Children growing up in the north's most deprived communities face a "double whammy" of familial disadvantage and poor institutional performance, with up to 15% of children in some areas dropping out of education and training before they are 18, a report has found.

Despite parts of the urban north experiencing rapid regeneration as the government's "northern powerhouse" project progresses, many children - girls in particular - feel they will not benefit from what they view as just "a few shiny new buildings", according to the children's commissioner, Anne Longfield.

She is calling on the poorest northern children to be put at heart of the northern powerhouse, having spent the past year travelling across the north of England interviewing students and their teachers and carers for a new report, Growing Up North.

The Nevada Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the Metropolitan Police Department must begin releasing body camera footage and 911 call audio from the Las Vegas mass shooting.

"The speed with which the Supreme Court made this decision reflects the complete absence of merit in the Metropolitan Police Department's arguments," Review-Journal Executive Editor Glenn Cook said Friday.

A Clark County judge ruled in February that Metro had 30 days to hand over all the records, which were requested days after the Oct. 1 shooting. But Metro contested it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and take much longer to produce the footage and audio.

Russia's Far Eastern city of Vladivostok has emerged on the list of possible locations to host the expected Kim-Trump summit, South Korean YTN TV channel reported, citing diplomatic sources.

While Washington and Pyongyang agreed on the historic meeting between the leaders, there are still disagreements on where the encounter should take place. Vladivostok appeared on the table, while the other locations named in the media, Mongolia's Ulaanbaatar and Singapore, seem to lack the liking of either side.

While the US reportedly preferred the latter city to be the host, Pyongyang was reluctant about the proposal, since the location was too far away. North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un prefers to travel by train, and Singapore, which is located some 4,700 kilometers away, would definitely require a plane flight. Ulaanbaatar, in its turn, has reportedly raised security concerns among the US officials.

On Friday, the US president confirmed that the two sides have narrowed the list of potential summit hosts to "two or three" locations. The meeting between Trump and Kim is expected to happen in May or June.

- or the art of holding a mass of contradictory thoughts in your head

The Official Narrative on the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal is a collection of illogical claims and assertions that cannot be made to fit together, that make no rational sense, and which would require us to hold a mass of contradictory thoughts in our head if we were to accept it. It is in short a conspiracy theory, and a particularly bad one at that.

As I have pointed out before, I am not attempting to counter this conspiracy theory with one of my own. I make no claims to know what happened in the Skripal incident. I am merely stating that the story that the UK Government and media have so far asked the public to believe cannot be true, since it is full of discrepancies and claims that are impossible to reconcile with the known facts.

A Seattle donor to a Hillary Clinton-founded nonprofit group found there was no way to cancel his monthly donation, according to a report.

Corey Koscielniak, 29, told the Seattle Times he wanted to stop giving his $10.48 a month contribution to the Clinton-political action organization Onward Together-which the former 2016 Democratic presidential nominee formed after her loss to President Trump-because the organization did not disclose enough information on how the money is spent.

"Onward Together (OT) accepts payment information but provides no ability to alter or cancel donations once the initial donation is received," Koscielniak wrote in a complaint to the Washington state Attorney General's Office.

Israel is carrying out a murderous assault against protesting Palestinians, with its armed forces killing and maiming demonstrators who pose no imminent threat to them, Amnesty International revealed today, based on its latest research, as the "Great March of Return" protests continued in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military has killed 35 Palestinians and injured more than 5,500 others - some with what appear to be deliberately inflicted life-changing injuries - during the weekly Friday protests that began on 30 March.

Amnesty International has renewed its call on governments worldwide to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel following the country's disproportionate response to mass demonstrations along the fence that separates the Gaza Strip from Israel.

"For four weeks the world has watched in horror as Israeli snipers and other soldiers, in full-protective gear and behind the fence, have attacked Palestinian protesters with live ammunition and tear gas. Despite wide international condemnation, the Israeli army has not reversed its illegal orders to shoot unarmed protesters," said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

The Syrian government issued Property Law 10 (ar) which will help to rebuild the country. Martin Chulov of the Guardian falsely reported: 10m Syrians at risk of forfeiting homes under new property law. The Syrian-American economist Ehsani explains why the Guardian report is wrong. He summarizes:

Without legislation, imagine people returning to say Jobar in Damascus or Bustan al-Basha in Aleppo and starting to build on their own. What code? What property lines? What legal basis? What about the infrastructure underneath? Law 10 is the State's legislative blueprint.

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In 2012 UN blue helmets from Austria controlled the demarcation line with Israel at the Golan heights. They watched as Takfiris ('smugglers'), likely coming from Israel, set up an ambush. Nine Syrian border policemen pass through the UN checkpoint but are not warned. They drive into the Takfiri ambush. All are killed. An Austrian whistle-blower gave the video (ger) to a local paper in Vienna. The Austrian Defense Ministry is investigating the case.

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Today tribal forces aligned with the Syrian government attacked and captured two villages (map) controlled by the U.S. proxy force in east Syria north of the Euphrates near Deir Ezzor city. The Kurdish U.S. proxy forces SDF vowed revenge. This might be a local incident but could develop into something bigger. While the U.S. claims exclusive rights north of the Euphrates and to fight ISIS in the area zero progress has been made since November. The U.S. wants keep ISIS alive and well to later reuse it for its own purposes. The Syrian government is trying to disrupt that plan.

The great 10th century Iraqi poet Abu Tayyib al-Mutanabbi once lived, O fated city, in the Emirate of Aleppo. He even led a revolt in Syria which was - familiar stuff, this - put down with great ruthlessness. Al-Mutanabbi actually spent two years in prison before reconciling himself to his loss and was subsequently released. Most Arab children in Syria can quote the man by heart and one of their favourite poems begins with these words:

When you see the teeth of a lion,
Don't think that the lion is smiling at you.

I was reminded of this lion while clambering through the ruins on the side of the Scientific Studies and Research Centre in the Damascus suburb of Barzeh last week. This was the centre - now famous from so many satellite pictures - destroyed by Donald Trump's missiles when they struck at "the heart of Syria's chemical weapons programme". Did they? Anything with a Strangelove name like the "Department of Pharmaceutical and Civilian Chemical Research" - the bit of the complex hit by at least 13 missiles - deserves to have its contents studied closely. I'd been refused permission to visit this Syrian institution for three days. If it was all in ruins - which it assuredly is, and on a scale much larger than the photographs suggest - why the delay?

And does it matter? Well, yes. I am reminded of the much more famous Iraqi "baby milk factory" bombed by the Americans in 1991 which General Colin Powell called "a biological weapons factory, of that we are sure". My colleague Patrick Cockburn wrote of this last week, recalling his visit to the factory only hours after the bombing. After the war, it turned out that the building probably had been an infant formula factory after all - although what can't you do with a glass of milk?

Russian officials plan to sue Grigory Rodchenkov, whose testimony played a key part in the country's Olympic bans, after a sports court rejected his claims. But most believe it's too late to reverse the impact of the doping saga.The scandal over Olympic doping has been running since 2014, and most of the allegations have been known for years. What's changed?

In a landmark ruling in February, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the highest legal authority in such cases, reversed the life bans of 28 Russian sportsmen and gave them back their medals, many of them from the Sochi Olympics in 2014.

But it was only this week that a 160-page summary of the session exposed exactly how the allegations that led to the exclusion of entire Russian teams in various sports from Rio 2016 and PyeongChang 2018 failed to stand up to legal scrutiny.

ORIGINAL POST:

This comment from Clive Ponting, doyen of British whistleblowers, appeared on my website and he has now given me permission to republish it under his full name:

I have been reading the blogs for some time but this is my first post. Like Craig I was a senior civil servant but in the ministry of defence not the fco. I had plenty of dealings with all three intelligence agencies. It seems to me that the reason none of the MSM are doing any investigating/reporting of the Salisbury affair, apart from official handouts, is that the government have slapped a D-Notice over the whole incident and it is not possible to report that a notice has been issued.

Here is another theory as to what happened. The Russians pardoned Skripal and allowed him to leave (spy agencies have an understanding that agents will always be swapped after an interval - it's the only protection they have and helps recruitment). In the UK Skripal would have been thoroughly debriefed by MI6 and MI5 (his ex-handler lives near Salisbury). If at some point they discovered that Skripal was giving them false information, perhaps he was told to do so by the FSB as a condition of his release, lives may have been endangered/lost. If he also was also involved in the 'golden showers' dossier then elements in the US would have a reason to act as well. The whole incident was an inside job not to kill him, hence the use of BZ, but to give him a warning and a punishment. The whole thing is being treated as though the authorities know exactly what went on but have to cover it up.

Addendum

I meant to add that the policeman who 'just happened' to be around was almost certainly the special branch 'minder' who was keeping Yulia under surveillance. The media are not allowed to mention the existence of a D notice.

Those of us who have been in the belly of the beast and have worked closely with the intelligence services, really do know what they and the British government are capable of. They are not "white knights".

I would add it has been very plain from day one that there is a D notice on Pablo Miller.