Prostate cancer warning and US school shooting

Hello. Here’s your morning briefing:

The UK’s population is ageing, and one of the outcomes of this is that more men are developing prostate cancer. In fact the number of deaths it causes among men has overtaken the number of deaths caused among women by breast cancer. And the latest available figures, from 2015, show that, overall, it killed 11,819 people – almost 400 more than breast cancer. However, the mortality rates for both diseases have fallen.

But Angela Culhane, chief executive of the charity Prostate Cancer UK, says research on prostate cancer gets half the funding of that for breast cancer. At present, there’s no single, reliable test for it – the PSA test, biopsies and physical examinations are all used. Gary Pettit, 43, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer five years ago, says it’s still a “taboo subject”.

Apple is the world’s biggest company and its profits are up. The latest quarterly figures show it made $20bn (£14bn), driven by strong growth in Japan and Europe. But it sold fewer iPhones during the last three months of 2017 than it had during the equivalent period in 2016 – despite the successful launch of the more expensive iPhone X. “With the average selling price going up by around $100 (£70), to $796 (558), it means Apple may be selling fewer iPhones,” says BBC technology reporter Dave Lee, “but it is making more from each one.”

By Emma Woollacott, technology of business reporter

Bill Kochevar’s life was changed, seemingly irrevocably, when he was paralysed from the shoulders down following a cycling accident nearly a decade ago. But last year he was fitted with a brain-computer interface that enabled him to move his arm and hand for the first time in eight years. Sensors were implanted in his brain, then over a four-month period Mr Kochevar trained the system by thinking about specific movements, such as turning his wrist or gripping something. The sensors effectively learned which bits of the brain fired up and in what sequence for each movement. Then, when 36 muscle-stimulating electrodes were implanted into his arm and hand, he was able to control its movements simply by thinking about what he wanted to do. Within weeks, he could feed himself again.

There’s much coverage of the murder conviction of Darren Osborne, who drove into a crowd of Muslims near a mosque in Finsbury Park, north London, last year. Metro quotes the police’s view of Osborne as “devious, vile and hate-filled”, while the i reports that he became “radicalised in just a few weeks”. Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph says the NHS was once charged £1,579 for a single pot of moisturising cream.

Cuba Son of ex-leader Fidel Castro has taken his own life, state media says

Today The House of Commons will debate Conservative MP Tim Loughton’s private member’s bill to end the ban on opposite-sex civil partnerships.

12:20 It’s Groundhog Day. Spectators gather at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, as Phil the groundhog makes his prediction on how long winter will last.

1943 The Soviet Union announces the final defeat of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, in southern Russia, following five months of fighting.