Hello, I'm Tom Saunders with the BBC News.
The man convicted of the bomb attack on the Boston Marathon has apologised to the victims. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 21-year-old ethnic Chechen, was speaking in court
before he was formally sentenced to death. Gary O'Donoghue reports.
This is the first time Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has said anything since the 2013 attack. And what he offered was an unalloyed apology. Throughout the trial, he said he'd
learned the names, the faces, the ages of the victims of, what he called, a horrendous attack. He praised their patience and dignity, and asked Allah to forgive him
and his brother, Tamerlan. Tsarnaev is expected to appeal against his death sentence, which means he could stand death roll for years to come.
Late-night talks between the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, and his country's international creditors have ended in Brussels, with sharp differences remaining
over how to resolve the debt crisis. Earlier, Euro Zone finance ministers cut short a meeting that had been meant to finalise a deal. It's thought the International
Monetary Fund wants the Greek government, which proposed new austerity measures and tax rises on Monday, to go further.
President Obama has raised ongoing U.S. concerns over China's cyber activities with a visiting high-ranking delegation from Beijing. He called on China to lower
tensions. After the talks, the U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, said America had made its views very clear. There was an honest discussion about, without
accusations, without any finger-pointing, about the problem of cyber attack, and whether or not it was sanctioned by government, or whether it was hackers and
individuals that the government has the ability to prosecute. Washington has previously accused elements in the Chinese establishment of having an aggressive policy of
hacking U.S. government and commercial computer systems. Beijing repudiates the allegations.
Buckingham Palace has insisted that Queen Elizabeth would never make a political point, following comments she made at a state banquet in Berlin about Europe. The
Queen told guests "We know that division in Europe is dangerous, and we must guard against it in the west, as well as in the east, of our continent." Our
correspondent, Ben Wright, is in Brussels.
Buckingham Palace officials denied that the Queen's warning about the dangers of a divided Europe was a reference to David Cameroon's E.U. reforms or referendum. This
is not about the E.U., one aide said. Later today, David Cameroon takes his case for a reformed EU to Brussels. It is a big moment. The Prime Minister has already
sketched out his plans to European leaders, hearing where they agree and where they don't. In the evening, he will set out his proposals during dinner. And this summit
is likely to give the green light to the first stage of the formal renegotiation.
World news from the BBC.
The French Parliament has adopted a controversial surveillance law, despite an outcry over WikiLeaks revelations that the United States spied on the last three French
Presidents. The law would allow the French Intelligence Services to bug suspects' homes and put tracking beacons on their cars without judicial authorisation. It would
also compel telecommunications firms to let the spy agencies record information about Internet communications, but not the contents of messages.
NATO defence ministers have agreed to bolster the organisation's response to, what the Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, called, aggressive actions by Russia.
Jonathan Marcus reports from NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Faced with a resurge of Russian threat that especially alarms many of NATO's Central and Eastern European members, alliance defence ministers have added air, naval and
special forces elements to the planned Rapid Reaction Force, bringing it up to an overall strength of some forty thousand. Military planning has been overhauled along
with the way that NATO takes decisions. The hope is to provide more immediate, appropriate and flexible response to any future crisis.
Human Rights Watch says it's seen evidence suggesting high-ranking Army officers in Columbia knew about the murders of hundreds of civilians between 2002 and 2008.
Most of the victims were poor farm workers, who were killed and then falsely identified as left-wing rebels or paramilitaries killed in combat. Members of the Army
units involved earned promotions and decorations for their apparent success. Most of the soldiers convicted so far are of low rank.
And the daughter of the late singer, Whitney Houston, has been moved to a hospice, after months of treatment in hospital. Bobbi Kristina Brown, who is twenty-two, was
found unresponsive in a bathtub in her home in Atlanta in January. Whitney Houston was found in similar circumstances in 2012, and later died.