in Hamburg in Germany.

Liam Colgan has not been seen since the early hours of Saturday when he was out on his brother Eamonn's stag do. Mr Colgan, 29, has been described as a keen Dundee United fan. In a video on the football club's Twitter and Facebook sites, Flood said: "Liam, if you see this buddy, get in touch." The footballer said the missing man's family had asked for the message to be shared on social media. Flood said: "This is an appeal to everyone out there to share this video and help bring Liam Colgan home safe." Police in Hamburg have been making enquiries and searching for Mr Colgan, who is his brother's best man. The Foreign Office said it was assisting the family.

डंडी यूनाइटेड के क्लब के कप्तान विलो फ्लड ने लोगों से जर्मनी के हैम्बर्ग में लापता एक इनवर्नेस व्यक्ति को खोजने के लिए एक ऑनलाइन अपील साझा करने का आग्रह किया है।


Homes plan agreed for Llangollen hospital site

Summary: Controversial plans to demolish a former Denbighshire community hospital to make way for social housing have been granted by councillors.

Llangollen hospital closed two years ago with in-patients' beds transferred to Chirk hospital as part of a health service reorganisation. Work is under way on a new health centre for the town but opponents had hoped to save the hospital. The Grwp Cynefin housing association wants to build 12 homes on the site. The proposals were agreed by the council's planning committee on Wednesday. Some local people had lodged objections, citing traffic dangers, loss of car park spaces and there was a dispute over the ownership of the site.

सामाजिक आवास के लिए रास्ता बनाने के लिए एक पूर्व डेनबिघशायर सामुदायिक अस्पताल को ध्वस्त करने की विवादास्पद योजनाओं को पार्षदों द्वारा मंजूरी दी गई है।


Crickhowell pub protestors given 'more time' to raise funds

Summary: Campaigners trying to stop a Powys pub becoming a supermarket say they have been given more time to raise funds.

Punch Taverns had planned to put The Corn Exchange in Crickhowell up for sale to all bidders by mid-August. But The Corn Exchange Community Investment Group (CECIG) said it has been allowed two more weeks to make a first offer following a "positive" meeting between the two. Punch confirmed it is in "continued positive discussions" with the group. Negotiators from CECIG said Punch was "willing to work with the town if we can reach agreement on price". A Punch spokeswoman said opportunities "which are acceptable for all parties" were being explored.

पॉव्स पब को सुपरमार्केट बनने से रोकने की कोशिश कर रहे प्रचारकों का कहना है कि उन्हें धन जुटाने के लिए और समय दिया गया है।


Coronavirus: Teesside leaders call for more 'local input'

Summary: Leaders of the five Teesside councils have called for more local input when it comes to a response to coronavirus.

It follows a meeting between Darlington, Hartlepool, Redcar and Cleveland and Stockton council leaders, and Middlesbrough's mayor. They said it was "vital" local circumstances were taken into account in decision-making. On Thursday the government announced tighter restrictions or Middlesbrough and Hartlepool. Councillor Mary Lanigan, leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough, who chaired the meeting, said: "We all want the same outcome, and we believe more local input would help keep people safe, save jobs and return us more quickly to a more normal way of life."

जब कोरोनावायरस की प्रतिक्रिया की बात आती है तो पांच टीसाइड परिषदों के नेताओं ने अधिक स्थानीय इनपुट का आह्वान किया है।


Coronavirus: Airbus to pay wages after staff miss out on furlough pay

Summary: Plane-maker Airbus is to pay the wages of staff who will miss out on the UK government's furlough scheme because they were helping to make life-saving ventilators for the NHS.

About 500 staff have been producing parts for ventilators in the AMRC Cymru facility at Airbus's Broughton site in Flintshire. That work is due to stop at the end of this month. Workers needed to register for furlough by 10 June. But about 200 Airbus staff have missed the UK government's Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme's deadline because they are currently still working on the ventilators. Airbus will continue to furlough production staff at the end of July for three weeks. It said it would match the UK government's payment scheme for ventilator workers whose teams end up being furloughed.

विमान निर्माता एयरबस को उन कर्मचारियों के वेतन का भुगतान करना है जो यूके सरकार की फर्लो योजना से चूक जाएंगे क्योंकि वे एनएचएस के लिए जीवन रक्षक वेंटिलेटर बनाने में मदद कर रहे थे।


Fear and anger on the US-Mexico border

Summary: Arizona is at the centre of the US debate over immigration after introducing a tough new law targeting illegal entrants to the country. The BBC's Robin Lustig travelled to the state's border with Mexico, and met those on the frontline of the issue.

If you look through the bars of the steel fence in Nogales, southern Arizona, you find yourself looking at Nogales, Mexico. The fence marks the international border between the US and Mexico - and it runs right through the town. Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans cross this border illegally every year, and an increasing number of Americans want to stop them. Dealing with illegal immigrants is what Border Patrol Agent Richard Funke does every day. As he drove me along the high steel border fence, he told me: "You see people watching that fence every hour of every day. Someone tries to get across every day of the year." And sure enough, within minutes, we had spotted a young Mexican darting through a hole in the fence. But other agents had spotted him too; and he was soon back in Mexico again. Footprints Out in the desert, Agent Funke suddenly pulled over to show me a trail leading from the road towards the border. "Look at those footprints," he said. "They're no more than a few hours old … someone was here earlier this morning, probably dropping off a consignment of drugs from across the border." Thirty miles north of the border, I met Pat King, round-faced and friendly, at home on the ranch that she runs with her husband John. With her grand-daughters scampering about as the sun set below the hills and the shadows lengthened, she told me why she wants illegal immigrants stopped. "They come across the ranch, right up by the house. Our fences are damaged, our gates are left open, the cattle stray. "We see so much drug-smuggling, the Mexican cartels are getting much stronger. If the men go out and stumble across a group of smugglers, they're convinced they're going to end up with a bullet in the back." 'Under-funded' The Kings' ranch is used as a local headquarters by a group called the Minutemen. They go out searching for illegal immigrants - and call in the Border Patrol if they find any. Their local leader, Mike Vyne, a Vietnam veteran, says politicians want to encourage illegal immigrants because they keep labour costs low. He has little time for Washington, or for President Barack Obama. "I reckon Obama is in favour of illegal immigrants because they're the only ones who'll vote for him at the next election," he told me. "That's why he keeps the Border Patrol purposely under-staffed, under-funded, and under-equipped." 'Not at war' In the rapidly growing town of Casa Grande, baking in the afternoon sun, I met no-nonsense sheriff Paul Babeu. He's an ex-cop and he wants to hunt down every illegal immigrant he can find. "We're not at war with Mexico," he says. "But there's a clear link between high crime rates and illegal immigrants. "This new law is a good tool to send out a clear message: 'If you're here illegally, guess what, you're going to be arrested.'" There are thought to be half a million illegal immigrants in Arizona. If Sheriff Babeu is right, that means his men are going to be making a lot of arrests. Robin Lustig presents the BBC's The World Tonight.

एरिजोना देश में अवैध रूप से प्रवेश करने वालों को लक्षित करने वाले एक सख्त नए कानून को लागू करने के बाद आप्रवासन पर अमेरिकी बहस के केंद्र में है। बीबीसी के रॉबिन लस्टिग ने मेक्सिको के साथ राज्य की सीमा की यात्रा की, और इस मुद्दे के अग्रिम मोर्चे पर रहने वालों से मुलाकात की।


Herefordshire: Is it an earthquake hotspot?

Summary: Earthquakes have the power to shake cities to the ground, yet in the UK about 200 a year rumble under our feet mostly unnoticed. Your Questions led us to investigate earthquakes in Herefordshire - where one expert thinks the county is a hotspot for these hidden tremors.

By Danielle HaydenBBC News "Herefordshire experiences a lot of earthquakes compared to other areas," says David Galloway, seismologist at the British Geological Survey (BGS). More than 100 have been recorded in the county in the last 40 years - and five small tremors have happened already this year, he says. Hereford was named twice in the BGS list of the most significant British earthquakes - with magnitudes of 5.2 in 1863 and 5.3 in 1896. The largest-known earthquake in the UK had a magnitude of 6.1 and happened in the North Sea on 7 June 1931. Although the majority of earthquakes go unobserved by those not in the know, one or two a month are felt and can cause alarm. Mr Galloway says the most recent "widely felt" tremor, in Bromyard in 2008, had a magnitude of 3.6 and affected areas between Malvern and Worcester. He says people described the quake as feeling like "a lorry crashing in to the side of their house" and more than a dozen people contacted the police. One Malvern resident told the Telegraph: "I saw the wardrobe doors rattle and thought someone was trapped in it. It was terrifying." "There has been a number of earthquakes in Herefordshire, some only detected by our BGS seismometers but some larger ones which were widely felt all over the region," Mr Galloway says. "And also bear in mind that some other earthquakes have occurred out of the region but were felt in Herefordshire, for example the magnitude 5.1 Shropshire earthquake on 2 April 1990." Since 1975, 108 earthquakes have been recorded in Herefordshire, but barely any hit headlines. This is because they register as low on the seismograph, which measures the magnitude of the earthquake, from 1 for small to 10 for super intense. This information is gathered from a network of more than 100 seismograph stations across the UK with the closest being in Michaelchurch, Herefordshire. "We don't really know why so we record so many here, as earthquakes in the UK are random," says Mr Galloway. "The country is in the middle of [the Eurasian] plate, which is moving all the time, so it sometimes stresses certain areas. "But it does seem that places such as Herefordshire, Wales and North West Scotland are areas particularly prone to them." This story was inspired by Your Questions: "Has there ever been an earthquake in Hereford?"

भूकंपों में शहरों को जमीन पर हिला देने की शक्ति होती है, फिर भी ब्रिटेन में हर साल लगभग 200 लोग हमारे पैरों के नीचे गड़गड़ाते हैं, जिन पर ज्यादातर किसी का ध्यान नहीं जाता है। आपके प्रश्नों ने हमें हेयरफोर्डशायर में भूकंपों की जांच करने के लिए प्रेरित किया-जहां एक विशेषज्ञ का मानना है कि काउंटी इन छिपे हुए भूकंपों के लिए एक हॉटस्पॉट है।


What is Super Tuesday and how does it work?

Summary: Voters across America are preparing to take part in the biggest day of the 2020 election so far.

By Roland Hughes & Holly HonderichBBC News More than a year after the first Democratic candidates joined the race to take on Donald Trump, we've now reached Super Tuesday. Fourteen states will vote on which Democrat they want to run in November's election. Bernie Sanders is in the lead after the early contests. By Wednesday, we could have a clearer picture of who the nominee will be. What's happened so far? Democrats across the US have been taking part in a series of caucuses (essentially party meetings, where you vote publicly at the end) or primaries (secret ballots) to pick their preferred candidate. Bernie Sanders's success has come as a bit of a surprise. The Vermont senator lost out to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race, but he isn't a typical Democrat by any means (in fact, he sits as an Independent in the Senate). He's a staunch left-winger, so may struggle to convince the party's moderates if he becomes the candidate. He's also 78, and suffered a heart attack in the autumn. But he's proven extremely popular in the primaries so far across many age groups and ethnicities, and all the momentum is on his side. The handful of moderate Democrats running have split the vote, so it's made it hard for any of them to break out (and this has helped Sanders build up a lead). One of them, former vice-president and early favourite Joe Biden, underwhelmed before winning convincingly in South Carolina on Saturday. However, he has since seen a swell in momentum after centrist rivals Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar quit the race to endorse him. Ask me Sanders does not have the left lane to himself either - Elizabeth Warren, the experienced Massachusetts senator, shares several of his policy objectives but has not lived up to expectations. So might any of these candidates win the election in November? Honestly, it's too close to call, and there are so many unknown factors. Why does Super Tuesday matter? It's all about the delegates. Let's say Candidate A gets the most support in one state. Candidate B does OK, but not as well. Candidate A is then awarded the most delegates, and Candidate B fewer. The number of delegates available differs in each state. Later in the summer, those delegates will then vote for their candidate to become the Democratic nominee. The target for any candidate is to reach an unbeatable majority of 1,990 delegates. This is where Super Tuesday comes in. Up to now, only 155 delegates have been awarded in four states. On Super Tuesday, a massive 1,357 delegates will be distributed, and 14 states are voting. The two most populous, California and Texas, will take part - the former for the first time on Super Tuesday. Here's what is at stake in each state - the smallest to the largest - with some bonus nuggets of trivia thrown in. Who will do best? A no-brainer: Bernie Sanders. He is one of the state's senators, after all. Who could do well? Honestly? There's a chance no-one except Sanders will cross the 15% threshold of votes and get any delegates. He is extremely popular in his home state and won the 2016 primary here with 86% of the vote (though he eventually lost the nomination to Hillary Clinton). We could see the first results from here at about 19:00 local time (midnight GMT). One piece of context In a poll by Vermont Public Radio in February, almost a third of people said the economy, jobs and cost of living were among the main issues on their minds - although Vermont has the joint-lowest unemployment rate in the country, at 2.3%. State bird? Hermit thrush Who will do best? We're going to start sounding repetitive, but polls point to Bernie Sanders. In 2016, he won more than double the number of delegates claimed by Hillary Clinton here. Who could do well? There are more contenders than in 2016 which means Sanders' lead won't be as large. But billionaire Michael Bloomberg and Joe Biden are polling far behind. One piece of context This isn't the only thing on the ballot on Super Tuesday in Maine. There's also a referendum on whether to reject a law that would block religious and philosophical objections to vaccinations. State animal? Moose Who will do best? Clue: his name is an anagram of Desire Banners. Sanders won here convincingly in 2016. Who could do well? It's unlikely anyone will challenge Sanders. The most recent poll put Bloomberg in a distant second and former Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg in third, before he dropped out. Could Bloomberg win votes that might have gone to Buttigieg, and tighten the gap on Sanders? One piece of context Utah has not voted for a Democrat in the presidential election since 1964, when it picked Lyndon B Johnson. So whoever comes out on top here may not take the state in November. State gem? Topaz Who will do best? A recent poll by Hendrix College in Arkansas suggested Bloomberg's plan of concentrating on Super Tuesday states could pay off here. Who could do well? Biden and Sanders possibly, although it's a close-run thing. Forecasting site FiveThirtyEight gives Biden a stronger chance - the vote could be split fairly evenly. One piece of context It might not matter who Democrats pick: Arkansas has opted for a Democrat in a presidential election only twice in 40 years (and even then, it was local boy Bill Clinton, twice). State dinosaur? Arkansaurus fridayi Who will do best? It's tough to say. Biden, maybe just. Who could do well? Bloomberg and Sanders, according to Oklahoma polling group Sooner last week. One piece of context Fracking is a big issue here, and Sanders and Warren (who was born in Oklahoma City) have both proposed measures to ban it. The underground disposal of waste water used in fracking has led to a rise in earthquakes in this part of the US. State beverage? Milk Who will do best? We're in safe Biden territory. He has the support of plenty of senior Democrats in Alabama, and is widely liked among African Americans there. Who could do well? Biden's lead in the polls looks fairly comfortable, but Bloomberg and Sanders appear most likely to challenge him. One piece of context Republicans are also deciding who will run in November's Senate race, where they are very hopeful of ousting Democrat Doug Jones (and making it harder for Democrats to win the Senate later this year). The favourite right now is Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump's former attorney general. State amphibian? Red Hills Salamander Who will do best? It's close. FiveThirtyEight suggests Biden's chances here have improved a lot over the past few days. Who could do well? There has been very little polling here, but it could well be Sanders, who was a distant second to Hillary Clinton here in 2016. One piece of context In Tennessee, who votes may be a bigger issue than who wins - it has one of the worst voter turnout rates in the US. In the last presidential election, just over half of registered voters turned out, 10 points below the national average. State wild animal? Raccoon Who will do best? FiveThirtyEight gives Sanders a seven in eight chance of winning most votes here. You may notice that a picture is starting to form. Who could do well? The site puts Biden in a distant second, with Elizabeth Warren just behind him. One piece of context Once a Republican stronghold, out-of-state migration and population growth has turned Colorado increasingly "blue" - a Democratic tilt that extends down the ballot. In its latest predictions, election forecaster Sabato's Crystal Ball changed its rating of the state's US Senate race from "toss up" to "leans Democratic". State cactus? Claret Cup Cactus Who will do best? It was all set to be Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar until she withdrew on Monday. She has now endorsed Biden, so... maybe Biden? Who could do well? Sanders had been close behind Klobuchar in second, and is likely to pick up a decent amount of delegates here. One piece of context This part of the US was badly hit by Donald Trump's trade war with China - advocacy group Tariffs Hurt The Heartland said businesses in Minnesota had to pay $797m (£604m) more in tariffs as a result. Will that translate into more support for Democrats in this election? State mushroom? Morel Who will do best? Sanders, maybe. But it will be close. Who could do well? Elizabeth Warren, but it might be embarrassing if she doesn't win, given she is the senior senator for the state. Buttigieg's withdrawal may help her. One piece of context A massive 40% of the candidates left in the race (two people) live in Massachusetts - as well as Warren, the other is Michael Bloomberg, who lives in Medford. Despite actor Michael Douglas campaigning for him there, he is not expected to do especially well here. State fish? Cod Who will do best? This will be a really interesting one to follow. The vote could be split fairly evenly between Sanders, Bloomberg and Biden. Who could do well? See above. One piece of context Watch the results in the Washington DC suburbs. This suburban vote will be crucial across the country in November's election (as it was in the 2018 mid-terms). How will the nationwide favourite, Bernie Sanders, perform there? Will moderates in the suburbs warm to him? State dog? American foxhound Who will do best? It's quite a similar picture to neighbouring Virginia, and will also be worth following - it's close between Sanders and Biden. Who could do well? Bloomberg was polling well here at one point, but is drifting behind a little by now. One piece of context This will also be a battleground state in November. As with Virginia, watch the crucially important suburbs of cities like Charlotte and Raleigh. But watch who they vote for, and whether that person ends up becoming the nominee. The way the votes go here in November might help decide the election. State fruit? Scuppernong grape Who will do best? We're into the big league now. It's very close between Sanders and Biden here. Either way, it looks likely Sanders will claim a large amount of delegates and by the time the results come in from Texas, his lead could be big. Who could do well? It is likely to be a good night for Biden here too. Elizabeth Warren is third or fourth in most polls. One piece of context There's reason to think that the so-called sleeping giant of the Texas Hispanic vote - now almost two million voters - is about to wake up. In the 2018 midterms, 46.9% of registered Hispanic voters turned out, a leap from 24.4% in 2014. State crustacean? Texas Gulf Shrimp Who will do best? If Sanders really does have an eight in nine chance of winning most votes here, as FiveThirtyEight predicts, you might as well call him the nominee. This is where Sanders' appeal to his "multiracial coalition" pays off - he looks like he could do well with African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans here. Who could do well? Right now, Biden looks like being a distant second. One piece of context This will be a Super Tuesday debut for California. Lawmakers moved the state's primary up a month from its traditional spot in June in an effort to increase California's impact. The shift could matter: the country's most populous state will award 30% of the delegates on Super Tuesday. State motto? Eureka! *American Samoa (six delegates) and Democrats Abroad (13) are also voting on Super Tuesday

पूरे अमेरिका में मतदाता 2020 के चुनाव के अब तक के सबसे बड़े दिन में भाग लेने की तैयारी कर रहे हैं।


1MDB CEO: We are the 'most investigated company'

Summary: Arul Kanda, the head of the Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB has an impressive track record of restructuring ailing companies and making a profit from them. A former banker, he's worked in the UK and in the Middle East, and has had a string of successes.

Karishma VaswaniAsia business correspondent@KarishmaBBCon Twitter So it did seem surprising to me that he would be willing to stake his reputation on turning around the scandal hit fund 1MDB, after it amassed more than $11bn (£7bn) worth of debts. And what a way to hit the ground running. Within the first six months of him taking on the job, 1MDB was hit by allegations that $700m from companies linked to 1MDB were transferred to Prime Minister Najib Razak's personal bank account. The claims have triggered investigations by some international authorities including the Swiss. Both the Prime Minister and 1MDB have denied any wrongdoing and Malaysia's anti-corruption commission said the money was donations from a private donor in the Middle East. But the questions keep coming - not least from Malaysians themselves who are asking where the money's gone. Mr Kanda has a ready reply to those who would hold him and the Prime Minister to account. "1MDB today, through the actions of the government, is now the most investigated company in the country," Mr Kanda told me in his first international television interview. "Whatever happened in the past is being thoroughly reviewed and investigated". Restructuring expert Even before this story broke in July, questions were being asked about the purpose and performance of 1MDB, which has changed auditors twice since 2009. Malaysia already has a sovereign wealth fund, Khazanah, which makes investments for the country's national development. 1MDB was set up in 2009 by Mr Najib, who chairs its advisory board and also serves as Malaysia's finance minister, with similar ambitions. The fund borrowed money to buy major real estate and power assets in the country and abroad, with the intention of developing them and turn them into profitable entities. But it's now in the process of selling off stakes in some of its prized energy assets in an attempt to raise cash and pay down some of its multi-billion dollar debt. Mr Kanda stressed 1MDB's financials will be fine. "The value of assets outweigh value of debt," he told me at their office in Kuala Lumpur. The value of assets can be proven given bids we've received". Mr Kanda told me that the company would start to see a profit sometime next year, after they've sold off some of their key assets. But as one opposition party member said to me that any business that has to sell off their key assets to stay alive really doesn't have much to show for itself. Others in the financial circles have said they don't expect to see 1MDB last beyond next year. Economic woes And then there's the politics - never far away from the world of business in Malaysia's intricately connected society. Since the scandal broke, calls for the prime minister to step down have been growing from protestors, and even from the high profile former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who still holds a lot of influence in the country. This scandal couldn't have come at a worse time for the Malaysian economy. It's been particularly hard hit by the global slowdown and collapse in commodity prices. Making things worse, the Malaysian ringgit, has lost about 13% of its value this year, making it the worst performing currency in Asia. Most Malaysians are used to the culture of cronyism and patronage amongst their public officials. But any hint of mismanagement of public funds - at a time when they're grappling with the soaring cost of living - is likely to lead even higher levels of resentment with their leaders. With additional reporting by Leisha Chi

मलेशियाई राज्य निवेश कोष 1एम. डी. बी. के प्रमुख अरुल कांडा का बीमार कंपनियों के पुनर्गठन और उनसे लाभ कमाने का एक प्रभावशाली ट्रैक रिकॉर्ड है। एक पूर्व बैंकर, उन्होंने यू. के. और मध्य पूर्व में काम किया है, और उन्हें कई सफलताएं मिली हैं।


Are e-petitions a waste of time?

Summary: Members of the public have a new way to influence what is debated in Parliament - a re-launched and beefed up e-petitions system. Will it improve engagement between the people and their representatives - or is it all just window dressing?

By Gary ConnorPolitical Reporter, The Westminster Hour, Radio 4 Camilla Goddard maintains over 60 hives across London and is just one of many in her industry concerned about the effect that neonicotinoid pesticides can have on bees. "Bees are having a hard time anyway, with parasites and variations in the weather every year. I've had instances of bees being killed by pesticides. It's a horrible thing to see." The government temporarily lifted a ban on neonicotinoids in certain parts of the country, earlier this year - a decision which was described as "scandalous" at the time by environmental groups. Now that cause has been taken up by Liz St. Clair, an "amateur gardener" who is using the new system to raise awareness of the plight of bees and has gathered over 85,000 signatures for her e-petition. "I saw that there were several campaigns out there to try to stop these pesticides from being reintroduced into British fields. "The government isn't obliged to take notice of anybody else's petition, but they'll be obliged to take notice of something on their own website." E-petitions - a brief history Downing Street launched an e-petition site in November 2006 It proved instantly popular with 2,860 active petitions being set up in the first six months Almost 1.8 million people backed a petition calling on Tony Blair's government to "scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy" An unnamed government minister branded the site an own-goal thought up by a "prat" - but road pricing disappeared off the government's agenda More than 50,000 people backed a petition calling for Jeremy Clarkson to be made prime minister prompting a jokey YouTube response from No 10 Other spoof petitions on the now defunct Downing Street e-petitions site included a call for Spandau Ballet's Gold to be made the national anthem In 2011, the coalition government launched a new e-petition site, with the prospect of a debate if 100,000 signatures are reached In the same year, the Obama administration launched its We the People e-petitions site, although it has been criticised as a PR exercise Listen to Gary's Westminster Hour piece on e-petitions Under the previous system, petitions were directed to government departments rather than MPs - just over 30 were debated in four years. Now when a petition that passes 10,000 signatures, it receives a response from the government, and there's a new cross-party committee of MPs which will look at each petition that gets 100.000 signatures and consider it for a parliamentary debate. Labour's Helen Jones, who chairs the Petitions Committee, said the difficulty at the moment was juggling the volume of petitions submitted with the amount of time available for debates to take place. Ms Jones also said the committee will also be able to consider whether to hold debates on subjects that fail to reach the 100,000 threshold but are "worthy of debate but would not get time elsewhere". "We're going through a process of learning ourselves how to deal with petitions, but also of engaging the public to allow them to understand what can be done and what can't be done. "That's a two-way process and will take some time." 'Secret ballot' Lord Lisvane, the former clerk of the House of Commons, and an now a crossbench peer, said that petitions had been around for "almost as long as parliament has been around". "Petitions were the origin of legislation, and were a way of saying 'fix this'. "The secret ballot, universal male suffrage, the abolition of the slave trade - they took a long time to come about, but they started through a process of petitioning." Anyone can start a petition, as long as they are a British citizen or a UK resident. More than 1,400 have chosen to so far, on topics as diverse as the introduction of mandatory drugs tests for MPs, the introduction of a UK national day, and minimum prices for milk. Campaigns can quickly go viral on social media, gathering thousands of supportive signatures in a few hours. But some question whether responding to this form of campaigning, however popular, is an effective use of politicians' time. 'Raising a topic' Philosopher Roger Scruton argues that we elect our MPs to represent our interests and think seriously about issues. "People are social animals who respond to collective emotions, they can respond to crowd feelings. "We all know that we can feel these crowd emotions at one moment and retire to our private quarters and recognise that we were wrong. "We want MPs to be the same, not just to be driven along on the whims of collective emotion, as though they were not duty bound to think things through." Several parliamentary debates which were prompted by e-petitions have already taken place, on contracts and conditions in the NHS, the legalisation of cannabis and immigration. Currently the ten most popular petitions on Parliament's website have collectively attracted some 1.7m signatures of support. A debate in Parliament is a good way to raise the profile of an issue with law makers but it does not automatically follow that there will be a change in the law. Labour's Helen Jones warns that signing a petition is only the first move towards achieving change. "It's not the end, it is a way of raising a topic, getting it on the radar and getting it talked about. "But I think it's very important that people realise that getting a debate is often only the beginning of the process."

संसद में जिस पर बहस हो रही है, उसे प्रभावित करने के लिए जनता के सदस्यों के पास एक नया तरीका है-एक फिर से शुरू की गई और ई-याचिका प्रणाली को मजबूत किया गया है। क्या इससे लोगों और उनके प्रतिनिधियों के बीच जुड़ाव में सुधार होगा-या यह सब सिर्फ खिड़कियों की सजावट है?


The Americans who 'adopt' other people's embryos

Summary: Couples who struggle to conceive a child are sometimes given the option of using a donated embryo. In the US this is commonly referred to as "embryo adoption", particularly at Christian clinics, where it is regarded as saving a life - and where the future parents may have to be married and heterosexual to be eligible for treatment.

By Jasmine Taylor-ColemanBBC News, Tennessee When Jennifer and Aaron Wilson found they could not get pregnant, they knew exactly what they wanted to do. The couple from North Carolina had the choice of starting in vitro fertilisation (IVF), in which mature eggs are fertilised with sperm in a laboratory. Or they could have tried to adopt a child already in need of a home. Instead they applied to a specialist Christian fertility clinic in Knoxville, Tennessee - the National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC) - which promised to help them "adopt" an embryo. Doctors often create extra embryos when a couple undergoes IVF, in case multiple rounds of treatment are needed. But this can leave many left over. More than 600,000 are currently being held in frozen storage in the US, most of them waiting to be used by the couple that created them the next time they want to try to have a child. But not all of these embryos are needed, and it is estimated that one in 10 are available for embryo donation. For many couples who have had IVF treatment, what happens to those no-longer-needed frozen embryos is a question that requires careful consideration - should the embryos be kept indefinitely in cryo-preservation or discarded? If the couple believes human life starts at conception, this can be an urgent moral dilemma. A similar dilemma confronts pro-life couples seeking fertility treatment. Should they opt for IVF, and add to the ranks of frozen embryos preserved in liquid nitrogen? Or should they instead "adopt" a frozen embryo from a donor? "We're Christian and we're very pro-life so we thought, 'Oh my goodness, this is a great way of putting our pro-life beliefs into action by giving these frozen babies a chance to be born,'" says Jennifer Wilson. From the couple's point of view the embryos represent tiny lives, frozen in time, that need saving. "We believe the Bible has several passages that speak to the fact that life begins at fertilisation," says Aaron. "For us, you take something like IVF, which typically produces a lot of embryos - we view that as a lot of children. Our concern, as Christians, is how do we respond to that, how do we care for this life?" In November 2010, Jennifer Wilson got pregnant at the NEDC's small clinic in an out-of-town retail park with twins from donated embryos. Abel and Belle have just turned five. The Wilsons recently returned to the centre in the hope of adding to their family. Sitting in a hospital bed at the NEDC, Jennifer was handed a photo of three donated embryos that had been carefully thawed - ready to be transferred into her womb. "The procedure is not comfortable but it's quick," says Jennifer. Aaron had to wait outside as his wife was wheeled into the operation room. Lying back, with her legs in stirrups, Jennifer watched ultrasound images on a screen as Dr Jeffrey Keenan, president of the NEDC, used a catheter to insert the three clusters of cells into her womb. It was over in a matter of minutes. All Jennifer and Aaron could do next was wait to find out whether any of the embryos would become a foetus and then, with luck, a baby. They knew very little about that potential baby apart from its race. The embryos transferred did not come from the same genetic parents as Abel and Belle, and the Wilsons had chosen not to have any contact with them. The only thing they knew about them was the state they lived in. Other families have different arrangements, however. After undergoing IVF, Andy and Shannon Weber from Alabama had two children, now aged eight and five, and wanted to donate their leftover embryos. "Our belief is that life begins at conception and the little embryos, they are human life, not just a couple of cells put together. We definitely couldn't destroy them or let them sit there in cryo-preservation forever," says Andy. But he and his wife were also keen that they should go to a "good, solid Christian" family. "We wanted a married couple - a man and a woman. We didn't really want a single parent or any sort of alternative lifestyle," says Andy. "By no means did we care about race or ethnicity. We just wanted the embryos to go to a good home." Unlike in the UK where equality laws mean clinics have to treat all patients equally, centres in the US can help donors select parents for their embryos based on criteria such as race, sexuality and religion. The Webers had Skype conversations with their potential recipient family before deciding that they were suitable. Their chosen couple, Amber and Jerry Lacey, now have a one-year-old son, named Sawyer, from the embryos the Webers donated and the two families spent last Thanksgiving together. "We see them as uncle, aunt and cousin," says Andy. He and his wife have not yet told their two children that their baby "cousin" is in fact a genetic sibling. "We're going to wait until they can grasp the whole idea." Since 2002, the US government has been giving between $1m and $4m every year to organisations that promote awareness of embryo donation and "adoption" (the government's own website uses this term). The NEDC, which has brought about the birth of nearly 600 babies using donated embryos, has been one of the main recipients of these funds. Another is the Snowflakes Embryo Adoption programme, run by the Nightlight Christian Adoption Agency, which has led to the birth of more than 400 children, and helped introduce the term "snowflake baby" into the lexicon, as a way of referring to someone born in this way. While using donated embryos remains far less common than using donated sperm or eggs, the popularity of this treatment has doubled over the last 10 years, much of it driven by conservative Christian and pro-life groups. Asked to explain why the NEDC bars same-sex couples and single women from receiving donated embryos, Dr Jeffery Keenan says: "So many people think, 'It's my right to have a child,'... I don't see that. Just because we can do something medically, doesn't make it right." But other fertility experts disagree with the centre's approach. "I do not think that here in the US we should be allowing these organisations to make these decisions about who can become a parent and who can't," says Barbara Collura, head of Resolve, the National Infertility Association. Embryo donation Meanwhile, Dr Owen Davis, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), warns that organisations refusing treatment to single women or same-sex couples could be vulnerable to anti-discrimination lawsuits. "Medical societies certainly feel that one should not discriminate in a medical practice based on sexual orientation, religion or marital status," he says. He is also concerned about language that portrays the embryo as a human life, rather than a group of cells. "Terminology is very important," says Davis. "These frozen embryos could not possibly survive outside the body. Their cells have not differentiated, not become a foetus, and certainly not gestated and delivered." Attributing "personhood" to donated embryos has "dangerous" implications for both abortion rights and other forms of fertility treatment, says Barbara Collura. "If embryos are viewed are a human being, does that mean destroying or abandoning them after IVF is murder?" she asks. In fact in both IVF and embryo donation it's likely that a certain number of embryos will die - which is one reason why the Catholic Church is opposed to them. But while the Webers regard embryos as human lives - and there are reports of others like them holding funerals for discarded embryos - they stop short of describing the destruction of an embryo as murder. "I don't know," says Andy. "I guess that's a question that only our God can answer." Jennifer and Aaron know too well that there is no guarantee a donated embryo will become a child in their arms. Their pregnancy tests after the latest round of treatment came out negative. They cannot have any more embryos transferred at the NEDC, as they have now had the maximum three cycles of treatment without success, so for now their hope of having babies through embryo donation has run out. Jennifer says the outcome was a "sad" end to a "hard" six years of attempts to get pregnant. But she says they still feel their "mission" to save the frozen embryos has been accomplished. "Even if we lose them, we believe those lives are with the Lord in Heaven, and that's better than being left in cryo-preservation," she says. And despite the loss, Jennifer and Aaron do have what many others who have struggled with infertility dream of. They have two healthy, happy children. Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook

जो जोड़े एक बच्चे को गर्भ धारण करने के लिए संघर्ष करते हैं, उन्हें कभी-कभी दान किए गए भ्रूण का उपयोग करने का विकल्प दिया जाता है। अमेरिका में इसे आमतौर पर "भ्रूण गोद लेने" के रूप में जाना जाता है, विशेष रूप से ईसाई क्लीनिकों में, जहां इसे एक जीवन बचाने के रूप में माना जाता है-और जहां भावी माता-पिता को इलाज के लिए पात्र होने के लिए विवाहित और विषमलैंगिक होना पड़ सकता है।


Warning amid new Aberdeen City Council pay offer

Summary: Union leaders have warned they will pursue tribunals for hundreds of members at Aberdeen City Council if a row over pay is not resolved.

Legal and industrial action was earlier threatened over the plan to scrap a 1% annual rise in pay for workers to help make savings. A new offer in a bid to settle the dispute will go before the full council next week. GMB Scotland warned demands would have to be met to avoid action. The council is trying to make about £120m of savings over the next five years. Janet Adams, GMB Scotland's regional organiser for Aberdeen City Council, said: "Until we reach a satisfactory conclusion we will continue to actively pursue these claims at the tribunal."

संघ के नेताओं ने चेतावनी दी है कि अगर वेतन को लेकर विवाद का समाधान नहीं किया गया तो वे एबरडीन सिटी काउंसिल में सैकड़ों सदस्यों के लिए न्यायाधिकरण का पीछा करेंगे।


Who deserves a blue plaque?

Summary: England's first blue plaque scheme started with a tribute to a controversial poet in 1867 and now, almost 150 years later, it has celebrated by unveiling a plaque to a food writer. So who qualifies for a plaque?

By Duncan LeatherdaleBBC News The country's first blue plaque no longer exists - the disc marking 24 Holles Street as the birthplace of Romantic poet Lord Byron was removed when the building was replaced with a department store. But the scheme started by the Society of Arts is still going strong, and has been replicated in hundreds of towns and cities around the country. Even within the capital there is a plethora of plaques by other organisations, but the original programme, now managed by English Heritage, has seen more than 900 installed, the latest of which was to food writer Elizabeth David. And they are very strict about who gets a plaque. Recipients must have been dead for at least 20 years and must have lived at the location they are being connected with for either a long time or during an important period, such as when writing their seminal work or creating their key invention. "The 20-year rule is quite important to us," said Alexandra Carson, national PR executive for English Heritage. "It gives us the benefit of hindsight and allows us to better judge their long-term legacy. "Also, the building has to be the same as it was when they lived there because a big part of it is bringing history to life. "It's a really nice way of detailing the history of London and linking people and places." There are thousands of blue plaques around England noting significant people and the places they were born, lived, worked, visited or died. But, as there is no national body governing such commemoration, the criteria used to determine who and where gets a plaque vary widely from place to place. It is left to local councils, charities and history organisations to police the plaques issued in their areas. Outside of the original scheme, the majority of plaques can be loosely grouped into four categories: birthplace, residence, visited by and place of death. For example, a house on Prince's Street in Bishop Auckland is marked as a childhood home of Stan Laurel; Guy Fawkes' birthplace in York and the home of his parents are both labelled and the house in Southwark where Boris Karloff was born has a plaque - it is now a fish and chip shop. Perfecting the plaque Cornwall-based ceramicists Frank and Sue Ashworth have been making the plaques since 1984. It is a painstaking process of precision and patience, Mrs Ashworth says. "You owe it to the person named on the plaque to get it right, and people will notice if anything looks wrong, the finished plaque has a beauty and symmetry about it." The font was designed by Harry Hooper and each plaque, made from a secret mixture of clays, takes about three and a half weeks - assuming there are no mishaps. "Things do go wrong occasionally, for example a crack might appear," Mrs Ashworth said. "On one occasion I forgot to put the English Heritage logo on, another time we were given the wrong dates. They could be salvaged though without having to remake them." Each letter is made by hand and the plaque goes through two three-day long firings in kilns reaching 1,200C (2,192F). The couple, who have since been joined in the business by son Justin, have made more than 300 plaques for both schemes and private individuals. "You have to be very patient but it is enjoyable. Some people might think it is repetitive but as soon as you see it that way you are done." For some places, fleeting visits are as worthy of note as long-time residence. Malcolm X's visit to Marshall Street in Smethwick in the West Midlands nine days before his assassination in 1965 is commemorated, while in Norwich there is a plaque marking the day in 1971 when Muhammad Ali visited a supermarket as part of a promotional tour by Ovaltine. Malvern is home to a number of plaques marking famous visitors. There is the inn where Chronicles of Narnia creator CS Lewis "frequently met literary and hill-walking friends", the favoured hotel of exiled Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie between 1936 and 1941 and the rooms used by a seven-year-old Franklin D Roosevelt when he convalesced in the town in 1889. "Our plaques are for people and places that had an impact on the history of Malvern," said Brian Iles from the Malvern Civic Society. "But they are not just for people who everybody knows, we also want to introduce important people who everybody should know about. "We want to celebrate our history and make sure people don't forget it." Florence Nightingale and Charles Darwin are also commemorated for having visited Malvern for hydrotherapy in the town's famously low-mineral water. When it comes to being remembered for visits, Dickens is one of the most prolific subjects with at least 44 plaques around the country, including at the Portsmouth house where he was born, the Barnard Castle rooms where he spent two nights in 1838 while researching Nicholas Nickleby and the Assembly Rooms in Scarborough where he gave readings in 1858. There are even plaques for his characters such as in Market Square in Dover where David Copperfield apparently "rested on the doorstep and ate a loaf" while searching for his aunt Betsey Trotwood. There are two chief types of people being commemorated - famous figures, such as actors, writers and politicians, and relative unknowns who invented, created or achieved something remarkable. "The majority fall into the second category," said Ms Carson. "Being famous is secondary, it is more about what they contributed to society and whether that is worthy of being commemorated. "And that's what really makes the plaques so interesting, it's people you haven't heard of but who have made some giant contribution to our lives." One such example is on the former home of meteorologist Luke Howard in Tottenham who invented the names given to clouds. His inscription simply reads: "Namer of clouds". Life in a plaque house Since 2007 Walle Ogunyemi and his family have lived in Chislehurst at the former home of William Willett, renowned house-builder and the initiator of British Summer Time. A plaque to Willett was installed in the 1970s and Mr Ogunyemi said several people a week stop to look at it. "It's an honour to live there with the history associated with the property," he said. "You get used to people standing and staring at your home, we allow two or three people in a year from the local history society or relatives of William Willett. "But people standing outside have never really bothered us, they are always very polite and there is never any malice." In Birmingham there are plaques to the inventor of plastic and the discoverer of oxygen, while Norwich has commemorations for Britain's first black circus owner and the woman who devised one of the most famous methods of teaching music. In very rare cases a property becomes a "double-plaquer", having hosted two notable people. A house on Paulton's Square in Chelsea was the home first of playwright Samuel Beckett in 1934 and then, from 1953 to 1974, physicist Patrick Blackett. Places from moments in history are also often commemorated with plaques. For example, Frome station has a plaque celebrating the fact that Leonard Woolf took the 10.29 train from there to London, on 11 January 1912, to propose to writer Adeline Virginia Stephen, later known as Virginia Woolf. In Saltburn there is a plaque commemorating the world speed record attempts made by members of Leeds and Middlesbrough Motor Clubs on the beach in the early 20th Century and in Wolverhampton the country's first set of traffic lights are celebrated. Although the plaques are awarded by organisations, they are more often than not suggested by the public. "We look at every application," Ms Carson said. "We are always looking for new and interesting people worthy of being remembered."

इंग्लैंड की पहली नीली पट्टिका योजना 1867 में एक विवादास्पद कवि को श्रद्धांजलि के साथ शुरू हुई थी और अब, लगभग 150 साल बाद, यह एक खाद्य लेखक के लिए एक पट्टिका का अनावरण करके मनाया जाता है। तो कौन एक पट्टिका के लिए योग्य है?


Biffy Clyro announce new UK tour

Summary: Biffy Clyro have confirmed details of a new UK tour

Following the release of their fifth album Only Revolutions last month the Ayrshire trio will take to the road in April 2010. The dates begin in Perth on 29 April before concluding at London's Hammersmith Apollo on 6 May. Tickets go on sale at 9am on 9 December. The full dates are: Perth Concert Hall - 29 April Sheffield O2 Academy - 30 Blackpool Empress Ballroom - May 1 Leicester De Montfort Hall - 2 Portsmouth Guildhall - 4 Bristol Colston Hall - 5 London HMV Hammersmith Apollo - 6

बिफी क्लाइरो ने ब्रिटेन के एक नए दौरे के विवरण की पुष्टि की है।


Five takeaways from Biden's White House cabinet

Summary: It's been a long three months, but US President Joe Biden has now finalised his White House cabinet - the top aides that will guide his administration's oversight of the federal government. On Thursday, the president sat down for the first time with his assembled team.

Anthony ZurcherNorth America reporter@awzurcheron Twitter With Labour Secretary Marty Walsh's Senate confirmation last week, Biden filled all 15 of his presidential cabinet secretary positions. The confirmation process began slowly, with delays in appointees being named and Senate confirmation hearings conducted in part because of drawn-out Republican challenges to Biden's presidential victory and Donald Trump's impeachment trial. By roughly the 60-day mark of his presidency, however, Biden has caught up with most of his recent predecessors in having his department heads installed in office. He is also the first president since Ronald Reagan in 1981 to have all his original cabinet nominees successfully confirmed. Here's a look at five key takeaways from the process. A diverse team - with an exception Of Biden's 15 cabinet secretary picks, only five are straight, white men. That's the lowest percentage of any presidency. (Donald Trump, by contrast, had 11; Bill Clinton, the previous record-holder, had six out of 14.) Biden's cabinet has a number of firsts, as well. Janet Yellen is the first woman Treasury secretary. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is the first Native American woman to lead a department. Pete Buttigieg became the first openly LGBT cabinet secretary. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is the first black person to head the Pentagon. Xavier Becerra and Alejandro Mayorkas are the first Hispanic chiefs of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, respectively. The graphic above shows all of Mr Biden's nominees - those with black and white photos are white men, while those with colour photographs are in one or more of these categories: women; people belonging to ethnic minorities; member of the LGBT community. One absence from Biden's top cabinet appointments is anyone of Asian American or Pacific islander (AAPI) heritage - the first such omission in 21 years. It's a development that has generated a critical reaction from some Democrats, even though Vice-President Kamala Harris is of South Asian descent. "To be told that, 'Well, you have Kamala Harris - we're very proud of her; you don't need anybody else' is insulting," said Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth. Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies President Madalene Xuan-Trang Mielke warned in a January statement that Biden risked alienating the fastest growing racial or ethnic group in the US electorate. In the 2020 presidential election, 11 million Americans of AAPI descent cast ballots, supporting Biden over Trump by a two-to-one margin according to exit polling. "The brazen exclusion of AAPIs in this incoming administration abandons and erases the AAPI community," she said. Narrow victories The average margin of victory for Biden's nominees in the Senate was 48 votes - a comfortable, bipartisan majority. Only two cabinet secretary nominees faced serious tests in the chamber - Interior Secretary Haaland and Health and Human Services Secretary Becerra. Haaland, a former congresswoman from New Mexico, received staunch opposition over her past views on energy policy. During confirmation hearings, she was repeatedly pressed on her opposition to oil shale "fracking" on public lands as well as her past support for the "Green New Deal" plan to address climate change. In the end, only four Republicans voted for confirmation. Becerra, a former member of Congress and attorney general of California, had the closest vote of any Biden appointee - 50 to 49. Anti-abortion groups dug in against the nominee for his past support for legal cases defending abortion rights and regulating conservative "pregnancy counselling" centres. Becerra also faced opposition for his outspoken defence of Democratic-passed healthcare reforms and support for the rights of undocumented migrants. Although Republicans criticised Becerra's relative lack of health-policy experience, that hadn't been much of a consideration in past health secretary nominees. Rather, both confirmations indicate that hot-button political issues like abortion, immigration and environmental regulation can continue to move votes within the Republican Party - something the Biden team will have to keep in mind in the policy battles to come. That these nominees were people belonging to ethnic minorities was also duly noted by some liberals. "There seems to be a pattern here," Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii told Politico. A Neera Miss Although all of Biden's department secretaries were confirmed, he didn't post a clean sheet when it came to cabinet-level appointments. Neera Tanden, chosen to head of the White House budget office, was the only nominee Biden had to withdraw in the face of a losing confirmation vote. Back before Democrats swept the two Georgia runoff elections and it appeared that Republicans were going to maintain control of the US Senate, Tanden was considered by some to be a sacrificial lamb of sorts - a more controversial nominee that Republicans could vote down, proving to their base they were opposing the Biden administration without jeopardising any of Biden's higher-level picks. With Democrats in control, it seemed for a time that Tanden - a longtime Democratic operative with close ties to former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton - might squeak through. She didn't. The proximate cause of Tanden's political demise was her history of inflammatory tweets directed at her political opponents on the progressive left and the right. It didn't help that she focused her online ire at some moderate Republican senators by name, including Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who might otherwise have been cajoled into supporting her. When moderate Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia and those in-play Republicans came out against confirmation, her fate was sealed. The larger lesson from the Tanden affair is that political moderates are going to hold Biden to his "new tone" rhetoric when it comes to administration staff. Tanden's defenders were quick to identify Trump-era appointees who were even more confrontational on social media (not to mention the Trump himself), but - for centrist senators, at least - the "what about" defence didn't fly. "Neera Tanden has neither the experience nor the temperament to lead this critical agency," Collins wrote in a statement announcing her opposition to Tanden. "Her past actions have demonstrated exactly the kind of animosity that President Biden has pledged to transcend." The Republican "no" brigade - and "yes" contingent Over the course of 15 votes on Biden's cabinet choices, clear patterns began to emerge about who in the Senate will vehemently oppose the new administration and who might be open to outreach. At the top of the former list is Missouri's Josh Hawley, who voted against every one of Biden's top appointments. He's positioned himself as the hardest of hard-liners against the president, having also led the push to challenge Biden's election certification in Congress just hours after the Capitol was stormed by pro-Trump rioters. Just behind Hawley in lockstep opposition are Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida - both of whom only voted for Defence Secretary Austin. Both, like Hawley, are also eyeing 2024 White House bids. Presidential ambitions, in fact, seem to be the best predictor of whether a Republican senator would vote against a Biden nominee, suggesting a political calculation that any co-operation with the new administration will be political poison in 2024 Republican presidential primaries. On the flip side, the group of Republicans most likely to cross the aisle to vote with Democrats has also revealed itself - although their identities shouldn't be much of a surprise. Collins of Maine supported all of Biden's nominees. Murkowski did for every one except Becerra. They, and Mitt Romney of Utah (with 13 "yes" votes), also backed Trump's impeachment conviction in February and are clearly beyond worrying about angering their party's base. A number of other moderates (Rob Portman of Ohio, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Dan Sullivan of Alaska) and old Senate hands (Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley of Iowa) also approved a double-digit number of Biden picks. If the Biden is going to cobble together any kind of bipartisan coalition to support his legislative agenda, that former group might be a good place to start. Just the beginning Rod Rosenstein wasn't exactly a household name when Donald Trump nominated him to be deputy attorney general - but that changed quickly when Rosenstein, acting in place of recused attorney general Jeff Sessions, appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russia's alleged 2016 election meddling. Biden still has to fill out much of his administration with the people who do the actual work in the various government departments and agencies. Although the public may not be paying attention, politicians are. On Monday, Biden pulled the nomination of Elizabeth Klein - a liberal law professor and climate activist - to be deputy interior secretary because of objections from Republican Senator Murkowski. Democratic Senator Duckworth threatened to block all straight, white male Biden nominees unless Asian-Pacific-Islanders were given more appointments. Political skirmishes like these fly below the public's radar, but they can go a long way toward setting the tone for relations between the executive and legislative branches of the US government even when, as today, one party controls both. These lower-level appointments can also be cause for celebration among various constituencies within the Democratic Party, such as when Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine recently became the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the US Senate. The Washington Post is tracking 790 Senate-confirmed executive positions. Of those, only 29 have been confirmed, 37 are awaiting a vote and 458 have yet to be filled. There will be plenty of other opportunities for history - and controversy - in the days ahead.

तीन महीने हो गए हैं, लेकिन अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति जो बाइडन ने अब अपने व्हाइट हाउस मंत्रिमंडल को अंतिम रूप दे दिया है-शीर्ष सहायक जो उनके प्रशासन की संघीय सरकार की निगरानी का मार्गदर्शन करेंगे। गुरुवार को, राष्ट्रपति पहली बार अपनी एकत्रित टीम के साथ बैठे।


Ironman Wales attracts thousands of athletes

Summary: Nearly 2,000 athletes from all over the world descended on Pembrokeshire for one of sport's most gruelling challenges.

Some 1,850 men and women from 49 countries competed in the Ironman Wales triathlon in the picturesque seaside town of Tenby on Sunday. Over the day they swam 2.4 miles in the sea and rode 112 miles on bikes before completing a 26.2 mile marathon run. Crowds lined the streets to cheer on the athletes, with South African Matt Trautman winning the event in nine hours, seven minutes and 28 seconds.

दुनिया भर से लगभग 2,000 एथलीट खेल की सबसे कठिन चुनौतियों में से एक के लिए पेम्ब्रोकेशायर पर उतरे।


BDE: What is big dick energy and who really has it?

Summary: Welcome to the internet in 2018 - which has already given us people eating laundry detergent, a man asking if a butterfly was a pigeon and an audio version of #TheDress (it said "yanny", by the way).

It's now given rise to the newest and weirdest and most important question so far: Who has "big dick energy"? By the way, physical endowment has nothing to do with it. Let us explain. Because there is a lot to unpack here. It starts with the whirlwind romance between recently-engaged couple Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson. Allegedly, Ariana tweeted and then deleted a fan about her fiance's sizable - ahem - gift. Fans - and internet users more generally - seem to universally agree that Pete Davidson exudes big dick energy, which can basically be described as a confidence: a swagger and a charisma which means you're comfortable being yourself. It's said to have originated with Twitter user @imbobswaget, but has recently taken on a life of its own. The Cut clarifies the definition: "It's not cockiness, it's not a power trip - it's the opposite: a healthy, satisfied, low-key way you feel yourself." But who else has it? Well, even if you don't actually have a penis, you still have to worry about whether you have big dick energy. Unless you're Rihanna. She definitely has big dick energy. So does Cate Blanchett. In fact, the whole cast of Ocean's 8 probably has it. Harry Styles? Yes. Idris Elba? For sure. Beyonce? Yes - but apparently at Jay Z's expense. Piers Morgan? Not so much. Here are some more controversial ones. The Kardashian/Jenner men? Beckham? Apparently not. But the internet is way past thinking about what real people have BDE. And then there's the even more out-there, conceptual stuff. The debate rages on. Follow Newsbeat on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 every weekday on BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra - if you miss us you can listen back here.

2018 में इंटरनेट पर आपका स्वागत है-जिसने पहले ही हमें लोगों को कपड़े धोने का डिटर्जेंट खाने का मौका दे दिया है, एक आदमी पूछ रहा है कि क्या तितली कबूतर है और #TheDress का ऑडियो संस्करण (इसमें कहा गया है "यानि", वैसे)।


Q&A: What now for payment protection insurance?

Summary: In April 2011, the UK's banks lost an attempt to thwart new regulations on how they should sell payment protection insurance (PPI).

Crucially, the rules laid down how the banks should deal with past cases of potential mis-selling of PPI, which will lead to an extra compensation bill running into billions of pounds. The High Court heard a judicial review brought principally by the British Bankers' Association (BBA) against the recently updated rules of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The judges rejected the BBA's arguments that the rules were unfair because they were retrospective.

अप्रैल 2011 में, ब्रिटेन के बैंकों ने भुगतान सुरक्षा बीमा (पी. पी. आई.) को कैसे बेचना चाहिए, इस पर नए नियमों को विफल करने का प्रयास खो दिया।


Body found in search for missing Dornoch man Stuart Campbell

Summary: A body has been found during searches for a missing hillwalker in Sutherland.

Stuart Campbell, 33, from Dornoch, was reported missing by his family on 27 July. His car was found the following day in a car park used by hillwalkers for trips up Ben Loyal, near Tongue. Police said the body has still to be formally identified, but Mr Campbell's family have been informed.

सदरलैंड में एक लापता हिलवॉकर की तलाश के दौरान एक शव मिला है।


How to make an Avengers film in 11 steps

Summary: Avengers: Endgame, the fourth instalment in Marvel's superhero crossover franchise, made an unprecedented $1.2bn at the box office last weekend.

By Mark SavageBBC Entertainment reporter It's the biggest three-day haul in movie history; and a testament to the strength of Marvel's serialised approach to story-telling. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo said they were "definitely surprised" by the film's "runaway success" - but also announced they were taking a break from the superhero genre, after making two Captain America and two Avengers films in the space of seven years. "One of the most important things we learned is that when you're shooting two of the largest movies ever made, and you're shooting them back to back… is don't shoot 'em back to back," Anthony told BBC News, confirming the duo's departure. Joss Whedon experienced similar emotions after writing and directing the series' first two instalments. "Why on Earth would I make another Avengers movie? They're really hard," he mused on the DVD commentary for Age of Ultron. "It was ill advised. I see that now." But Marvel's Cinematic Universe will continue - with new instalments of Spider-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy already confirmed; and a new configuration of The Avengers almost a certainty. If you somehow end up in the directors' chair, how should you prepare? Here are 11 key lessons from the people who made the originals. This article does not contain spoilers for Avengers: Endgame, but will discuss plot details from the preceding films. 1) Start out on a TV show All three directors of The Avengers made their names in TV. Joss Whedon created Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Firefly; while the Russo brothers worked on cult comedies Community and Arrested Development. Those experiences were invaluable when it came to wrangling a cast of more than 20 characters, "because they are all ensemble shows," says Joe Russo. "Those were shows that had to be executed in 21 minutes, they had to be funny, and they had to have a plot. And sometimes, like in an episode of Community, you'd have 30 speaking parts - so that's an exercise that certainly trained you in trying to contain as many characters as we do in two hours." "We're drawn to multiple points of view and group dynamics, because we grew up in a very large Italian-American family," adds Anthony, "so we've always loved working with ensembles." 2) Know the characters inside-out The joy of the Avengers is seeing how these disparate characters, and the actors who play them, interact. "There is a natural competition when the leads from two different franchises get together and it plays right into the competition of two heroes getting together - so it is delightful," observed Infinity War script-writer Chris Markus last year. "A very compelling element of crossovers is who has primacy. They're all leaders, they're all used to leading their own worlds, and once you put them into the same room, who gets to call the shots? That is a notion we revisit several times." Still, it's a challenge to give 23 separate characters a distinct voice in the confines of a three-hour film. Luckily, there's an old screenwriting tip that comes in handy: If your characters are well-written, you should know how each of them would react if they accidentally fell into a swimming pool. "Thor from Infinity War would mess that pool up," says Anthony. "Whereas Rocket - he's not exceedingly self-deprecating, so I think I could see him gag and spit. He'd be a little irritated." 3) Take a lot of toilet breaks Scott Derrickson recently tweeted how he "ran into Joe Russo outside the men's room," while he was editing the Doctor Strange film in 2015. "He pitched me the basic story for both Infinity War and Endgame [and] I told him that if he could make the first movie work, the second movie would be incredible." Which begs the question: How long did Joe keep his colleague waiting for the loo? "I think it was like a 10-minute pitch," he laughs. "But the funniest thing is that people are like, 'Do you guys get together at Marvel all the time and have meetings about the storylines?' "And the answer is, 'No, it all happens on the way to the bathroom'. That's where everyone runs into one another and starts exchanging information." In other words, don't hold it in. 4) Keep the story simple For all of the acclaim heaped on Infinity War, the plot can be boiled down to three words: "Thanos wants stones". "We have so many characters in the movie that we knew if the plot was complicated, it would take too [long] to explain and that would take away from the characters and the action," said screenwriter Chris Markus on the DVD commentary. Even the number of Infinity Stones caused a headache, said co-writer Steve McFeely. "Had we invented the idea of Infinity Stones in a vacuum, I'm sure we would not have decided there were six of them. Six MacGuffins is a lot for one movie." To keep things moving, the Russos dictated that every scene "had to do more than one thing". So the opening sequence - in which Thanos crushes the Hulk, kills Thor's brother Loki and steals one of the Infinity Stones - conveys three plot points in two minutes. "It establishes Hulk's journey - he's been defeated and doesn't particularly want to help [Bruce] Banner over the course of the movie," explained Anthony Russo. "It establishes a vengeance story for Thor by taking out his brother, and it establishes the plot for stone collection." 5) The odds should seem insurmountable "I wanted to make a movie where being a superhero wasn't a free pass," said Joss Whedon, about scripting the first Avengers film in 2012. "Where things were tough enough that you would be as strong as you could possibly be and still not be enough to deal with what was going on. "The stakes," he added, "are always the same. "The stakes are: You could die." 6) Acknowledge the ridiculous When your heroes are up against a sentient robot who's ripped an entire city off the face of the planet, it pays to acknowledge that everything's a bit far-fetched. And so, at the climax of Age of Ultron, Hawkeye takes stock of the situation and says: "We're fighting an army of robots and I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes sense." "I refer to that as 'inoculation,'" Whedon explained. "He says the thing we're all thinking, and it plays." 7) Talk to the animators The Avengers films are some of the most effects-heavy movies in history, with four major characters - Thanos, Hulk, Rocket and Groot - created by computer animation. Making them believable is a crucial task, so both Whedon and the Russos started working with artists before the scripts were written. "Thanos was difficult," says Joe Russo. "We knew we were sunk if Thanos wasn't photo-real, so we spent two years doing research and development on Thanos and making sure that he would work correctly." For his debut as the Hulk, actor Mark Ruffalo even wrote a letter to the effects team, stressing that his motion-captured performances were only the first stage of creating the character. "We are all playing this part," he wrote. "I have taken it as far as I can and you guys have to use what you can and then forget about me and become the Hulk." "It was incredibly inspiring to the animators," recalled Whedon, who set aside a day to explain how the movie portrayed two different aspects of the green-skinned monster: "The one Bruce Banner becomes unwittingly and the one he decides to be". "What I found out later was that most of them - in fact all of them - had not been able to see the script, so they were just animating things in a vacuum," he said. "So it was incredibly productive." 8) Always put the raccoon on a chair* Have you ever noticed that Rocket - the CGI raccoon played by Bradley Cooper - is almost always standing on a chair? "That's a great point," says Anthony. "When you're dealing with characters of radically different sizes, it presents a lot of framing challenges. "You start to learn tricks in blocking [staging the scene] to keep everyone in the same relative plane, so you can actually shoot them." (* or on a table, or positioned in the foreground, or just film everything in a wide shot.) 9) Ban t-shirts When we first meet Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow in Avengers Assemble, she's tied to a chair, barefoot and in a vest top, apparently being interrogated by shadowy Russian forces. Of course, she breaks free in spectacular fashion... but her outfit made it one of the hardest stunt scenes to choreograph. "Whenever you say 'she has no sleeves' to your stunt co-ordinator he cries man tears," Joss Whedon noted afterwards. "It's very difficult to do a lot of these things if you can't pad up the knees and elbows." 10) Embrace the darkness Making these films is "incredibly physically demanding," says Joe Russo, and there will inevitably be dark days. "When you start out, it's all perfect in your head," Whedon told BBC News in 2015, "and when you work with the actors, it gets better. "Then at some point you've been editing for so long you start thinking. 'Who am I? What's happening?' and you forget why you ever showed up, and what you're trying to say. And you despair. It's a very bleak experience. 11) Emotion > action Adding character beats to action sequences has been Joss Whedon's calling card since Buffy - and he pulls it off perfectly in Age Of Ultron's climactic battle, where Hawkeye stops whaling on the bad guys to discuss home improvements. "You know what I need to do? The dining room," he tells Black Widow. "If I knock out that east wall, it'll make a nice work space... What do you think?" "That sequence is, for me, the reason I show up," Whedon said in the commentary. "Where two people in the apocalypse are talking about re-doing the dining room, that says more about their relationship than anything else I could have done." The Infinity War team made a similar decision. Their film doesn't end with a battle but the emotional fallout of Thanos's "snap" - scenes that left some viewers in tears. So what will they feel when they walk out of Endgame? "Catharsis," says Joe Russo. "We realise how impactful the Infinity War ending was," adds his brother. "We saw how difficult it was for many people and that's something that we really respect. So we were very committed to paying off that kind of a story." Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

एवेंजर्सः एंडगेम, मार्वल की सुपरहीरो क्रॉसओवर फ्रैंचाइज़ी की चौथी किस्त, ने पिछले सप्ताहांत में बॉक्स ऑफिस पर अभूतपूर्व $1.2bn की कमाई की।


Two hundred soaking Santas complete festive Manx dash

Summary: About 200 people dressed as Father Christmas set a new record for the Isle of Man's annual Santa Dash, held in heavy rain in Douglas.

In total, 206 people completed the one mile (1.6km) race, with Stephen Garret winning in four minutes 27 seconds. Last year's record of 131 people was well beaten despite the weather. Race organiser John Lindon said: "It was a fantastic spectacle and quite remarkable that so many braved the weather to compete." Last year's event raised about £14,000 for a variety of local charities.

फादर क्रिसमस के रूप में तैयार लगभग 200 लोगों ने डगलस में भारी बारिश में आयोजित आइल ऑफ मैन के वार्षिक सांता डैश के लिए एक नया रिकॉर्ड बनाया।