Nearly half of working fathers would like a less stressful job so they can spend more time caring for their children, a study has found.

About a third would take a pay cut to achieve a better work-life balance, the charity Working Families said.
Employers are not doing enough to help dads take a more active role in childcare, it added.
MPs are due to open an inquiry into whether fathers are losing out in the workplace.
Of the 2,750 parents surveyed, a third of fathers said they regularly felt burnt out, and one in five were working extra hours, according to the Modern Families Index report.
Working fathers get 'wage bonus'
Work-life balance: What does it mean for men?
Do men get paid more than women?
Six ways to tackle the gender pay gap
"For many fathers the workplace is unsupportive of their aspirations for a better work-life fit," said the charity.
It runs the risk of creating a "fatherhood penalty", where fathers are willing to follow a career that is below their skill set and reduce their earnings, it added.
It would be similar to the "motherhood penalty", which gender equality charity, the Fawcett Society, identified as being one of the core causes of the disparity in pay between men and women.
"To prevent a 'fatherhood penalty' emerging in the UK - and to help tackle the motherhood penalty - employers need to ensure that work is designed in a way that helps women and men find a good work-life fit," said Sarah Jackson, chief executive of Working Families.
Employers' organisation, the Institute of Directors (IoD), agreed with the charity, saying bosses should design jobs that let both men and women work flexibly.
Seamus Nevin, head of employment and skills policy at the IoD, said government should also reform shared parental leave, which is "far from perfect and offers fathers no individual personal entitlement to time off with their baby".
"The benefits, to individual families as well as companies and the overall economy, of sharing parental responsibilities equally between mothers and fathers are clear," Mr Nevin said.
"The number of stay-at-home fathers has almost doubled since the mid-1990s.  However, it's still the case that women are far more likely to take the lion's share of parental responsibilities.
"The willingness of more men to take an active role in parenting is very positive, but unfortunately government legislation and employment practices have not always kept up with evolving trends and needs," Mr Nevin added.
Adrienne Burgess, chief executive of the Fatherhood Institute, told the BBC there were a lot of problems with the current parental leave system.
"The new system was bigged up as a shared parental leave and it's nothing of the sort."
She explained that, in reality, it is transferable maternal leave, which fathers have no automatic right to, and few met the conditions.
"Only a minority of couples have this available - well under 50% qualify. The mothers often have their pay topped up by their employer but if this is transferred to the father their employer is much less likely to top it up. Everything works against it."
On Monday, MPs on the Women and Equalities Committee are launching a new inquiry into fathers in the workplace.
Committee chair Maria Miller said that investing in policies to let men and women share childcare "will reap financial benefits as well as reducing the gender pay gap".
"Many fathers want to take a more active role in caring for their children," she added.
"Clearly more needs to be done. We are keen to hear views from individuals as well as organisations about the changes which they would like to see."


Shrewsbury Town have made their second signing of the summer by agreeing to bring experienced Scottish midfielder Martin Woods to the club.

Woods, 29, will officially sign from Scottish Premiership side Ross County on 1 July on a two-year deal when his
Woods had spent all of his career in English football prior to heading for the Highlands last summer.
Having started as a trainee at Leeds, he spent seven years at Doncaster.
He also briefly had a spell in the Premiership under Mick McCarthy at Sunderland, alongside Liam Lawrence, now Shrewsbury's captain.
Woods also played for Hartlepool (loan), Rotherham United, Yeovil Town, and Barnsley, where he first encountered Town boss Micky Mellon, who was assistant manager at Oakwell.
"I spoke to the manager a couple of weeks ago and he was quick to get things sorted," said Woods.
"He's very infectious and good to have around, and I also spoke to Liam Lawrence too. I played at both Sunderland and Barnsley with him.
"I really like playing in England. That was something I was after over the summer, although I've really enjoyed this season at Ross."


A collection of tennis memorabilia connected to Wimbledon's old No. 1 Court is to be auctioned.

A net post, pulley system for rain covers, and locker doors signed by John McEnroe, Pete Sampras and Bjorn Borg, are among the sale's highlights.
The vendor worked as a carpenter at the All-England Club and collected the items when the court was demolished.
They will be sold by Tennants auctioneers in Leyburn, North Yorkshire, on 21 July.
The original No. 1 Court, situated to the west of Centre Court, opened in 1924 and was knocked down and replaced by the current No. 1 Court in 1997.
The collector, who worked at Wimbledon between 1990-2008, took the items with the club's permission to prevent them being thrown away.
"I am very sorry to see my collection go, but I no longer have room to house it," said the vendor, who now lives in West Yorkshire.
"I just hope that these unique items find good homes with tennis enthusiasts, who will get as much enjoyment out of them as I have."
Other items to be sold include signs from the court, signed photographs and posters.
Kegan Harrison, who is overseeing the sale, said: "This collection is unique to the auction market, and therefore estimates are quite difficult to assess ahead of sale.
"We are hoping the sale will appeal to all tennis and sports fans, as there won't be another opportunity like this to buy a piece of Wimbledon history from this iconic court."


The death of a homeless man after smoking Black Mamba has sparked fears of a potentially lethal batch of the former "legal high".

A man, believed to be in his 30s was pronounced dead at about 06:00 BST in Birmingham City Centre.
Two others, thought to have been with the man in Fletchers Walk, were also taken to hospital.
West Midlands Police warned users of the drug they were "putting their lives at risk".
Black Mamba mimics the effects of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive chemical in cannabis.
Synthetic forms of the drug are more potent than its naturally-occurring counterpart, increasing the risk of harmful side effects.
These can include psychotic episodes, convulsions and organ failure.
Black Mamba was among a raft of so-called legal highs which were outlawed when the Psychoactive Substances Act came into effect last year.


Concrete mixer lorries delivering to the site of a new shopping centre in Oxford have been given permission to take a shortcut through a village.

Oxfordshire County Council made the decision on Monday to allow the vehicles to use the B4449 through Sutton.
Roadwork delays of up to 40 minutes have caused about Â£22,500 of concrete to be wasted, contractor Hanson said.
The route will now be used by up to 10 loaded mixing trucks daily.
Residents campaigned to stop the lorries passing through the village, claiming their homes were being "shaken" by the large vehicles using the narrow road.
The ready-mixed concrete company has also been criticised for using the route before permission had been given.
The authority said the agreement would be in place until the completion of the roadworks on the Cutteslowe and Wolvercote roundabouts, expected in November 2016.
County councillor for Eynsham, Charles Matthews, said it would be "to the considerable inconvenience of the local residents".
The shopping centre is scheduled to open in Autumn 2017.


A home in the north-west of England has been cut off by roadworks carried out by Virgin Media as part of its super-fast broadband rollout.

David Henshall told the Manchester Evening News that he came home from work and "found they had barricaded my wife and daughter inside".
He emailed pictures of the work to Virgin Media chief executive Tom Mockridge.
The firm apologised for the inconvenience.
In a statement it said: "Virgin Media expects the very highest standards of work from all its contractors. We will be discussing the matter with the contractors as a matter of urgency."
The home in Bolton was completely surrounded by fencing which in turn protected a newly-dug trench.
"My wife informs me that the workmen left at 2pm with no thought to the fact she could not move her car from our drive and it is stuck now," he told the paper.
The incident does not appear to be an isolated one. On the Virgin Media community website, a member complained last month that workmen "have dug right across the driveway", blocking in a car and covering it in dust.
Another asked this week: "I am trying to find out who to speak to about Virgin laying cables and constantly digging up the road, then making a mess."
In February 2015, Virgin Media announced that it was to invest Â£3bn in improving its cable broadband service, increasing its network's reach from 13 million to 17 million homes.


A drug-driver who admitted killing a pedestrian has been jailed.

Alan Strong, 52, died after being hit by a car as he walked along Littleton Road, in Salford, in April last year.
Matthew Bravender, 27, of Deepdale Drive, Agecroft pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving while over the prescribed limit for a prescribed drug.
He was jailed for five years and four months at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court on Tuesday.
Bravender was also disqualified from driving for seven years and eight months.


Ten players from the Eritrean football team have refused to return home after playing a World Cup qualifying match in Botswana and are now seeking asylum there, officials say.

The men were detained by police after deciding not to board their plane.
They are reported to have refused to go home despite the intervention of the Eritrean ambassador in Botswana.
There have been a number of mass defections by Eritrean athletes in recent years.
One of the most noticeable was in 2013, when Uganda granted asylum to 15 Eritrean players and their team doctor after they absconded at the end of a football tournament.
A senior official at the Botswana Football Association says it has yet to establish why the players refused to leave with their team-mates.
However a report in the Botswana newspaper The Voice said that the players were distressed about the prospect of joining the Eritrean army and wanted to seek asylum despite being persuaded not to by the ambassador.
The newspaper reported Botswana Football Association vice president Basadi Akoonyatse as saying that the Eritrean players were found missing from their hotel rooms early on Wednesday morning by team officials.
"A report was made to the police who spotted them loitering around Francistown, alleging that they were in search of a Red Cross centre where they could seek assistance to... be accorded asylum in Botswana," she said.
Players' representative Dick Bayford told the Reuters news agency that he had received reports of an attempt to remove the players forcibly from Botswana.
Eritrea is notorious for human rights abuses, with torture and slavery both reported by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry report to be commonplace.
The country has also been accused by the UN of forcing its citizens to indefinite national service and of killing people trying to escape abroad.
The Eritrean government dismissed the UN's findings as "totally unfounded and devoid of all merit".
Eritrea - key facts
Eritrea country profile
Inside the secretive state of Eritrea
The lone seven-year-olds fleeing Eritrea


A man in the western Indian city of Pune has been held after carrying his wife's severed head down a busy road, police say.

The 53-year-old man, identified as Ramu Chavan, was accosted by traffic police after they received multiple calls from people who saw him.
Police told BBC Hindi that Mr Chavan had confessed to beheading his wife but did not divulge a motive.
Police suspect he is mentally unstable and are seeking more information.
He worked as a watchman at a building currently under construction, police said.
Videos and images of Mr Chavan walking around the city with the severed head are being circulated on Indian social media.
Police told BBC Hindi that he appeared to be walking towards the police station even before he was accosted by officers.
Meanwhile the relatives of the murdered woman, identified as Sonubai, have arrived in the city, and police are trying to get more information about Chavan from them.


Thieves have siphoned millions of pounds of fuel from a pipeline which runs under Deputy PM Nick Clegg's official country residence in Kent.

Esso's South East pipeline runs from Fawley Refinery, in Hampshire, to Purfleet Fuel Terminal, in Essex.
The company said it discovered a section at Chevening, near Sevenoaks, had been tampered with.
The Sun reported 30,000 litres of fuel a day were stolen over seven months, with a value of Â£8.3m at the pumps.
Kent Police said thieves had used "highly specialist techniques" to siphon the fuel.
Chevening House Estate is shared by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond.
An Esso spokesman said: "We recently strengthened our pipeline security and monitoring procedures, and on Wednesday detected criminal damage at Chevening on the South East pipeline.
"The section of pipeline was temporarily shut down to make repairs, which have now been completed.
"We strongly condemn the highly dangerous criminal action by those involved and are working closely with the police in their criminal investigations."
A Kent Police spokesman added: "Initial indications are that this was a well-organised crime, employing highly specialist techniques to siphon fuel from pipelines which operate at very high pressure."


On the streets of north London, there is not much election chatter about the prospects of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

Show voters in Finchley a picture of Nigel Dodds, the party's leader at Westminster, and few people guess it right first time.
"No idea," said one woman.
"Is it Nick Clegg?" asked another. "Give us a clue."
The truth is that he could hold the balance of power after the General Election.
In the aftermath of polling day on 7 May, the DUP could be the Downing Street king-makers.
Finchley has a certain resonance in Northern Ireland.
Back in 1981, the then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher tried to ease unionist anxiety by saying  "Northern Ireland is as British as Finchley".
Given its history, the north London constituency is a significant political battleground.
Sampling opinion among voters, it was clear that many are politically engaged.
However, when it came to listing potential king-makers in the post-election shake-up, most tended to mention the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Scottish National Party (SNP).
Many political analysts agree that they are more likely big players.
However, the DUP say the Westminster arithmetic potentially puts unionists into a strong position.
To gain an overall majority at Westminster, a party needs 326 seats.
At the last general election, the Liberal Democrats got the Conservatives over the 326-mark.
This time around, the DUP say they could play some role in the final shake-up. So could they?
According to the Westminster correspondent from the Herald newspaper, Kate Devlin, it is likely to be complicated.
"The DUP certainly have the best chance they've ever had of holding the balance of power," she said.
"But it could be very difficult as well. What it could take is actually three parties to get somebody across the line into a majority.
"So the DUP could hold the balance of power, but they could end up in negotiations with the Liberal Democrats as well."
Much will depend on the final election arithmetic.
There are so many unknowns at this stage, including whether or not the SNP surge in the polls translates into actual votes.
The DUP say they could work with Labour or the Conservatives, if the deal was right.
Rather than a formal coalition, the DUP would prefer a more informal working arrangement.
If the post-election shake-down works in their favour, Nigel Dodds could be thrust into the political spotlight.
Maybe then he would no longer be mistaken for Nick Clegg on the streets of Finchley.


About 70 people have been struck down by an outbreak of the vomiting bug norovirus at a Royal Navy training centre in Cornwall.

The Navy said people had started falling ill at HMS Raleigh in Torpoint about 10 days ago.
Those affected were placed in quarantine in an attempt to stem the spread of the contagious virus.
A Royal Navy spokesman said control measures included "intense cleaning and isolating those with symptoms".
He added: "The virus started about 10 days ago. It peaked towards the end of last week at about 70 and numbers fell rapidly after that."
There is no treatment for the virus, which causes sickness and diarrhoea, but most people recover within a few days.
HMS Raleigh provides training for the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Royal Fleet Auxiliary and the Royal Navy Reserve.
According to its website: "On a typical day there are around 2,200 people on site."


Leyton Orient have signed defender George Elokobi and striker Macauley Bonne, both from League Two club Colchester on two-year contracts.

Bonne, 21, has joined for an undisclosed fee, while Elokobi, 31, was out of contract with the U's.
Cameroon-born Elokobi has Premier League experience from his six-year spell with Wolves.
Bonne scored 16 goals in 84 games for Colchester, having first joined the club as a 14-year-old.
Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page.


The head of the Irish tax authorities is "practically 100% certain" there will be no new customs posts along the 320-mile land border between the UK and the Republic of Ireland post-Brexit.

"We will likely not have any additional customs posts," said Niall Cody.
Reports of evidence given to the committee by a colleague had created the impression such posts would return, he told parliament's Finance Committee.
Revenue Commissioners were engaged in contingency planning, he said.
But having considered the matter, Mr Cody said he was "practically 100% certain" there would be no new customs facilities along the 320-mile (500-km) border.
"We are not planning customs posts," he said.
The border separating Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic will become an EU-UK frontier after Britain pulls out of the EU.
There have been warnings that a hardening of the border, which has become virtually invisible as a result of the Northern Ireland peace process, could threaten the current stability and prosperity on the island.
The UK and Irish governments have both said they do not want a return to customs posts on the border after the UK leaves the EU.
Earlier this month, the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier said the Irish border issue would be one of his three priorities and that he would work to avoid a hard border.
But, while on a two-day visit to Ireland, he emphasised that there would have to be some form of customs controls as a result of Brexit.
Mr Cody rejected reports that his organisation was actively looking for locations to establish new checkpoints.
He said the speculation, which he blamed on an earlier contingency paper from a "medium-ranking" official, had led to landowners along the border directly offering him sites for sale.
While businesses must assume there would "some form of customs" post-Brexit, he said the Revenue was engaged in upgrading its IT infrastructure to allow people to make declarations online.
Mr Cody said ongoing analysis of cross-border trade increasingly shows that most goods transported between the jurisdictions will not need to be physically checked.
Much of it is agri-food and construction related, and can be documented online.
There are also existing Revenue offices in border counties where traders can carry out their necessary paperwork.
"I'm practically 100% certain we will not be providing new trade facilitation bays in whatever parts of Donegal, Monaghan or Cavan," he said.
Mr Cody also told the parliamentary committee that Revenue was not negotiating with HM Revenue and Customs on post-Brexit arrangements.
It was, though, assessing all the implications and options, while upgrading its IT systems and recruiting more staff, as it prepared for the outcome of the political negotiations, he said.
Earlier, the committee heard that cross-border trade could cost businesses around €400m (£346m) in compliance costs after Brexit.
That figure is separate to customs tariffs.
Carol Lynch, a partner with the accountancy firm BDO Ireland, told the committee that a charge of €100 per movement would likely apply.
She said there was likely to be a requirement to lodge customs declarations on all imports and exports in and out the UK once the UK leaves the customs union.
"There is a necessary cost for this, either in the payment of a clearance agent or the recruitment of staff in addition to logistics-related costs," she added.
This would be an administrative cost to be paid by the businesses, to an agent, in order to complete an import declaration.
Michael McGrath, the finance spokesman of the main opposition party, Fianna Fail, said this would place a significant annual cost on businesses.
He estimated that when applied to all cross-border movements, it would amount to around €400m each year.
There is much uncertainty surrounding Brexit and what it will mean for the relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
The fog of that confusion will only lift once the UK general election is over and the two sides in the forthcoming negotiations can get down to real business.


A war crimes court in Bangladesh has ordered prison authorities to hang an Islamist leader, months after he was sentenced to death.

Abdul Kader Mullah of the Jamaat-e-Islami party was found guilty of crimes against humanity during Bangladesh's independence war in 1971.
He could now be hanged at any time unless President Abdul Hamid or the Supreme Court intervenes.
Jamaat-e-Islami has called for a national strike on Monday in protest.
The special court has been trying Bangladeshis accused of collaborating with Pakistani forces and committing atrocities in 1971.
However, human rights groups say the war crimes tribunal falls short of international standards.
There are concerns that the execution of Mullah could trigger a fresh wave of violence across the country.
Mullah, who denied all the charges against him, was accused of being a member of the shadowy al-Badr force, which Jamaat is alleged to have created and which is accused of the kidnapping and murder of more than 200 Bengali intellectuals in the dying days of the war.
He was also accused of being behind a series of killings including massacres in the Mirpur area of Dhaka, which earned him the nickname of "koshai" or butcher of Mirpur and made him one of the more feared Jamaat leaders.
Mullah was convicted in February and jailed for life.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding the death penalty, a move that prompted parliament to amend a law allowing the state to appeal against any verdict reached by the war crimes tribunal.
In September the sentence was increased by the Supreme Court to the death penalty.


Work is finally beginning on a new RNLI lifeboat station for Llandudno, after two decades of delays and planning battles to find a site in the town.

The £2.6m station will be built at Craig-y-Don on the Victorian resort's North Shore.
It will house the latest £2m Shannon class all-weather lifeboat, which is expected to be delivered in 2017.
The current boathouse is landlocked on a busy street, with the lifeboat towed through the town to the sea by tractor.
"All the crew are delighted - it's been the culmination of over a 20-year search for a new lifeboat station," said Capt Marcus Elliot, the RNLI's volunteer operations manager in Llandudno.
"We operate from a very cramped station in the centre of the town, and the new lifeboats that are being put out would not fit in that lifeboat station.
"Had we not acquired this new site, the all-weather lifeboat service - which has been in Llandudno since 1861 - would have come to an end."
Plans for a new lifeboat house in the town have been under discussion since the 1990s, with original plans to site it near Llandudno Pier thrown out by planners back in 1998.
It left the volunteer crews stuck in their Lloyd Street station, which they describe as no longer fit for purpose.
In addition to the length of time it takes to drag their Mersey class lifeboat through the streets before it can be launched, there are inadequate changing, drying, training and meeting facilities at the boathouse.
"To get to this stage really is the realisation of a dream to everyone involved with Llandudno RNLI," added Capt Elliot.
"We would like to thank the large number of people who so kindly took the trouble to show their support for the RNLI's planning application by calling, phoning, posting items on social media, writing letters and emailing - your support was invaluable and has been greatly appreciated by everyone at Llandudno Lifeboat Station."
The RNLI said it hoped to complete the new station in about 14 months, when it will become operational with the new Shannon boat.


England opener Alex Hales says he has no regrets over resting from Nottinghamshire's first two County Championship matches of the season.

Hales, who struggled in his debut Test series in South Africa, has seen the likes of Sam Robson score heavily.
"I knew openers would inevitably score runs and put pressure on - that was one of the cons of the decision," he said.
"But if I turned up with half a tank, I wouldn't be giving myself the best chance to cement that England spot."
The 27-year-old, who has been opening at international level in all three forms of the game, averaged 17 in the Tests as England beat the Proteas 2-1.
While many of his England team-mates were cleared to play at the beginning of the Championship season, Hales opted to sit out until Sunday's game against Yorkshire at Trent Bridge.
He is likely to play only twice before England name their squad for the first Test against Sri Lanka, which begins on 19 May.
In his absence, fellow England opener Robson scored a double century and a century for Middlesex against Warwickshire and Durham's Mark Stoneman reached three figures for Durham against Middlesex, while the likes of Ian Bell, James Vince, Adam Lyth and Varun Chopra have also been in the runs.
"In the best part of 24 months I hadn't had more than three weeks off cricket," Hales told BBC Radio 5 live sports extra.
"I was pretty knackered to be honest, probably more mentally tired. It was nice to switch off from the game.
"The most important thing was coming back with a full tank and the desire to score as many runs as I can. The break has 100% done that, so I have no regrets."
Hales, who played limited-overs internationals for England some five years before his Test debut, was selected as captain Alastair Cook's eighth opening partner in three years for the series in South Africa.
Although he only made 136 runs in eight innings, he said he felt at home at the highest level.
"South Africa didn't go to plan, but I didn't feel out of my depth," he said. "It was me making errors rather than thinking that I wasn't good enough.
"If I do carry on at Test level, it's up to me eliminate those mistakes."


Struggling Sauber have been taken over by a Swiss finance group.

Longbow Finance has bought out the Sauber Holding Group, of which the Formula 1 team are a part.
The takeover ends a lot of the uncertainty over the future of the Swiss team, who have been struggling with financial issues for some years.
Founder Peter Sauber, who was chairman, has retired, but Monisha Kaltenborn remains chief executive officer. The team name will also stay.
"We are very pleased we can secure the future of Sauber at the pinnacle of motorsport," said Kaltenborn.
"We are convinced that Longbow Finance is the perfect partner to again make the team competitive and successful in F1."
Sauber entered F1 in 1993, in partnership with Mercedes, after a successful career in sportscars.
Mercedes decided two years later to join McLaren, starting a partnership that endured until 2014, following the founding of the car company's own F1 team.
Sauber, based in Hinwil, near Zurich, went it alone as a privateer until it was bought out by BMW in June 2005.
The German car giant subsequently quit F1 at the end of 2009.
Although founder Sauber stepped in to keep alive the team who bear his name, their existence since then has been precarious.
"I am very happy that my courageous investment to buy the team back, which I made six years ago with the intention to secure the base in Hinwil and the place in F1, has proved to be correct," he said.
In more than two decades in the sport, Sauber have won one grand prix, with Poland's Robert Kubica in Canada in 2008.
Sauber lie last of 11 teams in the constructors' championship this season, with a best result of 12th place - achieved three times.
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Detectives investigating the killing of a mother-of-nine and her nephew in a shooting at their north London flat say they have not found any evidence to suggest they were the intended victims.

Annie Besala Ekofo, 53, and Bervil Kalikaka-Ekofo, 21, were found dead in East Finchley on Thursday.
Scotland Yard said officers will explore whether anyone else linked to their address could have been a target.
It comes as their family released tributes to the pair.
Police were called to the flat in Elmshurst Crescent by the London Ambulance Service early on Thursday morning.
Four other people, including a child, were also at the property at the time of the incident but were not harmed.
Officers said they were keeping an open mind as to a motive for the shooting.
Launching a fresh appeal for witnesses, Det Ch Insp Andrew Partridge said: "We have already spoken to a number of people who have come forward and provided useful information.
"Whilst the murders took place early in the morning, I am confident that there would have been people up and about, getting ready for work and school.
"It is possible that someone may have noticed a stranger on the estate, or a vehicle that is not usually there."
He said specially trained detectives were providing support to the "devastated" family.
Mr Kalikaka-Ekofo, who was studying psychology at the University of West London, was described by his mother Maymie Botamba Chantelle as a "bright, intelligent young man... always caring for those around him".
"He was always making people laugh," she said.
"He was very creative and was in love with music, photography and art."
His father, Patrick Ekofo, said his son "never looked for trouble. He was always the peaceful one".
Mrs Besala was described by her family as a "wonderful and loving mother and wife, always smiling... a glue that kept everyone together".


Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone says the introduction of a new elimination qualifying format will be delayed until the fifth race of the season.

He said the software controlling the new system would not be ready for the start of the season on 18-20 March.
"My guys who do the timing said: 'Mr E, we don't want to be put in the position because we don't think we can get it done properly in time'," he said.
He added the system "wasn't my idea" and he wanted a different approach.
Ecclestone said the new system would go ahead, however.
Governing body the FIA announced on Wednesday that a new qualifying system had been agreed that would feature the slowest car being eliminated every 90 seconds in three knock-out sections of qualifying.
The teams were to spend the next few days making sure there were no unintended consequences before it was formally adopted, but the problems have instead been discovered by Ecclestone's Formula 1 Management company, which handles the timing software.
"It's not quite that easy," Ecclestone, 85, said. "You've got all the graphics to go on the screen.
"If you're going to try and explain it to the public properly, it's not just a case of 'OK, the guy was the last one, bye-bye'. You can't just do that.
"We'll have to deal with it. I've told the FIA this and asked them what they'd like to do with it but the bottom line is there's not a lot they can do with it because we do all the timekeeping. So, that's it."
The idea behind the new qualifying format is to introduce an element of uncertainty that could lead to cars qualifying out of position.
But Ecclestone said his original idea had been for a different way of shuffling the order.
"I don't want to touch the current qualifying, which I think is good," he said.
"What I've said was, if the guy that's on pole won the last race, for example, we'd have to come up with some sort of a format to say in the end he starts 10th. And the guy who was third in the last race starts maybe eighth or something like that.
"And then you will find you get a whole mix-up of the grid and some of the guys who don't get as much TV coverage will be up at the front.
"Because you can guarantee the guy who's on pole will still win the race but it ain't going to be like pole man disappears and that's it."
He said the teams were opposed to this idea.
"People at the time that don't want any change at all thought: 'Well, Ecclestone's going to push through something so we might as well agree with that rather than have something that is a bit more drastic'," he said.
"Because it could happen that the guy on pole doesn't get through the pack.
"Monaco, Hungary - there's lots of places where you wouldn't want to put your money on the guy coming through the field."


(Close): The UK market managed to recover some of the ground lost over the past couple of days in the wake of the yuan's depreciation.

At closing, the FTSE 100 index was down 2.86 points, or 0.04%, at 6,568.33.
Shares in drink bottling company Coca-Cola HBC closed up 7.3% after its half-year results beat expectations.
In the six months to 3 July, net profits rose 32% to ???125.2m, and the company said it was upbeat about its prospects.
"We have become more optimistic as the year has progressed and remain confident that 2015 will be a year of volume growth and progress on margins," said chief executive Dimitris Lois.
Tui Group closed up 6.6% after the travel firm said annual profits were set to come in at the top end of expectations.
The company said strong demand for summer holidays had offset the impact of the beach attack in Tunisia, which it said would cost it ??20m.
Shares in security and outsourcing firm G4S closed down 5.3% after Goldman Sachs and Exane BNP Paribas both lowered their ratings for the company.
On the currency markets, the pound fell 0.08% against the dollar to $1.5601 and climbed 0.11% against the euro to ???1.406.


About 240 jobs will be created at a new firm helping Norfolk's engineering companies develop new ideas.

Hethel Innovation Ltd will support 300 businesses and look to create 24 new ones at Hethel Engineering Centre, near Wymondham, Norfolk County Council said.
The authority said the firm, part of a ??7.8m innovation project, will focus on low carbon technologies and help ensure Norfolk's global competitiveness.
The company will be funded at the centre for three years.
It is being paid for by a European grant and county council loan.
Norfolk County Council said the firm's aim was to help businesses at the hi-tech centre create new products and services as well as encouraging new spin-off companies and jobs.
It said the company would "create opportunities for businesses to explore, engage, experiment, collaborate and cluster in order to be globally competitive and secure Norfolk as a county that is home to world class business, providing world class products and services".


The Djibouti Football Federation (FDF) has dissolved the national football team in a bid to 'stop poor results'.

The FDF announced in a statement that the squad and coaching staff have been disbanded as the focus shifts to promising youngsters.
The move comes after Djibouti lost 5-1 at home to Ethiopia in the first leg of their 2018 African Nations Championship qualifier on Saturday.
The FDF said there is no timeframe on the dissolution.
"As Team A has no result, we will focus on youth football," said technical director Omar Ali Mohamed.
"This is not about money problems. It is the new policy of the federation."
"Maybe we will participate in the next Under-15, Under-17 or Under-20 competitions."
An FDF statement said the decision was necessary due to 'the never-ending series of bad results' of the national team.
Ranked 185th in the latest Fifa's world rankings, Djibouti - nicknamed the Shoremen of the Red Sea - have never qualified for any major international tournaments.


Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has unveiled two flagship phablets in Beijing on Thursday, comparing them directly with Apple's largest iPhones.

Chief executive Lei Jun introduced the Mi Note, saying it was shorter, thinner and lighter than the iPhone 6 Plus.
Priced at 2,299 yuan ($371; £244), the 16 gigabyte model is less than half the price of Apple's handset and Samsung's phablet, the Galaxy Note 4.
Analysts say Xiaomi became the world's third bestselling phone firm in 2014.
Phablets are generally mobile devices that have features of both a smartphone and a tablet, but are too big or small in size to be classified as either one.
Xiaomi - which was only founded in 2010 - announced that the Mi Note was 6.95mm (0.27in) thick and weighed 161g (5.7oz).
That makes it 1.05mm thinner than the iPhone 6 Plus and 11g lighter.
It also features a 13 megapixel (MP) rear camera, made by Sony, and a 4MP front one.
In addition, Xiaomi announced the higher-end Mi Note Pro, which will be released at a later date. This model has:
It will sell for 3,299 yuan ($532; £350).
The company has been accused of copying iPhones in the past and Wee Teck Loo, head of consumer electronics research at market research firm Euromonitor, said a lot of emphasis was put on a side-by-side comparison with the iPhone 6 Plus at the start of the launch.
"Xiaomi appears like a teenager who wants to act like an adult and yet, clings on to his blanket for comfort - Apple bashing," he said.
Kiranjeet Kaur, senior market analyst at IDC Asia Pacific, said Xioami's comparisons to the iPhone implies the firm believes it is a product they look up to.
"They are trying to position against Apple or are trying to appeal to the Chinese consumer who still aspire to iPhones," she said.
In terms of features, analysts said that the specifications of Xioami's new devices did not show a "breakthrough in innovation" and its low prices were still the biggest attraction.
"Xiaomi changed the game in a way. Instead of keeping everyone's focus on ground-breaking innovative features coming on flagship phones, it has switched attention to packing great specs at modest price points," Ms Kaur said. "The key would be if they surpass the competition and its earlier models at those price-points."
The flagship devices basically extended what Xiaomi was good at - models that were targeted at Apple and Samsung, the only firms that still outsell it, Mr Loo added.
"The new models are definitely an upgrade compared to their predecessors - Xiaomi desperately needed to refresh its line-up to keep up with its competitors," he said.
Xiaomi unveiled a variety of shiny new products at its latest launch: two smartphones, headphones, even a powerful air purifier.
However, the company's chief executive also used this event to improve his company's image.
Lei Jun has said in the past that he doesn't want his company to be known as a cheap Chinese company selling cheap phones. He's well aware that critics believe Xiaomi is rising on the back of Apple's product innovations.
Instead, Mr Lei spent much of his presentation detailing the time and effort Xiaomi's designers pour into their work.
He told the audience that Xiaomi filed for 2,318 patents last year, including 1,380 in China and 665 international patents. In 10 years, Mr Lei promised, his company will be filing for tens of thousands of patents a year.
Xiaomi is a "world leading innovator", Lei Jun says. However, until his phones and tablets begin to look significantly different than the ones that Apple is selling, questions will remain regarding Xiaomi's ability to function as a leader, not a follower.
The Beijing-based firm overtook global market leader Samsung last year to become the top-selling handset brand in the world's largest smartphone market, China.
Just last month, Xiaomi was also dubbed the world's most valuable "technology start-up" after it raised $1.1bn (£708m) in a funding round, giving it a valuation of $45bn. That surpassed the $40bn value of taxi booking app Uber.
The Chinese company reported that its revenue in 2014 more than doubled to 74.3bn yuan (£7.8bn; $11.97bn) in pre-tax sales last year, up 135% from 2013.
It sold more than 61 million phones in 2014, a rise of 227% from a year earlier.
Its soaring sales come despite an intellectual property challenge faced in India last year, where sales were temporarily halted after Swedish firm Ericsson filed a patent complaint.
The firm has set a target of selling 100 million phones in 2015, but Mr Loo of Euromonitor said the goal was a little "stretched" and its success depended on overseas expansion, which has not been as successful as it had hoped for.
"Xiaomi is not well-known beyond China and only tech-savvy consumers in other markets have heard of the company, unlike Lenovo which is a household name internationally," he said.
Despite its strong numbers, Xiaomi's phones are only available in select Asian countries outside mainland China, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, India and Indonesia.
There had been speculation that it might soon announce a move into the US, but there was no mention of this at the latest launch.
Andrew Milroy, senior vice president for telecoms at Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific, said the firm would face challenges when it entered developed markets such as the US and UK, because most consumers there get smartphones on subsidised contract plans from service providers instead of buying the phones upfront.
"The actual price of a handset doesn't matter as much to you if you live in developed markets and that helps the likes of Apple and Samsung," he said. "It would be hard to find people in Western countries who'd be willing to trade their high spec Sony, Samsung or Apple phone for a Xiaomi."


A police officer has been injured after being dragged along the road by a car in Newtownstewart, County Tyrone.

Police stopped the Honda car in the Mourne Park area just before 23:00 GMT on Tuesday.
While police officers were speaking to the driver, he drove off.
The officer was dragged along the road before being thrown off the moving vehicle. He sustained cuts and bruises to his head and body.
A short time later, other police officers in the area stopped a car on the Old Castle Road and arrested a 17-year-old youth on suspicion of a number of motoring offences.
He remains in police custody.


Belfast councillor Ruth Patterson has been expelled from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), its leader Peter Robinson has told the BBC.

She has been removed for allegedly bringing the party into disrepute.
Ms Patterson recently criticised the party's decision to overlook her for the South Belfast assembly seat vacated by Jimmy Spratt, and instead appointing former special adviser Emma Pengelly.
Mr Robinson said Ms Patterson has a right to appeal her expulsion.
He said party officers "unanimously decided to expel her earlier this week".
He added that he believed "there has been some correspondence" between the party and Ms Patterson since she was informed of the decision.
Ms Pengelly took her place in the Northern Ireland Assembly in September through the co-option system, which allows parties to replace departing MLAs with a party colleague without a by-election.
It has been used extensively by many of the parties in the assembly.
Within a month of her selection as an MLA for South Belfast, Ms Pengelly was appointed as a junior minister in the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister.
She had previously worked in the department as a special adviser to the first minister for almost nine years.
Last month, Ms Patterson, a former deputy lord mayor of Belfast, said she had been annoyed by Ms Pengelly's dual promotion.
"There is a principle, in my book, of giving someone who has earned something the chance, rather than someone who does not have one solitary vote, who has never stood for election, who has never run the gauntlet of an election," she said.
"It it not sour grapes. Anyone in my position would feel exactly the same - not surprised, but let down.
"I thought I was worth a little more."
Ms Patterson also said last month that her party's return to the Northern Ireland Executive after the publication of a report on paramilitaries had shocked her "to the core".
She said she had major difficulties with the move, and had been considering her position in the party.


Victims of the Alton Towers rollercoaster crash have thanked firefighters who risked their own lives to rescue them.

Crews were honoured for their work when one carriage of The Smiler ride collided with another on 2 June.
The carriages were eight metres up and the rescue took four and a half hours.
Daniel Thorpe, 27, who suffered a punctured lung and broken leg said: "Their presence was a huge comfort during a traumatic time."
Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service crews from Leek, Stafford, Sandyford, Cheadle, Ipstones, Longton and Hanley received a Chief Fire Officer's certificate of commendation.
It is given to people who have placed their lives at reasonable risk whilst saving others or whose actions have saved lives.
Leah Washington, 18 from Barnsley, whose leg was amputated after the crash, said: "The crews have been amazing, they were really caring at the time and also visited me in hospital afterwards which was lovely of them."
She added: "They really deserve the award."
Mr Thorpe from Buxton and Ms Washington were joined at the ceremony by her boyfriend Joe Pugh, 18, also from Barnsley, and 20-year-old Vicky Balch from Leyland, Lancashire, who also had to have her leg amputated.
Chief Fire Officer Peter Dartford said: "The crews that dealt with the incident at Alton Towers did an absolutely amazing job in incredibly challenging circumstances."
He added: "I am extremely proud of the professionalism and sensitivity that our firefighters showed throughout the entire rescue operation and in the aftermath the incident."
Cheadle firefighter Helen Green, who was part of the rescue operation, said: "It is a real honour and it has been lovely to see the casualties again and to know that they are all doing so well."


An all-night service on the London Underground (LU) will not be introduced this year after talks broke up without agreement, unions have said.

The Night Tube was due to begin last month but was delayed over a dispute about staff pay and conditions.
Finn Brennan, from train drivers' union Aslef, said discussions had broken up because LU management had "mishandled these negotiations".
Transport for London (TfL) blamed unions for delaying the service.
It said "a fair and sustainable pay offer and cast-iron guarantees on work-life balance" had been offered but unions had not put this to their members and came up with last-minute demands.
A 24-hour service on the Jubilee, Victoria, Piccadilly, Central and Northern lines had been due to start at weekends on 12 September.
Unions took industrial action during the summer having called for increased pay and a limit on how many all-night shifts their members would be asked to do.
The conciliation service Acas said in a statement: "Acas held talks today in respect of the current London Underground dispute. Talks adjourned today and the parties are reflecting upon their positions. There are no further talks planned at this current time."
London Mayor Boris Johnson has previously said he was "relaxed" about when the service was introduced, as long as it happened before the end of autumn.
Mr Brennan said unions had "put forward a number of proposals to resolve this dispute" but these had been "rejected".
"They [London Underground] have wasted every opportunity for a settlement and seem to have been determined to provoke confrontation rather than resolution," he said.
Analysis by BBC London transport correspondent Tom Edwards
These night tube talks between the Unions and London Underground have been long and tortuous with more twists and turns than an EastEnders' plot.
Everyone seems to want a Night Tube but the slowest of molluscs would embarrass the rate of progress at these talks.
We still do not have a date for the Night Tube but it looks like the last deadline of "autumn" has shifted again.
The mayor and London Underground were never really wed to a set date - they said "not at any cost" - and it does seem the talks have run out of time.
The unions would need to consult their members on any deal and it would take 28 days to introduce the new rosters.
Also - and this is a point made to me by a few people - introducing a new 24-hour service during London's raucous party season in mid-December would not be ideal.
Famously, decimalisation was introduced on 15 February 1971 - one of the quietest weeks of the year.
Mick Cash, from the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT), said it was a "no-win situation" for Londoners and Tube staff and called for the talks to get back on track.
"RMT is frankly astounded that Boris Johnson has rung his officials from Japan and instructed them to kick the Night Tube into next year," he said.
Labour London Assembly Member Val Shawcross said the decision was a "major disappointment to businesses and Londoners" and accused Mr Johnson of "perpetual dithering over the project".
Steve Griffiths, chief operating officer for LU, said "significant progress" had been made during discussions and the pay and conditions offer would be presented to staff to get their views.
"Not only are the unions at risk of depriving millions of customers of their Night Tube service, they are depriving employees of a very fair pay offer and longer term opportunities to improve work life balance even further," he said.
TfL first announced plans for the Night Tube in September 2014 and said trains would run on Fridays and Saturdays with six trains per hour through central London on five Tube lines.
On the Northern Line, there would have been eight trains an hour to meet demand at busy stations between Leicester Square and Camden Town, TfL said.
LU claims the Night Tube is needed to deal with huge demand from passengers, especially at weekends, and is "pivotal" to the city's economy. Chancellor George Osborne and Mr Johnson said it would add Â£6.4bn to the London economy by 2030 and create 500,000 new jobs.
It was also announced in February the night-time services would be extended to the Metropolitan, Circle, District, and Hammersmith & City lines by 2021 and extended to the London Overground in 2017 and the Docklands Light Railway by 2021.


South Africa's ex-President Thabo Mbeki has called for a boycott of Israeli goods to show solidarity with Palestinians.

The public should mobilise against Israel so that it "does pay a price for the position that it is taking", Mr Mbeki said in the capital, Pretoria.
About 2,000 people, mostly Palestinians, have died in the conflict in Gaza since July.
Most South Africans have historically supported the Palestinians.
BBC South Africa analyst Farouk Chothia says they include the country's first black president - the late Nelson Mandela - Nobel peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu and prominent Jewish leaders such as Ronnie Kasrils and the late Joe Slovo.
They drew parallels between the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and the Palestinian campaign for independence, he says.
However, South Africa has a vocal minority which supports Israel and believe that it is unfairly maligned.
Meanwhile, a row has broken out after the Jewish deputy head boy of Johannesburg's King David Victory Park School, Joshua Broomberg, appeared in a photo posted on Facebook wearing a Palestinian scarf.
Hundreds of people signed an online petition demanding that he be stripped of his school honours.
Mr Kasrils described the petition as "disgraceful", and said Joshua Broomberg was made of "sterling stuff", South Africa's privately owned Eyewitness News reports.
The schoolboy appeared in a photo with two other students, and a counter petition has been launched to rally support for them, it reports.
Mr Mbeki, in an address to students at the University of South Africa, rejected calls for the government to recall its ambassador to Tel Aviv, saying South Africa needed to "engage" with Israel to find a "just solution" to the conflict.
At the same time, South Africa's political parties, trade unions and religious groups should mobilise for a boycott of Israeli goods and "divesting" from Israeli companies, he said.
"It is not the responsibility of government to mobilise people. We must mobilise ourselves."


A large group of engineers in the UK nearing retirement age could constrain growth in the sector, according to a report.

The problem is exacerbated by a perception among young people that manufacturing is an unsecure, badly-paid career choice, according to the Engineering the Future group.
Adding to the negative reputation is the way courses are taught, it said.
It has called upon the government for help bolstering manufacturing.
"There are a lot of misconceptions about manufacturing among young people: that it is badly paid, has high redundancy rates and is dirty, physically demanding work," said Engineering the Future, which includes the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
"The lack of career advice and the national curriculum losing modules in design and technology at secondary level will have a negative impact on future manufacturing," it said. Engineering graduates are "taught to pass exams" rather than being given useful skills, it added.
It said the government ought to consider making the curriculum more relevant to "real world applications".
The group added that the changes should be taken soon, as experienced technical staff with 30 or more years behind them are nearing the ends of their careers "in large numbers".


A first teacher has taken advantage of an offer of free accommodation for six months to teach in Moray.

The council has struggled to fill a number of vacant posts despite repeated advertising.
It teamed up with local developer Springfield to provide 10 new two-bedroom properties for new recruits.
Now Gillian Elliot, 23, will take up a post at Milne's High School in Fochabers after two years of teaching in Glasgow.
She said of the accommodation offer: "It was what drew me to the post.
"Starting a new job is daunting enough in itself without the additional pressure of finding somewhere to live. It is a great opportunity to get teachers to come to the area."
Moray Council's director of education and social care, Laurence Findlay, said there had been a significant increase in the number of applicants for teaching posts.
He said: "Previously we were getting just a handful of applications for some posts - now we are typically getting well into double figures.
"Although Gillian is the first to take up the offer of accommodation, there has certainly been a very encouraging rise in the number of teachers applying for posts in Moray and that seems to have coincided with Springfield's very generous offer of free accommodation for six months."
Springfield chairman Sandy Adam said: "We are delighted to welcome Gillian to Moray and to her new home. It's good to hear that the number of teachers applying for posts in Moray is rising.
"Moray is a great place to live and work and we have extended the offer until Christmas with the intention of helping more teachers to make the move."


BBC Sport's football expert Mark Lawrenson is pitting his wits against a different guest each week this season.

Lawro's opponent for the midweek Premier League games is Felix White, guitarist in indie-rock band The Maccabees.
Felix is a Fulham fan who was taken to Craven Cottage for the first time when he was 11.
He told BBC Sport: "I don't remember much about the game, but I remember thinking I will probably do this for the rest of my life."
Fulham are currently 19th in the Championship but White has fond memories of better days, including their recent forays into Europe.
He added: "If they were there, I imagine any Fulham fan would tell you beating Juventus 4-1 in the Europa League in 2010 was the most magical thing Craven Cottage has ever seen.
"Especially because the week before, we had been beaten 3-1 by them in the first leg in Italy and then we went 1-0 down in the first five minutes of the second leg.
"So we had to score four against Juve, and we did it - I still don't think a bigger fairy-tale than that has happened in football and Clint Dempsey's chipped goal for us in that game is still etched in my brain.
"With what we are going through now in the Championship, I have got to hold on to those moments."
Our scoring system has changed this season and a correct result (picking a win, draw or defeat) is now worth 10 points. The exact score earns 40 points.
On FA Cup fourth-round weekend, Lawro got 11 correct results from 16 ties, including three perfect scores.
His score of 200 points saw him beat indie-rock band The Libertines, who picked six correct results with no perfect scores for a total of 60 points.
The scores from those FA Cup ties do not count towards the totals for Lawro and his guests (below).
Make your own predictions now, compare them to Lawro and other fans and try to take your team to the top of the leaderboard by playing the BBC Sport Predictor game.
All kick-offs 19:45 GMT unless otherwise stated
Lawro's prediction: 2-0.
Felix's prediction: For the sake of the title race, I am going to say Southampton will nick a draw. 1-1.
Read the match report.
Lawro's prediction: 1-1.
Felix's prediction: Any football fan with a heart wants Leicester to win the league this year and I am absolutely behind that. 3-1.
Read the match report.
Lawro's prediction: 2-1.
Felix's prediction: Everyone likes the football that Spurs are playing at the moment and I like the manager a lot too. 0-1.
Read the match report.
Lawro's prediction: 0-2.
Felix's prediction: City to win at a canter. 0-3.
Read the match report.
Lawro's prediction: 2-0.
Felix's prediction: Villa's results have been getting better recently and I think they will get something here. 0-1.
Read the match report.
Lawro's prediction: 2-0.
Felix's prediction: This should be a good game, with lots of defensive mistakes and lots of attacking intent. 2-2.
Read the match report.
Lawro's prediction: 2-0.
Felix's prediction: Like most people I am enjoying seeing United getting beaten quite a lot this season and I like the idea of Mark Hughes going back to Old Trafford and winning. 0-1.
Read the match report.
Lawro's prediction: 2-1.
Felix's prediction: I don't think Swansea should have sacked Garry Monk 1-0.
Read the match report.
Everton boss Roberto Martinez is under a bit of pressure because of their league form, especially at home - they have not won at Goodison Park in the Premier League since 21 November.
I think the Toffees will put that right on Wednesday, though.
Newcastle went for it in the transfer window because they were buying to stay in the league but their new signings will take time to settle in.
Lawro's prediction: 2-1.
Felix's prediction: I love Roberto Martinez so I'm going for Everton here. 2-1.
Chelsea drew with Watford in Guus Hiddink's first game in charge but the Blues look like a different team now.
Players like Eden Hazard have come back into form and seem to have the spring back in their step - I can see them going on a really good run and John Terry is bound to be a part of that.
Media playback is not supported on this device
Following his announcement that he is going to leave Chelsea in the summer, and with the uncertainty over whether he might actually stay, you just know that he is going to be very impressive from now until the end of the season.
Lawro's prediction: 0-2.
Felix's prediction: It is nailed on that Watford will win this one. I am not a Fulham fan who takes real joy in seeing Chelsea lose because I have got a lot of mates who support them, but I think it has been good for the league. 2-0.
Lawro was speaking to BBC Sport's Chris Bevan.
Lawro's best score: 160 points (week 19 v Guy Mowbray)
Lawro's worst score: 20 points (week one v Graeme Swann & week 23 v Ice Cube and Kevin Hart)


Five councils will consider plans to form a combined authority after a consultation found in their favour.

More than 1,900 people responded to a survey on the proposed Tees Valley Combined Authority, with 65% in support.
Councils in Darlington, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool, Stockton and Redcar say the authority would allow Tees Valley to gain greater power and national influence.
It could be set up by the autumn.
The combined authority would see the councils unite to work on major projects such as infrastructure or transport as well as being in place to accept any powers devolved from central government.
They would still operate their own local services, however.
Each council will now have to approve going ahead with the project before it is submitted for government approval.
Middlesbrough Mayor Ray Mallon said: "A strong single voice is essential if we are to advance the Tees area agenda on key strategic issues such as transport, employment and in the skills agenda, which are crucial to economic growth."
Seven councils in Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and County Durham  formed the North East Combined Authority last year.


The world's largest mud volcano, which left 13,000 families homeless, is likely to continue erupting for another 26 years, researchers have estimated.

It first erupted back in May 2006, and - at its peak - was spewing 180,000 cubic metres of mud a day, equivalent to 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
The volcano, in East Java, Indonesia, has buried homes, schools and farmlands over seven square kilometres.
The findings have been published in the Journal of the Geological Society.
This is the first reliable estimate on how long Lusi (derived from the Indonesian word for mud, lumpur, and the place where the eruption occurred, Sidoarjo) would continue erupting.
Co-author Richard Davies, a geologist from Durham University's Department of Earth Sciences, said there were a number of factors that meant it was not possible to produce an estimate until now.
"We did a provisional estimate in 2008, but we have significantly improved the methodology," he told BBC News. "Also, for two or three years there was a lot of debate about what caused it.
"I think there were a lot of people involved in working what happened - so now we have seen the natural progression from wanting to know what caused it to wanting to know how long it will last."
Under pressure
The cause of the eruption was a subject of a prolonged scientific debate, with opinions divided on whether it was the result of a drilling well in the area, or a magnitude 6.3 earthquake that shook the area a few days earlier.
In 2008, during a conference in South Africa, supporters of both hypotheses presented their arguments before a panel of independent experts.
The debate was chaired by Edinburgh University's Professor John Underhill, who was also a top level football referee. The majority of experts, 42 out of 74, favoured the drilling explanation.
Professor Davies supported the drilling hypothesis: "There is a lot of evidence now that shows it was caused by drilling - there was a blowout that was not controlled."
In 2008, the company that was drilling in the area and blamed for triggering the volcano agreed to pay compensation to the 50,000 displaced people. However, it did not say the drilling activities were the sole cause of the volcano.
Professor Davies added that the team now had confidence to publish an estimate because they also had four year's worth of data on how much material was coming out of Lusi, allowing them to calibrate the computational model developed by co-author and fellow Durham University researcher Simon Mathias.
He explained that the volcano was driven by carbonated water in an aquifer, estimated to be about 2.5-3.5km beneath the surface, that travelled up through the drilled borehole and passed through a layer of muddy material  (known as the Upper Kalibeng) before erupting on the surface via a 50-metre central vent.
The inputs for the model of what was happening underground came from two wells; one located on the site of the central vent, and another located about 6km away, where there was a natural, smaller mud volcano.
"This gave us the pressure in the actual aquifer," explained Professor Davies.
"Then we considered factors such as the permeability and porosity of the rock to estimate how long would it take for fluid pressure to decline until no more fluid would come out of the vent.
"It is a fairly standard methodology, but it has never really been applied to mud volcanoes before."
He added that the team used a lot of different probabilities and combined them, creating a huge number of outputs (called realisations).
"Out of the 10,000 realisations, we actually rejected a large number because we wanted to fit the actual rate which the mud had come out of the volcano to fit those data points," he said.
They ended up with 381 realisations, which allowed them to reach the estimate of 26 years.
But Professor Davies added: "Within the modelling, there is a 10% chance that it will last for more than 100 years, and there is a 90% chance that it will last longer than 10 years."
The team worked on the assumption that the aquifer was not being recharged from another source, so there was no way for pressure to return once it had been discharged.
"If there is recharge taking place then the 26-year estimate will be too short," he conceded. "Basically, does Lusi have any surprises left for us."


At least six people have died in Bangladesh as opposition activists blocked roads, ripped up railway tracks and clashed with police in a protest against forthcoming polls, reports say.

Officials announced on Monday that the country would hold a general election on 5 January 2014.
Opposition supporters rejected the date and called for a transport blockade.
They want Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to transfer power to a neutral caretaker government to oversee polls.
This was the practice adopted in previous elections, but Ms Hasina instead formed a multi-party cabinet last week to oversee the elections, angering her opponents.
The second day of a 48-hour countrywide general strike against the election - staged by 18 opposition parties - will be held on Tuesday.
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) fears that if the governing Awami League oversees the elections - rather than a caretaker government - it will rig the vote.
Supporters of the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami - Bangladesh's largest Islamist party - have clashed with police as protests turned violent around the country. At least 60 people were injured, local media reported.
Some of the most serious violence took place in the northern town of Bogra, where an opposition supporter was killed in clashes with the police.
Earlier in the day, an office of the Election Commission in the town was set on fire by a group of masked men. In another incident, in the eastern town of Laksam, a passer-by was killed when police and opposition supporters exchanged gunfire.
In the capital, Dhaka, homemade bombs were detonated and railway lines were removed, reports say.
Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters in the cities of Rajshahi and Khulna, local media reported.
Disturbances were also reported in the southern district of Satkhira, the central district of Gazipur, the northern district of Sirajganj and the eastern district of Comilla.
"We fired rifles after about 500 protesters attacked us with home-made guns and small bombs," Comilla police official Abul Khaer told the AFP news agency.
Train services were severely disrupted when hundreds of demonstrators uprooted tracks and sleepers, setting fire to coaches and blocking lines.
Bangladesh Railway's Traffic Director Syed Zahur Hossain told AFP that there were at least 60 incidents of "train obstructions, including torchings, uprooting of tracks, attacking trains with stones and blockades of rail lines".
He said that major services between Dhaka and the cities of Chittagong and Sylhet were halted.


Local authorities in England and Wales used bailiffs to collect debts more than 2 million times last year, according to new research.

The Money Advice Trust (MAT), which carried out the study, said that amounted to a 16% increase over the last two years.
It said that sending in bailiffs was likely to make debt problems worse.
Local authorities blamed cuts in government funding, and said bailiffs were only ever used as a last resort.
Enforcement agents, as they are officially known, were mainly used to collect Council Tax debts.
Such debts are one of the fastest growing issues being handled by National Debtline, which is run by the MAT.
"Something is seriously wrong here," said Joanna Elson, the chief executive of the MAT.
"On the front line of debt advice we know that sending the bailiffs in can deepen debt problems, rather than solve them - and it can also have a severe impact on the wellbeing of people who are often already in a vulnerable situation."
For its research the MAT made freedom of information requests to all 375 councils in England and Wales, and received replies from 95% of them.
National Debtline for England and Wales 0808 808 4000
National Debtline for Scotland 0808 808 4000
But local authorities say they have been given little choice, given the reduction in government support to councils.
Overall authorities have had to cope with a 40% cut in core government funding over the last five years, according to the Local Government Association (LGA).
In particular, they have had to find Â£1bn to try and stop those on low incomes having to pay full Council Tax.
But many of those on low incomes have still ended up having to pay more, and have fallen into debt as a result.
"Councils have a duty to their residents to collect taxes so important services like caring for the elderly, collecting bins and fixing roads are not affected," said Cllr Claire Kober, the chair of the LGA's Resources Board.
"But we realise that times are tough and will always seek to take a sympathetic and constructive approach."
She also said that bailiffs were only used as a last resort. Before they were sent in, she said that householders would have received several warning letters, and would have been encouraged to apply for financial support.


The leaders of the six main parties go head to head for the first time in the 2016 Welsh assembly election campaign tonight in a live ITV Wales debate.

Labour, the Conservatives, Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the Greens are the parties featured.
The two-hour debate, moderated by ITV Wales political editor Adrian Masters from 20:00 BST, will also be broadcast live on BBC Radio Wales.
The six leaders meet again for a second debate on BBC One Wales next Wednesday.
Taking part will be:
BBC Wales political editor Nick Servini said it would be "fascinating".
"We've seen the leaders operate at an individual level and we have seen so many of the policies with all the manifestos published," he said.
"Tonight will be all about how they interchange with each other and the points of agreement and points of disagreement."
He added: "It is important for the party leaders as they are really wrestling for the attention of voters with the EU referendum and this is an opportunity on prime time TV to get the message across."


Moonlight and Love & Friendship lead the nominations at the London Critics' Circle Film Awards, earning seven nods apiece from UK film reviewers.

Moonlight tells the story of a boy growing up gay, black and poor in Miami and stars Andre Holland and Naomie Harris.
Its nominations include film of the year, director of the year and best supporting actress for Harris.
Love & Friendship is an 18th Century romance drama starring Kate Beckinsale.
Moonlight: Small budget, big impact
She is nominated in the actress of the year and British or Irish actress categories, while the film itself is also nominated for British or Irish film of the year.
Moonlight and Love & Friendship face competition from eight other movies in the film of the year category, including La La Land and Manchester by the Sea.
American Honey, Fire at Sea, Nocturnal Animals, Son of Saul, Toni Erdmann and I, Daniel Blake are also nominated.
I, Daniel Blake, which is directed by Ken Loach, won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
It has picked up four London Critics' Circle nominations, including acting nods for Hayley Squires and Dave Johns.
Manchester By The Sea's five nominations follows the movie's naming as the National Board of Review's best film of 2016.
La La Land, which has also picked up five nominations, leads the pack for next month's Golden Globes.
The Critics' Circle's Film section membership is made up of more than 145 broadcasters, critics and writers.
The ceremony takes place on 22 January in London and will be hosted by Alice Lowe and Steve Oram.
The full list of nominations is available on the London Critics' Circle website.
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.


A couple had boiling water poured over their heads by "barbaric" burglars who jetted off to Dubai on a spending spree after the raid, a court has heard.

Kacey Adams, 34, and Daniel Wallace, 33, broke into their victims' bungalow near Sevenoaks, Kent, in April 2016.
Adams, of Covert Road, Hainault, and Wallace, of no fixed address, admit aggravated burglary and causing GBH with intent.
They are being sentenced for the attack at Chelmsford Crown Court.
The court heard how the raid happened as Janis Buswell, 64, knitted clothes for her expected great grandchild while her 66-year-old husband John watched boxing on TV.
The men tied up Mr and Mrs Buswell with cable ties before subjecting them to two hours of torture to demand the codes to their safes, said prosecutor Tracy Ayling QC.
Adams and Wallace, together with a third man who has never been caught, made off with around Â£50,000.
They were arrested on a flight back from Dubai in May 2016, and their luggage was found to contain more than Â£18,000 of luxury goods.
The two men smirked and chatted to each other throughout Friday's sentencing hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court.
The court was told how Adams and Wallace tipped a kettle of boiling water over Mrs Buswell's head, which made Mr Buswell so angry that he broke free from his cable ties, the court heard.
The men then threatened Mr Buswell with a knife before tipping a second kettle of boiling water over Mrs Buswell.
"She was screaming in terrible pain," said Ms Ayling.
Mr Buswell took the men to a second safe, hidden under the floor, which contained around Â£40,000.
Their ordeal continued as the men then tipped boiling water over Mr Buswell's head, threatened to chop off his wife's fingers with a knife and his ears with scissors.
In a victim impact statement, Mrs Buswell said: "What these criminals did to me was barbaric."
A fourth man, 27-year-old Drew Morris, of Downhall Road, Rayleigh, Essex, admitted being the getaway driver but said he did not enter the house or know what was going to happen.
He admitted simple burglary at an earlier hearing at Maidstone Crown Court.
Judge Charles Gratwicke is expected to sentence the men at Chelmsford Crown Court on Monday
Adams and Wallace will also be sentenced for a drive-by shooting in Stanford-Le-Hope, Essex, in May 2016 which their victim survived.
They were convicted of conspiracy to murder along with a third defendant, 23-year-old Edward Dooley, of St Edwards Way in Romford, following an earlier trial at Chelmsford Crown Court.


Britain's Andy Murray fought back from two sets down to beat Frenchman Adrian Mannarino and keep his US Open hopes intact.

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The third seed was in serious trouble before recovering to win 5-7 4-6 6-1 6-3 6-1 in stifling conditions at Flushing Meadows.
Murray goes on to face Brazilian 30th seed Thomaz Bellucci in the third round on Saturday.
British number two Aljaz Bedene lost 3-6 6-4 6-4 6-2 to American Donald Young.
In the women's draw, Briton Jo Konta enjoyed a stunning three-set win over ninth seed Garbine Muguruza that lasted three hours and 23 minutes.
Murray had not lost in the first week of a Grand Slam since 2010, but he flirted with that outcome against world number 35 Mannarino.
With the temperature around 32C and humidity at 50%, Murray looked like the most uncomfortable person in Arthur Ashe Stadium for much of the afternoon.
"It was an extremely tough match," a sweat-drenched Murray said afterwards.
For the best part of two hours he struggled to find any rhythm, took one pile-driver from Mannarino between the shoulder blades, wrapped an ice towel around his neck at the changeovers and castigated his team in the stands.
Failure to convert six of seven break points in the first set, including from 0-40 at 5-6 down, only added to his frustration.
Mannarino, in contrast, looked calm and increasingly capable of pulling off only the second top-10 win of his career to create a huge shock.
"I just had to kind of tell myself that I would get there eventually," said Murray. "I managed to turn it round."
A flat performance was in danger of becoming Murray's last at a Grand Slam in 2015 when he lost 11 straight points to fall two sets down.
However, a break at the start of the third jolted him into life, the Scot fist-pumping as his support team, including mum Judy, got to their feet.
The 2012 champion was in control from then on, taking the set as his will to win and supreme fitness overcame a nagging lack of consistency in his game.
One point of astonishing scrambling by Murray at the start of the fourth brought the crowd to their feet, urged on by the Briton, and he would break for a 2-1 lead.
The turnaround was effectively complete when Murray won 11 of 12 points in the decider to take a 3-0 lead, and he closed it out after a punishing three hours and 17 minutes.
"I thought he played some really, really good tennis," said Murray.
"He has such an unorthodox game, I didn't really feel that comfortable at many points out there in the match.
"But I was happy - very happy - with the way I fought through that and finished the match stronger than him."
Slovenia-born Bedene's wait to reach the third round of a Grand Slam continues after Young fought back from losing the first set in front of his home crowd.
The 26-year-old world number 57, who switched allegiance to Britain in March, is ranked 11 places higher than Young and looked to be in control when he led 2-0 in the second set.
But Young, 26, instantly broke back as Bedene lost his rhythm to eventually succumb in two hours and 42 minutes.


It's 08:00 in the morning and the cheery 29-year-old has just begun her daily newscast on YouTube. Today's instalment is a one-hour live chat about mass arrests, high-level corruption and the biggest protests to sweep Russia in years.
They are all topics ignored by state television.
"I want to share my opinion of what's happening in the country, to discuss interesting news," the presenter explains.
She works for the Anti-Corruption Foundation, or FBK, led by the opposition activist Alexei Navalny who organised last week's protests. The large number of students and even schoolchildren who turned out suggests his alternative message is increasingly appealing to young Russians.
It has sparked discussion of a new, YouTube generation - those who have grown-up in Vladimir Putin's Russia, but beyond the reach of his tightly controlled press.
"It's easier for young people to have a critical view, because... they're not so tired and disillusioned by our state," is how Lyubov explains it. "They want justice. They see that things are not normal here."
That's why Pavel Leshev joined his first ever protest on Sunday, in St Petersburg.
The 17-year-old had watched the FBK's latest slick film online, presenting corruption allegations against Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
"It's awful that Russian police and prosecutors don't investigate," Pavel explains by phone from his hometown. "I think all of us want to get answers," he says, adding that corruption and economic problems are what worry him and his school friends most.
You couldn't miss the young protesters here in Moscow. Roman Shingarkin shinned up a lamp-post to avoid the crush, and images of the teenager were widely shared on social media. Roman was eventually arrested and says more than half the detainees in his police van were under 18, perhaps because they were the easiest to catch.
"I came out to protest at corruption in Russia," Roman says simply, confirming that he too had seen the FBK film on the prime minister.
"Young people are constantly on the internet and all the information is there. TV tries to hide it," he says.
Lamp-post protester: 'It will happen again if the situation hasn't changed'
Why Navalny rattles the Kremlin
Whilst that same state television portrays Mr Putin as unassailable - and has censored coverage of the protests - both teenagers feel it's time for the president to go.
Roman thinks that at 64, Mr Putin is "not young" and has "been in power too long".
Pavel is a big fan of Alexei Navalny and plans to vote for him to become president next year, if the activist is allowed to run. But he fears that Mr Putin, first elected when Pavel was born, will remain in power "for another six years, and then another six."
For many older Russians who lived through the turmoil of the 1990s, President Putin has offered a welcome sense of relative stability. But that's not appealing to many teenagers.
"Young people are fed up with the existing state of things - with no talk of any future scenario, only talk about the past," academic Ekaterina Schulmann argues.
"Stability has no charm for them and they are more or less immune to state propaganda."
That's where Mr Navalny's young team come in.
On Thursday Lyubov introduced a co-host for her show who is a social media superstar. His MDK page on Russia's equivalent of Facebook has over 7.7 million subscribers.
The authorities here are slowly waking up to the challenge.
As Mr Navalny's team streamed Sunday's demonstrations live, their office was raided by police. Fifteen people were arrested and the FBK is still sealed and out of bounds.
But the reason so many Russians joined the protests remains.
"If it goes on like this, then people will take to the streets again. Against corruption, and against those in power," 17-year-old Roman insists.
"I personally will come out in protest."


Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing was spied on by security services for more than 20 years over suspicions of her communist sympathies, newly declassified records show.

Lessing's movements were documented during her younger years by MI5 both in her homeland in Africa and in England.
It was her anti-racism stance as well and her Communist Party membership that worried MI5.
Lessing, who died in 2013 aged 94, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007.
Her books include The Golden Notebook, The Sweetest Dream and The Grass is Singing, as well a number of short story collections.
She was born in Kermanshah, in western Iran, where her British father was a clerk with the Imperial Bank of Persia.
In 1925 the family moved to Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe - where she met and married her second husband German Communist Gottfried Lessing in 1945. They divorced in 1949.
The security services trailed her between 1943 and 1964.
It was during her time in Africa that she roused the attentions of security services, who viewed her membership of several left-leaning groups with suspicion, including the Rhodesian Friends of the Soviet Union.
She also ran the Salisbury Left Club in Southern Rhodesia, a club "patronised by persons with foreign accents", the records show.
It said: "The general tone of this club is reported to be very left, and it is stated that most topics of discussion there usually end up in anti-British, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist vapourings."
Lessing was particularly vocal about the poor treatment of black Africans.
"Her communist sympathies have been fanned almost to the point of fanaticism owing to her upbringing in Rhodesia, which has brought out in her a deep hatred of the colour bar," a note in her MI5 file reveals.
"Colonial exploitation is her pet theme and she has now nearly become... irresponsible in her statements... saying that everything black is wonderful and that all men and all things white are vicious."
Scotland Yard's Special Branch also compiled a file on her in 1950, and authorisation was given to intercept post sent to an address where she was staying in Berlin.
Also in the file was a note compiled by Metropolitan Police's Special Branch in 1965 about her activities in London.
"Her flat is frequently visited by persons of various nationality, including Americans, Indians, Chinese and Negroes," the report said.
"Some of the visitors seem to stay at the flat for days at a time and some of the visits are made by apparently unmarried couples. It is possible that the flat is being used for immoral practices."
The same year, Lessing left the Communist Party over the Soviet Union's involvement in Hungary.
Later, speaking about her Communist Party affiliations, Lessing said: "I can't understand why I was so gullible."


Borussia Dortmund bounced back from their Europa League exit against Liverpool with a comfortable home win against mid-table Hamburg.

American teenager Christian Pulisic drilled in from a tight angle, before Adrian Ramos scored the second.
Hamburg keeper Rene Adler was sent off shortly after half-time for bringing down Shinji Kagawa.
Ramos added a late third as Dortmund moved seven points behind leaders Bayern Munich with four games left.
Thomas Tuchel's side are already assured of Champions League qualification, but look unlikely to stop Bayern winning a fourth consecutive Bundesliga title.
Pep Guardiola's men, who beat Schalke 3-0 on Saturday, could be crowned champions next weekend if they beat fourth-placed Hertha Berlin and Dortmund lose at lowly Stuttgart.


Great Britain are through to the Davis Cup quarter-finals, after a Canadian player accidentally hit the umpire with a tennis ball.

6 February 2017 Last updated at 09:46 GMT
British player Kyle Edmund was beating Denis Shapovalov from Canada, when frustration got the better of him.
The 17-year-old Canadian whacked the tennis ball in anger, only to hit the umpire in the eye!
As a result the match could no longer continue, meaning Great Britain won by default.
Kyle will now go on to face off against France in April.
Shapovalov apologised to the umpire after the match, and his coach hopes he will learn a lesson from it.


Jon Obika scored twice as Swindon Town defeated relegation-threatened Doncaster Rovers to win their fourth consecutive league game.

The 25-year-old forward put the hosts ahead at the County Ground on the stroke of half-time, tapping in following a swift counter-attack.
With 20 remaining the Robins doubled their lead as Obika was sent clear by Fabien Robert and calmly slotted home.
Doncaster midfielder Richard Chaplow was then sent off for two yellow cards.


A photographer has followed in the footsteps of a pair of pioneers from the 1900s - almost literally.

Henry Iddon clambered up some of England's highest mountains to capture images of the landscape and climbers using a Victorian glass plate camera.
The large camera originally belonged to the pioneers of landscape and climbing photography, George and Ashley Abraham.
The Lake District images are on display at Keswick Museum and Art Gallery until 12 May.
Mr Iddon said: "With mobile phone cameras and Instagram, photography has become something very immediate, something that is easy to do with little thought.
"Professional photographers can take thousands of photos on a shoot and later edit the best ones to make them perfect.
"That sort of technology wasn't available to the Abraham brothers.
"Firstly, the camera and equipment were much, much bulkier and heavier than their modern-day counterparts. They had to be carried up some of England's biggest mountains to get the necessary shots.
"When they had climbed the mountain, they then had to be very careful with the way they prepared the shot.
"They were extremely limited with the number of photographs they could take - the glass plates the camera used were heavy so they could only take a handful with them on each expedition."
He added: "It is amazing to think that over 100 years ago rock-climbing was in its infancy, yet with this camera, the Abraham brothers were instigating a whole new genre of photography.
"It's a real privilege to take that process full circle and shoot the extreme sports of today with a camera that was doing the same thing in the late 1890s."


China has successfully landed a jet fighter on its new aircraft carrier for the first time, officials say.

A Chinese-made J-15 fighter landed on the 300m (990ft) former Soviet carrier during recent exercises, China's defence ministry said on Sunday.
The Liaoning, China's first aircraft carrier, entered into service in September.
China says the vessel has had extensive sea trials and will increase its capacity to defend state interests.
Analysts say the aircraft carrier will allow Beijing to help project its military might in territorial disputes.
China's state TV showed a hook on the rear of the J-15 catching hold of a cable on the deck of the vessel to slow the plane to a halt during the drill.
By Jonathan MarcusBBC Defence Correspondent
The images of the carrier Liaoning recovering a J-15 jet fighter using the traditional arrestor hook and cables to bring the aircraft to a rapid halt, mark a significant moment:  China's public arrival as an operator of carrier-borne air power. Nonetheless the Chinese Navy still has much to do before it can be seen as having a truly operational carrier capability.
Considerably more training will be needed to create a cadre of air-crew and technicians to  keep its carrier-borne jets flying in a variety of sea conditions. China will also have to create the operational practices and procedures, not just to establish a carrier air-wing made up of a variety of specialised aircraft but it will also have to develop the ability to operate its carrier alongside other vessels in a dedicated battle group.
The Liaoning is thus largely a training carrier but a significant pointer as to the direction China's sea-power is heading.
China had not previously announced that its navy possessed such highly technical landing technology, according to the AFP news agency.
The J-15 can carry anti-ship, air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles as well as precision-guided bombs, China's official news agency Xinhua reported, citing unnamed naval sources.
Named after the province where it was refitted, the Liaoning is a refurbished Soviet ship purchased from Ukraine.
The aircraft carrier's development comes at a time when Japan and other countries in the region have expressed concern at China's growing naval strength.
China and Japan are embroiled in a row over disputed islands in the East China Sea.
Several South-east Asian nations are also at odds with China over overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea.
The country's Communist leaders are spending billions modernising their armed forces so they can project military power far beyond China's borders.
The Liaoning, formerly known as the Varyag, was constructed in the 1980s for the Soviet navy but was never completed.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Varyag sat in Ukraine's dockyards.
A Chinese company with links to China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) bought the ship just as Soviet warships were being cut for scrap.
It said it wanted to turn the Varyag into a floating casino in Macau and in 2001 the ship was towed to China.
The Chinese military confirmed in June 2011 that it was being refitted to serve as the nation's first aircraft carrier.


The Aberfan disaster changed Wales forever, First Minister Carwyn Jones told the Senedd on Wednesday.

On 21 October 1966 116 children and 28 adults in the village were killed after a waste tip collapsed.
AMs held a minute's silence in the chamber, marking the 50th anniversary with moving tributes.
Neil Hamilton, UKIP group leader, struggled to hold back tears as he spoke about his father's involvement in the rescue effort.
Mr Jones said: "In 9.15am on 21st October 1966 Wales changed forever".
He told AMs people knew the danger of mining "but they didn't realise that the price would be so extortionate".
"Who would have thought that coal could take the lives of children, so suddenly and above the ground," he said.
"Today we stand in solidarity with the people of Aberfan," he said.
"We offer them support and I hope some comfort as they deal with the memories of that day, when winter darkness came early to the people of Aberfan."
Dawn Bowden, Labour AM for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney which covers Aberfan, said: "What happened that day shows us the price of coal in a place, whose only reason for existence was to dig for it, was too great a price for any community to pay.
"But coal had also created these mining communities whose values of solidarity, comradeship and community spirit were rarely seen elsewhere."
She said that spirit "has been such a credit to the people of Aberfan, enabling them to rebuild their lives and their community and to look forward with courage, dignity and hope".
Neil Hamilton, UKIP group leader, broke down in the chamber as he spoke about his father Ron, a National Coal Board chief engineer in West Wales, and how he cut short a family holiday to rush "to help in the rescue operation".
He said: "Danger was endemic in a deep mine, but this disaster on the surface seemed even more a sacrifice of innocents."
Leanne Wood, leader of Plaid Cymru, said: "To those closest to the event, you must know that you have our support, you have our sympathy, you have our solidarity, and you have our respect.
"It is incumbent upon all of us and the generations that followed to ensure that we continue to remember what happened that day in Aberfan 50 years ago".
Andrew RT Davies, Welsh Conservative leader, said he was "awed by the formidable courage and community spirit by which the people of Aberfan have faced the future in the aftermath of such heartbreak and devastation".
"Despite the horrors endured, the community did not succumb to the darkness, instead choosing to tirelessly dig for light," he said.
Presiding officer Elin Jones said: "The resilience of the community of Aberfan in the face of adversity is testament to the triumph of hope even in the face of tragedy".
Earlier Prime Minister Theresa May led Commons tributes to the disaster.
During Prime Minister's Question Time in the House of Commons she said: "It's right to pause and reflect and recognise the solidarity and resilience of the people of Aberfan to overcome this tragedy".
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he wanted to join the prime minister in commemorating the disaster.
Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns told MPs that the disaster was "an event that shocked not just Wales, but the whole of the country and the wider world".
"I'm sure colleagues across the house would pay tribute to the bravery and strong community ties which pulled the people of Aberfan through the immediate aftermath and provided so much support in the months and years which followed," he said.
Labour's Jo Stevens, making her debut as shadow Welsh secretary, told the Commons that she wanted to "pay tribute to the spirit and resilience of the people of Aberfan".
The shadow Wales Office minister Gerald Jones - the MP for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney - said the disaster had resulted in "an unimaginable loss for the families and the whole community".
Plaid Cymru's Jonathan Edwards and Mark Williams, the leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, said they both wanted to be associated with the tributes.


Complaints of discrimination made by football fans to anti-racism group Kick It Out have risen by 269% in the past year, the organisation has revealed.

There were 284 complaints submitted to Kick It Out last season, compared with 77 the previous year.
The increase follows the launch of a mobile app with a reporting function in July 2013.
Racism (66%), faith-based abuse (20.5%) and homophobia (8%) were most commonly reported in 2013-14, Kick It Out said.
Of the faith-based abuse complaints, all but one were related to anti-semitism.
The majority of complaints submitted related to social media abuse (50%), then incidents attached to the professional game (26%), grassroots (22%) and professional players (2%).
A spokesman said: "Just over a year on, the app has made an immediate impact as it has become Kick It Out's most-used reporting mechanism relating to incidents within professional football - responsible for 38% of complaints registered with the organisation at this level of the game."
There were 142 incidents of football-related hate crime on social media reported to Kick It Out and passed on to police to investigate.
"One case led to a 21-year-old man from London being convicted and fined £150 having posted a derogatory remark on Kick It Out's official Facebook page in January 2014. A number of cases have seen individuals issued with cautions, and undertaking further education delivered by Kick It Out," the spokesman added.