Ministers have promised A-level students in England that their final grades will be no lower than the results they got in mock exams. The move is part of a "triple lock" aimed at ensuring students' results are not downgraded following the cancellation of this year's exams due to the coronavirus pandemic. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has announced that pupils will receive results based on the highest grade they achieved in mock exams, teachers' estimates or tests taken this coming autumn. If the pupil's results on Thursday are lower than their mocks, then they will be able to appeal. 

The move comes after the Scottish Government announced that final results there will be based solely on teachers' estimated grades, rather than being moderated by the exam board. There had been an outcry in Scotland after 125,000 estimated results were downgraded.

While Mr Williamson said the "triple lock" would provide a safety net for students, Geoff Barton of the ASCL head teachers' union criticised the decision to use mock results, saying "they aren't a set of exams which all conform to the same standards".

BBC education editor Branwen Jeffreys says never on the eve of exam results day "have the goalposts moved so rapidly as in this shift". She adds that universities have not been consulted on the new plan, and their admission decisions will have been based on results from the exam boards they received last Friday.

We've been looking at how results day will be quite different this year due to coronavirus. There's also lots of useful information for pupils and parents over at BBC Bitesize.

US Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden has announced that California Senator Kamala Harris will be his running mate at November's general election. Ms Harris is the first black woman and Asian American to be nominated as a potential vice-president. She ended her own bid for the White House in December after failing to win the backing of voters in the presidential primaries.

Mr Biden described her as "a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country's finest public servants". Ms Harris tweeted that she was "honoured" to be the party's nominee for vice-president and "would do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief."

Republican Donald Trump, who will face Mr Biden in the presidential election on 3 November, said Ms Harris did badly in the Democratic primaries and he was "surprised" that she had been chosen.

Ms Harris, 55, was born in Oakland, California, to two immigrant parents: an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father. She went on to become attorney general of California before entering the US Senate in 2017. We have written a profile of Ms Harris and also how she embraces her biracial roots. Our North America reporter Anthony Zurcher explains why she is "the obvious pick".

Scientists believe four bones found on a beach at Shanklin, Isle of Wight, belong to a new species of theropod dinosaur related to the Tyrannosaurus rex. Named Vectaerovenator inopinatus, the new species would have lived 115 million years ago. The fossils were found in three different discoveries at Shanklin in 2019. It is likely the Vectaerovenator lived in an area just north of where the fossils were found, with the carcass having washed out into the shallow sea nearby.

The government's announcement about changes to the way A-level grades will be awarded this year is the lead story for several papers. The i says students have been given the right to choose, while the Daily Mail says pupils will be able to "pick your own exam results". The Times reports that the education secretary had been warned by Conservative MPs that he would face a rebellion if results in England were not seen to be fair. Elsewhere, the Daily Mirror leads with calls for government action to prevent mass unemployment due to the pandemic. And the Daily Star says "killer mozzies" have been lured to Britain by the current heatwave. Our paper review has more on this and other stories making Wednesday's papers.
 

BBC music reporter Mark Savage has been speaking to Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro about a "seismic disruption" in the band's inner circle and how the fall-out from that is reflected in their new song. And there's also an attempt to answer the question of how they got their name. Is it really to do with Sir Cliff Richard's favourite pen? And a nice glass of bubbles wouldn't go amiss on these warm summer evenings some of us have been having. But as BBC Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield reports, this seems to be the year when champagne lost its fizz.

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