5 things you need to know in Yorkshire today

No worries, here’s a preview of the most important news in Yorkshire today.

1. UK ‘part of inquiry into air strike blunder’

Theresa may said the UK would “never intentionally strike or focus on Syrian forces” after Britain admitted being part of a coalition air attack that has been claimed to have killed dozens of Bashar Assad’s troops. The Prime Minister said the UK would co-operate with the investigation by the Us-led coalition into the attack on Saturday near the eastern city of Deir el-Zour. THe United States has accepted its aircraft may have accidentally hit a Syrian government position during an attack on IS (also known by Daesh), which is not covered by the ceasefire agreement. IT is understood Britain’s participation involved an unmanned RAF Reaper drone.

2. Rantzen fears ChildLine ‘cannot help one in four young callers’

Dame esther Rantzen says the national child protection charity she founded has seen such an increase in the number of young people getting in touch for help online that one in four are left without counselling. Although new technology has allowed thousands of children to seek help, some cannot be given assistance because it now takes volunteers longer to deal with them. Most children looking for help now get in contact through email and direct message chats instead of by telephone. Dame Esther was in Leeds yesterday to mark the 30th anniversary of ChildLine.

3. September sun means the apple crop will be a pippin

The english apple season starts today in earnest, two weeks later than last year in large part because the poor spring weather held blossom growth back. However, the prayers of the region’s apple growers have been answered as unseasonal September weather has led to a bumper crop.

Temperatures have been as high as 10 degrees hotter than normal for this time of year leading to a crop full of flavour and juice and fruit that is particularly vibrant in colour. English apples and pears said growers would usually have started picking the Cox variety last week, but this year’s weather meant that this was delayed until this week or even into next week.

4. GB turns attention to Tokyo after Rio triumph

ParalympicsGB, fielding 264 athletes in 19 of the 22 sports, finished second on the medal table to China, winning 64 gold medals and 147 in all over 11 days of competition. There were 119 British medallists, 44 of them multi-medallists. Jody Cundy has challenged his fellow Great Britain Paralympic stars to carry the momentum from their Rio heroics towards Tokoyo 2020 and Beyond. The 37-year-old from Wisbech won his first gold medal as a swimmer in Atlanta in 1996 and has competed in three Games in the pool and three no the bike, so he is ideally placed to appraise Britain.

5. Most say drink and drive limit should be reduced

A new official poll commissioned by Public Health England found that 77 per cent of people are in favour of the law being changed so drivers are legally allowed to consume less alcohol before getting behind a wheel. The figures also show that more than half of Britons support the notion of a minimum price per unit for alcohol. At present, the current legal limit for drink-driving is 35-micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath in England and Wales. In Scotland it is 22 micrograms of alcohol per 1-00 millilitres of breath. Just three per cent said they were strongly against, and eight per cent said they were against a change in the law.