Boxing Legend Muhammad Ali Dies Aged 74

Boxing legend Muhammad Ali has died at the age of 74, a spokesman for his family has confirmed.

The three-time world heavyweight champion had suffered from Parkinson's disease since 1984 - three years after he retired from the sport.

In the days before his death, Ali had been admitted to hospital in Phoenix, Texas, suffering from respiratory issues.

Reports had suggested his breathing problems had been complicated by the neurological disorder, which had long impaired his speech.

:: Tributes To Legend Ali: 'So Long Great One'

A statement from spokesman Bob Gunnell said: "Muhammad Ali's funeral will take place in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.

"The Ali family would like to thank everyone for their thoughts, prayers, and support and asks for privacy at this time.

Boxing manager Frank Warren told Sky News: "The world has lost an iconic figure. As a boxer, he was one of the greatest of all time.

"Not only that, but he crossed over into the mainstream and became bigger than sport. He was probably one of the most recognised people on the planet.

"Muhammad Ali probably paved the way for Barack Obama becoming President of the United States. He changed the whole concept of being black in America."

Promoter Kellie Malone added: "Muhammad Ali was a man that stood up for his principles. He took on the American government and he helped the black community in America.

"He believed in certain things and he thought for what he believed in and he stood up for it."

News of his death first emerged following a baseball game in Florida, when the Miami Marlins displayed a tribute to Ali on video screens around the stadium. 

The team's president, David Samson, claimed he was told of Ali's passing by someone close to the family - but said he was unaware that the news had not been officially announced.

Ali had a personal connection to the club, and had threw the first pitch at their new ballpark when it opened in 2012.

:: 'I Am The Greatest': The Life Of Muhammad Ali

Born in January 1942 as Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr, a name shared with a 19th century slavery abolitionist, the boxer changed his name to Muhammad Ali after his conversion to Islam.

Although he had shied away from public life in recent years, Ali spoke out against Donald Trump's calls for Muslims to be banned from entering the United States.

Back in December, he urged people to "stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda", adding: "True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion."

One of the boxing legend's final public appearances was in April, when he attended a Celebrity Fight Night in April to benefit a Parkinson's treatment facility in his name.

Ali is survived by his fourth wife Lonnie, along with his nine children.

Many of his loved ones reportedly flew to Texas to be by his bedside following his admission to hospital on Thursday.

Human Remains Found Inside 14ft Crocodile

Human remains - believed to be missing woman Cindy Waldron - have been found inside a 4.3m (14ft) crocodile captured in Queensland, Australia.

Ms Waldron, 46, was with her friend in shallow water at Thornton Beach late on Sunday night when she was pulled under after only a minute in the water.

Leeanne Mitchell tried in vain to pull Ms Waldron from the reptile's jaws as it dragged her under.

Police said the crocodile was caught and humanely put down in nearby Cooper Creek on Friday afternoon.

The remains were discovered after the dead animal was taken to Cairns for examination.

Ms Waldron's sister visited the site of the attack

"At this stage, police believe the remains are those of a woman who was reported missing on 29 May," said a police statement.

Department of Environment and Heritage Protection (EHP) officers had set traps in the area to try to track down the crocodile.

Helicopters with thermal imaging gear also flew over the scene in Daintree National Park in the hours after the attack, but failed to find any trace of the victim.

Ms Mitchell told emergency services they had "felt a nudge" before Ms Waldron was dragged under screaming.

Police said they had been in the water "for no more than a minute".

There are large crocodile warning signs near where the attack happened but police have said the pair may not have seen them.

There are warning signs near where the attack happened

Speaking after the attack, local MP Warren Enstch said the women had to accept some of the blame.

"You can't legislate against human stupidity," he said.

"If you go in swimming at 10 o'clock at night, you're going to get consumed."

Ms Waldron's family flew in from New Zealand to visit the site of the attack on Wednesday, with her sister Anna-Lee Annett saying it was "what nightmares are made of".

"Anyone can make silly mistakes," she said.

"And I think, you know, it was a perfect night, they were really happy, they were best friends and they hadn't seen each other for a while and they did something silly."

Emergency services searched the area but found no sign of the Ms Waldron

Ms Annett added: "She was the most kind, generous, caring person, and I know people say that when people pass, but she was."

The attack took place near where a five-year-old boy was taken in 2009.

In 1985 a giant crocodile known as Big Jim took local postal worker Beryl Wruck while she was having a late-night swim about an hour's drive from Thornton Beach.

Crocodile numbers have surged in northern Australia since the animals became a protected species in 1971.

Police investigating the latest attack are now preparing a report for the coroner.

Deepcut Soldier Cheryl James Shot Herself

A coroner has found that Private Cheryl James died from a "self-inflicted" gunshot wound at Deepcut barracks in 1995.

The ruling that she was not unlawfully killed follows a second inquest into the death of the 18-year-old soldier, who was found shot dead while she was on guard duty.

She was one of four soldiers who died at Deepcut in Surrey between 1995 and 2002 amid claims of bullying and abuse.

Following a three-month inquest into her death, Coroner Brian Barker QC said he was satisfied there was not sufficient evidence to support a conclusion that she was unlawfully killed.

Des and Doreen James have campaigned for a thorough investigation

He said: "When I ask myself if there is sufficient evidence with which I can properly reach a conclusion of unlawful killing the only answer I have is 'no'."

Pte James' father Des said he was "deeply saddened" by the conclusions, adding that he and his wife Doreen believed the evidence "did not lead to this verdict".

But he welcomed the coroner's scathing remarks about the welfare of young recruits at Deepcut, which he said had been a "toxic and horrible" environment for his daughter. 

The Army had always maintained that Pte James took her own life, but her parents, Des and Doreen, said there had not been a thorough investigation, arguing that the culture of the camp was "out of control" and contributed to her death and those of the three other young recruits.

The coroner was scathing about welfare standards at Deepcut

Mr Barker said it was "highly regrettable" that the investigation in 1995 was "not more thorough".

"Had it been, some of the inconsistencies of memory might have been avoided and the scientific evidence might have been of much better quality," he said.

Mr Barker said Deepcut had far too few officers to train and look after the recruits, who were left bored and indisciplined.

Launching a scathing attack on welfare standards at Deepcut, Mr Barker said the general culture of the base fell below the standard expected, saying the "haphazard provision of welfare support was insufficient".

He also highlighted a culture of sexual promiscuity and heavy drinking at the Surrey base.

Mr Barker said the Army accepted that some instructors "saw young females as a sexual challenge".

He added: "The evidence of this inquest supports the presence of consensual but improper relations between instructors and trainees." 

Mr Barker said there was an assumption of suicide at the time of the initial investigation - meaning the scene was not adequately investigated and ballistics tests were not carried out.

Pte James' clothes were incinerated, bullet fragments were not preserved and interviews with those at the barracks were inadequate, he said.

Mr Barker said: "This has left unanswered questions which understandably fuelled speculation as to how Ms James died."

He praised Pte James' parents for fighting to discover the truth and said Mr James' battle for justice had been key in encouraging the Army to drive through reforms to improve the welfare and support it gives young recruits.

US Launches Raids On IS From Aircraft Carrier

The US has launched raids against the Islamic State group from an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, the first such strikes since the Iraq War began in 2003.

The jets took off from the USS Harry S Truman after the aircraft carrier passed through the Suez Canal, said a senior US Navy official.

The Truman has been working with French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle in the US-led fight against IS, which began in summer 2014.  

Blue Angels Pilot Killed In Training Crash

A Blue Angels pilot has been killed after his F/A-18 fighter jet crashed in Tennessee during a practice session.

The US Navy said in a news release that the pilot was beginning to take off when the crash took place in Smyrna, just outside Nashville.

He has been identified by US officials as Marine Captain Jeff Kuss.

According to his official Blue Angels biography, Cpt Kuss joined the elite aerobatics team in 2014 and had accumulated more than 1,400 flight hours.

His grandfather, Dolph Kuss, said being a pilot was his childhood dream.

Captain Jeff Kuss had flown in the aerobatics team since 2014

He said: "It's hard to put into words right now, but it's beautiful that a person can live and die engaged in their life's pursuits.

"This was his dream since he was a child, to be an aviator, a flier."

Admiral John Richardson, the Navy's top officer, posted on Facebook: "My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of the Blue Angels after this tragic loss.

"I know that the Navy and Marine Corps Team is with me.

"We will investigate this accident fully and do all we can to prevent similar incidents."

Five other F/A-18 jets in the Blue Angels team landed safely moments after the crash. No one else was injured.

The team is based at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida.

The Blue Angels were scheduled to take part in the Great Tennessee Air Show at the weekend, but will now not participate.

Cpt Kuss was from Durango, Colorado, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marines in 2006. He had previously served in Afghanistan before joining the Blue Angels.

He is survived by his wife and two children.

It comes after the pilot from the Thunderbirds air demonstration squadron was forced to eject before his fighter jet crashed in Colorado on Thursday.

Major Alex Turner, of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, had just flown over the crowd watching President Obama's commencement address at the US Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs when he was forced to ditch.

He was rescued by helicopter and taken for a face-to-face meeting with Mr Obama.

Gove 'Nervous' Ahead Of Sky News EU Event

Michael Gove has admitted he is "nervous" as he prepares to present the case for the UK leaving the European Union in a live Sky News event.

The Justice Secretary will take to the stage on behalf of the Leave campaign tonight to face an hour-long grilling from Sky News' political editor Faisal Islam and members of the studio audience.

He follows in the footsteps of Prime Minister David Cameron, who was greeted with several fiery exchanges as he presented his case for remaining in the bloc.

:: Prime Minister Admits EU 'Drives Me Crazy'

Speaking ahead of the event, Mr Gove said: "I'm quite nervous ... because I've never done anything like this before but the main thing is I have been chosen to make sure that people have a chance to hear the Vote Leave message, so the main thing that I want do is to try to get across the essence of our case.

"And of course Faisal Islam is a tough interrogator and I'm sure that he will challenge me to make the case as to how life will be a bit different and better if we were outside the European Union, and I'm sure there will be some worries from members of the audience about what leaving might mean.

"I hope to be able to paint a positive picture of life outside and allay people's fears."

When asked what he will try to avoid during the live debate, Mr Gove said: "I think falling over as I arrive or leave would be a bit of a no-no. And cracking up in the middle of one of my own answers."

:: How Did Cameron Score In The EU Debate?

He said he did not want to mimic former Labour leader Ed Miliband, who almost fell off the stage at a televised event during last year's General Election campaign. 

"I remember Ed Miliband falling off the stage, which is why it was in my mind," he said.

He added he will wear a tie during the event. Asked whether it would be a lucky one, he said: "No - most of my ties are very unlucky".

Mr Cameron's appearance on Thursday marked the first major television event of the referendum campaign.

In his interview with Islam he admitted that at times he found the European Union "immensely frustrating", but said the UK would "absolutely not" be better off outside the bloc.

"I would just say to everybody: as we go home and wake up in the morning and look our children and our grandchildren in the eye and we think who we are responsible for through our pay packet, let us not roll the dice on their future," he said.

: Student: 'Waffling' Cameron 'Had It Coming

He was accused of "scaremongering" and "hypocrisy" as he faced down angry members of the public in the audience during a 30-minute question session.

At one point university student Soraya Bouazzaoui told Mr Cameron he was "waffling" as he replied to her question about the potential for Turkey joining the EU.

Interrupting him, she said: "I'm an English Literature student, I know waffling when I see it, OK?"

According to the latest poll, the Remain campaign appears to have lost ground to Vote Leave.

For the first time, a telephone poll by ICM for The Guardian newspaper has suggested a 4% lead for Vote Leave (52%) over Stronger In (48%) once 'don't knows' are excluded.

:: Sky News will be hosting another debate on the EU referendum at 8pm on Friday featuring Justice Secretary Michael Gove, a leading figure in the Leave campaign.

We can control migration inside EU, says PM

David Cameron has said migration can be managed if the UK remains inside the EU and it would be "madness" to try to control it by voting to leave.

He said he did not accept that his pledge to cut immigration below 100,000 could not be achieved within the EU.

In a live Q&A on Sky News, he said leaving the EU and the single market would "trash" the UK economy.

Vote Leave's Iain Duncan Smith said the studio audience were "fed up with the scaremongering" of the Remain campaign.

'Right ambition'

The live Q&A and questions from a studio audience on Sky News was Mr Cameron's first major TV event of the EU referendum campaign.

Justice Secretary Michael Gove has admitted he is feeling "nervous" as he prepares to take part in a similar programme on the channel on Friday evening but says he is hoping to "allay people's fears" about leaving the EU.

In other developments:

• The Home Affairs Committee says the failure to deport 13,000 foreign criminals will lead people to "question the point" of the UK remaining in the EU
• Young people are being put off registering to vote because of the need to give a national insurance number, campaign group Bite the Ballot says
• Defeats for UK nations at Euro 2016 will not impact the morale of the Brexit campaign ahead of the referendum, Boris Johnson says
• 67% of British record labels favour the UK staying in the EU, according to a survey by the British Phonographic Industry                                                                              
• Follow the latest updates with BBC EU Referendum Live

        Analysis 

By Norman Smith, BBC assistant political editor
The Q&A underlined how immigration is rapidly becoming the issue in this referendum campaign.
Again and again Mr Cameron was challenged over it with members of the audience talking about "a never-ending stream of migrants coming in". 
Another woman said "I think we're struggling, I think we're sinking".
It seemed Mr Cameron was repeatedly pushed onto the back foot, in part because of his commitment to get net migration down to tens of thousands and in part because it seemed he doesn't have an answer to the basic question of "what do you do about free movement in the EU?". The answer is you can't do anything if you want to remain in the single market.
It was striking how often he kept extolling the virtues of the single market trying to shift the argument back onto the economy.
But it was a pretty hostile audience and every time he tried to articulate an argument it was almost dismissed as scaremongering, with one audience member calling it "classic Cameron scare tactics". 
---
Among the first questions Mr Cameron faced from Sky's political editor Faisal Islam was one on the net number of EU migrants that have arrived in the UK since he became prime minister in 2010.
Mr Cameron said about 600,000 had left this country and about 1.2 million had come to live or work here, accepting immigration was a big challenge. 
When told his manifesto pledge to cut net migration into the UK to the "tens of thousands" could not be achieved while the UK remained in the EU, Mr Cameron said: "I don't accept that. I think it remains the right ambition for Britain."
Last month it emerged net migration to the UK hit 333,000 in 2015.
A Home Affairs Committee report later said it would take a "modern miracle" for David 
Cameron to meet his "no ifs, no buts" pledge to cut migration to under 100,000.
Mr Cameron said the UK economy had outperformed Europe but he expected immigration from and migration to the EU to come into balance as the economies of countries such as France and Germany picked up.
"I'm not going to put a date on it," he said. "There are good ways of controlling migration and there are bad ways."
He said a "good way" was to ensure new arrivals did not claim unemployment benefit and left after six months if they did not have a job - as he had done in his renegotiation - as well as ensuring people "make a contribution" for four years before getting full welfare access. 
He added: "It would be madness to try to do that by trashing our economy and pulling out of the single market."
'Drives me crazy'
In a wide-ranging discussion, which included accusations from audience members of "scaremongering", "hypocrisy" and "waffling" by Mr Cameron, the prime minister admitted "frustrations" with the EU but said many had been addressed.
"Sometimes this organisation drives me crazy. But do I sit there and think Britain would be better off if we left? Are we quitters? Do we think we quit the EU, we quit the single market and somehow we will be better off? Absolutely not."
He said the EU would still exist but, if the UK backed Brexit, the UK would be left outside the negotiating room, "our nose pressed to the window, trying to find out what decision they were making", adding: "That would be terrible."
But former Conservative cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith said it was "telling" that the PM refused to set any date for cutting net migration below 100,000.
"I thought that was a telling moment because he realised it is difficult to achieve that without coming out of the EU and close our borders," said Mr Duncan Smith.
"All that stuff about, if we leave the EU it induces the likelihood of war, the audience laughed at that. 
"I thought that was the most telling bit because they are fed up with the scaremongering. It shows the way they were going about their business was to scare people to stay in."
'Doesn't add up'
UKIP leader Nigel Farage said Mr Cameron had constantly referred to the single market adding: "It sounds lovely and cuddly and fluffy but actually this referendum is about political union and the single market is actually the embodiment of it. It's cost us a great deal of money to be a member of it.
"Anything to get away from immigration, anything to get away from the fact he can't control his borders and was he lying when he wrote the manifesto or is he lying now because somewhere this doesn't add up."
Mr Cameron, whose party is split on the EU, has refused to take part in any head-to-head TV debates with fellow Conservatives who back leaving the union.
But cabinet minister Michael Gove will make the case for Leave and face questions in an equivalent event on Sky News on Friday.
Thursday's event comes with three weeks to go before the in-out referendum on Britain's EU membership and follows the BBC's studio debate last week in Glasgow with leading campaigners for both sides. 
What TV debates are planned, and when?


BBC:


• A live event at Wembley Arena on 21 June with representatives of both sides of the EU debate questioned by voters. David Dimbleby, Mishal Husain and Emily Maitlis to present.
• A young voters' show from Glasgow was held on 19 May - presented by Victoria Derbyshire
• A special edition of Question Time on 15 June, moderated by David Dimbleby, which the BBC said would feature "one senior advocate from each side"
ITV
• David Cameron and Nigel Farage will in turn answer questions from a studio audience in a live programme on 7 June
• Live TV referendum debate between figures from both sides of the campaign on 9 June. Line-up yet to be announced
Sky
• Two live shows planned featuring David Cameron on 2 June and Leave campaigner and Justice Secretary Michael Gove on 3 June
• Each show will include a face-to-face live interview and a question-and-answer session in front of a studio audience
Channel 4
• Debate on 22 June, the day before the referendum, featuring "politicians, opinion formers and other high profile pro and anti-protagonists"