Jurgen Klopp's first Merseyside derby ended in a comfortable victory as Liverpool beat 10-man Everton for their third consecutive Premier League win.

Divock Origi and Mamadou Sakho headed in two goals in as many minutes at the end of the first half.

Everton lost Ramiro Funes Mori for a nasty challenge on Origi, who had to be replaced by Daniel Sturridge.

The substitute then drove in a third before Philippe Coutinho's curled finish completed an emphatic win.

A tale of two teams

Daniel Sturridge's goal was his 50th in 87 appearances for Liverpool, making him the fourth-fastest Liverpool player to reach that landmark

Everton have not won at Anfield since 1999 and, in truth, they never looked like getting anything from their latest visit.

The Reds looked more organised from the outset, attacked with pace and in numbers, and only a couple of good saves from Joel Robles prevented the hosts from taking the lead much earlier than the 43rd minute.

The sending-off of Funes Moris, after he stood on Origi's ankle, arguably ended any hopes of an Everton fight-back but there had been little to suggest that was ever on the cards.

Liverpool finished with 37 shots on goal, 13 of those on target, while all three of Everton's efforts were wide.

This was the 226th Merseyside derby and one of the most one-sided.

Pressure mounting on Martinez?

Everton are without a win in their past six games in all competitions

The first Merseyside derby this season proved to be the final game in charge for Klopp's predecessor Brendan Rodgers.

Pressure had been mounting on the 43-year-old after a disappointing start to the season in which the Reds had won just three of their opening 10 games and, after a 1-1 draw at Goodison on 4 October, he was sacked.

The situation Rodgers found himself in before his departure mirrored Roberto Martinez's going into this game. The Everton boss was under pressure to get a positive result on Wednesday, having overseen just three wins in the 10 games prior to the trip to Anfield.

That pressure now shifts to Everton's next game, with Martinez needing to pick up his players for an FA Cup semi-final with Manchester United at Wembley on Saturday.

Klopp's magic touch

Since Klopp arrived at Liverpool shortly after Rodgers' departure, the transformation of some of the club's once-out-of-favour players has been impressive.

Origi was sent out on loan to Lille last year and failed to shine as he was named in L'Equipe's worst Ligue 1 team of the season, while Sakho found himself a peripheral figure at Liverpool in the latter stages of Rodgers' reign.

Both, though, have become important parts of a Liverpool side that have now won four straight games games in all competitions - including last week's impressive victory over Borussia Dortmund in the Europa League.

Just as on that night, both Origi and Sakho scored against Everton while Lucas Levia, who almost left the club at the start of this season, provided the assist for Sturridge's goal.

On top of that, Klopp was able to make nine changes from the side that beat Bournemouth 2-1 at the weekend. The former Dortmund boss has found a way to get the best out of the players in his squad.

Man of the match - James Milner

James Milner provided the assists for the opening two goals. He has now got 10 assists in 2016, two more than any other player.

Barcelona humiliated Deportivo La Coruna to end a three-match losing run.

Luis Suarez scored four for the Spanish leaders, with the Uruguay striker bundling in the opener, then tucking in Lionel Messi's pass.

Barca scored six in the second half - Ivan Rakitic fired in, before Suarez slid in for his hat-trick and then tapped in Neymar's selfless pass.

Messi rolled in, then Marc Bartra's solo goal and Neymar simple finish from close range sealed the rout.

Barca striker Suarez has now scored 49 goals in all competitions this season

BAME and shame: How non-white writers are shunned by the books industry

Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) authors are consistently under-represented in British publishing, research has found. Despite the success of bestsellers by the likes of Zadie Smith and Monica Ali, many writers of colour are routinely ignored by the press, shunned by literary festivals and marginalised by an overwhelmingly white industry. But a fightback is under way, with the formation of pressure groups, festivals and awards for non-white authors, and the arrival of a new publisher of African fiction. BIDISHA speaks to some of the key figures to discuss some possible solutions to the UK's problem.

Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, of Cassava Republic Press, at the Africa Writes festival, 2014 | © Yves Salmon (Creative Commons)

In February, a group of British writers launched the Jhalak Prize for best book by a writer of colour, in response to a long-growing frustration at the lack of recognition of such artists in the UK publishing, arts and cultural scene.

Last year’s World Book Night list featured no non-white authors, and each new wave of research into representation shows that such authors are rarely reviewed in the major papers, interviewed on radio or TV books programmes, featured as major literary critics or honoured on prize shortlists and literary festival rosters.

Additionally, in the UK, less than five per cent of work published is in translation. As a result of these and other exclusions, the We Need Diverse Books movement has started up with the aim of redressing the imbalance and challenging stereotyped, discriminatory, monocultural practices.

Zadie Smith

There are some sources of hope, such as the Man Booker International Prize, which from this year will be honouring a work of international literature in translation - with the prize money split equally between author and translator - and which this year features longlisted authors from 12 countries, writing in nine languages. But the general picture is bleak.

It’s strange, because over the last decade the success of authors including Monica Ali, Zadie Smith, Andrea Levy, Caryl Phillips, Bernardine Evaristo and others seemed to reflect a UK literary scene that was moving with the times.

Yet just last year journalist Danuta Kean published a thorough and damning report called Writing the Future: Black and Asian Writers and Publishers in the UK Marketplace.

As Kean tells me: “It showed that among novelists and publishers British-based BAME people are severely underrepresented, and that their experiences of publishing as writers and workers is poor: they feel marginalised, stereotyped and under-represented by an overwhelmingly white and middle class industry... there was very convincing evidence of unconscious bias operating to restrict access and career progression for BAME writers and publishers.”

Kean says: “I heard experiences of outright racism, like an author being asked, ‘Do black people read?’ Writers and publishing staff said they felt very isolated, especially when they are at launches and the only other BAME people are serving drinks.

I heard experiences of outright racism, like an author being asked, ‘Do black people read?’

Danuta Kean

“In universities, reading lists and visiting lecturers are far more likely to be white, and again, the treatment of their stories as ‘exotic’ or other was a common experience, which is ludicrous in a multiracial society.”

I contacted many of my non-white author peers and asked about possible solutions to transform the industry and the wider culture.

Writer Chimene Suleyman commented that “there’s barely an industry that doesn’t suffer from structural racism. And the publishing world does come with historical attachments of white male elitism that in turn affects how quickly an industry wants to make moves to be more inclusive. Networks and cliques are a hard thing to crack. Half the time people don’t even realise they’re a part of them.”

She adds: “We’re expected to write about our brownness, blackness, our religions, our rapes. We can’t just tell the same boring stories about boring everyday things. What’s most concerning is when white people tell the stories of people of colour, or when men write these terrible female characters.”

Like Kean, Suleyman has noticed that “British [arts] festivals with a high focus on literature always astonish me with how white they are. I have read at festivals for five years and can count on both hands the writers of colour I see performing.

Chimene Suleyman

“People of colour are always voiceless and overlooked and when we raise these issues we’re told we’re over sensitive. England in particular is terrible at learning languages and looking elsewhere for culture unless it profits. It’s a hangover of the colony.”

Mend Mariwany, an editor at journalistic outlet Media Diversified and one of the organisers of London’s Bare Lit Festival, which launched this year to celebrate non-white UK literary talent, says that “while [publishers] taking on more authors of colour would address the symptoms, it wouldn't solve the root of this problem.

“People of colour are still missing at the level of leadership roles. And as long as leadership roles in the industry are occupied predominantly by white people, there is little incentive for authors of colour to pitch their ideas.”

The writer Irenosen Okojie, whose short story collection Speak Gigantular will be out this June, comments that “it’s encouraging to see publishers like Darf, who publish Arabic works in translation, and Jacaranda Books and Influx Press, who are actively looking to publish writers of colour.”

But when it comes to public appearances, she says: “When [non-white authors] are asked to appear a lot of the time it's on diversity panels. I'm not saying diversity panels aren't important but it's not the only thing to programme them for.

Irenosen Okojie (photo: David Kwaw Mensah)

Okojie is a Prize Advocate for the SI Leeds Literary Prize for unpublished fiction by black and Asian women. Like all the authors I spoke to, she has some targeted advice for people working in publishing: “Look around you at your next series of meetings. If everybody around you is white, and all the authors you publish are white, consider doing something about that.

“Because if you're staying silent and deliberately keeping the blinkers on, you're condoning an unequal playing field and benefiting from your privilege by choice.”

She adds: “We need more black and Asian people starting publishing houses that operate as part of the industry. We need more people of colour within the infrastructure of publishing. We need editors to not just commission to their tastes, but really think about an interesting, eclectic list that's diverse in every sense, not just racially.”

When I ask Danuta Kean if non-white authors are expected to conform to a certain type in terms of the stories they tell, she jokes: “To get an idea of what it’s like, look at the cover of any book set in Africa. Regardless of which country forms the backdrop, I bet you a tenner that a banyan tree and a sunset will be on the cover.

“I also spoke to writers who were told that the idea of a football-loving Pakistani kid living in Brixton and listening to Mozart was ‘hard to believe’ so they had to change these things to reflect white stereotypes, As a result, black and Asian authors are turning to the US and the Indian subcontinent to get book deals for books that don’t pander to stereotypes.”

Western publishing is out of step with a real world that is very mixed, global and diverse

Bibi Bakare-Yusuf

As a counterpoint to these stereotypes, in April the UK literary scene will welcome a new publisher of fiction by African writers.

Cassava Republic Press, which has already been operating successfully in Nigeria for ten years, will be launching a range of new publications including contemporary Nigeria-set novel Born on a Tuesday by Elnathan John, Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s thoughtful literary novel Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun and Leye Adenle’s Lagos-set crime novel Easy Motion Tourist. I’m also very excited by Season of Crimson Blossoms by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, the tale of an illicit affair between a 55-year-old widow and a 25-year-old street gang leader.

Cassava Republic Press founder Bibi Bakare-Yusuf is based in London and is working on the UK launch with Emma Shercliff, formerly of Macmillan and Hodder, currently in Nigeria.

Bakare-Yusuf comments: “Western publishing is out of step with a real world that is very mixed, global and diverse. Publishing is civilisation-building. Sometimes, builders of civilisation can forget to innovate, to experiment and to feel the pulse of what’s going on around them.

“If publishing is to continue to be relevant, civilisation-shaping, it must come to terms with the hybrid and multi-tongued world we live in. The world has so many cultural outputs competing for our attention and money, the only way to stay relevant is to mix up and be polyrhythmic.”

Houston floods: Disaster zone declared after 'historic' rainfall

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Media captionHouston TV reporter rescues driver from flood waters

Flash flooding and more rain is possible in Houston, a day after record rainfall killed five people.

Meteorologists said some 17.6in (44.7cm) of rain fell on the city on Monday alone, levels that national officials said were "historic".

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has declared a state of emergency in Houston, where 70,000 people were left without power.

Rivers burst their banks in the fourth-largest US city and 1,200 people were rescued from rising floodwaters.

At least 1,000 homes have flooded, with the number likely to rise. City officials have turned a large shopping centre into an evacuation centre.

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Media captionThe BBC's Alex Deakin explains why these storms have happened

As well as telling people not to drive in the fast-flowing waters, city officials warned against allowing children to play in waters that are likely to contain snakes and ants.

Among the worst-hit areas is Greenspoint, a poor, mainly Hispanic district of more than 112,000 people to the north of the city centre.

Footage broadcast in Texas showed Greenspoint families moving belongings and children through floodwaters on air beds and inside a refrigerator.

Image copyrightAP

Image captionMore than 70 horses were rescued from rising waters

Image copyrightHouston Chronicle

Image captionWaters in one spot were 12m higher than the record

Image copyrightAP

Image captionRains are expected to ease by Tuesday

Image copyrightAP

"Do not think the city is not seeing you," Mayor Sylvester Turner told Greenspoint residents in a press conference.

"It's a situation where all throughout the city, and quite frankly all throughout our region, we're dealing with high water."

At least one of those who died was found in a submerged car, local media reported.

Close to 70 horses were rescued from a flooded stable before police officers were able to lead them to safety through floodwaters.

One Houston flood official said waters recorded in one area were 40ft (12 metres) higher than the previous record.

The city, on the Gulf of Mexico, is prone to heavy rains, and has seen a number of major flooding events in the last year alone.

However, this flood is the largest to strike the city since Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, which led to 23 deaths across the state, the City of Houston Twitter account said.

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Gabriel Agbonlahor: Aston Villa striker suspended by club

Gabriel Agbonlahor has made three appearances for England

Aston Villa have suspended striker Gabriel Agbonlahor and begun an investigation after he was allegedly pictured with laughing gas canisters.

According to reports, the 29-year-old was pictured partying in London on the same night Villa were relegated.

Agbonlahor was already on the sidelines after being told he was not fit enough.

He was suspended by Villa earlier this month after he was pictured appearing to hold a shisha pipe while in Dubai, but the club took no further action.

Villa were relegated from the Premier League after losing 1-0 to Manchester United at Old Trafford on Saturday.

They are bottom of the table after collecting only 16 points from 34 games.

The West Midlands outfit are also without a manager following the sacking of Frenchman Remi Garde and have been hit by two key resignations.

Former Football Association chairman David Bernstein and Lord King, a former Governor of the Bank of England, both quit the board on Monday.

NASA's SDO Captures Images of a Mid-Level Solar Flare

The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 8:29 pm EDT on April 17, 2016. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured an image of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this imagery of a solar flare – as seen in the bright flash – around 8:30 p.m. EDT on April 17, 2016. A loop of solar material can also be seen rising up off the right limb of the sun.

Credits: NASA/SDO/Goddard

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this imagery of a solar flare – as seen in the bright flash – around 8:30 p.m. EDT on April 17, 2016. A loop of solar material can also be seen rising up off the right limb of the sun.

Credits: NASA/SDO/Goddard

A black spot on the sun is visible in the upper right of this image captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. Such spots are evidence that this is an area of complex magnetic activity on the sun, which can sometimes lead to solar eruptions sending light and radiation out into space. This region produced a solar flare at 8:29 p.m. EDT on April 17, 2016.

Credits: NASA/SDO/Goddard

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center states that "moderate radio blackouts were observed" during the peak of the flare. Such radio blackouts are only ongoing during the course of a flare, and so they have since subsided. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center is the U.S. government's official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings and alerts.

This flare is classified as an M6.7 class flare. M-class flares are a tenth the size of the most intense flares, the X-class flares. The number provides more information about its strength. An M2 is twice as intense as an M1, an M3 is three times as intense, etc.

This flare came from an area of complex magnetic activity on the sun – known as an active region, and in this case labeled Active Region 2529 – which has sported a large dark spot, called a sunspot, over the past several days. This sunspot has changed shape and size as it slowly made its way across the sun’s face over the past week and half. For much of that time, it was big enough to be visible from the ground without magnification and is currently large enough that almost five Earths could fit inside. This sunspot will rotate out of our view over the right side of the sun by April 20, 2016.  Scientists study such sunspots in order to better understand what causes them to sometimes erupt with solar flares.

What is a solar flare?

For answers to this and other space weather questions, please visit the Space weather Frequently Asked Questions page.

Related Link

• View Past Solar Activity