Iran Tests Missiles It Claims Can Reach Israel

Iran has test-fired two ballistic missiles it claimed were designed to be able to hit Israel.

The launch of the rockets, which had the phrase "Israel must be wiped out" written in Hebrew on them, came as US Vice President Joe Biden visited Israel for talks.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said the show of force aimed to "show Iran's deterrent power and ... ability to confront any threat".

Israeli officials had no immediate response to the Iranian launches.

The two Qadr missiles fired from northern Iran hit targets in the southeast of the country 870 miles (1,400km) away, according to Iranian agencies.

The nearest point in Iran is around 621 miles (1,000km) from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

"The reason we designed our missiles with a range of 2,000km is to be able to hit our enemy the Zionist regime from a safe distance," Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh was quoted as saying by the ISNA agency.

He added: "We will not be the ones who start a war, but we will not be taken by surprise, so we put our facilities somewhere that our enemies cannot destroy them so that we could continue long war."

The launches took place in defiance of a threat of fresh sanctions by the US.

Earlier this year, Washington imposed penalties on businesses and individuals linked to Iran's missile programme over a test of the medium-range Emad missile carried out in October 2015.

The Revolutionary Guards, which reports directly to Iran's supreme leader, has dozens of short and medium-range ballistic missiles - the largest stockpile in the Middle East.

The US is concerned the rockets could be used to carry a nuclear warhead at some point in the future.

Palace Complains Over Queen Brexit Story

Buckingham Palace has registered an official complaint over a story in The Sun which claimed that the "Queen Backs Brexit".

The palace has written to the press watchdog over the claims the Queen expressed strong Eurosceptic views that "left no room for doubt" about her views on membership of the European Union.

The newspaper claimed the monarch had made her comments during a lunch with the pro-European former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg during a lunch at Windsor Castle in 2011.

Mr Clegg dismissed the story as "nonsense" and accused Brexit supporters of trying to "drag the Queen for their own purposes into this European referendum debate".

It is the first time the palace has made a complaint to the watchdog, which was set up in 2014. In 1999 it complained to the Press Complaints Commission about the publication of topless pictures of Sophy Rhys-Jones before she became the Countess of Wessex.

Buckingham Palace has insisted the Queen remained neutral in the debate ahead of the referendum on 23 June.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: "We can confirm that we have this morning written to the chairman of the Independent Press Standards Organisation to register a complaint about the front page story in today's Sun newspaper."

The palace has complained under clause 1 of the Editors' Code of Practice, which says the press should "take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or images, including headlines not supported by the text".

The story was published under the headline "Queen Backs Brexit". It quoted a "senior source" saying those at the lunch were "left in no doubt at all about the Queen's view on European integration".

 Mr Clegg told ITV's Good Morning Britain: "It is not true. I have certainly, absolutely no recollection of a conversation like that, which I suspect I would have remembered if it had taken place."

He added: "I just think it's wrong that people who want to take us out of the European Union to now try and drag the Queen for their own purposes into this European referendum debate."

In his role as president of the Privy Council, Mr Clegg took part in a number of meetings, including one at Windsor Castle on 7 April 2011,  however, it is unclear if the meeting included the lunch referred to in The Sun's article.

A court circular shows the meeting took place at 12.40pm. Also present fellow privy councillors Michael Gove, now Justice Secretary, and Cheryl Gillan - both of whom have joined the Leave campaign.

Spokeswomen for both refused to comment.

Labour MP Wes Streeting has written to Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood, to demand an investigation into whether the story was leaked by members of the Government attending Privy Council.

Amazon To Create 1,000 Jobs In Manchester

Amazon is to open a new centre in Manchester later this year that will create 1,000 jobs, the company has announced.

The centre will open in the autumn and the permanent positions will be created over a period of three years.

The roles will include human resources staff, a computing team, and engineers.

Amazon plans to create 2,500 jobs in the UK this year, bringing its total workforce to 14,500.

The company has plans to open a centre in Coalville, Leicestershire, which would bring the number of UK sites to 12.

Amazon's vice president of UK operations, John Tagawa, said the roles would have "competitive wages and comprehensive benefits starting on day one".

All permanent staff will be paid a minimum of £7.20 an hour or more, increasing to £8 within two years.

They will also receive stock grants which have recently averaged out at £1,000 a year per person.

Staff members also get private medical insurance, employee discounts, and a company pension.

Wythenshawe and Sale East MP Mike Kane said it was "fantastic news for residents" of his constituency.

Trunki Loses Design Case Against Kiddee Rival

Spot the difference: Kiddee Case (left) and Trunki designs

The company behind Trunki suitcases has lost a Supreme Court battle with a rival over the design of children's ride-on luggage.

Magmatic took PMS International, which sells Kiddee Case products, back to court on appeal last year, arguing Kiddee Cases that were decorated as animals or insects infringed its patents and they should be blocked from UK sale.

In a reserved judgment, five Supreme Court justices ruled in favour of PMS - a decision Trunki's founder said would bring a "wave of uncertainty for designers across Britain" as courts in other EU nations had taken a more robust approach to protection.

Rob Law told Sky News: "We created an original product in Trunki and protected it by computer generated registered design – a process used to protect a third of designs across Europe.

"In my honest opinion, the Trunki was wilfully ripped off.

"We stood up to this behaviour, held it to account and took our case all the way to the highest court in the land – only for the judges to rule that we are not protected against the copy.

"They’re effectively sending knights into battle without armour."

The judgment ends a three-year court battle in which the two rivals could not even agree where PMS was based - in Hong Kong or Essex as PMS insisted.

The firm denied its products were a rip-off of Trunki - insisting it had come up with the idea of children's cases for the discount market.

Kiddee Case founder Paul Beverley said the ruling was a "victory for fair competition".

He said: "It upholds the right of consumers to be able to choose competitively-priced products.

"We try always to work within the law and successive courts have agreed that there is no way our popular Kiddee Case can be mistaken for any other product.

"In reality we are operating in very different markets from our rivals and we have never been competing for the same customer base."

Raped Teen Dies After Being Set On Fire

A 16-year-old girl who was raped and set on fire on the roof of her home earlier this week has died.

The teenager died in hospital in the Indian capital where she was being treated for severe burns over 95% of her body sustained in Monday's attack.

A 19-year-old man has been arrested and charged with several offences, including rape, murder, assault of a minor and causing grievous injury.

Constable Yadram Singh, of the Bisrakh police station, said the man had burns on his hands.

The police report describes how the girl's parents found her after hearing her screaming from their rooftop terrace before dawn.

The suspect lived near the girl in Tigri village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

The girl's family told local media that he had been stalking and harassing her for around a year despite several warnings.

The attack is the latest in a string of horrific sexual crimes in India.

Mumbai police on Monday reportedly said they were looking into a case where the body of a four-year-old girl was found. There were allegations she had been raped before she was killed.

Last week, three boys reportedly kidnapped and raped a teenage girl around New Delhi, but she managed to escape.

The fatal gang rape of a young woman travelling on a bus in New Delhi in 2012 led to a public outcry about the high levels of violence against women in India.

It also led to reform of rape laws in the country, including speeding up of trials and increased penalties for offenders.

But high numbers of assault still persist despite the stronger laws.

Matrix Director Comes Out As Transgender Woman

The co-director of The Matrix, Lilly Wachowski, formerly known as Andy, has come out as transgender - four years after her sister Lana Wachowski also transitioned to a woman.

Lilly Wachowski wrote a piece in Chicago's Windy City Times entitled "Sex change shocker - Wachowski brothers now sisters!!!"

The 48-year-old said she decided to make her gender reassignment public after a journalist attempted to coerce her into doing an interview about her transition.

"I knew at some point I would have to come out publicly," Lilly Wachowski wrote.

"You know, when you're living as an out transgender person it's … kind of difficult to hide.

"I just wanted - needed some time to get my head right, to feel comfortable.

"But apparently I don't get to decide this."

Her sister Lana, 50, formerly known as Larry, came out publicly as a transgender woman in 2012.

In her statement, Lilly Wachowski touched on the struggles faced by the transgender community, and said that while progress has been made, "we continue to be demonised and vilified in the media where attack ads portray us as potential predators to keep us from even using the goddamn bathroom".

"So yeah, I'm transgender. And yeah, I've transitioned," she said, adding that she is out to her wife, family and friends.

The Wachowskis, who are notoriously private about their lives and rarely give interviews, have carved a reputation with The Matrix franchise starring Keanu Reeves, V For Vendetta and, most recently, Netflix's sci-fi series Sense8.

Lilly Wachowski's transition comes amid a growing spotlight on the transgender community.

Reality TV star and Olympic gold medallist Caitlyn Jenner, formerly known as Bruce Jenner, has so far been the most high-profile personality to come out as a transgender woman, and has been an advocate for LGBT rights.

Amazon's Golden Globe-winning series Transparent, which follows the gender transition of a family patriarch, has also helped shed light on the community and just last month, Mya Taylor became the first transgender actress to win an Independent Spirit Award for her role in the film Tangerine.

Terror Threat To Europe 'Highest For 10 Years'

The head of Europol has told Sky News there is a growing threat of a spectacular terror attack in Europe and the UK would face significant security challenges if it left the European Union.

Rob Wainwright, who is British and a former MI5 officer, has been the director of the agency responsible for the co-ordination of the European Union's law enforcement since 2009.

Speaking from the organisation's headquarters in The Netherlands, Mr Wainwright was frank about the challenges following last November's Paris attacks.

"I think it is likely that we will have another attack. We are working of course around the clock to prevent that from happening but this is a very, very serious threat.

"It's certainly the highest terrorist threat we have faced for over 10 years and we need to up our game as a collective counter terrorist community to make sure we can protect our citizens from this."

The Paris attacks exposed failings in Europe's ability to coordinate and share intelligence on known terror suspects.

The attack mastermind, Abdelhamid Abaoud, was able to pass freely through Europe to Syria and back without being apprehended despite being the subject of an international arrest warrant.

One of the attackers, Saleh Abdeslam, was stopped by police hours after the attacks driving into Belgium. They failed to arrest him and he remains on the run.

Police in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek

"Since Paris I can tell you that at Europol we have seen a significant increase in the amount of intelligence that's now been shared... a determined response by the community to prevent another Paris-style attack," Mr Wainwright said.

The unprecedented migrant and refugee crisis has exposed Europe to massive challenges on two separate fronts: people trafficking and terrorism.

"Some 1.8 million migrants and refugees arrived in Europe last year putting huge pressures on our external border and driving in particular, fuelling, a serious increase in people smuggling which has become the fastest growing criminal sector now in Europe.

"There are security dimensions attached to this migration crisis and at the same time the highest terrorist threat for 10 years so the twin effects of that mean that we are in very uncertain times in Europe at the moment..."

The attackers in Paris were Europeans, radicalised in Europe but trained in Syria. The number of people who pose a threat to us all is huge according to shared European intelligence.

"At least 5,000 we think - that have been radicalised by ISIS, very often online and have acquired conflict experience in Syria and Iraq. Many of them have since returned," Mr Wainwright said.

Against this backdrop, Mr Wainwright was happy to voice his views on the impact a 'leave' vote would have on the UK's security.

"One can expect that the arrangements [in the event of the UK leaving the EU] will be not as optimal and therefore it will be difficult for the UK to replace what it currently relies on in the EU with arrangements that would be as effective and as cost efficient as well," he said.

Europol says 2,500 operational cases were brought to its attention by British law enforcement agencies in 2015. Up to 40% of all Europol casework has what Mr Wainwright calls a 'British dimension'.

In that context, he argues that the UK's membership with the EU enhances cooperation and improves security in the UK and across the continent.

London Mayor Boris Johnson, who is campaigning for the UK to leave the EU, has suggested EU bureaucracy hampered the UK's ability to fight crime and terrorism.