The Scottish Government has announced a new £1.5m fund to help small businesses in the Highlands and Islands.
The Scottish Government has announced a new £1.5m fund to help small businesses in the Highlands and Islands.
The fund will be used to help businesses in the Highlands and Islands to access finance

A man who briefly bought and owned the Google.com web domain has been rewarded by the search giant.

Article: Rachael Hamilton - who stood down as a list MSP to fight the seat - took Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire with a majority of more than 9,000.
She held the constituency for her party from closest rival Gail Hendry of the SNP.
Labour's Sally Prentice was third with Lib Dem Catriona Bhatia fourth.
The by-election was called after John Lamont stood down to fight the Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk seat at Westminster which he also won.
"We had an all-female line-up and I was just pleased to be one of those," said Ms Hamilton.
"I am pleased to be going back to the Scottish Parliament - I am absolutely delighted.
"And I am also delighted for John in his Westminster seat as well. The number of seats that we are winning throughout Scotland for Westminster - I think that is really encouraging as well - I think the Conservatives are on the up."
She added that the push for another independence referendum had definitely helped her "on the doorsteps".
"We can stand up and oppose independence and I believe that is what voters in the Borders were really gunning for," she said.

Summary: The Conservatives have won a Scottish Parliament by-election in the Borders held on the same night as the general election.
###
Article: The poll suggests services like Spotify and Apple Music should "experiment with pricing" to woo the 90% of the British population who are not subscribers.
The research shows the 10% who do subscribe to music streaming services pay an average of £7.07 a month.
More than 2,100 adults were involved in the YouGov and Zuora study.
Revenues from music streaming grew by 49% to £251m in 2015, according to UK Music.
Yet the reach of music streaming services in the UK is much less than that of video streaming services, to which 27% of the population subscribe.
The pollsters said there was a huge number of potential customers for service providers that could be accessed "via innovation in pricing and packaging".
"There is a lot more room to grow," said Tien Tzuo, chief executive of Zuora  - a firm that sets up and runs subscription billing services.
The research suggests that more than half of the 5.2 million people who subscribe to music streaming services have no plans to purchase a CD again.
The online survey was conducted between 27 April and 4 May 2016.
Follow us on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, on Instagram at bbcnewsents, or if you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

Summary: Almost half of the people who do not currently subscribe to music streaming services think they are too expensive, a survey suggests.
###
Article: It said new flight paths would allow it to maintain safe and sustainable growth without affecting punctuality.
An earlier trial of an alternative route pattern for aircraft using the airport was ended early, in October 2015, after complaints about noise.
A publicity campaign about proposed flight path changes will feature a television advert, online information and 600,000 leaflets.
The consultation will last for 14 weeks.
Airport chief executive Gordon Dewar said any proposed changes to flight paths would be looked at carefully.
He said: "I think any change means that inevitably we have change to the impact. Sometimes that's an improvement for people and sometimes it's not, unfortunately.
"But what we want to make sure is we understand that when we're looking at the options in the second stage of the process that we're putting the balance on the really important growth agenda for Scotland and then making sure that we're being sensitive and looking after those that we can in the community."
Helena Paul, of the campaign Edinburgh Airport Watch, said she viewed the proposed changes with "absolute horror".
She told BBC Radio Scotland: "I wouldn't wish the noise levels that we're now suffering on anyone.
"I was woken again at six o'clock this morning by a plane going over. The last plane went over about quarter to 12 last night. I wouldn't wish that on any community.
"Edinburgh Airport has had established flight routes for 40 years...they do not need to change their flight paths to be able to increase their capacity."
Any proposal to alter flight paths at Edinburgh Airport would have to be approved by the Civil Aviation Authority.

Summary: Edinburgh Airport has launched a major consultation into new flight paths.
###
Article: An administration oversight allowed US student Sanmay Ved to buy the right to control the domain on 29 September.
The oversight left him in charge of Google.com for about a minute until Google caught on and cancelled the transaction.
Now Mr Ved has been given a cash reward for spotting the error, which he has decided to donate to charity.
Google declined to comment on the story.
Mr Ved detailed his experience in a post on the LinkedIn site saying that he had been keeping an eye on Google-related web domains for some time because he used to work at the search giant. Mr Ved is currently an MBA student at a US college.
In the early hours of 29 September he noticed a for sale sign next to the Google.com name while browsing sites on Google's own website-buying service.
He used a credit card to pay the $12 (Â£8) fee to grab google.com and got emails confirming he was the owner. Almost immediately he started getting messages intended for Google's own web administration team.
This was followed by a cancellation message sent by the website buying service which said he could not take over Google.com because someone else had already registered it and his $12 payment was refunded.
Now it has emerged that Mr Ved has been given a "bug bounty" by Google's security team for revealing the weakness in the domain buying system. The internal emails Mr Ved received while in charge of google.com have been passed to this team.
Mr Ved decided to give the cash to an Indian educational foundation and in response, Google doubled the reward.

Summary:


The SNP's Kezia Dugdale has proposed an increase of 1p in the pound for taxpayers in Scotland.
She said: "I think it's a fair point.
"I think it's a fair point.
"I think it's a fair point.
"I think it's a fair

Labour makes a difference in power, not in "principled opposition", the shadow Welsh secretary has told the party's Welsh conference in Llandudno.

Article: "The ship has just left the port," the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Ahmet Uzumcu, said in The Hague.
An investigation into alleged use of chlorine in Syria's civil war is still ongoing, Mr Uzumcu added.
More than 160,000 people have died in three years of the Syrian conflict.
The operation to completely destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile was meant to have been completed by 30 June but is now several months behind schedule.
Fighting and the threat of attack by rebel groups severely delayed the removal of the weapons, analysts say.
The Syrian government approved the initiative last year after a chemical weapons attack outside Damascus left hundreds of people dead.
The US had threatened missile strikes on military sites in the country.
The final 8% of the 1,300-tonne stockpile was loaded on to ships in the Syrian port of Latakia on Monday, Mr Uzumcu said.
The chemical cargo is being shipped to a specially modified US naval vessel, the MV Cape Ray.
The destruction of the most toxic agents will take place on board, at an undisclosed location somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea.
The remaining chemicals will be destroyed in Finland, the US and Britain.
However, the BBC's Anna Holligan says many military experts suspect President Bashar al-Assad may not have revealed the full extent of his chemical capabilities.
A recent OPCW fact finding mission concluded that chlorine gas is likely to have been used in "systematic attacks" in Syria.
Mr Uzumcu said the consequent investigation into use of chlorine, which is being jointly carried out with the UN, "may take a little more time."
Chlorine is an industrial chemical and was not part of the weapons stockpile that Syria agreed to hand over. However, use of it as a weapon would contravene conventions signed by President Assad.
Syria's chemical weapons
•21 August 2013: Chemical weapons attack in Ghouta region near Damascus
•14 September: US and Russia agree deal on destruction of Syria's chemical weapons
•31 December: Initial...

Summary: The last of Syria's declared chemical weapons have been shipped out of the country for destruction, the international watchdog OPCW says.
###
Article: He told ITV's Peston on Sunday that his successor Paul Nuttall was "doing fine" and said UKIP was still needed, to prevent any "back sliding" on Brexit.
Neil Hamilton, UKIP leader in the Welsh Assembly, told the BBC "cosmic forces", not Mr Nuttall were to blame.
Mr Nuttall says UKIP voters who backed the Tories will come back to his party.
UKIP won 3.8 million votes at the last general election in 2015 but, after the UK voted to leave the EU in last year's referendum, many believe that its vote will be badly squeezed on 8 June, with the Conservatives being the main beneficiary.
All the 145 UKIP councillors defending their seats in local elections last week were beaten, although the party did pick up one seat in Burnley.
In Lincolnshire, where Mr Nuttall is standing in the general election in Boston and Skegness, UKIP went from being the official opposition to having no seats at all as the Tories gained 23 seats.
The results prompted the party's former donor Arron Banks - who is no longer a party member - to say it was "finished as an electoral force" under its current leadership.
Sorry, your browser cannot display this map
But former leader Mr Farage told the ITV show that while Prime Minister Theresa May had adopted many of the arguments he had been making for years - she had failed to deliver on immigration targets in her previous job as home secretary.
"UKIP is going to survive, it has to survive, " he said.
"It's all well and good for Mrs May who gives wonderful speeches and sounds very reassuring, but... UKIP needs to be there in case there is back sliding on Brexit.
"If, in two and a half years' time Mrs May has delivered the kind of Brexit that voters wanted, then I think you can ask the question: What is UKIP's future, where does it go from here?
He said Mr Nuttall, who was elected party leader in November 2016, had been "strong and reassuring" after a "tough" 24 hours following last week's local elections.
"It's difficult for him... because the Conservative Party have taken our agenda, for now. It's...

Summary: UKIP "will survive" as an electoral force despite a drubbing at last week's local elections, former leader Nigel Farage has said.
###
Article: However, the high winds and blizzards have also prevented some from opening every day to the public.
Ski-Scotland, which promotes skiing and snowboarding, said snowsports have already generated Â£14m for the economy.
Skiing and snowboarding put more than Â£29m into the Scottish economy in the winter of 2012-13 - one of the best seasons in years.
Heather Negus, of Ski-Scotland, said: "In spite of closures due to storm conditions last week, the figures from the five mountain ski areas up until 22 February are still well ahead of the same point last year.
"Not only are we showing a 12% increase on last year, we're currently also half a percent ahead of 2012-13 which was one of the best seasons in recent years.
"That may not sound a lot, but that season brought us a lot of calm weather as well as good snow, with relatively few days lost to storm conditions."
The mountain resorts are Nevis Range near Fort William; Glencoe Mountain ski centre between Tyndrum and Ballachulish; CairnGorm Mountain near Aviemore; Glenshee between Blairgowrie and Braemar, and The Lecht between Strathdon and Tomintoul.

Summary: Storms have brought more snow to all of Scotland's mountain snowsports resorts, Ski-Scotland has said.
###
Article: Nia Griffith said her party offers "investment in Wales, versus cuts from Westminster" by the Tories.
She urged people to "imagine the price" if there was a Conservative government in Wales as well.
"Labour changes peoples' lives when we are in government", Ms Griffith added.
She reinforced the message of First Minister Carwyn Jones, who told delegates on Saturday that the assembly election in May would be a straight fight between Labour and the Conservatives.
"Together we are fighting for Wales in Westminster and taking on the Tories' appalling treatment of our nation," Ms Griffith said.
"We need to tell families up and down the country about what our Welsh Labour government is delivering.
"Investment in Wales, versus cuts from Westminster - jobs for our young people, not leaving a generation behind.
"That's the difference that a Labour government makes. Labour policies promised then delivered because we are in government.
"So don't listen to those who say we should be happy just shouting from the sidelines, that principled opposition is better than political power.
"If we take that attitude we may as well shut up shop."
Ms Griffith pointed to Labour's establishment of the NHS, introduction of the minimum wage, and delivering devolution with the creation of the National Assembly.
Meanwhile Mr Jones has said income tax rates in Wales would stay the same as those in England under a Labour Welsh government.
He told the Sunday Supplement programme on BBC Radio Wales he would not use new powers to increase income taxes if Labour won the assembly election.
"People have a real squeeze on their personal finances and the last thing I want to do is add to that pressure," he said,
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale has proposed an increase of 1p in the pound for taxpayers in Scotland.

Summary:

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A new report has found that the number of people in the UK who are obese has increased by more than a third in the last decade.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, found that the number of people who were obese in the UK increased by more than a third between 2001 and 2011.
The

The Cotswolds could be policed by the Thames Valley force if plans to "break away" from Gloucestershire County Council go ahead, it is claimed.

Article: The social media site said the request was "by far the largest" it had ever received from a government body.
Photographs, private messages and other information were supplied to a New York court last year, but the process was only made public by a judge this week.
The ruling defined Facebook as a "digital landlord".
A judge said this definition meant the company must comply with search warrants.
The original case investigated fraudulent claimants of US federal disability benefits, whose Facebook accounts apparently showed that they were in fact healthy.
The web giant was ordered to hand over information from the 381 accounts, which the court said contained "evidence of criminality".
After an appeal was denied, Facebook complied with the request but protested that it violated the Fourth Amendment of the US constitution, which protects against "unreasonable searches and seizures".
Facebook also voiced concerns about the lack of date restrictions on the warrant, which it argued allowed the US government to keep the data indefinitely, and the range of data requested, which it said would contain private material which bore no relation to the trial.
The proceedings have been kept private by the court, but after a fresh appeal by Facebook a New York judge has now made the court filing public.
Facebook said the government had obtained "gag orders", preventing it from telling the account holders that it had been forced to hand over their data.
"This unprecedented request is by far the largest we've ever received - by a magnitude of more than ten - and we have argued that it was unconstitutional from the start," wrote Chris Sonderby, a legal adviser to Facebook.
"Of the 381 people whose accounts were the subject of these warrants, 62 were later charged in a disability fraud case.
"This means that no charges will be brought against more than 300 people whose data was sought by the government without prior notice to the people affected."
But a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney defended the court's...

Summary: Facebook is fighting a US court order in which it was forced to hand over data belonging to almost 400 people involved in a benefit fraud trial.
###
Article: The model of the MV Loch Shira is a "Staff Pick" on the Lego Ideas website where designers seek support for their suggestions for new sets.
So far the ferry has gained more than 780 supporters. It needs 10,000 to qualify for a review by Lego.
Designed, built and nominated by Lego Ideas site user Lukeebee1, the Loch Shira bid has CalMac's blessing.
Lukeebee1's suggestion, titled The Great British Holiday - Off to the Scottish Isles, is one of four of the latest Staff Picks being promoted on the ideas website.
The others are a bakery, California holiday set and string instruments.
In his blurb backing his bid, Lukeebee1 said: "CalMac/Caledonian Macbrayne ferries are a common sight all along the coast of Scotland.
"Providing access to the many isles/islands that surround the Scottish mainland. Almost everyone who has visited the Scottish isles will have been on one.
"This model is based on the smaller of the ferries, in particular a ship called Loch Shira, which can often be seen at the town of Largs providing access to isles such as the Isle of Cumbrae."
The Loch Shira Lego set bid comes amid a competitive process to win a new contract to provide west coast ferry services.
Earlier this week, the Scottish government has offered CalMac Ferries Ltd and Serco Caledonian Ferries Ltd access to data to help the companies form their bids.
CalMac currently runs the Clyde and Hebrides services, which covers almost every route on the west coast.
The new contract will run from 1 October 2016 for up to eight years.

Summary: An idea for a Lego set of a Caledonian MacBrayne ferry has been highlighted by employees at the Danish toymaker.
###
Article: BBC Scotland has learned that discussions have been held, but Wilson has much to consider before committing himself to the Ibrox club.
Rangers say they want to create this new role, as well as finding a new head coach, to replace Mark Warburton.
The Englishman left his role as team manager more than two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, former Rangers captain Barry Ferguson would welcome a return to Ibrox after his resignation as Clyde manager on Sunday.
But there has been no contact between the former Scotland midfielder, whose side had gone 10 League Two games without a win, and his former club.
It is unlikely any appointment will be made by Rangers this week, which means caretaker manager Graeme Murty will be in charge for Wednesday's visit by St Johnstone in the Scottish Premiership.
Murty, who has presided over one win and two defeats, has backed the board's right to take their time over a long-term appointment.
"If we appoint quickly and get it wrong, it would be much more damaging," the club's under-20s coach said.
"So we have to be respectful of the board's wishes to go through their process, do their due diligence and get the right person in place.
"I've been told the process is ongoing, interviews are taking place and someone will be appointed. I don't know when it will be."
Murty has admitted he is not enjoying being thrust into the hotseat, although he is relishing the chance to gain experience.
"It's not about me, it's about the football club and the players," he said.
"I'm here to facilitate the players playing well, hopefully, and making sure they know what they need to do on a match day. I'm here fulfilling the role I was asked to do."
Rangers have slipped nine points behind second-placed Aberdeen after two successive league defeats and Murty said he would stand down if he did not think he could benefit the team.
"I'm content to look in the mirror and say that the practices we put on, the work that we're doing, is of a good standard, it's what the players need," he said.
"If I felt I wasn't being...

Summary: Rangers have identified Southampton director of scouting and recruitment Ross Wilson as their number one target for their director of football role.
###
Article: There could be "serious implications" for Gloucestershire Police, the police and crime commissioner has warned.
Cotswold District Council's proposal to form a unity authority with West Oxfordshire has proved controversial.
But CDC says the plans - dubbed 'Coxit' - are at an early stage but aim to improve accountability.
CDC leader Lynden Stowe has said Gloucestershire's "historic borders" would remain under the proposals, which aim to improve the "administration and the delivery of council services".
He told BBC Radio Gloucestershire a few weeks ago: "We would expect the police to patrol up to the existing county borders, exactly as now, so if there's a crime in Cirencester, Gloucestershire Police attend and if there's a burglary in Burford, Thames Valley Police attend."
But Gloucestershire's PCC Martin Surl said he had taken legal advice on the "Coxit" proposal, and warned it could "signal the end of Gloucestershire Police as we know it".
Under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, he said the Cotswolds could become part of Thames Valley Police District.
"If they break away to a new district, we can't continue policing just half a district," he told the BBC.
"So, either we start taking some of Thames Valley's area in Oxfordshire, or they start policing parts of Gloucestershire. Neither want that ."
A spokesman for Cotswold District Council said they "fully understand the initial concerns" but they were "best addressed through the detailed studies that will now take place to assess the feasibility of the unitary proposal".
Mr Surl, an independent, is standing for re-election as Gloucestershire PCC on 5 May, alongside Labour's Barry Kirby and the Conservatives' Will Windsor Clive.

Summary:


The BBC's Panorama programme has exposed the shocking truth about the nuclear industry.
### Article: The BBC's Panorama programme has exposed the shocking truth about the nuclear industry.
### Article: The BBC's Panorama programme has exposed the shocking truth about the nuclear industry.
### Article: The BBC's Pan

The Manx government is "concerned" about the safety of the Sellafield nuclear site, a spokesman said.

Article: About 11,000 people who have had early bowel, breast, prostate, stomach and oesophageal cancer will be involved.
Uncertainty about the drug's possible anti-cancer qualities has led to fierce medical debate in recent years.
If it is proven to work, scientists say it would be "game-changing", by providing a cheap and effective way to help more patients survive.
During the study, funded by the charity Cancer Research UK and the NIHR - the research arm of the NHS - patients will take a tablet every day for five years.
Researchers will compare groups of patients taking different doses of aspirin with people taking dummy (placebo) pills and check for any recurrences of cancer.
Dr Fiona Reddington from Cancer Research UK said: "The trial is especially exciting as cancers that recur are often harder to treat so finding a cheap and effective way to prevent this is potentially game-changing for patients."
The trial will run across 100 UK centres, involving patients who are having or have had treatment for early cancer, and will last up to 12 years.
But scientists warn that aspirin is not suitable for everyone and should not be used without medical advice.
Taking the drug every day comes with a serious health warning as it can cause side effects such as ulcers and bleeding from the stomach, or even the brain.
Prof Ruth Langley, lead investigator on the trial, said: "There's been some interesting research suggesting that aspirin could delay or stop early stage cancers coming back but there's been no randomised trial to give clear proof.
"The trial aims to answer this question once and for all.
"If we find that aspirin does stop these cancers returning, it could change future treatment - providing a cheap and simple way to help stop cancer coming back and helping more people survive."
Alex King, 51, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2009 and has been given the all-clear, said: "Having cancer was one of the toughest experiences of my life.
"Any opportunity to reduce the chance of cancer coming back is...

Summary: The world's largest clinical trial to examine whether aspirin can prevent cancers returning has begun in the UK.
###
Article: Similarities between these old strains of the bug and those prevalent today have given scientists unique insights into the spread of the disease.
It has revealed, for example, the key role played by the medieval Crusades in moving the pathogen across the globe.
The researchers tell Science magazine they hope their study will lead them to the ancient origins of the leprosy.
In medieval times, a sufferer of leprosy was likely to be an outcast, secluded from society in quarantined colonies. Then as now, there was a social stigma with having the disease, but it can be cured if caught early. If left untreated, it can leave sufferers deformed and crippled.
Leprosy sufferers were often quarantined in living areas called leprosaria. In public, they had to wear bells to warn others of their presence. In the bible it was referred to as an "unclean" disease and by 1225, there were about 19,000 leprosaria colonies in Europe.
"The important thing to remember is that leprosaria were religious institutions, showing both a major material investment and adherence to a religious rule of life," explained Prof Monica Green, who specialises in medical history at the Arizona State University, US.
"Leprosy was the only disease in medieval Europe that elicited a specific institutional response. In its full-blown form, it was grossly disfiguring and maiming. Stigma might be reserved for persons with the most serious cases.
"There was a general decline towards the later middle ages, in part because the segregation provided by leprosaria 'worked' in removing the most seriously affected individuals from open society."
Turmoil, crisis and the creation of a state - explore life in the middle ages
The scientists in this new study compared the genetics of the disease-causing bacterium Mycobacterium leprae found in five medieval skeletons from Europe with 11 modern strains.
The DNA comparison showed that one type of leprosy found in Europe 1,000 years ago is the same as one present in the Middle East now.
This strengthened the view that the...

Summary: The genetic code of leprosy-causing bacteria from 1,000-year-old skeletons has been laid bare.
###
Article: All workers are entitled to annual leave and the National Minimum Wage. Employees get additional rights, such as the right not to be unfairly dismissed, maternity rights and redundancy rights.
Which category you fall into depends on the type of contract you have and the obligations between the employer and the employee to provide work and accept work.
The defining feature of a zero-hours contract is that the employer doesn't guarantee work and the worker doesn't guarantee acceptance of work. So in most cases those on zero-hours contracts count as workers.
As the House of Commons Library notes "the distinction between these concepts is complex and the subject of much debate".
It's not just about the wording of your contract, what happens in practice counts too. If there is a regular pattern of work, which is regularly accepted, then an Employment Tribunal can - and indeed they have - deem the contract to be one of employment.
What's the truth behind the politicians' claims on the campaign trail? Our experts investigate the facts, and wider stories, behind the soundbites.
Read latest updates or follow us on Twitter @BBCRealityCheck

Summary: The employment rights you get depend on whether you are classed as an employee or a worker.
###
Article: On Monday, the BBC's Panorama programme uncovered several safety concerns, from staffing levels to waste storage.
The Mannin Branch of the Celtic League has called on the Manx government to campaign for a full, independent inspection of the plant in Cumbria.
Sellafield says the site is safe and has been improved with significant investment in recent years.
A spokesman added: "Safety is our priority and we are managing a very complex site which has got a great deal of hazardous radioactive materials on it."
The Isle of Man is located about 34 miles (55km) from the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant.
Due to its potential impact on the Manx fishing industry, the Manx government began monitoring radioactivity levels in the Irish Sea in 1989.
A government spokesman said: "Seafood fished in Manx waters can contain traces of radio-nuclides associated with effluent discharges from Sellafield to the Irish Sea, therefore these are monitored regularly to confirm that they remain well below maximum safe limits."
The BBC investigation was prompted by a whistle-blower - a former senior manager who was worried by conditions at the plant.
He said his biggest fear was a fire in one of the nuclear waste silos or in one of the processing plants.
The Manx government said it was particularly concerned about "the structural integrity of ageing waste storage ponds and silos".
A spokesman added: "However we are content that Sellafield Ltd and the nuclear regulators are trying to improve the safety situation.
"The government has asked questions about the technical solutions being developed to decommission these redundant structures and representatives have visited the site to look at the work under way".

Summary:


The National Trust has said it is "deeply saddened" by the death of a man who died in a rip current at Crantock beach, Cornwall.
The trust said it was "deeply saddened" by the death of a man who died in a rip current at Crantock beach, Cornwall.

The Duchy of Cornwall was warned of the risk of a "potentially fatal situation" at a beach it owns, ahead of a man's death there last week.

Article: The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has issued new experimental data.
They estimate what spending occurred in each country or region of the UK, and what revenues were raised in each of those countries or regions.
Spending per head in Northern Ireland was £14,020 while the lowest expenditure was in the South East of England at £10,580 per person.
The statistcs suggest that Northern Ireland also had the biggest per-person deficit - the gap between what is raised in revenues and what is spent.
Revenues were estimated at £8,580 per person, giving a deficit of £5,440 per person.
The lowest per-person revenue was in Wales at approximately £7,980 per person followed by the North East of England at £8,200 per person.
The only areas to run per-person surpluses were London, the South East of England and the East of England.
London had the highest net fiscal surplus per person at £3,070.
This is the first time the ONS has published these statistics and is still refining the methodology.
It points out that certain assumptions have to be made because taxes are generally not levied, or collected on a regional basis and most spending is planned to benefit a category of individuals and enterprises irrespective of location.

Summary: Northern Ireland had the highest public spending per head of any region of the UK in 2016.
###
Article: The claim: The cost of borrowing for the UK government is at record low levels. The government should take advantage of this to improve the UK's economic performance.
Reality Check verdict: The yield on UK government bonds has been falling to record lows, making borrowing cheaper, despite the recent cut in the UK's credit ratings. Borrowing to invest has the potential to reduce the need for future borrowing, but that's not guaranteed and it could further damage the UK's credit.
He's right about the cost of borrowing. The yields on 10-year UK government bonds have indeed been at record lows in trading over the past week, and that's a good indicator of the sort of amount the government would have to pay to borrow money.
You can only tell what will actually happen when there is a bond sale, as there was on Tuesday morning.
The government sold £2.5bn of bonds maturing in five years, at a record low yield.
The low bond yield is in some ways a bit surprising, as the downgrades from the ratings agencies S&P and Fitch mean they reckon that lending money to the UK government has become less safe.
But, in fact, what has happened is that the yield on government bonds has fallen because in uncertain times people look for relatively safe investments, such as government bonds.
It's not just the yields on UK government bonds that have been falling. The Swiss 50-year government bond has a negative yield for the first time, meaning that investors are prepared to pay to be able to lend money to the Swiss government. German government bonds also have negative yields, while US 10- and 30-year Treasury bonds are also at record low yields.
The rate of interest the government pays on its debt is important because the UK is currently in debt to the tune of £1.6 trillion (excluding holdings in public sector banks), so a small rise in interest rates would be very expensive for the public finances. The amount the country borrows each year (the deficit) has been falling, but the total debt has kept rising.
The Office for Budget...

Summary: Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb told BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday that the price of borrowing was at "record lows", and that if he became prime minister he would take advantage of this to invest in infrastructure.
###
Article: The company said the practice, which sees certain trains given the green light to miss out stops, was being curtailed due to "customer feedback".
Trains will now stop at all scheduled stops between the hours of 08:00-09:00 and 17:00-18:00.
ScotRail said that out of 59,000 trains that ran over a four-week period, stop skipping only affected 222 trains.
Consumer group Transport Focus said passengers had the right to expect the destination that appeared on their ticket was the one they would be taken to.
Spokesman Robert Samson said: "What would make the problem better is that if the infrastructure in the system improved to such a level that stop skipping was not part of the solution.
"Just now, performance is hovering just below the 90% mark. We want to see that performance improve and that involves cutting down on signalling or other infrastructure issues."
The news comes after the ScotRail Alliance franchise, operated by Dutch firm Abellio, was severely criticised for delayed, cancelled and over-crowded services.
A ScotRail Alliance spokesman said the number of services affected by stop skipping was "miniscule".
He added: "In a tiny number of occasions each month we have to take action to recover the service after some kind of incident.
"Late trains have a knock-on effect on other services behind them, so taking action to get everything back on time is important. If we don't, then disruption affects more and more people.
"What we have decided to do is to make sure that we protect the services that carry the most number of people.
"These are the busy commuter routes that operate during the peak."
The spokesman said that action to correct late-running trains would now take place outwith peak hours.
He said that the chance of large scale disruption as a result was "minimal".
Scottish Labour's transport spokesman Neil Bibby said: "There is nothing more frustrating for passengers than paying over the odds for tickets on overcrowded trains that are often late running, only for the train to fly by their stop....

Summary: ScotRail is to stop late running trains from skipping stops to improve punctuality during rush hour.
###
Article: Oneil Din, 27, from Coventry, got caught in a rip current and died at Crantock beach, Cornwall on 15 August.
Crantock Parish Council told the duchy in April it was "extremely concerned about the safety risks to the public".
The duchy said new warning signs were put up in 2016 and it planned to "see what more can possibly be done".
More on this story, and other Devon and Cornwall news
The duchy was involved in a series of meetings and concluded there was no "simple solution" as the area had protected status, and that re-engineering the course of a river was a complicated and long process with no guarantees of success.
The council said the beach had become more dangerous since a breakwater was damaged by storms in 2015, causing the River Gannel to change course.
Earlier this month 11 bodyboarders had to be rescued at the same beach.
The council said: "Since the river diverted, very significant movements of sand have occurred that have made bathing conditions extremely dangerous at certain states of tide and sea condition".
The council met the duchy, the National Trust and the Marine Management Organisation on 27 January to discuss the issue but no repairs were authorised.
It also wrote a letter to the duchy in April saying it remained "extremely concerned about the safety risks to the public at large on a very busy beach, especially in the summer, and the possibility of an unfortunate, and potentially fatal, situation occurring".
RNLI lifeguard supervisor John Steadman said after the recent death: "Crantock beach has some unpredictable currents at the moment due to the topography of the beach constantly changing."
The duchy, which has land in 23 counties and funds the activities of the Prince of Wales, expressed its condolences and said in a statement: "In 2016 new signs were installed to alert people to the danger of strong currents and other risks.
"We plan to meet again with the parish council, National Trust and other stakeholders to see what more can possibly be done."
The National Trust, which has...

Summary:


The roads of central Juba, the capital of South Sudan, bear witness to the British colonial town it once was: They are lined with neem trees, tall and narrow-leafed, their seeds transported from India.

Article: Tobacco is the biggest culprit, causing 23% of cases in men and 15.6% in women, says the Cancer Research UK report.
Next comes a lack of fresh fruit and vegetables in men's diets, while for women it is being overweight.
The report is published in the British Journal of Cancer.
Its authors claim it is the most comprehensive analysis to date on the subject.
Lead author Prof Max Parkin said: "Many people believe cancer is down to fate or 'in the genes' and that it is the luck of the draw whether they get it.
"Looking at all the evidence, it's clear that around 40% of all cancers are caused by things we mostly have the power to change."
For men, the best advice appears to be: stop smoking, eat more fruit and veg and cut down on how much alcohol you drink.
For women, again, the reviews says the best advice is to stop smoking, but also watch your weight.
Prof Parkin said: "We didn't expect to find that eating fruit and vegetables would prove to be so important in protecting men against cancer. And among women we didn't expect being overweight to be more of a risk factor than alcohol."
In total, 14 lifestyle and environmental factors, such as where you live and the job you do, combine to cause 134,000 cancers in the UK each year.
About 100,000 (34%) of the cancers are linked to smoking, diet, alcohol and excess weight.
One in 25 of cancers is linked to a person's job, such as being exposed to chemicals or asbestos.
Some risk factors are well established, such as smoking's link with lung cancer.
But others are less recognised.
For example, for breast cancer, nearly a 10th of the risk comes from being overweight or obese, far outweighing the impact of whether or not the woman breastfeeds or drinks alcohol.
And for oesophageal or gullet cancer, half of the risk comes from eating too little fruit and veg, while only a fifth of the risk is from alcohol, the report shows.
For stomach cancer, a fifth of the risk comes from having too much salt in the diet, data suggests.
Some cancers, like mouth and throat cancer, are...

Summary: Nearly half of cancers diagnosed in the UK each year - over 130,000 in total - are caused by avoidable life choices including smoking, drinking and eating the wrong things, a review reveals.
###
Article: The killer whales are the same animals recently seen off Caithness.
The group is known in Scotland as the Northern Isles community and moves between Iceland and Scotland to hunt and raise young.
Pippa Low, of Findhorn-based North 58° Sea Adventures, photographed the orca in the firth earlier this week.
She was guided to where they were by marine life observers Adele Sutherland and Alan Airey, who were documenting the orcas' behaviour from locations along the firth's coast, including Burghead.
Ms Low said: "I had just got back to Findhorn Marina, cleaning up after a busy day on the water, when I got a call from Alan Airey to say there were orca in the firth.
"So we squeezed out of Findhorn on the low tide and headed across the firth towards Portmahomack Lighthouse - expertly directed by Adele Sutherland, Alan and the rest of the team.
"We encountered the pod at approximately 8pm, seven miles north-west of Findhorn."
She added: "The pod has been identified by the Icelandic Orca Project as a pod which winters in Iceland.
"Individual identification of each animal is still being confirmed. However, this is the furthest south that these particular whales have ever been recorded by the research group, which makes it an even more interesting sighting."
Kathy James, sightings officer with conservation charity Sea Watch, said: "Although this sighting is now the furthest south that individuals from the Icelandic population have been confirmed, other killer whale sightings have occurred in the Moray Firth and further south on many occasions.
"It may well be that amongst these, were unidentified Iceland killer whales. One must remember that clear photographic evidence is required to recognise individual orcas."
She added: "We don't know very much about the movements of killer whales around Britain.
"Members of a pod that has numbered up to 14 can be seen annually around the Hebrides of west Scotland, mainly in summer."

Summary: A pod of orca from Iceland has been photographed in the Moray Firth off Findhorn, the furthest south the group has been recorded.
###
Article: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 42 prisoners and 15 militants died when the facility near Mayadin, in Deir al-Zour province, was hit on Monday.
The Deirezzor24 news website said dozens of civilians and Syrian rebel fighters were detained there.
A coalition spokesman said it was looking into the casualty reports.
Mayadin, which lies in the Euphrates river valley about 45km (28 miles) south-east of the city of Deir al-Zour, has been targeted frequently by coalition aircraft.
US intelligence officials believe IS moved most of its leaders to the town in recent months as Iraqi government forces advanced into the Iraqi city of Mosul and a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters encircled the Syrian city of Raqqa.
The Syrian Observatory, a UK-based group that monitors the country's six-year civil war through a network of sources on the ground, said the prison was hit at dawn on Monday by what were believed to have been coalition aircraft.
Deirezzor24, which is run by an activist collective, reported that the facility was located near the village of Tayibiya wa al-Maaharufa, and that it had once been the home of a commander of al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda-linked group now known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
Many fighters opposed to IS, including those from Tahrir al-Sham and the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, were held there along with civilians, it said.
It put the death toll at 60, but said it only included two militants serving as guards.
Coalition spokesman Col Ryan Dillon acknowledged that it had conducted strikes on "IS command-and-control elements" in the Mayadin area on Sunday.
"This disrupts [IS's] ability to conduct terrorist attacks in both in Iraq, Syria, against coalition partner forces, and also against our homelands," he told the BBC.
Col Dillon added that the strike was "meticulously planned" and that coalition officials "always account for and take into account human suffering and any type of casualties in our planning."
At the start of June, the coalition said its 21,035 air strikes...

Summary: Almost 60 people have been killed in a suspected US-led coalition air strike on a prison run by so-called Islamic State in eastern Syria, activists say.
###
Article: In their broad shade, there is another familiar sight: Lines of men, in plastic chairs, most of them jobless. They wait and talk, scouring the thin pickings of the local newspapers.
Victor Lajar is one of them. He is 51 - his purple-striped shirt is perfectly pressed; his grey trousers have crisp vertical creases.
Over a cup of clove-laced tea, he tells me he used to be a local government official.
He was from the northern city of Malakal. He fled, during the civil war.  He has a family to support and no job.
I ask my first guileless question: "The war's over; why don't you return?"
Mr Lajar answers with his own question: "You don't know about Malakal?" he asks. "It's ashes," he tells me.
Few journalists go to Malakal. There are horrors aplenty elsewhere, and for long periods, the airport at the town has been inaccessible because of the fighting.
I arrive, on a tiny United Nations charter, at Malakal airfield. We swiftly have company.
A queue of large Russian-made transport planes, with no tail markings, land: Three in one hour, to re-supply the government forces, the SPLA, who currently hold the city.
Before I head to Malakal itself, though, I visit the UN camp, just to the north-east. It is where 45,000 former residents of the city now live.
Listen to From Our Own Correspondent for insight and analysis from BBC journalists, correspondents and writers from around the world
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I am lucky - the rainy season is almost over. All I have to contend with is the broiling sun and the clouds of mosquitoes.
When it is wet, the ground is awash with mud and human waste.
The place carries the marks of the refugee camp. The new arrivals, strung out, hollow-eyed at its entrance.
The tents and shacks for long-term residents crammed into a crazed puzzle; the attempts to winnow a bit of extra cash: Men selling heaps of rusty nails; children selling single cloves of garlic; women selling small piles of...

Summary:


A new report has found that the number of people living in poverty in the UK has fallen by more than a third since the Tories came to power in 2010.
The report, by the Centre for Policy Studies, said the number of people in poverty had fallen by more than a third since 2010, from 1.1

A new devolved authority has been ordered to review its estimated budget after it rose by £500,000.

Article: The galaxy NGC 1277, just a quarter the size of our own Milky Way, hosts a black hole 4,000 times larger than the one at the Milky Way's centre.
A report in Nature shows it has a mass some 17 billion times that of our Sun.
The surprise finding is hard to reconcile with existing models of black hole growth, which hold that they evolve in tandem with host galaxies.
Getting to grips with just how large black holes are is a tricky business - after all, since they swallow light in their vicinities, they cannot be seen.
Instead, astronomers measure the black holes' "sphere of influence" - the gravitational effects they have on surrounding gas and stars.
In the Milky Way, it is possible to observe individual stars as they orbit Sagittarius A*, our own local black hole, to guess its mass.
But for the 100 or so far more distant black holes whose masses have been estimated, astronomers have made average measurements of associated stars' speeds - their "velocity dispersion".
On a hunt for the Universe's largest black holes, astronomers using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope in the US state of Texas undertook a survey that brought in a haul of nearly 900 host galaxies.
But Remco van den Bosch, then at the University of Texas at Austin, and his colleagues were surprised to find that some of the largest black holes were to be found in small galaxies.
Among them was NGC 1277, 220 million light years away in the constellation Perseus, which happens to appear also in a high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope image, helping the researchers to refine their computer models.
"We make a model of the galaxy and compute all the possible stellar orbits," Dr Van den Bosch, who is now at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, explained to BBC News.
Could you survive falling into one?
"Like a big jigsaw, we try to put those orbits together to reproduce that galaxy so it has the same stellar velocities we measure. "
What the team found was that the NGC 1277 black hole was enormous - as large as our Solar System, and comprising some...

Summary: Astronomers have spotted an enormous black hole - the second most massive ever - but it resides in a tiny galaxy.
###
Article: Northern Gas Networks (NGN) claims a nationwide move away from methane to a hydrogen grid was "technically possible and economically viable".
The gas distributor said conversion could start in Leeds by 2026, with estimated costs of Â£2bn.
The city has been selected due to its "size and location", the report said.
The H21 Leeds City Gate report said more than 30% of all UK carbon emissions were from domestic heating and cooking, with a conversion to hydrogen reducing heat emissions by "a minimum of 73%".
Existing underground gas pipes could be used and household appliances could be converted to run on hydrogen, it added.
Instead of burning methane and releasing carbon into the atmosphere, the process would remove the carbon and store it in "appropriate geological storage locations" under the North Sea.
The remaining hydrogen, which emits no carbon dioxide when burnt, would then be used for domestic energy, NGN said.
Dan Sadler, from NGN, said: "This is a major opportunity for our country to become a world leader in hydrogen technology and decarbonisation and would create thousands of new jobs across the UK."
The gas distributor said the highly flammable substance would need "expert management", but added research had found the risk between hydrogen and natural gas leaks in a typical home "comparable".
Councillor Lucinda Yeadon, Leeds City Council's executive member for environment and sustainability, said: "Transforming Leeds into a hydrogen city would be a bold step.
"The project has massive potential to make a significant dent in the city's environmental performance, as well as opening up a wealth of opportunities for innovation, manufacturing and low carbon transport."

Summary: Leeds should be the first city in the UK to convert its gas grid to hydrogen to help meet carbon reduction targets, a report has suggested.
###
Article: Media playback is unsupported on your device
17 December 2014 Last updated at 08:39 GMT
Dyfi osprey project manager Emyr Evans, from the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust, has written a book describing how they went from "two guys with a torch" showing people the first birds to re-colonise Wales, to an observatory and conservation project attracting over 30,000 visitors per year.
He told BBC Radio Wales' Mai Davies two lots of birds had arrived simultaneously, at the Glaslyn valley and Welshpool.
"It was like buses - nothing for hundreds of years and then two turned up at the same time," he said.
There are now four or five pairs in Wales and this year for the first time the number of chicks went into double figures, with 10 born.
"Hundreds of years ago, ospreys were part of everyday life for Welsh people and hopefully it will be the same again," he added.

Summary: The story of a 10-year project to help ospreys breed in mid Wales when they returned to the country after a centuries-long absence has been documented by one of the people involved.
###
Article: Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCC), set up this year, originally estimated annual running costs of about £1.3m.
But the authority's scrutiny committee voted against approving it, with one member asking if recruitment plans were "written on the back of a bus ticket".
CPCC said a reason for the rise was that a new authority was being created.
The authority, created under government devolution plans, intends to employ 15 staff, including newly-created housing, skills and transport director roles all on annual salaries above £100,000.
After Wednesday's decision by the scrutiny committee, the process of recruiting any new staff cannot begin until CPCC has reconsidered its budget, the deadline for which is 31 August.
Labour Cambridge city councillor Dave Baigent, a member of the scrutiny committee, asked of the new jobs: "Were these ideas written down on the back of a bus ticket? Were they discussed with councillors in advance?"
Lucy Nethsinga, a Liberal Democrat county councillor, said she had concerns over how these jobs overlapped with those in county and district councils.
CPCC chief executive Martin Whiteley said: "We, with 15 staff, will be substantially smaller than any other devolved authority in the country.
"I don't envisage us creating a big shiny office. We'll be looking to work flexibly across council offices."

Summary:


The Transport for London (TfL) trial follows the success of its "Baby on board" badge for pregnant women.
### Article: The Transport for London (TfL) trial follows the success of its "Baby on board" badge for pregnant women.
### Article: The Transport for London (T

People with hidden health conditions are being offered "Please offer me a seat" badges in a bid to help ease their suffering on London transport.

Article: The layouts seem to converge over time to a similar structure regardless of where or over how long they were built.
The study,
          in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface
, analysed 14 subway networks around the world.
It found common distributions of stations within the networks, as well as common proportions of the numbers of lines, stations, and total distances.
In some senses, it is unsurprising that the study found that networks tended over time to comprise a dense core of central stations with a number of lines radiating outward from it.
By choosing the world's largest networks, from Beijing to Barcelona, the results were bound to represent networks that serve city centres with a dense collection of stations and bring commuters inward from more distant stations.
But the analysis shows a number of less obvious similarities across all 14 networks.
It found the total number of stations was proportional to the square of the number of lines - that is, a four-fold increase in station number would result in a doubling of the number of lines.
The dense core of central stations all had the same average number of neighbours in the network, and in all cases, about half the total number of stations were found outside the core.
In addition, the length of any one branch from the core's centre was about the same as twice the diameter of the core.
The number of stations at a given distance from the centre was proportional to the square of that distance, but only up to the edge of the core; at more distant reaches of the network, the number of stations contained was directly proportional to distance.
The authors analysed how the networks grew and added lines and stations, finding that they all converged over time to these similar structures.
They authors point out that the similarities exist regardless of where the networks were, when they were begun, or how quickly they reached their current layout.
"Although these (networks) might appear to be planned in some centralised manner, it is our contention here...

Summary: A study of the world's largest subway networks has revealed that they are remarkably mathematically similar.
###
Article: Figures for August showed 28,654 people waiting longer than nine months, the target time for everyone to be treated.
Tory spokesman Darren Millar blamed "record-breaking budget cuts", while Lib Dem leader Kirsty Williams said Labour had "lost control of our NHS".
The Welsh government said the figures were "not acceptable" but said spending on health was up by 9% in two years.
Mr Millar said: "Labour ministers have starved our NHS of more than Â£1bn over the past five years, while spending in other parts of the UK has been protected.
"These waiting time statistics show that it's patients and their loved ones who are paying the price."
Ms Williams accused Labour of "failure" on public services and a "poverty of ambition".
"NHS staff are working around the clock to offer the very best treatment they can," she said.
"Sadly they are having to work in very trying circumstances which is making their job incredibly difficult."
A Welsh government spokesman said: "These figures are not acceptable and we expect to see urgent improvement to reduce the number of people experiencing long waiting times for the start of their treatment.
"However, they do show that more than eight out of 10 were waiting less than 26 weeks to start treatment at the end of August 2015, with nearly 94% waiting less than 36 weeks.
"The standard referral to treatment time is 11 weeks."
He added that an extra Â£1.1bn had been invested in the Welsh NHS in the past two years, despite cuts in funding for the overall Welsh budget by the UK government.

Summary: The number of people waiting longer than nine months for hospital treatment in Wales has risen again.
###
Article: Palmer, who has died at the age of 87, was the first sportsman to use his fame to build a business empire, through an array of commercial ventures.
He put his name to products and services, including United Airlines, Cadillac cars, Rolex watches, Hertz car rental and Callaway golfing products.
The effects of his vision spilled over into other sports including tennis.
"He had the good looks, and affable persona and smile, as well as golfing ability, to become the template for what every successful sports endorser should be," says sports sponsorship expert Nigel Currie.
"He had all the attributes you need to maximise your earnings through commercial activities.
"Before then sportsmen made all their money from hitting a ball in a sporting arena."
Indeed, the man nicknamed The King, was the first golf player to make $1m from playing the sport.
He was Mark McCormack's - the undisputed king of sports marketing - first client at agency IMG, and together they invented a way of making more money off the golf course than on it.
In the first two years of his agreement with Mr McCormack, the golfer's endorsement earnings leapt from $6,000 a year to more than $500,000.
Palmer put his name to a variety of products and services, including United Airlines, Cadillac cars, Rolex watches, Hertz car rental, Pennzoil engine fluid, Callaway golfing products and E-Z-Go golf carts.
And he founded Arnold Palmer Enterprises to handle his endorsements and other ventures.
"Palmer was such a huge golfing icon in America, he was hugely popular with the public, and he and McCormack were able to make money from using his personality in conjunction with different brands," says Mr Currie.
"And it was not just endorsements during his playing career, nor indeed just golf brands.
"He also made a huge amount of money after he stopped playing."
The golfer was loved as an everyman superstar, and even had a drink named after him - the Arnold Palmer cocktail, made from one part iced tea and one part lemonade.
He also gave his name to a professional...

Summary: The passing of famous golfer Arnold Palmer has reminded the world of a true trailblazer in sports business.
###
Article: The Transport for London (TfL) trial follows the success of its "Baby on board" badge for pregnant women.
TfL is recruiting 1,000 people to start wearing the blue badges from 12 September.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he hoped they would "give confidence" to people who find standing difficult.
Some travellers, such as James McNaught who is joining the trial, had already started making their own badges to alert fellow passengers to their condition.
The 45-year-old designed "Cancer on board" badges after travelling on the Tube between Kentish Town and University College Hospital for chemotherapy.
Radiotherapy on his throat left him unable to speak to ask for a seat, and the morphine made him appear drunk.
"I'm really pleased TfL is doing this trial," he said. "A badge and card could help make a real difference to the lives of people undergoing drug treatment or with longer term conditions or disabilities."
TfL will use social media and customer information to encourage other passengers to look out for the badges.
"This small act of consideration from Londoners could make a huge difference to disabled people getting around the city and being fully involved in all London has to offer," said Alice Mitchell-Pye of charity Leonard Cheshire Disability.
The six-week trial is believed to be the first of its kind in Europe.

Summary:


Liberty, the UK's largest steel and commodities business, has been put up for sale.
### Article: Liberty, the UK's largest steel and commodities business, has been put up for sale.
### Article: Liberty, the UK's largest steel and commodities business, has been put up for sale.
###

Liberty House plans to submit a formal bid on Tuesday to buy Tata Steel's UK assets, which include the Port Talbot works employing about 4,000 people.

Article: Paintings by 54 artists, using materials ranging from Plasticine to industrial aluminium foil, have been selected by a panel of four experts.
The act of painting itself is a theme explored within several works, which will be showcased at Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery from 9 July to 27 November.
A shortlist of four artists will be announced in June, with the overall winner unveiled on 7 July.
The sources of inspiration behind the paintings are varied, ranging from George Orwell's Animal Farm to a statue of an assassinated politician.
Director of Art Galleries at National Museums Liverpool, Sandra Penketh, said there is an "especially vibrant use of colour" in this year's selection.
"We also see many artists addressing the topical issues facing our world today, touching on subjects such as migration."
The entries were whittled down from more than 2,500 pieces by jury members Gillian Carnegie, Ansel Krut, Phoebe Unwin and Ding Yi, and author and freelance curator The Reverend Dr Richard Henry Davey.
Previous recipients of the prize include David Hockney and, most recently in 2014, Rose Wylie from Kent.
Sir John Moores, the owner of the Littlewoods company and a keen amateur painter, founded the competition to challenge London's domination of the national arts scene.
It was first held in 1957 and is open to anyone.

Summary: The longlist for the John Moores Painting Prize has been announced.
###
Article: US scientists have tracked the animals for nearly 30 years and find they have increased their activity levels.
Their normal behaviour is to stake out holes in the ice, waiting to prey on the seals as they emerge.
But the thinning pack in the warming Arctic is now drifting faster than it used to, and the bears must travel further to get back to their territory.
"If the drift is faster, and that prevailing drift is to the west, then in order for an Alaskan polar bear to remain an Alaskan polar bear, it must walk further or faster to the east on the 'treadmill', or it will end up in Russia," explained David Douglas, a wildlife biologist at the US Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center in Juneau.
He was speaking here in San Francisco, at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union - the world's largest annual gathering of Earth scientists.
The USGS study he presented compared the movements of tagged female polar bears from the period 1987-1998 with a more recent group, from 1999-2013.
Their behaviours were combined with data on the status of the ice pack. This is now drifting through the Beaufort and Chukchi seas up to 6% quicker than it used to, as today's thinner floes get pushed along more easily by the wind.
The analysis indicates the 1999-2013 bears have had to react to this greater speed by increasing their activity rates.
"We find that the bears in the recent period are 9-13% more active to compensate for the ice motion," Mr Douglas told BBC News.
The USGS teamed up with animal physiologists at the University of Wyoming to try to calculate how many more calories the bears would need to consume in order to fuel the additional walking.
The specialists did this, but also converted the requirement into an estimate of the number of additional whole seals the bears would have to eat.
It is an increase of 2-7%, which equates to between one and four extra seals a year.
"Now, you might think that's not a tremendous amount, but you have to keep in mind that that's happening at the same time as their...

Summary: Polar bears are working harder just to stay in one place, as the Arctic sea-ice on which they hunt drifts away.
###
Article: London's Menier Chocolate Factory said the star would not appear in Wednesday's sold-out production after not taking part in Tuesday's show.
It added it would "take each day as it comes" and would "never ask nor expect an artist to perform in this situation".
Smith's father is reported to have been diagnosed with cancer.
The actress plays real-life comedian and singer Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, the role that made Barbra Streisand famous in the 1960s when she starred in the original London production.
The show is transferring to the West End's Savoy Theatre next month after its run at the Menier Chocolate Factory, which ends on Saturday.
Smith thanked fans on Twitter for their support and said she hoped to return to finish the run for its final two nights, but her "family come first".
She also wrote a message on Wednesday saying: "Thank you so much, my beautiful followers, sat here crying at your responses. Love your support."
The Cilla and the C Word star also promised fans she would arrange new tickets personally, also telling others she would provide them with backstage passes and even a train fare to see the show.
Smith, who has protected her tweets so only followers can see them, added her father wanted her to continue with the role and the show was her "escapism".
The statement from the Menier Chocolate Factory came after it was reported Smith had felt pressured into returning to the show.
A spokeswoman said: "Our priority at this time is to Sheridan and her family. Sheridan's primary concern is quite rightly her father's wellbeing, and we support her wholeheartedly.
"We would never ask nor expect an artist to perform in this situation, and ask that you respect her and her family's privacy at this time. She will not be performing in Funny Girl this evening, and we will take each day as it comes. Tonight's performance of Funny Girl will go ahead with her understudy Natasha J Barnes."
She added the show had been a "tremendous success", saying: "For those patrons who have tickets to any affected...

Summary: Sheridan Smith has pulled out of two performances of Funny Girl after her father became unwell.
###
Article: Liberty, headed by Sanjeev Gupta, was first to express an interest in the assets when they were put up for sale.
A spokesman for Liberty told the BBC that the firm had put together a team of advisers and financial backers.
"The formal process is to submit a letter of intent; it amounts to a bid. It will be done on Tuesday," he said.
In addition to the Port Talbot factory - the UK's largest steelworks - Tata's remaining assets include sites at Newport, where more than 1,300 people are employed, and Rotherham, which employs 1,200. Tata also has operations at Corby, Shotton and Teesside.
Macquarie, the Australian bank, was advising Liberty on a potential bid, and is considered a potential financial backer of any takeover.
Liberty House started life in the university room of Indian-born founder Sanjeev Gupta.
While a student at Cambridge University in 1992, the budding entrepreneur started what has since become a global steel and commodities business with annual sales of more than £2bn.
With operations in 30 countries, and headquarters in London, Dubai, and Singapore, Mr Gupta's Liberty has also emerged as a possible saviour of Britain's steel industry.
Liberty's focus is on recycling the mountains of scrap metal generated in the UK, rather than the historical method of producing steel in blast furnaces.
Last month, it acquired Tata Steel's plants in Lanarkshire. In recent years, it has reached similar deals for steel plants in Newport and the Black Country.
A management buyout team is also planning to submit a bid under the name Excalibur Steel UK Limited.
It has appointed investment banker Mark Rhydderch-Roberts as a non-executive director. He joins Stuart Wilkie, the head of Tata's United Kingdom strip steel business, and former Alcan senior executive and venture capitalist Roger Maggs, on the board.
The government has promised to support any buyer of the business by taking up to a 25% stake in a new business and making hundreds of millions of pounds of finance available.
Tata has not publicly set a deadline...

Summary:


A man has been jailed for three years after he admitted to killing his wife and her friend.
The court heard that the couple had been arguing and the victim had been drinking.
The defendant, aged 35, admitted killing his wife, who was aged 30, and her friend, aged 19, in a flat in

A transgender woman has been found guilty of raping a girl when still living as a man.

Article: Though imposing, the 3.7m (12ft) cephalopod was much smaller than the 13m they can grow to.
It spent several hours in the harbour and was filmed by local divers on Christmas Eve.
Mitsuhiro Fuwa, a curator at the local Uozu Aquarium, told the BBC there had been more than a dozen giant squid sightings in the last year.
Giant squid are more often seen trapped in fishing nets than swimming near the surface.
Professional underwater cameraman Takayoshi Kojima told the BBC he rushed to the harbour from nearby Toyama city when a manager at the marina called him.
He helped guide the squid to a deeper part of the marina, near the exit to the sea, where it disappeared.
Mr Kojima said he did not know whether the squid made it to open waters but said it did not look like it would survive long.
Mr  Fuwa said that although the squid showed some signs of energy - squirting ink and trying to wrap its legs around the divers - it did not look very healthy, with its body pointing downwards and its legs up.
Mr Kojima said that with a rise in sea temperature, giant squid have moved north to waters off Toyama, from where they swim up from deeper waters during the winter season.
He added that most sightings happen between December and January.
Toyama is about 300km (186 miles) west of Tokyo.

Summary: Giant squid prefer the deep sea, so it was a rare treat for onlookers in Toyama Bay harbour when one swam in.
###
Article: In an attempt to make life more convenient, he bewitches a broomstick to mop the floor.
When that gets out of control, he tries to stop the whole process by splitting the broomstick in two - but that just creates two brooms, and doubles the problem.
Is that what retailers have done by offering traditional location shopping alongside online?
Click-and-collect is a fairly new battleground for UK retailers, and promises rich rewards for daring firms.
It has been hugely popular over the past five years, as customers embrace the convenience of being able to order goods online and pick them up in store or elsewhere.
John Lewis announced this week that it would start charging a £2 fee for click-and-collect purchases costing less than £30, after finding that its current free model was unsustainable.
Click-and-collect demand has boomed for the department store.
It now processes more than six million click-and-collect orders per year, compared with just 350,000 in 2008, and moves tens of thousands of parcels every night.
A spokeswoman said John Lewis had seen a 32% growth in demand for the service so far this year.
And the seemingly effortless method of shopping is anything but for retailers as it needs an army of behind-the-scenes pickers and delivery staff.
John Lewis is having to move fast to cope with demand. But it is not alone, according to Andy Mulcahy of online retail industry body IMRG.
It estimates a 20% per year growth rate in click-and-collect across all retailers.
For retailers that sell online and also have physical shops, click-and-collect accounted for 4% of online sales in 2010. That figure jumped to 17.7% in 2014, he adds.
John Lewis is in a position of strength, but this growth is causing significant problems for some retailers - especially UK supermarket giants, according to some retail analysts.
The phenomenon is adding to supermarkets' woes, rather than easing them, says Marc de Speville, the founder of Strategic Food Retail.
Free click-and-collect is "clearly a burden on supermarkets' already...

Summary: In the classic poem by Goethe, a young sorcerer's apprentice unleashes forces he can't control.
###
Article: Wales' main exam body, the WJEC, decided last year to stop offering the course in either English or Welsh due to a low uptake.
Regulating body Qualifications Wales invited exam boards from England to provide the course but did not insist it was available in Welsh.
The teacher behind the petition called it "linguistic discrimination".
Chris Evans, who established a psychology department at Ysgol Morgan Llwyd in Wrexham, wants the Welsh Government and Qualifications Wales to "change the policy".
Another exam board, Pearson, is offering psychology through the medium of English for students in Wales from September 2017 but would not provide it in Welsh, partly because it did not have "access to the expertise".
It means psychology is one of a number of GCSE subjects, including economics, available in English in Wales but not in Welsh next year.
A Qualifications Wales spokesperson said it was in discussion with two exam boards about putting Welsh-medium provision in place next year.
"As part of the reforms of GCSEs, GCSE Psychology was one of the subjects for which the potential number of candidates in Wales was too low for a qualification designed specifically for Wales to be viable," they said.
"A new A level Psychology for Wales was introduced in 2015 by WJEC and is available bilingually.
"As we have done for other low-take-up subjects, we have designated for funding in Wales three GCSE Psychology qualifications that have been designed for England. These are not currently offered through the medium of Welsh.
"We know there is a demand for GCSEs in this subject to be available in Welsh and we are still looking at how that could be achieved.
"We are in discussions with two exam boards, WJEC and Pearson, to see if there is a way of putting arrangements in place to secure Welsh-medium availability for next year."

Summary: A petition has been launched against a decision by an exam board to stop offering psychology GCSE next year.
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Article: The girl, aged 15 at the time, had met a man called David Ayrton in a Portsmouth garage in the autumn of 2004.
The defendant, now 34 and called Davina, denied the charge. She will be sentenced on 4 March.
Judge Ian Pearson remanded her into custody and said it was likely she would be held at a male prison.
He added: "If I were to release on bail there are substantial grounds to believe she would be a risk to herself and a risk of failing to attend for whatever reason.
"I will therefore have to remand in custody. It will have to be a male prison in Winchester but it will be an issue for the prison service."
He also told the jury at Portsmouth Crown Court: "It's been a slightly unusual case and it's not been an easy case."
The court heard that Ayrton, who has learning difficulties, attempted to commit suicide last summer.
Protocols have been put in place for her detention at the prison, a court officer explained.
During the trial Ayrton spoke about her sexuality, and said she she had not "made any physical changes or enhancements" to her body or taken any medication. She changed her name in 2012.
Portsmouth Crown Court was told she raped the teenager while two others were asleep in the garage.
The victim said she shouted and swore at Ayrton to stop the attack, but her friends had not woken up.
She had "only drunk a can and a half of Foster's" and clearly recollected the events.
The court heard that in 2014 Ayrton told a worker at the care home where she lived in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, about the attack.

Summary:


The Welsh Government has announced a new £1.5m fund to help local authorities tackle the problem of fly-tipping.
The Welsh Government has announced a new £1.5m fund to help local authorities tackle the problem of fly-tipping.
The money will be used to help tackle the problem

A group has called on Ceredigion council to delay plans to sell-off a former school site so it can bid to buy and retain it for community use.

Article: With such potential power, comes huge responsibility.
Demis Hassabis, the head of Google's £400m machine learning business and one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, has now called for a responsible debate about the role of ethics in the development of artificial intelligence.
"I think artificial intelligence is like any powerful new technology," Mr Hassabis, DeepMind's co-founder, told me.
"It has to be used responsibly. If it's used irresponsibly it could do harm.
"I think we have to be aware of that and I think that people developing that - us and other companies and universities - need to realise and take seriously our responsibilities and to have ethical concerns at the top of our minds.
"We engage very actively with [the artificial intelligence] community - at MIT, at Cambridge, at Oxford - so there are a lot of academic institutes thinking about this and we engage with them very actively and openly with our research.
"I think there are valid concerns and they should be discussed and debated now, decades before there's anything that's actually of any potential consequence or power that we need to worry about, so we have the answers in place well ahead of time."
Mr Hassabis was responding to concerns about the development of artificial intelligence raised, among others, by Elon Musk, the technology entrepreneur and a DeepMind investor, and Professor Stephen Hawking.
Prof Hawking told my colleague Rory Cellan-Jones that artificial intelligence could "end mankind".
Mr Hassabis is not at the "robots" end of artificial intelligence.
His work focuses on learning machines which are able to sift huge amounts of data and support human understanding of the exponential rise of digitised information.
"Artificial intelligence is the science of making machines smart," he said.
"If we're able to imbue machines with intelligence then they might be able to help us as a society to solve all kinds of big problems that we would like to have a better mastery of - all the way from things like disease and...

Summary: It is a technology so powerful that - on a distant day well into the future - it could mean computers that are able to advise on the best way to treat patients, tackle climate change or feed the poor.
###
Article: Owen Paterson has denied ministers were slow to react to the outbreak.
The Chalara fraxinea fungus, which causes Chalara dieback, has already infected 90% of ash trees in Denmark and has been found in East Anglia.
Mr Paterson said 50,000 ash trees have already been destroyed to try to prevent the spread of the disease.
Until earlier this week, the disease had only been recorded in a few nursery specimens.
Mr Paterson said: "We will bring in a ban on Monday. I have already prepared the legislation and we're ready to go. The evidence is clearly there."
The disease was first spotted in February, at a nursery in Buckinghamshire - a case that was confirmed in March, said the environment secretary.
Since then, examinations had been carried out at more than 1,000 sites and tree experts had been consulted.
Mr Paterson said ash trees were not imported commercially during the summer, so the amount of time that had elapsed since the initial discovery had not increased the risk that more infected trees had been brought in.
But Tim Briercliffe from the Horticultural Trades Association insisted the government's response to the disease had been too slow.
He said: "As a trade we're very frustrated about it, because in 2009 we saw it out in Denmark on trees and we said you should ban imports now.
"They didn't do it - they suggested that it was already endemic across Europe and across the UK, and since then the disease has continued to come in, and we believe it could be more widespread than perhaps we realise at the moment."
How to spot the signs
The Woodland Trust welcomed the ban but called on the government to set up an emergency summit to manage other diseases affecting trees in the UK.
Its chief executive, Sue Holden, said: "Ash dieback is only one of numerous tree pests and diseases present in the UK... it is crucial that the wider issue is tackled."
Ash trees suffering with C. fraxinea have been found across mainland Europe, with Denmark reporting the disease has infected about 90% of its ash trees.
Experts say that if...

Summary: A ban on the import of ash trees will come into force on Monday in an attempt to halt the spread of a deadly disease, the environment secretary has said.
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Article: The 23-year-old former Hampshire and Middlesex player is due to arrive in June and stay at New Road for the remainder of the summer.
"I'm absolutely thrilled to be heading back to England in 2012," said Hughes.
"Worcestershire is a quality organisation and I can't wait to meet my new team-mates and re-acquaint myself with English conditions."
After being called up to the Australia team at the age of 20 in February 2009, the left-hander became the youngest player to score successive centuries in both innings of a Test Match - in only his second Test.
But Hughes, currently playing for Australia in their Test series against New Zealand, has managed just once more ton in his overall total of 32 Test match innings, in which he has hit 1,072 runs at 34.58.
He was part of the Australian side which lost by seven runs to New Zealand on Monday - but he is not in the best form, having had a run of scores of 9, 9, 88, 11, 10, 7, 4 and 20 in his last eight Test innings.
Phil Hughes is a heavy run scorer with a career ratio of a century every four games in first-class cricket
"My previous stint in England helped my batting enormously and I have high expectations that spending the 2012 Australian winter in the UK will do the same," he added.
"I look forward to helping Worcestershire be a force in all forms of the game in 2012."
Worcestershire director of cricket Steve Rhodes added: "To gain the signature of the current Australian Test match opener is a tremendous boost for the club and the players for the 2012 season.
"Phil is a heavy run scorer with a career ratio of a century every four games in first-class cricket.
"In 2009, he amassed 574 first-class runs in three games for Middlesex, including three centuries, which demonstrates his hunger for run-scoring.
"I look forward to working closely with Phil during the second half of the season."

Summary: Worcestershire have signed Australian Test opener Phil Hughes for the second half of the 2012 season.
###
Article: Ceredigion council plans to auction the site of former Ysgol Dyffryn Teifi in Llandysul, which closed last term, for development.
The council cabinet meets on Tuesday to discuss the sale set for 30 September.
But a new group, Plant y Dyffryn, wants more time to draw up a bid to buy it.
The site has a price tag of between Â£250,000 and Â£300,000, with proceeds earmarked for the new-build Ysgol Bro Teifi school which opened this month providing education for three to 19-year-olds.
Leah Williams, one of the founders of Plant y Dyffryn, said "any developer could come in and squeeze the community".
She said: "Llandysul is so small and so Welsh it would just tip the balance.
"There are eight acres of land on a large site with plenty of potential," she said.
Plant y Dyffryn is looking at the example of the Cardigan community venture 4CG in order to raise funds to purchase the site, and then run it.
It took over the Pwllhai site in the centre of Cardigan in 2010, and turned it into a car park to generate income from parking fees with buildings and workshops leased out to small businesses.
A public meeting was held on Sunday when Llandysul residents voted to call on Ceredigion council to delay the process of selling the school site.
In response, cabinet member Gareth Lloyd said that if the cabinet delayed the process of selling, then they would consider offering help to the community with their application.

Summary:


The BBC has announced that it will be broadcasting a new series of the popular BBC One show, The Great British Bake Off.
The show, which has been running for over a decade, will be broadcast on BBC One on Saturday nights from 8.30pm.
The new series will be hosted by the BBC's

Curzon will receive an outstanding British contribution to cinema prize at this year's Bafta film awards.

Article: Mr Murphy announced his intention to resign last month despite narrowly winning a confidence vote in the wake of Labour's general election defeat.
He had since been drawing up plans for reforms which he hopes will lead to the party's recovery in Scotland.
Labour lost 40 of its 41 Scottish constituencies to the SNP, including Mr Murphy's East Renfrewshire seat.
The party has also announced a timetable for the election of a new leader and deputy leader, with the result of the contests to announced on 15 August.
The leadership contest is expected to be between current deputy leader Kezia Dugdale and the party's social justice spokesman, Ken MacIntosh.
Speaking at a media conference in Glasgow on Saturday afternoon, Mr Murphy said Scottish Labour should better reflect modern Scotland.
He unveiled five proposals which he said had been agreed in principle by party's executive council.
These included electing a new leader through a one member one vote system rather than the electoral college system which requires a majority vote in at least two out of three blocks, comprising elected members, ordinary members and unions.
Mr Murphy was elected as leader despite opposition from the union college, which backed his opponent Neil Findlay last year.
The party will also reopen its selection process for the Regional Lists to attract the widest possible range of candidates for the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections.
This would "abolish the closed shop arrangements for list MSPs so that every Labour Party member has a fair chance of standing for the list, and so that incumbency isn't a guarantee of re-selection", Mr Murphy said.
Mr Murphy also said the party would consider establishing a national selection panel for local councillors, and consider the use of primaries in the selection of MP candidates in future elections.
And he said the party would do more to publicise a "little-known rule" which would allow it to waive the qualifying period before members can become candidates.
Mr Murphy added: "While commitment to the...

Summary: Jim Murphy has stood down as Scottish Labour leader as the party agreed to his plan for "dramatic" change.
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Article: The talks come after Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court ruled the facility unconstitutional, overturning a deal reached between the governments.
Australia sends asylum seekers there under its offshore processing policy.
Papua New Guinea has now said it will close the facility, but it is not clear when that could happen.
Manus Island was first opened in 2001, and along with Australia's other offshore processing centres, has played a central role in Australia's controversial asylum policy.
Papua New Guinea's high commissioner to Australia Charles Lepani said the detainees were now Australia's responsibility, but Australia has remained opposed to taking any of them.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said on Thursday there was room for them at another detention centre on Nauru.
"There's capacity [on Nauru] but we're talking with the PNG government about what options are available in PNG and we'll continue those discussions with them," Mr Dutton said on Sky News.
This comes after an Iranian asylum seeker held at the Australian-funded detention centre on Nauru set himself on fire on Wednesday.
His actions were a "political protest" according to the Nauruan government.
Mr Dutton said the 23-year old man was in a serious condition and was evacuated to Australia for treatment.
Nauru is a small Pacific Island nation about 3,000 km (1,800 miles) north-east of Australia.
It was previously administered by Australia but gained independence in 1968.
What next for Manus Island asylum-seekers?
Manus Island: Australia's Guantanamo?
Australia's controversial asylum policy
Mr Dutton said that the man set himself on fire at a settlement outside the detention centre.
"He's in a very serious condition," Mr Dutton said.
"His outlook is not good at all."
He also confirmed that other asylum seekers held on the island had harmed themselves.
"What we've been very clear about is that if people come to Australia for medical assistance they'll be returning back to Nauru once that medical assistance has been provided.
"We have returned three...

Summary: Australia and Papua New Guinea will hold urgent talks next week over the fate of asylum seekers held at a detention centre on Manus Island.
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Article: A document says chemical and biological munitions are produced at three main sites near Damascus and Hama.
It alleges that both Iran and Russia, the government's allies, are aware.
Western powers say a Syrian warplane dropped bombs containing the nerve agent Sarin on an opposition-held town a month ago, killing almost 90 people.
The United States launched a missile strike on a Syrian airbase in response to the incident at Khan Sheikhoun, which President Bashar al-Assad says was faked.
The intelligence document obtained by the BBC says Syria's chemical weapons are manufactured at three sites - Masyaf, in Hama province, and at Dummar and Barzeh, both just outside Damascus. All three are branches of the Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC), a government agency, it adds.
Despite monitoring of the sites by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the document alleges that manufacturing and maintenance continues in closed sections.
It says the Masyaf and Barzeh facilities both specialise in installing chemical weapons on long-range missiles and artillery.
The OPCW mentioned Barzeh and Dummar - also known as Jamraya - in its latest official progress update on its work to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons programme.
The watchdog says inspectors visited them between 26 February and 5 March and that it is still awaiting laboratory analysis of the samples that were taken.
The US imposed economic sanctions on 271 SSRC employees three weeks after the Khan Sheikhoun incident, accusing the agency of focusing on the development of non-conventional weapons and the means to deliver them.
It is promoted as a civilian research institute by the Assad government.
A source familiar with weapons inspection protocols says it is plausible that a government might only declare certain facilities on any given site to the OPCW and therefore only give inspectors access to those areas.
The intelligence document also accuses Syria of falsely declaring the work of one of its research branches as defensive -...

Summary: Syria's government is continuing to make chemical weapons in violation of a 2013 deal to eliminate them, a Western intelligence agency has told the BBC.
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Article: The cinema chain has "provided the British public with unforgettable, cinema experiences", Bafta said.
The awards will be held at London's Royal Albert Hall on 12 February.
The Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema award is presented annually in honour of Michael Balcon, the British film producer known for his work with Ealing Studios.
Previous recipients include Mike Leigh, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Working Title Films, Sir John Hurt and BBC Films.
Curzon's history stretches back to 1934 with the opening of its first cinema Curzon Mayfair.
Dame Pippa Harris, chair of Bafta's Film Committee, said: "I am thrilled that Bafta is honouring Curzon with the Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award.
"For over 80 years, Curzon has provided the British public with unforgettable cinema experiences, while championing independent, art house and foreign language film-making.
"I would like to thank everyone at Curzon for their extraordinary contribution to our industry, and for their unwavering commitment to bringing the very best in film to audiences across the UK.
Philip Knatchbull, Curzon's chief executive, said he was "delighted" at the award.
"Curzon has a long and proud history in the British film industry and many talented and passionate people have contributed to its success story over the years," he said.
"We think of ourselves as champions of bold and visionary film-making from around the world supported by our growing network of cinemas and home cinema digital platforms."
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Summary: