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Andy Burnham will mark his first foreign visit as prime minister with a trip to Kyiv on Monday to reiterate the UK's support for Ukraine and honour the country's independence day.

The prime minister will chair his first meeting of the "coalition of the willing", set up by the UK and France under his predecessor, Sir Keir Starmer.

He is also set to accept an award on behalf of the British people recognising the UK's support for Ukraine and to take part in independence day events.

Burnham will be reaffirming the UK's backing for Kyiv in the wake of escalating Russian strikes on Ukraine in recent weeks - including one on a shopping centre on Friday that killed at least 16 people.

Ahead of Monday's visit, Burnham said: "On Ukraine's 35th anniversary of independence, the Ukrainian people should be in no doubt: the UK is behind you today and for as long as it takes.

"I am proud of the contribution our country has made to Ukraine and I want the Ukrainian people to hear it directly from me that our support will not waver. After all, Ukraine's security is our security."

He said the friendship Ukraine shared with the UK would "long outlast Russia's illegal war", adding: "Russia should be in no doubt of our resolve. We will not back down until there is a just and lasting peace."

It comes after Moscow warned of "consequences" over the use of British drones by Ukraine in its recent ramping up of strikes on Russian infrastructure.

Kyiv has stepped up long-range attacks on Moscow and other Russian regions, targeting oil refineries and warehouses of the country's largest online retailer, Wildberries.

The Russian embassy in the UK has accused Britain of "deliberately opting for an escalation of the Ukraine crisis", saying "the deeper its involvement in the conflict... the higher the price it will pay".

In response, Burnham said last week: "We are not fair-weather friends, we will be there in Ukraine's hour of need and that won't change."

Asked on Tuesday about the Russian threat, Burnham maintained the UK was "providing support so that Ukraine can defend itself and that's been the British position all the way through this conflict, by previous prime ministers - it remains the case with me".

Burnham is also set to announce that the government has agreed to allow defence company MBDA to declassify information on UK components for the long-range Scalp missile – the French equivalent of the UK's Storm Shadow.

Both missiles use shared British and French technology, and President Emmanuel Macron is looking at setting up local assembly lines for Scalp missiles in Ukraine.

Zelensky was the first foreign leader to be welcomed to Downing Street after Burnham became prime minister in July.

The visit comes as Russia confirmed its ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, had left his post in London in recent weeks.

The Kremlin is yet to put forward a replacement but Russia's embassy to the UK told the BBC it did not reflect an intention to downgrade diplomatic relations between the two nations.

Trump says Canada wants 'benefits' of being US state after trade talks collapse

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx272np7vgyo, today

US President Donald Trump has said Canada wants "the benefits of being a State, without being one" after trade talks between the two countries collapsed late on Friday.

In his first comments since negotiations broke down, triggering new 50% US tariffs on a range of Canadian goods, Trump also said American farmers had been charged "massive amounts of Tariffs" for years.

It comes after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called the fresh tariffs a "miscalculation" designed to "hurt and divide us".

Carney confirmed he would match Trump's tariffs "dollar-for-dollar" from 8 September, including levies on steel, dairy, appliances and electronics. The US and Canada are now in a trade "war", he said.

"They asked too much and they offered too little," Carney said on Saturday. "You're at war when you get attacked. We got attacked," he added.

Trump's latest comments echo his repeated references to making Canada the "51st state" of America since returning to office, sparking frustration among its leaders and residents.

The collapse of the trade talks upended a deeply integrated trading relationship, with no clear path to resolution.

"We cannot accept what they've offered, and we will not give what they've asked," Carney said.

Both countries were optimistic of a deal earlier in the week, but talks fell apart after both sides accused the other of making last-minute changes.

The new 50% US tariffs will apply to a range of Canadian goods, in addition to existing US tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminium, automobiles and lumber.

They are limited in scope, covering about $20bn (£15bn; C$28bn) of Canadian imports, or about 5% in total, including wine, dairy, cement, clothing and hockey equipment.

The prime minister said Canada was retaliating "reluctantly" to protect its interests. Details of the counter-measures will be released in the coming days, he said.

Leaders of other federal parties in Canada, including the Conservative opposition, voiced support for the prime minister, as have the leaders of some Canadian provinces.

Tariffs - a tax placed on imports from other countries - have been a key component of Trump's trade policy, with the US president arguing they will boost American manufacturing and create jobs at home.

Critics, however, say tariffs have raised prices for American consumers and have disrupted and damaged the global economy.

Carney's speech on Saturday was his first address to Canadians after he announced late on Friday night that a deal would not be reached, accusing the Americans of making "last-minute changes" that were "unfair" and "uneconomic".

US negotiators, meanwhile, accused Canada of making "new demands and walk backs" on terms which had been previously agreed.

On Saturday, US trade representative Jamieson Greer told Fox News there were no plans to resume talks.

He added that the US had been prepared to cut some of its tariffs on Canada as part of the ill-fated deal.

Carney, however, said the US presented "unacceptable" terms that were too restrictive, including curbing Canada's ability to strike new trade deals with other countries.

He also rejected the assertion that Canada had made last-minute requests: "We clarified what was on offer and were continually disappointed by the answers."

Doug Ford, the leader of Canada's most populous province Ontario, backed Carney and said Trump "can't be trusted".

British Columbia Premier David Eby said the US demand for restrictions on Canada's ability to have other trade deals "would reduce us to the economic equivalent of the 51st state".

"It was never acceptable to Canadians," Eby said.

The Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre also appeared to support Carney, calling the latest US levies "unjustified".

Quebec's premier, Christine Fréchette, warned jobs would likely be lost as a result of the new US tariffs.

"Behind these numbers are real people," she said, vowing to introduce measures to support impacted sectors.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, whose oil-rich province has worked to make inroads with the Trump administration, urged both sides to resume talks.

The collapse comes after more than a year of on-again, off-again trade talks, which intensified in recent weeks after a US-imposed deadline to strike a deal or face further tariffs.

The two countries were also engaged in a mandatory review of an existing North American free trade agreement, known as USMCA, with Mexico.

The pact was signed by Trump during his first term to replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. It underpins $1.6tn (£1.2tn) in annual trilateral trade across Canada, the US and Mexico.

Earlier this summer, Canada and Mexico had formally requested for USMCA to be renewed for another 16 years. The US, however, declined to renew it in its current form.

Asked how Friday's trade talk collapse would impact the North American free trade pact, Carney said it was "certainly not good news".

Zelensky has 'questions to answer' about corruption in his government, sacked minister says

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy4ypzvd7po, today

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has "questions to answer" about corruption in his government, his sacked defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov has told the BBC.

Fedorov, a popular minister who modernised the armed forces and pioneered drone warfare, was fired last month after reportedly falling out with the head of Ukraine's armed forces.

He told the BBC a money laundering investigation announced last week raised questions about Zelensky's awareness of potential corruption in his inner circle.

Fedorov also reiterated that "democracy should not be the hostage of Putin" - but stopped short of declaring his own political ambitions days after he posted a video calling for elections in Ukraine.

Supporters have protested on Kyiv's streets weekly since he was sacked, calling on the president to reinstate him.

Asked whether he missed his old job, the 35-year-old replied "No", citing the relentless stress of managing Ukraine's war with Russia while transforming its defence ministry.

The protests ended on Wednesday, after Fedorov's replacement was confirmed, hours after he posted a video on YouTube calling for political reform.

Ukraine has been under martial law since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, meaning elections are suspended.

But Fedorov said it was his "moral right" to start the conversation about elections.

"We should not be afraid of discussing it. That's what democracy is all about. If I cannot share my ideas and be open about them with my own society, then what are we fighting for?"

If elections were never held, he said, "then we are no longer a democracy".

In his earlier video statement Fedorov had argued that "people cannot endlessly live in a state where they do not understand why certain decisions are made".

He shied away from criticising the president directly and declined to answer whether he backs Zelensky to win any election.

Fedorov's video highlighting political corruption last week came on the same day a money laundering investigation was announced into lawmakers and bankers.

Ukraine's anti-corruption bureau said it had uncovered a scheme to misappropriate more than $3m (£2.2m) in Ukrainian currency to pay bail for a former energy minister accused of money laundering.

A senior official in Zelensky's office, alleged to be involved, was sacked.

Fedorov said the case raised questions about the president's awareness of potential corruption in his inner circle.

"Let him answer this question... I believe that he's ready for such questions. It's his responsibility to tell us all whether he was aware of all that or not... I don't want to make any assumptions."

A spokesperson for the president told BBC News: "Since the former minister was part of every government since 2019, it's strange that he phrases it as though these were somehow different governments without him. As everyone remembers, we didn't hear any strong statements from him back then."

Fedorov claimed he had rooted out elements of corruption from defence procurement but warned it was still affecting Ukraine's frontline capacity.

The former minister said he'd had no contact with the president for "a couple of weeks", and had no evidence the president was personally corrupt.

"In all the time that I worked with him, not a single time have I received from him any task or assignment that would go against law or my sense of integrity. So that's my personal experience with him."

As defense minister and previously digital transformation minister, Fedorov is credited with innovating to replace soldiers with an "army of drones", saving lives on the battlefield and enabling long-range Ukrainian strikes on Russian military targets, oil refineries and distribution warehouses - thousands of kilometres over the border.

He said he would continue to promote new ways to fight the war and confirmed a visit to the United States in the coming weeks, where he hopes to meet Elon Musk.

The billionaire businessman's Starlink satellite communications system has been key in Ukraine's success. Fedorov aims to convince Musk to extend the technology into Russian airspace to assist Ukrainian strikes, without the Kremlin benefiting from access.

"The best tech companies in the world are supporting us and they will be investing in our victory, in ending this war. And we need to stay in touch with them regardless of my position. I have a previous successful track record of working with them and I need to stay in touch with them for my country," he said.

Fedorov criticised bureaucracy in the UK and other countries supporting Ukraine for delays in supplying weapons.

The UK is a longstanding supporter of Ukraine, spending £16bn supplying weapons since the war began. It was confirmed last week that British-made drones have been used to attack Russian targets.

Fedorov said he was grateful for British support but blamed "bureaucracy and red tape" for delays in receiving promised equipment.

"Governments are lagging behind the realities on the ground. It's not only the issue for UK, but for other countries as well that announce some assistance and we are not getting it until the end of the year."

Fedorov urged direct funding of the latest Ukrainian drone production, in place of outdated skills and equipment from other nations: "We don't need repairs of tanks when we no longer use tanks."

He said timely deliveries would help save not just Ukrainian lives.

"Unfortunately, our losses, our blood, our military experience is beneficial to all of you guys. You can get this experience for all the assistance that you give us."

Fedorov denied having immediate political ambitions but didn't rule out a future run for president.

"It will all depend on how soon we'll be able to relaunch this democratic election process, [...] how much energy I would have, whether I will preserve my team, whether I will be able to respond to the question myself, whether I can handle this position of the president or not.

"What's more important, is whether people will tell me, yeah, we can trust you handling that position."

Guinea rubbish landfill collapse kills 30

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g3g36z7p6o, today

At least 30 people have been killed after a mound of rubbish at a major waste site collapsed on to nearby homes in Guinea's capital Conakry, the government has said.

Another 22 people were injured, including six seriously, in the city's Dar-es-Salam area.

"Significant" resources and personnel - including the military - have been deployed to search for survivors after the collapse at about 02:00 local time following heavy rain overnight, the government added in a statement.

One woman told local media her five children had died in the disaster. There are fears that the death toll will rise further.

Rescuers were later seen using excavators to comb through a mountain of scattered rubbish at the site as local residents gathered nearby.

Guinea's Prime Minister Mamadou Oury Bah visited the scene to assess the situation and oversee the search efforts.

Neighbourhood leader Lancine Sylla had earlier told the AFP news agency he feared there would be a heavy death toll.

"We have pulled out 18 bodies that were taken to the morgue," he said.

Another landslide at the site killed 10 people in 2017.

DR Congo and M23 rebels agree roadmap for peace talks

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cre4e1q3wewo, today

The Democratic Republic of Congo government and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group have agreed a roadmap for peace talks.

In a joint statement after five days of talks in Switzerland, they said they had pledged to "pursue negotiations towards comprehensive peace and conflict resolution" and set up a mechanism to monitor the ceasefire.

The roadmap sets out a timeline for talks under a US-brokered peace framework which they signed in 2025 - only for fighting to then continue in eastern DR Congo, which has been engulfed in conflict for decades.

But disagreements remain over issues including sanctions against M23, the release of detainees and the timing of political reforms.

The latest negotiations were attended by M23, the government of DR Congo, Qatar, the US, the Republic of Togo, the African Union Commission and host Switzerland.

"The parties agreed to establish a mechanism tasked with reviewing progress and addressing challenges in implementation of obligations and commitments under the Doha Framework Agreement," the statement added, referring to the 2025 deal.

They developed "sequenced steps and timelines" while also committing to "flexibility and creativity", the statement said.

They also agreed to implement a mechanism to monitor ceasefire violations. Its secretariat has been established and the first verification mission is due to take place on Monday in Minembwe, an area of South Kivu affected by fighting.

Fighting has continued in North and South Kivu despite repeated ceasefire commitments, with the government and M23 accusing each other of violations.

The conflict is closely linked to tensions between DR Congo and neighbouring Rwanda.

Rwanda says DR Congo has failed to dismantle the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an armed group that Kigali considers a security threat.

DR Congo denies supporting the FDLR and accuses Rwanda of backing M23 with troops and weapons.

In January 2025 the conflict got worse when the M23 seized parts of eastern DR Congo, including Goma and two airports.

Thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of civilians have been forced from their homes during the decades of fighting.

Eastern DR Congo is rich in coltan and other resources vital to the global electronics industries.

Rwanda has always denied supporting the M23, despite overwhelming evidence. It has always said its military presence in the region is defensive - and only there to counter threats posed by other armed groups.

Trump arrives at high-speed IndyCar race through Washington's streets

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0qvq24vlj4o, today

US President Donald Trump has arrived at the IndyCar race through the streets of Washington DC, which marks the culmination of a series of summer events to celebrate the country's 250th birthday.

The president and First Lady Melania Trump took a ceremonial lap of the 1.7-mile track in his presidential limousine, The Beast.

As they reached the finish line, Trump's new Air Force One completed a flyover above the capital.

The Freedom 250 Grand Prix is the first time professional road racing has been hosted in the capital.

With a maximum speed limit of 55mph (89kmh), Washington DC has the lowest speed limit in the United States.

But at 13:00 EST (18:00 BST) on Sunday, some of the world's fastest drivers will zoom past the capital's famous monuments and museums at speeds of up to 190mph (306kmh).

The 25 professional drivers competing in the event face 147 laps featuring seven crucial turns, making a total 250-mile course - a nod to the nation's anniversary.

The drivers will speed past the Washington Monument and museums on the National Mall, before passing a finish line with the US Capitol building in frame.

Similar to Formula 1, the IndyCar series is a road race featuring open-wheel, single-seater cars.

But unlike F1, where teams design and build their own cars, the engines in IndyCars come exclusively from Chevrolet or Honda.

Organisers of the Freedom 250 Grand Prix say about 140,000 people are expected to attend, with many given free general admission tickets through a lottery.

However, premium packages were selling on Saturday for around $3,600 for a pair of passes, according to the BBC's US partner CBS.

The event has been a huge logistical and security lift for the city, and has led to widespread road closures, manholes being bolted down, and road resurfacing.

The Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, which primarily runs domestic flights, has been under a three-hour airspace closure to accommodate the US military flyover.

In other events earlier this summer, Trump hosted an Ultimate Fighting Championship event on the White House lawn, as well as a fireworks show on 4 July.

Thousands struggling without power in Indiana 12 days after severe storms

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyly8vdpdwo, today

Nearly two weeks after a damaging storm struck her town in Indiana, Terry Dubois is one of tens of thousands of people still without power.

The 77-year-old has been relying on friends to bring her non-perishable food to eat.

Her son brought her a power bank so she can charge her phone and keep in touch with the outside world.

Thankfully, the summer heat hasn't been too punishing, Dubois said, meaning she has not missed her air conditioning too much.

"I've never seen a storm like that in my entire life. Never, never," she tells the BBC.

"It was like a sheer wall of wind," she recalls.

A wave of sudden, severe storms brought flooding and tornadoes to the US Midwest on 11 August, including to Chicago and Indiana, where seven people were killed.

The former industrial town of Gary, which runs along the southern shore of Lake Michigan, was hit particularly hard. Wind gusts peaked at 99mph (159kmh), according to the National Weather Service.

The worst of the storm only lasted five to 10 minutes, but the impacts are lingering 12 days later.

Power has been restored to more than 345,000 customers since the storm struck, but almost 30,000 were still without power as of Sunday morning, according to the area's electrical company Northern Indiana Public Service Company (Nipsco).

In the first few days after the storm, petrol stations, supermarkets and pharmacies were without power, leaving people to survive on what they had.

As the outage stretched into a second week, global food charity World Central Kitchen arrived to help people without access to food.

Power outages are not out of the ordinary for this part of the US. But outages that last more than a week are uncommon.

Once home to the world's largest steel mill, the former industrial heartland of Gary has felt the outage on many fronts. One third of its roughly 70,000 residents live in poverty, according to US Census data.

As well as dealing with storm-damaged properties, residents of the former industrial town have struggled to source food and maintain good hygiene.

There have also been reports of people unable to refrigerate medication and a wheelchair user crawling down their stairs in the absence of working lifts.

At night, some roads have been "pitch black" without working street lights, Gary resident Kyle Allen tells the BBC.

Allen has faced shorter power outages before, but this experience has been different as he has started caring for his 95-year-old father.

As a result, he bought a generator which has been sustaining him and his father since the power failed.

Shatiya Hardin, meanwhile, said the situation has been "absolutely horrible".

"At night we're sweating, we're irritable, we have children to look out for, elderly people who need electricity for oxygen tanks," she told the BBC's US partner CBS.

"It's not OK for us to continually be in survival mode."

Amid mounting frustration, local residents have launched a class-action lawsuit, accusing the utility company Nipsco of failing to manage the trees which brought down the power lines in the storm.

In the lawsuit, resident Jack Tipold said he was in the middle of dental surgery when the power failed.

He said he was forced to abandon the procedure and was discharged without adequate pain medication.

"I had all my teeth removed, and no medication for 48 hours. Let me tell you something, it was a struggle," he told CBS.

Nipsco has denied wrongdoing and said it would "vigorously" defend itself in court.

Faith leaders alarmed by the ongoing outage held a press conference on Saturday outside a local church.

"We come together today with one voice, asking those who have the power... to release the resources to our brothers and our sisters, our mothers and our fathers, because 12 days is long enough," he said, according to the Indianapolis Star.

Nipsco said on Sunday it was restoring power to everyone as soon as possible, and estimated Gary would have its electricity restored by Wednesday.

"We recognise how frustrating and difficult it is to be without power for an extended period," the company said in a statement.

Indiana's governor Mike Braun said on Sunday there was "no excuse for these delays".

He has requested a quicker major disaster declaration from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which would unlock further help.

With climate change making extreme weather more severe and frequent, such power outages are likely to become a more common problem.

In the meantime, Braun has pushed Nipsco to bring in more crews to get those without power back online: "Put every available resource into the field. Get creative."

Additional reporting by Brandon Drenon

Rumours swirled after a Vietnamese teen was run over - then came a stunning admission

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3ekgzwex05o, today

Until recently, there would have been little to distinguish Vietnam's so-called Justice Tree from the hundreds of others lining the streets of Hanoi. Then the bouquets started piling up.

It was here that former politician Nguyen Sy Cuong was driving his BMW in May last year when he veered into the opposite lane and smashed into a motorbike carrying a father and his teenage daughter.

The father, Do Viet Hung, suffered a broken leg but survived. The daughter, 18-year-old Do Ngoc Phuong Thuy, died in hospital 10 days after the collision which severed her right leg.

Fifteen months later, her death, and what many view as a suspicious silence surrounding it, has become a lightning rod for discontent among Vietnam's youth.

In early August, a legion of anonymous social media users started publishing millions of posts with the hashtags #NguyenSyCuong and #BMW across Facebook, Instagram, Threads and X. The users identified themselves as Gen Z – and they demanded accountability.

Initial discussions circled around whether the former politician was in fact the one who had caused the accident, and why authorities had only released sparse information.

Some pointed to reports that the driver of the BMW had the initials NSC and was born in 1961, leading to speculation that he was a former member of parliament. Others claimed the incident had been swept under the rug due to the influence of powerful figures. Many reported that their posts had been deleted by social media platforms at the request of the Vietnamese government – providing screenshots of notifications as evidence.

Expressions of outrage and calls for a proper investigation grew in number, volume and force.

Meanwhile, masked flower bearers started to appear, gravitating towards the scene of the incident and laying vibrant bouquets at the base of what has now been dubbed the Justice Tree. Police quickly arrived to get rid of the flowers, prompting mourners to create a virtual equivalent of the tree online - where hundreds of thousands of people have since sent tributes and paid respects.

Pressurised by more than a year's worth of growing suspicion and a rush of online attention, the issue had become too big to ignore.

Then, last Monday, the government made an extraordinary admission.

State broadcaster Vietnam Television (VTV) televised an official statement from authorities, confirming what had happened on the day of the incident. Former National Assembly deputy Nguyen Sy Cuong was indeed driving his car down Nguyen Huy Tu Street on 30 May, 2025, when his vehicle suddenly swerved across the road and into an oncoming motorcycle.

VTV cited police and prosecution sources who said that because Nguyen Sy Cuong "sincerely confessed and actively and fully remedied the consequences of his actions", Do Ngoc Phuong Thuy's family had submitted a petition to exempt him from prosecution. The report did not specify what form this remedy took, but Nguyen Sy Cuong was cleared of all criminal liability.

While such a decision is lawful under Vietnam's legislation, lawyers have questioned whether the criminal proceedings were conducted in accordance with due process – or conducted at all. Social media users have pointed out that Nguyen Sy Cuong is married to a minister in the ‌current government, suggesting the pair may have wielded their influence to cover up the story. Some users have also cited other examples, including several fatal traffic incidents, when the law appears to have been applied differently.

Such online pressure had yielded results in the past.

In March this year, a 66-year-old man driving under the influence of alcohol in Hanoi collided with seven other cars and three motorcycles in a chain-reaction crash that killed one woman and seriously injured two others.

In the wake of that incident, it emerged that the driver, Nguyen Van Sau, was a retired police colonel who had previously served as deputy director of a department under the Ministry of Public Security. Fearing that authorities were actively erasing culpability, the victim's family appealed for help. Social media users in turn amplified the issue, and after three months Nguyen Van Sau was charged with "violating regulations on participation in road traffic".

Many now feel that a similar groundswell may be the only way to deliver justice for the teenager who died last year. But their efforts have been met with friction.

Do Viet Hung, the teenager's father, appeared in VTV's broadcast to thank internet users for their sympathy, but said the family was satisfied with the investigation's findings, and asked people to leave them alone. Notably, he also warned people "not to be drawn into the influence of reactionary elements".

Also appearing in the broadcast was a senior police official, who similarly suggested that people were leveraging the incident to stoke dissent.

The Ministry of Public Security had "uncovered highly dangerous plots and intentions by hostile forces, reactionaries and bad actors to incite unrest and cause disorder", the official said.

"The ministry advises the public, especially young people, to remain fully alert and highly vigilant."

Similar rebukes have also started emerging on social media, with some claiming that conspiratorial forces were manipulating young people in Vietnam to stoke political discontent, manipulate public opinion online and rally people in real life ahead of the country's national holiday on 2 September.

Others have accused Gen Z Vietnamese of plotting a "colour revolution" – a term used to refer to mostly nonviolent protest movements that use specific colours or flowers as their symbol.

This is a familiar line of critique from Vietnamese authorities, who have previously labelled people's grievances or resentments as being untrue, unreasonable, or stemming from information fabricated by some "anti-government" or "reactionary" organisation.

Many in this case have said such accusations are baseless, insisting they are simply seeking justice for the victim of a fatal traffic accident. But the growing outrage has inevitably become a flashpoint amid broader, simmering grievances felt by Vietnam's youth.

Despite the Vietnamese government's tightening control over people's online freedom of expression – through measures ranging from intimidation and fines to criminal prosecution – public opinion in some corners has started to swerve against the Communist Party line.

On platforms such as Threads and Reddit, where anonymity is more normalised, many young people have expressed discontent towards various social issues: from the expansion of police power and land reclamation projects to exam cheating scandals and stricter regulation of online communication.

Such grievances echo those condemned by other Gen Z-led movements across the broader Asia region.

In countries like Bangladesh, India and Nepal, youth-led anti-government uprisings have over the past 12 months rallied immense support against the various pressure points of corruption, nepotism, economic inequality and democratic backsliding. Unofficially dubbed "the Asian Spring", the expanding influence of these movements has spread from Iran, Mongolia and the Maldives to the Philippines and Timor-Leste.

But protests in Vietnam have rarely, if ever, reached such fierce extremes. Vietnamese authorities have historically proven effective at detecting and stifling dissent before it boils over into action. Virtual places of mourning, anonymous social media posts, and online protests seem to be the most strident action many civilians here can afford to take.

Many are simply seeking justice for a teenager who was killed in a tragic accident, and accountability for a former lawmaker who appears to have been granted special clemency.

Yet even the mere suggestion that this incident could foment an uprising has provoked alarm – along with harsh reminders of the longstanding status quo in Vietnam's one-party state.

"Are these Gen Z kids planning a colour revolution using this accident?" reads one widely shared post. "Are they trying to emulate Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, and then create an Asian Spring? Remember, this is Vietnam! This is not Nepal, India, or Bangladesh!"

France links rise in drownings to heatwaves

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqlxlp4lx9yo, today

France has seen 301 drownings since 19 June, a government minister has said, linking the sharp rise in deaths compared to last year to the prolonged heatwaves.

Sports and Youth Minister Marina Ferrari told France Inter radio the number of deaths - a 14% hike on 2025 - was a "tragic toll".

France, Spain and Italy have been hit by heatwaves, which have triggered massive wildfires that scorched thousands of hectares of land.

Ferrari said people have been taking risks by going into the water, adding: "Many deadly accidents have occurred in areas that are not authorised or supervised for swimming."

She said a number of the drownings were recorded in "open water, in canals for example".

Ferrari said the government was working with regional authorities "to improve swimming areas and make things safer".

Speaking on Friday, she added that "many drownings, particularly among the elderly, occurred in individual pools".

The minister said that sudden immersion in colder water on a hot day could cause shock, and in some cases "people can also exceed their physical capabilities".

In June, Ferrari warned that too many people were trying to cool off in rivers and canals without necessarily taking the risks into account.

Climate change is driving up temperatures around the world - but particularly in Europe.

It is the fastest warming content, heating up twice as fast as the global average, according to the Copernicus climate service.

Dozens of co-ordinated arson attacks hit southern Thailand

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8enegx4xy3o, today

More than 50 co-ordinated arson and incendiary attacks "aimed at creating unrest" have been carried out across Thailand's insurgency-hit south, the Thai military has said.

Two people were injured, with a local government office building, a convenience store, and a stolen vehicle among the targets set on fire.

The incidents took place across the country's southern border provinces between 20:00 local time (13:00 GMT) and midnight on Saturday, the military's Internal Security Operations Command said in a statement.

Most were reported in Narathiwat province, with others occurring in neighbouring Yala and Pattani.

According to the Bangkok Post, two women were injured when a bomb exploded in Muang district in Narathiwat province.

Telecommunication towers were set on fire in several locations, and security officials warned residents not to touch suspicious objects.

Authorities imposed an overnight curfew in the Narathiwat province that was lifted on Sunday morning. No further attacks had been reported on Sunday.

No group has claimed responsibility for the arson attacks.

Since 2004, a low-level conflict has simmered in the southernmost provinces of Buddhist-majority Thailand, as rebels in the Muslim-majority region battle for greater autonomy. More than 7,000 people have been killed in the violence so far.

The insurgency is mainly led by the Barisan Revolusi Nasional.

Since talks facilitated by Malaysia began in 2013, the peace process has repeatedly stalled amid changing governments in Bangkok, with internal divisions on both sides.

In July, five soldiers were killed in a gun and bomb attack at a checkpoint in Narathiwat prompting the authorities to postpone a planned dialogue process.

Thai media report insurgents often target security officials and government buildings, sometimes ahead of visits by officials to the region.

Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and members of his cabinet are scheduled to make a two-day visit to the city of Hat Yai in southern Songkhla province next week to discuss investment projects, flooding prevention and security issues

Viral 'Cat in the Hat' TikTok trend sparks fun fake videos but also real fear

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyqy29jn74o, today

"He's so scary!" says 16-year-old Skye, recoiling at the mention of the Cat in the Hat.

Viral images purporting to show a life-sized version of the Dr Seuss character on the streets after dark have sparked fear and confusion among teenagers.

The posts, seen by millions, have convinced some young people that the character is real and that they might encounter it, prompting police forces in Ireland and the UK to issue statements confirming that the images and videos are fake.

"I was having a sleepover," Skye elaborates, "but everyone started watching Cat in the Hat videos. It was 3am. I wanted to go home. When I started walking down my friends' driveway, I got totally freaked out that the Cat in the Hat was going to jump out. I had to call my mum to pick me up."

A quick scroll through TikTok reveals numerous accounts, many of them created in the past few weeks, sharing photos and videos of an elusive black-and-white feline wearing the famous, towering, crooked red-and-white striped hat.

One post showing the original Cat in the Hat costume, accompanied by the caption "Help, what do I do?", has received 14.6m views in just three weeks.

The comments add to the sense of frenzy, with followers asking, "Why is he taxidermied?" Others zoom in on parts of the costume and post conspiracy theories about Mike Myers, who played the character in the 2003 film, being trapped inside.

Another popular account set up this week, posts videos of a real person dressed in a cat in the hat costume, dancing, with captions like "Kent I'm coming. lock your doors." Other users are sharing the videos, adding their own captions and locations across the UK.

Many of the AI generated images have been centred on the Irish counties of Limerick and Wexford, where shaky videos purportedly showed the character wandering through the streets, causing alarm and confusion among residents.

In Wexford, the local Gardaí (police force) quickly dismissed the sightings as fake and confirmed that the images had been generated using artificial intelligence.

That has not stopped the pictures and videos from spreading online - along with unverified claims posted without evidence that the Cat in the Hat has been involved in violent assaults.

"I low-key wanna go meet him…" says 14-year-old Lily, who heard that the Cat in the Hat had arranged a "meet and greet", inviting local TikTok followers to come to the woods in Galashiels, a small town in the Scottish Borders.

Her mother was horrified by the prospect.

"You are not going to meet anyone in the woods in the middle of the night!" she told her.

There is a point at which viral dancing videos and AI-generated clips of the Cat in the Hat become something potentially more sinister, with real-world consequences beyond their impact on teenage imaginations.

In England, South Yorkshire Police has denied social media claims that a 'killer Cat in the Hat' has been spotted. Posts about the alleged sightings have attracted hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok.

There is also a fake Facebook post claiming to be from Yorkshire Police - no force with that name actually exists - and suggesting that the force is taking the rumoured sighting seriously.

In response, a South Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: "If you do see posts online providing policing updates and advice, please check that they are from an official policing account. The cat is not out of the hat on this one… Please don't believe everything you read on social media."

As with so many trends driven by TikTok, comedic reaction and spoofery is what will be appearing right now on many people's For You page.

In recent days, depending largely on what your algorithm serves up, you may be seeing nearly as many people in Cat in the Hat costumes dancing to Beyonce as those stalking the streets. There are several jokey videos depicting police chasing human sized cats, and Scottish drag performer Ellie Diamond has issued a video declaring that she is not the Cat in the Hat killer.

And Irish TikTok star Garron Noone said on one post that it should have been obvious it was a hoax "because even the most soulless, evil, vicious monster" would be "traumatised looking in the window of a Wexford person".

Snapchat filters and images shared in group chats suggest that many teenagers - and those not so young - are simply having harmless fun with the trend.

But some do remain perturbed, including another teenager in the Scottish borders, 16-year-old Ellie, who says: "I was so scared of him when I was little," Ellie confides. "Now it's like he's actually come to life to haunt me."

A post on X that appears to have accelerated the current viral phenomenon appears to have been made on 8 August, by DiscussingFilm, when the pop culture site posted that the original costume was being auctioned off by Propstore.

The post has 10 million views. Comments describe it as "nightmare fuel" and "genuinely haunting", suggesting it had been pulled from a 'cursed attic'.

The lot is scheduled to be sold on Wednesday as part of an auction of 1,400 pieces of film and TV memorabilia and is predicted to fetch a price of up to $24,000 (£17,500).

Emily, a mother in Scotland, says the trend reminds her of the "Momo Challenge", a notorious internet hoax and digital urban legend. At the time, fact-checkers and authorities found no verified evidence linking the meme to children harming themselves, although the frightening images were still capable of causing distress.

"I'm not worried about my daughters, but there could be people with bad intentions who might take advantage of this trend to manipulate teenagers."

For now, the evidence points not to a real, roaming Cat in the Hat, but to a rapidly evolving online story built from an auctioned film costume, people in costume, AI-generated material and unverified posts.

Whether the claims began as a joke or were deliberately designed to frighten and manipulate, the advice from police is the same: pause before sharing, check the original source and date, look for confirmation from official police accounts, and treat invitations to meet strangers, especially at night or in isolated places, as a serious warning sign.

The rapidly evolving trend terrorising or tantalising teenagers on TikTok across the UK and Ireland is a reminder that online fear can quickly spill into the real world.

Additional reporting by John Hand

The hotel booking mix-up that could free mushroom murderer

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9w09dj7qk5o, yesterday

Last July, hundreds descended on Australia's Gippsland region from around the country for the most exciting event on the annual table tennis calendar.

But as elite players vied for medals at the national championships, one of the biggest criminal cases in the nation's history - that of mushroom murderer Erin Patterson - was unfolding just a few kilometres away.

This tournament inadvertently became part of a perfect storm which the triple killer's lawyers are now arguing "fatally undermined" the fairness of her trial.

The jury which condemned Patterson to prison were supposed to be isolated - sheltered from the frenzy surrounding the case while they deliberated.

But accommodation shortages in the region, exacerbated by the table tennis competition, meant they shared a hotel with members of the prosecution, a key police witness, and journalists.

Now Patterson's legal team is trying to overturn her convictions on appeal.

"The only proper remedy is... the order for a re-trial," Patterson's barrister Richard Edney said.

Towns overwhelmed by frenzy

When Patterson served her estranged husband's relatives a poisonous mushroom-laced lunch in 2023, killing three and gravely injuring another, she thrust the sleepy Gippsland region into the global spotlight.

The community of Korumburra, where the victims were beloved figures, became shrouded in grief. Leongatha, where Patterson lived, was gripped by shock. And Morwell, host of the lengthy trial, was overwhelmed by journalists, lawyers and spectators - as were towns nearby.

You couldn't walk down the main street without spotting some of the courtroom's stars, or grab a coffee without overhearing chatter about the case.

It was this frenzy from which the jury of 12 needed protection, the trial judge decided.

Jurors are required to consider only the evidence presented to them in court, and must only talk about the case among themselves. In Australia, these rules are so strict that discussion with outsiders is forbidden even after a trial wraps up.

To reduce the risk of contamination and the temptation of gossip, Justice Christopher Beale decided the jury should be sequestered once deliberations began - a relatively rare move which meant they would stay in supervised accommodation with little to no contact with the outside world until they reached a decision.

But finding the jury, and the jury keepers watching them, somewhere to sleep became something of a logistical nightmare.

As the trial dragged on, stays became longer than anyone anticipated and accommodation became a constant scramble.

And the week the table tennis tournament came to town - which by a stroke of bad luck was the one in which the jury finally retired - turned the accommodation drought into a famine.

Early morning email revelations

At 08:28 on Monday 7 July, an email from the judge's chambers popped into the inboxes of the lawyers in the case.

It revealed that the lead detective who investigated the murders - a key trial witness - and two prosecution solicitors had been staying at the same hotel as the sequestered jury.

The jurors had exclusive use of a separate floor of the hotel, the email said, and had eaten their meals in a conference room, away from all other guests.

Common areas like the lobby were used by everyone, but the jury keeper who reported the issue said there had been no interaction between his charges and anyone from the prosecution case.

"I understand that there is a shortage of accommodation in the district, but it is obviously undesirable," Justice Beale wrote.

About two hours later, the prosecution responded, admitting they had been aware of the situation for days.

The detective "took steps to avoid common areas from the point that he became aware that [the jurors] were there", their email read.

Upon learning their team would cross over with the jury for a single night, the prosecution had done its best to find other hotels for staff. But they couldn't get alternative rooms for two solicitors, though the email stressed the pair also took steps to avoid any "incidental contact".

However, another missive from the judge's chambers quickly overshadowed the hotel snafu that same afternoon: the jury had reached their verdicts.

They had found Patterson guilty on all counts.

'Most critical week of trial'

Patterson's lawyers are now arguing the hotel mix-up amounted to a "fundamental irregularity" which "fatally undermined" the integrity of the verdicts.

"We would describe... it as catastrophic," Patterson's appeal counsel, Edney, told Victoria's Court of Appeal this week.

"What occurred here was an inexplicable and perhaps still unexplained failure in the process."

The defence - which Edney pointed out had been kept in the dark several days longer than anyone else - didn't immediately move for a mistrial last July.

Instead, it twice asked the state's juries commissioner to investigate in the weeks following the verdicts. Both requests were rejected, the barrister said, and the reasons have not been made public.

A year on, there remains a "vacuum of evidence" around what occurred during "the most critical week" of the entire trial, Edney argued.

There is no CCTV from the hotel; no sworn statements from those who were sharing it with the jury - a group which also includes an unknown number of journalists; and nothing to say what happened except the two brief emails sent last July.

There was also at least one media report at the time - raised by Edney this week but rubbished by the prosecution lawyers as "unverified" and "seemingly inaccurate" - that the mix-up had led to "people hiding in doorways to avoid contact" and "skipping breakfast".

"My question is... so what?" Justice Peter Kidd bit back.

In any criminal trial, jurors see other parties all the time - in corridors, or even nearby cafes - but they're under the constant supervision of jury keepers who have sworn to ensure there's no improper communication, he said.

Edney conceded there was "no evidence" that the jurors had communicated with anyone else, but said innocent contact - even just seeing the detective or solicitors - could have resulted in "subconscious influence".

"This was a hotel with windows," Edney said several times - a likely thing for it to have, someone from the judge's bench countered.

Patterson's team cited two cases to support their argument: one in which jurors were discharged when one was offered a throat lozenge by a defendant's relative during a coughing fit, and another in which a retrial was ordered after jurors caught a taxi without being escorted by a jury keeper.

The prosecution's response was simple.

"The system worked as it was intended to work," Director of Public Prosecutions Brendan Kissane KC said.

The jury was constantly supervised, and when a potential problem was identified, steps were immediately taken to prevent it becoming an actual issue.

The jury keeper, the lead detective, and the prosecution all say there was no contact.

"The evidence in this case is that there was no interaction between any other person and the jury," he said.

Other cases the defence pointed to in which jury errors resulted in retrials all had evidence of actual contact, he noted.

"That's not the situation here."

Patterson has seven appeal grounds - the others relating to rulings on evidence and alleged unfairness by the prosecution - but this one, by the defence's own admission, is unprecedented.

Just as important as actual interference is the perception of interference, said Edney, quoting the trial judge's own speech as he selected jury members on the very first day of the trial.

"Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done."

The trio of judges are now deliberating on Patterson's appeal, as well as an argument by the prosecution that her parole period should be scrapped.

They will announce their decisions at a later date.

Carney faces crucial test after walking away from Trump's deal

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3040pn8lmmo, yesterday

The United States and Canada have entered into uncharted territory.

The longtime allies and economic partners, who have enjoyed free trade for decades, are now in an escalating trade war with no clear off ramp.

And for Prime Minister Mark Carney, the late night decision to suspend talks with President Donald Trump and to retaliate instead of agreeing to a deal that seemed in reach will be a significant political test.

He is one of the first world leaders to walk away from the negotiating table with the White House - and the outcome will be closely watched.

Both sides have blamed last-minute changes for torpedoing the tentative deal, with Carney saying the US "asked too much" and "offered too little".

Carney's decision will challenge the appetite among Canadians to accept some economic pain as Ottawa pushes for more US concessions.

After rejecting Trump's high pressure tactics, and in choosing to hit back against the latest duties, Carney will need to convince Canadians that the economic pain is worth the cost of standing up to the Trump administration in search of a better agreement in the long run.

In remarks on Saturday, he said "we take this step confident this is in the best interest of Canada" and accused the US of a "power play" by seeking eleventh-hour changes.

Asked by a reporter whether the US and Canada were locked in a trade war, he replied: "You're at war when you're attacked - we got attacked."

Switching to French, he said the spiralling trade dispute "wasn't our choice", adding: "Canada is strong, Canada is ready, Canada is united."

There is no doubt this will cause pain on both sides of the border, with business facing more pressure from US duties and Canadian counter-tariffs.

Canada sends about 70% of its exports to the US, and the country is the top trading partner for a number of US states, with Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio among the most exposed.

Carney came to power with a call for "elbows up" - an ice-hockey term for an aggressive approach - vowing to fight for Canada in the face of a Trump administration keen to exert economic pressure for its America First agenda.

Many Canadians have told pollsters that they are willing to fight.

A recent survey by Abacus Data suggested that around 36% of Canadians would support retaliating to US tariffs, while a Leger poll indicated that 56% of Canadians want the federal government to take a hard line and make no more concessions.

Canadians frustrated with the US tariffs have already chosen to avoid travelling there. The boycott has meant a loss of about C$3.3bn ($2.35bn; £1.75bn) in travel revenue for the US last year.

A decision by most provinces to remove US alcohol from store shelves has hammered that sector.

Based on US government trade data, US wine exports to Canada fell 78% year over year, a $357m loss in export value. The US distillers association reported similar numbers - saying provincial bans have caused exports of American spirits to drop by more than 70%.

The ban quickly became a point of frustration for the Trump administration.

Canada’s prime minister will also need to convince the provinces who have been less affected by the US trade dispute so far that walking away is a risk worth taking.

He briefed them on Saturday on the current state of affairs, and for now, they are showing a united front.

British Columbia Premier David Eby said he was committed to the "national project we are on", while Ontario Premier Doug Ford said "we didn't start this fight, but I can assure you, we're going to win this fight."

What went wrong?

For a week, it seemed that a deal between Washington and Ottawa was in reach.

It's still unclear exactly how the talks fell apart in the final hours, but by all accounts it came down to the wire.

Carney said that late US proposed terms "were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal".

He added on Saturday those terms included demands on the automobile sector and "unacceptable" restrictions on trade deals with other countries.

In one biting line, he said of the Trump administration: "We recognise sometimes its signature is written in pencil."

US trade representative Jamieson Greer, meanwhile, pointed to "new demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada".

In a statement on Friday, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States suggested "Canadian provinces' continued refusal to return US spirits products to store shelves has led to this outcome".

There were also reports by Canadian media that US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was unhappy with the deal. The BBC has contacted his office for comment.

And as details on an interim trade agreement with the US trickled out over last week, some provincial leaders, industry groups and political opponents raised concerns that the prime minister had not delivered on the fight he promised - though Carney denied that swayed his thinking.

Ford, usually one of the most vocal Canadian politicians on US tariffs, had been silent on the tentative deal all week. But in a letter sent to Carney, he raised concerns that an agreement under pressure would “embolden the United States to seek concession after concession".

The province, which has a large manufacturing and vehicle sector, has been among the hardest hit regions in this trade dispute.

Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre said that any agreement that included "one-sided" tariffs on Canadian industry would be "a bad deal".

On Saturday, he backed Carney's decision to walk away for now, saying: "Canada cannot accept one-sided tariffs that will de-industrialise our country."

The collapse of this agreement calls into question the future of such talks, including an ongoing review of the US-Mexico-Canada free trade pact.

Now Carney - and Canada - must wait to see how Trump responds.

Did a goat herder's lucky $200 nugget spark a gold rush in western Kenya?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyjmnvdr95o, yesterday

A goat herder from a remote area of western Kenya has told the BBC his discovery of a golden nugget has sparked a gold rush, overwhelming his small village over the last few weeks.

When people found out that 33-year-old Manasse Lomachar had sold his three grams of gold for 36,000 Kenyan shillings ($280; £205) several weeks ago, he believes this led to the arrival of thousands of prospectors in Cheporor.

And it is true that what last month was just bushland and rough grazing ground near the village is now scarred by pits, mounds of earth and makeshift mining camps.

It is not clear if was Lomachar's lucky find or other recent discoveries that sparked the excitement. But local authorities estimate that about 10,000 people arrived at the height of the rush.

Even a small amount of the precious metal can transform the futures of these men and women - from Kenya and neighbouring Uganda - many of whose precarious lives rest on an unreliable farming income.

People do sometimes pan for gold in these parts - but rarely find anything significant.

Lomachar's says his discovery came about purely by chance. While he was searching for a missing goat he encountered a group of women panning along a riverbed.

"I joined them, and that's how [the village] realised there was gold in this area," he says.

Farmer and herder Patrick Lokolia, from neighbouring Napawoi village, joined the gold rush hoping to earn some extra money to support his family.

"I have children in school, and paying school fees has been a big problem for me," he tells the BBC wearing an old Chelsea football top and standing amid the mining activity.

Eighteen-year-old Abigael Chelengat says she had never mined before coming to Cheporor from a nearby district, but arrived hoping to find enough gold to pay her school fees and help keep her younger siblings in school.

Behind her hundreds of people work side by side, hacking into the rocky ground with hoes and shovels.

Others carry the earth to a nearby seasonal river, where mostly women crouch in the murky water, washing and sifting mud and sand hoping to detect a tiny trace of the element.

Some of the more experienced miners are deep in holes excavating the earth and drilling at rocks with the same goal.

Hope is kept alive by stories of those for whom the effort has paid off - like Lomachar.

Samuel Kiarie, the deputy commissioner of West Pokot county, says he thinks the rush began after two notable discoveries.

"Young men found what appeared to be a substantial amount of gold. The following day, women made another significant find in the same area," he tells the BBC.

Kiarie explains that women have been finding small quantities of alluvial gold along the same seasonal riverbed for years, typically earning $8-$23 a week.

But the uncovering of larger quantities at the beginning of August is what caught the attention of many people.

Kiarie reckons as rumours spread, the number and size of the discoveries were exaggerated - drawing in ever larger groups of people with little or no mining experience who hoped to replicate the reported early successes.

Since the initial rush, the number of prospectors has gone down to around 2,500 as some have given up the search.

While there is little doubt that some gold has been found in the area, questions remain about the size of the deposit in the earth and its commercial potential.

"I can confirm that small-scale gold traders told us they received an average of about 100 people every day," the deputy commissioner says - though whether the finds were actually gold is not known.

Individual discoveries reportedly range from amounts worth a few hundred Kenyan shillings to one find valued at approximately 78,000 shillings ($600).

West Pokot county borders Uganda, and communities on both sides have long-standing social and family ties.

Mugisha Godfrey, an artisanal miner from Busia in eastern Uganda, travelled to Cheporor after hearing about the discovery from a friend.

He immediately set out for the village spending about 100,000 Ugandan shillings ($27) to get there.

However, the living conditions in Cheporor are not favourable, he says.

"We sleep under the trees, and when morning comes, we continue working. Sometimes we work both day and night," Godfrey tells the BBC.

So far, he has found nothing. But he is not discouraged.

"We can't return unless we find something. Only when we have found what we need can we go back home," he says.

For others, the gold rush has created opportunities without requiring them to dig.

More than 200 businesses have emerged around the site, according to local officials, selling food, water and other essentials to the village's new population.

Irene Ameja travelled from neighbouring Baringo county to cater to the crowds. She sells bottled water, soft drinks, bread, milk and other foodstuffs.

"I am hoping that when I leave, I will have made enough money to continue with my business and expand it," she says.

But the rapid growth of the settlement has also exposed the area's lack of basic services.

"This is a forest and we are in the middle of the mountains," she says. "We don't have clean water to drink or even to bathe."

For women, she adds, the challenges become greater after dark: "You have to find somewhere safe to stay because most of the people sleeping here are men."

Local officials admit the influx has placed enormous pressure on an area with little infrastructure, no piped water and limited sanitation.

Public health officials have been deployed to monitor conditions and help prevent disease outbreaks.

The authorities say they have also increased security patrols amid concerns over sexual violence and the vulnerability of women and girls at the site.

Officials are also worried that children could be drawn into mining activities as schools prepare to reopen in September.

Measures are being put in place to discourage young people from remaining at the site once the new school term begins.

Those still searching are increasingly turning to deeper excavation.

Several truckloads of material have already been transported to nearby Ortum town for processing, with the authorities awaiting the results.

Until then, the size and commercial viability of any mining remain uncertain.

For Lomachar, the answer is not to stop the mining, but to make it more organised.

He wants the government to help local miners establish safer and more effective ways of finding and extracting the gold.

"We would ask the government to help us with things like metal detectors, which could help us find out whether there are other minerals here, so that our community can develop," he says.

He points to the homes nearby as evidence of the area's poverty.

"If you look around, there are hardly any houses with iron-sheet roofs; most are just thatched houses."

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Drugs at their fingertips, intense pressure: Why child stars fall into addiction

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq56x3910jwo, 2 days ago

Hayden Panettiere was 16 when drugs first arrived in her life in Hollywood.

Ahead of a red carpet event for the hit series Heroes, she has said someone on her team handed her a pill to help amp up her energy. The hit sci-fi NBC series had catapulted the teen into a household name - and that brought with it intense pressure and exhaustion she says felt overwhelming.

"Within minutes, a wave of energy washed over me, like I'd just woken up from the most refreshing night's sleep of my life," Panettiere wrote about that pill in her memoir, which was released just months before her death.

She called it "the gateway drug that ushered me toward the good of pharmaceuticals and the downfall of addiction".

The star's sudden death at the age of 36 has placed a renewed focus on her struggles with mental health and substance abuse, and re-ignited a discussion about the pressures of Hollywood on child stars.

The coroner's office in Greenville, South Carolina said crews treated a woman in "cardiac arrest" and her autopsy showed "no signs of trauma".

No cause of death has been released, though additional tests are yet to be completed.

Audio from police dispatchers and crews who responded to the address said they were responding to a "cardiac arrest" and detailed their efforts to resuscitate the woman after a possible "overdose". Panettiere's ex boyfriend, Brian Hickerson - who has admitted to abusing her - and his brother Zack, were with Panettiere when emergency services came, according to a police report.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on their part, according to police.

It is not known if drugs or alcohol played a factor in her death, but the US Drug Enforcement Agency is joining an investigation into her death, according to US media reports.

Panettiere is one of many actors who has openly struggled with addiction after exposure to fame at an early age, which addiction experts told the BBC can put people at risk for mental health and substance abuse issues.

It can sometimes seem to the rest of the world that child actors have "everything" at their fingertips - like fame and money, said Lucas Trautman, the medical director of Oxford Treatment Center, an addiction treatment centre in Mississippi.

"But it's important to remember that they were also exposed during a developmental time to many adult aspects of life that the rest of us weren't - including traumatic experiences - and so that gives them unique risk factors for addiction," Trautman said.

Panettiere's death comes after she published a memoir where she discussed at length her issues with addiction, her postpartum depression and the loss of her 28-year-old brother.

Panettiere's decision to publicly share her struggles is worthy of respect, said William Moyers, the vice-president of public affairs for Hazelden Betty Ford, the largest nonprofit addiction treatment provider in the US. But he said the constant public scrutiny she faced may not have allowed her room to address her mental health in private.

"Her entire life from the beginning was centred in the intense public spotlight, and this didn't give Hayden much in the way of a respite," said Moyers, who has been in recovery from an addiction since 1989.

Trautman - who has treated child stars - said they often have "adult access" to drugs and alcohol without adult protection.

"We aren't equipped at a young age to be able to say no to it, to manage it, to correctly stay away from it altogether," he said.

Other child stars have talked about being exposed to drugs at an early age, including Drew Barrymore, who went to rehab at 12, and Demi Lovato, a Disney Channel star.

"I got into a car accident and they prescribed me opiates. My mum didn't think she would have to lock up the opiates from her 13-year-old daughter, but I was already drinking at that point," the singer told podcast Call Her Daddy in 2022.

Actress Michelle Rodriguez, who once hosted the World Music Awards with Panettiere, said this week that the number of child actors who had passed away at a young age was strange.

"I just can't stand how many young people are leaving us lately. It's disheartening, and it's making me think, 'What's going on?' It's not normal," she told Variety.

Panettiere's death comes just a year after the death of Michelle Trachtenberg and months after Daveigh Chase, two child stars who both struggled with drugs and alcohol.

In an essay she wrote after Panettiere's death, former Disney star Christy Carlson Romano compared early fame to a traumatic brain disease.

"[W]e have almost no language for what happens when stress, scrutiny, rejection, adult pressure, and the collapse of privacy become the architecture of a childhood," she wrote.

And when a child actor's career changes or comes to an end, they are left without the dopamine of fame and money that came with their identity as an actor, cautioned Trautman.

"At the same time many of them self medicated... so their brain is still reliant on that, and it's really really hard to stop using," he said.

Many child stars also have professional relationships with their parents, which can blur boundaries and leave them vulnerable, Trautman said.

In her book and in the media, Panettiere has discussed the pressure her mother placed on her to excel as an actress from an early age. She appeared in her first commercial when she was just 11-months-old.

"You always want to think the best of your parents and see them in the brightest light," the actress told the New York Times in May. "But there were a lot of things done with an approach that was not about my mental health or what was emotionally or mentally safe for me to do."

Substance abuse also puts people at risk for a host of medical conditions, including heart disease and liver and other organ damage.

Panettiere's brother, Jansen, died aged 28 from a heart condition, and Panettiere revealed in her book that her brother was using heroin and cocaine leading up to his death.

But after he died, the actress told People Magazine in 2024 she was committed to staying sober, telling the outlet her addiction was "in the rear view mirror".

She said in her book that at one point a doctor told her that if she did not stop drinking, she would be "dead within five years".

For Moyers and other substance abuse experts, addiction is a chronic illness, meaning that relapses still happen even while treatment saves lives.

"Living in recovery means doing the best we can, but doing it imperfectly," he said.

Syria says Israeli strike near Damascus violation of international law

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2dkdegr2xeo, yesterday

Syria has condemned an Israeli attack on the village of Beit Jinn, southwest of the country's capital Damascus, which officials said hit a civilian vehicle and left several people injured.

The attack was the second known Israeli strike on Syria in the past week, with Syria branding it a "violation" of its sovereignty and international law.

In a post on X, the Israeli military said it had targeted a "terrorist" in the "final stages" of preparing attacks which posed an immediate threat to soldiers.

The latest incident comes days after reports emerged Israel had struck a military airbase close to the Turkish border, which Syria said threatened to escalate tensions in the region.

After the earlier attack, Washington issued a rare rebuke of Israel, calling it an "unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability".

In an interview on Friday, the US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, suggested that the strike could be "the Israelis baiting the Turks" in an attempt to draw Turkey into a conflict ahead of upcoming Israeli elections.

Barrack's comments led Israel's far-right defence minister, Israel Katz, to describe his account as "full of inaccuracies".

Writing on X, Katz added Israeli forces were acting "in light of clear intelligence information about Turkey's intentions".

Following Tuesday's strikes on the Abu al-Duhur airbase, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu published a statement: "Israel and Syria agreed to a status quo in security matters, which Syria was on the verge of breaching by permitting Turkish troops to deploy at an airbase near Aleppo."

After the strike Turkey did not confirm whether any of its troops moved to the Abu al-Duhur airbase, which sits 70km from the Turkish border. However, Ankara rejected Israel's suggestion that it posed a threat.

Abu al-Duhur airbase has been out of service as a dedicated military airfield since 2013. Rebel forces seized control of the base as they swept through the country in December 2024.

Israel occupies territory in southwest Syria it seized after the fall of Bashar al-Assad in 2024.

Syria has been trying to rebuild its military facilities that were damaged during the offensive that saw Bashar al-Assad's government overthrown.

The Turkish military has provided assistance to Syria since the overthrow of Assad, while Israel continues to view both countries with deep suspicion.

Al-Sharaa has forged closer ties with the West since coming to power, particularly the US and in November 2025 he became the first Syrian leader to visit the White House.

'I didn't speak the Queen's English': Why people worry about their accents

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c05q318501yo, today

Growing up in Manchester, Mia Tanswell didn't give her accent much thought - until her first week at university in Loughborough.

"I knew people were going to notice that I was northern and that I didn't speak the 'Queen's English'," the 22-year-old says.

"Definitely in seminars I would sometimes feel like my accent would sound a bit less intellectual than other people, especially if I was the only northern student in the classroom."

She's not alone. Fresh polling seen by the BBC suggests many workers still see so-called "accent bias" as a problem.

The survey found one in 10 people in Britain feel anxious or self-conscious about their accent in high stakes professional settings such as speaking up in a business meeting.

The research, conducted by the organisation More in Common of more than 3,300 adults across England, Scotland and Wales, found accent-related anxiety in work settings like these was highest among Geordies - from the region around Newcastle - and those with an east London - or Cockney - accent (at 19%), followed by people with a Welsh accent (at 18%).

Around 5% of respondents believed their accent had cost them a promotion, pay rise or senior role. "Brummies" - people from Birmingham - were the most likely to feel this, at 13%.

Respondents with a West Country accent reported the highest rate of having their accent mocked or criticised by colleagues, at 15%, followed by 13% of those with a Geordie accent.

The poll was commissioned by Common Ground, an organisation which aims to promote social cohesion. Its founder, Lara Newman, has worked in construction, property and the built environment industry for more than 30 years, and says she changed her own accent to get ahead in the workplace.

"I am incredibly realistic about what would have happened had I gone to university or gone into the workplace with a strong west country accent," she says. "I felt like that was going to be an issue for me."

Common Ground aims to support people from disadvantaged backgrounds into work but she says one of the layers creating a barrier to them is accent.

"I think there is a problem in the sense that [an accent] implies a level of education or otherwise. It implies class," she says.

'I wish it was more Welsh'

Martha Powell, 24, from Newport in south Wales is proud of her accent.

"I love my accent, if anything I wish it was more Welsh," she says.

But she still fears people "make assumptions" based on her accent so at networking events she gravitates towards others with a Welsh accent.

"I wish I would be able to stand out a little bit more, but I think I adapt my accent depending on where I am in the country."

Softening an accent is common, the survey results suggest, with 13% of Britons polled admitting to changing the way they speak to sound more professional, with Cockneys and Scots more likely to do this.

A foreign, rather than a regional accent, can also be a barrier. When Benjaimin Aidomoan came to the UK four years ago from the Czech Republic aged 16, he didn't speak a word of English.

He picked up the language, but four years on says his accent has made job-hunting more difficult.

"You can just see on many people's faces, that the expression and the way they are looking at you and the way they are talking to you kind of changes," he says.

Benjaimin, who now works in a restaurant, believes most employers do look beyond accents.

"It's about who you are, how you present yourself, what is your attitude and how hard you're willing to work," he says.

'We don't judge'

Most employers would say that is at least their ambition, to treat applicants and employees equally, regardless of their accent.

Charlotte Davies, career expert at LinkedIn, says while there is still progress to be made "the direction of travel is encouraging".

"Hiring is increasingly about skills, not background or polish.

"Your accent is part of your story, and the workplaces getting this right, treat that as a strength, not something to smooth out," she says.

Sian Jackson, a partner at law firm Mills & Reeve, says her company has recently changed its approach to encourage more local hiring and a diversity of accents.

"We don't judge, we scrutinise based on capability beyond somebody's accent, or appearance. Like any other prejudice or bias it's about being conscious of it so you can then set it aside," she says.

"We feel we've come a long way as a firm, but we are behind nationally compared to things like gender, so there is more progress to be made on accents."

Man arrested travelling to France after fatal fire

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqlxlxy6z2no, today

A 34-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder following a fatal fire in west London.

The Met was called to a residential address on Berkeley Avenue, Hounslow, at about 01:15 BST on Wednesday following reports of the blaze. A 48-year-old woman died in hospital and eight others were injured.

Another woman, aged 40, remains in hospital in a life-threatening condition.

Officers from Kent Police arrested the man on Sunday while he was travelling to France by train. He remains in custody, the Metropolitan Police said.

Det Ch Insp Neil John, who is leading the investigation, said: "Our thoughts remain first and foremost with the victim's family and loved ones at this extremely difficult time, as well as everyone who has been injured.

"Our investigation is continuing at pace and we have arrested one man in connection with the incident.

"Detectives are continuing to build a full picture of the circumstances surrounding the incident and are pursuing a number of lines of enquiry."

The remaining seven other people who were injured - six men and one woman – have since been discharged from hospital after receiving treatment for minor injuries.

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'We're not going to run from it': Sydney Marathon laughs off medal error

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4n4l1yyvro, today

The organisers of Sydney Marathon have laughed off a mistake which saw a German stadium etched on to medals for participants, saying "we're not going to run from it".

Questions arose after the event's official social media account unveiled the design of this year's medal earlier in the week, which had mistakenly etched Allianz Arena, based in the German city of Munich, instead of Sydney's Allianz Stadium.

A spokesperson for the Sydney Marathon told the BBC: "A little too much international flavour has found its way onto the back of the finishers medal, with an incorrect depiction of the stadium."

It was "an unfortunate error," they added.

Recognisable Sydney landmarks feature on the double-sided medal, including the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, which are part of the 42.2km (26.2 mile) course.

Users on social media noticed the shape of the stadium engraved on the medal appeared to be carved in the wrong likeness.

Munich's Allianz Arena is sculpted by thousands of diamond-shaped inflatable cushions, while Sydney's similarly-named Allianz Stadium has a flatter façade smoothed with long bronze fins.

Sydney Marathon confirmed runners would receive the medal depicting the incorrect city's stadium, noting: "It's a beautiful medal, and now a little more unique".

"It's certainly given everyone something to talk about this weekend, mostly in good humour."

Germany's Allianz Arena also poked fun at the mistake, writing on Instagram: "Oh wow, we didn't have that on our bingo card!"

"Perhaps they tried to find something else they had in common: Allianz Arena -- Sydney Opera -- Unique Architecture -- Both are worth a visit!"

The reverse side of the Sydney Marathon medal shows a gold and indigo pattern designed by First Nations artist Ambrose Killian, widely commended for its ornate pattern.

He confirmed to the BBC that he was not involved designing the other face of the medal engraved with the wrong stadium.

Some 40,000 runners will take part in the event on 30 August, following more than 120,000 ballot entries.

Organisers praised record participation and fundraising at this year's event.

Why students are being paid £2,000 to play computer games

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz647wlvg1do, today

As parents across the country prepare to wave their children off to university, conversations about family finances and the cost of living are growing ever more frequent - and fervent.

Yet every year, millions of pounds worth of scholarships and bursary funding goes unclaimed by students - with many unaware the extra help exists.

So roll up the next generation of gamers, who this year can apply for as esports scholarship from the University of Roehampton - with more than 100 handed out so far.

But can the students balance their studies and their esports? And is the scholarship set to catch on?

Esports, meaning electronic sports, is the name for competitive video gaming.

It is different from standard video gaming as esports includes spectators, much like traditional sports.

Gamers compete against one another in high-stakes tournaments for cash prizes and trophies.

What's the scholarship about?

Roehampton is offering esports scholarships to undergraduate and postgraduate students who show that they can balance academic progress and video-gaming excellence.

"This scholarship is about recognising talent in a field that has a growing popularity both around the world and among our students," University of Roehampton registrar Mark Ellul said.

Scholars are expected to compete in weekly university tournaments as well as representing the university at in-person events.

Roehampton requires minimum rankings in major games for the scholarship, but will consider applications from those close to the threshold who meet other criteria, such as having large followings on streaming platforms like Twitch.

Former esports scholar Cameron Dray found out about Roehampton through the esports scholarship. Inspired by similar initiatives at American universities, he looked into whether anything similar was on offer in the UK.

Initially, the university was offering just £1,500, but due to the team's performance and rise in popularity, the amount was raised to £2,000.

"This money was crucial to me as it gave me the opportunity to study in a very expensive city without the need for part-time work," Dray said.

"There were requirements that came alongside the scholarship, but none that were unexpected or not transparent when applying," he added.

What to know about student finance

Dray encouraged students to make use of every scholarship, bursary and opportunity available to them.

He said: "Many of these funds are available to more students than they realise, and everyone should be taking full advantage."

The average graduate in England leaves university with debts of more than £47,500. Scholarships such as Roehampton's can reduce student debt and provide additional financial support.

Thomas Cole, an esports player nicknamed Pac who specialises in the racing game Trackmania, said universities offering unique scholarships, including esports, encourages students academically by reducing the level of financial stress they might face.

"Uni students being paid to play a game alongside doing their studies, it's definitely cracking. If I had gone to uni, I would have loved that," he says.

"If it doesn't let the academic side suffer, then I think being offered something like that really spurs on people to be better in gaming," he says.

Tom Allingham, student money expert from the Save the Student personal finance site, regularly advises incoming first years to seek out scholarships and learn more about what their university offers.

"Unfortunately, I don't think there is enough awareness on scholarships," he said.

"There is a lot of funding that goes unclaimed because students don't know that they're eligible for it," he added.

Save the Student helps share various scholarships and bursaries on their website.

"What we try to get across is you can get extra funding for so many different reasons."

Swedish sword attack victim was 17-year-old girl, police say

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8jnjp0lwlwo, today

The victim of a deadly sword attack at a high school in central Sweden was a 17-year-old girl, police have confirmed.

Two boys aged 12 and 17 were also seriously injured in the attack at Brinell School in Fagersta on Friday afternoon, according to local authorities, while a third person sustained minor injuries.

An 18-year-old man, who has not been named, was arrested and police said they were treating the case as murder and attempted murder.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and opposition leader Magdalena Andersson visited the school, where flower tributes have been laid to honour the victims, on Saturday morning.

Students at the school had only just returned to the classroom following the summer break when the deadly attack unfolded on Friday afternoon.

The police later confirmed they fired shots after being called to the scene but did not say whether the alleged attacker was hit before he was detained.

Sweden's public broadcaster reported that the suspect was wearing a helmet. Local media also said he was a former student.

The region went into a state of emergency on Friday, but it had ended by Saturday.

The school has just under 500 students on its roster, according to SVT, and is located 170km (105 miles) north-west of the capital, Stockholm.

Investigators have already carried out two house searches in connection with the suspect, police said.

On Friday, Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson described the attack as a "serious incident," and said "we do not know what lies behind the act, but we know that police are working very intensively", in a post on X.

Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf said he received the news "with dismay and sadness".

Cyber attack shuts down small power plant

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce9793g34yvo, today

A small power plant has been shut down during a cyber attack.

The government said that at no point was there a risk to the UK's energy system, but the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has contacted power companies to advise them about the risk of cyber attacks.

The Daily Telegraph reported that the attack, which took place last month, was carried out by hackers affiliated to the Iranian regime.

For security reasons, neither the government nor the National Cyber Security Centre, which deals with attacks on critical infrastructure, would give further details of the site affected. However this was not an attack on an essential service such as a large power station.

According to the Telegraph, the power plant was shut down for four days.

DESNZ said the incident had affected a small-scale generator and at no point had there been a risk to the wider energy system.

The UK's power network has a number of smaller gas generators which provide short-term power when needed.

Protecting the country's supplies is key challenge for the government. It is updating its regulations for cyber security, and working on a new energy resilience strategy for later this year.

Iran has long been regarded as a capable cyber power but while the Western cyber-security world is braced for attacks either from the state or hackers linked to the state as a result of its conflict with the US this year, there has been little activity so far.

PCs killed in A66 crash were heroes, say families

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gvgy3de37o, today

Two police officers who died when a car travelling the wrong way down a dual carriageway crashed into their vehicle have been hailed as heroes by their families.

PC Tom Clough, 38, and PC Matthew Blades, 37, died when a Volkswagen Passat, which officers had been pursuing until seconds before, collided with their marked armed response car on the A66 near Middlesbrough on Saturday.

The Passat's occupants Michael Robert Cahill, 23, Jacob Matusiak, 23, Theo Rae, 17, Makai Saddington, 18, and Cole Robert Worthy, 17, also died.

In tributes released by Cleveland Police, PC Clough's family said he was "willing to help anyone", while PC Blades' wife described him as "loved beyond words".

"No words will ever feel like the right words to honour our Matt," she said, adding he was a "beloved husband" and the "most devoted father" to their two young sons who would grow up knowing what an "incredible" dad he was.

"He gave his life in the line of duty, protecting and serving others with courage, dedication and selflessness," she said.

"The pain of losing him is beyond words, and our lives will never be the same.

"Neither will the love he gave us ever fade.

"He may have left this world committed to the duty he believed in, but his greatest legacy will always be the love he gave to his family."

She ended the tribute to her husband: "Forever loved. Forever missed. Forever our superhero. Our Matt and Dad."

PC Clough's family said he had a "fantastic sense of humour" and "jumped into action whenever needed", adding he was "our hero" and always "willing to help anyone for any reason".

They also said he "proudly fought for his country to make the world a better place" and was "always on public duty throughout his short life".

In other tributes, a man who knew PC Clough posted on social media he was a "true friend, fantastic soldier and I have no doubt even better police officer".

Seaton Carew FC, where PC Blades had recently become a coach and was preparing for his first season with its under-sevens team, said the officer and his family were "much loved members" of the club.

FC Hartlepool, where PC Blades had coached the under-10s team, said he was a "role model, mentor [and] friend" who the children "looked up to and admired".

"His kindness, patience, and infectious personality made him loved by all who had the privilege of knowing him," the club added.

Funds raised for families

Carmel College in Darlington, where PC Blades taught English before joining the police, said he was an "intelligent, kind an approachable teacher" who "gave generously of himself to the young people in his care".

On Sunday evening, more than £150,000 had been raised for the officers' families in an online fundraiser set by Cleveland Police Federation, who said the two officers had "paid the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty".

"They leave behind heartbroken loved ones who will struggle to come to terms with the loss of their loved one," the federation said, adding the organisation would support the families "at this unfathomable moment" with the money to be used "as they so wish".

Earlier a group of police officers laid floral tributes at the police cordon on Eston Road.

Some removed their hats and bowed their heads and took a brief moment of silence to remember their colleagues.

They spoke briefly to other officers at the scene before leaving, with some hugging each other as they walked away.

Local residents Elisia and Vincent Haarhoff also went to the scene to express their solidarity with the police.

"No family deserves that," Elisia said, adding: "God bless all the families, honestly.

"We wanted to come... [the police here have] always been so lovely."

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which is investigating the crash, said PC Clough and PC Blades were "in the area to assist in a search" for the Passat.

Cleveland Police had received reports linking the car, which was believed to be using cloned registration plates that activated an ANPR camera, to "numerous incidents", the watchdog said.

Officers were pursuing it for almost seven minutes before the Passat turned the wrong-way on to the A66, the IOPC spokesman said.

About 10 seconds later, at 03:39 BST, the car hit the officers' vehicle which was on the correct side of the dual carriageway, the IOPC said.

Security footage from a house on Lime Road in Middlesbrough appears to show a car being pursued by police vehicles three minutes before the crash.

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council said the section of A66 in South Bank between Eston Road and Normanby Road would remain closed until Monday while repairs were carried out on the carriageway.

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Father leaves 7-year-old son alone on Mount Fuji to continue hike

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93403wg288o, yesterday

A father has been reprimanded by police after leaving his son on Japan's highest mountain for several hours with just a soft drink and snack.

The seven-year-old was spotted sitting on a bench on Mount Fuji in foggy and rainy conditions, at a point situated at over 2,000m (6,500ft).

His father, 48, reportedly told him to "wait here" after the boy complained he was tired - and continued the climb with his elder son.

Staff at a mountain hut found the child near the sixth station of a hiking route towards the summit and alerted police. His father was tracked down between the route's seventh and eighth stations - said to be a three-hour hike away.

The boy was found on his own at 07:30 local time on Thursday (22:30 GMT).

Officers castigated his father when he returned from the higher station and reunited with his son, who is said to have been "tired and fussy" after eight hours of waiting.

"Even if it means having to give up on climbing the mountain together, leaving a child behind is unacceptable," one told him, according to Japan Today. He is said to have apologised for the "rash" decision.

The family was reported to have been on the Fujinomiya route, which starts from the fifth station on the mountain, a spot which is accessible by public transport.

From there it takes around five hours to reach the peak and a further three hours to get down, climbing guides suggest.

Mount Fuji, which stands at a height of 3,776m (12,389ft), has been the site of a number of climbing mishaps in recent years.

In July, a 99-year-old woman had to be rescued attempting the route after falling and hurting her hip and back.

And last year, a 27-year-old university student who went outside of official climbing season had to be rescued twice in four days - after he went back to look for his lost mobile phone.

Mount Fuji, an active volcano located south-west of Tokyo, was granted World Heritage status in 2013.

It is also one of three traditional "Holy Mountains" together with Mount Tate and Mount Haku.

Around 200,000 people climb it each year, but there are daily caps on some routes to avoid overcrowding.

TikTok to pay $400m to US in one of largest child privacy settlements

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyr0l45xjro, 2 days ago

TikTok has agreed to pay $400m (£293m) to the US to end a lawsuit alleging its platform violated children‘s privacy, marking one of the largest ever settlements over the issue.

The deal stems from a 2024 suit by the Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden alleging TikTok and its parent company ByteDance collected "vast amounts of data" on millions of users under the age of 13.

Doing so was against the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a federal law enacted in 2000. It is the same law that dozens of US states are now suing Meta over.

"Children and parents are better protected today than they were when this case began," assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said.

Other companies to have paid penalties to the US government for COPPA violations include Google's YouTube, which in 2019 paid $170m, and Epic Games, which in 2022 paid $275m.

Meta is also now facing penalties that could exceed hundreds of billions of dollars stemming from COPPA violations alleged by attorneys general of 29 US states. A jury trial in the lawsuit started this week, with the Instagram and Facebook owner accused of targeting child users and profiting from them.

While the TikTok lawsuit predates last year's split of TikTok's US business and operations from its original base of China, the settlement only involves TikTok's operations in China.

ByteDance, which is a privately held company, was most recently valued by investors at $550bn.

Under the terms of the deal, TikTok and ByteDance will immediately pay the DOJ $300m. It will pay another $100m when the government vacates a 2019 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission.

As part of the agreement, the predecessor to ByteDance, Musical.ly, was required to pay a $5.7m fine for COPPA violations and ensure it sought parental consent for any user aged under 13.

The justice department did not detail on Friday any action against TikTok beyond the fine. But the department noted that since it sued the platform, TikTok has "undergone significant changes," including to its ownership, privacy practices and platform controls for young users.

When the lawsuit was filed, attorneys for the US said there were more than 170 million teenagers using TikTok and that the app was "directed to children." Yet, it did not effectively gauge the age of users or get parental consent for use from those underage.

In 2024, former President Biden pushed for TikTok to be either banned, or have the company divest its US operations. President Donald Trump went on to support divestment of the app, which occurred last year.

Its US operations are now 81% owned by a consortium of investors, while Bytedance maintains a 19% stake.

A representative of TikTok did not respond to the BBC for comment.

These bookshops let Chinese readers question their country - now the doors are closing

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj0338l6yg4o, 2 days ago

When Chen Zhu heads to Hong Kong from mainland China every month, there's one place she always goes: Hunter Bookstore.

Founded four years ago by a former councillor, the independent bookshop has earned a reputation for stocking what authorities would consider sensitive books - from accounts of Hong Kong's pro-democracy campaigners, to famous allegories on authoritarianism, such as George Orwell's Animal Farm or Hajime Isayama's Manga series Attack on Titan.

It's a short journey from Zhu's home in Guangzhou on China's southern coast to the crowded street in Hong Kong's Sham Shui Po district, where Hunter is sandwiched between fabric sellers, garages and trendy cafes.

But, for the 23-year-old, it is also a passage into a different, freer world - where she can find answers to forbidden questions.

When she learned the bookshop had been raided by police in late June, Zhu broke into tears: "I was devastated."

Hong Kong saw a boom in independent bookshops after huge pro-democracy protests rocked the city in 2019. But it has been increasingly difficult for them to survive as China's control over the city has grown.

While Beijing defends its far-reaching National Security Law (NSL) as essential for stability, many Hong Kongers and rights groups argue it has crushed free speech. Thousands of locals, including activists and former lawmakers, have left in recent years, as tough new security laws have led to a slew of arrests and convictions.

When police searched Hunter Bookstore on 24 June, they accused owner Letitia Wong, 33, and a 32-year-old man, of violating those laws and arrested them for sedition and money laundering. They deny the charges and have since been released on bail.

In March, they arrested the owner of Book Punch, along with three employees on the same charges, and reportedly seized copies of a biography on Jimmy Lai, the jailed democracy campaigner.

On 15 July, when the annual Hong Kong Book Fair opened, national security police searched two more independent bookshops, Greenfield Bookstore and Have a Nice Stay, arresting five people for sedition. They, too, have been released on bail.

At the end of the month Greenfield posted on social media, saying: "Our store will be closing after our lease expires. Thank you for walking with us, through wind and rain, for 50 years since our opening." It was the third independent bookshop to shut within a month.

These bookshops have long had a loyal following not just in Hong Kong, but also among many mainland Chinese readers. Some like Zhu travel to the city in search of a single book.

For 19-year-old Li from Shanghai, who didn't give her first name, these are places where she "can see so many possibilities, and where existing ideas can be challenged". Others treasure them as spaces that offer a sense of freedom and community they feel is missing on the mainland.

Now they fear China is eroding that spirit in Hong Kong too.

When Zhu began university in 2021, she became increasingly curious about lesser-discussed chapters of Chinese history - such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, a taboo topic that has been scrubbed off the country's tightly controlled internet.

The massive student-led protests ended in a bloody army crackdown whose toll is still contested. Beijing said at the time that 200 civilians died, but according to de-classified UK diplomatic cables, at least 10,000 people were killed.

Zhu sought out films which touch on the era-defining event, but neither epic romance Summer Palace nor the secretly filmed gay drama Lan Yu could satisfy her curiosity.

She became set on tracking down The Unburned Book by Taiwanese poet Yang Du, a bittersweet reflection on protesters who later went into exile.

In 2023, as soon as the China-Hong Kong border reopened after the pandemic she made her way to Hong Kong to find it.

This was when the city's independent bookshops were taking off. People were sharing walking routes online, complete with neighbourhood guides and curated recommendations.

In bustling Mong Kok there was Luck Win, known for its generous discounts, and Greenfield, with its packed floor-to-ceiling shelves. A short walk away were the cosy Have a Nice Stay, founded by former journalists, which held popular late-night reading sessions, and Elmbook, whose cramped but beloved shelves made regulars feel like they were on a treasure hunt.

Then there was Book Punch on trendy Tai Nan Street, with a collection as defiant as its motto, "one punch to wake the reader", and the food lovers' favourite, Word by Word in historic Wan Chai, and, of course, Hunter, with a sofa outside where passers-by can take a break.

That's where Zhu found The Unburned Book. She had tried - and failed - in other stores, so she was surprised when she finally spotted it.

Hong Kong, once a refuge for those fleeing China post 1989, commemorated the killings every year with a vigil. They gradually disappeared as the new laws targeted political gatherings.

Still, when Chris, 20, whose name we have changed, travelled to Hong Kong in early June, he found that one bookstore was displaying relevant books, white candles and rolls of masking tape printed with the Roman numerals "VI-IV" - 6-4, a coded way of representing the 4 June anniversary.

These young people may not be from Hong Kong, but they describe feeling a deep sense of belonging in these bookshops: politically vibrant spaces that engage with the history their governments would rather they forget.

But it's more than just about the books.

Li visited Hong Kong during the Lunar New Year earlier this year, months after a massive apartment blaze in the north-eastern Tai Po district claimed 168 lives.

At Hunter Bookstore, she discovered a wall covered in black sticky notes, where visitors had left messages of encouragement for those affected by the tragedy.

Li says this sense of community is difficult to find in mainland China. She says while they have message boards there too, they wouldn't be focused on solidarity with victims of one particular incident, perhaps because authorities are wary of any outpouring of public sentiment. "People can only express themselves indirectly," Li says.

She was equally struck by another small detail: handwritten notes left by staff alongside the books. Using sticky notes, booksellers had shared reflections on books they had read or highlighted passages they found particularly meaningful. It's not something she had ever seen back home.

Zhu experiences something similar. "We all love books. We all value independent bookshops. That's why we choose to buy books here."

She rarely speaks to strangers while browsing, but she never feels like an outsider. The books and events the shops host give her the feeling she's escaped to somewhere with "at least a little freedom of expression".

"You've left mainland China behind. Of course, you know [this] freedom has its limits. But it's still better than not being able to say anything at all."

But now Zhu can sense this freedom being curtailed.

She says she finds herself encountering authorities more often in Hong Kong than in mainland China. At one bookshop event, she recalls government officials entering the premises. "They just sat there listening alongside us."

Increasing raids have not only targeted explicitly political shops, according to a bookseller who asked not to be identified because of possible repercussions.

"Luck Win Bookstore and Elmbook have always kept a very low profile," the bookseller says.

"They rarely make public statements or organise events. I genuinely can't think of anything they could have done to offend the government."

In the weeks leading up to this year's book fair, both shops were criticised in Wen Wei Po, a newspaper controlled by Beijing's liaison authorities in Hong Kong.

The paper accused them of selling books promoting "soft resistance". This included The Hong Kong Diaries by the last governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, before the city returned to Chinese rule, and 300 Short Essays by late Apple Daily columnist Lee Yee. The newspaper was shuttered and several senior staff, including its owner Jimmy Lai, were jailed for violating the new security laws.

"The authorities don't want people to know exactly where the boundaries are," says Tong Kin-long of University College London. "They want people to work out the red lines for themselves, or to censor themselves before crossing them."

Watching these changes unfold in Hong Kong has felt strangely familiar to a man we are calling K, in his 30s from Sichuan.

He remembers a time when mainland China's bookshops were also vibrant spaces for public discussion. Liberal books and magazines would be prominently displayed. Bookshops regularly hosted talks and discussions. But around 2015, he began to notice a gradual tightening.

At first it was books about the country's leaders. But then less obviously sensitive books started disappearing. Public events became less frequent, and the atmosphere changed.

Zhu has a friend who currently runs a bookshop in Guangzhou. She says police occasionally visit the shop to harass the bookseller. During film screenings organised by the bookshop, the electricity has even been cut off.

"Hong Kong," she says, "should be a freer place".

Still, mainland Chinese readers are keen on bringing books home from Hong Kong, even though customs authorities can confiscate those they deem harmful to national sovereignty, security or unity.

K feels anxious every time he returns from Hong Kong. He chooses busier border crossings, avoids books prominently featuring politically sensitive figures and has hidden books inside his clothes, or deep in his luggage.

But that is no longer his only worry. "In the past, people would simply think, 'If I can't buy a book in mainland China, I'll go to Hong Kong'. Now the feeling is different. You don't even know which bookshops will still be here the next time you come."

A week after learning it had been excluded from the Hong Kong Book Fair, Elmbook announced it would close its physical shop in April next year. Soon afterwards, Have A Nice Stay said it would close at the end of August, citing economic difficulties and unpredictable "red lines" over what material was considered problematic.

Many within Hong Kong's bookselling industry have grown pessimistic. Some believe things will only get worse before they get better.

But readers are not powerless, an industry insider says. "We can still buy books. We can still read. And we can still read a great many books."

Chris was frightened after hearing about the arrests at Hunter Bookstore, but he says he will keep going.

"Buying a book has become a quiet way of showing support, and a quiet form of resistance."

New Tata boss to face formidable challenges

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20drryz7nvo, today

The shock resignation of Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran earlier this month has left corporate India's top job vacant. But finding his successor will be no easy task for the country's most revered conglomerate, whose sprawling $300bn empire spans Jaguar Land Rover and Air India as well as manufacturing iPhones for Apple.

Chandrasekaran resigned amid a deadlock over his reappointment and a widening rift with Tata Trusts - the charity arm which owns controlling shares of the unlisted commercial holding company.

The disagreements are said to have centred over a public listing of Tata Sons as well as capital allocation for the group's various new unlisted businesses, including semiconductors, e-commerce and aviation, all of which are bleeding money.

The group has been in the middle of the largest ever capital investment cycle, with tens of billions of dollars being deployed on everything from building India's first chip fabrication plant to manufacturing EV batteries and turning around Air India, which the Tatas bought from the government in 2022.

The new person at the helm will need to have an ability to assess and absorb the risks that have come with this breakneck expansion as well as rise up to numerous other challenges, Hetal Dalal from Institutional Investor Advisor Services (IiAS), a governance advisory firm, told the BBC.

"It is an incredibly difficult role not just for the individual who will get it but also for the selection committee to find someone. It requires a multitude of skillsets and experience from managing the Tata Trusts to the Tata Sons board, understanding various new businesses and being able to also have strong relationships with regulators and the government," Dalal said.

"There aren't many people running such large, diversified conglomerates. And will they leave their current roles to join the Tata Group?"

The complexity of the role has risen in recent years as the "collective losses of the new businesses are more than the cashflow generated by older companies like TCS, the group's software arm whose business model has been challenged by AI”, Nirmalya Kumar, who previously headed strategy at Tata Sons, told the BBC.

TCS has been the group's cash cow, contributing to some 85% of cash flows, but is no longer the pillar of support it once was.

According to Dalal, even though losses at privately held companies have mounted, the performance of publicly traded, CEO-run Tata companies has been strong.

The group has a good bench strength of internal candidates who could throw their hats in the ring. Yet, finding a candidate who's a straight "plug and play fit" will be difficult, she says.

"I think any person who comes in will have a set of skills and experience, but must be also groomed for the role."

Kumar, on the other hand, isn't convinced the internal names doing the rounds will fit the bill.

"The people internally are good executors of existing business models. Companies like Tata Steel and Tata Motors are almost running on auto-pilot with a CEO in charge. The new chairman will have to understand new business models of the four unlisted businesses that are losing money," he said.

For investors, the resignation is likely to usher in a period of prolonged uncertainty.

New leadership will bring a change in strategic direction at the group in terms of how a new chairman approaches the ambitious expansion Chandrasekharan undertook, say experts.

"Some of the bleeding businesses will need a strategic plan to be made profitable. [The new person] will need to decide whether to scale back or exit some investments," says Dalal.

Kumar says they will also need to communicate a clear plan to the market on how much further investment is needed and when a break-even is expected on these ambitious bets.

But most importantly, he adds, the focus will have to be on "driving alignment between the Trusts [the dominant shareholder] and Tata Sons".

The group's most successful run was under JRD Tata and Ratan Tata, when the relationship between the biggest shareholder and the operating company was frictionless as they were at the helm of both entities.

It broke down under Cyrus Mistry when there was a separation of the roles. Chandrasekharan's exit is the second instance where the chairman has resigned because of the rocky relationship with the Trusts.

The fact that the principal shareholder was not aligned on business strategy was perhaps a fundamental problem in the relationship breaking down, Mukund Rajan, former brand custodian at Tata Sons, told India Today news channel.

"You cannot have companies being run where the majority shareholder is either feeling ignored or not aligned with the way the company will be run going forward," Rajan said.

Repairing this relationship will have to be a key priority for whoever is next in the driving seat.

For now, the ongoing turmoil has dented the group's brand image, say experts.

Clear communication has been a major challenge with the Tatas, which does not bode well for the public markets, according to Dalal. While the holding company can argue that it is not publicly traded, what happens there has a direct impact on shareholders of the listed Tata universe, she adds.

"The priority should not be the volume of communication but about reducing uncertainty," Minari Shah, a communications advisor who previously worked with Tata Motors, told the BBC.

"That means demonstrating that governance mechanisms are working, reassuring stakeholders that business continuity is unaffected and providing clarity around the process for leadership transition. It is okay not to have all the answers immediately, as long as stakeholders have confidence that the disagreeing parties are in dialogue."

As of now, nearly two weeks after Chandrasekharan's resignation there have been no detailed public statements on either a succession roadmap, or the way ahead from either Tata Sons or Tata Trusts.

The former's annual general meeting also had to be adjourned because of a lack of quorum, leaving several governance and succession related decisions under a cloud at exactly the moment when shareholders of India's most iconic company will be looking for the greatest clarity.

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'I lost $14,000 in a month': Investors hit by Korean stock market's wild swings

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2k7zj4knwlo, 10 days ago

Bank worker Yongjoon Kim lost 20 million Korean won ($14,000; £10,500) on the South Korean stock market last month.

Kim's money was meant to help buy a home, as he is getting married later this year.

Instead the value of his tech investments slumped by around 25% in July.

"It's going to sting and I'm going to have to work really hard to make up for this," Kim says. "But for others who have taken more risk, they're going to feel the pain."

Many of his friends are worse off, and now in a "desperate" situation after "going all in" with their savings, he says.

While plenty of investors are piling into technology stocks, sharp market swings mean the bets don't always pay off, with prices often moving on every major headline.

Nowhere is that instability more pronounced than in South Korea's tech-heavy Kospi, widely regarded as the world's most volatile stock index.

A global frenzy around artificial intelligence has driven wild swings in the value of the country's biggest chipmakers.

The Kospi faced "one of the sharpest corrections" in its history between June and August, comparable to the drops seen during Covid-19 and the 1997 Asian financial crisis, says Wee Khoon Chong from financial services company BNY.

The index more than doubled its value since the start of the year to rise above 9,000 points in mid-June, before plunging to 5,500 within a few weeks. It has now recovered some ground to about 6,800 points.

A key reason for the sell-off in recent weeks has been concerns over the huge amounts of money being spent on AI, Chong adds.

The slump has had a big impact on many of the country's personal investors who bought tech stocks over the past year.

For Woongsa Kim, a look at his shares trading app is a painful reminder of what he had made then lost by investing in the South Korean stock market.

At the start of the year, he used about half of a bonus from work to buy shares in tech giant SK Hynix.

The stock quadrupled in value before most of those gains were wiped out, leaving his investment, now worth about 300 million won, at roughly half the value of its peak.

"Thinking about it just brings tears to my eyes," Kim told the BBC.

The sell-off came after tech shares had soared for months, "generating the extreme euphoria" that has moved some personal investors to take out loans to invest, says investment analyst Tobias Reger.

It has been most acutely felt by people who used leverage - a form of borrowing in the financial markets.

Leveraging lets an investor control a larger number of stocks than their own cash would otherwise allow, which delivers a bigger profit if the shares rise.

However, if the stocks fall past an agreed level it can trigger what is known as a margin call - when a broker demands payment of the debt.

By the end of July an estimated 1.2 million South Korean personal investor accounts had faced margin calls, equivalent to about one in every 30 working-age adults in the country.

Leveraged trading is a growing trend among personal investors that has also picked up in markets like Taiwan and the US, says Frank Benzimra, the head of Asia equity strategy at financial services group Societe Generale.

That has raised the risks around AI-related stocks, he adds.

'Gut-wrenching' slump

After his US-listed Nvidia shares soared by more than 1,000%, Chanyong Park, who works in marketing, says he put most of the profits into SK Hynix shares. But that bet went sour as their value has fallen by around $10,000.

"This was money I'd invested to save before planning to leave my job around October to start my own business. But now I'm seriously wondering whether I'll have enough."

Park plans to hold on to his SK Hynix shares in hopes of a rebound, although recent swings have made him hesitant to invest more.

"It doesn't always feel like movements are driven by rational reasons - sometimes it still feels a lot like gambling," he says.

Another investor Youngji Park says he went "all in", putting the majority of his available cash into Samsung shares that peaked at a total value of 45 million Korean won.

But his investment has suffered a "gut-wrenching" slump, Park says.

He too plans to keep hold of his shares in the hope that they will rise again.

"I feel like a fool for trusting the Korean stock market," he says. "It's a long-term game now. I'll just have to wait it out."

College student Soomin Yi says she pooled money with a friend to invest in SK Hynix after experiencing "fomo" (fear of missing out).

But she now wishes she had sold her shares in the company when they peaked at three million won each in June, instead of buying into speculation that they would rise to five million won.

"We didn't really have anyone around us who is experienced in investing, and we did not study investing seriously before buying the stock," Yi says.

What this means for the rest of the world

The huge swings in Korean shares are also raising concerns about some other markets around the world.

Tech-heavy indexes like Japan's Nikkei 225 seem to be moving in tandem with the Kospi's wild swings, Societe Generale's Benzimra says.

But the majority of the world's stock markets are unlikely to see that level of violent moves as they include a wider mix of companies, he adds.

"I don't think we can see the same kind of volatility in large diversified markets such as the [Tokyo Stock Price Index] or the US equity markets," Benzimra says.

And traders who diversified their portfolios say it has helped cushion the blow from the stock market rout.

"I think this whole episode is a warning to Korean investors, especially young investors, not to put everything in one basket and hope for the best," says Yongjoon Kim, who also has shares in overseas markets.

He adds that he should have taken a more cautious approach to investing in tech stocks.

His fiancée, Gaeon Lee, is optimistic that the market will recover despite losing part of the savings they had set aside for a new home.

But she worries about Kim, saying the constant need to monitor their investments has taken a toll on him.

"Seeing our home savings take a hit in the stock market was definitely a wake-up call," she says.

Additional reporting by Sangmi Han, Suhnwook Lee and Yijin Sim

Why Japanese firms are being so slow to use AI

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwymw4434v7o, 11 days ago

Facing acute labour shortages, ageing demographics and chronic productivity problems, Japanese companies should be fertile ground for the take-up of artificial intelligence (AI). Yet, compared with the US and UK, adoption in many workplaces remains sluggish and cautious.

Japan's response to AI is beginning to resemble one of the country's slow-moving, traditional Noh plays.

All the masked characters up on stage agree that action is urgent, and the call is repeated with solemn agreement. Yet the actors remain frozen in place.

Great for heightening drama, terrible for addressing the country's immediate difficulties.

Data showing the use of AI in the workplace suggests that Japan has fallen behind. Just 8.4% of Japanese workers use AI as part of their job, according to a report at the end of last year by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

By contrast, separate statistics puts the US figure at 50%, and the UK at 32%. In Singapore, which is said to have seen the second-highest take up of AI after the United Arab Emirates, and the most in Asia, 56% of workers are said to use AI "multiple times a week".

So why is Japan dragging its feet? Austin Xu, co-founder of US start-up Kuse AI, says it is due to Japanese companies being conservative and risk adverse. His business recently set up an office in Japan to sell its AI systems to firms in the country.

"There are organisations where process and consensus culture genuinely slow things down," he says. "Where tolerance for AI mistakes is close to zero, especially in anything client facing. Some would rather leave a role unfilled than let a machine handle it."

Xu says the situation in the US is very different, with some businesses already allowing AI agents far more freedom to boost productivity. "In the US, AI colleagues enter as helpers and gradually become part of the workflow. The attitude [of US bosses] is often - let it try, then correct it."

He adds that Japanese companies need more proof before they trust AI enough to use it.

Parrisa Haghirian, professor of international management at the Kyoto University of Advanced Science, agrees that many Japanese companies are too risk adverse to look at AI.

"The challenges of adopting it are the same as adopting any change in Japanese firms. This is why AI use is still quite limited and cautious, especially in the workplace."

Haghirian also contrasts this with the more entrepreneurial culture of the US, arguing that Japanese firms are highly sensitive to error, uncertainty and reputational risk.

"Since generative AI is still not fully reliable, it is mainly used [in Japan] for low-risk tasks such as writing, summarising, or information gathering, but much less for core operations or decision-making and for improving overall processes," she says.

Japan's healthcare sector is said to be particularly slow to look at AI, with some hospitals yet to even fully digitalise patient files. "Paper documents accumulate at a staggering scale," says one employee at a Japanese hospital, who asked not to be named. "It's like the Stone Age."

The Japanese government is aware of the wider problem of low AI adoption, and is trying to get more companies to take up the technology. Last year its AI Promotion Act was passed by the country's parliament.

This aims to use light-touch regulation to encourage businesses to invest more in AI. Tokyo pledges that Japan will become "the world's most-friendly country for developing and utilizing AI".

The government believes that the increased use of AI can help Japan improve its productivity. Currently it continues to have the worst level in the G7 group of advanced nations.

Japan's Ministry of Finance says that AI adoption by businesses has already increased substantially, with 75% of companies now using the technology, up from 11% five years ago.

However, critics argue that at each of these businesses only a tiny proportion of staff are actually using the AI, and that those who do so are only using it to a very limited extent.

Prof Yasushi Ogasawara, an expert on Japan's social system and technology at Meiji University, says there aren't enough tech-savvy people in the workforce.

"Although the Japanese like playing with gadgets such as smartphones, digital literacy is low here," he says.

This is highlighted by one report earlier this year which said Japan faced a shortfall of almost 800,000 IT professionals by 2030.

Many companies are also said to struggle with out-of-date computer systems, with around 60% more than 20-years-old.

Moreover, Ogasawara adds that Japanese companies are under more pressure to avoid fuelling unemployment than they are to develop AI which could result in job losses.

"The government is talking about AI, re-skilling, digital skills, but in reality, it is difficult to adapt human resources to digital skills because the top priority is to maintain full employment," he says.

But there is a shift in recruitment, with some companies now prioritising "AI literacy" in their new graduate hiring.

In the private sector, larger firms such as Kanematsu, a major general trading company, are hiring savvy graduates such as Uta Yamaguchi who joined in April.

"I use AI quite often at work," she says. "Many of my colleagues use it a lot. For writing emails for my boss, summarising complicated documents, meeting recording and summarising."

But, by contrast with the US, she says AI systems that can autonomously handle multi-step work are still virtually unheard of in Japan.

However, her employer, known for its forward thinking, now has them onboard.

Ogasawara says that "change in Japan is limited". He adds: "Japanese society expects painless reform, so I think it can be said that drastic reform is difficult, to say the least."

Disruption may be a dirty word in Japan, but without it the productivity gains the country needs could remain elusive.

How landscape gardening is being electrified

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpq3w3v19veo, 3 days ago

Part of the soundtrack to a day in southern California is the drone of petrol-powered gardening equipment.

Noise is one of the main reasons that cities around the US are banning petrol landscaping tools or encouraging electric alternatives.

These alternatives have the additional benefits of reducing carbon emissions, vibrations and the exposure of landscapers to pollution.

In addition they can mean longer working hours, as they can be used at times when residents demand quiet.

Today, I'm taking part in training run by the American Green Zone Alliance (AGZA), an organisation supporting the transition towards electric landscaping equipment.

To my surprise, the electric backpack leaf blower I strap on is not much heavier than my normal rucksack. Using the blower to herd balls around the park feels fairly intuitive, though naturally I'm much clumsier and slower than the pro landscapers.

As for noise, there's still a buzz, but the sound is higher-pitched and not quite so loud as the familiar petrol-powered machines.

The move to electric power is attracting new companies to the market for gardening kit.

US aerospace start-up Whisper Aero is one of those firms. Its main business is electric propulsion systems for aircraft.

But in 2022, after the Covid-19 pandemic made many people more sensitive to noise, and following a couple of years of research and development, the company realised that its aerospace-grade fans would work well in leaf blowers.

"Our technology is cleaner, quieter and more efficient than other air-moving technologies that exist today," according to Andrew Terajewicz, Whisper Aero's director of air management. "And the leaf blower is the perfect mix of this."

The battery on Whisper Aero's blower lasts up to 15 minutes at full power.

The company has had to scale up its manufacturing volume in its expansion to consumer technology.

Online pre-orders of Whisper Aero's handheld leaf blower started this year. It's priced at the high-end of electric leaf blowers, which are often more expensive than traditional petrol versions.

But for that you get a machine which is less likely to disturb the peace.

"It is so ultra quiet yet powerful, that the brain has a hard time understanding what's happening," says Dan Mabe, the former landscaper who founded AGZA.

Whisper Aero aims to further develop its products, including a backpack leaf blower that would be better suited to professional landscapers.

Even with innovation like that, petrol-powered machines are unlikely to disappear anytime soon, particularly for professional landscapers.

For a start, petrol machines are much more powerful, which makes for quicker work, so less time is spent lugging around heavy equipment.

Terajewicz says that heavy-duty petrol backpack blowers can reach a maximum blowing force of about 50 newtons.

The handheld Whisper Aero blower typically runs at about half that, though it can go higher.

Another big issue is runtime. Professional gardeners like to use their blowers at full throttle.

"For us, it's a little bit hard to use electric," explains Carlos Camarena, a supervisor for a California landscaping company.

Camarena's company uses electric tools where they're required to, in cities with ordinances banning petrol tools. But when they have a choice, they stick to petrol.

His company typically uses batteries that last for about 30 minutes. A crew has six batteries charging at any given time; each takes about 45 minutes to reach a full charge.

Then there's the considerable upfront cost of going electric. One landscaper estimates that it would cost his business around $10,000 (£7,540) to transition all their equipment.

The subsidies and rebates offered by some local governments may not be enough to offset the cost of the switch.

The change would be even harder for landscapers who work as sole proprietors, with a single vehicle and limited space for charging and storing equipment.

Added to that is the weight of tools with multiple batteries, and the cost of accessories to hold them all.

Nevertheless the biggest makers of power tools are investing in electric.

Stihl, a power tool manufacturer headquartered in Germany, aims for battery-powered equipment to make up 35% of its sales by next year, and 80% by 2035.

It's on track to meet the 2027 goal in Europe, though sales in the US have been slower.

To help reach its targets, the company opened its first plant solely manufacturing batteries and tools, in Romania in 2025.

"We like to say that we are dual-technology leaders," says Paul Hicks, senior marketing and product manager at Stihl GB.

"So we are being very open with our customers if in some cases a petrol tool may be a better solution for them… But in the large majority of cases, battery-power tools pay off fairly swiftly because of the cost of fuel."

In May, Stihl announced a new battery system that uses high-performance batteries.

These batteries use a relatively new, more efficient design for lithium battery cells, known as tabless cells.

Tabless cells have 60% more peak power than standard cells, according to Hicks. This means that the batteries charge faster, and landscapers can take fewer batteries out to sites.

The batteries are also relatively lightweight.

Mabe believes that overall, for gardeners embracing long-lasting electric equipment, "There's big rewards if they can make it work."

Back in southern California, landscaper Camarena sees the benefits of electric tools. "We don't contaminate the air," he says.

"When we use the gas blower, some people get mad. They are reading a book or something."

Review launched into how pub and hotel business rates calculated

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8xnxy89gv7o, today

A review is being launched into the way business rates are calculated for pubs and hotels in England and Wales, and could lead to a reform of the system.

The Treasury says business rates expert Jerry Schurder will lead the review into rate valuations and report back in March 2027, with the government calling for the views of landlords, hoteliers and business owners to feed in to the process.

Last month, Andy Burnham announced a 20% cut in business rates for pubs, social clubs and live music venues in England, to come into effect in April.

Pub groups have argued they face disproportionately higher rates bills, but other businesses have called for a wider reform of the rates system.

According to the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), 161 pubs closed in the first three months of this year across England, Scotland and Wales, equating to the loss of around 2,400 jobs.

Rising business rates are cited as one issue facing the sector, although there have also been complaints that increases in National Insurance and the minimum wage have made staff costs more expensive.

James Murray, financial secretary to the Treasury, said the new review would look at "a rethink of valuations - so that we can build a fairer system for the future".

Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the BBPA, said: "For years pubs have paid a disproportionately higher business rates bill which has ground down their ability to keep the doors open, so this review is sorely needed and hugely welcome."

The BBPA says pubs are valued differently for rates than retail venues. Instead of being based just on floor area, they are judged by a measure called Fair Maintainable Trade - which means when a pub's turnover increases, so does its rates bill.

Schurder is a former business rates policy lead at advisory firm Newmark UK, and his review will feed into the next rates revaluation in 2029.

His appointment was welcomed by Craig Beaumont of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) who said he would bring "crucial heavyweight business rates expertise into the Treasury".

However, Beaumont said the government needed to address the wider business rates system and exempt more smaller firms by increasing the rates relief threshold for small businesses.

Tom Ironside from the British Retail Consortium also welcomed the review but said it was "vitally important that the needs of retailers are not overlooked".

Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride said the review was "far too late for a sector this Labour government has already done its best to kill off".

"Tax hikes on business premises and jobs, alongside job-destroying regulation in the Employment Rights Act, have left many hospitality businesses on the brink," he said.

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper said reform of business rates was "long overdue", but also called for an emergency VAT cut and a reverse to jobs tax changes "which have hammered hospitality in particular".

Last year, under the previous chancellor Rachel Reeves, the government had said it would scale back business rate discounts that had been in force since the Covid pandemic and announced that there would be no discount at all from April this year.

That, combined with big upward adjustments to rateable values of pub premises, left landlords with the prospect of much higher bills.

Following criticism from the hospitality industry, the government cut business rates for pubs and music venues by 15% earlier in 2026.

The 20% discount in England announced in July will apply on top of the existing support.

However, the government said the rates discount would not apply to the "very largest" live music venues, and there was some confusion among some businesses as to whether they would be classed as a pub and therefore eligible for the relief.

Details about which businesses are eligible are expected to be announced at Chancellor John Healey's first Budget in the autumn.

Struggling households need more help with bills, energy industry says

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2g5x7l4mko, today

Higher energy bills this winter mean the government should step in to provide more help for households most in need, the body representing energy firms in the UK has said.

Stubbornly high prices over the last few years have left some people needing "emergency support" over and above the existing £150 Warm Home Discount, Energy UK said.

A "better targeted" support scheme that takes into account someone's income, health and energy consumption was needed, it added.

On Wednesday, the energy price cap for October onwards will be announced by regulator Ofgem and is expected to hit a three-year high.

A government spokesperson said that in addition to the Warm Homes Discount it was cutting VAT on electricity bills and would do "everything we can" to shield consumers from global energy shocks.

Energy UK chief executive Dhara Vyas said: "Suppliers continue to do all they can to help their customers but as well as persistently high bills, record levels of debt show how the current system is failing to provide the right support to those in need."

A new "social discount" scheme would result in "a system that works better for everyone", she added.

Energy UK says suppliers have a range of support measures for customers that includes debt write-off schemes and hardship funds, as well as enhanced funding to charity partners.

However, Adam Scorer, chief executive at National Energy Action (NEA) said: "Heading toward winter with prices spiking again we expect suppliers to do more - listen and respond to their customer who are really struggling.

"More than anything else people need a responsible and empathetic approach to debt," he added.

Ofgem reported at the end of last winter that customers who had fallen behind on their energy bills owed suppliers a record £4.7bn. Since then wholesale energy prices have risen, following the start of the Iran war in February.

Energy consultancy Cornwall Insight predicts Ofgem's cap on household price rises, which is set every three months, will go up by 4% when it is announced on Wednesday.

The rise will apply to household bills during the first half of the coming winter and follows a sharper 13% rise in July.

The energy cap covers around 33 million households in England, Wales and Scotland.

It fixes the maximum amount which customers on standard variable tariffs can be charged for each unit of gas and electricity used, but households' actual bills depend on the amount of energy they use and how they pay for it.

As well as the conflict in the Middle East, Cornwall Insight said prices had been affected by heatwaves across Europe that had increased demand for power generation to support air conditioning and other cooling.

The price rise would outweigh the impact of Prime Minister Andy Burnham's move to remove VAT on household electricity bills from October, it added.

Currently, people receiving means-tested benefits are entitled to the one-off £150 Warm Home Discount over the winter, something administered by the energy suppliers themselves. The rebate is paid for by a levy on all energy users that is collected and redistributed via bills.

Energy UK said the Warm Home Discount reached six million customers, but there were another 2.5 million who needed help because a medical condition or draughty home meant they consumed more energy.

It said if the government would allow the combining of information about customers' income, health and energy consumption, a discount scheme could offer targeted and adjustable support, and respond to changing needs and price levels.

The body said its proposed new scheme would cost £1.9bn - nearly double the cost of the current scheme - but could offer £450 in support to some households.

Energy UK suggested the new support scheme could continue to be part-funded through bills or shifted entirely onto the taxpayer, via government funding.

The last time the price cap reached a similar level was in July 2023, Cornwall Insight said, which was still below the peaks reached the previous year in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

During that energy price spike the Conservative government committed a total of around £40bn of government spending to support households with energy bills.

The challenge of combining sources of personal data, including income and health, and the proposal to find more taxpayer money to fund such a scheme are likely to raise questions.

However, Adam Scorer from the NEA said this was the sort of approach his charity was calling for, especially as the Warm Home Discount has risen by only £10 over the last decade.

"We desperately need a new approach," he said.

"There will be a lot of detail to get right, but if government genuinely wants to provide breathing space for people in fuel poverty, it needs to take this challenge on and work with energy companies and charities to design something truly fit for purpose."

What tariffs has Trump introduced and why?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn93e12rypgo, yesterday

Tariffs have been one of US President Donald Trump's favourite economic tools since he returned to the White House.

He argues these import taxes boost US manufacturing and create jobs. But critics say they have put up prices for American consumers and disrupted and damaged the global economy.

What are tariffs and how do they work?

Tariffs are taxes on imported goods.

Typically, the charge is a percentage of a good's value.

For example, a 10% tariff on a $10 product would mean a $1 tax on top - taking the total cost to $11.

The tax is paid to the government by companies bringing in the foreign products.

These firms may pass some or all of the extra cost on to their customers, which in this case means American consumers and other US businesses.

Companies may also decide to import fewer goods.

Why is Trump using tariffs?

Trump argues tariffs increase the amount of tax raised by the government, encourage consumers to buy American-made goods and boost investment in the US from foreign companies.

Parts of the US were hollowed out economically when free trade deals resulted in industrial jobs heading overseas.

Trump also wants to reduce the US trade deficit - the gap between the value of goods it buys from other countries and those it sells to them.

The president argues that countries that sell more products to the US than they buy from it are cheating the US and that tariffs correct this imbalance.

What did the Supreme Court say about Trump's tariffs?

In February 2026, the US Supreme Court said that Trump had exceeded his authority when he used emergency powers to introduce tariffs on specific countries without approval from Congress.

That ruling affected all tariffs Trump brought in under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

That includes the first tariffs Trump announced in early 2025 which targeted Mexico, Canada and China.

The ruling also covers those announced on Trump's so-called "Liberation Day" in April 2025, when the president set out tariff rates of up to 50% for dozens countries, including Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia.

About $100bn (£74bn) has since been refunded to companies that paid those "Liberation Day" tariffs.

This represents roughly 60% of the roughly $166bn collected under the government policy, according to a recent court filing.

Around $29bn in potential refunds are still being reviewed by trade authorities, while a further $1.6bn remains unpaid because importers have not provided the banking details needed to process payments.

Has that ruling killed Trump's tariff policy?

No. The White House has been looking at alternative ways.

After the Supreme Court ruling, Trump used different legislation - Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 - to impose temporary 10% tariffs on all global imports.

Those tariffs expired on 24 July, but have been replaced by tariffs of 10% to 12.5% on all goods from the top 60 US trade partners, including the UK, the EU and China.

The action is being taken under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, based on claims that the US's economic partners have failed to properly tackle forced labour.

Twenty-five US states, all Democratic-controlled, have launched legal action which calls these tariffs "arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law". The lawsuit accuses the administration of using forced labour as a pretext to continue tariffs.

Trump also used Section 301 to levy a 25% tax on certain goods from Brazil, claiming that Brazilian policies have harmed US trade.

In August, he announced a 50% tariff on a wide range of goods imported from Canada, in retaliation for what he called "unequal treatment" of US cars, dairy and alcohol, under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930.

Those tariffs cover about $20bn (C$28bn; £14bn) of Canadian imports, or about 5% of all goods Canada sends south.

Which tariffs apply to the UK?

The UK had already negotiated a 10% tariff with the US on most goods in June 2025.

The latest announcement does not change that, but tariffs have been removed on whisky imports, something Trump had said he would do after the King's state visit to the US earlier this year.

In 2024, the UK exported about £58bn of goods to the US - mainly cars, machinery and pharmaceuticals.

Under the terms of the 2025 deal, the 10% rate applied to the first 100,000 UK vehicles exported every year - roughly the number sold in 2024. Additional cars face the standard 25% tariff.

UK steel exports to the US are also subject to 25% duty, compared to the 50% rate which applies to steel and aluminium products from the rest of the world.

Have prices gone up for US consumers?

Many firms said they would pass on the cost of tariffs to US customers, including Target, Walmart and Adidas.

Some products have become more expensive - including toys, appliances and furniture as well as certain foodstuffs.

The cost of some goods manufactured in the US using imported components has also gone up.

In October 2025, a study by Goldman Sachs estimated that about 55% of the tariff charges were passed on to US consumers.

And in April, a Federal Reserve study said Trump's sweeping 2025 tariffs had caused a surge in inflation this year.

The White House has always maintained that it will take time for the tariffs to pay off, pointing to promises by firms and countries to make big investments in the US.

Despite the new barriers to trade, US imports actually increased by 4% in 2025.

How have tariffs affected the global economy?

Trump was accused of throwing the global economy into turmoil when he announced the first tariffs of his second presidential term in early 2025.

Share prices around the world fell sharply, as did the value of the dollar.

Although the US currency and global financial markets have since largely recovered, the ongoing uncertainty around Trump's tariff policy has continued to destabilise international trade.

Some US allies have looked to alternative markets, causing what some economists describe as a "re-wiring" of global trade.

In January 2026, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said the tariffs had "definitely [slowed] down global activity", and warned further trade tensions could threaten economic growth.

Since then the Iran war has restricted the global supply of oil and fertiliser, pushing up prices.

Economic adviser O'Neill rules out government job but backs PM's devolution plans

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwym4m4j848o, yesterday

Economist Lord Jim O'Neill, who has been advising the prime minister, has said he will not be taking a job in Andy Burnham's government.

As first reported by the Financial Times, Lord O'Neill, a crossbench peer who was once a treasury minister under the Conservatives, said he did not want the constraints involved in taking on a formal role.

The former chief economist at Goldman Sachs had been tipped to become Burnham's chief economic adviser.

He said he was enjoying what he was currently doing too much and did not want to have to give up control of his business interests to comply with official rules.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he had "lots of other things that are going on that I very much enjoy" and, having been a minister before, he knew the job included "all the constraints that understandably go with it, like a blind trust and to abandon everything else you do, never mind the fact that it's 24/7".

In placing shares in blind trusts, ministers have no knowledge of how their investment is being handled, to avoid any potential conflict of interest.

He said he concluded he would rather be a voice to talk to and "get on with the rest of the things in my life".

He earlier told the Financial Times it was "not because of any policy disagreements", adding "I'm a massive fan of the focus on devolution and I hope Andy and his team will be bold on this and everything else."

He pointed to Greater Manchester as an example of economic growth and said if you could repeat that around populated areas, "then national economic performance will improve".

Asked by the BBC whether the new government in the upcoming October budget would need to raise taxes, Lord O'Neill said it was a choice for the prime minister and his team "based on the things they're saying they want to do more of - defence spending is obviously the one that catches the eye", among other things.

Pressed on whether the government could turn to something such as wealth taxes, Lord O'Neill said he was "not a fan of further increases in these kind of taxes, particularly as it relates to capital gains for genuine risk taking things like venture capital".

He noted that the country has boosted government spending "dramatically" in recent years and needed a "more sensible approach to welfare spending under genuine welfare reform".

From 2015-2016, Lord O'Neill was commercial secretary to the Treasury under the then-Chancellor, George Osborne.

The peer, who grew up in Greater Manchester, was a key figure in pushing the Conservatives' Northern Powerhouse agenda, which was aimed at boosting the economy of the North of England.

Lord O'Neill is also known as the economist who coined the term Bric in 2001 to describe leading developing or newly industrialised countries with potential for fast growth and, therefore, investment returns.

The original four nations - Brazil, Russia, India and China - later became the Brics when they were joined by South Africa.

US borrowing costs rise as attempts to ease rates prove short-lived

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg92p3ez17o, 2 days ago

Long-term borrowing costs in the US rose again despite an announcement from the government that it would intervene to try to lower them.

Earlier this week, the Treasury Department said it would buy back more debt in a bid to lower rates being charged by investors on global bond markets, which governments and major corporations rely on to borrow money.

While rates - or yields as they are called - eased on borrowing over 30 years following the intervention, they have since risen again. Such moves can affect mortgage rates and car loans.

Economists said the surprise move by the US government had proved short-lived, with ongoing concerns over the level of borrowing as national debt passed $40tn.

On Friday, the interest rate on 30-year bonds had risen to around 5.27%.

Governments and corporations sell bonds - essentially an IOU - to raise money for spending, and in return they pay interest. Interest rates on bonds are known as yields.

Bond investors typically demand higher returns - or yields - if inflation is high or they expect it to be elevated in the future.

Yields had fallen sharply earlier this week to 5.18% from an almost two-decade high of 5.34% following the Treasury Department announcing its "support".

By stepping in to buy back government debt, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent aimed to boost demand for bonds and lower borrowing rates.

But the strategy has appeared to have only worked in the short-term.

John Canavan, lead analyst at Oxford Economics said the response to the government's intervention was "unsurprisingly short-lived".

He said traders were focused on the "daunting" amounts of global borrowing from governments and corporations, as well as increases in oil prices.

"As Bessent himself confirmed, the move is mainly a signalling mechanism, with the Treasury showing it is prepared to step in with yields near current levels," said economists at Capital Economics.

"It is not necessarily an effective one, however, as much of the initial fall in 30-year yields has now been reversed."

The BBC has contacted the Treasury Department for comment on the market reaction.

Bessent sought to blame the Biden administration for the current situation, telling US media on Thursday: "We did not get here in a day, we were left with a mess."

Global borrowing costs have spiked in recent months due to higher oil prices caused by the US-Iran war disrupting supplies and stoking fears of inflation.

Large amounts of cash being borrowed by tech firms to develop Artificial Intelligence (AI), with the timeline and level of returns on investment uncertain, and tax revenues being outstripped by public spending have also contributed to higher yields.

On Wednesday, figures revealed US national debt had more than doubled in a decade to reach a milestone $40tn (£29.4tn).

The rise reflects years of heavy spending under both the Trump and Biden administrations, along with higher interest payments that have added to the total. In 2016, the national debt stood at just under $20tn.

In response to volatility in the bond markets, the dollar weakened. The dollar the world's primary reserve currency, meaning it is held by central banks around the world in large quantities as part of their foreign exchange reserves.

Central banks use US dollars in international transactions, to pay for international debt, or to support domestic exchange rates.

A fall in the dollar means US goods exports become cheaper, but imported goods may become more expensive due to the weaker currency. Americans going abroad also might notice their money does not go as far, while foreign tourists in the US might find their currency will buy them more.

Gold climbed to a more than three-month high on Friday amid uncertainty in the global economy. Investors see gold once of the safest places to invest in.

Millennials have found it hard to buy homes – but things may be turning a corner

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgewlld498xo, 3 days ago

Leaving education, getting a job, buying a home and perhaps starting a family: the path previous generations followed may seem a distant dream to many now.

But is it getting a bit easier - at least when it comes to getting on the housing ladder?

Today's prospective first-time buyers may well feel hard done by; they are still worse off than recent generations.

If you were born in the UK in the mid-1990s you've about a 25% chance of owning your own home, as this chart shows.

Twenty-somethings in the 1990s were almost twice as likely to be on the housing ladder, the previous generation even more so.

But before looking at the current picture, what's behind the longer term shift?

One issue is that property prices have outpaced incomes across many decades.

In the chart below, housing economist Paul Cheshire puts it starkly, comparing the rise in egg prices with house prices over the past 71 years.

Changes in the mortgage markets have contributed, but ultimately it's about a lack of housebuilding.

The government previously estimated that England alone needs another 300,000 dwellings per year to keep up with population change and our preference for living in smaller households.

But only 208,000 were added last year. We've not built close to 300,000 new homes in a year for at least three decades.

There are many reasons why, but inflation has been key - from the price of land, to builders' wages and bricks.

Our analysis shows that the cost of raw materials like timber, steel, plasterboard, concrete and insulation rose in line with general inflation from the 1990s until the Covid-19 pandemic, when they became harder to source.

That was compounded by the impact of the war in Ukraine, which drove up both the cost of energy - 15% in a single year - for making these materials and for use in construction itself. The war in Iran has pushed prices up further.

Even before the pandemic, more than one in five construction firms struggled with a lack of skilled staff, exacerbated by Brexit.

As a guide, a home that cost £150,000 to build in 2015 may cost £230,000 now - analysts say those costs could rise by another 15% in the next five years.

And that's before contending with planning. Strict regulations protect the environment and uphold safety standards but can add costs.

The rising - and increasingly unpredictable - cost of building, coupled with uncertain demand has put some housebuilders off.

As property prices have increased, the deposit needed to buy a house has reached tens of thousands.

The amount to get a 10% deposit varies sharply across the country.

Saving for a deposit becomes particularly hard if you're paying rent too. Private rents typically soak up a third of prospective buyers' incomes.

No surprise a larger number of young people are opting to live at home and pay far lower housing costs so they can save more.

But things may be turning a corner.

In the past few years house prices have typically risen more slowly than people's wages which, all things being equal, makes it easier for prospective buyers to save.

That has also changed the ratio between house prices and average incomes. Back in 2021, house prices were nearly 9 times average incomes. Today, they're 7.6 times.

And some lenders will take a smaller deposit - sometimes just 5% - which can help overcome the deposit hurdle, a key difficulty of getting on the ladder. People looking to buy can now, in some instances, get a mortgage by saving significantly less money than a few years ago.

If first-time buyers can cobble together a deposit, lenders have recently been more willing to offer larger loans and with longer repayment times. Some buyers can purchase their homes with terms lasting up to 40 years, significantly longer than the usual 25-30 years. That can help lower monthly repayments.

Crucially, too, because property prices are growing more slowly, and interest rates have fallen from their recent peak, mortgage payments relative to wages are moving back towards the long-term average.

Figures from Nationwide show that, if you were a first-time buyer in 2007, your mortgage payments were about 45% of your take-home pay. Today's first-time buyers are paying 32%. That's still above the long-run average of 30%, but it's moving in the right direction.

Smaller deposits and longer mortgage terms are not without risk, however. Those who take that route will end up paying more interest, and are vulnerable to losing money on their property if the value of their homes doesn't increase.

Ultimately, to make it as easy to get on the ladder as it was for previous generations, we need more homes.

There are moves afoot: Sir Keir Starmer's government introduced plans to streamline planning processes that can be chaotic and slow.

Reforms will also allow more homes to be built on the green belt - not something everyone agrees with.

But to really get things moving, we need to incentivise builders to commit with more confidence to building.

And whatever approach the government takes, the results will take years to come through.

UK borrows more than expected in July as Healey prepares for first Budget

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly8kzkyvwgo, 3 days ago

The government borrowed more than expected in July, according to figures published as Chancellor John Healey draws up his first Budget.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said borrowing, the gap between what the government spends and what it collects in tax, was £1.8bn during the month.

Official forecasters had expected a surplus of £500m, meaning the government borrowed £2.3bn more than predicted.

Economists warned the figure will restrict Healey and Prime Minister Andy Burnham's room for manoeuvre as they target measures aimed at easing the cost of living for households, with little room to increase borrowing in the Budget on 27 October.

Healey has made it clear he will oversee "strong fiscal discipline" at the Budget – which will limit how much the government has to spend.

He has adopted his predecessor Rachel Reeves' fiscal rules, which commit the government to funding all day-to-day spending through tax receipts by the end of the decade.

Responding to the borrowing figures, Healey said: "We are cutting the deficit faster than any other G7 economy, while giving people a bit of breathing space with cost of living pressures and focusing support to get young people into work."

July's borrowing figure was significantly lower than June's £16bn, with a surge in self-assessed income tax receipts boosting the government's coffers for the month. But economists said the public finances would come under renewed pressure when the one-off lift, typical for July each year, runs out.

Despite falling from June to July, the borrowing figure was higher than expected. Experts pointed to increased welfare spending, including benefits and other payments such the state pension, with social payments coming in £2bn higher than the same period last year.

The ONS said borrowing from April to July, the first four months of the government's fiscal year, has reached £56.7bn. This is lower than last year, but £2.3bn higher than forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which the government uses when drawing up its spending plans.

Senior economist at Capital Economics Ashley Webb said the figure continued a "run of bad news" for the economy and that "there will be little scope to raise borrowing in the Budget later this year".

He said the borrowing overshoot "will probably get bigger" this year as economic growth slows and the government rolls out more measures to support households with the cost of living.

Joe Nellis, head of economic research at accountancy firm MHA, also said the figures will not "prevent difficult decisions that must be made in the upcoming October Budget".

Healey will have to find "additional tax revenue, tighter control over public sector spending and changes elsewhere" to balance the books and meet the government's fiscal rules.

"Failure to do so will unsettle the financial markets and potentially push up the cost of government borrowing still further," Nellis warned.

The ONS also said Britain's overall debt pile is approaching £3tn, having grown by £127.2bn a year earlier. The Conservatives said Labour's spending would leave "ordinary families" left to cover the bill.

Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride said: "We spend more on just the interest of our soaring debt than we do on our defence, police, and prisons combined. We simply cannot afford the price of Labour."

The Liberal Democrats accused the government of pursuing an "anti-growth agenda" and called for action to lower energy bills and support high street businesses.

"In their autumn Budget, the chancellor needs to take the handbrake off Britain's economy," Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper said.

The ONS also said retail sales were lacklustre in July, falling 0.5% from June. Analysts said the drop was caused by a surge of hot weather and a World Cup-induced surge in sales in June. Clothing and footwear saw the slowest growth since May last year.

Why the US economy is ringing alarm bells

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9d8z72nn02o, 3 days ago

What with a 250th birthday, Taylor Swift's wedding and the football World Cup, Americans could be forgiven for taking their eye off the ball this summer.

But signs of economic trouble have been building. This week they hit the headlines when US national debt passed the $40tn (£29.4tn) mark, raising concerns both at home and abroad.

How did we get here?

It took almost 200 years for US national debt to reach $1tn for the first time, says Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

That milestone back in 1981 was treated as a wake-up call. "At that time, President [Ronald] Reagan told the nation in a televised address, 'If we as a nation needed a warning, let that be it'," she said.

"Jumping to America's 250th year, we are spending more than that just on interest payments on our debt."

Hitting the $40tn milestone was expected - driven by public spending surges under both the Donald Trump and Joe Biden administrations - but it marks another line in the sand.

Ballooning costs for social programmes and other spending have outstripped revenues undermined by tax cuts. Responses to crises such as the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid pandemic have led to increased borrowing.

Add to that higher interest rates in response to recent inflation shocks and the picture begins to look grim.

How bad is it?

At the beginning of Trump's first presidential term in 2016, US national debt stood at just under $20tn. It has doubled in the decade since.

The figure is rising by about $90,000 every second, or $7.8bn a day, according to the Congress Joint Economic Committee.

"What's very different now compared to a decade ago is the level of interest rates," says Eric Swanson, professor of economics at University of California and former senior economist at the Federal Reserve.

"Long-term interest rates in the US are at multi-decade highs - part of that is concerns about inflation, but part of that is concerns about the extreme levels of US government borrowing."

The bond market is demanding higher returns with investors wary of the scale of the US's debt, but also because tech firms borrowing eye-watering sums to spend on AI are competing with the government for investors' cash.

"What happens when interest rates go up is that the funding of the deficit becomes more expensive," says economist Mohamed A El-Erian, a professor at the Wharton School.

Interest payments on government debt are now 15% higher than the same period last year, says El-Erian. They are almost 20% of tax revenue, which is "larger than defence", he adds.

Should I be worried?

The US is nearing its $41.1tn debt ceiling, with debt forecast to climb to about $64tn by 2036, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

But the situation is not yet critical, say economists. The US's position as the world's largest economy and the dollar being the world's reserve currency gives the US a "much longer runway to fiscally misbehave" than other countries, El-Erian says.

"We're getting to a point where it's a flashing yellow light. It's not a flashing red light," he says.

Swanson says other countries have had similar, or higher debt levels.

While US national debt is 126% compared with the size of the economy, it's lower than other G7 nations Japan and Italy.

But investor appetite in lending the US government money through buying bonds is "diminishing", Swanson warns, creating a "vicious" cycle, requiring the government to offer ever higher returns to keep investors purchasing its debt.

And higher US borrowing costs inevitably spill over, raising other countries' borrowing costs too. "What happens in the US never stays in the US," says El-Erian.

Charlie Bean, emeritus economics professor at the London School of Economics, says that if the US debt to economy ratio hits a certain point it could start a fire sale of US bonds and lead to financial market turmoil.

"There probably is a point, but unfortunately we don't know where it is," he says.

"It's not as if there's a fixed number that we could say, you know, 'if it gets to 150 percent, you know, disaster will happen, but we're OK if we stay at 145'."

What does it mean for Americans?

Households will likely face higher rates for mortgages, car loans and credit cards as a result of the current situation, with those on lower incomes hit hardest, El-Erian says.

There's also a secondary effect on consumers as higher borrowing costs for firms is often passed through to them via higher prices.

So the impact of the debt "finds its way to the pocketbooks of people one way or another," says MacGuineas.

What next?

The US's latest figures show the economy slowed in recent months, but it is still growing at a fair lick.

That matters because economic growth means more tax revenue, which can pay for spending, whether that's on government programmes or interest payments. With enough growth, the debt problem is eased, points out El-Erian.

But without sufficient growth the US might have to look at other options. They could include reforming the tax system and public spending, or austerity. Debt restructuring is another option.

The strategy so far employed has been a kind of financial engineering, with the Treasury department on Wednesday stepping in to buy back government debt, boosting demand for bonds and lowering borrowing rates.

But the impact was short-lived with long-term borrowing costs bouncing back up a day later.

With the mid-term elections approaching, the White House will want to be seen to be delivering on the economy. Affordability is the top concern among voters. But the other options are no more appealing and El-Erian is doubtful the government is ready to look at other measures.

"I don't see anything happening that is going to significantly lower the deficit over the next two to three years. If you look at the political talk, it's about tax cuts."

Panama Canal to cut number of ships passing through due to El Niño

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyl0jkxxryo, 3 days ago

Panama Canal's operator is to cut the number of vessels passing through the key waterway due to low rainfall caused by El Niño.

The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) told shipping firms on Thursday that 32 vessels a day will be able to pass through it from 15 September, compared to 36 currently.

El Niño, a pattern of periodical sea surface warming, affects weather systems globally. This year is expected to be particularly strong, with its effects made more intense by climate change.

The shipping industry is already dealing with severe disruptions due to the Iran war causing a large reduction in the number of vessels passing through the crucial Strait of Hormuz.

The ACP said the measures were being put in place to preserve service reliability and safeguard water resources for human consumption.

It added that despite the arrival of the rainy season in Central America and some water-saving measures already being put in place in the canal, additional action was needed "to support the long-term sustainability of transit operations".

The new measures will be phased in from 3 September.

The Panama Canal greatly reduces the time and distance ships have to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

About 14,000 ships per year use the artificial waterway - which operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

As well as being a crucial route for global trade, it is also a key source of income for Panama, bringing in about $3bn (£2.2bn) a year.

In 2023, the ACP cut the number of vessels using the waterway during the last El Niño period after Panama was hit with its driest October since records began in 1950.

Since then, the authority has introduced measures to cut the amount of water it uses.

Many forecasts suggest that this year's El Niño, which is a naturally occurring pattern, could be one of the strongest ever recorded, with disruptions to weather, food supplies and economies.

Walmart sales under strain as US shoppers pull back

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpq8rjy7vxlo, 3 days ago

Sales at the US retail giant Walmart grew at their slowest pace for more than six years in the most recent quarter, suggesting American shoppers are under strain.

Walmart, which due to its size is well-placed to gauge consumers' mood, blamed the rising price of fuel.

Sales at comparable sites across the chain were up by 2.6%, excluding fuel, between May and July the company said.

Walmart said it would use up to $3bn of expected tariff refunds to lower prices in a bid to keep customers spending.

The rebate stems from duties the retailer paid after President Trump imposed a wave of tariffs on imported goods last year. Retailers are receiving refunds from central government after those tariffs were ruled unlawful.

Rival retailer Target recently said it had received $1bn in rebates, boosting its profits.

Walmart, the US's largest retailer, said the nearly $3bn in tariff rebate it anticipated would help it continue a programme of price cuts or "rollbacks" that it expanded earlier this year.

Walmart has leaned heavily on price cuts to retain customers, launching 11,000 of its so-called "rollbacks" across categories.

Chief financial officer John David Rainey said those lower prices were already lifting transactions and unit sales, especially in food and other staples like toys.

But he acknowledged that the retail environment remained uneven, with lower-income households – a core part of Walmart's base – feeling squeezed.

Rainey said rising petrol prices were leaving shoppers with less spare cash, saying the shift in behaviour became clear once fuel went above $4 a gallon.

Price moves in June made the impact obvious, he added, with lower-income customers pulling back and focusing spending on essentials.

Beyond the consumer pullback, Walmart's results highlighted several additional risks that could shape the firm's prospects in the months ahead.

Much of the quarter's profit lift came from tariff refunds that had already come in, a one-off benefit that analysts say won't recur to the same extent.

The price rollbacks could put pressure on margins, while Walmart is also spending money on automation, new warehouses, and tech upgrades.

On the earnings call, analysts pressed management on whether lower prices were already driving a lift in sales and whether some rollbacks could be locked in for 2027.

Walmart said the benefits were showing up most clearly in food and other staples, and that certain cuts might remain if they continued to resonate with shoppers.

"Our hope and intention always is that rollbacks can become permanent ... wherever possible," Rainey said.

Analysts also questioned whether Walmart's income could continue to grow despite flagging sales. Executives said they believed it could, pointing to businesses such as membership and advertising.

US national debt passes $40tn after doubling in a decade

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70gp8252ejo, 4 days ago

US national debt has more than doubled in a decade to reach a milestone $40tn (£29.4tn), Treasury figures show.

The rise reflects years of heavy spending under both the Trump and Biden administrations, along with higher interest payments that have steadily added to the total. In 2016, the national debt stood at just under $20tn.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had projected overall borrowing would reach $39.6tn by the end of fiscal year 2026.

The faster-than-expected rise has sharpened concerns about how quickly the government's borrowing needs are growing and what that means for future interest costs.

The CBO said the US was nearing its $41.1tn debt ceiling, with debt projected to climb to about $64tn by 2036.

As the federal government spends more to cover its budget deficits, consumers have faced higher interest rates and inflation.

The $40.05tn, as of 18 August, covers all outstanding Treasury bonds, bills and notes, and underscores the scale of US borrowing under two presidents.

The interest rate on 30-year bonds, which are a type of debt used to raise funds from investors, hit 5.34% on Tuesday - the highest level in almost 20 years.

Those rates, known as yields, influence how much the US government, companies and consumers pay to borrow - affecting mortgages, car loans and credit cards.

The recent surge in bond yields has been driven by rising oil prices linked to the US-Iran war, with investors worried about inflation.

There are also concerns over government debt and the huge amounts of cash being borrowed by tech firms to develop artificial intelligence (AI), with the timeline and level of returns on investment uncertain.

While ordinary people are unlikely to be affected immediately, difficulties in managing the debt could eventually trigger disruptions on a scale similar to the 2008 financial crisis, according to economics professor David Jacks.

The pace of America's growing debt was accelerating "and at some point, the bills will come due", said Jacks from the National University of Singapore.

The Treasury Department announced on Wednesday that it would increase its buyback operations by "at least double" from $2bn to $4bn from 9 September to 4 November.

It said the intervention reflected its "desire to provide greater liquidity support" for longer-term bonds.

The rate on borrowing costs over 30 years eased off the back of the move to 5.18%.

John Canavan, lead analyst at Oxford Economics, said the decision to increase purchases appeared to be an "attempt to provide relief" on long-term borrowing costs, which had been under "significant pressure from rising oil prices, inflation risks and heavy supply due to global sovereign and corporate borrowing needs".

But he said given the size of outstanding Treasury debt, the increase in buybacks from the government was "unlikely to provide meaningful long-term relief".

Rene Albrecht, senior analyst at DZ Bank in Germany, said the US government feared the "pain of 5% or higher yields" over the long term, not just because it raised borrowing costs for the government but also the private sector.

"It's only three months until the midterm elections," Albrecht said. "They [the Treasury] have had to grab into the toolkit in order to get a hand on the recent rise in yields."

But economist Mohamed A El-Erian said that, beyond the bond market reaction to push down longer-term borrowing costs, the move by the Trump administration was about the possibility of a broader strategy to keep control of interest rates - known as "yield curve control".

While the move can help bring down longer-end yields in the immediate and short term, and thereby help lower mortgage and other borrowing costs, "it risks collateral damage and unintended consequences", he added in a social media post.

The amount the US owes compared to its annual economic output - known as its debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio - is 125.8%, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

It is one of the highest among the world's largest economies.

In comparison, IMF figures show the UK and China's debt-to-GDP ratios are 103.6% and 106.9%, respectively.

Japan has the highest debt burden among the world's major economies with a debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 200%.

The US has longer-term fixed mortgage deals than other countries, such as the UK.

Currently, the average interest rate on 30-year fixed mortgages is 6.67%, according to finance firm Freddie Mac. While borrowing costs for homeowners have been rising, they remain lower than in 2023 when such deals averaged 7.7%.

Minutes released on Wednesday by the Federal Reserve, which sets US interest rates, revealed that concerns over inflation deepened among policymakers at its last meeting.

It said there were "several participants" in favour of increased rates last month. The central bank ended up holding its benchmark interest rate in the current 3.50%-3.75% range for the fifth time in a row.

Many participants also said rate hikes would "likely be necessary if inflation did not decline", with some suggesting interest rates were not high enough to see price rises fall back to the Fed's 2% target for inflation.

The Fed is expected to hold its policy rate steady again at its September meeting after recent data showed inflation eased slightly and firms unexpectedly shed jobs in July.

Additional reporting by Osmond Chia

Founder of collapsed Chinese property giant Evergrande sentenced to life in prison

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd0x9mjjmgjo, 4 days ago

The founder of Evergrande, the property giant at the centre of China's housing market slump, has been sentenced to life in prison and had all of his personal property confiscated.

Hui Ka Yan pleaded guilty in April to several charges, including embezzlement of assets and corporate bribery.

Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court also fined his former companies a total of 15.82bn yuan (£1.73bn; $2.35bn) over multiple crimes, including falsifying records and concealing debt.

Hui's sentencing marks a key moment in the fallout from Evergrande's collapse, which shook China's property sector and hit investors and domestic banks hard.

Hui and his businesses "seriously disrupted" the Chinese property market, resulting in significant economic losses, the court said.

Other Evergrande executives, including Hui's two sons Xu Zhijian and Xu Tenghe, were also sentenced to jail terms ranging from 22 months to 18 years, according to state media.

Once ranked Asia's richest man, Hui has seen his wealth and influence dwindle as his company unravelled.

Hui, also known as Xu Jiayin, rose from humble beginnings in rural China, where he was raised by his grandmother before venturing into property development and setting up Evergrande in 1996.

He oversaw the company's rapid rise through an aggressive expansion programme funded with large amounts of borrowed money.

Evergrande became China's biggest real estate developer, with a stock market valuation of more than $50bn (£36.7bn). Hui was once estimated to be Asia's richest person.

The firm was dealt a huge blow when Beijing introduced measures in 2020 to control debt in the country's property sector.

As the company struggled to meet interest payments on its debts it sold properties at huge discounts to stay afloat before collapsing in 2021.

In April, the court heard that the company had taken millions of dollars in pre-sale funding from potential house buyers that were not used for construction.

The money had instead been channelled to new property developments, resulting in hundreds of unfinished projects.

In March 2024, Hui was fined $6.5m and banned from China's capital market for life for his company overstating its revenue by $78bn.

Evergrande's stock market valuation shrank by 99% before its shares were removed from the Hong Kong exchange in August 2025 after more than a decade and a half of trading.

Evergrande's implosion has often been blamed for triggering a broader slump in China's property market that continues to weigh heavily on the economy.

At its height, Evergrande was the biggest firm in the country's real estate industry, which made up about a third of China's gross domestic product at the time.

The property market was a significant driver of growth and an important revenue source for local governments.

The industry's ongoing problems have weighed heavily on the world's second largest economy as several other major developers faced financial woes.

India's Gen Z are driving up a mega boom in its beauty market

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgr71kv9k95o, 4 days ago

India's beauty brands have been drawing a lot of interest from global capital recently.

Earlier this year in March, American luxury cosmetics maker Estée Lauder fully acquired the homegrown ayurvedic company Forest Essentials. France's L'Oréal Group followed in June, picking up a majority stake in digital personal care brand Innovist. And Unilever has made at least four beauty investments in the country through its venture capital arm in the last couple of years.

Founded at the turn of the millennium in a garage in the Himalayan foothills by entrepreneur Mira Kulkarni - a single mother of two - Forest Essentials has grown from a fledgling startup into a billion-dollar company with a global presence over the last two decades.

Its rise mirrors the explosive growth being witnessed of the country's beauty industry, which was valued at about $23bn (£17.08bn) in 2025 but is expected to nearly double in size to $40bn by the end of this decade, growing at twice the rate of the country's GDP and the broader retail market.

Rising spending power in Asia's third-largest economy is partly driving this boom, according to experts.

India's per capita income crossed $2,000 in 2019, a threshold beyond which discretionary spending tends to grow exponentially, according to Redseer, a business consultancy. And by 2030, some 155 million households are expected to earn more than $9,500 annually, providing a further tailwind to growth.

"Historically we've underspent on beauty because there was just no purchasing power for anything other than the very basic stuff - such as all-purpose soap or face powder," Kushal Bhatnagar, a partner at Redseer, told the BBC.

"But now, along with more spending power, there is improved access, distribution and product education. The internet broke these barriers, with brands leveraging the power of social media platforms and influencers to reach consumers directly."

In fact, e-commerce is expected to drive around 35% of overall beauty spending by 2030, compared with just 8% five years ago, according to Reedseer's estimates.

The pandemic also proved to be a major game-changer for the industry, according to Vaishali Gupta, whose two beauty ventures have witnessed breakneck expansion since their launches during Covid.

She co-founded the vegan skincare company Hyphen with Bollywood star Kriti Sanon in 2023 and also runs mCaffeine which makes scrubs, washes and lotions and calls itself India's first caffeinated personal care brand.

"Covid pushed people inward and toward self-care, and it coincided with a massive wave of digital penetration tier-one, tier-two and tier-three towns. Suddenly Indian consumers had access to beauty and skincare education they'd never had before - such as what was trending in Korea or Europe, or what specific ingredients could do for brightening or acne control," Gupta told the BBC.

"That knowledge base created a consumer who knew exactly what they wanted. And that's really where the boom in Indian skincare began."

In the past year Gupta's brands have grown their top line by 100% and she anticipates strong double-digit growth going forward.

Both Hyphen and mCaffeine, she says, are now among the top 10 brands across their categories in India.

"This is a structural growth story - and we're just at the beginning of what this market can become," Gupta said.

It is no surprise then, that a host of Bollywood stars - from Deepika Padukone to Katrina Kaif and Shilpa Shetty of Big Brother fame - have also jumped on the bandwagon and launched skincare companies in recent years.

The growth in customers is coming from all corners of the country and isn't restricted to big cities.

What's also striking, according to Gupta, is that the Gen Z is driving it, spending roughly double what millennials did on skincare and personal care.

Data from Wamart-backed Flipkart, India's largest e-commerce platform corroborates this. Some 56% of its beauty and personal care shoppers are Gen Z, with 70% of them discovering the products they buy through social media.

Two out of three beauty searches on Flipkart also come from non-metro areas.

According to Redseer, Gen Z and Gen Alpha's share of beauty spending will grow from 32% in 2024 to around 50% by 2030.

It's an inflection point, according to Priyanka Bhargav, who leads brand strategy and insights at Flipkart. What was once an "aspirational category has now become a daily expression of self-care" for many young Indians, she says.

Going forward, the consumer is only likely to become more sophisticated as the market grows from here. And the next leg of growth will be driven by niche brands innovating with specific ingredients, dermatologist-backed products and a focus on skin nutrition, say experts.

While only a handful of individual brands have scaled meaningfully so far, at this pace of growth at least 10-15 beauty companies will cross $200m in revenue in the next three to five years, according to Bhatnagar.

"And when that happens, we expect many of them to tap the public markets, and for IPO (initial public offering) and M&A (mergers and acquisitions) activity to really intensify in the sector," he said.

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I quit my £80,000 job to make ice cream - here's how

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz97148eye0o, 4 days ago

At 28, Vivien Wong walked away from an £80,000-a-year accounting job to start making ice cream with her brother.

Growing up in her family's bakery, she had dreamt of one day running her own business. She says her father's cancer diagnosis made her take the leap to create Little Moons.

The mochi balls of doughy rice filled with ice-cream exploded on TikTok, but its apparent overnight success was more than a decade in the making.

Wong shares the lessons she learnt along the way and her advice for anyone thinking about starting a business of their own.

Don't wait until you're ready

One of the biggest mistakes aspiring founders make is waiting for everything to be perfect so Wong recommends following an "80-20 rule".

"Don't wait for perfection because that extra 20 is going to take you too long and you might miss the market," she says.

Instead, she recommends getting a product "80% of the way there", launching it and improving it as you go - like she did with Little Moons.

For its first five years Wong sold mochi to restaurants and cinemas before she saved enough money to invest in branding and move into supermarkets.

Be prepared to make sacrifices

Wong left a well-paid job and moved in with her brother so they could save money and reinvest any profits into the business.

She remembers swapping a polished City environment, where there was always someone else to call for help, for having to do almost everything herself.

"All roads lead to you when you run your own business so even though I wasn't great with IT, I was head of IT".

She also had to learn about machinery, product development, making ice cream and paying wages.

Wong says she even did the company accounts on Sundays rather than pay for a bookkeeper because, at the time, saving the money mattered more than getting the day back.

Know your brand

Wong's advice to people starting a business is about the importance of knowing your brand and saying no to opportunities that don't fit.

"If you know what your brand values are, you know how you can apply that to a trend, but you also know when to leave it alone," she says.

"Pick and choose what you say yes to and don't try and do everything. Stay focused, know exactly what you stand for."

She also warns against blindly taking advice from experts - but to listen and think for yourself.

"You realise that advice they're giving you was probably right for another business but not for your specific set of circumstances."

She and her brother would discuss advice they received, sometimes take it and sometimes reject it and over time, making those decisions helped build her confidence.

Set boundaries with family

Wong says working with her brother has been a huge strength but there were also "definitely a lot of arguments".

They had to learn to behave like colleagues at work rather than siblings.

When the company was considering moving from a 5,000 sq ft factory to a 30,000 sq ft site, with annual rent jumping from around £40,000 to £500,000, Wong says she was more willing to take the risk while her brother was naturally more cautious.

But that difference in opinion has helped them make better decisions as they "balance each other out".

Her advice for anyone working with family is to set boundaries for how you interact in the workplace.

"You have to be really mindful that you're being as respectful to your brother as a colleague and you see him as a colleague and not a sibling," she says.

Now that Little Moons has a chief executive and wider leadership team, the pair are less involved in the day-to-day running of the company which Wong says has allowed them to "just be brother and sister again".

'Overnight success' can take years

Little Moons became a TikTok phenomenon during the pandemic but Wong says most people don't realise it had been running for a decade already.

"Everyone says we're like an overnight success 12 years in the making," she says.

Before going viral, the company had spent years learning how to manufacture at scale, train staff, export products and supply major retailers.

That preparation proved essential when demand suddenly exploded as the business might not have survived its viral moment without the team and infrastructure already behind it.

"Business is a combination of many, many, many boring things and many boring small steps," she says.

For anyone watching founders seemingly blow up on social media overnight, she says it's important to remember that the viral moment is often the part of the story everyone sees rather than the beginning.

US retail giant receives $1bn boost from tariff refunds

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78gp4y8d3eo, 4 days ago

Target has revealed it has received almost $1bn (£733.9m) in tariff refunds from the US government which boosted the retailer's latest profits.

The American chain said it received a $994 million pre-tax reimbursement, which resulted in its second quarter operating income doubling to $2.6bn from $1.3bn last year.

Target is the latest of many businesses both large and small being given tax rebates on goods imported to the US following a Supreme Court ruling that declared a wave of President Donald Trump's import tariffs were unlawful.

However, Trump has continued to impose duties on goods coming into the US through different legal means, meaning many companies still face extra taxes.

The president announced on Tuesday he would delay the introduction of a raft of new import taxes on various Canadian goods for three days as negotiations over a trade deal continue.

Trump has threatened to impose 50% levy on nearly $20bn (C$28bn) worth of imports from Canada. The two sides have been at an impasse on several issues, including US tariffs on autos, and many Canadian provinces banning American liquor sales.

The president has used and threatened tariffs on dozens of countries since he returned to the White House last year. He has argued the trade policy will boost American manufacturing and jobs as businesses either source goods domestically or shift operations to the US.

But economists have warned prices for consumers can rise as businesses, which pay the tax when importing goods, pass on the extra cost to customers.

Earlier this month, a court filing by customs officials revealed the Trump administration had paid back $100bn (£78bn) in "Liberation Day" tariff refunds to businesses.

It represented about 60% of all tariff revenue collected by the government under the policy, with significant amounts still to be repaid.

When asked how Target would use tariff refunds, chief financial officer Jim Lee did not provide details but added: "We have and will continue to invest in price."

Last year the company slashed its expectations, which it blamed on a "high challenging environment" amid the introduction of tariffs at the time.

It has said it would aim to reduce its reliance on China for sourcing products. Target's big sellers are mostly in non-essential goods, such as home furniture and beauty products.

It sources the majority of such products from China, with 30% of its store-label goods from the country. It was previously higher at 60% in 2017.

Target is in the middle of a turnaround plan, with the retailer saying it had cut prices on more than 10,000 items over the past year.

"While there's still meaningful work ahead, we're encouraged by the progress we're making and remain focused on executing with discipline," said chief executive Michael Fiddelke.

Separately, US cosmetics giant Estee Lauder said on Wednesday it had recorded a "$38m benefit in the cost of sales" from tariff refunds in its latest quarterly results.

"This partially offset the full-year gross impact of incremental tariffs of $102 million, which was primarily recorded in cost of sales," the company said.

Shares of the Clinique and Bobbi Brown owner saw its share price jump about 17% after its results exceeded expectations.

Jump in energy bills drives UK inflation to highest rate for four months

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrv7jr8n74o, 4 days ago

Higher energy bills drove UK inflation up to 2.9% in the year to July, the highest level in four months, according to new figures.

Gas prices soared at the sharpest pace in almost four years, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, leading to an increase in the cap on household energy bills in July. Energy costs surged after US-Israel war with Iran began, which has restricted global oil supplies.

July's reading is the highest since March but some price growth slowed. Food inflation, at 1.3%, is at its lowest rate for close to five years.

Experts said the inflation figure is unlikely to influence the Bank of England to change its key interest rate at its next meeting in September.

Energy costs for households rose on 1 July after Ofgem, the energy regulator, increased the price cap on gas and electricity costs by 13%, which added £221 a year to the typical bill.

Homes are forecast to see a 4% rise in energy bills from October, according to Cornwall Insight, which would take them to the highest level since July 2023.

There is ongoing uncertainty over the US-Iran conflict, which has seen effective closures of the Strait of Hormuz, a key trading passage for ships carrying oil, liquefied natural gas and other commodities.

Cornwall Insight, an independent energy consultancy, added that energy price pressures were being compounded by the ongoing heatwave across Europe "increasing gas demand for power generation to meeting air conditioning and cooling demand".

ONS prices director Mike Hardie said furniture prices, which fell by less than usual for that time of year, added to the upward pressure on inflation.

Clothes prices were also a factor, he said, as summer sales discounts were smaller than usual.

Chancellor John Healey said the Iran war was continuing to affect prices in the UK, but insisted Britain's economy was resilient.

"We have cut VAT on electricity bills and capped bus fares at £2 - to give breathing space to those feeling the strain," he said.

"There is more to do to restore hope and build a stronger economy where prosperity is shared more fairly across Britain."

Shadow chancellor Mel Stride said families across the country will be worried by rising inflation.

"Labour's tax rises and business bashing have driven the cost of living higher and higher, yet Andy Burnham refuses to rule out yet more tax hikes at the Budget," he said.

"It is ordinary people who are left paying the price."

Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesperson, said: "The government needs to do much more to bring down energy bills and get our sluggish economy growing again."

She also said the government should "turbocharge the economy" by rejoining the EU single market and create a new customs union with the bloc.

Penny Keevil said the cost of living crisis is here to stay.

She founded Second Chance Medway, a crisis support centre which runs a discounted food pantry two days a week, where she now sees not only those on benefits, but working people too.

"The need for affordable food now reaches across every part of the community," she said. "Energy bills are still far too high and wages and incomes aren't keeping up."

The British Retail Consortium's lead economist Harvir Dhillon said there was some good news for consumers as food inflation slowed.

He said prices for pasta, olive oil and fresh fruit all fell in July, "demonstrating that strong competition among grocers is firmly keeping a lid on people's weekly shop".

Meanwhile, motor fuel price rises eased to 15.5% compared to an increase of 21.3% in the 12 months to June - though they remains much higher than in 2025.

Rises on the horizon

KPMG's chief economist Yael Selfin said July marked the start of a gradual rise in inflation, though she said Wednesday's figure was not enough to spur change in the Bank of England's interest-rate setting decisions.

She added that energy-related costs were expected to push inflation higher over the coming months to a peak of about 3.5%.

Inflation remains above the Bank's 2% target - a level the Bank says keeps prices stable and allows both people and businesses to plan for the future.

Ruth Gregory, chief economist of Capital Economics, expects inflation will fall to the target "by the end of next year" provided energy prices don't rise much further.

"The Bank of England will keep rates at 3.75% this year and cut them to 3% next year," she said.

However, price stability remains elusive, said Suren Thiru, chief economist at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

"Rising inflation is likely to become the biggest threat to UK growth in the coming months as it eats into household budgets by increasing the cost of essentials," he said.

He added drought-related increases in food prices may also be on the the horizon.

Chinese robotics giant Unitree soars in stock market debut

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0qv4w9492zo, 5 days ago

The world's biggest humanoid robot maker Unitree Robotics made its stock market debut in Shanghai on Wednesday, with its shares ending their first day of trading up by more than 460%.

The Chinese firm’s shares, which were offered to investors for 150.80 yuan (£16.50; $22.36) each, closed at 845 yuan.

The highly anticipated listing on the technology-focused Star Market - which is widely known as China's Nasdaq - marks a milestone for Beijing's ambitious plans for the country's robotics industry.

It comes as the US and China are battling to dominate the global market for robots and artificial intelligence (AI) models that power them.

While Unitree is not the first Chinese humanoid robot maker to list on the stock market, its debut marks the first in mainland China.

Robots like automated industrial equipment and smart vacuum cleaners are already widely used in factories, warehouses and homes.

Now, the humanoid robotics industry is attracting huge amounts of investment as major companies - including Tesla, BYD and Amazon - are developing two-legged machines capable of performing tasks usually carried out by people.

What is Unitree?

Unitree, officially known as Yushu Technology Co Ltd, was founded in 2016 and now plays a key role in Beijing's ambitions to develop advanced technology.

It has become a robotics industry leader, selling devices from sensors and automated arms to four-legged and human-like machines.

The firm shipped more than 5,500 humanoid robots last year as demand for the technology grows.

Unitree is one of the few companies in the sector to make money, delivering a net profit of 278 million yuan in 2025.

It is a fierce rival to developers in the US as it produces robots with similar features but at lower prices.

The company is based in Hangzhou, in eastern China. The region is home to a so-called golden cluster zone of robotics firms, which have benefited from huge government investments.

That support helped drive a more than threefold increase in the number of Chinese robotics firms between 2020 and 2024, according to state-run China Daily.

Robots are also seen as a potential solution to issues posed by China's ageing population, which is expected to lead to a shortage of workers in the country, according to Fei Qin, an associate professor at the University of Bath.

Beijing considers the robotics sector a "strategic priority" in its pursuit of leadership in advanced technology, she said.

"Robots are where AI leaves the screen and enters the economy" in factories, hospitals and, potentially, the home, Qin added.

US robots tend to have more user-friendly software but it is difficult to ignore the lower prices offered by Chinese manufacturers, said Harold Soh, a researcher from the National University of Singapore.

Unitree's robot dogs start at $2,700, a fraction of the roughly $70,000 price tag for Boston Dynamics' four-legged device, Spot.

"They're not exactly comparable because some of Unitree's dogs are much smaller," Soh said. "But the price is a big difference."

Unitree has been selling humanoid robots since 2023, with its $13,500 child-sized G1 model hitting the market the following year.

Meanwhile, major US rivals - including Elon Musk's Tesla - have yet to start delivering rival products.

Unitree robots have been at the centre of a huge marketing push ahead of the firm's IPO.

This week, its machines are competing in the 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. The event features hundreds of teams competing in events such as running and football as well as less sporty challenges like box opening and sorting library books.

In February, Unitree's robots caught the eye of the public and researchers when its G1 robots put on a display of martial arts moves during China's Spring Festival Gala.

The live broadcast showed the robots performing a range of moves "in a way we'd never seen before," said robotics researcher David Hsu.

"It was an indication of a rise of an industry," Hsu added.

A bellwether for robotics firms?

Some experts expect Unitree's market debut to be a gauge of investor appetite for the fast-growing humanoid robotics sector.

The listing has given the public a rare chance to invest in a humanoid robotics company and could set a benchmark for other manufacturers, said Jack Pearson from investment firm RoboStrategy.

The listing also marks a "turning point" for China's robotics industry, as Unitree's success comes even as the US is curbing imports of foreign-made robots, Pearson said.

Unitree's IPO comes almost three years after smaller Chinese rival UBTech Robotics listed on the Hong Kong stock market.

In July this year, UBTech drew global attention when it unveiled what Chinese state media described as a "hyper-realistic" robots designed to offer "emotional support and everyday interaction."

More robot makers, including Leju Robotics and AgiBot, are expected to follow UBTech and Unitree with stock market listings in the coming months.

But the optimism around the industry comes as some experts have voiced doubts over demand for robots for uses outside industrial and commercial settings.

Robots are still years away from working effectively in homes, Soh said.

Developers need to address issues like longer battery life, privacy safeguards and reliability, he said.

Initially, the market will be for robots being used in places like factories and hospitals, he added.

China-US tech rivalry

Robots and AI have become the latest flashpoint in the rivalry between the US and China, as both nations view them as strategically important industries.

US President Donald Trump's administration said in July that it would ban new Chinese-made humanoid and quadruped robots over national security concerns and protecting US manufacturing.

Beijing rejected the claim, accusing Washington of "politicising" trade issues.

The US has also set tough restrictions on other Chinese technology - including AI models and electric cars.

China's dominance of the robotics industry highlights a broader issue faced by Washington as Chinese firms become more "deeply embedded" in global manufacturing, said Christine Wan from the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Other countries may be reluctant to reduce their reliance on Chinese suppliers at the risk of disrupting domestic manufacturing, Wan said.

So far, Western robots have not made the same impact on factory floors or in the consumer market.

Boston Dynamics, a major US robotics developer, has said it will roll out human-like machines in car maker Hyundai's factories in two years' time. The South Korean firm has a majority stake in Boston Dynamics.

Other US firms, like Amazon and Tesla, have also announced plans to use humanoid robots in their operations.

Earlier this year, Musk's firm announced that it would use its manufacturing plant in California that made Model S and X cars to produce its line of Optimus humanoid robots.

Amazon, which tested the use of humanoid robots in its warehouses in 2023, told the BBC it is continuing its research into next-generation robotics.

The BBC has also contacted Tesla and Boston Dynamics for comment on their humanoid robot plans.

One thing is clear, said Hsu, the US has lost its lead in robotics.

"We no longer hear about American robotics companies in the news. It's the Chinese robot companies that are making news today," he added.

Listen to the BBC News World Service Asia Specific podcast: China's humanoid robot boom

The critical tech staying safe by going underground

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20ydrndr0wo, 5 days ago

A wall of white granite towered above a small team of engineers gathered in a California quarry. The ancient, ultra-hard material before them was, to most things, completely impermeable.

Then the rock-melting tunnel-boring machine (TBR) roared to life.

"It's kind of like igniting a rocket," says Troy Helming, founder and chief executive of EarthGrid, as he describes the initially loud process of lighting up three plasma torches at the front of his company's machine.

Those torches, set within a spinning head, soon quieten down as they produce a stream of super-heated plasma reaching 27,000C - significantly hotter than the surface of the Sun.

During the California test this January, EarthGrid's cigar-shaped boring machine chewed through three metres of granite. "We create, basically, a tornado – a violent vortex inside the tunnel," says Helming, as he explains how this helps the machine to suck away debris, which at times takes the form of lava.

"I actually got a little bit emotional watching it," adds the entrepreneur. "I've been waiting for this moment for 10 years."

Emerging technologies like this could make tunnel boring quicker and easier. Putting electricity or telecommunications cables, substations, data centres and other critical infrastructure underground, while good for securing such equipment, has long been a very expensive and difficult option.

Engineering firms told BBC News they are seeing rising demand for undergrounding, in part due to Russia's war with Ukraine, which has revealed just how vulnerable above-ground facilities can be to drone attacks.

Helming says he has fielded interest from companies that want to use his tunnel boring machine for power and fibre optic cables, or pipelines that could transport water, natural gas, or ammonia, for example.

One project the company has eyed up would involve boring tunnels for an underground freight-distribution system around airports and warehouses. "To take more trucks off the road," says Helming.

The January TBR test went well, though the machine "over-bored" slightly to the top and left of the tunnel, says Helming. His team plans to adjust the machine so that it will create a vortex that spins in alternate directions every five minutes or so, in order to correct this, and they hope the TBR could see commercial deployment as early as next year.

Humans have long buried things in the ground to protect them. Doing it safely and cost-effectively with modern infrastructure is hard but sometimes, even in remotest places, it's an option worth taking.

"What we're seeing is that brutal materiality is still important," says Alexander RE Taylor, senior lecturer in communications at the University of Exeter. He has identified what he calls a "data bunker boom" in which data centres are increasingly going underground.

One data centre completed earlier this year was installed in a corner of the Dolomite Mountains in Italy.

Freshly excavated caverns 100m underground sit next to stores that have been used for sparkling wine, apples and cheese in recent years.

Trentino DataMine's naturally cool space makes it cheaper and less energy-intensive to keep servers cool.

Chief executive Dennis Bonn adds: "Ninety million cubic metres of dolomite rock provide natural protection against physical intrusion, electromagnetic interference, seismic events and hydrogeological risks - levels of protection that simply cannot be replicated above ground."

Elsewhere, some tech is burrowing into the seabed. Subsea internet cables, which may run for thousands of kilometres beneath oceans, are occasionally damaged by ship anchors.

There is evidence to suggest that, as burying part or all of the cables has become more common, faults with these cables have become rarer, per kilometre of deployed cable, explains Lane Burdette, senior analyst at TeleGeography, a telecoms market research firm.

"Submarine cables are increasingly being buried up to three meters deep," she says. "In some fault-prone areas, they are buried along their entire lengths."

Taylor says various examples demonstrate that keeping things underground, or deep inside caves, is an effective defensive strategy.

"The tunnels that Al-Qaeda were using were a major strategic problem for the US [during the war in Afghanistan]," he adds. More recently, Iran's notoriously difficult-to-bust underground nuclear facilities have gained much attention.

The war in Ukraine, and other geopolitical events, have "definitely had an impact" on demand for undergrounding in some areas, says Robbie McGoran, head of work winning and business development at Joseph Gallagher, a civil engineering and tunnelling firm.

Countries bordering Russia are increasingly asking about undergrounding. "They're very cautious about who they'll even let do their work – and also burying [infrastructure] and making sure it's well protected. We are noticing that," he adds.

McGoran also says that technologies such as laser-guidance systems and gyroscopes, which help machines work out their position relative to the world around them, have made tunnelling more accurate in recent years.

However, there are still significant challenges, from releasing potentially dangerous gases locked in the ground to occasional flooding issues. Dramatic innovation in tunnel boring equipment, significantly increasing the rate at which tunnels can be carved out, does not come along very often.

"We usually measure [progress] in millimetres per minute," says McGoran.

In the UK, there isn't a noticeable shift towards putting critical infrastructure underground yet, says Mark Neller, energy leader for Europe, India, Middle East and Africa at engineering consultants Arup.

Though in some places, tunnels are clearly necessary. Neller and colleagues worked on the £1bn London Power Tunnels project, which involved building 18 miles (29km) of tunnels under London to house large electricity cables.

This was the perfect choice for such a busy urban area but because tunnelling can be several times more expensive than above-ground cable infrastructure, Neller says that, elsewhere, simply installing additional circuits can provide sufficient resilience.

"That's actually a much more cost-effective way," he says. "The electricity system [in Great Britain] is designed with quite a lot of redundancy built into it."

Richard Little, infrastructure policy consultant and editor of the Journal of Critical Infrastructure Policy, remembers the latter days of the Cold War, when it was the threat of all-out nuclear war that made bunker-building a frequent talking point in the West.

To this day, Switzerland mandates that every citizen must have access to a nuclear bunker. Many apartment buildings in the country have such facilities in their basements.

"A lot of it was real Dr Strangelove stuff," says Little, referring to discussions around bunker-building during President Ronald Reagan's administration. "The world's going to end but I guess we'll maybe harbour a few hundred critical people down here and they'll survive."

Little, who authored policy documents regarding underground critical infrastructure during the 1990s, adds, "It became obvious rather quickly that you can't put everything underground."

Today, it might be worth identifying specific facilities that would be difficult to restart or replace, were they attacked, as candidates for undergrounding. "The first thing that occurred to me was [computer] chip manufacturing," says Little, offering an example.

"Underground facilities, I'm sure in certain instances, would make a great deal of sense – but it's all about what's critical."

Global borrowing costs hit fresh highs over oil, AI and inflation concerns

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1k1x1zdywdo, 5 days ago

Long-term borrowing costs across some of the word's biggest economies hit fresh highs because of concerns over inflation, government debt levels and spending on Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The interest rate on US borrowing over 30 years hit 5.33% on Tuesday, the highest since June 2007, meanwhile UK long-term debt reached 5.85%. There were similar moves in Germany and Japan.

Interest rates on bonds - which are a type of debt - are known as yields and can directly affect the borrowing costs consumers pay on mortgages, car loans and credit cards.

Rising oil prices are the main driver behind this recent surge in bond yields, as investors fear inflation could spike again.

If that happens, central banks may choose to raise interest rates to cool inflation.

On Tuesday, a barrel of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil prices, surpassed $90 following growing tensions over the conflict in the Middle East.

The recent surge came after President Donald Trump threatened to bomb Oman - a US ally - if it "gets in the way" of talks with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz waterway.

The US and Oman have each been negotiating separately with the Iranian government to reopen the key passage which is vital for global oil supply and other trade.

The strait being largely closed for almost six months due to the US-Israel war with Iran has caused oil supply disruption, leading to higher prices.

As well as hiking the cost of motor fuel, elevated global oil prices can lead to price rises across the board as companies pass the higher expenses they face to consumers, pushing up inflation.

Oil is a key factor in business. More often than not goods are transported by lorry or van.

John Canavan, lead analyst at Oxford Economics, told the BBC the inflation risk from higher oil prices, along with high levels of government debt and uncertainty around the vast sums being invested into AI - and when that will pay off - were all playing a part in higher borrowing costs.

He said this could lead to higher mortgage rates and borrowing costs for car loans for consumers as a result.

Higher yields, he warned, would mean companies could have to pay more to borrow money and might pass that on to customers.

"It adds to the overall inflationary impact," he said, adding that in the longer-term the risk was higher inflation could slow economic growth.

Bond investors typically demand higher returns - or yields - if inflation is high or they expect it to be elevated in the future.

Governments and corporations sell bonds - essentially an IOU - to raise money for spending and in return they pay interest.

As well as inflation fears, Canavan said there had been a "push back" across the world from bond investors over the broad financial policies and spending plans of a number of governments.

The UK's financial position and levels of borrowing has led to Prime Minister Andy Burnham to assure the bond markets that he is committed to sticking to the government's existing borrowing limits, known as its fiscal rules.

Borrowing costs edged up when he took over the Labour leadership from Sir Keir Starmer this summer.

Prior to commitments on the fiscal rules, investors had considered that Burnham would be more likely to increase Britain's already high public borrowing, especially following his comments last year that the UK had to "get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets".

Economists at Capital Economics said in a note that the largest rises in long-term borrowing costs were being seen in the "US, UK, France, Italy, and Japan where, to varying degrees, the fiscal outlook is most problematic".

They said the situation did not represent a "bond market crisis", but added: "There are rational reasons for investors to demand higher returns on long-term government debt: greater geopolitical and inflation uncertainty, questions over US monetary policy and unsustainable fiscal positions."

Canavan said in long-term borrowing costs in the US were also being driven by a "record pace" of corporate borrowing in recent weeks, mostly for the development and build-out of AI and data centres.

However, with uncertainty over the hundreds of billions of dollars being ploughed into AI as well as the potential risks, investors are demanding higher returns on lending.

"The yields are troubling people because it portends a tighter environment and it's going to be more expensive to borrow money," said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners.

"Especially in this whole AI thing where time to pay it back is uncertain. It makes for a nervous investor environment."

Job vacancies at five-year low as smaller firms scale back recruitment

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn9nwx090v9o, 5 days ago

The number of job vacancies has fallen to its lowest level in more than five years as smaller businesses cut back on recruitment, official figures indicate.

Vacancy numbers fell over the May-to-July period to 707,000, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which said small firms were citing labour and operating costs as reasons for scaling back hiring.

Energy costs have risen since the Iran war began, and companies have also said that increases in National Insurance and the minimum wage have made it more expensive to employ staff.

Earnings growth picked up slightly, although private sector wages grew at their slowest rate for nearly six years.

Regular earnings - which exclude bonuses - grew at an overall annual pace of 3.5% in the three months to June, the ONS said. Pay growth for the public sector was 6.1%, due to the timing of the latest NHS pay awards, while in the private sector it dipped to 2.8%.

"The UK labour market remains stuck in a low-churn limbo, with employers reluctant to hire, fire or offer bigger pay rises as they grapple with rising costs, intensifying global headwinds and heightened policy uncertainty," said Suren Thiru, chief economist at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

"The persistent slide in vacancies is a red flag for the jobs market, suggesting labour demand is shrinking amid soaring employment and energy costs, while greater automation is also squeezing some entry-level roles."

The ONS said the labour market was "little changed overall", with the unemployment rate remaining at 4.9%. Its figures showed the number of payrolled employees fell by 13,000 in June, and early estimates suggest it dropped by a further 13,000 in July.

Responding to the latest figures, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Pat McFadden, said it was "encouraging to see signs of progress".

"We've already put in places reforms to get Britain working again," he added, citing changes to Universal Credit "to remove barriers that held people back from employment" and spending on support to help people with health conditions and disabilities move into work.

But shadow chancellor Mel Stride said: "Job vacancies are at their lowest in over five years, and unemployment remains high. Labour are the party of welfare, not work."

On Tuesday, the Conservatives announced proposals to make it easier for young people to get summer jobs. The party said it would give young workers more flexibility around breaks and shift patterns, and simplify evening working restrictions at weekends and outside term-time.

'It's a bit frustrating'

Aaron Diangienda told BBC Newsbeat he has been looking for a role for more than a year.

"I've been trying my best, just making sure that I am finding the correct stuff to suit me and keeping on going with [the job hunt]", he says.

The 19-year-old has decided to return to college this September to study for his level three sport diploma and hopes this will help his prospects.

For Jasmine Walker, it's been a case of applying for jobs "literally anywhere and everywhere".

The 24-year-old says she has been looking for marketing jobs since she graduated from university in July, and estimates she has applied for more than 300 roles so far.

"It's a bit frustrating because you're researching and practising how to make your CV and applications pristine, and yet you still can't get anywhere with that," says Walker.

Government analysis released last week said businesses could face costs of up to £2.9bn a year under a planned crackdown on zero-hours contracts, which would cut the number of hours staff can work before they must be offered guaranteed time.

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said business confidence was at a post-pandemic low, and measures such as the changes to zero-hours contracts means many firms "will be reassessing their recruitment plans".

"Much more must now be done to bolster business confidence and unlock hiring by tackling cost pressures on firms," said Patrick Milnes from the BCC.

But the TUC union body said "exploitative" zero-hours contracts had become "endemic" in the UK, and called on the government to end them.

"We need to get young people into work – but it isn't good enough to push them from unemployment into rampant insecurity... they deserve good, secure employment like anyone else," said TUC general secretary Paul Nowak.

Analysts said there were few signs in the latest ONS release of pay growth generating inflationary pressures, which meant it was unlikely that the Bank of England would increase interest rates in its September meeting.

"With underlying wage pressures remaining contained, there is little reason for the Bank of England to shift course, and we expect rates to remain on hold for the remainder of the year," said Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG.

Figures released last week showed the UK's economy grew by 0.4% between April and June. The ONS described the performance as "relatively robust", although analysts expect growth to slow in the second half of the year.

It also emerged last week that internal forecasts presented to the new prime minister and chancellor suggested UK growth could be as low as 0.3% in 2027, if the Iran war continues to disrupt shipping flows through the Strait of Hormuz.

GTA 6 leaks - a nightmare or a blip for the biggest video game of the year?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c07r3183gn3o, 2 days ago

It's been more than 18 months since the last trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6 was released.

A few weeks ago, developer Rockstar announced it would break its long silence with a special "extended look" at the highly anticipated video game in a Netflix special.

But the run-up to the splashy preview has been potentially overshadowed by a string of apparent leaks which appear to show footage of GTA 6 in action.

Rockstar has not publicly acknowledged the clips, nor replied to any requests for comment, since the first leaks appeared on Wednesday. But there's plenty to suggest the material that's been posted online is genuine.

The developer's parent company, Take Two Interactive, launched legal proceedings regarding the leaks in a New York court on Friday.

BBC Newsbeat has obtained the filings, first reported by video game website Kotaku, demanding Microsoft-owned site GitHub and chat app Discord turn over the user details of accounts thought to be sharing "copyrighted material".

Copies of clips are being quickly removed due to copyright claims, and multiple accounts claiming to belong to the group behind the hacks have also disappeared.

Many fans have described this as a "nightmare scenario" for the company, but BBC Newsbeat has spoken to experts and a former Rockstar developer who say the reality is a little more nuanced.

Obbe Vermeij is a game developer who worked as a technical director on major GTA titles including GTA 3, GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas until he left Rockstar in 2009.

The company's games have grown bigger and more complex since, with thousands of staff worldwide working on each one.

"It's amazing that they can keep things under wraps as well as they do," says Vermeij.

Rockstar is renowned for being tight-lipped about its projects, and Vermeij says this has long been the company's culture.

"We always wanted to keep things a secret," he says, "it makes launch day so much more fun.

"People would just go home with their disc and they were just excited about the game that they knew very little about."

Video game journalist Wesley Yin-Poole, director of news at IGN, says the apparent leaks will be tough for the game's developers.

"GTA 6 is an enormous endeavour," says Yin-Poole. "It's being built over the course a decade, essentially, with thousands of people involved.

"To have the game exposed in this way will have been devastating to many people who worked on it."

The group behind the apparent leaks claims to be acting in the interests of players, accusing Rockstar of engaging in anti-consumer practices, such as its decision not to release a disc version of GTA 6 at launch.

Not everyone is convinced about the group's intentions, as each release of new material has invited viewers to send cryptocurrency "donations" to the user uploading them.

Stop Killing Games, which campaigns against all-digital distribution models, criticised the alleged leaks as "destructive" and urged people not to send money to those claiming responsibility.

Yin-Poole says there's "a huge amount of scepticism" about the stated motivation.

"Most people believe this is about money," he says, "it feels like, honestly, the whole 'we're doing this for the gamers' angle is nonsense, and I suspect most people have dismissed it."

So far, two official trailers for GTA 6 have been released, the most recent in May 2025. Since then, ardent fans have leapt on any rumours or apparent clues in official Rockstar posts.

Some famously came up with an elaborate theory suggesting an image of the moon included in a promotional post for GTA Online held clues to the release date of GTA 6's first trailer.

"To a certain extent, Rockstar has themselves to blame," says Vermeij. "That's their strategy - and I think it's a good strategy, it's exciting. But the consequence is that every little bit of information, every little event, gets sort of blown out of proportion."

Yin-Poole says while people will likely understand this isn't the way Rockstar had intended GTA6 to be revealed and doesn't show the game in the best light, he believes most will "reserve judgement" about it until they have seen official footage in action, or played it for themselves.

Ultimately, he believes there's little chance the leaks will "derail the potential success of the game".

"GTA 6 will be an unprecedented moment in pop culture history," he says. "So ultimately, this will become a footnote in the history of GTA 6's development."

Vermeij, who has not watched any of the latest leaks, agrees.

"I think it will have no impact at all whatsoever," he says. "People will have forgotten about it by the time the game comes out."

Grand Theft Auto 6 is due to be released on 19 November for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, with a PC release expected at a later date.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.

Robots are asking for tips. But who actually gets the money?

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260818-do-you-have-to-tip-the-robots, 5 days ago

Machines are sticking out their digital palms. Your reaction could help shape the future of the service industry.

If you're not in the mood for slot machines at Las Vegas's Venetian Hotel, you can find some entertainment at a bar called The Tipsy Robot. It has a kitschy gimmick: two robotic arms that make automated cocktails.

I hit "margarita" on a screen and watched them jerk to life. They mixed tequila with lime and triple sec, spinning needlessly for extra flair and bowing to deliver the glass. It might have thrilled me 20 years ago. Today, it's almost a cliché.

The drink ran $17 (£12.55), but I found an additional charge: a 10% "service fee". Tipsy wanted a tip.

It wasn't the first time I'd encountered this. A similar robot barista asked me for a tip at Artly Coffee in New York. At Newark Liberty International Airport, a self-checkout machine suggested a gratuity on a bottle of water at an unstaffed kiosk. Across the country in Portland, Oregon, a human took my order at the restaurant Top Burmese, but a robot server wheeled out the dinner.

For the human waiter, I happily tipped 20%, but on the other occasions I hesitated. The rules of tipping go out the window when robots stick out their digital palms, and it's often unclear who keeps the money.

But is this the new normal, or just a passing robot fever dream? The answer may hinge on what you decide to do with your wallet.

Representatives for The Tipsy Robot and Artly Coffee say their human staff split all the tips and the companies get nothing. Artly has even turned off tip-prompts since I visited. Yet these may be exceptions. In fact, some experts tell me robo-tipping may be part of a broader effort to squeeze more out of workers and customers alike.

"We have every reason to believe that some unscrupulous employers are taking the robot tips for themselves," says Holona Ochs, an associate professor of political science at Lehigh University, US, and co-author of the book Gratuity. "The critical question is who benefits, and who pays the price," says Ochs.

The robot cash grab

Since the pandemic, people are now asked for more tips in more places than ever before, often prompted by digital payment systems. Consumers complain of "emotional blackmail" as suggested tip percentages creep up. And while some scoff at Americans' "out of control" tip culture, it's spreading across the globe.

The changing norms are a flash point in the US, where gratuities let companies pay staff a lower base salary. The US minimum wage is $7.25 (£5.35) an hour, but it drops to just $2.13 (£1.57) for employees who work for tips.

When you tip a worker in the US, the law says companies, owners and supervisors cannot take a cut. But if you're tipping a machine, there may be a loophole.

"A legal standard for who owns robot tips has not been established," says Ochs.

The Trump administration has made it harder for employees to pursue claims about tip problems, and workers may keep their stories secret for fear of retribution. "So if employers are taking tips given to robots, we have little way of knowing," she says, at least for now.

"A lot of the time you can see people doing work in the kitchen or behind the bar, but the tip may well be going to a corporation. There are no rules."

That doesn't mean automatons are bad for service workers. The novelty of robots is the whole point at places like the Tipsy Robot and Artly Coffee, so the people working alongside machines wouldn't have those jobs otherwise.

Artly says that its decision to turn off tip-prompts and give workers a raise was in part a response to customer complaints about tips. Some locations now have physical tip jars, but 100% of tips still go to human staff, says Abigail Smathers, director of content at Artly. "We don't believe in automating for cost savings at the expense of humans."

There's a labour shortage in the service industry, and robots can help without displacing humans, Smathers says. However, she acknowledges that AI is being deployed in places where it doesn't belong.

"But at the end of the day, that is where the problem lies. This technology is not inherently evil. Its morality lives in intent and execution," she says "But we are doing our best to build with intent, act with integrity, and ensure that the future of this technology benefits the many, not the few."

Katerina Berezina, an associate professor who studies hospitality technology at the University of Mississippi, US, says the industry deserves more credit. "I don't think it's fair to assume this is just companies trying to make money at any cost," she says.

"The tip or the service fee can just be something that covers the necessary labour or updates that the robot needs." Tipping is the norm in this industry, she says, and companies work within market constraints.

On the other hand, some like the advocacy group One Fair Wage argue robots are simply an effort to continue paying low wages, which is the real cause of the restaurant labour shortage.

Whatever the balance of factors at play, experts say the future depends on how you and other customers respond to the experiments we're seeing now.

To tip or not to tip?

"Think of the main motivations for tipping," says Michael Lynn, professor emeritus at Cornell University, US, and author of the book The Psychology of Tipping.

We often tip to reward good service, or for altruistic reasons to make up for low wages. Lynn says. And of course, there's the question of status and approval; "If I don't tip, they're going to hate me," he says. In other words, we feel obligated.

"Almost none of that applies to robots, so clearly there's no reason to tip," Lynn says.

However, people may be doing it anyway. In one study, only about 11% of participants said they would tip a robot bartender. "But people who actually had experience with robot bartenders were much more likely to be willing to tip than other people," says Berezina, the study's co-author.

And even though most people said they wouldn't tip a robot, about 42% changed their mind if the tip was going to human employees.

More like this:

• The secret codewords that scammers hate

• The spy in your driveway: how cars sell your data

• Weak hands and blurry vision: Is your tech giving you 'phone body'?

Still, Lynn argues it's a wildly unpopular practice, and it will probably stay that way. Businesses are introducing robot tips because it helps make more money, but if robo-tips drive customers away, that may help kill them.

"There is no god of tipping, no one can make you pay. And the norms come from the bottom up," he says. "I think businesses will come to see this and abandon these expansions."

In other words, Lynn says you and I are just living through a brief and incredibly annoying moment in history.

"I believe that's true," he says. "But hey, anybody who says they can predict the future is lying."

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'It's not Alton Towers' - rows over waiting in line at Wales' highest mountain

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1714xg2vr9o, today

Visitors to Wales' highest mountain are being urged to respect others by not jumping queues to reach the summit.

Recent videos from Yr Wyddfa, also known as Snowdon, on social media have shown rows breaking out between those waiting their turn and others skipping the line to reach a metal plate that marks the top.

Marc Screeton, from Manchester, posted a video showing him being heckled as he bypassed the line, saying: "Imagine queuing on a mountain? No chance."

Others believe queuing is necessary for safety reasons.

The recent hot weather has meant another bumper summer for Wales' highest peak in Eryri National Park, also known as Snowdonia - but its growing popularity has led to bottlenecks.

Queues are now common on the stone steps leading to a metal plate or trig point, where people pose for photos and videos.

It has been reported that visitors have waited over an hour to reach the trig point, which is 1,085m (3,560ft) high.

Speaking to the BBC, walkers on the mountain had mixed views about those jumping the queues.

Lucy Taylor said: "I think you should queue because it's really quite dangerous and everyone's trying to get up there - it's just not safe."

Tina Millard from West Bromwich said: "I don't think that you should have to queue.

"It's a mountain, you should just be able to go up and that's it.

"We're not at Alton Towers for a ride. It's a mountain, it's for everyone," she said.

Carl Lynch from Dunstable, Bedfordshire said: "It should be: 'go up there, two minutes and then move on for everyone else'. Simple as that."

Throughout this year's hot weather national park wardens have urged visitors to follow the country code by closing gates, taking their litter away with them and reducing the risks of wildfires.

They have also urged people to wait their turn when queuing.

Alun Jones, an area warden for Eryri National Park Authority, urged those wanting to reach the trig point to be "considerate and don't skip the queue".

Johann Go, a moral philosopher and assistant professor of ethics at University College London, said queuing was not compulsory for most but was often an "unwritten and unspoken" social contract.

"So it's not that I have to queue, but given that others are already restraining themselves, if I were to then jump the queue, I would be saying 'to hell with them' and that my time is more valuable," he said.

Why we can't look away from hoarder home clean-ups

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy743vpj3dlo, yesterday

When Victoria Gordon arrives at a client's house, she can be met with huge piles of clothes, stacks of unwashed dishes and badly blocked toilets.

The 44-year-old is not your average cleaner. She specialises in hoarder clearances, crime scene work and other extreme clean-up projects.

She loves her job as an extreme cleaner, but since starting to document her cleaning adventures online, she has found it fascinating how interested other people are in what she does.

The popularity of cleaning videos has grown rapidly in recent years. In 2023, Unilever partnered with TikTok to launch a dedicated CleanTok community after the genre had amassed 78 billion views on the social media platform.

So why are people so captivated by videos of hoarded homes, crime scene cleans and other extreme clear-outs?

Gordon, from Lincoln, believes videos on her account have racked up thousands of views because people are "naturally inquisitive" and "nosey".

"We like to have a little delve into other people's lives – in particular where there's a shocking 'before and after', or they're able to watch the process," she says.

"People find it really interesting and actually quite satisfying."

Dr Wasim Ahmed, a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Hull, says it comes down to people craving a sense of control, curiosity and relatability.

"You're seeing something in the short-form video where it's creating tension, showing you a lot of mess, and there's a process and resolution that can be quite reassuring," Ahmed says.

"It's quite satisfying seeing a clear problem and a clear ending in just under a minute."

Long before this sort of content became a social media phenomenon, programmes such as Britain's Biggest Hoarders, The Hoarder Next Door and Hoarder SOS were attracting audiences on television.

TikTok said the CleanTok community had transformed the mundane task of cleaning into "one of the most-loved and entertaining genres" on its platform.

The trend has been driven by "cleanfluencers" – content creators who share cleaning routines, home organisation tips and everyday resets with their followers.

Ann Russell, a cleaner from Hampshire, amassed a global following of three million people on TikTok after she began posting videos of her day job online.

Speaking to the BBC previously, she said: "I still don't like cleaning my own house but cleaning someone else's house – you can go into absolute chaos, you can tidy it, clean it, you can render it beautiful and then you can leave and somebody says 'Thank you'.

"When it is your own house, just when you are getting to the end of it, somebody drops a bottle of squash and throws a pair of socks on the floor. It's disheartening and it's never-ending."

Gordon is one of the more niche creators, showing "all the gory stuff that not many other people want to do".

"I obviously have to be really careful what I post," she says. "I don't post anything without permission and there are loads of clean-ups where I wouldn't even ask."

Earlier this month, she posted a video of a 35-year-old Mars bar that she had found while cleaning a hoarder's home.

"It's so fascinating what people find so interesting. I almost put it in the skip [but now] I might do a UK tour with it," she says.

Ahmed says the videos are going viral because social media platforms are "actively rewarding" this type of content.

His current research focuses on social media virality, including why people are so captivated by short-form video.

"A lot of these algorithms learn from how long users are staying on these videos," he explains. "All it knows is that the person hasn't scrolled past."

He adds: "So when there's a really filthy room and it's holding people's attention or it's a really shocking crime scene, the algorithm is reading that as a quality metric.

"It starts finding the user worse rooms, worse crime scenes, [and] allowing the content to be served up in greater numbers as well."

Ahmed says another reason the videos perform so well is the level of engagement they generate through likes, comments and shares.

"People are quite drawn to the comments section, to have a scan [of] other people's views," he says.

"There is this concept of relation. There could also be a sense of comparison as well."

Gordon says the main reason she posts online is to raise awareness, particularly about hoarding disorder and mental health.

According to the NHS, hoarding disorder is a mental health condition in which someone collects a lot of things and finds it difficult to get rid of them, even when they negatively affect their daily life.

"I think it's really easy to be quite judgmental," she says.

"People see footage of these homes online and in documentaries, and it's really easy to judge and think the person's lazy.

"There's a lot of stigma behind it and a lot of misunderstanding."

She says the stigma of being a hoarder can stop people from seeking help.

"This is real life. It's mental health. It's people who are finding themselves living in really unsafe, unsanitary conditions through no fault of their own.

"The more we can talk about it, the better. The less we judge, the more we can understand, [and that] is only going to be a good thing."

Gordon says many of her followers are hoarders themselves.

"I get a lot of messages in my inbox saying, 'Thank you so much for your content. That house that you did last week, mine's not dissimilar to that and you're making me feel like I'm not the only one that lives like this'.

"A lot of people have messaged me and said that, because they've seen my videos, they found the courage to ask for help or maybe hire a cleaner.

"So it is having a really positive effect."

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Councils to use AI to meet £37.6m funding gap

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9q98lnn7nzo, 3 days ago

Two local authorities will use artificial intelligence (AI) to help bridge multi-million pound budget gaps.

West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) identified a £24m budget gap for 2027/28, while North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) will need to find £13.6m.

Both councils have started cost cutting measures including using artificial intelligence (AI) across services like adult social care — an area where they have previously seen a spending increase.

A study by the BBC Shared Data Unit identified 218 upper-tier councils would need to make a total of £3.2bn in cuts.

Both councils, controlled by Reform UK, have introduced AI in adult social care to improve and make services more efficient.

They have seen a rise in spending across adult social care and children's services which has put pressure on other services.

At NNC, AI is being used to transcribe conversations and save staff time so they can spend longer prioritising residents' care and support needs.

WNC has trialled using an AI chatbot on WhatsApp for adult social care questions, using it to screen initial requests for education, health and care plans to reduce the backlog and has approved technology for adults to be supported to live independently with the help of digital tools.

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, raised concerns.

She said there is an "inevitable risk" of inaccuracy or misunderstanding with transcription and said any technology being incorporated into care for elderly or vulnerable adults needs to be designed to meet their needs.

A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said the government does not "mandate" how local authorities use AI but encourages its use to "alleviate pressures".

In the WNC 2026/27 budget a number of efficiency savings and income generation measures have been approved including a 4.95% increase in council tax, higher charges for garden waste services and parking and a decrease in budgets for things like community grants.

A WNC spokesman said: "We have a robust and prudent approach to financial management and continuously review opportunities to improve services and reduce costs to taxpayers while protecting services for residents as far as possible."

Graham Cheatley, deputy leader of the council and executive member for finance, efficiency and change, said: "The council is also calling on central government to introduce a funding system that better reflects the growing pressures facing local authorities."

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'It's a bit odd at first': The robot helping with NHS health checks

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0n9ndd7ero, 3 days ago

Ged Cashley suffered a cardiac arrest in 2018 and now has annual checks to monitor his health.

The 72-year-old's latest trip to the doctor was a little different to his previous ones.

His GP practice in Dundee is trialling a 3ft-tall robot - called Teme - which glides across the waiting room and takes him through a series of checks before he sees the doctor.

"It's a bit odd at first, but you soon get used to it," says Ged.

“The first part of almost every patient consultation is spent collecting basic information.

"The little robot does that job - so by the time you sit down with your GP, they already have what they need and can spend their time actually talking to you.”

Ged's GP - Dr Gillian Chin - believes robots could play a key role in freeing up healthcare staff to see "more patients, more quickly".

Her surgery took part in a two-day trial called HEART-POD, a collaboration with scientists at the National Robotarium at Heriot Watt University, who developed a prototype robot.

In total, 12 patients living with cardiovascular conditions took part.

For the trial, the robot carried out basic checks such as blood pressure monitoring, oxygen saturation as well as weight measurements.

The robot, which currently has an American accent, greets the patient in the waiting room and takes them to an examination room where it talks them through tasks such as how to unwrap the blood pressure cup, place their arm flat on the table and start the monitor.

Teme then speaks to the patients before printing out the results so they can be taken to the nurse or GP for further discussion.

"It's undeniable that the NHS is under pressure," Dr Chin told BBC Scotland News.

"Demand on the system is increasing at a higher rate than the number of appointments and capacity that we're able to offer."

She said using the robot saved 50% of consultation time, allowing a doctor or nurse to either see more patients or go into greater detail with them.

According to Dr Chin, feedback was largely positive from staff and patients but it identified issues that would need to be addressed ahead of wider deployment.

Some patients in the trial expressed concerns about privacy, preferring not to talk to the robot in the waiting room.

The use of robots in the NHS is not an entirely new area.

Robotic assisted surgery has already been welcomed by surgeons who say it allows them to perform complex operations with faster recovery for patients.

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools have also been used successfully in some parts of the NHS, such as helping radiologists detect cancer.

However, the use of AI and robots has also prompted concern about diagnostic accuracy, patient confidentiality and workforce levels.

The Royal College of GPs Scotland believe robots performing simple tasks can have an important role in supporting doctors.

But its vice chair Dr Chris Williams said: "Technology should be seen as a tool to support healthcare professionals, not replace them.

"The human relationship between patients and clinicians cannot be replicated by technology alone."

Colin Poolman, executive director of the RCN in Scotland, said “Nursing staff welcome investment in solutions that support them to be more effective in their roles."

But he also said there had to be a balance.

"Technology is a support for nursing staff, not a substitute,” he said.

Those involved in developing robotic technology believe it could be moving at a faster pace and used more widely.

"We're seeing really quick developments in terms of humanoid robots that can help, perhaps, around the home, in our leisure and retail centres," said Lisa Farrell, business development lead for Healthcare Robotics at The National Robotarium.

"What we're not seeing at the moment is that uptake in our health services."

Farrell says healthcare robots are not designed to take jobs away from professionals but could be used to do some of the "dull, dirty or dangerous" tasks to free people up "to do what humans do best".

She said countries like the US and Japan are further ahead in the adoption of healthcare robots but says here in Scotland and the UK it needs "momentum and political will now".

'No national strategy' for robots

The National Robotarium is involved in several small scale pilots like the one in Dundee.

The centre also piloted healthcare robots in a hospital in Paris and is soon to carry out a test in a care home in Glasgow. Most are currently funded by private companies.

Professor of economics and project co-investigator Cristina Tealdi said the technology is improving at a fast pace and is adaptable to need.

What is missing, she said, is national investment and testing in real life situations to collect data on what offers best value to the NHS and patients.

"At the moment the implementation is very scattered and there is not a national strategy towards implementation of technology in healthcare," she said.

Health Secretary Angela Constance said innovation within the health and care system was central to plans for reform.

She said the government had already taken "significant measures" to use technology, including “supporting AI-powered physiotherapy services and a £1.8m investment in a national digital dermatology platform, now available to all GPs to cut waiting times and support earlier skin cancer diagnosis".

TikTok declines invite to discuss dangerous driving videos

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78g21ejk9go, 3 days ago

TikTok has declined an invitation to appear before an Irish parliamentary committee on media to discuss videos of people driving the wrong way down motorways being posted.

Five teenagers were killed in a head-on crash while driving the wrong way down a motorway in County Kildare in the early hours of Sunday.

The Irish child and family agency Tusla confirmed on Thursday one of teenagers killed in the crash was in its care and two were known to the agency.

The four people in the car they crashed into were injured - three women and a seven-year-old boy - two of the women critically and the other woman and the boy seriously.

In a letter seen by Irish broadcaster RTÉ, a TikTok spokesperson said they could not attend the Oireachtas Committee on Media because of the ongoing police investigation and a separate examination by Coimisiún na Meán, Ireland's media regulator.

They also cited the fact they are the only company to have been asked to attend.

TikTok previously said it was monitoring content related to the incident and was removing videos and accounts that broke its rules.

Labour TD and media committee chair Alan Kelly wrote to TikTok requesting that its officials attend a meeting next month to what he described as "content that glorifies irresponsible or illegal activity".

On Tuesday, Coimisiún na Meán said it has asked TikTok to outline how it has responded to risky and reckless driving content on its platform.

A letter sent to Kelly from TikTok's head of public policy Susan Moss said: "Both An Garda Síochána and Coimisiún na Meán are conducting their own examinations into the matter referred to in the statement by Deputy Kelly.

"As a result, we believe it would not be possible to appear before the committee in public session until this process is completed.

"The same issues arises in relation to other social media platforms and messaging services where instances of the content complained of is present.

"However, those platforms have not been invited to appear before the committee at this time.

"TikTok does not consider it appropriate to be the sole representative of the video sharing industry in such circumstances."

'Slap in the face'

In a statement, Kelly said TikTok's decision was "deeply disappointing and, frankly, unacceptable given the seriousness of the issues we are seeking to examine" adding it was "a slap in the face to the Irish public".

He called on TikTok "to immediately reconsider its decision".

He added: "The issue of a Garda investigation being ongoing as an excuse for not coming is a red herring, while if they want us to invite in other social media companies with them I've no problem with that.

"This matter is far too important for them to treat the Irish public this way."

In care of child and family agency

The five teenagers who died in the car that was driving the wrong way down the motorway have been named as Joe Carthy from Athy, County Kildare, Alex McCarthy from Carlow, Kamil Pustkowski from Limerick, Jeremy O'Brien and Jack Kennedy.

Tusla, which confirmed one of the young men killed was in their care and two were known to them said "staff have been in contact with their families and there is ongoing liaison with An Garda Síochána".

Tusla said its "thoughts are with all of those who have been affected by this tragic incident".

It said it is "mindful of the very challenging and sensitive circumstances surrounding this incident and it is a very traumatic time for individuals, for families, for staff and for wider communities".

The agency said it is continuing to work with the Children and Young People's Services Committee and partner organisations to ensure that the appropriate supports are available to all those affected, including families, local communities and others impacted by the tragedy.

Tusla also said it will share all information required with the National Review Panel (NRP), in line with standard reporting processes.

The NRP is commissioned by Tusla and independently carries out reviews of deaths and serious incidents to children.

Is Vine back? Short-form video-sharing app Divine opens to public

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3r05g378w4o, 3 days ago

A new app seen as a spiritual successor to short-form video service Vine has been released to the public.

Much like the original, Divine lets users create and share videos which are just six seconds long and repeat on a loop.

The new app also hosts more than two million original Vine videos and - in a bid to further distance itself from other platforms - bans content made by AI.

Divine's founder, former Twitter employee Evan Henshaw-Plath, told the BBC he wanted to create the app because he felt social media needed "a reset".

"I want to see it rival other apps because I think we have gone awry," he said in an interview a few weeks before the public launch.

He said it was important that there was no AI-generated content on Divine, adding he was "sick and tired of seeing videos and not knowing whether it was real".

"I want to be able to have fun and not have to second guess these things," he said.

At its peak, Vine had more than 200 million monthly active users and helped launch the careers of some of the internet's biggest stars.

Jake Paul and Lele Pons are two of those who made their names on the platform before it was shut down by its owner Twitter in 2017.

Divine is backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who had a senior role at the social media platform when it purchased the Vine in 2012.

It is built on a decentralised system called Nostr, meaning it is not controlled by a single company in the same way as platforms such as TikTok or Instagram.

This means users can potentially take their accounts and content with them to other services that use the same system, rather than being locked into one platform.

A similar approach has been used by X rivals Bluesky and Mastodon.

Divine's website FAQs outlines several ways for the platform to ensure all videos on the app are human-made, without AI involvement.

For example, users have to record videos live in the app, rather than uploading from elsewhere, and it will use a verification tool called ProofMode - which works like a digital receipt for a piece of media.

When users record something using a device with ProofMode, it can attach information which helps verify elements such as when it was recorded and whether the file has been altered since.

Users will also be able to flag suspected AI content, and automated systems as well as humans will be involved in looking for signs of the tech.

Divine's attempt to do things differently could also be its biggest challenge, according to social media analyst Matt Navarra.

"The mechanisms people dislike about modern social media are often the same that made those platforms extraordinarily good at keeping people there," he said.

"So Divine now has to prove you can remove some of the addiction without removing the magic."

Aside from its new content and features, the treasure trove of old Vines created by some of the platform's biggest stars could well be a draw for those who remember their first time around (and around).

Henshaw-Plath said he initially set out to simply recreate Vine's short-video format, but then wondered if he could bring back its old videos too.

He discovered the Internet Archive had preserved a copy of Vine's data and spent months reconstructing it.

"I was like, oh, this is really cool," he said, initially expecting only a few thousand people to be interested.

Instead, 10,000 people installed the app within its first few hours, overwhelming its servers.

"That's when I went, oh, there's something more here," he said.

As to why people may still have interest in short-form content when many apps such as YouTube and TikTok have moved towards much longer videos, he compared Vine's format to the haiku.

"We could do free-form prose," he said.

"Yet poetry is a form in which we value and which has meaning. And so there's many ways in which Vine was poetry."

The challenge for Divine is to turn that nostalgia into something that works for a new generation of social media users.

UK business hit by 'daylight robbery' 1500% price hike for invoicing software

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyq011414eo, 4 days ago

Customers have shared their outrage after an app used by many businesses to track timesheets and produce invoices hiked bills by as much as 1500%, with one person calling it "daylight robbery".

Richard Haldenby, head of UK consultancy firm Salentis, told the BBC his monthly bill had risen from $130 (£95.50) to $2,110.

Others have reported similar price hikes online, with one person in the US saying their annual charge went from $2,800 to $23,000.

A Harvest spokesperson said customers on "outdated" legacy plans, some dating back to 2011, faced larger price increases as the product became "a significantly more powerful" tool.

They added customers are notified "30 days and 10 days before their renewal date" and can switch plans "in one click" or request help finding a better price.

Harvest was acquired by the Italian tech company Bending Spoons in 2025, and changed its pricing structure the following year.

Many businesses who pay annually are only now finding out about the increase, as their payment is now coming up for renewal.

Haldenby, whose business consists of up to 15 staff in the UK at any one time, with sister companies also in the US and Australia, said he was "in shock" when he received an email detailing the price changes.

"We have used Harvest in our three companies for at least 15 years and have been loyal and enthusiastic advocates of it," he said.

"But if we were to accept this increase it would double our IT spend for the year, which is completely unaffordable."

Until the change, businesses paid a flat monthly fee for each user.

They could add or remove users as their staffing needs changed, meaning they only paid for the people who needed access.

Under the new usage-based pricing model, businesses can also be charged according to the number of active projects, clients and tasks they have - as well as the amount of revenue they invoice through the platform.

Haldenby said he contacted the company to say his firm would not accept the change.

He was then offered a discount for the next year - taking the price down to $1,309 - which would need to be paid up front.

But he said he believed this would just "delay the inevitable", so he is "planning to migrate to a similar but less good service".

"It's a classic example of corporate greed over valuing customers," he said.

The move has drawn criticism online, with one analyst telling the BBC it was "extremely bad practice".

"Harvest has completely failed at the transparency test," said Mark Peacock, head of the UK consultancy firm PriceMaker, which focuses on pricing strategy for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

"There is no way for a customer to work out how much it's going to cost them until they get their bill at the end of the month.

"Many users are reporting a 10-fold increase in costs which is entirely unacceptable."

Who are Bending Spoons?

Damian Foks, head of consulting at Valueships, said the Harvest price hike was "a clear sign of a shift in the company's strategy from growth to monetization".

He said this was "likely" a result of the firm being taken over by new owners.

Bending Spoons has acquired more than 50 major tech firms since it was founded in 2013, such as Evernote, Vimeo and WeTransfer.

The business has a track record of raising prices in companies it has acquired in the past.

Following its 2022 acquisition of the note-taking app Evernote, the company implemented sharp subscription price increases alongside layoffs in the US and Chile.

Both WeTransfer and Vimeo have faced tighter limits on free tools since they were separately acquired by the Italian tech firm, with legacy users also forced to move onto more expensive pricing tiers.

Councils turn to AI in attempt to fill £4bn black hole

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdx7r9467kno, 4 days ago

Councils across the UK are increasingly turning towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) as they try to fill a looming £4bn financial black hole.

But local government experts say it is not the "silver bullet" to save a system from "the brink of collapse".

There are also ethical concerns around the increasing use of AI in assessing the level of care vulnerable people need.

A government spokesman said it encouraged safe and responsible use of the technology where it could reduce workloads.

A study by the BBC Shared Data Unit found all but a small handful of the UK's local authorities will reduce the services they offer this financial year, despite recent reforms to the way they are funded.

The 218 upper-tier councils, which include borough, county, metropolitan and unitary authorities, will make a total of £3.2bn in cuts.

Planned measures include reducing the frequency of bin collections, closing heritage attractions, ending bus routes and - in the case of one council - completely removing sheltered housing support.

Fees and charges for parking permits and green waste bins will be hiked at dozens of councils, while almost every authority will raise council tax by the maximum 5%.

'Unrelenting pressure'

Jonathan Carr West, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU), which advises on policy across the world, said the BBC study showed the sector was "still struggling to keep up with astronomic rates of increase in demand and cost for those key statutory services like adult social care and children's services".

"The sector as a whole continues to become more and more on the brink of collapse," he added.

A spokesman for the Local Government Association, which represents councils across England and Wales, said the cost and demand pressures were "unrelenting".

"In just three years, councils will need around 25 per cent more money simply to stand still," he said. "Without action, the services people rely on every day, from social care to safe streets, will be eroded."

Though the government has increased the amount of grant funding councils receive from the Treasury since the pandemic, a study by independent thinktank the Institute for Government found it was still down on pre-2010 levels.

Even if this year's savings are achieved, councils predict they will need to find a further £3.8bn by the end of the 2027-28 financial year to balance their books. A record 37 councils will also receive forms of exceptional financial support this year.

It means many are trying to lower the cost of providing care to the elderly and vulnerable, whether by re-tendering contracts with cheaper care companies, closing care homes or by re-assessing those already in care to see if their package of support can be reduced.

This year, dozens of councils have pledged to use AI to drive savings.

Among them are Medway Council chiefs who say they will use AI to "draft care plans" and automate invoice processing.

Several councils will reduce staffing in their call centres - which enable people to query council tax bills, order new bins or arrange a care assessment among other things - and bring in chatbots to "triage" initial queries.

West Sussex County Council hopes its plans to replace nine call handlers with an AI contact centre could save £300,000 a year.

But campaigners for the elderly say older people are already struggling to interact with automated chatbots where they have been introduced.

Similar measures have proved controversial in other areas. Derby's AI chatbot Darcie received several complaints for struggling to understand the local accent.

'Clients need a human voice'

Dennis Reed, director of the Silver Voices campaign group for elderly people, said: "People seeking social care support are likely to be confused, perhaps in pain, and not used to negotiating the merry-go-round of contact centres using AI at first contact.

"What potential social care clients need at first contact is a sympathetic human voice, not a robotic answering machine."

Denise Rowley, 71, previously taught IT among other subjects to older people at a college in Leeds.

After suffering a stroke nearly a decade ago, she has relied on Wakefield Council's trips and falls service Carelink to help her if she gets into difficulty.

But with the Department for Work and Pensions expanding its AI-assisted call centre and local councils following suit, she says older people are increasingly feeling shut out by new technology when contacting services they need.

"Older people do struggle with technology," Rowley said. "It's bad enough having to use computers every time you need something, let alone having to talk to an AI.

"And the thing is, a lot of these AI call centres are based on a system that didn't work in the first place."

Councils and care providers are already using AI to write case notes, predict falls and analyse care records.

But there are serious concerns around the use of such tools to draft care assessments, where social workers record a person's needs and decide what council-funded support they are entitled to.

"This is something our members are really worried about," said Andrew Reece, strategic lead for the British Association of Social Workers. "This is stepping into the area of making decisions and we don't think that's appropriate."

He said it was different to tools that assisted social workers - for example, recording a conversation to help them make good notes.

The use of AI to create assessments would be "stepping over the boundary between assisting a social worker and taking over from them", he said.

Derby City Council said its AI-drafted care assessments were always reviewed by a social worker.

But a report by the Ada Lovelace Institute found AI tools made frequent errors in care assessments, some of which found their way into finalised reports.

Reece was also concerned to see AI being trumpeted as a means to save money.

"The system is under a huge amount of pressure at the moment and most social workers are not able to complete their work within their normal hours," he added.

"The savings will come from shedding social work jobs, which will just put more pressure on the system."

'Marginal savings'

In some cases, the expected savings are relatively small.

Liverpool's use of AI tools to improve efficiency in children's social care will save about £150,000 by the end of the 2027-28 financial year.

In proportion, its total budget gap during the same time is more than £29m.

"There is no silver bullet," said Carr-West. "We have seen some savings being made from AI, but they are, to be frank, pretty marginal compared to the scale of the problem."

Councils across England said they were increasingly looking to technology and AI to help manage mounting financial pressures, as demand for social care, homelessness support and special educational needs services continues to rise.

Caerphilly Council said its transformation programme included the use of technology and AI to make services more efficient, while Essex County Council said it was exploring further savings through "technology and digitisation" and redesigning services.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) said the government did not mandate how local authorities used AI, but encouraged its use where it could help "alleviate pressures and free up staff to help deliver better public services".

Many authorities said digital reform would help to balance future budgets, but warned technology alone would not solve wider funding pressures.

Across the UK, council chiefs said budgets were being severely stretched by the spiraling cost of providing care, homelessness services and supporting looked after children as well as providing home to school transport.

Barnet Council has one of the largest budget gaps in the UK for its size and will need close to £80m of government support this year.

Describing the council as a "tightly run ship", a spokesperson said it had faced "the perfect storm" of a decade of reduced government funding and year-on-year rises in service costs.

Six of the 10 councils set to make the most savings per head of population in 2026-27 are London boroughs, adding to fears town halls within the capital are being hit hardest by rising costs.

Carr-West said there had been hope Labour's recent local government reforms would begin to improve the situation.

It has introduced multi-year funding settlements, effectively telling councils how much they will get several years in advance rather than just the next year.

It also made drastic changes to the formula used to allocate funds, with more money directed towards areas assessed as having higher levels of need and less ability to raise income locally through council tax.

"If we're all marching towards a cliff edge, they've sort of slightly slowed down that progress, but they haven't fundamentally changed its direction," added Carr-West.

In July, Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced plans to give all mayors of city regions in England a share of income tax revenue for the first time, as part of his drive to transfer power from Westminster to local leaders.

The government is set to press ahead with plans to replace two-tier council areas with single councils responsible for all local services, in what ministers say will simplify local government.

The changes are also intended to save money by reducing duplication and cutting administrative costs.

The MHCLG spokesman said: "We're making £78bn available to local authorities across the country this year through our fair funding settlement – and thanks to our changes, nine in 10 councils in England will receive funding that matches their relative need by the end of 2028-29."

* The Shared Data Unit makes data journalism available to news organisations across the media industry, as part of a partnership between the BBC and the News Media Association. Read more about the Local News Partnerships here.

Additional reporting: Alex Homer, Joanna Morris, Catherine Heuston

Police help influencer escape city centre crowds

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqx7n47zddwo, 4 days ago

A TikTok star says he was helped by police to evade large crowds by going through a pub's back entrance after a visit to a city caused commotion.

J2Hundred, who live streams on TikTok and Kick, said the turnout took him by surprise when visiting Norwich on Tuesday and he has subsequently cut short a tour of East Anglia.

Norfolk Police received several calls about large groups of young people gathering but found there was no criminality taking place.

Following the experience, the creator said "it got a bit hectic" and that he was considering getting more security when making similar live stream videos in the future.

Josh, who does not share his surname publicly, publishes content on social media platforms as J2Hundred.

He live streams while walking through public places and has been touring different parts of the UK.

He has 2.7m followers on TikTok and 260,000 subscribers on YouTube.

The 24-year-old began a live stream at 14:00 BST on Tuesday but it soon became "hectic" after drawing large crowds.

At one point, after going into the Bell Wetherspoon pub in Orford Hill to fix issues with his equipment, he said police helped him escape the crowds.

He said: "I went in to try and sort my equipment out and they were waiting outside.

"Police came in and said there's a lot of people waiting for you and that it might not be safe for you to go out there.

"So they found a way for me to get out."

When he left the pub, a large crowd was still waiting for him and he later stopped the stream.

A Norfolk Police spokeswoman said: "We received a number of calls into to our control room reporting that a large group of young people had gathered in the Orford Hill area and Castle Meadow areas of Norwich.

"Officers attended and spoke to some of those in the group but no criminal offences were identified".

AI assisted prostate surgery helps men reclaim their lives

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvwezlpy8lo, 4 days ago

A robotic water jet assisted by AI is helping men with enlarged prostates regain their quality of life, with one patient saying the treatment gave him "a normal life again".

Cheltenham General Hospital has become the south west's centre of excellence for NHS Aquablation, attracting patients from across the region and beyond for the pioneering treatment.

The procedure uses a high-pressure water jet to remove excess prostate tissue and surgeons say it can preserve sexual function and continence while offering faster recovery times than traditional surgery.

Andy Ocock, who spent nearly a year having to wear a catheter, said: "The quality of my life is unrecognisable to what it was before."

Surgeons say the procedure, which treats benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), a condition affecting more than four million men over 50 in England, has transformed care for many patients.

For consultant urologist, Jeremy Nettleton, the equipment has been game-changing, allowing him to treat more patients in a day then ever before.

Using ultrasound imaging, surgeons map the enlarged prostate before programming where the water jet should remove tissue.

An AI system trained on more than 100,000 previous procedures suggests a treatment plan, although the surgeon makes the final decision.

"Essentially it's using a high speed pressure washer under ultrasound imaging to very accurately wash out some of the prostate tissue," he said.

"It's pretty fierce, it's up to 8,000 psi (pounds per square inch), but it's really controlled so it's accurate within a millimetre and I can see what it's doing on the ultrasound.

"So it's not like unleashing a pressure washer on a patio and not knowing what it's going to do, it's not like that at all. It's very controlled and it's very precise."

Traditional surgery, known as Transurethral Resection of the Prostate (TURP), removes tissue using heat or cutting tools and can involve longer recovery times.

Ocock, 57, from Cheltenham, spent nearly a year wearing a catheter after his enlarged prostate left him unable to control his bladder.

The condition stopped him running and cycling, activities which had always been an important part of his life.

When doctors offered him Aquablation, he felt it was the better option.

"The classic procedure, the way it was described to me, was that we're going to take your prostate and we're going to core it like an apple," he said.

"So the fact that some guy's going to shoot me with a water laser seemed like a better option to me."

During the operation, Nettleton used ultrasound images to assess the enlarged prostate, which measured well over 100cc.

"We'd say 80 is large. His is well over 100. So really large. We're going to try and remove about 80% of that tissue," he said.

Aquablation has proved so successful in Cheltenham that the hospital is now attracting patients from across the UK. Hundreds of operations have been carried out so far.

Ian Kemp, 67, from North Cornwall, chose the procedure after suffering urinary infections linked to an enlarged prostate for around 20 years.

He said the infections could be "pretty debilitating and very sudden" and had become increasingly difficult to treat.

His operation took less than an hour and he was back home in Cornwall the next day.

"The recovery has been far better than I anticipated or hoped it could be really," he said.

"I very quickly felt like I'd had nothing done. I was back doing things much more swiftly than I ever thought I would be able to."

Kemp said the infections had gone and he was feeling optimistic about the future.

For many patients, the lower risk of complications is a key reason for choosing Aquablation, and Nettleton hopes more surgeons will begin offering the treatment.

"The literature says there's 0% chance of new erectile dysfunction after this procedure, and for procedures that remove tissue that's very unusual.

"It also preserves ejaculation in up to about 90% of patients.

"You might see 90% of men having a change in ejaculation with the older techniques.

"And then from a continence perspective, what we call stress incontinence, leaking when you're coughing, is less than half a percent. So really, really low."

Although Ocock's recovery took longer than expected because of the size of his prostate, he said the procedure had transformed his life.

"The enjoyment and novelty of being able to live a normal life still hasn't worn off," he said.

"The quality of my life is unrecognisable to what it was before. I can just decide what I want to go and do and go and do it, I don't have to think about anything else.

"I've had to relearn certain bodily functions, which has been interesting as a bloke in my 50s. You feel like a child again for a while, but I'm almost there now."

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How AI solutions could help balance the budgets of the South's councils

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdx80gg7v71o, 4 days ago

"Council has budget hole of millions" is not a headline which surprises anyone working or dealing with local government.

But the extent of the issue has been revealed in new research from the BBC Shared Data Unit.

Hampshire County Council needs to find £179.7m by the end of 2027/28.

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead has the second largest budget gap per head of population in England, £66.9m in 2027/28 - that's £419.71 per person.

To help them become more efficient, many councils are now increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI).

But will that improve services for people who use them, many of whom will be vulnerable or elderly?

How is AI being used already?

Oxfordshire County Council considers itself an early adopter, using it in childrens and adults' social care, including home to school transport planning.

"Routes can be complicated, perhaps a child with autism who can't be in a taxi for more than 20 minutes so we need to plot journeys which AI can do," said councillor Tim Bearder, leader of Oxfordshire County Council

The council is one of many that uses AI to transcribe conversations on care visits, "it saves social workers spending ages typing up copious notes," Bearder added.

But when you call the council he said you might also engage with an AI virtual assistant: "It's really innovative and can tell the tone of an individual, if they're angry for example, and adapt their responses accordingly.

"It saves a lot of queuing on the phone, but you can opt out of it if you want to speak to a real person."

West Berkshire Council has also been using AI to predict where potholes will appear.

It has been part of a trial to use image recognition technology for automated road condition inspection.

Devices fitted to council vehicles take pictures every 10 metres and detect changes in road surfaces over time, flagging potential changes and potholes which appear before they're reported by members of the public.

The system and the teams that repair earned the council a green rating from the Department of Transport.

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council has been running a trial using AI in its childrens's services department.

Nia - the Family Hub chatbot - responds to questions about services, sessions and information as well as activities in the area.

Councillor Andy Martin, BCP Council Cabinet Member for Customer, Communications and Culture said the technology was "boosting productivity and efficiency, while making sure the skills, expertise and judgement of our staff remain at the heart of everything we do".

No council could give a solid figure on how much AI was saving them financially but many said relieving pressure on a workforce feeling increasingly stretched was a benefit.

What are the potential pitfalls?

There are some concerns about the growing use of AI however.

Local government is struggling to keep up with the increasing demands in adult and childrens' social care and technology, fields where human interaction is important.

Nick Adams-King, leader of Hampshire county said: "Councils have a duty to embrace innovation where it improves services and delivers better value for taxpayers.

"But innovation must not become an excuse for withdrawing human contact and no council can automate its way out of structural underfunding."

And AI is often only as good as the humans who use it and correct its mistakes.

UNISON South East regional manager Ryan Slaughter, who represents thousands of council staff said the union welcomes AI if it helps staff do their jobs better and frees them up to focus on supporting residents.

But he added "staff need to be properly involved in decisions about how new technology is introduced and how it affects their work".

The dangers of politicians being 'too online' - or not online enough

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn5nvkdwy74o, 4 days ago

In early 2015, flower crowns started appearing on Ed Miliband's head. Petals and hearts were photoshopped on to the then-Labour leader by the "Milifandom", a movement of young, mostly female, voters sharing romanticised images on Twitter to protest against Miliband's "distorted media portrayal".

It was the brainchild of Abby Tomlinson, a 17-year-old sixth-form student, who came to the defence of the man she called "Milibae". The hashtag #Milifandom trended. Then Labour lost the 2015 election.

This prompted David Cameron, whose Conservatives increased their number of seats, to boast: "Britain and Twitter are not the same thing." Tomlinson later told me that having her hopes of Milibae in No10 dashed had made her a "political pessimist", after realising winning over voters online "doesn't happen in a day, a week or even months, it's going to take years".

More than a decade on and she is again using social media to big up a Labour leader, but this time in the heart of government. She sits in the press office in No 12 Downing Street as head of content for Andy Burnham. The government has spent the last few weeks recruiting producers, videographers and strategists, working out of both Whitehall and No 10 North in Manchester.

In his first month as PM, Burnham posted more than 50 times on Instagram, ranging from meetings with world leaders, campaigners, farmers and influencers, to meme-based content like ranking pub snacks with Chancellor John Healey as part of an announcement on business rates. Strategists believe Instagram and TikTok can play to Burnham's communication strengths and sense of humour.

They're all at it, of course. Videos of Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch tearing into the budget or mocking ex-PM Sir Keir Starmer have gone viral. Reform UK's Nigel Farage has by far the biggest online audience of any UK party leader, with 7.6 million followers across Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok and YouTube.

In Scotland, the SNP have long mobilised their online army to campaign for independence, building a following larger than that of the Lib Dems, which campaigns across Britain, whose leader Ed Davey has achieved some success with campaign stunts going viral.

Restore Britain, founded by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe, enjoys its highest level of support among users of X. The platform is owned by Elon Musk who has publicly endorsed the party, expanding its reach.

Plaid Cymru, newly installed in government in Wales, is still experimenting with its approach, using First Minister Rhun Ap Iorweth in "fun" memes while also posting more serious interview excerpts. The Greens' Zack Polanski has made much of running his own accounts, though as he has found in recent weeks, this comes with risks too.

So how much is enough? In a world where reputations can be made (or broken) with one comment or collaboration, getting the balance right is tricky – being accessible, authentic and approachable, without being cringe. And does it make any difference to elections?

Bring on the hashtag coffee

Cameron's successor, Theresa May, was similarly doubtful about the merits of social media. When she took office she rebuffed aides who suggested she start tweeting: "People don't say 'pass me the hashtag newspaper, or I'd like a hashtag coffee'." Announcements were to be made formally. When cabinet ministers were appointed in May's first reshuffle, it was heralded in press statements beneath the UK government coat of arms.

By contrast, this summer, presenting my 5 Live show from Downing Street during Burnham's first reshuffle, I could predict the appearance of another new minister because the two-person social media team from No 10 would move into position to capture the new arrivals on their cameras.

Of course, prime ministers (and wannabes) have long adapted to new technology. Winston Churchill harnessed the power of radio, but thought television a vulgar diversion. In the 1960s, Labour's Harold Wilson modelled his TV campaigning on JFK in America. In the 1990s, and 2000s leaders like Tony Blair were just as likely to be found on the chatshow sofa as on the Today programme.

Now, podcasts give long-form - and less combative - opportunities to connect with voters, while social media gives a quick hit of direct democratic dopamine.

Peter Hyman, a former adviser to both Tony Blair and Keir Starmer when in Downing Street, said the success of Burnham's early digital output was about "quantity as well as quality".

"You have to narrate the story of what you are doing three or four or five times a day so that you are out there regularly," Hyman said. "Keir Starmer wasn't out there enough and therefore it wasn't landing."

There is a causality dilemma here. Is Burnham more popular in the polls because he is racking up the likes on social media, or is he doing better online because people like him?

Not everyone is convinced. Cody Dahler, a comedian who posts sweary political explainers to his two million followers, warns voters will become cynical if they sense politicians are just using social media simply "as a comms tool". Burnham, Dahler told me on Newsnight, comes across like a "cool substitute teacher".

And after Burnham released a video discussing what a bread roll is called in different parts of the country – barm, cob or bap - to promote his plans for devolution, broadcaster Piers Morgan asked him to "stop wasting your time and ours with these cringe videos".

And therein lies the difficulty of striking a balance. Bea Timpson, a former press secretary to Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak who says she prefers "trad media" like broadcast and print, added: "I have to accept that it's now non-negotiable to be online a bit, but you definitely can be too much."

The arms race for audiences

TV and online websites remain the most used sources for news, but more and more of us say we also get news from social media, according to media watchdog Ofcom. While this is highest among 16-24 year olds at 78%, a majority of adults in every age group use social media to access news, apart from the over-65s. Even among over 75s, 22% find out what is happening in the world from social media. For politicians, this is no longer just about reaching young people – this is all voters.

Some platforms are more important than others. Even after Elon Musk's conversion of Twitter into X, you will still see MPs, spin doctors and journalists in the Westminster village scrolling through the platform, but digital strategists say "real voters" are found on other platforms. The main parties have far more followers on Facebook (four million combined), which is much more widely used overall, than X (where they have a combined 3.2 million).

Politicians have always looked abroad for policy and campaigning ideas, and social media is no different.

Those on the right seek to emulate the impact Donald Trump has on TruthSocial, while left-wing politicians look to the success of Zohran Mamdani becoming mayor of New York.

Some have even imported social media experts from overseas. In 2019 Boris Johnson hired New Zealand duo Ben Guerin and Sean Topham to run the digital campaign for the general election. They imported into UK politics the concept of "shitposting", releasing deliberately bad images in order to generate a reaction. This included posting a tweet featuring the slogan "Get Brexit Done" in Comic Sans, a font loathed by graphic designers.

There was a method in the madness. "People are more likely to engage with something if they feel like it's been written by a human, not by a committee of design experts," Guerin told me. "It's pretty easy to go viral for doing something weird and wacky, but that doesn't always advance the objectives of your campaign."

This seems to be borne out by some recent hits. Burnham's TikTok post rating pub snacks attracted a million views. Yet a less gimmicky video, straightforwardly listing the five things he said he had done in his first week as PM, got five million.

Spoiling the magic?

There is an inherent tension in political social media. Authenticity is key. Yet who really expects the prime minister to be shooting and uploading his own content?

Back in 2013 I wrote a story about how Cameron's Twitter account had favourited a tweet mocking William Hague from an account handle that made a crude joke about former Tory MP Norman Tebbit being injured in the Brighton bombing.

The prime minister's director of communications called me to complain about my "slapdash and crappy" reporting. My crime? Including a sentence which allowed for the possibility that someone other than Cameron had clicked on the like button by mistake. This would, apparently, spoil the magic for those that thought the prime minister was running his own account for his 500,000 followers.

We now know that Zack Polanski does indeed have his own log-ins. The leader of the Green Party in England and Wales faced criticism in May for sharing a post condemning police actions in the Golders Green attack, for which he apologised. Then in July he accepted an Instagram collaboration which included a man wearing a T-shirt featuring a cartoon guillotine and the song lyrics "we're only making plans for Nigel". Reform UK said it amounted to incitement of violence against Farage. "I'm accepting my responsibility in that I shouldn't have accepted that collaboration," Polanski said, but refused to apologise.

Reform UK's Gawain Towler, a long-time media adviser to Nigel Farage, says: " My big takeaway is: don't be a berk on social media, which I think was Zack Polanski's big takeaway too."

Dov Forman, who helped Tory-turned-Reform MP Robert Jenrick grow his following from 20,000 to more than half a million with viral clips including confronting fare dodgers on the London Underground, says it is "risky" for a leader to run their own social media. But sometimes it can be a risk worth taking.

Badenoch has taken to directing her own videos, telling aides what she wants to post. She has attracted backing on X from American rappers Nicki Minaj and Azealia Banks. Those are the sort of authentic third-party endorsements politicians crave.

Up the ladder

On the day he became prime minister, a video was released of Burnham being interviewed on the Career Ladder, a series run by Ukrainian TikToker Max Klymenko who interviews guests about their career, while standing on a ladder. "If they personally haven't seen the channel it's sometimes quite difficult to make sense for them," Klymenko says. Burnham had seen the show, and did use the ladder.

Which leads us to the big question: Does any of this actually work? Emma Connolly, an academic who has researched this at the Digital Speech Lab at UCL, isn't sure. "We don't necessarily have really strong evidence or convincing evidence that it could really persuade or transform the opinion of opponent voters or even those that are undecided," she says.

And this in turn raises the question of how long the Burnham digital honeymoon might last. Can a prime minister TikTok his way through a war, terror attack or controversial court case? Announcing a new giveaway may go viral, but what about the details of the cuts to pay for it?

The truth is none of this is new, as Hyman explains: "The politicians who get this wrong think that social media is now the only place to be, and a substitute for doing the hard work and the heavy lifting of actually getting the right policy, getting the right narrative, and telling that story properly," he says. "Politics is about winning arguments."

After all, politicians have always wanted to be liked. It's just these days they can see it instantly if you hit that heart button on your feed.

Listen to Matt Chorley live from Westminster, weekdays from 14:00 on BBC Radio 5 Live.

BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. Emma Barnett and John Simpson bring their pick of the most thought-provoking deep reads and analysis, every Saturday. Sign up for the newsletter here

81,000 warning letters sent to crypto holders in HMRC tax crackdown

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0ej09nywdno, 4 days ago

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) sent more than 81,000 letters warning cryptocurrency holders they may owe capital gains tax in the past year.

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request seen by the BBC showed the number of letters sent by the tax authority had almost tripled since 2024.

Investors could face fines or prosecution if they fail to declare profits they made from selling, even if they exchange one cryptocurrency for another.

New powers due to be given to HMRC next year will make it easier to target wealthy crypto investors, with one analyst saying investigations will be like "shooting fish in a barrel".

"There is the expectation amongst tax authorities that cryptocurrency investment is rife with tax evasion," says Neela Chauhan, partner at UHY Hacker Young - which carried out the FOI.

"A lot of the traders are young, have had little previous exposure to HMRC and often work under the assumption that HMRC has limited visibility over their activities."

In the 2025-26 financial year, HMRC sent 81,172 warning letters, emails and text messages to crypto investors it suspects may have underpaid tax.

The number in 2023-24 was just 27,714.

An HMRC spokesperson said: "We’re committed to helping people pay the right amount of tax, and the vast majority do.

"We regularly send letters to educate, remind or prompt customers to review their tax affairs, including customers who use crypto assets."

The value of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum has fallen in the past year, but HMRC suspects there are still large amounts of unpaid capital gains from the rise in cryptocurrency values between December 2022 and October 2025.

During this time, the price of Bitcoin shot up from around £14,000 to £90,000.

Accountants are urging investors to check whether they owe money, as upcoming powers will make it easier for HMRC to target individuals.

From March 2027, cryptocurrency platforms located in dozens of countries outside the UK will be obliged to share information about their customers with tax authorities.

HMRC said the new powers would force "crypto bros to pay their fair share of tax" when the rules were announced last year.

The tax office estimated the changes would help raise up to £315m by April 2030, adding that this was the same amount needed to fund more than 10,000 newly qualified nurses for a year.

"Once HMRC has this data, tax investigations into cryptocurrency investors will be like shooting fish in a barrel," warned Ms Chauhan.

In the last year, the price of Bitcoin has fallen to around £48,000.

Heart of the Beast to Practical Magic 2: 10 of the best films to watch this September

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260820-10-of-the-best-films-to-watch-this-september, 3 days ago

From a Brad Pitt survival adventure with a canine co-star, to witchy sequel Practical Magic 2, starring Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, here are the films to watch at the cinema this month.

1. Resident Evil

Zach Cregger's Weapons was one of 2025's most acclaimed films, so in some ways it's a surprise that he's followed it up with a video game spin-off. But the writer-director told Empire that he has made "a Zach Cregger movie that just happens to be a Resident Evil movie". Far spookier-looking than the previous Resident Evil films, most of which were directed by Paul WS Anderson, this blood-drenched reboot focuses on a medical courier, Bryan (Austin Abrams). He has the job of delivering an organ to a hospital in the game's main location, Raccoon City – but the city's inhabitants are turning into ravenous zombies. "Bryan is very much an everyman who happens to be burdened with this sacred mission that's going to take him into the heart of everything," says Cregger. "It's kind of like Frodo [from The Lord of the Rings] going into Mordor."

Released internationally on 16, 17 and 18 September

2. Primetime

The year of Robert Pattinson continues. As well as appearing in The Odyssey, The Drama and the forthcoming Dune: Part Three, the British actor is starring in Primetime, a fact-based drama about a controversial reality television show, To Catch a Predator. From 2004 to 2007, each episode of the programme revolved around sting operations in which men were tricked into thinking that they were meeting children for sexual encounters. They would then be confronted by the journalist behind the sting, Chris Hansen. Pattinson plays Hansen, and he is already being tipped as an Oscar contender – even if Hansen himself would have chosen a different actor for the role. "Years ago I had crafted a screenplay and thought Denis Leary would be a good guy to play me," he said on the Serialously podcast.

Released on 25 September in the US and Canada

3. The Weight

Ethan Hawke follows his Oscar-nominated turn in Blue Moon with a very different kind of period drama. Set in Oregon during the Great Depression, The Weight stars Hawke as a single father who is unfairly sent to a labour camp. If he doesn't get home soon, he will lose custody of his young daughter, but the devilish warden (Russell Crowe) promises to free him on one condition: he and a team of other prisoners have to carry knapsacks full of stolen gold bricks across the country. "Hawke is mesmerising," says Chase Hutchinson in The Wrap. "The action scenes are tense and well-executed, though it's the way he grounds it that makes you feel every setback. Hawke makes you buy into every beat, whether haunting or thrilling as the film grows more violent… You can't look away for even a second."

Released on 18 September in the US and Canada

4. Practical Magic 2

Back in 1998, Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock starred in Practical Magic as Gillian and Sally, two sisters who were also witches. When the film came out, audiences weren't exactly spellbound, but the dark supernatural romance gradually built a cult following. "I don't know any woman who's watched the movie and not wanted Gillian's red hair, Sally's cosy yet witchy outfits, or the beautiful Victorian house by the ocean that the family lives in," wrote Tove Danovich in Country Living recently. Now, 28 years after the first film, a sequel is finally here. Once again, it's adapted from a novel by Alice Hoffman, and once again Kidman and Bullock have the lead roles. Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest are back as their aunts, and Joey King and Maisie Williams join the cast as Sally's daughters, two young women who learn about the family curse: any man they fall in love with will die soon afterwards.

Released on 11 September in the US, the UK and Ireland, and on 18 September in Canada and Australia

5. Forgotten Island

The latest cartoon from DreamWorks Animation (The Wild Robot, Dog Man) is a psychedelic fantasy adventure – but it's also the first major Hollywood film to draw on Filipino folklore. Grammy-winning singer H.E.R. and Liza Soberano provide the voices of Jo and Raissa, two schoolgirls who become best friends in the Philippines in the 1990s. Years later, Raissa is about to emigrate to the US, but before she can go, the two girls fall through a portal into a magical world of demons, witches and monsters. And if they stay there too long, their memories of each other will fade away. "So many times, young girls in movies and TV are portrayed as always talking about boys, or they're princesses," the film's co-director, Joel Crawford, said in Variety. "I want my [Filipina] daughters to see themselves up on the screen, whether it's in terms of culture, in terms of ethnicity, but also how they are as people.”

Released on 25 September in the US and Canada and 16 October in the UK and Ireland

6. Onslaught

Michael Biehn co-starred in The Terminator and Aliens, two classic science-fiction thrillers in which a rugged heroine fought an almost indestructible foe. And now he's appearing in a film which he says deserves to be compared to them. Released by A24, and directed by Adam Wingard (The Guest, Godzilla vs Kong), Onslaught stars Adria Arjona as a single mother who lives in a desert trailer park with her daughter. When three genetically modified super soldiers escape from a local secret research facility, her experience as an army sniper comes in handy. "I'm telling you without a doubt, this is the best movie I've been in since Aliens," said Biehn in Daily Dead. "This is going to blow the doors off of any expectations of what anybody has seen on the big screen in a long time. This is like pedal-to-the-metal action, horror, violence... It is very, very exciting, and it's fast and furious."

Released on 4 September in the US and Canada

7. Heart of the Beast

Good news for fans of wilderness survival adventures: there are two of them in cinemas this September. As well as The Weight, there is Heart of the Beast, starring Brad Pitt and directed by David Ayer. Pitt plays a wounded Special Forces veteran who has to trek back to civilisation after a plane crash in a remote Alaskan forest. Luckily for him, he is accompanied by his faithful military dog, Odin. Ayer said in GQ that Pitt is on career-best form: "A constant theme from people who have seen the film is just how raw and believable and profound his performance is." But Uber, the mountain-rescue dog who plays Odin, may be even better. "The one spoiler I'll forward right now is, don't worry, the dog lives," reveals Ayer. Regardless, he says "I've shown the film to a few of my roughneck, tough-guy friends, and they're crying at the end of this. I've never had a film move an audience so powerfully."

Released internationally on 24 and 25 September

8. Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie

On 12 August 2022, the author Sir Salman Rushdie was giving a talk in New York state, when someone in the audience leapt on stage and stabbed him 15 times. But Sir Salman wouldn't be silenced. He wrote a memoir about the horrific attack and his recovery, and now the book has been turned into a documentary by Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side). Using intimate footage shot by Sir Salman's wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Gibney looks back at the ordeal, explores the author's life and philosophy, and recalls how the publication of his 1988 novel, Satanic Verses, led to Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini calling on him to be killed. "Throughout the film, three things stand out," says Amber Wilkinson in Screen International, "the love between Rushdie and Griffiths; the resilience they had in the face of his catastrophic injuries; and the author's humanistic attitude and sly sense of humour, which have categorically survived intact."

Released on 17 September in the US and 30 September in the UK

9. The Uprising

Step aside, Robin Hood. The Uprising is a medieval epic about English rebels fighting back against the greedy aristocracy, but rather than rehashing old myths and legends, Paul Greengrass (Captain Phillips, The Bourne Supremacy) has dramatised the English Peasant's Revolt of 1381. Andrew Garfield plays the Robin Hood-alike hero, a poverty-stricken farmer known only as Ploughman. After his family is wiped out by the plague, he leads a resistance movement against the soldiers of the teenage King Richard II (Woody Norman). "It was sort of the first moment in our history when the common man and woman took centre stage," said Greengrass in People, "and history was no longer going to be about kings and queens and the rich and powerful. It was going to be about what ordinary folk wanted and their grievances and their dreams and hopes."

Released on 11 September in the US and Canada

10. Hope

Hope is this year's must-see monster movie – although it's also a gritty western, a grisly horror film, a gonzo action comedy, and a cosmic science-fiction saga. Written and directed by Na Hong-jin, it features Hwang Jung-min as the tough sheriff of a small Korean coastal town. Within minutes of the opening scene, he is on the trail of a giant ogre which is laying waste to everything in its path. And the chaos doesn't let up for another two and a half hours. Hope is "a full-on, unapologetic action movie packed with breathtaking and breathless car chases, horse chases, foot-chases and monster chases", says John Bleasdale in Sight and Sound. "Brilliantly crafted and beautifully shot, we can only hope this wild film gets the follow-up it so richly deserves."

Released on 9 September in the US, 10 September in Australia and 25 September in the UK

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US rapper BigXthaPlug arrested on drug and gun charges

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4n4737n32o, today

Dallas rapper BigXthaPlug has been arrested in the US state of Texas on charges of driving while intoxicated, possession of marijuana and illegal possession of a firearm.

Allen County Police confirmed to BBC Newsbeat the 28-year-old, whose real name is Xavier Landum, was stopped on Friday. He was held in Collin County Jail and later released.

Separately, he is on bail following an arrest on similar charges a year ago.

The rap artist, who makes southern hip-hop, trap, and country-rap, became well known for viral singles Texas, The Largest, and Mmhmm.

He had recently posted on Instagram that he would be releasing new music soon and was due to perform at Country Rising festival on Friday.

Organisers posted on their Instagram he would no longer be performing "due to a personal emergency".

Videos on social media showed BigXthaPlug performing at the Iowa State Fair as scheduled on Saturday, where he started his set by saying: "They didn't think I was coming."

He performed at Wireless Festival in the UK in 2025 shortly before releasing his latest album.

In August last year, he was arrested on charges of unlawful possession of a weapon and a small amount of marijuana. The case continues.

He also faced similar charges in 2022.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.

As they return to the UK, Harry and Meghan search for a brand that sticks

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0l5d387j18o, 2 days ago

In late July, the Duchess of Sussex's lifestyle range, called As ever, launched a "rich, vibrant" blackberry spread alongside a softly lit video of her picking the fruit.

A month later, Meghan and her husband Prince Harry are returning to live in the UK just as blackberry season ends. Perhaps we can expect another video soon, shot on these shores.

Or perhaps not, because experts say the Harry and Meghan brand is at a crossroads.

After the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's acrimonious exit from the Royal Family in 2020, the projects marking their fresh start in California - from streaming to signature scents - have mostly failed to find large audiences, and experts say it's unclear where the couple goes from here.

Their return to the UK has surprised many and we don't know their reasons for the switch, but what's clear is that they will not be working royals when they return. So what could they be doing instead?

Andrew Stephen, the L'Oréal professor of marketing at the University of Oxford's Saïd Business School, says that after they moved to the US the Sussexes "attracted enormous attention and were initially very good at monetising it. But I don't think they have been as successful at converting that initial success into an enduring brand."

Now, he says, they have a "fragmented portfolio spanning social impact, entertainment and lifestyle, which has made it difficult to know exactly what their brand stands for".

After splitting with the Royal Family, the Sussexes said they would work to become financially independent. They began life as civilians with interviews about their relationship with the royals before pivoting to new fields of interest, including media production and lifestyle, which now appears to be Meghan's focus.

The couple's aim, according to the mission statement of their Archewell Productions company, is to highlight "our common humanity and celebrate community". They have continued to promote the Invictus Games, the sporting event for injured service men and women that Prince Harry founded, and launched charitable projects around the world through Archewell Philanthropies.

They are widely reported to have earned $100m (£73m) from a deal with Netflix in 2020. An agreement in the same year with Spotify to produce podcasts was reported to be worth $25m (£18m).

By most metrics, it would be hard to call either of those projects a success. The five years of the Netflix deal yielded five shows, including the six-part series Harry & Meghan and two series of the lifestyle show With Love, Meghan, drawing underwhelming streaming numbers. The deal was replaced last year by an arrangement giving Netflix a first look at any pitches from the couple. Only one new Archewell production has been announced so far this year.

Meanwhile, in 2023, a joint statement from Archewell Productions and Spotify said they had "mutually agreed to part ways". Spotify confirmed it was not renewing Meghan's 12-episode podcast Archetypes for a second series.

One challenge facing the Sussexes on their return is that they are once more associated with the Royal Family from which they have tried to stay separate, says Stephen.

"It could make them feel more culturally relevant by bringing them closer to the centre of British royal life," he says, "but it would also reinforce how dependent their distinctiveness remains on royalty, potentially undermining their attempt to build a more independent, American-style celebrity, media and lifestyle brand."

The fact the Sussexes have switched between projects brings risks to their brand, says Susan Fournier, a branding expert and former professor at Harvard Business School and Boston University. She says the couple went from royal insiders, giving a glimpse into a secret world, to royal critics, then from media producers to, in Meghan's case, a lifestyle influencer.

"Every time a brand does a 180 like that, you can't go back," Fournier tells the BBC. The most successful brands, she says, are consistent in the image that they present - and a return to the UK risks looking like another U-turn.

A solution, Stephen says, would be for them to focus on "a coherent portfolio of focused businesses and credible causes".

Project Cotswolds?

The couple have other income sources, from inheritance to the sales of Harry's memoir Spare, which was the fastest-selling non-fiction book in the UK since records began in 1998. A return to acting for Meghan even appears possible.

The BBC has learned she is in talks about a role in Netflix series The Gentlemen, a comedy series created by Guy Ritchie about a duke who becomes a drug baron. No details have yet been revealed, but this would be Meghan's first significant acting role since her marriage to Prince Harry.

Since 2024, Meghan's professional focus has been on her lifestyle range, As ever, which was initially supported by Netflix before that partnership ended in March. As ever sells jams, teas, candles and other products "crafted to elevate your everyday and inspire moments of joy", and there is no indication that it will end when she moves across the Atlantic.

One potential opportunity is their mooted move to the A-list haven of the Cotswolds, where they are believed to have spent time earlier this summer.

Laura Stoloff, an American stylist and creative director who lives in London and the Cotswolds with her British husband Harry, sees "a natural connection" between Meghan's lifestyle brand and Cotswolds life.

"I actually think it could make her brand more distinctive," Stoloff tells the BBC. "There is still a lot of fascination with English country life, particularly in America, and she has the ability to bring that to a very large, global audience."

Stephen has a warning, though: "A return to the UK could be a useful brand reset, but a postcode does not reposition a brand. Behaviour does."

Moby Dick: The 19th-Century novel that challenged our fear of the 'monstrous' whale

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260819-moby-dick-the-19th-century-novel-that-challenged-our-fear-of-the-monstrous-whale, 4 days ago

Now 175 years old, US author Herman Melville's classic is the ultimate tale of man v whale – but in fact, it questions why humans have been so terrified of these great sea creatures.

Across time and place, we have seen animals as friends, collaborators, pests, gods, idols and demons – and our view of them is constantly shifting.

In my new book, The Book of Beasts: Reclaiming Animal Wisdom, I trace the emotional story of our relationships with animals, and reflect on how storytelling has impacted how we treat them. In many ways, our shared futures look bleak, with wildlife populations declining by 73% between 1970 and 2000. Yet the relationship between humans and one creature in particular – the whale – should give us hope. In ancient and medieval times whales were conflated with sea monsters and the devil, but now they're an animal many of us long to see and save.

And one seminal moment in the whale's reappraisal came 175 years ago with the publication of Herman Melville's Moby Dick: an epic, great American tale of man vs whale, whose tragic hero Captain Ahab's fixation on the titular white sperm whale leads to his death. The story is narrated by Ishmael, a sailor who joins Ahab's whaling mission looking for money and adventure. On board, however, Ahab announces the real reason for the trip: vengeance. He wants to chase down and kill Moby Dick, who bit off his leg on a previous voyage.

But Melville did not share Ahab's animosity for the sea creature. Instead his story invites readers to question where human fears about "monstrous" animals come from – and whether those fears say more about us than them.

The real story that inspired Moby Dick

By the time Melville published Moby Dick, in the mid-19th Century, the hunting of whales, or whaling, had expanded into a major commercial industry. Whalemen set out on dangerous voyages to kill whales and harvest their blubber for "train oil", used to lubricate the machines of the industrial revolution and light the "fat lamps" of swelling cities.

The US east coastal town of Nantucket, Massachusetts, where Moby Dick begins, became the whaling capital and earned its nickname, "The City That Lit the World". The whalers learnt about whales through direct observation, while scientists had specimens to dissect. Taxonomy divided whales and other animals into neat categories based on anatomical differences and evolutionary history. Finally, it seemed, humans had illuminated even the shadowy underwater realm.

Yet some whales still challenged these ideas about the predictability of the natural world. On 20 November 1820, a sperm whale struck down The Essex whaling ship in the southern Pacific Ocean. Twenty men escaped on three boats, endured around three months at sea, succumbing to starvation and dehydration, and then, as two written survivor accounts tell it, eventually resorting to cannibalism. Among the survivors was senior crew member Owen Chase, whose account of what happened inspired Moby Dick.

Certainly the real-life tragedy – and the great fictional story it inspired – placed the very unlikely possibility of a whale attack in the collective imagination like never before. The odds of a whale striking a ship are close to zero – there are only around five historical cases. Whales avoid confrontation, and incidents such as the Essex sinking are now understood as accidental collisions, or self-defence. But our fears, as Melville himself wanted to show, aren't always rational.

How Melville views the 'ancient monster' – and its human foes

As Ishamel narrates it, Captain Ahab's irrationality is boundless – he seeks retribution against the whale who caused him such a great injury. His crew, he declares, must pursue Moby Dick around the world "till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out". The suggestion is that Ahab and the other whalemen can kill whales until the cows come home, but if a whale fights back, their fury will be incommensurate.

In reality, perhaps the terror man felt towards the whale was more about his repressed fears about his own vulnerability. Owen Chase wrote this of the whale who struck the Essex, "I turned around, and saw him… coming down apparently with twice his ordinary speed, and to me at that moment, it appeared with tenfold fury and vengeance in his aspect."

Ishmael is less certain than Ahab what the whale represents, pivoting between fear and reverence. But he openly conflates the whale with the sea monster of the Bible known as the Leviathan: "The great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which God has created for the play of his own," he says. By the late Middle Ages, the Leviathan was explicitly identified as the whale by Christian figures like 13th-Century friar and philosopher Thomas Aquinas.

Melville showed us the ancient monster, but also called this age-old framing into question, suggesting how the whale had become a receptacle for people's wider feelings about the unknown. For Ahab, the white whale is an embodiment of chaos, indifference and cruelty. "All visible objects… are but as pasteboard masks," declares Ahab.

He sees the physicality of the whale as a facade, concealing behind it a far greater, malevolent force. Ahab longs to destroy the "inscrutable thing" beyond Moby Dick's mask. This inscrutable thing he is referring to is what he presumes is an evil power in nature – call it the devil, God or fate.

Ishmael sees Ahab as loading the whale with "the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down". For millennia we have associated the act of humans slaying beasts with heroism, and these narratives are hard to shake – even if the more courageous path is co-existing with them.

Binary categorisations, such as good and evil, whether applied to animals or fellow humans, are a tempting escape from ambiguity – but these are something Melville and Moby Dick reject. Even among those whose job it was to see whales as a product at the time, whales were never one thing. Some whalemen referred to whales as monsters; others grew sympathy or curiosity through direct observation. "I can not conceive any thing more strikingly awful than the butchery of this tremendous leviathan of the deep," wrote whaler J Ross Browne in his 1846 book Etchings of a Whaling Cruise.

The whale's makeover in modern times

Two generations on from whaling's peak, whales now mean very different things to people. Reading Moby Dick, many contemporary readers root for the whale, not the whaler. In the last century, a changing economy has seen commercial whaling pared back (though it has not ended completely – despite international bans, Norway, Iceland and Japan still whale for profit). And the mixture of fear and economic exploitation that characterised our relationship with whales in Melville's time has by and large been replaced by admiration and a desire to save them.

Indeed, humans now embrace the idea of whales fighting back against human cruelty: even if we still don’t know what they’re doing, our stories about it have changed. In the last few years, increased incidents of orcas, aka killer whales, ramming boats off the coast of Spain and Portugal have come to be known on social media as an "orca uprising", even though science does not yet have much evidence that their actions are intentionally hostile.

A significant point on the whale's metamorphosis in the eyes of humans came in 1967, when American biologist Roger Payne recorded whale song, and humans were moved by it. Since then, a growing body of research shows whales are capable of complex communication, once believed unique to humans. Might whales also be able to reciprocate kindness?

In my book, I relay reports of Vietnamese fishermen saved by whales which have informed their folk religion, and spoke with Nan Hauser, a whale scientist who was saved by a humpback whale. Research from marine ecologist Robert Pitman has observed interspecies altruism among humpback whales, who save marine animals like seals from orcas. For all that is unknown, these accounts and studies validate the sense that whales have an inner world which might rival our own.

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Chase Coffin, from Nantucket, is a direct descendent of Owen Chase, and his family are proud of their whaling ancestry. Their feelings about whales, however, have shifted. "My family now donates every year to Save the Whales," he says. "I've been vegetarian most of my life."

Melville showed us how we make our monsters from the fear and guilt we repress within ourselves. Looking beyond our own projections, we might finally glimpse these animals' real depths.

The Book of Beasts: Reclaiming Animal Wisdom is published by Chatto & Windus.

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What happened to Harry and Meghan's American dream?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c935rk91vg5o, 3 days ago

When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex quit working for the Royal Family in 2020 and moved to California, they brought something even Hollywood can't manufacture: royalty.

But while Harry and Meghan enjoyed some success in showbusiness, their Hollywood reign proved short-lived and California has greeted news of their departure back to the UK with a shrug.

In pursuing their American dream, they said they were seeking more than financial independence.

In their 2021 blockbuster interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan described the freedom to make her own choices as "liberating".

Harry later said America offered his family a degree of privacy and freedom they "undoubtedly wouldn't be able" to enjoy in the UK - and that it was the life his mother, Diana, would have wanted for him.

The couple settled in Montecito - a celebrity enclave a few hours north of Los Angeles with neighbours like Oprah Winfrey, Gwyneth Paltrow and Rob Lowe.

Multimillion dollar podcast and Netflix deals followed.

"They were so sought after, they were names that would hit the press and command attention right away," says Stacy Jones, chief executive of Hollywood Branded, a marketing and PR agency.

"There are endless parties, endless events and endless things to do if you are a celebrity inside Hollywood," she says. "But you soon realise that all those endless things are promoting something to sell."

And the royal couple had plenty to sell.

LA-based royal watcher and journalist Elizabeth Holmes, who wrote HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style, says: "I think part of why this [the Sussexes leaving the US] was surprising to me was just because it did feel like they were sort of settling into their life in California."

Not everyone is sad to see them go. The New York Post, often scathing about the couple, greeted the news of their departure with the headline "Throne Back!", declaring that America's "long national nightmare is over".

The tabloid mockery was largely dismissive of the couple's rare achievement in Hollywood. They managed something most newcomers to Tinseltown never do: persuading some of its biggest companies to invest heavily in them.

Attracting that initial investment proved easier than sustaining it, however.

Their multi-year Spotify deal, reported to be worth up to $25m (£18.3m), produced Meghan's 12-episode podcast Archetypes, featuring guests such as Serena Williams and Mariah Carey.

In 2023, however, Spotify and the couple's Archewell Audio announced that they had "mutually agreed to part ways".

Their five-year Netflix deal, signed in 2020 and reportedly worth between $60m and $100m, delivered several programmes.

But it has since been replaced by a less lucrative arrangement, against the backdrop of a broader downturn across the entertainment industry.

Behind the projects, the Sussexes' production business also experienced high staff turnover, with reports that some former employees privately called themselves the "Sussex Survivors Club".

Harry, too, found commercial success, but largely when he was selling his own royal story.

His memoir, Spare, was a publishing phenomenon, reportedly coming with a $20m advance.

It sold more than six million copies worldwide, making it the fastest-selling non-fiction book on record.

As part of its promotion, Harry held a public conversation with trauma specialist Dr Gabor Maté, in which he explored how his royal childhood had shaped him.

In an interview with BBC Newsnight on Thursday, Maté said Harry had come across as "very personable, very sensitive" and someone doing his best to make sure "he doesn't pass on his traumas to his children".

The Duke of Sussex remains enormously marketable when the subject is Harry himself, the Royal Family or the causes with which he has long been associated.

He became chief impact officer at the Silicon Valley coaching company BetterUp and co-created and executive-produced the Apple TV+ mental-health series The Me You Can't See, with Oprah Winfrey.

His Netflix projects have drawn heavily on his established interests.

Heart of Invictus followed wounded and injured military veterans preparing for the Games he founded, while Polo explored another of his passions.

Neither attracted anything approaching the attention generated by the couple's six-part documentary series Harry & Meghan, or his revelations in Spare.

In one of his relatively rare major public appearances, Harry also delivered the keynote address at an informal meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York in 2022, marking Nelson Mandela International Day. He spoke about his mother, his connection to Africa and Mandela's legacy.

But he seemed to struggle to break out of his royal typecast role in the US.

As for former Suits actress Meghan, she branched out into a Netflix cooking and lifestyle series.

This content showed off their idyllic life with adorable "rescue chickens" and fresh-grown strawberries, against the scenic backdrop of the Santa Ynez Mountains.

With Love, Meghan was cancelled after two seasons, but it has been nominated for an Emmy in the Outstanding Lifestyle Series category.

Netflix also ended its involvement in Meghan's lifestyle brand, As Ever, earlier this year.

"Netflix produces movies. Netflix doesn't produce jam," says Jones, the brand guru.

Critics assailed the carefully curated lifestyle presented by Meghan as tone-deaf. But in branding terms, Jones acknowledges that even negative publicity can have value if it keeps someone at the centre of the conversation.

Meghan's projects kept her visible and gave audiences something they could watch or buy.

"In moving to Britain, it looks like they are continuing to chase that proximity to the Royal Family to validate themselves or, in some cases, to commercialise," says Kinsey Schofield, whose namesake podcast focuses on the Royal Family.

"Meghan's been cosplaying as a royal selling her teas and her fruit spread through As Ever since it launched."

The Sussexes still have projects in development. They recently released a documentary about Girl Scouts and they have a scripted series in the works set in the exclusive world of polo teams, to be produced by the makers of Gossip Girl.

But their American experience overall reveals the limits of celebrity in Hollywood.

Fame may get you through the door, but it does not guarantee staying power.

"Hollywood is going through an incredibly hard time right now, and it's a fractured landscape," Jones says.

Layoffs, repeated restructuring and high staff turnover have destabilised companies across the industry.

"It is pretty hard to start and launch a company and keep it going," she says. "When that company is being launched by someone who is a mega media star, it needs some really strong people supporting it."

They may no longer occupy the position they held when they first arrived in America, and they may say they're heading back to the UK to be private citizens, but it's unlikely that the couple would fade in the background.

"They will never be private citizens anywhere in their lives," Jones says.

"They are not people who can ever become background players. They are stars of their own show - or stars of someone else's show. Even if they're lower-level stars, they're still stars."

Meghan in talks for role in Netflix series The Gentlemen, BBC understands

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwye9g9r58zo, 2 days ago

The Duchess of Sussex is in talks to return to acting with a role in Netflix series The Gentlemen, the BBC has learned.

Discussions are in their early stages but this would be Meghan's first significant acting role since her marriage to Prince Harry.

Much of the two previous series of The Gentlemen, which was created by Guy Ritchie, have been filmed in the Cotswolds - the area it is rumoured Harry and Meghan will set up home when they return to the UK later this month.

The Gentlemen, starring the actor Theo James, is a comedy series about a duke who becomes a drug baron.

The details of the discussions and any role Meghan might be offered have not yet been revealed.

Actors Hugh Bonneville and Vinnie Jones have appeared in previous series of the show.

Meghan was best known in acting for her part in the US legal drama, Suits, in which she played lawyer, Rachel Zane, for seven seasons. Her last episode aired in 2018.

The duchess put her career on hold after her marriage to Prince Harry in May 2018. At the time, she told the BBC she did not view quitting acting as giving anything up, but rather as "a new chapter".

She recently returned to acting for the first time in nearly a decade, with a cameo as herself in forthcoming comedy Close Personal Friends, which stars Lily Collins and Brie Larson.

A return to acting could be lucrative for Meghan. The BBC understands that while based in the UK she also hopes to expand the global reach of her US-based lifestyle and cooking brand, As Ever.

News of her possible return to acting comes after it was announced that Prince Harry and Meghan are to move back to the UK.

The BBC understands Prince Harry and Meghan intend to relocate from the US later this month to a private, non-royal residence outside London, as first reported by the Daily Telegraph and the Sun.

The couple's children, Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, are enrolled to start at a British school in September.

There are no current plans for either Prince Harry or Meghan to resume their roles as working royals.

Their plan to move to the UK follows a visit in July by Prince Harry, Meghan and their children to see King Charles III at his Highgrove home in Gloucestershire.

It was the first time the King had seen his grandchildren in person in more than four years, and the couple's first visit to the UK together since 2022.

Returning on a longer term basis has reignited questions over the level of the couple's publicly funded security in Britain.

Their UK security was downgraded after they stopped being working royals in 2020 and moved to the US, where they have paid for their own protection.

The Royal and VIP Executive Committee (Ravec), an independent body overseen by the Home Office, will now have to make a new decision about security as previous arrangements were based on the Sussexes not living in the UK permanently.

Will Harry's return heal deep-rooted rift with William?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyx410xxyko, 3 days ago

For the past six years Prince William and Prince Harry have practically and emotionally been oceans apart.

But with the Sussex family moving back to the UK, will the closing of the physical distance help ease the anguish and fix the angst between William and Harry?

Don't hold your breath.

This isn't a regular sibling fallout. It is a deep-rooted fracture filled with anger, resentment and a total loss of trust.

And much of it has played out in public.

The Prince of Wales remains in no mood to forgive and forget. The hurt he feels lingers.

"William is very stubborn," a family friend told the BBC. "To feel cheated by your own brother has been painful. He can't just put it behind him."

But in his interview with the BBC last year, Harry offered a different view.

"I would love reconciliation with my family. There's no point in continuing to fight any more."

The problem for Prince William now is proximity. Harry will be in the UK within two weeks, probably a short drive away from Windsor where William's family lives.

There will be pressure on the elder brother to take the lead, ease the pain and just make up with Harry now the siblings will be living in the same country.

"I think William doesn't care about the pressure to reconcile," said royal author, Valentine Low. "If he doesn't want to reconcile with his brother because of the things he's done, the wrongs that he feels Harry's done to him, he's not going to reconcile. But it does improve the chances I think."

Former editor of The Sun and presenter of the When it Hits the Fan podcast David Yelland said: "This is one of the biggest news stories in the world: the schism between William and Harry. Until these two brother get together or show us there is a rapprochement that story is going to make it very difficult."

He told BBC Breakfast: "Every single thing they do, where ever William goes, he will be asked about this because Harry is back in the neighbourhood.

"We don't need cuddles, we don't need posed-up photos, we just need a briefing that they have met. This is a real PR crisis for the Royal Family. William has to reach out, if he doesn't we are going to be talking about this every day for years and it's going to become a reputational threat."

The Prince of Wales will prioritise his public work in the coming months and try not to get drawn into the drama around the UK return of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Several people from organisations who have worked with Prince William told BBC News of their desire to support William and help avoid Harry and Meghan becoming a distraction.

One source, who has worked on charity projects with the Royal Family, described wanting to protect the future King.

"This is a hard situation for him full of emotion and anger and we will support him," the source said. "It is really important for me to ensure that any work we do with William will be focused on making a positive change and won't be affected by the Harry and Meghan drama."

Back in 2018 the mood was very different.

Then the focus was not on division but on common ground and shared experiences.

"Losing our mother at a young age has helped us to travel through that difficult patch together," William told a mental health conference. "You're like-minded. You go through similar things, it's a bond and it's something you know you've tackled together and come out better for it."

That sense of unity through joint trauma is now long gone for William and Harry.

Trauma expert, Dr Gabor Mate, was interviewed by Harry about healing and loss ahead of the publication of the Duke of Sussex's memoir Spare. He is sympathetic to his change of heart around returning to the UK.

"He's got an ageing parent with a cancer diagnosis. The deepest human dynamic is attachment and connection and if that's what's motivating this I'm not in the least surprised."

Kensington Palace has been tight-lipped since news of the Sussexes' return. There has been no official comment and their team would not be drawn into conversations about Harry and Meghan.

Their strategy is clearly to just carry on with royal business.

Over the next few months, the Prince of Wales has a number of projects with personal significance.

In November, he will travel to Mumbai in India for his environmental Earthshot Prize Award.

There is also a major project around mental health that will be launched in the coming weeks.

And in September comes a big moment in the life of any family when Prince George starts senior school. The media management of that moment at Eton College in Berkshire will be carefully choreographed. His parents will be fiercely protective of this significant milestone for their 13-year-old son and won't want him exposed to any family upset and drama.

Underlying so much of their relationship now is the life experience both brothers have had over the past six years since Harry moved away.

They have grown apart.

William has faced the life-changing experience of supporting his wife through her cancer treatment while watching his father fight his own battle with the disease.

He is a different brother from the one Harry left behind six years ago.

And a brother who is not in the mood to forgive... for now.

"Having Harry nearby won't change the mood," said a former colleague of the heir to the throne. "William will need time."

Sign up here to get the latest royal stories and analysis every week with our Royal Watch newsletter. Those outside the UK can sign up on this site.

Davis 'grateful' for support over cancer diagnosis

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd9w9l9v8w8o, yesterday

Actress Lucy Davis has told fans she is "grateful" for their support as she made an appearance at a London sci-fi convention, following the recent revelation she has incurable breast cancer.

The 53-year-old star was appearing at the For The Love of Fantasy & Sci-Fi convention at Excel London on Saturday, less than two weeks after announcing her diagnosis in a post on Instagram.

Davis, who was on a panel to talk about her role in the 2004 zombie-comedy Shaun of the Dead, told an audience of hundreds of people about the interactions she had enjoyed with the film's fans during the event.

"It's like this whole second family you never knew you had, everyone is like a community, friendly, supportive of not only us but you guys and each other," she said. "We need a bit more niceness in the world, so I'm grateful."

It was the first time Davis had appeared at a public event since announcing on 11 August that she has stage four breast cancer.

She said in that announcement it had "metastasised" to her bones following a diagnosis a year-and-half-ago, meaning it was "too late" for chemotherapy.

Davis signed autographs and posed for photographs before appearing on Saturday's panel.

Some fans posing questions told the actress "I love you so much", but she was not asked directly about her health.

The Shaun of the Dead director, Edgar Wright, and Simon Pegg, who played the lead role in the cult British movie, were also on the panel. Davis portrayed Dianne, an aspiring actress who was one of the core group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse, and helps Pegg's character Shaun fight off the legions of the undead.

Her favourite memories of filming, she said, were "when we all pretended to be zombies and walked across the square; it was like being naughty schoolkids.

"It was a fun time, we went a bit mad."

The actress, who played receptionist Dawn Tinsley in the BBC sitcom The Office and whose father is comedian Jasper Carrott, was also applauded when asked for advice about getting into the film industry.

She said: "We all grow up with a different life with a different world telling us we all have limitations.

"None of us do, our only limitations are things that we think are limiting. We can do anything, or be anybody, and don't apologise for that."

Davis had thanked fans for their "kindness and support" in another post two days after revealing she had cancer.

"OK, so the last two days have been utterly overwhelming, in that I had zero idea my cancer post would have the attention it did," she said.

"Truly, I am in shock. That said, thank you to everyone for the tremendous amount of kindness and support you have sent me. Good grief it was emotional."

Brandon Flowers: Is fame worth it? I'm not sure anymore

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7vgple783go, 3 days ago

Brandon Flowers has a confession.

For the last 25 years, he's been the frontman of The Killers, channelling his love of stadium rock and British new wave on songs like Mr Brightside, When You Were Young and Human.

But in the back of his mind, there's always been an alternative soundtrack.

"You know, a lot of guys in my line of business develop drug addictions," he says.

"I got a country addiction."

It started when he was a kid in Nephi, Utah. His dad would play Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and John Conlee on the car stereo. School dances, held at the local golf club, would always feature country and western slow dances.

So when Flowers moved back home and started revisiting his childhood haunts, his passion for country was rekindled.

You can hear the results on his third solo album, Thrasher, recorded in Nashville's famed RCA Studio A - home to Dolly Parton's Jolene and I Will Always Love You - with a group of veteran musicians that included pedal steel legend Bruce Bouton, 85-year-old harmonica player Charlie McCoy, and Americana musician Margo Price.

"I sang live with them and I think they really appreciated that, because it's a very romantic way of doing it," he says.

"It's not something that people do anymore. To actually get that energy down on tape is a different thing."

It's an album he couldn't have made in his 20s.

Flowers once said his "experiences weren't interesting enough" to be turned into lyrics. Now, he's excavating his diary to write about his rural upbringing and experiences of working in Las Vegas casinos.

There's also a tribute to his brother-in-law, who died suddenly several years ago and, on Miss America, a critique of the opioid crisis that hit his hometown.

"It's a sad thing, you know? It's basically doctors prescribing people heroin, and it took so many lives unnecessarily."

Prescription painkillers are chemically similar to but not the same as heroin.

He adds: "Even just in my graduating class in that little town, so many of the kids are gone. It's kind of staggering. Such a dirty business."

The album also finds Flowers taking stock of his own life. On American Dream, he fantasises about meeting Elvis Presley (in a flying Tesla, no less) and asking him whether fame and fortune is all it's cracked up to be.

Elvis just laughs - but it's a question that's plagued Flowers for years.

"Sometimes I wonder, what am I trying to achieve, and what am I trying to prove, and who am I trying to prove it to, and what have I gotten from it?" he says.

The song came from a conversation he had with his three teenage sons, "because I worry about them comparing themselves to my success".

Flowers has always been careful to isolate his family from the effects of fame. "We don't talk about it much. There's no gold records hanging in the bathroom or anything like that." And he emphasises that success doesn't automatically bring contentment.

"My dad didn't have that, but is he less happy than me? He may even be more happy than I am.

"He made $25,000 a year and barely got by but he's 82 and he paints, and he goes to garage sales, and he's, like, pumped for that.

"So yeah, I don't know if it's worth it. I don't know anymore."

It's easy to understand his ambivalence. Flowers is not your typical rock star. He's quietly spoken and self-effacing. His anecdotes are punctuated with nervous laughter, although he's better at making eye contact than when we first met in the Killers' heyday.

In those interviews, he talked about battling stage fright, and the difficulties of balancing touring commitments with family life.

But as he approaches his 21st wedding anniversary, he says that periodic absences from home can have unexpected benefits.

"There's a danger you could grow apart, but there's also this great rediscovery that can happen, and a freshness it can bring, when you return."

He takes commitment seriously. So seriously, in fact, that he's desperate to make amends for a lyric on the last Killers album, called In Another Life, that made some fans question their relationships.

"In the song, the man is concerned about his situation, and he's asking his wife, 'Am I the man of your dreams, or just a guy from your hometown?'," he explains.

"He's wondering if their proximity is the only reason they're together. And I noticed it was making people look at their relationships in a negative light.

"At one point someone said they got divorced because of this line, and I thought, 'How can I fix this?'"

The answer was to write a new song, Does It Ever Cross Your Mind, that reframed the argument.

"Of all the corners of the universe / We wound up hand in hand," he sings over a twangy banjo. "Some may call it a coincidence / But I prefer design."

It's one of 23 songs he recorded in Nashville over a period of just three weeks.

Only 10 made the cut for Thrasher. The other 13 are being mixed "in the slowest, slowest possible way" for a separate album, maybe next year.

All this solo activity doesn't mean the end of The Killers, although he admits, "I don't know what the future holds" for the band.

"We're still together, we're still going to make another record [but] there's something beautiful about ageing gracefully," he says.

A student of music history, he knows that longevity requires evolution - and this new batch of country songs could even signpost The Killers' next incarnation.

To put it another way, Flowers can't imagine pretending to be the 20-year-old who wrote Mr Brightside in his friend's bedroom for the rest of his life.

"It's a shame when you see people doing that and trying to hold on," he says. "I always bring up John Lennon or Tom Petty as great examples of [musicians] inhabiting their age."

There's a curious sadness to his predicament. Falling in love with music is a radically different proposition to making it your career; and, like many middle-aged rock bands, The Killers feel beholden to their earliest hits.

Flowers is still grateful to those songs. "It never gets old, feeling the [crowd's] anticipation for When You Were Young, or All These Things That I've Done, or whatever it is."

But the side-effect of spending his life on the stage is that he can no longer enjoy watching other people in concert.

"It's lost the allure to me because that's where I go to work, you know?

"I used to be enthralled. I couldn't believe I was so lucky to be there, seeing Morrissey for the first time, or seeing The Cure for the first time. It was heaven. That feeling is gone."

But he's not despondent. In fact, he's looking forward to touring Thrasher, simply for the joy of playing new material, and re-arranging some of the classics. And there's one band who he thinks could revive his love of live music…. The band who inspired him to form The Killers in the first place.

"You know what? I was kicking against the Oasis reunion - not because I'm not happy they got back together, but because everyone was just an Oasis fan all of a sudden, even in America, and I sort of railed against it.

"But now I have a son who is 15 who has fallen in love with Oasis. He's learned [their songs] on guitar, and I'll play the piano, rehashing these songs that I loved when I was 19. So I think I would probably feel it again if I went to see Oasis."

Liam and Noel, the ball is in your court.

Emma Barnett reveals she 'had the hysterectomy I never wanted to have'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce346v4l17yo, 4 days ago

BBC presenter Emma Barnett has revealed she had a hysterectomy and surgery for endometriosis days before a documentary she made about the condition was broadcast.

Barnett, 41, returned to Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday morning, explaining she had been absent in recent weeks because she was in hospital "in a case of life imitating work".

She told listeners: "I made a programme on endometriosis on BBC Two and ended up being in hospital for endometriosis.

"So yes, I've been recuperating, shall we say, from surgery for endometriosis and a hysterectomy to boot. So that's been less fun than the Today programme, but it is lovely to be back."

Barnett's announcement came soon after she published a blog about the "hysterectomy I never wanted to have".

The presenter, who has two children, said it was "totally surreal" to be in hospital on the night her documentary was broadcast in June, only well enough to watch the final 10 minutes.

"Some 48 hours before the documentary aired - I had undergone a near-5 hour surgery and somehow found myself lying in bed recovering from extensive endometriosis surgery, a hysterectomy and a gallbladder removal," she wrote.

"Triple threat. Go big or go home. Life imitating art."

She added: "I felt blind-sided and robbed, even though my care had been superb and doctors, utterly brilliant.

"But this was not the road I had envisioned for myself. I had the hysterectomy I never wanted to have."

Endometriosis is where cells similar to those in the lining of the womb grow in other parts of the body, resulting in what Barnett has described as "bone-grinding, life-altering pain". It affects one in 10 women and there is no known cure.

A hysterectomy is a surgical procedure to remove the womb (uterus). A hysterectomy alongside removal of endometriosis can reduce the risk of recurrence, according to Endometriosis UK.

In her blog, Barnett also said she suspected most of her pain may have been down to another condition, adenomyosis, which can be treated by a hysterectomy.

Her surgery was necessitated after she had an ultrasound while filming the final scene of the documentary, and a problem in her gallbladder was found. "Suddenly things became urgent and non negotiable."

The broadcaster added that she was hopeful that the surgery had helped.

She wrote: "Early indications are that the pain is very much improved - although I am still healing from the surgery itself so that also feels uncertain and frightening to admit - even to myself."

Christian metal band Demon Hunter sue Netflix over KPop Demon Hunters

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2dk64d10rko, 5 days ago

Christian metal band Demon Hunter are suing Netflix in a trademark lawsuit over the streamer's hit film Kpop Demon Hunters.

The US group, who have been releasing music and touring for 25 years, said Netflix's plan for a global concert tour, along with the movie and merchandise, means there is "almost complete overlap" with their offerings.

Filed on Tuesday by the band's company Hyde Lane, the complaint claims Netflix Studios and live promoter AEG Presents have caused "substantial confusion" among consumers.

They included email evidence from someone who allegedly spent $500 on tickets for a Demon Hunter concert in New York, thinking it was a child-friendly Kpop show for their small children.

Other examples cited include a television producer who reportedly contacted the band's management thinking they were related to Kpop Demon Hunters, and social media posts incorrectly tagging Demon Hunter when discussing the film.

The five-piece Seattle band, who play "aggressive yet emotionally stirring heavy metal" according to AllMusic, released their 12th album in September 2025 and have 350,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

By comparison, the KPop Demon Hunters cast have 27 million monthly listeners on the streaming platform.

The legal complaint said: "The brand that Hyde Lane has carefully built over the course of the past quarter century now faces an existential crisis, thereby necessitating the filing of this action and the granting of the requested relief from this Court."

The metal band have asked the court to stop Netflix using the KPop Demon Hunters name for recorded music, live shows and merchandise, and to award unspecified damages.

The band's company registered "Demon Hunter" as a trademark for recorded music and merchandise in 2022, and have applied for a trademark in relation to live music.

Netflix has registered "Kpop Demon Hunters" as a trademark for a number of merchandise uses, with other applications pending.

What started as a 2025 animated film following K-pop girl group Huntr/X, Kpop Demon Hunters has grown into a worldwide phenomenon, with music releases and extensive merchandise, with a global live tour expected to begin in 2027.

It is the most-watched original title in Netflix history and won best animated film and best original song for Golden at the 2026 Golden Globes and Oscars.

A sequel to Kpop Demon Hunters is also in the works, while Netflix is reportedly considering other follow-up projects such as a television series and stage musical.

The BBC has contacted Demon Hunter, Netflix and AEG Presents for comment.

The Invite to The Odyssey: 12 of the best films of 2026 so far

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260409-the-best-films-of-2026, 10 days ago

BBC film critics Caryn James and Nicholas Barber pick their cinema highlights of the year – from Christopher Nolan's epic blockbuster to a farcical sex comedy.

1. The Invite

The Invite is a rarity: a US comedy aimed at grown-ups. Based on a Spanish film, which was in turn based on the writer-director's own stage play, it features just four characters in one apartment during one evening. Seth Rogen and Olivia Wilde (the film's director) play an unhappily married couple; Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton are the loved-up neighbours who drop in for dinner. The contrast between the bickering hosts and their laidback guests makes for a hilariously awkward farce, but the screenplay, by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, is genuinely moving when it lays bare the characters' wounds and resentments. All four actors are superb (Cruz has never been more magnetic), and Wilde proves herself to be a master of tone and pacing. If Oscar-voters can get over their aversion to comedies, The Invite should be a contender. (NB)

2. The Odyssey

The long wait, amid a torrent of hype, was worth it. This beguiling, epic adaptation of Homer's centuries-old poem is pure Christopher Nolan, whose characteristic style is everywhere – from the morally challenged hero to the non-linear narrative and the rare way he builds stunning action-adventure on top of a script far more thoughtful than most Hollywood blockbusters. As Odysseus, Matt Damon is at his intelligent best, with a natural, modern delivery that makes the king relatable and sympathetic. The other major stars, including Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland and Zendaya, fit eloquently into the story. And as Odysseus journeys home to Ithaca from the Trojan War, Nolan uses IMAX cameras to make every episode feel immersive and intimate, whether the scene is as large-scale and volatile as the battle in Troy or as cramped as the table where the witch Circe turns Odysseus's soldiers into pigs. Although Nolan's film is filled with magic – visual and thematic – it also leaves viewers with a timely social theme: that civic duty, governance and moral choices intertwine. That issue is as old as Homer and, as this enthralling and layered film suggests, worth remembering today. (CJ)

3. Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie

What if someone remade Back to the Future, but its main characters were Bill and Ted from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and it had the guerrilla feel of Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat? OK, so it's not a question that many people have asked, but the answer is Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, a ludicrously inventive, proudly Canadian comedy written by and starring Matt Johnson (who also directs) and Jay McCarrol (who composes the music). They have taken footage they shot in 2008, and new footage shot on (and above) the streets of Toronto, and woven it all into a fast-moving adventure about two buffoonish, would-be superstars who accidentally travel back in time. It's one of the year's daftest films, but also a sincere love letter to their home city and a heartfelt tribute to long-term friendship. (NB)

4. The Sheep Detectives

This entirely delightful hybrid of live action and CGI animation has a story suitable and engaging for children and a wit and cleverness that make it just as captivating for adults. Hugh Jackman departs the film early as George, a kind shepherd who reads mystery novels to his flock every night. When he is murdered, the sheep, steeped in all those detective stories, set out to track the clues and find their beloved George's killer. The human cast is deft and game, notably Nicholas Braun as the bumbling police officer in the village and Emma Thompson as a high-powered city lawyer. But the sheep steal the film, with their distinct, often childlike qualities. Julia Louis-Dreyfus gives a heartbreakingly tender performance as the voice of Lily, George's favourite and the smartest of the flock. Other sheep standouts are Chris O'Dowd as Lily's loyal best friend, Bryan Cranston as a battle-scarred veteran and Brett Goldstein as twin rams. A comic romp and an affectionate twist on cosy mysteries, this gem is one of the year's sweetest, best surprises. (CJ)

5. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

In 2002, director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland helped to revive the zombie-apocalypse sub-genre with 28 Days Later. In 2025, they did it again with 28 Years Later. Amazingly, this sequel to the latter is even better. Scripted by Garland, with Nia DaCosta taking over as director, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple delivers all of the gore and terror you want from a zombie film, but it's wonderfully idiosyncratic, too. It constructs its own elaborate folk-horror mythos; features the unlikely buddy-comedy pairing of a kindly mad scientist (Ralph Fiennes) and a hulking cannibal (Chi Lewis-Parry); and it's uncompromisingly British in its references, from its cheeky use of Duran Duran and Iron Maiden songs to its unforgettable villain (Jack O'Connell), a cult leader inspired by notorious television presenter and sex offender Jimmy Savile. An eccentric masterpiece. (NB)

6. My Father's Shadow

Set in Nigeria in 1993, Akinola Davies's film about a father and his two small sons is eloquent, warm and fiercely honest as it moves gracefully from the personal to the political. Sope Dirisu gives a quiet, strong, immensely moving performance as the father, who spends most of his time away working to support the family. With pitch-perfect intimacy, the story follows him through a single day as he takes his sons along to Lagos, where they go to his workplace and he tries to get the money he's owed. Their day gradually reveals the tumultuous backdrop of the presidential election, the results of which are nullified by a military dictatorship. The director and his brother, Wale Davies, wrote the film loosely based on their childhood memories, but its achievement goes beyond that. Winner of the Bafta for outstanding British debut, it stunningly captures the bold colours of Lagos. Its sophisticated narrative gives us the children's perspective. But it also lets us see the father's concern and the danger all around, with militia on the streets, which we understand far better than the boys do. There is not a false step, right through to the film's heartbreaking coda. (CJ)

7. Hoppers

Pixar returns to form with a focused, fizzily energetic cartoon based on a conceit as old as big-screen animation itself: talking animals. The heroine of Hoppers, Mabel (voiced by Piper Curda), is an admirably tough and determined schoolgirl who has her mind "hopped" into a robotic beaver, a procedure which somehow allows her to understand animals' conversations (just go with it). She uses this fantastic ability to rally her furry friends against a corrupt mayor (Jon Hamm), but what happens when they go too far? Parents beware: Daniel Chong's film has nightmarish elements towards the end, but overall it's a sharply plotted, gloriously silly adventure that everyone can enjoy. It also has the kind of frank environmental message which live-action blockbusters tend to avoid. (NB)

8. Wuthering Heights

Emerald Fennell's fearless reinvention of Emily Brontë's 1847 novel is not for Brontë purists, but it is an exhilarating take on the book and a striking example of Fennell's typical artistry and daring. Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are fiery as Cathy and Heathcliff, the classic lovers made for each other but separated by class. Their connection is at once frankly sexual, romantic and caustic in the cruelty they often display toward each other. With that cruelty, Fennell restores the vehemence often overlooked in Brontë adaptations. Departing from prettified period pieces, the film's visual style is an enticing kaleidoscope of colour and fashion. Fennell drops in some comic moments, and at times dares to be over the top (Heathcliff on horseback, Elordi's bad wig flying in the wind) but its excesses are a small price to pay for such ambition. However much Fennell toys with the details – and why not? the book still exists – she captures the essential enduring passion of Wuthering Heights and its class-bound time. (CJ)

9. Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary is an unusual science-fiction blockbuster in that it's mostly about people using their brains to solve problems. Yes, one of those people is an alien made out of rocks, and, yes, there's an action-packed space-walking set piece, but the film's main concerns, for over two-and-a-half hours, are knowledge, discussion and painstaking research. Does that approach sound a bit dry and academic? If so, rest assured that Project Hail Mary is touching and inspiring – and surprisingly fun. Adapted from a novel by Andy Weir, the author of The Martian, it's directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who take a complicated, potentially bleak narrative and make it as fast-paced and cheerful as their animated hit The Lego Movie. Meanwhile, Ryan Gosling brings all of his goofball charm to the role of an amnesiac biologist who is trying to save the world. (NB)

10. Two Prosecutors

This bracing drama from the acclaimed Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa is set in 1937, during the height of Stalin's purges of his political enemies, and it wilfully echoes the creeping authoritarianism of today. The hero is Kornyev, an idealistic young Soviet lawyer, who receives a clandestine message written in blood from a political prisoner: the old man wants to reveal the torture he and so many others have been subjected to. The film unfolds with eerie calm and the feel of a low-boil thriller as Kornyev visits the prisoner and tries to circumvent the corrupt prison administrators and his own bosses to expose the injustice, naively believing that is still possible. Loznitsa, whose career includes documentaries and features, brings a master's eye to this visceral, harrowing story. As Kornyev spends time in the prison warden's austere waiting room, the scene conveys the claustrophobia and fear of the period. That is just the start of a tense, increasingly Kafkaesque journey that captures the inescapable, everyday grip of a dictatorship. (CJ)

11. Dead Man's Wire

Gus Van Sant's blackly comic thriller tells the stranger-than-fiction true story of Tony Kiritsis, an Indianapolis man who kidnaps the mortgage broker he blames for his financial woes. Kiritsis then becomes a minor celebrity by phoning a local radio station to update listeners on his state of mind. The media circus and the 1970s setting are reminiscent of Sidney Lumet's 1975 classic, Dog Day Afternoon, which could be why that film's star, Al Pacino, has a small role. But Dead Man's Wire is carried by Bill Skarsgård, who is terrific as the shotgun-wielding kidnapper. He adds farcical humour and pathos to a nerve-racking situation, but it's left to the viewer to decide who to sympathise with – Kiritsis or his traumatised hostage (Dacre Montgomery). (NB)

12. The Drama

Zendaya and Robert Pattinson in a romcom as an engaged couple, Emma and Charlie, would have been fun in itself. But Kristoffer Borgli's wilfully provocative dramedy takes a sharp detour away from its charming early stages when Emma reveals a dark secret to Charlie a week before the wedding. This high-wire act of a film might not have worked with less charismatic and deft stars, but these two navigate the changes in tone beautifully. Zendaya gives Emma a touching sincerity and Pattinson makes Charlie's jumpy nerves thoroughly understandable when he begins to wonder, not without reason, if he is about to marry a sociopath. Even before the film's release, the details of Emma's confession caused a backlash, with claims that the film trivialises a deadly-serious issue. But the film's characters are aware of just how serious it is; they wouldn't be so horrified otherwise. Intentionally or not, this is a rare film that stands as both an example of sheer Hollywood star power and a thought-provoking comment on a troubling, hot-button issue. (CJ)

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Mythical beasts, almighty gods, new technology: The epic blockbuster that could be India's answer to The Odyssey

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260818-ramayana-the-epic-blockbuster-that-could-be-indias-answer-to-the-odyssey, 5 days ago

The Ramayana is one of India's most famous stories – and now the heroic epic has been adapted into two mega-budget films that the team behind it are hoping will be a global event.

This year, amid the hit superhero movies and kids' animations, an adaptation of an ancient poem involving mythical beasts, almighty gods and a hero toting a bow and arrow has been a smash at the box office: Christopher Nolan's stirring take on Homer's Odyssey.

But it may not be the only many-thousand-year-old epic verse to become a big-screen sensation this year. That's, at least, what the team behind a new two-part adaptation of Hindu poem the Ramayana will be hoping. The first part is set to be released globally in November, to coincide with the Hindu Diwali festival, and it's been produced on a budget that is unprecedented for an Indian film.

The Ramayana is believed to have been written around the 4BC by Valmiki, a poet and maharishi who composed nearly 24,000 shlokas (verses) telling the tale. It centres on Rama, a prince and avatar of the Hindu god of preservation Vishnu, whose wife Sita is kidnapped by the wicked king Ravana, leaving Rama with the task of rescuing her.

The story has been adapted many times before, and more than two billion people around the world are thought to be familiar with it. But it has never been told on quite such a scale as this. Sony Pictures recently came on board as international distributors. A-list Indian film stars Ranbir Kapoor (Rama) and Yash (Ravana) are in leading roles. Hollywood composers Hans Zimmer and AR Rahman are on the soundtrack.

And a reported $200 to 250 million (£147.5m to £184m) has been spent on Ramayana, with a similar budget attached to its sequel (due to be released in November 2027). That makes them both easily the most expensive Indian films ever made, way more than the $68 million (£50m) spent on the next most expensive film, 2024's Kalki 2898 AD. The total amount spent on the two forthcoming Ramayana films is double the combined budget of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2, and not far below that of the entire Hobbit trilogy ($623m or £460m).

The film's producer and mastermind Namit Malhotra talks about Ramayana as a global event, aimed at audiences everywhere. "This was always conceived to be for the world," he tells the BBC. "From India, for the world."

As evidenced by the titles in the trailer and on all the posters for the first film, this is "Namit Malhotra's Ramayana", a visually splendid epic that places Malhotra's expertise in visual effects front and centre. The son of a Bollywood producer and grandson of a cinematographer, Malhotra started a VFX company called Prime Focus in his dad's garage in Mumbai in 1997 aged 19. Then in 2014, this merged with leading VFX studio Double Negative, or DNEG. Since then, with Malhotra as global CEO, the company has worked on many films including Blade Runner 2049, Oppenheimer, all three Dune films – and, yes, The Odyssey itself.

Malhotra's name is on the posters, but the acclaimed Nitesh Tiwari is Ramayana's director. He notes the recent success of Indian cinema worldwide, citing such films as 2022's global action movie hit RRR (which took $145m/£107m at the global box office) and 2023's crime drama Animal ($95m/£70m). "More Indian films have started to find acceptance with audiences globally," he says. "This has encouraged our film-makers to aim bigger, because the potential return on a film is no longer restricted primarily to the Indian box office."

The Ramayana's importance in India

The Ramayana story may be new to some western audiences, but its ubiquity in India is hard to overstate. "The stories of Ramayana have been told by every grandmother to their grandkid," says Malhotra. "It's like when you learn about Santa Claus or Jesus Christ."

"It's not just Hindu families," says Rajinder Dudrah, professor of Cultural Studies and the Creative Industries at Birmingham City University in the UK and author of several books on Indian cinema. "I think anybody who's grown up on Indian popular culture – Indians primarily, but also South Asians across the board, Bengalis, Pakistanis – will have watched variations of films which take root in the Ramayana story."

Adaptations of the Ramayana stretch from the 9th-Century Javanese poem Kakavin Ramayana and 12th-Century Tamil interpretation Ramavataram to the 1992 Indo-Japanese anime Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama. The 2008 American animation Sita Sings the Blues tells the story from the perspective of Rama's kidnapped princess, while 2010's Raavan challenges the image of the kidnapper as a villain and 2022's RRR places the story in the era of Britain's colonial rule over India.

More like this:

• 12 of the best films of 2026 so far

• Five things you need to know about The Odyssey

• The 'real Indiana Jones' who found an ancient 'lost' city

In modern India, the most commonly known iteration is the TV series Ramayan (1987-88). "The whole country came to a standstill when the TV show ran in the 80s," says Malhotra. "As children, we would sit in front of the television every Sunday, waiting for it to start."

Although it originates from a Hindu text, Malhotra says that Ramayana transcends religion.

"I have always maintained that we are talking culture," he tells the BBC. "We're not talking religion. We're saying, listen: let's talk about the ideology. It's not anti- any nationality. It's not anti- any religion. It's not anti- any race. Because when you're talking about five or 10,000 years ago, nothing else existed. So there was no reason for the divide. The agenda of cinema is not to be divisive. It's to celebrate our differences and unify us."

"Ramayana is ultimately about moral values, relationships, and the emotions that come with them," believes Tiwari. "The biggest challenge was ensuring that those emotions were not overshadowed by the splendour of the world we were creating. However magnificent the world around the characters might be, the audience must remain emotionally connected to their journeys."

This version's innovative technology

This adaptation of Ramayana may be contemplating some fundamental human beliefs and quandaries, but it's the dazzling special effects that will surely get fans into cinemas. One of DNEG's most impressive tricks on Ramayana is the creation of a kind of AI-assisted post-dubbing technology that makes the film's characters appear to be speaking in any given language. Unlike in dubbed films from the past, characters' lips will move perfectly in sync with the translated dialogue so the English, Spanish, and other versions of the film are completely seamless.

"We are at the forefront of creating new technology," says Malhotra. "We're trying to make sure that if English is your first language, you should watch it in your first language." He says he's not sure even at this stage how many languages the film will be available to watch in, but "if we pick English, Mandarin, Spanish and a few Indian languages, you've already covered five, six billion people on the planet".

Perhaps born from DNEG's work on Inception, Oppenheimer and The Odyssey, a rumour has circulated recently about Christopher Nolan's possible involvement in the editing of Ramayana. "I really wish it were true!" says Tiwari.

What's for sure is that Ramayana's ambition rivals that of any Nolan film. Its sequel, Ramayana 2, is shooting now. Malhotra mentions spin-off TV series, merchandise and more. What of his own ambition? Is he hoping for a cinematic empire that will make him the next George Lucas, Peter Jackson or Marvel creator Stan Lee?

"I don't think anyone, including Stan Lee, would have thought he's going to be who he is," Malhotra says."What I'm excited about is what we're doing right now, which is some of the oldest IP [intellectual property] in the world. This is not simply the beginning of a film. It is the beginning of a journey to celebrate India's cultural richness with the world."

Ramayana: Part 1 will be released internationally in November.

Correction 20 August 2026: This story previously stated that Namit Malhotra had started the VFX company DNEG aged 19. In fact, he started the company Prime Focus, which later merged with DNEG in 2014. The story has been updated to reflect this.

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Eight of the world's most colourful buildings

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260817-eight-of-the-worlds-most-colourful-buildings, 6 days ago

Imaginative architects have long used colour to elevate their work. From a dazzling ancient temple to a vibrant library, here are eight buildings where colour is integral.

We have been using colour to bring joy for hundreds of thousands of years. Early Neanderthals decorated cave walls with pigments from the earth. These early efforts were followed by the polychromatic temples of ancient Egypt and Greece, and the structures of multi-coloured marble of ancient Rome. Throughout these eras, and wherever you looked, colour was on the agenda.

It has played a starring role in the stained glass of medieval churches, and on the frescoed ceilings and walls of the Italian Renaissance. And it has been integral to the bright and shiny surfaces of the late 20th and 21st Centuries, including the cube entrance to the Pompidou Centre, Malaga by Daniel Buren (pictured above), a symphony of colour and light.

Colour is "the crucial ingredient that elevates a building to otherwise unachievable heights of resonance and delight," according to designer Adam Nathaniel Furman and author Kate Mazade, in Chromatic Architecture – the Craft of Colour in Design.

Here are eight colourful structures from their new book. These vivid buildings are a call for architects to wield colour with more verve, and for us to open our eyes to what colour can make possible.

1. Sri Ranganatha Swamy Temple, Tamil Nadu, India

The southern state of Tamil Nadu in India is known for its ancient tradition of using colour. Building work of this temple started in the 1st Century AD and continued through multiple dynasties into the late 20th Century. The result is one of the world's largest religious complexes of more than 150 acres.

It's guarded by 21 gateways or gopurams, whose three-dimensional elements are decorated in bright pigments. "This site teems with a hyper-abundance of spiritual life that is made viscerally manifest through the beautiful use of pigments, which act to draw the visitor and worshipper out of the everyday, and into the realm of contemplation and wonder," Furman tells the BBC.

2. Palau de la Música Catalana, Barcelona, Spain

The look of this 1908 concert hall came to embody the fast-industrialising, wealthy and culturally distinct Spanish region of Catalonia. Designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, the architecture mixes influences from Art Nouveau, the Romanesque and the Gothic Revival, alongside Moorish motifs and Valencian traditions.

For Furman, every single aspect of the Palau vibrates with symbolism, and wouldn't be out of place in a fairytale forest. "Every piece of stone, baluster, voussoir, column and column capital, light sconce and handle are saturated in colour and decorative form that breathe life into them as if by magic," he says.

3. Guardian Building, Detroit, Michigan, US

Locals know this 1929 office building by Wirt C Rowlandas as the "Cathedral of Finance". It's also one of the world's most significant Art Deco skyscrapers.

"Rowland used colour in here as a way to showcase the breadth of craftsmanship in the US's Great Lakes region in the early 20th Century," Mazade tells the BBC.

The outside is covered in nearly two million orange-tinged bricks and terracotta tiles. Meanwhile inside, the main lobby has a three-storey vaulted ceiling, covered in a "quilt" of primary-colour tiles inside.

"The building was a bold statement of Detroit's commercial success at that time, and serves as an ebullient reminder today," she adds.

4. De Bijenkorf department store, Eindhoven, Netherlands

Reports have it that the Italian architect, designer and artist Gio Ponti drew inspiration from the lush, variegated grid of Dutch farmland seen from an aeroplane window for this 1969 design. Making this big, windowless building appealing could have been a challenge for many architects – but not for Ponti, who contributed to Modernism as much as Le Corbusier and Mies Van Der Roh.

He transformed it into "a vast, glittering field of emerald wonder," Furman says. And in doing so, "he turned the typical nightmare blank concrete elevation of the period into a veritable masterpiece of modern art for the city".

5. Reversible Destiny Lofts, Tokyo, Japan

This 2005 rental scheme was designed in memory of the US disability advocate and writer Helen Keller. The book describes the nine lofts by Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins as a futuristic bricolage of brightly hued cylinders, cuboids, spheres and modern building elements. They come together into an all-enveloping alternative living environment whose every surface and accoutrement vibrates with colourful intensity.

The artist Arakawa and poet Gins wanted their choice of colours to unbalance the residents. "They believed that if an environment invigorated people out of their sedentary, domestic lifestyles, people could live longer," Mazade explains. They combined undulating floors with spherical rooms, adorning them in a colour palette that is a radical, sensory overload for the supposed benefit of the occupant, she adds.

6. Maishima Waste Incinerator Plant, Osaka, Japan

Austrian visual artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser died in 2000, a year before his building was completed. He was known for boycotting the flat regularity of Modernism and advocating for architecture as an evolving organism, rather than as a machine for fulfilling narrowly defined functions, the book explains.

For Hundertwasser, this applied to industrial buildings as much as it did to housing. The Maishima plant looks like an outlandish, Dr Zeuss-style castle, and is often mistaken for a nearby amusement park. The yellow "hand-drawn" stripes appear to drip down its low-rise elements, while its elongated cylindrical tower boasts similar stripes in red. All the structures in this complex, including the cantilevered element, stand on squat rounded legs decorated in blocks of colour.

Every part of this structure is about rebellion, Mazade says. "A garbage facility with an aqua chimney stack, chequerboard walls, sunflower and scarlet stripes – what's more rebellious than that?"

7. Leganés Central Library, Leganés, Spain

Built in 2019, this public library and municipal archive by BN Asociados Arquitectos is a visual metaphor of its contents. The bulbous façade of large-format pastel ceramics cling to the building's rounded sides, alerting locals to the quantity and variety of books shelved inside.

This treatment also creates an urban icon in a new neighbourhood of Madrid, which was lacking cultural landmarks. "As sunlight moves across the scalloped ceramics, the soft pastels and matte texture create an effect almost like paper," Mazade says.

8. Croydon Colonnade, London, UK

This 50-metre space for pedestrians in the architecturally challenged town of Croydon is made up of 16 giant columns and two big walls. The 2023 structure by Adam Nathaniel Furman is clad in thousands of three-dimensional, handmade porcelain tiles. And each of these tiles is coated in a rich, thick, translucent glaze. The base is a deep subaqueous blue, fading to a creamy white at the top.

This project is about bringing colourful high points from different times and places to East Croydon's train station.

"The colour acts to immerse the passerby in a rich, sensuous environment. It recalls millennia of architectural ceramics in blue and white used in monumental buildings all over the world, from ancient Egypt, to Portugal, Turkey, Safavid Iran, Babylon and many other places," its designer Furman says.

Chromatic Architecture – the Craft of Colour in Design by Adam Nathaniel Furman and Kate Mazade is out on 1 September 2026.

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'We couldn't believe our eyes': The 'real Indiana Jones' who found an ancient, lost city of the Incas

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260814-how-a-real-indiana-jones-claimed-he-had-found-the-ancient-lost-city-of-the-incas, 7 days ago

In 1911, a US professor claimed he had discovered the ancient mountain stronghold of the last Incan king deep in the Peruvian Andes. Yet 53 years later, another explorer proved he was mistaken – and shortly afterwards, a BBC crew followed his trail.

"No one now disputes that this was the site of ancient Vilcabamba." So wrote the Yale academic who brought the Peruvian ruins of Machu Picchu to global attention in 1911. Hiram Bingham III was recruited by locals to look for a lost Incan city fabled for its hidden treasures – and he firmly believed that's what he had found.

Yet 50 years later, Bingham's conviction was challenged by another US explorer nicknamed "the real Indiana Jones". In August 1964, Gene Savoy claimed to have found the same lost city – around 60km (37 miles) northwest of Machu Picchu. He believed his expedition had identified the mountain stronghold of the last Incan king at Espíritu Pampa (the "Plain of the Spirits" or Vilcabamba), a set of ruins in remote cloud forests, high above a tributary of the Amazon.

Just six weeks after Savoy's discovery, a BBC crew followed in his footsteps, travelling by rubber dinghy (and capsizing) on rapids, ascending steep canyon slopes with mules, and hacking through jungle to the site. "Scraps of information they'd picked up on the way made them doubt some of Savoy's claims," revealed the presenter. "But, having come so far, they had to get on and see for themselves."

The stakes were high. Perhaps they would find "the heart of an unknown city, where it seems likely the last Inca emperor gathered the remnants of his people".

By the early 20th Century, Vilcabamba (meaning "sacred plain" in Quechua, an ancient Indigenous language) had become a fabled city, as much rooted in legend as history. After failing to prevent the Spanish conquistadors seizing his capital of Cusco in 1536, the Incan king Manco led his vanquished people into the mountains beyond.

There, it was said, a few thousand of them built palaces and temples in Manco's capital in exile, where he had taken his golden treasures, his glittering idols, and the mummies of his ancestors.

According to the 16th-Century friar Martín de Murúa, who chronicled the Spanish conquest of Peru, "The Incas enjoyed scarcely less of the luxuries, greatness and splendour of Cusco in that distant or rather exiled land".

Beyond a place of exile, Vilcabama was also a centre for Incan resistance, where they planned guerilla warfare against the Spanish and sparked rebellions further afield. Yet in 1572, facing an invasion, the Incans set the city ablaze and fled.

The last Incan capital was swallowed up by the jungle – and its location remained a mystery for centuries.

In search of the fabled lost city

Bingham had been recruited by Peruvian landowners in 1909, to find out whether a place known as Choquequirao ("cradle of gold") was the fabled lost city. The 34-year-old, who later went on to become a US senator, was an assistant professor in Latin American history who happened to be travelling in the area. He was not an archaeologist, nor was he looking for Inca ruins.

But a local government official, Juan José Núñez, the prefect of Apurímac, refused to take no for an answer.

"Núñez insisted that as I was a doctor, a PhD, I must know all about archaeology and could tell him how valuable Choquequirao was as a site for buried treasure," wrote Bingham. "My protest that he was mistaken in his estimate of my archaeological knowledge was regarded by him merely as evidence of modesty."

Bingham went on to reveal: "I knew very little about the Incas." He relied instead on a book published by the British Royal Geographical Society, called Hints to Travellers, which contained suggestions as to what to do when confronted by an archaeological site.

Sceptical that there was any gold at Choquequirao, or that it was the famed lost city, Bingham was nevertheless inspired by his trip to lead a Yale expedition in 1911 to find the last Incan refuge. "There seemed to be an unknown region behind the ranges, which might contain great possibilities. Perhaps Manco's capital was hidden there," he said.

In fact, guides had taken Bingham to the site identified by Savoy 50 years later, 150 km (93 miles) northeast of Cusco. But plagued by bad weather, running short of food, and with his porters threatening to desert, he swiftly moved on, before claiming to have found the lost city at Machu Picchu.

Another daring explorer takes on the expedition

In 1964, Savoy – a 37-year-old explorer from Portland, Oregon – reached the area near Espíritu Pampa, together with Peruvian explorer Antonio Santander Cascelli. Locals initially refused to guide them to the site, fearing a tribal legend that the gods would kill those who revealed its location. After much persuasion, the Peruvians led Savoy and Santander to the moss-covered ruins of Vilcabamba.

"We couldn't believe our eyes," said Savoy. "Each day, it became more fantastic."

Savoy and Santander found ruins spread across three mountain plateaus, which included a palace, granite and limestone buildings and fountains – the first plateau alone was roughly four times the size of Machu Picchu. Their exploration of the area led Savoy to believe that "the site was a refuge used by the last Incas caught up in the throes of a final struggle against the new conquerors".

Yet after just a fortnight, their guides began to leave, fearful of the tribal superstitions. "Normally, they would be friendly and smiling," said Savoy. "But when we got them into those woods, they changed." They decided to leave and return later for further investigations.

Just six weeks after their expedition, a BBC crew made the same journey. "For 400 years few Europeans had been that way, let alone one with a movie camera," wrote Tony Morrison, the director of the film made for David Attenborough’s BBC Adventure series. "After a week of heavy walking and a long descent into dense, frequently rain-soaked montane-forest, we reached the ruins of the Inca settlement."

The jungle had protected the city for centuries, with those attempting to explore it having to hack at kapok trees, creepers, vines and ferns. According to one report, "Great trees had clamped their roots around the walls and over the terraces, and their branches were interlaced by vines as thick and strong as telephone cables."

"I hate the danged jungle," said Savoy – adding, however, "I would rather die out there than not explore."

Savoy and Santander's discovery did not prove that the ruins at Espíritu Pampa were the last Inca capital. But something that they found there was to lead to confirmation that it was Vilcabamba – roof tiles.

"These tiles are so far the strongest tangible evidence," said the BBC presenter in 1964. "They're Spanish in design but bear distinctive Inca influence in the colouring and markings."

And their significance was later recognised by John Hemming, director of the Royal Geographic Society in London from 1975 to 1996 and, Inca expert. He was able to match eyewitness accounts of Vilcabamba – including chronicles by the friar Martín de Murúa – to details of the site.

The discovery of the tiles was unusual, since the Incas normally used thatch. Yet in Murúa's description of the Incan capital in exile, there was an important clue: "The Incas had a palace on different levels, covered in roof tiles."

Savoy later said: "The city has been rumoured to exist for so long that it had almost passed from history to myth. Now we have turned it back to history." So it seems that in 1911, Bingham had walked within a few feet of the place he had been seeking – the final refuge of the Incan empire.

For Savoy, however, a mystery remained. "Only a small part of the Inca gold and jewels were ever recovered," he told Esquire in 1967, "and I have reason to believe that [they] threw the rest of it into lakes and caves rather than have it fall into the hands of the Spaniards. On previous expeditions I found lakes that weren't on any maps, and uncharted walled-up tunnels."

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The discovery of what seems to have been the last Inca city – even now, mostly buried in jungle, its stonework strangled by vines and tree roots guarding its doorways – has raised more questions than answers.

"The area is fascinating because it still hasn't been disturbed or looted," Javier Fonseca, an archaeologist with Peru's ministry of culture, told The Guardian in 2018. There have even been reports of another city, deeper in the forest.

"We know that the so-called 'lost Inca treasure' has not been found," said Savoy in 1967. "If this treasure exists… then we may speculate as to its whereabouts."

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'I don't think he would've been happy': Why Anthony Bourdain biopic Tony fails to honour the chef's work

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260812-why-anthony-bourdain-biopic-tony-fails-to-honour-the-chefs-work, 11 days ago

The new film about the US culinary titan is entertaining. But it undersells his legacy and sidelines the workers, many immigrants or people of colour, that to him were the real stars of the restaurant industry.

It's rare that a film's epigraph so succinctly sums up everything you’re about to see. But when Tony, the new film about the late great chef and food writer Anthony Bourdain, begins a quote flashes up on screen from his seminal 2000 book Kitchen Confidential – a memoir of his early days working in restaurant kitchens. "I was – to be frank – a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout."

Bourdain, who died in 2018, was one of the world's most celebrated culinary figures, known for his bad-boy persona, superb food writing, and TV series like No Reservations and Parts Unknown, in which he travelled the world intimately exploring different food cultures. Matt Johnson's biopic is a solid piece of film-making, but it reflects badly on it that it can be encapsulated in a single sentence – it is, in essence, a film about the folly of Bourdain's youth. We see a delinquent "Tony", played by rising star Dominic Sessa, ineptly wielding nunchucks, sleazing on waitresses, abusing substances and getting into fights.

The crucial thing missing

But while that makes for entertaining viewing, it feels like a shallow reflection on Bourdain's work and impact. And in particular, the film misses one crucial element of Kitchen Confidential – his celebration of the workers, many of whom were immigrants or people of colour or both, who he believed were the real foundation of the restaurant industry. As the Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh observed in the foreword for a new edition of the book last year: "Bourdain knew it was always the immigrants, not the spoiled white boys who were the living, breathing embodiment of the American dream."

Rather than exploring the dynamics of modern restaurant culture, as the book does, Tony has a very narrow focus – one formative summer in 1975 when a 19-year-old Bourdain discovered his culinary passion working as a dishwasher in a seafood establishment in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In the film, it is called The Lobster Pot, and is loosely based on Kitchen Confidential’s Dreadnaught restaurant – itself a pseudonym for the once-famous Flagship restaurant that Bourdain actually worked in. In a recent interview, Johnson explained his choice to focus on this particular episode in Bourdain's life by saying the "journey" that Bourdain goes on in the film is "universally applicable. It’s about rites of passage, a crucible, going through difficulty and making it to the other side ready to face the world."

And the film's main interest, bad behaviour aside, is a love story between Tony and Nancy (Emilia Jones) – his high-school sweetheart who later became his first wife.

Its characterisation problem

Again, this is not to decry the film completely. It evokes a good sense of mid-70s period detail, and there are compelling performances throughout from Sessa, Jones, her fellow Brit Leo Woodall as Bourdain's disreputable co-worker and Antonio Banderas as the restaurant's owner. But the latter two are both fictionalised characters, and it's glaring how many of the real-life kitchen staff from the book are sidelined in the story.

One example is black chef Tyrone – played by Nigerian-born Michael Jibrin. In reality, Tyrone was a formidable figure who showed Tony some of the harsh, macho behind-the-scenes realities of restaurants at the time. But here he is marginalised as soon as Tony is promoted from dish washer to oyster shucker.

Hannah Harley Young is a British-Iranian food presenter, creator and host of the Crazy Sexy Food podcast, who claims Bourdain as an inspiration and has interviewed Bourdain's former assistant Laurie Woolever. She believes Tyrone and other kitchen staff could have been depicted as much more pivotal characters in Tony's coming-of-age story.

"I don't think Bourdain would've been happy to be involved in a biopic of himself," she says, "but if he were I'm sure he would've wanted more character background on certain people. Everybody was somebody for Tony and everyone could sit at a table and be equal."

A lot of the cooks from Bourdain's writing about Dreadnaught in Kitchen Confidential are merged into Woodall's composite character Sal, so we lose Lydia, a Portuguese soup-maker, and Mike, a methadone dealer who mans the salad station. Meanwhile the Russian-German pasta cook Dimitri (played by Stavros Halkias) is not a mentor figure, as he is in the book, and has been made into an American.

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British-Sri Lankan beverage, food and culture writer, Ruvani de Silva, equally wonders what story the film is telling if all the immigrants and people of colour, who Bourdain championed in Kitchen Confidential and otherwise, aren't front and centre.

"I doubt this film will damage Bourdain's legacy as people can still read his words," she says. "But trying to super-impose a romantic narrative onto Kitchen Confidential just makes your brain jar."

Bourdain's life has been misrepresented repeatedly – from fake platitudinous quotes falsely attributed to him, to misleading memes and an all-round romanticisation of him. This film, to its credit, doesn't make him into a hero. And Sessa plays with nuance a young man seemingly trapped by his own arrogance.

But in choosing to tell the story it does, it certainly undersells the man and his mission.

Tony is out now in US cinemas and is released in UK cinemas on 14 August.

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'I didn't think of stopping at any time': A US physicist's inside account of Nagasaki's atomic bombing in WW2

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260806-a-us-physicists-inside-account-of-nagasakis-atomic-bombing-in-ww2, 14 days ago

On 9 August 1945, a plutonium bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, bringing an end to World War Two. In an interview with the BBC 30 years later, a US physicist who helped to assemble the bomb revealed why the blast couldn't be stopped – and the plans for more.

"It was not for lack of concern for humanity – it was because of a concern for humanity. Perhaps that was the sin."

Thirty years after he took part in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945, the US physicist Philip Morrison spoke frankly to the BBC about the decisions that were taken in the days and weeks before the unprecedented nuclear blast.

Morrison had played a key role in the Manhattan Project, the top-secret Allied programme to develop the first nuclear weapons, working at the Los Alamos laboratory. The lab was directed by his former teacher J Robert Oppenheimer. Present at the Trinity test of the first atomic bomb on 16 July 1945, Morrison carried its plutonium core on his lap in the car to New Mexico. He then travelled to the small island of Tinian, just south of Saipan, to help assemble the "Fat Man" plutonium bomb used on Nagasaki, overseeing its loading onto a B-29 aircraft on 9 August, just three days after the bombing of Hiroshima.

It was on Tinian that the US forces built what Morrison described as the "largest airport in the world". "A great coral ridge was half-levelled to fill a rough plain, and to build six runways… each almost two miles long," he said in his in a testimony to a Senate Committee in December 1945.

The scale of destruction

Morrison also revealed the scale of preparations for the fire-bombings of Japanese cities in his testimony. "In the harbour every day rode tankers, laden with thousands of tons of aviation gasoline… Down the great runways would roll the huge planes… Once every 15 seconds another B-29 would become airborne. For an hour-and-a-half this would continue… A thousand B-29s, time and again, burned many square miles of a city in a single raid."

In contrast, he relayed, "The atomic bomb was something else."

"There were no shiploads of incendiaries. Instead of all the ordnancemen and their bomb dumps, there were about 25 people from Los Alamos, a few Quonset [prefabricated corrugated steel] huts transformed into testing laboratories, and a barricaded building. The strike took off after midnight. The field was deserted… And one plane roared down the runway, took off, and set course for the cities of the enemy," he said.

Although estimates vary, it is thought that 40,000 people were killed by the initial detonation in Nagasaki, while more than 100,000 deaths were directly attributable to the bombing over the next five years. In Hiroshima, at least 80,000 people died instantly, with the cumulative death toll rising to roughly 140,000 due to severe burns, injuries and acute radiation sickness.

Morrison later surveyed the catastrophic devastation at the two Japanese cities as part of the official scientific damage-assessment team, and he remembered one moment in Hiroshima in particular. "A Japanese official stood in the rubble and said to us: 'All this from one bomb; it is unendurable'," he said. "One plane, with one bomb, had destroyed many square miles of a city, destroyed them even more thoroughly and with even less chance for resistance or escape than the 1,000-plane strike."

Yet he had hoped that the atomic bomb would not have to be used in combat, spearheading a group of young Los Alamos physicists who favoured a public demonstration of the bomb prior to any use in Japan. Morrison – who was aged 30 when he oversaw the assembly of "Fat Man" in Tinian – wanted to "invite an international delegation to the desert", he told the BBC's Melvyn Bragg in 1975. "But under the circumstances of warfare, that was wishful thinking."

'Unstoppable momentum'

The physicist described a sense of unstoppable momentum, even when it became clear the Nazis would be defeated. Yet, he explained, "The war was still going on. We were marching towards a tremendous battle in the Pacific… so it would have been impossible to stop."

The one factor that could have changed that, Morrison believed, was US President Franklin D Roosevelt, who died in April 1945. "The only chance to modify the American position strongly, I would say, would've been the survival of Roosevelt… [who] died in the midst of the development, before we knew the bomb would work, before it was determined how to use the bombs," said Morrison.

"He was the only person, I think, both with enough prestige, enough strength within the government to turn back this terrible momentum," he said.

When Harry S Truman became president, he wasn't even aware of the project, only learning about it in the hours after he was sworn in. Just over three months later, he was to give the order for the bombings.

"It's true he made the decision, but I think it's fair to say the decision made him," argued Morrison. "It would’ve been a very bold stroke indeed for him to change the thing after all those years and stop it… that chance was essentially gone with the death of Roosevelt."

The same immovable force applied to the decision to drop two bombs one after the other, according to Morrison. "It was not considered a first and a second bomb. The orders cut for the commanders were, 'Drop bomb one, and then drop bomb two as soon as you can.' It would have taken a strong man back in Washington to see the great effects of bomb one… and say, 'Well, let’s wait for bomb two.' It would've taken thought at a high level, an ability to tap into the complex links and get the right orders to the right generals," he said.

So the two bombings went ahead – and more were planned, revealed Morrison. "The original decision was that we would go on for a year dropping these bombs, if need be… I was told to put together a plan for that," he told Bragg. "I had a plan and a scheme and a schedule and a man to replace me and arrangements to go back and forth."

Whether he could have continued to do that is uncertain, once he and the other Los Alamos scientists had witnessed the aftermath. "We knew intellectually very well, both the short-range and… the feared long-range effects. But that was only by reading a book and looking at the numbers," he told Bragg. "And the difference between the numbers… and seeing the living reality, the dying reality, is a very big difference to everyone, to the whole world. So I think we knew it, but we didn't feel it."

He recalled the reaction at the Pacific island base on the night of the Hiroshima bombing. "There was a big party that night, but most of the scientific people didn't go. The Air Force people, soldiers, they drank. They knew the war was coming to an end. It looked, it felt, like a tremendous victory." Yet, Morrison remembered, the scientists "sat around looking morose and thinking… about the end of the world".

But in the lead-up to the bombings, Morrison didn't feel compelled to pull out of the Manhattan Project. "In spite of determined and dogged opposition to this, I don't see how I could have done any differently. I didn't think of stopping at any time."

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When asked if the Allies would have dropped an atomic bomb on Berlin, had it been ready before the Nazis were defeated, he said "Oh, absolutely, like a flash… We were primarily fearful of the Germans, and they were our enemy," said Morrison.

After the war, Morrison became a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, campaigning against nuclear proliferation in the vanguard of the "no third bomb" movement. "It goes without saying that, like most of the scientists of the project, I am completely convinced that another war cannot be allowed," he said in his 1945 Senate testimony.

And he believed the Allies should have done one thing in particular. "I firmly believe that a proper warning should have been given," he said. "Looking back, there's no justification for not giving a proper and suitable warning."

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How do you move a museum (and one large lion)?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0l5lexk9xro, today

Fragile fossils, tropical fish, and a taxidermied lion called Wallace are among a trove of items being packed up by a museum before its renovation.

Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens closes to visitors on 29 August ahead of a £13.6m upgrade, with its collection being toured and loaned across the city until the premises reopen in late 2028.

But how do you move a museum's collection of some 108,000 objects without losing anything?

"We have to plan this really carefully," Senior manager Trina Murphy said.

The comprehensive plan for moving the entire collection currently stands at a weighty 80 pages.

Murphy estimated it could take up to four and a half months to complete.

"You can imagine the amount of packaging and bubble wrap, we've just had a delivery of crates," she said.

The biggest items in the collection are Wallace and a Nissan car, which was the first off the production line when the Sunderland factory opened in 1986, which Murphy said was going to be a "logistical nightmare".

It currently resides in a glass case but she said they were going to be building a new temporary garage for it.

And what of Wallace the lion?

The big cat was a Victorian circus attraction well-known for mauling his tamer, Martini Maccomo, in 1868, who survived the incident but died three years later from rheumatic fever.

Wallace himself died around 1875, and was acquired by Sunderland Museum in 1879, where he has lived ever since.

"He is one of our star pieces, he is one of our most popular exhibits, and everyone said keep Wallace and make sure he's cared for," Murphy said.

She said owing to his size and weight, specialist equipment would be brought in to remove him from his case before he would be "safely wrapped" by gloved staff.

As for the museum's living creatures, Murphy said its tropical fish collection would be kept under "really good conditions" but would stay on site to "not stress them out too much".

"We don't like to say the museum's closing," she added.

"We like to say it's going for a big, long sleep, then will spring back into life."

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'Exciting' new Victor Hugo Centre plans approved

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74g2vn00m3o, today

A planned educational and cultural Victor Hugo Centre has moved a step closer to completion after planning permission was granted.

The States of Guernsey approved the plans to transform the former States Office building and information centre in St Peter Port.

Hugo, spent 15 years in Guernsey from 1855 to 1870 during his exile from France when he wrote his celebrated novels Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

Larry Malcic, chair of the Victor Hugo Centre Guernsey LBG said securing planning permission was a major milestone and was a step closer to creating a permanent Guernsey home for Hugo's "extraordinary legacy".

Hugo was exiled from his native France when Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew, later Napoleon III, seized power in a coup in 1851, according to literary scholar Graham Robb.

Plans were submitted in July and the States said it would create an "exciting, interactive and immersive celebration" of a "global icon" that would feature a museum and interpretation centre, a performance and event space and a learning hub.

The company said it would continue to work on the detailed design and tender documents with local architects DLM and exhibition designers Casson Mann.

With the project expected to go out to tender early 2027, with construction due to begin in the spring.

Malcic thanked the islanders who had "contributed more than £7.5 million towards the capital works and endowment and to the States of Guernsey".

"There is still work to do and more funding to raise for the long-term sustainability of the project, but this approval allows us to move confidently into the next stage."

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'Huge' need for more hosts for Ukrainian families

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2k7wy400lxo, today

An organisation supporting Ukrainians in the UK said there was a "huge" need for more volunteers to host people fleeing Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began four and a half years ago.

Swindon Welcomes Ukrainians (SWU) said the town had already welcomed more than 500 people since 2022 through the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

But SWU vice-chair, Kris Talikowski, said there had never been "a more pressing time" for people who had not previously hosted to put themselves forward.

It comes as Swindon stages one of Britain's biggest Ukrainian festivals over the weekend, and continues to pursue the formal process of a twinning association with Rivne in north-western Ukraine.

Talikowski said he believed there was currently "as great a demand" from Ukrainians who want to leave their country as there had been at the start of the war in 2022.

"The Ukrainians who have been there for four years have absolutely had enough," he said.

"In the beginning, they might have said: 'I'll stick this out, it's not going to last long - we'll be able to outsee this'.

"Now they are in a very difficult, dark place."

Talikowski said Swindon Borough Council and local people had already offered "an incredibly supportive and warm welcome" to Ukrainians who had arrived in the town over the past four years, but suggested about 50 additional hosts were required.

"There's a huge push, even now, to find new hosts who have spare rooms and are happy to welcome a Ukrainian or Ukrainian family for a minimum of six months and provide a safe sanctuary for those escaping the war," he said.

Three people have come forward just this week and expressed an interest in hosting.

One of them, Marina Strinkovsky - a councillor for Eastcott ward - believes it could be a "wonderful" opportunity for cultural exchange.

"I see my job as offering a person, who is in need, a stable foundation on which to rebuild their life in the UK.

"How they do that is up to them, not up to me. I'm not coming with some kind of well-developed philanthropic intent because people who come from Ukraine already have mothers, and they may not need me.

If a friendship developed that would be a bonus, she said.

"But it shouldn't be imposed on people - because the refugees who come are in a very vulnerable situation and may feel under duress to let you into their lives because they feel beholden to you."

Recent figures from Swindon Borough Council show a total of 567 Ukrainians have been supported through the Homes for Ukraine scheme, of whom 84 are still living with hosts, 231 have resettled into private lets in Swindon, and 252 have since left the town.

A spokesperson said homes were needed, not only for Ukrainians wishing to come to the UK for the first time, but for those already living here whose existing hosting arrangement is ending.

Initial steps for potential hosts include security checks, carried out by the Home Office, followed by a safeguarding process organised by the council, and, finally, a meeting between the prospective host and guest.

Eligible hosts currently receive a 'thank you' payment of £350 per month.

This weekend marks the fourth annual UkraineFest in Swindon, attracting more than 4,000 people to the celebrations in the Town Gardens, Old Town on Saturday.

Maryna Shpylova, who arrived in the town three years ago and now runs the Ukrainian Choir, said the event was more than just a celebration of Ukrainian culture and music.

"It's about unity - not just for Ukrainians, but for English people too - because we feel welcomed and accepted here.

"We touched the hearts of English people, even though they didn't understand the language - maybe they feel the pain within our soul," she said.

Anastasiia Banatska, SWU chair, said the festival also provided an opportunity to recognise the growing friendship between Swindon and Rivne, following a visit by the Mayor of Rivne, Viktor Shakyrzian, in June.

"The friendship between Swindon and Rivne has grown from acts of kindness shown by local people when Ukrainians first arrived here.

"To see that relationship developing into a formal partnership between our two communities is incredibly emotional and something many Ukrainians in Swindon are proud to celebrate," she said.

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Horsham Museum to close for four months

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yr1jq33w0o, today

A museum in West Sussex will be closed for four months to allow for essential repairs of its roof to be undertaken.

The Horsham Museum and Art Gallery will be closed from 7 September until 5 January next year after specialist contractors found that sections of the stonework had deteriorated.

As a Grade II listed building, the museum requires specialist conservation work which can only be achieved with a closure, Horsham District Council said.

The council's deputy leader Mark Baynham said the repairs were "vital to protect our visitors, staff, collections and this important historic building".

The team will also refurbish three galleries as part of a wider programme of improvements during the closure.

When visitors return there will be a new costume gallery and a refreshed Age of Discovery gallery showcasing stories from Horsham in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

Baynham added: "We hope visitors will understand the need for this work and look forward to welcoming them back in the new year with an exciting programme of exhibitions and activities."

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'We share what we do with love' - Mela festival celebrates 20th anniversary

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz64zlv5j10o, yesterday

It's hard to think of Belfast Mela as anything other than a massive, multi-day, cultural celebration of music, dance, arts and food.

But as the festival found its feet in its early years, it was much smaller. It attracted 500 people and its founder thought it would only last a short time.

Fast forward to 2026, and it is established as one of Northern Ireland's largest arts festivals, celebrating cultural diversity.

As it marks its 20th anniversary, those who have taken part over the years and helped it grow, have been sharing their stories about why they love Mela.

Nisha Tandon, founder of ArtsEkta, brought the idea of Mela to life based on the principles of inclusivity, creativity and openness.

Mela is a Sanskrit word meaning "to meet".

Tandon initially thought the celebration "might last two or three years at most", but it has grown into a much-celebrated annual fixture.

"We are so proud that so many cultures have that sense of belonging here," she told BBC News NI.

"Mela has grown and it's grown with the diversity which is growing here. Every person brings that vibrancy to the carnival and the whole week.

"Vibrancy is no threat to anybody. No culture will be spoiling anybody's culture."

Around 16 years ago, contemporary and Mexican folk dancer Mayte Segura was convinced to perform alongside her friend at Belfast Mela.

She has been involved ever since saying it is now bigger, better and more vibrant.

"I just love it. It's amazing to be together and I just love the costumes. I love all the cultures and the way that people do their own art," she said.

Segura believes art plays a big role in meeting people positively and has faced no negativity while participating.

"We share what we do with love, with respect, with an aim to integrate and communicate and we try to move people in that sense," she said.

Segura currently dances at Mela with her own group Mexican Dance Belfast.

"We always have nice audiences at the Mela, and I hope if even one or two or three were inspired by us, that will be enough," she added.

'Belfast's a completely different world'

When Séamas Ó Labhradha first started helping out with Mela, it was in the Ulster Hall where people only popped in out of curiosity.

Performing for as long as he can remember, he said "each year it just blossomed more and got bigger".

"It was a lot smaller than the Mela we have today, but it was great fun," he reflected.

Ó Labhradha would take part in a range of cultural events at Mela such as drumming for the lion dancing team and playing the bagpipes.

He believes the festival has made people more aware of other cultures and broken down barriers.

He said Belfast is a "completely different world" that has become far more inclusive and diverse.

"I grew up in a political Belfast where you were green or orange, where you only took part in your own culture's activities," he said.

"Whereas now, the Mela has opened up so much to people."

Caroyln Stewart was thrilled when she was asked to host Mela around 16 years ago.

"I grew up in north Belfast, being one of very few people with brown skin. I sort of look at Mela as you know, I wish it was there when I was a kid. Just to bring all types of people together," she said.

"The diversity, music and food, it all just made sense."

Seeing communities coming together and families being introduced to new cultures is what drives her to return to host every summer.

"I can't see why you couldn't embrace that. It's a beautiful day out.

"I have watched Mela grow and develop over the years, it's just going from strength to strength."

'It's always good craic'

Luke McFarlane has been involved in Mela, circus and arts performances for 17 years.

Now 25, he recalled his first time at the festival.

"I remember it being huge, as much as an eight-year-old can take in scale, the food was fantastic," he said.

From volunteering to performing with the Chinese lion and dragon, he says that the "huge celebration" is open to all people to celebrate their cultures.

"The arts is very much a massive part of my life, even though I work full-time. I try to dedicate myself to continue that, I think it's very important in our city," he said.

"What's kept me coming back is, it's always good craic."

What to do at Mela 2026?

This year's festival began with the Mela Carnival on Saturday 22 August.

More than 800 performers, musicians and dancers took part in the colourful parade.

It started at Writers Square, and made its way down Royal Avenue, finishing at city hall.

One of the highlights will be a new outdoor production called Earth Child to mark the Belfast Mela's 20th anniversary.

It will take place at the Titanic Slipways at 20:00 BST on Sunday 23 August. This will combine aerial theatre, original live music, global drumming, dance, fireworks and more.

There will be events throughout the week before Mela Day returns to Botanic Gardens on Sunday 30 August, with five stages, global street food, family activities and performances from around the world.

A full list of festival events can be found here.

Tributes paid to 'giant' of Irish traditional music scene

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyeyl9l9y3o, yesterday

A renowned traditional Irish musician and educator who died following a road crash in County Armagh has been described by a Sinn Féin MP as a "giant of Irish cultural life".

Eithne Vallely, 81, who was originally from Donegal, died following a road traffic collision on the Portadown Road in Armagh on Friday morning.

Dáire Hughes said her decades of contribution to music and cultural expression "cannot be overstated" and is "evidenced by her countless awards and honours".

He added that she was "tremendously gifted" and passed her passion for music on to her family and the wider community through the founding of the Armagh Pipers Club with her husband, Brian.

'Gifted teacher'

"Her legacy will live on, through them and the countless others she inspired," he said.

Hughes offered condolences to Vallely's husband and children and all "those who had the pleasure of playing music with her, or learning from her".

SDLP Councillor Thomas O'Hanlon described the news as "devastating".

He said that while Vallely was originally from Donegal, "she made Armagh her home".

"What an extraordinary contribution she made to the cultural and musical life of our city, this island and far beyond over many decades,"he said.

O'Hanlon said that in recent years, he worked with Vallely, and witnessed the "patience, care and encouragement she gave to young people".

"She was a gifted teacher, an experienced administrator and Director of Music, but above all she was someone who gave so generously of herself to others," he said.

'Enormous contribution'

In a post on social media, Armagh Pipers Club paid tribute to Vallely who was director of music at the club and said she "brought music into the lives of children for six decades".

"Our heartfelt sympathy goes to her husband Brian and their family", they said.

"Her enormous contribution to Irish traditional music was recognised nationally with many awards and honours."

Hidden museum gallery to reopen after 83 years

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr59grpzqgeo, yesterday

A gallery that has remained closed to the public since World War Two is to reopen at London's Natural History Museum next month.

The gallery, which has remained hidden from view since 1943, will reopen from 16 September, featuring 50 objects which show our evolving relationship with the natural world.

The exhibition, named Nature and Us, is part of a transformation project called NHM150, which aims to open a new or revamped showcase every year until the museum's 150th anniversary in 2031.

Dr Doug Gurr, director of the NHM, said: "For the first time in over 80 years, visitors will be able to step into this beautiful historic space and explore our changing relationship with the natural world."

The museum describes the display as "experimental" during the initial 18-month period, with visitors invited to share their views on what they would like to see in the permanent gallery, which is due to open in 2029.

The exhibition is located on the second floor of the museum's main Waterhouse Building.

It was originally used as an osteology and mammals gallery.

However, after the museum's original herbarium was damaged during World War Two, the space was repurposed to house the botanical collections and closed to the public.

Among the key specimens on display is a miniature model of a Crystal Palace dinosaur, alongside other objects that show how early scientists and artists understood the prehistoric world.

Other items include a Victorian skeleton of a monk seal named Jenny, highlighting how wild animals were once exploited for entertainment, as well as the jaw of one of Britain's earliest known domesticated dogs, dating back about 14,300 years.

The Natural History Museum in South Kensington is free to visit and open seven days a week.

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Strictly a 'dream come true' after stroke recovery

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjrvw1je91xo, yesterday

TV dog trainer Graeme Hall says it is a "dream come true" to be on Strictly Come Dancing, after a stroke made him think he would never dance again.

The Brackley-based Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly star will appear on the BBC One show when it launches in September, despite giving up dancing after falling ill in 2019.

Known as the Dogfather on the Channel 5 television series, Hall has previously danced in local competitions, including Strictly Northampton.

"There are not a lot of people in the world that have had the chance to do this. So I'm just going to love every minute, enjoy it for what it is and hope it keeps going as long as possible," he said.

'Loving the experience'

Speaking to Bernie Keith on BBC Radio Northampton, Hall said he did not expect to dance again after having a stroke caused by a hole in the heart.

"I never got back to dancing, I just thought, 'well that was a bit of fun'... and that was that.

"I put the dance bag in the loft. It's been with me through three house moves," he added.

Now having made a full recovery, Hall has dusted off his dancing kit and is "loving the experience".

Hall will only find out who his dance partner is during the launch show on 26 September 2026.

He said: "The celebrities are all really nice people, it's going to be great but it's not going to be easy because they actually, as far as I can tell, are quite good at dancing."

Hall is also known for fronting The Dog Hospital and his contributions to BBC radio programmes, ITV's This Morning, and writing a regular column for the Times.

He has written books including The Ultimate Kid's Guide to Dogs and previously made a cameo appearance in the hit drama All Creatures Great and Small.

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Man takes over music venue where he had wedding

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyq4l5wxdqo, yesterday

A live music promoter has become co-owner of the venue where he celebrated his wedding and had his first dance.

Luke and Rachel Hinton married at St Albans Register Office before heading to nearby venue, The Horn, where they cut their wedding cake in the bar and took to the live music room for their first dance.

The 46-year-old couple, who have promoted shows at the venue for about 18 years, are now running it with former general manager Shane Smith and his partner, Abbie Whitrow.

Luke, who has been visiting The Horn since he was a teenager, said owning the venue was something he and Rachel had "never even dreamed of".

Long-time owner Adrian Bell told staff two years ago that he planned to step away and gave them the opportunity to take over before he considered selling it on the open market.

Luke was concerned that as The Horn is a large pub right next to a train station, a buyer could have decided to convert it into a commuter-friendly gastro pub.

He said: "By us coming in, taking on the lease, and continuing to operate it, it's going to be a grassroots venue for as long as we have it.

"That is about offering that local band, who wants to get on stage for the first time, that first opportunity.

"The whole purpose of a grassroots venue is to give opportunities and for us that's what it will always be."

The pub has hosted live music since the 1960s, including early appearances by acts such as U2, Bastille, Tom Grennan and Declan McKenna.

Luke founded Juicebox Live to promote shows across the east of England in 2007, and since 2013 it has organised all The Horn's original music events.

But he also wants the venue to be a place to develop behind-the-scenes talent, such as the next generation of music promoters.

He said: "We can take them on and we can nurture those people so that it offers more to what we can do.

"It might be that we get someone who specialises in a genre and no one else in the team has that knowledge."

Luke has been a vocal supporter for grassroots venues, working as a consultant for the Music Venue Trust.

He believes that such spaces are essential because "they bring people together," allowing someone to attend a gig completely on their own "but still feel like you know everyone there".

He said: "If you go back 18-plus years and said we'd be co-owning the venue that we were just going in to watch bands that we liked... I don't think that would have ever crossed our minds.

"Let alone on our wedding night, being there and thinking, 'Oh yeah, we got married here, but we'll own it.' That was something we never even dreamed of."

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'Misogyny and fetishism' - the story of the last woman to be hanged in Wales

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyq1w7415qo, 10 days ago

As Leslie James was marched to the gallows on the morning of her 40th birthday, she could never have known her death would put her name in the history books.

On 14 August 1907 at 08:00, James was led from the women's block of Cardiff Prison to a shed which housed the gallows, suspended above a 15ft-deep (4.5m) pit.

There waiting for her were Henry and Tom Pierrepoint - a surname synonymous with the noose - and with that pull of the lever, James would become the last woman to be hanged in Wales.

In June of that year, she was accused of deliberately smothering a day-old baby girl as part of what the police and press called a "baby farming" conspiracy.

But a new book by author Mary Jones casts doubt on details surrounding the case, highlighting James's previously unreported brain injury, and how her looks were as much the focus of the press attention as her crime.

In The Execution of Leslie James, Jones documents how in the months leading up to her crime, Leslie James, or Rhoda Willis as was probably her real name, was hit by a bike, giving her such severe concussion that she was in hospital for three months.

She argues: "Whatever Leslie's culpability in her crimes, this surely ought to have been taken into account."

James stood trial at the July 1907 Swansea Assizes accused of murdering baby Treasure, who was only identified by the surname of her mother, Maud Treasure from Fleur-de-lis in Caerphilly.

The prosecution claimed James responded to a newspaper advert asking for someone to take care of an unwanted baby, offering £6 initially, and a further £2 at a later date.

At the time, "baby farming", where "inconvenient" children were offered up for money, was seen as a social scandal.

After collecting the child, it was alleged that James smothered her on the train journey back to Cardiff, most likely around Llanishen.

Most damningly for James, evidence emerged that she had previously taken on two other babies in similar circumstances.

After a trial lasting one-and-a-half days, the all-male jury took just 12 minutes to convict her, in what must have seemed like an open-and-shut case in those days.

In passing sentence, the judge said: "Don't let anyone suppose that because you are convicted of murder that nobody pities you, nobody prays for you.

"I implore you to employ the short time that is left to you to prepare for death and for that mercy which you will undoubtedly find in heaven, but which you cannot expect here."

Jones believes there were serious flaws in the trial, most importantly that James's brain injury was not mentioned as an explanation for her reckless behaviour.

"Her barrister, Ivor Bowen, was only appointed on the morning of the trial on the judge's orders and, as such, there was no time to speak to Leslie or call any defence witnesses.

"Had they have done so, then the jury would have heard what baby Treasure's family told the police, that the child was already frothing from the mouth, possibly because of the indigestible sugar-water mix which they had given her because her mother was unable or unwilling to breastfeed her, and also that she had been extremely tightly swaddled, so that neighbours could not tell that the package being handed over to Leslie was a baby.

"Either of these could have led to baby Treasure choking or suffocating, though Leslie didn't help her own defence insofar as she was an alcoholic and, I believe, honestly couldn't recall how the infant died on that journey home."

Jones added that, while James's two previous forays into baby farming were used in evidence against her, the counter argument was never put forward.

She left a note requesting medical assistance for the first child, who she left on the steps of the Salvation Army, and the second was thriving after being adopted by her landlady, Mrs Wilson at 132 Portmanmoor Road in Splott, Cardiff.

On the evening of 3 June 1907 James returned home but couldn't sleep in her own bed, and instead bunked up with fellow lodger Rose Smith.

The following day she went out and got "paralytically drunk".

As Mrs Wilson tried to help her into bed, she discovered a tightly-wrapped parcel, which at first she thought to be a cut of meat, only to discover the truth and informed the police.

James's tragic past quickly unravelled.

"She is most likely to have been born in Sunderland in 1863, though she claimed to have been educated in a London boarding school," said Jones, who believes there may be evidence to support this.

"Rhoda/Leslie appears from the records to have been a highly literate and articulate lady and far removed from the common-or-garden 'hussy' or 'fallen woman' which the press chose to stereotype such so-called baby farmers."

Jones said when James was arrested she gave her name as Leslie James, but on previous public documents she was variously listed as Rhoda Willis/Dalzell/Lascelles, daughter to a jeweller, Ernest Dalzell, which may have provided her with a more affluent background.

While living a "blameless life" prior to the bike accident, by 1907 she had fallen into "troubled ways".

She was locked in a love triangle with Scottish-born brothers Stewart and McGregor McPherson, between whom she bore two babies.

Jones said that by the time she sought lodgings at Portmanmoor Road, she was already deeply damaged.

"The way she sought shelter in Rose Smith's neighbouring room shows that she knew something terrible had happened, but it also lends evidence to the conclusion that she hadn't intended for it to happen.

"Surely, if Rhoda had have been guilty of murder, then she wouldn't have drawn such attention to herself."

Cardiff council, her own solicitor Harry Lloyd, and the general public raised a petition of about 50,000 names to spare her life.

A 1,000-strong crowd outside the prison were mortified when a guard pinned the notice of her death to the gates.

Home Secretary Herbert Gladstone had, the night before, concluded that she be made an example of because of the "despicable practice of baby farming prevalent in south Wales".

Jones said: "I am seeking an apology for the fact that such a troubled woman was hanged without evidence that she'd ever committed murder.

"It is beyond doubt that baby Treasure died while in the care of Rhoda, but her degree of culpability is very debatable, at the very most she is guilty of manslaughter."

Jones said a degree of misogynistic fetishism saw James go to the gallows.

"All the press reports and even the hangman Henry Pierrepoint remarked on her beauty and composure.

"No male's demeanour had ever been commented upon so much in the papers: 'From the way in which the sunlight caught her auburn hair to her composure at the moment the lever was pulled.'

"She was made to stand out for some sort of message."

Now, 119 years after she died, the only physical record of James's grave is an etched cross next to a potato patch within the walls of Cardiff Prison.

Correction 20 August 2026: An earlier version of this story included pictures that had been modified using generative AI, and were not clearly labelled. We have removed them from the article as they did not meet the BBC's standards for the appropriate use of AI in news content.

Military museum turned art and culture space opens

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9340jpngeko, yesterday

A former military museum has reopened as an arts and culture venue.

Over the past two years, the former Durham Light Infantry (DLI) Museum building at Aykley Heads, Durham, has been almost completely rebuilt.

Now called The Light, its first exhibition features different artists' experiments with light and showcases a replica of the first British lightbulb, created by Sunderland-born physicist Joseph Swan.

Durham County Council's cabinet member for leisure and tourism Karen Allison said the venue would "celebrate County Durham's heritage and innovative spirit".

"By remodelling and extending the existing 1960s building, we have created a modern and spacious venue capable of hosting world-class contemporary exhibitions," she said.

A portion of the space will still be dedicated to the venue's military heritage, with a permanent exhibition called We Are The Durhams.

The DLI Museum was closed in 2016 as part of Durham County Council's cost-cutting measures but plans to refurbish it were approved in 2024.

Construction was previously expected to be completed in late 2025 and it had been hoped the venue would open in early spring.

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Ukraine war chronicled in 50-metre-long painting

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj364l5v008o, 4 days ago

A 50-metre-long (164ft) painting depicting a city's response to the war in Ukraine is going on display for a month before being taken to the Eastern European country.

Gloucester artist Russell Haines has been painting Lines of Resistance, which chronicles the stories of Ukrainian families who found a new home in the city and residents who volunteered to deliver aid.

The painting is not finished, as Haines said "the story belongs to more than one artist". During the exhibition, which launches on Thursday, he will invite visitors to add their own words for the people of Ukraine.

Ukrainian people will have the opportunity to send messages to Gloucester residents when the painting arrives there.

Haines has been working on the painting in a unit at The Shirt Factory in Derby Road.

The artwork also tells the story of "aid workers, artists, soldiers and ordinary people I have met through my journeys across Ukraine", he said.

Visitors will be able to see the painting and add to it for a month from Thursday.

Children, families, community groups, Ukrainian refugees and Gloucester residents are all being invited to add to the painting.

"People can write their own messages of friendship, hope, resistance, peace and solidarity directly onto the painting," Haines said.

Haines added: "When Lines of Resistance goes to Ukraine, the messages written in Gloucester will travel with it — carrying the voices of our city across borders and reminding people thousands of miles away that they have not been forgotten."

Eventually the painting will return to Gloucester, covered in messages from Ukraine.

Speaking about his inspiration for the artwork, Haines said: "Gloucester came together and sent truckloads of aid [to Ukraine] and did some amazing things and I just wanted to celebrate what Gloucester did."

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'Welcome home, bab,' Call the Midwife star back in Brum

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0jl301xqv5o, 5 days ago

Birmingham-born actress Helen George has said it is "so lovely" to be performing again in her home city, in a stage revival of the classic 1956 film musical High Society.

George, who plays Trixie Aylward in the hit BBC drama Call the Midwife, is at the Alexandra Theatre this week at the start of a UK tour, alongside film and TV star Freddie Fox.

She said audiences in Birmingham are "so kind, responsive and lovely", and added that theatre bosses had left "a big bar of Cadbury chocolate saying 'welcome home, bab'" in her dressing room.

The former Strictly Come Dancing contestant, who grew up in the Harborne area of the city, promised to take her co-star Fox for a Balti during their run.

The 1956 film version of High Society starred Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter.

Freddie Fox plays the Sinatra character, cynical tabloid journalist Mike Connor, in his first musical theatre role, which started life earlier this year with a run at London's Barbican.

The star of films including Pride and television shows including House of the Dragon and Slow Horses said the role fulfils a "childhood ambition", and that "to be able to sing a songbook like this, by one of the best lyricists and composers who's ever lived, is a complete dream come true for me".

Fox is the brother of actor Emilia Fox, star of BBC drama Silent Witness, which moved production to Birmingham in 2024.

He said his sister "loves it" in the city, and "always speaks very fondly of Birmingham", adding that he too loved performing at the Birmingham Repertory theatre a few years ago.

George said her Call the Midwife character, who spends most of her time in gritty east end London, had several unlikely parallels with the 1930s New York socialite she plays in High Society.

"They both like their alcohol, they're both quite fun characters, and they both like the boys. I'm not typecast at all, obviously," she said.

Asked whether she would be returning to her breakout role in Call the Midwife, which drew nine million viewers at its peak, Helen George said she was "waiting to find out" if the show would return for a new series next year, "and potentially a film, which would be wonderful".

High Society is on at the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham until Saturday 22 August, as part of a UK tour until November.

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Actress Phyllida Law, mother of Emma and Sophie Thompson, dies at 94

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr7kddmn97do, 5 days ago

Stage and screen star Phyllida Law, the mother of fellow actresses Dame Emma and Sophie Thompson, has died at the age of 94.

"It is with great sadness we have to announce that Phyllida Law died supremely peacefully at home, surrounded by all of her family, on Monday 27th July," her manager Jacky Leggo said in a statement to BBC News.

"We had worked together for over fifty years and she was a beautiful person inside and out."

Law appeared on screen alongside her daughters several times throughout a long and varied career, including in the 1996 adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Law played Mrs Bates while Sophie played her daughter Miss Bates.

She also acted with Dame Emma in 1992's Peter's Friends, directed by her then-son-in-law Sir Kenneth Branagh.

They combined on screen again the following year in Sir Kenneth's adaptation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

And they played a mother and daughter in Alan Rickman's directorial debut, The Winter Guest, in 1997.

Later in life, Law provided the voice of Mrs Partridge in Dame Emma's 2005 film Nanny McPhee, which her eldest daughter wrote and starred in.

'They didn't follow in our footsteps, they rushed past us'

Born in Glasgow in 1932, Law attended the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, initially to become a stage designer but ended up studying acting instead "by happy accident".

She married fellow actor Eric Thompson - best known for The Magic Roundabout - in 1957.

The couple were together until he died of a heart attack aged 53, in 1982.

Throughout a career spanning eight decades, Law would go on to appear in numerous TV shows including Dixon of Dock Green and Rumpole of the Bailey before Midsomer Murders, Foyle's War, Doc Martin and New Tricks.

She was also known for her work on the big screen in films such as Anna Karenina, Saving Grace and Miss Potter.

On stage, Law appeared alongside Alec Guinness in John Mortimer's A Voyage Round My Father in London's West End in 1971, and in Alan Bennett's Habeas Corpus at the Oxford Playhouse in 1973, which then transferred to the capital.

She also played Jacqueline in the original London cast of La Cage Aux Folles at the London Palladium in 1986.

The prolific character actress starred alongside John Hurt in a short film entitled Love at First Sight which was shortlisted for an Oscar in 2012.

Law received an OBE in 2014 for services to drama and for charitable services.

Her daughters have both gone on to enjoy success on screen.

Emma was born in 1959 and has won two Oscars - one for acting in Howard's End and another for writing the screenplay for Sense and Sensibility - and is also known for featuring in Love Actually and the Harry Potter film series.

Sophie was born in 1964 and has appeared in films including Gosford Park and Four Weddings and a Funeral, and been nominated for seven Olivier Awards on stage.

Speaking about her daughters to the Telegraph in 2017, Law said: "They are both my colleagues in a way. They didn't follow in our footsteps, they rushed past us, trampling on us."

The family acting dynasty has continued with Dame Emma's daughter Gaia, who posted on Instagram about her grandmother: "Rest well my queen."

Speaking of her love of the arts to the same newspaper, Law joked: "I've got to have my funeral in the afternoon, curtain up 2.30pm, so people can get to the theatre afterwards."

Tears of 'Widow of Glencoe' revealed by restoration work

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g3q4gg9v0o, 6 days ago

A painting depicting the aftermath of the Massacre of Glencoe has been restored by Dundee-based conservators.

Almost 40 members of Clan MacDonald of Glencoe were killed in February 1692 after soldiers were ordered to attack them.

The painting, known as the Widow of Glencoe, shows a grieving woman standing next to the body of a man at the foot of a mountain with snow covering the ground.

Catriona Davidson, of Glencoe Folk Museum, said the "incredible" restoration of its painting had removed centuries of dirt - and revealed fine details, including a tear on the woman's cheek.

Generations of a family in Luxemburg had owned the 19th Century artwork before they donated it to Glencoe Folk Museum in 2023.

The painting is not signed and the only clue to who painted it is a motif called a monogram. Glencoe Folk Museum said it was believed the painter may have been an artist called James Goldingham.

There is a record of the artwork being exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1881.

Conservators Egan, Matthews & Rose completed the restoration as part of a major revamp of the museum.

Davidson told BBC Scotland News: "The detail they have pulled out of the painting is just incredible.

"The snow is a pure white it wasn't before. There is a tear on the woman's face that you couldn't really see before. It's an incredible transformation."

A spokesperson added that further research would be done to confirm the artist.

Glencoe Folk Museum, which is housed inside two heather-thatched cottages in Lochaber, was set up more than 50 years ago by local women who stood in front of bulldozers to save the cottages from demolition.

It is home to 6,000 artefacts and its collection includes Jacobite relics and memorabilia from the two World Wars.

Work on a £3m revamp started last month and the new-look museum is set to open next spring.

Exiled king

An estimated 38 people were killed in the Massacre of Glencoe.

The MacDonalds were targeted because of their support for the exiled King James VII of Scotland, who was also James II of England before he was deposed in 1688.

The clan backed the restoration of the Stuart dynasty to the British throne and had taken part in the first Jacobite Rising of 1689.

Historians say they were late delivering an oath of allegiance to the Protestant King William III, and had been branded as rebels by the secretary of Scotland, Sir John Dalrymple.

The lasting legacy of the 'Swedish Nightingale'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y6wdr9jdxo, 8 days ago

Opera singer Jenny Lind was world famous in the 19th Century but the legacy of the 'Swedish Nightingale' is particularly remembered in one UK city.

Lind, who was depicted in The Greatest Showman, is still celebrated in Norwich, where she performed during four visits between 1847 and 1862.

"Jenny-mania" swept Europe as Lind toured, and funds raised from her 1849 concerts in Norwich were used to create the Jenny Lind Infirmary for Sick Children, which opened in 1854.

Although now in a different location, the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital children's department still bears her name and proudly "celebrates her legacy today", according to consultant paediatric surgeon Richard England.

Lind's 1849 concerts in the city raised £1,253 - equivalent to about £140,000 in 2026 - for the infirmary.

It was modelled on Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, which had opened two years earlier, making Norwich the second city in the country to have a children's hospital.

England said Lind "rose to stardom from quite a poor background" in Sweden and "endeared" herself to the people of Norwich for her charitable work.

Speaking on an episode of the Secret Norfolk series on BBC Sounds, he said: "Her arrival in Norwich was delayed because of her illness... she felt so sorry for people in the city that they all were wanting to come and hear her, that she added a third concert with prices reduced so the poor of the city could come along as well."

After raising money for charity she gifted the funds to the city and so the children's infirmary was opened in Pottergate, in the centre of the city.

It moved to Unthank Road in 1900 before becoming part of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital on St Stephen's Road in 1975.

The Jenny Lind Children's Hospital is now part of the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital on Colney Lane, where England works.

"The memory of Jenny Lind's original donation was always remembered," he said.

When Lind came to Norwich in 1849 she stayed with Bishop Edward Stanley. The room she once slept in still stands as part of Norwich School.

Tour guide Paul Dickson said that wherever she went, people flocked to see her.

"When she arrived at the railway station, the message went straight up to St Peter Mancroft and the bells started ringing in joy for her arrival and they also had a fusillade of rifles to celebrate her arrival in the city," he said.

However, having an opera singer stay with a Bishop caused controversy.

"There were people in the Church of England who thought this was really not the done thing, but here she was and she gets on incredibly well with the Stanleys" Dickson added.

"The Bishop actually died in September 1849, but after that his wife really supported Jenny a lot."

More on the Jenny Lind Children's hospital

In 2017 Lind was portrayed by Rebecca Ferguson in The Greatest Showman, which fictionalised her American tour with PT Barnum, played by Hugh Jackman.

However, England said reading a biography would give a more accurate retelling of Lind's career.

"Hollywood does what Hollywood does," he said. "It's sad actually because you read the story of the tour with PT Barnum - 130 concerts across America and Canada and she parted ways with PT Barnum halfway through.

"He was very into generating customers and she was more into giving money away to charities."

England said Lind's legacy has been passed down through her family with her daughter and subsequent generations visiting Norwich.

"Jenny Lind's life itself is an incredible rags-to-riches fairytale," he said.

"Even through all these difficulties she rose to become a superstar. She is like a dream for many young women and young girls to do so well in the arts like that."

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Stolen Matisse artworks recovered by police in Brazil

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1l1ym96ydvo, 10 days ago

Eight illustrations by French artist Henri Matisse that were stolen from a library in São Paulo have been recovered by police in Brazil.

The works, which have a combined estimated worth of about $200,000 (£148,000), were found on Thursday at a home in the town of São Bernardo do Campo, a suburb to the south of the city. A 44-year-old man was arrested at the scene.

During the heist at Biblioteca Mário de Andrade on 7 December last year, two thieves overpowered a security guard and an elderly couple who had been visiting the library, before making off with the artworks through the main entrance on foot.

Three other people were previously arrested in relation to the case.

Five engravings by the Brazilian artist Candido Portinari that were also taken during the robbery have not yet been recovered. Police in São Paulo said they suspected the works had been sold.

João Paulo Linhares de Araujo, the man arrested on Thursday, is suspected by police of having stored the Matisse artworks on behalf of those accused of being involved in the theft, as well as illegal possession of a firearm.

Laéssio Rodrigues de Oliveira, 53, described by Brazilian media as a prolific art thief, is suspected of having planned and directed the crime, according to Brazilian news outlet Globo.

He has been in custody since April after being arrested in relation to another case.

Another man and a woman have also been arrested over the library heist.

The Matisse illustrations, made for the limited-edition art book Jazz, along with five engravings by Portinari, created to illustrate a special edition of the novel Menino de engheno (Plantation Boy) by Brazilian writer José Lins do Rego, formed part of a joint exhibition with the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art.

The thieves targeted the exhibition, entitled From Book to Museum, on its final day.

They reportedly entered the library by its main entrance mid-morning and headed towards the nearest metro station following the heist.

Investigators said the theives placed the stolen artworks in a canvas bag to flee the scene.

The local department of culture said the illustrations had already been returned to the library, the security of which had been improved.

Matisse is widely considered to be one of the 20th Century's most influential artists and art critics say the value of the stolen works is "incalculable".

Portinari, who often painted rural workers and labourers, is one of the most significant Brazilian Modernist artists.

Acting pals Cumming and Henderson put 40-year friendship onto paper

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrvp5nl636o, 11 days ago

Alan Cumming and Shirley Henderson first met as young actors on the STV drama Shadow of the Stone.

Henderson, who would go on to appear in the Harry Potter and Bridget Jones franchises, was 20 and had just left drama school.

Cumming, at 21, already had a few roles under his belt.

"I thought I was such a sophisticated older man," he said.

"I had a mortgage. I was married. And yet when I look back now, I see I was just a child."

That connection to their younger selves is something they channel in their first stage appearance together at Pitlochry Festival Theatre, where Cumming is now artistic director.

The History of Paper began life as a radio play in 2017 with words by Oliver Emanuel and music by Gareth Williams, who then turned it into an acclaimed musical at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2024.

The tender tale of a couple who tell their story through the various bits of paper they accumulate became even more emotional following the death of Oliver in 2023.

Cumming saw the show on a day off from filming Glenrothan (the directorial debut of Brian Cox) which also reunited him with Henderson.

"I went back to work on the film and I said to Shirley, 'I've seen this incredible show. It was just so moving'."

Around the same time, Cumming had applied for the role of artistic director of Pitlochry Festival Theatre, and although it was yet to be publicly announced he was already planning his first season.

The original production had two younger actors looking forward to their older selves, but Cumming suggested to director Andrew Panton of Dundee Rep that he cast older actors who could play younger versions of themselves.

And he and Henderson, now 61 and 60, were the people for those parts.

"We both have a sort of a child like quality to us," he said.

"And we're both prepared to be vulnerable as actors."

Their shared history means they're comfortable and convincing as a couple talking – and singing – about their lives together.

"It's just easy to be with Alan," Henderson said.

"We have a good chemistry. We don't over analyse it."

"I come to see you before the show, each night," said Cumming, "and I say, 'let's have fun'. If we can, because it's terrifying.

"Because you've got this incredible roller coaster of emotions. Even in the happy bits, I want to cry."

"You just can't help but feel something," said Henderson.

"It's like when the first snows come. It's a tenderness, but there's a rawness to it as well."

As for the pieces of paper the actors treasure most?

For Henderson, it's letters sent by her late father when she was living in London.

"I've still got letters from when I was a teenager and living in a bedsit. Occasionally he would send me a bit of money too."

For Cumming, it's the drawings made by his illustrator husband, Grant.

"I have thousands of them, on letters and hotel notepads.

"He'll leave them by the bed or I'll find them in my luggage when I go somewhere."

A History of Paper is at Pitlochry Festival Theatre until 12 September, then at Dundee Rep Theatre from 16-19 September

Ayra Starr on her secret relationship and teasing Stevie Wonder

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gdxywn7y4o, 11 days ago

There's resilience, and then there's Ayra Starr.

Two weeks before the release of her new album, Starrgirl, the Nigerian singer posted a photo from hospital, after undergoing "major surgery".

"I was hoping it would be a quick recovery, but it was more complicated than they expected," she told fans, without disclosing the nature of the procedure.

Within seven days, she was back in the dance studio, rehearsing for forthcoming performances with a large bandage strapped across her stomach. TV appearances, fan events and live performances followed.

"I'm healing," she told the US breakfast TV show, Today. "I have strength today. I'm so happy I was able to even be here today and be able to do this."

It's a display of the tenacity and ambition that's defined Starr's career to date.

Discovered singing covers on YouTube at the age of 18, she became the first African woman to win best international act at the Mobo Awards, and the first Nigerian woman to surpass one billion video views on YouTube.

In 2024, she was the first Afrobeats artist to play Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage – and finished her set by declaring she'd return as a headliner. Last year, she modelled for Di Petsa at London Fashion Week, closing their show in a white lace two-piece, flanked by an angel.

So it's hardly a surprise that Starr pitches up to our interview with a sort of celestial confidence. She's given to grand proclamations like "I'm unstoppable", or "I will exist in multitudes". But somehow, she never sounds arrogant or conceited.

That's probably due to a sense of humour so dry it could soak up a tsunami. Starr is criminally sarcastic, and delights in winding people up.

For example: When music legend Stevie Wonder phoned to congratulate Starr on a Grammy nomination, she goaded him into a playful argument about zodiac signs.

"I was trying to one-up him every single time, and he was trying to one-up me. It was almost like a battle," she recalls.

Starr eventually got to the point where she told Wonder, a Taurus, that "Tauruses ain't crap".

"I'm sure he was like, 'Who is this? What do you want from me?' But it was a very cute conversation. I respect it."

It's an unorthodox approach to making friends, but it seems to work.

Over the course of her career, Starr's hooked up with Coldplay, Tyla, David Guetta, Le Sserafim and Kelly Rowland from Destiny's Child.

Her new album boasts collaborations with Afrobeats legends Wizkid and Rema, as well as One Direction's Zayn Malik and rising R&B singer KWN.

The album is her first under a new management deal with Jay-Z's Roc Nation, and a relocation to New York. Leaving Lagos was a big upheaval, she confessed in an essay posted to her Substack last year.

"New York is basically a walk-in freezer with rent," she wrote. "It's so cold it feels like the city is actively trying to unalive my motivation… I'm not scared, I promise."

Secret relationship

Behind the move was a desire to explore new influences and expand her sound. So you get a track like Where Do We Go, which marries a sashaying Afrobeats rhythm to a hypnotic electronic pulse.

"Like, the rebel I am, I love to juxtapose," she says.

"I don't like being normal and boring. So the idea of writing a heartbreak song on a beat like that, where you can dance to it, was just very enticing. I love things like that."

The lyrics were inspired by a secretive relationship "that was stuck in a rut but I kept coming back to it".

We've all been there. It's all too easy to settle for an imperfect partner because they're a comfortable and familiar presence.

Starr admits the thought of starting over with someone else filled her with fear.

"You're back to square one, and somebody's asking for your favourite colour again.

"I'm like, 'Oh my God! Can we, like, not do that?'"

The problem with staying in the relationship, however, was the way it affected the rest of her life.

"You keep accepting things lower than your standard, and that influences every single thing in your life - because when you let yourself go, romantically and emotionally, it affects you physically, and the music, and all of that.

"So even though I enjoyed [the romance] while it lasted, I picked my priorities and what was most important to me. And that relationship wasn't as important as the music... or anything else."

The story could act as a metaphor for the entire album. After the runaway success of her breakout single, Rush, and her second album, The Year I Turned 21, Starr was beginning to feel trapped by other people's expectations.

"Just like any other pop artist, passive listeners get attached to the songs they know - the popular songs.

"Then you're stuck between creating for the passive listeners and creating for your core fans who want you to do more.

"So that can limit you, because you stop thinking as an artist and start thinking about making music just for consumers.

"But I'm not meant to conform. It's just not who I am. I will rebel against every single preconception and every stereotype."

So she's ditched the teenage angst of her debut, but also the poise of its follow-up. This is an album about walking to her own rhythm, as Starr grows into autonomy and womanhood.

On Misunderstood, she laughs at the people who told her she'd "never make it on her own"; while the laid back groove of Treasure allows Starr to pause and savour her success.

"Give me some fun / Pure enjoyment / Take a photo of me," she sings in Yoruba.

The most infectious song on the album is Ms Paper, which takes a detour into Bouyon – a Dominican music characterised by high tempos and frantic percussion. It was recorded almost by accident at the end of a session with French-Congolese star Theodora on a hot and sticky February night in LA.

They'd actually finished working for the day, and had just polished off a boozy dinner of Congolese food when inspiration struck.

"The AC in the studio wasn't working, so everybody's delirious, everybody's sweating, everybody's drunk," Starr says.

"At one point we're probably taking off tops. I changed outfit twice because I was drenched in sweat."

It sounds like a recipe for disaster, but when you play it back, you can practically see the steam rising from your speakers.

Live snippets of the song have already gone viral, suggesting Starr has another hefty hit on her hands. At the same time, she's faced criticism in Nigeria from people who feel she's diluting her musical heritage by chasing a more global sound

"People have a certain template they think I should follow, and it's like, you cannot tell me how to dream," she says.

"I'm able to honour my culture, but also try new things, because that's who I am."

Starr answers her critics, in a roundabout way, on her album cover - where she pairs a club-ready gold dress with a traditional gele headwrap.

"I wanted young girls in Kwara State or Erin-Ile to see this and feel represented," she told Capital Xtra.

"I'm not the first to do it, I won't be the last to do it - but I want people to feel confident in their culture and wear [the gele] like the crown that it is."

Not for the first time, her instincts proved right. Starr's stunning, retro-futuristic look has gone viral, inspiring dozens of copycats, and tempering at least some of the criticism of her new direction.

As she says in her new song, Amazing: "If they're gonna talk, I'll give them something to talk about".

"That's definitely my mantra," she says.

"And do you know what? I think I need to listen to myself more because I have all the answers in my music."

The English stately home where Nazis were tricked into spilling their secrets

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260811-the-uk-stately-home-where-nazis-were-bugged, 12 days ago

At north London's Trent Park during World War Two, high-ranking Nazi prisoners of war relaxed and chatted in the elegant upstairs rooms – while downstairs, "secret listeners" were eavesdropping. What they heard changed the course of World War Two.

Trent Park House of Secrets certainly lives up to its name. While the exterior and ground floor rooms of this elegant house in north London showcase the refined taste of the great pre-war host and aesthete, Sir Philip Sassoon, those who venture into the basement will discover a little-known story of World War Two espionage and intrigue.

Warning: This article contains mentions of the Holocaust that some readers may find upsetting.

Last month, Trent Park opened for the first time to the public as a museum, paying tribute to its crucial wartime role. There it was that a team of "secret listeners", many of them German Jewish refugees, eavesdropped on high-ranking German prisoners of war held at the house. These Nazi generals were oblivious to the fact that their every word was being bugged. Lulled into a false sense of security, they let slip vital intelligence that changed the course of the war.

Highly luxurious

Politician and art collector Sir Philip Sassoon inherited Trent Park in 1912, and in the 1920s set about completely remodelling the exterior and interior in the then highly fashionable neo-Georgian style.

"He creates this very elegant, calm, understated architecture and the interiors are very much the same – uncluttered, very spacious, with a small number of fabulously beautiful and valuable antiques," Simon Thurley, Trent Park's senior advisor tells the BBC. Exquisite Chinese wallpaper and family portraits by Philip de László and John Singer Sargent adorn the walls.

The ground floor interiors of this stylish house have now been meticulously recreated. "People will feel like they're stepping back into Sassoon's world on the ground floor," says museum director Giuseppe Albano, "but then of course they go downstairs."

Wired for sound

Downstairs is indeed a very different matter. Sir Philip died in June 1939, and when war broke out in September the house was requisitioned by the British Government. It had been identified by Thomas Kendrick, one of the British Secret Service's most senior spymasters, as the perfect spot for a Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC).

Although Kendrick had already experimented with bugging POWs at the Tower of London, he realised that CSDICs needed to be in more discreet locations and far enough removed from central London to avoid the risk of being bombed. Trent Park and its sister sites at Latimer House and Wilton Park also provided the necessary space for Kendrick to upscale his operation in order to gain the kind of intelligence he wanted from prisoners' private conversations.

And upscale he certainly did. "The whole mansion block and stable block were wired for sound," historian Helen Fry, author of The Walls Have Ears, tells the BBC. Microphones were hidden in everything from plant pots and light fittings to the billiards table and even in trees in the grounds. Concealed wires that ran behind panelling and under the floorboards connected them to the miked rooms, known as "M" rooms, in the basement, which have been recreated by the museum, where the secret listeners, at first British German speakers, would eavesdrop night and day.

Trent Park would become the primary holding centre for high-ranking German officers, many of them upper class or aristocratic, whose sense of entitlement appears to have made them surprisingly easy prey for Kendrick's plans. Sassoon's fine antiques may have been carted off by relatives to be replaced by rather more utilitarian government issue furniture, but the house was still a highly luxurious prison which was intended to make them lower their guard. The generals each had their own military valet who had been captured with them, there was a library, British officers provided English classes and there was even the odd trip into town.

A fake lord

They also had their very own welfare officer, the fictional Scottish aristocrat Lord Aberfeldy, a role played by a young interrogation officer. The imaginary lord had been "named after a whisky distillery," laughs Fry. Aberfeldy had a supposedly secret admiration for Hitler and would visit the prisoners in order to entice confidences – which would of course be picked up by those listening below.

Although all German officers were warned that if they were captured they might be bugged, somewhat astonishingly the generals seem to have thought it wasn't happening at Trent Park. "There's an amazing recorded conversation between two of the generals where they're talking about this and saying 'Well we were warned, but clearly they're not bugging us. We'd know if they were'," laughs Thurley. "You pamper their ego, their sense of self-importance and they don't think logically," says Fry.

Although a regular flow of intelligence was forthcoming, as the war progressed it became obvious that the British listeners with their purely academic understanding of German were finding it difficult to pick up on jargon and slang. It was therefore decided to recruit German speaking Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia.

The secret listener

One such recruit was Ernst Lederer, the grandfather of comedian and actress Helen Lederer, who had escaped from Czechoslovakia on one of the last trains out in 1939. Like all the secret listeners, he had signed the Official Secrets Act, and took his war-time work with him to the grave.

"His wife assumed he was in the Home Guard but in fact he would be going to do long shifts in Trent Park," his granddaughter, who is now working on a film script about the events that unfurled there, tells the BBC. "We didn't know what he did until I happened to do a documentary called War Hero in My Family for Channel 5." The series followed celebrities uncovering the secret war records of their parents and grandparents.

"A bizarre adjunct to this is that my English mother, at age 21, had been conscripted to Bletchley Park," says Lederer. "She would go on family outings with Ernst Lederer and neither of them knew what the other had done." Indeed, none of the secret listeners would have known about code-breaking centre Bletchley Park, although their officers did, and intelligence was shared between the two sites throughout the war.

When a conversation referencing a system of navigation beams called Knickebein (Crooked Leg), which enabled night bombers to accurately target British munitions factories, was overheard at Trent Park in 1941 the information was corroborated by the code breakers at Bletchley Park, who were able to give Air Intelligence the information they needed to jam the signals.

The most vital intelligence to come out of Trent Park was undoubtedly information relating to Germany's secret V-weapon programme, which involved the development of terrifyingly powerful Vergeltungswaffen (revenge weapons) designed to be deployed against Allied cities like London.

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An overheard conversation relating to a rocket that could be launched 15km into the air and another revealing the existence of the V2 rocket, the world's first long-range ballistic missile with a range of 300km (186 miles), ultimately led to the bombing of Germany's chief research and testing facility for rockets and missiles at Peenemünde on the Baltic coast in August 1943. As Fry notes in her book, the impact of the raid cannot be overstated.

It delayed the launch of the first V1 rocket on London until 13 June 1944, a week after the D-Day landings. If they had been launched before, D-Day may well not have gone ahead. The first V2 rocket did not fall on London until 8 September 1944.

Nazi atrocities

The Trent Park team also gleaned "information about the extent of the atrocities that Hitler was carrying out, which was not widely known at the time," says Albano. This must have been extraordinarily traumatic for Jewish listeners such as Eric Mark to overhear – his own parents were gassed at Treblinka in 1943. Mark, who died in 2020, recalled hearing the Germans boasting about what they had done. "They would say things like 'I knocked off about 1,500'."

However, this information was never used at war crimes tribunals as it would mean revealing how it was obtained. "The British government at the time didn't want the tactics or the technology or the sheer audacity of the operation to be widely known, particularly with the looming threat of the Cold War against Russia," explains Albano.

The fact that those who had effectively confessed to atrocities escaped justice is a bitter pill to swallow. But at the time the UK government was seriously concerned about the extent of the Russian threat, largely on account of overheard conversations at Trent Park, which didn't close as an eavesdropping site until November 1945. "Trent Park and those two sister sites prepared us for the Cold War in ways that no one has picked up on, or no one has really understood yet," says Fry. "Its legacy is immeasurable and we're just beginning to understand that."

Trent Park House of Secrets, Chipping Barnet, UK, is open to the public.

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Andrea Bocelli to play in Wales for first time in 22 years

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqjx8rj9l1no, 13 days ago

Andrea Bocelli is set to return to Wales for the first time in 22 years as part of a new festival.

The Italian tenor will take to the Principality Stadium, in Cardiff, for the inaugural Land of Song Festival.

It has been billed as a celebration of the musical heritage of Wales featuring world-renowned artists and choirs, and was inspired by Wales's reputation as the land of song.

The 67-year-old said he was "thrilled" to be making his first ever headline appearance in Wales on such an "unforgettable evening".

Bocelli, who has been blind since the age of 12, is one of the most successful classical artists of all time and has won multiple major awards, six Grammy nominations and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame during his almost four-decade career.

The classical musician has performed for the royal family, popes and many US presidents, and is famed for hits such as Time To Say Goodbye and The Prayer.

He has also performed at major events around the world, such as the Olympic Games and the World Cup.

Bocelli performed for Leicester fans at the King Power Stadium when the team won the Premier League title in 2016.

He said he called Leicester manager and fellow countryman Claudio Ranieri, and offered to sing in the "big fiesta".

He said he was excited to add Cardiff to the "many extraordinary places around the world" that he had performed in.

He last came to Wales in 2005 as part of Bryn Terfel's Faenol Festival alongside Van Morrison, Alison Moyet and Katherine Jenkins.

Bocelli added: "The country's rich choral heritage and deep connection with music make this city a fitting setting for this special concert."

The festival takes place in May 2027 and will also include the Cor World Choir event - which consists of more than 20,000 individuals.

It began in Cardiff in 1992, and is one of the largest celebrations of collective singing staged in Wales, honouring the country's heritage and global choral tradition.

Jennifer Burke, Cardiff Council's cabinet member for culture, parks and events, said: "Wales has a long and rich musical tradition and we're looking forward to welcoming this new festival to Cardiff to be part of the city's diverse and exciting musical future."

Hiking Norway's heavily monitored Russian border

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260819-hiking-along-norways-heavily-guarded-russian-border, yesterday

A series of scenic paths trace the Norwegian-Russian border. But as you trek through the tundra and forests, you may notice watchtowers and cameras hanging in trees.

I'm standing at a hillside clearing in the tundra along the Russian-Norwegian border, watching the Pasvik River ripple and writhe below. Maybe it's the rustle of birch leaves overhead or the buzzing sound of mosquitoes circling all around me, but I have an unshakeable feeling that I'm being watched.

Then again, those hairs on the back of my neck could be triggered by the nearby military watchtower, and the fact that this public hiking trail is under constant surveillance.

Located in the far reaches of north-eastern Norway on a jagged fjord close to where Finland, Russia and Norway meet, the small town of Kirkenes is best known among travellers as the final turnaround port for a number of small Arctic cruise lines. But increasingly, local operators are leaning into another opportunity: leading cruisers on wind-whipped treks along Nato's northernmost land border to the unfenced-but-heavily-monitored 198km-long line separating Norway and Russia.

Here, surrounded by taiga forest, travellers can explore a network of public trails where cameras hang in the trees, watchtowers dot the horizon and military patrols ensure visitors are abiding by the periodic pillars (yellow for Norway, red for Russia) marking the international boundary between the two nations.

Drawn by the prospect of exploring the Arctic's most closely watched frontiers, I've set out on a three-hour trek through a birch forest strewn with boggy puddles. The trail runs parallel to the Pasvik River for roughly 1km before it reaches the "border corridor": an 8m-wide (26ft) strip of cleared forest that's a veritable no-man's land where travellers can't go. From there, the trek culminates in a scramble up Russehøgda, a hillside overlooking the Storskog border crossing that is the only legal land border between the countries.

But as we enter the forest, my guide, Henrik Hoffmann, switches off his mobile to avoid connecting to Russian data networks. He instinctively taps a satellite phone in his pocket, and I'm reminded that this is no ordinary walk in the woods.

The lure of Russia's land border

Hoffmann has been leading these border-trek trips since 2025 but relocated to Kirkenes in 2021, just before Russia's invasion of Ukraine a year later. Since then, he says that both Russia and Norway have increased security along their respective borders here. Now, seemingly minor offences, like throwing stones towards Russia, risk heavy fines and wandering beyond the marked international boundaries has resulted in detainments.

Still, he says that after travelling along Norway's coastline, many passengers who arrive in Kirkenes on Hurtigruten and Havila cruises are eager to escape the confines of ships and shuttle buses and get an up-close look at where these two nations meet.

"Many older travellers are particularly interested because they remember the Cold War and have followed relations between Europe and Russia over many decades," Hoffmann explains. "The hike allows them to experience the landscape for themselves while learning about the history and present-day realities of living beside Russia."

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While Kirkenes Tours is the newest operator to offer border excursions, it's not the first. Havila Voyages has been leading visitors to this area since 2000, while Hurtigruten told the BBC that its Norwegian Border tour – which also leads travellers through a WW2 atomic bomb shelter – recently became the most popular of its eight Kirkenes excursions.

"Interest in the border has definitely increased over the past few years," says Hoffmann. Despite an initial reduction in tourism following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he explained that understanding the border is now a driving motivator for those visiting Kirkenes.

According to Anja Tellervo Hansen, destination manager at Visit Kirkenes, these border treks allow visitors to "learn more about what everyday life in our region looks like, and how the closeness to the border has shaped the Kirkenes region over the years".

Evidence of this shared history is everywhere in Kirkenes. The town is the only place in Norway where street signs are marked in both Norwegian and Russian. Near the centre, the towering Russia War Monument commemorates the day in 1944 when the Red Army liberated Kirkenes from Nazi occupation. And the nearby Borderland Museum highlights how Norwegians, Finns and Russians have intermixed here for generations.

Along the Pasvik River, the border sharply juts west, surrounding the Boris Gleb Church. The Russian Orthodox church dates to the 12th-Century and helped define the modern border here 200 years ago.

Trekking the trail

Soon after landing at Kirkenes Airport, I was whisked into a van that cut through the city, past the port where cruisers had already docked for the day and dropped off at an unassuming layby flanked by dense walls of birch and conifer trees.

"Ready?" said Hoffman, who was waiting in the layby with a rucksack, beckoning for me to follow along a stony track.

An hour later, I'm stepping up a rocky outcrop as Hoffmann nimbly picks the way ahead. As beads of sweat form on my forehead, I pause, taking in the eerie expanse of birch trees dipping down towards the Pasvik River. Soon, the outcrop slopes onto a flattened summit.

Standing on Russehøgda, surrounded by desolate tundra and a horizon of hazy peaks, I momentarily forget that I'm at one of Europe's most scrutinised borders and am consumed by the sheer beauty of the terrain. Then I glance to the right, notice a yellow and red set of markers only a few metres away, and am sharply reminded where I am.

Hoffman and I throw down a blanket on top of a smooth rock and sit for a drink. "There's Storskog," he says, gesturing towards two lakefront checkpoints below. From a few kilometres away, I can just make out the occasional truck driving along the E105 to cross into Russia. He says that recreational crossings have reduced, but a handful of vehicles still make the journey on a daily basis.

He also explains that while more visitors are trekking these border trails, fewer residents are; Hoffmann has seen more military patrols than local hikers. "You don't see many Norwegians here," he says, "Perhaps it's a classic case of not exploring your own doorstep."

As we turn away from Storskog and descend Russehøgda, I find myself silenced by the gravity of the experience. I've spent a lifetime crossing borders and collecting stamps, but I could have sat for hours just looking at Storskog.

From painted markers to the distant outline of Boris Gleb Church, centuries of politics and negotiations have shaped this terrain. It's easy to understand why more and more cruise passengers are disembarking to witness it firsthand.

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The Nazi shipwrecks emerging from the Danube

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260818-the-nazi-shipwrecks-emerging-from-europes-great-river, 3 days ago

As the Danube shrinks under extreme heat, the river is revealing a startling remnant of Europe's wartime past.

This month, record-low water levels on the Danube have exposed at least 20 German warships near Prahovo in eastern Serbia. Rusted hulls and broken masts are emerging from the river – the remains of a Nazi Black Sea fleet deliberately scuttled during World War Two.

Wrecks have surfaced during previous droughts, but this summer's extreme heat and drought have brought dozens of vessels back into view. Some are believed to contain weapons and explosives, turning this stretch of one of Europe's great cruising rivers into an eerie, visible battlefield.

For travellers cruising along the Danube this summer, the falling water is revealing a landscape – and history – normally hidden beneath the river.

Eighty-two years beneath the Danube

The story of how they got there begins more than eight decades ago. By 1944, German forces were retreating on the Eastern Front as the Soviets advanced through the region, leaving a fleet of around 200 Nazi Black Sea vessels stranded in what was an area rapidly falling under Soviet control.

The Danube offered an escape route, but the Iron Gates – a narrow and historically treacherous stretch of the river – created a bottleneck. In September 1944, German Rear Admiral Paul-Willy Zieb ordered more than 200 vessels scuttled as the Red Army closed in. The ships were deliberately sunk to prevent their capture and obstruct the Soviet advance.

Most have remained submerged beneath the river ever since, partly because many still contain unexploded ordnance and pose a hazard to navigation. Serbia has launched an estimated €30m removal programme to remove some of the vessels, but progress has been slow because clearing the riverbed safely is complex.

For travellers, it's a striking sight along Europe's second-longest river, which stretches roughly 2,850km (1,770 miles) across 10 countries and centuries full of falling empires and shifting allegiances.

Kenneth Reece, a travel planner who recently cruised the lower Danube aboard the Avalon Passion, says reminders of the region's turbulent history surrounded them throughout their trip.

"We visited medieval fortresses, heard stories about life under communism and dictatorship, learned about the wars that have shaped this region and travelled through places where some of that history is still within living memory," Reece said. "Hearing about the WWII-era German shipwrecks beneath the Danube added another layer… The history wasn't only in museums or monuments. Some of it was quite literally beneath us."

What else the river is revealing

The Nazi ships aren't the only remnants emerging as the Danube falls.

This August, receding water has also exposed a German army Wehrmacht motorcycle in Budapest and a 1,543lb British bomb near Virt, Slovakia, which was later safely detonated. At Gigen in Bulgaria, falling water has revealed the remains of the ancient Constantine Bridge, while near Ryahovo, archaeologists unearthed woolly mammoth tusks and bones dating back thousands of years.

"For archaeologists, these moments are extremely valuable," Pavel Popov of the Regional Historical Museum in Pleven told Reuters. "It gives us a rare opportunity to observe, document and study it in its real environment."

Droughts and fluctuating water levels are not new to the Danube. Europe is the fastest-warming continent, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, warming at more than twice the global average. Rising temperatures are intensifying heat extremes and altering rainfall patterns, contributing to repeated low-water events that disrupt navigation along the river.

"The Danube was revealing warnings from our past while, at the same time, perhaps giving us a warning about our future," Reece said.

What low water means for travellers

The consequences are already being felt by visitors to the region. This summer's low waters have forced Danube cruise operators to cancel sailings, change itineraries, transfer passengers between ships and use coaches to bypass unnavigable sections of the river.

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• This loophole allows tourists to reach Scotland's most remote and majestic scenery

• A tempestuous isle of 1,000 shipwrecks

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Yet the changing river can also transform what travellers encounter along the way.

"We never realised that we would sail directly over the sunken German warships," said Suzanna Fulton, who recently cruised on the Viking Honir. "It was humbling and quite honestly, a cool experience."

Reece said seeing evidence of the Danube's wartime history made the beauty and peacefulness of the river feel more poignant.

"Today, you can sit on the deck of a river cruise ship with a glass of wine and watch these beautiful countries pass by, but this same landscape has witnessed war, fascism, oppression and tremendous human suffering," he said. "I think that's what stayed with me most. The Danube wasn't simply taking us through Europe. In many ways, it was taking us through Europe's history."

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Is 'Tiny Tourism' the antidote to mass tourism? I went to Dublin to try it out

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260813-is-tiny-tourism-the-antidote-to-mass-tourism, 7 days ago

A new travel philosophy preaches skipping tourist sights and doing everyday things instead. But will it really be a trip to Dublin if I don't visit Temple Bar?

I am strolling through Dublin's city centre when a yellow amphibious vehicle piled with tourists in plastic Viking hats barrels past me. Just as they holler in my direction, I grab my camera and duck into the supermarket on the corner to wander the crisps aisle instead.

Supermarket shopping might seem like an offbeat holiday choice, but that's the essence of "Tiny Tourism", a concept first coined by UK-based creative platform It's Nice That. The counter-trend snubs overcrowded hotspots and "bucket lists" in favour of seeking out small, hyper-local experiences. The principle boils down to one little rule: if it feels like a tourist would do it, don't.

As a travel writer, I'm willing to put the idea to the test on a long weekend in Dublin with my daughter. Instead of hitting Temple Bar and the Guinness Factory, we'll follow the Tiny Tourist mentality and go thrift shopping, take public transport and browse pharmacies. Will swerving Dublin's Big Tourism attractions in favour of micro details really help us understand the city better?

It's the little things

Tiny Tourism might be new, but the desire to experience places like a local isn't. Over 20 years in the industry, I've seen this urge spring from a belief that that mass tourism is increasingly inauthentic. It's now common to find "Disneyfied" versions of cities, with hordes of rowdy visitors and nary a local accent in earshot. No wonder today's travellers crave something more meaningful.

Liz Gorny, lead editor of It's Nice That Insights, conceived Tiny Tourism when she noticed none of her colleagues talked about big sights after their holidays.

"It felt like people were always talking about this cafe they went to or what they found in a grocery store," she told the BBC. "This is the stuff that feels exciting." As destinations around the world seek ways to combat overtourism, the Tiny Tourist report, released in April 2026, encouraged readers to seek "the beach with no Google maps pin or the unreplicable hot sauce."

Tiny Tourism echoes recent travel trends like visiting foreign pharmacies and buying socks from Japanese convenience stores. Opodo's 2026 Traveller Hacks poll found that visiting supermarkets has become as normal for Brits on holiday as dining at restaurants.

So how do you do it? "Tiny travel routines", gleaned with input from industry experts and travellers, include asking locals for tips and performing everyday activities, like going running or doing a shop. Avoiding places that have reached viral status on social media is another Tiny Tourist strategy – the report considers viral videos instruction on where not to go.

"It's a powerful desire to experience the standard way of living in a place and to see how it contrasts with your own," says the report. "For travellers, an anti-spectacle approach might actually make a trip feel more lasting."

I'm game, but sceptical. Will seeking out the mundane be… dull? To find out, my daughter and I arm ourselves with recommendations from locals on the Dublin subreddit. Though it will be my first time in the city I don't feel any strong need to see the big sights, but I'm unsure about pubs. They're in every Dublin TikTok, so they don't technically qualify as Tiny Tourism. Still, pubs are a feature of everyday life for Dubliners, so I decide they get a pass.

Errands about town

Once we arrive in Dublin, our first stop is the supermarket. I'm not convinced it will be interesting, but then I'm captivated by the rainbow-coloured aisle of Taytos crisps and their new-to-us flavours, like hot dog and curry. Next, we go to Capel Street to seek out second-hand shops, which the Tiny Tourist report recommends over tourist gift shops. On the way, we pass the mobbed Leprechaun Museum and I'm happy to keep walking. It feels like a relief to avoid queues, entry fees and time slots.

In a bric-a-brac shop, I spy a sea urchin-shaped vase, and my daughter buys a book. We also find surrendered kitsch travel mementos: a wooden clog from Holland, a painted plate from Marrakesh. I'm struck by the realisation that this type of souvenir feels dated. Now that we post our travels on social media, we no longer need physical proof to show where we've been. One point for Tiny Tourism, but it does occur to me that I could be doing the same thing at home.

Our Tiny Tourism venture starts to fall apart when we wander into a pharmacy and the plasters, vitamins and creams are nothing different to what I find back in Copenhagen. Then we walk into a random fish and chip shop for dinner and, somehow find ourselves in Temple Bar.

We'd planned to avoid this rowdy 28-acre party zone, but music is pouring out of every pub down the street. Gaggles of hen parties and stag dos are celebrating outside historic buildings. It's got an undeniable pulse to it – no wonder all the crowds come here. We drop into a few pubs and have such a good time, that avoiding the big sights starts to feel misguided.

Ask a local?

Day Two starts and, feeling guilty that we didn't stick to Tiny Tourism, we're doubling down with a plan to ask locals for recommendations.

We stop at an art shop beyond the River Liffey, past the tourist track, and chat up the art student at the till. She's suggesting a couple of offbeat art galleries when a photographer joins in to recommend some ceramic studios nearby where we can make things ourselves. This is Tiny Tourism in action! We are set for a day guided by local ideas.

Unfortunately, every spot suggested is closed.

Perhaps it's unfair to ask local people to offer suggestions: they aren't tourist guides, after all. It's another fail for Tiny Tourism.

Away from the city, into the suburbs

The Tiny Tourist report suggests going running, but we're swimmers, so decide to try that instead. After scoping locations on Visit Dublin – yes, a tourism website, but it will suggest somewhere safe to swim – we take the DART commuter train to Sandycove, a picturesque suburb just outside the city. The DART is far from an undiscovered way to get around – our train is a babble of Spanish and French voices. There are only Irish accents in the air when we get to the Forty Foot, a tall cliff with steps down to the water and a scatter of people swimming, with more on the rocks watching.

I climb down the rockface and the shock of the cold Dublin Bay has me gasping. I chat to a fellow swimmer and it feels like we've joined a community: not only do we swap stories, but as a nervous girl stands at the top of the cliff daring herself to jump in, we all cheer her on.

As much as we're enjoying ourselves, I remember that Tiny Tourism advocates taking pebbles from beaches as a souvenir. It's unequivocally a bad idea. In Greece, you can be fined €1,000 (£854/$1,156) for this, because it's so destructive to the natural environment. While you're by the sea, the best souvenir is a picture – or a wet swimsuit.

The verdict

On our final day, I cannot shake the feeling that something is missing. I have to accept my verdict: Tiny Tourism is good, but it hasn't delivered quite enough. We find ourselves in Trinity College, walking around its great grassy quads where giants of Irish literature like Samuel Beckett, Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde once stood. Visiting Dublin without seeing its key attractions felt like eating only side dishes in a restaurant: we were still hungry for the main course.

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It's undoubtedly a good thing to reach beyond the tourist cliches of a city, but it doesn't make sense to exclude classic sights when they are prepared for visitors and often have such deep history behind them. I don't want to feel bad for enjoying Trinity College and Temple Bar – and don't think other people should either.

Why not try Medium Tourism instead? See some major sights, then spend a day or two being observant, looking for details and off-beat charm. My favourite part of the trip was the sea swimming, and we wouldn't have done that without a push from Tiny Tourism. But would it have been a trip to Dublin without a visit to Trinity College?

Tiny Tourism isn't perfect, but anything that prompts us to think differently about how we interact with the places we go and people we meet is a big victory.

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Laptop catches fire on US flight, with passenger treated at airport

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce979zpjj85o, yesterday

One person has received medical treatment after a passenger's laptop caught fire on an American Airlines flight.

The pilot had reported a "cabin fire in the back of the airplane" to air traffic control, saying "the flight attendants are trying to put it out now", according to audio obtained by the BBC's US reporting partner CBS News.

"I think we have about four to five passengers that were burned by the laptop. The laptop is contained about mid-aircraft."

One passenger received medical attention on site and was released after American Airlines Flight 2398 - coming from Atlanta, Georgia - landed at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport in Texas on Friday.

The airline told the BBC that the flight landed safely "after reports of smoke from a customer's device during landing. We thank our crew for their professionalism and swift response to quickly contain the device."

After landing, the aircraft taxied to the gate, and emergency personnel met the aircraft upon arrival, per procedure.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warns that lithium batteries, including laptop batteries, are capable of overheating "as a result of various factors, including if the battery is damaged, overheated, exposed to water, overcharged, or improperly packed".

The FAA recorded 58 verified lithium battery air incidents so far this year involving smoke, fire or extreme heat. In the last 20 years, the highest number of incidents was related to battery packs, with 84 cases related to laptops.

Lithium batteries must be stowed in carry-on baggage only, the US regulator says.

In May, a UK-bound EasyJet flight from Egypt was diverted to Rome after a power bank was found to be charging in a passenger's luggage in the hold of the aircraft. The flight was rescheduled for the next day.

The UK's aviation regulator the Civil Aviation Authority has said power banks are causing a growing number of serious issues on flights worldwide, and urged more awareness as portable chargers carry "serious risks" of overheating or catching fire.

A summer of queues and chaos for UK-bound flights

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg4dk7dz8eo, yesterday

We may have thought the days of airport stress were winding down with the introduction of e-passport scanning and no more liquid bags, but this was certainly not the case for a lot of Londoners and Brits alike this summer.

I was one of those on Tuesday. Despite giving myself what I thought was a generous two-hour cushion before my flight to Stansted, I missed it. Or, as I prefer to put it, it missed me.

There was a single passport control queue that afternoon staffed by three officers after a water leak closed another set of booths. The queue was at least 300 people strong when I joined it at 15:45 CET ahead of my Ryanair flight, scheduled for 17:55 local time.

Fully operational since April, the EU has introduced a system replacing manual passport stamping for non-EU nationals, the Entry/Exit System (EES). It requires biometric registration of fingerprints, passport data and a facial image on first entry.

UK passport holders are third-country nationals under EU law and cannot use the automated e-gates so every British traveller must pass through a staffed lane. But the idea is that you should only have to do this once in three years.

The new system has caused passport queues around Europe to swell, particularly affecting departing passengers trying to catch flights.

But some airports have been managing better than others for compounding reasons, such as the size of the airport and destinations of the flights.

Unbeknownst to me, Copenhagen has already been singled out by the Foreign Office in May as one of the least efficient according to a May statement in other press.

I realised the queue wasn't just long, it was impassable. Others abandoned it entirely, realising it made no difference.

It reduced only by airport staff who periodically shouted the last call for flights to Edinburgh, Birmingham, Manchester and London and escorted passengers to the front. Even airline staff on occasion had to come down and fish out their passengers themselves.

Eventually, Stansted was called with about 30 minutes until take off, and we were gathered up and taken to the front.

When I was through the queue and arrived at the gate, it was around 15 minutes after the scheduled take off. I found about 50 people shouting and head in hands huddled around a staff member insisting that the gate had closed and we could no longer board.

I realised I optimistically assumed that they would hold the flight, because they must know about the passport situation. Ryanair said there was nothing they could do for us, because it was not their fault.

Ryanair later told the BBC that passengers on the flight were "offered Ryanair's missed departure fee to travel on to the next available flight".

Almost every other flight to London was booked that evening, with a couple of seats going for more than £500. I spoke to one couple who had to get home that evening, and had to cough up knowing they may likely not be reimbursed.

We stared at the plane, still grounded, as we saw our luggage being lifted back off the plane again. More people arrived, trickling through the passport controls, met with the same dismay. I wondered how many people must actually be on the flight. Not more than half, at an estimate.

As I was venting to friends, one of them, Lauren Rowlands, had just flown back with British Airways (BA) from Porto to London that same day. She said about 400 people were queuing for non-Schengen passport control, with only two officers checking passports.

"There were rumours BA would hold our plane for people if lots missed final call - but they didn't, we took off not even half full. And before I had to put my cabin bag in the hold because the flight was sold out!

"So many people missed their flights, and there was no system to get people through if their flight was on final call.

"They were mostly Brits in the airport, because they had a Manchester flight and two London flights at the same time. The airport said the e-gates were out of service for Brits but don't think we can use them anyway. "

Emily, who regularly travels to Milan for work, got in touch with me saying that her trips back to London this summer had been blighted by passport controls, with one missed flight and two delayed flights at Milan Malpensa.

Emily, who did not wish to give her surname, said: "Flying back from Milan was a total nightmare. I flew in June, so I guess after the new checks.

"There was no organisation and I missed my flight and it was horrendous trying to get home. I paid another €350 to get home the same day, which I have not been reimbursed for.

She said she has since become anxious about travelling and has repeatedly seen passengers miss UK-bound flights because of long queues.

"I know that of course the extra passport processing is not aimed at Brits but I wonder if we are suffering disproportionately because we travel so much to Europe in the summertime. Every queue I've been in is filled with Brits."

Since the rollout of the EES passport scanning, which began gradually in December, an emergency mechanism has been introduced that has allowed member states to partially suspend EES if the queues get too bad, and this expires on 6 September.

After this, every border post must take biometrics from every eligible traveller, however long the queue is.

Portuguese airports, including Lisbon, Faro and Porto, have reportedly been using the suspension flexibility during this summer.

Nine countries wrote to Home Affairs Commissioner Magnus Brunner on 7 July asking for it to be kept beyond that date, and the airline and airport bodies have asked for it to run until the end of October.

When I asked the European Commission about this, they referred me to a briefing on Thursday where Politico journalist Tommaso Lecca asked about the extension.

Spokesman Marcus Lammert said: "When it comes to the time after the summer, we are in close and constructive contact with those few member states who have challenges at a certain moment or had certain challenges before the summer, and we will be in touch with everyone to see how to take it forward."

He said it was an "effective and well working system", with millions of entries processed and about 50,000 refusals that might otherwise have gone undetected.

"I think it's a good example of how the EU is strengthening its border systems, its external border systems, also when it comes to the new digital border systems," he added.

The Commission's argument is that queues should ease over time as regular visitors are registered in the system for up to three years.

In theory, that should reduce the number of passengers requiring full biometric checks, although implementation is left to individual member states and airports.

Emily was a regular traveller who was supposedly already registered. As far as I could tell, and those who I have spoken to at the time of writing, in all the mentioned airports the queues were generally organised by Schengen and non-Schengen travellers, rather than by registration status.

As for me, I had actually been travelling in Sweden and chose to fly back from Copenhagen for "convenience". I was very lucky to find a cheap and seamless flight back from Swedish city Malmo the next day, a short train over a bridge from Denmark.

Copenhagen Airport insisted to the BBC the delays on Tuesday were an exception where the water leak was to blame, not the EES processing.

A spokesperson said: "What you experienced at Copenhagen Airport on Tuesday was an extraordinary situation at passport control.

"An unfortunate water leak occurred in a server room connected to the passport control, which is one of the airport's two passport control facilities.

"As a result, all passengers had to pass through passport control in Pier C for the remainder of the day. This extraordinary situation was not related to the EES system.

"When half of the available passport control capacity is taken out of operation, longer waiting times are unfortunately unavoidable. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this caused our passengers."

They said passengers were informed about the additional waiting times through public address announcements, and additional customer service staff were deployed to "provide guidance and assist passengers whose flights were close to departure".

The spokesperson said whether to delay a departure in order to wait for passengers is a decision for each individual airline.

Vinci Airports, which manages Porto Airport, and Milan's Malpensa Airport have both been approached for comment.

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Parking struggles leave businesses wanting change in medieval town

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62vpl2plvgo, yesterday

Finding a parking spot in a medieval tourist town that is almost entirely encircled by England's longest river is no easy job.

Parking capacity in this town is often challenging during the summer months, not just for me but plenty of drivers, especially when events are taking place.

Could there be better news to come? A review into how, and where, shoppers and tourists park when they visit Shrewsbury and the wider county is being carried out by Shropshire Council.

But the authority is being warned against "another draconian fare increase" by the town's leading business group - and at the same time being asked to improve car parks, so visitors stay longer and spend more in the area.

Seb Slater is from Shrewsbury Business Improvement District (BID), which represents more than 500 local businesses and works on their issues.

He wrote to the council in June to raise concerns about the effects on the town's economy from the last increase in charges.

Data acquired by the BID suggested that the length of time people stayed and the number of tickets purchased at one of the town's largest car parks, dropped when a 50% fare increase was introduced in November.

By May, Frankwell car park had seen a 21% drop in hours purchased and 11% fewer transactions.

Other car parks had varying fare increases last year, Slater said, following a three-year freeze to charges.

Time is money, goes the saying and for Slater, it is especially true with this issue: "If people are spending less time here then they're spending less money, and that's what we're concerned about.

"If people come to a car park and they're used to paying 80p an hour and it's suddenly £1.20, they might stay three hours instead of four.

"When charges are increased, there is a shock impact, so we are warning against any other changes."

There was little evidence to suggest that visitors were persuaded to use more sustainable travel instead, such as bikes or buses, Slater claimed, but he did say the town's park and ride sites saw "a small increase".

The council was also urged by the business group to explore new ways to improve the town's car parking, such as pay-on-exit technology and "car park decking," which would see extra floors added to ground-level car parks.

Free council parking

When the review ends, a report will be considered by council leaders later this year, the authority says.

Parking charges were "highly competitive" with other similar towns and cities across the country, a spokesperson claimed.

But due to government transport funding not keeping pace with rising costs, other sources of income were needed to support stretched budgets, they added.

Shrewsbury BID also raised concerns with the council over the number of its staff that park for free at Frankwell, next to the authority's main headquarters.

Slater claimed as many as 320 spaces a day, about half of the number of parking spaces available, were occupied by council staff, costing, he claimed, the authority about £40,000 a month in lost revenue.

The council moved to the Guildhall from its former headquarters at the end of 2024 to save thousands of pounds a year in energy costs.

Staff that worked out of Shirehall, located a mile outside of the town, benefited from free parking.

The council told the BBC it had made parking arrangements for staff working from the Guildhall as part of wider work to reduce the size and cost of its office estate.

"It is important to note that staff parking at Frankwell has not affected overall usage by the public and has instead used previously spare capacity," they countered.

Despite parking concerns being raised by the town's businesses, Shrewsbury is performing well on visitor numbers, with footfall up by 0.4% in the first six months of the year, although spending in the town centre is down 5.1%.

The council figures suggest more people are visiting Shrewsbury compared to last year, but staying for less time and spending less while they are there.

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Why travellers are obsessed with foreign supermarkets

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260811-the-supermarket-is-becoming-a-tourist-attraction, 11 days ago

From Tokyo egg sandwiches to Greek dairy aisles, supermarket aisles are becoming one of travel's most revealing and beloved experiences.

It's 10:00 in a Tokyo 7-Eleven, and I am standing shoulder to shoulder with a dozen tourists, all clutching baskets loaded with the same things: fluffy egg mayo sandwiches, katsu curry buns, matcha Kit Kats and warm cans of Boss coffee pulled from heated shelves. Behind me, someone photographs their haul before they've even reached the till. Every few seconds, the familiar convenience-store chime announces another arrival. Nobody is here because they have run out of toothpaste. We are all, quite openly, shopping for the experience.

It is a travel ritual I've found myself repeating across the globe. I once spent an unreasonable portion of a sweltering Barcelona afternoon navigating the crowded aisles of a basement Mercadona, hunting down jars of pistachio cream. In a chaotic Miami Trader Joe's, I bypassed the groceries entirely and bought six jars of Everything But the Bagel seasoning, then repacked my suitcase around them before flying home.

What began as a holiday necessity has gradually become one of my favourite parts of travelling, anticipated and increasingly built into the itinerary rather than squeezed in around it. As it turns out, I'm not alone. Hilton's 2026 Trends Report found that 77% of travellers enjoy visiting grocery stores abroad, while Condé Nast Traveller recently named grocery tourism one of the biggest travel trends of 2026.

The industry has noticed too. Earlier this year, K-Supermarket, one of Finland's largest grocery chains, became the first supermarket in the world to officially list its branches as tourist attractions on Tripadvisor. Among them is a Helsinki store built around rooftop beehives that produce their own honey and another lauded for its craft beer selection, with each branch independently run and adapted to its local community.

Why supermarkets feel different abroad

Away from traditional sightseeing, ducking into a local grocery shop remains a surprisingly raw way to travel. Nothing on the shelves has been curated for out-of-towners or stamped with a tourist board's seal of approval. In an era of timed-entry museums and viral photo spots, wandering the aisles of a neighbourhood grocery store feels wonderfully unscripted

Monuments reveal how a country remembers its past, but a supermarket shows how it lives today. You quickly learn what people eat for breakfast, whether nappies are kept behind the counter and just how many varieties of tinned fish a country considers reasonable. The person queuing beside you isn't there to sightsee. They're simply buying dinner. For a few minutes, tourists and locals occupy the same space, following exactly the same routines.

And there's a scientific explanation for why those convenience store snacks seem to taste so good. When I ask Oxford experimental psychologist Professor Charles Spence why supermarket food seems to take on an almost mythical quality abroad, he points to what he calls a "slightly less glamorous" version of the Provençal Rosé Paradox, the psychological phenomenon whereby a wine tasted on one's summer holidays never quite matches up when opened back home on a cold and rainy winter's night. In the supermarket aisle, context is everything.

Most of us have lived some version of it. A flavour of Lay's crisps you've never seen before, eaten on a sunny holiday balcony, somehow loses a little of its magic once it's opened back home. According to Spence, supermarket discoveries work in much the same way. That egg mayo sandwich from Tokyo or a packet of crisps picked up abroad isn't being judged on flavour alone; the atmosphere and environment become part of the tasting experience.

You don't need a generous budget to take part, either. We might not all be able to afford a Michelin-starred meal or a private food tour, but almost anyone can spend €10 filling a basket with local snacks, unusual drinks and ingredients they've never seen before. Unlike a museum or a guided tour, a supermarket doesn't hand us an experience. We put it together ourselves.

The appeal of shopping like a local

Consumer psychologist and Humanising Brands founder Kate Nightingale believes the supermarket trend reflects a broader shift in what travellers are looking for. Increasingly, she says, we're seeking moments that feel authentic, participatory and accessible. Rather than simply observing a destination, we want to feel part of it.

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• Is it time to change how we buy travel souvenirs?

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A foreign supermarket offers exactly that. Its layout and routines are almost universally understood. We know how to pick up a basket, browse the aisles and join the queue. As Nightingale explains, "familiarity frees our brains to become more exploratory, allowing us to notice everything that's different rather than worrying about how to navigate the space". She likens it to the instinct that lets a child confidently run off to explore a playground once they know a parent is nearby.

Back home, supermarkets are usually somewhere to get in and out of as quickly as possible. Abroad, they have a habit of drawing us in. We pause over fruit we've never seen before, try to make sense of products from their colours and pictures, or realise we've spent several minutes staring at shelves devoted entirely to seaweed. The weekly shop becomes something we notice rather than simply get through.

There is, however, a point at which supermarket tourism begins to eat itself. In Kawaguchiko, Japan, a Lawson convenience store became so overwhelmed by visitors photographing its roof framed against Mount Fuji that authorities deployed security guards, traffic barriers and crowd-control teams to manage the chaos, eventually erecting a giant black screen to block the view. The irony is hard to miss: a supermarket only works as a slice of normal life because nobody is putting on a show for you. Once tourists outnumber locals, it stops being an ordinary shop.

Of course, none of that crossed my mind the afternoon I stood in front of a dairy fridge in Athens looking at rows of white tubs, their labels entirely indecipherable. I turned them over one by one, searching for a single word I recognised, when a woman reached past my shoulder and grabbed one without slowing her trolley. I bought the same tub. It remains the best yoghurt I've ever eaten.

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The world's best countries for expats in 2026

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260814-the-worlds-best-countries-for-expats-in-2026, 8 days ago

New global rankings reveal the best places to build a life abroad – and the people who have made the move explain why.

The 2026 Expat Insider survey from InterNations has ranked 31 destinations across quality of life, ease of settling in, working abroad, personal finance and practical essentials such as housing and digital services.

For this year's winners, friendliness and affordability scores made the biggest impact. Seven of the top 10 destinations ranked among the easiest places to settle in, while five led the world for personal finance. We spoke to expats living in the five highest-ranked countries about why they moved, how they adapted and what prospective newcomers should know.

1. Panama

Panama topped the ranking for the third year in a row, placing first in both the Working Abroad and Personal Finance indices. Eighty-seven percent of expats here report being happy with life abroad, compared with 70% globally, while 90% say housing is easy to find.

Ariel Barrionuevo moved to Panama's Caribbean coast from Argentina eight years ago, and quickly found himself sleeping more deeply, waking rested and feeling more present. "I realised that wasn't because I was on holiday, it was because this place has a rhythm of its own," said Barrionuevo, now director of La Coralina Island House hotel on Isla Colón.

His typical day includes a stop by the ocean, a walk through the tropical garden and listening to the birds. "It's a simple ritual, but it reminds me every day why I chose to live here," he said. He finds life in Panama more affordable than it was in Argentina, and appreciates the stable economy, which makes planning and business more predictable.

Reza Motalebpour, who relocated to Panama City from Canada this year, says working remotely is straightforward, with reliable internet available at home and in co-working spaces. She has also found banking easy, particularly in the country's dollarised economy. While the exchange rate can make costs seem high at first for Canadians, she says Panama's relatively low utility bills, insurance costs and property taxes mean the overall cost of living still represents good value.

Life here isn't without its hurdles; Barrionuevo cites late deliveries and weather that can quickly upend plans on Isla Colón. But he says choosing a slower pace is a decision he doesn't regret – and one he thinks visitors or potential expats should embrace. He recommends visiting Bluff Beach, buying fresh fruit from a roadside stand and spending the afternoon watching surfers at Paunch Beach.

"I arrived thinking I was moving to a beautiful destination," he said. "Looking back, I was really moving towards a different way of living, one that values time over speed, experiences over possessions and connection over constant activity."

2. Mexico

Ranking first in the Ease of Settling In index, Mexico placed second overall and remains the world's easiest country for expats to feel at home. Seventy-three percent say making local friends is easy, compared to 39% globally, while twice the global average describe their social circle as mostly local.

"I've made better friends abroad than I ever had in Chicago," said Kirsten Raccuia, who writes the expat blog Sand in My Curls. She and her husband moved to Puerto Vallarta in 2022 and say the sense of community, along with the lower cost of living, has kept them there. Street tacos cost about a dollar (£0.75), she says, while a recent emergency appendectomy and hospital stay cost less than $4,000 (£2,970), a price unimaginable in the US.

To best experience the city, Raccuia recommends having breakfast at the local food markets and visiting the beach on a Sunday, when families gather. "Yes, it's touristy, but it's also what the locals do," she said.

One caveat: Mexico ranked 25th of 31 for safety and security, with 68% of expats rating their personal safety positively compared to 81% globally.

3. Thailand

Ranked third overall, Thailand is home to the world's happiest expats with 86% reporting satisfaction with life abroad. It also earned the survey's highest score for cost of living, with 85% ranking it positively – more than double the global average.

"We fed the four of us for the equivalent of about £1 ($1.35)," said Bethan Jeentipraphet, recalling her first street-food meal in Bangkok. A British mother of two, she moved from Devon with her Thai husband in 2024, intending to stay a year. "Within two weeks, I knew I wasn't going back."

She also credits Thailand's education system with transforming her son. "Respect is huge in Thai culture, and students here clearly have the utmost respect for education," she said. "He is a completely changed child."

Long-term expat Aaron Henry, who moved from Los Angeles 11 years ago says Bangkok has modernised without changing its culture. "It's preserved the unique aspects of Thai culture while, especially over the last decade, exploding in terms of international cuisine, exceptional parks, art galleries [and] luxury malls." He recommends exploring the walkable, less-touristed neighbourhoods of Ari and Phra Khanong to see the city as residents do.

Jeentipraphet says newcomers should make an effort to understand and respect local customs, from removing shoes before entering homes to standing respectfully for the national anthem, which is played in public at 08:00 and 18:00 daily. "For expats willing to embrace Thai culture and embody the cultural norms, Thailand can be an extremely rewarding place to live."

4. United Arab Emirates

With top scores for Career Prospects and Expat Essentials (including visas and language), the UAE makes it easy for international residents to settle into life and build their careers. InterNations conducted the survey in February and March 2026, both before and after the outbreak of the US-Iran conflict, so the results only partially reflect its impact. However, expats still living in the UAE say that, despite some adjustments, life has continued largely unchanged.

"Day-to-day life in Dubai feels normal," said Michelle Sterling, an image consultant who splits her time between Dubai and the US, but currently prefers Dubai. "For me, Dubai offers a lifestyle that feels safer, more comfortable and more affordable."

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Nikita Oruganty, who moved from London to Dubai earlier this year to work in communications, says that the welcoming environment continues to make the country attractive. "While other countries are making it harder with immigration rules, [UAE] has always welcomed expats," she said. She also appreciates how authorities have handled security and communication during uncertain periods. "That sense of stability matters a lot when you are living abroad without your family nearby."

To see how residents really live, Oruganty recommends spending at least one day away from the luxury version of the city, riding the Metro at rush hour, walking through the traditional neighborhoods of Bur Dubai and Deira, crossing Dubai Creek by abra (a traditional wooden ferry) and eating at a small Indian, Filipino or Lebanese restaurant. "That is where you see the everyday version of Dubai, much more ordinary than its international image suggests," she said.

Beyond Dubai, British expat Sharon Mckernan has lived in Ras Al Khaimah for eight years and says she's never looked back. "I enjoy the easy, down-to-earth pace of life," she said. "There's no constant rushing, less traffic and generally less day-to-day hassles, which gives us more family time to enjoy by the pool, beach or explore the mountains here." She has also found the healthcare to be fast and efficient, and has made friends easily with people from around the world.

For visitors, she suggests watching the sunset from Jebel Jais, the UAE's highest mountain, or exploring the Al Jazirah Al Hamra Heritage Village. "It offers a side to the UAE that is different and relatively unknown to most," she said.

5. Brazil

Breaking into the top five for the first time this year, Brazil scored highly for happiness, ease of settling in, local friendliness and culture, with many expats saying it's the warmth of the people that makes them feel at home.

"You could meet someone for the first time on a Thursday and be at their home having churrasco (barbecued meat) by Saturday," said Clint Manning, who moved from Barbados to São Paulo to build his business. "Being from Barbados and having a similar lifestyle there, it felt very much like home, but on a significantly larger scale."

He notes that English isn't widely spoken here, which he sees as a plus. "For someone truly interested in learning the language, it [is] a fantastic experience as you [are] forced to communicate in Portuguese out of necessity," he said. "I became fluent significantly faster than I would've if I had been trying to learn Danish or German in Denmark or Germany."

To best experience São Paulo, he recommends visiting the bars and padarias in Vila Madalena and Bela Vista, eating sushi in Liberdade (the city's Japanese neighborhood) and exercising in Ibirapuera Park, one of Latin America's largest urban parks.

But more than any scenery or site, expats say it is the locals who create the greatest sense of belonging. "They were genuinely interested and curious in getting to know me and made me feel included from the beginning," said Chris Kohl, who lived in São Paulo for 12 years. "Instead of making me feel like an outsider, Brazilians made me feel like I belonged."

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How US tech helped create modern Italian gelato

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260813-how-us-tech-helped-create-modern-italian-gelato, 9 days ago

Gelato is synonymous with Italy, but its modern origins go back to a humble dairy shop in Tuscany and a couple of abandoned American World War Two freezers.

Each summer, tens of millions of international travellers descend on Italy, and many of them will order at least one gelato sometime during their stay. But chances are that very few of these visitors – or even many Italians themselves – realise that one of the most quintessentially Italian treats may never have taken off were it not for American technology.

To understand how that creamy deep-green pistachio, chocolate-striped stracciatella or sun-yellow crema made it onto your cone, you have to venture back to a modest Tuscan dairy shop and a couple of abandoned US military freezers.

The Italian ice age

Long before modern Italians were ordering gelato from beachside resorts, their ancient Roman ancestors were chilling honey-sweetened wines and fruit syrups with mountain snow, creating sorbet‑like icy treats. By the 9th Century in Sicily, the island's Arab rulers were blending snow from Mount Etna with sweetened citrus, jasmine and rosewater to make sherbet – a legacy that lives on in Sicilian granita today.

By the Renaissance, cooks across northern Italy were experimenting with fruit purées and spiced creams chilled with Alpine snow, which paved the way for Bernardo Buontalenti's 16th-Century breakthrough in Florence. The architect enriched the mixture with eggs and milk, producing a custard-like base that froze into something far silkier than the snow-filled creams that had come before, and creating the template for modern gelato.

Soon after, artisans in Florence, Venice and Sicily began producing frozen creams in micro-batches, using hand-cranked sorbettiere (ice cream makers) and natural ice harvested from snow pits. These early gelato prototypes were dense, custard-forward and unstable, melting quickly and requiring constant attention. Because freezing relied on snow, salt and manual labour, gelato-making was a hyper-local neighbourhood craft. Even when electric refrigeration arrived in the late 1920s, production remained limited due to the high cost.

Gelato simply couldn't travel; it had to be made and eaten close to home. That's where Tuscan creativity met American engineering.

The American difference

Empoli, a Tuscan town west of Florence, was still piecing itself back together in 1946 after the brutal fighting that had led to its World War Two liberation two years earlier.

In the calm that followed, Romeo Bagnoli, a railway crossing keeper, took over a modest dairy shop on Via del Giglio. By 1946, his eldest son, Renzo, had turned it into a bar called Sammontana serving coffee, pastries, and, in the summer, small batches of gelato with their one unreliable refrigerator.

After the war, abandoned Allied machinery was available for everyday Italians to purchase. Renzo and his brothers, Sergio and Loriano, acquired two industrial-grade American military freezers and later salvaged commercial ice cream machinery from a scrapyard, reworking the parts until they could produce continuous batches – allowing them, for the first time, to freeze gelato steadily rather than in tiny stop-and-start portions.

This American addition had huge implications: unlike the fattier ice cream, which had already been popular in the US for nearly a century and can tolerate longer freezing cycles, gelato needs a fast, consistent freeze to maintain its dense texture. The Bagnolis could now produce smooth, stable gelato without ice crystals in large enough batches that they could sell it beyond their neighbourhood, while still preserving the artisanal character that defined Tuscan gelato.

With their freezers humming in the back of the dairy shop, the Bagnoli brothers began tinkering with their early gelato recipe to create a mix that stayed smooth after freezing – a major hurdle before the 1940s.

They adjusted fat ratios; used ingredients like gelatin to keep the formula smooth; and slow-churned their ingredient bases so the resulting mixture was fluffy, not dense. Their repeatable formulas marked the beginnings of a consistent, scalable model of making gelato that later became industry-wide practice across Italy.

With insulated trucks not yet available, the brothers also built their own temperature‑controlled supply chain: packing metal canisters in ice and salt, lining wooden crates with straw and adapting military supply boxes into makeshift insulated containers. By 1948, they were delivering their Sammontana gelato by bicycle around Empoli and across Tuscany in a small truck.

"[The Bagnoli brothers] devised a six‑litre canister that fit neatly into their improvised supply chain. Bars and cafes could scoop directly from the canister," said Italian food historian Luca Cesari. "When they began lending bar owners their freezer units free of charge, the model was complete."

It was the blueprint for modern Italian gelato distribution: consistent product, standardised containers and a network of bars to serve it – none of which would have been possible without leftover WWII parts.

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"When [my family] found the equipment left behind from the war years, they were quick and clever enough to see potential where everyone else saw scrap metal," said Leonardo Bagnoli, the third generation of the family to lead Sammonta. "Those pieces became the backbone of… gelato that could travel beyond a single shop, a single city, until it reached all of Italy, and from there, today, the world."

These innovations happened at the start of Italy's post-war "economic miracle" period, which transformed Italian life. Between 1950 and 1963, wages rose, rural families migrated to cities and disposable income increased. The spread of beach resort culture and the rise of the evening passeggiata (post-dinner walk) created a new rhythm of outdoor leisure. Portable, inexpensive and synonymous with pleasure, gelato – now served in convenient cones and tiny to-go cups – fit into the nation's new image perfectly.

What started as a local, bike-distributed business soon transformed into a nationwide fleet of temperature-controlled trucks bringing the Bagnoli's new, ready-to-scoop gelato to shops from Sicily to the Alps.

How Sammontana shaped Italian gelato

Today, whether you're unwrapping a Sammontana cone at a beach in Liguria, ordering a scoop from an artisanal gelateria in Puglia or visiting one of the thousands of worldwide gelaterie that have popped up outside of Italy in recent years, you're tasting the legacy of this marriage between Italian artistry and US tech.

Adopting this new refrigeration model, other gelato companies like Algida, Motta, Spica and others soon followed. Yet, "industrial‑scale ice cream did not eliminate [early] artisanal gelato," said Eduardo Zucchini, spokesperson at the Gelato Museum Carpigiani in Bologna, the world's only museum dedicated to artisanal gelato. "Industrial gelato forced artisanal gelato to evolve, and ultimately, Italy developed both a strong industrial sector and a large network of independent, artisanal gelaterie. Competition from industrial producers [like Sammontana] encouraged artisanal gelaterie to improve hygiene, technology and professional organisation."

Along the way, Sammontana, and gelato in general, became synonymous with Italian summers.

"For many Italians, Sammontana evokes a ritual: peering into the freezer at a beach kiosk, choosing an ice cream by its wrapper, having a cone after a swim, or a stop at an Autogrill rest stop during a long family drive," said Rome-based cookbook author Katie Parla. "There's as much emotional attachment to the wrapper, the place and the moment as there is to the gelato itself."

These days, Sammontana is Italy's largest gelato and frozen-dessert company. And while their original dairy shop no longer exists, the company remains a family-owned business run by the third generation of the Bagnoli family in Empoli.

Since 1957, the company has used the slogan "Gelati all'italiana" (Gelato the Italian way) – a subtle nod to their product's US origins.

"That slogan is, in my mind, one of the most important slogans in 20th‑Century Italian food history," said Cesari."It [distinguishes] its gelato from the ice cream American soldiers had introduced during and after the war. It defines Italianness by negation [and] simply means 'not American'. And it works because the difference is real and perceptible."

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The invisible price of travelling safely as a woman

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260807-the-controversial-economics-of-women-only-travel, 13 days ago

Women-only rooms are in high demand – and sometimes cost more. What does that tell us about the price of feeling safe?

At 23:00 on a wet Friday night in central London, I'm standing in the glowing lobby of a pod hotel in Piccadilly Circus staring at two nearly identical booking options on a self-service screen. A capsule on a mixed-gender floor costs £35 ($47) whilst a capsule on the women-only floor is £45 ($60).

The extra £10 doesn't buy a bigger room, complimentary breakfast or a better view. The capsules are exactly the same: compact cocoons fitted with a mattress, mood lighting and just enough space to fully open a small suitcase. What the nearly 30% surcharge offers instead is a keycard-restricted corridor, a floor without men and, perhaps most importantly, the promise of sleeping a little easier in an unfamiliar city.

Most of the women around me barely glance at the price difference. But as I tap my card against the reader, I realise I'm not really weighing one room against another. I am weighing whether my peace of mind is worth the extra £10.

The 'safety premium'

Because of the heightened risks of sexual harassment, physical assault and unwanted attention, travel often comes with a series of financial trade-offs for many women, such as paying more for centrally located hotels, taking taxis rather than walking at night or choosing women-only spaces over cheaper mixed accommodation.

It's tempting to compare this with the "pink tax", the term used to describe products or services marketed to women at a higher price than equivalent versions for men. But the costs of travelling safely are often less direct.

Women are not necessarily being charged more for the same journey. Instead, safety concerns can push them towards different – and sometimes more expensive choices. Stephanie Boyle, campaign director of the Safer Tourism Foundation's She Travels Safe campaign, calls it an "avoidance tax", noting that women often alter their behaviour before anything has gone wrong.

"Women aren't travelling less because they're less adventurous than men," she says. "They face a different risk environment."

Research from the Safer Tourism Foundation, which tracks gendered travel behaviour, found that 64% of women avoid walking back to their accommodation alone at night while abroad compared to 43% of men, and 56% avoid areas they perceive as unsafe versus 37% of men who do the same. Nearly half of women (48%) avoid exploring their destination at night altogether.

These decisions also affect spending. Women are more likely to book travel insurance and more likely to pay for transport that ensures arrival in daylight hours – each choice small in isolation but collectively adding to the overall cost of travel.

When safety shapes the journey

Solo female traveller Jen Kaarlo has travelled to 53 countries, most of them alone, and says solo travel for many women often comes with constant calculations around safety. For Kaarlo, choices such as arriving in daylight, pre-booking transport and avoiding situations where she feels overly vulnerable have become almost automatic.

While travelling through Panama, she booked a semi-private boat trip through the San Blas Islands but paid extra to guarantee she would not have to share a sleeping space with a stranger.

"In order to rent the cabin, I had to pay one fee," she says. "Then I had to pay between $100 and $200 (£80-£160) more to ensure that I had a private boat bed."

More routinely, she says she budgets extra for transport, particularly when arriving somewhere unfamiliar. At Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, she encountered a man who repeatedly approached travellers with an elaborate scam, an experience that reinforced her preference for pre-booking a car or taking a taxi rather than public transport. "Probably the biggest cost generally is the extra ground transportation… I avoid mass transit anytime getting into a new city unless I know that city really well."

Solo traveller Jodie Hughes has found something similar. Since first travelling solo as a 19-year-old, Hughes has journeyed extensively across Europe, the US, Australia and Japan, often staying in hostels to keep costs down. But she says age and experience have changed how she budgets.

In Florence, she recalls accepting a lift from a man after she had been drinking, an experience she says "went pretty badly" and could have been much worse. In a similar way, Kaarlo says that after having her drink spiked in "an incredibly scary situation" in Paris, she changed how she approached solo travel.

Both women say these experiences have made them more conscious of the risks involved in travelling alone and more willing to pay for peace of mind.

"When I was younger, I'd think: 'Oh my God, I don't have the money for the next dorm up,'" Hughes says. "Now, I draw the line at my safety."

Hughes almost always books women-only dorms when available. In Japan, she says, these were often priced similarly to mixed accommodation. In parts of Europe, however, she has found female-only options more expensive. At Hostel Lybeer in Bruges, for example, a mixed dorm was recently listed at €26 (£22.25) compared with €28 (£23.95) for a woman-only down.

"I'd rather travel less frequently," Hughes says, "but when I do travel, it's safer."

What is driving the cost?

The reasons why women-only accommodation can be priced differently varies across the industry, but operators say it is rarely a straightforward premium for safety.

A spokesperson for Generator Hostels says the price of female-only dorms reflect demand rather than gender-based pricing. "Female-only dorms have always been in demand – faster than we have been able to grow supply," they say. "When demand for a specific room type consistently outpaces availability, pricing reflects that."

But if women are seeking those rooms because they feel less safe in mixed accommodations, safety is still influencing what they pay. Boyle argues that the answer should not be to make it a premium feature. "Safety shouldn't be a competitive component," she says. "It shouldn't be something that companies think: 'We are safer and therefore we can charge more.'"

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The cost isn't confined to accommodation. Many women describe choosing convenience over spontaneity, picking more expensive options that feel safer or avoiding experiences altogether if the logistics feel risky. The question becomes not only "Can I afford this?" but "Can I afford not to?"

And for Kaarlo, the cost is not just financial. "The cognitive overload, I think, is the biggest weight," she says.

Back in my London pod, I settle into my capsule and text my friends to let them know I've arrived safely after the night out. The extra £10 had bought the feeling, however temporary, of sleeping a little easier in a big city.

But it leaves me with a more fundamental question: should feeling safe be something travellers have to pay extra for at all?

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India is turning to ancient water systems as modern ones run dry

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260820-india-is-turning-to-ancient-water-systems-as-modern-ones-run-dry, 3 days ago

Water scarcity and climate change is driving communities to restore traditional water structures built centuries ago, bringing them back into use in the 21st Century.

In 2025, water from the Moosi Rani Sagar, a stepwell in the city of Alwar in Rajasthan, India, spilled over the footpath for the first time in more than 30 years.

The stepwell, a large storage tank where water is accessed through flights of steps, is part of a historic water-harvesting system built in the early 1800s. Until 2021, water levels in the stepwell, which covers around 1.3 acres (0.5 hectares), were inconsistent and heavily contaminated. Today, though, it holds water at depths of up to 30ft (9m). Vijay Sarswat, a 60-year-old Alwar resident, says it rarely drops below 20ft (6m) even in the driest months of the year.

The restored stepwell is a testament to the idea that some of the most useful tools for managing water in a warming, increasingly erratic climate are millennia old and half-buried in silt.

Across India, hundreds of communities are reaching the same conclusion. Once viewed as cultural relics, long abandoned ways of managing water are now being recognised as climate-resilient systems that functioned for over 1,000 years – and are ready to be brought back into working use.

Ancient structures

In recent years, India is increasingly looking to revive ancient water structures as a way to help address the country's looming water crisis. In Moosi Rani Sagar's case, it was a consortium of non-profits that set out to restore the system in 2021, hoping to combat severe water scarcity and rescue the 200-year-old heritage landmark.

It's just one example of what new investment can do when it engages with traditional infrastructure, rather than replacing it. India's revived systems have many names: baori, johad, kund, tanka, nadi – all traditional structures which supplied most of rural India for centuries, with many falling out of use only in the last 200 years. They all work differently but share one purpose: to slow water down, allowing it to percolate into the soil.

Baoris, or ancient stepwells – large scale tiers of carved stone with steps that descend down into the water table, allowing access to groundwater – are the most striking. Thousands of disused subterranean stepwells, built from the 7th to the mid-19th Centuries, famously dot India's landscape. From New Delhi to Jodphur, dozens have been restored in recent years.

India is home to 18% of the world's population but just 4% of its freshwater resources, much of it contaminated. The country pumps more groundwater – water stored in aquifers, replenished by the slow downward seep of rainfall – than any other nation, with groundwater supplying most of its rural drinking water and irrigation, supporting some 1.4 billion people. In some areas, though, far more water is extracted each year than is replenished by rainfall.

Climate change compounds the problem, with warmer air drying soils faster and making rainfall more intense – meaning more of what falls runs off before anything can soak in.

While modern open reservoirs like canals and dams can also help somewhat to restore groundwater, they are far less effective at doing so, and can lose water to the Sun at a surprisingly high rate. Open traditional structures like stepwells do not escape evaporation completely, but by helping to move water beyond reach of the Sun into aquifers they allow it to stay both cool and reachable by any well or handpump nearby.

Reviving a 'dark zone'

Stairwells are the most visually striking of India's ancient structures, though other far simpler designs are also proving invaluable.

For example, the revival of johads – simple, crescent-shaped earthen dams that hold monsoon runoff long enough for the water to percolate into the ground – has also seen strong results in addressing the water scarcity crisis in Alwar.

During British colonial rule, the johad network that once managed its landscape collapsed, as mining and logging stripped the forests above it and damaged its watershed. Deepening reliance on borewells drew water out without recharging it, and by the mid-1980s, rivers had dried up. Many men left to work in cities, leaving women and the elderly behind, and the government declared parts of it a "dark zone", meaning water extraction had passed what the aquifer was capable of replacing.

In 1985 Rajendra Singh, an Ayurvedic medicine practitioner, arrived in Alwar planning to set up a health clinic. But when locals in Gopalpura village told him water was a more urgent problem, he began building johads instead. The pilot project he set up worked almost immediately: when the 1986 monsoon arrived, the restored johad filled, and within the same season, wells across Gopalpura that had been dry for years had water again. Neighbouring villages saw what had happened and asked Tarun Bharat Sangh, the non-profit founded by Singh, to help them do the same.

The work spread. Between 1994 and 2007, more than 10,000 water harvesting structures were put up across Alwar, restoring perennial flow to five formerly seasonal rivers and benefiting some 250 villages. The Arvari River itself, dry outside the monsoon when Singh arrived, ran through the summer of 1996 for the first time in decades.

The revived practise scaled to more than 700 villages across Rajasthan, with communities rebuilding their gram sabhas – village-level general assemblies – alongside the previously abandoned earthworks.

Similar revivals are being seen across India. Marathwada, for example, in the western peninsular of India, sits on hard Deccan basalt rock that holds little groundwater and has to absorb what falls almost immediately or lose it to runoff. But a project in the late 2010s led more than 6,000 villages to build or restore their own soil and water conservation works, creating over 550 billion litres of storage, according to the non-profit Paani Foundation, which ran the initiative.

The contrast with local modern alternatives was visible. A borewell could extract water but not put it back; a canal brings water from a distant river but leaves the ground beneath the fields untouched. But johads, built by hand for a fraction of the cost of these, recharged the aquifer across the whole watershed – and kept doing so year after year.

A lost treasure

Many of these structures have survived in disuse for centuries. Researchers argue that while the structures remained, the British colonial administration in India dismantled the decentralised governance and water rights that maintained them. Nobody was left whose job it was to desilt them.

After independence, India invested heavily in modern infrastructure to extract and distribute water: large dams, canal networks and eventually electrified borewells. Inaugurating the Bhakra-Nangal canal system in 1954, Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru called such projects the temples of new India. But very little of that ambition went into putting the ever depleting groundwater back.

In recent years, though, policy has swung around. Building johads, tankas, baoris and kunds is part of the Indian government's 2019 push to ensure every rural home has its own clean water tap. Another government programme has built 69,000 village ponds. Nationally, recharge from tanks, ponds and conservation structures rose from 14 billion cubic metres in 2017 to 25 billion in 2024.

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In 2020, the Indian government set out its master plan for artificial recharge, which aims to direct rainwater and runoff back into the ground to replenish depleted aquifers, rather than letting it drain away. Its vision includes construction of 14 million rainwater harvesting and recharge structures, capable of capturing 185 billion cubic metres of monsoon rainfall. Many of the structures it describes already exist, dug centuries ago by hand.

Before the village where Varsha, 67, lives dug a johad, her well would run inconsistently through the dry months. Now it holds water year-round, she says. Varsha never used to speak in her village assemblies, but now she has become a vocal advocate for the structures. What is needed now, she says, is regular desilting and more structures besides, so nobody depends on a single source.

In fact, the knowledge of how important tankas and nadis were was never really lost in communities, says Pratap Moharana, a scientist at India's government desert research institution, the Central Arid Zone Research Institute (Cazri) in Jodhpur, because they often kept building them. What was lost was the political will to take it seriously.

Arun Krishnamurthy, the founder of the Environmentalist Foundation of India, part of the Moosi Rani Sagar stepwell restoration, has seen that gap from the inside. "No amount of money, technology or field effort can save stepwells," he says, "unless there is a strong civic discipline".

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Giant whales move into Greenland waters as ice disappears

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq6dn9gj7eno, 4 days ago

Sea ice has been disappearing from East Greenland, allowing giant whales to take advantage and move into previously inaccessible areas.

That is the conclusion of a decades-long study that has recorded - and filmed - hundreds of the world's biggest whales including humpbacks, minke and fin whales, feeding in ice-free seas along the coast in summer.

None of these marine mammals were historically found here as they have been locked out of the coastal waters by ice. Now, as climate change warms the sea and melts that ice, they have adapted.

Scientists describe the result as seasonal Arctic "feeding frenzies" - part of a major regime shift in the ocean environment along East Greenland.

The change is dramatic: ship-based surveys in the region did not record a single humpback whale sighting there until 2006.

In 2007, seven humpbacks were seen, and by 2024, there were 150 ship-based sightings of these giant whales.

The first systematic aerial surveys of baleen whales - a group that includes fin, minke and humpbacks - off the East Greenland coast were carried out by the researchers during the summers of 2015 and 2024.

They combined that information with the tracks of 15 satellite-tagged whales and testimony from Inuit hunters - all building a picture of what the lead researcher Prof Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen called a "major ecological regime shift".

An estimated 4,000 humpback whales, 6,000 fin whales and 6,000 minke whales visited the Greenland Sea in the summer of 2024.

Prof Heide-Jørgensen, from the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, told BBC News that the changes in the region were "probably the most radical we can see anywhere in the subarctic".

That shift is driven by rising sea temperatures and food availability. The whales appear to be feeding on fish that have moved into the warming waters of East Greenland.

They estimated that the three whale species would consume at least 800,000 tonnes of fish and krill during a summer feeding season.

It is not clear from this study whether the change reflects an overall increase in the populations of these whale species, or just a redistribution from other areas.

Other experts the BBC spoke to were concerned that the study suggested there was an influx of the animals from West Greenland. That is a sensitive issue in Greenland, a country where some whales are hunted.

But the scientists said that their findings do suggest that these "opportunistic" baleen whales appear to be adapting and might even be benefiting from the change.

Other Arctic species, however, are "in trouble now", explained Prof Heide-Jørgensen.

Animals including narwhals and belugas are sharing habitat with - or even being displaced by - these other whales.

"For some species, climate change is not necessarily a problem - it opens up new opportunities," said Prof Heide-Jørgensen, "but other species are losing their habitat".

The study is published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.

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How this 1960s ex-council house is managing to stay cool without air con

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg5l3z7p922o, 2 days ago

After five heatwaves and plenty of advice on how to stay safe in what is set to become the UK's hottest summer on record, many people continue to find it a challenge to stay cool - particularly in their homes.

This is perhaps no surprise. More than half of homes in the UK are already at risk of overheating and at current rates of climate change this will rise to 92% by 2050 if we do not adapt.

But in south London, on a 35C day, one 1960s ex-council house with no air-conditioning is managing to beat the heat.

Marion Baeli's home is one of many across the UK being adapted for warmer - maybe even 40C - British summers.

As well as being the homeowner, Baeli is an architect - and she compares her house to a well-insulated flask.

"You wouldn't put holes in your flask if you wanted to keep the ice in. You'd close the cap and make sure it is firmly twisted on. It's the same in this house."

When the BBC visit Baeli on the hottest day of this summer's fourth heatwave, her house is 10C cooler than outside.

"It feels like you have air-conditioning [inside the house] but you haven't. This is the beauty of the Passivhaus standard," she explains.

Passivhaus is an international building standard that was developed around 35 years ago in Germany. The concept is simple: design your home to keep the temperature constant at all times, by effectively sealing it against the elements.

It is estimated they consume up to 90% less energy than typical houses.

When the Baeli family moved in 10 years ago, their house had draughty PVC double-glazed windows with little insulation - they struggled to keep warm in the winter and overheated in the summer.

The most disruptive part of the retrofit work was carried out first, and included the insulation of shared walls, flooring and the roof.

The work also focused on getting rid of "thermal bridges" - which are parts of the home where heat is exchanged rapidly, such as where the insulation is broken up between rafters in your home.

Two years later, during the second phase of the works some cavity brick walls were replaced with "thinner, super-insulated" timber-framed walls, while new triple-glazed windows were installed to slow down the transfer of heat from outside.

With the house now air-tight, a ventilation system went in to ensure that the air inside the house was constantly kept fresh.

These measures work to prevent the temperature fluctuating inside the house - in winter and summer - so less energy is used.

In the colder months, one radiator is now sufficient to heat Baeli's four-bedroom home over three floor she says, because heat is not being lost.

Baeli estimates energy demand in her retrofitted house has gone down by 88%, giving her a yearly saving of nearly £750 on her bills.

The cost of retrofitting your home

But the Passivhaus Trust - for which Baeli is a non-executive director - acknowledges retrofitting your home to this standard is "expensive".

The total cost of the work Baeli carried out on her house was around £80,000, not including any additional costs for architectural work.

Baeli's priciest purchase, she calculates, were the windows at £30,000, while one of the cheapest measures was making the whole house airtight, which cost £5,000.

She says, like most people, she could not pay for everything at once and so decided to carry out the work in stages over ten years to spread the cost.

Although the house does prevent heat entering the home, it does need cooler air to start with.

As well as closing the windows and curtains during the day, Baeli says you need to ensure that "the sun doesn't hit the glass and create the glasshouse effect - to stop your home from overheating".

Outside in her garden she shows us dust sheets which have been hung up to cover the windows.

But if outdoor temperatures do not fall at night, as happened once during the June heatwave this summer, Baeli's house can remain hot. On that June evening, the nighttime temperatures was 27C so the house temperature remained at 27C, the highest Baeli has ever recorded in her home.

If such tropical nights occur again in the future, she says she might need to use air conditioning for a limited time to cool the house and then the Passivhaus measures can maintain that temperature.

Including Passivhaus measures in a building's initial design is much cheaper than trying to add them retrospectively.

According to the Passivhaus Trust, the additional construction cost associated with building to the standard range from 2% extra for flats up to 5% for a semi-detached house.

In March, the Future Homes Standard will come into force which will set higher building and energy performance requirements for new homes in England - taking the regulations closer to the Passivhaus standards.

In Scotland, consultations for a new building regulations "to deliver an equivalent to the Passivhaus standard" are ongoing, and the new guidelines could be published later next year.

Meanwhile, one of the country's largest housebuilders, Barratt Redrow is building a block of affordable and private flats in west London to the standard - complete with heat pumps to heat and cool the properties.

Oliver Novakovic, the company's technical and innovation director, explains that even though it will cost more to apply the standard, the 900-apartment Bollo Lane development is an experiment to "future-proof" the company and stay ahead of "continually increasing" regulations.

Around 1% of all new homes in the country are now built to the voluntary standard, and the Passivhaus Trust estimates this could grow to 10% in the next decade. But building these types of new homes can be challenging. In April, City of York Council struggled to attract interest from construction firms to build 315 homes to the standard due to market conditions and the complexity of building to such specifications.

Even if new Passivhaus homes can be constructed, it is estimated that 80% of the UK housing stock in 2050 already exists today, so millions of homes will have to be retrofitted to cope with rising temperatures.

There is a government support system to help those in low-income households install insulation and other measures, but after reports of botched work it will close later this year. The date when the replacement scheme will begin has not been announced.

Jay Morton, incoming President Elect of the Royal Institute of British Architects, told BBC Radio 4's Rare Earth programme that cost can be a barrier for many homeowners, but that even implementing half these measures can make a significant difference.

"You won't necessarily be able to insulate every single wall," Morton says, "but by even doing the 50% best is actually massive in terms of energy bills."

For those in homes which are not built to the Passivhaus standard, Baeli offers one simple piece of advice - shade your windows.

"It doesn't need to be sophisticated," she says, "whatever you can do, just absolutely shade your windows and you will definitely feel the difference in the summer months."

A rare baby sighting could reveal where life begins for world's largest sharks

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260817-the-giant-shark-that-seems-to-appear-from-nowhere, 6 days ago

How can a shark the size of a bus remain hidden from human eyes? Where baby whale sharks come into the world is unknown – but a precious newborn is shedding light on the secrets of where life begins for these giant fish.

Saleh Bay on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa is a near-perfectly enclosed cove, fed by a narrow channel that draws cool and rich water from the deep ocean. For the island community, this nourishing tide means a bay filled with mackerel and squid that they catch from floating structures, named bagans.

Locals fish by night, shining spotlights down into the water to attract fish into baited nets beneath the bagans. But on 6 September 2024, they alerted local scientists that they were not alone on the water.

Just after 04:30, they captured on video a whale shark lolling in the net, wide-mouthed with a charcoal body, spot-marked with white flashes like the night sky.

Whale sharks are the world's largest species of fish. But this individual, about 5ft (1.5m) in length, was not breaking any records. Estimated to be just four months old, it was about one-tenth the length of a full-grown adult. For marine scientist Mochamad Iqbal Herwata Putra, its modest size made it all the more exciting: this was the first neonatal whale shark to be discovered in Indonesia, one of just a few dozen ever documented by science.

Despite their massive size and presence in warm waters across the planet, no one has ever seen a whale shark mate or give birth. But this baby whale shark's appearance is one of the best clues yet that the elusive birthplace is close at hand.

Weighing as much as six elephants, a fully grown whale shark is the planet's largest cold-blooded animal, or ectotherm. As solitary wanderers spending much of their life traversing the Earth's open oceans, whale sharks were little studied by science until the late 20th Century. But by the 1990s, they were found to accumulate in seasonal groupings – sometimes as many as a few hundred – in particular coastal locations, such as off the coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

These regular gatherings allowed scientists to attach tracking tags to reveal their epic journeys, revealing how individuals can make globe-spanning migrations. One female swam a whopping 7,000km (5,000 miles). They have since become among the most intensively studied marine megafauna, says Ben D'Antonio, a research scientist at the Shark Research Foundation.

Enormous and enigmatic whale sharks carry "a sense of wonder", says D'Antonio. These giants have swum Earth's oceans for tens of millions of years. The newborn in Saleh Bay could yet roam the seas until the year 2150 – if we can find a way to manage the mounting threats it faces, including from climate change, fishing and shipping.

The discovery of a neonate gives us a "rare glimpse" into an early stage of life we almost never see, says Herwata Putra, a marine wildlife expert at the Jakarta-based nonprofit Konservasi Indonesia.

Whale sharks are attracted to Saleh Bay by the same abundant food that supports the bagan fishers. "There's a lot of krill because there's a mangrove ecosystem surrounding the bay," says Herwata Putra. For a juvenile whale shark, this is an ideal location to grow and gain weight with little effort, while also offering protection from predators like blue sharks that can easily eat a juvenile.

Herwata Putra suspects this sheltered cove could be a birthing ground and nursery area used in the first weeks of life. But we don't yet know if the whale shark began life here or – more likely – D'Antonio says "has come from somewhere and has chosen Saleh Bay".

One 'Megamamma' and other dotted clues

Finding a nursery ground is "a fundamental discovery", says D'Antonio, who applauds the grassroots collaboration that "amazing" Indonesian scientists like Herwata Putra have built with local fishers, many of whom previously feared or persecuted whale sharks. Such relationships and efforts to map important habitats could be vital to reversing the decline of whale sharks, he says.

Globally, whale shark populations have dropped by more than a half since the 1980s, and they are now classed as an endangered species. Today, across the planet, marine scientists are racing against time to find – and protect – such critical locations in the lifecycle of endangered whale sharks.

Our best clue in the search for a whale shark birth was found in 1995, in Taiwan, where marine scientists examined a 10m (33ft) specimen that had been harpooned by local fishers. This one female – dubbed "Megamamma" – revealed much of what we now know about whale shark reproduction.

Her two uteri contained 304 fertilised eggs and embryos, showing that whale sharks are ovoviviparous, meaning they hatch eggs inside their bodies and give birth to live, free-swimming pups. This was the largest number of young ever seen in any shark species.

A genetic analysis in 2010 confirmed all these offspring – at different stages of development – all belonged to one father – strong evidence that the mother had stored sperm and fertilised eggs over a period of time. Some remained in egg casings but 15 were large enough to survive, including two pups that were kept alive at aquariums in Japan and Taiwan.

Just 33 neonates have ever been recorded by science, and all have appeared across the tropics, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, from Pakistan to the Galapagos. In a recent paper, Freya Womersley, research scientist at Marine Biological Association, has attempted to find a pattern by comparing these locations to low oxygen zones, known as permanent oxygen minimum zones (OMZs).

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Newborn whale sharks are found in these areas more often than would be expected by random chance, says Womersley. "So – the fact that these neonate sightings are so rare, but when they are seen, they tend to share oceanographic conditions – it does get you thinking, is this just a coincidence, or is there some kind of strategy at play?"

The paper explores the tantalising possibility that whale shark mothers select these areas to provide a sort of oceanic cloak – hiding their newborns where predators will not go.

While the open ocean may look to us to be a great indivisible mass of water, deep sea-dwellers like whale sharks negotiate varied ocean layers – from lively surface waters to entirely oxygen-deprived regions below, explains Womersely. These oxygen-poor areas are avoided by many open ocean predators such as blue sharks and marlin, making a possible refuge for newborn whale sharks – with the added bonus that plankton often get stuck on the edge of low oxygen layers, providing an early life buffet for pups.

Although many mysteries remain in the reproductive lives of whale sharks, we are getting closer to answers, says Womersley, who is preparing to travel to Mexico to attach camera-equipped tags that shed more light: "I think it's only a matter of time before someone finds the right shark, puts the right device on it, the stars align, and we get that incredible footage," she says. "I say 'a matter of time' – how long that is, I do not know."

In the 1980s and '90s, hundreds of whale sharks were slaughtered each year for meat and fins – including Megamama, which was harpooned as part of a legal catch in Taiwan. Despite the species being listed as vulnerable to extinction in 2000, whale sharks were hunted well into this century, and reports of illegal fishing continue.

Today, these giants face divergent threats along their journeys across global oceans. In Saleh Bay, whale sharks have faced persecution from fishing communities who feared their enormous size and saw them as competitors for their catch, says Herwata Putra. But "the culture is shifting", he adds. Whale sharks are now a top attraction in a multimillion-dollar ecotourism industry and the younger generation are fast developing snorkelling and sightseeing opportunities around the bagans.

Konservasi Indonesia aims to establish a marine protected area in the north of the bay, which would be the first reserve established in Indonesia specifically for the protection of whale sharks.

Recognising and protecting these key refuges can make an outsize difference, Herwata Putra says. Of the 25 whale sharks that have been tagged in Saleh Bay, most spend the majority of their time in and around the bay, only occasionally venturing out, before returning to feast on the year-round food supply.

"This area is like home for the whale sharks," says Herwata Putra. "If we can protect this critical habitat, we can help the recovery of the regional population."

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Fire operation ends in New Forest after two weeks

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62q24vw434o, today

Firefighters are due to leave the New Forest later, two weeks after the outbreak of a devastating wildfire.

More than 1 sq km (247 acres) of the national park has been destroyed since the fire spread from a blazing van on 9 August.

On Saturday, the A31 dual carriageway between Southampton and Bournemouth was reopened, with a lane closure and speed limits in force.

Recent reports of smoke in the area are thought to be no more than dust and debris carried by the wind, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service (HIWFRS) said.

The fire destroyed ancient oak and beech trees, rare heathland and wildlife, Forestry England previously said.

The government agency said it would take decades for the environment to fully recover.

Fire crews from around the UK fought the blaze, which swept across heathland and woodland from the roadside verge.

Water was pumped to the blaze in the middle of the national park from a lake near Ringwood, five miles (8km) away.

Two off-road fire vehicles will monitor the area until Sunday evening, HIWFRS said.

It said the park was still vulnerable despite recent rainfall and urged visitors to heed a temporary ban on the sale of disposable barbecues.

In a statement, the service said: "We ask that you pack a picnic, avoid lighting campfires or bonfires, fully extinguish smoking materials and take your litter home with you."

Airport recognised for its sustainability work

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewree0qjddo, today

Jersey Airport has been recognised for its efforts to boost sustainability and reduce carbon emissions.

The airport has been awarded a Level 4 transformation status by Airport Carbon Accreditation, a global carbon management certification programme for airports.

Ports of Jersey said the recognition reflected its commitment to achieve net zero Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 2030.

Sophie Alexander, the airport's head of sustainability and community, said "it was a huge achievement" which showed "a fundamental shift" in the way the site operated.

Ports of Jersey said the accreditation recognised a number of initiatives which included changing vehicles and equipment, and converting its terminal heating to hydro-treated vegetable oil.

It said it had introduced a private and business aviation decarbonisation charge to help fund future carbon reduction projects and had invested in other energy efficiency measures including LED lighting and smart metering.

The Ports said it would continue to invest in low-carbon technologies.

Follow BBC Jersey on X and Facebook. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk.

Crews tackle grass fire alongside busy relief road

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8x8969z94o, today

Fire has destroyed an area of grassland alongside a relief road, with one lane closed to allow crews to tackle the flames.

Emergency services were called to the A354 Weymouth Relief Road at Littlemoor, Dorset, shortly after 15:00 BST on Saturday, where an area 330ft by 200ft (100m by 60m) was alight.

A lane closure was put in place to allow fire engines to park on the carriageway while crews from five stations and an off-road Land Rover tackled the flames using hose reel jets.

The fire was out shortly after 16:30 and Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service thanked drivers for their patience.

How a new era of heatwaves could shake up the school calendar

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp872m0grgyo, yesterday

Over the past two weeks, the sound of children has returned to Scotland's school playgrounds. Their summer breaks began in late June or early July and ended in mid-August.

It's an academic year replicated in other European countries too.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, however, children will not return until early September. Their holidays are a similar length to Scotland's but England and Wales schools did not break up until late July, something that meant pupils were in school during the peak of the early summer heat.

Or at least they were meant to be in school. While it was 30C or more outside, inside many classrooms it felt far hotter. With no air conditioning and limited ventilation, the heat became stifling and more than 1,000 schools across the UK either closed or sent pupils home early before the hottest part of the afternoon. Conditions were particularly challenging for GCSE and A‑level students sitting exams during extreme heat.

Baroness Brown, chair of the UK's Climate Change Adaptation committee, has warned that "we know high temperatures can significantly impair concentration and performance" of children in schools.

Back in February 2026, Ofsted's chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver said the timing of the school holidays should be reconsidered: "It's pretty hot usually in May, June and July, just at the point you're asking children to sit down and take an exam… so I think there is a need to have a good old look at it [the school year]."

The recent hot weather has seen some parents join his call. Andrea Bigger, a parent in London, is "absolutely aware of the dangers" of extreme heat in classrooms. She says her daughter has previously suffered from heat exhaustion and was hospitalised after overheating at her primary school. She is "really concerned that the UK is not ready or prepared for this".

And this summer was not a one off. BBC analysis of temperature data shows a clear shift. In the 1960s, the first 30C day was occurring on average on 13 July. In the 2020s that figure has been 19 June.

So, is it going to be increasingly difficult for schools to operate in the summer months? And is moving the school summer holidays the solution to ensuring pupils are able to be taught for as much of the year as possible?

Longer summer season

This summer is likely to become the hottest on record, according to the Met Office. Multiple temperature records have been broken with five widespread heatwaves and four consecutive months where the temperature has exceeded 35C. This has never happened before.

June saw one of the UK's most intense heatwaves, with up to seven consecutive days where temperatures were well above the official heatwave thresholds of 25-28C - just as the exam period was in full swing. Temperature records were broken too: 38C was recorded in Lingwood, Norfolk on 26 June, the hottest June day ever measured in the UK.

The Met Office issued a red extreme heat warning at the end of June, while the UK Health Security Agency has issued multiple amber warnings over the last few months. The heat then continued into July, with heatwave conditions felt widely for most of the month.

Schools struggled to cope, with some closed declaring "heat days" as temperatures in classrooms became too high for children to concentrate. These kinds of disruptions, or heat days, could become more likely as human-induced climate change brings hotter summers and more frequent heatwaves.

Summer heat is arriving earlier. Will Lang, chief meteorologist at the Met Office, says the "de facto 'hot season' in the UK is lengthening, with increasing prevalence of hot weather - including heatwaves – in May and September in addition to the standard meteorological summer of June, July and August".

It's one sign of a warming climate reshaping the pattern and timing of UK summers.

Poorer performance in hotter schools

According to a study conducted by the Met Office and University College London, students could lose an estimated 8.2 days of learning a year on average due to extreme heat, if average global average temperatures rise to more than 2C above pre-industiral levels - as many scientists believe will happen on current trajectories.

In the meantime, teachers are left to deal with the consequences.

Steve Chalke, founder of Oasis Academy, which runs more than 50 schools across England, says the heatwaves were a "real inhibitor" to teaching. One of the most difficult challenges came when the Met Office issued the red extreme heat warning at the end of June, suggesting potential "danger to life".

He says headteachers were forced into difficult decisions. "What do you do as a headteacher? How can they run a school safely if the national weather service is warning to travel only if essential and make every effort to stay cool. What if a student or member of staff collapses due to the heat and you're accountable for why you opened the school and didn't take your duty of care seriously?"

And with Met Office predictions of more extreme weather, higher summer temperatures, and more frequent, prolonged heatwaves, these types of questions are likely to only become more prevalent.

Rebecca Martin is concerned about her son taking GCSE exams in a few years' time in potentially increasingly hot weather. She thinks there needs to be "some serious considerations to the school year to reflect the changing climate or better investment in schools to give them air conditioning".

And there is growing evidence to support her worries. The recent Well-Adapted UK report from the Climate Change Committee suggested that taking an exam on a 32C day leads to around a 10% lower likelihood of passing, compared to sitting the same exam at 22C.

Baroness Brown told the BBC that "as heatwaves become more frequent and intense, it is unacceptable that children are expected to sit high-stakes exams in halls that were not designed for these conditions".

Many of us are familiar with a "snow day" in the winter, when snow can make it very difficult for staff and students to get into school. While there is no legal minimum temperature, the National Education Union says classrooms should be kept above 18C. Heat days are a newer concept - and there are no specified maximum temperatures for a classroom.

A 2024 study published in the journal Climate Risk Management suggested that any temperature above 24C can compromise learning. It also found a decline in student performance ranging from 2% to 12% for each degree increase in classroom temperature.

Setting a temperature benchmark of 26C as the upper "comfortable limit" in a classroom, the authors of the study went on to suggest that the average school currently reaches this limit 59 days of the year in England. That would increase to 71 days with 2C of warming.

In "at-risk" schools where there is no suitable ventilation or where newer buildings have lower ceilings, there would be 75 days where the "comfortable 26C classroom temperature would be breached".

In hotter European countries such as France and Spain, local authorities have extreme heat guidelines that trigger timetable changes or school closures when conditions become too hot. It's a model some argue the UK may need to consider as the UK summer continues to change.

The impact of shifting holidays

While extreme heat or heatwaves can still occur in May and June - or indeed in late August or early September, by which time it's proposed pupils would have returned to class - breaking up for summer at the end of June could reduce the amount of disruption schools face from the hottest conditions heading into the peak of summer.

And while this August has also been hot and dry, some parents argue that an earlier break would be better aligned with the UK's typically warmer and drier mid-summer weather. Rebecca Martin says she'd like to be able to "make the most of the more guaranteed summer-like weather in July" planning to spend more time outdoors in a UK staycation rather than going abroad to parts of Europe where the "heat is getting even more extreme and unpleasant".

Europe is the fastest-warming continent, with temperatures rising at around twice the global average. Like the UK, European heatwaves are becoming hotter, more frequent and longer.

Staycations in the UK could become even more popular. According to 2024 research by Mintel, more than half of UK holidaymakers say they are likely to choose to holiday at home rather than abroad for climate-related reasons. Meanwhile, some 28% say higher UK temperatures are encouraging them to take domestic holidays.

What remains to be seen is how any changes to the school summer holiday could affect the price tag. Aligning the holiday period more closely with Scotland and other countries means there could be more demand in late June and July, potentially pushing the traditional price peak earlier in the year.

Other changing holiday habits - such as avoiding the peak of the summer heat and extreme temperatures in southern Europe - will also play a role.

In a recent national survey by InsureandGo, more than seven in 10 UK holidaymakers thought some European countries like Spain, Greece or Turkey would be too hot to visit in the summer months by the end of the decade.

As travel journalist Simon Calder has said: "A significant shift in holiday habits could push up the cost of a domestic holiday.

"If more people decide to stay in the UK, and others come to Britain because it is more climatically appealing, the rise in demand would trigger price increases. But there are always locations where you can get reasonable deals."

Long-term plans are required

In England, term dates are determined by school employers - for maintained state schools, that's their local authority. Other schools, including academies, free schools, foundation schools and voluntary-aided schools, can set their own term dates.

However, any changes to the school holiday or academic year would likely require national‑level discussion and leadership, rather than decisions made by individual schools.

Steve Chalke of Oasis Academy suggested there needs to be a national plan with clear guidance for schools facing increasingly hot conditions in our warming climate.

"We're all accustomed to 'snow days' but we now need to properly think and prepare for 'heat days' too," he says. And "without doubt we need to rethink the school year".

For some parents, though, the answer isn't about changing the school holidays but making the school buildings more climate-resilient for the future.

Gemma Beake, a parent of two boys at a school in Bristol, suggests that if schools can be made cooler and have investment with air conditioning, they will be "safer places than a lot of homes and flats where we have the same problem of overheating".

British summers will always be variable, and no two years will be exactly alike. But the direction of travel is becoming clearer. Hot weather is arriving earlier, lasting longer and increasingly testing our school buildings that were designed and built in a past climate.

While headteachers can implement changes to uniform - as many did this year - so that PE kit could be worn instead of traditional uniform, for many it's the buildings that need adapting to the changing climate of today and especially the future.

But either upgrading infrastructure to climate resiliant schools or modifying the academic year would need institutional change with the possibility of a lot of investment. And both would take many years to implement.

For parents, teachers and school leaders however, changes are needed as soon as possible. As Steve Chalke puts it: "We need the government to come up with a short-term plan for the next few years."

This may simply mean better guidance during "heat days" and on when it is appropriate to shut schools, as with "snow days". Or just being more flexible - allowing schools to open earlier and finish earlier in the day to avoid a peak in temperatures.

Welsh county becomes global hotspot for carbon emissions after wildfires

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp9e9rg255vo, yesterday

A county in Wales had one of the world's highest carbon emissions per square kilometre due to wildfires in July, according to a charity.

The fire above Blaenavon, Torfaen was described as "one of the largest and most challenging" in south Wales in recent years by the fire service.

Save the Children said it was concerned about possible health consequences after data published by the European Union's earth observation programme, Copernicus, showed Torfaen behind Malanje in Angola, Spain's Ávila and Annaba in Algeria in terms of wildfire emissions in July.

Torfaen council said it was unaware of the EU data but its own air quality monitoring showed "elevated particulate concentrations".

A blaze the size of about 300 football pitches broke out on Mynydd Garnclochdy, between Abersychan and Blaenavon, with people reporting smelling smoke about 30 (48km) miles away in Cardiff.

Combined with others across the region it contributed to a major incident being declared, which eventually required assistance from the military.

Blaenavon councillor Janet Jones said the smoke had been "particularly bad" on 13 August - about three weeks after the fire first ignited.

"There was great concern about air quality and the impact on elderly people and those suffering with respiratory issues such as emphysema and COPD."

Jones said she had spoken with GP practice nurses two weeks ago and was not aware of any increase in patients complaining about respiratory problems, but added this "could change in the months ahead".

Melanie Simmonds, head of Save the Children Wales, said: "In Wales and across the world, children are breathing in smoke from wildfires, coping with extreme heat and losing the freedom to play outdoors because the air is no longer safe.

"These conditions are not only frightening - they carry serious health consequences for children whose bodies and lungs are still developing."

Torfaen council said it was not aware of the research and "it is not clear what data or evidence was used in the assessment to arrive at the reported conclusion".

It said it "recognises that prolonged wildfire incidents have the potential to adversely affect local air quality, particularly through increased levels of smoke and particulate matter".

It added it "continuously monitors" air quality through a monitoring station in Croesyceiliog Cwmbran.

"While elevated particulate concentrations have been observed during the wildfire period, the council's monitoring station is intended to provide information on general background air quality rather than conditions at specific locations immediately adjacent to the fires," it said.

The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) website said it was part of European Union's Space programme, and provided global information related to air pollution and health.

Its data said emissions in Torfaen had been "extremely unusual".

Wildfire-hit residents remove Greenpeace mural of Burnham from scorched mountain

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn7n0yvpm7vo, 3 days ago

Residents affected by wildfires say they were left "angry and upset" after a mural of Prime Minister Andy Burnham was painted on a blackened mountainside above their homes.

Dubbing it an "intrusion into grief" two walkers removed Greenpeace's work with rakes.

The campaign group's 1,120-sq-m anti-oil and drilling image showed Burnham holding an oil drum and the words: "Our house is on fire Andy."

Greenpeace said the work, in Capelulo, Conwy, had not been meant to upset people but to "draw attention to the escalating climate crisis".

In July about 200 acres of land was affected by wildfires with North Wales Fire and Rescue Service declaring it a major incident.

The blaze came within yards of destroying properties - with 36 homes evacuated.

Hairdresser Allie Evans was among those who had to leave.

When pictures of Greenpeace's mural emerged on Monday she went up the mountain to see it.

The 53-year-old said: "I can't remember having been so angry and upset all at once.

"It was so disrespectful to the landscapes. It was also an intrusion into local grief, which is how we felt when we came back home to see the mountain so utterly changed.

"It added insult to injury. I couldn't understand how an organisation that wants to protect the environment, can graffiti the earth and stain rocks which are millions of years old."

A banner would have delivered Greenpeace's message just as easily, without affecting the environment, Evans said.

She and Rhos-on-Sea resident, Dean Ward, went to remove the paint.

Evans said: "We were concerned a lot of people would want to go up the mountain to see the graffiti, and the hillside would get trashed."

She said Greenpeace had painted over rocks and soil, staining them.

"Had we not done anything, it would have been there for a long time," Evans said.

The pair had broken up the paint and raked flakes into the soil, but Evans said some parts were "baked" so it had been difficult to do so.

"So you can still see stripes on the site, if not the overall graffiti."

Ward told Greenpeace online he had taken "great pleasure" in removing its work, adding: "Thought Greenpeace was all about leave no trace and you do this to the mountain side."

Bangor Conwy Môn Senedd member, Janet Finch-Saunders, accused the group of "environmental vandalism", saying burnt hillsides should not be used "as a canvas for political protest".

Greenpeace UK's co-executive director, Areeba Hamid, said: "Our artwork was not intended to disturb [people's] grief but to draw attention to the escalating climate crisis that's putting these beautiful places and communities at risk.

"We took great care to minimise our impact on the land. The artwork was temporary by design: created with a water-based paint often used on sports turf and safe for grass, plants and soil.

"It was applied to an area where the fire had already burned away all living vegetation, leaving just rocks and ash."

The threat, Hamid said, had not been "a dab of water-based paint" but "extreme weather driven by fossil fuels".

She added: "We wanted to challenge the system that caused this damage and send a vital message to the prime minister: the science shows that more oil and gas drilling means more communities left to cope with the devastation brought by heat, droughts and wildfires."

'I've caught one fish all season' - how a polluted river could end 300 years of coracle fishing

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewr9evwdwko, 3 days ago

It is a centuries-old tradition in Wales, but coracle fishers on a major river have said pollution has meant there are "no fish" left.

Testing by campaign group Save the River Tywi showed evidence of industrial, agricultural and human waste pollution, with fishers saying they often see dead fish bobbing up and down in the water.

One fifth-generation coracle fisherman described the situation in Carmarthenshire as "dire" after only catching one fish in the three-month season between May and July.

Natural Resources Wales (NRW) said it took all reports of pollution seriously and had "a number of ongoing enforcement and compliance investigations within the Tywi catchment".

The tradition of coracle fishing has been part of life on the Tywi for centuries.

Typically done at night, fishermen use small rounded boats with nets cast among them to catch salmon and sewin [sea trout].

It was once an important livelihood in west Wales, but today it is mostly a heritage tradition, rather than a full-time source of income.

US President Jimmy Carter even loved fishing in these rivers, but according to fishermen, recent pollution has made it impossible.

Chairman of Carmarthen Coracle and Netsman Association, Andrew Davies, said he thought the four coracle men on the Tywi had caught 12 fish among them in the whole of the 2026 season when, a few years ago, "you'd catch that many in a night".

Keith Elias's family have been fishing on the river for 300 years - he said he had only caught one fish this season.

"It's been in my family for so long, I love carrying the tradition on, but it's getting to the point where you get to the end of the season and you're not hitting fish.

"You just don't want to go."

Last year, the nearby River Teifi had been noted as one of the UK's most polluted rivers, with 2,232 spills lasting more than 22,000 hours recorded in 2024.

It has been reported that some incidents of pollution were made by Welsh Water.

The company said it would invest £889m on storm overflows between 2025 and 2030, including six projects to reduce their impact on the Tywi.

It added: "We are determined to play our part to improve river water quality on the Tywi, but this isn't just an issue for water companies, collaboration is needed across sectors, including industry and agriculture, to ensure improvements."

Local people have also shared videos online of discharge across the river, which they claim appear to be from a nearby electronics recycling company Mekatek.

The company has a discharge licence from NRW.

Mekatek said it shared concerns about the drop in sewin and had spent more than "40 years developing and improving our processes to ensure we are not a factor in that reduction".

It added: "Anyone wishing to understand what we do and how well we do it is more than welcome to arrange to visit the site and view our operations for themselves."

Davies, 63, said this year's season had been "a write-off"

"I've been fishing for 38 years, I've never seen a season as bad as this," he said.

"When I first started, this river was black with fish, it was alive with fish. But it's gone now - there's no life in the river."

He said only four fishing licences had been taken out this year, compared with 12 when he started: "People have just, I won't say given up, but the enthusiasm's gone."

He said that the bad smell coming from the river "doesn't help" and he and others had reported cases of pollution to NRW "all the time", but "nothing seems to be done".

"I think something needs to be done to clean the rivers up in Wales, people have been dodging the bullet," he said.

Citizen scientists on behalf of Save the River Tywi, who have been conducting tests on the river, said there had been evidence of pollution coming from farms, companies based along the river and people.

Mayor of Carmarthen Russell Sparks said the river had been in a "really tough situation".

He added: "Over the last couple of years it's been really sad to see it, feel it and smell it."

Sparks said the smell was a combination of pollutants and algae blooms "creating this negative cycle".

In July the annual Tywi River Festival had to be cancelled because of the pollution, which Sparks said left people "absolutely devastated".

The mayor of Carmarthen automatically takes up the ancient role of Admiral of the Port and Sparks said it "breaks his heart" that his time in the role may see the end of coracle fishing.

With fishermen only catching "six sewin last year, there's a strong possibility that they won't take up their licenses next year".

Carmarthenshire MP Ann Davies wants "firmer action taken" against those who "constantly pollute the river".

She also said - as someone who farms herself - farmers have a responsibility to not pollute the river, along with people and businesses.

"We have a collective responsibility on what we buy, what we flush down the toilet."

Huwel Manley, head of south-west operations for NRW, said "Like many rivers, the Tywi faces a range of environmental pressures, including pollution and is also impacted by the current dry weather conditions which are seeing an increase in the water temperature along with wider ecological challenges.

"We take all reports of suspected pollution seriously. We currently have a number of ongoing enforcement and compliance investigations within the Tywi catchment, including cases that are progressing towards court proceedings."

The Welsh government said: "The Tywi is one of Wales' most important rivers, supporting internationally important habitats and species, local communities, recreation and cultural traditions such as coracle fishing."

It had been "aware of recent concerns regarding foam, odours and discolouration in the River Tywi" and "NRW have investigated and confirmed the impacts were linked to natural environmental conditions".

It said NRW had been investigating a separate potential source of pollution entering the Tywi and as those investigations remain ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment further.

The meds that can make the heat harder to handle

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260819-the-medications-that-can-make-the-heat-harder-to-handle, 4 days ago

Some of the most prescribed medications, including those used to treat depression, ADHD and high blood pressure, can increase the risk of dehydration and other heat-related conditions.

This year, at the height of Europe's June heatwave, Ileana Okumus couldn't understand why she was struggling so much more than other people.

"As soon as I left my apartment, my face started to sweat," she says. Living in a top-floor Brussels apartment without air conditioning, the 28-year-old sought relief wherever she could find it – the office, local cafes. But it wasn't enough.

"I had to wait half an hour, an hour, before I cooled down," she says. "There was one particular day when the temperature inside the apartment reached 34C [93F]. I think I slept around 18 hours." She found it difficult to wake up, and worried that her blood pressure might have dropped.

The intensity of the heatwave was nothing new for Okumus, who has lived through 40C [104F] summers elsewhere in the world. Yet it was the first time the heat had hit her this hard. Only after seeing social media posts from people with similar symptoms did she make the connection between the heat and the medicines she'd started taking two years ago for depression and anxiety.

As heatwaves become more frequent and severe as a result of climate change, doctors and health organisations are warning that some of the most commonly taken drugs – including psychiatric, blood pressure and heart medications – can interfere with the body's ability to regulate its temperature, and are putting people at risk of heat-related illness.

Mental health drugs in the heat

Many types of drugs used to treat mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder, are known to increase heat vulnerability due to how they interact with the hypothalamus, the brain's thermoregulation centre.

"This area of the brain gets us to reduce our activity, to sweat more, to reduce our metabolism – all beneficial adaptations to heat," says Robert Feder, a retired psychiatrist based in New Hampshire and member of the steering committee for the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health.

That includes the most widely prescribed antidepressants, SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) and SNRIs (serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors). Drugs in these classes include sertraline, fluoxetine, escitalopram and venlafaxine. They function by blocking the brain's reuptake of serotonin, a naturally occurring chemical that regulates mood and other bodily functions.

Too much serotonin in the hypothalamus can disrupt thermoregulation and cause excessive sweating. This affects around one in five people taking antidepressants and can lead to dehydration and electrolyte loss.

"That becomes a compounded problem when you're already dehydrated because of high temperatures," says Feder.

Tricyclic antidepressants, an older type of antidepressant, can also trigger sweating – or suppress it instead, also a problem since it reduces heat elimination and raises body temperature. These antidepressants have an "anticholinergic" effect, meaning they block activity of a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, which is involved in many different bodily functions including sweat production.

The combined effects of taking three different psychiatric medications – an antidepressant, a mood stabiliser and ADHD medication – have taken a toll this summer on Caroline Fraissinet, a 36-year-old career coach in Los Angeles. In the middle of an unusually long, humid heatwave in July, she found herself losing focus, feeling more irritable and sweating more than usual.

At first, she put her symptoms down to poor diet and not drinking enough water. Then a friend from her mental health support group sent her articles connecting heat and medication, and others in the group said they had noticed the same challenges. "As well informed as I am about my mental health conditions and the side effects [of my medications], this was one I just didn't know," she says.

Other types of psychiatric medicines can also have an impact. Antipsychotics, used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, block dopamine in the hypothalamus, which prevents normal responses that would cool the body. Studies of previous heatwaves have linked antipsychotic use to a higher chance of mortality. Stimulants used to treat ADHD, like Ritalin, increase heat production and cause constriction of the blood vessels, which disrupts the body's natural cooling process. They can also mask exertion, meaning people may not realise they are overheating, says Feder.

From beta blockers to diuretics

But it's not just psychiatric medicines that can increase vulnerability to heatwaves. Blood pressure and heart medicines are another group of drugs that affect heat sensitivity.

Diuretics, ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitors and ARBs (angiotensin II receptor blockers), commonly used to treat high blood pressure, can increase the risk of electrolyte imbalances. The latter two can also interfere with the hormone that normally triggers thirst.

"With that combined impact, you can get really severely dehydrated to the point where it increases your risk of renal failure, a heart attack, or one of many other severe organ impacts," says Logan Harper, a family physician and assistant fellowship director of the University of Colorado Anschutz's climate and health programme.

Beta blockers, meanwhile, a common cardiac medicine, can limit blood flow to the skin, meaning the body can't release heat as effectively. And besides tricyclic antidepressants, the other types of anticholinergic drugs – used to treat a wide range of conditions like Parkinson's disease, overactive bladder, respiratory disorders and allergies – can all affect the body's sweating and cooling mechanisms.

"A lot of times people are on multiple medications that can both interrupt their ability to cool down and increase their susceptibility to organ damage," says Harper. This is especially the case for older adults, who are also more prone to heat illness in general, he adds.

Even milder heat could be being made more of an issue by some medicines: a study of older patients in the US taking medications, including diuretics, antipsychotics, beta blockers, stimulants and anti-hypertensives, concluded that older patients may be at heightened risk for heat-related hospitalisation in the summer even in the absence of heatwaves. People over the age of 65 are also more likely to be taking multiple medications.

"It's a given that combinations of those medicines have increased risk beyond just taking one at a time," says Harper. However, it's not yet well understood which drug combinations pose the greatest danger, he adds.

More like this:

• What science says about staying cool in a heatwave

• The world is getting hotter - this is what it's doing to our brains

• The unexpected tricks for cooling pets in the heat

Socioeconomic factors also affect risk. "Someone might have a manual labour job that exposes them to a lot of heat, or they might even live outside," says Harper. "Or maybe you live in an urban heat island, and you can't afford air conditioning." (Urban heat islands are densely populated areas with few trees and large areas of dark concrete that absorb heat.)

Cecilia Ahanonu, an emergency medicine physician assistant and assistant professor at Touro University in southern Nevada, recently witnessed this firsthand. During a community health outreach event in Las Vegas, when temperatures were around 43C [109C], she met a man in his 60s who was sleeping in a park. "He looked pale, was sweating profusely, and had a high heart rate," she says.

The man, who was taking a diuretic and an SSRI, didn't realise how overheated he was. "He did what most any of us would do and attributed his symptoms to the extreme heat," says Ahanonu. But as she asked more questions, another possible cause emerged: his medication.

Ahanonu advised him on basic heat safety – drinking more water, avoiding the Sun during peak hours – and gave him a list of nearby cooling centres. She also warned him about more serious symptoms to watch out for which could indicate heat stroke – a potential medical emergency.

"Any altered mental state or confusion, or if someone's not acting like themselves, you would want to take the person immediately to the nearest emergency room," she says.

A better awareness

Doctors caution against stopping medicines without first seeking medical advice. Harper says he would like to see better training and awareness of the heat and medicines' connection among doctors themselves.

"I think every time a physician prescribes a new medication, they should take a minute to list some of the highest risk side effects," he says. "There are certain medications, especially in high-risk populations, where heat-related illness should be included in that."

For Okumus, her experience this summer has made her rethink whether she even wants to be on medication at all. "I started thinking more seriously about going to my doctor and dropping it completely because I can't work or live my life like this during summer," she says.

Fraissinet, though, hasn't considered coming off her medicine. "The medication works really well for me," she says. Just knowing that this is a side effect of her medicines, rather than something else physically wrong, has put her at ease, she says.

"It signals to me, OK, this is a real thing – rather than just a random occurrence," she says. "That in and of itself has helped a lot."

* All content within this article is provided for general information only and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of health care professionals. The BBC is not responsible or liable for any diagnosis or actions taken by a user based on the content of this site. The BBC is not liable for the contents of any external internet sites listed, nor does it endorse any commercial product or service mentioned or advised on any of the sites. Always consult your own GP if you're in any way concerned about your health or the health of your child.

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AI to help planes avoid climate-warming 'sky graffiti'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62em5lpvnjo, 6 days ago

We've all looked up and seen the white lines trailing behind aircraft in the sky.

Known as contrails, these icy clouds contribute to climate change, and scientists have been trying to work out how to stop them.

Now, a £5m UK trial will test whether AI can help, by predicting where warming contrails are likely to form and getting planes to avoid those areas.

It will focus on the Shanwick Oceanic airspace in the eastern half of the North Atlantic corridor which accounts for approximately 5% of global contrail warming.

The 30-month Operation Blue Skies project brings together Google, the UK government, the Met Office, air traffic control provider National Air Traffic Services (NATS) and researchers at the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London.

Contrails - also known as vapour trails - are made when the hot exhaust from aircraft engines meets the cold air at high altitude, creating ice crystals.

Many disappear quickly, but in particularly cold and humid conditions they can persist and spread, forming clouds which trap heat that would otherwise escape from the Earth.

Dr Paul Hodgson, Google's technical lead for the operation, told the BBC's Tech Life programme his five-year-old has a more colourful description for the white lines - "sky graffiti".

"We think that contrail warming is responsible for something like a third of all aviation climate warming," he said.

Dr Hodgson acknowledged there was uncertainty around the precise figure, but said scientists were confident it was "either quite a large problem or a very large problem".

The project also comes as the government backs expansion of UK airports, raising the wider question of whether tech solutions can sufficiently reduce aviation's environmental impact as demand for flying grows.

Google is also one of many big tech companies spending billions on new data centres - the giant, power-hungry banks of computer chips which power AI - which environmentalists are concerned will contribute even more to climate change.

The idea behind the trial is that if scientists can predict the areas of the atmosphere where contrails are likely to form, aircraft could avoid them.

Google will use satellite images and flight data to identify where planes have previously produced contrails.

This is then combined with weather patterns to forecast where the conditions for new contrails are likely to occur.

The information will be passed to NATS, where air traffic controllers can direct pilots to avoid those areas.

Rather than dramatically changing the route of a flight, the trial will mostly involve changing an aircraft's altitude by around 2,000ft.

This is something which already happens routinely to avoid turbulence and bad weather so passengers are unlikely to notice.

Ian Jopson, director of sustainability at NATS, said it should be "pretty much business as usual using existing procedures for the operators on the North Atlantic".

Testing will take place during selected evenings and nights in the winters of 2026-27 and 2027-28, when air traffic is lower.

Around 10,000 flights are expected to pass through the airspace during the trial periods, although only a fraction will need to change altitude specifically to avoid contrails.

The Department for Transport is providing £2.65m towards the programme, while Google is contributing £1.4m through AI research, engineering and computing infrastructure.

A net climate benefit?

Aviation Minister Keir Mather said the project would test "small tweaks to flight paths over the Atlantic" which could help make flying cleaner.

"This is a world-first, and it's British ingenuity leading the way," he said.

Changing the altitude of an aircraft can mean it burns more fuel, raising an obvious question - could avoiding contrails simply create additional carbon emissions elsewhere?

Hodgson said previous trials suggested the additional fuel use was much smaller than the climate benefit of preventing a warming contrail.

"The CO2 penalty is in the order of less than 1%, compared to the contrail cost, which is of a similar order magnitude to all of the CO2 of aviation," he said.

Modelling for Operation Blue Skies suggests a full deviation through Shanwick would mean around 100kg of additional fuel per affected aircraft.

Previous airline-level trials have achieved reductions of around 60-70% in contrail formation or warming, according to Hodgson.

The results of Operation Blue Skies are expected to be published in academic literature and opened to wider scientific scrutiny.

'Worrying' heat brings rare birds to Yorkshire

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0nj16ggyko, 6 days ago

A flock of rare black-crowned night herons have migrated to a North Yorkshire nature reserve after the recent heatwaves pushed them away from mainland Europe.

Bolton-on-Swale Nature Reserve is currently hosting one of the UK's largest flocks of the birds, with one also spotted at North Cave Wetlands Nature Reserve near Hull for a third consecutive year.

Jonathan Leadley from the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust said they were finding "more and more of these birds pushing north looking for suitable places to live".

He said while it was great that the reserve could provide a home for the species, it was "incredibly worrying" as it was a sign that climate change was having a really big impact on wildlife.

The black-crowned night heron is smaller than the more commonly seen grey heron, and is most active at night, roosting during the day and then waking around dusk to hunt for food.

According to the trust, the flock of six moved to Bolton-on-Swale as excessive heat and drying wetlands across the Continent pushed them northward.

"A lot of those traditional wetlands in the south of Europe, places like southern Spain, northern Italy, where night herons are native and are common, they're starting to lose their habitat," he said.

"If they lose their habitat they can't feed, which means their breeding is unsuccessful."

After their "increasing" numbers each year, Leadley said it looks like the birds are starting to colonise.

According to the trust, they breed mainly in continental Europe, heading south of the Sahara in autumn and often spending winters in Sub-Saharan and West Africa.

Despite the reasoning for their visit, the sight is bringing "real joy for Yorkshire birders", with people travelling from across the area to try catch a glimpse.

Leadley said "early and late" are the best times to see them, but "there is a chance during the rest of the day if you look hard in the willow trees."

Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.

The controversial story of the North American raccoons wreaking havoc in Germany

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260814-the-true-story-of-how-germany-became-overrun-with-north-american-raccoons, 8 days ago

Germany's raccoons are loved by some, despised by others. Once alleged to have been introduced by a Nazi commander, many elements of the raccoons' story have been wildly misunderstood.

In Germany, raccoons often live up to their outlaw reputation. Labelled "bandits", thanks to the distinctive black strip across their eyes, they have regularly made headlines for breaking into major hospitals, zoos and power stations, leaving a trail of destruction behind.

"They're really clever, they're able to climb everything," says wildlife ecologist Berit Michler of Germany's Thünen Institute. To some, they've become known as "smart, tricky, evil animals".

But scientists say it's time to sort myth from fact around Germany's raccoons. The urban legend goes that they were introduced to the country by Nazi commander and war criminal Hermann Göring. Yet archival research and modern ecological studies now tell a different story – one that does more justice to these charismatic opportunists, who thrive in remote forests and urban backyards alike.

The true origin story of Germany's raccoons

Germany's raccoons were long rumoured to have a dark past, beginning in the area near the city of Kassel in central Germany, where raccoons are now a part of daily life.

"It was a common narrative among tourist guides, local politicians and larger parts of the population that Hermann Göring himself ordered the release of the raccoons in the wild," says Eberhard Leicht, the former head of the Vöhl Forestry Office in central Germany. "Some people even believed Göring had personally attended the process."

Although local forestry officials cast doubt on the stories, this view spread, says Leicht. As the rumour reached as far as the English Channel, "raccoons finally made headlines in the British tabloid press", he recalls.

Leicht set out, using archival research, to see what really happened. He found that an application was indeed made to the Prussian hunting office to release two pairs of North American raccoons near the Edersee, a reservoir near the city of Kassel, to "enrich the fauna". The application was made during the time that Göring was in charge of forestry and hunting, but Leicht found no sign that Göring had been personally involved.

"There is no indication anywhere that politicians – such as Göring, as a member of the Nazi Reich government – had any influence on the decision," says Leicht. "The file clearly shows that the entire process was merely an administrative matter."

As Alain Frantz, zoology curator at the Luxembourg Museum of Natural History, summarises: "The particular Nazi aspect, I think that's a British obsession."

In the end, Leicht's archival research showed that the raccoons were let loose before an application was signed. One morning in April 1934, the records show, the animals were released from two crates to the south side of Lake Edersee near Vöhl, around 50km (30 miles) to the south-west of Kassel. This population grew and grew.

Today, Kassel has been called the "raccoon capital of Europe", with an estimated urban population of around 30,000 of the animals.

Raccoons on the run

The Lake Edersee raccoons were the first to take tentative steps into the wild in Europe. But more would soon follow.

When Frantz began researching raccoons in 2011, he was already aware of another release, believed to have occurred in the dying days of the Third Reich, when Allied bombers hit a Brandenburg fur farm.

Frantz was keen to understand if today's population really sprang from just those two small starter populations. Such a tiny group could lead to severe genetic abnormalities as numbers grew, due to inbreeding.

By sampling the DNA of more than 400 raccoons across Germany, Frantz found evidence of two further significant releases, leading to populations with different gene pools in eastern Saxony, near the Czech border, and in the Harz Mountains, in northern Germany.

The German population is known to have spread across borders, with documented crossings into the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Switzerland. In Central Europe, the population had grown 300% between the 1990s and 2018, expanding into new territory in cities and forests. They have been found as far afield as Spain, Sweden and Greece. There have also been ongoing escapes from captivity across Europe, including from an Italian zoo in the early 2000s.

"Generally speaking, they're quite good at escaping," says Frantz.

Are they a 'plague'?

Where raccoons go, a certain type of chaos typically follows. In Germany, they've helped themselves to mulled wine sold at German Christmas markets, leaving one animal staggering around the city of Erfurt "obviously intoxicated", the Deutsche Welle reported.

Raccoons have an unfortunate habit of establishing communal toilets, where "all of them, more or less, go in the same place", says Arne Jernelov, a UN expert on environmental catastrophes, who has written on the long-term impacts of invasive species. "And that, of course, is not very nice if it happens to be the attic of your house."

As their population has climbed to two million in Germany, newspapers have called raccoons an invasive "hoard", "a plague" and a group of "little gangsters", responsible for thousands of Euros of property damage.

But people may have been too quick to assume that the whirlwind of destruction that raccoons leave in cities means that they are a disaster for native wildlife too. As far as harming native species goes, raccoons are being framed for a crime there's little evidence they have committed, says Michler.

Michler led a decade-long research project in Müritz National Park, the largest and longest European field study of its kind. She concluded that there is no evidence of a significant threat to Germany's native biodiversity. Some environmentalists have even claimed that the ecological data we have does not support the EU's designation of raccoons as an invasive species.

Raccoons' ecological impacts in Europe remain poorly studied, says Michler. "We always need someone who's responsible for all the evil in the world," she says. "There are a lot of silly stories going on here in Germany about raccoons – and not enough real research behind it. That's a big problem."

However, the extent of raccoons' ecological impact remains a "big discussion" in Germany, says Vera Heck, managing director of the Federal Association of Wildlife Rescue Organisations in Germany.

Raccoons' ability to climb and swim means that they can get almost anywhere. In the US, where they are native, growing raccoon numbers in certain areas have been linked to declining numbers of songbirds. In Europe, studies have indicated that raccoons eat waterbird eggs, and rare European pond turtles. They can also carry parasites that can harm humans.

A divisive animal

Some scientists have made efforts in recent years to get the species off the EU's invasive species list, says Michler, but Germany's hunting lobby opposes the move. In Germany, most states allow raccoons to be hunted year-round, and the number killed has quadrupled since 2005, to more than a quarter of a million.

Torsten Reinwald, spokesman for the German Hunting Association, says that some scientific studies contradict the Müritz National Park research and find negative impacts on native biodiversity. Reinwald points to research from the Goethe University Frankfurt, which found that raccoons eat amphibians and their eggs.

Public opinion remains divided, says Heck. For some, they are a pest best dealt with by calling in hunters, including for the unfortunate inebriated raccoon in Erfurt, which Deutsche Welle reported was later shot. Others find them adorable enough that nightly feeding sessions take place in many cities.

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Either way, raccoons are in Germany to stay. The overall population continues to increase and the wily mammals make their way into new areas. "At the moment they are shooting, shooting, shooting and every year there are more raccoons," says Heck. Climate change is expected to expand their global range into new non-native areas.

In Kessel, Heck's charity has advocated for raccoons to be sterilised and re-released, in combination with other measures, including hunting and fencing to keep them out of protected areas where they could impact rare animals. Heck hopes that balance could give people in Germany the chance to co-exist with raccoons, without surrendering to them.

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Europe's scorched landscapes seen from space after summer heatwaves

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gxy0wqqd9o, 9 days ago

The impact of this summer's extreme temperatures on western Europe can now be seen from space after successive heatwaves since May.

Satellite images examined by BBC Verify show shrunken glaciers, scorched areas left by wildfires, green fields turned arid and lower river levels.

And some landmarks have been affected, too. The Palace of Versailles, south of the French capital Paris, appears as an island of trees surrounded by brown fields in these images.

The EU's climate monitoring service, Copernicus, has confirmed that western Europe experienced its hottest June-to-July period on record.

The immediate cause of the heatwaves has been persistent high-pressure weather systems bringing clear, sunny skies and allowing temperatures to build, according to the Met Office.

But climate change, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels, has been raising average temperatures for decades and making hot spells much more likely and intense.

We've taken a look at how the sweltering weather has left its mark on landscapes across the continent.

Rivers run drier

The waters of the Danube, Europe's second-longest river, have dropped to their lowest levels for 30 years in several countries.

This has led to unusual discoveries on the river bed, including the bones of a mammoth in Bulgaria and a sunken WW2 warship in Serbia. You can see the sunken ship has emerged from the deep in the right-hand image below.

And where the river snakes through Hungary and Romania, nuclear power stations have been forced to shut down or run at reduced capacity for some time because of an inability to use river water for cooling.

Meanwhile on the Rhine, some cargo vessels have been left stranded and river cruises have been cancelled.

Retreating glaciers in the Alps

Even the snow-capped peaks of the Alps have not escaped the heat.

Ongoing measurements suggest this summer could become one of the worst ever recorded for melting Alpine glaciers, with more than a month of the season still to go.

After a mild winter, glaciers had less snow cover than usual at the end of April - and an unusually early heatwave the following month accelerated the melting of snow.

This exposed the ice beneath, leaving the glaciers vulnerable to melting faster in subsequent heatwaves.

As you can see below, satellite imagery suggests much of the front of Rhône Glacier in Switzerland has retreated by 50m (160ft) or more since the same time last year.

In a stable climate, glaciers would be expected to remain more or less the same size over the long-term.

Dr Lander van Tricht, glaciologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, said in recent years climate change has led to "much less snow in winter and much, much more melt in summer.

"And if we continue this trend, then the future looks very dramatic for the Alps."

Wildfires turn landscapes brown

Wildfires have transformed parts of western Europe this summer, too.

More than 90,000 hectares (900 sq km or 350 sq miles) has burned in France. This is already its worst year on record, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.

The largest fire in Gironde region, where the city of Bordeaux is situated, burnt about 42,000 hectares of land - roughly equivalent in size to the Isle of Wight.

Part of the reason this year has been particularly bad for wildfires is that land has been tinder-dry.

Dr Douglas Kelley of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology tells us extreme wildfires are becoming "more and more frequent" as climate change is creating ideal conditions, with higher temperatures drying out vegetation and soils faster.

Even zoomed-out satellite imagery of western France shows a striking increase in the browning of land compared to last year.

To assess whether 2026 is unusual we used the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), a measure which uses satellite data to assess how green and healthy vegetation is. Lower readings indicate more sparse or stressed vegetation.

The NDVI this summer came in below a five-year benchmark of 2021 to 2025 across about 70% of France. Close to half the UK and roughly 40% of western Germany showed the same.

Prof Andrew Challinor, from the University of Leeds, said the images were "consistent with widespread water stress", which "does not bode well" given much of Europe's land is covered by crops meaning it could hit the agriculture industry and food production.

In the worst-affected areas, soil moisture is lower than on about 98% of comparable dates in the historical record, according to Prof Luis Samaniego, from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research.

And, he warns, even if rain returns, some of the agricultural damage may already have been done.

Graphics by Jess Carr and Tom Shiel

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Romania shuts only nuclear plant as heat causes huge drop in Danube River level

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqlxpq5q799o, 10 days ago

Romania has shut down its only nuclear power station because of extremely low water levels in the Danube river caused by prolonged hot weather affecting much of Europe.

The Cernavodă plant, where two reactors produce about 20% of Romania's electricity, is not expected to be restarted within the next 10 days.

Earlier this week, authorities tried to increase the water flow to the plant - which uses the Danube for cooling - by sinking barges loaded with rocks in the river.

Neighbouring Hungary has so far avoided a shutdown of its only nuclear plant in Paks, which also uses the Danube. The waters in Europe's second-longest river have fallen to the lowest levels for 30 years in several countries.

The second of the two 706-megawatt reactors at Cernavodă was disconnected from the Romanian electricity grid just before midday on Thursday.

"We do not foresee a restart within the next 10 days," plant director Romeo Urjan told the AFP news agency.

The first reactor had already been shut down in July.

Until now, Cernavodă had only been shut down once before in 2003.

The shortfall in power is usually covered by solar and wind during the hot, windy daytimes - but traditional coal- and gas-powered generation will have to be supplemented by imports during the evenings.

Romania also has huge hydropower capacity, although that has been heavily cut by the same low river levels that caused the nuclear shutdown.

In Hungary, Prime Minister Péter Magyar warned last month that the Soviet-era Paks, which has four nuclear reactors, could be forced to shut down entirely for the first time.

Plant officials said that levels in the Danube were so low that the suction nozzles used to take in water could not reach it.

Climate change is driving up temperatures around the world - but particularly in Europe.

It is the fasting warming continent, heating up twice as fast as the global average, according to the Copernicus climate service.

This is causing increased summer heatwaves, greater pressure on Europe's waters and more intense wildfires.

The Rhine - another of Europe's key waterway - is also suffering low water levels, which is severely limiting traffic.

The continent's agricultural sector has also taken a noticeable hit.

Italy's largest agricultural trade association, Coldiretti, said climate-related damage - such as hail, drought and wildfires could exceed €3bn (£2.6bn; $3.5bn).

France's Environment Minister Monique Barbut warned that data from the country's national statistics agency suggested the recent heatwaves could rack up €10bn to €15bn in direct and indirect costs.

The Dutch bank Triodos said the extreme heat and its consequences could wipe out much of the projected economic growth for the EU.

The European Commission had forecast growth of 1.1%, while the IMF expected the euro area to grow by around 0.9%.

In Greece, more than 200 people - mostly tourists - were evacuated on Friday from the popular resorts of Siviri and Fourka in the northern Halkidiki peninsular because of a raging wildfire.

Meanwhile, as many as 80 departments across France are now on a heatwave alert, as temperatures are expected to exceed in some places 40C (104F) on Friday.

The country has already been devastated by fires in recent weeks, with the blazes causing more damage this year than at any time since World War Two.

Spain - which is also still recovering after recent deadly wildfires - on Thursday recorded temperatures as high as 37C in central areas.

The UK on Thursday saw its hottest day of the year so far, with the Met Office reporting a provisional recording of 38.1C in London's Kew Gardens.

Multiple fires were burning across the West Midlands, with several people reported injured and four homes destroyed.

Rain is expected to arrive in more places of the UK over the weekend, but the BBC climate and science team says it will take more than showers to bring the UK's widespread drought to an end.

Sun-tanned cauliflowers and knobbly spuds - the heatwave veg that's good to eat

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g360z8d2lo, 12 days ago

Would you buy a cauliflower that looks like it's been sunburnt or a cucumber that's curled back on itself?

Farmers across the UK are grappling with one of the driest, hottest growing seasons in decades. Repeated heatwaves after a warmer than usual spring have led to predictions of the worst harvest since records began.

The heat is not only affecting how much produce is grown, but also how it looks.

Retailers usually reject fruit and vegetables that don't meet strict guidelines on size, shape and colour. But with supplies under pressure, many are now expected to loosen those rules rather than risk empty shelves.

That means shoppers could start seeing smaller, wonkier or oddly coloured veg on the shelves in the coming weeks - and sellers and growers say it's still good to eat.

'Sun-tanned' cauliflowers

Cauliflower is one of the most affected vegetables in hot weather because it needs lots of water.

Its heads are usually shielded from sunlight by the leaves, but in this year more light is reaching them and turning them yellow.

Emilie Vanpoperinghe, co-founder of Oddbox, a subscription company that sells surplus produce that supermarkets reject, said it is "purely a cosmetic defect" and the plants taste exactly the same.

She said Oddbox acquired 6,000 cauliflower heads last week that were too dark for supermarkets to sell.

Growers are reporting that their water reserves are depleted, Vanpoperinghe said, which means the cauliflower and broccoli family of brassicas will experience slower growth, leading to shorter supplies.

That short supply means retailers may soon start stocking "sun-tanned" cauliflower because "their biggest nightmare is empty shelves", she said. "They want to make sure that they've got availability of produce all the time."

Curly cucumbers

Growers are also reporting cucumbers that are coming out misshapen, with some bending back into a spiral.

That is because the plants are grown in greenhouses which overheat in the high outdoor temperatures, causing the plants to become stressed, Vanpoperinghe said.

"Even if they get the irrigation then it's just extreme heat, which means the plant is not able to grow anymore."

Holey pak choi

John Harper, a farmer in Worcestershire, grows pak choi for Sainsbury's, Aldi and Co-op, and has discarded more produce than usual this year because of tiny holes made by pests.

Flea beetles thrive in hot, dry conditions, and farmers are no longer allowed to use as many pesticides as before, meaning net covers are Harper's only defence.

Supermarkets' strict cosmetic rules mean "one tiny little hole can render the plant useless", he said, but some have temporarily loosened the rules.

"We've been working with them through this hot period and in general they sort of get it," he added.

Harper said the vast majority of affected pak choi is still edible - even if "it seems to be quite tasty" for the beetles too.

Knobbly potatoes

Lucy Munns, a potato farmer in Cambridgeshire, said the hot weather will stunt the root vegetable's growth, leading to oddly shaped tubers that supermarkets and chip shops, which she supplies, wouldn't normally buy.

When the weather gets cooler after a hot period, instead of the main potato tuber growing "it tends to grow a little knobble on the end".

"Trying to find people that will accept potatoes like that is very difficult. So that ultimately means a lot of wastage for us," Munns added.

"It's criminal, to be honest, to be chucking that much food away."

Those "knobbly and misshapen potatoes" however are absolutely fine to eat, she said.

"The only difficulty is peeling them, but just cut the knobbly bit off and peel it separately."

'A challenging period'

Supermarkets including Sainsbury's, Tesco, Morrisons and Waitrose already have dedicated lines for wonky vegetables.

Calum Kelly, Waitrose's produce technical manager, said in demanding weather conditions "we relax size and shape guidelines for key veg to avoid waste and provide more income to our growers and farmers".

"Baking potatoes might be a little smaller than usual this harvest if the drought continues. All these veg still taste great, but like many of us in a heatwave, they might just look a little less than perfect."

Not every gap can be filled this way though. Andrew Opie, the director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, said supermarkets are also importing more food from abroad as UK supplies run short.

"Retailers face the dilemma of supporting British farmers, but also making sure that we, as customers, have what we expect to buy when we go in the shop," he said.

"It's going to be a challenging period right through into the autumn. We're hearing potentially it could affect things like cherries as well."

British summers are getting hotter and drier as the climate changes and heatwaves like this one are becoming more frequent.

That means a season like this one may become less of a one-off, and more of a preview of what British farming has to deal with regularly.

Many farmers will either have to accept more waste, invest in better irrigation and water storage systems, or find a way to sell more wonky produce to consumers.

Munns, the potato farmer, said more people should try buying imperfect veg if they see it in the supermarket aisle this year.

People should "be a bit less picky" about fresh produce, she said. "We've been too spoilt in the UK … In other less fortunate countries we wouldn't have a choice."

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Want to get better at making decisions? Ask an ant

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260810-what-insects-can-teach-us-about-decision-making, 13 days ago

From cocky cockroaches to self-aware flies, there's a lot we can learn from creepy crawlies about how to make better decisions. Here are five lessons from the insect world that could help you improve your choices.

We humans tend to fancy ourselves at the top of the evolutionary pyramid for our ability to think oh-so-hard. But all that deliberation sometimes doesn't get us very far. We're not infallible, and we routinely call the wrong shots.

Insects, on the other hand, despite their tiny, poppy-seed-sized brains, have a perhaps surprising amount of wisdom when it comes to decision-making. Many insect problem-solving skills have, in fact, inspired algorithms for efficient deliberation in real-world human industries.

Here are five things we can learn from bugs about making wise choices.

1. Optimising ants

Making your mind up on the best way to get something done is no easy task – especially in a world with so much stimuli. It's called choice overload.

Ants, too, are faced with such a conundrum when they are making a group decision about their next foraging spot. But they've evolved a neat trick, common across a variety of different species.

At first, several ants leave the comfort of their nest, questing to find the closest and best place for a hearty meal. The adventurous ants go out into the wild at random, keeping all their options open and exploring different paths. Along the way and back, they leave a faint pheromone trail on the ground for other ants to follow later on. These pheromones evaporate over time, and ants are more likely to follow the strongest trail.

The ants that find the most efficient foraging spot get back faster with the food, and trace over their pheromone trail before it evaporates completely. They also pass the relay more quickly to any following ants going out to forage. This means that over time, more ants tend to go back and forth along that path, leaving more cumulative pheromone, making the trail smell stronger.

The objectively shorter pathways are therefore reinforced over time, while the others fade away. In the end, the colony collectively finds the shortest and most efficient path without any one ant specifically knowing it was theirs.

"The main lesson… is that efficient collective decision-making can emerge without centralised control," says Marco Dorigo, co-director of the artificial intelligence lab of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, in Belgium. "[Ants are] simple individuals with limited capabilities and only local information, yet they are able to collectively solve complex coordination problems."

This system – dubbed the ant colony optimisation method – has actually been turned into an algorithm for improving human scheduling, telecommunications, transport and logistics across the world. Experts have used ant optimisation algorithms for railway planning, for instance, and Dorigo developed AntNET, a system to efficiently move information around within communication networks.

2. Democratic honeybees

Honeybees use a method very similar to ants' optimised foraging when it comes to finding their new nesting spot.

Several scout bees fly out and look for options at random, like ants. But instead of leaving trails of pheromones, they come back to the nest and directly communicate their preferences. They do a waggle dance for their nest mates, rhythmically shaking their bodies to convey whether they think the new site has what it takes: how safe it is, how close, how large, how well-positioned. The better the nest site, the longer and more vigorous the dancing.

The waggle dance also describes the exact location – how far to go and in what direction the nest mates need to fly – and another round of bees is then sent out to corroborate these findings. When they return they give their verdict in dance, too, either supporting their predecessors or offering new options.

Over time, a preferred location naturally emerges: a couple of dozen bees return from their expedition with positive dances for the same place. They reach a quorum, and they move accordingly from there, like in a human democracy.

3. Neutral locusts

Getting people to change their minds is hard, especially when a group is split between two options. The debate can quickly descend into a stark black-or-white binary, leaving everyone feeling even more entrenched in their ways.

Fortunately, a recent study on locusts points to a way out of this common bind.

Marching locusts are locusts so juvenile they still don't know how to fly, so they march instead. In his experiment, Christian (Kit) Yates*, professor of mathematical biology at the University of Bath, UK, put groups of them in a ring-shaped arena to observe how they collectively decide which direction to go. He realised they routinely flip-flop direction, after a moment of stalling.

It turns out that it is this fleeting moment of suspension – when more and more locusts stop marching and become neutral – that helps the swarm break out of one consensus and switch to the other.

In the experiment, Yates also tested 19 humans with a similar task: he ran a game where participants could choose between X and Y, or abstain. Like the locusts, they found that when people had the option to abstain, it helped the group reach a consensus – just X or just Y – more "quickly and cleanly" than when they didn't, says Yates.

That's because, Yates explains, in a large and highly engaged group, lots of small, independent influences average out, so the overarching direction is hard to budge. But if many individuals become neutral, even just for a moment, the group of decision-makers shrinks.

"With fewer active votes in play, the same small nudge – a brief local cluster moving the other way, a noisy bit of information, a couple of people switching allegiance – produces a larger proportional effect on the group's direction," says Yates.

Ultimately, locusts teach us that neutrality can create the necessary pause for everybody to reassess and reach a consensus, says Yates. The takeaway? If you want to overturn the status quo, don't worry about the indecisive – encourage more people to be so.

4. Cockroaches with personality

It's especially hard to reach group conclusions when there are a lot of strong personalities in the debate. Many people with "main character energy" can steer the debate their way, trumping the collective.

But a study with cockroaches suggests that strong individual personalities among a group can actually speed up decision-making.

Some cockroaches are bold, while others are timid. So Isaac Planas-Sitjà, assistant professor at the Tokyo Metropolitan University in Japan, ran computer simulations of how cockroaches aggregate – one that mimics, for instance, how they hide in a specific dark corner behind a fridge. He tweaked the system to include no personality differences, some personality differences and, finally, a lot of personality differences.

It turns out that the models where every cockroach behaved exactly the same couldn't even get close to what cockroach decision-making is like in the real world. Groups with a lot of personality variation, on the other hand, made collective decisions faster – because they had more social interactions.

"I was very surprised. I expected to see some trend, but not such a clear and repeatable pattern," says Planas-Sitjà.

It means that cockroach groups with only bold or explorer individuals will find it more difficult to aggregate and choose a suitable shelter because they move too much, he says. And while groups with too many shy individuals may settle fast, they risk choosing a poor shelter.

"It is the fine-tuning between the degree of cooperation and behavioural diversity that ultimately drives collective intelligence," says Planas-Sitjà. "If personality matters in these small animals, we can imagine the impact it can have on animals living in societies with additional layers of social complexity."

5. Reflective flies

Sometimes we mute our gut feelings to make decisions we think are logical, even if they feel wrong on a visceral level. Other times, we follow our deep convictions about something without learning from our mistakes.

Fruit flies, it turns out, could teach us a lot about being more self-aware in our deliberations.

Research shows fruit flies are extremely perceptive in how they integrate external and internal information to shape their every move. When choosing between two odours, for example, the more similar the scents, the longer the flies hesitate, as if they're tallying the pros and cons.

When faced with a nice-tasting but unnutritious reward, or a bitter-tasting but nutritious sugary substance, flies can compute the net value of that choice and white-knuckle through the unpleasant-tasting food in return for nutrition.

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They're also more likely to go for a small reward that's a safe bet, rather than a hefty reward if it comes with a threat – that is, unless they're very hungry, or stressed. When trained with positive odour and reward, or negative odour and reward, healthy flies are often happy to approach an ambiguous odour and see what comes from it, while stressed flies are more prone to not risking it.

Like flies, sometimes our internal states cloud our judgment. But they also remind us that these gut feelings and learned experiences – made up of a kaleidoscope of tiny fragments of perceptions we're constantly having about ourselves and others – can sometimes help us exercise good judgement.

*Christian (Kit) Yates, professor of mathematical biology at the University of Bath, UK, is also a freelance mathematics feature writer for BBC.com.

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'We've had a lot of close calls': Canada wildfire evacuees wonder if they still have homes

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2lwv032j9o, 13 days ago

Earl Kurz and his wife have lived in Peachland, a town overlooking Okanagan Lake in Canada's British Columbia, for 30 years. In the last 10, he said he has grown used to wildfires threatening his community.

But this is the first time he's been forced to flee, and surveying the damage left behind by the Bald Range wildfire, which broke out on Friday and grew in a matter of hours to 53 sq miles (136 sq km) in size, has been difficult.

"It's total incinerated destruction," Kurz said. "The hot spots are just barren areas of nothing except 12 inches of ash."

Officials in British Columbia are still trying to determine how many homes were lost to the fire, which remains out of control as of Monday.

More than 12,000 residents in the area are still under an evacuation order.

One woman, aged 80, died while trying to flee from the wildfire, police said on Sunday.

With dry lightning, high temperatures and winds in the forecast, officials warned on Monday that the fire continues to be a threat and that new ignitions are possible.

The Okanagan area of British Columbia, known for its world renowned vineyards and picturesque scenery, has been grappling with extreme drought in recent years. As of July, the level of the Okanagan Lake was at its lowest since 1992, according to the Okanagan Basin Water Board.

The Bald Range wildfire is one of more than 100 burning in British Columbia as of Monday - 70 of which started in the last week alone.

The west coast province's premier, David Eby, declared a state of emergency over the weekend, urging residents to heed evacuation orders and warning that the fires continue to move "incredibly quickly".

Keegan Radomski is one of thousands who have had to flee their homes in Summerland, a town on the Okanagan Lake just south of Peachland. The 18-year-old told the BBC she barely escaped with her mother's ashes before she saw the fire breach her property.

"We've had a lot of close calls before, but it's never been like this," Radomski said. "You always think it's not going to be you, and then it's you."

The home she fled was built by her grandmother 30 years ago, she said. Living in the Okanagan for decades meant that Radomski and her family are familiar with wildfires and evacuation notices, but they were still caught off guard by the speed of this fire.

The family noticed wildfire smoke from the distance while eating dinner on Friday evening. Less than four hours later, Radomski said she was scrambling to get everyone out as she saw a hill on her property begin to burn.

She added she is still unsure if her family's home survived, and when she can return and check for herself.

Doug Holmes, the mayor of Summerland, told CBC News on Monday that some people's homes have been lost, but "we don't know how many".

"I think we need to prepare for the fact that everybody is going to know somebody that has lost a home," Holmes said.

Some residents in the farming community were forced to leave their livestock behind in the quick evacuation, said Kaz Nowlin, who has been helping rescue stranded animals in the Okanagan area since wildfires broke out last month.

Nowlin said he and a group of volunteers have so far rescued dozens of animals, including 57 horses.

He told the BBC he is in the process of acquiring a permit to enter Summerland and round up 14 alpacas and eight horses that have remained. "It's for the animals' well-being," he said of his efforts. "They don't deserve what's going on."

The Bald Range wildfire comes on the heels of another fire in the Okanagan, called Bradley Creek, which is believed to have destroyed more than 200 homes.

Officials said the Bradley Creek fire is now being held after "tireless work" by wildfire crews to contain it.

Drought conditions have also contributed to fires in the US state of Washington, just south of British Columbia, where more than 65,000 people were forced to flee their homes.

Devastating fires have also burned this summer in Spain and France as Europe grapples with drought and record high temperatures.

France has seen its worst fires in two decades, while officials in the Spanish capital Madrid say theirs are the worst the region has ever experienced.

Fires are part of the natural cycle of Canada's vast boreal forest, but experts say climate change - particularly hotter and dryer weather - has made them more intense and frequent in the last decade. In 2023, the country saw its worst wildfire season in history in terms of the total area burned.

World's oceans hit record-high July temperatures

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvw8vmmgrwo, 14 days ago

The world's oceans hit their hottest ever recorded temperatures for July, partly fuelled by developing El Niño conditions in the Pacific, according to the EU's climate monitoring service.

The average sea surface temperature (SST) outside the world's polar regions - between 60 degrees north and 60 degrees south - was 20.96C last month, beating the previous high of 20.89C, set in 2023.

Last month was the joint second-warmest July globally on record, with temperatures 1.47C above the estimated pre-industrial average, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Meanwhile, Western Europe experienced its hottest ever June and July, with prolonged hot and dry conditions fuelling extreme wildfires across the region.

Elsewhere, the UK is braced for its fifth heatwave of the year this week, as persistent dry weather puts further pressure on water supplies and could see more areas officially declared in drought.

Around Europe, sea surface temperatures in July reached record highs along the Atlantic coast and in the western Mediterranean, contributing to widespread strong and severe marine heatwaves.

Sea temperatures remained exceptionally high across much of the tropical Pacific, where El Niño conditions are developing and forecast to strengthen in the coming months.

El Niño is a natural weather pattern in the Pacific that combined with human-driven global warming can cause temperature spikes and more extreme weather.

Oceans are a vital regulator of the climate, absorbing most of the excess heat generated by greenhouse gas emissions and producing half of Earth's oxygen.

The greatest effect of ocean warming is on sea level rise. As seawater warms it expands, and this thermal expansion accounts for roughly a third of sea level rise recorded by scientists to date. That water encroaches on low-lying coasts and island nations.

Hotter seas are also driving longer and fiercer marine heatwaves, which have bleached coral reefs on a mass scale and decimated kelp forests and fisheries.

Warmer ocean surfaces also evaporate more heat and moisture into the air, intensifying tropical storms and loading them with heavier rainfall.

'Climate change is intensifying heat extremes'

Western Europe is experiencing an exceptional run of extreme heat - with record-breaking temperatures in June and July, and some areas facing their third or fourth heat wave since May.

The average temperature across western Europe for June and July was 21.62C - 2.79C above average and the highest for the two-month period.

"July 2026 was the third consecutive month of exceptional heat in western Europe," said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

Persistent high-pressure systems trapped heat over the region, she said, while dry soils reduced the ability to provide natural cooling.

"This is a clear example of how climate change is intensifying heat extremes, with heat and drought increasingly reinforcing one another," she added.

France, Spain, parts of Germany and the UK recorded exceptionally low rainfall and/or soil moisture, while soil moisture levels across much of western Europe were significantly lower than in 2022, when the region experienced severe drought.

River levels have been much lower than average - in some places exceptionally low -with the Seine, Rhine and Danube among those particularly affected.

Low flows exacerbate pressure on water supplies and irrigation, aquatic ecosystems, river transport and energy production.

The prolonged hot and dry conditions have created favourable conditions for wildfires, with massive wildfires raging across western Europe last month and "exceptional activity" in terms of the area burned and smoke and emissions generated.

"Climate change is increasingly bringing the kinds of hot and dry conditions that favour large, high-intensity wildfires in southern Europe while extended the fire season northwards," said Laurence Rouil, director of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.

Larger fires produce more smoke and inject it higher into the atmosphere, allowing it to travel much further, he said.

That means countries that experience relatively few wildfires could be increasingly affected by smoke traveling long distances.

Extreme weather 'new normal'

In the UK, meanwhile, the prolonged dry spell is increasing pressure on already-stretched water supplies.

England and Wales recorded their driest July since records began 190 years ago, according to the Met Office, while large parts of England and all of Wales have already been officially declared in drought.

The Environment Agency has warned that more areas of England could be declared in drought if dry conditions persist.

Weather that was once considered extreme is becoming the "new normal", according to the latest Met Office report on the UK's climate.

Its latest assessment found that the hottest day of the year in southern England is now 4.5C warmer than it was between 1961 and 1990.

"We are right now living in a time of historic and unprecedented change," said Mike Kendon, Met Office climate information scientist, adding that "evidence shows the climate of the 20th century has now gone".

Scientists say El Niño may temporarily push global temperatures even higher. Its effects are being felt against a backdrop of man-made warming, particularly the burning of fossil fuels.

The world is now about 1.4C warmer on average than it was in the late 19th Century.

US military newspaper editor voices censorship fears after being fired

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2g23ng8p4o, yesterday

The editor-in-chief of US military newspaper Stars and Stripes has told the BBC of his concern over censorship a day after being dismissed by the US Department of Defense (DoD) for "insubordination".

"This is a time when we really need to hear what's happening," Erik Slavin said, adding that Pentagon officials appeared to be "less and less inclined to speak on the record".

Slavin says he believes he was fired for having stated in an interview that "in a hypothetical situation, censorship would be a red line". A reporter and the paper's publisher were also sacked.

The Pentagon told the BBC it would not comment. But the sackings come amid tension between the Trump administration and the US media.

Even though partially funded by the Pentagon, Stars and Stripes has been editorially independent - through a congressional mandate and DoD rules.

The newspaper's Middle East reporter Lara Korte said she had also been told she was fired.

Both Slavin and Korte say their dismissals - both for insubordination - relate to an interview they gave to CBS's Sunday Morning programme last month, according to the BBC's US partner CBS News.

Stars and Stripes reported that publisher Max Lederer was also fired.

He had announced his retirement on Tuesday, saying his understanding of the paper's value and mission differed in "fundamental ways" from the Pentagon's plans for the publication.

Slavin, who has worked for the paper for 21 years, told the PM programme that he had not been given an official explanation for his dismissal - and was considering his response even though he was not allowed to appeal.

He said he did not know if it had to do with his paper's original reporting of conditions aboard USS Abraham Lincoln - the warship which has been deployed in the Gulf for months as the US-Israeli war with Iran continues.

The vessel has spent a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 240 days and family members of sailors aboard have expressed concern about their mental health, with some sailors having reportedly attempted to jump overboard.

But Slavin said his dismissal came in a climate where the Pentagon had not had a press conference since May, and where journalists had refused attempts to interfere with their reporting.

For her part, Korte wrote on X: "It's a shame for the institution and service members, who swore to defend the Constitution and deserve the right to a free and independent press."

The president of the National Press Club, Mark Schoeff Jr, described Slavin's firing as "another brazen attempt by the Pentagon to dictate coverage of the military and should be immediately reversed".

An average of 1.4 million people consume Stars and Stripes's content daily, mostly online, according to CBS.

The paper is still printed outside the US for members of the military in places with unreliable internet access.

In October, leading US news outlets rejected a new policy which barred journalists from entering the building unless they only reported information officially authorised by the DoD.

At the time, the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and the BBC were among the major outlets which said they would not agree to the new rules.

The Trump administration argued that the changes were needed to protect national security.

In April 2025, a US judge ordered the administration to restore the Associated Press's access to presidential events after it was blocked in a dispute over the term "Gulf of America".

A few months prior, the White House broke with tradition and took control of the press pool which covers the US presidency.

Lindsay Clancy suffering 'command hallucination' when she killed children, court hears

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62xpre63j2o, yesterday

Warning: This story contains distressing details and discussion of attempted suicide

Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mum who has been charged with murdering her three children, was suffering from a "command hallucination" at the time, a forensic psychiatrist has told the jury in her trial.

The defence, which rested its case on Friday, does not dispute that Clancy carried out the killings but say she has pleaded not guilty to murder charges because she was experiencing postpartum psychosis.

Forensic psychiatrist Phillip Resnick, the defence's final witness, testified about the effects of postpartum psychosis.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, alleged she made a calculated decision to intentionally kill her children - Cora, five, Dawson, three, and Callan, who was eight months.

"My opinion is that Ms Clancy was, due to her mental disease, unable to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law on the day that she took the lives of her children," Resnick told jurors. "It was a matter where she was just following the command rather than being able to make any decision to do it or not."

The forensic psychiatrist said that in his opinion on the day Clancy killed her children she experienced "not only a command hallucination" but also "a delusion of influence".

Resnick evaluated Clancy after the killings and reviewed her medical records.

Clancy lacked control and was likely unable to tell the difference between right and wrong on that January 2023 day, he told the jury on Friday.

"In her mind, she believed that she would be doing her children a favour by having them go to heaven with her rather than remain on earth without her doing the mothering," Resnick testified.

The case is expected to go to the jury early next week following nearly a month of witness testimony.

Earlier this week, Clancy's mother and former mother-in-law testified about how Clancy's mental health deteriorated after the birth of her youngest son.

"She was begging for help," Clancy's former mother-in-law, Susan Clancy, said of a woman she described as a "very nurturing, very loving" mother.

Clancy has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder.

Prosecutors have said that in January 2023, Clancy intentionally strangled the three children with fitness bands in their Massachusetts home before jumping out of a second-floor window. Clancy, now 36, was paralysed by the jump and has attended the trial in a wheelchair.

The defence have said Clancy experienced hallucinations and delusions after giving birth to Callan and she was undergoing medical treatment for psychiatric problems. She checked herself into a psychiatric hospital for a few days just before the deaths.

The UK's National Health Service (NHS) defines postpartum psychosis as a rare serious mental health illness that can affect someone soon after having a baby.

"Postpartum psychosis is very different from the 'baby blues'," the NHS adds. "It's a serious mental illness and should be treated as a medical emergency."

If you are suffering distress or despair and need support, you could speak to a health professional, or an organisation that offers support. Details of help available in many countries can be found at Befrienders Worldwide. www.befrienders.org.

In the UK a list of organisations that can help is available at bbc.co.uk/actionline.

Supreme Court temporarily unfreezes Trump ballroom construction

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78g2vq6nx6o, 2 days ago

The US Supreme Court has temporarily allowed construction of the White House ballroom to move forward.

The decision on Friday by Chief Justice John Roberts, issued as a stay, will allow US President Donald Trump's $400m (£297m) project to continue as the high court mulls over a case aiming to halt it entirely.

The stay will remain in place pending further action from the court.

The case, originally filed by a preservation group that argues the project would become irreversible unless stopped immediately, was appealed to the high court after a federal appeals court had ordered work to halt earlier this month.

The appeals court ruled that Trump was a "temporary tenant" of the White House and could not make the alterations without congressional approval. It gave the administration two weeks to appeal the decision.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a preservation group, has led the lawsuit against the ballroom, arguing it is causing irreversible damage to a historical landmark.

"We are aware of the administrative stay," the group told the BBC on Friday. "To be clear, this is not a final decision on the merits of the government's stay application, and we await further action."

Trump posted on social media that he is grateful for the Supreme Court's decision, saying the new complex is "vital for National Security".

"It is something that Presidents have wanted for 150 years, and that the Military has been seeking for the last 100 years. Their wish will soon be fulfilled!" he wrote of the new ballroom on Truth Social.

The court's decision represents a victory - albeit perhaps a temporary one - for Trump, who has long argued that the White House needs a larger events space, and more recently, that it was important for his security.

Had the Supreme Court not issued a stay, or chosen to rule against the Trump administration, the White House would have been legally obligated to halt construction on Friday.

The president has asserted that the new ballroom was needed to accommodate grand parties and state visits and would improve security.

Government lawyers have argued the additional security complex and features included in the ballroom project are needed to protect the White House complex from drones, ballistic missiles, biohazards and other threats - changes essential to protecting the president, his family, and staff.

While initially billed as a 650-person ballroom that would incorporate the existing building when it was announced in July 2025, revised plans later expanded it to have a capacity of 900, and then about 1,000, with the entire structure of the East Wing being demolished in the process.

The ballroom building would consist of the large entertaining space above ground and also a security complex below ground. Trump doubled down on the need for the space after an assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in April.

But the Trust, which filed a lawsuit in December, has argued there was no basis to "disturb" the White House and argued that having a ballroom is not a national security emergency. They argued federal review panels should be able to weigh in on the plans before more work is done.

The US Congress was not consulted before bulldozers took to the building.

The ballroom project, along with the helipad being constructed on the South Lawn, are just part of the president's wider effort to transform Washington's cityscape, which have also included the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and a planned "Arc de Trump" larger than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

Canada says it will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgvyy4x2mvo, yesterday

A fresh wave of US tariffs on a wide array of Canadian goods came into effect on Saturday after a last-minute breakdown in trade talks.

Announcing the suspension of negotiations shortly before the Friday night deadline, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he would impose reciprocal tariffs on US goods "dollar for dollar".

Carney said "last-minute changes in the US proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal".

Trade negotiators had been engaged in intense talks since July, after President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 50% levy on nearly $20bn (C$28bn; £14bn) of Canadian imports by 19 August.

Trump had temporarily paused those tariffs earlier in the week, saying the two sides were close to signing a trade deal that was "very good" for both countries.

But minutes before the deadline for a deal, Carney said that while "important progress" had been made in the talks it was "not enough to meet our objectives for Canadians".

"As a result, this evening, I have decided to suspend trade negotiations with the US and have directed negotiators to return to Ottawa," he said.

"Last-minute changes in the US proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal."

After Carney's announcement US trade representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement: "Tonight, Canada declined to finalise the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week.

"Despite the US offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market, new demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful balance reached in the past days."

The breakdown in talks marks a significant shift in tone from earlier in the week, when both US and Canadian officials sounded optimistic that a trade deal beneficial for both countries was within reach.

Negotiators were reportedly discussing a deal that would reduce US tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium from 50% to 25%, and on Canadian autos from 25% to 15%.

In exchange, Carney had asked Canadian provinces to restore US alcohol to store shelves.

The breakdown of the talks puts the US-Canada relationship in uncharted territory, and will be a major test for Carney's premiership.

The two countries have developed one of the world's most deeply economically integrated trading relationships, and Canada sends approximately 70% of its exports south.

But tensions between the two major trading partners have been simmering since Trump returned to office in January last year and unleashed a wide-ranging global programme of tariffs, upending decades of free trade between Canada and the US.

Now that talks have broken down, Canada will be hit with new 50% US tariffs imposed by Trump using a Depression-era law called the Tariff Act of 1930.

They will be applied on a range of goods, about 5% of Canadian exports, including wine, dairy, cement, clothing and hockey equipment.

The new levies are in addition to existing tariffs the US had already imposed on Canadian steel and aluminium, autos and lumber.

Businesses and stakeholders on both sides of the border had pushed for a deal to be reached, arguing that the new US tariffs on Canada will be harmful to both countries.

In a statement, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce called the tariffs "a body blow to North American competitiveness".

"For a small Canadian exporter operating on tight margins, this isn't an abstract trade dispute. It means looking at your orders, your payroll and your employees and asking what you can still afford," said the chamber's president Candace Laing.

Canadians have told pollsters that they are willing to fight for a good deal.

A recent survey by firm Abacus Data suggested that around 36% of Canadians would support retaliating to US tariffs, while another 30% would want the Carney government to continue negotiating.

The prime minister will need to convince Canadians that the economic pain is worth the cost of standing up to the White House is search of a better agreement in the long run.

Canada could lose 90,000 jobs if the new tariffs were implemented, according to estimates in an analysis published on Thursday by Calgary-based economist Trevor Tombe.

Financial analysts have projected the new 50% tariffs could reduce the country's GDP by 0.3% to 0.6%.

Doug Ford, premier of Canada's most populous province Ontario, said "the prime minister has my full support for a strong response - tariff for tariff, dollar for dollar".

Ontario, which has a large manufacturing and auto sector, has been among the hardest hit of Canada's provinces in this trade dispute. The economies of Quebec and British Columbia are also going to be especially exposed to the new tariffs.

British Columbia Premier David Eby said in a statement on Friday night that "our politeness should never be mistaken for weakness".

"We didn't ask for this, but we'll keep fighting for as long as it takes."

Canada has been engaged in on-again, off-again trade negotiations with the US for over a year in pursuit of a deal that would see the US drop or reduce tariffs on these key sectors.

The US, meanwhile, has been asking for a number of concessions from Canada, including removing its remaining retaliatory tariffs on American autos and adjusting its dairy quotas to allow greater access for US cheese producers.

It has also asked that the ban on US alcohol sales, imposed last year by most Canadian provinces in retaliation to Trump's tariffs, be removed.

In a statement on Saturday, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States said it was "unfortunate that the Canadian provinces' continued refusal to return US spirits products to store shelves has led to this outcome".

It said exports to Canada fell more than 70% year-over-year from the start of the retaliatory ban in March through December 2025.

How much could Trump's 'economic D-Day' hurt Iran?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cre4gdvlj9ro, 3 days ago

Nearly six months after US President Donald Trump vowed a swift victory over Iran, the conflict appears to be at a standstill, with prospects of a military victory or negotiated settlement growing dimmer.

To break the deadlock, Trump has vowed an "economic D-Day" under which any country that does business with Iran would face "tremendous" economic consequences.

Iran, however, has long faced sanctions and has so far shown a willingness to endure pain, and a capacity to adapt to immense economic and military pressure as the conflict drags on.

The key question for the US then becomes, will further sanctions work where other strategies have failed?

The exact mechanics of the new US economic pressure campaign remain unclear, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promising to reveal them in a news conference on 24 August.

But in an interview with CNBC, Bessent made clear that the US was willing to take action against any country - friend or foe - that it believes is extending a lifeline to Iran.

"You are either with us or against us," he said. "If you insist on doing business with [Iran], either transferring money, buying their oil or doing seaborne sea transfers, then the US Treasury and the US government... will put its full might and force toward enforcing against you."

Vice-President JD Vance has described the sanctions as a "new phase" of the conflict in which economic pressure was the "most effective" tool available to the US.

"They're going to try to apply economic pressure to us, but what has been true over the last couple of weeks is that they felt a lot more pressure than we have," Vance said on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show.

"We're going to keep that going because we think that's the best way to ultimately achieve the final objective."

Iran has faced significant US sanctions since nearly the beginning of the Islamic Republic in 1979.

The economic pressure campaign intensified after the first Trump administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a 2015 pact between world powers and Iran to curb its nuclear programme.

And in the current conflict, the US government has already announced Operation Economic Fury, a two-pronged US economic campaign combining US Treasury-co-ordinated sanctions against regime financial flows and a naval blockade against Iranian ports.

Imran Bayoumi, a geostrategy expert with the Atlantic Council in Washington DC and former policy adviser for the defence department, told the BBC that the latest announcement was likely the result of mounting frustration that other options have not delivered the results Trump wants.

"This is really a recognition that the US is almost stuck in this war," he said. "It's another try at economic pressure."

"This is just another tool that the US is using," Bayoumi added. "We've not seen a clear strategy laid out by the administration with either military or economic tools. The question of what the US is trying to achieve is still unanswered."

Michael Parker, an eight-year veteran of the Office of Foreign Assets Control and expert on economic sanctions, said the new strategy will likely represent an effort to "expand the economic blast radius" of sanctions by targeting third countries that still deal with Iran but which have economies that depend on the US dollar.

"Thus far, the US has largely used the threat of these secondary sanctions against foreign financial institutions to encourage compliance with sanctions policy," he said.

"But this is a lever that is sort of unexplored insofar as targeting anything touching the US dollar that is also touching Iran," Parker added.

As an example, Parker pointed to foreign financial institutions that help Iran evade sanctions, or directs money towards Iranian coffers.

How Iran would respond to these moves remains unclear, but sanctions experts say that Iran has so far proved adept at using irregular channels to circumvent sanctions - such as "shadow" vessels transporting oil or new commercial fronts unlisted by US sanctions.

"You keep seeing new names popping up, because Iran is adapting really quickly," said Mohammed Hammouda, an export control and sanctions manager at the London Stock Exchange. "Whatever sanctions one does, they find a new road [around it]."

These Iranian counter-moves, he added, often left those charged with enforcing compliance playing a game of catch-up.

"Sanctions are all on paper, but the hard work is behind the scenes," Hammouda said. "There are teams worldwide trying to impose sanctions and identify those parties involved, which is why Iran has to try to adapt."

How effective these sanctions are will largely be determined by how the countries that are ultimately targeted - which could include US allies like Turkey and Iraq, as well as China - react.

"Some of this is out of Iran's hands," Parker said. "Iran's ability to evade or avoid sanctions is, in large part, contingent on other countries and financial institution's willingness to give them [Iran] access to the formal banking system."

Parker believes that the sanctions were "only as powerful" as the willingness of targeted countries to comply with US foreign policy objectives or face potentially painful sanctions on trade involving the US dollar.

Some experts question whether that willingness currently exists.

"I can't really see China agreeing to that, for example," Bayoumi said. "These states have all been able to navigate their own interests with the Trump administration."

"The underlying point is that this is just another tool," he added. "But the broader question of strategy remains. Absent that, I'm not sure this is going to change anything long term."

Trump wants to be friends with Kim - but South Korea could pay the price

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gj1vje8dxo, 3 days ago

South Korea's annual military exercises with the US come to an abrupt end on Friday.

Ulchi Freedom Shield, which involves 18,000 South Korean troops and 11 other American ally nations, is being halted with only half of the scheduled programme complete - days after US President Donald Trump announced he had ordered the Pentagon to "substantially reduce" the drill.

This revelation by Trump, who called the exercise "inappropriate and hostile" towards North Korea and costly to the US, caught his allies by surprise.

Seoul's Foreign Minister Cho Hyun tried to paint the decision as one of mutual agreement, but admitted officials did not know of Trump's intent to scale down the exercise in advance.

The move will also have rattled the likes of Taiwan and Japan, which have long relied on US security guarantees in the region.

Trump, who has also criticised Seoul for refusing to take part in action against Iran, has said he expects to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later this year.

And while South Korea has long been keen on Trump reaching out to Kim as a means of maintaining diplomacy, it would not have wanted it to come with demands for cash and military assistance in Iran.

The US-South Korea alliance

Seoul considers the annual exercises with the US core to the alliance and a demonstration of US commitment to defend it against Pyongyang.

Although it has traditionally been happy to scale down or suspend the exercises in order to lure North Korea to peace talks, Trump's unilateral and sudden decision to pull his troops early has shaken South Korean confidence in the US as an ally, according to Jo Bee-yun, a Senior Research Fellow at the Atlantic Council.

There is a fear that Trump may go further and draw down the 27,000 US troops stationed in South Korea or even abandon the longstanding policy of denuclearising the North - all without consulting its ally.

The two Koreas are technically still at war since they did not sign a peace treaty after the Korean War. Reuniting with the South had always been a key, if increasingly unrealistic, part of the North's ideology until Kim abandoned it in 2024.

Despite this, the threats against the South haven't stopped. Days before the military exercise, North Korea launched ballistic missiles towards Japan and repeated a warning that it had the right to exercise its nuclear weapons should the country be threatened. More missiles were launched on Thursday.

A larger concern for South Korea this time is that the Trump administration no longer separates security and trade issues. Trump said he was unhappy with South Korea's refusal to join him in his war in Iran but he also has been unhappy with it as a trading partner.

His administration has complained that the country's $1bn (£734m) annual spending to host the US troops is not enough, that it is dragging its feet in investing the $350bn it has pledged, and that it is discriminating against US companies operating in the country.

Now that trade disputes are evolving into national security concerns, some have called for South Korea to reduce its reliance on the US.

Cheong Seong-chang, vice-president at the Sejong Institute think-tank and a proponent of South Korea developing its own nuclear weapons, says Seoul must maintain its alliance with the US but also "take steps to acquire its own nuclear deterrence".

While the majority of its public supports a nuclear South Korea, the government has argued that acquiring the bomb is unnecessary and even harmful to the country's network of alliances. Such thinking could shift if the US withdraws further from Asia.

Meanwhile, South Korea has been trying to make the best of Trump's decision to end the drills early.

President Lee Jae Myung, who has sought to repair relations with the North, praised Trump in a post on X. "I believe [your social media post] was a bold decision that is the result of your deep consideration to achieve peace," he wrote.

Lee pledged to increase his country's defence spending and said he "fully agrees" with Trump's view the country should be responsible for its security.

Since Trump's first term, Seoul has seen his seemingly capricious approach to diplomacy as both a risk and an opportunity. With a mix of flattery and blind optimism, Seoul succeeded in setting up a first-ever meeting between a sitting US president and Kim Jong Un in 2018.

However, immediately after the meeting, Trump suddenly announced a suspension of joint military drills with South Korea.

He walked away from a second meeting in 2019 without an agreement when Kim refused to give up his entire nuclear facilities. Beyond the brief made-for-TV meeting at Panmunjom later the same year, the two leaders haven't engaged in any substantial negotiation.

Kim Jong Un in a strong position

It was Seoul that bore the brunt of Pyongyang's ire following these summits. North Korea demolished the South's liaison office in its territory and later swore off all communication with them. It introduced a new law making sharing of South Korean films and TV shows punishable by death, and codified the right to use nuclear weapons in its constitution.

Meanwhile Trump has maintained that he enjoys a "great relationship" with Kim, telling reporters on Wednesday: "He likes me".

But Kim's powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, said in a statement that she knew nothing about Trump's claim her brother had contacted him recently, adding it "must be the only thing I am unaware of in our foreign policy".

She also repeated the North's position that it would never give up its nuclear weapons as they enhance the balance and stability of the region.

Kim Yo Jong also said the scaling down of the drills with South Korea "doesn't merit (her country's) interest nor comment", nor change their "hostile and offensive nature," she was quoted as saying in state media.

Although Trump said he would meet Kim Jong Un later in the year, few experts believe there will be another summit, especially while Kim is profiting from an alliance with Moscow and strengthening his relationship with China. Unless Trump is ready to publicly accept North Korea as a nuclear state, its key demand, there is no incentive.

The scaling down of the drills is already a major concession, not only for Pyongyang but also for Beijing, which shares the view that the exercises are a threat to its security.

It potentially also leaves the door open to further demands by North Korea at a time when the country appears stronger militarily.

Despite Trump's repeated claim that it poses no threat, the country has never stopped sharpening its fighting capability. It has tested nuclear bombs six times and has the capability to deliver them via long range missiles that can reach continental US.

More recently, the country has joined Russia's war in Ukraine, where it has supplied what is believed to be billions of dollars' worth of artillery shells and missiles, as well as at least 13,000 troops. While it has suffered thousands of casualties, its troops are now drone-savvy, having absorbed the lessons of the Ukraine war.

As Jo Bee-yun sees it, there isn't much South Korea can do to defend itself against the North, making its US alliance "a matter of life-and-death".

Key Trump aide Natalie Harp suddenly in spotlight after years behind scenes

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c80nzdjgmk3o, 4 days ago

Few people in US President Donald Trump's orbit have appeared as frequently by his side as Natalie Harp in recent years.

One of Trump's longest-serving and most loyal aides, the 35-year-old is trusted with typing out his Truth Social posts, among other top responsibilities.

She was thrust again into the spotlight this week by Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff - a Democrat and frequent Trump foil - when he name-checked her during a speech that has since gone viral.

Ossoff attacked Trump's "travel with Natalie on their apparently defenceless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar".

He was referring to the new Air Force One plane, as well as to reports that Harp joined Trump - and a small group of people - when he secretly swapped planes leaving Turkey last month.

Here is what you need to know about the Trump assistant who has been called both a "gatekeeper" and a "comfort blanket".

Following an unorthodox path to the White House

A California native and member of a conservative Christian family, Harp followed an unorthodox path into an already unconventional White House.

She rose to fame by crediting Trump with saving her life.

In his first term, Trump got the Right to Try Act passed to give some patients greater access to experimental treatments, which Harp used for her bone cancer.

She quickly gained prominence and popularity in Trump's Maga (Make America Great Again) wing of the Republican Party by talking about the experience, and soon after joined an advisory board for Trump's 2020 re-election campaign.

"When I failed the chemotherapies that were on the market, no-one wanted me in their clinical trials," she said at the 2020 Republican National Convention.

"They didn't give me the right to try experimental treatments. Mr President, you did, and without you, I'd have died waiting for them to be approved."

After the event, Trump said: "She lit up the television screen like very few people I have ever seen do it."

Following Trump's loss in that election, Harp found work hosting a show at the conservative One America News Network, or OAN.

There, she became known as a ferocious Trump defender and promoter of false claims that he won the 2020 election. She left the network in 2022 to join Trump's next presidential campaign.

Most accounts of Trump's views of Harp come via anonymous second-hand sources in books by reporters such as Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan or Michael Wolff, and very little is publicly known about her private life.

"Trump is like everything that my mum taught us to respect," her brother Preston Harp said during a CNN interview on Tuesday. "So I think that's where her infatuation for Trump comes from, honestly."

He added that Harp was fixated on the White House from a young age and had written letters to previous presidents, including George W Bush, during the Iraq war.

He told CNN her "dream came true finally" when she got to the White House and that his sister was Trump's "biggest fan, so that's probably why he likes her".

"And she's good looking, she's got a good personality. She thinks that he saved her life, so somebody living with that kind of gratitude must feel pretty good," he said.

Harp's official title at the White House is executive assistant to the president, which typically denotes a lower-tier position that entails managing logistics, scheduling, communications flow and mundane - but vital - secretarial work.

By all accounts, though, Harp has given the role new meaning and her profile is significantly higher than that of her predecessors, such as Madeleine Westerhout in Trump's first administration.

How influential is Harp?

When a CNN reporter earlier this week asked Trump about Ossoff's comments, the White House reacted angrily later on its official X account, saying the reporter, Kristen Holmes, had taken a "cheap shot" at a staff member.

"Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question," another post directed at Holmes read. "They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive."

Harp's presence as a staffer is nearly constant in Trump's second term.

Reporters at the White House frequently see her standing just feet away from Trump in the Oval Office or boarding Air Force One for many of his domestic and international trips.

"She's always around," one source close to the White House told the BBC. "Literally, always."

Among White House insiders and members of the press, she is often referred to as the "human printer" because she is often spotted carrying a portable printer to provide Trump with hard copies of articles and social media posts, which he prefers.

In practice, this means that Harp has an outsized ability to control what information or updates Trump receives, according to another source familiar with White House operations.

Other anonymous sources have described her to US media outlets as a "gatekeeper" and "comfort blanket".

Harp also serves as something of a social media scribe for Trump, posting to his Truth Social account on his behalf.

In one image that has been widely shared in the aftermath of Ossoff's comments, Harp is shown typing a post - in the president's own writing style - as he dictates to her while watching a speech by Kamala Harris in 2024.

Amid the recent focus on Harp, the White House has described her as a "trusted and valued" member of the team, although Trump has rarely spoken about her on camera.

Ossoff was one of many Trump critics who noted Harp was reportedly on the plane that the president boarded to leave Turkey after the US supposedly received information about a threat from Iran.

Reporter Haberman, who has also reported extensively on Trump's presidencies, was asked during an appearance on the news network MSNOW why Trump took Harp with him on the secret plane: "Because she is sort of his binky, for lack of a better way of putting it, a comfort blanket."

Haberman and Swan reported for the New York Times in 2024 that Harp had supposedly written in a letter to Trump: "You are all that matters to me."

'We are devastated' - Nigerian villagers bury bodies after overloaded boat capsizes

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj035jg256no, 3 days ago

At least 48 people have died in Nigeria after an overloaded boat with an estimated 70 passengers capsized on a river in a remote area of north-western Sokoto state.

"We are devastated at the moment," Hussaini Shehu, a resident of Gorau village, told the BBC, explaining that the accident had happened on Thursday morning as people were heading out to their rice farms along the banks of the river.

Photos taken at the village mosque show many of the recovered bodies wrapped in mats and traditional cloths ahead of their burial. It is believed that so far around 10 people have been rescued.

Bashir Usman Gorau, a lawmaker the area, told the BBC that many of the victims were children.

In farming communities, children often accompany their parents to farms to help with agricultural activities - and at the moment the community is harvesting rice.

The authorities say search and rescue efforts are continuing as people are still missing - and teams worked through the night.

The remote location, poor access and unreliable mobile phone coverage has made it difficult to get information.

"There are over 70 people in the boat and l0 have been rescued," Shehu said.

Gorau said the wooden vessel had been overloaded but had also developed a leak "through which water gushed in".

A team from Nigeria's emergency management agency (Nema) has reached the area.

But Shehu said the security services had not been able to get to them as an armed group had been active nearby on Thursday.

The BBC has contacted the police for comment.

Heavily armed criminal gangs - which loot and kidnap for ransom - operate across parts of north-west and north-central Nigeria. The insecurity makes accessing remote areas difficult and has forced lots of communities to abandon their homes.

A militant jihadist group called Lakurawa has also been active in Sokoto and neighbouring Kebbi state.

Last December, US President Donald Trump and the Nigerian government launched airstrikes in Sokoto, saying they were targeting Islamic State militants. IS has not linked itself to Lakurawa as it has done with other groups in the region that it backs.

Boat accidents are common in Nigeria, with overcrowding, poorly maintained boats and weak enforcement of safety rules often blamed for deaths. At least five people drowned when a boat overturned in Jigawa state last month.

In January, at least 26 people drowned when a boat carrying farmers and fishermen from Jigawa to Yobe state capsized.

And in December 2024, 54 bodies were recovered from the River Niger after a boat that may have been carrying more than 200 passengers capsized.

The authorities have recommended measures including providing safer boats and life jackets, dredging waterways, deploying water guards at jetties and terminals, and ensuring boat operators are properly trained and licensed.

But many of these measures have not been fully implemented or properly enforced.

For millions of Nigerians, particularly in rural communities, rivers are an important means of transport. Many villages are located near waterways, while poor roads and a lack of bridges can make travel by land difficult.

Wooden boats are often used to transport people and goods, including to markets and neighbouring communities.

Additional reporting by BBC Hausa's Haruna Ibrahim

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Ethiopia's Virgin Mary festival in Tigray cancelled over drone strike fears

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c24me64n31qo, 2 days ago

A major cultural and religious festival celebrating women and the Virgin Mary in northern Ethiopia has been cancelled in Mekelle, the main city in the Tigray region, over fears it may be targeted in drone attacks.

The focal point of Ashenda festival, which traditionally draws thousands of young women dressed in their finery, was to be a mass gathering at a stadium in Mekelle on Saturday.

Tigray is still recovering from a brutal two-year civil war that ended in 2022. There are concerns the conflict might reignite with the regional authorities blaming a recent series of deadly drone strikes on federal armed forces.

The government has not responded to a BBC request for comment on the accusations.

The three-day festival of Ashenda takes places as Orthodox Christians commemorate the Virgin Mary. Its name means "the tall green grass" in Tigrinya and has grown into a wider cultural event that celebrates women.

It is eagerly anticipated by girls and young women in Tigray and other parts of northern Ethiopia.

They dress up, braid their hair in a special way and are free to dance and play together outside, something which is traditionally frowned upon at other times of the year.

The latest drone strike hit Mekelle on Thursday, injuring 13 civilians and damaging homes, Tigray's communications affairs bureau said.

Regional officials also reported two drone strikes near Dandera, 15km (nine miles) from Mekelle, on 18 August, saying that one person died and another was injured. They also said that a strike in Raya-Alamata district on 10 August left three dead.

Announcing the cancellation of Saturday's stadium gathering Dori Asgedom, head of Tigray's culture and tourism bureau, said it would not be going ahead because of "ongoing drone strikes and the threat of war".

"The drone attack on innocent citizens in Mekelle city is an act that history will not forgive and should be condemned," he added.

Reflecting on Thursday's attack, the Tigray regional administration called for the "international community to break their silence" and condemn what had happened and "take urgent diplomatic action to prevent further escalation".

In 2022, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the federal government signed a deal ending two years of fighting that its estimated left hundreds of thousands dead.

But political tensions this year have raised fears the conflict could start again. This comes after the TPLF removed the interim administration set up under the peace deal and reinstated its pre-war council.

Both sides accuse each other of failing to implement the deal.

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Why Nigeria's one-time political giant may face extinction

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj364klz857o, 3 days ago

Once the undisputed giant of Nigerian politics, the Peoples Democratic Party now finds itself on the brink of extinction.

A question hanging over the campaign for January's general election, which officially kicked off this week, is whether the PDP can survive.

A factional struggle that has ended up in the courts over who exactly is in charge could end up rendering it irrelevant at the ballot box.

It is a remarkable fall for the party, founded in 1998, which appeared impregnable after the end of military rule a year later - so much so that its chairman boasted in 2008 that it would govern for six decades.

For 16 years, it controlled the presidency - in the shape of Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua and then Goodluck Jonathan - and the vast majority of the country's 36 states.

But the 2015 federal election was a seismic shock.

The PDP lost the presidential vote to Muhammadu Buhari and the newly formed All Progressives Congress (APC) - a coalition of opposition parties and disgruntled former members.

Thrust into the political wilderness the party's national leaders were bewildered - familiar with the trappings of federal power they had to work out what to do in opposition.

This was the beginning of the end, according to political analyst Ishaq Buhari.

"They were a party that was so used to power, being in opposition was a new challenge they struggled with from the start," he told the BBC.

If 2015 was a major blow, 2025 was the year the party's foundations were left in ruins.

It was marked by a dizzying wave of defections and bitter internal conflicts.

A group of state governors switched party allegiance, which had a particularly devastating effect.

At the start of that year, the PDP still held eight states. But by December, five state governors - from Delta, Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Bayelsa and Rivers - had gone over to the ruling APC.

They cited the PDP's declining viability and a desire for better co-operation with the federal government as reasons for their departure.

Early this year, the PDP held three states but that is now down to zero - with the Oyo governorship slipping from the party's hands just last month.

Internal power struggles, factionalism, insistence that power rotates through the regions and disciplinary measures have all added to the sense of disillusionment within the party.

The PDP has been robbed of high-profile figures and talent, including the defection of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar last year.

The crisis was intensified by a debilitating leadership tussle.

In November 2025, a faction of the party, which observers say represented the majority of members, held a contentious national convention in Ibadan, Oyo state, despite court orders attempting to stop it.

The convention expelled Nyesom Wike, a prominent PDP member who is serving in President Bola Tinubu's APC-led government.

Wike, who helped found the party, heads a rival faction creating a political stand-off that has paralysed the PDP.

He had controversially helped the APC win Rivers state in the last presidential election leading to accusations that he had betrayed the PDP.

But in the eyes of the law the faction that he heads is the legitimate party.

This means that it has been able to submit its slate of presidential and parliamentary candidates to the electoral commission leaving the rival faction without any representatives on the ballot.

Despite the chaos, some die-hard loyalists remain optimistic.

Politician and staunch PDP member Aminu Adamu, part of the anti-Wike faction, believes a return to its former glory is possible.

He cites examples from Thailand and Argentina, where parties have bounced back after years in the wilderness.

"We have seen it happen before," he tells the BBC. "All we need to do is put our house in order and start to build from there.

"If we make all the necessary corrections, by 2032 I really think PDP can be a major force again."

Others point out that the party still has a grassroots network - essential to win and sustain power - with offices, activists, supporters and local leaders. But by 2032 it may be too late.

With the party in such disarray and candidates backed by Wike on the ballot - voters are unlikely to trust them.

Analyst Deji Olarenwaju believes the only thing that could save the once-mighty party is an alliance with the African Democratic Congress - now seen as the biggest opposition group or Peter Obi's Nigeria Democratic Congress.

"Because on their own they are going nowhere," he says.

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Former Liberian vice-president charged in drug-trafficking probe

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyx028ryy6o, 4 days ago

Liberia has charged former Vice-President Jewel Howard-Taylor with drug trafficking, money laundering and a range of other offences as part of an investigation into an alleged transnational narcotics network.

She was detained on Wednesday before being able to board a flight at Roberts International Airport in the capital, Monrovia, the country's justice ministry confirmed.

Police chief Gregory Coleman has linked her to the seizure last month of cocaine valued at $317m (£233m).

The 63-year-old politician has yet to make any public comment about the allegations. Her lawyer told the BBC he could not comment until Howard-Taylor was formally charged in court.

Howard-Taylor went into politics after her now ex-husband, former President Charles Taylor, left power. He was a former rebel leader who was elected Liberia's president in 1997, remaining in office until 2003.

Charles Taylor was later arrested and convicted by a UN-back court of aiding and abetting rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone during the 1991-2002 civil war, in which some 50,000 people died.

Several years later, George Weah picked Howard-Taylor as his running mate and she served as his deputy during his presidency from 2018 until 2024.

Howard-Tayor faces charges including the unlicensed importation, sale and transportation of controlled drugs, illicit trafficking, criminal solicitation and criminal facilitation.

Police have charged three foreign nationals - two Croatians and one Ukrainian - in absentia as part of their investigation. They are accused of being part of the same network as the former politician.

Liberian Justice Minister Oswald Tweh said the authorities would use domestic and international measures to locate and arrest them.

Liberia has stepped up a crackdown on cocaine trafficking, following two major seizures in June and July.

Almost four tonnes of cocaine believed to be bound for Europe were found during the raid in July.

The authorities described it as Liberia's biggest drug bust and said it had uncovered a sophisticated transnational trafficking network.

The investigation has since extended to senior figures within Liberia's security establishment.

The government says its investigations are aimed at identifying not only those directly involved in transporting drugs, but also financiers, organisers and people accused of helping to protect the operation.

"No office is too high, no political connection is too powerful, no nationality provides immunity, and no individual is beyond the reach of the law," it said in a statement.

West Africa has increasingly been used as a major transit route for cocaine trading from South America to Europe, with traffickers exploiting porous borders and weak enforcement in parts of the region.

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

'This star is for Africa' - Angélique Kidjo on making Hollywood Walk of Fame history

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62xyg6527go, 3 days ago

Five-time Grammy award winner Angélique Kidjo, who made history on Tuesday to become the first African musician to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, has told the BBC she wants to dedicate the accolade to the continent of her birth.

"This star is for all the continent of Africa. Because if I was not African, would I be here?" said the 66-year-old musical icon from Benin.

She reiterated her message, made at the ceremony in Los Angeles to mark her four-decade career, about the importance of Africans to the world of music.

"Without the blues brought by the slaves in America, there's no R&B, there's no rock and roll, there's no soul music, there's no jazz. All of it comes from Africa."

Kidjo told BBC Focus on Africa TV that Africans themselves needed to appreciate what they had given the world, and nurture talent at home.

"Let's celebrate our artists in their own right on the continent. Let's give them visibility, strength, because music creates economy," she said.

Most African artists - besides mega stars who have a global fanbase - struggle to make a living as they rarely get paid the royalties they are owed.

"We need to recognise our artists and create a system for them to make money on their continent and to participate also in creating jobs."

As her illustrious career was immortalised in Los Angeles, Kidjo became emotional - wiping away tears.

"At that moment, I'm like, dad, mum, I wish you were here with me to see [this]" the songstress explained to the BBC.

"I couldn't take the emotion. They were not here to taste the fruit of what they've created. How they have nurtured my curiosity, my love for music."

Kidjo - who has taken African sounds to global audiences, blending influences from home with funk, jazz and pop - grew up in Benin and then went to Paris aged 23, citing oppression from the country's then-communist government.

At her Walk of Fame ceremony, she was joined by other family, friends and stars such as Hollywood actors Willem Dafoe and Djimon Hounsou, who is also from Benin, and Nigerian musician Adekunle Gold.

The gathering was filled with singing and dancing in celebration of her career, which has included collaborations with big names such as Burna Boy, John Legend, Bono and Alicia Keys.

Her latest album, HOPE!!, was released earlier this year with tracks produced by Pharrell Williams, and collaborations with Ayra Starr, Quavo, Nile Rogers and Diane Warren.

Kidjo has released 18 albums in total and has been nominated for 17 Grammy awards, which she has won five times.

She also won the 2023 Polar Music Prize, and two years earlier was named as one of Time's 100 Most Influential People.

"She is without a doubt the hardest working woman in showbusiness," Dafoe said at the ceremony.

"The first time I saw Angélique perform live, I thought her music, her dancing, her commitment were incredible."

The Spider-Man star likened her energy to that of soul singer James Brown, who he called the "hardest working man in showbusiness".

"She's not only an incredible performer... songwriter and musician, but also an incredibly kind and giving person and a real deal activist."

Kidjo is a Unicef and Oxfam goodwill ambassador, and is the co-founder of the Batonga Foundation, which helps vulnerable young girls and women in Benin.

At the Los Angeles gathering she was also praised by Harvey Mason Jr, the CEO of Recording Academy - the organisation that also oversees the Grammy awards.

"She's connected cultures, she's crossed borders, she's reminded audiences everywhere that while we may come from different backgrounds, her music unites in a way that few other things can," he said.

During her interview with the BBC, the musician's phone kept ringing with those wanting to congratulate her.

"Yesterday I received the call of the president of Benin," she said.

"Today I received the call of Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records, the producer of Bob Marley, the maker of U2 and so on and so forth."

Kidjo explained how fundamental Blackwell, who signed her in the 1990s, had been to her success - launching her breakthrough album Logozo.

"I said to him at that moment… 'Can I do the music I want to do and keep my cultural identity without anyone imposing any other music on my shoulder?' He said… 'It's no brainer.'"

Kidjo joins Charlize Theron, a white South African actress, in representing Africa on the Walk of Fame, which comprises more than 2,800 stars.

She said she was amazed to hear a year ago that she had been nominated for a Hollywood star, telling Focus on Africa she did not believe the news given to her by her husband until she said she had seen it on the BBC.

And when asked about the significance of becoming the first African musician with a star, she replied: "Changes that last take time."

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

The goat is now a celebrity - how this graduation gift went viral

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3w03y2wgxeo, 6 days ago

When Promise Okoro walked out of his final degree exams earlier this month, he fully expected the usual end-of-term celebrations.

His cheering friends were already outside blasting music and snapping and filming this much-loved Nigerian "signing-out" ritual.

Their white shirts filled up with messages scribbled by classmates and well-wishers – a colourful record of a shared journey through education.

But then, through the crowd, came Promise's mother, Chinyere, pulling a goat.

It turned an already joyful afternoon into a moment Promise and his friends would not soon forget.

The 23-year-old pharmaceutical technology student initially thought the screams meant someone was about to propose marriage.

Instead, he found his friends gathered around his mother, who was making her way towards him, gently coaxing the farm animal behind her.

"I was so happy," he told BBC Pidgin. "I felt so emotional."

He says he was not embarrassed at all. Instead, his classmates cheered.

The moment was captured on video and quickly spread online, drawing thousands of warm reactions.

For some people outside south-east Nigeria, a goat might seem like an unusual gift to mark the end of university. But among the Igbo people, the animals can carry deep cultural meaning.

They are valuable gifts, often given to show respect, appreciation and goodwill and are associated with important occasions such as traditional weddings, family celebrations and ceremonies honouring elders or special guests.

Promise has not yet hit on a fitting name for his prized possession.

Some have questioned what the graduand now plans to do with the animal - but he tells the BBC it is very much his companion so he would never eat it.

"It's now my pet, it's too precious to me, I have no intention of killing it."

In fact, the plan is to get a female goat and start breeding the pair.

Until then, Promise's goat will continue enjoying special status at the student halls where he roams freely and even has some human-like habits.

"I have noticed it loves fried rice a lot! The way he eats up my fried rice leftovers - very voracious," laughs Promise.

Now something of a local hero, the goat accompanied Promise to a nearby supermarket where fans clambered to take photos of the animal.

"It got on a car ride with me from my hostel to the mall... it was calm [even though] it's now a celebrity - more popular than me.

"I also take it around my street for some evening walks".

Promise gained not just a new friend but also high praise from his mother Chinyere - this gift was her way of saying "I am proud of you" and she wanted everybody to know.

She had travelled, goat in tow, for more than an hour from Ubaha-Eze, the small farming community where the family lives, to surprise her son at the Federal Polytechnic Nekede in Imo state.

Chinyere had once dreamed of buying her son something very different – a shiny new vehicle.

"I did not have money for a 4matic Jeep - I love that car - so I said let me buy this little gift," she said.

The 4Matic is a Mercedes-Benz SUV – a car she said was beyond what she could afford.

Chinyere is a trader who sells consumer goods, including food, drinks and local snacks.

Business has been difficult but even with the financial pressures she was determined to keep her promise to her son.

When he got into university she had said he would be rewarded if he stayed away from violent gangs and other bad influences and not to drop out. Promise had done exactly that.

And now his mother wanted to stick to the pledge. She bought the goat for 120,000 naira ($88; £66).

"People love my son, I want[ed] to prove that he is [loved]," she said

"As I walked in and met loud celebrating and shouting, it gladdened my heart knowing that my son will rejoice together with us all when he comes out," she said.

For Promise, the relationship with his mother goes far beyond the celebrations.

"My mom is very cool," he said. "There is nothing I can hide from her and whenever she is confused about something, she always calls me to ask of my opinion or idea."

As a student of pharmaceutical technology Promise said he has always wanted to help sick people in Nigeria.

He knows that many health professionals have left the country in search of better opportunities abroad, while those who remain often work in difficult conditions.

But he wants to stay and contribute to improving Nigeria's strained health system.

Even as he waits for his final results, he believes he performed well. "If there is a list of the top 50, I will say that I am one of them."

Nigeria's tertiary education completion rate is 11.3 out of every 100 people. That is slightly higher than the average of 10.5 out of 100 across sub-Saharan Africa, but below the 17.6 out of 100 average for lower middle-income countries.

For Promise, completing his studies is therefore not simply another line on a certificate.

It is a milestone his mother has been waiting to celebrate. And now, he says, it is his turn.

"The way she has shocked me, I will make sure I reciprocate."

Whatever surprise Promise eventually finds for his mother, it may be difficult to match the one she gave him: a brown goat, brought from their village with love and determination – a simple gift that has united thousands of people who have watched the moment unfold online.

More BBC stories from Nigeria:

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'Ghana was the crime scene': The country leading the demand for slavery reparations

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0j2r15dr1o, 7 days ago

This year has seen a dramatic change in tone in the global conversation about the transatlantic slave trade.

The demand for formal apologies, debt relief and financial compensation from nations and institutions that benefited from slavery has become increasingly forceful.

In March, a resolution was passed at the United Nations recognising slavery as "the greatest crime against humanity" - though the United States voted against the resolution and every European nation abstained from the vote.

The UK, which alongside Portugal dominated the transatlantic slave trade, has consistently rejected the idea of paying reparations, which is perhaps unsurprising given estimates of what Britain "owes" in damages to nations affected run into many trillions of pounds.

This resistance has not deterred the country that has become the leading voice on reparations: Ghana.

It was Ghana that tabled the UN resolution, and in June, a summit on reparations was held in its capital, Accra, with delegates from around 80 countries, who concluded that recompense was long overdue.

"Ghana has always been a pan-African leader. We're the first country to attain independence in sub-Saharan Africa and to prove that it is possible to fight imperial might, and win," Foreign Minister Samuel Okuzeto Ablakwa tells me.

Ghana has been given special responsibility by the African Union to be "champion for reparatory justice" and it is clearly a role the country's political leadership is taking seriously.

In part that is because about 10-15% of the estimated 12 million Africans who were forcibly removed from their homes, torn from their villages, and dehumanised on a scale never before seen, were from what is now Ghana. Even more were shipped from its shores.

"Ghana was the crime scene where these atrocities took place, so Ghana cannot afford to be silent on ensuring that we hold perpetrators accountable," Ablakwa says.

The minister has called for a system of reparatory justice that funds educational grants, venture capital for young African entrepreneurs and research into enduring health issues that some argue may trace their roots back to the severe malnutrition and inhumane conditions of enslavement.

And though he insists that this is not about direct financial gain for African leaders, one of the demands laid out at the recent summit on reparations clearly talked of debt relief and debt cancellation.

He also wants individual institutions that benefited from the slave trade to be held accountable and pay compensation. Among these is the Church of England.

In the 18th Century, the Church's missionary wing ran plantations and owned hundreds of slaves, which helped fund its work across the Americas and beyond.

Many Church of England clergy independently owned slaves, and a recent report by the Church's endowment fund reported the institution made large investments in the slave trade from which it made huge sums of money.

In July, the leader of the Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dame Sarah Mullally, visited Ghana in one of her first international visits in the role.

She travelled to Cape Coast Castle, one of the many coastal fortresses that had been run by the British, and where enslaved people were held before enduring the brutal "Middle Passage" to the Americas.

As she toured the dungeons where slaves were held and walked through "the door of no return" through which they were forced before being loaded on to ships, Dame Sarah looked emotional and stopped to pray.

"I felt the weight of the depth of evil that the transatlantic slave trade was. You can't help but be deeply moved by the horrific conditions that people were kept in," the Archbishop said.

She also prayed in a 17th Century chapel that was positioned directly above the dungeons.

"For me that is such a stark illustration of the way the Church was involved in the slave trade," she says. "How can the church have sat above the horrors that were going on below?".

"The Church of England has apologised for the part that we played in the transatlantic slave trade but we've also said there needs to be action that relates to that," Archbishop Sarah said.

The Church has set up a £100m ($135m) social impact fund designed to benefit communities thought to continue to feel the enduring legacy of the slave trade today.

But within the Church, the establishment of the fund has encountered resistance, just as the global push for nations to pay reparations has done.

One of the key counter-arguments centres on the fact that some Africans were themselves complicit in the capture and sale of their fellow people.

But Foreign Minister Ablakwa emphatically rejects this narrative. "I think that there's a strategy to divide and conquer and to create a very contrived confusion," he argues.

He stresses that the entire architecture of chattel enslavement was curated by Western slave-owning powers, who simply utilised local actors to help carry out their plans.

The foreign minister points out that when the laws, insurance policies, and financial architectures of the trade were being drafted, "there was no African at the table".

"We denounce and totally reject those claims that Africans are as guilty and complicit as those who masterminded this whole atrocity," he says.

Yet, within Ghana itself, the conversation around African complicity is far more nuanced, and for some traditional leaders, acknowledging the past is a vital prerequisite part of healing.

King Tackie Teiko Tsuru II, the Ga Mantse, leader of Ghana's Ga people, recently took the step of publicly apologising for his ancestors' involvement in the slave trade.

"I think that the transatlantic slave trade was the greatest crime against humanity, and ancestors also took part as players in that trade," says the king.

The Ga people became middlemen who traded with Europeans. They sold gold, ivory and ultimately enslaved Africans, often those captured in local conflicts, in exchange for the manufactured goods brought mainly by the British and Dutch, including textiles, alcohol and guns.

Outside the UK you can watch this on the BBC World Service YouTube channel

But the king felt he needed to say sorry not just for his own people's complicity, but the complicity of other Africans too.

"I stand on the same point of apologising on behalf of all traditional authorities and my ancestors and forebears for the part they also played in the slavery of our brothers and sisters.

"It has affected lives and societies up to now, and to be able to go forward, you have to look at your past. It dawns on us to admit our fault and correct it," he says.

The king believes strongly in the need for those who benefited from the slave trade to pay reparations and acknowledges that he, too, needs to commit to making financial amends.

"I believe that it underpins a state of moral courage and credibility."

For the Ga Mantse, admitting fault does not dilute the guilt of European empires; rather, it solidifies Africa's moral standing and sets an example as to how to move forward.

But Ghana is leading the way in another aspect of trying to heal the damage done by the slave trade. The country has run a high-profile campaign inviting the African diaspora - particularly African-Americans - to visit the continent.

It has been promoted as a means of bringing people together in the shared story of their traumatic past, with "reparations" quite literally focussing on "repair" at a very human level.

Yaw Asare, now a Ghanaian PhD student at Howard University, previously worked within the President of Ghana's Diaspora Office, which ran the campaign.

Initially, the gathering of black people from across the globe was, he felt, "a beautiful, profound experience devoid of capitalist motives". But he says in some respects the initiative soon morphed.

"The Ghana Tourism Authority also latched on to it and then used it to enhance their tourism project," Asare explains, saying the initiative started to become less about "repair" and more about hitting tourism quotas.

Asare says the campaign has often viewed the returning diaspora simply as a means of foreign cash flow, raising prices and negatively altering local economies.

"Now (local) people are finding that they cannot afford basic things," Asare says, describing how local Ghanaians were economically sidelined.

More devastatingly, he feels the commercialisation of the initiative overshadowed the deep, psychological work that is desperately needed for locals as well as "returning" members of the diaspora.

"We are dealing with humans, we are dealing with people. We cannot reduce them to, 'come see this site, pay this entrance fee'," Asare says.

He also questions - in an initiative that was partly supposed to be about addressing the trauma of Africans in the diaspora - why they were required to pay entrance fees at the same rates as European tourists at, for example, the coastal castles where slaves were trafficked.

He says all of this means a missed opportunity to address deep-rooted trauma some of which he feels is etched into the very geography and psychology of modern Ghana.

"Go to Jamestown (in Accra), people are huddled together because there is the fear of 'if I live far away, I could be taken'," Asare says, pointing to how centuries-old concerns dictated why people built their houses so closely together.

Jamestown is one of the oldest districts in the city, a community originally built around a British coastal fort where slaves were brought, traded and then sent on ships to the Americas.

For Asare, true reparatory justice must prioritise human connection and healing over financial transactions.

"We have to remove the band-aid and then look at the sore, the gaping wound that's present," Asare says about what he sees as real "reparations". "And see how we can dress it and nurse it and heal".

Additional reporting by Catherine Wyatt

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Dozens of people abducted in attacks on villages in Nigeria, police say

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g4gpgm1m4o, yesterday

More than 100 people have been abducted in attacks on several villages in Nigeria's central Niger State, police and residents have told the BBC.

The attackers, who were reportedly wearing military-style clothing, targeted communities in the Borgu Local Government Area after Friday prayers.

Police spokesman Wasiu Abiodun said more than 40 people were also killed in the attacks on Dekara, Gidan Zana, Sabon Gida and Masaka villages.

He said authorities suspect the attackers were bandits - criminal gangs involved in kidnapping and looting for ransom across parts of Nigeria.

Residents said the gunmen entered Dekara after prayers, gathered people and took them into nearby forests before moving on to neighbouring villages.

Local lawmaker Jafar Muhammad Shetiman Borgu confirmed the attacks had taken place to the BBC.

The attacks come as armed groups have increased their activities in the remote Borgu area, which borders Kebbi and Kwara states as well as Benin.

These latest attacks are separate from an earlier series of abductions in the same area.

Earlier this month, police said 145 people had been rescued after being abducted from four villages in Borgu - Konkoso, Kasuwan-Daji, Tungan-Makeri and Shafachi.

They were among 308 people the authorities said been rescued in a major security operation, including more than 160 people abducted in neighbouring Kwara State.

The attacks highlight the continuing security challenges in Niger State and across north central Nigeria, where armed groups have exploited remote forests and weak security presence to carry out raids and kidnappings.

The Borgu area has also been linked to the activities of Jihadist groups operating in parts of north-western Nigeria and across the border region.

Local officials say Jihadist fighters have in recent months entered communities and imposed religious restrictions.

Shetiman said the latest attacks had raised fears that some of the gunmen may be trying to recruit young people.

The security situation has remained particularly serious in Borgu.

Last week, more than 20 people were killed in the local government area, according to local officials.

In November 2025, gunmen also abducted more than 200 pupils from a school in Papiri, in Niger State. The children were released about a month later.

Despite repeated military and police operations, large parts of Niger State remain difficult for security forces to access, allowing armed groups to operate from forested areas and carry out attacks on isolated communities.

Corruption charges dropped against South Africa's police intelligence boss

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0rd1pkdky8o, 2 days ago

South African prosecutors have withdrawn fraud and corruption charges brought against criminal intelligence chief Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo and six other police officers.

He and his colleagues were arrested in June 2025 over the allegedly unlawful appointment of a civilian to a key post within the intelligence unit. They denied the charges and were not suspended.

The case against them was now been formally dropped at a court in the capital, Pretoria, after a review last month by the country's chief prosecutor.

South Africa's police force has long been plagued by issues of political interference, alleged corruption and a seeming inability to effectively tackle high levels of crime.

A major judicial inquiry into alleged police corruption, known as the Madlanga Commission, is currently under way.

It was established last year by President Cyril Ramaphosa after a senior police officer alleged that organised crime groups had infiltrated the government.

Speaking outside court in Pretoria after the withdrawal of the charges, Gen Khumalo expressed relief that the "truth at least is out".

Prosecutors had claimed that Dineo Mokwele was unqualified for the senior technical support services position she held within crime intelligence and labelled her a "token appointment".

Her appointment then came under scrutiny at the Madlanga Commission.

It heard that Mokwele was more than qualified for the post and had about a dozen certificates to her name.

In July, Andrea Johnson - the former head of a specialised unit within the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) tasked with investigating high level and complex corruption cases - appeared before the commission.

She admitted that she was unaware of Mokwele's qualifications and apologised for remarks made about her.

Gen Khumalo became the head of Crime Intelligence in 2022. Up until then, he had served in different police units for more than two decades.

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Ebola vaccine trial to start in DR Congo as warning issued over speed of infections

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxe9n0vxzdo, 2 days ago

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is gearing up to roll out an Ebola vaccine with some doses being used as part of a trial to see if it is effective against the Bundibugyo species of the virus that is currently circulating in the country.

The Ervebo vaccine does help protect against the Zaïre species of Ebola but currently there are no proven vaccines or treatments for Bundibugyo.

The rollout comes as the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a new warning that Ebola was "growing exponentially" in the north and east of DR Congo and the spread of infections now covered an area bigger than France.

Close to 2,500 people have now died in this outbreak, which was declared three months ago.

Julien Harneis, the WHO's Ebola co-ordinator, told reporters that half of the deaths happened in the last 20 days.

"It is growing faster and wider than the Ebola response," he is quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.

A new report by Save the Children suggests that at least 180 Congolese children have lost both parents or caregivers since the outbreak began.

This outbreak is now the deadliest in DR Congo's history and the second-worst ever - only surpassed by the 2014-2016 West Africa outbreak when more than 11,000 people died.

Experts say that it may have been spreading in DR Congo since as early as February but the infections of the Bundibugyo species were initially misdiagnosed as typhoid and malaria.

This, along with the difficulties health teams have in working in conflict-hit areas, local suspicions of health authorities and some traditional practices around burial, have hampered the response.

It is hoped that the Ervebo vaccine may be able to help.

The WHO confirmed that 20,000 doses would be used in a clinical trial to assess the vaccine's effectiveness against Bundibugyo, while 50,000 doses will be administered to front-line health workers.

The WHO and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention welcomed the allocation, describing it as a vital reinforcement of the response.

Meanwhile, the M23 rebel group that controls parts of the east of DR Congo has announced new restrictions on movement between government-held and rebel-held areas of North Kivu province.

Shared taxis and passenger boats between the areas will be suspended for one month starting on Saturday.

Other transport will continue to operate under strict health controls.

The measures follow reports that two travellers tested positive for Ebola in a village under M23 control. The rebel authorities said the restrictions were necessary to prevent further spread.

The move highlights the complexity of tackling Ebola amid ongoing hostilities between the Congolese government and the rebels.

The M23 alliance, which captured Goma and Bukavu in early 2025, has sought to demonstrate its administrative capacity by mounting a parallel Ebola response in territories under its control.

In late June, the rebel authorities declared their zones Ebola-free.

Ebola is a rare but deadly viral disease and the Bundibugyo species is even rarer, with only two known prior outbreaks.

Symptoms of Ebola, which are similar to the flu or malaria, include fever, headache and tiredness, and can begin suddenly within two to 21 days of infection.

As the disease progresses, vomiting and diarrhoea can develop, leading to organ failure. Contact with infected bodily fluids such as blood or vomit causes the virus to spread.

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Two Mexicans arrested as police uncover big meth lab on South African farm

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c80n8d4xz1eo, 3 days ago

Two Mexicans have been arrested in South Africa after police uncovered a multi-million dollar crystal methamphetamine laboratory in the north of the country.

The lab was raided overnight at a farm near the town of Musina, in the Limpopo province, near South Africa's border with Zimbabwe. Two Zimbabweans and a Malawian national were also arrested.

Police said it followed a two-month investigation into suspicious activities at the farm. Drugs and equipment worth around 600m rand ($37m; £27m) were seized as well as an undisclosed amount of cash.

A number big meth labs on remote farms have been discovered by South African police over the last two years - with several involving Mexican nationals.

In May, police arrested 11 people, including four Mexicans, after uncovering a suspected drug lab worth $6m on a remote farm north-west of Johannesburg.

In September last year, five Mexicans were arrested after police dismantled a crystal meth lab, with drugs worth $20m, on a farm in the east of the country.

In July 2024, three Mexicans were among those arrested at a remote farm in Limpopo province where a crystal meth lab and drugs worth $108m were uncovered.

The five Musina farm suspects will appear in court on Monday to face charges relating to the manufacture and possession of illicit drugs.

"The discovery has exposed an alleged sophisticated, industrial-scale operation believed to have been established for the manufacture of dangerous illicit substances destined for distribution," the police said in a statement.

South Africa is as one of the largest crystal meth consumer markets in the world, according to the 2022 Global State of Harm Reduction report.

The UN says its geography and "porous borders" also make it an ideal transit point for illicit drug.

South Africa is not the only African country where illicit laboratories have been found.

In May this year, Nigeria's drug enforcement agency said it had "dealt another crippling blow" and dismantled "a highly sophisticated, multi-million-dollar Nigerian-Mexican methamphetamine production syndicate".

The lab at the centre of an ongoing court case was discovered in a dense forested area of the West African nation.

Counter-narcotics officials at the US-Africa Command (Africom) recently told the BBC that since 2023 14 Mexican-operated laboratories had been raided on the continent - found in Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria and South Africa.

Experts believe this indicates criminal cartels in Mexico are increasing using Africa, not just as a trafficking hub, but also as a production base.

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Fourteen killed in strike on Myanmar monastery

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqlxlvz01z1o, yesterday

Fourteen people were killed in military air strikes at a monastery in Myanmar early on Friday, opposition fighters and a local rescue worker have said.

All of those killed were elderly and a number of monks were also injured, the rescue worker told BBC Burmese, adding that the site was struck twice.

The attack happened at around 09:00 local time (02:30 GMT) in Myaung township in the central Sagaing region, some 70km (47 miles) west of Mandalay, the news agency AFP reported.

Civilians had reportedly gathered at the site for a meditation retreat to mark Buddhist Lent. Myanmar's military has not commented.

Nway Oo Myaung, a pro-democracy rebel, told AFP that the victims included 11 men and three women. Five of the victims were said to be from one village, while the remaining nine were from a neighbouring township.

"Older people had entered the meditation centres," Myaung added, saying the dead were aged between 50 and 70.

A second, unnamed opposition fighter said he had been among those searching for survivors of the attacks.

"While we were trying to rescue people, the aircraft came to bomb a second time," he said.

Myanmar has been locked in civil war since the military staged a 2021 coup ousting Aung San Suu Kyi, and has been under martial rule since. The military, which is frequently accused of carrying out strikes on public buildings, has previously said it only strikes legitimate targets.

UK, Canada and Australia condemn Israel for refusing criminal probe into aid worker killings in Gaza

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgl2pe09eno, 2 days ago

The UK, Canada and Australia have described as "shameful" Israel's decision not to launch a criminal investigation into strikes on a World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy in Gaza in 2024, which killed seven humanitarian workers.

The victims were three British nationals, a Pole, an Australian, a Canadian and a dual US-Canadian citizen.

A joint statement by the three foreign ministries said: "The victims of this incident and their families deserve justice and accountability, and we will continue to seek answers on their behalf."

Earlier, Israel's ambassador to Australia, Hillel Newman, defended the decision, saying "there was no criminal intention" and therefore "no criminal responsibility".

The statement said that on 1 April 2024, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fired on the WCK convoy as it was delivering food to civilians in Gaza.

"In the more than two years since, we have been pressing for Israel to swiftly and thoroughly consider the case and hold those responsible to account," it said.

The three countries said the fact that Israel's announcement came on World Humanitarian Day, "while the world honoured the courage and sacrifice of humanitarians, was particularly egregious".

It also said the WCK attack was only "one of countless incidents in Gaza where there has been no accountability", as Gaza remains "the deadliest place to deliver aid", with 186 humanitarian workers killed in 2025.

It urged Israel to comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law and do more to ensure that humanitarian staff can carry out their work safely.

'Serious failures'

In its statement on Wednesday, the IDF said the presence of an armed guard with the convoy had not been flagged to it before the convoy set off, and that he was falsely identified as a Hamas fighter. It also accused the convoy of deviating from the route co-ordinated with the military.

Notwithstanding "serious failures" in the process that led to the killings, "the decisions of the commanders did not raise reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct," the IDF said.

Prior to the statement by the three countries, Australia summoned Hillel Newman. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said her country was "outraged" by the Israeli government's decision.

She also said there were still many "unanswered questions" about the strikes, including why, if the first strike on the convoy was "a catastrophic error", two further strikes followed just minutes apart.

Poland's foreign ministry also said on Thursday that it was "very disappointed" and had summoned Israel's ambassador in Warsaw.

The founder of World Central Kitchen, Jose Andres, described the decision as "wrong" and "painful for all of us", demanding an independent commission to investigate.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not publicly responded to the latest statement from the UK, Australia and Canada, but he previously said that the military had "unintentionally" killed the volunteers.

The statement came after a harsh exchange of words between UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar over Israel's plans to open tenders for the construction of about 1,200 settlement homes in a strategically important part of the occupied West Bank.

Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and plans to build in the so-called E1 area - east of Jerusalem - have long been internationally condemned.

Miliband condemned the publication of the tender as "an unacceptable and destructive act", and called on Israel to "halt E1 plans immediately, retract the tender and stop all settlement expansion".

In response, Saar said on social media that he rejected "outright" Miliband's statement.

"The Jewish people have the right to live throughout the Land of Israel, just as the British have the right to live in London and throughout the United Kingdom," he wrote.

While the IDF had decided not to launch a criminal investigation into the strikes on the WCK convoy, it announced in the same statement that it would carry out a criminal investigation into the killing by Israeli forces of five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab and six of her relatives in Gaza in 2024.

It also said it would similarly investigate the killing of 15 Palestinians, including medics and a UN worker, in March 2025. Their bodies were found buried in shallow graves a week later next to crushed vehicles.

Modi spent years building his strong image - why is he making Gen Z reels now?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cnvn0n1nld6o, 2 days ago

Many among India's Gen Z may not see Narendra Modi as a friend. But the Indian prime minister is trying to talk to them like one.

The 75-year-old leader - who has long cultivated a strongman image through scripted speeches, formal broadcasts and carefully choreographed appearances - has in recent weeks adopted a more casual style on Instagram, the photo and video platform popular with young people.

Modi's timeline, which until a month ago featured carefully curated posts, now also includes more "candid" content, such as a get-ready-with-me reel and several selfie-style addresses to young people, whom he calls "friends".

In one video, he even refers to a phrase popular among Gen Z, saying, "first in my bloodline to build a rocket, a chip and a drone" while addressing students at a graduation ceremony in Delhi.

Modi has more than 106 million followers on Instagram, making him one of the most-followed political leaders on the platform.

But the tone of his communication on the platform was never central to his team or the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) social media strategy, despite the party's reputation for acing the digital playbook that helped it win the 2014 elections.

However, things changed after the youth protests in India this year.

Led by the satirical Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), the movement spread through memes, livestreams and Instagram reels before evolving into a force strong enough to make a federal minister resign.

The CJP began as a joke, but its ability to turn online attention into street mobilisation and political pressure appeared to catch the BJP off guard.

For more than a decade, the Hindu nationalist party has built one of India's most formidable political forces online using WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages and X accounts to amplify its message, says author and commentator Anurag Minus Verma.

But young Indians consume content and politics differently.

More than 60% of India's population is under 35 and Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2012) is expected to form one of the country's largest voting blocs by the 2029 general election, experts say.

Winning them over means reaching them on platforms such as Instagram, where personal and unfiltered content can resonate more than traditional political messaging.

That shift was evident when Modi's posts first appeared on Instagram. Young users were quick to respond with sarcasm.

Many people mocked his first selfie-video reel - in which he broke his silence about the youth protests while they were still ongoing. But what really caught their attention was a long pause after Modi said, "friends".

Versions of it soon trended online, with users adding edits and jokes and mocking the lighting and camera angles in his video.

In the posts that followed, Modi's team appeared to respond to some of that criticism, experimenting with different camera angles, backdrops and lighting.

While some young users appreciated the outreach, many were still sceptical about its timing.

Ginni Malia, 22, "understands" why the BJP wants to connect with people her age, but says "the timing of this sudden increased engagement is what we really need to look at".

The videos appear to adopt Gen Z language and formats, but fail to address concerns that fuelled the protests, she adds.

It is not just Modi's account. BJP social media pages have also started using memes, slang and pop-culture references to reach younger audiences.

Shortly after the protests ended, the BJP posted a reel set in a gym. It featured young people and an older trainer arguing that young Indians should stay away from the protests. But many comments and shares called the video "cringe".

Another video posted by the BJP had the 90s sitcom Friends title track playing in the background, with the caption, "PM Modi is there for you" - a reference to a show that was a hit with millennials but has little recall value among Gen Z.

Malia says among her peers, these videos are seen as "comic content" rather than taken as political messaging or outreach.

According to reports, the BJP seems to be aware that its attempts to reach younger audiences were not landing as intended.

During the protests, Modi reportedly asked his cabinet ministers to increase their social media engagement and reach out to the youth.

On Wednesday, federal ministers were given a "report card" on their social media performance and told to step up their presence across platforms, the Hindustan Times reported.

Recently, the party also replaced its social media chief Amit Malviya who had held the post since 2015. Some analysts say it could be because of criticism directed at the BJP online during the protests and how they were unable to contain the social media narrative.

The BJP is not alone in trying to connect with younger audiences.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi - who often posts selfie-style videos and candid pictures on Instagram - also held an Instagram Ask Me Anything after the protests, with playful responses such as "have you seen me and Batman in the same room together?"

However, getting attention on Instagram is one thing and controlling the conversation there is another.

Joyojeet Pal, who teaches the political use of social media at the University of Michigan, says the BJP has long relied on a network of supporters on X and WhatsApp to amplify its messages and shape the narrative - but that does not work on Instagram.

The platform tends to push content that generates more engagement, such as longer watch times, replays, shares and comments.

"It is not too difficult to find a reel which has 10 million views posted from an account that has 200 followers, while some posted by people with a huge base might do only a few thousand," Pal says.

"This is a challenge for the BJP because its strategy was built for a network-centric internet, while today's platforms are far more affect-centric."

Another hurdle for the BJP could be losing control over what happens after a video is posted.

Modi's first reel, which has been viewed more than 400 million times, is a case in point. While it attracted a huge audience, Verma says young people reshared it with sarcastic and mocking edits, giving it a very different tone from what Modi intended. For the BJP, learning to accept that dynamic could be a challenge.

"Instagram is fundamentally a platform built around irony," says Verma. "Serious political messaging, packaged as reels, can still be trolled."

Experts, however, caution against putting too much weight on the BJP's efforts to win over Gen Z. They say the party's electoral success still depends far more on its organisational strength and loyal support base than on how its content performs on Instagram.

"It's important to distinguish between the ability to win an election and to win a social-media narrative," Pal says. "The BJP is absolutely capable of sweeping elections even if every Gen Z person hates it on social media."

For now, the party - like many in India's political space - is learning to operate in unfamiliar territory.

But it would not be surprising if the BJP eventually figures it out it, Pal says.

The party has a history of adapting to new forms of political communication, from being an early adopter of social media for campaigning to embracing newer formats such as podcasts and influencer interviews.

"But it will take time, and the fact that we are seeing this problem now means that they will have to learn a new set of rules," he adds.

Sydney Marathon medal mistakenly depicts Munich stadium

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg92y1wzn8o, yesterday

One week out from the world-renowned Sydney Marathon, organisers face questions about whether designers etched the wrong city's stadium on the participation medal.

The medal appears to feature a stadium carved in the likeness of Allianz Arena in the German city of Munich, rather than Allianz Stadium in Sydney – which the 42.2km (26.2 mile) course runs past.

The BBC has reached out to Sydney Marathon for comment.

Some 40,000 runners will be taking part in the event on 30 August, after more than 120,000 ballot entries.

Speculation about a possible mix-up began after Sydney Marathon's official social media account unveiled its design for the 2026 medal, inviting users to "look closely and you'll find the story of the course in the details".

They continued: "A beautiful Sydney skyline brings the course to life, featuring the landmarks runners will experience along the way - starting with the Sydney Harbour Bridge and finishing at the world-famous Sydney Opera House."

Munich's Allianz Arena is sculpted by thousands of diamond-shaped inflatable cushions, while Sydney's similarly-named Allianz Stadium has a flatter façade smoothed with long bronze fins.

The other face of the double-sided medal features a gold and indigo pattern designed by First Nations artist Ambrose Killian. Forty-two half-round markings lining the circular edge "represent each kilometre of the course", organisers explained.

Killian told the BBC he was not responsible for the other artwork.

The blunder follows a similar incident at last year's Great North Run in Newcastle, where medals mistakenly featured the Sunderland and Wear River – which is not part of the event.

Sydney was announced as the seventh city added to the Abbott majors series in 2024, joining London, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, New York, and Tokyo. Cape Town is set to become the eighth city when it hosts its first marathon major next year.

Hong Kong's Tiananmen activists convicted in national security trial

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1l10mdrld5o, 3 days ago

Two Hong Kong activists who organised annual vigils to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown have been found guilty of inciting others to subvert state power under the city's controversial national security law.

Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison after being convicted under the China-introduced law. Sentencing is expected at a later date.

A third defendant, Albert Ho, 74, pleaded guilty in January.

Lee and Chow "incited other persons to organise, plan, commit or participate in acts by unlawful means with a view to subverting the state power", according to a summary on Friday. Chow told the court in May the law itself was on trial.

Hong Kong used to be one of the only places in Chinese territory where people could gather to mark the deadly 1989 crackdown against pro-democracy protesters.

Authorities banned these gatherings in 2020, citing Covid-19 policies, but they have never resumed. This was also the year the national security law, which makes illegal a wider range of dissenting acts, officially came into force.

In mainland China, authorities have banned even oblique references to the 1989 crackdown.

In the courtroom, Chow smiled as the verdict was read out, while Lee showed little emotion as he made a heart gesture and folded his hands to show his gratitude to those in the gallery.

Lee, a lawmaker, and Chow, a lawyer, were also leaders of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance (HKA), which has been described as a "toxic tumour" by Chinese authorities.

The HKA was founded in May 1989 to support students holding pro-democracy rallies. Weeks later, the Communist Party crushed pro-democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square with troops and tanks. Estimates of the death toll range from a few hundred to many thousands.

Over the next three decades, HKA called on authorities to accept responsibility for the crackdown, free dissidents and introduce democratic reform.

The Alliance's leaders were charged in 2021 and have been behind bars since.

Rights group Amnesty International has said the case "relies on vague, overly broad and arbitrary definitions of 'subversion'".

Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International's deputy regional director, said Chow and Lee had "not committed any recognisable crime".

"Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan are prisoners of conscience who should never have been prosecuted in the first place. They must be released immediately and unconditionally," she added.

Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said the convictions showed "how public displays of mourning have become a crime in Hong Kong".

In a separate case, Chow was arrested in June 2021 for "inciting" the public to take part in that year's vigil and later found guilty.

However, Hong Kong's top court overturned that conviction in 2022, with a judge ruling the police hadn't properly justified the vigil's ban.

Chow Hang-tung spoke to the BBC in 2021, weeks before her arrest on 4 June 2022.

"I am prepared to be arrested. That is how Hong Kong is now," she had said.

"I am willing to pay the price for fighting for democracy."

Critics say the national security law has eroded Hong Kong's autonomy and created a climate of fear. Authorities insist it is needed to maintain stability.

Among other things, the law criminalises anything considered as secession - or breaking away from China - as well as subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign or external forces.

Nanda Malini, one of Sri Lanka's best known voices of protest, dies at 82

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8rn7ejp7xeo, 3 days ago

Nanda Malini, a famed Sri Lankan singer whose voice was seen as a soundtrack to some of the country's political and social upheavals, has died at 82.

Songs from her album Pawana, which touched on social issues and urged people to stand up to injustice, were banned from national airwaves in the 1980s, during a particularly turbulent period of Sri Lankan history.

Her political advocacy continued well after those years, and today Malini is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Sinhala music industry.

She died at her home in Nawala, just a few days shy of her 83rd birthday.

Born on 23 August, 1943, in a village in Kalutara, Malini was the fourth in a family of nine children.

She went to school in the capital Colombo, where she won a poetry singing competition in 1956, which was seen as the start of her music career.

In the 70s and 80s Malini became known for her songs about social justice, from satirical lyrics about corruption to rallying calls for Sri Lankans to look past racial and religious divides and stand up against tyranny.

Sri Lanka at the time was undergoing a period of upheaval, as Leftist activists spearheaded an anti-establishment movement, airing frustrations against youth unemployment, social inequality and the elite class.

It was also a time of ethnic tensions, which culminated in the eruption of civil war in the 1983.

Authorities at the time banned Malini's songs from being played by national broadcasters - though that did not stop fans from listening to the tracks and attending her concerts.

Her 1987 album, Pawana, which contained songs about human rights and state oppression, is remembered today as the defining music of those turbulent years.

Her advocacy continued even as the country's political landscape transformed over the decades.

In 2022, as the country saw large-scale anti-government protests amid a spiralling economic crisis, Malini was a vocal supporter of the movement and performed to a gathering of demonstrators.

The months of protests led to the toppling of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The Sri Lanka government has declared a three-day mourning period for Malini, as tributes poured in for the veteran singer.

In a statement on social media, Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said he was "deeply saddened" by Malini's death and called her a "true musical legend of our time"

"Her timeless music inspired generations of Sri Lankans, young and old alike," he wrote.

Bali jails Swiss tourist for insulting sacred Day of Silence

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4kr59r28ko, 3 days ago

A Swiss tourist has been sentenced to one year in prison for insulting a sacred religious event on Indonesia's holiday island of Bali.

In a now-removed video, Luzian Andrin Zgraggen, 26, had filmed himself walking to an empty beach during the Hindu holiday of Nyepi, describing the scene as "crazy".

He was arrested in March after the video sparked widespread anger among Balinese on social media.

Nyepi, also known as the Day of Silence, is an annual holiday during which the usually bustling tourist island goes quiet, as people stay home and refrain from making loud noises. The restrictions apply to everyone on the island regardless of religion, including tourists.

On Nyepi, the island's airport shuts down and internet access is restricted.

Entertainment events are restricted and even the use of electricity is discouraged.

Residents typically stock up on groceries ahead of Nyepi so they can stay at home during the holiday.

On Nyepi, which fell on 19 March this year, Zgraggen filmed himself breaking the ban on going out, in an Instagram post captioned with expletives, local media reported.

"What the defendant did offended the Balinese people, hurt their faith and provoked public outrage," the presiding judge said, according to the Associated Press.

Zgraggen said during his trial that he did not understand the extent of Nyepi restrictions and did not mean to insult the Balinese.

"I deeply regret what I did, I apologise to the Balinese people," the Associated Press reported him as saying in court.

Tourists have previously been detained or deported for violating Nyepi restrictions.

Bali has seen tourist numbers recover past its pandemic lull. Last year it welcomed a record seven million international visitors.

But along with the surge in tourism comes misbehaviour that has vexed locals and Balinese authorities. Foreigners have been penalised for offensive acts at religious sites, forming exclusive tourist enclaves and flouting traffic laws.

Authorities have vowed to tighten scrutiny of the island's tourists and crackdown on unruly foreigners.

Pakistan ex-PM Imran Khan back in jail after hospital examination

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgdr9vr50po, 3 days ago

Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan was moved back to prison early on Friday after being examined by doctors at a hospital in Islamabad, who deemed him "medically fit".

Khan was seen by "a team of qualified doctors" including an ophthalmologist, a cardiologist and a physician, Pakistan's Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said.

The Supreme Court had on Tuesday ordered the cricketer-turned-politician be taken to a specific private hospital within 48 hours to be examined by physicians, following complaints about his health.

He was ultimately taken to a different government-run hospital.

The intervention was the most significant relief Khan has received from the courts since he was imprisoned in 2023 on corruption charges, which he says were politically motivated.

As well as being transferred to hospital, the court order also specified Khan should be allowed to see his family, which he has not been able to do in months. On Tuesday night, his sister Noreen Khan visited him in prison.

His other sister Dr. Uzma Khan accompanied him during the hospital visit last night. She was present throughout all stages of the medical examination overnight on Thursday, Tarar said.

Khan was meant to be sent to the private Shifa Interational Hospital in Islamabad, according to the Supreme Court order.

The area around it was sealed off with barriers, with officers and police vans in place. Outside, the BBC saw cars being moved with a truck to clear the street while police cars and armoured vehicles patrolled.

Some PTI activists had gathered along the route and near the hospital, despite warnings from the court and party leaders not to.

But Tarar later confirmed Khan had not been taken there and was instead driven to the government-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) hospital. A senior police official told the BBC the security presence outside Shifa was a decoy.

Tarar said the change had been made due to the "security situation created by PTI workers".

The PTI's Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram asked: "Was the court order implemented in its true spirit, or was it merely a superficial exercise for propaganda?"

Khan's lawyers have said he is suffering from various health conditions, including poor eyesight, and has been unable to access specialist medical care.

In February, the 73-year-old's lawyer said his client had 15% vision left in his right eye after prison authorities failed to take action - an allegation the government disputed.

In Tuesday's court order, the panel wrote: "We are mindful of the constitutional and legal obligation... to safeguard the life, health, dignity and security of the prisoner."

Judges said an eye specialist would be involved in Khan's hospital treatment.

Khan, who previously captained the Pakistan national cricket team, served as the country's prime minister from 2018 to 2022.

He was imprisoned in August 2023 and has faced charges in more than 100 cases, ranging from leaking state secrets to selling state gifts - all of which he decried as politically motivated.

Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi were both sentenced to 17 years late last year.

His jailing triggered large-scale protests by supporters, which were met with a crackdown by authorities.

Despite his jailing, Khan remains a significant presence in Pakistani politics with a large number of supporters.

Additional reporting by Usman Zahid

Broken toilets, leaking roofs: Why India's 'cockroach' party wants to fix schools

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg4q8kyxp7o, 3 days ago

The squat one-storey building has recently received a fresh coat of paint and looks respectable from a distance.

But this government-run primary school for girls in Faridabad, a district on the outskirts of the Indian capital Delhi, suffers from a host of problems.

The road outside the school in Khedi Kalan village is dotted with shallow potholes filled with filthy water. Inside, local social worker Satpal Narwat points out the plaster falling from the ceiling.

"It looks new from the outside, but it's crumbling from inside. Four of its eight toilets are unusable and full of trash, while four of the nine classrooms have also been abandoned because they are too unsafe for children," he says, adding that in the rains, "the classrooms get flooded and children have no place to sit".

This is not an isolated case. Many schools, especially in rural India, are starved of funding and in disrepair.

India spends only 4.1% of its GDP on education. While this meets Unesco's lower minimum threshold of 4%, several countries - including France, Germany, Australia, Brazil and the US - spend more than 5% of their GDP on education. Countries like Belgium and Sweden spend even more.

Experts - and the Indian government's own National Education Policy (NEP) - have recommended 6% as the ideal mark for India.

According to official data, 94,000 government schools have closed here between 2014-15 and 2024-25. A report by government think-tank Niti Aayog says some were merged as part of efforts to streamline the system, but acknowledges that enrolment has fallen as demand for private schools has risen.

The poor state of government schools is the focus of a new campaign by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). The online satirical movement made global headlines for its weeks-long protest in Delhi, which culminated in the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan last month.

The protests had erupted in May after NEET, India's biggest medical entrance exam, was cancelled following a question paper leak, forcing nearly two million students to retake the test. More than 20 students died by suicide, with their families blaming the scandal.

Named #SchoolThikKaro (#FixTheSchool), the CJP's latest campaign is aimed at highlighting the crumbling infrastructure in government schools and pressuring authorities into addressing it.

"Government schools, especially in rural India, have been neglected for many many decades now. So, children who grow up in villages don't have equal opportunities and they end up working in farms or as a daily wage labourer or construction workers," CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke told the BBC.

"It's only because they don't get the same facilities and the same opportunities that children in big cities get. And that is what we are trying to change by making schools better."

On Thursday, Dipke said he had visited more than 20 rural schools and had "not found even a single good school".

"There were no benches, no bathrooms, no drinking water, no facilities at all. Even animals would not be kept in such a place," he said.

"What I saw was really heartbreaking. This is very similar to what I used to see when I used to visit my village during school summer vacation. And even after 20 years, nothing have changed there."

In recent days, Dipke and other CJP leaders have shared several videos - of leaking roofs, dirty toilets, children sitting on the floor and angry students - with their 26 million Instagram followers.

"We want to ensure that children get benches to sit on, good washrooms and clean drinking water. They should have smart classrooms with digital boards. That is when they will also feel that they are getting the same quality of education as those living in big cities in the country," Dipke said.

The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi or his Bharatiya Janata Party have not commented on the campaign.

The BBC has also contacted India's education ministry for a response.

Meanwhile, the CJP's protest in Delhi and the campaign to fix schools appear to have emboldened students across India and opened floodgates of complaints and set off localised mutinies against an administration many accuse of being apathetic.

Armed with mobile phones, school students have been shooting and posting videos on social media - some of which have gone viral and prompted authorities to act.

After one video of schoolgirls in Raigad, Maharashtra, mocking the condition of the road leading to their school went viral, the local authorities repaired it

In Uttar Pradesh, another video showed students running into the district magistrate's office demanding a road to their school, while a third showed schoolgirls asking an official whether he would send his own children to a school in such poor condition.

At Delhi's Jantar Mantar, where the CJP held its earlier protest, the group demanded Pradhan's resignation as well as an overhaul of India's education system with greater accountability.

Journalist and author Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay says "by the end of their protest, it was clear that it wasn't just about one exam or one minister's resignation".

"People there were talking about the state of schools and everything that's wrong with them."

Mukhopadhyay says the #FixTheSchool campaign is an obvious next step and "the way people have contributed with videos, pointing out flaws in school infrastructure, is evidence that the movement is gaining ground".

"It can't be Jantar Mantar 2.0 as it will be much slower and a long-lasting movement. But the CJP will get a lot of support for the campaign because there's plenty to talk about that's wrong with the schools," he adds.

One of the biggest problems government schools face is a lack of teachers and other staff, says Chatar Singh, treasurer of the Primary Teachers' Association in Haryana state where Faridabad is located.

Singh is also the head teacher of the primary school in Atmadpur village. Its new building, funded by a private company's corporate social responsibility programme, and students' trophies make it one of the better-equipped schools in the area.

But as we approach the toilets near the school gate, a stench greets me. Singh says the toilets have not been cleaned properly for the past two days because the part-time cleaner - appointed by the government to come in for a couple of hours every morning - has been sick.

But dirty toilets are not his biggest problem – it is the lack of teachers, he says.

For the school's 910 children, there are 40 teachers. But on Wednesday when BBC visited the institution, 30 had been deployed to help with voters' list revision, four others were off sick, leaving only six teachers to manage the children.

"Teachers are hired to teach, but across India, government deploys them to do a lot of non-teaching assignments. They are used for election duty and to conduct Census. Most of my teachers have been on voters' list revision duty since July. It's affecting the quality of education," he says.

Asked why he thinks the government schools are neglected, Singh says, "Do children of bureaucrats and MPs and politicians study in my school? No. They send their children to private schools because they can afford them."

Most students here are children of migrant factory labourers, he says. "And a majority of them are from underprivileged castes and communities. Anyone who can afford sends their children to private school," he adds.

His claim holds true across India. It is visible in the mushrooming of private schools in small towns and villages.

In Khedi Kalan when he was growing up, Narwat says, there were only government schools near him and he got his education there.

The crumbling girls' primary school which he gave me a tour of upsets him because the 62-year-old studied here from 1968 to 1973.

"In those days, this was the only school in the village for both boys and girls," he says. "The school building was relatively new. There were eight rooms and all were filled with students."

He says flooding became a serious problem after the road outside was raised about 15 years ago, leaving the school below road level.

Narwat, who retired as an officer in the state's electricity office two years back, says he sent his children to the same school, but later moved them to a private school because they have better facilities.

Narwat then takes us to the second primary school in the village - this one for boys, just a couple of hundred metres away. Here, classes are operating out of two rooms and a veranda. A second building with three classrooms was declared "condemned" and demolished about five years ago with assurance that a better one would be rebuilt. The patch is now a parking stand for cycles.

Over the years, Narwat has petitioned chief minister, MPs and district officials, and written to the National Human Rights Commission, seeking improvements to the two Khedi Kalan schools. But he says little has changed.

"I send my grandchildren to a private school," he says. "It's very expensive, but they have all the facilities. In village schools, the teachers are on election duty, and there's no library or laboratory."

The CJP campaign has given him some hope that the schools will finally get attention.

"I think the CJP can be a force for good. They've taught people to fight, to not be afraid. The government has all the power and resources. And now they have to perform."

Why Indian law students don't want top judge at their graduation ceremony

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c171j0k74d8o, 6 days ago

India's top judges often make news for their rulings or pronunciations on weighty matters of law.

But Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has recently made headlines for comments that have angered the youth and, in recent days, prompted students from two premier legal universities to demand that he should not be invited to be the chief guest at their convocations.

The current row started on 23 July when dozens of outgoing students from Nalsar University of Law in the southern city of Hyderabad wrote an email to the college authorities asking that CJI Kant should not be invited to preside over their passing-out ceremony. The demand has since been supported by about 450 of the university's 1,400 students, including many juniors.

The invitation to the chief justice is in keeping with tradition and for aspiring lawyers, the presence of the country's top judge at their convocation is usually seen as a matter of pride.

But Nalsar students were upset over reports that a day earlier, the chief justice had turned down a request to hold urgent hearings on police brutality during the 20 July parliament march led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in Delhi. Kant has since said he was misquoted.

In fact, the CJP's birth was also rooted in a remark attributed to the chief justice amid reports that he had used terms like parasites and cockroaches to describe some youth. Kant had said he was misquoted then too.

The crackdown against CJP protesters in the heart of the capital city, where police and paramilitaries were seen attacking and beating up unarmed students who were demanding education reforms with batons, wooden sticks and teargas, had shocked Indians and made global headlines. At least four youths had also sustained pellet gun injuries – in what was described as the first time such guns were used in the capital city for crowd control.

Indian media reports said when a lawyer raised the matter before Kant on 22 July, the chief justice said, "don't waste our time" and when he was asked to watch videos of police excesses, he said "we don't have time".

The statement drew a backlash from opposition parties, senior lawyers and activists - and the Nalsar students' email came a day later.

"We feel that receiving our degrees from a dignitary who appears dismissive of serious allegations of police brutality against protesting citizens sits uncomfortably with what we have been taught to value during our time at Nalsar," the students wrote. "We would, therefore, request the university to strongly reconsider the choice of chief guest for this convocation."

Kant later clarified that he had not refused to hear the petition and only asked for it to be filed in a proper manner. Since then, the Supreme Court has begun hearing cases involving allegations of violence and apprehensions that police could use face-recognition technology to harass protesters.

But the anger against the chief justice has refused to die down - it, in fact, gathered steam last Thursday after the Bar Council of India chairman, Manan Kumar Mishra, threatened to bar Nalsar's graduating students from enrolment.

"No student who graduated from Nalsar will be enrolled until further orders from Bar Council of India," he announced. Mishra also asked the university to submit a report on students who were behind the campaign to not invite the CJI.

The backlash against Mishra, who's an MP from the governing Bharatiya Janata Party, was swift and widespread, including from Chief Justice Kant who said the students had a right to protest and that the Bar Council had no business getting involved in what was "a dialogue between law students and me".

Within hours, Mishra backtracked on his threat.

"After considering the representations and reactions of senior advocates, members of the Bar, law students and public spirited citizens, and being satisfied that the 2026 batch of Nalsar, Hyderabad, had no role in any disturbance or movement, the Bar Council of India has decided to close the proceedings altogether. No further action is required," he wrote on X.

In an apology letter addressed later to "dear young friends", he wrote: "If anything connected with the present controversy, any of my words, or letter, has hurt the feelings of our law students, I sincerely regret and apologise for the same."

His apology has failed to pacify the students and, at the weekend, students and alumni from a second premier law university - National Law School of India University in Bengaluru (NLSIU) - issued an open letter condemning Mishra's comments.

The NLSIU students said they did not want Mishra to attend their convocation ceremony, that they stood in solidarity with Nalsar "in their request to reconsider the choice of the chief guest" and added that for the same reasons, they did not want the chief justice to be invited for their convocation either.

Kant on Sunday said he had "never accepted the Nalsar invitation" to be the chief guest at their convocation so the "question of me attending does not arise", Times of India reported.

But his clarification is unlikely to be the last word on the controversy. Student anger against the chief justice's reported remarks has been bubbling since May. It all began with an off-the-cuff remark in court when the top judge likened some unemployed youth to cockroaches and parasites.

"There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don't get any employment and don't have any place in the profession. Some of them become media, some of them become social media, some of them become RTI [right to information] activists, some of them become other activists, and they start attacking everyone," legal website LiveLaw quoted him as saying.

The remark invited a huge backlash and even though Kant later clarified that it was taken out of context and that it was aimed only at youth with "fake and bogus degrees", the damage was done.

It was this comment that led to the birth of Cockroach Janta Party, an online satirical movement, which saw millions of students and young people sign up.

CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke earlier told the BBC that he launched the online platform because he was "a bit disappointed and baffled" by the comments of the chief justice of India "who is the custodian of our constitution, of our rights".

Even though it's not a formal political party, the CJP has ended up posing the most formidable challenge in recent years to the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with weeks of protests in the heart of the capital, Delhi.

The protests ended on 25 July after Dharmendra Pradhan resigned from the post of education minister - the CJP had insisted that he take moral responsibility for repeated paper leaks of key exams.

As the latest row shows, the fallout of the protest continues to reverberate in the country's premier law institutes - and the top court of India.

India built the world's biggest digital payments miracle. Now comes the bill

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8xnwqe00v1o, 7 days ago

For most Indians, paying by Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has become almost absurdly routine.

Scan a QR code, tap a few buttons and the money moves instantly. There is no card machine, no cash, and - most importantly - for the user, no visible fee.

That may be about to change.

India has paved the way for banks and payment companies to charge merchants a fee on UPI transactions, potentially ending a decade-long experiment in free digital payments.

The government has yet to decide the rate or exactly where it will apply, but proposals under discussion include a merchant discount rate (MDR) of 0.3-0.5% - a small fee paid by a business to the banks and payment companies that process its UPI payments - on larger transactions at big businesses.

The government says consumers and person-to-person UPI payments will remain free. If merchant fees are introduced, they will apply only to some transactions above a set threshold, at a nominal rate, meaning most UPI payments will remain free.

The question is whether putting a price on UPI could weaken the network that made it such a success.

The stakes are enormous. Launched in 2016, UPI has grown into one of the world's biggest real-time payment networks.

According to official data, in July alone, there were 23.6 billion UPI transactions worth 29.87 trillion rupees ($313.5bn; £232.2bn). Fintech apps such as PhonePe and Google Pay account for most UPI payments.

In the financial year just ended, the figure was about 241.6 billion transactions - almost 12,000 times the volume in UPI's first full year. More than 550 million people now use it, and the system is now available in some form for payments in 11 countries outside India.

UPI is not merely big. Its design is unusual. Rather than building a closed system around a single dominant app, India created common digital plumbing on which competing companies could operate.

Google Pay and PhonePe can fight fiercely for customers while still allowing their users to transact across the same network. The system is run by the National Payments Corporation of India, a non-profit entity, with banks and technology companies providing the consumer-facing services.

But one of the less glamorous ingredients in the UPI story may now be the most important: merchants.

A vegetable seller, taxi driver or small shopkeeper does not need to buy a card terminal to accept UPI. A printed QR code will do. And because merchants have not had to pay MDR, there has been little financial reason to turn customers away.

New research by economists Abhinav Motheram and Sharon Buteau suggests that this merchant network was not merely an effect of UPI's success. It helped drive it.

"Our study suggests that merchant acceptance is not just a result of UPI growth, but one of its key drivers," Motheram says. Districts with stronger merchant networks tended to see higher UPI adoption.

"If charges are limited to large merchants or higher-value transactions, the effect on broad-based adoption may be modest. But if they reach small and informal merchants, especially in districts where acceptance networks are still developing, they could slow the merchant expansion that has helped UPI scale," he says.

The immediate proposal is designed to minimise that risk.

One option reportedly under discussion would target transactions above 2,000 rupees at larger merchants, leaving small businesses and low-value payments untouched. Transactions above that threshold account for only about 4% of merchant-payment volumes but roughly 67% of their value, according to brokerage firm Jefferies.

That could generate a sizeable new revenue stream - up to a billion dollars, by one estimate - for banks and payment companies while leaving the everyday smaller payment to the neighbourhood grocer effectively unchanged.

It also addresses a problem that is becoming harder to ignore. UPI may feel free, but it is not costless.

Servers have to run, transactions settled, fraud detected and the system protected against cyberattacks. For years, the government has helped compensate banks and payment firms for providing a service that has effectively been treated as public infrastructure.

As Sanjay Malhotra, governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country's central bank, recently put it: "Someone will have to pay the cost."

But the economics become trickier the further down the merchant chain a fee travels.

Motheram's research does not estimate precisely how sensitive merchants are to MDR. But it offers a warning against assuming that a small fee will have a small effect.

"Even a small fee could matter if it changes the incentives of small merchants operating on thin margins," he says. The effect, he argues, depends heavily on the design of the charge. A fee imposed on a large retailer is very different from one imposed on a tiny shop or informal trader.

That distinction matters because UPI's extraordinary growth was not simply a story about Indians getting smartphones. It was also a story about millions of businesses acquiring the ability - and the incentive - to accept digital payments.

"If charges are limited to large merchants or high-value transactions, the risk to mass adoption is likely lower," Motheram says.

"The bigger concern would be if charges eventually reach small and informal merchants in less-developed districts, where merchant networks are still thin and adoption is still maturing."

India therefore faces a delicate balancing act. It wants to make UPI financially sustainable without disturbing the conditions that helped make it ubiquitous.

It is not an impossible task. Brazil's Pix, another hugely successful instant-payment system, is free for individuals but permits low-cost charges for businesses. Yet it is the world's fastest-growing real-time payment system, used by more than 140 million people and 14 million companies, with more than four billion transactions a month averaging about $88 each.

"The key question is not simply whether UPI should remain free for every merchant transaction," Motheram says, "but whether the pricing structure protects the marginal merchants who are still being brought into the digital payments ecosystem."

That may be the real test of India's next UPI experiment.

The first phase was about creating the network. The second was about getting hundreds of millions of people and millions of merchants onto it. The third is now beginning: figuring out how to pay for the system without making it less useful.

Economist Renuka Sane believes the right pricing structure could finally restore "commercial sanity" to India's digital payment rails, allowing the market to price risk, fund critical infrastructure and build a more resilient payments ecosystem.

The bigger risk may not be that Indians suddenly abandon UPI because a large retailer is charged a fraction of a percentage point: experts say its network effects are now too powerful for that.

But there is a potential perception problem: a 2024 survey by polling agency LocalCircles found that 75% of UPI users said they would stop using it if transaction fees were introduced, while only 22% said they would be willing to pay.

The risk is subtler. If charging merchants makes some of them less enthusiastic about accepting UPI - or eventually discourages the smallest ones from joining - the network could begin to lose some of the frictionless quality that made it so successful.

Aid shortages and fears of starvation as Indonesia reels from deadly earthquake

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crl7686r71yo, 7 days ago

There are hundreds of disaster victims in Dampek village - but only one doctor.

When a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Flores on Saturday, this area was among the worst-hit. Health facilities were toppled, electricity networks cut, and after two days aftershocks still rattled the makeshift shelters while inside, medical supplies rapidly diminished.

"I am the only doctor here with hundreds of victims. I truly cannot cope," read an urgent appeal from Dr Melinda, the sole physician at the now-decimated Dampek Health Centre, on Sunday.

"I have not had any rest since yesterday because casualties keep arriving around the clock."

It is a problem that is playing out across Flores, as aid disruptions and ongoing tremors fuel fears among thousands of displaced survivors.

Refugees are sleeping outdoors through sweltering days and frigid nights for fear that more buildings may collapse. Tents set up amid the rubble of collapsed hospitals are serving as makeshift emergency rooms for injured patients. And as landslides sever access roads and supplies dwindle in several parts of the island, there are growing concerns about how much longer survivors can hold out.

At least 68 people have been killed and some 5,000 displaced by the earthquake, which struck shortly before 06:00 Saturday (23:00 GMT Friday) at a depth of just 15km.

It is the country's deadliest quake since 2022, when hundreds of people were killed in West Java.

Search-and-rescue teams and volunteers, including medical personnel, are continuing efforts to reach communities that were cut off by Saturday's quake, negotiating access roads that are scarred by landslides or choked with boulders.

Dr Alhamzah, who works at Lalang Health Centre in East Manggarai, told the BBC on Monday that teams from regional hospitals were finally delivering much-needed assistance to places like Dampek and nearby Pota - tending to severely injured patients with whatever resources they could muster.

"If a patient's condition is critical, we will refer them to the hospital in Ruteng instead, which is about four hours away," he said.

But Ruteng's hospital is also desperate for help.

"We heard that medical assistance would be provided, but nothing has arrived yet," Rista Mari, a public relations officer at the Ruteng Regional General Hospital, told the BBC. "We hope that assistance will arrive soon."

Early data from Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency indicates that more than 1,000 houses were damaged by the earthquake, along with dozens of health facilities, schools and government offices.

Medical teams are still working to determine the number of casualties, though - and the full scale of the disaster is still being uncovered.

Indonesia is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity, lying along the meeting point of three major tectonic plates.

In Flores' westernmost town of Labuan Bajo, the gateway to Komodo National Park and one of Indonesia's most popular tourist destinations, many survivors have been sleeping outdoors, fearful that if the tremors continue they might be crushed in their sleep.

"The shaking was very scary. My house almost collapsed," said one farmer named Anastasia Imad, from a green emergency tent erected next to her damaged home. "We were worried that the aftershocks would collapse the house while we were sleeping."

Herry Kabut, editor-in-chief of local publication Floresa Media, told the BBC that "each resident has set up their own evacuation post" amid blackouts, landslides and roadblocks.

"So far, many basic necessities such as [basic foodstuffs] and clean water are in great demand," he said. "People have no idea where to evacuate. There's been no government advice. Many have fled to the hills and are starving."

Health services across the island have similarly been forced to move outside and set up emergency tents due to damaged facilities. Ruteng Regional General Hospital's operating room, delivery room, pharmacy, and laboratory were all rendered defunct after the building's roof collapsed.

Elsewhere, in Ngada Regency, local resident Charles Abar told the BBC that health facilities and equipment had been severely damaged and that, as of Sunday night, no medical assistance had arrived.

He believes the government's response hasn't been swift enough.

"I think facilities like emergency tents need to be provided immediately, but I also see that district and regional governments are struggling due to budget constraints, limited supplies, and so on," he said.

Meanwhile, he added, villages have been cut off from aid and displaced people whose homes were damaged or destroyed have been forced to seek higher ground, as hundreds of aftershocks continue to rattle the island.

"The community is still traumatised," he stressed.

Dr Alhamzah has taken to social media to appeal for support, seeking medical volunteers willing to travel to the disaster zone as well as donations of medicines and medical supplies.

He has also warned that stocks of medicines at the disaster sites are running low.

"People learned that doctors had arrived today, so many residents who had been sheltering in the hills came down," he explained. "As a result, we urgently need more medicines, as well as additional medical volunteers."

On Sunday night, rescuers successfully reached a village on Palue Island, just north of Flores's mainland, that had been cut off for nearly two full days after the initial quake.

Rescuers were only able to reach Nitung Village after a two-hour overland journey from the coast.

"Our challenge was the road, which was still prone to landslides," said Sikka Deputy Police Chief Commissioner Marselus Yugo Amboro, who led the rescue mission. "It was a life-threatening route."

Yugo said hundreds of homes in Nitung Village were severely damaged by the earthquake, and that residents had been sheltering in makeshift shelters. Electricity and communication lines were completely cut off following the earthquake, he added.

"They haven't received aid yet because Nitung Village was isolated for nearly two days after the quake," he said, noting that efforts were underway to rush aid to the survivors.

"This is likely the village in Sikka Regency that suffered the worst damage from the earthquake."

Additional reporting by Eliazar Robert in Sikka Regency, East Nusa Tenggara and Faisal Irfani

Australian hiker's body recovered as officials apologise for misreporting she was alive

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0rdk5kg4r4o, 3 days ago

The body of missing Australian hiker Lily Hooper has been recovered as officials investigate a "miscommunication" that briefly reported she had been found alive.

Within minutes of reports first emerging that she was alive on Thursday, police confirmed that Hooper had been found deceased in the bushland of the Southern Highlands in New South Wales (NSW).

State Premier Chris Minns and NSW police commissioner Mal Lanyon apologised to her family on Friday for the error.

Hooper, 18, an experienced hiker, was reported missing last week, triggering an eight-day search that involved approximately 1,000 people.

A police spokesperson confirmed to BBC News on Friday that her body had been airlifted from the Nattai National Park, south-west of Sydney.

"A post-mortem examination will be conducted in coming days to formally confirm ID and determine cause of death," the statement said.

Minns had told a state parliamentary hearing on Thursday that crews had found Hooper alive "with half a bottle of water" eight days after she had been reported missing. Within 30 minutes, he corrected himself saying "Lily's body has been found" and that she was deceased.

Media outlets in Australia widely reported the initial incorrect reports that Hooper was located alive before retracting their stories shortly after.

The miscommunication meant there was a brief window in which her parents believed she was alive.

Minns said on Friday that he planned to speak directly to Hooper's family to issue a personal apology.

"The government, myself – we're profoundly sorry," he said.

NSW State Emergency Services commissioner Mike Wassing said that codes were often assigned during major searches.

Such terms can avoid sensitive details being shared over radio broadcasts during a search, when friends, relatives and community volunteers are usually involved alongside emergency service personnel and police officers.

"The codes are usually associated with some aspect like that in terms of bottles of water," Wassing told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, although he did not confirm the cause of the error under investigation.

Lanyon said communications can be challenging during large searches in remote locations.

"Tragically, her condition was miscommunicated and for that I apologise," he said.

Police will review policy and processes to ensure protocols were "foolproof" into the future, Lanyon added.

British rapper Yung Filly to face retrial on rape charges in Australia

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd7l1g8922jo, 3 days ago

British rapper Yung Filly will face a retrial on three rape charges in Australia, after a jury cleared him of several sexual assault offences but could not reach a decision on others.

The YouTuber, whose real name is Andres Felipe Valencia Barrientos, was charged with repeatedly raping and assaulting a fan after performing at a nightclub in Perth in 2024.

He denied all 10 charges, and last month a jury found him not guilty on three counts of rape.

He was also acquitted of one assault charge and another of strangulation, but was found guilty of two counts of assault, for which he will be sentenced after his retrial.

Barrientos had been on tour in Australia when he was accused of sexually assaulting the woman, then 20 years old, in his hotel room after he performed in Hillarys, a coastal suburb of Perth.

The West Australian court heard that the 31-year-old social media star had consensual sex with the fan in his hotel room, before she alleged he turned violent and ignored her pleas to stop.

Barrientos will next appear in court on 27 August for an application to vary his bail. A retrial date has not been set.

He will not be sentenced for the two guilty charges until after the re-trial.

The prosecution has said the complainant was willing to give evidence again.

During the trial, Barrientos told the court that he had "fancied" the woman when they met at the concert venue.

He had been in the VIP area while she leaned over the barrier from the general area.

He said the "vibes were good" between him and the woman when they arrived at his hotel later.

During the trial's closing arguments, prosecutor Danielle Clarke said Barrientos was an "entitled" man with a "moderate degree of fame" who had violated the fan "in the most intrusive way possible".

His defence lawyer argued that the accuser's evidence was full of "inconsistencies, embellishments and outright lies".

Barrientos, who was born in Colombia and brought up in the UK, is known for his work with the YouTube collective Beta Squad.

He has appeared in the celebrity version of Bake Off on Channel 4 and presented BBC Three shows.

Man completes 2,800 mile scoot across Australia

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clylqlkq5e5o, today

A man has completed a challenge to cross the width of Australia on a non-electric kick scooter.

Bob Brown from Saltash, Cornwall started his journey in July and travelled about 2,800 miles (4506km) from Perth to Sydney, where he finished his trip on Monday.

He said he hoped to break two Guinness World Records - to become the fastest person to cross the country on a kick scooter, while also being the first to travel the route by three different methods, running, cycling, and scootering.

Brown said "after a lifetime packed with adventure, at 57-years-old I wanted another epic adventure before I got too old".

Brown's is no stranger to the country and hoped to raise £5,000 for three charities - MacMillan Cancer Support, St Luke's Hospice and Children's Hospice South West.

In 2001 be became the first Briton to run across the country covering 3,000 miles (4828.032km) in 60 days, before in 2003 he cycled the route becoming the first person to have both run and cycled across Australia.

"I wanted to raise awareness of the need for youngsters to get off their screens and devices and to seek out adventure", he said.

He said he got injured while completing the challenge.

"On day five my wing mirror got clipped by a passing vehicle and I skidded onto the hard shoulder" but was "relatively unscathed".

"Also on the last day, with just 20km to go, I had a serious fall when my handlebars broke going down a steep hill", he added.

Despite the complications, Brown completed the challenge in 31 days, four hours and 10 minutes.

He said he had submitted his documentation to Guinness but had to wait to see if the organisation would officially recognise his achievements.

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Mushroom murderer Erin Patterson is appealing - here's what you need to know

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj9dx03jrgjo, 6 days ago

A year after her blockbuster trial, Australia's notorious mushroom murderer is facing court again, in a bid to overturn her conviction.

Erin Patterson was jailed for life last September for murdering three relatives and trying to kill another with a toxic mushroom meal she served at her home in Leongatha, Victoria, in 2023.

But the 51-year-old says she did not receive a fair trial, citing problems with evidence, the actions of the prosecution, and an unusual mishap with the jury while they deliberated on their verdicts.

At the same time that Erin Patterson's case is heard, prosecutors will also be appealing her sentence. The judge said Patterson could apply for parole after 33 years, but the prosecution says that's "manifestly inadequate" and the triple murderer should never be freed.

What did Erin Patterson do?

Patterson killed her in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, after serving them individual portions of beef Wellington containing death cap mushrooms at her home in rural Victoria in 2023.

Heather's husband, Ian Wilkinson, a local pastor, survived the lunch after weeks in hospital and still has ongoing health issues related to the poisoning.

Patterson's estranged husband, Simon Patterson, was meant to attend the lunch but cancelled at the last minute, in part due to his belief that his wife had repeatedly tried to poison him over several years.

After the trial, it was revealed that he had become so violently ill after eating several of her meals in the past that he had been in a coma, a large part of his bowel had been surgically removed, and his family were told to say goodbye to him twice as he was not expected to survive his ailments.

Erin Patterson maintained throughout the trial that she never meant to kill her relatives - that it was all a terrible accident, and her lies and attempts to dispose of evidence in the aftermath of the lunch were because she was panicking she would be blamed for the deaths.

What is Patterson arguing?

Patterson won't be attending the appeal in person. She's chosen to appear via video link from Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, the maximum security prison on the outskirts of Melbourne where she's serving her sentence.

Last November, her legal team filed a three-page document outlining the arguments they plan to make in an effort to overturn her conviction.

There are seven grounds for this appeal, which will be heard by three judges.

Firstly, there are bits of evidence Patterson's lawyers say the jurors should never have seen: for example, mobile phone tracking data that indicated she'd travelled to places where death cap mushrooms were recently spotted.

Her lawyers also argue that evidence from "Facebook friends" should not have been allowed. That included online messages in which she ranted about her in-laws as well as her estranged husband Simon Patterson, at one point calling him a "deadbeat".

All that evidence, Patterson's team says, was not relevant and prejudicial, causing a substantial miscarriage of justice.

But her lawyers also argue that other pieces of evidence would have helped Patterson in court. Photos and images relating to her hobby as a long-time mushroom forager - and supporting their argument that the deaths were a tragic accident - had been wrongly excluded, the defence says.

Then there are their issues with the prosecution. Patterson's team say they were inconsistent about a motive, starting the trial by saying they wouldn't argue a particular motive, but ending it by implying there was one.

They also criticise the five days Patterson was cross-examined by barrister Nannette Rogers. At times it felt tense witnessing the two sparring in the courtroom, with Rogers accusing her of repeatedly lying. Patterson argues it was "unfair and oppressive".

But the most intriguing aspect of the appeal document submitted by Erin Patterson's lawyers relates to the jury deliberations.

Because there was so much hype around the case, there were steps taken throughout the trial to ensure the jury wasn't influenced by friends, family or the media. When they began deliberating, they had to stay in supervised accommodation, with little to no contact with the outside world, until they reached a decision.

But according to Patterson's lawyers, a "fundamental irregularity" occurred which "fatally undermined" the integrity of the verdicts.

It turns out that room shortages caused by the media frenzy in the regional towns around the courthouse meant the jury wound up sharing a hotel with members of the prosecution, a key police witness, and journalists.

The jury had a whole hotel floor to themselves, and the judge at the time said there was no evidence they had any interaction with anyone linked to the case.

Patterson's team didn't raise any concerns during the trial, but in their appeal filing said: "[This] requires the quashing of the convictions and an order for a re-trial so that justice cannot only be done but be seen to be done."

What is the prosecution saying?

The Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is appealing over the length of Patterson's sentence.

Justice Christopher Beale last year agreed that Patterson's crimes were the worst of their kind, but said his decision to allow parole after 33 years was influenced by the "harsh prison conditions" she faced.

He noted that she'd already spent 15 months in solitary confinement at the time of her sentencing. In solitary confinement, prisoners cannot mix and meals are delivered via a small opening in the cell door.

For her own safety, he added, there was a "substantial chance" that she would be held in an isolation wing "for years to come" because of the notoriety of her case.

What happens next?

The outcome of the appeal will not be known immediately after these hearings as the decision could take months.

If the three judges in the Court of Appeal choose to overturn her convictions, there are two options: a retrial or acquittal.

If the prosecution's appeal is successful, Erin Patterson could see her parole period being extended beyond 33 years. Or she may even be sentenced to life without parole.

Australia's game-changing disability support is in crisis – what went wrong?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20d8g0qze0o, 11 days ago

Annabelle Shaw is hockey-obsessed and on a winning streak, scoring eight goals this season for her team, the Panthers.

"I don't give up," she says proudly, adding that whenever she scores, she celebrates with a cartwheel.

And when Annabelle's not on the pitch, she's down at the gym. She likes nothing more than working out with her friends.

But Annabelle may soon have to stop playing her favourite sport.

The Year 8 student from Western Australia has Down Syndrome – a genetic condition caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21 which leads to physical and intellectual disabilities. This enables her to access funding through one of the world's most progressive disability support programmes, the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme).

Aimed at people with lifelong and severe disabilities, NDIS was created to ensure disabled Australians had greater independence and an improved quality of life.

Its design ushered in a very different approach to disability support – by providing people with funding based on their individual needs, and a certain amount of freedom to choose how to spend it. The scheme put disabled Australians and their families at the heart of the decision-making.

But the success of the scheme has also been its undoing – it's growing rapidly and costing the government too much. Now, under proposals introduced by the federal government earlier this year, tighter controls will be introduced to shrink its size and budget.

The money Annabelle receives is intended to help pay for therapies such as speech, as well as a support worker to help her on the hockey field.

"Annabelle needs somebody to break it down and say, okay, did you hear that, Annabelle? We've got to stand over here," says mum Gillian Croft, explaining the importance of a support worker for Annabelle at practice sessions, where there could be as many as 50 girls training at a time.

"Sometimes, especially if it's fast-paced, she disengages and she doesn't want to play because she doesn't understand what she needs to do."

The NDIS Amendment bill passed the House of Representatives at the beginning of July but was then delayed, extending a Senate inquiry into the changes at the same time. The report into that inquiry is due on 14 August. Shortly after, the legislation is expected to pass in the Senate.

The implications of the changes, say participants, could be huge.

The growth of NDIS

Annabelle is one of more than 700,000 Australians who access NDIS funds.

The scheme was introduced under former Prime Minister Julia Gillard in 2012, although it took until 2020 for Australians across the country to be able to fully access its funds.

"Disability can affect any of us, from when you're born to a child's development, through the blink of an eye on a country road, through your genetic lottery as you age," Bill Shorten, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Canberra told the BBC. Shorten was instrumental in setting up the NDIS as then Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities.

"What really makes disability hard is a lack of money and a lack of power," he explained, adding that the NDIS has enjoyed support from across the political spectrum.

When the NDIS started, it was estimated it would cost about $22bn a year, with about 475,000 participants. But this financial year it has ballooned to $54bn and the scheme now supports more than 700,000 people. Those figures are expected to keep growing, which is why the government is proposing a massive reset.

"It has grown too big too fast," says Hannah Orban, Senior Associate at the Grattan Institute and co-author of a report Saving the NDIS. According to her research, each of the participants receives an average of approximately A$65,000 ($44,800) of funding per year. Some, such as those with complex needs, receive considerably more; others receive far less.

"It costs a lot of money to run it and the government really does need to introduce good reforms to make it more sustainable so that it is here for generations to come," Orban says.

Before the NDIS, disability services differed across states. There was criticism that they were underfunded and inefficient. The NDIS brought in a game-changing new system but in doing so, all the other services that previously provided support fell away.

"Once we created the NDIS, there was a retreat from other disability services, so hospitals, schools - you name it - everything became an NDIS matter," says Shorten.

In 2024, changes were made to rein in ballooning costs – overseen by Shorten who had coincidentally returned as the Minister for NDIS. But that wasn't enough. Numbers kept growing. There's been a rapid increase, especially in the number of children accessing the scheme.

There's also been criticism that people are using the NDIS to access support not originally intended for the scheme, which was designed to address the needs of those with permanent or significant disabilities. According to a study by the Australian National University, there's been a 32% increase in the prevalence of autism since the NDIS was introduced. Experts, however, say the explanation for this is simple.

"People went into the NDIS because other systems were failing," says Jenny Karavolos of Australian Autism Alliance, who in June gave evidence at a parliamentary inquiry into the cuts. It may be that autism diagnoses have increased - but Karavolos argues that's because people need to access the right support. It is not, she believes, what's breaking the NDIS.

Reining in fraud

One of the other criticisms of the scheme has been that providers have gamed the system, offering unnecessary and expensive services.

"Where there's government money, there have been over-servicing and over-charging and shonky providers," says Shorten. "Many are good providers, but some are bad. That's the nature of a government scheme: people will hone in on it and try and slice off amounts for themselves."

According to the NDIS integrity chief, $3.7bn was handed out inappropriately in 2025 - a combination of misuse of funds and fraud. But tackling this won't solve the problem, according to experts.

"Fraud is low-hanging fruit," says Orban. "The government absolutely needs to tackle fraud and get on top of people who are rorting (cheating) this scheme because they're rorting people with disability and taxpayers, and it's just not acceptable. [But] the savings from fraud are really small compared to the other reforms that they've put forward."

Some of those include better cost control, tighter compliance, introducing more efficient assessments and moving children with lower support needs - those with developmental delays or autism, for example - away from early intervention provided by the NDIS and into a programme called Thriving Kids.

One of the most worrying aspects, say families and carers, is the plan to slash funding for social participation by up to 50%. That's the bit that people like Annabelle benefit from and that advocates say the NDIS was designed for: to enable disabled people to be an integral part of the economy and Australian society.

The government estimates that around a third of funding for people with Down Syndrome is spent on social funding. Without that, Annabelle's hockey playing would be at risk.

But it would impact disabled people more broadly too.

"It is a core goal of the NDIS to help people with disability participate in society and their communities," says Orban. "So it really doesn't make sense to be attacking this part of the scheme."

The proposals have prompted huge criticism of the government, which cites fraud and problems in the system but then proposes cuts to funding that is seen as central to creating independence for disabled people.

"This amendment is reckless, ill thought-out and entirely devoid of any shred of understanding of what living a disabled life is actually like for both the person themselves and their support network," said actor, author and disability advocate Hannah Diviney at the inquiry in June.

As somebody with cerebral palsy who needs a high level of support, she pointed out that she had been driven to Canberra to speak at the inquiry, and would be driven back – all possible because of NDIS funding.

"Any time I leave the house, if I am not with a friend or a parent, it costs something – that is an incontrovertible fact of my life," she told the inquiry. "Freedom, ambition, career, a social life – all of the things other people in this room take as a given, or as a right – has a price tag for someone like me."

While the NDIS budget is far bigger than expected, a large number of jobs have also been created to cater to the system, including physiotherapists, speech pathologists and support workers. And experts say that also needs to be considered while plans move forward to shrink it.

"I don't disagree that there needs to be reform about how the NDIS is operating - particularly how children are treated on the NDIS," says Darryl Steff, the CEO of Down Syndrome Australia. "All too often these cuts are seen in isolation and people are going, 'the NDIS costs us too much', but without acknowledging that every dollar spent in the NDIS contributes over two dollars to the broader economy."

In addition to job creation, NDIS support enables more disabled people to participate in the economy too.

"If Annabelle's playing mainstream hockey and she's out there with typical kids all the time and she's going to a mainstream school, that's her normal," Gillian says. "When she finishes school, she will expect to go and have a job and be in a workplace that's full of typical people."

With these proposed cuts, everything changes.

"She doesn't get exposed to any of that, and then we expect her suddenly to walk into the workforce without having any independence training all these years," Gillian says. "This is independence training for her, going to these sporting events and going to school, which in the end will be cheaper for government as well."

Mushroom killer must stay in jail forever for 'truly dreadful' crime, appeal court told

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg3j3yn4exo, 4 days ago

An Australian court has been told that the crimes of mushroom murderer Erin Patterson were "truly dreadful" and that she should never be allowed to leave prison.

Crown prosecutors are appealing against a sentence they call "manifestly inadequate" as it allows for the possibility of parole.

Patterson was jailed for life after killing three of her relatives and trying to kill another by serving them a beef Wellington containing death cap mushrooms at her Victoria home in 2023.

The 51-year-old, who attended the Court of Appeal via video link from prison, will be eligible to be freed after 33 years.

The Court of Appeal in Melbourne has also heard a challenge from Patterson's lawyers as they try to overturn her convictions.

The judges say they will reserve their decisions, meaning it will likely be weeks or months before the outcome of both appeals is known.

Patterson's victims include her in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, who all died after what prosecutors called "shocking illnesses" as a result of the poisoning.

The only surviving guest, Heather's husband Ian Wilkinson, has never fully recovered from his ordeal, they said.

Outlining why Patterson's crime was so "dreadful", they talked of the "betrayal of trust" of family members whom she had invited for lunch.

It was, they said, the culmination of a plan she had "orchestrated " for months, including finding and preparing enough death caps to kill and "concocting a fantastic lie" to explain the lunch.

"The lunch guests had been good to the respondent and her children over many years," prosecutors said. "Not only did the respondent sit by and watch her victims consume the deadly meal over chit-chat and banter, but the meal ended with a prayer for her, following her lie about having been diagnosed with cancer. "

As the guests lay critically ill, Patterson did not admit to using foraged mushrooms, choosing instead to lie to police and health workers.

"Even when she knew that some of the victims were on life support, she maintained her lies," the prosecutors said.

At sentencing in September last year, Justice Christopher Beale said he was giving Patterson a glimmer of hope of release, solely because of her "harsh" prison conditions, telling her "there is a substantial chance that, for your protection, you will continue to be held in solitary confinement for years to come".

But the prosecutors say this was "overstated", arguing her conditions would improve over time, especially as her notoriety faded.

In court, prosecutor Brendan Kissane listed the activities open to Patterson in prison, including an exercise yard and access to hobbies including crocheting. According to reporters in court, at this point, the triple murderer closed her eyes and shook her head.

While prosecutors say Patterson should never be freed, they argue that if the appeal court disagreed, then it should at least increase the minimum sentence – calling 33 years "manifestly inadequate".

The minimum term open to the judge for the offences was 30 years. In written arguments, they said an additional three years "utterly fails to reflect the gravity of the offending or vindicate the dignity of each of the four victims".

Arguing for the punishment to be left as it was Patterson's lawyers said the judge's reasoning had been "impeccable" and had "clearly taken into account all relevant considerations" and "made appropriate findings about how serious this matter was".

Earlier on Thursday prosecutors wrapped up their challenges to Patterson's appeal to have her convictions thrown out.

Patterson's lawyers had argued last year's trial was undermined by a "catastrophic" mix-up that led to the jury staying at the same hotel as prosecutors and a key witness, and that some evidence in the trial was too speculative to have been put before the jury and caused a miscarriage of justice.

Missing teen hiker found dead in Australian bush after eight-day search

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c304e2dlv20o, 4 days ago

The body of a woman has been found in Australian bushland, following an eight-day search for a Sydney teenager reported missing last Wednesday.

Police said that while the body was yet to be formally identified, it was believed to be that of 18-year-old Lily Hooper. The confirmation came after the state premier told the New South Wales parliament that she had been found alive before later retracting the statement.

The teenager left her home in Sydney to go walking in a nearby national park on 12 August. Her family reported her missing later that night, after she failed to return home by 22:00.

Her car was found in a car park at the bottom of a challenging trail in the Nattai National Park.

Police said that the body was found in the Southern Highlands at approximately 11:30 local time on Thursday. Hooper's body had been found in dense vegetation and would likely have to be carried out on foot.

There was initial confusion as to Hooper's condition, after New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told a parliamentary hearing that she had been found alive. Local media suggested that her family had also been informed that she was alive.

Minns corrected himself shortly afterwards, and told the hearing that "Lily's body has been found" and she was deceased.

"This is obviously devastating, and I'm profoundly sad for her family and for all those concerned," said Minns, and apologised to the committee.

The New South Wales police commissioner Mal Lanyon told reporters that he "unreservedly" apologised for the "miscommunication".

In a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Assistant Police Commissioner Joseph Cassar did not directly respond to questions as to how Hooper's family came to be told she had been found alive.

He told reporters that there was a period of between eight to 10 minutes before the teenager's parents were given an updated report on her condition.

He said he did not know exactly what was said to the Hooper family, but that if he "could turn the clock back, I would certainly".

A multi-agency search for the missing bushwalker had taken place over the past week, with support from multiple NSW Police Force units including PolAir, the Rescue Unit, the Trail Bike Unit, the Mounted Unit and the Dog Unit.

Police have also been supported by the Rural Fire Service, the National Parks and Wildlife Service and almost 100 members of the Australian Defence Force.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese paid tribute to the 18-year-old in parliament, calling Hooper's death an unspeakable tragedy.

"Lily Hooper had so much more to offer the world. Her passing, I have no doubt, will be felt very deeply," he said.

Opposition leader Angus Taylor, Hooper's local MP, said the initial incorrect reports that Hooper had been found alive made the family's loss even worse.

"We can only imagine what Lily's family is going through right now. Such news would be a nightmare for any parent, and we grieve for Lily's wider family," Taylor said.

Five Australian rules footy players apologise amid police investigation

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg4d7q2ne7go, 4 days ago

Five players in the Australian Football League (AFL) who were suspended for late-night drinking and inviting women to a hotel have publicly apologised to their club and fans.

The Sydney Swans' Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner, Nick Blakey, James Jordon and Riley Bice have been stood down from Australian Rules football's top league for the rest of the season, the club announced earlier on Wednesday.

The suspension comes after Melbourne detectives began an investigation into an alleged sexual assault, said to have to taken place in the early hours of Monday at the Pullman Hotel where the players were staying after Sunday's match.

None of the players have been arrested or charged in the investigation.

"We are deeply sorry to everyone involved," the players said in a statement posted to the Sydney Swans website.

"We know we have let down our partners and families, members, supporters, teammates, the AFLW team, corporate partners and everyone at the Club and in the wider community.

"We accept the Club sanction and apologise for the impact this has had on those involved."

Sydney Swans chairman Andrew Pridham also apologised to fans, players and the wider community earlier on Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters, he explained that the sanctions were handed down because the players had breached the club's standards by drinking alcohol later than accepted and bringing women to the hotel.

In a statement announcing the suspensions, the club said: "We respect there is an ongoing investigation by Victoria Police and the actions we have taken today are independent of this.

"The AFL is supportive of the Club's sanctions."

Swans chief executive Matthew Pavlich told a media conference: "We're deeply embarrassed and ashamed that the poor choices of five of our players, and the impact that's had on the women involved and also the club.

"We are deeply concerned about their welfare and the wellbeing of those women."

He declined to say whether any of the players had been drug tested, saying that any testing would form part of the police inquiry.

A spokesperson for Victoria Police said officers have spoken to several people who were at the Pullman Hotel, but no one was formally interviewed or arrested.

On Tuesday, club officials held talks with the players ahead of their suspension.

AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon has described the reports of the alleged sexual assault as "deeply concerning".

Sydney has dominated this season, currently placing second on the ladder which guarantees them a spot in the qualifying and elimination finals' round that begins in two weeks.

The club is scheduled to play against North Melbourne at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Sunday, which will be the last fixture ahead of the finals.

Heeney and Warner are considered two of the sport's biggest stars.

Unlike some other Australian sports, the AFL does not have a strict no-fault stand-down policy on players charged with serious offences such as sexual assault, and instead handles cases on a discretionary and case-by-case basis.

Rosenberg: Shortage of petrol but not patriotism as Russians feel growing impact of war

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gknzgje7go, 2 days ago

At a petrol station in the south-east of Moscow, Svyatoslav has been queuing in his car for two hours.

The sign board up ahead has just been changed to show there's no fuel.

"They say there will be petrol here," Svyatoslav tells me optimistically. "They just don't know when. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow."

I ask him why he doesn't drive off and look for another place to fill up.

"I haven't got enough in the tank to do that," Svyatoslav replies.

Even if he had, there'd be no quick fuel fix for Svyatoslav. This week across Moscow, and in other parts of Russia, there have been long queues for petrol.

"Unscheduled repairs at oil refineries," explain Russian officials.

Those repairs have been triggered by Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil facilities. Such long-range attacks sparked major fuel shortages earlier this summer. The targeting of oil refineries has continued apace.

This time the queues in Moscow are even longer than before. The authorities appear to be struggling to resolve problems with refining capacity and logistics.

"The second wave of the fuel crisis is building," declared broadsheet Nezavisimaya Gazeta this week.

Driving around Moscow this week two things catch the eye: patriotic announcements on giant billboards about Russian Flag Day…and giant petrol queues.

Outside one Moscow petrol station I count 80 vehicles waiting in line.

The search for fuel is now a constant struggle.

"Last night I went to get petrol at 11pm," says Elizaveta who's queuing again for fuel. "By midnight I'd reached the front of the queue. Then they shut the petrol station until 2am."

"I drove into Moscow yesterday from the provinces," says Lyubov. "It was empty petrol stations all the way."

To stay calm in the queue Lyubov is stroking her pet dog Agatha.

How does Lyubov view the fuel crisis?

"Everyone says there is a difficult situation in the country," Lyubov tells me. "Everyone connects this to that situation."

Before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 there were no drone attacks on Russian oil refineries - or on any facilities inside Russia. These strikes haven't forced the Kremlin to U-turn. It's continuing what it still calls the "special military operation", Russia's war on Ukraine.

To ease the crisis, Russia has begun importing petrol.

That is extraordinary for a country widely recognised as an energy superpower and one of the world's leading exporters of crude oil.

To reduce the fuel shortage the government has also temporarily authorised the production and sale of lower-grade petrol, like Euro 2, which is faster to produce. Euro 2 contains up to 50 times more sulphur than modern Euro 5 and was banned in Russia in 2013.

It comes with a warning.

"For modern cars," wrote the government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, "regular use of lower-grade petrol can increase the pressure on the fuel injector, spark plugs, oxygen sensors, the catalytic converter and soot filter. Euro 2 won't kill an engine on one re-fuelling. But it sharply reduces the margin of safety."

It's not just the targeting of oil facilities which have brought the war home to Russians.

Ukrainian strikes on distribution centres of Wildberries, Russia's equivalent of Amazon, are causing disruption to shoppers and economic pain for sellers.

This week President Vladimir Putin conceded that attacks on industrial facilities and infrastructure "do inflict damage; this is obvious. We understand this, we see it."

But the Kremlin leader played down the problems.

"There are no critical consequences from such attacks. There have not been and cannot be."

In other words, no need for panic.

"It is a disconnect between people's feelings and the description of reality by Vladimir Putin, the description of his personal reality in his head," believes Andrei Kolesnikov, a columnist for independent news outlet Novaya Gazeta.

"Maybe he's trying to hypnotise himself that everything is okay."

Recent polling inside Russia, including by the Public Opinion Foundation, suggest that anxiety in society is rising. That would suggest that the Kremlin's message of 'keep calm and carry on' isn't landing.

"This permanent feeling of anxiety is with everyone right now. You feel that something is wrong. Anxiety is the main sentiment," says Kolesnikov.

"This regime doesn't demonstrate any model of the future: the nearest future, a middle- term future, a long-term future. We are 'great' right now. What are the qualities of this greatness? The petrol crisis? In that sense, the future is aborted. People are trying not to think about the future. The horizon of planning is very short."

A few minutes' drive from the petrol station where I'd been chatting with Svyatoslav, I spot another long queue.

But this one is for candyfloss.

The local authorities have set up stalls and put on a street concert to mark Russian Flag Day.

There may be a shortage of petrol. But not of patriotism. Not here.

"It's my country, my fate, my dream," croons a singer. "I'm raising my flag. The flag of my country."

Volunteers are handing out Russian tricolours to people on the square.

"Dear friends, we live in a wonderful country!" declares one of the speakers. "We know that we will always be victorious. I wish you peaceful skies, a good mood, comfort, prosperity and pride in our country."

Along with the candyfloss there are Kalashnikovs. At one stall children are being shown an array of military hardware, including hand-held rocket launchers. The kids are picking up the weapons and posing with them.

It hints to the growing militarisation of Russian society.

The patriotic presentation is lifting some people's spirits.

"Difficulties unite us," pensioner Tatyana tells me. "The harder things are, the stronger we get."

But the war is very much on people's minds - especially the Ukrainian drone attacks on the Moscow region.

"When you go to sleep you don't know if you'll wake up in the morning," Angelina tells me. "That's the only problem. Everything else is fine."

"The problems we have are high prices, petrol shortages and last night, for the first time, my windows shook…I heard 'boom boom!' another woman tells me.

"Right now, it's important to take care of your psychological state, so that it's strong and unbreakable. So that, whatever happens, you can say: 'Oh well, never mind.'

Comments like that suggest that Russians don't believe they can influence what's happening around them. All they feel they can do is try to adapt.

Rescuers dig through Ukraine mall wreckage as Zelensky condemns 'despicable' Russian strike

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39egw7nmk2o, yesterday

Rescuers in Ukraine are continuing their search for survivors in the wreckage of a big shopping centre hit by Russia on Friday.

Sixteen people were killed and 130 injured when two drones hit the busy centre in Kryvyi Rih in quick succession in what is known as a double-tap strike. Four people are still missing. The search and rescue operation could last for another two days.

President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the "cynical and despicable" attack in which the second drone targeted emergency workers.

The sides exchanged more fire overnight, with Ukrainian attacks said to have killed at least four people in Russia, including two children, and three people reported dead by Kyiv as a result of Russian strikes.

The death toll from Friday's attack reached 16 after another body was retrieved from the rubble overnight, said Dnipropetrovsk regional head Oleksandr Hanzha.

"We're doing everything possible to speed up... the search and rescue operation," he told Ukrainian TV on Saturday morning.

He added that the work could continue for another two days because of the sheer scale of devastation and constant threats of more Russian attacks.

Rescue teams from seven other Ukrainian regions were urgently deployed on Friday evening to help search for survivors.

The huge fire covering an area of some 9,000 sq m has been extinguished.

In an update later on Saturday, Hanzha said that 52 injured people, including 14 children, were still in city hospitals.

Dozens of people had already undergone surgery, said Kryvyi Rih's miltiary chief Oleksandr Vilkul.

A day of mourning is being observed across the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Dramatic footage verified by the BBC showed the second drone hitting the already burning shopping centre in Zelensky's hometown. Russia's military has not commented.

Vilkul said the drones had been flying at "extremely low altitudes" and described the attackers as "animals".

Officials have not commented on why Ukraine's air defence units - which the military says are 90% successful at intercepting drones - failed to stop Friday's attacks on the shopping centre.

Ukraine's interception rate of ballistic missiles, however, is much lower - at about 40%, the defence ministry reported in June. Kyiv has repeatedly said it is running low on US-made Patriot missiles - the most effective weapon against the ballistics.

The attack in Kryvyi Rih came a day after 17 people were killed and more than 40 injured in a major Russian missile and drone attack on Ukraine's capital Kyiv.

Zelensky said there had been "missile and drone strikes throughout the evening and night" across Ukraine, with residential buildings and civilian infrastructure damaged.

He said one person was killed and another injured after ballistic missile strikes damaged railway infrastructure in the capital Kyiv, while three people were injured by a "brutal" drone strike on a city minibus in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia.

Two people were killed in a separate Russian attack in the Kyiv region, Ukraine's state emergencies service DSNS said.

Meanwhile, Russia's defence ministry said it downed a total of 457 Ukrainian drones overnight.

Two children were killed and two adults injured in a drone strike on a port town in Russia's southern Krasnodar region, according to Governor Veniamin Kondratyev.

In the western Belgorod region two people were killed and 13 injured in Ukrainian air strikes and shelling, acting Governor Alkesandr Shuvaev said.

Ukraine's military said it had struck an oil refinery in Russia's Samara region overnight, causing a fire to break out.

Russian online retailer Ozon - the country's second largest - said one of its warehouses in the region had also been hit for the first time.

This comes after a series of devastating Ukrainian attacks on logistics hubs of the largest retailer Wildberries, known as Russia's Amazon.

Ukraine has in recent months intensified attacks on Russian energy facilities, as well as on Wildberries warehouses.

Kyiv describes them as legitimate targets because they help finance Russia's war. Russia has said civilians are being targeted.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and currently Moscow controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory in the south-east.

Germany investigates Russia links to weapons cache discovered in woods, reports say

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp9edjpvplpo, 2 days ago

German intelligence believes a cache of guns found in the woods near Berlin last year was for carrying out assassinations on behalf of Russia, reports say.

Germany's Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said federal prosecutors were investigating a suspect in Romania over suspicions of espionage and "the preparation of a serious act of violence threatening the state".

While refusing to confirm reports of Russian links to the cache, Dobrindt said he could not rule out "the involvement of foreign powers".

For months security agencies have warned that Russian intelligence services are planning assassinations in Germany, possibly targeting defence industry executives or opposition figures in exile.

Dobrindt said that last October Germany's domestic intelligence agency became aware of a possible weapons cache in the woods on the outskirts of Berlin.

Officials located the stash with the help of the Berlin State police, and found two handguns and ammunition.

The German security authorities suspect the weapons and ammunition found were intended for use in attacks.

Reports in German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and the public broadcasters NDR and WDR say the cache was to facilitate targeted killings on behalf of Moscow.

Dobrindt said after the guns were rendered inoperable, the weapons cache was placed under surveillance for months but nobody was seen approaching it.

"This case demonstrates that we are operating under a high threat level," Dobrindt said.

The minister said prosecutors were investigating a suspect in Romania, who is being held in connection with planned parcel bomb attacks there. He said this would be taken into account when it came to a possible extradition.

He described the suspect as a "low-level agent", and declined to disclose his nationality.

Several similar operatives had been detained so far this year, he said, including one person from Kazakhstan.

The investigation follows previous accusations of Russian attacks on German soil.

In 2024, German political figures reacted angrily to a CNN report that Russia had plotted to kill the head of Germany's biggest arms company Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger.

In 2021 a German court jailed Russian national Vadim Krasikov for life for a murder in a Berlin park and said it had been ordered by Moscow. Krasikov was later freed in a prisoner swap.

Bodies of two hikers missing for decades found after Swiss glacier melts

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd9w1jwdkkjo, 3 days ago

The bodies of two Belgian men who went missing in the Swiss Alps in 1992 have been discovered after being exposed by the melting of a glacier, police have said.

A hiker discovered the bodies on 26 July on the Trift Glacier, south of the Swiss city of Lucerne, officials said.

DNA analysis later confirmed them to be those of two mountaineers who went missing 34 years ago near the Weissmies mountain, police said. They were aged 39 and 41 at the time of their disappearance.

Many scientists attribute a rapid retreat in Switzerland's glaciers - which shrunk by a quarter in the decade to 2025, according to Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (Glamos) - to climate change.

Police in Switzerland's Valais region said in a statement that they had organised a recovery operation following the discovery of the two men's bodies and transferred them to a hospital in the canton's capital, Sion, for identification.

Peaking at over 4,000 metres, the Weissmies mountain - which the two men went missing in the vicinity of - is a popular mountaineering spot in the Saas Valley.

Regional officials maintain a database of missing people dating back to 1925. The majority of people on it disappeared in the moutains, or in rivers and other bodies of water, police said.

The force noted that this was not the first time that the melting of glaciers had exposed the remains of people who had gone missing several decades prior.

In 2023, human remains found on a glacier close to Switzerland's famed Matterhorn were confirmed to be those of a German climber who had been missing since 1986.

The rate of glacier shrinkage has been increasing globally since the 1990s and at a particularly accelerated rate since 2000, according to the European Commission's monitoring body Copernicus.

This melting has been particularly pronounced in Switzerland. Data from Glamos reported a further glacier reduction of 3% across 2025, following record years of ice loss in 2022 and 2023.

The upward trend in global average temperatures has brought unseasonably warm weather to Switzerland's higher altitudes, and a reduction in snow has imperilled some of its ski resorts and competitions.

Russia 'purposefully' hit critical infrastructure in latest strikes, Kyiv mayor says

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c98vzmden5yo, 3 days ago

Russia's latest attack on Kyiv marks the first time in several months critical infrastructure "was purposefully attacked" in the Ukrainian capital, the city's mayor said.

At least 17 people have been killed as blocks of flats and warehouses were struck across the city overnight, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine said. A children's hospital and school were also damaged, and more than 40 people have been injured, it added.

On Thursday, Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko warned residents of Desnyansky and part of the Dnipro districts may experience a disrupted supply of hot water, following the overnight attacks.

"Specialists are working to restore the damaged infrastructure," he said on Telegram.

Speaking to BBC News at a wrecked apartment block in Kyiv, Klitschko said Ukraine continues to face a shortage of air defence missiles and needs "ammunition, anti-missile systems - we need support from our partners".

Kyiv relies on Western allies for the supplies and President Volodymyr Zelensky said that "as long as Ukraine does not have enough anti-ballistics, Russia will not seriously think about peace".

He added: "The interceptors for the Patriots have not yet been replaced, and they are needed every day. Each additional missile saves the lives of our people."

An update released by the Ukrainian Air Force on Thursday morning implied that none of the Russian ballistic missiles used overnight were intercepted.

Ukraine has relied on American supplies of Patriot interceptor missiles to combat Russian ballistic missiles, but the US has used much of its stockpile during the war with Iran.

The Russian defence ministry said it used air, land and sea-based weapons to target military facilities and warehouses.

A spokesman for António Guterres said the UN secretary-general "strongly condemned" the strikes and was "deeply concerned " by the escalation of this conflict.

"This is yet another tragic example of the alarming pattern of escalating strikes against populated areas," he said on Thursday.

The latest strikes on Kyiv began around midnight local time as air raid sirens sounded across the city, followed by the impact of Russian missiles.

The strikes cut power to thousands of properties, plunging parts of the Kyiv region into darkness.

A day of mourning is to be observed on Friday.

At a local school in the Solomyanski disctrict, the windows were knocked out and its playing fields were left covered in debris.

A nearby storeroom was destroyed, exposing the basement. The BBC was told it was a laundry and boiler house supplying heating to the surrounding apartment blocks.

Ukraine's deputy intelligence chief told the BBC this was the kind of attack Russia was planning ahead of the winter in order to make life difficult.

Anastasiia Kovtun's flat was in a nine-storey building that was hit in the attack.

The primary school teacher said she felt like her "head was going to blow" when she heard the explosions in her area from the shelter.

"It's so frightening to realise it's your house, you never think you're going to be next," she told the BBC.

Valeria Bondaruk moved to Kyiv after her home in southern Ukraine was bombed, believing it would be safer for her and her daughter.

Now she has been driven from her home for the second time during this war.

She told the BBC she feared for her 13-year-old daughter's future and was considering leaving Ukraine.

Elsewhere in the broader Kyiv region, an attack in the Brovary and Boryspil districts killed one man and wounded seven. One person was killed and 11 injured in the region of Donetsk, a local official said.

In Russia, the defence ministry said that 726 Ukrainian drones had been shot down after being launched at various regions across the country.

In recent weeks both sides have carried out massive air strikes, resulting in dozens of deaths.

Ukraine has stepped up its attacks deep inside Russia and targeted the capital Moscow with a wave of 600 drones at the weekend.

Two separate attacks on Russia this week killed at least 16 people, including one child.

Despite the ongoing attacks and vulnerabilities on both sides, there has been little progress in diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire. Both sides accuse each other of targeting civilians.

Russia first launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and currently controls about one-fifth of Ukrainian territory – largely concentrated in the eastern border regions.

Additional reporting by Isabella Jewell in Kyiv and Ruth Comerford in London

Five missing after fire in Swiss Alpine town

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8e6g13497o, 2 days ago

Five people are missing and eight others injured after a restaurant with apartments was "completely destroyed" by fire in the Swiss town of Thusis, police have said.

Initial investigations indicate the blaze broke out on the second floor and the cause was still being investigated, according to the Graubünden cantonal police.

The force said it was called just after midnight local time (22:00 GMT on Thursday) and that nearly 100 firefighters responded. The roof had to be opened using a crane after the stairwell collapsed.

The Alpine Graubünden region, also known as Grisons, is a popular holiday destination for both winter sports and summer nature activities in eastern Switzerland.

Fourteen people escaped the building, police said, of whom two were seriously injured, two suffered moderate injuries and four suffered minor injuries.

People were taken to hospitals in neighbouring Chur, Thusis, Ilanz and Zurich, it added.

Police and the public prosecutor's office are investigating the cause of the fire.

A number of foreigners were staying in the building at the time, a cantonal police spokeswoman told Switzerland's Keystone-SDA news agency.

Firefighters and emergency service personnel are now removing the roof layer by layer to access the collapsed stairwell, as the search for the missing people continues.

If human remains are found, DNA samples will be taken for identification, the spokeswoman said. The search could last for days, she added.

French civil servant drugged us to make us urinate on ourselves, say accusers

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crrv48lenwgo, 5 days ago

"I was really weak. I couldn't really feel my legs any more," says Anaïs de Vos. "I was scared. I didn't know what was happening."

It was July 2011 and Anaïs, who was then 27, was being interviewed for a job at France's Ministry of Culture in Paris.

She didn't usually drink coffee but when the interviewer, a senior civil servant called Christian Nègre, offered her one, she agreed out of politeness.

He made it himself, she tells BBC Global Women, but "it tasted bad… so I drank about half".

The meeting had started in the office, but after a few minutes Nègre suggested they go outside.

As they strolled through Paris's streets, Anaïs began to feel an inexplicable and uncontrollable need to urinate.

She felt uncomfortable telling Nègre that she wanted return to the office to use the toilet, so told him she was cold as an excuse to go back to the building. But she says he walked away, guiding them towards the banks of the River Seine, so she told him she needed to find a toilet urgently.

"He looked me right in the eye and said, 'Oh, do you need a wee?'

"I felt like a child. I thought it was really weird the way he looked at me, almost gleeful."

She says he directed her to the door of a storage cupboard under a bridge on the Seine and said: "You can do it here."

Now, Anaïs is one of nearly 250 women who believe Nègre drugged them in alleged incidents between 2009 and 2018, subjecting them to what is known as chemical submission, where drugs are used to gain control over someone.

The concept of chemical submission came to prominence in France in 2024 when Gisele Pelicot's husband was found guilty of sedating her and inviting strangers to rape her while she was unconscious.

"I started to panic," Anaïs continues. "I had visions of him pushing me into the room and closing the door behind me."

Feeling it was "too strange", she insisted they move on.

They walked to the Louvre to use the toilets there, but they cost one euro and she had left her purse at the ministry's offices. Nègre told her he didn't have any cash either.

Desperate and in pain from trying not to urinate, Anaïs found a cafe that let her use their toilet.

By then, "I felt really weak physically", she says. As she approached the bathroom, she lost control and wet herself.

Thinking back to 2011, Anaïs gets some comfort from the fact that when she did urinate, it was out of Nègre's sight. "At least he didn't see me," she says.

"I was so grateful I was only wearing a dress," she adds, explaining it made it easier to disguise what had happened.

After three hours with Nègre, she says she "felt dizzy and drained".

She didn't get the job and had suspicions about him, but could never work out exactly what it was that had made her feel so uncomfortable.

Anaïs felt the incident damaged her self-confidence and in the years that followed, she ended up on a less ambitious career path.

Then in 2019, she received a letter from the police. When she met them, she learned they suspected she was one of almost 200 women Nègre was accused of drugging during job interviews, purportedly for roles at the ministry.

"I was shocked," she says. "But I was happy to know I wasn't crazy. Something had happened that day."

Dozens more alleged victims have since emerged.

Police believed Nègre had used diuretics, which are used to manage a number of medical conditions, including high blood pressure, and cause the body to produce excess urine.

Anaïs had had a fleeting thought the day she had met Nègre, that maybe he had slipped something into her drink, but put it aside telling herself: "It's the Ministry of Culture. It's not possible."

'Experiments P'

Anaïs says police told her they found a spreadsheet of the alleged victims on Nègre's computer, entitled Experiments P, which was how they found her.

The document, she says, noted the time the women arrived for their interviews, when the diuretic was administered, how long it took before they urinated, and what underwear they were wearing.

Looking back, Anaïs is now convinced the strange taste in the coffee Nègre made her was the diuretic.

The investigation into Nègre began in June 2018, when he was caught by a colleague taking a photograph of a woman from beneath a table, the prosecutor's office said in a statement released in February this year.

He was initially suspended from his job as regional director of cultural affairs before being sacked by the Ministry of Culture in 2019.

Prosecutors said that in 2018 he told investigators he had "imposed humiliating situations on women" during job interviews.

Many of the women say the first time they realised they may have been victims was when police contacted them.

Some came forward when they saw Anaïs and other accusers in media reports.

Nègre, who is in his 60s, is now under formal investigation on charges that include drugging, invasion of privacy and sexual assault. He is awaiting trial.

The BBC put the allegations contained in this article to Nègre through his lawyer, but he declined to comment.

Another person named in Nègre's notes was Marie-Hélène Brice. He interviewed her for a job at the Ministry of Culture in 2016 in Strasbourg, where he was then working.

She says he told her she looked stressed and suggested they take a walk outside to "calm her nerves".

But as they strolled along the canal, Marie-Hélène, like Anaïs, felt an uncontrollable need to urinate, which began to cause her pain.

She says Nègre told her that he knew of a public toilet nearby, but when they arrived at the location there was no toilet.

"I was really starting to suffer… pains to the point that I was white, pale, I had tears streaming down," she says.

Marie-Hélène says she had no choice but to urinate in public. She says Nègre offered to shield her with his jacket.

"I was terribly embarrassed," she says. "He didn't take his eyes off me."

Marie-Hélène says that for years she felt ashamed.

Like Anaïs, she was also contacted by police who told her she was among Nègre's alleged victims. "It was a very big shock," she adds.

Chemical submission

Marie-Hélène says that as well as psychological distress, she has also been left with urinary problems.

She explains that while the events might not fit the pattern of what people usually think of in cases of sexual assault, she has no doubts about what happened to her: "I have been attacked, I have been intoxicated, I have been poisoned, but for me it is a sexual assault, clearly."

The issue of chemical submission has been picked up by French MP Sandrine Josso. She became a leading campaigner after French senator Joel Guerriau was found guilty this year of spiking her drink with ecstasy in order to sexually assault her.

Josso argues that for too long France has not done enough to support women who have been drugged and prosecute offenders.

She was behind the introduction this year of a pilot programme where women who suspect they have been drugged can take samples of blood, urine or hair to a lab for testing, without having to file a formal complaint with police.

"People are mobilising, victims are reporting more, filing more complaints, and that's important," Josso tells BBC Global Women.

But there are limitations. Anaïs, Marie-Hélène and many other alleged victims of Nègre did not suspect they had been drugged - and unless testing takes place very soon after drugging, substances won't show up in blood and urine samples.

Drugs may be detectable for longer in hair, but as time passes it becomes harder to pinpoint when they were administered.

The use of diuretics in this way is "very unusual" according to Prof Jean-Claude Alvarez, who runs the pilot at the Raymond-Poincaré AP-HP Hospital. He says he has never seen anything like it in 26 years as a toxicologist.

The lab routinely tests for 400 substances and "now, in France, we are looking for diuretics", he adds.

It is now 15 years since Anaïs's encounter with Nègre and seven years since she first spoke to police.

Like many of the other accusers, she is frustrated at the length of time it is taking for Nègre's case to come to court.

Meanwhile, the alleged perpetrator has continued to work in human resources, according to Fondation des Femmes, a women's rights group that is supporting about 30 of the women affected.

"Everything is unsettling and I am angry at how we are treated," says Anaïs, who is now 42 years old.

She says she first spoke to police in 2019, but then heard nothing about the case until 2023, despite emailing them many times.

"For four years, I was alone with the knowledge that I was a victim. I didn't know what to do," she says. "I am very angry with the justice system."

Marie-Hélène describes this waiting as "secondary victimisation".

"As a victim, I have to prove the impact, go to a psychiatrist, write specific notes," she says.

The delays to the case have made what happened harder to bear.

"We do not necessarily feel [we are] completely taken seriously," Marie-Hélène says.

Kalliopi Mingeirou from UN Women told the BBC that governments, police and justice systems needed to do more to tackle drug-facilitated sexual assault, and that authorities were facing "very serious challenges" and delays in cases of alleged abuse are "destroying women's lives".

The BBC asked the French police, judiciary and government to respond to the criticisms of their handling of the case, but they did not respond.

For a long time, Marie-Hélène was silent until she stopped feeling shame.

"I don't have to hide myself - I am a victim," she says.

"It is important for me to speak publicly because it allowed some victims to recognise themselves, to discover they were a victim and to file a complaint in turn.

"Speaking out is necessary in the world in which we live, it is important to talk about sexist and sexual violence."

* This is part of the Global Women series from the BBC World Service, sharing untold and important stories from around the globe

Inside secret police warehouse as Germany targets small boats gangs

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpq809zrvqdo, 6 days ago

Inside a warehouse in a secret location in Germany, thousands of life jackets and dozens of dinghies are stacked on top of each other after being seized in a raid on smuggling gangs.

Germany has become a staging post for criminals organising crossings on the English Channel, and authorities have now carried out their first raids under a new law making it a crime to facilitate migrant smuggling to the UK.

The BBC was given special access to a police storehouse, housing more than 9,000 life jackets and dozens of dinghies and boat engines in an operation in western Germany.

The boats could have taken more than 2,000 migrants across the Channel illegally, the UK's National Crime Agency said.

Smuggling gangs have long used garages or warehouses to store equipment in western Germany before transporting it to northern France.

Until recently, however, key anti-smuggling laws in Germany only applied to nations within the EU's zone of free movement, not to third countries, which included the UK after Brexit.

Raids have happened in Germany before, but often relied on French or Belgian warrants.

In 2024, Germany said it would tighten its laws to make it easier to prosecute those helping to ferry migrants to the UK, as part of a new plan agreed between the two countries.

It followed a BBC investigation which exposed the country's role in the small boat supply chain.

Germany's Interior Ministry confirmed that these raids marked the first time enforcement measures had been taken under the new law, but did not confirm if the law had been employed more than once.

The BBC was able to see the results of the raid, which took place in the North Rhine-Westphalia region and involved French, German and UK investigators, at an undisclosed police storehouse in western Germany. The stash has been kept much as it was found. The dinghies, that officials say measure approximately 9m (29ft), are deflated and mainly packaged up in cardboard boxes. The massive haul also included 360 pumps.

In June, when the National Crime Agency first revealed the raids had happened, it was estimated that the equipment could have taken more than 2,000 people across the Channel - which would work out to about 65 people per dinghy.

That number is less than the so-called mega dinghies seen this summer but matches recent averages as well as the general trend of rising passenger numbers.

Oxford's Migration Observatory believes the emergence of these mega dinghies is likely connected to increased enforcement, as there is an "additional incentive for smugglers to fit as many people as possible into available boats".

Gangs are prone to adapt - rather than abandon - their money-making schemes when supply lines are disrupted.

The life jackets in the warehouse are tightly bundled and wrapped in plastic. Their bright orange covers are stuffed with little more than what feels like poly-foam -completely inadequate for the open and unpredictable waters of the English Channel.

The tag has Chinese lettering. Much of the equipment used for small boats is known to be produced there before being transported to Europe, often via Turkey.

A well-known entry point from Turkey into the EU is at the Bulgarian land border.

Customs officials recently found 20 undeclared inflatable dinghies hidden between mattress pads at a Turkish-Bulgarian border crossing. The truck driver had been heading for Germany.

British investigators believe Kurdish criminal networks hold a particularly controlling grip over the small boats business in western Germany - a region that has become a hub for migrants.

According to one German official, gangs operate out of Germany because many of them live there.

Western Germany is also close - but not too close - to the more heavily patrolled beaches of northern France from where migrant boats launch.

Local prosecutors warn that Germany's amended legal provision is, so far, largely untested.

Lawyer Bernhard Schmeilzl, who specialises in UK-German law, points out that the legal situation is essentially as it was before Brexit.

However, he believes it will make a difference, even if stretched German law enforcement agencies may be more likely to focus on domestic matters.

"This now enables the German police to go after these people," he says. "If they are being notified about such suspicious activity, they will have to investigate."

Enforcement and migrant sources have told the BBC that the gangs are coming under more pressure in Europe, including in Germany.

Channel crossings overall are on course to be lower this year, but illegal entries into Europe have also been falling.

The UK Home Office says its work with countries like Germany "is bearing fruit".

The UK government reports a drop of roughly 43% in the number of people who have made crossings between 1 January and 8 August this year, compared to the same period last year. It attributes this to efforts in disrupting the supply of boats to the gangs, and getting more law enforcement on French beaches.

But opposition politicians have said the decline is due to adverse conditions in the Channel, including wave height - not the direct result of action taken by the government.

Crew honoured after 14 fishermen rescued from stricken boat

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3ekgpdyv9po, today

After almost 30 years of rescuing people up and down Ireland's coastline from helicopters, Jim O'Neill thought he'd seen almost everything.

That was until the call came in just before last Christmas.

The French fishing vessel Fastnet, and its 14-strong crew, was stranded on rocks in County Kerry, having suffered engine failure while leaving Dingle Harbour.

Near gale-force winds and strong Atlantic waves had run it aground and were threatening to capsize or break it apart, leaving the crew at the mercy of the ocean.

Enter O'Neill and the crew of Irish Coastguard Rescue Helicopter 115, who were part of a huge emergency response to get the 14 men to safety.

O'Neill, originally from Strabane, County Tyrone, described it as the most challenging rescue he had ever faced, one which could have resulted in a major maritime tragedy.

"We couldn't be certain going into it how it was going to turn out because, by the nature of it, we knew it was going to be very high risk," he said.

"Success was not by any means guaranteed or certain."

Now O'Neill has been hailed as a hero, having been presented with an award to mark his actions that day at a ceremony held at the House of Commons.

The Billy Deacon Memorial award was given to him for an incredibly demanding rescue which was "completed with a calm professionalism, despite considerable personal risk".

The award committee also praised the other crew members of Rescue 115 – Capt Robert Goodbody; co-pilot Paraic Slattery; and winch operator Eamon O'Broin.

When Rescue 115 arrived on the scene, O'Neill found the Fastnet's crew in serious danger.

"It was getting seriously smashed by the waves on one side and smashing off the rocks on the other, and there was a risk the vessel was starting to break up.

"There was a lot of pollution on the day because it was leaking diesel into the sea and we knew we ere going into a very difficult set of circumstances."

Rescue operation

Several emergency services were part of the rescue effort – an RNLI lifeboat, Irish Coastguard land units, the Irish Navy and local fishing vessels.

With the Fastnet on rocks in relatively shallow water, the RNLI lifeboat and other vessels stayed in safer water. At the same time, the crew of Rescue 115 prepared for a winching operation to rescue the 14 crew.

With the helicopter hovering above the fishing boat, O'Neill was winched down by colleagues and, over a 50-minute period, he helped locate the fisherman on board and get them all to safety.

He was the final person to leave the stricken boat.

"The main challenge I had on the vessel was I had to make sure I didn't fall hard on the deck or end up being thrown overboard," he said.

"I didn't think I was going to survive if I ended up in the sea because it was so rough.

"So I got the 14 all up and into the helicopter and that a bit of a moment really – suddenly, I found I was the only one left.

"That was a great moment but also a very scary moment because I knew I had to be recovered."

That risk would not be lost on the award committee for the Billy Deacon Search and Rescue Memorial Trophy.

Deacon was a winchman who died in November 1997 while carrying out a HM Coastguard search and rescue operation near the Shetland Islands.

He rescued the final crew members from a stricken cargo vessel, the Green Lily, placing them two at a time in winch equipment to get them off the ship safely.

Deacon was the final man on the ship when he was swept overboard. He was posthumously awarded the George Medal in recognition of his "outstanding courage and bravery".

The trophy that bears his name is awarded to winch paramedics or operators for meritorious service during search and rescue operations.

With his fellow Rescue 115 crew members in attendance, O'Neill was presented with the trophy in London as well as a watch inscribed by RNLI chief executive Peter Sparkes.

The award committee said he showed magnificent leadership skills in organising the 14 crew for evacuation and prioritising their safety at considerable risk to himself, adding: "His courage in the face of adversity had a direct bearing on the successful outcome."

His fellow crew were praised for good leadership, teamwork and communication in a demanding situation.

O'Neill said he felt honoured to receive an award which remembers the sacrifice of Deacon.

He wants everyone to heed the safety message when out and about either working or enjoying the beaches and coastline on the island.

"It's important that people are vigilant and safe," he said.

"They can still go out and enjoy the environment but just be careful about what you do and think about what you do and just remember what could be the outcome of your actions if you take any foolish risks."

One killed in sword attack at Swedish school

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3r0g7gj2n3o, 2 days ago

One person has been killed in a sword attack at a high school in central Sweden, authorities have said.

Police were called to the Brinell School in Fagersta shortly after 14:00 local time (13:00 BST) on Friday, where officers arrested an 18-year-old man.

In an update on Friday, police said officers fired at the suspect before arresting and detaining him. He has not been named.

Two teenage boys were seriously injured in the attack. Another person had minor injuries.

Eight other schools in the area were placed under lockdown measures - which have now been lifted - while a state of high alert was declared in the Västmanland region following the attack.

Sweden's public broadcaster reported that the suspect was wearing a helmet. Local media also said he was a former student.

Police said officers were now working to establish possible motives, adding that there was currently no danger to the public.

In a post on X, Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson described the attack as a "serious incident," and said "we do not know what lies behind the act, but we know that police are working very intensively".

Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf said he received the news "with dismay and sadness".

In a statement, he said: "My thoughts are with those directly affected, as well as their families and loved ones."

Students at Brinell School had only just returned to the classroom following the summer break, with the new term beginning either on Monday or Wednesday this week, depending on the academic year.

The school has just under 500 students on its roster, according to SVT, and is located 170km (105 miles) north-west of the capital, Stockholm.

Sweden has experienced a number of attacks on educational institutions in recent years.

The country experienced its worst-ever mass shooting in 2025, where 11 people, including the gunman, died at an adult education centre in Örebro.

This led to the government tightening the country's gun laws after it was found that the suspect legally owned four rifles, three of which were found in the school where attack took place.

Two teachers were killed in a violent attack on a secondary school in Malmo in 2022 - an 18-year-old student later confessed to the attack.

In 2015, a teacher and a pupil were killed in a sword attack at a school in Trollhättan.

Vigil held for four people injured in M9 crash

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czjlr0xzl92o, 2 days ago

A vigil has taken place in County Carlow for the family injured in the crash on the M9 in the Republic of Ireland last weekend.

Five teenagers were killed in a head-on crash while they were driving the wrong way down the motorway in County Kildare in the early hours of Sunday.

Three women and a seven-year-old boy remain in hospital where they are being treated for serious injuries.

It is believed the injured family were travelling to the airport to go on holiday when the crash happened.

The vigil took place at St Clare's Church in Graiguecullen.

Irish broadcaster RTÉ News reported the church was full and some people had been accommodated in the nearby parish centre where the vigil was live streamed.

Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Denis Nulty, said people felt "helpless" and that "words fail".

He thanked the first responders "who were on the M9 for hours last Sunday".

"We also remember the five boys in the [other] car and that's the Christian thing to do," Bishop Nulty said.

Fr John Dunphy said that "when a community comes together in prayer, it gives great strength".

"Since last Sunday morning, our hearts were numb."

Speaking to RTÉ Radio One's Morning Ireland programme on Friday morning, Bishop Nulty said the vigil was "hugely important".

"People often at times like this don't know what to do," he said, adding that it was a "very tough day for Carlow and the wider area".

He added that he was "saddened" by the actions of the five teenagers in the lead up to the crash.

The funerals of Joe Carthy and Alex McCarthy took place in Athy and Carlow earlier on Friday.

The funeral of Jeremy O'Brien will take place on Monday.

US sanctions more Cuban companies and officials

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgq5x9l7054o, 3 days ago

The US has imposed a new round of sanctions on Cuban officials and companies, Secretary of State Marco Rubio says.

Nine state-owned mining, metal and building firms, the Ministry of Construction and officials connected to a Cuban-based international institute have been named in the latest tranche of economic sanctions.

Rubio accused various figures of "ferrying a new brigade of international sympathisers to Havana to network with regime officials" to coincide with the late former leader Fidel Castro's 100th birthday.

Cuba has denounced all sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, which are part of a wider pressure campaign against the Caribbean island's leadership.

Rubio said in a statement that the figures targeted by the sanctions form "part of the regime's raison d'être of exporting Marxism, racial resentment and Communist violence across the world".

He continued: "Today's designations make clear that the Trump administration will not tolerate the Cuban regime's efforts to fund its repression or continue its decades-long campaign of subversive anti-American activities."

The leadership of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) was targeted in the latest round of US sanctions.

Founded in 1960 by Castro, the ICAP has traditionally been used by the Cuban government to foster ties with like-minded organisations around the world by hosting visiting groups of activists who also promote pro-Cuban government campaigns in their own countries.

Rubio, however, accuses the group of "misleading and corrupting American citizens with lies, spy tradecraft and malfeasance".

Among those to be targeted is the group's president, Fernando Gonzalez Llort, a member of a spy ring called the Cuban Five, who were part of a prisoner exchange during the Obama-era thaw in relations with Havana.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez condemned Rubio's announcement, writing on X that he was trying to "punish" Cuban companies and further "harm" the economy.

Rodríguez added it would prevent the government "from guaranteeing basic services to the population, which are already in a critical situation as a result of the blockade".

Senior Cuban figures across the energy, financial and defence sectors are already subject to US sanctions.

US sanctions and an effective oil blockade have exacerbated already existing shortages of fuel, medicines and food in Cuba.

With the island's ageing electricity infrastructure heavily reliant on fuel imports, hospitals have resorted to using emergency generators, while citizens have been subject to frequent blackouts, triggering rare protests.

The Trump administration has also targeted Cuba's tourism sector, a key source of income for Cuba's beleaguered government, driving down visitor numbers.

Peru earthquake damages buildings and causes power cuts

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0km6n3ng7ko, 3 days ago

At least three people have been injured and buildings have been damaged after an earthquake struck Peru, local officials have said.

The earthquake, which occurred near the small settlement of Aniso in the southern Ayacucho region on Thursday, had a magnitude of 6.7, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.

Peru's defence minister Rafael Belaunde said 22 homes and six schools were damaged, local media report.

Earthquakes are common in Peru, which sits along the meeting point of the Nazca and South American tectonic plates, and Thursday's was the latest strong seismic event to hit South America in recent months, following deadly quakes in Colombia and Venezuela.

Belaunde, who has been involved in co-ordinating the emergency response, said three people had been hurt but did not suffer serious injuries, according to Peruvian newspaper El Comercio.

The earthquake struck at around 13:00 local time (18:00 GMT) at a depth of 62 miles (100km), around 19 miles (31km) north-west of Aniso, in a relatively remote part of the Andes mountain range, data from the USGS showed.

Damage was reported at 10 healthcare facilities in the Ayacucho region and two were damaged in the neighbouring Cusco region, but services remained operational, Peru's National Institute of Civil Defence said.

Around 9,000 properties also lost power, it said, and nine educational facilities were damaged.

Tremors were reportedly felt across large parts of the country, including in the capital, Lima, around 300 miles (482km) away.

The Geophysical Institute of Peru recorded the earthquake as having a magnitude of 7.2.

A magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck Colombia on 10 August, prompting a state of emergency to be declared. The death toll currently stands at more than 300 people, according to local authorities.

Venezuela was hit by twin earthquakes on 24 June, with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 recorded just 39 seconds apart. More than 6,000 people are known to have died, according to local officials.

Head-on collision between bus and lorry in Brazil kills more than 20

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvwgk1n2k8o, 4 days ago

At least 23 people, among them two children, have been killed and another five injured in a head-on collision between a minibus and a lorry in southern Brazil, highway police say.

The crash happened early on Wednesday local time on the BR-373 highway in the southern state of Paraná.

Local media reported that the minibus belonged to the health authorities of the nearby city of Imbituva and was transporting patients and their relatives to health appointments in Ponta Grossa, some 60km (36 miles) away.

Authorities have opened an investigation to determine what may have caused the two vehicles to crash into each other.

Among those killed is the driver of the lorry, police said.

The highway was closed for almost seven hours while forensic experts and members of Brazil's federal highway police examined the site of the crash, which is located at kilometre 209.

Deadly road traffic accidents are not uncommon in Brazil.

According to a study published by the World Bank, more than 34,000 people died in such accidents in 2023, most of them were motorcyclists.

Research suggests excessive speed, inebriated drivers and the use of mobile phones while driving is often the cause.

In February, 15 people died on board a bus carrying pilgrims to a festival in the north-eastern state of Ceará.

Brazil's President Lula hails oil discovery near Amazon river

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gd7xd8e8lo, 5 days ago

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has hailed the discovery of oil near the mouth of the Amazon river.

Speaking after the find was announced by Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras, he said it could be "a passport to the country's future".

His decision to allow exploratory drilling in the area known as the Brazilian Equatorial Margin was heavily criticised by environmentalists, who raised concerns that any potential oil spills could devastate its ecosystem.

Lula, who is running for another four-year term in elections scheduled for October, stressed that he was still committed to eventually phasing out fossil fuels to curb climate change.

The oil discovery was made in the sea about 175km (110 miles) off the Amazon coast but the size of the field is not yet clear.

It is also still unknown whether extracting the oil, which is located at a depth of 2,886m (9,469ft), would be commercially viable.

Conservationists have warned that the area where the exploratory drilling is taking place is very biodiverse.

They fear that any accidents could threaten not just the nearby reefs but that currents could carry spilled oil to coastal wetlands teeming with wildlife.

Lula has in the past rejected criticism by conservationists as "meddling" and on Monday he again said that he would not accept any foreign interference.

"This means national sovereignty. Any country which has oil of this quality won't allow anyone to butt in," he said.

Petrobras started the exploratory deep-water drilling operation in the area in October 2025.

The company's chief executive Magda Chambriard said that the discovery confirmed that Petrobras's "optimism" of finding oil in the Brazilian Equatorial Margin had been warranted.

She added that the company was committed to "ensuring the country's energy security".

President Lula has argued that oil revenues are needed to help fund Brazil's transition to non-fossil fuels.

Speaking on Monday, he insisted: "I'm not denying my commitment to the fight for a day when we no longer need fossil fuels, because Brazil will continue to be the king of biofuel innovation and will remain a major player in renewable energy."

Environmentalists were aghast when Lula announced he had given Petrobras the green light to start the exploratory drilling just weeks before the COP30 climate conference hosted by Brazil last November.

In his remarks on Monday, the president made a reference to the anger at the time, singling out opposition in Europe in particular.

"Many people didn't want me to announce that Petrobras had won the licence because they said that the Europeans would be annoyed," he said.

"I took the decision to announce that people wanted to do exploratory drilling there before COP because the interests of our country and our company were at stake."

The prospect of oil discovery off the coast has already given a boost to the nearest town.

In Oiapoque, in Amapá state, the hope of jobs and opportunities has led to an influx of people, according to the local housing authorities.

With less than two months to go before the presidential election, Lula will be trying to attract voters hoping for economic development in this remote part of Brazil without alienating those concerned about the potential impacts on the environment.

Ecuador intelligence chief and five Americans killed in Kenya helicopter crash

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clylkv4z59vo, 4 days ago

Ecuador's intelligence chief and his wife have been killed in a helicopter that crashed at Mount Ololokwe in central Kenya.

Michele Sensi-Contugi, 44, and his wife, fashion designer Stephany Hollihan, 42, were among the group of seven people - six tourists and the pilot - killed in Samburu county at approximately 09:13 (06:13 GMT) on Wednesday.

Five of victims were Americans, a US State Department spokesperson said. The Reuters news agency reports that Hollihan also held US citizenship.

The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) said the helicopter was on a scenic flight from a wildlife conservancy in Loisaba to Ewaso Nyiro, a river that flows along several national reserves.

Samburu county is a popular tourist destination with many private wildlife conservancies and is renowned for its stunning landscape.

Images from the scene show smoke at the wooded crash site on Mount Ololokwe, as members of the Kenya Red Cross approach the still-burning wreckage.

Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa named Sensi-Contugo director of the country's Centre of Strategic Intelligence (CIES) in January 2024.

The office of the president and Ecuador's National Assembly expressed their condolences over his death and that of Hollihan.

The Italian-Ecuadorean businessman had had close links to Noboa even before he was chosen to lead the intelligence service and was considered a close ally of the president.

Shortly before being named head of the CIES, he had served for four months as a minister in his cabinet.

Noboa has declared three days of national mourning starting on Thursday.

Newspapers in Ecuador have also run obituaries of Hollihan. The Guayaquil-based designer founded Sensi Studio, a brand praised for incorporating traditional Ecuadorean elements and materials in its designs.

Lady Lori Helicopters, which operated the Eurocopter EC130 B4 aircraft, said it was "deeply saddened" by the accident.

"Our deepest sympathies are with the guests, crew, their families and loved ones, and all those affected by this tragic accident," a statement read.

According to a memo seen by the BBC's US partner CBS News one of the Americans killed in the crash was NBCUniversal journalist José Alberto Suárez.

In the memo, NBCUniversal called Suárez "a deeply respected leader and beloved friend and colleague.

"José was an exceptional colleague and mentor to many," the memo read.

Miami restaurateur Roger Duarte was among the Americans killed in the crash, according to local and US media.

Commenting on his death on X, US Rep Carlos Antonio Gimenez wrote: "Our prayers are with their loved ones during this incredibly difficult time. May their memories be a blessing."

The other victims have not yet been identified.

Helicopter crashes are not uncommon in Kenya.

In February, a helicopter crash in the Rift Valley county of Nandi killed six people, including a member of parliament.

In 2024, the military chief, Gen Francis Omondi Ogolla, died after an army helicopter that was carrying 11 people crashed in the west of the country, with only two survivors.

In June 2021 at least 10 soldiers were killed when their helicopter crashed while landing near the capital, Nairobi.

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Landslide at unlicensed Colombian gold mine kills 13

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxel9lz3vqo, 3 days ago

At least 13 workers have been killed and another seven injured in a landslide at an unlicensed mine in southern Colombia, local officials say.

Witnesses described hearing what they said sounded like an explosion at the open-air artisanal gold mine on Wednesday afternoon, moments before the workers below were trapped. But a local official said the deadly landslide had been caused by the mining work.

Emergency workers were able to retrieve the bodies with the help of diggers.

Deadly accidents are not uncommon in Colombia, especially at unlicensed mines where locals dig for precious metals without any official oversight.

Witnesses said that four of the 13 dead were members of the same indigenous family.

Residents of the area said some 50 people, most of them members of the Quillacinga indigenous group, regularly worked in the mine near Policarpa, in southern Nariño province.

Between 200,000 and 400,000 people are estimated to engage in artisanal mining in Colombia, with many families relying on the income from selling the precious metals and stones they find to make ends meet.

Teens who fled Venezuela after deadly quakes caught in another disaster in Colombia

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9v42m3430vo, 10 days ago

"The earthquake is haunting me," Deivi Delfín says.

The 15-year-old feels like he and his brother, Winder, have been chased by tremors these past few months, having lived through two that struck with devastating effect in Venezuela, only to get caught up in another this week after moving to Colombia.

He tells the BBC that he and his brother, 17, no longer felt like children, having witnessed corpses damaged beyond recognition.

After their home in La Guaira - the area of Venezuela hardest hit by the twin quakes on 24 June - was reduced to a pile of rubble, killing three family members including their mother, they moved to Cali, Colombia, where their father works, on Friday.

Three days later, they felt the ground shake again.

'My world came crashing down'

Back at the end of June, the two teenagers had gone to the beach on Venezuela's Caribbean coastline. Winder wanted to take their 10-year-old brother Moissés, but he was grounded.

"I kept insisting but my mum just wouldn't budge," he says.

As they were heading home on the evening of the 24th, earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 struck just 39 seconds apart. The brothers hugged and shut their eyes. When they reopened them, everything was covered in dust and debris.

When they arrived home, they saw the 12-storey apartment building had collapsed, trapping their mother Yusmani, grandmother Carmen and brother under a mountain of concrete.

"My world came crashing down," Winder says.

The earthquakes killed more than 6,300 people, according to the Venezuelan government. There is still no clear official figure for the number of people missing.

Winder and Deivi joined rescue efforts, but for three days had nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. Their father, Deivid, who was in Colombia at the time, was unable to find them for three days after returning to Venezuela.

When he eventually found his sons, they began a search for their family members that would last nearly a month.

'I didn't feel like a child anymore'

Deivid knew that climbing into the rubble would put his sons at risk, but they would not be deterred from searching for their missing family members.

As they were still teenagers, they were better able to squeeze through narrow spaces, crawling between concrete slabs lit only by a handheld torch or mobile phone so they could tell rescuers where to dig.

"By that point, I didn't feel like a child anymore," Deivi recalls .

Gradually, they unearthed fragments of their family life - Moissés's shorts, Yusmani's Bible, and an unfinished shopping list - a sign they were getting closer to what had once been their home.

The following day, Deivi spotted a piece of fabric in the rubble and recognised it as his grandmother's floral skirt. Soon after, firefighters confirmed they had found a woman's body.

Winder was the first to recognise his mother's body. A plastic bag she had been using to dye her hair when they had left for the beach was still on her head.

He got as close to her as he could and stayed with her for a few moments.

They still could not immediately recover her body as it had been pinned down by a concrete slab. It was only while they were removing it that they found Moissés.

The little boy was still holding onto his mother.

At the sight of his son, Deivid collapsed.

"When his little head fell into my hands... I broke down," he says.

'We've been through this before'

After laying their family members to rest, the brothers went to live with their father in a modest, working-class neighbourhood of low-rise houses in the north-eastern outskirts of Cali, Colombia.

They say they hope for a life filled with hard work and study, so their mother would be proud.

But having only just settled into their new home, they felt a sensation on Monday that was all too familiar.

Colombia had been hit by its strongest earthquake this century - a magnitude 7.4, which killed several hundred across the country, with many more still missing. Cali was, once again, among the hardest-hit areas.

Deivi, who was asleep when the tremor began, says that he thought he was dreaming when the movement was gentle. But when it intensified, he got out of bed and ran downstairs. His brother did the same. Outside, they grabbed hold of a metal gate and waited for the shaking to stop.

Their father had been out on the street at the time. As soon as he felt the tremor, he thought of his sons and ran back to the house - but when he arrived, they were nowhere to be seen.

A neighbour told him she had seen them leave and he kept searching through the streets until he found them outside the barbershop where he worked.

His sons tried to reassure him, saying: "Dad, stay calm. We've been through this before."

Woman pulled alive from rubble 36 hours after Colombia quake

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7d2e5wlgno, 11 days ago

A 32-year-old woman, who had been trapped under rubble for 36 hours following the 7.4-magnitude quake which shook western Colombia, has been rescued alive.

Daniela Largo was pulled from beneath a collapsed building in the city of Pereira after a 10-hour-long rescue operation.

Firefighters finally managed to reach her via a tunnel they dug below four concrete slabs under which she had been buried.

At least 265 people have died in the quake, according to Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella, who said that 496 others remain missing.

In Pereira, a city in Colombia's coffee-growing region, 79 people are confirmed to have died, the second-highest number after Cali, where 95 are dead, according to figures by the Association of Colombian Capital Cities (Asocapitales).

Largo's mother told AFP news agency that a local resident had heard her daughter cry out for help from beneath the rubble.

Once emergency workers had arrived at the site, they were able to locate Largo with the help of a small camera.

However, her rescue was complicated by the fact that four heavy concrete slabs were blocking the way.

Local firefighters aided by colleagues deployed from the capital, Bogotá, and the disaster response team of the national police force had to dig two tunnels to reach her.

Through one opening, dug from above, they were able to provide Largo with oxygen. But it was only through a second tunnel, dug from below, that they were able to free her.

De la Espriella celebrated her rescue on social media, describing it as "news which fills us with hope".

Largo's mother said that "at home, her 12-year-old son is waiting for her".

In Pereira, at least 92 buildings collapsed. Fifteen people are known to be trapped and another 37 have been reported missing, according to Asocapitales.

In Cali, Colombia's third most populous city, more than 200 people remained trapped as of 16:00 local time on Tuesday.

The city's mayor declared a night-time curfew and said that soldiers would be on patrol in the worst-hit areas of Cali.

"We need to ensure that the rescue work can be carried out safely," he said, adding that there was still hope of finding more people alive and everyone would do their utmost to free those trapped.

Eighty-seven people have been rescued in the city so far.

The 7.4-magnitude quake struck at 07:34 local time (12:34 GMT) on Monday.

It had its epicentre near the village of San José del Palmar, in Chocó province, but could be felt across a vast area.

Seismometers nearest the epicentre registered shaking lasting between 90 seconds and two minutes.

There have been more than 100 aftershocks since.

Brother of man trapped under rubble in Colombian quake clings on to hope

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxerlglgw5o, 12 days ago

Efraín Gallego does not lose faith that his brother will be found alive, although when he speaks about him, trapped beneath the rubble of a building, his voice breaks and he swallows hard until he regains his composure.

"You feel anguish. Every time there is an alert about someone being alive, hope is reborn that we will find him," Gallego tells me emotionally.

His 80-year-old brother was buried along with his wife when the Torres del Limonar building collapsed in Cali.

This city in south-western Colombia is one of the hardest hit by the earthquake.

The building has become a symbol of the tragedy in the country's third most populous city.

Cali has more than two million inhabitants. According to Mayor Alejandro Éder, there are at least 95 dead.

Under the scorching heat on Tuesday morning, Torres del Limonar is a shattered mountain of rubble, with mattresses, furniture, and belongings peeking out from the concrete.

On top of the remains are rescuers and volunteers: "Silence! We are firefighters. If you can hear us, shout or make any noise."

The phrase is repeated every time the teams dig deep enough to believe they may be close to a survivor.

These are the moments when Gallego regains hope, but the seconds pass and no answers come from below.

Torres del Limonar is one of more than 50 collapsed buildings in Cali.

It is located in its south, in the Capri neighbourhood. The four-storey building held dozens of apartments. The exact number of tenants who were inside when it collapsed is unknown.

Around it, apart from some cracks, the rest of the buildings seem to have escaped the fate of the Torres.

Rescuers, military personnel, volunteers, paramedics, firefighters, humanitarian workers, and journalists have come here.

There are more than 100 people waiting for news. According to Mayor Éder, as of Monday night, it was estimated that 25 people were trapped under the rubble.

Éder declared a nighttime curfew to speed up rescue operations.

The night passed. Excavations continue. A rescuer at the site said about 10 people had been saved since the collapse.

Reports in local media, such as one from Blu Pacífico radio, spoke of six survivors up until a few minutes before my arrival, including an infant only a few months old.

In the midst of tragedy, figures are often closer to estimates than definitive data.

"What I can tell you is that right now there are at least two people detected alive. Tunnels are being made to get them out. One of them has to have his leg freed," rescuer James Velasco tells me.

The magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck Colombia on Monday, 10 August, is the worst in this century, according to the National Geological Service.

In addition to Cali, it left destruction and death in other regions such as Chocó, in the north-west.

Around the remains of Torres del Limonar, unlike Gallego, many residents choose not to speak. They are visibly affected.

Some sleep exhausted on the ground or on a sofa placed in the street. Others gather together under the shade for support.

The hours are long, increasingly so, and the anguish grows.

Velasco offers hope.

"In the past I have participated in operations where we have pulled out survivors after seven days trapped."

"Those who are meant to survive, survive. Nothing is written," he adds.

"I wanted to help from the very beginning."

Amid his anguish, Gallego wants to acknowledge the work of ordinary citizens.

"We must mention all the people who have come to help with water, supplies, tools, equipment; there is a lot of collaboration. Volunteers are plentiful," he says.

Alejandro Mahecha, 19, is one of those volunteers. He decided to come after spending the night safely with his family and overcoming the initial shock.

"I wanted to help from the very beginning. The earthquake affected my city and the homes of people I know. I came to this site because there has been a lot of talk about this building and the need for help here," the young man explains.

Together with several friends, Mahecha helps remove rubble, bring water to rescuers, and clear the street to facilitate evacuation efforts.

In the background, hammers and saws can be heard creating escape routes through the destruction.

They stop only when those present raise their arms.

That means everyone must remain silent. Gallego waits. This time, too, there was no news of his brother.

Israel re-establishes closed West Bank settlement, defying growing international protests

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn7n0l4p0kzo, 3 days ago

A new generation of Israeli settlers has returned to the settlement of Kadim, in the occupied West Bank, two decades after it was closed by a previous Israeli government.

Thirty "pioneer families" had arrived in the settlement on Thursday from Tel Aviv, according to the regional settlers' council, riding a wave of Jewish nationalism driven by Israel's current government.

They came in small groups, some under military escort, blue and white Israeli flags fluttering from their cars as they passed Palestinian villages and farmlands. Some dragged trailers loaded with bedding, furniture and building material.

Israel's government has overturned a 20-year ban on Jewish settlements around Jenin. Palestinian residents are watching the new push on settlement expansion here with fear.

All Israeli settlements and settler outposts are illegal under international law. Outposts are also illegal under Israeli law, though are often supported by state services and funding.

"21 years after the crime of expulsion from northern Samaria, we have completed the correction […] and have returned to the settlement of Kadim," said Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich at the opening ceremony, using the Biblical word for the northern West Bank.

Alongside him were Israel's Justice Minister, the Speaker of the Knesset, and Yossi Dagan, head of the regional settlers' council, who vowed that settlers would one day return to Gaza too.

Kadim, on a small hillside outside the Palestinian city of Jenin, was evacuated in 2005 by a previous Israeli government as part of a wider unilateral Disengagement Plan that also saw all Jewish settlers and soldiers pulled out of Gaza, and three other settlements in the northern West Bank dismantled.

At the time, the four settlements were considered too isolated and costly to protect, and of little strategic value.

In recent weeks, white trailer homes have appeared on the hilltop here again, in preparation for families to return.

Our request to speak to people at the opening ceremony was refused; we were told no media were allowed to enter the settlement today.

Driving along a dirt track on the hill behind it, we met a Palestinian vegetable farmer, living in the house he was born in 53 years ago.

He told me how, as a boy, he watched Kadim being built for the first time, then watched again as the settlers there were forced out by the government twenty years later.

"Back then, the settlers were living alongside us, and we coexisted peacefully. They lived their lives and we lived ours," he told me.

Now, watching them return, he's fearful.

"I'm afraid of the events spreading around us, and the bypass road [where] they demolished shops and businesses," he said.

"They drove my nephews away from their vegetables and citrus trees, telling them 'you have no place here, don't come back'".

He said his family fled here from Haifa during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

"There's no more displacement left in me," he said. "We're living with a sense of resignation. It's a life of fear."

After Kadim and the three other settlements here were evacuated in 2005, Israelis were banned from settling in this area. Israel's current government overturned that ban.

Kadim is the last of the settlements evacuated in 2005 to reopen. Ganim, Sanur and Homesh have already been formally opened, and families moved in.

But they are a drop in the ocean of the Israeli government's settlement project here. Since it took power in late 2022, it has approved more than 100 new settlements across the West Bank, including 19 in the northern West Bank.

Hagit Ofran, director of the Settlement Watch programme at Peace Now, says the rapid construction in Jenin is part of a wider race by the Israeli government to expand settlements in the West Bank before Israeli elections are held in October.

One of those new settlements is Emek Dotan, to the west of Jenin, formally opened last Sunday and now home to almost two dozen Jewish families.

From the small hamlet of Palestinian houses next door to Emek Dotan, teacher Samer Jaber, has watched the settlement take shape: first the bulldozers, then the caravans lifted into place. The problems began even before most of the families moved in, he said.

"Groups come and stand opposite our houses, filming us," he told me.

"Yesterday they came and stood here, filming me and my children. Every time my wife stepped outside, they filmed her too. They try to enter our homes. And they go house by house, shining powerful floodlights directly through all the windows at two or three in the morning."

Samer is partially blind and has a leg injury that makes moving difficult.

"Fear dominates everything. We are completely defenceless," he said. "All of them have weapons. I'm bringing concrete blocks to close off this side of the house because I'm afraid for my children."

Samer has watched settlements – and settler attacks – grow in other parts of the West Bank over the past few years, despite international pressure.

"Europe has no time for us, America is preoccupied with Iran, China has no interest," his analysis began. "Russia is busy with Ukraine, the United Nations is finished, and the Arab countries have their own internal problems."

"Democratic systems are over, they're finished," he concluded, anger and bitterness leaking out. "Civilisation, progress and modernity are lies."

Alongside the new settlements around Jenin, two new Israeli military bases are rapidly going up – construction vehicles churning up dust behind high concrete walls topped with watchtowers and barbed wire, Israeli flags flapping in the wind.

A military outpost is also being built on seized Palestinian land beside Jenin Refugee Camp – the first Israeli military base to be built on land under full Palestinian Authority control since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993.

Israel's military evacuated thousands of residents from Jenin Refugee camp before occupying it in 2025.

The Israel Defence Forces confirmed that construction of the outpost in Jabriyat had been ordered "in accordance with operational needs".

The Palestinian Authority Governor for Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Rub, told me he was worried that Israel's seizure of land around the refugee camp signalled a plan to house settlers there, right in the heart of a Palestinian city, dividing it up like Hebron or Jerusalem.

He described the past two decades without settlers around Jenin as "bliss".

"Now, we live in the hell orchestrated by them and their assaults," he said. "It limits our movement. They cut off roads, bulldoze lands and cut down trees."

The speed of change here is breathtaking.

A few weeks ago, I sat drinking coffee in a café on the road that runs from Kadim through the northern West Bank to Israel: now that café – and dozens of Palestinian shops and businesses around it – are just piles of rubble along the road; demolished by the Israeli army.

The countdown to Israeli elections in October marked in the number of Palestinian buildings demolished, the number of new settler caravans.

Australia 'outraged' after Israel decides not to open criminal investigation into killing of aid worker in Gaza

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp87g29r718o, 4 days ago

Australia's foreign minister has said she is "outraged" over an Israeli military decision not to launch a criminal investigation into the death of aid worker Zomi Frankcom, who was killed in an air strike in Gaza.

Frankcom was an Australian aid worker with World Central Kitchen (WCK) who was killed with six other colleagues in an Israeli attack in April 2024.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a statement the decision "falls far short of the accountability we expect" and summoned the Israeli ambassador.

After meeting Wong, Ambassador Hillel Newman defended the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and its investigation, saying "there was no criminal intention" and therefore "no criminal responsibility".

Frankcom's family said in a statement on Thursday that they were "deeply disappointed" by the IDF's decision.

"As a family, we do not believe this to be accurate, and we continue to call for an independent investigation," the statement said.

Three British nationals, a Palestinian, a Polish national and a dual US-Canadian citizen were also killed in the attack. The UK has yet to comment on the Israeli decision.

Speaking to reporters after meeting Newman, Wong said there were still many "unanswered questions", including why if the first strike on the convoy was "a catastrophic error", two further strikes followed, just minutes apart.

She also said the removal of two officers from their positions and the reprimanding of three after an initial probe was "insufficient accountability" for the death of seven people.

Drone audio from the attack had still not been handed over despite requests from the Australian government, she said.

In its statement on Wednesday, the IDF said the presence of an armed guard with the convoy had not been flagged with it before the convoy set off, and that he was falsely identified as a Hamas fighter. It also claimed the convoy had deviated from the route that had been coordinated with the military.

Notwithstanding "serious failures" in the process that led to the killings, "the decisions of the commanders did not raise reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct," the IDF said.

In the same statement, the IDF also said it had also failed to find grounds for criminal investigation into the killing of four employees of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), who were killed in two separate attacks in November 2023 and February 2024.

In her earlier statement, Wong said the Australian government had learned of Israel's decision late on Wednesday night, adding that the outcome was "especially insulting" as it occurred on World Humanitarian Day.

"This is despite Israel Defense Forces admissions that the IDF strikes on Zomi and her colleagues' vehicles were the result of serious failures to follow IDF procedures, mistaken identification and errors in decision-making," she said.

"This decision falls far short of the accountability we expect."

Wong said the government would continue pressing Israel "for justice for Zomi and her colleagues".

WCK said the decision was "inconsistent with the full truth" and that the military investigation "conflates different timelines and events" and "shifts the blame for the IDF's illegal conduct".

It demanded an independent investigation as "the IDF cannot credibly investigate its own conduct".

"At the time of the lethal attacks, the IDF knew that our team in Gaza was unarmed and posing a threat to nobody," it said in a statement. "It had full visual clarity on our clearly marked humanitarian vehicles during the extended, multiple airstrikes. It knew our team's movements, identities and activities in advance.

"The military investigation conflates different timelines and events, muddies the story and shifts the blame for the IDF's illegal conduct."

Wong's comments mark one of the strongest censures of the Israeli military by Australia since the war in Gaza began, reflecting broader international condemnation of the WCK attack.

Ambassador Newman said there was no intention to kill innocent civilians and that while he could "express deep sorrow and grief" for the families he would not apologise over the deaths as that would have "legal ramifications".

"There are a lot of haters of Israel in Australia," he added. "We have seen this time and time again."

Australian former defence force chief Mark Binskin handed down a report in August 2024 that found "serious failures" in the IDF's procedures led to the killing of Frankcom and her colleagues.

At the time, the IDF called the attack on the aid convoy a "grave mistake".

The Frankcom decision contrasts with the IDF's announcement in the same statement that it would carry out a criminal investigation into the killing by Israeli forces of five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab and six of her relatives in Gaza in 2024.

An ambulance sent to reach her – in a move co-ordinated with the Israeli army - was then also shelled, killing two paramedics. The IDF said it would also open a criminal investigation into their deaths.

It also said it would similarly investigate the killing of 15 Palestinians, including medics and a UN worker, in March 2025, whose bodies were found buried in shallow graves a week later next to the crushed vehicles.

Israel confirms soldiers fired at car in which Hind Rajab was killed and opens criminal investigation

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crl7yjlpx2po, 4 days ago

The Israeli military has confirmed for the first time that it opened fire on a car carrying five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who was killed along with six relatives in Gaza in 2024.

Rajab initially survived the attack and answered a telephone call during which she pleaded for help. The call lasted hours.

An ambulance sent to reach her – in a move co-ordinated with the Israeli army - was then shelled, killing two paramedics. Hind's body was recovered days later, along with the others killed.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that it would open a criminal investigation into Hind, her family and the paramedics' killings, as well as the killing of 15 Palestinians, including medics and a UN worker, in March 2025.

Both incidents drew international condemnation.

The IDF said of the killing of Hind: "Due to alleged failures in the co-ordination of the movement of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance, it has been decided to initiate a criminal investigation of the incident by Military Police Criminal Investigation Division."

It added that the findings of its examination "indicate that IDF troops fired at a vehicle" that was "travelling contrary to the advanced notice that had been published in an announcement by the IDF Spokesperson to residents of the area".

The IDF initially stated that none of its troops were in the area at the time of Hind's killing. However, that suggestion was soon questioned.

The IDF later said it had "conducted raids on terror targets" with forces operating in neighbourhoods in Gaza City, including Tel al-Hawa, where Hind was located.

Hind's killing was internationally condemned after a desperate recording of her speaking to paramedics of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) was broadcast around the world.

The sound of Hind's fragile voice on the other of the line that day haunted the Red Crescent operators long after her death, as she described seeing tanks directly in front of the car, moving towards her.

"Hide under the seats," the operators told her. "Don't let anyone see you."

Operator Rana Faqih stayed on the line with Hind for hours, as the Red Crescent team appealed to the Israeli army to allow their ambulance to access the location.

Faqih said the child appealed to her over and over again for someone to come and rescue her.

"At one point, she told me it was getting dark," Rana told the BBC in February 2024. "She was scared. She asked me how far away my house was. I felt paralysed and helpless."

Three hours after the call began, an ambulance was finally cleared to approach the area, and was despatched to rescue Hind.

It was after dark when the crew - Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun - notified operators that they were nearing the location, and were about to be checked for entry by Israeli forces.

It was the last operators heard from them – or from Hind.

After that, the line to both paramedics, and to the girl they came to rescue, disconnected for good.

The PRCS later confirmed that both Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun were killed when the ambulance was bombed by Israeli forces.

"The [Israeli] occupation deliberately targeted the Red Crescent crew despite obtaining prior coordination to allow the ambulance to arrive at the scene to rescue the child Hind," the organisation said in a statement.

The story was made into an Oscar-nominated film called The Voice of Hind Rajab.

The UN cited her case in a commission of inquiry, accusing Israel of war crimes, which it denies.

Following the Israeli army's announcement, the Hind Rajab Foundation, which is based in Brussels and seeks to address alleged Israeli violations in Gaza, said it had "no confidence" in the investigation.

"These reported investigations, even if they do occur, should not be mistaken for a genuine step toward justice," it said in a statement.

It added that Israel's internal investigations were "fundamentally flawed and cannot be regarded as credible mechanisms of accountability".

The IDF's statement on Wednesday said: "For more than a thousand days, the IDF has been conducting intensive combat across numerous fronts, carrying out a wide range of military missions in an exceptionally complex operational reality.

"As part of the IDF's obligations under international law and Israeli domestic law, the IDF examines exceptional incidents that occurred during combat."

Aside from the criminal investigation into Hind, her family and the paramedics, the IDF also said it would investigate the killing of 15 Palestinians, after an IDF unit fired on ambulances, a fire engine and a marked UN vehicle, in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah in southern Gaza during an emergency call-out early on 23 March 2025.

Their bodies were found buried in shallow graves a week later next to the crushed vehicles.

The Israeli military initially said its troops fired on "suspicious vehicles" driving in darkness with their headlights and emergency lights off.

But it later said that account was "mistaken" after a video found on the mobile phone of one of the dead paramedics, Rifaat Radwan, showed the convoy was using its emergency lights.

In Wednesday's statement, the IDF said: "Following review of the findings, having found that the firing conducted during the incident raises a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct, it has been decided to initiate a criminal investigation of the incident."

In three other cases, including the killing of seven World Central Kitchen employees in Deir al-Balah two years ago, and four employees of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), who were killed in two incidents, the IDF said it had not found grounds for criminal investigations.

Australia's foreign minister said she was "outraged" over the Israeli government decision not to prosecute those responsible for the death of World Central Kitchen aid worker Zomi Frankcom, who was killed in an IDF strike.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the decision "falls far short of the accountability we expect" and called in the Israeli ambassador. Australia would continue pressing Israel "for justice for Zomi and her colleagues", Wong said in a statement on Thursday.

Three British nationals, a Palestinian, a Polish national and a dual US-Canadian citizen were also killed in the attack.

WCK said the decision was "inconsistent with the full truth" and that the military investigation "conflates different timelines and events" and "shifts the blame for the IDF's illegal conduct".

World Central Kitchen said it "strongly" condemned the Israeli military prosecutor's account of the deaths of its seven colleagues in 2024 and demanded an independent investigation.

This is the first time a comprehensive IDF report on alleged war crimes has been published since the start of the Gaza war, triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023.

More than 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military campaign, including about 1,200 since a ceasefire was announced last October, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry - figures considered reliable by the UN.

The IDF is under pressure to show it investigates itself to try to stave off international legal action, most notably from the International Criminal Court.

It aims to counter accusations that it has committed war crimes and that there is impunity for its forces.

However, Israeli rights groups say that criminal investigations of Israeli forces rarely lead to convictions.

Ziv Stahl, executive director of Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, told the BBC that "almost no indictments are filed in relation to the number of complaints against soldiers and commanders for offences committed.

"In the even more rare cases where soldiers or commanders are convicted, they receive disproportionately lenient sentences that bear little relation to the severity of the offences."

Correction: The initial version of this story and breaking news notification said Hind Rajab was aged six. The copy was updated after it was later confirmed she was aged five

US says sanctions will 'squash' Iran's economy and 'collapse' its regime

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c87n90eg0p2o, 3 days ago

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged US allies to support Washington's efforts to "squash" the Iranian economy.

"We are going to collapse this regime. It is time for our allies and the rest of the world to make a decision," Bessent told broadcaster CNBC.

"You are either with us or against us," he said.

Bessent's remarks come after US President Donald Trump said that countries providing "any type of lifeline" to the Islamic Republic's regime will face "tremendous economic consequences".

Bessent did not offer any insight on the measures Trump's team was looking to implement, but said the planned pressure campaign on the Iranian economy would minimise the need of a "large-scale kinetic restart" of the conflict.

The US and Israel started a war with Iran in February, arguing the strikes were to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, which Tehran has consistently denied.

Iran, however, responded by attacking Israel, US bases across the Middle East as well as targeting Gulf Arab allies of the US.

Since then, Iran has largely closed the Strait of Hormuz - the waterway through which some 20% of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas used to transit - causing wild fluctuations in prices on world markets.

The US and Iran agreed a ceasefire in April - and then another one in June, both aimed at facilitating negotiations to end the conflict.

However, the truce has been consistently broken and talks appear to have stalled but, instead of returning to war, Trump is gearing up to unleash the "most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country".

Bessent said the new economic penalties will be part of "the greatest co-ordinated economic isolation in the history of the world".

"If you insist on doing business with them, either transferring money, buying their oil... then the US Treasury and the US government will put [their] full might and force towards enforcing against you," the treasure secretary said referring to the US's international trading partners.

Bessent confirmed further details about the plan will be made public at a press conference on 24 August.

The Iranian economy has long been struggling under the weight of decades of international sanctions, which left it in tatters.

Earlier this year, Iran experienced weeks of protests due to the spiralling cost of living and inflation – with everyday Iranians blaming the regime for their difficulties.

Official figures show that in the 12 months to February 2026, the price of basic necessities increased by an average 60%, while food prices doubled in the same period.

At the time, Trump told demonstrators "help is on the way" as he urged them to "keep protesting".

The attacks on Iran ensued - and later led to the US to imposed a blockade of Iranian ports, threatening further sanctions.

In April, the US launched a wave of sanctions on foreign banks and firms doing business with Tehran after it became apparent military operations had not led to the overthrow of Iran's regime nor its surrender, as Trump had initially hoped.

Operation Economic Fury, announced by the US Treasury Department and the Pentagon, aimed at degrading Tehran's warfighting capability by cutting off its revenue streams, and also included a naval blockade aimed at stopping Iranian exports.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by Iran and the US in June included a clause stating that the US would "terminate all types of sanctions" against Iran in an agreed-upon schedule.

Iran is no stranger to sanctions – a raft were first imposed shortly after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, during the US embassy hostage crisis.

Since then, more sanctions have been implemented, but the Iranian government has not collapsed - in fact it has succeeded in controlling dissent, most recently by cracking down on the protesters earlier this year.

One resident in the central Iranian province of Khuzestan told the BBC that a country with a long experience with sanctions will be able to overcome the additional economic pressure that the US is aiming to impose.

"There may be an impact at first, but that doesn't necessarily mean Iran won't be able to overcome the crisis," he said.

Another resident also doubts fresh penalties will have an impact on the longevity of the regime.

"Not everything changes because of statements made by President Trump," she told Middle East Lifeline.

"Iran has been living under sanctions for years, and people have become accustomed to this situation. I'm sure Iran will find other ways to continue trading."

"Of course, there will be some impact and the economy may weaken, but that doesn't mean it will collapse."

UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada condemn Israel's West Bank settlement project

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c998evlgz8ko, 3 days ago

Israel's plans to open up tenders for the construction of some 1,200 settlement homes in a strategically important part of the occupied West Bank have sparked fresh condemnation by major Western powers.

In a joint statement, the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada called the decision "unacceptable" and urged Israel to "retract the plans immediately".

All settlements are illegal under international law and, under international pressure, Israel held off for decades on plans to build in E1 to the east of Jerusalem.

Many of its allies and Palestinians argued this development would deal a major blow to hopes of a two-state solution, effectively cutting the West Bank in two and isolating east Jerusalem.

"At a time of grave instability in the West Bank with unprecedented levels of violence by settlers against civilians, and serious restrictions on the Palestinian economy, this decision is even more concerning," the statement from the European allies and Canada published on Thursday said.

"Not only will they [the plans] take us further from peace, but they further undermine Israel's international standing," the statement added.

In a separate statement, the UN secretary general also said the E1 plan posed an "existential threat" to a contiguous Palestinian state - and so did Belgium's foreign minister.

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband's condemnation earlier on Thursday had drawn "ouright" rejection by the Israeli foreign minister.

Despite an Israeli court challenge to the plans by Bedouin Palestinians living in the area and Israeli peace groups, on Wednesday the Israeli housing ministry issued a tender for 1,234 of the 3,401 housing units approved by the Israeli government last August.

It covers about 12 sq km (4.6 sq miles) between East Jerusalem and the settlement of Maale Adumim.

At the time of their unveiling, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich - an ultranationalist and settler - said the idea of a Palestinian state was "being erased".

The deadline for bids is 19 October, just days before Israel's general election on 27 October, making it much harder for any future government to overturn any tenders issued.

Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem - land Palestinians want, along with Gaza, for a hoped-for future state - during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them.

Despite the fierce international opposition, successive Israeli governments have allowed settlements to grow.

However, expansion has risen sharply since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022 at the head of a right-wing, pro-settler coalition, as well as the start of the Gaza war, triggered by Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.

Opponents of the E1 project have warned that it would effectively block the establishment of a Palestinian state because it would cut off the north of the West Bank from the south, and prevent the development in the centre of a contiguous Palestinian urban area connecting Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Assad officer extradited to Syria on war crimes charges for first time

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgjdy8q766o, 3 days ago

Lebanon has handed Syria a former general who served under the ousted regime of Bashar al-Assad, in the first extradition of its kind since his government fell.

Maj Gen Adel Issa, 67, is accused of a raft of crimes allegedly committed during the Syrian civil war, which ended in December 2024 when rebel forces took the capital, Damascus, and Assad fled.

Issa was detained on 8 August after visiting the Syrian embassy in Beirut to complete paperwork and was transferred into Syrian custody on Wednesday.

The handover follows pressure from Syria's new authorities on Lebanon to act against former security and military officials who fled across the border after Assad's fall.

The Syrian interior ministry said Issa led ground forces in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor until 2016.

He is accused of charges including murder as well as "torture leading to death and crimes of aggression with the aim of inciting civil war and sectarian fighting", it said.

Judicial officials told the BBC that Issa denied the charges during his arrest.

The decision to extradite him was made under an agreement between the two countries dating back to 1951.

Issa's case will now go before a referral judge in Damascus, who will decide whether it should proceed to a criminal court.

In January, Syria gave Lebanese officials a list of more than 200 former senior officers it wants prosecuted.

Since taking power, authorities led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa have pursued cases against dozens of former officials.

Earlier this month, a Damascus court sentenced Assad and his brother, Maher, to death in absentia over abuses committed during the civil war. They fled to Moscow when Sharaa's forces seized power.

Their cousins, Waseem al-Assad and Atif Najib, have been arrested in Syria and also sentenced to death.

Additional reporting by BBC Arabic's Joya Berbery in Beirut

Kushner hails 'very good' meeting with Netanyahu after Hamas talks on Gaza peace plan

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c77gg5vn44yo, 6 days ago

Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law and Middle East envoy, has held lengthy talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the premier's spokesperson has told the BBC, in a bid to restart the stalled US-backed Gaza peace plan.

Hailing the "very good meeting", Kushner told Fox News that there could be "progress in as little as 30 days, hopefully, on starting to take some of [Hamas's] weapons out," but added: "we do need cooperation from both sides".

Israel has said that it agrees with the Board of Peace, set up by the president, that there would be no reconstruction in Gaza without Hamas's complete disarmament.

Hamas had earlier asked the board to "compel" Israel to accept the peace plan, after Kushner held rare talks with the group on Sunday.

Trump leads the Board of Peace, which was created as an international organisation originally intended to bring peace to Gaza, but later expanded to include conflicts worldwide.

Last week Israel rejected Trump's 15-point Gaza peace plan.

The document calls for Israeli troops to withdraw and Gaza to be rebuilt under a new civilian Palestinian administration. But Netanyahu said that no military pull-out would happen until Hamas is "genuinely" disarmed.

Speaking to Fox New late on Monday, Kushner said his meeting with Netanyahu lasted almost four hours.

"I think there were some valid concerns that they raised that we were able to address," he said, adding that it would be a "win-win situation" for Israel if it accepted the peace plan.

When asked about his meeting with Hamas, Kushner replied: "They said all the right things - but obviously it's very, very hard to trust a terrorist organisation that committed these terrible atrocities.

"But we had a very cordial meeting... We [are] gonna give them a chance to perform."

According to Israeli media reports, Board of Peace envoys Nickolay Mladenov and Tony Blair also met Netanyahu on Monday.

In a statement after the meeting, the Israeli prime minister's office struck a diplomatic tone, saying Netanyahu and the board had "deep and constructive discussions".

It said they "agreed to establish two working groups, one on disarmament and demilitarisation of Gaza, which both Israel and the Board of Peace are determined should be prompt and completed before any reconstruction happens in Gaza".

It added that a second working group "will focus on sanitation, clean water and other public health issues for the people of Gaza and which also impact the people of Israel".

Many Israelis remain sceptical that Hamas is ready to disarm.

The Board of Peace wants to show that the peace plan for Gaza can still move forward - despite Netanyahu's firm rejection of a new roadmap.

Hamas has agreed to give up its weapons in exchange for a phased Israeli troop withdrawal. But Israel has insisted that Hamas must fully disarm before any Israeli pullout.

It also wants any weapons that Hamas gives up to be destroyed, rather than stored by a Palestinian technocratic committee, so that Hamas cannot reclaim them.

In addition, there is opposition to Turkey and Qatar being involved in checks on whether Hamas is meeting its requirements under the deal.

Pushing Netanyahu to change his position will be an uphill struggle.

He has appeared increasingly willing to defy the US - his country's closest ally - as his party struggles in polls ahead of October's Israeli general election, and with members of his governing coalition pushing for a tougher strategy in Gaza.

The far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has called for nightly "targeted eliminations" of "30 or 40" people in Gaza.

In a podcast interview with Rom Braslavski, who was taken hostage by Hamas during the 7 October 2023 attack, that aired on 15 August, Ben-Gvir said: "Not just those who pose an immediate threat - there are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn't live. They're not even people."

The comments were reported by the Associated Press, the Financial Times and the Times of Israel.

Ahead of Monday's meeting between Kushner and Netanyahu, a Palestinian official told the BBC that Trump's son-in-law met a delegation led by Hamas's new leader Khalil al-Hayya in Egypt on Sunday.

In a statement, Hamas later called on mediators and the Board of Peace to "compel" Israel to approve the roadmap for the next steps.

Kushner's meeting with Hayya is believed to be the first at this level since last year's agreement of a ceasefire for the Gaza Strip.

Mladenov, high representative for Gaza to the Board of Peace, and Blair, a former UK prime minister, were also part of the meeting, alongside representatives of Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, which have mediated in the peace efforts.

No official statement was released on the talks, reportedly focusing on concrete actions to decommission Hamas's weapons, as well as the withdrawal of Israeli troops and humanitarian efforts.

A source with knowledge of the meeting told CBS News, the BBC's US partner, that the meeting's contents included "beginning to transfer all governing responsibilities to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, ensuring Hamas has no future governing role in Gaza, facilitating Israeli withdrawals and deploying an international stabilising force to the region".

Also on Sunday, Egypt, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia said Israel's rejection of the US plan threatened Trump's peace efforts.

Following Israel's rejection of the plan, there appeared to be a pause in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, though attacks have still continued.

The ceasefire, which came into effect on 10 October last year, remains in place.

However, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has carried out near daily strikes since then.

More than 1,200 people have been killed since the ceasefire according to the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN. Unicef says at least 300 children have reportedly been killed.

The Israeli military said on Sunday that it had targeted Hamas and Islamic Jihad "terrorists" in Khan Younis and Nuseirat. Local medics said several people living in a tent camp in Khan Younis were injured.

Israel and Hamas accuse each other of ceasefire violations.

The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Israel responded to the attack by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 73,000 people have been killed, including 21,280 children, according to the territory's health ministry.

The UN estimates that about 1.9 million people - 90% of Gaza's population - have been displaced since the war started.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump's second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher's weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

US condemns 'unnecessary escalation' after Israeli airstrikes on Syrian airbase

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62vy3wl31lo, 5 days ago

The United States has issued a rare rebuke of Israel after reports emerged it struck a Syrian military airbase near the Turkish border, calling the attack an "unnecessary escalation".

Eight airstrikes hit the Abu Duhur airport runway and storage facility on Tuesday, according to Syrian state TV, although there were no reports of injuries.

Israel, while not commenting on the strikes directly, said Syria "was on the verge of breaching" the security status quo, accusing Damascus of allowing Turkish troops to deploy to the airbase.

Syria and Turkey blamed the Israeli military for the attacks that they said threaten to escalate tensions in the region.

Tom Barrack, the US ambassador in Turkey, who was also appointed as Donald Trump's special envoy for Syria and Iraq, criticised the attacks in a statement posted on social media.

"We are deeply concerned that the confirmed Israeli airstrikes on Abu al-Duhur Airbase constitute an unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability," Barrack wrote on X.

The office of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu published a statement: "Israel and Syria agreed to a status quo in security matters, which Syria was on the verge of breaching by permitting Turkish troops to deploy at an airbase near Aleppo."

Syria's foreign ministry called the attacks "an unjustified act of aggression" imperilling regional "security and stability".

Turkey, meanwhile, did not confirm whether any of its troops moved to the Abu Duhur airbase, which sits 70km from the Turkish border. However, Ankara rejected Israel's suggestion that it posed a threat.

"The frivolous allegations put forward by the Israeli Prime Minister's office aim to legitimize Israel's unlawful airstrikes targeting Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity," Turkey's Communications Directorate said in a statement quoted by the Anadolu state news agency.

Abu Duhur has been out of service as a dedicated military airfield since 2013. Rebel forces seized control of the base as they swept through the country in December 2024.

Syria has been trying to rebuild its military facilities that were damaged during the blitz offensive that saw Bashar al-Assad's government overthrown within two weeks.

The Turkish military has provided assistance to Syria since the overthrow of Assad, while Israel continues to view both countries with deep suspicion.

Israel has carried out airstrikes on parts of central and southern Syria since Al-Sharaa came to power, with the latest strikes being the most significant since March.

Barrack said that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led the rebel forces against Assad, "has neither adopted not maintained proxy forces" and "repeatedly indicated a preference for de-escalation with Israel".

The US would continue to offer to host diplomatic discussions between both sides to address "kinetic frustrations", Barrack added.

Al-Sharaa has forged closer ties with the west since coming to power, particularly the US – signified when he became the first Syrian leader to visit the White House in November last year.

Eleven killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, authorities say

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gjygx4gjeo, 8 days ago

Eleven people have been killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon, authorities say, in one of the deadliest days of attacks since an agreement aimed at reducing hostilities was announced in June.

Lebanon's prime minister said seven people were killed in a strike on a house on the outskirts of Ansar, 70km (43 miles) south of the capital, Beirut. State media reported three children and two women were among the dead.

Israel's Defense Forces (IDF) said it had killed a commander of Hezbollah - the Iran-backed Shia militia - following an attack against Israeli soldiers.

The commander's family "who he used as human shields" were present and "harmed", it added.

Later on Saturday, another round of strikes hit the town of Deir al-Zahrani, killing four and wounding five others, the Lebanese ministry of health said.

Lebanese authorities say the strike in Ansar at around 04:30 (01:30 GMT) occurred where displaced families were living. Footage on social media shows large plumes of smoke permeating through the streets of the village as sirens ring out.

Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam condemned the attacks, saying the seven civilians killed were not "military infrastructure".

"Israel must halt this escalation," he said. "For the security of our people and their right to life on their land are not subject to negotiation or bargaining."

The IDF said the incident that prompted its strike on Ansar had taken place in the Ali al-Taher Ridge, a strategic high ground overlooking much of south-eastern Lebanon and one of the war's most fiercely contested positions.

A later IDF statement said Ali Samir al-Haj Hassan, who it described as a Hezbollah battalion commander in the Radwan Force unit, had been killed.

"Alongside him, several additional terrorists who were involved in advancing terror attacks against IDF soldiers were eliminated," it added.

"The strike was specifically directed at Hassan, who was a lawful target under international law, not at his family members who he used as human shields - hiding alongside them inside the military HQ," the IDF said.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also issued a statement, defending the IDF strike.

It said the Hezbollah attack had seriously injured three soldiers and the response had struck "the Hezbollah terror headquarters which ordered the attack".

"Only later did the IDF learn that Hezbollah deliberately put civilians in that military compound," the statement added, before saying "Hezbollah is willing to do anything, including using its own civilians as human shields, to falsely accuse Israel of deliberately targeting civilians, which the IDF clearly did not".

Hezbollah dismissed Netanyahu's "false claims" and said Lebanese civilians "were deliberately targeted in their homes, many of whom were reduced to human remains, followed by claims that the locations were military sites".

Lebanon was drawn into the war between Israel, the US and Iran on 2 March, when Hezbollah - the armed group affiliated with Iran - launched rockets into Israel in retaliation for a strike that killed Iran's supreme leader.

Israel responded by launching a bombing campaign across Lebanon and invading a significant part of the country's south. Its forces continue to occupy roughly 5% of Lebanese territory.

The June ceasefire framework calls for Hezbollah to disarm, Israeli forces to withdraw gradually from southern Lebanon and the Lebanese army to deploy across the area.

Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun condemned the Israeli strikes that had killed an entire family in Ansar and its "repeated violations" of the framework, which he said sent a "clear message" to the US-led negotiations.

Hezbollah was not involved in the agreement and has rejected direct negotiations.

The IDF says it will continue to remove threats to Israeli citizens and soldiers operating in the security zone - the 10km-deep military buffer in southern Lebanon occupied by Israel.

Despite a reduction in fighting following the June agreements, Israeli strikes and demolitions in southern Lebanon have continued.

Lebanese and Israeli negotiators are set to meet for an eighth round of negotiations in September, but a final date has not been set.

Qatar denies capturing three Iranian pilots after downing fighter jets

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4kk8kz271o, 8 days ago

Iran has called for the release of three pilots it said were captured by Qatar after two of its fighter jets were hit by air defences during a military operation at the start of the US-Iran war.

In a letter to the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Iran's Brig Gen Mohammad Bagherzadeh claimed the pilots - Javad Salehi, Abdul Majid Dashtian and Imran Behroshian - had been held captive for six months.

He said the body of a fourth pilot, Majid Kazemi, had been returned after he was killed in the same operation on 2 March 2026 - the third day of the war.

Qatar "categorically denied" Iran's claims and said it was "surprised by these misleading statements".

Bagherzadeh said the three pilots had been captured by Qatar after they ejected from their jets during a combat mission targeting a Qatari military base.

In the letter to ICRC chief Mirjana Spoljaric, published by Iranian media, he accused Qatar of violating "the inalienable rights of these prisoners, contrary to all international laws and regulations".

The letter also claimed the three pilots had not been allowed to meet or contact their families.

Qatar's foreign affairs spokesperson Majed Mohammed Al Ansari said contact had been made with the pilots "after they violated Qatari airspace", but that it had not received a response.

"The necessary measures were taken to defend our territory in accordance with international law," he added in a statement on X.

Al Ansari said Qatar's search and rescue teams "carried out their duties to the fullest extent in searching for the pilots' remains", adding the Gulf nation had contacted Iran "co-ordinate the handover of the remains of one of the pilots that were recovered".

Bagerzadeh later told the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Sunday that Qatar should allow an Iranian fact-finding team into the country to investigate what had happened, claiming one had been denied entry for months.

Al Ansari said an invitation for an Iranian team to visit Qatar to review the findings of its search and rescue operation had been extended in April but Tehran had yet to respond.

How Israel is expanding settlements in drive to reshape West Bank

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2lq5g4dedpo, 2 days ago

It was during a ceremony at a settlement in the occupied West Bank last September that Israel's prime minister made his intentions clear. "We are going to fulfill our promise that there will be no Palestinian state," said Benjamin Netanyahu. "This place belongs to us."

He was signing an agreement to push ahead with the expansion of a settlement in an area known as E1, just to the east of Jerusalem.

In recent days, the opening up of tenders for the construction of some 1,200 settlement homes on the strategically important land has brought widespread condemnation.

All settlements are illegal under international law and, under global pressure, Israel held off for decades on plans to build in the area.

After the recent announcement, the UN secretary general said they posed an "existential threat" to a future Palestinian state, while a joint statement by the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada said the plans were "unacceptable" and would "drive a wedge through the West Bank", a sentiment echoed by the European Union.

That was welcomed by Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, who called for the signatories to take "concrete measures to halt the implementation of the E1 plan".

Along with Gaza and the Golan Heights, the West Bank was captured during the 1967 war against a coalition of Arab states. Israel has controlled it ever since.

As occupied land, international law prohibits Israel from settling it. Despite that, the number of Israelis living there has grown over the years. Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since 1967.

There has been a notable increase in the speed of settlement construction since 2022, however, when Netanyahu returned to power at the head of a right-wing, pro-settler coalition, further escalating after the start of the Gaza war, triggered by Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.

One example of this is Tzofim, a settlement in the north west of the territory, where BBC Verify analysis of satellite imagery shows the construction of around 185 new buildings since 2022.

The same can be seen around Kochav Hashahar, where the existing settlement has been expanded in multiple directions, with construction of roads, houses and a new settler outpost on surrounding land.

Hundreds of outposts - illegal under Israeli and international law - have been established since the 1990s. Dozens of them have been retrospectively legalised by the government.

Maybe the most contentious is the aforementioned E1 settlement. To understand why, you need to look at maps of its proposed location.

The development would in effect divide the West Bank in two and isolate East Jerusalem from the rest of the territory. Opponents of the project have warned that it would effectively block the establishment of a Palestinian state because it would cut off the north of the West Bank from the south, and prevent the development in the centre of a contiguous Palestinian urban area connecting Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog that has challenged the plans in court, said: "The government is trying to sign contracts with contractors before the (upcoming October) elections so that it will be much harder for the next government to cancel the construction."

It is not just settlements that have been expanding. Over the last few years, much of the responsibility for the administration of the West Bank has shifted from military control to a civilian authority headed by Bezalel Smotrich, the country's far right finance minister.

This has led to a huge increase in the numbers of roads that cross the West Bank, connecting settlements but bisecting Palestinian towns and villages, something he said "ensures that the settlements will not remain on paper - but will be established on the ground".

In May of this year, the Israeli government announced more than a billion shekels ($360m; £246m) of funding for new road construction in the West Bank, with the intention of "strengthening of their grip on the territory", according to an official press release.

There has also been an escalation of settler violence against Palestinians. Recently, two Palestinian homes were besieged by settlers, with their water and power cut, leading US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, usually a prominent supporter of settlements, to denounce the attack as a "criminal and terrorist act".

All taken together, it has led to fears from Palestinians in the West Bank and supporters of Palestinian statehood that the "facts on the ground" will render it unviable.

According to some senior Israeli ministers, that is the strategy. Speaking in 2024, Smotrich said the construction of E1 would help "establish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (a name for the occupied West Bank used by Israel), first on the ground and then through legislation… My life's mission is to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state".

The recent news that the tender has been put out for construction of E1, comes just a couple of months ahead of deeply consequential and tightly contested elections in Israel.

Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition partners will hope that moves like this appeal to their base and increase their chances of victory. If that is not possible, they may believe that settlement expansion has established new "facts on the ground", ones which cannot be undone.

Additional reporting by Barbara Metzler, BBC Verify. Graphics by Tom Shiel and Mesut Ersoz.

Israel opens up bids for highly sensitive West Bank settlement project

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly50gn1e54o, 4 days ago

Israel has opened up tenders for the construction of some 1,200 settlement homes in a strategically important part of the occupied West Bank, as the government seeks to end any chance of a Palestinian state.

Plans to build on the so-called E1 area - east of Jerusalem - have long been internationally condemned, with settlements illegal under international law.

The development would in effect divide the West Bank in two and isolate East Jerusalem.

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has condemned the publication of a tender as "an unacceptable and destructive act", and called on Israel to "halt E1 plans immediately, retract the tender and stop all settlement expansion".

Israel's foreign minister responded harshly to Miliband's statement, which he said he "reject[ed] outright".

Despite the fierce international opposition, successive Israeli governments have allowed settlements to grow.

Under international pressure, Israel held off for decades on plans to build in E1.

Many of its allies and Palestinians argued these would deal a major blow to hopes of a two-state solution, effectively bisecting the West Bank.

But the current Israeli government gave the go-ahead for E1 construction a year ago, expressly to "erase" the idea of a Palestinian state.

Despite an Israeli court challenge to the plans by Bedouin Palestinians living in the area and Israeli peace groups, the housing ministry has now issued a tender for 1,234 of the 3,401 housing units approved by the Israeli government last August.

It covers about 12 sq km (4.6 sq miles) between East Jerusalem and the settlement of Maale Adumim.

At the time of their unveiling, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich - an ultranationalist and settler - said the idea of a Palestinian state was "being erased".

The deadline for bids is 19 October, just days before Israel's general election on 27 October, making it much harder for any future government to overturn any tenders issued.

In a statement published on Wednesday evening, the UK's foreign secretary said "Britain will not stand back and accept the destruction of the Two-State Solution".

"The UK has been clear privately and publicly in our opposition to E1 and our support for a two-state solution," said Miliband, adding that "all settlements damage that prospect and are a flagrant breach of international law".

Miliband said the Israeli Chargé d'Affaires had been summoned to the Foreign Office, where he had "set out the UK's profound objection to this move by the Netanyahu government and demanded an immediate reversal".

Miliband added that "in the coming weeks" the British government would "set out a comprehensive set of measures to respond to Israeli government policies, protect the viability of the Palestinian state, target sanctions at those who participate in illegal settlement expansion and support a just and lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians."

But Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said it was "absurd for Britain to lecture the Jewish people about where they may live in their historic tiny homeland".

"The UK government's decision to damage the relationship between our countries is deeply unfortunate," he said.

Israel captured the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War. It annexed East Jerusalem in 1980, in a move not recognised by the vast majority of the international community.

Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog that has challenged the plans in court, said: "The government is trying to sign contracts with contractors before the elections so that it will be much harder for the next government to cancel the construction."

It said even the partial implementation of the construction plans would "fundamentally" alter "the geographic and strategic character of the area by severing the northern West Bank from the south and isolating East Jerusalem".

"Building in E1 will ruin the possibility of reaching an end to the conflict and a peace arrangement based on two states," it said.

Jamal Juma, a Palestinian activist for the Stop the Wall campaign, who lives in Jerusalem, said the project would have a devastating impact on Palestinians.

"It is destruction of the communities, it's destruction of families... this is a disaster", he told the BBC.

He added that more than 40 Bedouin communities would be affected and would have to be evicted.

A spokesperson for the UN's Secretary-General António Guterres said he was "deeply alarmed" by the new tenders.

"The Secretary-General calls on Israel to refrain from taking any further steps in this regard", they said.

Netanyahu's rejection of Trump's 15-point Gaza plan unlikely to be final word

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3q5282ep3o, 13 days ago

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have categorically rejected the new Board of Peace roadmap to disarm Hamas in Gaza, but that is unlikely to be the final word.

The White House is reportedly "not bothered" by Netanyahu's statement and views it as campaign rhetoric in the run-up to a heated general election.

"We understand Bibi's political needs" the Israeli journalist, Barak Ravid, quotes a senior US official as saying – using a nickname to refer to the Israeli leader. "We have no problem with it as long as he continues to do what we ask – especially regarding restraining attacks in Gaza."

Recent days have seen an apparent pause in Israel's strikes on Gaza – something Hamas had demanded when signing on to the US-backed, 15-point roadmap.

And there is another suggestion that Israel is ready to advance US President Donald Trump's peace plan for Gaza – getting ready for the deployment of the International Stabilization Force (ISF). The force is made up of international troops, with the plan being for them to work with a new Palestinian police force to secure the territory.

The expected construction of the first ISF base is still scheduled to begin amid the ruins of Rafah in southern Gaza at the end of this month, according to Israeli public radio, Kan News, which would allow reconstruction to begin at last.

In July, after months of delicate negotiations, Trump announced a "major milestone" in the implementation of his plan to end Israel's war in Gaza.

Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump said that the Board of Peace had reached an agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in the territory.

The deal is meant to be carried out in phases, with all weapons decommissioned and stored by a new Palestinian administration in Gaza – which reports to the Board of Peace - and Israeli forces withdrawing from the more than 60% of Gaza they currently control.

Senior Hamas officials confirmed that they had agreed to the new framework, conditioning it on mutual compliance by Israel. This was widely viewed as a major potential breakthrough in the conflict. The UK welcomed it and the European Union hailed it as a "crucial step".

However, for more than a week, Israel did not give its formal response.

An Israeli spokesman said only that the roadmap did not "reflect Israel's positions." A far-right member of the government, Itamar Ben-Gvir, wrote on X that the deal was "unacceptable."

Increasingly, mainstream Israeli opposition politicians also raised doubts. They questioned whether all small arms would be decommissioned and the sequencing of the plan.

Finally on Sunday, Netanyahu told his cabinet, "I wish to be precise here: Israel does not accept the 15-point document."

He added: "The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed. And when I say the disarming of Hamas, it means heavy weaponry, lighter weaponry, all weaponry. And we are talking about genuine disarmament, not fictitious disarmament."

In the same statement, the prime minister described President Trump as "the greatest of our friends in the White House" but said that Israel knew "how to stand firm" against unacceptable ideas.

In Israel, there is widespread scepticism that Hamas intends to follow through on its commitments.

The Islamist movement has long seen "armed struggle" as a core precept, its legitimate response to Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. In recent months, there had been signs of it reasserting its authority in Gaza.

"Israel can certainly never agree to retreating anywhere where the terrorist group that caused the worst massacres since the Holocaust is still there and is still ruling the Strip," Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, an Israeli commentator and former deputy mayor of Jerusalem told the BBC.

She stressed that the "trauma of the Israeli people" from the deadly Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023, which ignited the devastating Gaza war, should not be underestimated.

Any potential concessions for Netanyahu would come at a politically sensitive moment.

He is facing an uphill contest in the upcoming general election, scheduled for 27 October. It will be Israel's first since the 7 October assault and three years on, Netanyahu has failed to secure what he vowed: "absolute victory" over Hamas.

The former American diplomat and veteran Middle East negotiator, Aaron David Miller, said the Israeli leader is facing "the most consequential election" of his political life.

"He's navigating a very fine line between keeping his constituents happy and not angering or alienating President Trump," he told the BBC.

For now, he believes the White House recognises the situation and is giving Netanyahu "a pass."

Miller added: "It's hard to believe that you're going to see any serious movement before you have another Israeli government."

In the meantime, the Board of Peace has been trying to reassure the Israeli public about the roadmap.

The High Commissioner for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov – who led months of delicate negotiations with Hamas – gave an interview to Israel's Channel 12 just hours after Netanyahu's formal rejection of the roadmap.

"Its goal is to make sure that Gaza is never again a threat to Israeli security and that what happened before, [on] October 7, never happens again," he said.

He said the deal takes "a step-by-step approach" meaning: "If there is verified decommissioning of weapons, that they are taken away from the factions and stored and ultimately rendered unusable, Israel then withdraws from Gaza."

Ultimately, Mladenov said that nothing was being built "on the basis of trust" but on "verification."

Hamas has since indicated that it still remains committed to the roadmap. It called on mediators and the Board of Peace to push for Israel to stick to the terms agreed.

The Israeli prime minister has confirmed that talks with the Americans are continuing.

Meanwhile heavy pressure from Washington is likely to increase.

Trump is also looking at an important election this year – November's midterm elections for the US Congress. His Republican party faces the prospect of heavy losses, with petrol and grocery prices pushed up, in part due to Washington's unpopular five-month-long war in Iran.

The US president's own approval rating has tumbled, and he may well demand positive developments in his peace plan for Gaza in an effort to score a much-needed foreign policy win.

Families' agonising search for answers as thousands still missing in Gaza

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce34r0er75go, 5 days ago

Ahmed al Madhoun looked like a man who, despite the hardship, loved life. A cheeky, chunky little fellow with an exuberant smile.

From her partially destroyed home in Gaza City, his mother Majdiya shows us videos of him on her phone.

In one, Ahmed is cuddling a kitten. He sticks out his tongue and squeals with glee. In another, he belly flops into a swimming pool, before emerging from the water grinning from ear to ear.

"Everyone was his friend," Majdiya tells the BBC. "He was loved wherever he went, and he always had a smile on his face."

But Ahmed, who has Down's syndrome, is missing. The 21-year-old disappeared in May 2025 after popping to the local shop.

At the time, the war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel was raging.

That day there were Israeli strikes in the area, and Majdiya fears her son is dead. But she doesn't know for certain.

"My God, I am not at peace," she says. "I have not lost hope but whether they find him alive or dead, buried under the rubble, only then will I be at peace."

Pain like Majdiya's is felt by mothers all over Gaza.

Israeli media reported in January that a senior Israeli security source said the military accepts the figures are accurate.

But the true number of dead Palestinians could be significantly higher. The health ministry's death toll doesn't count bodies buried under the rubble, meaning many of the missing are not part of the count.

The Red Cross says it has received more than 5,000 requests to trace missing people who could be buried amid the destruction. The Civil Defence agency in Gaza believes the number of missing people is over 8,000.

Bodies are being discovered on a daily basis.

Earlier this month, a mass funeral took place in Gaza City for more than a hundred people killed in an Israeli attack in 2023. Their remains were only recently recovered and identified, allowing them to be laid to rest.

The Red Cross says recovering bodies is difficult given the scale of the destruction and a lack of bulldozers.

In many cases, identifying the remains is also challenging when people have been dead for so long and with a lack of DNA testing, due to Israeli restrictions on what can enter Gaza.

Ahmed al Madhoun's family knows he may well have been killed - but they also fear he may have been detained by Israeli security forces.

Over almost three years of war, Israeli forces have detained approximately 7,000 Palestinians from Gaza, more than 5,000 of whom were later released without ever being charged, according to the Israel-based Public Committee Against Torture.

As of this month, around 1,300 detainees from Gaza were being held in Israeli jails without charge or trial, according to the Israeli human rights group HaMoked. The group says these figures do not include Gaza detainees held directly by the Israeli military.

Palestinian families have frequently not been notified by Israel of the arrest or whereabouts of their relatives, according to HaMoked and other rights groups - forcing many to rely on NGOs and lawyers to help track them down.

In response to BBC questions about their reported failure to contact the relatives of those they have detained, the IDF and Israel Prison Service (IPS) referred us to the security service Shin Bet, who we have also approached for comment.

Israeli authorities have previously said prolonged detentions were due to wartime security grounds and rejected claims that detentions are arbitrary.

Aida al Drimli from the Sabra district of Gaza City, shows us a picture of her son, Mahmoud, a fresh-faced young man draped in a Palestinian scarf.

"He was a calm well-mannered young man," Aida says. "He loved everyone and everyone loved him."

Mahmoud disappeared in 2024. His family feared he had been killed in an Israeli attack.

"His father would go to the hospitals and look at the bodies," Aida tells us. "But I couldn't face it. I was completely devastated."

But then this summer a photo emerged on social media showing two Israeli soldiers posing with a Palestinian detainee, blindfolded and bound.

Aida is certain it's Mahmoud.

"From his features, from his forehead, his mouth, his nose, the way he sits, the way he closes his mouth, his hands, his legs from below. He has the exact same features as my son," she says.

But with only a single photograph she knows she can't be sure.

"When my husband sat down and showed me the photo, I was relieved," she says. "But at the same time, I was very upset and my heart was broken when I saw my son looking like that. It was humiliating."

Both the al Drimli and the al Madoun family say neither they nor their sons have any affiliation with Hamas or any of the militant groups in Gaza.

The BBC asked the IPS about both men. They said they had no record of holding either of them.

We put the same question to the Israeli military which also runs detention centres and prisons, but it did not give a response.

Israel does not allow international journalists, including the BBC, independent access to Gaza.

The Al Drimli family has asked the Red Cross to try to find out if Mahmoud has been detained. But Israel does not allow the Red Cross access to its prison records.

Tal Steiner, the executive director of HaMoked and an Israeli lawyer who works to locate Palestinians who may have been detained by Israel, told the BBC "Oct 7th changed everything".

"The ban on the International Red Cross [visiting prisons] and the fact that the ICRC itself holds no lists of people held by Israel means we have to trace them individually one by one, per request by their families. It's a big strain on the ability to find those people, today."

She also says for the families, it's the not knowing that is the hardest.

"It's an open wound. It doesn't heal. They have no rest not even knowing if their relative is dead or alive," she tells us.

And she says over the last three years Israel has made it much more difficult to trace possible Palestinian detainees.

"To those not knowing where their family members are, that really adds insult to injury. It's a very difficult mental situation that can be carried for months and years."

A split in the spectrum? The ongoing battle to define autism

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdew81wd2y8o, 2 days ago

If someone asked you to think of an autistic person, who would come to mind?

The world's richest man, Elon Musk?

Maybe Greta Thunberg, who says being different can be a superpower.

Or Robbie Williams, who has recently revealed he's found out that he has "a bit of autism".

What about someone like 34-year old James Fitzpatrick? He doesn't talk, has a learning disability and needs constant care.

A diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) means someone has certain core characteristics including differences in how they communicate and behave. It's an umbrella term that includes people with very different experiences.

In recent years there has been an explosion in the number of people with an autism diagnosis on their GP record. In England, it has gone from just over 700,000 three years ago to around 1.1 million today.

The National Autistic Society (NAS) says "evidence suggests there is a significant underdiagnosis of autism, particularly among women and older people".

But what if some people with a diagnosis aren't actually autistic? What if they've really been misdiagnosed?

These questions largely come from 85-year-old Professor Dame Uta Frith - one of the key figures in autism research since the 1960s.

They go to the heart of a debate that is central to the identity of many autistic people.

Dame Uta says this is about misdiagnosis - people wrongly being told they are autistic.

She is reluctant to say how many people she thinks have wrongly told they have autism: "In my worst moments, I think it's a great number, but in my best moments, I think it is a small number."

Dame Uta is worried that autistic people who need a lot of support are not getting the help they need.

Some autism researchers and charities say her views are "dangerous", "misinformation" and pit "autistic people against each other". Many autistic people are angry too, saying this calls their identity and rights into question.

The increase in diagnoses of neurodivergent conditions such as autism and ADHD, along with a steep rise in people reporting poor mental health, has prompted a government-commissioned independent review that is due to be published shortly.

But whatever its findings, it is unlikely to be the final word on a question that affects so many people: what actually is autism? And does it matter if such a broad spectrum of people are defined as having it?

Shifting meanings

The definition of autism has shifted and evolved since it was coined in 1911. Then, it was described as a symptom of schizophrenia - excessive fantasies and hallucinations.

By 1943, autism was used to describe children with "fascinating peculiarities" who weren't interested in the world around them.

In the 1960s, it was estimated that 0.04% of children were autistic and most had intellectual disabilities.

By the early 1980s, researchers embraced the idea of an autism spectrum, arguing that autistic people could have average - or very high - intelligence.

This new category of autism was known as Asperger's Syndrome after a little-known paper dating back to Austria in the 1940s, but the term is no longer used.

In 2013, ASD became the official diagnosis for all autistic people. But some autism experts think this is too broad.

Dame Uta ignited this debate by arguing that the autistic spectrum has come to its collapse because people included in it have such different needs.

Questioning the spectrum

A quick search through social media tells you that the 85-year-old is "a pioneer", "brilliant" and the "grand dame of autism research".

But also, a "traitor", an "out-of-touch grifter" who is "past her sell-by date".

During one of our conversations, she receives an email - hate mail. It tells her she will have blood on her hands and contains expletives.

She says: "Some people would say it would be better for me to stop. But I want to get at the truth."

But, even so, she hesitated for years before speaking out, partly because she "really, really" doesn't want to hurt people.

She talks about being driven by "almost a duty" to represent autistic people with intellectual disabilities. She thinks they are being ignored "both in research and in general awareness".

About a third of autistic people have intellectual disabilities. But they are underrepresented in research - a 2019 study found that they make up about 6% of research participants.

Dame Uta says: "These cases are in great need of support. They have been completely overshadowed."

She would include this group on a "pruned" autism spectrum along with people who have what used to be known as Asperger's and autistic people who are diagnosed during childhood.

She thinks the rise in autism diagnoses is driven by a "late-diagnosed group, mainly females".

The NHS says it can be difficult to recognise autism in women, but Dame Uta says: "I am sceptical of late diagnosis. That's where I think the diagnostic process has become very superficial."

She believes many of this group actually have other conditions including anxiety, depression or OCD.

She questions: "Are they best served by this label autism? I would like them to get better service than they're getting."

She also thinks researchers might need to create "a label that doesn't exist yet" for some people who've been told they're autistic.

She points to research from the University of Cambridge which found that people diagnosed with autism in early childhood often have a different genetic profile to people diagnosed when they are older. Researchers found that people diagnosed when they are older (from late childhood onwards) show an underlying genetic profile that has more in common with ADHD and depression than it does with early diagnosed autism.

But the lead researcher, Dr Varun Warrier, says this shows "autism broadening out genetically" rather than misdiagnosis.

Dame Uta thinks a small number don't have any mental health conditions at all - but are "identity seekers" who have been influenced by bad information on social media.

She hasn't got a number for how many people she thinks have been misdiagnosed, but believes researchers could figure it out.

She knows this will upset and possibly scare people. She stresses: "If someone has been misdiagnosed, I don't want them to suffer for it.

"It would be a terrible thing to take away a diagnosis retrospectively. It's the future I'm concerned with, making diagnostic process more precise - targeting very different individual needs rather than a label."

Culture wars

Dame Uta first expressed her views in an interview with the Times Educational Supplement in March. The NAS reacted to it in strong terms.

It wrote a blog post about "false narratives and outdated ideas", "misinformation" and "false claims".

Dame Uta says it's "just wrong" to dismiss her like this.

The NAS says anyone with an autism diagnosis will have been assessed against strict criteria and "have lifelong differences in communication, behaviours and focused interests compared to non-autistic people".

Dr Sue Smith, the NAS's head of clinical services, says: "We've got a group of people with a genuine need. We're having this weird debate about what they should be called."

She says this isn't just an academic row but has real implications for autistic people: "Historically a lot of people who weren't properly identified as autistic were given other really unhelpful labels", such as borderline personality disorder or bipolar.

She worries that re-labelling some autistic people could lead to them losing support.

Dr Monique Botha, an associate professor of psychology at Durham University, criticised Dame Uta's opinion using swear words.

Botha is autistic and stands by her reaction: "A lot of people were understandably upset and angry… I still am.

"Researchers have a duty to be a bit more blunt and upfront about how damaging these kinds of things can be."

Botha feels that Dame Uta's ideas add to a narrative that "there's some magical easy autism where you're just quirky, where everything in your life will eventually work out, and you're just using this as a crutch so that you can feel special, and it trivialises the reality of a whole bunch of people".

Botha says autistic people are united by key features: sensory sensitivity, a need for predictability, intense interests and struggles with communication.

"That doesn't mean that we will have the same lives or the same outcomes."

James Fitzpatrick was diagnosed in the 1990s, and doesn't speak. His father, Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, is a retired GP.

Michael says he's been shocked by the response to Dame Uta's stance: "Intolerant, strident, abusive discourse that's very redolent of the culture wars."

He feels some autistic people don't understand the reality for his family.

Michael says that James, now 34, has "never developed the capacity to engage with the world. That's the source of profound sadness to his family and a loss to himself."

"He would injure himself, bang his head on the floor, bite himself. If you tried to stop him, he would also bite you or scratch you or headbutt you. And as he got bigger, that became more of a problem."

James has calmed down with age but still can "attack you randomly for no apparent reason".

Michael can't see how the same diagnosis can hold true for James and for someone who lives independently - two "extremely different types of people".

Different challenges

Dr Rachel Moseley, an academic from Bournemouth University, was working in autism research when she was diagnosed in her late 20s.

She agrees that people like James are "incredibly neglected".

But she says: "There's room for all of us, we can still advocate for people with learning disabilities without saying that this group isn't valid."

She thinks ideas about dividing up the autistic spectrum lack nuance, especially around mental health.

"Every so often something will totally knock my feet out from under me," Moseley adds, saying she will self-harm and have suicidal thoughts.

"Everyone's challenges are different. But you can't make the assumption that the person with high support needs is always having a harder time. They will in some regards, but not in all."

To make her point, she cites studies that have found that while autistic people overall are more likely to take their own lives, these rates are highest in autistic people without learning disabilities.

Michael Fitzpatrick is unconvinced by this argument: "I seriously, seriously doubt whether the people with autism and no levels of learning disability have a similar level of pathology and life-threatening problems as the people with profound autism."

Lived experience

It's striking that both sides in this row accuse the other of lacking scientific rigour. One major flashpoint is around the study of masking.

This is when someone hides autistic behaviours to try to fit in with society. There's been an explosion of academic interest in this area.

Recently, a review found almost 400 research papers talking about masking, mostly focusing on autistic women who were diagnosed as adults and don't have any intellectual disabilities.

Dame Uta shudders when I mention the idea: "Agh! Such a vague notion." She dismisses some research papers on it as "absolutely poor quality".

Moseley says the exact opposite: "There is really high-quality work on masking, and it's startling and upsetting to see such work be denigrated."

She sees masking research as part of a "refreshing change" as autistic academics "bring lived experience into research".

But Dame Uta questions if autistic researchers can be neutral or if they have a conflict of interest.

She's something of an outlier with this view.

Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen is director of the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge. When he started out, Dame Uta was his mentor. He disagrees with her on this.

He says: "Someone who's got a degree in molecular biology has one kind of expertise, but someone who's got lived experience has got another kind."

Overall though, Sir Simon says: "I'm not taking sides. I think the answer is to get both sides round the table. A lot of what seem to be irreconcilable differences are actually reconcilable."

He does think the term autism is too broad and can lead to "lumping together people who are so different".

His suggestion is to add sub groups. Type one could be autism with a learning disability. Type two could be autism with language needs. Other types could include conditions that can co-occur with autism, such as ADHD, depression and epilepsy.

He says: "Imagine, we could have dozens or hundreds of subtypes. Why put a limit on it? The more we have, the more precise we can be about what people need."

Once again, there is no consensus.

Dame Uta thinks subtypes could provide "a clean division between those who have these very severe needs and those who don't. But it can't go on endlessly."

The NAS is worried that breaking autism into smaller groups could lead to discrimination or the removal of support from people who need it. It says subtypes have "no clinical value, diagnostic relevance or practical application".

Sir Simon's answer is to "bring in autistic people so we can choose labels that they're comfortable with".

Moving goalposts

Kayleigh was diagnosed with autism in her thirties. She finds that people hold pre-conceived ideas about what autism is.

She explains: "Some will assume you can't spell your own name. Or you love trains. Or you're extremely clever. Or you're hyper focused on a boring hobby."

Since diagnosis she's been given various labels - Asperger's, high-functioning and AuDHD [Autistic with ADHD].

She says: "The goalposts keep moving. As an autistic person, I don't even know what I should be called."

For her, this row is a huge distraction from the real issues.

She's spent her life thinking she was "weird, sub-normal or really, really bad". She's angry that society didn't recognise that she was struggling.

Since diagnosis, she says she's had "zero" support from professionals. She says emotionally she feels she can only really go out if her family are with her. She's not been to her local town centre in years.

She wants more help, more understanding. She doesn't care what her condition is called.

She says: "You could call it 'silly brain disease'. I still know what I'm going through."

Additional reporting by Kris Bramwell

Lead image: Getty

Correction 22 August: This article originally said autism was described in 1911 as a symptom of childhood schizophrenia. The article has been corrected to say that it was described as a symptom of schizophrenia generally.

Listen to The Autism Curve on BBC Sounds for more about the increase in autism diagnoses

Young adults are taking prescription drugs instead of alcohol - and it's dividing experts

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1d1lpl9vrxo, 6 days ago

To enjoy a night out with friends, Matt once had to drink until he felt sick.

If he didn't, the 22-year-old from the north of England would spend the night silent, terrified of saying the wrong thing. The warehouse worker says it felt like there was "just no way into" the conversations everyone else seemed to be enjoying.

Then, two years ago, he swapped pints for prescription drugs he discovered through social media.

As he gets ready to go out on a Friday, Matt, whose name has been changed, now takes a medicine he purchases illegally online that usually treats epilepsy and nerve pain; alongside a beta blocker designed to slow a racing heart and relax trembling muscles (physical symptoms of anxiety).

He says it gives him the effects of alcohol without the hangover.

"The amount of alcohol you have to drink to replicate the effects of these is really unhealthy and it doesn't feel good," he says. Matt says the drugs he takes leave him feeling "euphoric," quietens his anxious thoughts and makes socialising easy, he says.

But experts say taking the drugs without medical supervision at high doses can be dangerous and, in some cases, life-threatening. Long-term use of the drugs can also result in dependency; users find they rely on it for any social situation. They also report increased anxiety, insomnia, and suicidal thoughts when they try to come off the drug.

For Matt, who says he has already tried therapy to treat his social anxiety, what began as a way to get through nights out now extends to dates and family gatherings. Without the drugs, Matt says, there are many social situations he "would not even bother to attempt".

Matt denies that he has become dependent on the drugs.

Around the world, evidence shows that young people are turning to medications and experimental substances as alternatives to alcohol. Some of them come in pill form - like pregabalin and propranolol, the ones Matt takes. And some are injected - like peptides, a type of protein that's becoming increasingly popular online.

It's part of an effort to quell social anxiety, which seems to affect Generation Z particularly sharply: more than a quarter (28%) of people in their early 20s in England report high levels of anxiety, according to a study published last year by University College London, which found that serious mental illnesses are far more common among members of Generation Z than they were among millennials at the same age.

The trend is alarming scientists - and prompting them to ask why some young adults feel they can only socialise with chemical help.

The 'sober generation'

A search for "healthier" alternatives to drinking has helped create a new market for substances touted on social media as social drugs without the hangover.

They are seen as the "cleaner, safer alternative," says Liam Knowles, an addiction researcher at Teesside University. "[Users] don't feel as bad the next day and it's a medication - so people think it's safer."

Exactly how many young people are using prescription drugs and unregulated peptides to socialise is difficult to know, with many obtaining them without a prescription. Knowles thinks there is "probably a substantial amount of people that are getting addicted".

Hashtags relating to the medications bring up thousands of videos on social media platforms, with users encouraged to create their own cocktail of medications, known online as "stacking".

The growing interest in these substances comes as young adults are increasingly moving away from alcohol, earning Gen Z the nickname of the 'sober generation'. The same influencers touting the benefits of these "stacks" also recommend steering clear of alcohol.

A survey last year by the charity Drinkaware found that 26% of 18 to 24-year-olds in the UK did not drink alcohol, compared with 7% in 2012.

Meanwhile, Prof Emily Jones, a psychologist at King's College London believes the Covid pandemic may have contributed to rising social anxiety, particularly among young people.

"Lockdown effectively taught everybody to be afraid of social interaction," she says.

For young people looking to experiment, pregabalin has become a particular focus.

A study published in the journal Nature Communications estimated that global consumption of the drug more than quadrupled between 2008 and 2018.

Meanwhile, there has also been a sharp increase in deaths involving pregabalin. Office for National Statistics data show pregabalin was mentioned on 2,360 death certificates for drug-related poisonings in England and Wales between 2020 and 2024, compared with 768 between 2015 and 2019.

One of those deaths was Alex Cottam, a 27-year-old software engineer from Eccles described by his mother, Michelle, as "lovely, clever, and popular". He was prescribed pregabalin to treat his anxiety, but his mother says he "became addicted" and started boosting his supply by buying the drug from illicit websites. "I can't help thinking every day that pregabalin killed my son", she told the BBC in 2024.

In England pregabalin was reclassified as a Class C controlled drug in 2019; those who buy it without a prescription face a two-year prison sentence (though in practice, very few people are jailed). It remains widely prescribed for epilepsy, nerve pain and anxiety. The UK government's independent drugs advisers have also launched a review examining misuse.

In Jordan, Ukraine and India, researchers have also noted an uptick in pregabalin abuse.

In China, the government tightened controls of the drug earlier this year by banning most online sales, and setting limits on how much of the drug can be manufactured in each province.

Social media stacking

Matt first heard about the drugs he takes when he was 20 through Braden Peters, better known as 'Clavicular', a controversial influencer who has spoken openly on livestreams about taking the medicines as part of a "stack" to reduce his social anxiety.

And the medications have entered mainstream conversation. Actresses Rachel Sennott and Kristen Bell are among the celebrities who have spoken publicly about taking beta blockers, along with the influencer Khloé Kardashian.

Pregabalin, especially in higher than prescribed doses, can make users relaxed and happy - a similar feeling to being drunk.

For Mei, a 20-year-old university student in China, whose name has been changed, these were the effects she was after.

She says the drugs ease her physical symptoms of anxiety, and can make her feel "euphoric". She began taking them for parties. "It was like I could be the most interesting person in the room," she says.

And social media does not appear to be merely introducing young people to these substances - it can also help them get hold of them. Our research has found influencers selling some of these medications on websites linked through their social media.

Mei says she bought the medicine through a Chinese social media platform. "There are thousands of posts selling it," she says.

'Not a free lunch'

The medicines can also be significantly cheaper than alcohol.

Matt says he spends as little as 18p on the medicines for one night out - a saving he describes as a "nice bonus".

Knowles, the addiction researcher, says many of the young people he has encountered using these drugs recreationally in the UK are extremely focused on health. "People don't want the calories," he says. "They think, 'my doctor wouldn't prescribe them if they were bad for you,'" Knowles says.

That logic resonates with Matt, a keen gym-goer who believes these medications have a "much lower impact" on his body than drinking, especially his liver and heart. "People in this community believe that pregabalin is healthier than alcohol," he says.

Alcohol has been linked to at least seven types of cancer, and the World Health Organization warned a few years ago that any amount of alcohol consumption poses danger.

Prof David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London who has long campaigned for looser drug laws, argues that the drugs Matt takes may be less harmful than heavy drinking, even if they carry risks of their own.

"Propranolol and pregabalin are undoubtedly safer than alcohol, but not perfectly safe," he says.

But he says the picture changes when pregabalin is used in large doses for intoxication (as Matt says he is doing). "If they're using it as a sort of intoxicant to get drunk, then they are at risk of dependence," he says. "It's not a free lunch in that sense."

Propranolol also carries risks. While it is generally considered safe when taken as prescribed, inappropriate or high-dose use can cause dizziness, fainting and a dangerously slow heart rate.

The risks may be greater when medicines come from unregulated sources. "There's always a danger of getting medicines that aren't made to medical standards," Nutt says.

Addiction dangers

Jones, the psychologist from King's College, argues that comparing the physical harms of these drugs with alcohol risks missing a more fundamental question: what happens when people begin to believe they can only socialise with chemical help?

"Alcohol in large quantities is dangerous, but it is also dangerous to take medication too routinely without being under the supervision of a doctor," she says.

She is particularly concerned that using medicine to avoid anxious feelings can reinforce the belief that ordinary social situations are scary. What begins as a pill before a party can gradually spread to dates, work meetings, and everyday life, she says. "You lose your faith in your own capacity to deal with things effectively."

What started for Mei as a "going out stack" before nights out soon spread to exams, speeches and debates. Eventually, she says, she was taking the drugs every day. "Now I can't leave the house without it."

Sofia, a customer-service worker from Ukraine, followed a similar path: she initially took pregabalin before parties and social events, but soon began using it at work. "It helped me," she says. "I work with people. It made it easy to communicate and solve problems."

When she was unable to access the drug for two weeks, she says she experienced depressive episodes and suicidal thoughts. "I didn't understand what happened to me. I was anxious, I couldn't eat, I couldn't see friends."

Knowles says that younger users often don't recognise their own drug dependence if they are broadly functioning well (keeping a job or maintaining a relationship). Instead they associate addiction only with people whose lives have visibly fallen apart.

Black market drugs

As China, India and other countries move to clamp down on these drugs, some argue that restricting access further could create different dangers.

Mykyta Lapin, an epidemiologist and head of the Ukrainian harm-reduction organisation Mind Games, says banning substances does not necessarily stop people taking them.

"Banning certain substances simply leads to people turning to the black market and buying drugs of dubious quality," he says, risking overdoses.

Knowles says illicit pregabalin carries an extra risk because users may not know exactly what they are taking.

"If you buy an alcoholic drink from a shop [in the UK] and it says the amount of units it contains and its percentage, then that's what it is." He said the same certainty does not always apply to pregabalin bought online. "That's an added risk that doesn't come with a bottle of spirit."

Matt, despite taking the drugs primarily as a social lubricant, remains convinced that he is also making the healthier choice.

"When I look at the improvement in my quality of life compared with what I see as a very minimal impact on my health, it's such a clear trade-off," he says.

"For me, it's an exchange that's worth it."

Matt's illegal habit remains heavily discouraged by most doctors. But still, with millions of young adults looking for a seemingly easy cure for anxiety, the numbers of people using these alcohol alternatives is likely to rise.

If you have been affected by addiction, help and support is available at BBC Action Line. If you live in Northern Ireland, you can also call the 24-hour helpline Lifeline, on 0808 808 8000.

Top image credit: Getty Images.

Five years after the Taliban swept to power, does the West have any influence?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2gp5g0xngo, 9 days ago

In a whitewashed basement in a village south of Kabul, a dozen young women bustle about, stirring cauldrons of bubbling cherries and plums, and sticking labels on glass jam jars. Ventures like this are one of the rare spaces where women are still able to gain skills and employment in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

It is run by Najia, a 47-year-old Afghan entrepreneur and mother of nine children who was married at the age of 14.

If the authorities hadn't barred girls and young women from secondary schools and universities, many of the women in this workshop, including Naija's daughters, would be studying for a different kind of future.

But now, even this is being squeezed too. Recent rules say women have to ask men to take their products to market, and only men can sit at their stalls to show their wares at trade fairs. The Taliban gives various reasons for this, including claiming that women aren't wearing proper hijab or head covering.

"The world has to talk to the Taliban in a different way because it's just not working," says Najia. "The lives of Afghan women have to change because we're losing hope."

Five years after this ultra-conservative Islamist movement took charge, women are banned from much of the public sphere and girls are prohibited from going to school over the age of 12. Many inside and outside Afghanistan are asking the same pressing question: what's the best way to engage the Taliban to try to achieve meaningful change?

The issue is deeply divisive. There are fissures between many groups, with a huge array of conflicting issues at stake. These include women's rights, unpredictable Taliban edicts, international sanctions and aid cuts during a spiralling humanitarian crisis. The international response is split between Western countries often focused on human rights and others more interested in investment opportunities. And the West itself is divided on the best response.

Many now accept that whatever they're doing, it's not working.

Engage, not isolate

Few voices call for absolute isolation, not when the United Nations warns that 22 million Afghans – nearly half the of the population – rely on some form of foreign assistance to help them survive.

The country has been battered by multiple shocks: an agonising economic crisis; devastating natural disasters; clashes with neighbouring Pakistan, and the influx of millions of Afghans deported from countries near and far into this impoverished land.

And there's no avoiding it – the Taliban are in charge now.

In the years since their fighters swept into Kabul on 15 August 2021, they've grown in confidence and consolidated control despite intermittent attacks by armed opposition groups based abroad, as well as Islamic State fighters.

The Taliban are collecting tax revenues and signing deals in mining, energy and more with Beijing, Moscow, Abu Dhabi, and Tashkent, along with other neighbours.

But they're still strangled by international sanctions linked to terrorism and human rights. Russia is the only country to formally recognise their rule, and they haven't been allowed to take up what they see as their rightful seat at the UN in New York.

But formal diplomatic recognition is no longer the focal point.

"The West is losing the argument over recognition," says a former senior UN official who requested anonymity because they continue to work in Afghanistan. They point to the growing number of countries which have conferred de facto recognition by clinching deals, accrediting diplomats, operating embassies, and more.

"There's no doubt the Taliban would like to be recognised at the UN but it's no longer as potent a bargaining chip as it was at the beginning," they assess.

Behind the soaring blast walls of the foreign ministry in Kabul, in the sprawling compound of manicured lawns and graceful historic buildings, Taliban diplomats keep adding names and flags to the growing collection of Afghan embassies worldwide which are now under their control, rather than the last holdouts of the government they ousted. The current tally is more than 40.

"We need to come closer diplomatically rather than talking from a distance if we want to make progress in our relationship," says Zabihullah Mujahid, the main Taliban spokesman.

We meet in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, the real seat of power. This is where the Taliban's reclusive emir, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has been steadily building his political and military base and issuing hundreds of edicts, many of them focused on erasing women and girls from public life – what he portrays as an Islamic obligation to protect them.

This five-year mark is widely seen as an inflection point.

"An unstable and potentially dangerous equilibrium," is how the situation was described in closed-door remarks by a senior UN official at a recent international gathering.

And, yet, Afghanistan has fallen far under the world's radar. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East absorb international attention, and Europe's burning issue is how to stop so many Afghans fleeing towards their shores. It's a startling reversal.

"It's extraordinary given the scale of Western effort from 2001-2021 how ignored Afghanistan is now," remarks a Western diplomat who recently served as an envoy to the country. They did not want to be named because they're still in the diplomatic service.

"The real diplomatic gap is the US," they added, in reference to the current US administration's decision to eliminate their special envoy position and dismantle many agencies, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which once led the world's approach on almost every Afghan issue.

Even within Taliban ranks, especially among those known to differ with some of the strictest edicts handed down by their emir, there is frustration that the world doesn't seem willing or able to forge a different kind of relationship.

"We want to be part of the international community," emphasises Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, a founding member of the Taliban who now runs a madrasa for boys and girls on the outskirts of Kabul. Unlike mainstream schools, madrasas take girls of all ages and some, especially those run privately, are teaching more than religious classes.

"Just putting pressure won't work," he tells us. He takes the long view of Afghanistan's history of resisting foreign invaders. "We didn't surrender to the Russians, to the Americans, so why would the Taliban surrender now?"

Open dialogue

UN officials believe their presence in Afghanistan makes a difference, however limited. They point to progress on issues such as the treatment of prisoners, their detailed discussions on the harsh implementation of the morality code known as the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, as well as efforts to improve humanitarian access.

"Engagement is slow, progress is incremental, and reversals are frequent," is the UN's sober summary of the past five years of on-off dialogue.

But it still insists it needs to stay the course.

"A stalled process is better than no process," emphasises Georgette Gagnon, a deputy special representative of the secretary-general for Afghanistan, who is now the acting head of the UN mission in Kabul.

The UN has been criticised for not pushing back enough against the Taliban, including for holding forums such as the so-called Doha Process, in which a Taliban delegation travelled to the Qatari capital in 2024 to discuss a range of issues, on condition that no Afghan women's representatives were at the table. UN officials insist all issues were discussed, and that subsequent meetings included their participation.

A new process called Mosaic approaches negotiations in a more structured format, on six core issues. On one side there are human rights including women's rights, inclusive governance, and counterterrorism. On the other, there are Taliban demands – sanctions relief, unfreezing assets, diplomatic representation.

"Confidence and reciprocity are beginning to take shape to open the door to engagement on the most difficult issues," says Gagnon whom we meet inside the UN's vast, heavily fortified compound. She calls them "small steps on the long road".

She insists it has to be done through a collective effort, not only through discussions by individual governments. "Pressure has not worked so far, threats have not worked; our best chance lies in consistent and common messaging and action."

For some sceptics, even inside the UN, there's worry that the Mosaic approach isn't going to work either.

But just keeping the lights on, preventing a slide into isolation, and continuing protection work with vulnerable communities, especially women, is seen as essential.

Talk quietly

In dusty provincial capitals and farmers' fields, where international and Afghan aid agencies wrestle with ways to work on the ground, the conversations continue day in day out.

It's there that edicts handed down by the reclusive emir are translated into what are known as workarounds. These workarounds can mean women are able to work in some agency sectors from home, or in different rooms, on different floors, or even in different buildings to men.

"Everything in Afghanistan is relationships, and day-to-day that can help make things easier," says Chris Kinder, the chairman of Afghanaid, a British charity which has been working in Afghanistan for more than 40 years. He emphasises that most of these conversations on access and implementation are conducted by experienced Afghan staff.

My own visits to provincial cities and towns in recent years have underscored how some local Taliban officials try to find pragmatic solutions. But others remain deeply suspicious of any foreign assistance.

Local agreements were described by another charity as "verbal and fragile".

Kinder rejects criticism that aid agencies have had to compromise on principles to keep their projects in place.

"The Taliban have their red lines and we, and our donors, have ours. We discuss approaches so both sides understand where they are coming from."

Here too, many aid officials call for a more unified approach.

Talk tougher

"We need to keep talking, but now we need to set conditions," is the view of Najia the jam maker. It's a stance also taken by women activists in the diaspora and human rights groups who say dialogue has been a one-way street, with the Taliban not offering any significant changes in return.

They insist discussion should not go beyond aid issues until they do.

A recent flashpoint was the decision by EU officials in June to host a Taliban foreign ministry delegation in Brussels for the first time since the Taliban returned to power. Representatives of 15 member states joined this one-day meeting to discuss processes to send back Afghan nationals who had no legal right to remain in the EU.

The EU called them "technical-level" talks. The Taliban saw them differently. A spokesperson described the agenda as including possible consular presence in Europe and the "need for trust-building measures".

"The diplomatic community is well aware that there are already existing channels through which technical issues can be discussed with the Taliban," says Rina Amiri, an Afghan-born former American diplomat who served as the US special envoy for Afghan women, girls and human rights from 2022 to 2025 and also grappled with the terms under which to meet the Taliban.

"Meeting in Brussels was clearly a decision that was about politics, not logistics," she says.

The critics call it "creeping normalisation".

Will it work?

"After these last five years I spent in Afghanistan, what do I have to show?" asks Mahbouba Seraj, an Afghan activist who runs a shelter, when we visit her in Kabul. When the Taliban took over in 2021, Seraj made headlines when she announced that she would stay in her country to fight for women's rights.

Seraj, 78, now says she's preparing to leave.

Her last shelter, which provided a life-saving refuge for more than 30 Afghan women fleeing domestic abuse, was shut down in December. Her repeated appeals to Taliban leaders to re-open classrooms for women and girls have been ignored.

"These small windows that the world sees, the little openings here and there including secret schools for girls, are just meant to fool everybody," she laments with visible sadness.

But Seraj calls on the international community to keep talking.

"They have to talk, but they have to make sure that when they sit down and talk, it's not just a lot of people just filling the air."

There are others who say the same.

"Only more capable diplomacy through quiet and confidential engagement can deliver the change," says a former Afghan official who's been involved in discreet discussions with Taliban officials. He hopes whoever is chosen as the new UN Secretary General and takes office at the start of next year will engage more effectively.

But, in the end, it's not the international community which is in the driving seat of any change.

"I don't think the answer is the world finding the right language to talk to the Taliban," says a Western analyst who's long been involved in Afghanistan and like others interviewed for this article asked to remain anonymous. "Five years on, it's very clear that real change can only come from within."

Some senior Taliban officials have occasionally spoken out about the emir's harshest orders, in particular the closure of girls' schools, and there've been rare instances when some were able to find ways to roll back his rules. One such case was last year's nation-wide internet shutdown which paralysed daily life and was later reversed.

The emir's edicts are regarded as absolute. The movement has shown it values unity, and power, above all else. Even the entreaties of Islamic scholars and officials of Islamic countries the world over have not bent the iron will of the emir and his enforcers, especially on the most sensitive issue of education.

Five years on, there are no simple or swift solutions.

At Najia's jam workshop, a table bristling with her framed training certificates – from local Afghan institutes to the now defunct USAID – attests to her efforts to become a bigger and better entrepreneur in the face of cascading restrictions.

Year on year, a new society starts to take shape. But many Afghans still keep pushing and praying for a different future – and hope the world won't forget them.

Lead image: Getty

Major oil slick washes up on Iran coast after Hormuz ship strike

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr7kpdkg13zo, 10 days ago

Verified videos show a major oil slick washing up on Iran's Qeshm Island, which analysts have said comes from a ship hit by a strike in the Strait of Hormuz.

BBC Verify has also analysed satellite imagery suggesting the oil spill originated from an attack on a vessel in Omani waters on 3 August. A week later, the apparent fuel leakage from the Minoan Pioneer bulk carrier had spread across a large area of the strait.

Environmental experts say the spill threatens wildlife, protected ecosystems and fishing communities around Qeshm, which is home to mangrove forests, nearby coral reef habitats and nesting sites for critically endangered Hawksbill turtles.

Iranian media initially reported the origin of the pollution was under investigation and Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday its source was a "foreign bulk ship".

A local environmental protection official has since said the spill has been "almost completely cleaned up". BBC Verify has not been able to independently confirm this.

Iran did not acknowledge being responsible, but shipping analysts have said it was likely to have been behind the Minoan Pioneer attack on 3 August.

Since the US and Israel began striking Iran at the end of February, data from maritime intelligence company Kpler indicates there have been 67 strikes on vessels in the vicinity of the strait.

Tehran has effectively blockade the waterway, responsible for about a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas trade. The US has also imposed its own blockade on Iranian ports, which has led to several ships being attacked by US forces.

We have verified several videos shared on social media showing thick, black oil washing up on Suza beach in southern Qeshm. On the other side of the island is the Unesco-designated Hara Biosphere Reserve, home to vital habitats for marine life and migratory birds.

Qeshm, which lies on the northern side of the strait, is a key strategic base for Iran's military and has been heavily attacked by the US - including a wave of strikes last month which killed three people, according to Iranian state media.

Satellite imagery from 10 August shows the slick visible across an area of more than 300 sq km (116 sq miles) - the size of more than 40,000 football pitches.

"This is what I would call a major oil slick," said John Amos, CEO of Skytruth, a specialist satellite environmental monitoring group. Based on its size and colour, Amos estimates that the spill is "well over" 100,000 US gallons (380,000 litres) of oil.

While the extent of the damage to marine life is still being assessed, Dr Keyvan Hosseini, an energy and environmental expert from the University of Southampton, described the location of the pollution as "very concerning".

He told BBC Verify that Qeshm is home to "sensitive coastal and marine habitats, including mangroves, turtle nesting areas and important fishing grounds".

"This means the spill could have especially serious consequences for wildlife, ecosystems and local communities."

Tracking the slick

On 3 August, shipping security firm Vanguard reported the Liberia-flagged bulk carrier Minoan Pioneer was struck by a projectile near Oman.

Satellite imagery from 5 August showed the vessel is still on fire. Alongside it was an oil slick stretching out over roughly 10 sq km.

Two days later, satellite imagery shows the slick had doubled in size and was spreading north-west through the strait towards Qeshm.

By 10 August verified videos show large amounts of oil washing up on shores of Qeshm Island, along with an ongoing clean-up operation.

Samir Madani, co-founder of maritime intelligence company TankerTrackers.com, told BBC Verify that he believes the slick originated from the Minoan Pioneer and described the attack and subsequent oil spill as a "self-inflicted wound by Iran".

"Several vessels have been hit in that exact same spot by the Iranians when vessels use the Omani route," he told BBC Verify.

Wim Zwijnenburg, an environmental conflict expert at Dutch peace organisation PAX, also believes the visual evidence points to the Minoan Pioneer as the source of the oil.

'Tip of the iceberg'

The Minoan Pioneer is not the only vessel to have been damaged during attacks on shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz.

Some of these attacks have resulted in marine pollution, including the sinking of container ship Safeen Prestige on 4 March following an attack near Oman. The UN's International Maritime Organization reported that an oil slick was detected after that incident.

Zwijnenburg said whether an attack results in pollution depends on factors including where a vessel is hit, what cargo it is carrying and how much is on board.

He added attacks which disable a vessel can also create environmental risks even if they do not immediately cause an oil spill, as they can pose a risk to the environment by sinking or breaking down.

John Amos of Skytruth said that the oil visible on the surface may the "tip of the iceberg of the impact environmentally", as heavier components of the oil can sink to the seabed.

"The oil that settles on the seafloor, depending on when and where it is, could persist for years," he added.

Additional reporting by Ghoncheh Habibiazad, BBC Persian

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From Stonehenge to the Serpentine - satellite images show impact of hot, dry summer

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y3v7xz52yo, 13 days ago

With more parts of England set to join Wales as being officially declared to be in drought, BBC Verify has been gathering satellite imagery showing the impact of this year's extreme summer heat.

From historic sites and parks to reservoirs and golf courses, the hot, dry weather has changed how large parts of the UK usually look.

This year's consecutive heatwaves and above-average temperatures have had a noticeable effect - even compared with last summer which was the UK's warmest on record.

Drop in Welsh reservoir level

According to the UK government, almost all reservoirs in England and Wales are officially classed as having water levels below normal or low.

Five are exceptionally low - among them Clywedog reservoir in Powys which provides water supplies for parts of the West Midlands.

These satellite images show how more of the banks of the reservoir are visible this August compared with the same month last year.

Low reservoir levels have not been the primary cause of recent hosepipe bans and drought declarations - which are ultimately triggered by a lack of rain - across large parts of England and Wales.

The Environment Agency has reported that reservoir storage is now at 69% in England, which is below the long-term average of 82% for the time of year but higher than during last year's drought.

However, in its latest report the agency says water storage levels are above those recorded during similar periods in 2022 and 2025.

While Scotland has not been as badly affected as England and Wales, July's rainfall was below average for the south and east of the country, with many areas seeing less than half the long-term average for the month.

This has led the Scottish Environment Protection Agency to warn of "significant" water scarcity in the Borders and "moderate scarcity" in areas on the eastern side of Scotland.

Brown fairways at Open golf course

Hard and dry fairways were a key talking point at golf's Open Championship which was held at Royal Birkdale on Merseyside last month.

A side-by-side comparison shows how much greener the fairways appeared in summer 2025 compared with this year.

As the BBC reported earlier this month while domestic users face hosepipe restrictions the rules for commercial users - including golf courses - vary.

When hosepipe bans are in force sports grounds can use hoses or sprinklers - but only to water grass areas "actively used for play". For golf courses this means the greens and tees can be irrigated but the fairways cannot.

Algal blooms in reservoirs and lakes

Right in the heart of the UK capital, Hyde Park's famous Serpentine lake was closed for swimming on Monday because of high levels of blue-green algae.

Blue-green algae occur naturally, but warm, sunny and settled conditions can help blooms develop. Some can be harmful to people and animals.

A similar issue is affecting Killington Reservoir in south Cumbria. Satellite images show a visible change in the water between 24 May and 8 August, where a blue-green algal bloom has been confirmed.

Looking at the rest of Hyde Park and what is one of London's prime green spaces is now mostly brown following consecutive heatwaves since May.

It's a similar sight in south Wiltshire where the usually green rolling fields surrounding the ancient stone circle at Stonehenge have become almost as pale as the path around the prehistoric site.

As BBC Verify previously reported parts of the country are suffering from "vegetation stress" where the development and growth of plants, grass and crops can be severely affected.

Vegetation turning brown, even on this scale, does not mean the plants have disappeared or died, as grass, shrubs and some trees can recover once rainfall returns, provided their root systems remain intact.

Experts have said the combination of next-to-no rainfall and prolonged hot weather is likely to cause significant issues for the farming industry and could have an impact on agriculture and food prices in the coming months.

And perhaps counter-intuitively, prolonged dry weather can raise the risk of flash flooding when it eventually does rain. That is because parched, rock-hard ground may struggle to absorb water at first, so some rainwater may simply run off the surface instead.

Scientists also warn the UK is facing a growing risk of water shortages in the decades ahead, driven by human-caused climate change and increased demand.

Graphics by Tom Shiel

Does Reform's plan to cut £50bn in welfare spending add up?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crl76jkxel3o, 6 days ago

Reform UK has set out plans it says will save more than £50bn a year from the welfare bill by 2030 if it gets into government.

The party believes it can deliver much of this by stopping foreign nationals from getting most benefits and also reforming disability payments while protecting the most "severely disabled".

BBC Verify has been breaking down what Reform says it wants to do - and how realistic it is.

Reform plans 25% cut in welfare spending

The UK government will spend £353bn on welfare benefits this year - just under half of that goes on the state pension, which Reform has said it will not cut.

That leaves £207bn - so cutting £50bn a year like Reform proposes would represent roughly 25% of total remaining welfare spending, which would be extremely ambitious.

One of the benefits Reform is looking at is Personal Independence Payments (PIP) - a working age payment that helps individuals deal with the extra costs of having a physical or mental health condition or disability.

The number of people claiming it has risen from around 2.4 million before the pandemic to four million this year in England and Wales.

Reform says around £21bn of its planned £50bn savings would come from changes to health and disability benefits including PIP.

While saying those with the most severe disabilities would be protected - Reform said around 2.89 million people in receipt of PIP will be "reassessed over time" which would lead to current payments being "modified or withdrawn" and replaced with its proposed "Disability Needs Assessment".

Analysts warn that these savings are by no means guaranteed. The Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank says there is "relatively little detail" about what Reform's plan entails.

Foreign nationals and benefits

Another big element of Reform's planned cuts comes from taking away benefits from foreign nationals. It claims around £20bn could be saved from its £50bn target if they were banned from getting benefits including Universal Credit (UC).

More than a million UC claimants were born overseas including around 700,000 EU citizens who arrived in the UK before Brexit and have the right to live and work in the country.

It's important to bear in mind that around half of EU citizens claiming UC are in employment.

The government doesn't provide figures for the number of foreign nationals claiming other benefits.

But taking away these benefit rights would not be a simple thing to do because it risks putting the UK on a collision course with the EU.

Around 4.5 million EU citizens have long-term settlement rights in the UK which means they are eligible to claim benefits.

An estimated one million UK citizens living in the EU have similar rights. Stripping EU citizens of their rights could lead to member states retaliating against the UK.

Reform says it would renegotiate the post-Brexit deal that underpins these rights but that would mean re-opening a process that was supposed to have been settled in 2020.

Another wrinkle in Reform's plan is that its planned savings could disappear if a large number of EU nationals apply to become UK citizens and were able to keep their entitlement to benefits.

Where else could savings come from?

Reform has said it is considering using a less generous measure of inflation to calculate how much benefits will go up each year to save £4.8bn a year. It also says it wants to spend extra money on tackling benefit fraud which it predicts will save as much as £2.8bn a year. However, other governments have tried to tackle fraud in the past with varying degrees of success.

The party has also pledged that people who are long-term welfare claimants and fit to work would be forced to do 20 hours of work a week in the community on council-run schemes.

It's not clear how this saves significant amounts of money on welfare given it will cost councils money to run the programmes.

Reform is by no means alone among the political parties in proposing welfare reform.

A recent review of the PIP system by Labour minister Sir Stephen Timms concluded it was "not fit for purpose". The government is expected to outline its own reforms later this year.

But analysts stress that achieving significant savings from the welfare bill is easier said than done.

Overhauling welfare can be a tricky political sell

It's also worth bearing in mind the number of PIP claimants in the constituencies of several prominent Reform MPs - such as Boston and Skegness and Ashfield - is higher than the national average.

And in some cases the number of PIP claimants is higher than the size of the MPs' majorities. The same is true of some of Reform's main target seats.

This appears to be a political risk the party is willing to take.

Additional reporting by Anthony Reuben and Tamara Kovacevic

Graphics by Jess Carr and Phil Leake