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Oscars 2019: The Favourite and Roma lead nominations

Olivia Colman’s royal romp The Favourite and Netflix’s black-and-white epic Roma lead this year’s Oscar race, with 10 nominations each.

The other contenders include A Star Is Born and Vice with eight each, followed by Black Panther with seven.

The Marvel blockbuster is the first superhero movie ever to be nominated for best picture.

Colman is among the British acting nominees, alongside her co-star Rachel Weisz and Christian Bale for Vice.

Films with the most nominations:

• 10 – The Favourite, Roma
• 8 – A Star Is Born, Vice
• 7 – Black Panther
• 6 – BlacKkKlansman
• 5 – Bohemian Rhapsody, Green Book
• 4 – First Man, Mary Poppins Returns

Oscars 2019: The nominees in full

Colman’s strongest competition in the best actress category is likely to come from Glenn Close, who is odds-on favourite to win her first Academy Award for The Wife after six previous nominations, according to bookmakers.

Yalitza Aparicio is nominated for her first screen role, as the Mexican maid in Roma. The film has also given Netflix its first ever best picture nomination.

The best actress category also includes Melissa McCarthy for Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Lady Gaga for A Star Is Born.

Gaga’s co-star Bradley Cooper is nominated in the best actor category, but he missed out on a nod for best director.

The frontrunners for the best actor statuette are two men who earned acclaim for portraying real-life public figures.

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Rami Malek won rave reviews for playing Queen singer Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, while Bale transformed into former US Vice-President Dick Cheney with the help of prosthetics in Vice.

Richard E Grant has received his first ever Oscar nomination, for best supporting actor for his role in the film Can You Ever Forgive Me?

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The Withnail & I star told BBC News the nomination was “beyond anything I could have ever hoped or dreamt or imagined”.

Weisz is up for best supporting actress, 13 years after she won the same award for The Constant Gardener.

She will face competition this time from Emma Stone, who played her rival in The Favourite, as well as Roma’s Marina de Tavira, If Beale Street Could Talk‘s Regina King and Amy Adams for Vice.

Adams has lost out on an Oscar five times before.

After a 35-year career spanning She’s Gotta Have It, Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X, Spike Lee has received his first best director nomination for BlacKkKlansman, which has six nominations in all.

Lee reacted to the news by writing on Instagram: “Six nominations, six boomshackalackas. Brooklyn in da Oscars. Ya dig? Sho-nuff.”

However, Roma’s Alfonso Cuaron is hot favourite to become the fifth Mexican winner of the best director trophy in the past six years.

Cuaron, who loosely based the story on that of his own upbringing and his family’s maid, has a total of four nominations this year – best original screenplay and cinematography as well as best director and best picture.

But there were no female nominees in the best director category, meaning there have still been only five female best director nominees in the 90-year history of the Academy Awards.

Black Panther was the biggest film of 2018 at the US box office and made history in the best picture category, although most of its nominations came in the technical categories.

They included a nod for Hannah Bleacher, who has become the first black nominee in the production design category.

And after a 45-year career during which he has written Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and American Gigolo, Paul Schrader has his first nomination for writing First Reformed.

Elsewhere, Detainment, a controversial Irish short film that recreated the police interviews with the young killers of three-year-old James Bulger in Merseyside in 1993, is nominated for best live action short film.

The Oscars ceremony will take place on 24 February, but is still without a host after Kevin Hart pulled out.

• Full Oscars news and analysis

#OscarsStillSoWhite?

Analysis by BBC Reality Check

It’s been a pretty good year for diversity in Oscar nominations by the standards of the last decade.

In the four acting categories, there were five nominees from ethnic minorities (out of 20 possible nominations) – second only to the seven nominees in 2017.

There are also two best director nominees from ethnic minorities in Spike Lee and Alfonso Cuaron, the first time that has happened since 2014.

But still no sign of gender balance in the directing category – all five nominees this year are men.

There have only been two female nominees for best director in the last decade: Greta Gerwig, for Lady Bird last year, and Kathryn Bigelow, who won the Oscar for the Hurt Locker in 2010.

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Oscars 2019: The Favourite and Roma lead nominations

Emiliano Sala: Cardiff City FC player on missing plane

Premier League footballer Emiliano Sala was on a light aircraft which went missing over the Channel Islands, the French Civil Aviation authority said.

The £15m Argentine striker, 28, was one of two people on board the Piper Malibu which lost contact off Alderney in the Channel Islands on Monday night.

Cardiff City signed Sala for a record fee from French club Nantes on Saturday and Guernsey Police said there was “no trace” of the Cardiff-bound flight.

His family said they felt “desperate”.

Sala’s father, Horacio, told Argentine TV channel C5N, he heard the news from a friend.

“I didn’t know anything. I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I’m desperate. I hope everything goes well.”

The plane left Nantes in north west France at 19:15 and had been flying at 5,000ft when it contacted Jersey air traffic control requesting descent, Guernsey Police said.

The plane lost contact while at 2,300ft and disappeared off radar near the Casquets lighthouse, infamous among mariners as the site of many shipwrecks, 8 miles (13km) north-west of Alderney.

The force added UK authorities have been calling airfields on the south coast to see if it landed there but there had been no confirmations and a decision about an overnight search would be made at sunset.

A spokesman for the French Civil Aviation Authority said the Piper PA 46 Malibu aircraft was French but had not been registered in France.

“We can confirm Emiliano Sala was on board,” he said.

“This morning, the French research started with one French national navy ship and one aircraft. The investigation will determined which authority will take the lead on the research.”

Sightings of red flares were reported during a lifeboat and helicopter search, but “nothing of significance was found”, a Channel Islands Air Search spokeswoman said.

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Police said on Tuesday more than 100sq miles had been searched by five aircraft and two lifeboats. The search had resumed after being called off overnight “due to strengthening winds, worsening sea conditions and reducing visibility”.

Cardiff Airport confirmed the aircraft was due to arrive from Nantes but a spokeswoman said there were no further details.

Guernsey harbour master Captain David Barker said no distress call had been received and if the search continues into the night it is unlikely to have a good outcome.

“It’s far easier to see something on the surface in daylight,” he said. “We are looking for any traces of an aircraft, a life raft, persons in the water, life jackets.”

The Met Office said conditions were not “too intense” at the time the aircraft went missing but had become wetter and windier later in the evening.

John Fernandez, a reporter for BBC Guernsey, said it was a difficult area to search.

“A number of search vessels are out searching the area. It’s known for its strong currents – there are a number of shipwrecks,” he added.

“The search area is absolutely massive at the moment. They’re searching a number of different spots at the moment – they’re not sure whereabouts this plane might have gone down.”

‘Last goodbye’

Cardiff signed Sala for a club record fee after protracted negotiations with Nantes and he was due to join his new teammates for training on Tuesday. Training has been cancelled.

He has been among the top scorers in France in recent years and had scored 13 league and cup goals this season, third behind Kylian Mbappe and Nicolas Pepe.

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When his move to Cardiff was announced, he said: “It gives me great pleasure and I can’t wait to start training, meet my new teammates and get down to work.”

The most recent tweet from Sala’s account was a picture of him and his former team-mates, captioned “La ultima ciao”, or “the last goodbye”.

Sala began his playing career at Argentine side Club Proyecto Crecer, before moving to French club Girondins Bordeaux in 2012.

His previous side, Nantes, has postponed its games against Entente on Wednesday and St Etienne on Saturday, according to its match schedule.

Local journalist Arnaud Wajdzik said the atmosphere in Nantes is “very emotional”, and people planned to gather in the town square this evening for a vigil.

Reacting to the news at Cardiff City Stadium, Keith Morgan, chairman of the Cardiff City Supporters Trust, said he was shocked by the news.

“We’re obviously still hoping it’s not confirmed but when or if it is, we will contact Nantes offering all our help,” he said.

“I think fans realise what’s important and things like this put everything into perspective. Football is important in all our lives but not more than a person’s life.”

Supporter Christopher Jenkins, 45, of Caerphilly, said: “I was nearly crying with my wife – it’s a massive shock to everybody.”

Emiliano Sala: Cardiff City FC player on missing plane

Number of people in work in UK hits record high

The number of people in work in the UK has reached a record high of 32.54 million, latest figures from the Office of National Statistics show.

Unemployment was flat, with a small increase of 8,000 between September and November for a total of 1.3 million,

“The share of the population in work is the highest on record,” said David Freeman, ONS head of labour market.

“The share of the workforce looking for work and unable to find it remains at its lowest for over 40 years.”

Number of people in work in UK hits record high

Baby dies after crash in Penge that killed mother

A baby who was injured in a crash in south-east London that killed his mother has also died.

Luciano Newman was being pushed in his pram by Nicole Newman, 23, when they were struck by a car on Croydon Road, in Penge, on 13 January.

The Met said the eight-month-old child died on Sunday. Ms Newman died at the scene of the crash.

The driver of the car, a 51-year-old man, was taken to hospital but later discharged. He has not been arrested.

The force said he was co-operating with the investigation and have appealed for any witnesses, including anyone who may have dashcam footage, to contact them.

Bromley Council have rejected renewed calls to follow other boroughs, such as nearby Lewisham, in decreasing speed limits from 30mph (48kph) to 20mph (32 kph).

Penge and Lewisham West MP Ellie Reeves called for a debate in Parliament about reducing speed limits following the crash.

She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that “we need to do all that we can to make our roads as safe as possible, particularly in residential areas”.

However, Bromley Councillor William Huntington-Thresher, said there was no evidence lower limits were the answer to road safety.

The executive member for the environment said “a sustained focus on road safety and driver education” was the answer.

Baby dies after crash in Penge that killed mother