The University of Sussex has developed a new way to measure the emotions of horses.
The team used a heart monitor to show the horses pictures of faces and then asked them to rate how happy they were.
The results showed that the angry faces made the horses' heart rates speed up quicker than the happy faces.

Horses can tell if people are happy or angry, according to a new experiment.

Article: The exams regulator said an increase in 15-year-olds sitting exams early was mainly to blame.
The A* to C pass rate fell to 62.8% after it had remained stable at 66.6% for three years.
The percentage of the highest A* to A grades also dipped to 17.9%, down from 19.4% in 2016.
Qualifications Wales had warned that an increase in early entries in some subjects was likely to mean lower results.
The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), which collates exam data for Wales, England and Northern Ireland, said changes in entry patterns - particularly for 15-year-olds - and the high proportion of pupils who took the two new mathematics GCSEs early in November, had a substantial impact on the results.
It said more students had "banked" a result and not returned to sit the exam again this summer - many whom have achieved a Grade C or above that would otherwise appear in these latest results.
As a consequence, it warned that reliable conclusions could not be drawn from direct comparisons between results this summer and the previous one, or between summer results across the UK.
Education Secretary Kirsty Williams said Wales has seen "some of the biggest changes in qualifications in decades" which had been "really challenging for pupils and teachers".
She said this was reflected in this year's overall GCSE A* to C grade pass rate.
Ms Williams said she was "concerned" about the high number of pupils being entered early for their exams and that the current situation was "unsustainable".
"We have signalled to schools that early entry should only be considered if it is in the interest of individual children, but what we've seen is entire cohorts of children being entered," she said.
Ms Williams added the "perverse incentives" that drive some schools to enter children early "should be taken out of the system".
The overall A* to G pass rate was also down from 98.7% to 96.9%, but the percentage of the highest A* grades remained at 6.1%.
While the fall in grades has been linked to the increase in 15-year-olds sitting exams early,...

Summary: The GCSE A* to C pass rate in Wales has fallen to its lowest level since 2006, after some of the biggest changes in decades to the exams system.
###
Article: Hotel Chocolat's push to increase online gift-giving is paying off, according to boss, Angus Thirlwell.
The firm's website sales rose 20% in the year to the end of June.
And Mr Thirlwell says in uncertain economic times he expects more people to switch from giving more extravagant presents to his firm's products.
Customers bought £91.1m worth of chocolate from the luxury chain between June 2015 and June 2016. That was 12% more than in the previous year.  Sales in stores grew as well as on the website.
The company's annual profits before tax were sharply higher, rising from £2.9m to £8.2m.
"We've been upping our marketing efforts. We've got a lot of new customers who've discovered the gift-sending side of what we do," the company's chief executive and co-founder Angus Thirlwell told the BBC.
The company, which sells its premium chocolate online and in 83 stores in the UK and abroad, is still emphasising its "hedonistic" credentials at the luxury end of the market, and continues to focus marketing on its high cocoa and relatively lower sugar content, to tap into the "wellness" trend for healthier eating.
But Mr Thirlwell said he thought there were also opportunities for the company to benefit from people "trading down".
"For example a corporate 'thank you' in the past might have been a hamper [but] you can send [our large] Chocolatiers Table for £100 pounds."
For that you'd get a 1.5kg box of chocolates including tiramisu, raspberry pannacotta and carrot cake flavours.
"It's expensive for a box of chocolates, but it's not expensive when you see the effect it has on people," said Mr Thirlwell.
Hotel Chocolat was floated on London's AIM market for smaller companies at the end of May this year, and these are the first set of results it has issued.
The company began as an online retailer in 1993, founded by Mr Thirlwell and his business partner Peter Harris, and was originally named Chocs Express. In 2003 it changed its name and a year later opened its first physical store in Watford.
It introduced an innovative...

Summary: This Christmas, instead of a luxury hamper, you may find a 'hedonistic' box of chocolates arriving at home or at work.
###
Article: A team of 12 scientists and engineers has begun work at remote Lake Ellsworth.
They are using a high-pressure hose and sterilised water at near boiling point to  blast a passage through more than two miles of ice.
The aim is to analyse ice waters isolated for up to 500,000 years.
The process of opening a bore-hole is expected to last five days and will be followed by a rapid sampling operation before the ice refreezes.
Lake Ellsworth is one of several hundred lakes known to exist beneath the ice-sheet - its waters kept just above freezing temperature by the warmth of the rocks below.
It is thought that the lake has been cut off from the outside world for long enough to raise the possibility that microbial life has evolved in unique ways.
This will be the first attempt to use highly sterilised equipment to collect samples of water and sediment from a body of water so deep and isolated for so long.
The aim of the project is to investigate the limits of where life is possible so preventing any contamination has been integral to the design of the equipment.
Chief scientist Prof Martin Siegert told the BBC that "everything has to be done in ultra clean conditions."
"We don't want to contaminate this pristine environment - and unless we keep the experiment very clean, we're likely just to measure the things that we bring down us with, which would be pointless."
The engineer in charge of the hot water drilling, Andy Tait, described the operation as "huge but delicate".
"Although hot-water drilling technology has been used extensively by scientists in the past, this is the first time we've ever attempted to go through 3km of solid ice - this will be the deepest borehole ever made this way.
"We've fired up the boilers to heat the water to 90Â°C.  The water pressure coming out of the hose will be around 2,000 PSI - 15 to 20 times more powerful than the kind you wash your car with.
"It is the most effective way to obtain rapid, clean access to Lake Ellsworth."
The next two days will be spent drilling out a 'chamber' the...

Summary: A British research team in Antarctica has launched a long-awaited project to hunt for life in a lake hidden beneath the ice-sheet.
###
Article: 10 February 2016 Last updated at 14:11 GMT
A team at the University of Sussex put heart monitors on horses and showed them pictures of faces to see how they reacted to different emotions.
They found that the angry faces made the horses' heart rates speed up quicker than the happy faces.
Amy Smith, one of the researchers, explains more.

Summary:


The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in Northern Ireland continued to fall in June.
The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in Northern Ireland continued to fall in June.
The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in Northern Ireland fell by 1,000 in June, the latest monthly figure available.
The number of people claiming

The removal of the Elephant and Castle roundabout has been causing chaos for commuters, with motorists complaining of queues of more than an hour.

Article: The claimant count was down by 600 over the month to 30,500, which was the 16th consecutive monthly decrease.
However, the figures also suggest that economic inactivity is rising again.
Economic inactivity refers to people of working age who are neither in work or looking for a job.  The rate in Northern Ireland is persistently above the UK average.
It had been on a downward trend from 2013/14 but has now increased over the last three quarters.
The inactivity rate now stands at 27.4% compared to a UK rate of 21.5%.
Of the estimated 321,000 economically inactive people in Northern Ireland, just under a third were long-term sick or disabled.
Just over a quarter were students, 23% were looking after the family/home, 10% were retired and 8% cited another reason for inactivity.
In 2015, the Northern Ireland Executive published a strategy for tackling economic inactivity.
It aimed to support people with work-limiting health conditions, lone parents and people with caring commitments to get back into work.
The strategy has not been implemented due to budget pressures.

Summary: The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in Northern Ireland continued to fall in June.
###
Article: Criticism included claims they have been pressured to remain silent and of misrepresentation of information.
The two sides of the debate said the comments raised questions about the rival campaigns.
The claims, made in a programme for Channel Four, came ahead of the 18 September referendum.
The Dispatches documentary, entitled "The Great British Break Up?", contacted 50 companies and business leaders believed to have concerns over independence.
Five told the programme privately they had been contacted by the Scottish government and said they "felt pressured to stay quiet about their views".
Of the five;
A further 14 claimed to know of other businesses who felt under pressure.
The programme also heard from London School Economics professor, Patrick Dunleavy, who previously said UK ministers misrepresented his research when they published its analysis of the fiscal implications of independence.
The economist later said the initial set-up costs to duplicate core Westminster functions would be around Â£200m.
He told Dispatches: "It's very hard to describe it in polite terms actually, it's very crude, it's alarmist, it's not been checked and it rests on a whole series of, you know, false steps . . . that makes this a very dubious document.
"A dodgy dossier, you might call it."
In addition, Gavin Hewitt, former chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association, said he or senior members of his staff had met with SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson, on at least six occasions over the past two years.
He told the programme: "He [Mr Robertson] and the SNP have regularly tried to get the message to the Scotch Whisky Association that the Scotch whisky industry should stay out of the independence debate.
"He was, I think, trying to neuter business comment. There was a genuine fear that in fact if we were seen to scupper by coming out publicly against independence, there would be retribution down the track."
Prof Dunleavy spoke to the programme, to be shown on Monday evening, after the Treasury used his figures to...

Summary: Business leaders and an academic have hit out at the Scottish and UK governments over their conduct in the independence referendum debate.
###
Article: The plan would extend the current system, which allows parents to share leave and statutory parental pay.
It was announced by Chancellor George Osborne as the Conservative conference began in Manchester.
Labour's Harriet Harman had proposed a similar policy in a manifesto for women.
Mr Osborne's plan involves extending the current system of shared parental leave - which allows a total of 52 weeks off - to cover grandparents as well as a child's mother and father.
Families will also be allowed to split statutory shared parental pay - which is Â£139.58 a week or 90% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower.
The Conservatives say the policy will particularly benefit single mothers who, without a partner to share leave with, will now be able to do so with one of their child's grandparents.
Mr Osborne also hopes the option will allow parents to return to work more quickly if they want to.
He said more than half of mothers rely on grandparents for childcare when they first return to work after having a baby.
He said: "Research shows two million grandparents have either given up a job, reduced their hours or taken time off work to look after their grandchildren.
"Allowing them instead to share leave with their children will keep thousands more in the workplace, which is good for our economy."

Summary: Working grandparents will be allowed to take time off and share parental leave pay to help care for their grandchildren, the government has said.
###
Article: The roundabout, which saw more than 80 collisions and 90 people injured in 2012-14, was replaced with two-way traffic on Sunday.
Transport for London (TfL) said congestion was due to "traffic getting used to the new layout".
"It's a very busy junction and it always will be," a spokesman said.
The reintroduction of two-way traffic at the junction for the first time in 50 years was a "key milestone" in the £25m transformation at Elephant and Castle, TfL said.
In addition to the new road layout, left turns from Newington Causeway towards New Kent Road and right turns from New Kent Road to Newington Causeway have also been banned.
But road users took to Twitter to complain about their Monday morning commute.
"It's 8am and the queue for the new #elephantandcastle junction starts somewhere south of Camberwell. allow extra 1hr 4 journey (or walk!)", a Twitter user posted.
"Shock horror! All approaches to Elephant and Castle worse than ever. Only TfL could spend millions and millions to make something worse!" tweeted @tango97.
Andy Woodward tweeted: "Delays around Elephant and Castle even worse today. If this was the tube there would be outcry. Commuters use buses too!"
Road users had been advised of traffic changes with a countdown to the traffic switch and advisors and police were on site to help keep traffic moving, the TfL spokesman said.
A spokesman for London TravelWatch said: "It's early days - we need to wait and see how it pans out."
TfL plans to convert the space created by removing the roundabout into a new public area.
It will replace subways with new pedestrian crossings, create new cycle routes and introduce a 20mph speed limit, TfL said.

Summary:

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"A bit of a punt" - the BHS business plan.

Article: Debbie Wilcox was speaking after Friars Walk was sold to a Canadian investment firm last month, wiping out the debt.
But under the deal the council will pay a £500,000 annual subsidy for up to 15 years if rental incomes do not rise.
Ms Wilcox said front-line services would not be affected as funds have been set aside to cover any costs.
She admitted there had been many sleepless nights because councils should not be about running shopping centres.
Friars Walk was completed in 2015 by the developers Queensberry Real Estate.
The firm had failed to raise enough private sector funding but went ahead with construction after the council agreed to provide them with a loan which at the time it described as "unprecedented".
The sale of Friars Walk to Talisker Corporation wiped out £84m worth of borrowing and interest charges on Newport council's books.
The local authority is in line to receive extra funds, depending on future revenues, but it also liable to pay the 15-year £500,000 annual subsidy if extra revenue fails to materialise.
The council believes the subsidy will only last a few years.
Ms Wilcox said: "I cannot deny that we had many sleepless nights over it because it is not the normal every day thing that we do.
"It did actually determine a lot of the other business because until that was settled, we could not move on untrammelled.
"It did not dominate business in so far as we have our public services to run but nevertheless it took an increasing amount of officers' time."
At the time the original loan was agreed in 2013, when the former council leader Bob Bright was in post, the authority said it was the first in the UK to borrow money on that scale in order to fund a development project.
The council insisted the loan was needed to prevent the scheme from failing and to continue with the regeneration of the city centre.
Ms Wilcox said that if the deal had collapsed then the council would have been forced to take on the ownership of Friars Walk.
She said: "We would look to have sold it at a later date but...

Summary: An £84m debt to fund a shopping centre in Newport had hung over the local authority, preventing it from moving on, the council's leader has said.
###
Article: That's the equivalent of almost four work days a month and doesn't include the time spent thinking about meals or shopping for ingredients.
Just imagine how much more we could achieve if we did something else instead.
That's the thinking behind a small but growing market of beverages led by the Silicon Valley start-up Soylent, Finland's Ambronite and UK based Huel - companies aiming to liberate us from the tyranny of food while offering a healthy and sustainable alternative.
All three claim to offer a complete meal in a drink. You don't even have to worry about the washing up.
"We are living in a real period of overwork. We think the more we do the better we are," says Brigid Schulte, author of Overwhelmed and director of the Better Life Lab at New America, a non-partisan think tank in Washington.
"We place value on having a crammed calendar, rushing around trying to show how busy and important we are. It's no wonder people don't take time to eat any more."
Commercial meal replacements and food supplements have been around for decades and are frequently used by athletes and people trying to lose weight. But what makes these drinks different is the notion of saving time rather than calories.
Elon Musk, the 44-year-old multi-billionaire head of SpaceX and Tesla, spent one dollar a day on food when he was a struggling entrepreneur. Musk once remarked "if there was a way that I could not eat, so I could work more, I would not eat. I wish there was a way to get nutrients without sitting down for a meal".
Soylent and its competitors appear to offer the solution.
"Soylent in particular is very popular in the tech community," says Anthony Shop, head of Social Driver, a Washington-based digital marketing agency.
"Tech start-ups often have a philosophy that they're there to crush it for a few years and hopefully get a payout.
"That's the reason many start-ups provide food for employees. It's to keep them [in the office] so that they work even more. So some people are sucking down Soylent so they can spend an extra hour...

Summary: The average American spends 67 minutes a day eating or drinking, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
###
Article: The company stated it is confident it will produce a 60in (152cm) Ultra HD rollable TV by 2017.
LG unveiled one of its first flexible TVs at CES - a global consumer electronics and technology trade show - earlier this year.
Experts say flexible screens could see TVs used in more creative ways.
The new flexible panel has a resolution of 1,200x810, which is left undistorted even after it has been rolled into a 3cm cylinder.
LG says the flexibility was achieved thanks to using a backplane made of "high molecular substance-based polyimide film" instead of plastic.
The second panel is transparent and is said to greatly surpass earlier models, with the company boasting of a significant reduction in hazy images and a 30% increase in transmittance, which is responsible for the screen's transparent effect.
The company has claimed its new screens prove they are on track for much larger, Ultra HD-capable flexible screens in the near future, asserting they are "confident" they can deliver a 60in rollable panel by 2017.
"Flexible screens are an exciting prospect. First off, they're far more durable than conventional screens, meaning that we can expect to see bigger, better screens in, for example, aeroplanes," said Stephen Graves, online deputy editor at Stuff.tv.
"They also create the potential for some completely new gadget designs. Imagine a 10in (25cm) iPad that you can fold out into a 16in (40cm) screen - effectively doubling up as a small desktop computer or TV monitor."
Jeremy White, product editor of Wired magazine said that these new screens would be ideal for retail or exhibition display.
"Being able to curve screens around complex retail display units or using the transparency to have the screen envelop the product itself on a stand would certainly be eye-catching.
"And of course this is all leading to flexible tablets as well, which will possibly be the most useful application of flexible screens to the average consumer."
Evan Kypreos, editor of TrustedReviews, said that rollable TVs could be produced by 2017...

Summary: LG has announced the release of two new paper-thin TV panels, with one that is so flexible it can be rolled into a 3cm diameter tube.
###
Article: That's how one financier described Dominic Chappell's plans for acquiring and reviving BHS to MPs today.
Andrew Frangos of Cornhill Capital was approached by the three-time bankrupt Chappell to raise money secured against property to use as working capital - the money you need for day to day running of a company.
Mr Frangos said that BHS was not the limit of his ambitions and that Chappell had plans to one day buy Arcadia - the parent company run by Sir Philip Green. Ultimately, Chappell didn't use Cornhill Capital and the two of them are in dispute over unpaid bills.
He was joined in the commons by representatives from accountants Grant Thornton and lawyers Olswang to explain their involvement as advisers to Mr Chappell.
Both made extensive use of client confidentiality protection but several important themes emerged.
Retail Acquisitions Limited did not delve very deeply into the pension problems. Meetings between Chappell and the Chris Martin, chair of the BHS pension scheme, totalled less than half an hour and Grant Thornton's Mark Byers said he was denied the usual access to the pension trustees and their advisors.
On the bigger picture, MPs asked what the professional advisers made of this "punt". Why did they believe that a retail novice with a chequered financial background could succeed in turning BHS around when a feted retail tycoon had failed? We got two interesting answers.
First, a central part of the turnaround plan involved getting the landlords for the 164 stores to agree to reduce the rent. Mark Byers, from Grant Thornton said it would be difficult to have that negotiation, for BHS essentially to plead poverty, as long as BHS was part of the bigger Arcadia group.
Second, it wasn't their job.
So far there is no smoking gun. What is emerging from these sessions is that lots of professional firms were tasked with making sure small bits of the deal ticked a number of boxes. No one, it seems, was there to look Mr Chappell in the eye and judge whether he had the ability, or even the intention, of...

Summary:


The US has said it is "deeply concerned" by the "unprecedented" decision by the North Korean government to launch a missile.
The US State Department said it was "deeply concerned" by the launch of a missile by the North Korean government.
"The United States is deeply concerned by the

Jeremy Corbyn has accused the chief of the defence staff of political bias after he criticised the Labour leader's anti-nuclear stance.

Article: However, for a pair of kestrels nesting on the Forth Road Bridge, it has become home.
Bridge workers discovered the birds of prey while repairing steelwork underneath the carriageway.
They have built a nest with six eggs inside the end of a girder hanging over the Firth of Forth estuary.
The birds have been named Mr and Mr Younger, after Younger's Kestrel Lager.
David Gill, Amey maintenance supervisor, said: "When we saw the eggs, we immediately cleared the area and instructed staff to avoid carrying out any works that might disturb the nest.
"I've heard of kestrels nesting on the bridge before, but it's pretty unusual. You'd think they might prefer a quieter location.
"We're happy to have them here though, and have affectionately named them Mr and Mrs Younger.
"We'll come back and finish our repairs once the chicks have hatched and flown the nest.
"In the meantime, we've carried out a temporary repair on a local defect quietly and there won't be any impact on users of the bridge."
Kestrels are fully protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which makes it an offence to kill, injure or take a kestrel, or to take, damage or destroy an active nest or its contents.

Summary: For most young couples, the inside of a steel girder with 80,000 vehicles a day thundering overhead would not seem like an ideal location to start a family.
###
Article: The proposal followed a consultation which attracted more than 600 responses.
It would also see the introduction of a licensing scheme for the killing of wild salmon caught in rivers.
The moves have been welcomed by the Association of Salmon Fishery Boards.
Scotland's biggest salmon netting company, Usan Salmon, said it was confident it would be allowed to start catching again once accurate salmon stock measurements have been taken.
A Scottish government notice states: "In terms of paragraph 11 of schedule 1 to the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 2003 (the Act) notice is hereby given that the Scottish ministers propose to make conservation regulations under section 38 of the Act to introduce a licensing system for the killing of wild salmon in Scotland and a prohibition on the taking of salmon outwith inland waters."
It said: "The general effect of this proposal will be: (a) to prohibit the taking of Atlantic salmon outwith inland waters. (b) to prohibit the killing of salmon in Scotland without a licence."
Objections to the regulations must be submitted by 19 August.
The Scottish government said no decision had yet been taken but it would consider all the responses.
A spokeswoman said: "Our consultation on wild fisheries reform is ongoing and we are in the process of engaging with stakeholders."

Summary: Plans for a complete ban on catching wild salmon using coastal nets have been announced by the Scottish government.
###
Article: The diplomat, Thae Yong Ho, had served as deputy to the ambassador and was responsible for promoting the image of his country to British audiences.
He had reportedly lived in the UK for 10 years with his wife and family and disappeared from his home in west London several weeks ago.
Neither the Foreign Office nor the embassy has commented.
Read more: My friend the North Korean defector
"A DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] diplomat in London is going through procedures to seek asylum in a third country," a report in the South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo said.
"The DPRK Embassy made belated attempts to figure out the diplomat's whereabouts, but has failed," the paper's report added, citing an anonymous source.
The paper said that in this context "a third country" means one that is neither North nor South Korea.
By the BBC's Korea correspondent Stephen Evans
North Korea has an embassy in west London. The diplomats there can be charming, particularly over curry at their favourite curry house. Their children are in nearby state schools and one is a stalwart of the local tennis club.
The other side of their lives, though, involves keeping tabs on North Korean defectors who often settle in New Malden in south-west London.
Two of the officials were probably the men who turned up at a barber shop in London to object to a picture in the window of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, with the caption "bad hair day".
They are also thought to have escorted Kim Jong-un's brother to an Eric Clapton concert in the Albert Hall.
My friend the North Korean defector
Mr Thae's main mission in London had been to spread the message that North Korea and its leadership under Kim Jong-un had been misreported and misunderstood.
In one speech, he argued that it was the British who had been brainwashed by their ruling class. "If the people in this country, or in America, knew that there is a country in the world, where there is a free education, free housing, free medical care, then they'd have second thoughts," he said, to...

Summary: A diplomat at the North Korean embassy in London has defected and fled abroad with his family, BBC News understands.
###
Article: Gen Sir Nicholas Houghton told the BBC's Andrew Marr that refusing to launch nuclear weapons would "seriously undermine" Britain's "deterrent".
And he said he would be worried if such a view "translated into power".
Mr Corbyn called on the defence secretary to "take action" against Sir Nicholas over his comments.
In a statement, the Labour leader said: "It is a matter of serious concern that the chief of the defence staff has today intervened directly in issues of political dispute.
"It is essential in a democracy that the military remains politically neutral at all times.
"By publicly taking sides in current political arguments, Sir Nicholas Houghton has clearly breached that constitutional principle. Accordingly, I am writing to the defence secretary to ask him to take action to ensure that the neutrality of the armed forces is upheld."
Mr Corbyn, a leading member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, sparked a row with his shadow cabinet at his party's annual conference when he revealed that would never press the "nuclear button" - and he has since praised Scottish Labour's rejection of Trident.
Mr Corbyn has said he was elected Labour leader on a platform of opposing Trident renewal and that he is committed to "promoting an international nuclear weapons convention which would lead to a nuclear-free world".
Asked about Mr Corbyn's refusal to use nuclear weapons, Sir Nicholas said: "It would worry me if that thought was translated into power as it were."
He added: "The whole thing about deterrence rests on the credibility of its use.
"When people say you're never going to use the deterrent, what I say is you use the deterrent every second of every minute of every day and the purpose of the deterrent is that you don't have to use it because you successfully deter.
"If a prime minister said they would never press the nuclear button, "the deterrent is then completely undermined," he added.
"Most of the politicians I know understand that and I think that, dare I say, the responsibility of power is probably...

Summary:


The US space agency NASA has announced that it will be launching a new rocket to replace the Delta IV Heavy, the most powerful rocket in the world today.
The new rocket will be called Vulcan, and it is expected to start operations in 2019.
The new rocket will be able to loft Nasa science probes, spy

The company that conducts most of America's rocket launches has released details of its next generation vehicle.

Article: Figures from the Labor Department showed the US economy created 178,000 jobs in November, while the jobless rate fell to 4.6% from 4.9% in October.
The data adds to recent evidence of healthy growth in the economy, although wage growth was weaker than expected.
Most analysts think the Federal Reserve will raise rates at its next meeting.
"This was the last hurdle on the path to a December hike, and it has been cleared convincingly," said Luke Bartholomew, investment manager at Aberdeen Asset Management.
"It is now incredibly hard to imagine what would stop the Fed from going [for a rate rise]."
The Federal Reserve will hold its next two-day policy meeting on 13-14 December.
Last month, the chair of the Fed, Janet Yellen, indicated that the US central bank could raise interest rates "relatively soon", adding that the US economy was "making very good progress".
Recent figures indicated that the US economy grew at an annual pace of 3.2% in the third quarter of the year.
The US economy has been creating jobs at an average of 180,000 jobs a month this year, although that is down on the average of 229,000 recorded in 2015.
Despite November's robust jobs figures, earnings grew by less than expected. Average hourly earnings fell 0.1% from the month before, and that reduced the annual increase in wages to 2.5% from 2.8% in October.
The job creation figures for September and October were also revised, with the latest estimates indicating that 2,000 fewer jobs were added in the two months than previously thought.
Before these figures the markets were pretty clear about what they think the Federal Reserve will do when it meets later this month; it will raise interest rates. The jobs numbers have further reinforced that expectation.
It was a pretty robust figure for job creation, well ahead of economists' estimates of what is needed to keep up with a growing population.
Also striking was a decline of 220,000 in the number who are working part-time for economic reasons.  This is another measure of what economists call...

Summary: The US unemployment rate fell to a nine-year low in November, adding to expectations that US interest rates will rise later this month.
###
Article: The average home in Dwyfor put 22% less waste in their black bins in November 2014 than in the same month in 2013.
As a result, recycling and composting rates in the county have increased from 54% in March to 57.4% last month.
The council said the waste reduction in the Dwyfor area alone would save it Â£100,000 a year.
The first phase of three-weekly bin collections was introduced in October, with 19,000 households in Meirionnydd and 26,000 in Arfon set to follow suit next year.
Food waste and recyclable products are still collected weekly.
The council said it was now well placed to hit Welsh government targets, which require councils to recycle at least 58% of their waste by March 2016, and 64% by 2020.
Councillor Gareth Roberts said: "The people of Dwyfor have delivered an early Christmas present for our environment and for the Gwynedd council taxpayer."
Waste collection changes were introduced in Gwynedd to help the council bridge a Â£50m funding shortfall between now and 2017/18.

Summary: The amount of waste sent to landfill in Gwynedd has fallen since controversial three-weekly bin collections were introduced to the first 15,000 homes.
###
Article: Drew Nelson says an impasse at Westminster "will help to focus minds".
As part of its Northern Ireland Plan, which will form the basis for negotiation should next month's general election prove inconclusive, the Democratic Unionist Party says it will ask Westminster for "legislation for a new way forward on parading which respects the fundamental rights of assembly".
The Orange Order says the the Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Act 1998 is weighted heavily in favour of nationalist protestors.
Mr Nelson, the order's Grand Secretary, told the BBC One Northern Ireland programme The View "whichever party is in power they should review and amend this legislation because the legislation is flawed - not to buy some votes to keep them in power for a few years but because it's the right thing to do".
"Opportunities arise at different times and if there is a hung parliament, which is speculation at the moment, it may be that will help to focus the minds," he added.
"Anyone who can achieve some advantage by using some leverage would be foolish if they didn't take that opportunity and, if the unionist family which is returned to Westminster have an opportunity by virtue of their numbers to exercise greater influence than they are able to when it is not a hung parliament, then they should take that opportunity"
But others tell the programme that in their view neither the Conservatives or Labour are likely to negotiate on parades to buy DUP support.
Garvan O'Doherty, a Londonderry businessman who helped broker agreement on parades in the city, said he would "suggest the two main parties will stay clear of this issue".
"It is too hot for them and it is up to us locally to resolve once and for all," he said.
"We've go to stop going round in circles. We need to make a stand and we need to compromise."
A former parades commission chair Peter Osborne agrees.
"If you go back 20 years, you see in Portadown and elsewhere from then on that if you take these issues into high level political involvement it won't work," he...

Summary: A senior Orangeman says a hung parliament may provide an opportunity for unionists to push for new parades legislation more favourable to the Loyal Orders.
###
Article: The concept will be known as Vulcan, and it is expected to start operations in 2019.
United Launch Alliance - the joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin - currently flies the Atlas and Delta rockets.
These are routinely used to loft Nasa science probes, spy satellites and other US national security missions.
In time, both vehicles will be retired as the new Vulcan components come on stream.
The first element to be introduced will be the first-stage booster, which will feature an all-new, all-American liquid-fuelled engine.
This will enable ULA to end its use of Russian-made RD-180 rocket motors – something Congress has mandated.
Politicians on Capitol Hill dislike the fact that American national security missions are launched with the aid of Russian propulsion technology.
ULA's preference is to incorporate a liquid methane-oxygen power unit currently being developed by Blue Origin, the space company run by Amazon entrepreneur Jeff Bezos.
When the new Vulcan booster makes its debut, it will initially be married to the current Centaur upper-stage of the Atlas.
But early in the 2020s, this too will be replaced by a bespoke upper-stage that should give the new rocket a performance that allows it to exceed even the Delta IV Heavy – the biggest, most powerful rocket in the world today, capable of putting upwards of 25 tonnes in a low-Earth orbit.
Critically, though, the Vulcan will be substantially cheaper to build and operate.
"A Delta IV Heavy at today’s launch rates costs about $400m, give or take, depending on the mission and its complexity. I fully expect the Next Generation Launch System to be less than half that," said Tory Bruno, president and CEO of United Launch Alliance.
Some cost savings will be made by recovering and reusing the engines on the first-stage booster following a flight.
The idea is that after separation from the upper-stage, the engines would detach from the propellant tanks and fall back to Earth, deploying an inflatable shield to protect them from burning up on re-entry into...

Summary:


The Nigerian military says it has rescued all but eight of the 129 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram.
The military says it has rescued all but eight of the 129 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram.
The military says it has rescued all but eight of the 129 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram.
The military says it has rescued

Mystery surrounds the fate of more than 100 teenage girls who were abducted from a school in the remote north-east of Nigeria.

Article: A machine that can "smell" dollars - like a sniffer dog senses narcotics - is being developed.
For the first time, chemists have captured the unique fragrance of US paper money.
They announced their discovery at the American Chemical Society meeting.
"Money sniffing is an unknown art. No-one had ever tried to find these aromas," said Dr Joseph Stetter, of KWJ Engineering.
"We found that US currency emits a wide range of volatile organic compounds that make a 'fingerprint' we can identify in less than a minute."
His firm is developing a handheld cash detector for border police, called the Bulk Currency Detection System (BCDS).
In the past fiscal year, US officials seized more than $106m in smuggled cash heading to Mexico - the bulk of it laundered drug money.
But that's only a whisker of the estimated $39bn that crosses the border undetected every year - hidden in clothing, baggage and vehicles.
Current checks are done by guards with dogs - but training is expensive and time-consuming.
Airport-style X-ray scanners have had some success detecting currency - but they are large and impractical for busy border checkpoints.
To find a swifter solution, the US Department of Homeland Security made a public challenge to scientists to develop "a device that will search for and identify bulk quantities of currency - secreted on persons, in hand baggage and luggage, and/or in privately owned vehicles."
This money-sniffing machine must pass three intimidating challenges.
First - it must be precise enough to pick up the whiff of dollar bills amid a cacophony of background aromas.
"It has to work even in the presence of car exhaust, perfumes, food, and at a range of temperatures and humidity," said Dr Suiqiong Li, a researcher at KWJ.
"You need a smart algorithm to sort the needle from the haystack."
Next - it has to deliver a reading within seconds at hectic border crossings. There is no time to send samples off to a lab.
And finally, the probe has to be portable - light enough for a guard walking up and down a line of...

Summary: Criminals are smuggling billions in US bank notes into Mexico every year, but help could be on the way for border guards.
###
Article: Palaeobiologist Matt Friedman told the BBC that the fish provided crucial evidence about the evolutionary development of jawed vertebrates.
As a remote relative of humans, it provides important evolutionary clues.
"It is the deepest branch of our family tree that bears the kinds of jaw bones found in humans," Dr Friedman said.
The fossil was found at China's Xiaoxiang Reservoir, and was reported by the journal Nature on Thursday.
Scientists say that the heavily armoured fish, Entelognathus primordialis, is a previously unknown member of jawed vertebrates also known as gnathostomes. It has a complex small skull and jaw-bone structure.
"This is an unexpected discovery that inverts schoolbook teaching on the evolution of bony skulls," Dr Friedman told the BBC.
"Up until now it had been thought that the anatomical peculiarities of bony fishes - the group that would eventually give rise to human beings - are specialisations that arose later in vertebrate evolutionary history in our own bony fish lineage."
"But now that narrative has been turned on its head."
Dr Friedman said that the fish's jaw was much more like that of a modern bony fish - which is why its discovery may offer a new perspective on the early evolution of these creatures.
His review of the significance of the fossil find also appears in the latest edition of Nature.
Scientists say that the evolution of jaws is one of the key episodes in the evolution of vertebrates, but the gap between jawed and jawless vertebrates is so large that it is hard to work out the individual evolutionary steps in the transition.
"While this fossil does not tell us anything about the origin of jawed fishes from jawless ones, it does tell us about subsequent modifications to jaw structure that we thought were unique to bony fishes," Dr Friedman said.
It is thought that modern jawed vertebrates, such as sharks and bony fishes, emerged from a collection of jawed, armoured fishes known as placoderms.
Entelognathus primordialis has jaw-bone features previously restricted to...

Summary: A leading British scientist has said that the discovery of a 419-million-year-old fish fossil in China is a stunning and spectacular development.
###
Article: Solihull Sixth Form College admitted the decision was "extreme", but said it had taken it in response to mobile phones being used during toilet breaks.
The college said in the past mobiles had been smuggled into the toilets by an "inventive" minority of students.
Principal Paul Ashdown sent an email to parents explaining the new policy.
In a statement, the college said it was implementing the measure during examinations to make students aware that it was simply not worth trying to cheat.
The statement said: "A very small minority of students attempt to cheat and they use increasingly inventive and sophisticated techniques, including using mobile phones smuggled into the toilets.
"The majority of students will not need to use the toilet during an exam. But, if they do, our experienced invigilator team will supervise closely but sensitively to ensure that no cheating takes place."
Students caught cheating risk being disqualified from that exam by the exam board, and possibly disqualified from all their other exams, according to the college.
The statement also said: "We are protecting the future chances of our students by implementing strict security measures."
Mobile phones are banned from exam rooms, which is standard practice, according to the college.
In a post on the Solihull Updates Facebook page, Birmingham student Abby Carter said: "Not being allowed to close the door is absolutely ludicrous, accompanying to the toilet and even a pat down and check of the cubicle would be fine, but being made to use the toilet with the door open is disgusting! This surely cannot be legal!"
The new rule is due to come in when mock exams take place later this month.

Summary: A college's exam students will have to be accompanied to the toilet during loo breaks and leave the cubicle door open, after attempts to cheat last year.
###
Article: The military says all but eight of the 129 girls have escaped, but parents of the girls say many are still missing.
It is thought Islamist militant group Boko Haram took the girls to forested areas near the Cameroonian border.
The group is waging a bloody campaign for an Islamic state in northern Nigeria.
Nigerian students living in fear
What is Nigeria's Boko Haram?
Also on Wednesday, 18 people were killed in an attack in the Gwoza district of north-eastern Nigeria, local officials told the AP news agency.
The BBC's correspondent in Lagos, Will Ross, says the Nigerian military's statement that most of the girls had escaped their captors contrasts sharply with other information available to the BBC, including the claims of parents of pupils at the school. They insist "many" of their children are still missing.
The raid on the boarding school is a great source of embarrassment for the Nigerian authorities who say their military campaign against the militants is succeeding, he adds.
Hours before the military issued its statement, the governor of Borno state Kashim Shettima said the vast majority of the girls were still missing and offered a reward of 50m naira ($308,000; Â£184,000) for information.
The air force, army, police, local defence units and volunteers have all been involved in the search for the schoolgirls.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the "shocking" mass abduction and called for the girls' immediate release.
"The targeting of schools and schoolchildren is a grave violation of international humanitarian law," he said in a statement.
"Schools are, and must remain, safe places where children can learn and grow in peace."
The BBC's Hausa Service says Boko Haram has kidnapped civilians in the past - usually women to work as sex slaves.
Gunmen reportedly arrived at the school in Chibok, a remote area of Borno state, late on Tuesday, and ordered its teenage residents on to lorries.
A local politician said about 50 soldiers had been stationed near the school ahead of annual exams, but were...

Summary:


The government has announced a new £1.5m fund to help young people get into work.
The fund will be used to help young people who are unemployed or in work, and who are in need of help to get into work.
The fund will be used to help young people who are unemployed or in

Throughout the election campaign BBC Wales News is answering young voters's questions and reflecting their views through our interactive #iNeverKnew project.

Article: The Foreign Office warned the Home Office against giving the teenage athlete "special treatment" to enable her to compete at the 1984 Olympics.
Ministers said any circumvention of the ban on South Africans competing may hurt the UK's anti-apartheid stance.
But the Home Office said Budd's "talent" made the case a priority.
Budd, who set a world record for the 5,000m at the age of 17 and became a household name for running barefoot, registered as a British citizen in April 1984 in time for her to compete at the Los Angeles games four months later.
She ran for Britain in the 3,000m - where she tangled with the American Mary Decker in one of the most famous moments in Olympic history and ultimately finished down the field.
A media campaign was launched to encourage Zola Budd's father to urge her to apply for British citizenship, by virtue of her paternal grandfather being British, thereby bypassing the boycott on South African athletes taking part in international competition because of its apartheid policy.
Previously unseen files, released by the National Archives, reveal wrangling over the issue broke out at cabinet level with the then Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe urging the then Home Secretary Leon Brittan to delay the decision on whether to grant the runner a British passport.
In a draft letter to Mr Brittan in March 1984, in which Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was copied in, Mr Howe wrote: "I think the consequences for the government could be very damaging if we laid ourselves open to the charge that this young girl was receiving special treatment, gifted and exceptional though she may be."
The letter warned that the move could lead to possible withdrawals by other nations from the Olympic Games and the 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games, and suggested it would undermine the Gleneagles agreement, a Commonwealth pact discouraging sporting contact with South Africa and be seen as a "device to circumvent anti-apartheid politics".
It added: "To give exceptional treatment to a South African national to...

Summary: A campaign to fast-track British citizenship for South African runner Zola Budd triggered a major government rift, newly released documents show.
###
Article: Like bats who emit sounds in order to navigate, researchers can now plug sounds into a computer algorithm to map a room.
The team were able to build a full 3D image of a room using four microphones to record echoes bouncing off walls.
Writing in the journal PNAS, the researchers say the technology could one day help solve crime.
The ability to use sounds to navigate the world, called echolocation, is already used by dolphins and bats. Though rare, some blind people have also been known to possess this skill.
But now with the help of a computer algorithm, the echoes from a chirp like sound can reveal the shape of a room.
The algorithm could also distinguish between stronger and weaker echoes and whether they had bounced one or more times around the room.
Walls made from different materials all reflect sound differently, but it was not the amplitude that the algorithm was looking at, rather the differing arrival times between the echoes. The same result could therefore be achieved from any sound, according to the researchers.
"Our software can build a 3D map of a simple, convex room with a precision of a few millimetres," said lead author of the study, Ivan Dokmanic from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland (EPFL).
"Each microphone picks up the direct sound from the source, as well as the echoes arriving from various walls.
"The algorithm then compares the signal from each microphone. The infinitesimal lags that appear in the signals are used to calculate not only the distance between the microphones, but also the distance from each microphone to the walls and the sound source," added Mr Dokmanic.
There are numerous potential applications for the research, Mr Dokmanic told BBC News.
Architects building a concert hall for example, might know the specific acoustics they want a new building to have. Using this new algorithm they could now "plug" certain echoes into a computer and "get the kind of space needed to produce those echoes".
He also explained that virtual reality could benefit from...

Summary: The shape of a room can be modelled using echoes produced from sound, new research has found.
###
Article: Residents in Peterborough complained after hearing Wajid Hussain's van driving along to Teddy Bears' Picnic.
Officials say he was using the tune for longer than the four seconds he was allowed to play it.
The city council also refused his licence because of complaints relating to his parking and where he was operating.
Licensing regulatory officer Darren Dolby said it sent a strong message to other vendors to abide by trading laws.
The council received a total of 14 complaints about Mr Hussain, who trades as Adam Ices, over a three-month period.
These included parking his van dangerously, trading without consent in certain areas of Peterborough and playing his chimes for longer than allowed.
Only two of the complaints related to the van's chimes.
Members of the city council's licensing team gave evidence that Mr Hussain had been given a number of verbal and written warnings to comply - but this advice had been ignored.
Mr Dolby said: "We are pleased that the decision to revoke Hussain's licence was upheld by the committee."
A spokesman from the Ice Cream Alliance, the UK trade association for ice cream manufacturers and retailers, said: "The restrictions on chimes are part of a national code of practice which ice cream sellers have to adhere to.
"We have asked the government to relax these restrictions but until they do, all our members are advised to work within this code."
Mr Hussain told the BBC he did not wish to comment.

Summary: An ice cream van owner has been banned from trading - because he played his chimes for too long.
###
Article: The aim is to cut through the jargon and present election news in a different way.
If you've got a question about the election or want to know what the parties will do for you, let us know.
Follow our reporter Steffan Messenger on Facebook, where he'll be posting all our #iNeverKnew coverage and focusing on the issues you feel passionately about - your cash, your career, your future.
And check out our guide to what the parties say they'll do for young people here.

Summary:


The number of people in England who have been diagnosed with diabetes has risen by more than a third in the last decade.
The number of people with diabetes in England has risen by more than a third in the last decade.
The number of people in England who have been diagnosed with diabetes has risen by more than a

School lunches can tempt fussy eaters to try new foods, a survey for the School Food Trust has suggested.

Article: Alan Hepper, an MOD engineer, was giving evidence at the inquest into the death of 11-year-old Francis Rowntree.
He said there was limited testing on rubber baton rounds before their introduction in July 1970.
Francis, known as Frank by his family, was shot by a soldier with a rubber bullet in west Belfast in April 1972.
He died in hospital two days later.
That same year, accident and emergency doctors at Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital had wanted to publish their findings in the British Journal of Surgery, but were told by a scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence that it would not be in the public interest.
The information pointed out that 80% of inpatients hit by the rounds had injuries to their head and neck.  It also suggested that Frank Rowntree had been hit from two to three yards.
'Tumbled in the air'
It suggested that soldiers must be made aware of the consequences of using  the weapon, that it could kill, blind, or seriously injure some organs.
The tests on potential wounding by the baton rounds had been carried out at the Defence, Science and Technological Laboratory, Porton Down, Wiltshire, by firing them in controlled circumstances at sheep.
The court heard also that tests showed that the batons tumbled in the air and often hit their targets side-on, although they could also hit end on, causing rather more injury or damage.
Mr Hepper, who works at Porton Down, agreed with a barrister for the Rowntree family that the chances of a target being struck end-on increased if a round was fired within 5-6 metres.
It is thought that Frank Rowntree was struck from close range.
Mr Hepper told the inquest that the effect and accuracy of the rubber baton round was tested more after its initial introduction.
'Far too dangerous'
He also said that the amount of gunpowder used was increased twice in a bid to make it more accurate.
A wooden baton round had been tested but quickly deemed to be far "too dangerous" and was never used operationally here.
The rubber baton round was then developed at the request...

Summary: An inquest has heard that information about serious injuries caused by rubber baton rounds fired by the Army was not made public in the early 1970s.
###
Article: A software update was released last week to iPhone, iPad and iPod owners to protect users from "an attacker" who may "capture or modify data".
It was later discovered that the problem also existed on Apple laptops and desktop computers running OS X.
On Tuesday, Apple issue a security fix through its software update service.
The problem was first spotted on Apple's mobile devices which run the iOS 7 operating system. It related to the way secure connections are made between Apple's safari browser and websites, including banking sites, Google and Facebook.
These sites have digital security certificates that allow an encrypted connection to be established between a user's computer and the website. This means any data that is sent over the connection should be secure.
However, a vulnerability in the code for Apple's iOS and OS X operating systems meant the security certificates were not being checked properly. This meant hackers could impersonate a website and capture the data that was being sent over the connection before letting it continue its journey to the real website.
Apple released a fix for mobile devices running iOS 7 last week but a spokesperson issued the following statement about OS X: "We are aware of this issue and already have a software fix that will be released very soon."
The fix was released on Tuesday.
According to researchers the security flaw had existed for months but no-one had reported it publicly.
Graham Cluley, a security analyst, said it was a failing by the company that it had not been identified earlier.
"It's pretty bad what Apple have done, they've seriously dropped the ball. How much the problem has been exploited is hard to say. Hackers may now be trying to take advantage while users wait for the security fix."

Summary: Apple has issued a fix to a flaw in its OS X operating system which previously left users vulnerable to security breaches while browsing online.
###
Article: He retained his seat with a total of 50,915 votes. The total turnout for County Durham was 17.7%.
Praising staff at Durham Constabulary, he said: "Four more years of success, four more years of giving you the police service that you deserve."
Mr Hogg was a senior police officer in Durham and Cleveland during a 30-year career.
The Labour candidate won the race to become Durham's first police and crime commissioner in 2012.
Mr Hogg was assistant chief constable in Durham and deputy chief with neighbouring Cleveland before retiring in 2008.
He became an expert on policing football hooligans and worked at international tournaments including the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan.
Last year, Mr Hogg offered cannabis users the chance to avoid prosecution by giving users of the class B drug the option to take part in a course to deal with their habit rather than being arrested.
He also said drug addicts should have access to "consumption rooms" where they could inject prescribed heroin legally to help take drugs off the streets and reduce crime.
Elections for police and crime commissioners were held in the 41 police force areas of England and Wales on Thursday.
Candidates which were standing in Durham Constabulary are listed below.
Candidates are listed alphabetically by surname. BBC News App users: tap here to see the results.
More information is available on the Choose my PCC website.

Summary: Labour's Ron Hogg has been re-elected Durham's Police and Crime Commissioner.
###
Article: Researchers found that four out of five children in England who ate school lunches had tried food at school that they had not tried at home.
Half of parents questioned said their children had asked for foods they had eaten at school to be cooked at home.
The survey, of about 1,000 parents, found the most popular vegetables were carrots, sweetcorn and peas.
Aubergine, chickpeas and spinach were among the least popular.
Of the parents questioned, 628 had children who ate school lunches.
(% denotes proportion of parents who said their child would eat each vegetable)
England's School Food Trust commissioned the research after a survey by the Mumsnet website suggested some parents gave their children packed lunches because they thought they were too fussy to eat anything else.
Trust chairman, Rob Rees, said: "Every parent knows it's a nightmare watching their child push food around the plate.
"School meals can be a great way to help parents encourage their children to try new foods and to increase the variety of foods in their diet."
Mumsnet co-founder, Carrie Longton, said: "Getting children to eat healthily is every parent's dream, but meal times at home can often be a battle ground and emotionally charged.
"From Mumsnetters' experience it seems that once at school there's a desire to fit in with everyone else and even some positive peer pressure to boast about the variety of what foods you can eat.
"School meals have also moved on quite a bit from when Mumsnetters were at school, with healthier options and more variety."
School meals in England now have to comply with strict nutritional guidelines.
About four in 10 primary school children in England now eat school lunches, slightly more than in secondary schools.
More children in Scotland eat school lunches - about 46%.
The survey was conducted online between 26 February and 5th March among a panel of parents who had at least one child in school aged 4-17 years old.

Summary:


The UK government has announced a new £1.2bn fund to support the development of new aircraft.
The fund will be used to help develop new aircraft and to support the development of new aircraft.
The UK government said the fund would be used to support the development of new aircraft and to support the development of

A new deal to secure the air link between Dundee City Airport and London Stansted for another two years has been announced.

Article: Sir Peter Fahy is concerned the force "will not be able to deploy enough officers and PCSOs into the local community to gather intelligence".
GMP has lost 1,100 officers since 2010, leaving about 6,800.
Policing Minister Mike Penning said there was "no question" police would have enough resources to do their work.
In 2010, GMP said 3,100 jobs - 1,500 officers and 1,600 civilian workers - had to go over a four-year period to meet the government's 25% spending cuts.
Sir Peter said: "It's really pretty stark now.
"I can't reduce much further the number of officers for instance investigating rapes and domestic violence.
"We then have to look at day-to-day neighbourhood policing and that is the risk - we end up being a reactive police force.
"We need to be in communities, preventing things before they happen."
Tony Lloyd, Greater Manchester's Police and Crime Commissioner, said crimes including violent crime and domestic violence rose by 8% this year.
He said: "We have already lost 1,100 police officers from the streets of Greater Manchester and this year we are facing another cut of £41m, which [means] there will be hundreds of fewer police officers on our streets.
"To be losing almost half the policing budget by 2020 is unpalatable."
Ian Hanson, chairman of the area's Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, said: "We are in a position where we are going to ask ourselves 'Can we afford the luxury of community policing?'
"In the 1970s and 80s we went to crime after it happened."
He added: "We've got one of the best police forces in the country and now we're under threat and once it's gone, it's gone."
Mr Penning said: "While we acknowledge that the police funding settlement is challenging there is no question that the police will still have the resources to do their important work.
"What matters is how officers are deployed, not how many of them there are in total.
"The reduction in crime nationwide demonstrates there is no simple link between officer numbers and crime levels, the visibility of...

Summary: Greater Manchester Police (GMP) risks "being a reactive force" if up to 400 officers are axed to save £41m next year, the chief constable said.
###
Article: Oil and Gas UK found more than 100 platforms are expected to be completely or partially removed from the UK and Norwegian continental shelves by 2025.
More than 1,800 wells are also scheduled to be plugged and abandoned and 7,500km of pipeline decommissioned.
But the industry body said there was not "a rush to decommission".
It pointed out that while 52 new projects appeared for the first time in its annual Decommissioning Insight survey, most had been "a long time in the planning".
Total decommissioning expenditure in the UK and Norway last year was £2.1bn, compared with just under £1.6bn in 2014.
The total amount forecast to be spent on decommissioning on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) between 2016 and 2025 is £17.6bn - up on the 2015 survey's 10-year forecast of £16.9bn.
Forecast activity on the UKCS is higher than on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, where fewer fields are reaching the end of their field life. The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate has estimated that annual expenditure on decommissioning will average about £1bn per year until 2020.
Mike Tholen, Oil and Gas UK's upstream policy director, said: "With low oil prices continuing, you might expect decommissioning to be a key focus for the sector in the years ahead, however we are not witnessing a rush to decommission.
"Different factors are at play and the picture is much more complex.
"Some companies are deferring cessation of production as field life has been extended by sustained efficiency improvements; others are delaying activity due to cash-flow constraints; while elsewhere, companies may be expediting decommissioning to take advantage of falling costs in the current downturn."
The Scottish government's minister for Business, Innovation and Energy Paul Wheelhouse said he would be visiting the north east later this month to focus on the opportunities of decommissioning.
He added: "Work is well under way with Scottish Enterprise to develop a decommissioning action plan by the end of the year and we are also working closely with Scottish ports...

Summary: An industry survey has forecast a "gradual but steady" rise in offshore oil and gas decommissioning in the UK and Norway over the next 10 years.
###
Article: Yet Starbucks' founder, Howard Schultz, came up with the idea for his coffee chain whilst sipping espresso in a Milan bar.
So what? you may say. He took a good product, repackaged it and globalised it.
But to many Italians, the coffee served by Starbucks and other branded outlets is as far away from proper Italian coffee as you can get, despite the Italian-sounding offerings on their menus.
Now - time for disclosure - I am part-Italian and like most Italians, I like to think Italy represents the height of coffee culture, the standard against which all coffee should be measured.
When Italian friends and family shudder in disgust at the idea of sullying their precious cappuccino with a dash of hazelnut syrup or a sprinkling of cinnamon, I nod knowingly.
At home I have a moka machine, which is to the Italian kitchen what the kettle is to the British. As far as I'm concerned, the cappuccinos, lattes and espressos served in branded coffee chains taste scorched and bitter, a shabby imitation of the real thing.
But am I missing the point? Is my palate so provincial that it hasn't caught up with the changing tastes of the global coffee market? Because it appears that not only has Italian coffee been taken out of Italy, but the Italian is also being taken out of the coffee.
The International Coffee Organization says that globally consumption has grown by nearly 42% since the beginning of this century. So we're drinking more of it than ever before, which explains the expansion of many coffee chains in the past few decades, but we're not drinking it in the Italian way.
"I think a caricature of Italian espresso was what was exported," says award-winning barista James Hoffmann of London's Square Mile Coffee Roasters. He's part of a generation of highly-trained baristas driving innovation in the sector through more sophisticated espresso-based brews.
"Global espresso culture is now a long way from what is considered traditional Italian espresso," Mr Hoffmann says.
8.5bn
kilos of coffee is consumed globally every...

Summary: Starbucks is everywhere, but not in Italy.
###
Article: The UK and Scottish governments and Dundee City Council have agreed a public service obligation (PSO) contract worth almost Â£3.7m.
Loganair will continue to operate the route from 26 March.
The service will see two return flights each weekday and one return flight on a Sunday.
The UK Government will contribute 50% of the total funds, with the Scottish government putting in Â£1.4m and Dundee City Council providing Â£400,000 of funding.
UK Aviation Minister Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon said: "I am delighted that Loganair will continue to operate this direct air service between Dundee and London Stansted for another two years.
"Passengers and businesses will continue to benefit from the connectivity this route provides. It will further boost trade and tourism opportunities will continue to flourish in Scotland."
Scotland's Transport Minister Humza Yousaf said: "The award of this contract to Loganair is welcome news which provides continuity of service on this important route.
"This flight not only provides a direct link to London, but also offers passengers a wide number of onward connecting destinations from Stansted. This will continue to benefit business and leisure travellers alike."
Dundee City Council leader Ken Guild added: "Securing the route for a further two years through this latest PSO gives the council and its partners an opportunity to build on the service and attract other routes."
The UK government funding is through the Regional Air Connectivity Fund, which aims to maintain connectivity between London and smaller regional airports, where routes are at risk of being withdrawn.

Summary:


A man has been jailed for life after he killed a cyclist in a hit-and-run in Edinburgh.
The court heard that the victim, a 51-year-old man, was cycling along the A9 at around 02:00 on 6 January 2013 when he was hit by a Vauxhall Astra

A motorist who fatally injured a cyclist has been convicted of causing death by careless driving.

Article: The Confederation Internationale de la Peche Sportive says accepting fishing as an Olympic discipline would enlarge the universality of the Olympic idea because angling is so popular.
Fish caught would be returned to the water unharmed.
But critics say fishing involves too much luck, is incomprehensible to outsiders and too boring to watch.
They reject Confederation president Ferenc Szalay's assertion that angling's "ancient and fair competition system" matches Olympic ideals.
Fishing is among a raft of sports aiming to secure Olympic status.
Skateboarding, surfing, climbing, Karate and baseball/softball have already been confirmed for Tokyo 2020.
The IOC said it hopes the "innovative" move will draw in new audiences by focusing inclusions on youth-oriented sports.
The five extra sports, which do not replace any of the 28 already on the Tokyo schedule, will include 18 events and involve hundreds of athletes.
Baseball and softball featured separately between 1992 and 2008, but made a joint bid to be readmitted.
Fishing has featured at the Olympics once before - it was an unofficial sport at the 1900 Paris games. Only six nations took part and there is no record of the eventual winner.

Summary: The international governing body for fishing has applied for angling to be part of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
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Article: The Hang Seng index closed up 2.7% at 26,944.39, its highest closing level since January 2008.
The surge in interest was triggered by Beijing's move last month to let mutual funds invest in Hong Kong through the connect plan.
The Shanghai Composite ended down 0.9%.
The mainland index closed at 3,957.53 as investors rushed to buy relatively cheaper Hong Kong shares.
Chinese investors had used the entire 10.5bn yuan ($1.69bn) daily investment quota for buying Hong Kong stocks under the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect scheme for a second day.
Shares in the rest of Asia were mixed despite a rise in US markets on Wednesday.
Investor sentiment remained cautious following the latest committee minutes from the Federal Reserve, which showed the central bank was split over when to raise interest rates.
Japan's Nikkei 225 closed up 0.75% at 19,937.72, edging closer to the key threshold of 20,000 which was last seen in 2000.
Analysts said the psychologically important level was likely to be hit soon.
Shares in Asia's biggest clothing retailer, Japan's Fast Retailing, closed up nearly 2% after it raised its annual profit forecast by 20% on Thursday.
The owner of Uniqlo, which has been expanding aggressively overseas, said its net income would be 120bn yen ($998m) for the year ending in August, up from its previous forecast of 100bn yen.
The company's profits were boosted by sales outside Japan.
In Australia, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index closed down 0.48% at 5,932.20 as a result of falling oil prices, which analysts said would affect the energy sector.
US-based oil and gas giant, Apache, said it was selling its Australian operations for $2.1bn (Â£1.4bn) as it shifts its focus back to North America.
"Following the sale of our Australian assets, about 70% of Apache's production will come from North America onshore," said the firm's chief executive, John Christmann.
South Korea's benchmark Kospi index closed down 0.02% at 2,058.87.
After a surprise cut in March, South Korea's central bank said on Thursday it would hold...

Summary: Hong Kong shares surged to seven-year highs on Thursday as mainland Chinese investors poured money into the market via the new stock connect trading link.
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Article: A million listeners is a big drop. However, quarterly radio listening figures have a habit of bouncing around.
Look over the long term and what's surprising is that in an era of huge technological change, radio listening has stayed so stable overall.
In March 2006, Radio 1 had a weekly reach of 9.9 million listeners aged over 15. In March 2016, it had 9.9 million.
However, there are trends hidden in the figures.
The number of hours that 15-24 year-olds listen to radio has gone from 29 million hours in 2010 to 16 million in 2016.
That young audience has dropped from 3.7 million (45%) to 2.9 million (36%).
But why do people care so much about Radio 1's figures?
The BBC worries about it because it is their most successful youth brand and the corporation as a whole struggles to reach young people.
The external attention is harder to fathom. The era of Radio 1 being the most listened-to radio station passed long ago.
The big shift has not been the decline of Radio 1, it has been the rise of Radio 2. In 1999, Radio 2 had 9.6 million listeners - it now has 15.5 million.
Radio 1's success in the 1970s and 80s means that the middle-aged people who are avid consumers of news retain an interest in the one bit of youth culture that they still recognise.
Indeed, Radio 1 has 4.1 million listeners over the age of 35 - and around 800,000 of them are over the age of 60.
It is worth noting that this 4.1 million figure hasn't changed much, even though BBC 6Music - which is aimed at this older audience - has seen its reach go from 200,000 to 1.4 million.
Around 11 million hours of Radio 1's listening is by people over the age of 45. The problem for Radio 1 is that today's generation gap is more about the way we consume music than the music itself.
No wonder Radio 1's press release wants to point out how many hits the station's channel is getting on YouTube.
Follow us on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, on Instagram, or email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

Summary: BBC Radio 1's audience has dropped to its lowest level for more than a decade after the station lost a million listeners over the past year.
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Article: Alasdair Dudgeon was killed near the Kincardine Bridge on 6 January 2013 when James Sneddon knocked him off his bike in the early hours of the morning.
Mr Dudgeon suffered a broken neck and internal injuries as he commuted to his work at a bakery near Falkirk at 02:00.
Sneddon, 42, was found guilty of causing the 51-year-old's death, after a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Mr Dudgeon, of High Valleyfield in Fife, regularly cycled to and from his work as a baker at Tesco in Camelon, just outside Falkirk.
He was cycling on the A985 road between the Longannet roundabout and the Kincardine Bridge when he was hit by a Vauxhall Astra driven by Sneddon, of Falkirk.
Sneddon called an ambulance, but paramedics found no sign of a pulse on the victim before taking him to Forth Valley Hospital in Larbert, where he was pronounced dead.
Witnesses said weather conditions were clear and visibility was reasonable on the night of the crash, with a police officer noting that the red flashing light on Mr Dudgeon's bike was bright enough to be seen from 300m away.
Prosecutors said that although Mr Dudgeon had not been wearing a high visibility jacket, Sneddon should have seen him well before the collision and should have taken steps to avoid the cyclist.
The Crown originally charged Sneddon with causing Mr Dudgeon's death by dangerously failing to observe the cyclist and colliding with the rear of his bike, which he denied.
After a trial, the jury found him guilty on the lesser charge of death by careless driving. He will be sentenced later after background reports are compiled.

Summary:


A man has been jailed for sexually assaulting a woman in a hotel room in Dundee.
The court heard that the man, who was in his 20s, had been staying at the hotel with a friend.
The victim, who was in her 20s, was staying at the hotel with a friend.

A man who coerced a woman into having sex with a stranger before sending "revenge porn" to her family has been jailed for six years.

Article: The sport is to be one of 18 disciplines included at the event, which will be held in the Gold Coast from 4-15 April 2018.
It follows a special request to the Games organisers from the Queensland authorities.
Commonwealth Games Scotland chairman Paul Bush said the announcement was a "huge boost" for beach volleyball.
He said: "We will now continue to work closely with colleagues at Scottish Volleyball to develop the necessary criteria to ensure that we can select a team that competes with distinction.
"There is no better place to showcase this exciting sport than in Gold Coast."
The announcement was also welcomed by Lynne Beattie, who captained Great Britain's London 2012 Olympic volleyball team and who is Scotland's number one international beach athlete.
"I would be overjoyed at the opportunity to represent Scotland at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and look forward to hearing more about the qualification process later in the year," she said.
The Gold Coast Games will become the first to include beach volleyball and extends the number of sports involved from 17 to 18.
Annastacia Palaszczuk, Queensland state's premier, said: "The Games is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to showcase Queensland to the world and, with beach volleyball now locked in to make its Commonwealth Games debut, vision of the Gold Coast's iconic beaches will be beamed to an audience of over 1.5 billion people around the world."
Two 12-team tournaments will be contested, one for men's teams and one for women's teams, consisting of two players per team.
A qualification system will be developed in collaboration with the international volleyball federation, FIVB, and will be finalised by July.
Volleyball Scotland chief executive Margaret Ann Fleming said: "I am confident that our athletes are ready to embrace this opportunity and I look forward to 2018 with optimism."
The news of beach volleyball's inclusion has also been welcomed by Volleyball England chief executive Lisa Wainwright.
"This is fantastic news which has been many years in the...

Summary: Scotland are hoping to put together a beach volleyball team for the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia.
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Article: The code will be made freely available for manufacturers who want to launch their own gaming hardware.
The announcement is the first of three due this week as Valve lays out what it calls the "future" of gaming.
The company is widely anticipated to launch its own machine to run SteamOS, believed to be called the Steam Box.
The console could potentially disrupt a market currently dominated by the Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo Wii.
Ahead of a hardware reveal, Valve outlined its plans for the Linux-based operating system that will be available for download "soon".
"As we've been working on bringing Steam to the living room, we've come to the conclusion that the environment best suited to delivering value to customers is an operating system built around Steam itself," a message on Steam's website read.
"SteamOS combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen."
Linux is a open-source operating system - meaning people can freely build-upon and adapt its source code.
Crucially, there are no licensing costs involved, so manufacturers can distribute Linux-powered machines more cheaply than those running systems such as Windows.
SteamOS will encompass Steam's already huge customer base, estimated to be about 50 million active users.
Steam is Valve's distribution service through which it sells both its own games and those of its various publishing partners.
It began life in 2002 as a way for Valve to make it easier for users to update games, but it now is a significant channel for selling titles - and is also used as a community tool for setting up multiplayer matches and other online events.
Valve does not release sales statistics for games sold through Steam - but estimates from consultancy IHS Screen Digest suggest it is responsible for 75% of PC game sales, bringing in about $1bn (Â£620m) in 2012.
There are more than 2,000 games on the service.
However, despite the service's popularity, it is currently reliant on something of a sinking ship, argued...

Summary: Video games developer and publisher Valve has announced SteamOS, a free operating system it hopes will help bring PC gaming into the living room.
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Article: The 11-year-old bird, called Arthur, was swept away by strong winds during a display at the Royal Bath and West Show on Wednesday.
The "massive great" bird has since been spotted in Castle Carey in Somerset and Devizes in Wiltshire.
Birds of Prey Displays is asking anyone who sees him not to approach him and to contact them instead.
The white-headed vulture was taking part in an Eagle and Vulture show on the opening day of the show in Shepton Mallet, when it was blown off course.
Ben Potter, the bird's owner, said the "massive great big glove puppet of a vulture" should be easy to spot.
"He's a 12lb vulture, with a 6ft wingspan - you can't miss him," he said.
"And he will make himself really obvious to people because he knows people are part of his life so he will be quite visual."
Since Wednesday, the massive bird has been spotted in a field in Castle Cary, been seen being "harassed by two rooks" as it flew over Sparkford in Somerset, and surprised a driver in Devizes in Wiltshire.
"If you see it give me a call and I'll come and get it," said Mr Potter.
"The only thing I do ask is that people don't go to him - not because he's dangerous - mainly because he'll be spooked and keep moving and moving and moving."

Summary: A vulture that went missing in Somerset four days ago has still not been caught despite several sightings.
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Article: Clive Weatherhogg set up meetings between the woman and a man he found through an adult website, and filmed them having sex.
A court heard he sent a message containing a sexually explicit clip to the victim's sister on Christmas Day.
Weatherhogg, 42, was also placed on the sex offenders register.
He had denied the charges but was found guilty following a trial at Dundee Sheriff Court.
Sheriff George Way remitted the case to the High Court in Edinburgh to be dealt with because its greater sentencing powers.
Weatherhogg, formerly of Guthrie, near Forfar, was found guilty of coercing the woman to engage in sexual activity and intercourse with the man between 10 September, 2013 and 17 September the following year.
He was also convicted of intentionally causing the woman's sister and father to look at sexual images and behaving in a threatening or abusive manner on 25 December, 2014.
The woman told the trial she had felt "blackmailed" by Weatherhogg.
Lady Wolffe told the Weatherhogg that she had to pass a sentence on him that "reflected society's abhorrence" at such conduct.
The judge said that Weatherhogg, a first offender, had been assessed as posing "a moderate risk" of sexual re-offending.
Defence counsel Jonathan Crowe said it had been "a dramatic shock" for Weatherhogg to be placed on remand ahead of sentencing.

Summary:


The head of a school in Essex has said he is "very concerned" about the safety of pupils on a school trip to Germany.
The school's headmaster, David Taylor, said he was "very concerned" about the safety of pupils on a school trip to Germany.
He said the school was "very

A school pupil involved in a coach crash in Belgium in which the driver died is still having "sleepless nights" two months on, her father has said.

Article: Irish Water, the country's water utility, is rolling out the quarterly billing to 1.5m customers on a phased basis over the next eight weeks.
The system went live on Tuesday, and on Wednesday the first 39,000 bills will be issued to customers.
But Irish Water has said that it anticipates mistakes will be made.
It said the billing process is a "significant task" and it expects there will be errors in its database.
On Tuesday, Irish Water confirmed that it had asked around 11,000 customers who submitted payment details in writing or over the phone to re-submit the information.
It said that 9,000 customers who gave details of direct debit mandates over the phone were asked to re-submit them in writing, following concerns over data protection.
Another 2,000 customers who submitted payment details in writing were asked to do so again, due to "errors" in transposing customer details online.
Staffing at a call centre in Cork has been increased to 750 to deal with customer queries during the initial billing period.
Staff at Irish Water and their customer service agents have been involved in a dry run on the billing system for several weeks.
Elizabeth Arnett, Irish Water's head of corporate services, acknowledged that mistakes could be made.
"We expect to face challenges, particularly when we have incomplete customer information or unregistered customers," she said.
"In these cases we may not have the right billing details and it's possible that the details we have may not be 100% correct."
Initial charges will be 40 euros (£29) for a single-adult household and 65 euros (£47) for a two-adult household.
Annual bills will not exceed 160 euros (£117) for single-adult households or 260 euros (£190) for households with more than one adult.
A total of 1.7m bills will be issued, including to those who are not customers of the utility, such as to people on group water schemes.

Summary: Households in the Republic of Ireland will receive their first bills for water services on Wednesday.
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Article: Last week, the head of  exam watchdog Ofqual suggested some schools were making "strategic" use of challenges to A-level and GCSE grades.
But the chairman of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference said the "real issue is inaccurate marking".
Ofqual has said it is planning improvements to the appeal process.
The university sector's Supporting Professionalism in Admissions organisation has also called for "greater clarity" about the rising numbers of appeals and grades being changed.
Director Janet Graham said: "This is an area that the awarding organisations and Ofqual could explore in more depth."
Ofqual chief Glenys Stacey faced questions last week from the Education Select Committee about the process of challenging exam results.
Ms Stacey told MPs she wanted a system that was "swift, effective and fair".
In the past four years, the number querying results has more than doubled to more than 400,000 and the number getting their grades changed after re-marking has also more than doubled to more than 77,000.
But Chris King, Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC) chairman and headmaster of Leicester Grammar School, said there needed to be much more transparency and information about the grades being challenged and changed.
He also criticised the suggestion the increase in appeals was being driven by schools gaming the system to improve their grades
"It is misleading to imply that schools who appeal wrong grades are actually a cause of the problem. This is a smokescreen," said Mr King.
Instead he blamed "inconsistent marking and grading and a Byzantine appeals process, which Ofqual itself acknowledges is inadequate".
"Any suggestion that schools of any kind are 'gaming' the appeals system is unfair and underserved," said Mr King.
Exam boards charge for re-marking, unless there is a grade changed, with schools and parents paying millions of pounds each year.
"Independent schools submit proportionally more appeals but naturally state schools put in far more than we do, and we welcome this....

Summary: Head teachers of leading independent schools have accused exam regulators of creating a "smokescreen" around soaring numbers of appeals over exam marking.
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Article: On Tuesday ministers said a Welsh bid was not feasible after a study revealed costs of between £1.3bn and £1.5bn.
On Wednesday Plaid said ministers' estimates appeared to be "deliberately skewed" to appear more expensive.
Labour's Ken Skates said the figures were "based on a robust assessment".
The Commonwealth Games Federation had earlier said it was "surprised" by the figures provided by the Welsh Government.
In a letter to Economy Secretary Ken Skates, Shadow Sports Secretary Neil McEvoy said: "Given that the Commonwealth Games Federation has issued a statement seriously questioning your government's costing of £1.3bn to host the games, could you please issue your methodology and assumptions which underpin the feasibility study?
"The Glasgow games came in £32m under budget at £543m. Why would it cost more than double that figure to host the games in Wales?"
Speaking about the letter, Mr McEvoy called ministers' estimates "ambiguous at best" that seemed to have been "deliberately skewed to appear more expensive".
"That's why I want to see the detailed methodology behind these costs and proposals so that we can make an informed judgement of whether they are accurate - or whether we are being deliberately misled," he said.
But Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure Ken Skates said Plaid Cymru was not "comparing like with like", saying the figures were "based on a robust assessment of the total cost of delivery".
"They include the construction of necessary sporting facilities and additional infrastructure, the Games legacy, the delivery of all Wales benefits and the recommended contingency.
"Our understanding is that the Glasgow figure focuses solely on the operational delivery of the two week event."
The minister argued that a more accurate comparison would be the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, which he said had been widely quoted as being expected to cost more than $2bn in Australian dollars (£1.13bn).
Those games, he said, were "very much in line with our own projections".
Mr Skates added:...

Summary: Plaid Cymru has demanded that the Welsh Government explain why it believes that holding the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Wales would cost twice as much as the 2014 event in Glasgow.
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Article: Melissa Morton, 12, was among 34 pupils at Brentwood School in Essex aboard a coach that crashed into a motorway bridge near Middelkerke, West Flanders.
Her father Keith Morton said she had been "very disturbed by it all".
The school said some staff still needed hospital treatment, but all pupils were due back in school next week.
The coach, which was heading to Cologne in Germany for a languages trip, hit a bridge on the A18 (E40) near Middelkerke during the morning of 28 June.
Driver James Chance, who worked for a coach firm in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, was killed. A second driver was also injured.
Two boys who were badly hurt, with one receiving head injuries and another having a broken leg, have both been back to the independent school to meet their friends, a spokesman said.
He said some injured teachers, including one who suffered a broken collarbone, had continued to receive hospital treatment and were due to continue recovering for a number of weeks until they could return to work. Some pupils and staff are also receiving counselling.
Keith Morton, whose daughter Melissa escaped unhurt, told BBC Essex she was still "emotionally not quite right".
"There's been some teary situations and sleepless nights and it's still quite a shock for her," he said.
"There was one occasion when she had to get into a coach and was very disturbed by it all."
The school's second master David Taylor said he had spoken to police in Belgium and it was "going to be a long process" to find out what caused the crash, but he said he would still like trips to continue.

Summary: