A Belgian mayor has been found dead in a cemetery with his throat slit open.

The body of Alfred Gadenne, 71, Mayor of Mouscron, was discovered by his wife on Monday evening at Luingne Cemetery, where he was caretaker . 

He had been out to close the site for the night when he was murdered.

Mr Gadenne's was the conservative mayor of Mouscron, an industrial town of 57,000 just across the border from the northern French city of Lille 

His death has shocked the country, with the prime minister expressing 'horror' at the death of the retired national lawmaker.

Local news service SudInfo, citing unnamed sources, said a suspect had handed himself in to police and that the motive was unclear.

The case was handed to a local prosecutor rather than to national counter-terrorism investigators.

'I have learned with horror of the brutal death of Alfred Gadenne,' Prime Minister Charles Michel, a liberal, said on Twitter. All my thoughts are with his family and friends. Among the many others offering condolences was Martine Aubry, the former French Socialist party leader and long-time mayor of metropolitan Lille.

Philippe Courard, president of the parliament for Belgium's French-speaking south, tweeted: 'Terrifying. What kind of world are we living in, 

British billionaire Richard Branson has revealed the extent of devastation to his luxurious Necker Island home in the wake of Hurricane Irma.

The entrepreneur posted a video online showing how the storm has destroyed his British Virgin Islands home, with buildings blown away and trees ripped from the ground.

The 67-year-old locked himself in his wine cellar as the hurricane, the most powerful to have ever hit the Atlantic, started raging outside on Wednesday.

The tycoon has now travelled to Puerto Rico where he is helping coordinate the effort to deliver aid and a rebuilding plan for the British Virgin Islands.   Writing on his blog, he said: 'As you can see from the photos, much of the buildings and vegetation on Necker has been destroyed or badly damaged.

'We felt the full force of the strongest hurricane ever in the Atlantic Ocean.  'But we are very fortunate to have a strong cellar built into Necker's Great House and were very lucky all of our teams who stayed on Island during the storm are safe and well.'

He added: 'I am writing from Puerto Rico, where I have travelled in order to further mobilise aid efforts and rebuilding plans for the British Virgin Islands and wider Caribbean.

'Communications remain mostly down in the BVI after Hurricane Irma. 'After sharing these updates and talking to various governments, aid agencies and media, we will be heading straight back to the BVI to continue helping the recovery effort on the ground.'

Mr Branson said he and his team have spent the last two days visiting people who live on the island of Gorda, handing out aid and supplies.

He said the visit showed 'first-hand just how ferocious and unforgiving' Irma has been.

The billionaire also called on the UK Government to play its part, demanding a 'disaster recovery Marshall Plan' for the British Virgin Islands and other Caribbean islands. 

Google pays women less than men at most job levels despite claiming it is a progressive place to work.

Women earn up to $15,600 (£11,800) a year less than men even though they are in similar positions, according to a spreadsheet drawn up by the tech giant’s own workers.

Female employees also earn lower bonuses than men and are awarded up to $7,100 (£5,400) less than their male counterparts.

The spreadsheet was drawn up by a former Google employee who wanted to help colleagues negotiate better salaries. The figures are likely to add to the debate about sexism in Silicon Valley - and they come after Google fired one of its senior engineers who said the gender pay gap is down to biological differences between men and women.

Despite its lofty ambitions, Google admits there is ‘more work to be done’ on equality and its own statistics reveal that women make up 31 per cent of the company compared to 69 per cent for men.

The spreadsheet revealed pay for men and women covering six bands of jobs covering everything from entry level programmers to executives.

It was self-reported by 1,200 US staff - 2 per cent of the global workforce - meaning it is not a comprehensive analysis.

But the disparities are startling and at five of the six job levels women are paid less than men.

At level one, the lowest, women earned $40,300 (£30,500) compared to $55,900 (£42,300) for men, a difference of $15,600 (£11,800), the biggest out of all employees.

At level two women earned more than men, $76,600 (£58,000) compared to $71,200 (£53,900) for men.  At level three, the entry level for technical positions, women earned $106,700 (£80,800) compared to $112,400 (£85,100) for men.

At level four women earned $125,000 (£94,600) versus $136,600 (£103,400) and at level five the numbers were $153,500 (£116,200) for women compared to $162,200 (£122,800) for men.

At level six, executive level, women were paid $193,200 (£146,300) versus $197,600 (£149,600) for their male counterparts.

For bonuses women were awarded less than men at three of the six levels.

The biggest disparity was at level six where women earned $40,700 (£30,800) in bonuses compared to $47,800 (£36,200) for men, a difference of $7,100 (£5,400).

Natasha Lamb, director of equity research and shareholder engagement at Arjuna Capital, an activist wealth management firm, said: ‘Silicon Valley has established itself as the boys’ club of the West, just like how Wall Street has established itself as the boys’ club of the East’.

Google recently suffered a backlash over a 10-page memo written by James Damore, a former engineer at the company.

He argued that biological differences between men and women are the cause of the gender gap at Google and the broader tech industry. 

Masked gang members have been filmed hurling packages of drugs over the walls of Britain's most troubled prisons.

The shocking footage was captured outside HMP Birmingham just days after inmates smashed up a wing and flooded cells at the facility.

The category B and C prison has had a huge problem with drug smuggling recently despite putting up protective nets to help combat the issue.   A source told the Star on Sunday that there were not enough police at the facility to stop the gangs.

The source said: 'The screws know it's coming over but there's nothing they can do.

'Spice, puff (cannabis), prescription pills like Subutex, booze, phones, food. Anything they want they can get. It comes over the back yard and cons go and pick it up. Simple as that. The footage consists of three videos, two of which were filmed during the day and one at night.

The gang members can be seen getting off their mopeds to chuck the contraband over the wall.

One of them can be heard shouting: 'Over the wall we go. Prison inspectors have said the prevalence of drugs at HMP Birmingham has contributed to an increase of violence within the facility.

In December last year, elite prison officers were called in to deal with a 12-hour riot which saw inmates rip their cells apart.

And last weekend prisoners left taps running before throwing furniture around the building. 

The jogger who pushed a woman into traffic may have targeted his victim, according to the bus driver hailed a hero for swerving out of her way.

Oliver Salbris, 45, managed to steer his double-decker London bus away from the 33-year-old at the last second, missing her by inches.

But a month after police released footage of the incident on Putney Bridge, the culprit has still not been identified.

Speaking for the first time about the attack, Mr Salbris said the jogger had singled out the woman. ‘The consequences could have been terrible for her – and for me,’ he said.        Asked if the push was intentional, he said: ‘Yes – unless he’s a blind jogger.’ Police have refused to rule out the possibility that the victim, who has not been identified, was known to the attacker dubbed ‘the Putney Pusher’.

CCTV footage of the attack in May showed the woman walking along the bridge heading to work at 7.40am with the jogger coming towards her.   The father-of-two, who moved to Britain from France in 2005, said: ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before.

‘I was focusing on the road and I just saw the collision between the jogger and the woman.

‘It was a fairly close call. I thought I was going to touch her. If I hadn’t swerved, I would have smashed her head. It was reflex – and I would say thanks to God.’ 

Mr Salbris said the jogger had chosen to push the woman rather than a man walking directly in front of her, adding: ‘He looked like he was doing it on purpose. He needs to be caught and to explain himself. He needs to be prosecuted.’ 

1. Exercise your brain. Brain games and certain puzzles and brainteasers help create new associations between different parts of the brain, which keeps it sharp. Other exercises that challenge the brain are things like doing normal activities with your non-dominant hand like brushing your teeth or combing your hair.   
2. Vary activities. Most of us here are already physically active, which is extremely important for brain health, but consider challenging your body – and brain – in a variety of ways from time to time. Mix up exercise routines, do something you haven’t done in a while whether it’s hiking or tossing a ball around. This variety is as healthy for your brain as it is your body.      
3. Eat brain food. We all know that a good, clean diet will improve all areas of our health, but there are many studies and an increasing amount of evidence that certain foods slow mental decline. Topping the list of brain-boosting food is any food high in Omega 3 fatty acids DHA and EPA, which has been linked to a lower risk of dementia and improved focus and memory And you were just taking your fish oil to keep your joints from hurting.    
4. Try new things outside of the gym.Take up a language, an instrument, memorize poetry. Asking your brain to do some new tricks keeps it active and able to learn. 
5. Volunteer. Research shows that this can lower your stress levels and increase mental functioning. Volunteering adds to a person’s well-being and overall health. Not only does it feel good, but it promotes brain health by raising self esteem.      
6. Socialize. We are social animals and according to a recent study published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, we need a variety of brain stimulation, including social activity, to keep our minds sharp. This is especially true later in life, when aging takes its toll on memory and other complex neurological processes. In the study, older adults who were less socially active than those who were socially active had both cognitive and physical limitations.

Babies are born with just about all the neurons they'll ever have -- about 100 billion of them. Though only one quarter the size, a baby's brain looks exactly like ours.

Over the next three years, that brain triples in size, establishing more than 1,000 trillion intricate and complicated connections between neurons. Anyone who has cared for a child has witnessed this explosive growth, from that ungainly infant to a running, shouting toddler with a sense of self and opinions to share.

This magical and sometimes stressful window of rapid growth, when the brain's malleability is at its peak, can set the stage for future learning and healthy development throughout life, according to neuroscientists and child development experts. "Most aspects of brain development after birth depend on experience occurring during this sensitive period," he says. If those experiences don't happen, "then development can go awry. The longer the brain goes without those critical experiences, the harder it is to recover from that."

Our understanding of this sensitive period has helped explain why Romanian orphans raised in institutions with little normal stimulation, children Nelson has researched for more than a decade, can suffer from profound deficits in learning and behavior. It's also why many can recover if they're placed in good foster care before too many years have passed.

It's also why there's so much attention, funding, resources and interventions for low-income children, who are the most likely to suffer neglect, aimed at this time period. Children can learn and grow throughout their lives, but the payoff for heading off trouble early is theoretically the highest, the experts say.