Live updates for Devon and Cornwall have finished for the day, but we'll be back at 08:00 on Thursday with the latest news, sport, travel and weather.

Don't forget Spotlight on BBC One later. There will also be news through the night on your BBC Local Radio station.

Sophie Malcolm
BBC News Online

Image source, Wendy Bassett

A woman is crowdfunding and selling her belongings to pay for equipment to help her disabled husband communicate.

Nigel Bassett is unable to move or speak following a near fatal road crash in Cornwall three years ago that left him with a traumatic brain injury.

His wife, Wendy Bassett, said he was able to communicate with her by blinking, but it was not widely considered to be a reliable form of expression.

Eye-gaze technology, she said, could give him some independence. A computer works by tracking Mr Bassett's eye movements, which enables him to select phrases, words and programs from a screen.

Mrs Bassett has set up a crowdfunding campaign to help buy the specialist technology.

The computer costs almost £10,000 so she is also selling the couple's non-essential belongings to help fund the purchase.

So far, the campaign has raised almost a third of its target.

Andrew Segal
Local Live

Patients needing local inpatient beds after the closure of more than 70 at four community hospitals in Devon can still be treated in other local hospitals, health bosses say.

The 71 beds in Honiton, Okehampton, Seaton (pictured) and Whipton are to close in August and September, external.

Protesters against the plans said more local beds were needed due to an ageing population and the closures would mean long journeys for patients, relatives and other visitors.

Health managers said the move would see more people being given care at home and save £2.6m, and that patients would be accommodated in either Tiverton, Sidmouth or Exmouth.

All other services at the affected hospitals would continue as normal, they added.

BBC Weather

Skies will continue to cloud over from the west this evening as rain erratically moves east with brisk winds. Outbreaks of rain will continue overnight, with a few heavy bursts possible. However, the rain will start to clear towards dawn. Minimum temperature: 15C (59F).

After a cloudy start on Thursday with some light rain possible, most places will soon brighten up with some warm sunny spells for many. However, there may be the odd shower during the afternoon. It will be on the breezy side. Maximum temperature: 22C (72F).

Kirk England
BBC Radio Devon

The parents of cyber-security expert Marcus Hutchins have spoken of their faith in the US judicial system as he fights FBI hacking charges.

Des and Janet Hutchins from Ilfracombe, Devon, said they "have no doubt that Marcus will be seen as an innocent party".

Mr Hutchins denies six charges relating to Kronos, malicious software that gathered financial information from infected computers.

A trial has been scheduled for October.

A teenager who became ill with meningitis at a festival has died, public health officials have confirmed.

George Zographou, 18, from Bristol, fell ill at the Boardmasters Festival in Newquay on Friday.

His sister Nicole said on Facebook, "George took his final breaths on Wednesday August 16th at 13.34 all by himself without the machine. The three of us holding his hand."

Image source, Facebook

Andrew Segal
Local Live

A 27-year-old holidaymaker has died and two teenagers are in hospital after being caught in a rip current off the coast of Cornwall.

The three swimmers were swept out to sea off Crantock beach, near Newquay, just before 19:30 on Tuesday.

The man was pronounced dead a short time later. The other two swimmers, aged 17 and 18, remain in hospital but are not believed to be seriously injured.

What should anyone do if they are caught in one? The RNLI has this advice:

• Safety advice if you get caught in a rip current
• Don't try to swim against it or you'll get exhausted
• If you can stand, wade don't swim
• If you can, swim parallel to the shore until free of the rip and then head for shore
• Always raise your hand and shout for help

A teenager who fell ill with meningitis at the Boardmasters music festival has died, it has been confirmed by Public Health England.

George Zographou, 18, from Bristol, died at the Royal Cornwall Hospital this afternoon.

Mike Wade, deputy director of Health Protection, said: “Our thoughts are with the family at this difficult time and we want to reassure people that all appropriate public health actions are being taken."

Mr Wade added: "Although the risk to others is very small, those who were in close contact with the individual have been given antibiotics as a precaution.”

Johnny O'Shea
BBC News Online

A hunt in Cornwall says it is disappointed a man has been cleared of intentionally causing distress after he fired a shotgun in the vicinity of hounds, and riders on horses.

Nick Harrison-White was found not guilty of using threatening behaviour to cause, or likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress at Bodmin Magistrates Court.

He fired the weapon to deter hounds from entering his land, after his cattle stampeded on 2 January this year.

Speaking outside court after the verdicts, Amanda Carpenter, honorary secretary of the North Cornwall Hunt said: "We are disappointed he's been found not guilty on both counts."

BBC Radio Cornwall

A teenager who was found to have meningitis at Cornwall's Boardmasters festival has died, it has been confirmed.

The festival organisers said the 18-year-old man taken ill at the Newquay event was George Zographou, from Bristol.

Although he was discovered to be ill at the event, it is not thought he contracted it there, Public Health England said.

Several people have been given antibiotics after he was found to be ill.

Staff at Boardmasters tweeted, external that they were "deeply saddened" by the death.

Johnny O'Shea
BBC News Online

More than 40 staff and volunteers at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro have joined a lunchtime choir aimed at alleviating stress.

Andrea Ormsby
BBC Spotlight

Image source, Great British Entertainment

An animated film is being made about one of the most daring and heroic rescues in the South West.

It happened more than 100 years ago when a lifeboat called Louisa couldn't be launched from Lynmouth in Devon because the sea was too rough.

Instead, during the incident in January 1899, the boat was brought to Porlock, 13 miles away, before she could even start the rescue mission.

She also had to be dragged up and down heights of more than 1,400ft over Countisbury Hill - a one-in-four gradient incline - before she could assist in the plight of the schooner Forrest Hall.

Jonathan Beale
BBC defence correspondent

The UK's new £3bn aircraft carrier has docked in its home port.

HMS Queen Elizabeth entered Portsmouth Harbour for the first time on Wednesday morning following extensive preparations at the naval base.

Military units from across the South West are involved in the £3bn Royal Navy flagship's operation, including personnel and aircraft from Cornwall's RNAS Culdrose.

Image source, Getty Images

HMS Queen Elizabeth is still far from being a fully functioning aircraft carrier. But she now looks and feels less of a giant construction project and more like a warship. For the last seven weeks she's been undergoing sea trials.

They've tested everything from the propulsion system to the sewage processing plant. The ship's five galleys have been churning out more than 3,000 meals a day for the 700 crew and additional contractors on board.

According to the captain, Jerry Kyd, the tests have gone "really well" for what he admits is a "prototype". But even he suggests that they'll need more manpower when she's fully operational. The slightly larger US Nimitz class carriers have a crew of more than 4,000.

HMS Queen Elizabeth's first deployment is still a long way off. Though helicopters have been landing on her massive deck - the size of three football pitches - it will be another year before the new F35s will begin flight trials. And HMS Queen Elizabeth won't be fully operational until 2023.

Devon Live

The Co-op has said it is 'deeply shocked' by an attack on a store worker that left him blind in one eye, external.

BBC Spotlight

Reports of fuel being stolen from vehicles in Devon and Cornwall have risen sharply.

Figures show the numbers have more than doubled, going up by 148% in the last three years.

Police said that, although it was a difficult crime to detect, officers were working hard to investigate. They added that prevention was the key, such as using lockable fuel caps.

Exeter transport charity Freedom Wheels, which provides assistance for people with disabilities, said it had been targeted a number of times, leaving volunteers shocked.

Andrew Segal
Local Live

Inpatient beds at four community hospitals in Devon are to close later this month and in September, health bosses have confirmed, external.

Managers said shutting the 71 beds would see more people being given care at home and save £2.6m.

Image source, Google

The timetable is:

• Seaton Community Hospital - from 21 August
• Okehampton Community Hospital (pictured) - from 21 August
• Honiton Community Hospital - from 28 August
• Exeter (Whipton) Community Hospital - from 4 September

Protesters against the plans said more local beds were needed due to an ageing population and the closures would mean long journeys for patients, relatives and other visitors.

Andrew Segal
Local Live

A teenager who is critically ill with meningitis is not believed to have contracted the infection at Cornwall's Boardmasters festival, public health officials say.

The 18-year-old from Bristol is being treated in hospital after being found ill at the Newquay event.

Several people have been given antibiotics as a result.

Mike Wade, from Public Health England's South West Health Protection Team, said: "Our thoughts are with the family of the patient at this difficult time and we want to reassure people that all appropriate public health actions are being taken.

"Although the risk to others is very small, close contacts of the case have been given antibiotics as a precaution. We do not believe that the patient contracted the infection at Boardmasters Festival.

"Our message to students remains the same, get protected against strains A,C,W,Y with the MenACWY vaccine and be aware of the signs and symptoms."

Image source, Peter Channon

Andrew Segal
Local Live

Police in north Devon are hunting thieves who have apparently stolen nearly 90 hay bales from a field.

Officers said the 88 bales were reported as stolen from the Limekiln Lane area near Barnstaple between Sunday and Monday.

They have appealed for information or any CCTV in the area.

BBC Radio Devon

Devon runner Jo Pavey says she wants to compete for Great Britain at the European Championships in Berlin next summer.

Pavey, who will be 44 by that time in August, won 10,000m gold at the event in Zurich in 2014, becoming the oldest woman to win a European title.

Image source, PA

She told the BBC: "Next year I'll be mostly focusing on trying to qualify for the Europeans - that's the goal."

However, she will not be competing for England in March's Commonwealth Games in Australia.

She said: "With the Commonwealths being in March, and having a family, and all the different phases of my life I'm at now, I just think it's the Europeans that I'm most interested in.

She missed last week's World Championships in London through injury, but did attend to be presented with her 10,000m bronze from the 2007 World Championships, denied her at the time by Turkish drug cheat Elvan Abeylegesse.