The results of European bank "stress tests" have been announced, with the aim of establishing how well the banks could cope with a new financial shock.

Banks have done them on their own account for many years.
But this type of exercise has been adopted by official regulators in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008.
What has been tested?
In short, the resilience of the banks. Some 51 European Union banks were tested covering 70% of the sector. The exercise covered the eurozone and the rest of the EU - including the UK.
Regulators have looked at how well banks would stand up under two scenarios up to the end of 2018.
There's a "baseline scenario" that assumes continued - though unspectacular - economic growth, in line with most mainstream forecasts. Then there's an adverse one that involves a recession and would lead to more problem loans, and lower profits or losses.
The key question being asked is how would banks' financial foundations - their capital - hold up?
How much would they have left under these scenarios and how would that compare with the amount they are required to have under banking rules?
A stress test looks at how much a bank might lose and whether it would still have a decent amount of capital to keep trading and take any losses that it might be hit by in the future.
What is bank capital?
Capital is a financial measure of a bank's strength, its ability to withstand losses.
It is the value of a bank's assets minus its liabilities or debts. A bank's assets include cash, loans and securities, while its liabilities cover customer deposits, and money it owes to other banks and bondholders.
So where does it come from? Two key sources are the money put in by shareholders and profits the bank makes and does not hand out to the shareholders as dividends (known as retained profits).
If a bank has a bad year and loses money the amount of capital falls. Shareholders typically see the value of their holding fall, but the bank should still be able pay its debts.
If that process goes too far, however, the capital can be wiped out and if the bank can't pay its debts then it's insolvent - bust.
The international financial crisis was in part the result of banks not having enough capital to cope with losses on problem loans and complicated financial securities.
The bailouts consisted partly of governments providing additional capital which gave taxpayers a shareholding. (Some of this has been repaid or the shares sold off by the government concerned).
One of the main aims of reforms to bank regulation since the crisis has been to ensure that they are not caught with insufficient capital in future.
What are the stress test scenarios?
The key one is the adverse scenario. An ECB official described this hypothetical scenario as a "severe economic downturn".
Under this scenario, the eurozone economies, the EU and the UK all contract in 2016 and 2017 - only resuming growth, though not very strongly, in 2018.
All of them end up nearly 7% smaller than they would have been in the baseline scenario.
The weakness is assumed to be the result of setbacks to the domestic economy, to foreign economies and to the financial system in the shape of higher interest rates, lower share prices and lower property prices.
Higher rates and lower asset prices increase the risk of loans not being paid and of there being inadequate security to sell and cover losses if the borrower does default.
The stress tests look at how these shocks would affect the values of banks' assets, their profitability and the amount of capital they would end up holding.
Who does the tests?
The banks themselves make the initial assessments of how they would be affected in the stress test scenarios. Their results are challenged by the supervisors. In the UK that means the Bank of England, and for the large banks in the eurozone, the European Central Bank.
The exercise is co-ordinated by the European Banking Authority.
Is there are pass/fail threshold?
Unlike previous stress tests there is no pass/fail threshold for the level of capital. But the estimates for how much any bank would have under the various scenarios will feed into the regular assessments made by supervisors.
A bank that comes out of a stress test really badly could ultimately have to be bailed out or bailed in - this latter is a process in which creditors have to take losses to keep the bank afloat.
The tests could eventually lead to some banks having to raise more capital, or face restrictions on the amount of profits they can distribute to their shareholders - because if profits are not distributed they boost a bank's capital.
Any particular problem areas?
Overall the ECB appears relatively comfortable with the amount of capital held by eurozone's banks.
"The ECB perceives the current level of capital in the euro area banks to be satisfactory and intends to keep the supervisory capital demand stable," says Korbinian Ibel, a senior ECB official.
"As the banks went into this stress test with a higher average capital ratio than in earlier years and are overall more resilient, the stress test results are not expected to lead to an increase of the overall level of capital demand in the system."
But there have been concerns in recent months about the problem loans weighing down some Italian and Portuguese banks.
Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest, is seen by the International Monetary Fund as a potential risk to international financial stability and its share price is low compared to the value of the bank's assets and liabilities.
That said, it is not in immediate danger, though its US operation, along with that of the Spanish bank Santander, did fail stress tests conducted by the US Federal Reserve earlier this year.


Guillermo Varela has been suspended by his loan club Eintracht Frankfurt and told to go back to Manchester United after getting a tattoo against orders.

Varela, 24, got the artwork on Monday - before Saturday's German Cup final - and his arm suffered an inflammation.
"The club cannot tolerate that a player would defy instructions," said sporting director Fredi Bobic.
"We'd been thinking about a loan extension. But that won't happen. He'll be suspended with immediate effect."
The Uruguayan, who joined United in 2013, has only made 10 competitive appearances for the Bundesliga side since joining them on a year-long loan last summer.
However, he had featured in the past five league and cup games.
Eintracht play Borussia Dortmund in the DFB-Pokal final at Berlin's Olympiastadion.


The exodus of people from India's north-eastern states living in the southern city of Bangalore continues with more migrant workers fleeing.

There are reports of people from the region fleeing the cities of Chennai (Madras) and Pune as well.
PM Manmohan Singh has appealed for calm and said peace "must be maintained at any cost".
Officials have blamed the exodus on "rumour mongering" linked to clashes in the north-eastern Assam state.
More than 300,000 people fled after fighting between indigenous Bodo tribes and Muslim settlers in Assam.
Fresh violence between the two sides was reported on Thursday when a mob set fire to a bus and a road bridge, reports say. At least nine people were reported to be injured in clashes.
The main railway station in Bangalore was flooded with migrant workers from north-eastern states for a second successive day on Thursday to catch three special trains to the north-east.
A senior Bangalore official told the BBC that nearly 15,000 people from the region had left the city since Wednesday, when the rumours broke out.
There are 250,000 people from the north-east living and working in Bangalore, which is often referred to as the Silicon Valley of India.
Many of them are students, security guards and workers in the hospitality sector.
A minister in the local government S Suresh Kumar told the Press Trust of India that the exodus was "not due to a threat factor, but due to the anxiety [of the people leaving] to be with their parents when Assam has been gripped by violence".
The rumours of attacks have spread to neighbouring Chennai in Tamil Nadu state, and Pune in Maharashtra to the north-west, reports say.
Workers and students from the north-east - mostly from Assam - living in Chennai arrived at the railway station to board to special trains to take them home, one report said.
"Nothing has happened till now, but we are very sure something really bad is going to happen. Our Bangalore friends have said we have to leave," Bishnu, a migrant worker from Assam, told The Hindu newspaper.
Reports of a similar exodus are being reported from western Pune city, where many north-east people working in the city are reported to have fled.
The rumours of attacks have been spread through text messages and the social media. There have been a few reports of people being threatened to leave.
"We must work together to ensure that all people from other states do not feel threatened by rumour mongering and text messages," PM Manmohan Singh said.
Many young people from the restive north-east region have migrated to the cities of Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore in search of better jobs and education.


A steel firm has bought equipment left over after a Monmouthshire renewable energy factory closed down, with a view to creating a new manufacturing centre.

Liberty Group bought equipment used by Mabey Bridge in Chepstow to make steel towers for wind turbines.
It is now deciding where to base its centre.
The firm would not comment on the possible location, but it is understood it is keen to stay in the area because the skills are still available.
Liberty Group, which owns steelworks and a power station in Newport, is looking to supply masts for the offshore wind sector, pylons for the National Grid and turbine casings for Tidal Lagoon Power, if the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon goes ahead.
Mabey Bridge's Chepstow site closed in September 2015 but Liberty described its equipment as "state of the art".
The steel it would use  in production would come from two steelworks in Scotland Liberty recently bought from Tata and the manufacturing centre would employ about 100 skilled engineers.
Liberty's executive chairman Sanjeev Gupta said: "Our aim is to create a world class centre for the production of tubular towers and other large scale steel fabrication.
"Most of these products are currently imported, so there is great potential to substitute this with our own production of best in class and competitive British towers."
In the long term, Liberty hopes tidal energy will take off in the Severn Estuary; The sector is waiting for the outcome of the independent review of tidal lagoons, chaired by Charles Hendry, due to be completed in the autumn.
If it supports the development of the industry and the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon goes ahead, proposals for a tidal lagoon in Cardiff will progress quickly, closely followed by plans for one in Colwyn Bay, Conwy.
Liberty's sister company, SIMEC, is a major investor in Tidal Lagoon Power, the company behind Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon.
Mr Gupta said: "It is particularly appropriate that this new business will supply the renewable energy market in view of our own green steel strategy, which involves investing in green energy as the basis of a competitive UK steel and engineering industry."
There no timescale for when the final decision on the location will be made.
The best result for the Welsh economy would be if it was based in Wales, employing staff who used to work for Mabey Bridge and using steel made in Wales.
In the long term, it could both supply steel casings for tidal turbines and use renewable energy generation from tidal lagoons.


Maidstone United moved out of the National League relegation zone with victory at promotion-chasing Dagenham.

The Stones made a fast start and were ahead after only six minutes when Joe Pigott fired home from the edge of the box.
Daggers duo Scott Doe and Fejiri Okenabirhie had attempts saved as the first half drew to a close before Pigott saw a goal disallowed midway through the second period.
Bobby-Joe Taylor hit the bar with a free-kick but the visitors, who had Stuart Lewis sent off late on, sealed the points courtesy of Delano Sam-Yorke's goal five minutes from time.
Report supplied by the Press Association.
Match ends, Dagenham and Redbridge 0, Maidstone United 2.
Second Half ends, Dagenham and Redbridge 0, Maidstone United 2.
Substitution, Maidstone United. Yemi Odubade replaces Joe Pigott.
Substitution, Maidstone United. Jake McCarthy replaces Jack Paxman.
Goal!  Dagenham and Redbridge 0, Maidstone United 2. Delano Sam-Yorke (Maidstone United).
Seth Nana Ofori-Twumasi (Maidstone United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Substitution, Dagenham and Redbridge. Ray Grant replaces Jordan Maguire-Drew.
Second yellow card to Stuart Lewis (Maidstone United) for a bad foul.
Andre Boucaud (Dagenham and Redbridge) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Substitution, Dagenham and Redbridge. Sam Ling replaces Craig Robson.
Mark Cousins (Dagenham and Redbridge) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Substitution, Maidstone United. Bobby-Joe Taylor replaces Jamar Loza.
Frankie Raymond (Dagenham and Redbridge) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Substitution, Dagenham and Redbridge. Paul Benson replaces Jake Sheppard.
Second Half begins Dagenham and Redbridge 0, Maidstone United 1.
First Half ends, Dagenham and Redbridge 0, Maidstone United 1.
Stuart Lewis (Maidstone United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Goal!  Dagenham and Redbridge 0, Maidstone United 1. Joe Pigott (Maidstone United).
First Half begins.
Lineups are announced and players are warming up.


A funding package of nearly £300,000 has been announced to improve school walking and cycling links in Dumfries and Galloway.

The money from Sustrans Scotland will support a number of initiatives in Dumfries and Dalbeattie.
It will be backed by funding from Dumfries and Galloway Council, making the total investment nearly £670,000.
Tom Bishop of Sustrans said the aim of the projects was to "improve the safety and ease" of pupils getting to school.
The schemes approved for funding are:
Colin Smyth, who chairs Dumfries and Galloway Council's economy, environment and infrastructure committee, said it was delighted with the award.
"The work at Marchmount Avenue and Moffat Road in Dumfries will be a key part of creating a cycle route between existing cycle routes and Dumfries High School and the extensive new residential development at Marchfield," he said.
"This will link these places with both Dumfries town centre and wider parts of Dumfries.
"Developing a sustainable active travel strategy for the Dumfries Learning Town will not only contribute to the objectives of that project but assist with the further development of the active travel network in Dumfries as a whole.
"The two projects in Dalbeattie reflect the strong community interest in that town in increasing active travel levels, as well as improving links to the new Dalbeattie school, currently being constructed."


Adding another unanticipated sidebar to this topsy-turvy election, Kenneth Starr has lavished praise on Bill Clinton, citing his "genuine empathy for human beings", calling him "the most gifted politician of the baby boomer generation" and commending his post-presidential philanthropy, which he noted was Carteresque in its benevolence.

Starr, a former independent counsel, was the author of what's probably the most expensive piece of pornography ever published, the Starr Report which chronicled, in graphic sexual detail, Bill Clinton's affair with a 21-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.
The one-time character assassin has become a character witness.
Bill Clinton, despite being impeached for lying under oath about that affair, left office with the highest approval rating - 66% - of any departing president.
He was also credited with balancing the federal budget and reviving the American economy from its early-Nineties slump.
Since then, as Starr noted, he has followed a redemptive path. So he should be a prime asset to his wife Hillary as she seeks to become the first ever first lady to move from the East Wing of the White House to the West.
The irony of Starr's kind words is that they have come at a time when Hillary, among other woes, has a Bill problem. The man who could well become the "First Dude" - Hillary's words, not mine - is proving to be something of a liability.
Part of it stems, of course, from what eventually became the focus of Kenneth Starr's inquiry, Bill Clinton's womanising.
It blunts her attacks on Donald Trump's sexism and misogyny which, in a contest where more women will vote than men, should have been her ace card.
The billionaire, in a jujutsu-like move, has already launched an attack ad featuring video of Kathleen Willey, who accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault, and Juanita Broaddrick, who accused him of rape.
"DIRTY BILLS," read the front page of the New York Post the following day, conflating Trump's attack ad with the allegations against Bill Cosby.
Nor is Trump relying on guilt by association. He has already called Hillary an "enabler" of her husband's fidelity. "She would go after these women and destroy their lives," he has claimed.
Like many of Trump's attacks, that may strike many voters as shrill and overstated, it also contains a kernel of truth.
The White House did attempt to trash Monica Lewinsky when the scandal first erupted in 1998, and Hillary Clinton, during her husband's long phase of public denial, described it as being the product of a "vast right-wing conspiracy", absolving him of blame.
Hillary as loyal "stand-by-your-man" wife does not marry that well with Hillary as feminist trailblazer, the image she is trying to project.
My sense, having watched the Clintons fairly closely for over 20 years, is that they have a loving marriage and deep friendship. An animated conversation that started at Yale Law School in the early Seventies continues for both of them to fascinate and enthral.
But many critics of the Clintons believe it's a transactional partnership, a marriage of political convenience. To some, her loyalty during the most troubled phase of the Clinton presidency reinforces the sense that she's a cynical political operator, willing to do anything to accrue power.
The Bernie problem, her difficulty in seeing off her Democratic rival, is also partly a Bill problem. The unexpected success of the Vermont Senator is explained not only by an aversion to Hillary but also a rejection of Bill.
Sanders supporters are railing against his political and policy legacy. Bill Clinton's pursuit of a "Third Way" politics was designed to make the Democrats more electable and to end the party's losing streak in presidential politics.
Up until his victory in 1992, they had only won one of the previous six elections. But this shift to the middle ground, and the centrist policies that accompanied it, alienated many on the Democrat left. Withholding support from Hillary Clinton and bestowing it instead upon Bernie Sanders is a form of revenge.
Whether its financial deregulation, the welfare bill that Clinton passed with the Republican-controlled Congress, criminal justice reforms which have contributed to higher levels of black incarceration, the North American Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta for short, there's been an angry backlash against what Clinton once trumpeted as some of his greatest domestic accomplishments.
This has made her vulnerable to a challenge from the left, as Sanders has shown. But it also makes her vulnerable to a challenge from the right, because of Nafta.
Blue-collar voters, who might ordinarily be expected to vote Democrat, stand to applaud when Donald Trump promises to renegotiate trade deals which have exported American jobs abroad.
Hillary Clinton hinted recently that Bill would become her jobs tsar and focus his energies on reviving American manufacturing.
She clearly hopes that he can appeal again to blue-collar whites, who warmed to him as a candidate and president. But that bond has been severely eroded, if not severed completely, because he was the president who negotiated Nafta.
Public perceptions about Bill Clinton have also changed, in a way which exposes the rupture between the Democratic establishment and the Democratic grassroots.
When he first appeared on the national scene, he could plausibly cast himself as the boy from Hope, his small-town Arkansas birthplace.
Now, after all the millions he has earned on the international speaking circuit, he comes across not just as a limousine liberal but a Lear Jet liberal. Standing at the head of a metropolitan progressive elite, he does not have the same common touch of old.
The Clintons, after all these years as the dominant power couple in the Democratic establishment, also project an imperious sense of entitlement. It explains why Hillary Clinton's email scandal cuts so deep. It reinforces the widespread view that the couple believe they are not bound by normal rules.
Are Trump and Sanders right about trade?
Why is the US turning to protectionism?
Trump, Clinton and the 'None of the Above' era
Hillary Clinton's problem with women
Those of us who have watched him on the campaign trail have also been surprised at the 69-year-old's comparative lack of energy.  The magnetism and charisma for which he is famed simply is not there.
At a rally in New Hampshire, I happened to be stood next to Clinton's biographer David Maraniss, whose real-time Twitter feed made for fascinating reading.
"When BC was introduced and stood on stage w/Chelsea, he showed nothing on his face, mouth agape, eyes seemingly blank... just frail, like he had to conserve every ounce of energy. No gleam in his eyes, no electricity, mutedâ€¦. He lit up only when Chelsea talked about him. Then when it was his turn to talk a little bit of his old self came back, but not much."
Once the most powerful energy force in any room, Bill Clinton is now only an ambient presence.
The former president is not without his fans. There are thousands who still cheer this self-proclaimed architect of the bridge to the 21st Century. What's also been striking is how African-American voters have returned to the Clinton fold, after backing Barack Obama in 2008, despite protesters from the Black Lives Matters campaign targeting him on the stump.
However, the former first couple's hopes that wistful memories of the Clinton administration would lead to a Clinton restoration have surely dwindled.
Nostalgia is something that can give a departing president a warm glow, as Barack Obama is presently discovering, but hard for a presidential aspirant to harness, especially when so much of the country is angrily demanding change.


Qatar's construction sector is rife with abuse, Amnesty International (AI) has said in a report published as work begins on Fifa World Cup 2022 stadiums.

Amnesty says migrant workers are often subjected to non-payment of wages, dangerous working conditions and squalid accommodation.
The rights group said one manager had referred to workers as "animals".
Qatari officials have said conditions will be suitable for those involved in construction of World Cup facilities.
It has not yet commented on the latest report.
Amnesty said it conducted interviews with 210 workers, employers and government officials for its report, The Dark Side of Migration: Spotlight on Qatar's construction sector ahead of the World Cup.
By Andrew NorthSouth Asia correspondent
Nepal's World Cup trail brings misery
The report includes testimony from Nepalese workers employed by a company delivering supplies to a construction project associated with the planned Fifa headquarters.
The workers said they were "treated like cattle", working up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, including during Qatar's hot summer months.
Amnesty said some of the abuses amounted to "forced labour".
Some migrant workers were threatened with penalty fines, deportation or loss of income if they did not show up to work even though they were not being paid, Amnesty said.
More than 1,000 people were admitted to the trauma unit at Doha's main hospital in 2012 having fallen from height at work, Amnesty said, citing an unnamed hospital representative.
Some 10% were disabled as a result and the mortality rate was "significant", AI said.
"It is simply inexcusable in one of the richest countries in the world, that so many migrant workers are being ruthlessly exploited, deprived of their pay and left struggling to survive," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty's secretary general.
"Our findings indicate an alarming level of exploitation.
"Fifa has a duty to send a strong public message that it will not tolerate human rights abuses on construction projects related to the World Cup."
It follows a report by the UK's Guardian newspaper in September, which likened workers' conditions to "modern-day slavery".
The Guardian investigation drew a strong response from the world professional footballers' association Fifpro, which collaborates with the Uni Global Union, the voice of 20 million service sector workers.
Qatar must protect the rights of the workers who are to deliver the 2022 World Cup, it said.
FifPro board member Brendan Schwab said it was "inexcusable for workers' lives to be sacrificed, especially given modern health and safety practices in the construction industry".


Germany's economy stepped up its pace of growth in 2016, thanks to higher household and government spending.

Estimated figures from its Federal Statistical Office said gross domestic product was 1.9% higher last year than in 2015.
The annual figure is based on an early estimated that growth was around 0.5% in the fourth quarter.
However, the actual fourth quarter figure will not be released until early next month.
The 1.9% figure for 2016 was slightly above expectations, and builds on the growth rate of 1.6% in 2014 and 1.7% for 2015.
Germany's exports were up by 2.4%, but that was outstripped by import growth of 3.4%.
Household spending grew by 2%, while government spending was up by 4.2%, partly because of an increase in spending on assisting the vast numbers of asylum seekers the country has taken on.
The country has enjoyed seven years of economic growth. Unusually for a developed country, it has a budget surplus.
Last year's totalled 0.6% of gross domestic product, down a touch on 2015's 0.7%.


Veteran British actors Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi have received mixed reviews for their new ITV sitcom Vicious.

Created by Will and Grace writer Gary Janetti and award-winning playwright Mark Ravenhill, it sees the actor knights play a bickering gay couple.
The comedy, set in a cramped flat in London's Covent Garden, also features Rising Damp actress Frances De La Tour.
Some critics panned the show, with the Telegraph giving it a one star review.
The show centres around Freddie, played by the 73-year-old McKellen, and his partner of 50 years Stuart, portrayed by the 74-year-old Jacobi.
What on Earth were they thinking?
The makers of Vicious, ITV's latest stab at a sitcom, have squandered not only the estimable acting talents of Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Derek Jacobi and Frances de la Tour, but also the combined screenwriting welly of Olivier Award-winning playwright Mark Ravenhill and Gary Janetti (Will and Grace) on perhaps the least funny new comedy in recent memory.
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More like caricatures of themselves: they're camped up to the max, actual drama queens. And they're Acting with a capital A - thespian jousting. Take that darling, no you take that, ouch, you bitch. Which is rather fabulous.
Something like Frasier meets Will and Grace meets Henry V. Oh, and then Frances de la Tour turns up, as their bessie mate Violet, and joins the fun.
It's just a shame that the vehicle in which they find themselves isn't a better one. It's not just old-fashioned, pre-Office TV comedy (as opposed to post-office comedy, which is something else, possibly), it's also, frankly, a bit lame.
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Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi have a ball as a bitching couple living in a cobwebbed, sepulchral flat, lusting after hunky new neighbour Iwan Rheon, confiding in best friend Frances De La Tour and hamming it up wherever possible.
It's a very traditional studio sitcom setup, made watchable by its stars and enjoyable by a waspish script. Also, in its combination of old age and homosexuality, it could be argued to have broken a little ground.
Not that creators Mark Ravenhill and Gary Janetti much care about that: this show is all about low blows and easy laughs - at which it excels.
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Vicious was a particular letdown.
Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi may well be legendary actors, but it's going to take a lot to convince me that this isn't just a pair of gay refugees from a ÂBenidorm script rewrite theatrically bitching each other off for half an hour.
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Jacobi and McKellen, who are both gay and in long-term relationships themselves, are having huge fun with their characters. Add Frances de la Tour, a sitcom stalwart since Rising Damp in the seventies, and this show is an instant classic.
Even the theme tune was right: Eighties pop duo the Communards, doing their cover of The Jackson 5's Never Can Say Goodbye.
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The first episode, set exclusively in the dark grandeur of the men's flat, was ostensibly a wake for a dead friend. But what the writers were playing, mainly, was punchline pinball.
Set-up, gag, set-up, gag: there's a pow-pow-pow pace here, created by playwright Mark Ravenhill and co-writer Gary Janetti (Will and Grace, Family Guy).
It's not really to my personal taste - I no more like a laughter track on a comedy than I do a scream track on a horror, or a drama with added "quizzical eyebrow" prompts.
But Vicious remembers the "com" of "sitcom" in a way that many others do not (I mean you, The Wright Way). And yes, it's about a gay couple, but it also punches hard on the themes of ageing and insularity.
Read More (subscription service)


Great Britain have secured two weightlifting spots at the Rio Olympic Games, thanks to performances at the European Championships in Norway.

The British women's team topped the Olympic qualification classification, while the men's team finished fifth.
Zoe Smith is the leading women's candidate, but Rebakah Tiler could come into contention.
However, Jack Oliver, the previous favourite to take the men's spot, missed the competition through injury.
"Two Olympic qualification spots is a tremendous achievement," said British Weight Lifting performance director Tommy Yule.
The British Championships in June are the final opportunity for athletes to prove their credentials before nominations are made to the British Olympic Associate for Team GB selection.


It is inevitable search engines such as Google will be allowed in public examinations, including GCSEs and A-Levels, the head of an exam board says.

OCR chief Mark Dawe told the Today programme allowing internet use in exam rooms reflected the way pupils learned and how they would work in future.
He said students would still need a basis of knowledge and would have limited time to conduct searches.
The Campaign for Real Education condemned the idea as "dumbing down".
Mr Dawe said: "Surely when they learn in the classroom, everyone uses Google if there is a question.
"It is more about understanding what results you're seeing rather than keeping all of that knowledge in your head, because that's not how the modern world works."
He compared the idea to the debate about whether to have books available during a test, saying: "In reality you didn't have too much time [to consult the book] and you had to learn it anyway."
Mr Dawe suggested some exams may allow internet access and others may not.
He told the Today programme: "It's about understanding the tools they have got available and how to utilise them.
"When we are asking a question where we know there's access to the internet, we could ask a different question - it's about  the interpretation, the discussion."
On the issue of when internet use might be allowed in exams, Mr Dawe said: "It's very unlikely to happen in the next few weeks or next few months, but it's certainly inevitable, I would suggest."
Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: "We have a crisis in standards in this country.
"We are three years behind the Chinese, at the age of 15.
"We have got universities running remedial courses.
"We have got employers saying too many youngsters are unemployable."
He added: "You can have an exam in how to use Google - that's not the same thing as having a history exam or a geography exam.
"We do have to test what children are carrying in their heads".


On the eve of what could be a landmark US Supreme Court decision enshrining gay marriage as a constitutional right across the country, evangelical conservatives converged on Washington DC to talk politics and size up Republican presidential hopefuls.

Just last year the epitaph was being written on the so-called culture wars in the US. Social conservatism appeared to be on the ropes, as the New York Times heralded the fact that Democratic candidates were no longer afraid of touting their support for issues like gay rights and birth control.
And while many of the Democrats ended up losing in a mid-term election rout, the religious activists who attended this week's Faith and Freedom Coalition event in the nation's capital still feel at risk - and not just because Friday's activities were interrupted by what DC police called a "credible" bomb threat.
"We are told that church and state must be kept separate," an online video promoting the conference intoned. "We are told that the younger generation doesn't care about politics. We are told that our conservative beliefs are outdated."
Even the name of the gathering, "Road to Majority", implies the additional work ahead for the religious right. And it's easy to see why evangelical conservatives, long a bulwark of the Republican Party, could be feeling defensive.
Not only does the Supreme Court appear poised to legalise gay marriage across the country, states that have attempted to pass "religious freedom" laws allowing businesses to refuse service to gays have faced angry protests and corporate boycotts. Caitlyn Jenner, the transgender Olympic athlete, received a Vanity Fair photo shoot and was widely praised in the media for her bravery.
"If you want one snapshot of just how corrupt, how morally corrupt, how morally bent, how morally twisted, how morally confused, how morally bankrupt we have become, all you've got to do is take a look at the cover of Vanity Fair magazine," said conservative syndicated radio host Bryan Fischer earlier this month.
There's a feeling among many of these religious foot soldiers that their views are largely being ignored by a hostile government and openly mocked by much of the establishment press. On the stump, most of the Republican presidential hopefuls seem more interested in talking about the Islamic State than the state of the social conservative movement.
Public professions of personal faith
For a handful of days, however, evangelicals were at the centre of the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, as a dozen candidates appeared before the hundreds of attendees.
Some, like Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, made religious concerns a central part of their talks.
"This is a time when we decide who we are. What we believe," Mr Cruz said on Thursday. "We are a nation that was founded by men and women fleeing religious oppression. There is a reason why religious liberty is the very first protection in the very first amendment to the Bill of Rights, because it is all foundational. We cannot stand unless we first honour on our knees."
Others, like former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Ohio Governor John Kasich, spent most of their time sharing stories about their personal faith.
Religion, Mr Bush said, has "been an organising part of my architecture, if you will, as a person and as an elected official".
Yet others, including New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Florida Senator Marco Rubio, barely seemed to acknowledge the specific concerns of the evangelical audience. They delivered a mostly standard stump speech, equally suited to an Iowa Chamber of Commerce meeting or a New Hampshire town hall.
Linda Thorson, who travelled from North Dakota to attend the conference, said that while she liked Mr Rubio, she had heard much of his speech before. She said she preferred Mr Cruz because he understands that the country "is going in the wrong direction".
"I appreciate knowing that there are leaders that see God's face first," she said. "One of the concerns I have is the way the media and others have looked at religious liberty and decided that that isn't something to defend."
Michal Douds of Pittsburgh, for one, wasn't buying what Mr Bush was selling.
"I think he's really crafty," he said. "I think he's really slick. I think he's got a lot of people working for him that give him words to say that seem very palatable to this group."
Douds added that efforts to paint the evangelical conservative movement as obsessed with gays and stories about Caitlyn Jenner were a "diversion tactic" by those on the left.
"I think most of the people here don't have a big beef with gay people - they have a live-and-let-live kind of culture," he said. "And at the same time they believe marriage is between a man and a woman, as it has been for 5,000 years."
Common animosity for Common Core
Another area of concern for conference-goers was education. When former New York Governor George Pataki spoke on Friday, his largest applause line was when he said he'd get rid of the uniform programme of curriculum standards called Common Core.
Paul Halley of New Jersey said Common Core is, in effect, a liberal religion being imposed on public schools.
"We need to return to Judeo-Christian values in schools because those are the only values that support a republic," he said. "By our next generation we will probably lose our republic because the children will be taught we can't trust in God, we must trust in government to take care of us."
The abortion exception
One tried-and-true culture war issue that didn't get a lot of mention this week, however, was abortion. And when it was discussed, it was cited as a success story - an indication that if the culture war is still ongoing, it's far from the series of one-sided victory for progressives that it is often made out to be.
Chris Christie received some of his loudest cheers when he mentioned, in passing, that he vetoed government funding in his state for the reproductive rights group Planned Parenthood.
Mr Bush touted his support for a Florida bill banning late-term abortions, more strictly regulating abortion clinics and requiring the parents of minors to be notified before they terminate a pregnancy.
"We put the rights of the unborn at the front of the line," he said. "We made sure there were reasonable health and safety standards to protect women."
Florida isn't alone in its pursuit of tighter restrictions on abortion. For instance, 15 states, including Texas, Georgia, Indiana and West Virginia, have bans on abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy.
The pope's environmental counterpoint
Walk the venues of the Faith and Freedom event this week, and it's easy to get the notion that the culture wars are still raging in the US - and that the lines of the battlefield can be sharply drawn, with religious activists on one side and secular liberals on the other. Outside hotel's ballrooms, however, and those lines become a bit more blurry.
On the same day that Mr Cruz and company were offering their dire warnings of cultural decay, Pope Francis issued a groundbreaking 184-page encyclical urging a "cultural revolution" of a different sort - to combat climate change and preserve the global environment.
In the halls outside the conference James Salt, founder of the group Catholics United, was handing out copies of a document explaining the Pope's message.
"We're calling on their better nature to read the document and join us in taking a stand," he said. "To hold conference on the very same day that Pope Francis issues a groundbreaking encyclical on climate change and to dismiss that without statement on a day when your honouring faith and values in public life seems to make a mockery of religion."
None of the presidential candidates at the conference addressed the Pope's views while on the stage, but Mr Kasich was asked for his views during a press gathering after his speech.
"I think the Pope pointing out we need to take care of this environment is good," he said. "I don't agree with his conclusion that all of it is bad because of free enterprise, because it has lifted people out of poverty, and he cares about the poor."
Mr Kasich went on to talk about what his faith means to him, and how it guides how he makes public policy.
"What my faith does for me, I hope, is give me strength," he said. "It allows me to have patience, it helps me to love my enemies, it helps me to care more about other people, to be more empathetic to other people, that's what it's about to me."
It's not exactly war talk. But religion, whether it's on the right or the left, doesn't always have to be a battle.
Republicans in - and out - of the 2016 presidential race


Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has ordered the military to maintain security and protect state institutions in the run-up to a controversial referendum on a new constitution.

The army has also been given the power to arrest civilians.
Mr Morsi has tried to calm public anger by annulling a decree giving him huge powers, but rejected a call to scrap the 15 December constitutional vote.
Opposition leaders called for protests on Tuesday against the referendum.
The opposition was "not aiming at toppling the president" but wanted a better constitution, former Foreign Minister Amr Moussa told the BBC.
Islamist groups have said they will hold counter demonstrations, raising fears of further bloody clashes on the streets of the Egyptian capital.
In another apparent concession, the president suspended a big tax increase on the sale of a variety of goods including soft drinks, cigarettes and beer.
The decision was carried in a statement that appeared on Mr Morsi's Facebook page in the early hours of Monday, state-owned al-Ahram newspaper reported.
As tension increased before Saturday's referendum, Mr Morsi ordered the military to maintain security "up to the announcement of the results from the referendum", AFP news agency reports.
The BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo says the step will raise fears that Egypt is moving back towards military rule.
Under the new presidential decree, the military is asked to co-ordinate with the police on maintaining security and is also entitled to arrest civilians.
The police have been seen as weakened since the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak and failed to intervene when anti-Muslim Brotherhood protesters ransacked the Islamist movement's Cairo headquarters last week, correspondents say.
Jeremy Bowen's 10 key moments
Postcards from the Arab Uprising
Arab Uprisings: Special report
An increased military presence was visible on Monday close to the presidential palace, which has been the focus of opposition demonstrations.  The army has sealed off the area with concrete blocks.
It is not yet clear whether the opposition will boycott Saturday's referendum. However, a group of senior judges announced on Monday that they would be prepared to oversee the vote, on certain conditions.
Votes in Egypt are traditionally supervised by the judiciary but the 22 November presidential decree led thousands of judges to go on strike.
Now, with the decree rescinded, the State Council Judges' Club has agreed to oversee the vote as long as pro-Morsi supporters call a halt to a sit-in outside Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court.
The court suspended work on 2 December, citing "psychological pressure" from Islamists who had prevented a meeting on a draft of the new constitution. The protesters had wanted to block a ruling on the legality of the document.
The opposition argues that the constitution was drafted by an assembly dominated by Mohammed Morsi's Islamist allies.
In a statement after talks on Sunday, the opposition National Salvation Front said it would not recognise the draft constitution "because it does not represent the Egyptian people".
"We reject the referendum which will certainly lead to more division and sedition," spokesman Sameh Ashour said.
In a BBC interview, one of the Front's main leaders, Amr Moussa, insisted they were not "aiming at doing anything that would lead to the disintegration of the state".
"Why should we make the people swallow a constitution that could have been much better and should have been much better?"
On Sunday, hundreds of opposition protesters protested against the referendum outside the presidential palace.
By Jon LeyneBBC News, Cairo
Many Egyptians are furious that their lives have not got better since the revolution.
They point to a lack of reform, with no economic progress, no attempt to cleanse the notoriously brutal and corrupt police force, let alone any success in sorting out Egypt's many other problems, such as the piles of rubbish on the streets, the terrible traffic, and the filthy and polluted environment.
As for President Morsi, he is fighting a battle on two fronts.
While many opponents object to the Islamic tendencies in the new constitution, he is also under enormous pressure not to give ground to the liberals.
No easy way out of Egypt crisis
They chanted anti-Muslim Brotherhood slogans and held up banners reading slogans such as "Morsi, hold back your thugs" and "The people demand the fall of the regime".
But Mohamed Soudan, foreign relations secretary of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, said Mr Morsi was constitutionally bound to go ahead with the vote because the date had been announced by the constituent assembly.
The president says he is trying to safeguard the revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak last year, but his critics accuse him of acting like a dictator.
Mr Morsi's decree of 22 November stripped the judiciary of any right to challenge his decisions and triggered violent protests.
Although the decree has been annulled, some decisions taken under it still stand.
The general prosecutor, who was dismissed, will not be reinstated, and the retrial of former regime officials will go ahead.


The security of the UK's biggest internet service providers needs "major improvement", according to one expert.

Security consultant Paul Moore examined the publicly available information of the UK's six biggest ISPs.
He said he found plenty of bugs that could be exploited by hackers.
But he said most ISPs had been in contact with him and had worked to tighten security once told of the issues.
The audit of TalkTalk, Sky, BT, Plusnet, EE and Virgin Media was kicked off in the wake of the TalkTalk hack, which saw the personal details of 157,000 of its customers exposed.
More than 15,600 bank account number and sort codes were stolen.
Similar problems to those encountered by TalkTalk could have been experienced by any of the major ISPs, Mr Moore believes.
"There have been a couple of incidents where I had to contact ISPs to report things that were serious," he told the BBC.
The audit found a variety of problems, including passwords stored in plain text, exposed code that would allow hackers to inject their own code on to ISPs' websites and, potentially load malware on to them, and issues with encryption certificates that meant Mr Moore could apply for them from the certificate authority and pose as the webmaster for a set of ISP-owned websites.
Mr Moore said he was impressed by most of the ISPs's responses when he raised the issues with them.
"Ordinarily they would not be so open and honest with me but, after what happened at TalkTalk, they have been stepping in quickly," said Mr Moore.
"On one occasion I notified BT and PlusNet about a bug at 14:00 and they kept people back until 22:00 to fix it."
But, he added, TalkTalk was yet to contact him.
TalkTalk did supply a statement to the BBC saying it had "integrated Paul Moore's comments into an ongoing programme of work".
"We constantly run vulnerability checks using industry-standard third party tools. The vulnerability exploited by the hackers was not picked up by this testing, and if it had been, we would clearly have acted on that information straightaway to secure our system," it added.
Sky told the BBC: "We take our customers' security very seriously. We constantly review our systems and we have robust, independently assessed protocols in place to make sure customer information is as secure as possible."
Prof Alan Woodward, a security expert at Surrey University, said he was shocked by the findings.
"TalkTalk still has problems and others have not dissimilar ones," he said.
"I find it very surprising that after the TalkTalk hack, they [the six ISPs] still appear not to be attending to the basics.
He added: "ISPs are the single biggest handlers of our personal data and I would expect them to get this right."


Dagenham missed the chance to close the gap on National League pacesetters Lincoln as they slipped to defeat against Guiseley at Victoria Road.

Jordan Preston dented the Daggers' hopes of moving level with the FA Cup heroes after just 12 minutes.
His fine curling strike beat Dagenham goalkeeper Elliot Justham and things got even worse for the hosts when Corey Whitely was sent off for an altercation with Connor Brown three minutes later.
Preston got his second of the afternoon just after the break to end Dagenham's five-match winning run, although the visitors pulled one back in stoppage-time through Ollie Hawkins.
Report supplied by the Press Association
Match ends, Dagenham and Redbridge 1, Guiseley 2.
Match ends, Dagenham and Redbridge 1, Guiseley 2.
Second Half ends, Dagenham and Redbridge 1, Guiseley 2.
Second Half ends, Dagenham and Redbridge 1, Guiseley 2.
Substitution, Guiseley. Joel Logan replaces Derek Asamoah.
Goal!  Dagenham and Redbridge 1, Guiseley 2. Oliver Hawkins (Dagenham and Redbridge).
Substitution, Guiseley. Adam Boyes replaces Jordan Preston.
Substitution, Guiseley. Michael Rankine replaces Jake Cassidy.
Danny Lowe (Guiseley) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Substitution, Dagenham and Redbridge. Jake Howells replaces Jordan Maguire-Drew.
Substitution, Dagenham and Redbridge. Paul Benson replaces Fejiri Okenabirhie.
Goal!  Dagenham and Redbridge 0, Guiseley 2. Jordan Preston (Guiseley).
Substitution, Dagenham and Redbridge. Scott Doe replaces Ray Grant.
Second Half begins Dagenham and Redbridge 0, Guiseley 1.
First Half ends, Dagenham and Redbridge 0, Guiseley 1.
Simon Walton (Guiseley) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
John Rooney (Guiseley) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Corey Whitely (Dagenham and Redbridge) is shown the red card for violent conduct.
Goal!  Dagenham and Redbridge 0, Guiseley 1. Jordan Preston (Guiseley).
First Half begins.
Lineups are announced and players are warming up.


Two people have been charged with manslaughter after a seven-year-old girl died when the bouncy castle she was playing on blew away.

Summer Grant, from Norwich, suffered serious injuries at a funfair in Harlow, Essex, in 2016.
Paramedics were called to Harlow Town Park but Summer died in hospital.
Essex Police said fairground workers Shelby Thurston, 25, and William Thurston, 28, had been charged with manslaughter by gross negligence.
The pair, from Whitecross Road, Wilburton, Cambridgeshire, have also been charged with failure to discharge a general health and safety duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act.
They are due to appear at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court next week.
Police have said they want to trace a witness who was near the fairground rides at the time of the incident.
He was described as a young black man, believed to be in his teens, the force said.
At the opening of an inquest into Summer's death last April, Chelmsford Coroner's Court heard high winds had taken the dome-shaped inflatable "some distance".
The inquest was also told Summer was thought to have died from multiple injuries.
A vigil held in her memory in April saw about 200 people gather at the park and have a two-minute silence.


BT has said it will launch a new service later this year to divert nuisance calls within its network before they ring on customers' phones.

It said it will use huge computing power to root out 25 million unwanted calls a week.
Currently, BT customers can buy special phones that block nuisance calls, or pay to stop calls getting through.
But the new service will identify some of the 5 billion unwanted calls made each year before they arrive.
They will then be diverted automatically to a junk voicemail box.
Customers will be able to add numbers they don't want to hear from, for free.
The hope is that action from BT will turn the tables on nuisance callers. The company is following the lead from Talk Talk, which already bars calls for free and blocks millions centrally.
However, experts warn that this is a battle that is likely to rumble on, because firms hassling people will be able to switch numbers and use pretend numbers to hide who they are.
Many fraudsters and malicious callers targeting individuals will still be able to get through, they say.


Israel has charged a UN aid worker from Gaza with using his position to help the militant Hamas movement, in the second such case in a week.

Israel's Shin Bet security agency said Waheed Borsh, an employee with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Gaza since 2003, admitted aiding Hamas.
It said he used UN resources to build a military jetty and prioritised rebuilding homes of Hamas members.
Last week Israel charged a Gaza charity chief with diverting funds to Hamas.
It said Mohammed Halabi, World Vision's Gaza project manager, channelled millions of dollars of charity money to military uses. Mr Halabi's lawyer said his client denied the allegations.
In a statement, the UNDP said it was "greatly concerned by the allegation" against Mr Borsh, adding it had "zero tolerance for wrongdoing in all of its programmes and projects".
The organisation said it hoped he would be given a fair trial.
In a statement on Tuesday, Shin Bet (ISA) said Waheed Borsh, 38, had been arrested on 16 July.
It said he had been instructed by Hamas to ensure UNDP projects would benefit the militant group. The ISA said Mr Borsh confessed to carrying out activities that aided Hamas.
This included informing the group when weapons or tunnel openings were found in houses where UNDP workers were operating, it said.
As a result "Hamas would take control of the site and confiscate the arms and other materials," the ISA said.
Concealed tunnels have been dug by militants for use in carrying out attacks on Israel. Mr Borsh is also alleged to have persuaded his managers to focus on rehabilitating areas where Hamas members live.
Parts of Gaza were heavily damaged in the war between Hamas and Israel in 2014 and are still being rebuilt.
Shin Bet said Mr Borsh had revealed that other Palestinians working for aid organisations were also working for Hamas.
Hamas said the allegations were "incorrect and baseless" and part of Israeli efforts "to tighten the siege of the Gaza Strip by prosecuting international relief organisations".
Israel said it expected the UN to "unequivocally condemn Hamas for exploiting the humanitarian aid system for its own aims and... to ensure that humanitarian activities actually assist those in need in Gaza instead of assisting the terrorist leaders of Hamas".
Hamas (either the organisation as a whole or in some cases its military wing) is designated a terrorist group by Israel, the US, EU, and UK among other countries.


A 28-year-old motorcyclist has died following a collision with a car in Conwy county.

The incident happened on the B4501, near Cerrigydrudion, at an area known locally as the "Evo Triangle".
It happened on Saturday shortly before 14:00 BST. The biker was pronounced dead at the scene.
North Wales Police is appealing for two other motorists who stopped to give assistance to get in touch as investigations continue.
The driver of the Daihatsu car, which was involved in the collision, was taken to hospital for treatment for injuries believed to be minor.


The design of the new £1 coin has been revealed after a competition to design the "tails" side.

The winner was 15-year-old David from Walsall who made a design featuring the four plants associated with the four nations that make up the UK.
His design features the leek, thistle, shamrock and rose, coming out of a crown.
Chancellor George Osborne said the image will be "recognised by millions in the years ahead".
The new coin will be roughly the same size as the current one, but has 12 edges and is both gold and silver coloured, like a £2 coin.
David was declared the winner out of more than 6,000 entries.
The coin featuring his design will start appearing in shops and banks in 2017.
David said: "I was really excited to hear that I had won the competition to design the new £1 coin but hugely shocked as well."
The £1 coin is being replaced for the first time in more than 30 years because there are concerns it is too easy for criminals to copy.
The Royal Mint, which makes new coins, says the new £1 will be the most secure coin that exists in the UK.


A brewery has advertised what they say is probably one of the best jobs in the world - the position of beer taster.

The successful candidate will be required on one day per month to taste up to 40 craft beers at the Walled City Brewery in Londonderry.
"A good palate and an understanding of the brewing process" were essential criteria for the unpaid position, said James Huey from the brewery.
He said the advertisement in Friday's Derry Journal had piqued interest.
The brewery had already received several applications for the post, said Mr Huey.
The job advert promises transport to and from work is provided; overtime could well be a bonus.
"Training will be provided but ideally we are looking for an understanding of the nature of craft beers, for someone who knows a lot about flavours," said Mr Huey.
While beer testing might not be to your taste, there are plenty of unorthodox roles for those looking for an alternative to a nine-to-five.
Here are five other "dream jobs":
In 2009, Ben Southall, a charity fundraiser from Petersfield, Hampshire was appointed caretaker of an Australian tropical island, a six-month position described as "the best job in the world".
The 34-year-old beat 34,000 applicants to secure the position, which came with a A$150,000 salary and a luxury villa on Hamilton Island, in Queensland.
"For me it was six months of hard work," he later said of his island adventure.
Three years ago, holiday company First Choice appointed its first ever water-slide tester.
Seb Smith, a student from Somerset, spent the summer of 2013 getting paid to rate water slides across the globe.
Most of us would be shown the door for sleeping on the job.
But not so, if your job is to test beds for a national hotel chain.
In October 2011, it was reported that Natalie Thomas, a bed tester for the Premier Inn chain, had insured her bottom for Â£4m.
Her role sees her test up to 25 beds a day.
Duties for one of the world's more unusual job titles included going to "parties and VIP events in New South Wales, Australia".
American Andrew Smith was one of six funsters chosen by Tourism Australia in 2013.
"In my opinion, chief funster is somebody who goes and discovers the passion behind what people do," he said.
For many, a coffee break chocolate bar is among the day's highlights.
But imagine if eating chocolate was your job?
In 2011, William Leigh was appointed "assistant chocolate taster" at Green & Blacks.
"It's certainly a full-time job," he said after taking up his role. "I'm in the kitchen every day at eight o'clock."


The death of a pensioner who was severely beaten by robbers at his home in Rotherham is now being treated as murder.

Ex-miner Tommy Ward, 80, was found badly injured at his home in Salisbury Road, Maltby, on 1 October. About Â£30,000 was thought to have been taken.
Mr Ward died five months later at Rotherham Hospital, where he had been receiving treatment.
South Yorkshire Police described it as a "vicious attack on a vulnerable man".
Five people arrested in connection with the attack were later released.
A post-mortem examination following Mr Ward's death in February proved inconclusive. Further tests are due to take place to establish the cause of death.
Det Insp Richard Partridge said: "Exactly six months ago, Tommy Ward was attacked in his own home, robbed and left seriously injured by his cowardly attackers.
"We do still need your help to understand what happened that night Tommy was attacked and I would ask anyone with information to get in touch with us."
A safety deposit box was taken during the break-in and a similar one was found in the Kilnhurst area two weeks after the attack.
Members of the public donated more than Â£30,000 to replace Mr Ward's lost life savings in an online appeal.


A court in northern Indian has given the Ganges and Yamuna rivers the status of "living human entities".

The high court in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand said this would help in the "preservation and conservation" of the highly polluted rivers.
It added that the "legal status" ensures that polluting the rivers would now amount to harming a human being.
Both rivers are considered sacred in India and are considered goddesses by the majority Hindu population.
The ruling comes a week after the Whanganui River in New Zealand became the first in the world to be granted the same legal rights as a person.
The court said in its ruling that Hindus had "deep faith" in the two rivers and they "collectively connect with them".
"The rivers are central to the existence of half of the Indian population and their health and well being. They have provided both physical and spiritual sustenance to all of us from time immemorial," it added.
It went on to add that both rivers had become heavily polluted due to industrialisation and rapid urbanisation.
Two top state officials have been appointed as the "legal guardians" of the rivers and will represent their rights.
Activists say the order is likely to fast track efforts to clean the rivers.


Stephen Hawking says that US President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement could lead to irreversible climate change.

Prof Hawking said the action could put Earth onto a path that turns it into a hothouse planet like Venus.
He also feared aggression was "inbuilt" in humans and that our best hope of survival was to live on other planets.
The Cambridge professor spoke exclusively to BBC News to coincide with his 75th birthday celebrations.
Arguably the world's most famous scientist, Prof Hawking has had motor neurone disease for most of his adult life. It has impaired his movement and ability to speak.
Yet through it all, he emerged as one of the greatest minds of our time. His theories on black holes and the origin of the Universe have transformed our understanding of the cosmos.
Prof Hawking has also inspired generations to study science. But through his media appearances what has been most impressive of all has been his humanity.
His main concern during his latest interview was the future of our species. A particular worry was President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement to reduce CO2 levels.
What is climate change?
What is in the Paris climate agreement?
"We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump's action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid," he told BBC News.
"Climate change is one of the great dangers we face, and it's one we can prevent if we act now. By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children."
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also highlights the potential risk of hitting climate tipping points as temperatures increase - though there are gaps in our knowledge of this topic.
In its Fifth Assessment Report, the IPCC authors wrote: "The precise levels of climate change sufficient to trigger tipping points (thresholds for abrupt and irreversible change) remain uncertain, but the risk associated with crossing multiple tipping points in the Earth system or in interlinked human and natural systems increases with rising temperature."
When asked whether he felt we would ever solve our environmental problems and resolve human conflicts, Prof Hawking was pessimistic, saying that he thought our days on Earth were numbered.
"I fear evolution has inbuilt greed and aggression to the human genome. There is no sign of conflict lessening, and the development of militarised technology and weapons of mass destruction could make that disastrous. The best hope for the survival of the human race might be independent colonies in space."
And on Brexit, he feared UK research would be irreparably damaged.
"Science is a cooperative effort, so the impact will be wholly bad, and will leave British science isolated and inward looking".
I asked him what he would like his legacy to be.
"I never expected to reach 75, so I feel very fortunate to be able to reflect on my legacy. I think my greatest achievement, will be my discovery that black holes are not entirely black."
"Quantum effects cause them to glow like hot bodies with a temperature that is lower, the larger the black hole. This result was completely unexpected, and showed there is a deep relationship between gravity and thermodynamics. I think this will be key, to understanding how paradoxes between quantum mechanics and general relativity can be resolved."
When asked if money or practicality were no object, what his dream present would be, he said it would be a cure for motor neurone disease - or at least a treatment that halted its progression.
"When I was diagnosed at 21, I was told it would kill me in two or three years. Now, 54 years later, albeit weaker and in a wheelchair, I'm still working and producing scientific papers. But it's been a great struggle, which I have got through only with a lot of help from my family, colleagues, and friends."
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The iconic Connaught Place area in the Indian capital, Delhi, will be a no-vehicle zone for three months beginning February, officials say.

All traffic including buses and cars will be banned from the office and shopping district as part of the government's plans to tackle air pollution and congestion in the city.
Park and ride cycle services will be offered to visitors to the area.
Tens of thousands of people visit Connaught Place every day.
The area is part of colonial-era Delhi, often called Lutyens Delhi after the British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, who designed many of the government buildings and graceful bungalows that are now occupied by senior officials.
It is also one of India's most famous commercial and shopping districts, but often remains gridlocked because of rising traffic.
Officials say the three-month-long "pedestrianisation" of the area will test "traffic circulation, the experience of pedestrians and shop owners, management of reclaimed parking lots and traffic load" in the area.
People will be able to reach the area either by metro or by using park and ride bicycles and battery operated vehicles from surrounding areas during the trial.


A tropical storm heading across the Caribbean has killed at least 20 people on the island of Dominica, with dozens more missing.

Tropical Storm Erika hit Dominica, in the eastern Caribbean, causing floods and mudslides that have set the country back 20 years, its prime minister said.
Haiti and the Dominican Republic are now expecting 53mph (85km/h) winds.
A state of emergency has been declared in the US state of Florida, where the storm is expected on Sunday.
Dominica's Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said in a televised address late on Friday that hundreds of homes, bridges and roads had been destroyed.
He said: "It is with heavy heart that I address you, you can well imagine the hell that it has been for me since I heard of the passing of Tropical Storm Erika and the damage it has done to our dear people and beloved country. But we all have to pull ourselves together.
"The extent of the devastation is monumental. We have, in essence, to rebuild Dominica."
Erika dumped 38cm (15in) of rain.
At least 31 people on the island of 72,000 people have been reported missing, according to officials with the Barbados-based Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency.
Among the houses lost in the mudslides was that of 46-year-old security guard Peter Julian, who had joined friends after leaving work.
"When I returned, I saw that my house that I have lived in for over 20 years was gone,'' he told Associated Press.
"I have lost everything and now have to start all over again."
Other Caribbean nations have issued tropical storm warnings.
In Puerto Rico, Erika knocked out power to more than 200,000 people and caused more than $16m (Â£10m) of damage to crops including plantain, bananas and coffee, AP reported.
The US National Hurricane Centre said the system was expected to move north across the island of Hispaniola - shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic - where the high mountains would weaken it to a tropical depression on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Florida Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency as a precaution with officials urging people to prepare by stockpiling food and water and fuelling their vehicles.
Separately, in the Pacific Ocean, Hurricane Ignacio strengthened into a hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 90mph, centred south-east of Hilo in Hawaii, and moving north-west.


Malaysia is ending visa-free travel for North Koreans, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has said, citing security reasons.

The move comes as Malaysia hunts several North Koreans suspected of being involved in the murder of Kim Jong-nam.
The estranged half-brother of North Korea's leader died on 13 February - he was poisoned with VX nerve agent.
Two women were charged with his murder on Wednesday.
Who in North Korea could organise a VX murder?
Why use VX to kill Kim Jong-nam?
Kim Jong-nam: North Korea's critic in exile
Doan Thi Huong from Vietnam and Siti Aisyah from Indonesia are accused of smearing the nerve agent on Mr Kim's face while he was preparing to fly out of the budget airport in Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur.
They have denied a charge of murder, saying they believed they were taking part in a TV prank.
Mr Kim's body remains in a mortuary in Kuala Lumpur, amid a dispute over who should be entitled to claim it.
Malaysia has said it will only hand the body over to immediate relatives who can provide a DNA sample.
But North Korea, which reacted furiously to Malaysia conducting a post-mortem examination, says it should be able to claim the body of one of its citizens.
Pyongyang has yet to confirm that the body was that of Mr Kim. He was travelling under a diplomatic passport under a different name at the time.
Mr Zahid said the rules requiring all North Koreans to secure visas to enter Malaysia would be effective from 6 March, the Bernama state news agency reports.


The former Mayor of London is making three separate claims here.

The claim: Britain's contribution to the EU will have to increase because the EU is "living beyond its means" and the European Parliament has asked for more money to spend on dealing with the migrant crisis. The UK will also be liable for additional payments to bail out eurozone countries.
Reality Check verdict: The UK has a veto on the overall size of the EU budget and it's already been agreed that non-eurozone countries won't have to pay for future eurozone bailouts.
Firstly, Vote Leave says the EU has not "paid its bills" and the unpaid sum reached 24.7bn euros in 2014. It argues that when this does happen, the UK's portion of it will be £2.4 bn.
This is not how the EU works. The EU has a so-called "ceiling" on its spending. It cannot go over this upper limit.
The last time this ceiling was agreed was in 2013, for the long-term EU budget for the period from 2014 to 2020. On David Cameron's insistence, the ceiling in 2014-2020 was for the first time in the EU's history reduced in comparison to the previous period (2007-2013).
The finer detail of the EU's annual budget is agreed by qualified majority voting every year by the Council, where the finance ministers from each EU member state meet. At least 16 countries, representing 65% of the population, have to agree on the final figure, but it has to stay within the ceiling.
The European Parliament also has to agree on the annual budget and give its own proposals, which are always higher than what the member states want it to be. But what the Council agrees to always trumps against the Parliament's proposals. 'If the EU doesn't "pay the bills" - and that's the money it gives to countries for the projects such as development of poorer areas, for example - this rolls over to the next year. It's a backlog of projects the EU has committed to financing, rather than "unpaid bills".
"Rolling over to the next year" means that the EU has to adjust its spending on the future projects in order to pay for the ones to which it is already committed. The EU can never borrow in order to "pay the bills" - it leaves part of the money it has as contingency and the only other option it has is to adjust future spending, which has to be within the ceiling.
It is correct to say there will be a review of the long-term 2014-2020 EU budget some time in 2016, but the Commission has already said that there will be no changes to the ceiling. If the upper limit were to change - it would require unanimous agreement of all 28 member states.
We don't know what will happen beyond 2020. But crucially, the UK will have a veto on any decisions, including the ceiling, which affects the long-term budget plans.
It's true that the European Parliament would like to spend money on the migrant crisis. For instance, the EU and Turkey signed a deal in November 2015 to support Syrian refugees in Turkey with 3bn euros coming from reallocating money from the EU budget and another 1bn euros from the EU budget, with the rest from contributions from member states according to the size of their economies.
The UK will pay £250m - money that contributes to the UK's aid target. But unless the EU governments which gather at the European Council agree to that, this is not going to go ahead. Spending on refugees cannot raise the long-term budget ceiling.
The UK will not pay for future eurozone bailouts. This has already been agreed by EU leaders.
The UK-EU deal from February, which will be implemented if the UK votes to stay in the EU, reinforces this and states that the UK would be reimbursed if the general EU budget is used for the cost of the eurozone crisis.
Read more: The facts behind claims in the EU debate


A rare albino orangutan is being cared for by an animal protection group in Indonesia after being rescued.

The white-haired and blue-eyed female orangutan was being held captive in a remote village in the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo.
It had been held in a cage for two days and "still displays wild behaviours", the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation said.
The animal could soon be released back into the wild, the group said.
Albino orangutans are extremely rare and this is the first taken in by the organisation in its 25-year history, BOS Foundation told AFP news agency.
The group said it had determined the animal had albinism after physical examinations, saying its eyes were very sensitive to light.
The animal, believed to be five years old, is being assessed at the group's rehabilitation centre, home to nearly 500 orangutans.
Bornean orangutans are classified as "critically endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Their populations decreased by more than 60% between 1950 and 2010, due to the destruction of their habitat and hunting, and a further decline of 22% is expected between 2010 and 2025, the IUCN says.
Around 100,000 orangutans are estimated to live on the island of Borneo, which is split between Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.
There may be more albino orangutans on the island, the BOS Foundation says.
"There must be orangutans living in the forests from whom the albino orangutan inherited the disorder, for it is genetic," CEO Jamartin Sihite was quoted by the Jakarta Post newspaper as saying.
Listen: Forest of the Orangutan (BBC Radio 4)


Cash worth 1.4bn yen ($13m; £8.8m) has been taken from cash machines in Japan using credit cards created with data stolen from a South African bank.

The money was withdrawn in less than three hours from 14,000 convenience store cash machines across Japan, the Kyodo news agency reports.
The withdrawals targeted 7-Eleven cash machines, which unlike most in Japan accept foreign cards.
South Africa's Standard Bank estimated its total losses at $19.25m.
Police suspect more than 100 people were involved across Japan, Kyodo said, putting the date of the incident as 15 May.
The maximum amount of 100,000 yen ($913; £629) was withdrawn in each of 14,000 transactions, said the agency, citing "investigative sources".
Standard Bank described the heist as "a sophisticated, co-ordinated fraud incident" involving what it said was a "small number" of fake cards from account data belonging to it.
But it said customers had not suffered any losses themselves.
"Standard Bank has taken swift action to contain the matter" it said in a statement.
Japanese police are now examining security camera footage to identify suspects, and both countries are working with world police body Interpol to investigate how the data was stolen and how the heist was co-ordinated.
So far, no-one is reported to have been arrested in connection with the incident.


A vintage World War Two aircraft has crashed in the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey.

The plane - a single-seater P-47 Thunderbolt - went down two miles (3.2km) south of George Washington Bridge.
Divers later recovered a body - believed to be that of the pilot - from the submerged plane.
The cause of the crash has not been confirmed, but engine failure has been cited as a possible cause.
The plane was one of three that flew from an airfield in Farmingdale, east of New York City.
They were taking part in shooting a promotional video to mark the 75th anniversary of the American Airpower Museum.
The two other aircraft - a P-40 and a plane taking the photographs - returned safely to the airfield.
Scuba divers recovered the body of a 56-year-old man three hours after the crash. New York police identified the man as William Gordon of Key West, Florida.
College student Siqi Li saw the plane crash into the river.
"It made kind of a U-turn, and then there was a stream of smoke coming from it,'' he told New York's Daily News.
"It was tilting down toward the water. I thought they were doing some sort of trick."
In 2009, the pilot of an airliner with 155 passengers and crew made an emergency landing in the Hudson.
All those on board were later rescued in what later became known as the "Miracle on the Hudson".


It has taken longer than anyone expected.

But the conclusions, reached with the weight of more than two million words, backed with evidence from thousands upon thousands of documents, are crystal clear, polite - but no doubt, completely damning - even if perhaps no real surprise.
There will be weeks of searching through the evidence that's been published for the first time today, so these first reflections may be reshaped in the days to come. But in these first hours, Sir John Chilcot's judgements seem careful, but bold and precise.
The report suggests the government failed, the intelligence community failed, the military failed, and that Tony Blair ran his government in a way that meant the possible and probable consequences of military action in Iraq were never properly considered.
That's despite the suggestion that as early as December 2001, the former prime minister had discussed a "clever strategy" with George Bush about regime change in Iraq.
The report also suggests clearly that although military action might have proved necessary to stop Saddam Hussein at a later date, it was not the last resort at that point, and when British military men and women were sent in to risk their lives, "there was no imminent threat".
Here are the main conclusions from the inquiry in its own words.
But the inquiry report only goes some way to answer the questions that have been so frequently posed.
The Chilcot report points out that their committee was not a court, they were not a jury. They were not set up to make any legal findings.
But they go just about as far as they possibly could with that limitation saying: "We have, however, concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory."
What the report also reveals explicitly, is that the final decision on legality was taken by Tony Blair, not the cabinet or the government's legal officers.
In fact his attorney general made that plain in documents that the inquiry has published, saying "this is a judgement for the prime minister".
The specific decision was as to whether Iraq was in material breach of UN resolution 1441, so that military action could be legally justified without a further resolution.
Correspondence from Mr Blair's office replies to say "it is indeed the prime minister's unequivocal view that Iraq is in further breach" but Chilcot concludes: "It is unclear what specific grounds Mr Blair relied upon in reaching his view."
Downing Street is cleared of one of the most controversial charges of all, that Number 10 deliberately manipulated or "sexed up" the case.
"There is no evidence that intelligence was improperly included in the dossier or that Number 10 improperly influenced the text."
But reading the document the impression is certainly created that Tony Blair's government was looking for facts to support his determination to change the Iraqi regime, rather than looking at the facts carefully in order to make that decision.
The inquiry concludes the intelligence "had not established beyond doubt that Saddam Hussein had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons".
And crucially that, in the September dossier, there was a "deliberate selection of a formulation which grounded the statement in what Mr Blair believed, rather than in the judgements which the Joint Intelligence Committee had actually reached".
In other words, the politics blurred the practical judgements even if there is no evidence of deliberate intent to mislead.
Chilcot's answer? Not remotely.
It is astonishing to see in black and white, the conclusion that "there were no substantive discussions of the military options, despite promises by Mr Blair, before the meeting on 17 March" - that was less than a week   before the war began.
It's evident in the report that there was not enough planning or preparation by the military, and not enough capacity for a long-term commitment.
And in terms of the turmoil that the war unleashed in the region, Tony Blair told the inquiry that it could not have been foreseen.
That's dismissed in a politely caustic conclusion - "we do not agree that hindsight is required. The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability and Al Qaida activity in Iraq, were each explicitly identified before the invasion" and to boot, ministers were aware, the report says, of the "inadequacy" of the American plans.
It's perfectly feasible that the Chilcot report will confirm opinions rather than change minds. But the inquiry has provided not just fragments of the controversial conflict, but the fullest account in modern times of a recent war.
There is a distinct possibility that those who care most passionately about what went wrong will use what's been set out today to seek punishment for those mistakes. Sir John's verdicts run to more than two million words, but there is much much more to come.


After a week of three wins in six days, Braintree Town have endured another series of matches on a Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday in the Conference Premier.

Not only that, the defeat at Gateshead, win at Southport and draw at Halifax have taken in a combined 1,374 miles.
Defender Dean Wells, 28, like most of his team-mates, works as well as plays, and he has combined his job as a school caretaker with the Iron's push for the play-offs.
Here he talks to BBC Essex and gives is his week in his own words.
"I get a 6.30 alarm call from my little boy waking up to be fed. I pick up the gaffer Alan Devonshire at 7.15 before we meet the coach in Peterborough and we're in Gateshead five hours later.
"I play the full 90 minutes. The workrate of the lads, considering the number of games we've had and the travelling, is superb.
"For the first couple of hours on the coach back everyone's quiet. You have to get your head around the loss. But then the boys have a bit of banter and you have to get on with it.
"I roll into my house at about 10 past 11. I'm a massive Brentford fan, so I stay up to watch the Football League Show."
"It's Mother's Day, so I go and see my aunt who has brought me up since I was four.
"I got a bit of rest between 12 and two in the afternoon, had a little sleep and then caught some of the Liverpool versus Tottenham game."
"I'm up for seven to get Joe, the eldest of my two kids, ready for school. Then I'm at the gym for a couple of hours, before I go to work from two until seven.
"I'm a school caretaker at a local primary school in Isleworth. Last season I was doing 36 hours a week, but I've dropped it to 25 hours to fit it around the football.
"It can be anything from litter picking to fixing things in the classroom. It's not too bad. It's the joy of part-time football."
"It's the day from hell. I've never had a day like this.
"After finishing work at seven last night, I'm back in the school for seven this morning. For an away game I usually get a break after work - not today.
Heading into their game against Aldershot on Saturday, 22 March, Braintree were 13th in the Conference Premier.
Six games in 13 days later - and 13 points to boot - has seen them fly up the table to fourth place.
The Iron still have one game in hand on the teams below too.
"I'm superstitious and I like to pack my bag the day of the game, so I couldn't do it last night.
"I'm supposed to finish work at 12, but I ask to leave 10 minutes early to pick my lunch up from my aunt's - she's a better cook than my missus.
"I have to be at the gaffer's for 12.15 and we drive to Corley Services on the M6 to meet the coach.
"To be honest I was more tired driving up than back, because after such a good win you soften the blow a bit.
"Normally I'd get some sleep on the coach on the way back but you're still buzzing from all the sports drinks.
"I get in at half-past three. I'm in bed 15 minutes later."
"I got a decent night's sleep. Six or seven hours. Then it's off to the gym to see how the legs are getting on.
"Working part-time makes the recovery work hard. There's no going in for a warm down or a day off. One of the boys was in at five last night and up at eight for work.
"We get paid money though - it's part of the job.
"Luckily it's parents' evening at the school so my boss has let me come in an hour late, so I'm not in until three. It's off to my aunt's first for some healthy food to repair my body.
"It was Joe's parents' evening yesterday and he got a good report - so I found enough time to tell him 'well done'.
"He said 'well done on the result. Are the play-offs possible?' I said 'We hope so, but we're taking each game as it comes'.
"I haven't seen my six-month-old at all this week. It's not nice, but I'll make up for it when the fixtures are done and dusted."
"Considering the week we've had, I feel quite good. If we lose tonight it might be a different story though.
"I'm a bit stiff but once you start warming up you're fine.
"If we were in mid-table and just going through the motions, you could be disheartened. But the position we're in, we can't afford to have those thoughts.
"The motto at the moment is 'get on with it'. It's about a four-and-a-half hour journey home - so bed at about three.
"Then it's back up for work in the morning."


Inverness boss Richie Foran has urged his players to rest ahead of Saturday's seismic clash with Motherwell.

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Caley Thistle need to beat Well to stand a chance of Premiership survival.
Victory, coupled with Hamilton Academical dropping points to Dundee, would see Inverness avoid finishing bottom, and automatic relegation, at the expense of a two-legged play-off.
"The players need to look after themselves the next couple of days," Foran said.
"We must go into details: what are you eating, what are you drinking? Don't get off your sofa, find babysitters for your kids - it's worth it, it's worth it. We need you to give your all now.
"It's a massive game, but it's one you go and enjoy, one you take to Motherwell, whereas the Hamilton dressing room before their game will be very, very nervous."
Inverness remain one point behind Accies at the foot of the table, heading into the final round of league fixtures.
Their outlook seemed bleak when they were thumped by rivals Ross County in the first of the post-split matches, leaving Caley Thistle five points adrift.
But wins over Accies, then Dundee on Wednesday night, have kept alive the Highlanders' hopes of retaining their Premiership status.
"It was a wonderful, wonderful performance (against Dundee) and we need it again on Saturday against a top team," Foran added.
"Motherwell have got two really good strikers, a strong midfield, defensively we'll have to be right at it once again.
"All the pressure that was on our shoulders goes straight to Hamilton. We can't influence what happens at Hamilton but I do know, I've been in football a long time, they'll be feeling a hell of a lot of pressure right now.
"There's no sugar-coating it, no hiding it, that pressure's lifted off our shoulders and goes straight onto the Hamilton players. It's a huge game for them, and we need the same passion, hunger, desire, as we had last night, and what will be will be."
Foran insists he has no interest in keeping tabs on Accies' progress at New Douglas Park, as his side do battle with the Steelmen in Inverness.
The former Caley Thistle stalwart, who made over 150 appearances for the club, has painful memories of their last top-flight exit, when a 1-0 defeat by Falkirk in 2009 sealed their relegation.
"I missed a few great chances, so that haunts me to this day," Foran said. "We gave 100% effort and that's all you ask from the players now, 100% effort and commitment for the jersey.
"The supporters were magnificent last night, I'm sure they'll be down in their droves again. We're going well, we're full of confidence and we can't wait for it now."


A man who killed one person and wounded three in a knife attack at a railway station near the German city of Munich has been sent to psychiatric hospital.

A medical expert said the 27-year-old German was mentally ill and at most could be held only partly responsible for his actions.
The man reportedly shouted "Allahu akbar" ("God is great" in Arabic), sparking fears of an extremist attack.
But the authorities says they have found no links to Islamic extremism.
"The investigating judge of Munich district court has ordered that the accused today be temporarily placed in a psychiatric hospital," said Bavarian police in a statement.
"According to a preliminary evaluation by a medical expert, the offender has a mental illness, and there are strong reasons to believe he committed the acts in a state of insanity or at least diminished criminal responsibility," the statement said.
The man, known in the Germany media only as Paul H, had been reported as mentally confused on Sunday.
Relatives called the police, but when officers arrived at his home in Gruenberg in the central state of Hesse, they said they could not do anything because the man was deemed not to pose a threat to the public.
They advised the relatives to take him to a mental hospital, which they did.  But after a short time on an open psychiatric ward, Paul H walked out and took the train to Munich.
There he attacked four people, on a train and the station platform in Grafing, a Bavarian town 40km (25 miles) east of Munich.
On Wednesday, the steps of the train station were covered with flowers and candles for the victims.
A 56-year-old man died, and three other men aged between 43 and 58 were now all said to be in a  stable condition.
On Tuesday the mayor of Grafing, Angelika Obermayr, expressed shock at the attack.
"The idea that people get on an S-Bahn train on a beautiful morning or do their paper round and then become victims of a maniac is terrible," she said.


Former Made in Chelsea star Spencer Matthews and ex-Welsh international rugby player Gareth Thomas are among the first celebrities announced for the fourth series of The Jump.

Seven celebrities had to pull out of the last series of the Channel 4 winter sports show after injuring themselves.
Channel 4 said there had been a thorough review of safety standards.
Former England rugby captain Jason Robinson and footballer Robbie Fowler are taking part in the new series.
Model and businesswoman Caprice is also thought to have signed up.
The show sees celebrities compete at winter sports including ski-jumping, bobsleigh and speed skating.
The last series made headlines after a number of celebrities suffered injuries.
Olympic gymnast Beth Tweddle had to undergo surgery on her neck after a fall while training for the show, which prompted the first review into safety procedures on the show.
Channel 4 said at the time that events were "no more difficult" than in previous series and all competitors had "undertaken a rigorous training programme to prepare them for the show".
A second review of safety was undertaken at the beginning of February.
Holby City actress Tina Hobley has said she has struggled to "drive, dress [and] wash my hair" following  an accident on the show.
Hobley broke her arm in two places and injured her knee and shoulder in a fall.
She told Hello Magazine her injuries "have had a huge impact" on her life and family.
The Jump: Series three's injured celebrities
Earlier this year former Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding told how she was still "struggling" with her knee after suffering a ruptured ligament while taking part in the show.
She said she was "in constant pain" with a knee injury, adding that such pain "can take a massive toll on your mental as well as physical wellbeing".
Stars that were drafted in to take part in the last series after other celebrities pulled out were also injured.
They included ex-EastEnders actor Joe Swash who chipped a bone in his shoulder and former England rugby player Ben Cohen, who lost two teeth and needed 20 stitches.
The series will be filmed in Austria again and will be broadcast over six weeks in the new year.
Davina McCall will return as presenter.
Follow us on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, on Instagram, or if you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.


The outgoing chief inspector of prisons has said there is "no doubt" jails have deteriorated in the five years he has been in the role.

Nick Hardwick said they were "more dangerous" for staff and prisoners and  "less effective" at preparing people for release so they do not reoffend.
He also said he had seen prisoners who were "out of it" from taking legal highs.
The Ministry of Justice said it was investing in and reforming prisons.
Mr Hardwick told the Victoria Derbyshire programme: "The deterioration isn't just bad for prisoners, it's bad for the communities into which they'll return because not enough has been done to stop them committing more crime."
He said the deterioration was due to a combination of issues and the reasons had changed during his time in the role.
"You've got too many prisoners, not enough staff, the men who are there now are more likely to be there for more violent offences, serving longer [sentences].
"And particularly in the past year or two there's been a surge in the availability of drugs, particularly so-called legal highs and that then leads to bullying and debt, and that's created much worse conditions."
He said there were lots of ways the drugs got into prisons, over walls, from prisoners, during visits, or through corrupt staff.
"I was in a prison the other day, and this was quite unusual, there were so many prisoners under the influence that the worst - and it is dangerous, it kills people - they were taking to the hospital, the health centre, but the guys who were less badly affected they were leaving other prisoners to mind and look after," he said.
"I walked round and saw these guys who were obviously out of it."
Mr Hardwick said sometimes there were "simply not enough staff".
"Sometimes I will go on to a wing and want to talk to someone about it and you can't find a member of staff to talk to."
Earlier this month, Justice Secretary Michael Gove announced that Victorian prisons would be closed and replaced with nine new establishments in England and Wales by 2020. Chancellor George Osborne confirmed the closure of Holloway women's prison in London in the Spending Review on Wednesday.
Mr Hardwick said he was encouraged that the government was "finally listening to what we are saying," but that they "had to deliver".
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said prisons needed reform.
"It is only through more effective rehabilitation that we will reduce reoffending, cut crime and improve public safety.
"That is why we are investing in a modern prison estate, where governors are empowered to run prisons in the way they think best, and prisoners are given a chance to work or learn."
The Victoria Derbyshire programme is broadcast on weekdays between 09:15 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel.