A team of engineers will use 3D printing technology to reconstruct the missing motor of a rare wartime German code machine.

Article: Through the centuries thousands have died as a result of tremors equal to, or not much bigger than, the event that struck in the early hours of Wednesday.
We all recall the L'Aquila (Magnitude 6.3) event of 2009 in which 295 died. But go much further back to Avezzano (Magnitude 6.9-7.0) in 1915, which claimed 30,000 lives; and to 1703 when a trio of Magnitude 6 quakes killed at least 10,000 people.
Thankfully, we tend not to see deaths on those scales any more, and that is because of more robust building, better preparation and more co-ordinated emergency responses after the fact.
What doesn't change is the geological cause. On the grand scale, Italy's seismic problems are driven by the great collision between the African and Eurasian tectonic plates.
But look closer at the specifics of any quake and the details are much more complicated. The Tyrrhenian Basin, or Sea, which lies to the west of Italy, between the mainland and Sardinia/Corsica, is slowly opening up.
Scientists say this is contributing to extension, or "pull-apart", along the Apennines which works at a rate of 3mm per year.
Add in movement in the Adriatic where the crust is rotating in an anti-clockwise direction, and you have a fiendishly complex picture. Italy is literally being pushed and pulled every which way.
"The Apennines are also very high; the crust is very thick there and there's a process of gravitational collapse," said Dr Richard Walters from Durham University, UK.
"So, there's a spreading of the Apennine mountain chain which also then leads to extension - the pulling part - and therefore the normal faulting earthquakes."
These are not the colossal tremors we see at tectonic plate boundaries where Magnitude 8 and 9 events will occur. But as history shows, Apennine quakes will certainly cause their share of misery.
"The effects are so devastating here because the quakes happen so shallow in the crust. And that's just due to the nature of the faults," explained Dr Laura Gregory from Leeds University, UK, who works in the...

Summary: Quakes are the ever present danger for those who live along the Apennine mountain range in Italy.
###
Article: The section, which showed the story of Rosslyn Chapel, was taken from Kirkcaldy Galleries at about 10:00 on Thursday.
Fife Cultural Trust has appealed for help track down the missing panel and is helping police view CCTV footage.
The Great Tapestry features 160 individual panels which were stitched by more than 1,000 volunteers.
It took more than 50,000 hours to complete the work and at 143m long it is the world's longest embroidered tapestry.
The design tells the "story of Scotland" across  intricate panels.
Each covers a different period of Scottish history, from the Battle of Bannockburn to the reconvening of the Scottish parliament in 1999.
The tapestry has been on display at Kirkcaldy Galleries since 20 June.
The stolen panel was designed by artist Andrew Crummy.
Author Alexander McCall Smith, who came up with original idea for the tapestry, said: "This is a terrible blow for a project that has brought so much joy to so many people.
"I appeal to those who have taken this panel to return it. Words cannot express how shocked I am that somebody should damage in this way what is now widely seen as a great national treasure."
Laurie Piper, from Fife Cultural Trust, said: "The people of Fife have taken the tapestry to their hearts and we are now hoping that they will help us to bring it back where it belongs - alongside its 159 companions."

Summary: A panel from the Great Tapestry of Scotland has been stolen while the work was on display in Fife.
###
Article: The country's prime minister has said the crime has made him consider reintroducing the death penalty.
So how will the country's legal system deal with the three men charged in connection with Mrs McAreavy's murder?
Although it gained independence in 1968, Mauritius has a legal system heavily influenced by its colonial past. Between 1715 and 1810 the island was a French possession and as such was ruled according to French Law.
The Napoleonic Code, also known as the French Civil Code, was introduced after 1804 and when the British won possession of the island from the French in 1810 that legal system was kept in place.
Over the years of British rule elements of English common law were adopted and the current legal system is a combination of French and English systems. Mauritius is still a member of the British Commonwealth and the country's supreme court of appeal is the Privy Council in London.
The Indian Ocean country is recognised by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as a "stable democracy with regular free elections, a free press, the rule of law and a positive human-rights record".
The suspects accused of murdering Mrs McAreavy could be held on remand for up to a year as the police and prosecutors build a case against them.
Ashveen Gopee, a barrister on the island, said once police believe they have enough evidence against an arrested person, they would lodge a provisional charge of murder at a district court.
The case is heard by a magistrate, who is a trained lawyer, not a lay person.
"Bail acts are also similar to British law so the person would probably be denied bail," said Mr Ashveen.
"A judicial inquiry will then be carried out by police officers and the case will be called back by the magistrate at different stages to see how the investigation is continuing."
A formal charge of murder, or a lesser charge, is lodged against the person in a follow-up hearing.
On occasion, a magistrate will strike out a case over a lack of evidence against a suspect.
According to Mr...

Summary: The murder of Michaela McAreavey on Mauritius has thrust the peaceful and relatively prosperous island nation into the media spotlight.
###
Article: The party is believed to be considering a pledge to cut fees from Â£9,000 to Â£6,000 in England if it wins power.
Lord Mandelson said the door should be left "slightly ajar" until after May 7.
BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson said Labour had yet to work out how to pay for the pledge.
In 2011 Labour leader Ed Miliband signalled his intention to cut fees in England, which were trebled under the coalition government. The party said it was being "very careful" and would announce plans "very shortly".
Lord Mandelson, who was previously the minister responsible for higher education, told the BBC there was "no evidence" that the increase in tuition fees under the coalition had "dented" university access.
"This is exactly the sort of thing that any party will want to look into in greater detail and the best place to do that is in government," he said.
"Whatever the direction of travel, I would say, 'Let's leave the door slightly ajar to take a final decision when in government.' "
Peter Mandelson is the most recent Labour cabinet minister to have had to wrestle with the controversial policy of student fees in government.
He told me today he did not want to go "head-to-head" with the current party leadership.
But he thinks that with no political clamour to bring fees down in England, it may have been better for Labour to tackle the "complex" issue of student finance after the election.
He recognises that any cut in tuition fees announced before the election would raise searching questions about how it would be funded.
The quest to find answers has been responsible for the time it has taken for Labour to announce its final policy.
One option is to reduce fees for some, not all, courses - the so-called Stem subjects of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Lord Mandelson wants reassurance that Labour would not be tempted to pay for this fee-cutting policy by reducing funds to universities.
But he - in common with some shadow cabinet members, privately - has wider concerns.
If Labour can find cash to reduce...

Summary: Labour's former Business Secretary Peter Mandelson has said the party should wait until after the general election before making a commitment to a new tuition fees policy.
###
Article: A judge told Daniel George Clarke three years of intense probation supervision and work would ultimately best serve and safeguard both him and society.
Clarke, 23, from Coronation Road in Carrickfergus, admitted 23 charges of downloading the images.
He also pleaded guilty to one of distributing some of them.
Clarke was put on the Sex Offenders' Register and made subject to a five-year Sex Offenders Prevention Order.
Belfast Crown Court heard that following a police search of his home in November 2013, Clarke admitted looking for the images and sharing them with others on an internet chat site.
A defence lawyer said while a remorseful Clarke knew it was both wrong and illegal, he went looking for more images after they were "burnt into his brain" after he initially "stumbled" upon them on the internet.
The judge said that downloading images of child sex abuse was not a victimless crime, and while the children were unknown to Clarke and police, they were individuals subjected to the most appalling abuse and lives of physical degradation.
"These are not just pictures, they are actual people," he added.
Judge McFarland said it was accepted Clarke's guilty pleas were based on genuine remorse and that there were many positive aspects to his life, notwithstanding his serious offending.
The Crown Court judge added, while on one view the custody threshold had been passed, he had to consider the impact of such a sentence, as in Clarke's case it would be a minimal jail term of between two to three months.
Judge McFarland said this would be served in the prison's sex offenders secure unit where Clarke would be exposed to the more dangerous elements of sex offending.
He said spending even two months in their presence and under their "malevolent and manipulative influence" would not result in a positive outcome either for Clarke or ultimately society.
The judge added that he preferred the suggested alternative contained in the pre-sentence report, advocating an intense period of supervision by probation during which time...

Summary: A man who had over 1,000 images of child sex abuse has avoided jail so he does not come under the influence of more dangerous sex offenders.
###
Article: The Lorenz SZ42 - known as Hitler's "unbreakable" cipher machine - is on loan to the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park.
Staff launched an appeal for help to recreate the vital component to allow visitors to see it in working order.
Messages from Lorenz were routinely intercepted during World War Two.
The machine was used by German forces in Norway and seized by the Norwegian secret services after the war.
It has been given to the UK on long-term loan by the Norwegian Armed Forces Museum.
It is thought about 200 were in operation during the war, but only four still exist.
The model has a number of inner components missing - including an all-important working motor.
Now, a team of engineers from the Government Communications Centre (HMGCC) has stepped in to recreate the motor using 3D printing technology.
The museum's John Whetter, who helped secure the loan of the Lorenz SZ42, said: "The HMGCC team will take three-dimensional images of an existing Lorenz motor and then reconstruct it using 3D printing techniques.
"Externally, the motor will be almost indistinguishable from an original."
The motor will allow staff to demonstrate how Bletchley Park was able to intercept German commands using the British codebreaking machine, Colossus.
The groundbreaking intelligence work carried out at Bletchley Park during World War Two was credited with bringing forward the end of the conflict.
A HMGCC spokesman said: "The wartime work at Bletchley Park, including breaking the Lorenz cipher, was instrumental in the birth of modern computing and the development of what we now call cyber security."

Summary:


Tenants in Southampton may face eviction because landlords are holding incorrect paperwork, Shelter claims.

Article: Mark Carney, the Bank's governor, warned that the risks of leaving "could possibly include a technical recession".
Prime Minister David Cameron said the warning amounted to "a very clear message" of the dangers of Brexit.
Vote Leave campaigners have strongly criticised Mr Carney, with one calling for him to resign.
However, a spokesman for Mr Carney rejected the call, saying the Bank had "a duty" to make its judgements known.
The latest minutes from the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) said that a leave vote may cause both growth and sterling to fall and unemployment to rise.
Mr Carney said the Bank had not compiled formal forecasts about the possibility of a recession - defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth - resulting from a Brexit vote.
Chancellor George Osborne said the UK now had a "clear and unequivocal warning" from the MPC as well as the Governor of the Bank of England about the risks of a Leave vote,
"The Bank is saying that it would face a trade-off between stabilising inflation on one hand and stabilising output and employment on the other," he said.
How working conditions and pay rates are affected by EU membership.
"So either families would face lower incomes because inflation would be higher, or the economy would be weaker with a hit to jobs and livelihoods. This is a lose-lose situation for Britain. Either way, we'd be poorer."
Jacob Rees Mogg, a Tory MP and Treasury Select Committee member, called on Mr Carney to resign.
"I think it is unprecedented for the governor of a central bank to suggest that people should short his own currency. Suggesting sterling will fall sharply is simply not what responsible central bankers do," he said.
Former Work and Pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith said that Mr Carney needed to be "very careful" about making such comments.
Lord Lamont, the former Chancellor and Vote Leave spokesman, said: "The governor should be careful that he doesn't cause a crisis. If his unwise words become self-fulfilling, the responsibility will be the...

Summary: The Bank of England has given its starkest warning yet that a UK vote to leave the EU could hit the economy.
###
Article: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called on Muslims to immigrate to the "Islamic State", saying it was a duty.
He made a "special call" for judges, doctors, engineers and people with military and administrative expertise.
Isis says it is forming an Islamic state, or caliphate, on the territories it controls in Iraq and Syria.
In an earlier audio recording this week, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) proclaimed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as caliph and "leader for Muslims everywhere".
The central government in Baghdad has lost control of vast swathes of territory to Sunni militants, led by Isis, over the past month.
The group says its Islamic state will extend from Aleppo in northern Syria to Diyala province in eastern Iraq.
Setting up a state governed under strict Islamic law has long been a goal of many jihadists.
"Rush O Muslims to your state. Yes, it is your state. Rush, because Syria is not for the Syrians, and Iraq is not for the Iraqis," al-Baghdadi said in a new audio message on Tuesday.
"O Muslims everywhere, whoever is capable of performing hijrah (emigration) to the Islamic State, then let him do so, because hijrah to the land of Islam is obligatory," he added.
He also called on jihadist fighters to escalate fighting during the holy month of Ramadan, which began on Sunday.
"There is no deed in this virtuous month or in any other month better than jihad in the path of Allah, so take advantage of this opportunity and walk the path of you righteous predecessors," he said in the 19-minute audio message.
Little is known about the Isis chief, nicknamed "the invisible sheikh", who unlike al-Qaeda leaders such as Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, does not appear in video messages.
In the message, he offered a long list of countries where he said violations were being committed against Muslims - from the Central African Republic to Myanmar (also known as Burma).
"By Allah, we will take revenge! Even if it takes a while, we will take revenge," he said.
Isis said on Tuesday it had seized control of the Syrian...

Summary: The leader of jihadist militant group Isis has called on Muslims to travel to Iraq and Syria to help build an Islamic state, in an audio message.
###
Article: The biggest single factor is the use of fertiliser to grow wheat, which accounts for 43% of greenhouse gas emissions, say experts.
Emissions arise from energy needed to make ammonium nitrate fertiliser and from nitrous oxide released when it is broken down in the soil.
Around 12 million loaves are sold each day in the UK.
Consumers need to be more aware of the environmental costs of their food, say researchers at the University of Sheffield.
There are growing concerns about pollution from plastic packaging around food, as well as wider environmental issues.
Lead researcher Dr Liam Goucher said that in every loaf there is embodied global warming resulting from the fertiliser farmers use to increase their wheat harvest.
"That one key raw material accounts for - in terms of global warming potential - 43% of a loaf of bread," he told BBC News.
"People are well aware of where bread comes from but there's a lack of understanding about perhaps the environmental impact of that bread or the emissions contained by that bread," he added.
The researchers carried out the study to highlight concerns that ammonium nitrate fertiliser is being used "at unsustainable rates".
Up to 60% of crops are grown with the use of fertilisers, made up of chemicals such as methane, carbon dioxide, ammonia and nitrogen.
While synthetic fertilisers can boost the growth of plants - and raise yields - they can also contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.
Prof Peter Horton, a co-researcher on the study, added: "With over 100 million tonnes of fertiliser used globally each year to support agricultural production this is a massive problem, but environmental impact is not costed within the system and so there are currently no real incentives to reduce our reliance on fertiliser."
The research, published in the journal Nature Plants, analysed the complete process behind producing a loaf of bread:
The data found that growing wheat for bread had the biggest influence on producing greenhouse gases, mainly through the use of fertiliser.
This was...

Summary: The environmental impact of producing a loaf of bread has been analysed in depth from the farm to the shop shelf.
###
Article: The Queen's Swan Marker, David Barber, said there had been an increase in air gun shootings, particularly in Windsor, Berkshire, during the winter.
"We've lost at least two of the breeding pairs this year because of the shootings," he said.
The Swan Upping ceremony commenced at 09:00 BST in Sunbury, Surrey.
The five-day survey also passes through Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.
Last year, when Mr Barber also raised concerns over shootings, the census recorded 2,014 swans, including 120 cygnets and 34 breeding pairs.
He said numbers did fluctuate but added: "Our expectations are that numbers should be better than last year."
Mr Barber said the protected birds were "very easy targets".
"When they're shot, some don't get killed straight away - they go off and sometimes take a week to die and that's the awful part," he added.
The census dates back to the 12th Century and sees the mute swans on the river rounded up, marked, weighed, health-checked and then released.
Mr Barber said it also served as a "very important conservation and educational exercise", with many local schools taking part in the event.
Some of the lowest numbers recorded in recent years were in the 1980s due to lead poisoning, Mr Barber said.
Flooding on the Thames cancelled a section of the ceremony in 2012.
The Crown retains the right to ownership of all unmarked mute swans in open water.
Killing or injuring them is punishable by a six-month prison term and, in some cases, a fine up to £5,000.

Summary: The number of swans on the River Thames recorded in the annual census is expected to have risen, despite the deaths of two breeding pairs.
###
Article: This year, NBC is charging advertisers $4.5m (Â£3m) for a 30-second spot. But with an expected US audience of 110 million, and more streaming the most popular ads online, it's a price companies are willing to pay.
The BBC's Franz Strasser takes a look at the price of the products advertised and asks how many items you could buy for the cost of a commercial.
Budweiser's one-minute ad tells the story of a lost dog that is reunited with his owner. Nine million dollars can buy you a lot of beer cans at the price of 58 cents in a 12-pack.
For the first time in seven years, Victoria's Secret is paying up to air a spot during the biggest game. The brand sells one of its "everyday" bras for $39.50.
Dove Men will show a spot about fathers to advertise their body wash. The price of one item is $5.39, compared to the price of $4.5 million for the ad.
The German carmaker is using an old news clip and TV personalities to advertise its electric car. The starting price for a BMW i3 is $42,300.
Advertisers will pay close to $41 per one thousand viewers, if 100 million Americans tune in. A rate slightly above the industry average of $37.
Additional production by Savannah Stephens

Summary: The adverts shown during the Super Bowl are often as talked about the next day as the game itself.
###
Article: Landlords who let properties to more than three unrelated people need to apply for a licence for a House of Multiple Occupation (HMO).
But many are put off - because a licence can cost ??1,000 - despite facing a fine of up to ??20,000, Southampton City Council said.
The authority estimated a total of 1,500 unlicensed HMOs in the area.
Shelter helpline adviser Nadeem Khan said fear of eviction and living in poorly maintained properties are frequent concerns raised by HMO tenants.
"Because of the huge shortage of affordable homes people are being forced into rented homes which are unregulated. We receive about five or six calls a day about this," he said.
Nationally, mandatory licensing for HMOs is aimed at houses of three storeys or more and occupied by five or more unrelated people.
In Southampton, the licences affect properties in Bargate, Bevois, Portswood, Swaythling (Designation 1 - introduced in 2013) and in Shirley Freemantle, Millbrook, and Bassett (Designation 2 - introduced in 2015).
A council spokesman said: "Landlords have generally co-operated with the regime, but a small minority have resisted applying for their licence."
The council said it had so far gained prosecutions against one firm and 13 individuals.

Summary:

Article: {{document}}

Summary: ||| {{target}}


Two police officers who plotted to steal and sell drugs for profit have been convicted of drugs and misconduct offences.

Article: Alex Neil said ministers would also look to reduce the stress of applying for social security.
Responsibility for a number of benefits is being devolved to MSPs as part of the new Scotland Bill.
They include the Carer's Allowance and benefits for the disabled such as the Disability Living Allowance.
Just over 15% of welfare spending north of the border will be devolved, with the legislation also giving the parliament in Edinburgh the power to create new benefits and top up existing payments.
Mr Neil will use a debate on Tuesday to set out the key principles that will underpin the Scottish government approach to welfare - that social security is an investment in the people of Scotland, with respect for the individual at the heart of the system.
Holyrood ministers also stress welfare services will be "evidence based", and provide value for money, while "putting people first" will be central to all policies, processes and systems.
Mr Neil said: "With our new social security powers we have the opportunity to take a different approach and develop policies for Scotland which will help to remove the stigma attached to accessing benefits.
"These policies will be based on principles which will ensure people are treated with dignity and respect. We want to show that social security can be fairer, tackle inequalities, and protect and support the vulnerable in our society."
"It's understandable that people who receive benefits, who are ill, retired or disabled, will be concerned about how these changes will affect them.
"I want to reassure them that our priority is for them to receive their benefits on time and with the right amount."
He added: "We want to ease some of the stress of applying for benefits and will make the system easier and simpler to navigate, and align it with our devolved services that support people."

Summary: The Scottish government wants to use new welfare powers to help remove the stigma attached to claiming benefits, the social justice secretary has said.
###
Article: Trinity Mirror analysed 3,185 state-funded secondary schools in 15 areas for its Real School Guide.
About 5% of those analysed are grammar schools, which select pupils based on the 11-plus test.
The teachers union, the NUT, said selective schools were "socially divisive and antiquated".
Claire Miller, a data journalist for Trinity Mirror's regional team, said: "It's not too surprising.
"If you are selective you can select pupils who will do better, although a lot of these schools do also add value.
"Selective schools tend to have better attendance and more of their pupils stay in education after their GCSEs.
1 Pates Grammar School, Cheltenham
2 Langley Grammar School, Langley
3 Queen Elizabeths School, Barnet
4 Wallington County Grammar, Sutton
5 Nonsuch High For Girls, Cheam
6 Wilsons School, Wallington
"Of course, many will have their own sixth forms so it's easier for students to stay in an establishment with which they are familiar than start somewhere new."
Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary of the NUT, said: "Children develop at different rates and at different times, which makes academic selection at 10 or 11 years old wrong.
"International evidence clearly demonstrates that if an education system is to be characterised by quality and equity, it is the comprehensive path that must be followed.
"Grammar schools have far fewer pupils with special educational needs or eligible for free school meals. They also have fewer pupils from ethnic groups."
There are 164 grammar schools in England, educating 4% of the secondary school population.
Pupils are selected based on their results in the 11-plus test taken in the final year of primary school.
In 1998, the then-Labour government banned the creation of new grammar schools, although existing ones were allowed to continue.
David Cameron is also opposed to the creation of new grammar schools, preferring instead to allow groups to set up free schools.
Opponents of grammar schools say all children should be educated equally.
Supporters argue they give bright...

Summary: Eight out of the 10 top-performing state schools in England and Wales are selective grammar schools, research by a newspaper group has found.
###
Article: Two registered security marshals will monitor the Loreburn Street rank from midnight until 04:00 each Saturday and Sunday until 21 December.
They will also be charged with maintaining order amongst revellers on 2 and 3 January.
If the trial is successful, it may be rolled out to other local towns.
Sgt Jim McLatchie, of Police Scotland, said the stewards, who are registered with the Security Industry Authority (SIA), will ensure that members of the public are kept safe.
"Repeatedly over the festive period we get reports of anti-social behaviour, disorder and persons acting inappropriately at the taxi rank in Loreburn Street, Dumfries," he said.
The officer, who is part of the community policing unit in Dumfries and Galloway division, added: "These stewards will seek to assist in maintaining order and minimising potential anti-social behaviour.
"The stewards, who will be easily identifiable by their high-visibility vests, will have direct contact with the police through radio link."
Although the marshals will not be directly employed by the police, they will be in radio contact and monitored through CCTV.
The scheme has been introduced by Dumfries and Galloway licensing boards, Police Scotland and the Dumfries and Galloway alcohol and drug partnership.
Sgt McLatchie said: "Operators and drivers are asked to engage fully with the stewards in order to assist in making Dumfries town centre, customers and taxi drivers alike, safer over the festive season."
Police Scotland and Dumfries and Galloway Council also issued a warning about using taxis and private hire vehicles that are not properly licensed.
They should all carry a license plate and drivers should have an identification badge.
Willie Taylor, service manager licensing, said: "Dumfries and Galloway Council will investigate genuine complaints against the holders of taxi and private hire vehicles licences relating to the condition of the vehicle and against drivers for unacceptable driving or conduct."

Summary: Stewards will patrol the main taxi rank in Dumfries over Christmas and Hogmanay in a bid to combat anti-social behaviour.
###
Article: From 2014, schools where students take both subjects at GCSE will see them listed as one in league tables.
The government says this is because the subject matter is too similar.
"Some schools may be tempted to say, 'If we can't count both we won't let pupils do both,'" said Duncan Baldwin of the head teachers' union ASCL.
Mr Baldwin added that the changes would also affect some other pairs of related subjects such as art and photography or music and music technology - which will no longer count as separate subjects for performance tables from next summer.
He told BBC News that the union broadly supported the principle behind the practice of "discounting" very similar qualifications as this prevented some schools manipulating the performance tables by entering pupils for the same subject twice and having both grades count.
He said schools were under pressure to perform well on league table measures, which included the proportion of pupils who achieved five GCSEs graded A* to C.
However, he argued that some of the pairs of subjects which now cancelled each other out were definitely "distinct disciplines".
"This is a debate about where you draw the line," said Mr Baldwin, who is the union's deputy policy director.
He added that the changes were concentrated disproportionately on arts subjects rather than on the humanities or sciences.
"Many subjects overlap in content and in the skills demanded.
"History and ancient history will continue to be counted as separate subjects and there is maths in science subjects.
"The question is - at what point is there sufficient overlap for them to be ruled effectively the same?"
The union has asked the Department for Education to reconsider some of its decisions, particularly on dance and drama, and is gathering evidence from subject specialists.
Mr Baldwin added that it was "particularly unfair" that the changes, which will take effect from next summer, were announced after students had begun their GCSE courses, as it was too late for schools to make changes.
The new rules...

Summary: Plans to count separate GCSEs in dance and drama as one qualification for school league tables risk marginalising performing arts, say head teachers.
###
Article: Northern Ireland Office Minister Ben Wallace advised MPs of the government's conclusion during Northern Ireland questions in the House of Commons.
He said it would have to be funded by additional borrowing or raising other taxes, both of which would have a negative impact on the economy.
The issued was raised by the DUP.
Democratic Unionist Party MP David Simpson said that just as the case had been made for a cut in the rate of corporation tax in Northern Ireland, he believed a similar case could be made for reducing VAT on tourism and hospitality, especially golf clubs where he claimed there is an anomaly.
However, Mr Wallace pointed out the government's other economic initiatives, which he hoped would make tourism businesses more competitive.
Conservative MP Kevin Foster questioned whether if the rate of VAT could not be lowered, the threshold might be altered to help smaller tourism businesses.
Mr Wallace said he would write to the Chancellor George Osborne about the matter.
The issue of VAT on tourism is currently the subject of an inquiry by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, which is examining whether the current UK VAT rate places Northern Ireland's tourism and hospitality sector at a competitive disadvantage, and whether its reduction locally could promote growth.
During Northern Ireland questions, Secretary of State Theresa Villiers refused to be drawn on the benefits for Northern Ireland if the United Kingdom left the European Union (EU).
The DUP's Sammy Wilson invited Ms Villiers to agree that "a vote to leave the EU would help the Northern Ireland economy insofar as it would release Â£18bn every year for expenditure on public services, would enable us to enter trade agreements with growing parts of the world and would release us from the stifling bureaucracy of Europe".
However, Ms Villiers declined to "engage in arguments which are rightly a matter for everyone in this country when they get to vote on that referendum".
Ms Villiers is widely believed to be one of the most Eurosceptic members...

Summary: A VAT cut for tourism and hospitality could not produce enough economic growth to outweigh the likely shortfall in tax revenue, a minister has said.
###
Article: Birmingham-based West Midlands Police constables Wahid Husman, 48, and Tahsib Majid, 36, used their roles to conspire to steal quantities of Class A and B drugs, the force said.
Husman admitted drugs and misconduct offences on 7 August.
Majid was convicted on Tuesday after a trial at Birmingham Crown Court.
Five other men also admitted a number of offences on 7 August following the police investigation, the West Midlands force added.
Husman accessed police computer systems to feed information to a number of criminal associates, while Majid committed a Data Protection offence on behalf of an associate, the force said.
A surveillance operation, led by the force's counter corruption unit, captured the officers talking about drug dealing on duty and conspiring with criminal associates to steal a consignment of illegal drugs destined for Birmingham.
The group planned to split the drugs between them to supply for their own gain.
See more stories from across Birmingham and the Black Country here
Police said an investigation revealed Husman had begun accessing police computer systems as far back as 2011, when he started to feed intelligence and information to some of his co-accused.
After his arrest, officers searched Husman's address and found Â£7,000 cash and heroin.
The officers, based at Perry Barr, were suspended following their arrest in February 2017 and now face dismissal from West Midlands Police.
All the defendants are due to be sentenced in October.

Summary:


One of the UK's biggest insurers Royal Sun Alliance is to close its Birmingham office, putting 190 jobs at risk.

Article: They grew 1% higher than the previous quarter.
All the quarterly growth was driven by urban areas. Prices in rural areas have remained unchanged.
The figures come from the Northern Ireland Residential Property Price Index, which analyses almost all sales, including cash deals.
Prices are still lower than levels recorded at the start of 2005.

Summary: House prices in Northern Ireland have risen by 7% in the third quarter of 2014, compared to the same period last year.
###
Article: The French energy company said Hinkley Point C in Somerset will not start generating power in 2023 as planned.
EDF says it will provide a revised timetable for the Â£24.5bn plant when it takes a final investment decision on the project.
The news comes as a report for the OECD says that the UK's projected nuclear costs are the highest in the world.
The delay to Hinkley Point delay is bad news for the government. The UK's old coal-fired power plants will be forced to close before 2023 under EU air quality rules and the gap in generating capacity will have to be filled some other way.
EDF has been struggling with securing finance for the project but hoped to secure Chinese funds when the Premier Xi Jin Ping visits London next month.
Its chief executive, Jean-Bernard Levy, said he still had "full confidence in the success of the Hinkley Point project".
But it has been dogged by finance problems and negotiations with the EU over state aid.
A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: "The UK Government and EDF are continuing to work together to finalise the project. The deal must represent value for money and is subject to approval by ministers."
Unite called on Energy Secretary Amber Rudd to press potential investors to make a decision on Hinkley Point.
"Business and domestic consumers face the very real prospect of power cuts and the lights going out in the years to come, if the final investment decision on Hinkley Point is not made very soon," said national officer Kevin Coyne.
The OECD report shows that the cost of a nuclear plant in Britain is projected to be almost three times higher than in China or South Korea.
Costs of nuclear are hard to compare from one country to another, but the gulf between projected costs in China and the UK is indisputable.
It is partly a question of scale given that China is building dozens of new nuclear stations. But it is also partly because state-run nuclear enterprises can borrow at very low or even zero rates of interest.
Some experts want the UK to take...

Summary: EDF has admitted that the construction of Britain's first new nuclear power plant in decades has been delayed.
###
Article: Kenneth Ellis, 44, told the 40-year-old woman: "I'm going to kill you", the High Court in Edinburgh heard.
Ellis admitted abducting and assaulting the woman last August in his Edinburgh home, telling her he had made people dig their own grave then shot them.
The court heard he snapped after the woman mentioned a former partner.
She managed to make a 999 call warning that Ellis had a gun and when police arrived they found her standing in the middle of the road shaking uncontrollably.
Ellis also subjected another woman to harassment, turning up at her home and repeatedly sending her text messages and phoning her.
Lord Turnbull jailed him for three years and nine months for the incident involving the gun and a further four months and 15 days for the offence against the other woman.
Ellis also admitted engaging in a course of conduct between March 2014 and August last year at addresses in Edinburgh which caused another 28-year-old woman fear or alarm by repeatedly texting, phoning and attending at her home uninvited.
Advocate depute Angela Gray said Ellis and the older woman had contacted each other through a dating website about three weeks prior to the gun incident. Within a fortnight they met up and began a relationship.
Defence solicitor advocate Leanne McQuillan said: "He fully appreciates a custodial sentence is inevitable."

Summary: An Edinburgh man who held a gun to a woman's head weeks after contacting her through an online dating site has been jailed for more than four years.
###
Article: ScotRail Alliance, which involves Abellio ScotRail and Network Rail, has been criticised for the quality of services on the line.
A railways expert and MSPs have concerns about the long-term future of the line that links Inverness to stations in Sutherland and Caithness.
But ScotRail Alliance said it was investing in the line.
Last month David Spaven, who writes books on the histories of railway networks, said there had been a recent "downgrading" in the quality of services.
He told BBC Scotland people were being put off using the trains because they were unreliable.
Mr Spaven said: "Sadly in the last two or three we've found that the service has got more unreliable and people have been voting with their feet.
"There are fewer people using the line now and that's at a time when most rail routes in Scotland are seeing mushrooming growth in patronage, but the north line is seeing decline and I think that is a big worry.
"The trains that are using this line are Class 158s which are the most unreliable diesel units in Scotland.
"To be frank, when they came in 25 years ago they were poor trains then and even poorer trains now. They keep breaking down, they've problems climbing hills or the air conditioning doesn't work."
Mr Spaven also said the infrastructure of the Far North Line needed improvements, such as extra double track to help improve reliability of services."
Dr Paul Monaghan, SNP MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross and an honorary president of the Friends of the Far North Line, and Highlands and Islands Labour MSP Rhoda Grant have raised similar concerns.
But ScotRail Alliance said the rolling stock was being revamped, a modern digital signalling system was being introduced and miles of track being replaced at a total cost of millions of pounds.
Inverness depot fleet manager, Derek Glasgow, told BBC Scotland the operator was looking at increasing line speeds on level crossings and easing travel around stations at Brora and Georgemas.
He said: "All these things actions are happening now and for the...

Summary: The operator of Scotland's railway network has reiterated its commitment to the Far North Line in the Highlands.
###
Article: Annual test results should be replaced in the tables by a three-year rolling average to "lower the stakes", says the Commons Education Select Committee.
The current system has led to a narrow curriculum and "unnecessary stress" on pupils and teachers, argues the report.
Last year, new tougher tests for 11-year-olds saw passes drop sharply.
Ministers maintain that parents have a right to expect testing in schools to show whether their children are gaining the right skills in maths and literacy.
But the committee says the close link between the tests at 11 and school accountability can "lead to a narrowing of the curriculum and 'teaching to the test', as well as affecting teacher and pupil well-being".
It wants the current system scrapped, with three-year rolling averages for schools published instead of the results of individual year groups.
The report also calls for greater emphasis in Ofsted inspections on a broad and balanced curriculum.
Committee chairman Neil Carmichael said too much emphasis on test results had led to too much "focus on English and maths at the expense of other subjects like science, humanities and the arts".
"It is right that schools are held to account for their performance but the government should act to lower the stakes and help teachers to deliver a broad, balanced and fulfilling curriculum for primary school children."
The report says poor implementation of the new system last year, with "guidance delayed and test papers leaked online", caused significant disruption in schools.
The MPs want ministers to reconsider the new writing assessment which emphasises "technical aspects like grammar and spelling, over creativity and composition".
"The balance of evidence we received did not support the proposition that focusing on specific grammatical techniques improved the overall quality of writing."
They also want spelling, punctuation and grammar tests for 11-year-olds to become non-statutory.
Ministers recently announced proposals to scrap tests for seven-year-olds, following years of...

Summary: Children's education in England is being skewed by the use of high-stakes tests taken by 11-year-olds as a school league table measure, say MPs.
###
Article: The firm, which has had a presence in the city for more than 30 years, says it follows a restructuring review.
The office will shut later this year but a new "commercial trading site" will open in the city in September. Staff are to be offered redeployment around the UK, a spokesman said.
Union Unite called it a "big blow" for the finance sector in Birmingham.
Regional secretary, Gerard Coyne, said: "[Royal Sun Alliance] have made us aware of their intention to close the Birmingham office.
Updates on this and more from Birmingham and Black Country
"We will now enter into discussions with them and try to get them to review their decision in Birmingham as it's a big blow to our members and the finance and insurance sector in the city."
Royal Sun Alliance told staff on Wednesday that 190 jobs were at risk of redundancy but was "committed" to staying in the city. It has been at its current site in Colmore Row for 20 years.
A spokesman said the firm's review showed it could work more effectively "if teams doing the same kind of work, or focused on the same kinds of customers, are situated together".
"Unfortunately, a number of our employees will be impacted by these changes and we will be working closely with them over the next few months and will look to redeploy our people wherever possible."

Summary:


New pictures of asteroid 2004 BL86, which passed close by Earth yesterday, have been released by US space agency Nasa.

Article: Ecologists fitted special tiny tail cameras that can see beneath the birds' bellies to see how the wild New Caledonian crows behave.
As well as glimpsing two crows making special foraging hooks, the team was able to track their activity over time.
Christian Rutz, from the University of St Andrews in the UK said: "Why is it that New Caledonian crows use tools but other birds don't? I think the answer lies in figuring out how important tool use is in their everyday lives.''
In nearly 12 hours of "crow cam" footage from 10 different birds, the team diddn't get much footage of the birds making and using the tools.
"Out of total observation time, only about 3% was spent making or using tools," Dr Rutz said. And only four of the 10 picked up a tool at all.
The crows spent most of their time looking  for food with their beaks.
The birds spent a lot of time tearing strips from paperbark trees in search of grubs. Their sturdy beaks are perfectly good for this job.
"But every now and then, they suddenly switch to tool use - in the very same trees.'' Dr Rutz said. "We don't understand what is happening there."
But they caught two different crows, not just using sticks but making - and using - hooks.
"When we got that footage it was a proper high-five moment in the field camp," Dr Rutz said.
From lab experiments and sightings through binoculars, the team knew that the birds made these hooks.
They snap off one branch from a forked twig and leave a small part of the main stem attached to the end.
But now, for the first time, they have video evidence of it happening, unprompted, in the wild.
Jolyon Troscianko from the University of Exeter said: "New Caledonian crows are notoriously difficult to observe, not just because of the challenging terrain of their tropical habitats, but also because they can be quite sensitive to disturbance."
The crow cams have been given a new design to make recording easier.
Instead of beaming the video to a receiver which meant researchers had to scramble through the New Caledonian forest with...

Summary: Crows are well known for their clever tricks but now they have been caught on camera making and using hook like tools.
###
Article: On Wednesday, the UUP announced the names of two new MLAs, Adrian Cochrane-Watson and Neil Somerville.
They are replacing the party's two new MPs, Danny Kinahan and Tom Elliott.
On Thursday night, the SDLP will pick a replacement MLA for its party leader.
Dr Alasdair McDonnell is resigning from the assembly on Sunday to concentrate on his role as an MP.
It is thought the Belfast councillor Claire Hanna will get his job as a South Belfast MLA.
Stormont's co-option system was introduced because holding a by-election could change the party political balance within a six-member constituency.
That would happen if an MLA belonging to a smaller party within a particular constituency stepped down, and a subsequent by-election was won by the dominant party within that seat.
The system also avoids the expense of by-elections.
Current co-optees include Sinn Féin's Rosaleen McCorley, Chris Hazzard, Bronwyn McGahan, Maeve McLaughlin and Ian Milne.
The party also used the system to bring Megan Fearon, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, Declan McAleer, Conor Murphy and Alex Maskey to the assembly.
The SDLP have co-opted Sean Rogers and Fearghal McKinney, the DUP have done the same with Gary Middleton, while the late independent MLA David McClarty was succeeded by Clare Sugden.
Sometimes co-opted MLAs are referred to as unelected politicians, but that is now becoming less straightforward.
Sinn Féin's Conor Murphy was elected as an MLA before handing his seat over to Megan Fearon.
Now he has been co-opted back in to the assembly to succeed Mickey Brady, who succeeded him as Newry and Armagh MP.
Similarly, Alex Maskey was originally elected in South Belfast, but now sits as a co-opted West Belfast MLA.
When Willie Hay, now Lord Hay, stepped down as an MLA and Stormont speaker, the DUP first replaced him with Maurice Devenney.
But shortly afterwards, they had to make a double co-option, with Gary Middleton stepping in to Mr Devenney's shoes.

Summary: Once the new Ulster Unionist and SDLP MLAs take their places in the Stormont chamber, 17 of the 108 MLAs will have benefited from the co-option process, which avoids the need to hold by-elections.
###
Article: The Belfast Telegraph's exclusive about a boy who battled a brain condition, and was injured in a petrol bomb attack in Newtownabbey dominates its front page.
Speaking to the paper, the boy's mother, Danielle Thompson, explains his surgery scars were scorched by flames when the family were trying to flee their home.
She says the fire caught four-year-old Cruz's head, causing scars from one of three life-saving operations to erupt in blisters.
The Irish News goes big on a claim that five Orange Halls have been awarded grants under a controversial Stormont scheme after applying as cultural, educational or historical societies.
The paper attributes the details to the Department for Communities and says details provided by them show a pledge of Â£104,000 for upgrades to the halls.
The scheme has been criticised by nationalists after it emerged that dozens of loyal order and band halls were offered grants of up to Â£25,000.
Last week, the Irish News reported the department had also promised Â£25,000 to the County Antrim based Randalstown Ulster Scots Cultural Society, but the address given for the group, Number 10 Portglenone Road, Randalstown, was not listed on Royal Mail's "postal address file".
Inside, the Irish News carries a story about a County Tyrone boy who is fighting life-threatening epilepsy in the United States.
It reports Billy Caldwell, 11, is recovering after being placed in an induced coma in Los Angeles.
Cannabis oil - an illegal form of treatment in the UK - is being used by medical professionals to help lessen Billy's symptoms, the paper reports.
The Irish News also dedicates a double-page spread to reaction to President Trump's travel ban, detailing demonstrations held across the UK on Monday.
It reports growing pressure on Theresa May to say whether she was aware of Donald Trump's plans during her American visit.
The News Letter reports that a prosecution decision on a man whose palm print was allegedly found on a getaway vehicle used in the Kingsmills massacre is set to be announced within...

Summary: There is little to compare in Tuesday's papers as each of the dailies leads with a different story.
###
Article: The Welsh Affairs Committee urged the BBC to give English language TV programming for Wales a cash boost.
Committee chairman David Davies said MPs also had ongoing funding concerns for Welsh language TV channel S4C.
The BBC said it had announced plans that would address the politicians' concerns.
On Wednesday, it emerged that more than two thirds of AMs had signed a letter to BBC Director General Lord Hall demanding he "be specific" about how much extra money he intended to give to BBC Wales.
Lord Hall, in a letter to First Minister Carwyn Jones in May, said the BBC planned to "allocate additional funding" across Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, after admitting in 2014 that English language television programming in Wales had been "eroded".
The committee's report, published on Thursday, said extra funding should take into account the fact that Wales has a more limited choice of media and that the BBC therefore has a greater role to play.
"We recommend that the BBC allocates investment from its current budget for English language programming in Wales closer to the levels seen in 2006-07," the report said.
On the portrayal of Wales to the nation on television, the report said that a decline in "specific media provision for Welsh audiences" caused "insufficient scrutiny of decisions affecting Wales" by Welsh and UK ministers and this may also contribute to an "ill-informed population".
"Moreover, given the high value that Welsh audiences place on seeing themselves and Welsh life on screen, the current service and any prospect of further decline, particularly in non-news programming, is concerning," the report continued.
Mr Davies, Conservative MP for Monmouth, said the committee was worried by how "Wales is depicted on TV, or rather the lack of depiction of Wales" to the rest of the UK.
"There is good news that television is being made in Wales - that's obviously a very good thing - but often it's TV which is not actually about Wales, or set in Wales," he said.
The report welcomes a UK Government decision...

Summary: The way Wales is depicted on TV, both to Welsh audiences and the rest of the UK, must be improved, MPs have said in a report.
###
Article: Lord Elystan-Morgan, who led the 1979 Yes for Wales campaign, said the Bill could lead to "a diminished authority".
Meanwhile, Wales Office minister Guto Bebb has accused "some grandees in the Welsh Assembly" of making an "overblown attack" on the planned legislation.
The Bill shakes up how power is divided between the assembly and Westminster.
Lord Elystan-Morgan will be involved in the Bill's second reading in the House of Lords on Monday.
Currently, the areas that AMs can make new laws on are defined in legislation.
But under the planned system, the areas that will remain under Westminster's control will be set out in a list of reserved powers, with AMs being told what they cannot legislate on rather than what they can.
Lord Elystan-Morgan told BBC Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement this was the fourth piece of legislation "attempting substantial constitutional change for Wales" within a period of 20 years.
But he said it differed from its predecessors, which he described as "progressive", in that it gave him "every reason to believe that we will have a diminished authority over our own domestic affairs".
Lord Elystan-Morgan said the list of reserved powers was 250 in the draft Bill, but has been whittled down to 200.
"They're still very messy," he said, describing many as "utterly and monumentally trivial".
Asked if the Bill could be fixed by the Lords, he said it was not just the wording that was the problem, but a "huge imperial mentality".
"This imperial prejudice overlays the whole situation," he said.
"The level of devolution we had in July 2014 was much higher," he said.
"What you have now is total clarity, but clarity at the expense of retreat.
"In other words our constitutional situation has now been clearly defined, but defined in such terms as to make it very minor compared to what we had previously.
"The state of flux of politics in Britain allows us to exercise imagination and initiative. We should be aiming for something of the nature of dominion status."
Speaking on BBC Sunday Politics Wales,...

Summary: One of Wales' most long-standing devolution supporters has said the new draft Wales Bill reflects Westminster's "huge imperial mentality".
###
Article: 27 January 2015 Last updated at 14:30 GMT
They show that the asteroid has its own small moon orbiting it.
The asteroid passed by the Earth at a safe distance of 1.2 million km, giving scientists a rare chance to study it 'up close'.
The new data shows that asteroid 2004 BL86 is about 325m across, and its moon is around 70m wide.
Now that it has passed Earth the asteroid will continue on its orbit around the Sun, and it won't come this close again for another 200 years!
The next 'close shave' of a large asteroid is due in 2027: that object is called 1999 AN10 and is just over 1km wide.

Summary:


Young runners at Olympian Mo Farah's former athletics club have been banned from training at Windsor Great Park in preparation for cross country races.

Article: Mr Smith, who joins Angela Eagle in challenging Jeremy Corbyn, said the tax system needed to be more "progressive".
On Brexit, he said people should not accept "we're on a definite path out."
Mr Smith and other Labour MPs say there should be a "unity" candidate to take on Mr Corbyn, who has vowed to fight the challengers in the contest.
But Ms Eagle, who was the first to launch a challenge against the Labour leader, said it was "too early" to talk about that idea.
Meanwhile, Mr Corbyn told the BBC's Sunday Politics he thinks the rules which exclude recently signed-up Labour members from voting in the contest are "not very fair" - and that he wants the party's National Executive Committee to change them.
He also believes the £25 fee for registered supporters to vote in the contest is too high.
In a speech in his constituency later, Mr Smith, MP for Pontypridd, will set out his leadership pledges, including plans to invest £200bn into building projects, which he will say is what is needed to "rebuild Britain".
Speaking on Sunday's Andrew Marr Show, Mr Smith, when asked if he would raise taxes on the richest in society, said: "I think we need to completely overhaul our tax system, so yes."
The former shadow work and pensions secretary said he would reintroduce a 50p top rate of tax "tomorrow" and also said it was "completely anomalous" for capital gains tax to be 20% when the higher rate of income tax was 45%.
Mr Smith, a former member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), went on to say he would vote to renew Trident in Monday's Commons vote, saying he believed the world had become "more volatile, more insecure over the last few years".
"I want a world without nuclear weapons altogether, but I don't think we hasten that by divesting," he said.
Asked whether he would be prepared to press the nuclear "button" as prime minister, Mr Smith said: "You've got to be prepared to say 'yes', that's absolutely right."
BBC political correspondent Alan Soady
Both Angela Eagle and Owen Smith are putting themselves...

Summary: Labour has been "too timid" about taxation, leadership hopeful Owen Smith has said, and pledged that he would raise the top income tax rate to 50p.
###
Article: Khan said his filmmaker wife Kiran Rao had even suggested leaving the country.
Mr Khan told a journalism awards ceremony that he was "alarmed" over the rise in acts of intolerance in the "last six to eight months".
Earlier this month fellow superstar Shah Rukh Khan also spoke out against what he called "extreme intolerance" in India.
A movement that began with writers returning state awards has spread to scientists, historians and filmmakers.
They have cited the killing of rationalists MM Kalburgi and Govind Pansare, as well as the lynching of a man over suspicions he consumed beef, as examples of rising intolerance in the country.
Actor, director and producer Khan told a ceremony organised by The Indian Express newspaper that a sense of "insecurity" and "fear" had been growing in India.
"(Wife) Kiran and I have lived all our lives in India. For the first time, she said, should we move out of India? That's a disastrous and big statement for Kiran to make to me," Khan was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
"She fears for her child. She fears about what the atmosphere around us will be. She feels scared to open the newspapers everyday. That does indicate that there is a sense of growing disquiet."
Khan said creative people were returning their awards to express dissatisfaction or disappointment with the state of affairs.
"For creative people, to voice what they feel is important. A number of creative people - historians and scientists - have increasingly had a certain feeling that they feel they need to express. One of the ways of expressing their dissatisfaction or disappointment is to return awards."
He said: "As long as you don't resort to violence, all individuals have a right to protest and they can protest in any manner they feel is right".
"This is certainly a way to protest for creative people."
A spokesperson for India's ruling BJP said Khan was entitled to his view, but India remained a tolerant country.
"You can't take the exception to be the rule. You can't be alarmist over stray incidents. Let us...

Summary: Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan has joined the rising chorus of protest against growing "intolerance" in India.
###
Article: Economy Secretary Ken Skates told AMs the Development Bank of Wales will have its head office in north Wales.
He is considering plans drawn up by Finance Wales, the government-owned investment agency, to create the bank.
Opposition AMs called for more details and said his announcement was a "rebrand" of Finance Wales.
Mr Skates said the business case for the bank was still in a draft form, but he would publish it in the New Year after the Welsh Government has gathered more feedback.
Two options for basing the bank in north Wales are being considered, one of which would cost Â£5m, he told the Senedd on Tuesday.
Finance Wales is currently based in Cardiff.
The bank is on course to launch in the first half of 2017 if approved by regulators and would have a target of investing Â£80m a year by 2022.
It would address "market failures" where businesses - in particular small and micro-businesses, and new start-ups - are not able to borrow money from private banks.
Although things had improved since the credit crunch, some small businesses were still struggling to get funding, Mr Skates said.
The bank will not compete with private-sector lenders, but will instead provide "top-up finance" to help companies grow.
"I am also challenging the bank to continuously improve its value for money, and work towards ambitious private sector leverage to reduce cost per job," Mr Skates added.
Welsh Conservative economy spokesman Russell George said Mr Skates's statement was a "cosmetic rebrand of Finance Wales" - something the minister denied, saying the Development Bank reflected calls from AMs to build on Finance Wales' experience and expertise.
Plaid Cymru shadow economy minister Adam Price said: "It's a step forward, but I don't think it's quite as radical or as transformative as it could have been."
A review written in 2013 by business expert Prof Dylan Jones-Evans questioned whether Finance Wales was doing enough to help the Welsh economy and recommended the creation of a development bank.
In October, it emerged that a...

Summary: A bank aimed at making it easier for small businesses to borrow money and get advice will open early next year, the Welsh Government has confirmed.
###
Article: Carolyn Fairbairn, the director-general of the CBI, said: "We need this decision to be taken quickly."
David Cameron had promised a decision by the end of the year on whether to build a new runway at Heathrow.
However, on Monday BBC business editor Kamal Ahmed said the decision could be delayed "for at least six months".
The environmental, political and business arguments over whether to enlarge Heathrow or Gatwick airports have been going on for 25 years.
In July, the Airports Commission chaired by Sir Howard Davies backed the building of a new third runway at Heathrow at a cost of some £23bn ($34.6bn), although it did not rule out the option of expanding Gatwick.
However, senior sources have now said there needs to be more "confidence building" about the environmental impact of a new runway at Heathrow.
Speaking to the BBC's Today programme, Ms Fairbairn said: "Our economy is going to run out of airport capacity in the south by 2025.
"The effect on exports is going to be dramatic, a potential £5bn lost exports by 2030 if we don't act. It feels like a real failure of leadership.
"We really need a decision on airport capacity, it's urgent and it's not optional,"

Summary: Delays to a decision on London's airport expansion are a "failure of leadership", the CBI business lobby group has told the BBC.
###
Article: There were 1,175 cases in 2015, compared to the record number of 1,215 in the previous year.
The decline was due to "increased policing and combat operations".
Poaching has been driven by demand for rhino horn in Asian countries for their purported medicinal properties.
Since 2007, when 13 rhinos were poached in the country, the number of animals killed has rocketed.
South Africa's Environmental Affairs Minister, Edna Molewa, hailed last year's fall, saying it was due to the government's anti-poaching policies.
The measures, she said, included increased inspections at airports and borders and the use of anti-poaching technology.
"Considering that this is despite escalating poaching pressure, and in the face of an increased and relentless rise of poaching activity into protected areas, this is very, very good news," she said.
"[But] the onslaught against our rhino has continued unabated."
Most cases (826) were at the Kruger National Park near the border with Mozambique, where between 8,400 to 9,300 white rhinos live, Ms Molewa said.
She said that 317 poachers had been arrested last year for offences related to rhino poaching. In 2014, there were 258 arrests.
South Africa has 80% of the world's rhino population but there are fears that they could be extinct within 10 years.
There is increasing demand in Asian countries where it is believed that the horns have healing properties, even though they are made mainly from keratin, the same material as fingernails.
The horn is sold in powdered form as a supposed cure for cancer and other diseases.
Poachers use a chainsaw to cut away the rhino's horns and often leave a drugged animal to bleed to death.
Rhino poaching in South Africa
Sources: South African Department of Environmental Affairs, Save the Rhino
Shopping for rhino horn with a hidden camera
Could legalising horn trade save rhinos?

Summary: The number of rhinos poached for their horns in South Africa fell last year for the first time since 2007, officials say.
###
Article: Windsor, Slough, Eton and Hounslow Athletics Club normally use the park's famous Long Walk for winter training.
The Crown Estate now said the park's ground conditions are not suitable for the club's training sessions.
Coach John Higgins said: "Mo Farah used to train with the club, and he used to train exactly on this venue".
"It's really sad."
Mr Higgins said although the club used an athletics track for summer training, in winter it needed an outdoor venue for athletes to train on grass for cross country fixtures.
The club is used by children aged between eight to 18-years-old to train, and has been running since the 1880s, with Prince Philip as its current patron.
"We need somewhere lit and that's why the Long Walk is so perfect".
"It's a lovely place and we're very very careful about not littering, because we respect the place," he said.
Russell Young, a father of two children at the club, said: "We're extremely disappointed, we don't really cut up the grass.
"We thought they'd be quite happy to have children exercising on it."
The nearby playing fields of Eton, where the Thames Valley Athletics Centre is based, are not lit and have cricket pitches which could be damaged by runners, while Upton Park in Slough is not safe for the club to use at present as the pedestrian crossing is out of service following a collision with a lorry.
A spokesperson for Windsor Great Park said discussions were continuing with the club to find what other options may be available for the next season.

Summary:


With clashes between South Sudan and Sudan threatening to spiral into all-out conflict, state TV networks in both countries are pulling out the stops to rally support for their respective causes.

Article: The transgender US army private, born Bradley Manning, is due to be freed on 17 May, after former President Barack Obama commuted her sentence.
Manning had been scheduled for release in 2045, after receiving a 35-year sentence for her role in leaking diplomatic cables to Wikileaks.
She confirmed the release was going ahead on her Twitter feed on Tuesday.
"Freedom was only a dream, and hard to imagine. Now it's here! You kept me alive <3," Manning wrote, linking to a longer statement which referred to some of the treatment she had received behind bars, including "periods of solitary confinement, and... routinely forced haircuts".
"For the first time, I can see a future for myself as Chelsea," she said. "I can imagine surviving and living as the person who I am and can finally be in the outside world."
Manning said she would be "forever grateful" to all those who had supported her and President Obama, and now hoped to make "life better for others".
President Obama commuted her sentence in January, with just three days left in office. The move did not satisfy all her supporters, as some felt she should have been pardoned.
A joint statement from her lawyers, Nancy Hollander and Vincent Ward, noted: "Chelsea has already served the longest sentence of any whistleblower in the history of this country. It has been far too long, too severe, too draconian.
"President Obama's act of commutation was the first time the military took care of this soldier who risked so much to disclose information that served the public interest."
The US army charged Manning with 22 counts relating to the unauthorised possession and distribution of more than 700,000 secret diplomatic and military documents and videos.
Included in those files was video footage of an Apache helicopter killing 12 civilians in Baghdad in 2007.
Manning also passed on sensitive messages between US diplomats, intelligence assessments of Guantanamo detainees being held without trial and military records from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The disclosures were...

Summary: Chelsea Manning has released a statement ahead of her planned release from prison next week.
###
Article: Stephen Bladen, 55, of Pembroke Dock, was found guilty of 33 offences, including rape of a girl aged seven and another under 11, at Swansea Crown Court.
He will serve a minimum of 14 years behind bars.
On Monday, Judge Keith Thomas found Bladen to be a "dangerous" criminal who had offended over a 30-year period.
Robin Rouch, prosecuting, earlier read statements made by Bladen's victims in which they said their lives were ruined and described the difficulties they now have in trusting men.
One wrote: "I would have become a very different person if I had not been abused."
Bladen had denied the charges, which also included indecent assault of a five-year-old girl and possessing indecent images of children.
He was, however, disbelieved by the jury and found guilty of the counts.
Judge Thomas said Bladen would be liable for recall to prison for up to seven years after his release - even if he serves the full 21 years - should he reoffend.

Summary: A Pembrokeshire man who raped two young girls and sexually assaulted three others has been jailed for 21 years.
###
Article: The government had issued a media release on Tuesday about regeneration funding for Glasgow.
The Tories contend that the administration should not be making announcements which could have a bearing on Thursday's council vote.
A Scottish government spokesman said a response would be issued in "due course".
The Scottish government announced more than Â£8m of funding from the Scottish Partnership for Regeneration in Urban Centres (Spruce) on Tuesday, targeted at Glasgow.
Guidance for civil servants issued in January stated that "particular care" should be taken in the weeks preceding elections, noting: "It needs to be borne in mind that the activities of the Scottish government could have a bearing on the local election campaigns".
Conservative MSP Ross Thomson raised a point of order following Wednesday's session of questions to the first minister, saying the announcement "looks like a blatant attempt to sway voters in an area that is being targeted by the SNP".
He said: "I have written to the Permanent Secretary to the Scottish government asking for an explanation as to how this could be announced just 48 hours before voters go to the polls.
"People need to have absolute confidence that public money is not being used for party political ends."
The Scottish government spokesman confirmed that a letter had been received by the permanent secretary. He added: "A response will be issued in due course."

Summary: The Scottish Conservatives have called for an investigation over claims the Scottish government broke purdah rules.
###
Article: The timing of the handover of power from David Cameron looks set to be after PM's  questions on Wednesday.
Mrs May, 59, who backed staying in the EU, has been home secretary since 2010.
Mrs Leadsom, who campaigned to leave the EU, said the UK needed "strong and stable government" and that Mrs May was "ideally placed" to implement Brexit.
The 1922 committee of Tory MPs - which is overseeing the leadership contest - is holding talks with the Conservative Party board over formally declaring Mrs May the winner, after Mrs Leadsom dropped out.
A statement is expected from its chairman, Graham Brady, at about 17:00 BST.
Mrs May is also expected to make a public statement, at about 18:00 BST, according to BBC assistant political editor Norman Smith.
In a speech earlier on Monday setting out her leadership campaign platform, Mrs May - who rejected the argument that the next leader and prime minister had to have been someone on the winning side of the EU referendum - said: "Brexit means Brexit and we're going to make a success of it."
In her brief statement in Westminster, Mrs Leadsom - who was a leading light of the Brexit campaign - said a nine-week leadership campaign at such a "critical time" for the UK would be "highly undesirable".
A source close to the energy minister told BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg "the abuse has been too great" for Mrs Leadsom during the contest.
Mrs Leadsom had apologised to Mrs May on Monday after suggesting in a weekend newspaper interview that being a mother made her a better candidate for the job.
Mrs Leadsom, who was flanked by some of her supporters as she read the statement, said: "Strong leadership is needed urgently to begin the work of withdrawing from the European Union. A nine-week leadership campaign at such a critical moment is highly undesirable."
She said Mrs May, the home secretary, had the support of more than 60% of Conservative MPs and was "ideally placed to implement Brexit on the best possible terms for the British people and she has promised she will do...

Summary: Theresa May is set to become the UK's next prime minister after Andrea Leadsom pulled out of the contest to become Conservative Party leader.
###
Article: These days, you don't need to sit outside in a van with your headphones on, listening to static for an hour before the battery runs out and the tape recorder gives a tell-tale clunk.
Tiny matchbox-sized gadgets are now capable of transmitting audio and video for hours on end to the other side of the world.
Not only that, but we are all constantly connected to the internet via mobile phones and computers, and happily share details of our work and home life on social media - all valuable information for spies.
For experts like Alex Bomberg, whose company International Intelligence provides counter espionage services to large organisations, the result is that the threats to company security are now almost too many to count.
He is casting his eye over one corporate head office to demonstrate the kind of things he "sweeps" for when giving security advice.
The organisation doesn't want to be named - no-one is keen to have their security weaknesses pointed out publicly. Despite having identity passes and security guards, the company is still vulnerable, he says.
Traditional vulnerabilities, such as sensitive documents casually thrown into the bin or poorly paid cleaning and security staff being bribed to steal secrets, are now being amplified by technology.
Almost every meeting room is furnished with a conference phone that could be hacked. Anyone with a portable memory stick and a few minutes at a work station could download vast amounts of data or upload a virus. If you chuck out an old photocopier these days, the hard drive can hold years of stored data.
And corporate spies are continually developing new tech-based tricks.
"You pre-load a USB [memory] stick [with malware], and leave it where someone will find it," says Mr Bomberg. "It's human nature to wonder whose it is... especially if it says Accounts or HR on it."
And then there's the smartphone.
"They are very, very dangerous things," he says. "You are bringing basically a transmitting device into a building."
We are all effectively carrying the perfect...

Summary: Last weekend's reports about the New Zealand rugby team's discovery of a listening device sewn in to a hotel meeting room chair, have illustrated just how much spying technology has advanced in recent years.
###
Article: Martial music accompanies footage of soldiers, and statements by military commanders reinforce the military mobilization under way on both sides of the border.
Meanwhile, online activists within Sudan are using social media to question the official line.
State-run Sudan TV is re-running programmes made during the north-south civil war, including a 1990s repeat, "In The Fields of Sacrifice". The programmes urge "jihad" against "the enemy" - namely, South Sudan's ruling party.
The TV carries videos promoting the Popular Defence Forces (PDF) militia, a mainstay of the Sudanese military. The footage features PDF "martyrs" and archive footage of battles from the long-running civil war.
Other footage, broadcast under the title "The Youth Who Answer The Call To Arms", urges young men to join up. It features key figures from the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), including the defence minister and Khartoum State governor, who are shown dressed in military fatigues, extolling the virtues of jihad.
Unlike its counterpart in South Sudan, Khartoum's official TV is not showing contemporary footage from Heglig. Instead, it relies on archive video from other battlegrounds. The TV repeatedly insists that Sudanese forces are about to "liberate" the area.
South Sudan TV is showing footage of parades and recordings of commanders addressing soldiers. In one video, a commander addresses his soldiers in Arabic and blames the NCP and President Bashir for lying to their people and dragging the countries to the brink of war.
The commander urges his fighters to "liberate Khartoum from the NCP" and talks of sending President Bashir and his tribe "back to the Arabian peninsula".
Echoing the jihad calls from Sudanese commanders, the SPLA officer advocates "a Christian holy war" against the "mondokoro" (slang for Arab Sudanese), and promises to hand over President Bashir and other Sudanese officials to the International Criminal Court.
The network has been showing footage of prisoners of war, said to have been captured in Heglig. The...

Summary:


The assembly's presiding officer is urging people to make sure they are registered to vote in May's elections.

Article: The commercial, by Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), was released on Saturday and has since gone viral.
It shows a SWAT team "saving stranded Aussies" abroad from missing a barbeque on the country's national day.
The Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) said it has received about 250 complaints, mostly from vegans.
ASB said it was also reviewing complaints of violence, and discrimination against Indigenous Australians.
The campaign has been accused of cultural insensitivity for using the slogan "Operation Boomerang" - an Indigenous term - to mark Australia Day.
The national day commemorates the arrival of the first Europeans in the country but is seen by many Indigenous Australians as a day of mourning.
In one scene in the advert, a SWAT team smashes into the home of a man in New York saying "C'mon mate, in a few hours you'll be eating lamb on the beach", to which the the bearded man responds: "But I'm a vegan now...".
The ad later cuts to a shot of a flamethrower-wielding SWAT officer burning a bowl of kale on the vegan's table.
Meat & Livestock Australia said the ad was "tongue in cheek".
"Consumers are free to make up their own minds in relation to lifestyle choices, including what they eat. We appreciate that not all Australians eat lamb," group marketing manager for MLA Andrew Howie said in a statement.
"MLA is also aware of some complaints about the use of the word "boomerang" in the advertisement. It is not our intention to cause any offense through the use of this term which is used to symbolise Australians returning home for Australia Day."
Extracts of the complaints will be published on the Advertising Standards Bureau website after its next board meeting in about two weeks time, an ASB spokesperson said.

Summary: An action movie-style advertisement campaign to promote Australian lamb has angered vegans who call it "discriminatory".
###
Article: The Bank argues that the polymer notes stay cleaner and are more secure than cotton paper notes, which have been used for more than 100 years.
The £5 note featuring Sir Winston Churchill will be the first plastic banknote.
More than 20 countries around the world have adopted polymer banknotes.
The Bank of England said in September that it was considering a switch from cotton paper to polymer notes.
It then visited various shopping centres around the UK to gauge public opinion about the proposed change.
Nearly 13,000 people gave feedback. The Bank said 87% of those who responded were in favour of polymer, only 6% were opposed and 7% were neutral. However, some suggested the notes were too slippery.
It has now confirmed their introduction into the currency, starting with the £5 note. The £10 note is to go plastic about a year later, carrying the image of Jane Austen.
Follow a fiver - from production to destruction
The new banknotes will be made from a thin, transparent and flexible film made of polypropylene.
This is coated with an ink layer that enables it to carry the printed design features of a banknote. This allows the inclusion of windows or clear portions in the design, used to enhance protection against counterfeits.
The Bank has said that these notes last for 2.5 times longer than paper banknotes. They will survive a spin in the washing machine, but will still melt under extreme heat such as an iron.
Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, said: "Ensuring trust and confidence in money is at the heart of what central banks do.
"Polymer notes are the next step in the evolution of banknote design to meet that objective. The quality of polymer notes is higher, they are more secure from counterfeiting, and they can be produced at lower cost to the taxpayer and the environment."
The Bank said it expected to enter a contract with Innovia Security to supply the polymer material for the new £5 and £10 notes, in which case Innovia would establish a polymer production plant in Wigton, Cumbria, in...

Summary: Plastic banknotes that can survive a spin in the washing machine are to be brought into circulation by the Bank of England in 2016.
###
Article: The former deputy prime minister told the BBC takeovers "could be very helpful", but the UK should do more to protect its national interests.
This week, American drugs giant Pfizer announced it was bidding for British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.
The firm has 6,700 employees in the UK.
If successful, the deal would be the biggest ever takeover of a UK business by a foreign company.
Lord Heseltine, who is an adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron on economic growth, told the BBC's business editor Kamal Ahmed that ministers should have "reserve powers" to protect British companies when crucial interests, such as the country's science base, were at risk.
"Foreign takeovers can often be hugely helpful and I have no doctrinal preoccupations - I've done enough takeovers of small businesses myself to know how valuable they can be," he said.
"But the important point is that every other advanced economy has mechanisms of some sort on a failsafe basis to scrutinise foreign takeovers and we're the only country that doesn't."
The proposed acquisition of AstraZeneca has prompted protests by some who feel the deal would jeopardise Britain's science and medical industries.
AstraZeneca has eight sites in the UK and about 6,700 employees.
Pfizer has said it would relocate large parts of its business to the UK, if the deal goes through. It has also suggested it wants to invest in research which could create more jobs.
But Lord Heseltine expressed his reservations over the deal.
"There are so many issues about the science base, about the supply chains, about employment prospects that ought to be explored and I don't see any way in which this can be adequately done unless the government has reserve powers.
"It's a question of where their headquarters are, where the decisions are taken, who determines what research is done and where, how much government money goes into supporting the science base within a co-operative arrangement, where the supply chains are going to be and what the motive is," he said.
Labour's business...

Summary: Conservative peer Lord Heseltine has said the government should have greater powers to intervene when British companies are the target of takeover bids by foreign businesses.
###
Article: The Deep Text engine can understand text with "near-human accuracy", a Facebook blogpost explained.
It said the AI system was developed to help people get more out of the site and to help catch spam and other unwanted messages.
Deep Text is being tested with Facebook Messenger and to generate responses to certain search queries.
With Messenger, the system is primed to spot when people are talking about preparing to travel and this can lead to software robots - known as bots - asking if they need to call a cab.
Similarly, if someone writes that they have something to sell, Deep Text-based bots will grab information about what is being sold and its price and suggest the seller uses Facebook's sales tools to make sure the ad reaches a wide audience.
Deep Text has emerged from work Facebook is doing on bots that can automatically help the site's users.
Future work will refine the AI engine's ability to get at the deeper meanings of text so it can spot subtle connections between words such as "bro" and "brother" that are often missed by other language analysis tools, said Facebook.
Rather than be directed by humans, the software has been allowed to learn about human language by itself and has built a conceptual map of how words are used and how they relate to each other.
The greater understanding of text could be useful when applied to lengthy text-based conversations that take place on Facebook to spot relevant or interesting comments.
It will also be used to clean up message threads by weeding out spam or other unwanted replies.
Facebook also said it planned to use Deep Text to improve its understanding of what people like so it can refine the information and adverts they are shown.
Currently, said Facebook, Deep Text can analyse several thousand posts per second and can handle more than 20 languages.
Mike Murphy, writing on the Quartz tech news website, said there were dangers involved in mapping people's interests ever more closely.
"As Facebook gets better at offering us personalised search results from our...

Summary: Facebook has developed AI software to help understand what people are talking about in posts to the social network.
###
Article: On Wednesday, the council agreed to a two-month delay to the decision after Cuadrilla submitted additional information.
In June, when the company put in the original application for the two sites between Blackpool and Preston, oil was above $110 a barrel and it has been falling ever since.
It's important to stress that Cuadrilla is looking for shale gas, not oil, but the wholesale price of natural gas tends to follow the same trends as oil.
John Hall from Alfa Energy Group says: "The shale gas market took off in the US on the back of rising oil prices" as the price rose from around $60 a barrel in 2007 and started heading towards $140.
"My guess is that with the Brent price below $50 it will be difficult to justify short-term investment in shale, certainly in the UK," he says.
The likes of Chevron, Shell and Exxon have been delaying expansion plans or shelving projects worldwide that no longer look profitable.
So what is the break-even price for onshore shale gas in the UK? As with so many figures relating to the oil and gas industry, it is very hard to tell.
Cuadrilla wants to conduct exploratory drilling because it does not know how much shale gas there is in the area or how easy it would be to extract.
Greenpeace assembled some research and concluded that: "gas prices need to be higher than they are, or what the market says they will be, for the UK shale gas sector to even break even".
But Cuadrilla is playing a longer game than that. First of all, even if it gets regulatory clearance in two months, it is unlikely to be commercially extracting any gas from the ground until the end of the decade, by which time prices could have changed considerably.
Also, it is not just the suitability of the rocks for fracking that is being tested at the moment - it is the whole planning process.
Prof Stuart Haszeldine from the University of Edinburgh says it is unlikely that the first projects in the UK would be profitable anyway, "because of the intense legislative burden, and because they are one-offs with large...

Summary: Has the decision by Lancashire County Council on whether to allow Cuadrilla Resources to conduct exploratory fracking been overtaken by events, given that oil has fallen below $50 a barrel?
###
Article: Dame Rosemary Butler said it was "critical" that people voted, with more powers coming to Wales.
She said fewer than half of those eligible to vote did so in 2011.
"Yet when I tell people that around Â£16bn is spent on things like health and education, they quickly take an interest in how that money should be spent," she said.
Elections for the assembly and police and crime commissioners take place on  5 May.
There are concerns that up to 70,000 people in Wales - the number of voters in a typical constituency - have not registered to vote out of an adult population of 2.3m.
Speaking on National Voter Registration Day on Friday, Dame Rosemary said: "Encouraging more people to vote has been a key part of my role as Presiding Officer through campaigns like Women in Public Life, and tackling the democratic deficit.
"Devolution in Wales is moving into a new era with more powers set to lie here and more decisions made in Wales, for Wales."
Rhydian Thomas, head of the Electoral Commission in Wales, said they were fully behind the drive to recruit more voters.
"It's a fantastic opportunity to spread the message that young people, students, renters and home-movers are still much less likely to be registered to vote," he said.
Details of how to register to vote are available online.

Summary: