British opposition MP Jo Cox dies after being shot

Jo Cox, a member of the British parliament, died after being shot in northern England, UK police have said.

West Yorkshire Police said on Thursday a 52-year-old man had been arrested following the incident, which prompted the suspension of campaigning for next week's EU referendum

Local media reported that Labour party member Jo Cox, 41, had been shot at her advice surgery in Birstall, near the city of Leeds.

One witness told the Press Association that Cox had intervened in a scuffle between two men, one of whom pulled a gun from a bag and then fired twice.

"She was taken by air ambulance from Birstall library near the city of Leeds. Witnesses say she was shot and stabbed and taken by air ambulance to Leeds General Infirmary," Al Jazeera's Barnaby Phillips, reporting from London, said.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said, "the whole of the Labour Party and Labour family - and indeed the whole country - will be in shock at the horrific murder of Jo Cox today".

A mother of two, Cox was a leading campaigner for Britain to remain in the 28-member bloc and chaired the all-party parliamentary committee on Syria.

She became a Labour MP for Batley and Spen last year and was known for her work on women's issues.

Campaigning suspended

Following the attack, both sides in Britain's upcoming referendum on leaving or staying within the EU said they were suspending campaigning for the day, while Prime Minister David Cameron said he would pull out of a planned rally in Gibraltar.

The Stronger in Europe camp said it was "suspending all campaigning for the day", while a spokesman for the rival Vote Leave group, which is backing a so-called Brexit, said that their "battle bus" had stopped campaigning for the day.

EgyptAir plane's voice recorder found

The cockpit voice recorder from the EgyptAir plane that crashed last month has been found in the Mediterranean, Egyptian investigators say.

The black box was damaged and had been pulled out of the water in several stages, they said.

A search vessel with an underwater robot has been scouring the crash site and has sent back images of wreckage.

Flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo crashed on 19 May, killing all 66 people on board. 

It is not yet clear what caused the aircraft to go down. 

In a statement, investigators said: "The vessel's equipment was able to salvage the part [of the recorder] that contains the memory unit, which is considered the most important part of the recording device." 

The recorder will now be taken to the Egyptian city of Alexandria to be studied.

The plane's manufacturer, Airbus, previously said that finding the black boxes was crucial to understanding what happened when radar lost track of MS804.

Electronic messages sent by the plane revealed that smoke detectors went off in the toilet and the aircraft's electrics, minutes before the radar signal was lost.

According to Greek investigators, the plane turned 90 degrees left and then 360 degrees to the right, dropping from 11,300m (37,000ft) to 4,600m (15,000ft) and then 3,000m (10,000ft) before it was lost from radar.

A terror attack has not been ruled out but no extremist group has claimed to have downed the plane.

Analysts say human or technical error is also a possibility.

The crew on board do not appear to have sent a distress call.

The cockpit voice recorder should allow investigators to hear what the pilot and co-pilot were saying to each other, plus any alarms in the background.

If the flight data recorder is recovered, it should show what the plane's computers were recording at the time.

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What do we know so far?

• EgyptAir Flight MS804 vanished over the eastern Mediterranean early on Thursday 19 May with 66 passengers and crew on board
• Some surface debris was found 290km (180 miles) north of the Egyptian city of Alexandria
• Signals from the plane indicated that smoke was detected in the toilet and in the avionics area below the cockpit
• Search area is one of the deepest parts of the Mediterranean - more than 3,000 metres (10,000ft) deep in places

British MP Jo Cox 'injured in shooting attack'

A member of the British parliament has been injured after being attacked in northern England, media reports have said.

Local media reported on Thursday that Labour party member Jo Cox, 41, had been shot at her advice surgery in Birstall, near the city of Leeds.

Al Jazeera's Barnaby Phillips, reporting from London, said that according to British media her condition was critical.

"She was taken by air ambulance from Birstall library near the city of Leeds. Eyewitnesses say she was shot and stabbed and taken by air ambulance to Leeds infirmary," he said.

A mother of two, Cox has been an MP since 2015 and chairs the all-party parliamentary committee on Syria, Phillips added.

Takeover Target Poundland's Profits Slump

Poundland has reported an 84% fall in annual pre-tax profits to £5.9m, as it is stalked by a potential South African buyer which now owns almost a quarter of the business.

The discount retailer said same-store sales fell just shy of 4% in the year to 27 March.

But total sales rose 18.7% to £1.3bn - boosted by 60 new stores and its troubled £55m purchase of rival 99p Stores.

It said the numbers reflected a "challenging but transformative" year in which it also spent heavily on converting 130 99p Stores sites.

The Group put costs of almost £18m on the purchase, including conversions.

Jim McCarthy, outgoing chief executive at Poundland, said: "After a period of significant change, including an unprecedented integration programme at pace, Poundland now has a unified estate of over 900 stores.

"The retail environment remains challenging, but with our significantly enlarged store portfolio, greater scale and ability to focus fully on trading our stores, I believe we are well placed to make progress in the year ahead".

The company announced the figures just hours after Steinhoff, which failed in a battle with Sainsbury's to land Argos, confirmed it had taken a 23% stake in Poundland and confirmed any potential offer would be made in cash.

Its bid interest had emerged earlier on Wednesday with Poundland urging its investors to take no action.

Steinhoff, which is backed by South African billionaire Christo Wiese, gave little detail on its interest in Poundland, only saying it would make a further announcement "in due course".

It already owns Bensons for Beds in the UK and Conforama in France, as well as other retailers in Europe, Africa and Australasia.

Mr Wiese's Brait investment group also owns controlling stakes in Virgin Active, New Look and food chain Iceland.

Under City takeover rules, it must make a firm bid or walk away before 5pm on 13 July.

Poundland shares, which remain over 30% down on a year ago, rose more than 2% in Thursday trading.

Verdict Retail analyst Andrew Hall said of the chain's results: "The integration of 99p Stores has dealt a blow to profits, however even stripping out the impact of the takeover, profits still tumbled by 13.5% to £37.8m.

"It is clear then that the integration, and resulting sizeable increase in size of the business, has certainly proved unsettling for Poundland.

"At the same time, the retailer is reeling from the effects of tough high street conditions; a key contributor to its -3.9% decline in like-for-like sales".

Why Young Tech Talent Should Worry Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg is old. Completely past it. He's 32 and in Silicon Valley, 20 is the new 30.

Take James Proud. The south Londoner started coding when he was nine, moved to California when he was 19, set up his company Hello at the age of 21, and now has 50 employees and £28m in funding.

Facebook, Google and Amazon are now the grown-ups of the tech world.

As the current crop of start-ups - think Uber, Airbnb and Snapchat - also grow into multibillion-dollar beasts, Silicon Valley is looking for the next big thing. And increasingly, the next big thing is the bright young things.

Alongside Proud, there's Brian Wong, a 25-year-old Canadian whose advertising network Kiip has £14m in funding, according to Crunchbase, and offices around the world.

Or, here in the UK, 27-year-old Kate Unsworth, whose company Vinaya is in the middle of smashing crowdfunding targets for its latest wearable product.

The youngest might be Shubham Banerjee, whose company Braigo Labs makes low-cost Braille printers. Banerjee is 14 years old.

What characterises younger founders? Perhaps it's a higher appetite for risk and uncertainty.

Mr Proud tells Sky News: "You should always take the highest amount of risk. And when you actually look at it: what is the true risk? And it's usually not really that risky.

"If you're going to do something and it fails, OK, you're not going to prison - it doesn't really matter… Especially when you're younger and you don't have as many commitments to other people."

That single-mindedness also characterises this generation of young entrepreneurs in another way.

Silicon Valley has always been fleet of foot - think of Facebook's motto: "Move fast and break stuff."

But this generation moves really fast: Sense, Hello's sleep sensor, went from sketch to on sale in just 11 months.

Experience and patience are still worth something. But many of this new generation can rely on a support network of older entrepreneurs - Mr Proud cites Max Levchin, a co-founder of PayPal, as offering invaluable advice.

Ms Unsworth can draw on the advice of UK veterans like Eileen Burbidge of Passion Capital and Michael Birch, who co-founded Bebo.

But this isn't just about making a quick buck.

"It's still very hard to build meaningful technology companies," Mr Proud says.

"There's always a shake out and it's people who went there to try and get rich quickly."

Robert Colville writes in his recent book, The Great Acceleration, that "Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Jeff Bezos ... are not just messianic but petrified. Petrified that something faster will come along and lure away their customers".

Zuck better watch out.

Boy Snatched By Alligator At Disney Found Dead

The body of a two-year-old boy snatched by an alligator at a Disney resort in Florida has been recovered.

The child, named as Lane Graves, was paddling in a foot of water on a beach beside the Seven Seas Lagoon on Tuesday night when the animal dragged him away.

Boats, a helicopter and scores of police officers were involved in the search - and a body has now been recovered.

Fifty police officers were involved in the search

Lane is believed to have been drowned by the alligator.

Sheriff Jerry Demings said he had informed parents Matt and Melissa Graves, from Elkhorn, Nebraska.

"Of course the family was distraught but somewhat relived that they had found his body intact," he said.

A family friend released a statement on behalf of the couple thanking well-wishers for their "thoughts and hope-filled prayers".

The boy's father tried unsuccessfully to pry him from the jaws of the 4-7ft alligator before it disappeared into the 14ft-deep manmade lagoon.

Eyewitness Bill Wilson, visiting from Indiana, said the attack unfolded in less than 30 seconds.

He told the Orlando Sentinal: "I looked over and here comes one of the lifeguards. He said: 'Everybody get out of the water'. The mother was there and she was frantic, running up and down looking."

The body has been sent for a post-mortem examination.

Walt Disney World shut all of its Florida beaches and marinas as a precaution after the incident - the first such death in its 45-year history.

While "no swimming" signs are posted at the lagoon, there are no warnings of alligators.

Sheriff Demings said the authorities would work with Disney on the issue of warning signs. 

At least five other alligators were caught and cut open before they found the boy.

EgyptAir plane wreckage found in Mediterranean

A deep ocean search vessel has identified the remains of the EgyptAir plane that crashed in the eastern Mediterranean, killing 66 people on board, according to Egyptian authorities.

The investigation committee said in a statement late on Wednesday that the vessel "had identified several main locations of the wreckage, accordingly the first images of the wreckage were provided to the investigation committee."

The vessel was contracted by Egypt to join the search efforts for the data recorders and the wreckage.

A search team on board the vessel will now draw a map of the wreckage's distribution spots, the committee said in a statement.

The A320 disappeared from radar en route to Cairo from Paris in May. No group has claimed an attack after the incident.