All devices from the iPhone 4s onwards should receive a notification that the software - iOS 9 - is available to install.

As well as being offered as a free upgrade for owners of older models of the iPhone, it will come pre-installed on the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus models.

The big new feature is Apple News, a platform which publishers can send stories directly to consumers.

Users choose their favourite news sources, and the articles are then streamlined into one continuously updating feed.

The Notes app is also beefed up, with the ability to add check-lists, inline images, basic sketches, and web links.

The company raised $25bn (£16bn) in its November share flotation, as demand drove shares to open at $92.70 on the New York Stock Exchange - almost 40% above its $68 initial public offering (IPO) price.

But after rocketing 75% in their first two months of trading, shares recently slipped below their IPO price.

Now weekly financial newspaper Barron's has warned its share price could be cut in half as a result of China's struggling economy, and increasing competition in e-commerce.

After Alibaba warned of lower-than-expected sales, the Barron's report said: "That may only worsen as China's economic growth drops to its lowest pace in six years."

The report prompted Alibaba to hit back, saying the article "contains factual inaccuracies and selective use of information, and the conclusions the reporter draws are misleading".

In a letter published on its website addressed to Barron's editor, Alibaba said: "Your 12 September article with the sensational headline 'Alibaba: Why It Could Fall 50% Further' lacks three key ingredients - integrity, professionalism and fair play.

The savings organisation said it was taking the decision to "balance the interests of its savers, taxpayers and the stability of the broader financial services sector."

NS&I is unique in the UK marketplace in that it is backed by the Treasury, meaning its products are 100% protected but laws govern their management to help ensure market fairness.

It said the interest rate on the tax-free cash ISA would fall to 1.25% from 1.5% on 16 November.

NS&I said the move would affect 404,210 customers with savings of more than £3.8bn in total and it was writing to them to explain the rate reduction.

Chief executive Jane Platt said: "Interest rates in the easy access ISA market have been in decline over the year and our Direct ISA rate has stood out at the top of the best buy tables for some time.

"To ensure that we continue to strike a balance between the needs of our savers, taxpayers and the stability of the broader financial services sector, we have taken the difficult decision to reduce the rate on our Direct ISA.

"However customers continue to benefit from a competitive rate and 100% security on all their deposits."

NS&I said its decision would move the product back to the middle ground for rates available in the ISA market currently.

Smaller increases to clothing prices on the month compared with a year ago was the main driver behind the slowdown to price level growth.

Lower prices at the pumps together with cheaper ferry fares also helped to suppress price growth.

Bucking the lower price trend were soft drinks and furniture prices which helped prevent the UK from entering negative inflation again.

The UK entered negative inflation in April for the first time in 55 years.

The scheme, which generated £21m before it was shut down, conned at least 10,000 people between May 2008 and April 2009.

But the perpetrators paid back as little as £1 each, according to an investigation by the Press Association.

The victims were encouraged to "beg, borrow or steal" to take part in the scam, which promised £23,000 for each £3,000 investment if a player recruited two people.

Bristol Crown Court heard the scheme's committee members pocketed up to £92,000 each, while up to 88% of their members lost between £3,000 and £15,000.

The eleven women prosecuted for the scheme were the first in the UK to face prosecution for a pyramid scheme under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Act.

Six women who were convicted of operating and promoting the scheme paid back a total of £535,454 in confiscation orders and prosecution costs.

The prosecution cost taxpayers "not less" than £1,465,000 - not including defence costs, legal aid costs or court costs.

A spokeswoman for the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said there was a "strong public interest" in bringing the case to act as a deterrent, warn the public and achieve justice for victims.

"Investigating and prosecuting complex economic cases of this kind are invariably costly, often taking a significant time to investigate fully and resulting in lengthy trials," she said.

Roger Corcoran has been a window washer for 35 years. But on Wednesday, he was Batman.

The 61-year-old grandfather of two rappelled down the side of Mayo Clinic Children’s Center alongside Spiderman and Superman.

“When a kid wanted to know why I was so old, I told him I played the original batman,” Corcoran said with a chuckle.

Young Patients at Indiana Children’s Hospital Diagnose Stuffed Bears

Cancer Patients Attend Pediatric Prom

John Carroll, 48, dressed up as Spiderman.

“It’s one thing I look forward to doing all year,” said Carroll, who has worked as a window washer for 15 years.

After rappelling down the side of the building, Carroll and Corcoran went inside to meet the kids, who were appropriately shocked to come face-to-face with their high-flying heroes.

“The first time it happened, I was kinda crying because it means a lot to those kids,” Carroll said.

Carroll and Corcoran work at ISS Facility Services, which washes windows for Mayo Clinic. Charlie Kleber worked with Mayo Clinic to set up the special event, and said he picked some of his best guys to swing down and make the kids smile.

He said he’s watched even the sickest kids come alive when they’re face-to-face with the superheroes.

He called Wednesday’s superhero experience “life-changing,” and said they were all struck by a special patient: 13-year-old Claire Strawman, who in April became the youngest heart-lung patient Mayo Clinic had ever transplanted.

She told them about how she went into lung failure and underwent a transplant in April. She was hospitalized for about seven months before being released a few weeks ago. But she got sick on Monday and needed to come back.

“I got goose bumps right now telling you that story,” Kleber said.

Claire is on immunosuppressant drugs to prevent her from rejecting the new organs, but the drugs also make her more prone to infections. When she got sick, her parents worried and brought her back to the hospital, according to her mom, Ellen Strawman. She was in the pediatric ICU when the superheroes visited.

“Just seeing them put a big smile on her face,” Strawman said, adding that Claire left the hospital today for her home in Bloomington, Minnesota.

“She told us what happened to her and everything. We were all standing around her tearing up,” Carroll said. “That story made you feel so proud to do it for the kids because it means so much to them. It was great.”

Cecil, we hardly knew ye...

The assassinated lion of Zimbabwe, killed recently under dubious circumstances by an American dentist, is being mourned with passion and fury by celebrities on social media. And the dentist is the focus of such an outpouring of contempt and hostility, he's been forced into hiding.

Meanwhile, however, a backlash is also building on Twitter from those who wonder: Where is the celebrity passion for Sandra Bland or the "Black Lives Matter" movement?

Leave it to the usually wisecracking talk-show host, Jimmy Kimmel, to sum up the anger and shame millions of Americans feel over the death of Cecil, a lion beloved in one of Zimbabwe's national parks and in Britain, where conservation scientists had been tracking him for years.

Kimmel was so upset on his show Tuesday night, he choked up even as he was telling excoriating jokes and urging viewers to donate to the Oxford wildlife conservationgroup that had been studying Cecil and his endangered kind.

Kimmel was unsparing of the Minnesota hunter/dentist, referring to him as a "jackhole," as "vomitous," and...ahem...inadequate.

"Why are you shooting a lion in the first place...how is that fun?," Kimmel demanded, addressing Walter Palmer, who paid more than $50,000 to kill Cecil with a crossbow, under circumstances now being investigated by Zimbabwe authorities as a possible poaching crime.

(The Minneapolis dentist, who has protested in vain he didn't know Cecil was a protected lion, shut down his practice and disappeared as threats and protesters multiplied on Twitter and outside his office.)

"Is it that difficult for you to get an erection that you need to kill things? They have a pill for that, it works great. Just take that and save yourself from a lifetime of being the most hated man in America who never advertised Jell-o pudding on television," Kimmel sneered.

And he was not the only one sneering and fuming. Outrage spread across Twitter in a twinkling after the news about the lion exploded Wednesday. There is already an onlinepetition, with over 400,000 signatures so far, demanding "justice" for Cecil from Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe.

Celebrity animal lovers, of which there are scores, have been tweeting, including known activists such as Ricky Gervais and Kaley Cuoco Sweeting.