Local elections: 7 things you may have missed

Summary: Both Labour and the Conservatives have suffered losses in the local elections, with voters turning to smaller parties and independents in a backlash against the Brexit deadlock. But beyond the immediate headlines lie smaller storylines you may have missed - here are seven of them.

1. The seat decided by chance A poll on Hambleton Council was decided by lot - and the result saw Labour take its first seat there in more than a decade. The seat, Northallerton South, was tied on 527 votes for Labour and the Conservatives - so the seat was settled by the returning officer choosing between two blank envelopes, one candidate's name in each. Labour's Gerald Ramsden was the lucky winner of the draw. 2. Controversy in the Cotswolds The Tories won the Tetbury Town ward by just one vote - after officials looked through the spoiled ballots and accepted one where the voter had put "Brexit" and an arrow to the Conservative Party candidate. Stephen Hirst retained his seat in the Cotswolds town after defeating independent Kevin Painter by 232 votes to 231. The Conservatives and the independents had been tied before the returning officer, who is in charge of overseeing elections, decided to settle the matter by using the rejected ballot paper. Mr Painter has confirmed he contacted the Electoral Commission for advice and he will be taking legal action over the decision. Cotswold District Council said it had consulted the guidelines in the Electoral Commission's booklet on doubtful papers and examples within election law books. 3. Jacob Rees-Mogg now lives in a Lib Dem area Leading Brexiteer MP Jacob Rees-Mogg now has a Liberal Democrat councillor representing him in Somerset. Liberal Democrat candidate Dave Wood defeated Conservative Tim Warren, leader of Bath and North East Somerset Council, in the Mendip ward. Wera Hobhouse, Lib Dem MP for Bath, tweeted: "Congratulations to Cllr Dave Wood, who moments ago beat B&NES council leader Tim Warren. He's now @Jacob_Rees_Mogg's local councillor!" 4. DUP candidate makes history The Democratic Unionist Party's first openly gay election candidate has been elected. Alison Bennington hugged supporters at a Belfast count centre for Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council. She attracted 1,053 votes as part of her campaign for the pro-union and Christian party, and praised her supporters' "good, hard work and good teamwork". The DUP's founder, the late Rev Ian Paisley, once led a campaign to, in his words, "Save Ulster from Sodomy" and prevent the decriminalisation of homosexuality. 5. Green surge 'helped by Extinction Rebellion' The Green Party has been one of the elections' biggest winners, picking up 265 seats - an increase of 194 compared to 2015. With the local elections coming just after weeks of protests by Extinction Rebellion, should the environmental group be seen as having had an impact on voters' decisions? Jonathan Bartley, the Green Party's co-leader, certainly thinks so. He told the BBC he had "no doubt" the Extinction Rebellion group had contributed towards the party's election success, adding it was a "powerful force in building awareness of the urgency of climate change". 6. Maiden success for the Yorkshire Party The little-known Yorkshire Party has won council seats for the first time in its history. The party, which was set up in 2014 and campaigns for regional devolution (among other things), has previously had councillors defect to it - but had never actually won an election. Now, the party has won six - with successes in both the East Riding of Yorkshire and Selby councils. 7. Political poetry #Dogsatpollingstations proved such a hit on election day it has even emerged as a muse for professional poets. Brian Bilston's effort, posted on Twitter, proved almost as popular as the dogs themselves.

लेबर और कंजर्वेटिव दोनों को स्थानीय चुनावों में नुकसान उठाना पड़ा है, मतदाताओं ने ब्रेक्सिट गतिरोध के खिलाफ एक प्रतिक्रिया में छोटे दलों और निर्दलीयों की ओर रुख किया है। लेकिन तत्काल सुर्खियों से परे छोटी कहानियाँ हैं जिन्हें आप याद कर सकते हैं-यहाँ उनमें से सात हैं।


Forres woman Lorna Tulloch attacked father-in-law

Summary: A woman tried to run over her father-in-law and stabbed him with a knife at a Moray distillery, a court has heard.

Lorna Tulloch, 43, of Forres, admitted assaulting Gordon Tulloch, 77, to his severe injury and the danger of his life at Glenburgie Distillery. She then drove the car straight at her husband, Michael. The full details of the incident, which happened in August last year, are expected to be heard at the High Court in Inverness on Wednesday.

एक महिला ने अपने ससुर के ऊपर से भागने की कोशिश की और मोरे डिस्टिलरी में उन पर चाकू से वार किया, एक अदालत ने सुना है।


Thunderstorms light up California skies

Summary: A spectacular thunderstorm has been spotted over Southern California, with the pick of the pictures coming from public servants.

The Santa Barbara fire department, highway patrol and sheriff's office all shared pictures taken during Tuesday night's thunderstorms in Santa Barbara. According to the LA Times, the National Weather Service recorded 1,489 pulses of lightning off the coast of Santa Barbara between 20:00 and 21:00 PST (04:00 and 05:00 GMT). You may also like: Images subject to copyright as stated.

दक्षिणी कैलिफोर्निया में एक शानदार आंधी देखी गई है, जिसकी तस्वीरें लोक सेवकों की ओर से ली गई हैं।


How Scotland stemmed the tide of knife crime

Summary: Home Secretary Sajid Javid has condemned the "senseless violence" that has seen a rise in the number of teenagers being stabbed to death across the UK. In London, a Violence Reduction Unit is now up and running in a bid to tackle the number of teenagers dying as a result of knife crime. It is based on a ground-breaking approach used in Scotland.

By Paul O'HareBBC Scotland news website Scotland's Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) was set up to stem the tide of knife crime which saw Glasgow become Europe's murder capital. From its formation in 2005 the VRU proposed a fresh approach to tackling the problem. Its key message was that gang-related stabbings and slashings were not just a policing issue but a public health issue. The unit's motto was a simple one: "Violence is preventable, not inevitable." In 2004/05 there were 137 homicides (which include murder and culpable homicide figures) in Scotland - in Glasgow, there were 40 cases alone, double the national rate. By 2016/17 the number had more than halved to 62. Last year this had reduced by a further three to 59. A sharp instrument was the main method of killing for 34 (58%) of those cases and all but one of them involved a knife. This homicide figure was the joint lowest number of recorded homicide cases for a single 12-month period since 1976. Over the years the VRU has worked closely with partners in the NHS, education and social work. It has stressed the importance of positive role models and its projects have been shaped by statistics. Former director John Carnochan once showed me a jagged graph of violent crime in Glasgow. It included many spikes but at one point it plummeted dramatically. Mr Carnochan explained: "That was Valentine's Day." Love may virtually halt violence once a year but other factors have helped Glasgow shed its unwanted reputation as No Mean City. BBC Scotland looks at five key aspects of the VRU's work. Gangs Glasgow's gang culture was highlighted in the 1960s when singer Frankie Vaughan visited Easterhouse to speak to young people. He famously convinced rival leaders to shake hands and give up their weapons. Fast forward four decades and the then Strathclyde Police Chief Constable Sir Stephen House invited teenagers from some of the most deprived areas of the city to Glasgow Sheriff Court. The symbolism was powerful as Sir Stephen urged them to renounce violence or risk returning to the court for real. The VRU made bold statements to young people in simple, no nonsense terms. For example, chalk outlines of a body and a knife once appeared in 15 areas identified as gang trouble spots. Officers also proactively visited suspected gang members, targeted their meeting places and monitored their activity on early social networking sites, such as Bebo. US influence The VRU sought inspiration from across the Atlantic in its bid to make Glasgow's streets safer. Within two years of implementing Operation Ceasefire in 1995, Boston had reduced violent crime by about 50%. In 2009 the VRU launched the Community Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV). It was designed to offer young people an alterative to gang membership, such as youth clubs, as well as the prospect of training and work. Former offenders were drafted in to share their experiences with the next generation. In 2011 police said the CIRV had resulted in a 50% reduction in violent offending by those taking part. Even among gang members who refused to participate, data indicated a 25% fall in the number of offences committed. Health In 2008 six surgeons who had witnessed first-hand the devastating impact of knife crime formed Medics Against Violence (MAV). One of its early projects involved sending senior doctors into schools to share their harrowing experiences. MAV also produced a 15-minute film, called Your Choice, and devised lesson plans to help stimulate a debate. The organisation encouraged knife-crime victims to co-operate with the police as research showed many attacks went unreported. It has also informed national debates, such as the case for minimum alcohol pricing. Earlier this year Dr Christine Goodall, of MAV, said more than 80% of assault victims in hospital emergency departments had been drinking, as had the people who had assaulted them. The VRU's holistic approach was illustrated at an anti-violence conference at the Scottish Police College. It included a session by Canadian parenting expert Mary Gordon which highlighted the importance of empathy. Education The VRU launched a mentoring project in schools which is designed to combat the emerging threat of cyberbullying and encourage children to stay safe online. Former Chief Insp Graham Goulden, said the scale of the problem should not be underestimated in light of the "sexually toxic environment" children are growing up in. The Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) initiative teaches young people leadership skills to help them support their fellow pupils. The scheme, which was devised by US academic Jackson Katz, also coaches young people to challenge offensive behaviour. During workshops, pupils are asked questions such as: "Is it sometimes ok to send a sexually explicit photo to another person?" The debates that follow aim to make teenagers think more carefully about their actions and what is acceptable behaviour. Meanwhile, VRU deputy director Will Linden has credited a dramatic reduction in school exclusions in Scotland over the last decade as a key factor in keeping children out of trouble. Opportunity One of the VRU's key objectives is to offer young people an alternative path. In 2010, Brigadier David Allfrey, a former commander of 51 Scottish Brigade in Stirling, ran an adventure and leadership training scheme with former gang members. And two years later he handed five men, aged 18 to 25, a role in the world-renowned Edinburgh Military Tattoo. The ex-offenders, from the east end of Glasgow and Kilmarnock's Onthank estate were stationed at Redford Barracks in Edinburgh for the duration of the event. During each performance they moved props around and performed. Brigadier Allfrey, the Tattoo's chief executive and producer, said: "There is enormous human potential wrapped up in these young men." The VRU was also influenced by LA-based Homeboy Industries, which offers gang members employment in its cafes. One such example is Street & Arrow in Glasgow's West End, which launched in 2016. It offers modern street food served from an airstream truck and hires former offenders for 12-month blocks. Workers are paired with a mentor who can help them master everything from basic employment skills, like turning up on time, through to debt management and relationship issues.

गृह सचिव साजिद जाविद ने "मूर्खतापूर्ण हिंसा" की निंदा की है जिसमें पूरे ब्रिटेन में किशोरों की चाकू मारकर हत्या करने की संख्या में वृद्धि देखी गई है। लंदन में, एक हिंसा न्यूनीकरण इकाई अब चाकू के अपराध के परिणामस्वरूप मरने वाले किशोरों की संख्या से निपटने के लिए चल रही है। यह स्कॉटलैंड में उपयोग किए जाने वाले एक अभूतपूर्व दृष्टिकोण पर आधारित है।


Grace Jones to headline Festival No6 in Gwynedd

Summary: Singer Grace Jones and indie band Belle and Sebastian will headline this year's Festival No6 at Portmeirion in Gwynedd, the organisers have announced.

The festival is held on 3-6 September at the Italianate village where the classic TV series The Prisoner was set. After a successful career in modelling, Jones shot to fame in the 1980s with hits such as Slave to the Rhythm and Pull up to the Bumper. The 2014 Mercury prize winners Young Fathers are also on the bill.

आयोजकों ने घोषणा की है कि गायक ग्रेस जोन्स और इंडी बैंड बेले और सेबेस्टियन ग्वेनेड के पोर्टमीरियन में इस साल के फेस्टिवल नंबर 6 में शिरकत करेंगे।


Wantage crash: Man arrested after cyclist critically hurt

Summary: A man has been arrested after a cyclist was critically injured in a suspected hit-and-run crash.

The cyclist, a 38-year-old man, was in collision with a car on the A417 near Ardington Wick in Wantage, Oxfordshire, at 08:45 BST on Sunday. Police said the car failed to stop at the scene and appealed for witnesses. A 74-year-old man from Wantage has been arrested on suspicion of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and failing to stop following a collision.

एक संदिग्ध हिट-एंड-रन दुर्घटना में एक साइकिल चालक के गंभीर रूप से घायल होने के बाद एक व्यक्ति को गिरफ्तार किया गया है।


Murder charge after man dies 10 months after stabbing

Summary: A 60-year-old man has been charged with murder after a man died 10 months after being stabbed in a street in Leicester.

Ashton Slatcher, 43, from the city, was attacked in Green Lane Road on 24 August 2017. Mr Slatcher, who was left with a significant brain injury, died in hospital in June 2018. Martley Matthew, formerly of Burleigh Drive, Wigston, is due before Leicester Magistrates' Court later. Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.

लीसेस्टर में एक सड़क पर चाकू मारे जाने के 10 महीने बाद एक व्यक्ति की मौत के बाद एक 60 वर्षीय व्यक्ति पर हत्या का आरोप लगाया गया है।


Briton Ferry recycling centre 'bomb' not explosive

Summary: A recycling centre in Neath Port Talbot was evacuated after a suspected wartime bomb was found.

The device, which dates back to World War Two, was discovered in a scrap bin at the site in Wharf Road, Briton Ferry on Thursday morning. Bomb disposal experts were called to remove the device but it turned out to be a practice round which did not containing any explosives. South Wales Police said the centre was later allowed to reopen.

एक संदिग्ध युद्धकालीन बम मिलने के बाद नीथ पोर्ट टैलबोट में एक पुनर्चक्रण केंद्र को खाली करा लिया गया था।


Government targets sexting and cyberbullying

Summary: A government initiative aimed at making the internet safer for young people will target sexting and cyberbullying, as well as online harassment, abuse and rape threats made against women.

Ministers will meet with large technology companies, charities, academics and mental health professionals to identify risks and develop an internet safety strategy. The work is being led by Culture Secretary Karen Bradley. And a Green Paper is due in the summer. Humiliate "The internet has provided young people with amazing opportunities but has also introduced a host of new dangers which children and parents have never faced before," said Ms Bradley. "It is increasingly clear that some behaviours which are unacceptable offline are being tolerated or even encouraged online - sometimes with devastating consequences. "We are determined to make Britain the safest place in the world to be online." In October 2016, the Crown Prosecution Service warned internet trolls who created derogatory hashtags or doctored images to humiliate people could face prosecution in England and Wales.

युवाओं के लिए इंटरनेट को सुरक्षित बनाने के उद्देश्य से एक सरकारी पहल सेक्सटिंग और साइबरबुलिंग के साथ-साथ महिलाओं के खिलाफ ऑनलाइन उत्पीड़न, दुर्व्यवहार और बलात्कार की धमकियों को लक्षित करेगी।


Reality Check: What are the plans to boost council homes?

Summary: Theresa May, in her party conference speech, pledged to boost council house building . This would be achieved, the prime minister said, by scrapping the existing limits on councils' ability to borrow money.

By Tom EdgingtonBBC Reality Check What exactly is this cap and what impact has it had? Put simply, it applies to something called a Housing Revenue Account (HRA) - the pot of money where councils in England manage their housing revenue and expenditure. But since 2012, the rules around HRAs have been tightened to restrict the amount that local authorities can draw down to build new social housing. Forty years ago, local authorities were responsible for more than 40% of house builds. Last year, it was less than 2%, according to government statistics. However, the construction of homes by local councils had been falling for several decades before the borrowing cap was imposed. How it works The cap varies from council to council, it comes down to how much housing debt a local authority already has - so the more they have, the less they can borrow. If you were to add up all the individual council caps together, the total across England would be about £30bn. But that's quite small when you consider the value of council homes is estimated to be in excess of £220bn. The cap on borrowing applies only to residential properties and not commercial ones. So, at the moment, councils face no restrictions on borrowing to build things such as swimming pools or sports centres. In last year's Budget, the government announced there would be a partial easing of the cap, with an extra £1bn to be shared between councils in "high demand areas". But the deadline to bid has only just passed and so the extra cash hasn't been distributed yet. Where does a council borrow to build in the first place? Local authorities can access low-interest loans through a government body, the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB). The PWLB does not need to know the reason a local authority needs a loan, provided it can afford the borrowing costs. A council could also choose to borrow from a private bank - but it may not get as good an interest rate. Why was the cap brought in? One reason, according to the Chartered Institute of Housing's policy adviser John Perry, was a fear that councils would go on a spending splurge and build lots of council houses, running up large debts. Mr Perry argues that was always unlikely because there is already a code in place that governs how much debt a council can run up - it's known as prudential borrowing. Critics also say the cap on residential property was never necessary in first place. They argue council house building is a "low risk" investment because it should generate a surplus over time through rental income. Potential impact If councils choose to build more, then eliminating the HRA cap may increase national debt. That's because any extra borrowing councils take on will be recorded by the public finances. Many organisations in the house building sector, as well as local authorities, have already welcomed the announcement. London Councils - which represents London's local authorities - says it plans to use its new freedom to borrow to deliver "housing that Londoners so desperately need". What do you want BBC Reality Check to investigate? Get in touch Read more from Reality Check Follow us on Twitter

थेरेसा मे ने अपने पार्टी सम्मेलन के भाषण में परिषद के भवन निर्माण को बढ़ावा देने का वादा किया। प्रधान मंत्री ने कहा, परिषदों की धन उधार लेने की क्षमता पर मौजूदा सीमाओं को समाप्त करके इसे हासिल किया जाएगा।


The Bin Laden family on the run

Summary: The Bin Laden letters released on Thursday provide an insight into the workings of the mind of the slain al-Qaeda chief, but they reveal precious little about his family life during the years in hiding in Pakistan.

By M Ilyas KhanBBC News, Islamabad We know from other sources though, that during their 10-year stay he and his family travelled all across the country, had access to medical and maternity services, and were in constant communication with the outside world. Nearly two dozen women and children were recovered from the compound in Abbottabad where the world's most wanted man was killed in the raid by US Navy Seals a year ago. After being held by the Pakistani intelligence services for more than nine months in secret confinement, some of them were tried for illegally residing in Pakistan. Then last week, all the members of Bin Laden's family - some 14 of them, including three wives - were deported to Saudi Arabia . But there were others living in the compound too. Bin Laden's son, Khalid, was killed in the raid as were his Pakistani host and trusted courier, Ibrar alias Arshad Khan alias Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, and Khan's wife, and his brother, Ibrahim alias Tariq Khan. Other members of his family survived, their present location being a closely guarded secret. Since none of these witnesses have spoken publicly, what we know about the Bin Ladens and their life in Pakistan is pretty sketchy. We do know that Osama Bin Laden spent six years in a house which CNN's Peter Bergen - the only journalist to have been given a tour of the compound in Abbottabad - describes as a squalid, "long-term but makeshift camping site". He was surrounded by cooped-up children, only rarely allowed out to play cricket, and possibly bickering wives. The youngest wife, Amal Abdal Fattah, a Yemeni citizen, gave a sketch of her life with Bin Laden to Pakistani interrogators. In their report, recently leaked to the media, she is quoted as saying that she married the al-Qaeda chief in the Afghan city of Kandahar in 2000, and lived there with his two other wives until the 9/11 attacks. At that point, the family split and she went to Karachi, where she stayed with her baby daughter until the middle of 2002, when she rejoined Bin Laden. Brigadier Shaukat Qadir, an ex-army officer who conducted an investigation into the Bin Laden killing, writes that in 2002 the couple spent some time in a village south of Peshawar. Bin Laden was treated there for a medical condition, Amal told investigators, and received a visit from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Kuwait-born Pakistani now on trial in the US for masterminding the 9/11 attacks. Bin Laden, Amal and Amal's children appear to have moved to Shangla, near Swat, some time in late 2003 or early 2004. Then, in the summer of 2004, they moved to Haripur, before finally settling at the Abbottabad compound in late 2005 or early 2006. Amal told her interrogators that between 2003 and 2008 she gave birth to four more children - all delivered at government-owned hospitals. Less is known about the travels of Bin Laden's two other wives, after the family split up in 2001. According to Brigadier Qadir, Shareeja Seeham, a Saudi citizen, and her three children, joined Bin Laden and Amal in Haripur in 2004, and stayed with them until Bin Laden's death. She was the mother of Khalid, aged 24 when he was killed along with Bin Laden in the raid on 2 May last year. Brigadier Qadir writes that she is a teacher by profession, and stayed with the family to "ensure that children were not denied education, since they were not going to enter any educational institution". Bin Laden's eldest wife, Khaeriah Sahaba, also a Saudi citizen, appears to have drifted into Iran along with her five sons when the family split up in the wake of 9/11, and was taken into custody in 2003 or 2004. She was released in September 2010 as part of a prisoner swap involving an Iranian diplomat, Hashmatullah Atherzadeh, who had been kidnapped by militants in Peshawar in 2008. While her sons dispersed to unknown locations, she made her way to Bin Laden's top lieutenant, Attiya Abdur Rahman, in the Waziristan region of Pakistan. She then joined Bin Laden in Abbottabad in early 2011. According to Brigadier Qadir, she was known to be extremely jealous of the youngest wife, Amal. "OBL, by this time, was bedding [sleeping with] only Amal," he writes. "Why therefore should Khaeriah choose to brave another hazard to rejoin a husband she had been separated from for many years and no longer had any relationship with?" He suspects that she might have played a role in leading the Americans to Bin Laden's lair. It seems Pakistani investigators may have found it hard to get any useful information from her, though. Qadir quotes one ISI investigator as saying: "She is so aggressive that she borders on being intimidating. Short of torturing her, we cannot get her to admit to anything." Bin Laden was able to leave the crowded Abbottabad compound at least once, as he strove to assert authority over an increasingly unwieldy organisation with wayward affiliates. In May 2010, the BBC has learned, he even ventured out to the Waziristan region . This was at a time when drones were raining missiles there and several operations by the Pakistani military were under way. He apparently went to touch base with his operational commanders and assess the situation first-hand. He then penned an assessment of the region in a long memo to Attiya Abdur Rahman, advising him to shift operatives to a safer location. The memo, written in October 2010, is among the documents declassified by the US military on Thursday. These documents also suggest that he was wary of the Pakistani intelligence services, and advised extreme caution when Khaeria made that possibly fateful trip from Waziristan to the compound in Abbottabad.

गुरुवार को जारी बिन लादेन के पत्र मारे गए अल-कायदा प्रमुख के दिमाग की कार्यप्रणाली के बारे में एक अंतर्दृष्टि प्रदान करते हैं, लेकिन वे पाकिस्तान में छिपे हुए वर्षों के दौरान उनके पारिवारिक जीवन के बारे में बहुत कम जानकारी देते हैं।


Trainers lifeboat in Poole for RNLI fundraising

Summary: A team of 19 lifeboat crew trainers have succeeded in pulling a 37-tonne lifeboat in a Dorset town as part of a fundraising campaign.

They pulled the Mersey-class lifeboat, mounted on a low loader, for 100m to the RNLI's headquarters in Poole. The effort was part of the RNLI's annual nationwide fundraising SOS Day. Training manager Glen Mallen said: "We were really proud to be able to do something to support the fantastic organisation we work for".

19 जीवन रक्षक नौका चालक दल प्रशिक्षकों की एक टीम धन उगाहने के अभियान के तहत डोरसेट शहर में 37 टन की जीवन रक्षक नौका को खींचने में सफल रही है।


Ariana Grande, Arctic Monkeys and The 1975 prepare new albums for 2018

Summary: Musically-speaking, 2017 was a roller coaster.

By Mark SavageBBC Music reporter Ed Sheeran literally broke the charts, a Spanish-language song became the year's biggest single, and Taylor Swift sampled Right Said Fred. Short of Rihanna covering Deeply Dippy, 2018 can't get any weirder. But what do we have to look forward to? Ariana Grande making the album of her career Pop star Ariana Grande was undoubtedly changed by the terrorist atrocity at her concert in Manchester last May. The 24-year-old shouldered the emotional weight of the tragedy for her fans, and staged a defiantly uplifting benefit for the victims that proved pop had the power to heal. The US star's recently gone back into the studio and it will be interesting to see whether those experiences shape the music on her fourth album. Grande's long-time manager Scooter Braun hinted at a more mature sound, telling Variety magazine: "She has such an extraordinary voice and it's time for her to sing the songs that define her." Pharrell, who is working on the album, added that her new material was "pretty amazing". "The things that she has to say on this album, it's pretty next-level," he told the LA times. The 1975 going for broke Matty Healy has lofty goals for The 1975's third album, Music For Cars. "If you look at third albums, OK Computer or The Queen Is Dead, that's what we need to do," he told the NME. "I want people to look back and think our records were the most important pop records that a band put out in this decade." The star had previously called the album "the end of an era" for The 1975, to the horror of fans, who panicked the band were splitting up. Healy assured them that wasn't the case, telling Apple's radio station Beats 1: "We were always going to do a trilogy of records. I'm not saying that after this album it's the end of the 1975, but it's definitely the end of an era." Jack White getting his gardening gloves on "I'm getting somewhere," said Jack White about the sessions for his third solo album, Boarding House Reach. "It's good gardening music or roofing music or, you know, back-alley stabbing music. "I'm trying to think of some good activities that people haven't written songs for yet." A trailer for the record features a chopped-up sound collage of ragtime piano, distorted digital fuzz, oscillating synths and White's trademark blues riffs. In other words, it's probably best to keep White away from your lawnmower. Beyonce reforming Destiny's Child (maybe) OK, this is massively speculative but fans are convinced Beyonce will put Destiny's Child back together when she headlines Coachella in April. The evidence is flimsy at best, but let's pick through it: As long as they do Bug-A-Boo, we'll be happy. A gender swap for Grime Step aside Stormzy and stand down Skepta - 2018 will be the year where women take over Grime. Stefflon Don leads the pack, after signing a million pound record deal with Universal earlier this year. Her quick-fire one-liners and self-directed videos have already earned the Londoner a Mobo award for best female, while the top 10 hit, Hurtin' Me showed off her singing voice. The stage is perfectly set for her debut album in the opening months of 2018. Elsewhere, Little Simz, Nadia Rose and Lady Leshurr are also challenging the male-dominated landscape of British rap; while the streetwise soul of Jorja Smith, Ray BLK and Mabel are bringing a fresh female attitude to the charts. POP coming back Not that it ever really went away - but 2018 is shaping up to be a year of massive pop bangers. Selena Gomez, who released one of the best, and most-underrated songs of 2017 - Bad Liar - had plans for her album derailed by sickness. But after receiving a kidney transplant over the summer, she's back to health and pressing ahead with her fourth album. It's being co-produced by Julia Michaels, an indispensible backroom writer who turned heads with her confessional solo single Issues earlier this year. The 24-year-old, who can currently be heard on Clean Bandit's I Miss You, is also preparing an album of her own. Speaking of Clean Bandit, they'll presumably get around to finishing the record they've been working on since 2015, while Little Mix are dreaming up new music with production duo Electric, who crafted their chart smashes Black Magic and Shout Out To My Ex. Canadian heart-throb Shawn Mendes says he's "deep in album three land" and the "vibe is starting to become very clear". Chvrches have been working with Adele's producer Greg Kurstin on their "most pop" album to date. And following her break-up with Joshua Sasse, Kylie Minogue has recorded a series of "cathartic" and "story-based" tracks in Nashville. That's not all: Craig David, Christine and the Queens, Carly Rae Jepsen, Rita Ora, Liam Payne, Charli XCX, Sigrid, Tove Styrke, Zayn, Rae Morris, Billie Eilish and Camila Cabello all have new music lined up. The Cure hitting middle age For a man who sleeps in a coffin, Robert Smith is surprisingly ageless... Or maybe that's his secret? Either way, 2018 marks the 40th anniversary of The Cure's debut single, Killing An Arab, and the band have a whole raft of celebrations up their sleeve. They'll play a one-off show in London's Hyde Park, supported by similarly moody bands like Interpol, Editors, Goldfrapp and Ride; and director Tim Pope has started work on a career-spanning documentary. Other big anniversaries include The Beatles' White Album and Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland, which both turn 50 in 2018. Meanwhile, Public Enemy's It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back enters its 30s; and Bjork's Debut celebrates its silver anniversary. The streaming war heating up Streaming now generates more money for the music industry than sales of CDs and downloads, but the market could be turned on its head next year. YouTube is expected to launch its own subscription music service, internally known as YouTube Remix, in the first half of the year. If the company manages to convert just 0.45% of its 1.5 billion monthly users to a pay-monthly plan, it will become bigger than Spotify overnight. Facebook has also been pouring resources into music, poaching several high-profile music executives for its global music team; and Facebook was offering record labels and music publishers "hundreds of millions of dollars" to sort out copyright issues with record labels and publishers. Expect to see more acquisitions and mergers, too, as the major players seek to solidify their base. 2006 coming around again Remember 2006? Prince performed at the Brits. Top of the Pops was cancelled. Justin Timberlake brought sexy back. Well, now you can live it all over again, as the year's best bands have all booked a return trip from the dumper. Arctic Monkeys bassist Nick O'Malley recently told motorcycling magazine For The Ride that the band's "new album will be out next year because if it isn't, we've got problems". There's also new music on the way from Lily Allen, whose comeback single Trigger Bang is the dictionary definition of "a pleasant surprise"; while The Streets are reforming for a greatest hits tour. 2006 faves Kate Nash, Fall Out Boy, The Fratellis and Vampire Weekend are also squirrelled away in the studio while Justin Timberlake himself will presumably "drop" new material ahead of his Super Bowl show in February. Next thing you know, we'll all be wearing ties as belts and watching High School Musical. The Biggest Weekend being the festival to end all festivals With Glastonbury on a gap year, the BBC is stepping into the fray with "The Biggest Weekend" a four-day, four-site mega-festival in May. There'll be stages in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, building on the success of Radio 1's Big Weekend, which has attracted stars like Jay-Z, Kanye West, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Coldplay and Katy Perry in recent years. More than 175,000 tickets will be available for the event - with more details coming early in 2018. Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

संगीत की बात करें तो 2017 एक रोलर कोस्टर था।


Cruise ships to set sail from Cardiff and Newport from 2017

Summary: Cruise-lovers will be able to set sail from Cardiff and Newport from next year.

Passengers in south Wales currently have to fly from Cardiff Airport or travel to ports in England to meet their cruise ship. But Cruise and Maritime Voyages with have an 800-passenger ship leaving Cardiff from May 2017 to destinations including Spain. Another vessel will carry 1,250 people from Newport to Dublin and Norway. New itineraries announced:

क्रूज-प्रेमी अगले साल से कार्डिफ और न्यूपोर्ट से नौकायन कर सकेंगे।


Knifeman Tasered in Nottingham city centre street

Summary: A man has been Tasered after apparently threatening members of the public with a knife in Nottingham city centre.

Police confirmed they were called to reports of a disturbance in the Lace Market area at about 02:45 BST. The suspect was Tasered when he refused to comply with instructions or drop the knife, officers said. A 24-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of being in possession of a bladed article in a public place. He remains in police custody. There are no reports of injuries. Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.

नॉटिंघम शहर के केंद्र में जनता के सदस्यों को चाकू से धमकी देने के बाद एक व्यक्ति को प्रताड़ित किया गया है।


Equality for women at Afghanistan's officer academy

Summary: The UK's lasting legacy in Afghanistan is likely to be the Afghan National Army Officer Academy, which took in its first male officer cadets in October last year, and will admit its initial female recruits this summer. Could it play a role in improving the position of women in Afghan society?

By Caroline WyattBBC News, Afghanistan It was a story that was both shocking and depressingly familiar. A young Afghan girl, forced by her brother to wear a suicide vest, and told to blow up a police checkpoint for the Taliban. It happened in Helmand, a place that even here, makes people shake their heads and give a sad shrug that suggests: "Well, what do you expect?" There was outrage (a little) and dismay (rather more) over Spozhmai's story, but in a country where recent news included a seven-year-old sold for a few thousand dollars in marriage to a 35-year-old so her father could buy drugs, Spozhmai's woes did not trouble the public consciousness here for long. The story barely made the news after a day or two. The girls and women we interview here are often those whose lives are extreme, and who symbolise all that is worst or wrong with a place. I wondered about that when I met two young Afghan women with very different lives, Adila and Arzoo, both university students. Literature and language student Adila would not look out of place sitting in a Paris cafe - elegantly, though modestly dressed, her eyeliner making her expressive brown eyes even bigger, and her headscarf revealing just a hint of glossy long black hair. Arzoo, in her fourth year studying physics, is the more earnest of the two, but both are keen to stress just how different their lives are to those of their mothers and their grandmothers. Both remember the Taliban era, when they had to study in secret. Now Adila and Arzoo are determined to help poorer women here to get an education. They believe that remains the key to changing Afghanistan and people's attitudes towards women. What would they do after university, I asked them. More studies, both said. And if they got married, would they still plan to go out to work? There was an awkward silence. That, they eventually said, depended on their families, and what their husbands thought. It sounded rather as if the answer was No, despite outward appearances. A few days later, we drove east out of Kabul, the choking traffic thinning as we headed out of the city. But the city limits I remembered from previous trips were no longer there. Now, new building after new building lined the road - massive blocks of modern glass and concrete flats had sprouted from the sandy soil until they almost blocked out the mountains on the horizon. It was not until we reached the military outpost we were seeking that the city receded, and turned back into the plains I had remembered. I wondered if these new blocks were seeded by poppy money or fertilised by Western cash, then chided myself for cynicism. There is much new business being done here, despite the high level of dependence on outside support. The latter was evident when we arrived at "Sandhurst in the sand", the nickname for the new military academy British officers are helping develop as the UK's lasting legacy in Afghanistan. We were there to meet Sediqa, a quiet, self-possessed 28-year-old second lieutenant, who watched us warily as we arrived. She is the first Afghan female trainer to arrive here ahead of the women officer cadets. The Academy aims to train 100 female Afghan National Army officers per year, or about a 10th of the total, with the first intake to be chosen this April. They are due to start in June, and recruits will spend a year here before they graduate. Sediqa told me she had joined the Afghan army because she wanted to serve her country, as her brother and sister-in-law already did. I asked if she was worried by the deaths and injuries her army was suffering in Helmand and elsewhere - more than 1,000 killed in 2012 alone, and more than 3,000 seriously injured. Women police officers and officials have been targeted specifically in provinces such as Helmand, though Afghanistan's women soldiers will not be expected to perform frontline fighting roles. Sediqa nodded thoughtfully, but said it had not put her off. Her husband was also happy for her to serve. As for female equality in Afghanistan, her raised eyebrows said it all. Sediqa was not sure we could even begin to talk of equality for women in Afghanistan. Even men did not have many rights, she said, and females far fewer. The TV and radio news were full of stories about violence against women most days, she said. Once you could begin to talk of human rights, then perhaps one day, she told me, women's rights could start here too. But Sediqa's British mentors are keen to make sure that women are treated equally here. In the large and airy gym, Afghan male officers and trainers are having to get used to training alongside women - including British physical training instructor, Staff Sergeant Kate Lord. She has been training the men, giving orders via an interpreter. "At first, I didn't know how they'd take me - but after they saw me doing all the physical elements, that won me their respect. I get on with the guys really well," she smiles. Kate is now focusing on training the three Afghan female sergeants who'll be training the cadets when they arrive. She says that they are have not been used to performing tough physical exercise in the past, and are taking to it - for the most part - with enthusiasm. "It feels really good to be doing the one-on-one mentoring, it's historic to be here doing this at this time, and it feels as though I am making a difference." Fluent Pashto and Dari speaker Major Claire Brown, who has been helping set up the women's course, after an earlier tour of duty in Helmand Province, is realistic about the challenges that the women who study here will face within the Afghan Army - as well as wider Afghan society. "Anybody in the Afghan security forces has to have concerns about their own personal security. Of course, they have their own cultural issues they have to face and I hope that we can help to prepare them," she says. "Anybody who is joining this army as a woman is a pretty brave person to start with, and we hope to develop that during the training." The wider hope is that the Sandhurst ethos will translate to this very different culture, and bring the leadership Afghanistan wants from its army, and perhaps - in doing so - also help women in their long, slow march to greater equality in a deeply conservative society. From Our Own Correspondent: Listen online or download the podcast. BBC Radio 4: Saturdays at 11:30 and some Thursdays at 11:00 BBC World Service: Short editions Monday-Friday - see World Service programme schedule. Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook

अफगानिस्तान में ब्रिटेन की स्थायी विरासत अफगान राष्ट्रीय सेना अधिकारी अकादमी होने की संभावना है, जिसने पिछले साल अक्टूबर में अपना पहला पुरुष अधिकारी कैडेट लिया था, और इस गर्मी में अपनी प्रारंभिक महिला भर्तियों को स्वीकार करेगी। क्या यह अफगान समाज में महिलाओं की स्थिति में सुधार करने में भूमिका निभा सकती है?


Is life getting worse for women in Erdogan's Turkey?

Summary: The murder of 20-year-old Ozgecan Aslan, who was stabbed while reportedly resisting a rape attempt, has unleashed a storm of outrage in Turkey.

There have been mass street protests, and hundreds of thousands of women have tweeted #sendeanlat - "tell your story" in Turkish - to share their experiences of abuse. Human rights groups say there has been a dramatic rise in violence against women during the rule of the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Leader of the AKP, he was elected as prime minister in 2002 and last year became the country's first elected president. He has called violence against women "a bleeding wound of Turkey", and vowed to launch a new campaign against it. But he has also said that women are not equal to men. So is life getting worse for women in Erdogan's Turkey? Four expert witnesses spoke to the BBC World Service's The Inquiry. Professor Karen Barkey: Evidence of a new religious conservatism Karen Barkey grew up in Istanbul in the late 1970s and 1980s, and is now a professor of sociology and history at Columbia University in New York. "I grew up at a time where Turkey was quite secular and where girls were really seen as equal to boys in schools. "So many changes happened. So many people from the rural areas moved to Istanbul and to the major cities with different expectations and with different visions of what they wanted and what they needed. There is [now] a new conservatism - a new religious conservatism - which makes it more difficult for women, I think, in contemporary Turkey." Professor Barkey argues that under Mr Erdogan, the AKP has mobilised that more conservative, religious population, who felt shut out by the Westernizing elites who ruled Turkey for the previous decades. "Some people say that actually Erdogan did start as much more democratic, and in his attempt to empower a part of the population that had been very marginalised during the republican era - the conservative, small scale, middle class, lower-middle class, the more religious people in Anatolia - by giving them much more opportunities, business contracts and getting also their vote, as a result that he really opened up Turkey and made it more democratic. "Turkey had to change in that way. But it came at a price of increased conservatism." Mr Erdogan has been criticised for closing down freedom of speech and dissent in Turkey, and in 2013, 3.5 million people took part in protests against his government. But he remains both popular and powerful. "I think the major, most acute tension that divides Turkish society today is Erdogan's government and how people view Erdogan himself: either as an authoritarian leader or as the father of the nation. And so it's not about secular versus religious. Erdogan divides the country." Professor Deniz Kandiyoti: Denial of women's rights Deniz Kandiyoti grew up in Istanbul in the 1950s and 1960s. She's now a professor based in London, specialising in gender relations in Turkey. "In the initial phase of the AKP's government when they were elected into power in 2002, a lot of very positive legal changes took place. This was largely due to the efforts of women's civil society organisations, which between 2002 and 2004 pushed for substantial changes in the criminal code. "But it became clear quite rapidly that the government had other priorities, because they immediately in 2004 wanted to pass a law criminalising adultery. There was an outcry." And then in 2010 Mr Erdogan told a conference of women's organisations that he did not believe in the equality of men and women, that women's destiny was divinely foreordained. "And of course, this was a bombshell." The Ministry for Women and Family became the Ministry of Family and Social Policy, ending the focus on rights and making women just one more group in need of special protection, like orphans and families of veterans. "After this, I'm afraid, it continued to go downhill in terms of the sorts of public pronouncements that the government was making. First they started in relation to women's duty as procreators of the nation. It was made very clear that women were first and foremost mothers, and that women had the duty to make the nation big. "So women were being asked to have minimum three children, then abortion was condemned as being a form of genocide, basically." He condemned violence against women by saying that men are the custodians of women, they have to protect them. "This created a furore among women, who said 'we're not in anybody's custody - we are human beings and we have rights'." To Professor Kandiyoti, Mr Erdogan's rhetoric suggests that some women are vulnerable creatures to be kept safe. Or, at least, some are: "What trickles down of course is that some women are worthy of protection. Other women: it's open season. If you see a woman who's not dressed modestly, or you do not think is sufficiently modestly dressed, then obviously you can be as bold as you like. And you can rape, etc." Professor Kandiyoti says that reactions to the murder of Ozgecan Aslan reflect the split in Turkish society between Mr Erdogan's supporters and opponents: "One group of commentators was talking about how better to segregate women, like pink buses for women only. While another part of society was saying 'What kind of a society is this, that women can only be safe if they're segregated?' "And there was a men's demonstration. Men wearing skirts protesting. Now these were men who obviously didn't want to live in a society where women need to be segregated to be safe." Journalist Cicek Tahaoglu: Violence affecting women across society Cicek Tahaoglu works in Istanbul and has been collating media reports on violence against women since 2011 for a news website called Bianet, partly because official statistics are unreliable. "In 2009 the Minister of Justice said that 953 women were murdered, and the Ministry of Family said that only 171 women were murdered. This is two official answers; it's contradictory, you can see that." In 2010 the Ministry of Justice said that 14 times as many women were murdered in that year than in 2003. After that the government stopped putting out statistics. Cicek Tahaoglu thinks that lack of official data tells its own story: "They keep statistics of divorces, they keep statistics of marriages, they keep statistics of births, but they don't keep statistics of male violence. "This fact explains something. When they don't keep statistics of male violence it makes us think that they don't want to accept the seriousness of the issue." Cicek Tahaoglu's own findings point to a significant jump in the number of murders - up 31% from 2013 to 2014. According to local reports, nearly 300 women were killed by men last year. But it is not just the numbers that trouble her. It is what happens in these cases. "Perpetrators think that these women deserved to die. When a woman wears a miniskirt she deserves to get raped. When a woman doesn't do cooking and taking care of children and when she doesn't do that some men thinks she deserves to die. "One case I will never forget. A man killed his wife with a cooking pan because there wasn't enough salt in the meal." And she says this kind of violence against women is seen across all of society: "There is no social stereotypes of male violence. Educated women get murdered, uneducated women get murdered and perpetrators are the same. "It can be a man with no employment or it can be a lawyer who kills his wife, so there's not a social pattern of this. This problem is bigger than that." AKP member Zeynep Kandur: Women are being given freedom Zeynep Kandur is a member of President Erdogan's AKP. She grew up in Chicago, but married a Turkish man and went to live in Turkey in 1992. "Life is definitely getting better for women in Turkey. I see great hopes for the future for improvements being made to make it even easier and better. "If you go back 15 years ago it was very difficult for a large proportion of the female population to go to university, to work in the public sector. Civil servants and students were banned from wearing headscarves, and when the ruling was extended to all schools and universities, Zeynep Kandur gave up her teaching job rather than bare her head. But then, in 2008, Mr Erdogan's government lifted the headscarf ban. She says that dramatically improved the lot of Turkish women. "Now women can work in most sectors with a headscarf or without a headscarf. Certain laws have been introduced to give women more rights. In 2002 there was a sentence in the constitution saying that men are the head of the family, that was removed and women have been given the right to 50% of everything that belongs to the family. So I feel that women are getting a much better deal now than they used to." In 2014 a European commission report highlighted women's underemployment in Turkey, especially in parliament and the judiciary, but Ms Kandur insists the situation is improving: "With the lifting of the headscarf ban, that will change now. I mean we have elections coming up in June this year and, for example, for AKP there's over 1000 applicants to become candidates, and of those I think 250 are women." She argues the perception of an increase in violence is partly due to increased reporting of the problem: "I don't mean to be callous about it, but women are pushing for more rights, women are pushing for their voices to be heard and there is more reporting, there is more recognition that women are victims of abuse." She accuses some people of exploiting Ms Aslan's murder to score political points against Mr Erdogan: "We are coming up to a general election, and I think certain parts of the media in a way irresponsibly fan the flames to make it into a subject about women's rights, about violence against women, about the failure of the government to protect women. [But] over 50% of the voters for AK Party are women." She emphatically rejects the claim that the government is setting a negative tone when it comes to women. When Mr Erdogan says men and women are not equal she hears something quite different from Professor Kandiyoti. "What he's saying is that women and men have equal rights. They have equal rights to freedom of expression. They have equal rights to employment. They have equal rights to everything. "But if a woman is working next to a man in the same position as a man, she should have the ability, if she wants to have a child or she wants to nurse a child, to be able to do that, that men and women are not physically equal and we should not expect them to perform equally in the same tasks, that women should be given extra dispensation because they are also mothers." And when Mr Erdogan says that women should have lots of children, as a mother of three herself, she hears not a command, but a confirmation of freedom: "[Previously] this message was drummed into us: 'two children are modern'. So by saying to women, 'You can have three children, have three children, have four children,' it should be a choice." The Inquiry is broadcast on the BBC World Service on Tuesdays from 13:05 GMT. Listen online or download the podcast.

20 वर्षीय ओज़गेकन असलान की हत्या, जिसे कथित तौर पर बलात्कार के प्रयास का विरोध करते हुए चाकू मार दिया गया था, ने तुर्की में आक्रोश का तूफान खड़ा कर दिया है।


Oxford shelter lets homeless use floor

Summary: An Oxford homeless shelter which has no free beds is allowing people to sleep on the floor to prevent them from "freezing to death" on the streets.

Oxford Homeless Pathways operates an emergency mode when temperatures drop below freezing three nights in a row. Chief executive Lesley Dewhurst said hypothermia was "very dangerous" and believed it had killed rough sleepers in Oxfordshire in recent years. The charity hands out mats and sleeping bags to accommodate the extra people. The O'Hanlon House shelter has 56 beds which Ms Dewhurst says are almost always full.

एक ऑक्सफोर्ड बेघर आश्रय, जिसमें कोई मुफ्त बिस्तर नहीं है, लोगों को सड़कों पर "ठंड से मरने" से रोकने के लिए फर्श पर सोने की अनुमति दे रहा है।


Thousands watch Aberdeen Christmas lights parade

Summary: Thousands of people watched the annual parade marking Aberdeen's Christmas lights being switched on.

About 15,000 were estimated to have lined Union Street on Sunday evening to see the event, which had a 12 Days of Christmas theme. Lord Provost George Adam said it was a great success. Meanwhile, a Christmas village - including food stalls and entertainment - in Union Terrace is continuing in the city centre. Related Internet Links Aberdeen City Council

हजारों लोगों ने एबरडीन की क्रिसमस की बत्तियों को जलाते हुए वार्षिक परेड देखी।


Coronavirus in Wales: Exam results lowered after 'generous grading'

Summary: Thousands of estimated A-level and GCSE grades in Wales will be lowered to account for teachers being "generous" and inconsistency across schools and colleges, the exams watchdog has said.

Exams were cancelled due to coronavirus so results are based on how teachers predict a student would have performed and formula applied by the exam board Results will be released in the next fortnight. Qualifications Wales said the process was as fair as possible. It said a majority of learners would receive their estimated grade and a small percentage would receive a grade that is higher. The rest, it said, would receive a lower grade, with "a small percentage" of final grades "two or more grades lower" than they had been estimated. Similar processes have been adopted in other parts of the UK, which led to a row in Scotland last week when many pupils were unhappy that they had been awarded lower grades than they had been predicted. A-level and AS results are released to pupils on 13 August and GCSE grades will be published a week later. Grades will also be published for the Welsh Bacc. Schools and colleges submitted estimated grades to the WJEC exam board in June, as well as ranking pupils within grades in each subject. The exam board then looks at information such as how pupils have performed in previous years and the results of the school and college in the past. 'Not a criticism of teachers' Chief Executive of Qualifications Wales Philip Blaker said without such an approach "big variations in outcomes would reduce confidence in results and therefore disadvantage this year's learners". "On the whole, CAGs [centre assessment grades] were generous and there was also evidence of inconsistency between exam centres," he said. "This is in no way a criticism of teachers as there was no opportunity amid the pandemic to train them." He said the watchdog's analysis showed a "clear difference between CAGs and exam results in previous years, highlighting the need for standardisation to secure fairness for learners". "Qualifications awarded in Wales this year are of the same value as those awarded in any other normal year," he added. He said the approach had been "carefully thought through to be as fair as possible in the circumstances and protect the value of results". Analysis by the regulator showed that, based on the estimated grades, more than 40% of A-levels would have been awarded at A* or A compared with 27% in 2019. At GCSE, 73% would have had an A* to C grade, compared with 62% in 2019. He said the "clear difference" between the estimated grades and previous years' exam results highlighted the need for a standardisation process. "Changes of this magnitude are unprecedented and unchecked would not be credible", Mr Blaker said. "They would also be at odds with our aim that results this year at a national level are broadly similar to previous years - something that most people agreed with when we consulted on our aims."

वेल्स में हजारों अनुमानित ए-स्तर और जी. सी. एस. ई. ग्रेड को स्कूलों और कॉलेजों में शिक्षकों के "उदार" और विसंगति के लिए कम किया जाएगा, परीक्षा प्रहरी ने कहा है।


Unexploded WW2 bomb taken to Bangor police station

Summary: An unexploded World War Two bomb was taken to Bangor police station by a member of the public, police have said.

The mortar was found in Coed y Wenallt at Nant Gwynant on Tuesday and handed in to officers. Bomb disposal experts carried out a controlled explosion at Brewery Fields in the city on Wednesday morning. A North Wales Police spokesman said officers cordoned off the area to ensure there was no danger to the public.

पुलिस ने कहा है कि जनता के एक सदस्य द्वारा द्वितीय विश्व युद्ध के एक बिना फटे बम को बांगोर पुलिस स्टेशन ले जाया गया था।


Jersey Water roadworks finish early

Summary: St Aubin's Inner Road is re-opening a month earlier than expected.

Jersey Water has been renewing the water pipes in the Millbrook area of the road. It was expected to take until 30 November to complete but Jersey Water said the hard work of contractors and relatively dry weather means it will open on Friday night. The areas of road affected are currently being resurfaced and will open to traffic at about 18:30 BST.

सेंट ऑबिन इनर रोड उम्मीद से एक महीने पहले फिर से खुल रहा है।


The astonishing speed of Chinese censorship

Summary: You have written something politically sensitive on one of China's "weibo" microblogging sites. So how much time passes before it gets deleted? And what does it reveal about how Chinese censors work? Computer scientists Jed Crandall and Dan Wallach explain the findings of a study they conducted.

In China, internet penetration has grown massively in the last decade - from 4.6% in 2002 to 42.1% in 2012. Microblogging site Sina Weibo only launched in 2010, but it now has 300 million users and about 100 million messages are sent daily. It clearly plays an important role in the discourse surrounding current events in China. The Chinese government seems to require Chinese companies to maintain internal censorship regimes. There have been several interesting studies on how Chinese censorship works and how to work around it, but we wanted to know how the censors do it and how they make their censorship scale to manage hundreds of millions of users. We found a landscape in which a post could be deleted as quickly as five minutes after being put online and where the censors appear not to work a regular day, but seem to take a break when China's all-important 19:00 news comes on. So how did we make such observations? Speedy censor Last year - along with several colleagues - we spent 30 days observing 3,500 users on Sina Weibo to track the fate of their posts. During this time around 300 of the accounts were deleted - that's about 12% of the total. We further examined data about the posts and that provided some fascinating insights into how the censors go about their job. We looked at users who have been censored and then see how long their to-be-censored posts survived. Those who are more often censored are also censored faster which shows they are getting more scrutiny than other users. We could do this because many Sina Weibo posts are only censored post-publication and so we could track the posts. We also identified users who were likely to make postings on sensitive topics and therefore also likely to be deleted. We believe this is the first real-time analysis of weibo posts - that monitors how quickly microblog posts are removed in terms of minutes rather than days. What it revealed was a sophisticated operation. We cannot estimate the exact number of staff who are dedicated to censorship, but it is clear that there are some relatively sophisticated programmers who build their censorship tooling and they have a number of staff who use those tools. Deletions happen most heavily in the first hour after a post has been submitted. About 5% of deletions happened in the first eight minutes, and within 30 minutes almost 30% of the deletions had been made. Nearly 90% of deletions happen within the first 24 hours. We worked out that if none of the process was automated, Sina Weibo would need to employ more than 4,000 censors reading at speed every day just to keep up. There are other possible systems at work too: The authorities are also likely to be targeting users who have had posts deleted in the past. These users' posts are deleted most quickly. There are other censorship mechanisms, too. Sometimes Sina Weibo suspends posts until they can be manually checked, telling the user that the delay is because of "server data synchronisation". It also uses "camouflaged posts", making it appear to a user that their post was successfully posted, but other users are not able to see the post and the poster is not aware of this. Censors also track backwards to delete sensitive topics everywhere they arise, and monitor specific users. What is censored? We also found that those topics where a mass removal happens the fastest are those that combine events that are hot topics across Sina Weibo, for example the Beijing rainstorms or a specific sex scandal that occurred during our tracking effort, with topics that are generally considered sensitive. If Sina Weibo had insufficient controls, the government may take action against the company. If their controls were too rigid, users might abandon them for one of their competitors. Its success implies that it has found a happy medium, and that is what makes it an interesting social media platform to study. But there is more research to do. We would like to get deeper into why some topics are censored and others not. We are also interested in the impact of the censorship. How much do the post deletions and other forms of censorship actually stymie conversation and free assembly? That is still an open question, and a very important one. Research was conducted by Tao Zhu, David Phipps, Adman Pridge, Jedediah R Crandall and Dan S Wallach and published in arxiv.org.

आपने चीन की "वेइबो" माइक्रोब्लॉगिंग साइटों में से एक पर राजनीतिक रूप से कुछ संवेदनशील लिखा है। तो इसे हटाने में कितना समय लगता है? और यह चीनी सेंसर के काम करने के बारे में क्या बताता है? कंप्यूटर वैज्ञानिक जेड क्रैंडल और डैन वालाक ने अपने द्वारा किए गए एक अध्ययन के निष्कर्षों की व्याख्या की।


Badger baiting dog abandoned in Chinley makes full recovery

Summary: A dog found abandoned with "horrendous" injuries after being put into a sett by suspected badger baiters has made a full recovery, police have said.

The Patterdale terrier was found in Chinley, Derbyshire, in September after two men had been seen digging an active sett. The dog had a chip for the national veterinary service in Hungary but was not registered to an individual. Police said the terrier has now been successfully rehomed. At the time police said the men fled after being questioned by the landowner. The two suspects were seen driving off in a silver-grey 4x4 with a grey rear load bed canopy. Wildlife officers called the incident a "cruel and barbaric act". Derbyshire Police confirmed the suspects have not been traced, but the case is still being investigated and a new appeal for information has been made. Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.

पुलिस ने कहा है कि संदिग्ध बैजर बाइटरों द्वारा एक बस्ती में रखे जाने के बाद "भयानक" चोटों के साथ परित्यक्त पाया गया एक कुत्ता पूरी तरह से ठीक हो गया है।


The view from shell-shocked Silicon Valley

Summary: If you can’t beat ‘em, leave ‘em.

Dave LeeNorth America technology reporter Remarkably, that seemed to be the knee-jerk reaction of at least some of Silicon Valley’s elite in the wake of Donald Trump becoming president-elect on Tuesday. "I am announcing and funding a legitimate campaign for California to become its own nation,” wrote Shervin Pishevar, a major investor in companies like Uber, AirBnB and Slack. "I'm in and will partner with you on it,” replied Dave Morin, another major tech investor. It’s been agreed, the new promised land should be called New California. "It's the most patriotic thing we can do,” Mr Pishevar said. The proposal - one that, let’s face it, is faintly ridiculous - represents peak panic in the wake of an election that has left much of Silicon Valley stunned and grasping for answers. ‘Open door' There are two bubbles in this part of the world - one is about money, the other is about its world view. On her disastrous night, Clinton got more votes in California than in any other part of the country. Here, the prospect of a Trump presidency wasn’t just unlikely, it was unthinkable. Before the vote, openly supporting Mr Trump was seen by many as a crime worthy of losing your job. When it emerged that Facebook board member and major investor Peter Thiel was donating more than $1m to the Trump campaign, many called for him to be sacked. But just a few weeks on, Mr Thiel, a person who has made his vast fortune over long-term bets, proved to be the most astute man in the Valley once again. “He has an awesomely difficult task, since it is long past time for us to face up to our country’s problems,” he said in a statement after Mr Trump’s win. "We’re going to need all hands on deck.” Coming to terms Mr Thiel remains an outlier here. What we’ll likely see over the next few days is an industry and community slowly contemplating what life in Silicon Valley will mean under President Trump. Chris Sacca, an early investor in Twitter, said technology companies should be open to the new leader. "We in the tech community are willing to work with President-Elect Trump to help those Americans who need it most,” he tweeted. "The door is open. "Very few people were as vocal in their opposition to Donald Trump as I was. But sitting on our hands for four years is a bad option." As I type, we’re yet to hear from the real key players: Apple, Facebook and Google. Their message will be instrumental in setting the collective mood here. Meanwhile, Twitter boss Jack Dorsey may be enjoying one silver lining: shares in the struggling network, still by far the best platform on a day like Tuesday, jumped 4% to its best pricing since October. Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC and on Facebook

यदि आप उन्हें हरा नहीं सकते हैं, तो उन्हें छोड़ दें।


In pictures: Photographer 'in awe' of older athletes

Summary: As the world's finest athletes are celebrated in London, few people know their older counterparts are returning from competition in Denmark. But while the two sets are totally opposed in age, they are matched every step of the way in passion, joy and determination. Photographer Alex Rotas, 68, is determined to prove it.

"I'm half in tears and half in awe watching these amazing athletes and what they achieve in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s and just marvelling at their athleticism," said the Bristol-based photographer. She has just returned from the European Masters Athletics Championships in Aarhus, Denmark - a trip described as "incredibly intense, incredibly wonderful and jaw-dropping". She took up photography several years ago and has spent much of her time since then looking through the lens at older sportsmen and women. "Retirement is a word I skirt around and try not to use," she said. "I started when I was 60, which is when I realised there weren't any images of older sporty people and being an older sporty person I knew they were out there. I did an internet search and once you put the word 'old' in you just get those pictures of older people slumped in chairs. So I thought 'wow, there's a gap worth filling'." Education has formed much of her career. In Greece she worked with with pre-school deaf children, through to studying a PhD for herself and now she says she is spreading the word, in picture, that the ageing human body is capable of greatness. "I was watching these people aged in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s just achieve the most incredible athletic feats that I never imagined were possible. "I found it very moving and it made me recalibrate my own sense of what the ageing body can do. "It's not only their athleticism that comes through, it's their joy. These people are so full of life that it's inspiration on every single level." She spent much of her youth playing tennis but the track and field has now captivated her, travelling throughout the UK with her camera and to championships in France, Finland, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Hungary and most recently Denmark. "There's something really naked about track and field athletics. In tennis you have a racket and you can hide your fitness, or lack of it, if you can do a really good drop shot as you get older. "But in athletics you've just got your body. You take your body to the starting line, the gun goes bang and you're off. " "Some have carried on, meaning they have been athletes all their life, and some have come to it very late in life. "Some were good in school but gave up when they had jobs and family and they take 50 years out and then come back. It's quite remarkable." "Everyone has a story and everyone's story is different," said Alex, who hopes to inspire others with the pictures she displays and talks she gives around the world. And although she's nearing 70 herself she's committed to maintaining her love for starting things - "I love being a beginner," she says with delight. You might also like: The secret lab inside one of London's top landmarks Inside Europe's sexcam capital Is there a lost Scottish clan in northern Italy? Rogue Dickens apostrophe costs council Coverage of the World Athletics Championships continues live across BBC One and Two, BBC Radio 5 live, BBC Radio 5 live sports extra, the BBC Sport website and app until Sunday.

जैसा कि दुनिया के बेहतरीन एथलीटों को लंदन में मनाया जाता है, बहुत कम लोग जानते हैं कि उनके पुराने समकक्ष डेनमार्क में प्रतियोगिता से लौट रहे हैं। लेकिन जबकि दोनों सेट उम्र में पूरी तरह से विपरीत हैं, वे जुनून, आनंद और दृढ़ संकल्प में हर कदम पर मेल खाते हैं। फोटोग्राफर एलेक्स रोटास, 68, इसे साबित करने के लिए दृढ़ हैं।


South Korea provokes teenage smartphone privacy row

Summary: How much control should parents have over teenagers' web browsing?

By Stephen EvansBBC News, Seoul That's the debate raging in South Korea at the moment. Because the government has ruled that people under 19 who buy a smartphone must install an app that monitors their web activity. Parents will be able to to see what their kids are up to online and block access to "undesirable" sites. Failure to install such an app means the phone won't work. Is it a triumph of good sense or a paternalistic government going too far, especially when you consider that many of these youngsters are old enough to vote in other countries or serve in the military? 'Harmful content' The government has developed its own monitoring app called Smart Sheriff, but there more than a dozen alternatives on the market. Phone stores now have posters at the entrance saying: "Young smartphone users, you must install apps that block harmful content." Apple loophole There is no opt-out. But there are loopholes, including the fact that the Communications Commission assumes that in the land of Samsung everybody prefers Android to Apple, so, according to the critics, those with iPhones can get round the rule. The government argument is simple but powerful: there is a pit of nastiness on the web and young people should be protected from it. The opponents' argument is also simple and powerful: it's about personal freedom. Children have to be allowed to roam in cyberspace - just like in physical space - to learn how to cope with life's difficulties, as well as enjoy life's pleasures. And even if parts of the internet should be closed off to children, it's for parents to decide where the barriers should be, not the government. Blocking access to a list of forbidden sites through a smartphone app is a step too far, they argue. Some of the apps monitor particular words and phrases, then alert parents when these triggers are put into search engines. Examples include "threat", "run away from home", "pregnancy", and "crazy". There are many, many more. Kim Kha Yeun, a lawyer at the Open Net Korea organisation, which is trying to get the compulsory instalment of the app blocked, said: "It is the same as installing a surveillance camera on teenagers' smartphones." Open Net Korea also fears that the list of banned sites could expand at the behest of politicians for political reasons. Smartphone rules There is a tradition of paternalism in Korea. South Korea was industrialised at the direction of the president, so it may be that what is tolerated in hi-tech Korea, where 8-out-of-10 teenagers own a smartphone, would not be tolerated elsewhere. There have already been attempts to control the way citizens use technology. For example, a default shutter-click sound has been introduced to smartphone cameras to discourage perverts from taking surreptitious, voyeuristic photos of people on trains, in changing rooms, or other public places. But the small number of convictions for such an offence would indicate that the truly determined are managing to switch off this sound effect anyway. In the shadow of dictatorship South Korea is a vibrant democracy. It's had free and fair elections since 1987. But paternalism doesn't have the bad name it might have in some other democracies. That is partly because the track record of strong government is good, in the eyes of many Koreans. The country was modernised rapidly under the firm leadership of a paternalistic president. Major-General Park Chung-hee took power in a coup in 1961. He was a strongman who utilised brutal methods - but he also dictated that industries be created. Under his direction, the South Korean economic phenomenon was born. Koreans know that. And the current president knows that. She should do - Park Geun-hye is the dictator's daughter. 'Nasty stuff' When the BBC talked to teenagers aged 18 and under, they resented being made to install Smart Sheriff or its alternatives. At Seoul Global High School, Won June-Lee, Yerim Jin and Minjun Kim were studying 1984 - the George Orwell novel in which Big Brother first appears - when the BBC visited. Their opinions all followed the same line: parents are right to have fears about what children are doing on the internet, but the kids are also entitled to challenge and negotiate what they are allowed to see. And learning to control what kinds of media are encountered on the net is now a part of growing up, they argued. Modern South Korea is struggling to come to terms with its past. It is a country seemingly addicted to technology, but also accepting of paternalistic government; a vibrant democracy built on economic foundations laid by a despot. Big Brother may have been tolerated in the past, but now he has to argue his case.

किशोरों के वेब ब्राउज़िंग पर माता-पिता का कितना नियंत्रण होना चाहिए?


North Korea's nuclear bomb: Can we work out its power?

Summary: The nuclear test that North Korea conducted on Sunday is thought to be the biggest ever conducted by Pyongyang. But what does this really mean and how will we find out more about the bomb? Physicist Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress explains.

A nuclear explosion is an extremely large explosion, so large that it shakes the ground just as an earthquake does and is detected by seismic sensors thousands of kilometres away. The magnitude of the shaking is a measure of the immense energy released by the event. A parameter known as the body-wave magnitude (Mb) is used. This is not a linear scale. A magnitude-6 event, for example, releases 30 times more energy than one of magnitude 5. In all, 34 stations that are part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation's (CTBTO) vast seismic monitoring network detected North Korea's explosion and it was so intense that it actually "saturated" the detectors. In other words for this monitoring network, which is sensitive to extremely small nuclear test explosions, this test was so high it essentially went off scale. There have been widely differing calculations of the power of this blast, ranging from 50-150 kilotonnes. The force is measured in kilotonnes to indicate what would happen if one kilotonne of TNT was exploded. The yields predicted so far vary because it depends on the precise formula used: which scaling relation of the yield as a function of body wave magnitude is used - and that depends on a variety of factors such as the depth and type of rock where the test was conducted, for example. A recent scaling equation takes into account the depth at which an explosion took place. This was developed by Miao Zhang and Lianxing Wen from the University of Science and Technology of China and Stony Brook and is appropriate for North Korea. It means that we can begin to start guessing how powerful the blast would have been at various depths and this is what it looks like in a graph. Modelling of the test site has led analysts to guess that blasts take place at depths as deep as 600 to 900 metres (1968-2952ft). If that is true, the yield is likely to have been at least 370 kilotonnes, which is vastly more than most estimates. What this graph shows is that small differences in depth can make vast differences in yield or power. Compare this with the destructive force of Hiroshima: that came in at 15 kilotonnes. This new estimate is consistent with the yield of a "two-stage" thermonuclear device, which is the type of bomb that North Korea claims that they have developed. But more work will need to be done to determine the depth at which this test was conducted to reach consensus on the yield - that is the power - of the bomb. Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress is scientist in residence at the Middlebury Institute of International studies at Monterey.

उत्तर कोरिया ने रविवार को जो परमाणु परीक्षण किया, उसे प्योंगयांग द्वारा किया गया अब तक का सबसे बड़ा परीक्षण माना जाता है। लेकिन इसका वास्तव में क्या अर्थ है और हम बम के बारे में अधिक जानकारी कैसे प्राप्त करेंगे? भौतिक विज्ञानी फेरेन्क डालनोकी-वेरस बताते हैं।


Is Europe going to restrict teens from using Facebook?

Summary: By the end of this week it could be illegal for any European child under 16 to use Facebook - or Snapchat or any messaging service - without the express consent of their parents. That, according to some interpretations, would be the result of a vote by an obscure committee to raise the digital age of consent from 13 to 16.

Rory Cellan-JonesTechnology correspondent@BBCRoryCJon Twitter Who knew there was a "digital age of consent"? I certainly didn't but I am told it is built into the decisions that many online firms make about the age they will allow people to join. In the United States a law called Coppa (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) gives extra online protection to children under 13, and Europe has had a similar policy - which is why the likes of Facebook have not allowed children in until they become teenagers. Now, though, the European Parliament's civil liberties and home affairs committee is considering a change which is opposed both by social media firms and many child protection experts. A last minute amendment to Europe's Data Protection Regulation, says this: "The processing of personal data of a child below the age of 16 years shall only be lawful if and to the extent that such consent is given or authorised by the holder of parental responsibility over the child." In other words, online firms that want to deal with anyone under 16 will have to make sure they get mum or dad's permission first. That according to several online safety experts, will make children more vulnerable not less. In an open letter to the committee they write that changing the age limit "would deprive young people of educational and social opportunities in a number of ways, yet would provide no more (and likely even less) protection." Others argue that social media has provided a vital lifeline for troubled teenagers, and the risk is that they will not feel able to go online in search of help. Now, there are plenty of children under 13 using Facebook and other social media sites, with and without parental consent, so it is worth asking whether raising the age limit will make a difference. But the social media companies and their lawyers certainly think it will make it much harder for responsible companies to police their sites. That is why a furious lobbying effort is going on to try to persuade European lawmakers, who meet today and vote on Thursday, to chuck out this amendment. What is missing from this debate so far is anyone making powerful arguments in favour of raising the digital age of consent. Time, perhaps, for those voices to be heard. Update: I have now heard from one supporter of the higher age limit. Dr Rachel O'Connell from the consultancy Trust Elevate - which is developing age-verification tools - suggests that new technologies could be used by social networks to detect under-16s and limit what was done with their data without blocking access outright. "Social media firms could continue to offer access without processing under-16's personal data, ie gathering data, creating psychographic profiles of a young person and selling it to third parties, until they got permission from a parent and young person," Dr O'Connell said. "This would require companies to be transparent with both parents and young people about how their data will be processed."

इस सप्ताह के अंत तक 16 वर्ष से कम उम्र के किसी भी यूरोपीय बच्चे के लिए अपने माता-पिता की स्पष्ट सहमति के बिना फेसबुक या स्नैपचैट या किसी भी संदेश सेवा का उपयोग करना अवैध हो सकता है। कुछ व्याख्याओं के अनुसार, यह सहमति की डिजिटल आयु को 13 से बढ़ाकर 16 करने के लिए एक अस्पष्ट समिति द्वारा मतदान का परिणाम होगा।


Rhino poaching: The strange figures behind a secret trade

Summary: Between 2007-14, rhino poaching rose 9000%. The very existence of the species is threatened by organised crime.

Rhino horn is a substance more valuable than cocaine, heroin or gold. Its trade is a complex smuggling racket that is almost impossible to police because it crosses so many borders and involves countless criminals. Tap HERE to find out more:

2007-14 के बीच, गैंडे का अवैध शिकार बढ़ गया 9000%. संगठित अपराध से इस प्रजाति का अस्तित्व ही खतरे में है।


Paul McTasney: Manslaughter charge after Bradford death

Summary: A man has been charged with manslaughter after a 38-year-old died of head injuries follwing an assault.

Paul McTasney was attacked on Vivien Road, Bradford, in the early hours of Saturday and later died in hospital. A 31-year-old man is due to appear at Leeds Magistrates' Court accused of causing his death, West Yorkshire Police said. Investigations are continuing into the death of Mr McTasney, from Bradford, who used to go by the surname Adams. Another man, 22, who was also arrested has been released without charge. Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.

हमले के बाद सिर में चोट लगने से 38 वर्षीय व्यक्ति की मौत के बाद एक व्यक्ति पर हत्या का आरोप लगाया गया है।


Work on Aberdeen bypass halted due to muddy water threat

Summary: Work on the Aberdeen bypass has been halted for seven days after heavy rain caused muddy water to run off the construction site.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) is carrying out an investigation into potential pollution in watercourses along the route. Transport Scotland said contractors had spent three days trying to mitigate excess water flowing from the site. The bypass is due to completed by winter 2017. Sepa said there were concerns that pollution flowing into tributaries of the Dee and Don could affect salmon and freshwater pearl mussels.

भारी बारिश के कारण निर्माण स्थल से मैला पानी बह जाने के बाद एबरडीन बाईपास पर काम सात दिनों के लिए रोक दिया गया है।


Two dead and one arrested after 'wrong-way' M62 crash

Summary: Two men have been killed and a motorist arrested after a crash involving a car driving the wrong way on the M62 near Bradford.

Police received reports of a black Vauxhall Insignia travelling east on the westbound carriageway near junction 26 at 02:35 BST. Minutes later, the ambulance service was called to an accident involving the same vehicle and a white Skoda Octavia. The men, aged 34 and 37, in the Skoda died at the scene. The driver of the Vauxhall - a 22-year-old man - was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and failing a roadside breath test. The M62 was closed westbound between junction 27 (Gildersome) and junction 26 (Chain Bar) for recovery and police investigation work. It reopened at about 09:50.

ब्रैडफोर्ड के पास एम62 पर गलत रास्ते से गाड़ी चलाने वाली एक कार की दुर्घटना में दो लोगों की मौत हो गई और एक मोटर चालक को गिरफ्तार कर लिया गया।


El Paso and Dayton: Two mass shootings - will anything change?

Summary: It's become a familiar refrain after every mass shooting in the US. Will this time be different? Will outrage over the violence compel political action, as it has done in the UK after Dunblane, Australia after Port Arthur and, most recently, New Zealand after Christchurch?

Anthony ZurcherNorth America reporter@awzurcheron Twitter Among gun control activists, there is a certain amount of resignation whenever a new incident splashes across the headlines. If public sentiment did not force action after the 2012 Newtown shooting, when 26 people - including 20 young children - were killed in a Connecticut school, then nothing will ever change. If the double tragedy of El Paso and Dayton ends up being different, however, here are a few possible explanations. White nationalist violence Recent mass shootings in the US have been attributed to a variety of causes - disaffected youth (Parkland and Santa Fe), mental illness (Annapolis), workplace conflict (Virginia Beach) and family discord (Sutherland Springs). The deadliest such incident in modern US history, the 2017 shooting at a music concert in Las Vegas that claimed 58 lives, still has no attributed motive. In this case, however, all evidence indicates that the El Paso shooting was a calculated political act drawn from the white nationalist rhetoric that has become increasingly prominent in modern US politics. In that way, it's more akin to last October's Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, which prompted discussions about rising anti-Semitism in the US, or the 2017 violence in Charlottesville, which served as a jarring display of the strength of the modern white supremacist movement. Although the suspected gunman, Patrick Crusius, has yet to be conclusively tied to the racist manifesto posted on the internet shortly before the attacks, the facts point in one direction. He did not launch this attack in his home town. He drove at least eight hours, from north Texas to within miles of the US-Mexico border, and opened fire in a shopping area frequented by Hispanics. Law enforcement says they are treating the case as an episode of "domestic terrorism". That puts this incident square in the middle of the ongoing debate about immigration, border security and national identity. Americans in the past have wondered how young men could be drawn to political violence against innocents in other parts of the world. Now they're seeing firsthand that it can happen in their home country, as well. The nature of the attack could prompt a rethinking of the domestic threat presented by militant white nationalists and ways to stop it, including new gun control measures. Democrats have been quick to offer condemnations, but there are voices on the right as well that have taken up the warnings. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who ran for president against Mr Trump in 2016, denounced the gunman's "anti-Hispanic bigotry" and called the violence a "heinous act of terrorism and white supremacy". Texas Land Commissioner George P Bush, son of 2016 Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, issued a statement saying that "white terrorists" are a "real and present threat". If a consensus grows that there is a threat, the question then becomes how to address it. A tinderbox of presidential politics It hasn't taken long for those on the left to point to Donald Trump and other Republican officeholders for employing the kind of rhetoric that might have inspired a white nationalist to murder. The president has repeatedly labelled undocumented migrants "an invasion", and said European immigration is changing the "fabric of Europe" and not "in a positive way". At a Florida rally in May, a member of the crowd shouted "shoot them!" when the president wondered how they could stop undocumented migration. Mr Trump responded to the comment with a joke. Just over a month ago, Texas Senator John Cornyn tweeted that last year Texas was gaining "almost nine Hispanic residents for every additional white resident". Criticism of the Republican response - or lack of response - to mass shootings isn't unusual, of course. The difference this time is that the criticism is being amplified by the Democratic presidential primary contest. Although the first ballots won't be cast for half a year, the campaigning and debating has already begun in earnest. More than 20 candidates have an incentive to set themselves apart from the pack with aggressive calls for new gun-control measures and condemnation of what they view as incendiary racist rhetoric. Beto O'Rourke, an El Paso native, has already laid blame for the attack at the president's feet. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg blamed an ideology of white nationalist terrorism that "is being condoned at the highest levels of our government". Almost every candidate has come out with some new call for gun control as a response. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, who has proposed a national gun-licensing programme, said "we have power to stop this" - but the solutions are being blocked by "spineless politicians and folks who are doing the bidding of the corporate gun lobby". In last week's Democratic debates in Detroit, the issue was only briefly touched upon. Public attention, however, sharpened by the shootings as well as the direct line the candidates are drawing to the president, ensures that at least in the near term there will be prominent voices calling for action. One step closer in Congress In the days after the 2012 Newtown school shooting, Congress attempted to enact universal background checks on all gun purchases, including private transactions. Despite bipartisan support in the US Senate, a minority blocked the proposal through parliamentary procedure. The legislation was never even considered by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. The dynamic, in at least one chamber of Congress, is different today. When Democrats took over the House in January of this year, it didn't take long for them to approve similar legislation to the Newtown bill - marking the first time in a quarter century that the lower chamber of Congress has passed sweeping new firearm regulations. After the dual shootings in El Paso and Dayton, the pressure is now on the Republican-controlled Senate to take up the measure - something Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has so far declined to do. He might be able to withstand the pressure. And even if it comes to a vote, the parliamentary obstacles allowing just 41 Republicans to block passage remain. But several of the senators who backed the bipartisan bill in 2013 are still in office. And with actual legislation from the House on the table, the Senate is the final obstacle keeping a bill from reaching the president's desk, not the first. A weakened NRA Back in 2012, the National Rifle Association was near the height of its power and influence in US politics. Through decades of campaigning, the group - which represents millions of gun owners as well as gun manufacturers - had turned gun rights for many Americans into a red-white-and-blue bedecked symbol of God and country. Many Democrats viewed firearm regulation as ballot-box poison, blaming the issue for, among other defeats, Al Gore's narrow presidential loss in 2000. A candidate with a negative rating from the NRA practically ensured a well-funded opponent and grass-roots opposition in many parts of the US. Even after the Newtown massacre, the trend in firearm legislation in many parts of the country was toward greater freedoms - such as the right to carry concealed weapons - not less. And in 2016 its early and active support for Mr Trump's presidential campaign, considered a gamble at the time, was rewarded with his surprise victory. Recently, however, the NRA has fallen on hard times. The organisation's revenue dropped by $56m in 2017, due to lower membership dues and contributions. It's been beset by an internal power struggle that has spilled into the civil courts and targeted by criminal corruption probes in New York and Washington, DC. Even the NRA's sheen of electoral invulnerability has begun to dull. In the 2018 mid-term elections it was outspent by gun-control groups aided by contributions from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Several prominent gun-control advocates, such as Lucy McBath in Georgia, won in battleground districts. This is not the same NRA that was able to aggressively push back against background-check legislation even in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting. It still has plenty of political muscle, of course, but cracks in the foundation are visible. And unchanged... some familiar obstacles If all of the above are reasons why the situation may be different this time around, there are still plenty of reasons why it might be just the same. The Senate roadblocks to national legislation outlined earlier are very real and very significant. What's more, the Senate is currently in recess until September, and if the past is any indication, the intensity of calls for gun control diminish as the tragedies recede from memory. The president's support - or even his signature on legislation that is passed - is also not guaranteed. After the 2018 Parkland shooting, Mr Trump expressed some interest in backing gun-control legislation, going so far as to say he was in favour of comprehensive background check despite NRA opposition. After meeting with NRA leadership the president quickly walked back those comments, however, and later told the group's annual convention that Second Amendment gun rights were "under siege" but he would always defend them as president. Although Mr Trump tweeted a condemnation of the El Paso shooting as a "hateful act", he will be pressed to go further in condemning white nationalist violence. The fact that Democrats are accusing him of contributing to the rhetorical environment that encourages such bloodshed might make the president disinclined to take more concrete action. He could view doing so as tacitly admitting responsibility or fault - something Mr Trump has proven he is loath to do. If that's the case, this could end up a reprise of the president's response to the 2017 Charlottesville clashes between white supremacists and counter-demonstrators, in which his early condemnations of the Nazi sympathisers was followed by a contentious press conference where he laid blame on "both sides". The more Democratic candidates like Mr O'Rourke lob accusations at the president, the more probable it is that he will dig in, fire back and further fan the flames. Such an environment is hardly conducive to bipartisan solutions in Congress.

अमेरिका में हर सामूहिक गोलीबारी के बाद यह एक परिचित शब्द बन गया है। क्या इस बार अलग होगा? क्या हिंसा पर आक्रोश राजनीतिक कार्रवाई को मजबूर करेगा, जैसा कि उसने डनब्लेन के बाद ब्रिटेन में किया है, पोर्ट आर्थर के बाद ऑस्ट्रेलिया और हाल ही में क्राइस्टचर्च के बाद न्यूजीलैंड में किया है?