Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are to visit Edinburgh later as part of their public engagements in the run-up to their wedding on 19 May.
The royal couple’s first stop will be at the Esplanade in front of Edinburgh Castle before watching the One O’clock Gun being fired.
They will then visit social enterprise cafe, Social Bite.
Kensington Palace said the couple would be meeting members of the public and learn more about work in the community.
They will be officially welcomed to the city by the Royal Marines Scotland Band.
The couple will marry at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, at midday on 19 May.
Social Bite distributes 100,000 items of food and hot drinks to homeless people across Scotland each year, as well as employing staff who have experienced homelessness themselves.
In the cafe, Harry and Ms Markle will learn more about the social enterprise, meet staff and tour the kitchen.
They will be the latest in a string of high-profile visitors to Social Bite premises.
MPs are to examine the use of non-disclosure agreements as part of an inquiry into sexual harassment in the workplace.
The Women and Equalities Committee said it would consider whether they were being abused by employers and legal experts to “cover up wrongdoing”.
How to protect staff and make it easier for them to report abuse are among other issues that will be looked at.
Tory MP Maria Miller said changes to workplace culture were clearly needed.
The inquiry follows a string of allegations of harassment and bullying against leading figures in the US film and media industries, as well as claims of inappropriate behaviour in Parliament and other high-profile British institutions.
Announcing the inquiry, the committee’s chair, Mrs Miller – a former Conservative cabinet minister – said women had come forward to speak about the “appalling experiences” that they had faced in a number of different sectors.
The cross-party committee, she said, would look at the extent of the problem in British workplaces, who the perpetrators were, why it was continuing to happen and how it could best be tackled.
The MPs will consider the scope of victims for legal redress, including employment tribunals and other forms of dispute resolution, as well as the use of non-disclosure agreements.
Critics says these confidentiality agreements have been used to buy the silence of victims of harassment and assault.
“Our recent evidence session with legal experts, employee and employers representatives painted a stark picture,” Mrs Miller said.
“We need to change workplace culture, keep women safe and provide effective legal remedies,” she added.
The cross-party committee is already looking at women’s experiences of everyday sexism in public places.
Under proposals published last week, MPs found to have bullied or harassed their staff will have to write a letter of apology and undergo training while, in more serious cases, they could be suspended or forced to face a public vote on their future.
The committee also called for a new code of behaviour, independent of the political parties, applying to everyone on the Parliamentary estate, including visitors.
Image copyrightLONDON FIRE BRIGADEImage captionPeople are being told to avoid the area
About 120 firefighters are tackling a large blaze at warehouse units on a north-west London industrial estate.
London Fire Brigade said that about a third of the building at Long Drive, Northolt, was alight and 20 appliances had been sent as crews worked to stop the blaze spreading to other units.
Nearby residents have been advised to keep windows closed due to thick smoke.
Station manager Ben King said it was a “very visible fire” and the crews would be tackling it “for a number of hours”.
Mr Sinclair thanked those affected for their “patience and understanding” during the disruption.
A total of 261 arrivals and departures had been scheduled for Monday.
Residents who were evacuated to temporary accommodation have been told they can now return to their homes.
A tunnel used by some rail services from St Pancras International was closed around midnight, affecting services.
Image copyrightROYAL NAVY/MOD/CROWN COPYRIGHTImage captionRoyal Navy divers helped in the removal operationImage copyrightROYAL NAVY/MOD/CROWN COPYRIGHTImage captionThe Ministry of Defence says bomb disposal teams deal with about 60 German World War Two bombs a year
The Commonwealth has secretly begun considering who might succeed the Queen as its head, the OP’S NEWS has learned.
The issue is hugely sensitive because the role is not hereditary and will not pass automatically to the Prince of Wales on the Queen’s death.
The Commonwealth has set up a “high level group” to look at the way the international organisation is governed.
This group is meeting later, officially to review how the Commonwealth is run by its secretariat and governors.
However, senior sources added that the gathering in London would also consider what happens when the Queen, who turns 92 in April, dies.
One said: “I imagine the question of the succession, however distasteful it may naturally be, will come up.”
The agenda for the all-day summit, seen by the OP’S NEWS , says there will be a discussion of “wider governance considerations” which insiders say is code for the succession.
The group is expected to report to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London in April, which is likely to be the last that the 91-year-old monarch will attend.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionThe Queen congratulating winners of the Commonwealth Youth Awards in 2016
A second source said the issue of the succession is expected to be discussed by Commonwealth leaders on the margins of the summit, particularly when they meet without officials “on retreat” at Windsor Castle.
The Queen was proclaimed Head of the Commonwealth at her coronation when she was head of state in seven of its eight members.
It is not an hereditary position that will pass automatically to her son, who will be head of state in only 15 of the 53 member nations that now make up the Commonwealth.
Any decision about the future would have to be made by the Commonwealth heads of government at the time of the Queen’s death. But there is no formal process for choosing her successor.
While many Commonwealth figures presume there will be no realistic alternative to Prince Charles, there has in the past been talk of electing a ceremonial leader to improve the organisation’s democratic credentials.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionPrince Charles is considered the obvious successor to the Queen as head of the Commonwealth
One source said the issue to be decided was whether a one-off decision should be taken to appoint Prince Charles to the position, or whether a new process should be agreed to ensure that it is always the British monarch who automatically becomes head of the Commonwealth.
“There are various formulas being played with,” the source said. “Should it always be the heir to the throne or Prince Charles himself? Is it the person or the position?”
The high level group, which is made up of seven senior former ministers from the Commonwealth, will meet at the body’s London headquarters at Marlborough House.
The group, which has its own staff and budget, is independent of the Commonwealth Secretariat. It will look at how the secretariat is run and funded, how a new secretary general is chosen and the balance of power between the Commonwealth’s governors and executive committee.
According to documents seen by the OP’S NEWS , the high level group will not just confine itself to bureaucratic changes. The agenda for the meeting says: “Discussions will take into consideration the issues raised in the first session and also the wider governance considerations of the Commonwealth.”
Image copyrightPAImage captionThe Queen has been the head of the Commonwealth since her coronation in 1953. In that time she has travelled across the constituent countries, including Australia in 1977, above
The Queen has been working in private to try to ensure that Prince Charles does succeed her, sending senior officials around the world to lobby Commonwealth leaders.
At the last CHOGM in Malta in 2015, the Queen told them that she could not “wish to have been better supported and represented in the Commonwealth than by the Prince of Wales who continues to give so much to it with great distinction”.
The Prince of Wales represented the Queen at the CHOGM in Sri Lanka in 2013. A whole section of his website is devoted to the Commonwealth, noting that he has visited 41 out of 53 countries and has been a “proud supporter” for more than four decades.
The high level group consists of:
Chairman Anote Tong: Former president of Kiribati
Lord Howell: Former British energy secretary
Louise Frechette: Former United Nations deputy secretary general
Robert Hill: Former Australian defence minister
Dame Billie Miller: Former deputy prime minister of Barbados
Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: Former Nigerian minister of finance
George Vella: Former deputy prime minister of Malta
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionThe software is trained to spot typical characteristics of propaganda content
The government has unveiled a tool it says can accurately detect jihadist content and block it from being viewed.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd told the BBC she would not rule out forcing technology companies to use it by law.
Ms Rudd is visiting the US to meet tech companies to discuss the idea, as well as other efforts to tackle extremism.
Thousands of hours of content posted by the Islamic State group was run past the tool, in order to “train” it to automatically spot extremist material.
The government provided £600,000 of public funds towards the creation of the tool by an artificial intelligence company based in London.
Media captionWATCH: The BBC’s Chris Foxx learns about the tool
ASI Data Science said the software is capable of detecting 94% of IS’s online activity, with an accuracy of 99.995%.
Anything the software was not sure about would then be flagged up for a human decision to be taken.
It is intended to lighten the moderation burden faced by small companies that may not have the resources to effectively tackle extremist material being posted on their sites.
Similar tools in the past have been heavily criticised by advocates of an “open” internet, saying such efforts can produce false positives – and that means content that is not particularly problematic ends up being taken down or blocked.
In London, reporters were given an off-the-record briefing detailing how ASI’s software worked, but were asked not to share its precise methodology. However, in simple terms, it is an algorithm that draws on characteristics typical of IS and its online activity.
In Silicon Valley, the home secretary told the OP’S NEWS the tool was made as a way to demonstrate that the government’s demand for a clampdown on extremist activity was not unreasonable.
“It’s a very convincing example of the fact that you can have the information you need to make sure this material doesn’t go online in the first place,” she said.
Media captionWATCH: Home Secretary Amber Rudd on new terror tool
“The technology is there. There are tools out there that can do exactly what we’re asking for. For smaller companies, this could be ideal.”
Silicon Valley giants such as Facebook and Google are pouring their own resources into solving this problem, but this tool is at first intended to be used by small companies, and they may one day be forced to use it.
“We’re not going to rule out taking legislative action if we need to do it,” the home secretary said.
“But I remain convinced that the best way to take real action, to have the best outcomes, is to have an industry-led forum like the one we’ve got.”
The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, launched last year, brings together several governments including the US and UK, and major internet firms like Facebook, Google, Twitter and others.
However, the bigger challenge is predicting which parts of the internet that jihadis will use next.
The Home Office estimates that between July and the end of 2017, extremist material appeared in almost 150 web services that had not been used for such propaganda before.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionRussia has already denied rumours that it was behind the cyber-attack
The official Winter Olympics website was taken offline after being hit by a cyber-attack, officials have confirmed.
The site was affected just before the beginning of the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
TV and internet systems at the Games were also disrupted, though operations were restored about 12 hours later.
However, a spokesman said that the International Olympic Committee would not be commenting on who might have been behind the incident.
“Maintaining secure operations is our purpose,” said Mark Adams.
He added that the issue was being dealt with but that he was not aware who had carried out the attack.
Russia responds
Prior to the Games, some cyber-security experts had expressed concern that countries like Russia and North Korea might try to target the event.
But the Russian Foreign Ministry has denied rumours that Russian hackers were involved.
“We know that Western media are planning pseudo-investigations on the theme of ‘Russian fingerprints’ in hacking attacks on information resources related to the hosting of the Winter Olympic Games in the Republic of Korea,” the foreign ministry said.
“Of course, no evidence will be presented to the world.”
There have been concerns for months that the Games and spectators could be targeted by cyber-attacks.
“At high-profile events, cyber-activists may take advantage of the large audience to spread their message,” it said.
“There is also the possibility that mobile or other communications will be monitored.”
The Pyeongchang Games are certainly not the first to be targeted by hackers.
In January, Konstantinos Karagiannis, BT’s chief technology officer for security consulting, tweeted that during the 2012 London Olympics he and his team, “fought back quite a cyber-onslaught”.
A man who suffered constant pain after surgery cured it by taking a plunge in cold open water.
The man’s case has been reviewed by doctors who suggest a short, sharp cold water swim may offer an alternative to strong painkillers and physiotherapy.
The 28-year-old man who suffered from post-operative pain found it disappeared totally after doing an open water swim.
However cold water swimming does not suit everyone and entails risks.
The man had been a keen triathlete prior to his operation and had found conventional treatments had made little difference to his severe pain.
Report author Dr Tom Mole, from the University of Cambridge, said he hopes that it “gives new hope to people recovering from pain after surgery”.
The man, who suffered from excessive facial flushing, underwent an operation (endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy) that cut the triggering nerves inside his chest.
The surgery went well but afterwards he suffered from severe, persistent pain which caused him a “great deal of distress”.
He found conventional treatments had made little difference to his severe pain. He said exercise and movement in his physiotherapy sessions made the pain worse, which prevented him from completing his rehabilitation.
Cold water swimming – dangers and guidance
Image copyrightSCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
Outdoor swimming in cold water saps your body heat, so your arms and legs get weaker. If this happens, you could get into trouble if you’re unable to get out of the water.
Wear a wetsuit for anything more than a quick dip
Don’t jump into cold water – wade in slowly instead
Swim close to the shore
Take warm clothes to put on afterwards – even in summer you’ll feel colder when you get out
Take extra care in reservoirs, which are deeper and colder than lakes and rivers
Shivering and teeth chattering are the first symptoms of hypothermia. If that happens, get out of the water and warm up
A keen triathlete before his operation, he decided to do an open water swim to take his mind off the pain.
The man, who has not been named, said it was a “long shot” as to whether it would help his pain but he was “desperate to get some relief”.
The swim entailed plunging into the water from a rocky outcrop and swimming for around a minute before he could reach somewhere to safely climb back ashore.
“I initially thought ‘damn this is so cold I’m going to die!’ and I just swam for my life,” he told the report’s authors.
“Once I was in the water, I had tunnel vision – for the first time in months, I completely forgot about the pain or the fear of shooting pains in my chest if I moved.
“My entire body tingled with the cold. I just knew if I didn’t keep swimming, I’d soon freeze. After a few moments I actually enjoyed it – it was just an immersive rush of adrenaline.
“When I came out of the water, I realised the neuropathic pain had gone away. I couldn’t believe it.”
Fear of drowning
The authors believe it is the first case of its kind documented, although cold water baths have been used in sports medicine to ease injuries.
Although it is unclear why it apparently cured his pain, they say there are some possible explanations:
The shock of the sudden cold water immersion and the fear of drowning might have induced a wave of nervous system activity and a potential altered level of consciousness that could lead to altered pain perception
The enforced cold swimming may bring a number of high intensity distraction stimuli that could outcompete nerve endings and prevent perception of pain
The man’s reduced mobility might have helped maintain the pain, so the pain relief he felt in the water would have enabled him to move freely therefore breaking the cycle
The authors caution it is only one patient and say more research is needed “to assess the replicability and feasibility of forced cold water swimming as a potentially effective, natural intervention to enhance recovery outcomes from common post-operative complications”.
The authors warn that cold water swimming is not for everyone – and there is a significant risk of hypothermia.
There is also a risk from the body’s acute cold shock response, which may affect the arm muscles while swimming and can lead to incapacitation and potential drowning within minutes if unsupervised.
A jury has found two former Baltimore police detectives guilty for their role in a sprawling police corruption scandal, bringing the total number of convicted officers to eight. Who were the members of the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF)?
When the Baltimore City Police Department created the GTTF, it was intended to be an elite squad of highly-trained officers tasked with seizing illegal guns. Instead, a trial in federal court has revealed that the officers went rogue, and used their power to steal money, drugs and guns, and terrorise the people they stopped.
In some cases, they even resold the very drugs and guns they were supposed to take off the streets.
All but one of its members was indicted on robbery, extortion and overtime fraud in March 2017 after a lengthy investigation by the FBI. Six pleaded guilty, including Sergeant Wayne Jenkins, the unit’s leader since June 2016.
This week, the last two officers still fighting the charges – Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor – were found guilty of robbery, conspiracy and racketeering, but acquitted of possession of a firearm in a crime of violence. Testimony from four of the unit’s former members revealed in greater detail the extent of the corruption and the lengths to which the GTTF would go to cover their tracks.
Here is a breakdown of some of the players and the most shocking revelations from the case.
Image copyrightBALTIMORE POLICE
Sergeant Wayne Jenkins
Jenkins pleaded guilty to regularly stealing drugs from the people he stopped or arrested. He re-sold the drugs through a bail bondsman, who testified that Jenkins would leave large amounts of marijuana, heroin and cocaine in a shed in his backyard on an almost nightly basis. The two men split the proceeds.
Jenkins admitted to stealing cash from people he stopped or arrested during his work as a police officer. In one case described at the trial, Jenkins directed his men to break open a safe containing over $200,000 (£144,500). Jenkins took half the money and two kilos of cocaine, then told the officers to reseal the safe and create a cell phone video pretending to open it for the first time, finding only $100,000 inside.
He also admitted planting 28g of heroin on a man who was then sent to prison.
According to trial testimony, after robbing a high-level drug dealer, Jenkins listened to the man’s phone calls to his wife from jail, telling her to hire a lawyer. In an attempt to stop her, Jenkins had his officers write a fake note purportedly from the husband’s mistress. The note was left in the wife’s door.
After Jenkins’ arrest, federal agents found a huge cache of tools and weapons including brass knuckles, an 18-inch (46cm) machete, a sledgehammer, a grappling hook and several black masks which his former subordinate officers testified he intended to use for home invasions.
Image copyrightBALTIMORE POLICE
Detective Momodu Gondo
Gondo admitted that he provided information and protection to a heroin operation, which included a childhood friend. This included giving advice to a drug dealer after he discovered a police GPS tracker attached to his car.
During the trial, Gondo testified he and another officer planned a burglary, which included using a police tracking device to determine when their target was not home. They stole 800g of heroin, jewellery, watches and a gun.
Gondo admitted he routinely stole cash from people’s homes when given the opportunity, and split the take with his fellow officers. He told the jury that after one particularly large score, Jenkins told them, “Don’t be greedy. We can do this three times a year.”
Image copyrightBALTIMORE POLICE
Detective Jemell Rayam
Rayam admitted that he’d been stealing money long before he joined the Gun Trace Task Force, as early as 2009. He also re-sold stolen drugs and split the proceeds with Jenkins.
He stole $20,000 alongside two friends who posed as police officers during a home invasion.
While committing a different masked home invasion with Officer Momodu Gondo, Rayam was surprised by a woman in the home and held her at gunpoint with his police-issued firearm.
On the stand, Rayam wept after listening to a tape of himself and other members of the task force failing to render aid at the scene of a serious car accident they caused. “It could have been any of us. Any of you, my mother, my father” he told the jury. “We just didn’t stop.”
Image copyrightBALTIMORE POLICE
Sergeant Thomas Allers
As the former head of the GTTF, Allers admitted stealing cash from civilians on several occasions in the course of his police work, along with officers Hersl, Rayam and Gondo.
In one instance, Allers stole $10,000 he found while searching the home of a man named “D.R.”. According to Allers’ plea agreement, the man was later shot and killed by another man because he could not repay a drug-related debt.
Image copyrightBALTIMORE POLICE
Detective Evodio Hendrix
Hendrix admitted stealing money on several occasions, with his fellow officers, during traffic stops and while executing search warrants.
He told the jury that Jenkins instructed them to carry BB-guns in their police cars “in case you need to get yourself out of a situation” like shooting an unarmed suspect.
Image copyrightBALTIMORE POLICE
Detective Maurice Ward
Ward admitted stealing money during traffic stops and while executing search warrants.
He told the jury that on one occasion, he and Officer Taylor pulled rubbish from a house they needed a search warrant for and recovered evidence of marijuana. They later realised they had taken the trash from the wrong house, but wrote up a fraudulent search warrant anyway.
After the group stole over $100,000 from a safe, Ward testified he was given a $20,000 cut. He claims that because the amount was so large he was scared he would be caught, and dumped the money into a field behind his house. “It was too much,” he said. “The bad outweighed the good.”
Image copyrightBALTIMORE POLICE
Detective Daniel Hersl
A jury found Hersl guilty for his role in several robberies committed by the squad, including an incident where the officers took over $25,000 from a man’s home without charging him a crime.
All of the officers were convicted of overtime fraud – filing paperwork to claim work they never showed up to do.
In 2015, Hersl more than doubled his salary in part from fraudulent overtime claims.
Image copyrightBALTIMORE POLICE
Detective Marcus Taylor
Taylor was characterised at trial as the youngest and most inexperienced officer on the task force.
Former officers testified that their main method of making arrests was “door pops” – driving up to large groups and throwing the doors open as if they were about to arrest someone.
If anyone ran, the officers would chase after them. Taylor was the fastest, and the other officers relied on him to make the apprehensions.
A jury also found Taylor guilty for his role in several robberies involving other members of the squad, including an incident where the officers stole over $100,000 from a high-level drug trafficker’s safe.
Ten years ago, Aboriginal Australian Ian Hamm welcomed words he had been waiting a lifetime to hear.
“For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendents and for their families left behind, we say sorry,” Kevin Rudd, then prime minister, said in parliament.
The apology on 13 February, 2008, referred to a shameful national chapter in which indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families.
Mr Hamm was among them.
As a three-week-old baby in 1964, he was taken from his Aboriginal family by government officers and adopted into a white community.
Tens of thousands of other indigenous children were removed over successive generations until 1970, under policies aimed at assimilation.
Mr Hamm said Mr Rudd’s historic apology helped changed his own sense of identity.
“My country doesn’t argue about me any more – it gave me peace that my story, like so many others, wasn’t a matter of debate,” he told the BBC.
“I remember writing out my feelings the day after the speech and I called it: ‘Today is the day I wake up.'”
What the apology said
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionThousands gathered outside Australia’s parliament in 2008 to witness the historic speech
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.
Excerpt from the Apology to Australia’s indigenous peoples – 13 February, 2008
An estimated 20,000 members of the Stolen Generations are alive today. Many have described the apology as a watershed moment.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionA woman watches Mr Rudd’s national apology in 2008
A landmark 1997 report, titled, Bringing Them Home, estimated that as many as one in three indigenous children were taken and placed in institutions and foster care, where many suffered abuse and neglect.
A government-funded survivors group, the Healing Foundation, said it had a “profoundly destructive” impact on those removed and their families, many of whom had carried lifelong trauma.
‘Keep going’
Indigenous Australians, who comprise about 3% of the population, continue to to experience high levels of disadvantage.
GETTY IMAGES
OP's News 