Orlando Killer's 'I Love You' Text During Siege

Orlando killer Omar Mateen texted his wife to say "I love you, babe" during his rampage at a gay nightclub that left 49 people dead, according to US media reports.

CBS News said it had spoken to a police source who told them the 29-year-old and his wife Noor Salman communicated during the attack at Pulse on Sunday.

NBC News, citing someone close to Salman, reported that she received a call from Mateen's mother on the night of the shootings, asking if she knew where her husband was.

The source said Salman then texted her husband asking "Where are you?" at around 2.30am, midway through his rampage.

Mateen is said to have responded "Do you see what's happening?" and when Salman answered "no?", Mateen sent a text saying "I love you, babe".

NBC said she told investigators she tried to call her husband but failed to get through.

She was only told about the attack after officers raided the home she shared in Port St Lucie with Mateen, a US citizen of Afghan parentage.

Officials believe she had some prior knowledge of the attack and is likely to face charges, CBS said.

Another official told the station Mateen had been active on Facebook before and during the attack.

He is understood to have paused amid the carnage and searched online for "Pulse Orlando" and "shooting".

Earlier he had posted his "Alliance to (Islamic State leader) Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi".

An FBI source told Fox News Mateen made a total of 16 phone calls from inside the club, some to 911, others to media outlets.

Although Mateen has pledged allegiance to IS, CIA director Josh Brennan said on Thursday no direct link has been found between him and foreign militants.

Meanwhile, more has emerged about Mateen's erratic life and career before the massacre.

At school he was suspended for a total of 48 days between August 2000 and December 2002, had difficulty in almost every grade and while in his early years was reported to have been abusive, rude, aggressive and "lacked remorse".

After he started working at GNC, a food supplements store in Florida in 2006, his supervisor Margeret Barone told CBS he took steroids and "blew up", becoming "huge".

A colleague of Ms Barone's told her Mateen sometimes drank so much alcohol he would become "crazy and violent" and later black out

The employee told Ms Barone she thought Mateen was gay.

In 2013, a request was made by police to transfer Mateen out of a Florida courthouse after he made inflammatory remarks about women and Jews and praised the Foot Hood shooter.

Former Oxfam Activist Was A Labour 'Star'

Jo Cox was elected as Labour MP for Batley and Spen in the 2015 general election.

She secured a majority of 6,057, with fellow Labour MP John Mann saying: "She is one of the stars of the new intake."  

Ms Cox was born in Batley, West Yorkshire, grew up in Heckmondwike and studied at Cambridge University, graduating in 1995. 

The 41-year-old was married with two young daughters, and it would have been her 42nd birthday next Wednesday.   

She lived with her family on a converted barge, moored near London's Tower Bridge. 

Prior to entering politics she was head of policy for the charity Oxfam, which described her as a "passionate advocate on humanitarian issues". 

She was also an adviser to Sarah Brown and Baroness Kinnock, to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and to anti-slavery campaign group The Freedom Fund. 

Ms Cox was one of 36 Labour MPs who nominated Jeremy Corbyn for the party leadership last year. 

But she actually voted for Liz Kendall, saying last month that she had regretted nominating Mr Corbyn. 

Last October, she launched the All Party Parliamentary Friends of Syria group, becoming its chair.

Jo Cox was married with two children

In the same month, she co-authored an article in The Observer with the Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell, arguing that British military forces could help to achieve an ethical solution to the conflict in Syria. 

She abstained in the Commons vote last autumn on allowing British military action in Syria, insisting that any solution to the conflict needed to be more wide-ranging. 

Despite a keen interest in overseas issues, Ms Cox had spoken of the importance of her roots. 

Speaking to the Yorkshire Post last December, Ms Cox said that after a happy childhood, going to Cambridge University had unsettled her. 

"I never really grew up being political or Labour.

"It kind of came at Cambridge where it was just a realisation that where you were born mattered.

"That how you spoke mattered... who you knew mattered.

"I didn’t really speak right or knew the right people...

"To be honest my experience at Cambridge really knocked me for about five years."

Ultimately, though, it proved useful. 

She told the paper: "Having gone through that experience of being in a Cambridge college, surviving it and building myself up, meant that coming here (Westminster) was a walk in the park, and a lot of the same people are here!"

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.