A council's response to a collapsed road following a landslip was "disjointed", a local government watchdog has found.

Article: His death came shortly after three people were seen leaving the building and entering a police vehicle. It has not been confirmed they were hostages.
The gunman had opened fire at the industrial unit on Monday morning, killing a man and injuring two others.
Police quickly surrounded the factory, located in the industrial suburb of Ingleburn in the city's southwest.
Authorities have named the gunman as Wayne Williams.
His motives and relationship to those in the factory remain unclear, but the Sydney Morning Herald said Williams was a member of a motorcycle gang and that the man who was shot dead was connected to another motorcycle club.
The two injured men were transported to Liverpool Hospital and were in a stable condition, staff told the BBC.
One of the men underwent emergency surgery, while the second suffered superficial wounds to his lower body.
Reports from media at the scene said the man was believed to be using an automatic rifle.
Photographs show heavily armed police surrounding the Inline National Signage factory, and what appears to be a body underneath a white sheet on the sidewalk.
A man was arrested at the scene, but police said he was detained for "hindering" the investigation.

Summary: A gunman who engaged police in an hours-long standoff at a Sydney factory has shot himself dead, say authorities.
###
Article: For the last few years, four small UK minehunters have been maintaining a valuable if unsung presence in the waterway. It is one that Britain's allies value very highly, according to the Navy.
We joined one of the ships, HMS Middleton, as she headed out to sea from her base in the port of Bahrain. As we set sail, the international significance of the Gulf was evident.
As well as the four British minehunters, a frigate and a patrol craft from the Bahraini navy, dotted around the port were a French naval support ship, a US amphibious assault ship, some American minehunters and perhaps most intriguingly, a US Coastguard cutter.
There was also a huge British amphibious support ship, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Lyme Bay, another of the total of a dozen British naval vessels in the region. Lyme Bay acts as a mother ship for the minehunters.
Those minehunters themselves are hardly the biggest or most glamorous of warships. HMS Middleton is just 645 tons, with a crew of just 46. But their potential value massively outweighs their size.
If the Gulf were to be mined, the bigger ships - even the mighty US Navy aircraft carriers - would be relying on them to carry out their task.
None of the Royal Navy personnel in the Gulf will point a direct finger, but one of the West's nightmare scenarios is that the Gulf could be mined as part of a confrontation with Iran.
That could shut off the source of 40% of the world's oil shipments by sea and have a devastating effect on the world economy.
The waterway has been mined before. And in both the recent confrontations with Iraq, Royal Navy vessels have played a crucial role in mine clearance.
Mines could also be attractive to a terrorist group. Like their land equivalent the roadside bomb, they are simple, cheap, but devastating.
The purpose of the ships now is to build confidence. And they are also there to gain vital local knowledge so that they could respond immediately if the need arose.
"We're the core of a deployed force which proves that the UK can deploy and sustain a force...

Summary: Away from the headlines, the Royal Navy is carrying out a key security task in the Gulf.
###
Article: The previous Labour government increased the top rate from 40p to 50p in 2010, but the current government cut that to 45p with effect from April last year.
So what is the 50p tax rate, and why is it such a central issue for politicians in the run-up to the next election?
What is the 50p tax rate?
Anyone receiving a "taxable" income - such as salaries, pensions and interest on savings - in the UK is subject to income tax.
After a "personal allowance" of £9,440 (due to rise to £10,000 from April) people pay according to "bands" of income.
At present income of up to £32,010 is taxed at the "basic rate" of 20%, while a "higher rate" applies to income from £32,011 to £150,000.
Under Labour's plan, half of all income above £150,000 would go to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), instead of 45% as at present.
Why does Ed Balls want to bring it back?
The shadow chancellor said the coalition government had given the "richest people in the country a huge tax cut" by scrapping the 50p top rate - something he said "cannot be right".
Making his pledge to restore the 50p rate, Mr Balls said "those with the broadest shoulders" should bear a "fairer share of the burden".
Labour tried to block the abolition of the 50p rate in 2012 but were defeated in the House of Commons.
How much would it raise?
Labour has not put a figure on this.
A 2012 HMRC assessment - which the Office for Budget Responsibility called "reasonable" - estimated that cutting the top rate from 50p to 45p would cost £100m a year.
But Mr Balls said the three years where the tax was imposed (after increasing the top rate from 40p to 50p) raised almost £10bn more than the assessment suggested.
Labour said the impact of returning the rate to 50p would be bigger than £100m because tax liabilities for people earning more than £150,000 in the period during which the assessment was carried out were higher than previously thought.
What do the coalition parties say?
Conservative Treasury minister David Gauke said the 50p rate would "raise little, if anything", a conclusion...

Summary: Shadow chancellor Ed Balls has promised to reintroduce the 50p top rate of income tax for people earning more than £150,000 if Labour wins the next election.
###
Article: The Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, trained in Ireland by Gordon Elliott, has an uncertain future after suffering a tendon injury.
Don Cossack has been allocated a rating of 177 in the annual Anglo-Irish Jumps Classifications.
The Gold Cup winner was ranked just ahead of Cue Card, Faugheen and Vautour (all 176) with Sprinter Sacre on 175.
Faugheen is the highest rated hurdler since Istabraq 15 years ago, while Don Cossack's mark (up from 175 last year) puts him on a par with the likes of 2005 Cheltenham victor Kicking King and triple Gold Cup winner winner Best Mate.
Douvan won five Grade One races in just over four months - by an average distance of more than 12 lengths - but trails Sprinter Sacre in the two-mile chasing division on 169.
Analysis - BBC correspondent Cornelius Lysaght
"These ratings will encourage those around the hugely popular Sprinter Sacre, who emerged from a heart problem and what was looking increasingly like a sad obscurity, to win all of his four races and become 'story of the season'.
"When the future opposition of ever-rising star Douvan is mentioned, there tends to be gulps and shrugging of shoulders from 'Team Sprinter', but the handicappers still believe the younger horse has ground to make up.
"It could make for a thrilling rivalry, with the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown in December a likely starting point for the reigning champion."

Summary: Don Cossack has been ranked the highest-rated horse in jump racing for the second year running.
###
Article: Eight houses on the A3055 Undercliff Drive on the Isle of Wight were evacuated in 2014.
One family complained to the Local Government Ombudsman over the council's response to the evacuation and subsequent work on the road.
The council agreed to pay Â£5,000 compensation to the family.
Emergency services helped residents leave their homes on Undercliff Drive - between Niton and St Lawrence - following the landslip after heavy rain in February 2014.
The road was closed with properties only accessible on foot.  In 2016, a temporary route to provide full access for local residents was created.
Council statements in the years following the landslip insisted householders were "an absolute priority" and said they would be "fully informed of progress" on road works.
The ombudsman's report said: "I also have seen no persuasive evidence to show it properly planned and adequately managed the situation."
It also said its road plans were "disjointed and reactive" and it did not give "timely and clear responses" to householders.
Delays in carrying out work were blamed on a "lack of effective liaison and project planning".
The ombudsman said the unnamed family, some of whom had long-term medical conditions, suffered "avoidable distress" due to the council's actions.
The council was also ordered to help pay the family's costs in returning their house to a habitable condition.
A spokeswoman said: "The council has worked with the family to ensure that the recommendations of the report are being met.
"The family is now living in their home and work to meet the recommendations remain ongoing, in close consultation with the family, as required."

Summary:


A paedophile who raped a 12-year-old boy after grooming him online has been jailed for 13 years.

Article: Croatia joined the European Union three years ago, but nationalism and neighbour-bashing have become a feature of the debate. And memories of the Balkan Wars of the 1990s and World War Two have been stirred up as rivals try to bolster support and distract from domestic problems.
The nationalist HDZ, the largest party in the short-lived coalition government that fell apart in June, astonished most Croatians this year with its choice of culture minister.
Zlatko Hasanbegovic was a historian who had repeatedly venerated the genocidal, pro-Nazi Ustasha movement which ruled Croatia in World War Two as "heroes" and "martyrs".
Meanwhile, the short-lived Veterans Affairs Minister, Mijo Crnoja, caused still more outrage when he proposed a "register of traitors".
Ugly rhetoric has not been limited to parties on the nationalist right.
Former Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic, leader of the centre-left Social Democratic Party, made a clumsy attempt to curry favour with veterans of the "Homeland War" of the 1990s.
International outrage ensued when his off-the-record remarks leaked out, in which he compared the current government of neighbouring Serbia to Nazi collaborators from World War Two.
Mr Milanovic followed this up by saying another neighbour, Bosnia, was full of "villains".
"It's sad to see the forces of the left are actually adopting populist discourse in order to win votes," says Senada Selo Sabic of Zagreb's Institute for Development and International Relations.
She says that nationalist sentiment was successfully buried during Croatia's decade-long EU accession process. But stifling debate in that time meant some issues were never properly debated.
"The sense of freedom came the moment Croatia joined the European Union in 2013. There was this sense of relief: now we are free to say what we want. This onslaught of nationalism and hardline speech is somehow the opening of a vent."
But the collapse of the last government has brought about at least a few changes.
The HDZ is running on its own this time, without any of...

Summary: The rhetoric has turned ugly in the run-up to Croatia's second general election in less than 12 months.
###
Article: Staff at Castlerock used bells, levers and mechanical frames to keep trains on track between Londonderry and Coleraine.
Computerised signalling technology will replace the Victorian model this week.
Once there were thousands of signal boxes at stations across the UK but now the future looks very different.
Kevin Brown worked in the signal box in Castlerock for more than 20 years.
He said it would be a sad farewell.
"It's the end of an era and it's going to be very emotional to go. For 20-odd years she's been my life, she's been my baby, my cabin," he said.
"Each lever operates a signal or a set of points and this is the exact same way it would have been done in Victorian times.
"It's very emotional because I've got the privilege of being the last man out to lock up. I walk away from the cabin and that's me finished as a signaller for Castlerock."
The railway signal box has been in existence since the late 19th century, although the original signal box was replaced in the 1970s.
The Victorian station buildings were designed by the famous architect John Lanyon in 1874.
While the wrought iron footbridge has moved around over the years, it remains a part of the landscape.
"The signal cabin's role is to safely move trains between Londonderry and Coleraine.
"It does that via semaphore signals, which you can see up on poles, and also via token exchange which are metal tokens handed out to trains to allow them to move into the sections," said Richard Knox, head of network operations for NI railways.
"It is very much the old school way -  the gentleman in the signal cabin, through a process of levers and token machines, allows the trains to travel through the station - so he physically pulls levers.
"What's going to change is that is the major capital project to re-signal the whole line between Coleraine and Londonderry," Mr Knox added.
The entire rail network in the north west is being modernised with new signalling and a new passing loop for trains at a cost of Â£46m.
Mr Brown said he accepts that times are changing...

Summary: It has been used as a signalling station for nearly 150 years, but now the last railway box in Northern Ireland is set to be demolished.
###
Article: The film, which is out in June, concludes director Christopher Nolan's superhero trilogy - and the plot has been a closely-guarded secret.
"I was in a panic for 20 minutes," Oldman told the BBC. "I thought, 'where the hell have I put it?'"
"It had my name on it," he added. "They would have killed me". The script eventually surfaced in his hotel room.
"I'd gone out for dinner," the actor explained, "and I had put it in the room between the mattress and the bed, because I couldn't scrunch it into the safe.
"I was half-thinking about something else and shoved it there."
The 53-year-old, who plays police commissioner James Gordon in the film series, admitted the script would have been "the worst one to lose."
He described the lengths that Nolan and film studio Warner Bros went to to ensure the script remained under wraps.
"When he [Nolan] gives the script out, it doesn't have the ending. Characters sometimes change, or their names change. And you have to go to the studio to read it."
Oldman was speaking at the Empire film awards, where he received the best actor prize for his role in Cold War thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
He was not the only actor on the red carpet who described the security measures currently being employed by film studios.
Mark Strong was at the ceremony during a break in filming Zero Dark Thirty with director Katherine Bigelow, who won an Oscar last year for The Hurt Locker.
The film, which has been on location in India, is a dramatisation of the raid by US Navy Seals on al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden's home in Abbottabad.
Strong said the producers wanted the script to be "as secret as possible".
"You have to apply to read it on your computer," he told the BBC. "If it detects that you haven't read it for a couple of days, it disappears off the computer."
"When you are reading it, if it detects after five minutes that you haven't turned the page, the text goes blurry."
He said the tight security was because the script went into detail on "a lot of CIA procedure" that had been described...

Summary: Gary Oldman has described the moment he thought he had lost the script for Batman film The Dark Knight Rises.
###
Article: Beating Bowel Cancer urged more people to come forward, and Public Health England to make it a priority to increase screening rates.
Figures show that uptake among the eligible 60- to 74-year-old age group was 58% in 2012-15.
This compared with 72% for breast and 79% for cervical cancer screening.
The bowel cancer screening programme is much newer - it was only introduced in 2006.
The data - obtained via a parliamentary question - also showed regional variations.
Dorset had the highest uptake at 66% and West London the lowest at 42%.
Beating Bowel Cancer chief executive Mark Flannagan said: "We must do better than this.
"We know that bowel cancer screening saves lives by leading to early diagnosis yet in some areas fewer than half of those eligible are actually taking it up."
The tests, called faecal occult blood tests, are sent in the post to everyone in the target population every two years.
They help detect polyps, which are non-cancerous growths which may develop into cancer over time.
Polyps can bleed and the test identifies tiny amounts of blood that normally cannot be seen.
In the first four years of the programme, more than 7,000 cancers were detected and 40,000 patients had polyps removed.
Prof Julietta Patnick, director of the NHS Cancer Screening Programmes, said improving uptake remained a "priority".

Summary: Bowel cancer screening uptake needs to improve, campaigners say, after figures showed just over half of those eligible in England come forward for the test.
###
Article: Ben Flynn, 24, enticed the boy to his home in Droylsden, Greater Manchester, with promises to use his Playstation and offered to pay his bus fare.
Police described Flynn as a "dangerous predator".
At Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court Flynn, of Kings Walk, admitted 13 sex offences including two counts of rape and two sexual assaults.
He also pleaded guilty to three counts of causing a child to engage in sexual activity and two counts of causing a child to watch a sexual act.
Flynn also admitted a breach of sex offence prevention order and one count of meeting a child following sexual grooming.
He was also ordered to sign the sex offenders register for life.
In March last year, Flynn sent his victim a friend request on Facebook despite having never met or spoken to him.
The boy was then bombarded with private messages and Flynn offered to let him play computer games at his home.
When they met Flynn kissed the boy and touched him sexually before trying to take him to his bedroom but the boy refused.
He then pestered his victim, offered to pay his victim and went on to abuse him on two further occasions.
The boy's sister came across Flynn's messages to her brother and told her mother who phoned the police.
Det Con Claire Pickavance, of Greater Manchester Police, said the paedophile did not "show a shred of humanity" to the boy.
She added: "Ben Flynn is a dangerous predator who preyed on a young boy via social media before arranging to meet with him so that he could satisfy his own depraved urges."

Summary:

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A UKIP parliamentary candidate who said in a Facebook post that Israel should "kidnap" US President Barack Obama has been replaced by his party.

Article: James O'Brien will serve in the new role created to boost efforts "to safely recover American hostages abroad," it said in statement.
It follows criticism over how the government handles hostage situations after a number of deaths this year.
In June, the White House gave families permission to make ransom payments.
Until that point, the US government had the power to threaten them with prosecution if they tried to pay their relative's captors ransom - although to date the Justice Department has never followed through on this threat.
President Barack Obama's administration has drawn criticism for its long-standing policy of prohibiting concessions to militant groups.
It has also come under increasing pressure since it was revealed some European governments had been paying Islamic State (IS) militants to free their nationals abducted in Syria and Iraq.
The family of US journalist James Foley, who was beheaded by IS a year ago, said they felt they had no-one "accountable for Jim" during the time he was being held hostage.
The father of Kayla Mueller, an American aid worker who died whilst held in IS captivity in February, has also expressed frustration with US policies regarding hostages.
"They put policy in front of American citizens' lives," Carl Mueller told NBC Today, two weeks after his daughter's death was confirmed.
The policy changes announced two months ago said the administration needed to enhance its focus "on diplomatic efforts to ensure the safe return of American hostages to their families".
In a statement released on Friday, the White House said Mr O'Brien was "uniquely qualified to serve in this position given his extensive background in diplomacy and international negotiations".
Mr O'Brien, a former special presidential envoy for the Balkans, has been instructed to work directly with families of hostages and help synchronise efforts to to secure the release of their family members.

Summary: The White House has appointed its first presidential envoy for hostage affairs as part of the US government's review on responding to hostage situations.
###
Article: The warning comes from uSwitch, the price comparison and switching service.
It says the biggest increases will be for Npower customers, who could see their bills rise £399.
It adds that 50 fixed energy plans are coming to an end this summer, more than ever before.
There are 14 popular fixed-tariff deals from eight suppliers ending this month alone. The average price increase for customers whose deals end in July is £274 per year.
The biggest hikes are for those on fixed price tariffs with Npower, First Utility (£364) and EDF Energy (£360).
Fixed tariffs can protect customers against rising prices, but have cancellation charges if they wish to switch to a different supplier.
Energy regulator Ofgem says two-thirds of customers are on standard variable tariffs, which are typically higher than fixed rate tariffs and do not have cancellation charges.
Claire Osborne, from uSwitch.com said: "Switching tariff is incredibly easy and is definitely worth 10 minutes online, on the phone or on an app.
"You can switch without incurring any exit fees 42 days before the contract end date, and comparing and switching takes just minutes to do."
Ofgem said that last year saw a surge in customers changing energy suppliers, with switching reaching its highest level since 2010, at about 16% of gas and electricity customers.
Of these switches, nearly half (47%) were to small or medium suppliers.
The uSwitch site is owned by property website Zoopla. It provides a free service to consumers, but charges suppliers a fee when it switches customers to them.

Summary: Half a million households could see a 51% increase in their energy bills this summer - if they simply allow their old fixed-price tariffs to roll over.
###
Article: Adm Thad Allen said oil giant BP needed to do better at getting money to people and businesses affected by the spill.
Some 11,000 barrels of oil were being trapped by a containment cap, he said.
President Barack Obama defended his response to the spill, using some of his toughest language yet. He said he had frequently consulted with experts in order to learn "whose ass to kick".
"I was down there a month ago before most of these talking heads were even paying attention to the Gulf," he said in an interview with the NBC network.
"I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick," he added.
The president - who has come under criticism that he has not shown enough leadership or anger over the disaster - told Americans they would "get through this crisis", despite the damage to the economy.
Mr Obama told reporters he was committed to seeing the Gulf region restored to a condition better than it was before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank on 20 April, killing 11 workers.
The leaking wellhead is currently spewing out between 12,000 and 24,000 barrels of oil per day.
Meanwhile, Adm Allen, the coordinator of the clean-up operation, told reporters it would take "a couple of months" to clear the oil slick from the surface of the Gulf.
But, he said: "Long-term issues of restoring environments and habitats will be years."
He said that while BP had nearly doubled the amount of oil being funnelled from the leaking wellhead since Friday, it was now "trying to increase that production rate, close the venting valves and move to a greater capacity".
He said BP was hoping to move a second production platform into the area to increase the amount of oil that could be siphoned off.
Adm Allen added that BP was also preparing a bigger rig to process a greater capacity of oil in severe weather. Hurricane season in the region opened last week.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs warned, however,...

Summary: The US Coast Guard chief says cleaning up marshlands affected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill will take years.
###
Article: Children's Commissioner Tam Baillie made his claim to members of Holyrood's public petitions committee.
He wants children to have rights and the freedom to move clubs more easily.
Mr Baillie claimed some clubs requested payments from rivals for children who had come through their academies but failed to reach an agreement.
MSPs heard that clubs tie 10-year-olds to contracts which forbid them from playing for other clubs, and can even restrict them from playing for their school team despite guidance to deter the practice by the Scottish Football Association (SFA).
Mr Baillie presented a raft of recommendations to prevent children's rights being breached, including the freedom for children to give 28 days' notice to resign from a club.
Mr Baillie said: "If the young person chooses to get out of that 'contract' they are sometimes left as a hostage to the original club, because there is a dispute over the payment and this can last for quite a period of time.
"In theory, you could have them held year on year because the payments have not been made."
He added: "There is an issue about 10-year-olds signing what they think are contracts, and potentially being held to those right through their formative years.
"There is an issue about 15-year-olds being held to contracts, sometimes against their wishes, for a further two years until they are 17.
"And I think there are issues in respect of the perception that they are not allowed to play for clubs or their behaviour is restricted by the 'contracts', which I would put in inverted commas because there is quite a bit of debate about whether they are contracts or not.
"As far as the children are concerned, they have signed a contract and it impacts on their behaviour because they don't get to play for schools on some occasions, not all, and there are certainly restrictive practices there."

Summary: MSPs have been told that footballers as young as 10 are being held hostage by clubs with "contracts" that may not be worth the paper they are written on.
###
Article: Jeremy Zeid, who was standing in Hendon, said President Obama should be "locked up" by the Israelis for "leaking state secrets".
He was referring to the declassifying of documents on Israel's secret nuclear programme.
UKIP said Mr Zeid resigned last week due to health issues.
It is not clear exactly when he resigned, but he made the posts last Wednesday and Thursday.
Raymond Shamash, a surgeon originally from north-west London, was revealed as Mr Zeid's replacement after news of the Facebook posts emerged.
Mr Zeid also said Israel should "do an Eichmann" on President Obama.
Adolf Eichmann was a Nazi war criminal abducted by Israeli agents in 1960 and later hanged for his role in the murders of millions of Jews in World War Two.
Hendon is one of the most marginal seats in the country with the Conservatives defending a majority of 106.

Summary:


Apprenticeships in England need to be overhauled to stop many young people being awarded practical qualifications that have little worth, a report says.

Article: Samsung said: "Shipments of the Galaxy Note 7 are being temporarily delayed for additional quality assurance inspections."
There are reports in South Korea and the US of the Galaxy Note 7 "exploding" either during or just after charging.
However, it is unclear whether the delay is because of these reports.
Pictures and videos shared online depict charred and burnt handsets.
Shares fell as much as 3.5% during trade in Seoul before making a partial recovery to close 2% down on the day.
Sister company Samsung SDI told Reuters that while it was a supplier of Galaxy Note 7 batteries, it had received no information to suggest the batteries were faulty.
A YouTube user who says they live in the US uploaded a video of a Galaxy Note 7 with burnt rubber casing and damaged screen under the name Ariel Gonzalez on 29 August.
He said the handset "caught fire" shortly after he unplugged the official Samsung charger, less than a fortnight after purchasing it.
"I came home after work, put it to charge for a little bit before I had class, went to put it on my waist and it caught fire," he said.
He added that while he was unharmed, his carpet was burnt in the incident.
At least five other claims of phones "exploding" had been made by 24 August, according to the Korean news agency Yonhap News.
Further images of a burnt Galaxy Note 7 were uploaded to Kakao Story, a popular social media site in Korea, on 30 August.
A user wrote: "There was another explosion of the Galaxy Note 7. It was my friend's phone. A Samsung employee checked the site and he is currently in talks over the compensation with Samsung. You should use its original charger just in case and leave the phone far away from where you are while charging."
The post has since been deleted, according to Business Korea.
Rival Apple is due to hold an event on 7 September, where it is expected to announce its latest iPhone.
"The timing could not be worse for Samsung," said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner.
"Samsung was back on track with its premium phones after the...

Summary: Shares in Samsung have fallen after it delayed shipments of its latest smartphone - but without giving a detailed reason for the decision.
###
Article: The bank's commitment is included in the new charter for small and medium enterprises by its parent company Lloyds Banking Group.
The group has set a target of supporting 5,000 new exporters across the UK in 2016 and 25,000 by 2020.
The charter also pledges to boost lending to small businesses by Â£1bn.
Graham Blair, from the Bank of Scotland, said: "The future success of the Scottish economy hinges on small businesses looking to overseas markets for growth.
"Through this new pledge, we want to support a new legion of Scottish exporters, and ultimately to help the Scottish economy to prosper."
Lloyds Banking Group said it planned to invest Â£450m in digital technology and training in the next three years, including creating a new international trade portal enabling UK businesses to discover opportunities across the globe.
The group has trained more than 300 UK staff in international trade and has a network of export specialists across the country to help develop and advise on overseas trading opportunities.
UK Trade and Investment Minister Lord Price said: "This government has committed to having 100,000 more UK companies exporting by 2020 and this pledge by Lloyds is a welcome contribution towards this target.
"It's great to see the banks doing their bit to support small and medium-sized businesses looking to invest and create jobs."

Summary: The Bank of Scotland has pledged to help Scottish businesses become first-time exporters to boost the nation's economy.
###
Article: The bird may have honked, quacked or whistled, like a duck or goose.
Investigation of the oldest-known fossil of a bird's vocal organ - the syrinx - gives clues to how birdsong evolved.
The bird, Vegavis iaai, lived in what is now Antarctica about 66-68 million years ago. It belongs to the group that includes ducks, geese and swans.
Julia Clarke of the University of Texas at Austin said there had been virtually no work on the origin or early evolution of the unique way in which birds produce sound.
"While we've looked a lot at the evolution of the wing in birds," she said, "we have done very little with looking at the origin of what is perhaps one of the most striking characteristics of living birds - their songs."
Prof Clarke and her team scanned the fossil specimen using micro-CT, an X-ray scanning technique similar to hospital CT scans but on a smaller scale.
They made a 3D representation of the syrinx and then used another type of imaging that provides information on soft tissues to make comparisons with younger fossils and 12 living birds.
This allowed them to reconstruct the evolution of the tiny bony organ.
"We definitely think this voicebox is capable of honks or whistles," said Prof Clarke.
"But if we want to understand more precisely the frequency range or the variety of sounds, we'll have to build models and get more data from living ducks to constrain what might be the range of sounds produced by this structure."
Researchers think the syrinx may have arisen late in birds' evolution, well after the origin of flight.
No evidence for the syrinx had been found in non-avian dinosaurs.
The syrinx may be a relatively late arrival along the bird lineage, and in turn may have played a significant role in the diversification of birds, said Prof Patrick O'Connor of Ohio University.
"Their amazing diversity may in part be related to the evolution of the syrinx and any areas of the brain related to sound production and reception in the context of social interactions more generally," he explained.
Earlier this...

Summary: Scientists have reconstructed the "voicebox" of an extinct bird that lived at the time of the dinosaurs.
###
Article: In this virtual world, subjects were able to reduce how many people a gunman killed, an event they had unknowingly been part of.
Going into "the past"  increased the level of guilt the participants felt.
Writing in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, the team says that virtual time travel could help people overcome traumatic experiences.
Most interesting, the researchers add, was the emotional impact virtual time travel had on the participants.
"The more the participants felt the illusion, the greater the sense of their own morality," explained co-author Mel Slater of the ICREA (Catalan Research Institute) and University College London.
In the virtual world, participants could walk, talk and move similar to how they would in real life, and previous studies have shown that people strongly associate with their virtual selves.
"In virtual reality, the brain's low level perceptual system does not distinguish between the virtual and the real world; the brain takes what it sees and hears in a surrounding environment as given," added Prof Slater.
"Therefore, if they had an experience with the illusion of time travel, there is implicit learning that the past is mutable, that is: 'my own past decisions don't matter because they're changeable'."
In the study, 32 participants witnessed a man open fire and kill five people in an art gallery. They had learnt to control a lift and had allowed the killer to go to the upper-level.
Half of these went back in time to experience this event once more, but this time were faced with a classic moral dilemma: do nothing and five people will die, or intervene and five lives can be saved at the expense of one.
The other half simply experienced the same event but were not able to change their earlier actions.
This dilemma is commonly used in philosophical studies looking at morality. As expected, most participants chose to intervene.
This team says that virtual time travel could help people overcome post traumatic stress disorders or to revaluate previous bad decisions.
The laws of...

Summary: Virtual reality can be used to give the illusion of going "back in time", according to an exploratory study.
###
Article: Compared with other European countries, many apprenticeships are low quality and too short, the Sutton Trust warns.
It says thousands of apprenticeships should be created to boost the economy and improve youngsters' job prospects.
The Department for Education says apprenticeships are being reformed to "drive up standards".
The Association of Colleges said some existing apprenticeships were respected by industry and should be preserved.
The study, which was carried out by the Boston Consulting Group on behalf of the Sutton Trust, says fewer than 200,000 of the 520,000 apprenticeships starting in England every year are rated at level three - which is equivalent to A-level.
The report cites figures that suggest  apprenticeships are offered by just one in five (20%) of employers in England, compared with over half (51%) in Germany, which, the report says, is considered to have one of the best vocational education systems.
Only 61,000 new apprenticeship starts were for young people, whereas in Germany, 570,000 new apprenticeships are for youngsters and 90% of these are equivalent to A-levels.
The report also notes that England's vocational system has 18,000 different qualifications, while Germany has 330.
The report warns that since 2010, more than half (58%) of apprenticeships have been below level three and three-quarters have been aimed at those over the age of 25, many of whom are already in work.
And it warns 11 young people are competing for each apprenticeship.
In his foreword to the report, Sutton Trust chairman Sir Peter Lampl said the report had found that, with some exceptions, the opportunities on offer to young people who did not go to university were "poor".
The attitude in England, with some exceptions, was very different to that in countries such as Germany and Switzerland, he said.
"Instead of a clear system of respected vocational routes, we suffer from a complicated patchwork where too many young people are offered qualifications of little worth in a system that confuses employers and is not...

Summary:


Two men who died in a paint-spraying booth were so badly burned they could only be identified using their dental records, an inquest has heard.

Article: First Minister Carwyn Jones said "it would be difficult to conceive" a scenario where fees are abolished in England but not Wales.
Labour's leaked draft manifesto included a pledge to abolish fees.
Grants that cover the bulk of fees are set to be scrapped from next September, replaced with support for living costs following an earlier review.
Thursday's leaked UK Labour manifesto contained a pledge that Labour "will reintroduce maintenance grants for university students, and we will abolish university tuition fees".
It is estimated that the policy would cost more than £7bn a year.
Welsh Labour leader Mr Jones said: "Clearly if there are no tuition fees in England that's bound to have an effect on the way we see things in Wales."
Universities can charge a maximum of £9,000 for a full-time undergraduate course but Welsh students only currently pay the first £3,900.
The rest has been paid for by the taxpayer - at a cost of £237m in 2015-16.
But last year the Welsh Government outlined a new system which would give all students £1,000 a year towards the costs of living, before a means tested grant is then awarded.
A student from a family on average income should receive £7,000 a year.
Ministers in the Welsh Government have maintained that living costs rather than fees - which can be paid back over time after students start work - are a bigger barrier to poorer students going to university.
Since 2012, a significant portion of Welsh students' fees have been paid for by the Welsh government, wherever they study in the UK.
The current Welsh education minister is the assembly's only Welsh Liberal Democrat - Kirsty Williams.
A Welsh Lib Dem spokesman said Jeremy Corbyn "isn't going to win the election". "Living costs, not fees, are the biggest barrier to young people accessing universities," he added.
Plaid Cymru's Liz Saville Roberts said her party "has a longstanding policy to work towards scrapping tuition fees altogether so that higher education is accessible to as many young people as possible".
UKIP's education...

Summary: Wales could follow England's lead and abolish tuition fees if Labour wins the general election.
###
Article: Almost 1,500 people have signed up for the scheme that was launched on Monday.
One customer reported problems at Cromac Street docking station, and told the BBC that even the boss of Belfast City Council was unable to help him.
The council and the firm that runs the scheme said teething problems had been resolved and it was now working well.
Customer Bernard McClure told BBC Radio Ulster he had paid to use the scheme to cycle to work on Monday morning, but he could not release a bike from the docking station.
"I had the [bike-share scheme] application on my phone and whenever I went to the station it sends a code to your phone, but there's no instructions as to actually where you enter the code and the bike just remained locked."
Mr McClure said he spent 15 to 20 minutes trying to get the system to work but was unsuccessful.
He added that during his struggle, he was approached by a woman who asked him how he was getting on.
"Then she introduced herself as the chief executive of Belfast City Council and she suggested that I ring the helpline.  While she was standing there I tried it four or five times and it [the helpline] was unobtainable.
"She mentioned that apparently there should have been assistance at each station but there wasn't any at that station at the bottom of Cromac Street," Mr McClure added.
He said he then gave up and walked to work.
In a statement, Belfast City Council said: "We are aware of a few teething problems at a small number of stations, but these have been resolved and overall the scheme is working well and being well used."
NSL, the company that operates the Belfast bike-share scheme said it "has got off to a fantastic start but we have identified a few day one technical issues, which our technicians are now working on".
"A cyclist reported that a bike wouldn't release from the Cromac Street docking station - we are looking into this," the firm said.
The NSL statement added that a bike terminal at Central Station/Stewart Street "is currently out of order due to vandalism".
"We...

Summary: Belfast's new public bike-share scheme has been hit by problems on its first day, including technical difficulties and helpline issues.
###
Article: That's a line from Naomi Alderman's book The Power, the only novel to appear on this year's longlist for the Orwell Book Prize for political writing.
It imagines a world in which almost every woman suddenly develops the ability to electrocute people at will - "from a tiny tingle all the way to full electro-death".
On her website, Alderman says her "feminist science-fiction" novel explores what would happen if women had the power to cause pain and destruction.
Fourteen books in total - including works on Brexit, FGM and  the impact of the Hillsborough disaster - are in the running for the Â£3,000 award.
The prize is named after George Orwell, whose dystopian classic 1984 re-entered the book charts earlier this year.
Other books on the list include All Out War, Tim Shipman's contemporary history of the EU referendum campaign; and Black and British, in which David Olusoga charts the long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa.
Also in the running is Hibo Wardere's memoir Cut, about female genital mutilation in Britain.
Revealing the longlist, the judges said it offered "a clear and calm perspective on Britain and its place in the world".
The shortlist will be announced on 15 May, and the winner on Thursday 8 June.
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

Summary: "She throws her head back and pushes her chest forward and lets go a huge blast right into the centre of his body."
###
Article: He made the announcement in a video message outlining what he intends to do first when he takes office in January.
The TPP trade deal was signed by 12 countries which together cover 40% of the world's economy.
Mr Trump also pledged to reduce "job-killing restrictions" on coal production and stop visa abuses.
But there was no mention of repealing Obamacare or building a wall on the southern border with Mexico, two actions he said during the campaign he would do as soon as he assumed power.
The massive trade deal was agreed in 2015 by nations including the US, Japan, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico, but has not yet been ratified by the individual countries.
Its aim was to deepen economic ties and boost growth, including by reducing tariffs.
There were also measures to enforce labour and environmental standards, copyrights, patents and other legal protections.
But its opponents say it was negotiated in secret and it favoured big corporations.
Read more about the TPP and why it matters
How China gains from US leaving TPP
Asia's winners and losers from Trump's TPP dump
During the US presidential election campaign, Mr Trump gave broadbrush arguments against the pact, and used plenty of colourful language.
In June 2016 he described it as "another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country, just a continuing rape of our country". In another speech he referred to the TPP as "the greatest danger yet".
But while there was plenty of talk about "taking back control" of the US economy, there were few specifics.
Announcing the plan to pull out of the TPP, he said that the US would "negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores".
In the video message, Mr Trump said his governing agenda would be based on "putting America first" and that he and the new administration would "bring back our jobs".
Besides quitting the TPP, he committed to several other executive actions that he said he would take on day one.
He said he would cancel...

Summary: President-elect Donald Trump says the US will quit the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal on his first day in the White House.
###
Article: Barry Joy, 56 and Daniel Timbers, 28, died in a "fierce fire" following an explosion at digger bucket maker Harford Attachments in Norwich in 2015.
The coroner said Mr Timbers had been standing in for his father who was ill.
Post-mortem examinations said the men died as a result of the effects of fire and inhalation of fumes of combustion.
The inquest was told staff heard a "loud noise" at about 09:00 BST on 13 July 2015.
"Staff evacuated the premises, with some of them bravely trying to rescue Mr Timbers and Mr Joy," coroner Yvonne Blake told the Norwich inquest.
She added, "Their bodies were recovered from the booth afterwards."
Paint sprayer Mr Joy, of Spencer Street, Norwich and production operative Daniel Timbers, of Dereham Road, Norwich, were working in one of two booths bought from RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire when the base was closed down.
Kenneth Stedman, managing director of Ipswich-based Industrial Powder and Paint Services, advised Harford Attachments on the transaction.
The inquest heard the two units were "well kept for their age" and he advised the company that they would be suitable to be set up as they were on the airbase.
The coroner said the jury inquest, which is continuing, would hear evidence about training of staff, policies on site and extraction equipment on the paint-spraying booths.

Summary:


A legal challenge over the UK leaving the European Union (EU) is to be launched in Northern Ireland.

Article: Humza Yousaf revealed the move after widespread criticism of existing ScotRail services.
He said the contract could be cancelled in 2020 and contingency plans were in place for the Scottish government to take over train services earlier.
ScotRail said it was working to implement a 246-point improvement plan.
Scottish Labour said Mr Yousaf was "running out of excuses".
Dutch firm Abellio took over the ScotRail franchise in April last year in a 10-year deal worth up to Â£6bn but with the option for the Scottish government to cancel it at the halfway point.
Since then it has been regularly criticised over punctuality and reliability, with a broken-down train in Edinburgh last week causing widespread disruption.
Speaking on the BBC's Sunday Politics Scotland programme, he said current performance levels were "unacceptable" and confirmed Abellio could be stripped of the contract if punctuality dipped below 84.3% for three consecutive months.
He said:  "If the Scottish government, if Transport Scotland had to take over the railways tomorrow, we have contingency plans in place to do that."
According to the latest performance data from ScotRail, 86% of trains were on time or less than five minutes late between 16 October and 12 November.
Mr Yousaf confirmed the Scottish government's preference for a public sector operator to run the service, suggesting this could happen from 2020 when there is a break point in the contract.
He said: "My position is that we're going to put together a public sector bid.
"I'm going to be calling on the unions this week - and indeed other political parties - to join with me in a discussion about how we might put together a viable public sector bid."
The SNP has previously promised to open up the rail franchise to public sector bids, under powers devolved in the Scotland Act 2016.
Mr Yousaf refused be drawn on whether he favoured nationalising the railways in Scotland, pointing out that the Scottish Parliament does not currently have that power.
However, he said there was "a strong...

Summary: Scotland's transport minister is to invite unions and other political parties to talks next week on setting up a public sector train operator.
###
Article: The scheme would form part of the £300m University of Wales Trinity Saint David development on the SA1 waterfront.
It would provide affordable space for start-up firms and have links with the university's academic programme.
Through that, students, academics and businesses would be brought together to share expertise and explore new ideas for growth.
Once a business has outgrown the space provided in the box village, it can then be accommodated in an "innovation precinct" with academic support of the university's business and management department.
Prof Medwin Hughes, the university's vice-chancellor, said the box village and the innovation precinct would help to grow new businesses, develop the skills of current ones and attract new investment into the region.
"Through such activities the university will create new opportunities for employment, helping to generate more footfall and spending in the city centre and to retain some of the brightest entrepreneurial talents," he added.
A phased 215,000 sq ft (20,000 sq m) development would consist of a series of hubs with a focus on the university's academic programme.
The aim is to create opportunities for the development of new businesses, products and services.
Hub examples:
Swansea council leader Rob Stewart said the box village would allow entrepreneurs to "flourish and expand".
He added: "Once the components of a box village are in place, they really can look particularly striking and impressive.
"This project would complement our plans to develop a digital district on Kingsway and a digital square at the St David's development site which would include digital artworks and digital projections."

Summary: Plans for a "box village" built out of shipping containers in Swansea have been unveiled.
###
Article: Philip Cullen, 57, was given a six-month suspended sentence for capturing two butterflies at reserves in Somerset and in Gloucestershire in 2015.
He was convicted in March of six charges, relating to killing, capturing and possessing the endangered species.
His is believed to be the first prosecution in the UK involving offences related to the species.
Bristol Magistrates' Court heard that Cullen was seen chasing a Large Blue with a child's net at Daneway Banks in Gloucestershire in June 2015.
He was later spotted with a small net at Collard Hill in Somerset.
It was reported to police who raided his home and found up to 30 trays of butterflies, including Large Blues.
Prosecutor Ian Jackson told the court the charges had been brought "on the grounds of endangering a species".
Michael Hartnell, defending, said in mitigation the 57-year-old had accepted the "enormity" of what he had done and was "extremely remorseful".
Cullen, of The Grove, Warmley, Bristol, was given a six-month prison sentence suspended for two years and ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work.
He was also given a five-year criminal behaviour order banning him from three nature reserves popular with the Large Blue and was ordered to pay Â£300 prosecution costs and an Â£80 victim surcharge.
The Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust (GWT), said it was the "first UK conviction for collecting a butterfly" and a "breakthrough in the battle against wildlife crime".
Source: Butterfly Conservation
The Large Blue (Maculinea arion) species became extinct in Britain 1979.
It was reintroduced at sites, including Collard Hill and Daneway Banks, in the 1980s and in 2004 it was found at nine locations in the country.
It has a wingspan of more than two inches and can be identified by a row of black spots on its upper forewing.
A person who collects and studies butterflies is called a lepidopterist after the branch of zoology that deals with butterflies and moths.

Summary: A collector who captured and killed the UK's rarest butterfly - the Large Blue - has been spared jail.
###
Article: Paula Vasco-Knight was suspended in February after being accused of nepotism for recruiting her daughter's boyfriend to a job at Torbay Hospital.
She was suspended on full pay.
Dr Vasco-Knight had decided to relocate to the north-west of England for "family reasons", said South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.
The tribunal in January found Claire Sardari and Penny Gates had been victimised as a result of whistle-blowing about their concerns.
The South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, was found to have  "dishonestly" suppressed a report into accusations of nepotism.
Its chairman Peter Hildrew resigned immediately following the decision.
Earlier in May it was believed Dr Vasco-Knight was challenging the tribunal.
In a statement, South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust said: "It is unfortunate that Dr Vasco-Knight's achievements have been overshadowed by the employment tribunal judgment.
"Notwithstanding the judgment of the tribunal, Dr Vasco-Knight asserts that an independent report commissioned by a former chair of the trust prior to the tribunal found no evidence that Dr Vasco-Knight had breached trust policies."
It added that "no payments have been made to her other than those to which she is entitled under her contract of employment".
Dr Vasco-Knight was appointed a CBE in the New Year Honours List for services to the NHS.

Summary: A suspended hospital chief executive who was criticised at an employment tribunal for her treatment of two whistle-blowers has resigned.
###
Article: Former justice minister David Ford is among a cross-community group of politicians and human-rights activists involved in the bid.
Their lawyers have written to Prime Minister Theresa May urging her to consider the NI peace process before formally triggering Brexit.
A majority in Northern Ireland backed Remain in the June referendum.
Solicitors have threatened to take a judicial review before the High Court in Belfast - and ultimately to Europe's highest court - unless Mrs May addresses legal obligations which, they say, she must meet, including gaining the consent of the Stormont Assembly.
The prime minister and Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire have been asked to reply within two weeks.
Can the law stop Brexit?
Others supporting the warning letter include: Green Party leader Steven Agnew; Social Democratic and Labour Party leader Colum Eastwood; senior Sinn FÃ©in Stormont Assembly member John O'Dowd; former head of the Progressive Unionist Party Dawn Purvis; ex-Equality Commission member and disability rights activist Monica Wilson OBE and the the Committee on the Administration of Justice human-rights group.
A legal challenge over the UK leaving the EU will be heard by the High Court in London in October, two judges have decided.
Government lawyers are expected to argue that the prime minister can use historic Royal Prerogative powers to start the process of withdrawing from the EU, a course the challengers say is unlawful.
They say Parliament must give its authorisation.

Summary:


A bomb explosion has caused part of the walls of Aleppo's ancient citadel to collapse.

Article: The calculator works by adding up your costs for tickets, food and programmes and multiplying them across the season.
This season we have also compiled data on replica shirt prices, sourced from the clubs.
Because there is such a great variation in ticket prices between and within clubs, this figure is intended to give a general indication only.
Choosing 'season ticket' assumes that the holder buys the cheapest season ticket, and attends every home game in that league during the season, spending the same amount on food and drink per game.
Cup ties and play-off games are not included in the calculation.
The comparison of ticket costs between clubs works best if you enter realistic figures.
To provide a comparison at the end, we show how the price of the cheapest season tickets vary within your club's league.
Throughout the calculator, we compare how various costs have changed using data from previous BBC Price of Football surveys.
Some data comparisons are not available for clubs which were not included in previous years.
The 'price of a goal' is calculated by dividing the cost of a club's cheapest season ticket last season by the number of goals scored by the team at home in the same season.
Comparisons are not available for clubs which were not surveyed last season, or promoted to the Conference in 2014 (Altrincham, Dover, Eastleigh and Telford) or which do not operate traditional season tickets (Barnet).
Programme costs were not collected from European clubs, as many do not publish match-day programmes in the same way as British teams.
Some women's teams did not provide costs for a replica shirt; in these cases the calculator uses the equivalent price for a replica men's shirt.
The BBC contacted 207 clubs for the study. Of those, 176 were in England, Scotland and Wales and another 31 in Europe.
We recorded the prices for the most expensive, and cheapest, season tickets and adult match-day tickets as well as the cost of a cup of tea, a pie, a programme and an adult replica shirt.
The data was collated and...

Summary: Here's how the BBC's 2014 Price of Football calculator and survey were compiled.
###
Article: Leadership contender Steven Woolfe was treated in Strasbourg after he collapsed following the fracas at a UKIP meeting of MEPs on Thursday.
While he said he was "not impressed" by the incident, Mr Farage said he would not get involved "in the blame game".
But he insisted that "men behaving badly" was not a feature of his party.
Mr Farage was speaking to BBC 5Live from the US presidential debate in St Louis, a day after Mr Woolfe was discharged from hospital following the tussle at the European Parliament.
'Horrible incident'
Mr Farage said he had launched a probe that "will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday to find out exactly what happened".
He explained: "There was an altercation - two men sized up to each other - I'm not going to get involved in the blame game as to exactly who did what until we've had our inquiry, but I wasn't very impressed by the incident at all."
Asked if UKIP could be taken seriously as a political party following the fracas, Mr Farage referred to other scuffles involving former Labour MPs.
"Hang on - didn't we have a deputy prime minister [John Prescott] punch a member of the public just a few years ago? Didn't we have Eric Joyce - a Labour MP - who assaulted people in a bar in the House of Commons?
"I'm afraid men behaving badly is not just a feature of UKIP - it happens in other political parties.
"I regret we had this horrible incident last week that led to somebody at the end of the day becoming very ill, but I don't think you can judge an entire party on one incident."
Pressed on whether the event highlighted deep divisions within UKIP, Mr Farage retorted: "Things could be a lot worse - we could be the Labour Party, couldn't we?"
Mr Woolfe, 49, is among the favourites to be the party's next leader following the resignation of Diane James just 18 days after she was elected to the role.
He collapsed after the altercation had taken place during a gathering of UKIP MEPs to discuss whether he had been talking to the Conservative Party.
But Elizabeth Jones, a former leadership...

Summary: An inquiry into an altercation between two UKIP MEPs that landed one of them in hospital will begin on Tuesday, stand-in leader Nigel Farage has said.
###
Article: Hui "Leo" Gao left for China in 2009 after Westpac Bank mistakenly gave him a NZ$10m ($7.5m; Â£4.65m) overdraft.
His former girlfriend, Kara Hurring, received nine months' home detention.
The pair, dubbed the "accidental millionaires", were sentenced at a court in Rotorua.
The trial ended a saga that has grabbed international attention.
They were caught last year after being on the run for more than two years.
Gao, 31, pleaded guilty to seven charges of theft totalling NZ$6.7m in June. He was arrested and extradited from Hong Kong in December.
He said in court that he would not be able to pay back the money, New Zealand media reported.
Hurring, 33, was found guilty of money laundering, attempted fraud and theft in May.
She was arrested after returning to New Zealand in February 2011 and convicted in a Rotorua court after a four-day trial.
She pleaded not guilty, saying Gao had told her he won the lottery. She was also ordered to pay reparations of about NZ$11,800 to the bank.
Westpac did not comment on the sentencing. Reports said the bank has recovered NZ$2.9m but is still seeking NZ$3.79m.
In 2009, Gao had asked the bank for a NZ$100,000 overdraft to help support his struggling garage.
The bank found out about the error days after transferring the millions into Gao's business account.
But by then, police said, the couple had transferred more than half of the money into other accounts and then fled to Hong Kong.
They allegedly went on a gambling spree in Macau and southern China last year.
The couple are reported to have separated soon after they arrived in China. Hurring returned to New Zealand after having a baby.
They have been on bail at different addresses before the sentencing, reports said, and their young son is believed to be with family in China. Hurring has a daughter from another relationship.

Summary: A New Zealand man who fled to China after millions of dollars were accidentally put in his bank account has been jailed for four years and seven months.
###
Article: Keep Wales Tidy gave an extra 22 sites the award - the national benchmark for publicly accessible parks - up from last year's total of 161.
The new additions include Aberfan Cemetery, Swansea University and The Kymin, in Penarth.
Environment Secretary Lesley Griffiths said green spaces were "fundamental to the wellbeing and quality of life".
Winners of the Green Flag Community Award, for sites that rely on volunteers for their maintenance, include The Dye Garden, at the National Wool Museum in Carmarthen, Cae Bryn Coed in Llan Ffestiniog, Gwynedd, and Llanfyllin Wetland in Powys.
The Green Flag scheme, which is run by environmental charity, Keep Wales Tidy, with support from the Welsh Government, is judged by green space experts.
They assess sites using eight criteria, including horticultural standards, cleanliness, environmental management and community involvement.
Ms Griffiths said: "I am delighted to see so many green spaces achieving the standards of the Green Flag Award.
"The award helps to ensure that communities have top quality green space to enjoy and experience the outdoors, which are fundamental to the wellbeing and quality of life of our communities in Wales."
Lucy Prisk, Green Flag coordinator, said it was about "connecting people with the very best parks and green spaces".

Summary: More than 180 parks and green spaces in Wales have now been given the Green Flag award.
###
Article: Built in the 13th Century, it overlooks Aleppo's Old City and is part of a UN-listed World Heritage site.
Syrian government forces have been using the citadel as a military position.
Government and rebel forces have been fighting for control of the city for over three years. It is not known which side caused the explosion.
Fighting on the ground and government air strikes have left thousands dead, and destroyed more than 60% of the Old City.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said the explosion occurred in the early hours of Sunday morning.
"The blast caused the collapse of part of the wall of the citadel," the organisation's chief, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP news agency.
The government says that rebel fighters set off a bomb in a tunnel beneath the citadel.
The use of tunnel bombs has become a common rebel tactic.
Since the start of July, rebel groups have been waging a major offensive against President Bashar al-Assad's troops in the city.
More than 230,000 people are believed to have been killed in Syria since the uprising against President Assad began in March 2011. Some 11.5 million others - more than half of the country's population - have fled their homes.

Summary:


The Haka is a traditional Maori war dance.
The Haka is performed by the Maoris before going into battle.
The Haka is performed by the Maoris before going into battle.
The Haka is performed by the Maoris before going into battle.
The Haka is performed by the

Prince Harry has taken part in a traditional Maori Haka during his tour of New Zealand.

Article: The Bosawas Biosphere Reserve is Central America's largest tropical forest with clouds constantly drifting over the hilly terrain.
But the Mayangna and Miskito people who live there say 30,000 hectares a year are being deforested by "colonists".
They are calling on US president Barack Obama, who is visiting the region, to support their battle.
Described by the United Nations as a global biological treasure, the reserve is located on the border between Nicaragua and Honduras and teems with wildlife.
The two million hectares are said to be home to 150,000 insect species, rare jaguars, eagles and crocodiles as well as the world's last populations of Baird's Tapir and the Central American Spider Monkey.
The Bosawas reserve also overlaps the homes of indigenous communities who have been there for centuries, living by hunting and fishing.
The Nicaraguan government recognised the full legal title of the Mayangna to their lands in 2007.
Since then, they say they have been subject to what they term an "invasion" by landless people from other parts of the country.
They claim to have documented 11,500 "colonists" who have deforested around 150,000 hectares since 2009.
Arisio Genaro, president of the Nacion Mayangna, told BBC News that this was an extremely serious threat to the future of the forest.
"The problem is that in the parts of our territory that we have zoned to be conservation forest, they are being invaded by settlers."
"Even we the Mayangna don't touch these forests, that's where the animals we hunt reproduce. If they destroy that, they will destroy our people."
"The world needs to know that we are in crisis because of our efforts to defend the natural resources that we survive on," he added.
Scientists are also concerned that the struggles between natives and colonists will have a detrimental impact on the region's biodiversity.
Leading researcher, Dr Thomas Lovejoy, who first coined the term back in 1980 said that protecting the Bosawas reserve was critical.
"Nicaragua has one of the three great blocs of...

Summary: A famed rainforest in Nicaragua is under growing threat from illegal loggers, say indigenous leaders.
###
Article: Stafford Hospital, which was renamed County Hospital, was at the centre of a Â£6m public inquiry into care failings, with overnight closures beginning in 2011.
Campaigners and rival politicians said a Conservative pledge to restore services was a "bribe".
But Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt denied the claim.
Mr Hunt said on Saturday that if the Conservatives won the election, overnight services would be restored as soon as soon as it was "clinically safe" to do so.
Campaigners have previously protested about the loss of services with marches through the town and a camp which was set up in the hospital grounds.
One of them, Karen Howell, is now standing for the National Health Action party in the Stafford constituency.
She said she thought the Conservative pledge was "an absolute outrage".
She said: "It's an election pledge bribe.
"Why have they spent Â£19.5m on the administration process to downgrade and get rid of these services, only to talk about bringing them back? It just seems ludicrous and such a waste of money."
But Mr Hunt denied it was a bribe, saying: "This hospital has been through a very, very difficult period.
"Really what I want to do is give a little bit of hope to the people who work in the hospital."
The Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust, which ran the hospital, went into administration in April 2013. The hospital is now run by a new trust.
A full list of candidates for the Stafford constituency can be found here.

Summary: A proposal to return A&E services to Stafford's hospital is not an "election bribe", the Conservatives have said.
###
Article: The move is among changes to public procurement rules being proposed by the Scottish government.
The Procurement Reform Bill aims to improve the way the public sector buys goods, works and services.
Ministers said it would make it easier for small firms to bid for contracts.
Guidance under the bill would allow public sector bosses to consider the inappropriateness of awarding contracts to companies using controversial zero-hours contracts, which allow employers to hire staff with no guarantee of work.
Public sector bosses could also consider, when deciding on a contract award, whether firms use blacklisting.
The issue of blacklisting has angered unions and politicians, following disclosures about a UK-wide database of names used by major construction firms to vet workers.
Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the legislation promoted an approach that was "both business friendly and socially responsible".
The proposed new rules could also lead to greater use of community benefit clauses.
These clauses could require companies to provide training, apprenticeships or opportunities for disabled people as part of the contract.
"Changes to public procurement rules will ensure Scotland retains its place as a world leader in public procurement reform, promoting an approach that is both business friendly and socially responsible," Ms Sturgeon said.
Responding to the bill, Scottish Trades Union Congress general secretary Grahame Smith said: "The STUC enthusiastically welcomes parts of this important bill, especially its provisions to disqualify firms engaging in tax avoidance and blacklisting from the public procurement process and the commitment to introduce further guidance on workforce matters."
But Mr Smith described parts of the legislation as "very disappointing", adding: "It is difficult to believe that community benefits will be extended and improved by simply handing contracting authorities a duty to 'consider' whether to impose as part of the contract.
"The STUC is also sceptical that the significant...

Summary: Public sector bodies could be allowed to consider issues such as blacklisting and zero-hours contracts when awarding work to firms, according to planned reforms.
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Article: David Harper, from Leisure Property Services, said the town suffered from a bad reputation as a low quality resort.
Mr Harper said it needed to be re-branded to attract a wealthier market and changing its name would be a cost effective way of reinventing the town.
East Lindsey District Council dismissed the idea and said the traditional British resort had mass appeal.
Councillor Adam Grist said: "The suggestion that changing the name would solve all the problems in one fell swoop is a ridiculous suggestion.
"Hundreds and thousands of people visit Skegness every summer because of the idea that it is a traditional British resort and everything that offers," he said.
"What we've tried to do as a council over the last few years is to encourage Skegness to evolve whilst retaining the traditional offer."
Nigel Tett, from the Skegness, East Coast and Wolds Hospitality Association, agreed with Mr Grist and said he thought the idea of a name change was "absolutely crazy".
"Skegness is one of the most recognised names within this country and that is borne out by Visit England who say Skegness and Lincoln are two of the main attractors within this part of the world."
Mr Harper, who values and sells hotels across the country, admitted that Skegness was a very famous name but he said it came with baggage.
"Most of the people I speak to, who don't know Skegness think it's one of the grottier resorts in the country," he said.
"They have a perception of it being all caravans and slot machines. They have no clue that it has one of the best beaches there in the whole of the UK.
"If you weren't to drop the name you would have an awful lot of work to do to change some people's perceptions of the town."
He said the name change would have to be part of a complete re-marketing campaign.

Summary: Skegness should change its name to boost its image, a tourism expert has said.
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Article: Media playback is unsupported on your device
13 May 2015 Last updated at 12:41 BST
The Haka means "fierce dance" and was traditionally performed by the Maoris before going into battle.
Nowadays the Haka is performed during special ceremonies.
The New Zealand rugby team also perform the special dance before all their international matches.
Prince Harry is currently on a week-long tour of New Zealand.

Summary:


A new blood test could help diagnose people with inherited heart conditions, the British Heart Foundation has said.

Article: Hotels, restaurants, caterers and other businesses in the hospitality sector have benefited from the reduced 9% VAT rate since 2011.
Industry lobbyists say the rate has encouraged sales and employment.
But figures show the prices charged to consumers in many of these industries have actually risen in the last year.
Figures from the Revenue Commissioners show that if VAT returns had been paid at the full 13.5% there would have been an additional 644m euro (£472m) paid to the state, since 2011.
It is not possible to tell how much of those returns only exist because the rate was reduced.
Irish finance minister Michael Noonan warned the industry last year that the reduced rate would be reconsidered if prices began to rise.
However, the Consumer Price Index shows the cost of hotel accommodation rose by 5.2% between January 2014 and January 2015.
During the same period, hotel sector VAT returns totalled 135.6m euro (£99.5m).
If those sales had been charged at the higher rate, the return to the exchequer would have been an additional 69m euro (£50.6m).
A similar pattern emerged in the restaurant sector, with prices rising by almost 2% in the last 12 months.
During the same period, the Revenue may have lost out on 72m euro (£52.8m) in VAT payments from restaurants.
The Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) warned that the long-term future of the industry could be affected if the rate is returned to 13.5%.
It said tourist numbers have increased from 5.9m in 2011 to 7.3m in 2014 and significant employment has been generated as a result of the measure.
IHF president Stephen McNally said: "The government has to think if they turn off the tap are they at risk of chasing tourists away from the country?
"If you talk to anyone in the industry they will tell you it has worked for them. If the rate is not maintained big questions will be asked about what will happen."
However, the trade union SIPTU has accused the industry of "pocketing" the reduced VAT rate.

Summary: A reduced VAT rate for the hospitality industry in the Republic of Ireland may have cost the state more than 600m euros (£440m).
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Article: In its most comprehensive report into the Oromo protests, HRW lists the names of more than 300 it says were killed.
The government has acknowledged that protesters have died but said HRW was "very generous with numbers".
Protests were sparked by fears that a plan to expand the capital into Oromia region would displace Oromo farmers.
They began in November last year, but the government dropped the proposal to enlarge Addis Ababa's administrative boundaries in January.
Africa Live: BBC news updates
The Oromo protests and Ethiopian unity
Why Ethiopia made â€˜master planâ€™ U-turn
Oromia is Ethiopia's largest region, completely surrounding the city.
The change of policy has not stopped the demonstrations, but they have reduced in their intensity.
At the last census in 2007, the Oromo made up Ethiopia's biggest ethnic group, at about 25 million people out of a population at the time of nearly 74 million.
An investigation, released last week, by the Ethiopia Human Rights Commission, appointed by parliament, found that 173 people had died during the unrest.
It said the dead included 28 security officers and local government officials.
Information Minister Getachew Reda said that in the main the security forces conducted themselves "in a very professional and responsible manner".
He put the killings down to "a few bad apples".
The government has said that it will investigate and deal with those responsible.
In March, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn apologised for the death and destruction of property caused by protests in Oromia region.
While his statement was bold, and came as a surprise, some protesters said it was a case of too little, too late.
The acknowledgment by the country's information minister that deaths had occurred is not different.
There will also be questions about the sincerity of investigating police officers who used unnecessary force.
Can it really do that while dozens of protesters are still being detained and are yet to be charged?
While the protests have died down recently, they remain...

Summary: Ethiopian security forces killed more than 400 people in the recent wave of anti-government demonstrations, US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) says.
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Article: On a stiflingly hot August morning, the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, presided over the flag-raising ceremony and the speeches laden with pomp, emotion and bold statements of intent to move on from the hostilities of the past.
Since that day, a lot has happened between the former Cold War foes. Direct flights are due to begin this month, travel restrictions have been eased for US citizens and bilateral cooperation increased in science and the arts.
Plus of course, there was a historic visit by President Obama.
"I have come here to extend the hand of friendship to the Cuban people," he told the nation in a televised address.
But while many Cubans would happily accept another four years of Mr Obama, a new administration in Washington is coming. And the outcome could have a significant impact on the new spirit of cordiality between the two countries.
"Obviously the big problem in US-Cuban relations is the embargo. That is the elephant in the room," says Carlos Azugaray, a former Cuban diplomat.
He says the key to the next phase of United States' normalisation with Cuba has to be the lifting of the decades-long economic embargo on the island: "The elephant has already started to leave the room, you already have the trunk out!
"We can see that with the recent opening of a Sheraton hotel in Havana, with the decision that some US credit cards can be used in Cuba, that travel restrictions have been eased."
If the Democratic Party regains control of Congress, he argues, they are "bound to do something about the embargo".
But most attention is on the race for the White House. So how would a Clinton or a Trump presidency affect the rapprochement with Cuba?
"I understand the scepticism in this community about any policy of engagement towards Cuba," Hillary Clinton recently told an audience in Miami.
"I've been sceptical too. But we can't wait any longer for a failed policy to bear fruit. We have to seize this moment."
The embargo on Cuba is obsolete she told them and needs to go "once and for all".
Whereas...

Summary: A year has passed since one of the most symbolic moments in the long and tangled history between the United States and Cuba: the official reopening of the long-shuttered US embassy in Havana.
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Article: The Committee on Climate Change provides expert, independent advice to the Scottish government.
Its latest publication has recommended emissions reductions of just over 60% by 2030.
The Scottish government said it recognised the need to maintain its "high ambition approach".
Scotland's emissions targets are calculated using 1990 as a baseline.
The committee's latest advice is based on evidence taken from government, industry, NGOs and other key stakeholders. It also held public hearings and has carried out its own analysis.
The report said Scotland has "made good progress in reducing its emissions to date".
In 2013, emissions had fallen by 38% on 1990 levels and were on track to exceed the target of 42% by 2020 set out in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act.
The committee said its recommended emissions targets for 2028-2032 continued along that "ambitious trajectory", putting Scotland on track for a reduction of at least 80% in 2050.
However it said they were "stretching objectives" which would need "strong action" including:
Lord Deben, chairman of the Committee on Climate Change, said: "Scotland is leading the UK in its ambitious approach to tackling climate change and is to be commended for doing so.
"There is a lot of positive action already under way in Scotland, driven by both its vibrant renewable sector and its bold policy approaches. This must now be accelerated.
"New policies will be required to meet these ambitious but achievable carbon objectives. With these actions Scotland can continue as an example to the rest of the UK in its approach to address climate change."
The Scottish government's plan to cut air passenger duty has already led to criticism from climate campaigners.
They have pointed out that Scotland's interim climate change targets have repeatedly been missed.
Commenting on the latest report from the committee, the Scottish government's Climate Change Minister Aileen McLeod said: "We are on track to exceed our 2020 target for a 42% reduction from baseline levels in greenhouse gas...

Summary: Scotland must accelerate efforts to reduce carbon emissions if it is to remain an example to the rest of the UK, according to a new report.
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Article: Researchers funded by the charity found that by looking at a specific group of genes they were able to reliably detect underlying problems.
It follows the death of Sir David Frost's son Miles, who died suddenly from a condition thought to have been inherited from his father.
His family aims to raise Â£1.5m to make genetic testing available in the UK.
The eldest son of the late presenter and broadcaster died last year, aged 31, when he was out jogging near his family's home in Oxfordshire.
He was suffering from an undiagnosed heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
Previous genetic tests looked at a small number of genes and were only able to identify specific conditions, leading to higher costs and longer diagnosis time - a major barrier to rolling the test out across the NHS.
But researchers from Imperial College London and the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre say the new test, which looks at 174 genes, is quicker and more reliable.
It has already been rolled out at the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust in London , with around 40 patients per month being successfully tested.
Dr James Ware, a consultant cardiologist specialising in inherited heart conditions, said: "Without a genetic test we often have to keep the whole family under regular surveillance for many years. This is hugely costly for both the families and the health system.
"By contrast, when a genetic test reveals the precise genetic abnormality causing the condition in one member of the family, it becomes simple to test other family members. Those who do not carry the faulty gene copy can be reassured and spared countless hospital visits."
The research has been funded by the British Heart Foundation and the findings published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research.

Summary:


Australian police in Victoria have warned the public not to engage in "intimidating" behaviour after reports of clowns terrorising people in Melbourne.

Article: Researchers have developed an app for people to submit readings from Secchi disks - a method used since 1865.
The team hopes the data will help them understand what is happening beneath the waves.
They have been "astonished" by the response so far but are hoping for more readings from the southern hemisphere.
'Dramatic decline'
The Secchi disk, invented in 1865 by Angelo Secchi - the Pope's astronomer - is a circular disk that is used to measure water transparency in oceans and lakes.
The concept had long been used as a navigational tool by sailors. By lowering a dinner plate beneath the waves and measuring the depth it disappeared, it provided the crew with an indication of what ocean current they were currently sailing through.
Fr Secchi was asked by the head of the Papal Navy to measure the transparency in the Mediterranean Sea. This task gave rise to the formalised measuring system.
Ever since the first measurement was taken aboard the Papal yacht in April 1865, marine biologists have used it to measure phytoplankton abundance.
Since Secchi's first design, there have been a number of subsequent revisions. The two most common colour variations in use today are the all-white disk and the black-and-white quadrant version.
"The reason the project came about was because, in 2010, some Canadian scientists wrote a paper that suggested that the phytoplankton in the world's oceans had declined by 40% since the 1950s," explained project leader Richard Kirby, a research fellow at Plymouth University's Marine Institute.
"If true, this is a dramatic decline. As phytoplankton starts the food chain, they dictate the productivity at every level above," he observed.
"Ultimately, phytoplankton determines the amount of fish in the sea and the number of polar bears on the ice."
Marine biologists have been using the Secchi disk method to measure the abundance of phytoplankton for 150 years.
The white disk measures 30cm (1ft) in diameter and is lowered into the water on the end of a tape measure. When it is no longer visible...

Summary: A study is calling on the world's sailors to help map the oceans' phytoplankton, microscopic plants that form the bedrock of marine food chains.
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Article: Which? said that banks had been more frequent than building societies in cutting rates on the tax-free accounts over the last six years.
Its analysis revealed rates as low as 0.05% when initial bonus rates expired.
The trade body for banks said savers needed to shop around during a time of low rates.
A spokesman for the British Bankers' Association (BBA) said: "These have been frustrating years for savers. The Bank of England's base rate has remained at a record low for several years and whilst this has been good news for borrowers, it has fostered a low-interest-rate environment, which has not been easy for many savers to bear.
"The introduction of the new personal savings allowance from this April means that most savers will no longer have to pay any tax on their cash savings. We always encourage customers to review their savings regularly and to shop around for the best deal for them."
Consumer group Which? studied Isas and the frequency of cuts to interest rates from April 2010 to April 2016 - when the Bank of England base rate has been unchanged at 0.5%.
NatWest was the most frequent, making eight cuts across two accounts over six years. The bank said it had simplified its savings products and no longer offered teaser rates.
Generally, building societies made fewer cuts than banks over the last six years, Which? said.
Harry Rose, Which? Money editor, said: "Many savers simply want a provider they can trust to keep their Isa rate competitive. Too many banks are paying truly woeful rates of interest or are scissor-happy when it comes to cutting rates, often penalising their most loyal customers.
"Our research shows savers who don't want to have to keep moving their savings about should consider parking their cash with one of the more reliable building societies, who have been better at not cutting their rates for existing savers."
A recent study suggested money in best-buy savings accounts has fared better than the stock market over most investment periods since 1995.

Summary: Banks' most loyal customers are receiving "woeful" interest rates on their Individual Savings Accounts (Isas), a consumer group has said.
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Article: A survey by EEF found that a quarter of small firms and half of medium-sized firms were paying in excess of Â£5,000 a year for their internet access.
EEF claims that residential internet access has been given priority over improving access for business.
It wants the government to "urgently" reverse that trend.
"While the quality of networks isn't currently an issue, companies are paying inflated sums to have proper access and are fearful they will not have competitive access five years down the line," said Lee Hopley, EEF chief economist.
The organisation wants a review of competition for business broadband, with the aim of getting costs to fall over the current parliament.
More than 90% of respondents to the EEF survey said that a high-speed internet connection was "as essential to business as electricity and water".
Without affordable access, Britain could miss out on what the EEF describes as the "fourth industrial revolution".
According to the EEF, two-thirds of manufacturers surveyed planned to invest in equipment and services connected to the internet, including software delivered over the internet and sensors with online connections.
The telecoms regulator Ofcom is currently investigating the provision of broadband in the UK and one option under consideration is splitting up BT, so that broadband infrastructure is managed by an independent company.

Summary: British manufacturers are paying "inflated" sums to secure fast enough internet access, according to EEF, the manufacturers' organisation.
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Article: IPPR North said the government's Northern Powerhouse strategy could only be "converted to reality" with "substantial investment" and a "step-change" in its commitment to the north.
The analysis focused on the North West, North East, Yorkshire and Humberside.
Outlining the region's potential, it noted the economy was worth £289bn.
"If it were a national economy, the north of England would rank as the tenth largest in the EU," it asserted.
The Treasury claimed the strategy was "not about how much money is spent but about giving local leaders more power."
The IPPR report was published more than a year after Chancellor George Osborne visited Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry and announced the country's need for a "Northern Powerhouse".
Called Rhetoric to Reality: A business agenda for the Northern Powerhouse, the study suggested the northern economy could see economic growth on a scale "not seen since the Victorian era of grand municipal development".
But it said three changes were required in order for its potential to be realised:
Commitments to transport spending and devolution were the "key ingredients" for turning "northern powerhouse rhetoric" into reality, the report claimed.
It said a "rebalanced economy" could only be achieved through tackling "lagging" productivity, under-investment in transport, poor connectivity between cities and low qualifications and skills levels.
The study identified several "key drivers" of growth, including infrastructure and connectivity, innovation, business support, leadership and policy development.
It argued: "There is an urgent need (for) more detail and more action to support the pan-northern vision, to ensure business, public and civil sectors are galvanised to act now to sustain the momentum behind devolution and take advantage of this unprecedented window of opportunity."
Ed Cox, director of IPPR North and co-author of the report, said: "The historical economic under-performance of the north of England is not natural, nor is it inevitable.
"The opportunity...

Summary: Large-scale government capital spending of up to £50bn is needed to close the economic gap between the North and the South, a think tank believes.
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Article: Sightings of creepy clowns have sparked minor hysteria across the US since August.
People in clown masks have reportedly chased others and tried to lure children into woods.
Victoria police warned that such escapades would "not be tolerated".
Creepy clown sightings leave US baffled
'Killer clowns' come to Canada
Lurking clown arrested in Kentucky woods
In a statement on its Facebook page, which appears to have since been deleted, the force wrote: "Victoria Police are aware of people who are parading in public wearing clown masks.
"The clown purge appears to be a copycat of incidents being seen in the USA recently.
"Any intimidating and threatening as well as anti-social behaviours will not be tolerated and will be investigated by Police."
Clowns have also been spotted in Sydney, with one pictured loitering outside a fast food restaurant in the Campbelltown area.
Australians have responded by setting up Facebook pages dedicated to "clown hunting", as the sightings spread.
One theory has it that the upswing in "killer clown" antics is linked to the release of novelist Stephen King's new film, It.
The plot involves a child-slaughtering being which takes the form of a clown called Pennywise to lure its prey.
But King has criticised the craze. This week, he tweeted: "Hey, guys, time to cool the clown hysteria - most of em are good, cheer up the kiddies, make people laugh."
The sinister craze began in South Carolina with reports that men dressed as clowns were trying to coax children into the woods with money. It was followed by sightings in Alabama, Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Schools in Texas and Alabama have even shut down over the phenomenon.
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest told a press briefing that President Barack Obama had not been briefed on the issue, but added, "this is a situation that local law enforcement authorities take quite seriously".
Reports suggest New Zealand has also been sucked into the epidemic, after a clown "lurking" at a school spooked parents on Wednesday.
Some...

Summary: