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Bare hands and shovels shift through the rubble, while a drone scans overhead. Every moment, every action matters. It is a race against time to find survivors.

Here in the coastal state of La Guaira, which borders the capital district containing nearby Caracas, catastrophic damage is seen almost everywhere you look. The state has been one of the hardest-hit areas after back-to-back earthquakes struck Venezuela on Wednesday.

Residents and families are desperately searching the rubble for their loved ones and belongings. They are listening carefully for any sound that might indicate someone is alive trapped under the concrete and metal wire debris.

So far, officials have confirmed at least 1430 deaths from the magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes - the latter being one of the strongest quakes recorded in the country in the last century.

Hundreds of buildings collapsed and beneath the rubble, thousands of Venezuelans remain. The number of dead and injured rises by the hour. The UN estimates around 50,000 people are missing.

National rescue teams are scarce, although international rescuers from Mexico, Spain, the US and the UK have arrived to join the rescue effort.

But, it is still not enough.

Humanitarian aid agencies say the first 48 to 72 hours are crucial for rescuing people alive, although this window can be longer if those trapped have access to food and water.

"Every person saved is a miracle," says Jorge Rodríguez, president of the country's National Assembly. "We will not hide anything about the scale of this tragedy."

'It's impossible to rescue him without machinery'

In Catia La Mar, one of the coastal towns in La Guaira state, the mood is bleak. Few structures remain standing.

Government forces have distributed food and water to survivors, and interim President Delcy Rodríguez has said the government is deploying a comprehensive rescue response during these "critical hours to rescue people alive".

People linger anxiously around areas where they believe their relatives might be trapped.

Jesús Suárez is one of them. He travelled 200km (124m) to search for his son, Jean Suárez.

"There's no information at all. People who know him say they didn't see him come out or anything."

"I believe he might be in there," he says pointing to the rubble of a collapsed building.

Suárez faces a dilemma that many here also share: "It's impossible to rescue him... There is no sophisticated equipment here. A human being alone cannot do it - it's too dangerous."

The relatives of Carlos Eduardo, a 31-year-old trapped under rubble, do know where he is.

From time to time, they hear him speak or groan.

"We started calling him: Carlos, Carlos, son… And then he made a sound (a groan). That was about an hour and a half ago," his cousin told BBC News Mundo.

"Since then, we haven't heard anything from him - he hasn't spoken again or given any sign of life. But he had done this before. Yesterday afternoon he did the same (groaning and then going silent). And so here we are, waiting for help, hoping we can get him out alive."

Traffic and crowds can sometimes hinder the search operations. Soldiers and Mexican volunteers have repeatedly called for silence, so they can listen for signs of life under the debris.

People are helping however they can. Those who have drones are using them to search for survivors or the deceased in hard-to-reach places.

Families huddle around drone video feeds searching for anything familiar. A piece of clothing, a strand of hair, a belonging. Anything that might bring news of a loved one.

As time passes, the unofficial death toll rises - and so do the consequences.

"There's a smell… the dead are already being felt. That's going to make us and the children sick," says Glendys Delgado.

Two buildings near where Delgado lives are collapsed, but there has been no official help, she says "no one from the government has come here, but I thank God that people from Caracas have come to support us with food."

Deiyer Gabril, 27, says every area has been affected, "Macuto, Caribe… everything over there is bad. And we can all feel the odour."

Authorities reported on Friday that 861 volunteers from Mexico, the United States, El Salvador, Switzerland, Colombia, and other countries were in Venezuela, with more arriving.

Interim President Rodríguez said she spoke with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday, and that they reaffirmed their commitment to send rescue teams and aid supplies.

'You try to stay strong for your children'

A woman stands in front of her destroyed home, her legs still shaking.

She pleads desperately: "We are waiting for humanitarian aid - we need them to come to help us."

She had returned to her home to try to recover her washing machine.

"It's a very difficult situation, we're not prepared for this. The sacrifices and efforts you make to achieve things - and in the blink of an eye, everything collapses. But what matters is life," she says.

Alexandra Gabino, 28, faces a similar situation - she has two children, aged seven and two.

She was in the car with her children and husband when the earthquakes struck,.

"The children started screaming. We didn't understand what was happening, and suddenly the building next door collapsed and my husband reversed the car," she told BBC Mundo.

The four of them are now sleeping in their vehicle in a car park at the Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía. The airport is closed due to damage, but offers a flat, open place away from buildings where the family can take shelter.

She waits outside their damaged building. Her husband, is attempting to make it to their 15th‑floor flat. the building is unstable yet, he is trying to to retrieve some belongings and documents. "The essentials," she says, since it's dangerous and they cannot risk trying to recover too much.

"It's painful to be left with nothing. My mother lost her home, we lost our home, we have nothing. You try to stay strong for your children," she says.

And she adds something many feel: "Everyone says what matters is that you're alive - and yes, but everything you're going through hurts: seeing people suffer, hearing people scream, seeing children trapped, and the helplessness of not being able to do anything because you have to stay and look after your own children.

"You try to be strong, but it hurts."

I hear my son crying beneath the rubble, says Venezuela earthquake survivor

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg4zz90wk7o, today

On the day that two devastating earthquakes struck Venezuela, Andreina Valerio rushed back from work to look for her almost two-year-old son, Santiago.

He was with Andreina's partner, Ramsés Mendoza, at her in-laws' home in La Guaira.

When she got there, she found the building in ruins. Her brother-in-law Samuel Mendoza was looking through the pile of rubble that used to be their apartment block.

When I met Andreina outside a crumbling building on Saturday, she told me her son and partner were still trapped inside, along with her partner's mother, father, grandparents and sister. But she had not given up hope.

Andreina and Samuel told me there were other children trapped in the building, too - a nine-year-old boy named Lucas and a three-year-old girl named Aranza.

Rescue teams from El Salvador and Spain arrived at the scene on Saturday, but were unable to get inside. No one had been rescued from the building by that point.

The first morning after the earthquakes, Samuel said he "heard a woman's voice, someone whose voice I couldn't understand at first, and the only word was 'help'."

The next day, when Andreina went back, she heard a baby crying.

"I still have faith my son is alive," she said. "I have faith that it's my son. And I know my son will get through this, as will his family."

Andreina and Samuel are two of many Venezuelans searching for loved ones in the rubble, holding out hope that they can be rescued after two massive earthquakes levelled hundreds of buildings across the country.

Families are digging in the rubble with their bare hands in La Guaira, the coastal region which is one of the areas most badly affected.

Those I spoke to were sleep deprived, their voices hoarse from screaming for survivors.

As the hours passed on Friday, neighbours started to help, and people from other parts of Venezuela arrived to provide support.

Rescue teams are working hard across the country, but it seems Venezuela is unprepared to handle the earthquakes - and this is a country that has dealt with extreme crises for years.

When I arrived at the Hotel Edward, I could smell the death. You could feel that it would get worse over time. It seemed impossible that people would survive for long.

I saw more than 50 damaged buildings in the town of La Guaira. Official figures show more than 1,400 structures have been affected in the region.

Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela's National Assembly, says the earthquakes are "the most disastrous event this republic has suffered in the last 123 years". The official death toll for the country has risen to 1,430, with 3,238 injured.

But with tens of thousands still reported missing, emergency services are working around the clock to find survivors.

Several police and military officers could be seen on the streets of La Guaira. Interim President Delcy Rodríguez has said 14,000 were sent to the state, which she says has been "militarised" for safety.

At first, I could see just one small tractor on the street. Heavy machinery later appeared after what must have been a difficult journey via a small, broken road.

As the hours passed, some told the screaming families to be quiet, but their pleas were drowned out by the crowds and motorcycles.

Volunteers handed out medicine to anyone who needed it, and clothes were left in piles on the ground in the hopes they would be given to people in need.

At night, the situation in La Guaira became more desperate. Bodies were carried out by volunteers without specialised equipment, being hauled into cars and vans.

Ambulances were unable to get into the town, and our driver Leo saw injured people being driven away on the back of motorbikes because traffic was so heavy, particularly around a collapsed bridge nearby.

I also witnessed a tense moment of police trying to control a situation with a possible thief.

Relatives were camping in the streets, waiting for news of their loved ones. They are staying put because of concerns that the government will make the roads, and therefore their collapsed homes, inaccessible.

Delcy Rodríguez has said rescue teams from 10 nations were expected to arrive in La Guaira state on Saturday. Electricity in the region had been restored to 60%, she added.

People have been warned no to travel to La Guaira, with Jorge Rodríguez saying it has suffered "tremendous devastation".

At a hospital in Caracas, which has received injured people from La Guaira in recent days, I spoke with a doctor who said at least 600 people had been brought there, most of them with fractures.

He also said patients had been traumatised, with some experiencing panic attacks.

A list of the dead and people being treated is displayed outside, in case people are looking there for their loved ones.

Some people have made posters of missing relatives and pinned them up next to the list.

Additional reporting by Ian Aikman.

Bad Bunny: Latin star lights up London with history-making stadium show

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2dyrk56dg9o, today

Bad Bunny brought Latin America to London on Saturday night, as he became the first artist from that part of the world to headline a UK stadium.

The Puerto Rican rapper captivated a star-studded crowd of about 50,000 on the first of two sold-out nights in Tottenham, with a celebration of Central and South American culture, communities - and even the climate.

The fans' energy levels defied the hot and humid conditions with a fiesta from start to finish.

But as the singer sent a message of solidarity to Venezuela following its devastating earthquakes, it was also an evening of contrasting emotions.

Turning London into Londres

Bad Bunny - whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio - is approaching the end of his Debí Tirar Más Fotos world tour.

And the 32-year-old performed with the low-key confidence and charisma of an artist now completely comfortable on the world's biggest stages.

The setlist was unsurprisingly dominated by the album that gives the tour its name.

DTMF, as it's also known, made history at the Grammy Awards in February as the first sung entirely in Spanish to win album of the year.

Starting the show where the record ends, La Mudanza (The Move) set the tone for the evening - showcasing his ability to blur genre boundaries, blending modern Latin rap with old-school salsa, supported by a live traditional band.

But several songs later, it was Nuevayol that really got the party started, as one of the standout singles to help Bad Bunny break through into more mainstream British audiences.

You don't need to understand the lyrics - or to have grown up with the more native sounds - to be swept up in his universally danceable rhythms, cinematic samples and infectious hooks.

But for those who are invested in the words, DTMF is also a deeply personal record - exploring loss and longing, against a backdrop of nostalgia and identity.

The themes have been brought to visual life on this tour through stunning stadium-scale production, with a Puerto Rican-style home at the back of the stadium floor serving as a second stage.

It gives the show a communal and intimate feel, putting him among the crowd - as though performing at the world's biggest house party in the local town the design evokes.

Despite the size (and, no doubt, cost) of the spectacle, it has a humble character - favouring homely and traditional imagery, over the high-tech mega-runways of other contemporary stadium shows.

Bad Bunny doesn't just remember his roots; he puts them front and centre.

Stars on and off the stage

And the three-hour performance was a reminder that his global success didn't happen overnight, with him digging deep into his eight-year discography - traversing trap and reggaeton fusions.

Naturally, this created relative lulls in the set for those newer to the singer and a welcome chance to catch a breath.

And the night's only anticlimactic moment came with the reveal of the 'exclusive song' - a unique track Bad Bunny is adding to the set for each city.

Judging by the slightly muted reaction from the crowd, Cybertruck wasn't what most were hoping for.

But there were more than enough day-ones and die-hards in the crowd to keep the party going - including thousands from different diasporas.

There were also a couple of celebrities, with Adele spotted in the stands, and - days before Wimbledon - Novak Djokovic introducing a song.

In a stadium partly designed for the purpose of hosting NFL games, the show shared the symbolism of Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show - widely interpreted as making a political statement, with a celebration of all the Americas united.

Yet he has said this world tour won't include dates in the US, telling i-D magazine he was worried his fans would be targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

While addressing the London crowd almost entirely in Spanish (after asking for permission at the start), he didn't make any direct political points - but the tour has been widely interpreted as a promotion of multiculturalism and the preservation of identity.

It's a message that resonates with his fans.

"We are here, we are Latinos, we are proud," says 19-year-old Grace from Dartford, who is half-Honduran.

"My culture is getting represented - even if it's through a Puerto Rican, it felt amazing," she tells BBC Newsbeat.

Bad Bunny also paid tribute to the people of Venezuela, as the death toll continues to rise in the country following two major earthquakes on Wednesday.

"All Latinos around the world stand in solidarity with you," he said.

The moment meant a lot to Miguel, 20, who's from London but has family in Venezuela.

"It's amazing - with his influence and his power, to shine a light on it - someone's got to do it," he says.

Debí Tirar Más Fotos translates to "I should have taken more photos", with an underlying message of cherishing moments and memories.

Few left the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with the same regret, if the sea of selfies and phones filming every chorus was anything to go by.

And while Bad Bunny is the first Latin artist to headline a UK stadium, he won't be the last - with Colombian singer Karol G set to play the same venue next summer.

The language barrier remains a hurdle for many, but with artists such as Rosalía also selling out arenas, is there a ceiling to the rise of Spanish-language music in the UK?

For Grace, "there are still so many 'metas' - or goals - it can hit".

"I feel like it's just the beginning."

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.

US conducts retaliatory strikes on Iran after second shipping attack

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxdwkgqgq0o, today

The US has conducted new strikes on Iran, following a drone attack on a Panama-flagged vessel in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday.

US Central Command (Centcom) said it hit multiple targets across Iran in direct response to "continued aggression" against commercial shipping, including military equipment, communication systems, air defense sites and drone storage facilities.

"Iran was given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement but elected not to when its forces launched a one-way attack drone that hit MT Kiku," a Panama-flagged tanker, it said in a statement.

Commercial vessels are continuing to operate in the Strait of Hormuz, Centcom said. Iran is yet to comment on the latest strikes.

The latest strikes come less than a day after the US launched retaliatory strikes on Iran that it said were in response to a drone attack on Singapore-flagged cargo ship, MV Ever Lovely, on 25 June.

Centcom described the American strikes as "a powerful response" to the attack on the cargo ship, adding that the "unwarranted aggression against commercial shipping by Iranian forces clearly violated the ceasefire".

Tehran said the cargo ship was attacked because it was using an unauthorised route to transit through the Gulf waterway, and said that the retaliatory strikes qualified as a ceasefire violation by the US.

In a statement released on Saturday morning, Iran's foreign ministry said it had carried out more strikes against targets linked to American forces in response, and blamed the "treaty-breaking US regime" for the situation.

The US and Iran agreed on 17 June to end hostilities under a 14-point memorandum of understanding, which had also called for Iran to use its "best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days".

The Strait of Hormuz is a key waterway for oil and gas shipments, and was effectively closed by Tehran after the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran at the end of February.

The shutdown of the critical channel caused a spike in global oil prices and prevented shipments of other crucial commodities such as fertiliser.

In recent days, Trump and other US officials insisted negotiations with Iran were progressing well, saying Iran had given up any suggestion of tolling vessels transiting through the Strait of Hormuz.

In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump said Iran had informed the US that there would be "no tolls, no insurance costs and no other charges of any kind being sought or received".

"If this is false information, negotiations would end, immediately," he added.

The US has condemned reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the strait, and many see any tolling system as breaking with international maritime law.

On Tuesday, Iranian and Omani officials held talks in Oman's capital of Muscat to discuss "the future management of navigation", although Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi said both countries were committed to "toll-free safe passage".

However, Iran's chief negotiator, Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, told state-affiliated news outlets that "everyone should know that the administration of the Strait of Hormuz will never go back to the way it was before the war."

Eleven killed in civilian aircraft crash in north-eastern France, authorities say

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yz9yj9x74o, today

Eleven people have died after a civilian aircraft crashed in the town of Tomblaine in north-eastern France, according to local authorities.

The pilot and 10 skydivers reportedly died in the incident, according to BFM, a local news outlet.

Police have reportedly urged people to avoid the area around the airport in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

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Why Kim Jong Un never talks about his mother - or her controversial bloodline

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvp3xn489no, today

Among the many mysteries shrouding North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the secrecy around his mother stands out.

In his 15 years of rule, he has never once publicly mentioned her by name.

The legitimacy of Kim's dictatorship rests heavily on his "Mount Paektu" bloodline - a lineage tied to the mythical founder of the Korean people.

And in a country that prides itself on this hereditary purity, the identity of Kim's mother is not just a secret - but a threat to the regime itself.

A mythological birthplace

The story of the Koreas, according to popular belief, begins on Mount Paektu - a mountain located on the China-North Korea border that is said to be the birthplace of Dangun, the mythical founder of what became Korea's first kingdom.

Thousands of years later, Kim Il Sung - the founder of North Korea - reportedly used the mountain as a hideout when fighting against the Japanese. His son, Kim Jong Il, was said to be born on those same sacred slopes - despite reports indicating he was in fact most likely born in Russia - and for decades since the mountain has been used to legitimise the Kim dynasty.

"Kim Jong Un became heir in his 20s despite having no achievements, solely because of the Paektu bloodline," Ryu Hyun-woo, an exiled North Korea diplomat, wrote in his book, Kim Jong Un's Secret Vault.

But the reality of Kim's maternal lineage paints a different picture.

Hundreds of miles away from Mount Paektu lies the city of Osaka: Japan's historical capital, and the place where Kim's mother, Ko Yong Hui, was said to be born.

From what biographers have pieced together, Ko was born in Osaka in 1952 to parents originally from Jeju Island, which sits off the southern coast of what is now South Korea.

As residents of Japan, Ko's family were "Zainichi Koreans": immigrants during Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the peninsula.

But when she was about 10 years old, Ko's family emigrated to North Korea.

They were among the estimated 93,000 Koreans who moved to North Korea between 1959 and 1984, lured by a resettlement scheme that promised an idyllic life of free healthcare, education and jobs.

Migrants to the North were first viewed with envy as they brought cash, clothes and home appliances from the country's capitalist neighbour to the south.

But they were also labelled "jjaepo", a disparaging term for a group considered to be contaminated by foreign, dangerous ideologies.

North Korean society is deeply hierarchical, with some analysts comparing it to a caste system. And in this strict social classification - known as songbun – the jjaepo belong to the "wavering class", somewhere between the core and hostile classes.

They are subjected to heavy state surveillance and often denied admission to good universities or promising jobs.

It is a stark contrast to the Paektu narrative that Kim's family has long promoted.

"The [regime's] Paektu bloodline is seen as sacred," says Kim Hyung-su of the Northern Research Association. "So the idea of the leader being a jjaepo's son is unimaginable."

A Cinderella story

Ko managed to escape the fate of her fellow Zainichi Koreans, however, after she caught the attention of Kim Jong Il, who had already been groomed for succession.

Intelligence shows he was already wedded to Kim Young Sook, the daughter of a high-ranking military official, in a marriage hand-picked by his father. He was also known to have two other mistresses.

Despite this, Ko - a member of the elite Mansudae Art Troupe - was said to have caught Kim's attention due to her "natural beauty and dancing skills", says Yoji Gomi, a Japanese reporter who published a book on Ko in 2025.

Reports suggest that Kim fell passionately in love with Ko, and went on to have three children with her.

But children born out of wedlock face severe stigma in North Korea. And so, while Kim's official wife resided in the capital Pyongyang, Ko and her children were tucked 210km (130 mi) away in the coastal town of Wonsan.

Though she never married the supreme leader, and their union was not acknowledged by the regime, Ko managed to live what Gomi calls a "Cinderella-like life".

Yet it remained a fact that Ko was "never recognised as a daughter-in-law by Kim Il Sung", wrote Ryu - and nor was he ever publicly seen with her children.

Had Ko won Kim Il Sung's approval, photos of him and his grandchildren would have been circulated far and wide, says Dr Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute.

Following Kim Il Sung's death, Kim Jong Il rose to become North Korea's supreme leader, and Ko became the country's de-facto first lady, accompanying her husband on military inspections and befriending his entourage.

Kim would even seek her opinion before making policy decisions, wrote Fujimoto, Kim's former chef.

An official documentary produced in 2011 showed footage of Ko accompanying Kim on local tours - though it never revealed her name nor her songbun.

The documentary was also never publicly released, but shown only to senior party officials in June 2012, says Dr Cheong - though it was later leaked and spread among ordinary citizens via smuggled USB drives.

"As it spread... people's curiosity about Ko Yong Hui skyrocketed, so the regime quickly recalled [the documentary]," Dr Cheong explains.

Her background, he adds, could call the regime's legitimacy into question.

In 2004, Ko passed away from breast cancer at a hospital in Paris. Her death went unremarked by North Korean state media.

Illegitimacy and succession

But the question remains: How did a mistress's second son – and Kim Jong Il's youngest – end up inheriting power?

Kim Young Sook, Kim's official wife, gave birth to two children - but since they were both female, neither of them were up for succession.

Kim Jong Il also had two other mistresses aside from Ko: Sung Hae-rim and Kim Ok.

While Kim Ok did not bear any children, it appeared for a while that Kim's firstborn son with Sung Hae-rim, Kim Jong Nam, could have been considered.

But Kim Jong Nam, who studied abroad for more than a decade and was known to be fluent in both English and French, fell out of favour early because he questioned North Korea's hereditary succession and advocated reform, says Goji, who exchanged emails with him for years.

He also developed a reputation as a partier because of his frequent trips to casinos and jet-setting lifestyle.

In 2017, after a few years of living in Macau in exile, Kim Jong Nam was assassinated in Malaysia - poisoned with a lethal nerve agent.

There was also Kim Jong Un's older brother, Kim Jong Chul - but he was ruled out as an heir because of a severe opium addiction, according to ex-diplomat Ryu.

And so Ko was believed to have actively lined up her second son, Kim Jong Un, for succession. This was done on the advice of Ko's sister, who said her son had to become the next leader or their family would be at risk, wrote journalist Anna Fifield in her book, The Great Successor: The Secret Rise and Rule of Kim Jong Un.

Kim Jong Un quickly became his father's favourite, largely due to his leadership potential and competitive nature, analysts say. While he also briefly studied overseas in Switzerland, he was said to be a lot more insulated than his half-brother Kim Jong Nam.

So when Kim Jong Il passed away in 2011, Kim Jong Un, who was 27 at the time, secured his spot on the throne.

Kim has since entrusted great power to his sister, Kim Yo Jong, who is believed to head the influential propaganda department, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry.

But the question of Kim's parentage hangs over the supreme leader to this day.

Analysts believe it is why his birthday has not been declared a national holiday, unlike his grandfather's and father's, since drawing attention to his birth could raise thorny questions about his mother and why he was raised outside of Pyongyang.

The secrecy around his parentage could also be part of the reason why he was quick to publicly present his wife Ri Sol Ju.

Unlike his mother, Ri is believed to have come from an upper-middle class family in Pyongyang, according to South Korea's intelligence service. A former singer of a prestigious performance group, she was also sent to study classical singing in China in her youth - an indicator of good songbun.

"The sense of illegitimacy and resentment Kim Jong Un experienced because of his mother's background paradoxically became a powerful motivation for him to publicly reveal his wife Ri Sol Ju and daughter Ju Ae at an early stage," says Gomi.

These public displays, Gomi adds, could stem from a "perceived 'deficiency'" surrounding Kim's mother's origins.

So, what would happen if the origins of Kim's mother ever became public?

"If it becomes known that his mother was of ethnic Korean origins from Japan, it would not only shake his legitimacy but also destabilise the hereditary system at its roots," said Ryu.

"It would have the impact of a nuclear bomb on North Korean society."

Top image by Andro Saini of East Asia Visual Journalism and additional reporting by Grace Tsoi and Laignee Barron

Harry reconsiders bringing Meghan and children on UK trip

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gy6ywg73wo, today

The Duke of Sussex is reconsidering plans to bring his wife and children to the UK next month after his request for police protection was rejected, the BBC understands.

Prince Harry, his wife Meghan and his two children, Archie and Lilibet, were due to make a family visit to the UK for the first time in four years.

His team had put in a formal request for police security while in the UK but it is understood they were told on Friday that no taxpayer funded security would be provided.

Sources say that Prince Harry is distraught about the decision, made just days before the family is due to arrive, but he would still like to find a way to make the trip work.

The prince's team had been waiting for the result of a security review by the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (Ravec), which decides on the security provision for senior royals for the Home Office.

On Friday, after announcing details of the UK visit, his team was told no police protection would be provided for the family.

Prince Harry and Meghan had already accepted an offer to stay on a royal estate during the trip, as a guest of King Charles, although the location of the royal residence selected had not been made public.

They were also expected to use private accommodation while in the UK.

Police protection would be available while staying on a royal estate but outside of those times Prince Harry would have to rely on the private security team travelling with him from California.

The family were due to be in the UK for around five days.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, was planning to join her husband on a number of public engagements in London and the Midlands.

The visit was timed to mark the start of the year-long countdown to the Invictus Games for injured military personnel due to be held in Birmingham next July. Prince Harry is a founder of the games.

He was also expected to visit other UK-based charities he has continued to support since his move to California.

On previous visits, Prince Harry has declined the offer to stay at Buckingham Palace due to concerns over using such a high-profile, visible building.

Last year, he lost a legal battle to have regular police protection while visiting in the UK.

In a BBC News interview after the ruling, Prince Harry spoke of his desire for a "reconciliation" with the Royal Family. He also said he worried it would not be safe to bring his wife and children back to the country of his birth.

"I can't see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the UK at this point and the things they're going to miss is, well, everything," he said. "You know I love my country, I always have done despite what some people in the country have done."

The last time the King saw his grandchildren in person was during Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022.

Prince Harry last saw his father back in September when he had tea with the King at Clarence House, which was their first face-to-face meeting since February 2024.

A final decision on the trip and the involvement of Prince Harry's wife and children will be made in the coming days.

Australia to double maximum penalty for platforms in breach of social media ban

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78yv5g74e9o, today

The Australian government has announced it will double the maximum penalty for breaches of the nation's social media minimum age law to $99m (£51.7m).

As part of the updated legislation, the eSafety Commissioner will also be able to compel social media companies to provide evidence of what steps they have taken to comply with the ban.

Children under the age of 16 have been prevented from 10 key social media platforms in Australia since 10 December 2025, but it has been widely acknowledged that many are still able to access and use the banned apps.

Investigations have been opened into the alleged non-compliance of five banned platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.

Though Australia's ban was brought in late last year with huge fanfare, it has been difficult for the Australian government to enforce.

In February, the BBC visited a school in Sydney where the majority of students who used social media before the ban said they still had access.

In its own report, the eSafety Commission, which is the nation's independent regulator, said that seven out of 10 children aged under 16 who had a social media account before the ban still had "some access".

In its statement on Saturday, the government acknowledged some of these challenges, and said the harsher penalties were evidence that it was "doubling down on platforms that are not doing enough".

It added that the increased powers for the eSafety Commissioner, which is an independent regulator, would support "more effective investigation and potential enforcement action".

"I'm heartened by the shift in conversation and the global momentum we've seen since introducing the social media minimum age, but it's clear big tech are not doing enough to comply with the law," said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

He added: "There are still too many children on social media."

The sentiment was echoed by Australia's Minister for Communications, Anika Wells, who said she was "not satisfied" that tech companies are doing "everything they can" to keep children off social media.

"It is clear to me that social media platforms are adopting tricks straight out of the big tech playbook and doing the bare minimum to get by," she said.

In the months after the introduction of Australia's social media ban, a number of other countries have indicated that they will follow suit, including the UK.

In June 2026, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced that it would introduce a similar ban for children under 16, with plans for it to come into effect by spring 2027.

A complete list of affected platforms has not yet been released, but the government said it would cover those "whose purpose is to enable social interaction and which allow users to post material".

It added that an overnight curfew and measures to stop infinite scrolling for under-18s were also being considered as part of the legislation.

117 dead dogs found at California 'no-kill' animal rescue - many with gunshot wounds

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4gqz5lx1eo, today

Investigators have found the remains of 117 dogs in various states of decomposition - many of which were found with gunshot wounds - on the grounds of a purported "no-kill" animal shelter in northern California.

Authorities excavated open fields at Miranda's Rescue Animal Sanctuary for evidence of animals believed to be buried in mass graves, the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office said. About 600 dog collars were also located.

Officials had been investigating potential fraud or animal cruelty after hundreds of animals were discovered missing from the facility.

The sanctuary owner has asked the public to "consider all the facts before reaching conclusions".

The shelter's owner and operator Shannon Miranda has said in an online statement before the discovery on the property that media coverage and online commentary about the case "have presented an incomplete and, in some cases, inaccurate picture" of the facility.

The BBC has reached out to the rescue. Miranda is not facing any criminal charges in the probe.

The Humboldt County Sheriff's Office began investigating the rescue in April after receiving "credible information" regarding allegations of felony animal abuse, animal cruelty, fraud, and conspiracy associated with Miranda's Rescue.

Local media outlets report the probe was launched after a neighbour admitted to entering the property without permission in April and dug up what they believed were buried dogs.

The investigation led to findings that the rescue had brought in 900 animals since the start of 2025 and only had 116 adoptions, Sheriff William Honsal said. More than 700 animals were unaccounted for.

On Friday, the sheriff's office announced that the intact remains of 117 dogs were found in two excavated areas on the property, which is located in Fortuna, California - about 288 miles (463kms) north of San Francisco.

A search of the 50-acre (20,000m) facility also led investigators to an additional 21 dog skulls and hundreds of other bones. Six loose microchips were found in another dig location near where the remains were discovered, authorities said.

Seventy bodies were X-rayed and found with bullet fragments. Investigators said that initial examinations found that the cause of death for many of those animals was gunshot wounds.

The sheriff's office said that while digging in the northern area of the same field, investigators located additional dead dogs in advanced stages of decomposition.

The department also said it discovered a barn where they believe "the dogs were likely killed".

Most of the deceased dogs were microchipped and analysts are reviewing the data from them to identify the dogs associated with those chips.

Miranda, who is not facing charges in the case, said in a statement before the new findings on the property that his facility was a "no-kill rescue" and refuted accusations included in the media and by authorities.

He said that other shelters often turn to rescues like his as a last resort for harder-to-place animals. He maintained that Miranda's Rescue "is a no-kill rescue".

He said the rescue has only euthanised animals in rare circumstances, not "simply to make space", and only in cases when an animal is suffering from a terminal condition or when it poses a serious, ongoing danger to people or other animals.

The sheriff's office has asked the public for patience as they continue to investigate, noting the probe is complex and there is a lot of evidence to process. No charges have been filed in the two-month investigation.

"If there is sufficient evidence to support violations of animal cruelty, fraud, or other applicable laws, the case will be submitted to the prosecution team for review and consideration of criminal charges," the department said in a statement.

Trump's face is added to select US passports for America's 250th birthday

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3ewkdgw9ro, today

The Trump administration has unveiled a new limited edition US passport design featuring a photo of President Donald Trump to commemorate America's 250th birthday.

In a post on social media on Friday, Trump shared a photo of the passport's newly designed pages, one that includes an image of himself with his fists on the Resolute Desk with the Declaration of Independence in the background and his signature below.

The passports will become available on 6 July and only while supplies last, the US State Department said.

It's the latest in a series of moves by the president to mark American institutions - including federal buildings, websites, and documents - with his name or likeness.

"The U.S.A.'s New Passport, which says, 'Welcome, but be good!'" Trump wrote on Truth Social. The text "welcome but be good" does not appear in the images of the passport pages that Trump shared in his post.

The White House reshared the images on its own X account, dubbing the new document a "patriot passport".

Access to the newly designed document is currently very limited, and passports are only available to American citizens.

Americans cannot apply online or via mail for the document, and must make an appointment for an in-person visit at the passport agency in Washington DC, according to the state department.

Applicants can also schedule appointments at a select number of special acceptance events designated specifically for the commemorative passport, the state department adds. Only two of such events are currently listed on the department's website and are both at the Washington Passport Agency, the department says. More events will be added to the list as they are announced.

Current US passports depict scenes from the country's history, such as the Moon landing, along with American symbols like the Statue of Liberty.

It is not clear if citizens who apply for passports in person at the Washington Passport Agency will be able to opt out of the special edition.

The commemorative passport was first announced in April, with a slightly different design that showed only Trump's face and had his signature in gold rather than in black. It also did not include the numbers "250".

It marks the first time a living, current president has been featured on a US passport.

The US Mint has also recently announced plans for a commemorative gold coin featuring Trump as part of the 250th anniversary this summer. The president is also set to become the first sitting US president to have his signature on American banknotes.

In addition to marking American documents with his name and likeness, Trump has sought to leave a permanent imprint on Washington DC, including adding his name to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts - which was later removed - and announcing plans to construct a so-called Arc de Trump - a massive triumphal arch in Washington mirrored after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris

Heatwave breaks more records in northern and central Europe

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2vdydz31no, today

Europe has experienced another day of extreme heat with temperature records being broken across the continent again on Saturday.

Germany set a new all-time high for the second day in a row, as temperatures reached 41.5C, according to provisional data.

On Saturday, records also fell in Denmark and the Czech Republic as the unprecedented early summer heatwave moved further north and east affecting more people.

An estimated 150 million people in Europe are now experiencing temperatures of over 35C. The World Meteorological Organization has warned the heatwave would have "major impacts" to health and ecosystems.

The heatwave – which began in the Iberian peninsula – has been linked to the deaths of hundreds of people over the past week.

Germany's preliminary record of 41.5C was set in Möckern-Drewitz in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany's Meteorological Service said.

That surpassed a record of 41.3C set just a day earlier in Saarbrucken near the French border.

"This heat isn't pleasant summer weather. It's a health crisis," Katrin Goering-Eckardt, a German politician and former leader of the Green Party, said on X.

In Berlin, police deployed two water cannons to spray mist onto people.

The Czech Republic recorded its highest-ever temperature on Saturday, with a reading of 40.8C at a weather station in Doksany north of Prague, the national meteorological service (CHMI) said.

And forecasters in Denmark said a provisional temperature of 37C was recorded in Odum, near Aarhus. This exceeded the previous all-time record of 36.4C set in 1976.

Switzerland broke the record for its hottest-ever June day for the third day in a row on Saturday, with the mercury rising to 39C in the northern city of Basel.

"This exceptional heatwave has been caused by a slow-moving persistent area of high pressure, a so-called 'heat dome'", according to the BBC's lead weather presenter Ben Rich.

"Underneath the high pressure system sinking air compressed and warmed, lifting temperatures day by day.

"The skies have remained largely cloud-free, allowing strong sunshine to heat things up even more", he added.

Since the heatwave began, the number of drowning deaths in France has risen to at least 55. An estimated two-thirds of them had been swimming in unsupervised areas.

Spain's MoMo monitoring system has recorded 327 deaths that could be linked to the heat between Sunday and Thursday.

Europe is the World's fastest-warming continent – because of a range of factors including the rapid heating of the Arctic, and changes in the pattern of the jet stream.

Scientists from the World Weather Attribution say a heatwave of this magnitude so early in the summer would have been virtually impossible 50 years ago.

They say climate change is "unequivocally" to blame.

The extreme heat will continue over the weekend into Monday with temperatures above 40C still possible in places, says BBC weather forecaster Ben Rich.

However cooler conditions developing in the west of the continent will sweep eastwards to bring some relief later in the week.

In Caracas, this feels like the hardest moment in Venezuela's modern history

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdjk8zwe7z3o, today

Each morning that Venezuelans wake to the aftermath of the dual earthquakes, it is a little darker, a little grimmer.

It means another night in which prayers for the miraculous recovery of missing loved ones went unanswered, in which the fitful sleep of the survivors is interrupted by nightmares of collapsed buildings and moments of sheer panic.

For ex-policeman Jan Carlos Roa Garcia and his family, it was another night sleeping rough. Their building in Caracas wasn't brought down but is too dangerous to return to.

Tears rolling down his cheeks, he says he's not sure he even knows how to rebuild his family's life again.

"If I was 30 and not 50, then maybe. But I don't know where to begin. And so far, no-one in authority has contacted us."

As a loyal public servant, Jan Carlos was careful not to over-criticise the government's response, exhausted and angry though he is.

Musician Zaira Castro had no such reservations.

"We're all pretty frustrated because the government is not showing what it should – a serious display of help," she says in a plaza just a block away from two collapsed buildings.

"It's actually us, the Venezuelans, who are helping each other. We live in a society that has grown into helping each other. We don't depend on the government – that doesn't exist for us anymore."

In the same part of town, called Chacao, the Interim President, Delcy Rodriguez, took a tour with the mayor and was on the receiving end of residents' ire.

"You're campaigning in the middle of a tragedy! The government isn't doing anything for the people," yelled one resident.

On a personal level, I know these streets well. I lived in the affected neighbourhood of Los Palos Grandes in Chacao for several years when I was the BBC's Venezuela Correspondent. My old apartment block was just metres from the collapsed Petunia building, where rescue crews are working around the clock to reach trapped residents. A friend recently posted on social media that her mother was among the missing under the building's rubble.

It was a huge relief to see my old building, the Alheli, still intact and its genial caretaker, Pedro, still outside chatting to elderly residents on the porch. One of them had twisted her ankle on the way down the building. All of them agreed they couldn't remember a tragedy this severe in Venezuela in their lives.

At the scene of the worst-hit areas – particularly the coastal town of La Guaira – the desperation is even greater. The scene around more than 100 flattened buildings is apocalyptic. And as hopes fade, anger grows.

"There are still people in there, we need machinery," says affected resident Eileen Lada. "Help us, please," she pleads.

The rescue teams – both Venezuelan and international – have worked through another night showing impressive resilience and focus to try to reach those trapped relatives.

Videos are circulating on social media of the workers successfully pulling out survivors with typical Venezuelan good humour and spirit which bring a lump to the throat.

The hospitals along the northern coastline are at breaking point. A healthcare system that has been underfunded for decades is now trying to cope with a demand that would be tough for countries with much better infrastructure.

Doctors and nurses are doing what they can in the most trying circumstances most will ever experience in their lives.

And the survivors' stories from inside the wards are chilling.

"It was awful – so many people died, so many family members went missing," Maria Vargas recalled to the AFP news agency from her hospital bed. "I lost my house completely, but we're all right, thank God."

After earthquakes, rescue teams say the first 48 hours are crucial. Those have long since passed. This now feels like the hardest moment in Venezuela's modern history in a country that has had more than its fair share in recent years.

I'm in therapy for my 14-hour-a-day phone addiction and I'm determined to beat it

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg7v7j3wqwo, today

Marios's phone pings and lights up. He's just received a WhatsApp message from me asking for an initial chat about this story.

He wants to answer straightaway. The urge, he later tells me, feels overpowering.

However, he's currently in the middle of a therapy session about his phone addiction. He can't answer it now.

He holds his nerve. But as soon as the meeting finishes, he's back on his phone and an hour later, we meet on a video call.

"I'm so sorry," I say. "The last thing I wanted to do was disturb your session."

"Don't worry," Marios sighs. "This is the feeling I've had for many years: this uncontrollable need to be on my phone.

"It's like carrying around your own drug dealer.

"My drug is always in my pocket, flashing, beeping me and reminding me to take a dose."

On a bad day, Marios, a personal trainer, can spend more than 14 hours staring at his screen (Instagram, he says, is the killer for him). But now, he is trying a 12-session course of private therapy to try to curb this compulsion, which he believes is driven by loneliness.

One look at my screen time statistics tells me I checked my phone 116 times yesterday. I also spent over three hours gawping at it.

Is Marios addicted? Am I addicted?

It's difficult to know.

Phone addiction does not yet exist as an official condition, but in a recent survey of 1,000 adults by Deloitte, 70% of respondents said they spent too much time on their phones. As a growing number of academics warn that smartphones are changing our brain chemistry, experts in addiction have told me they are seeing more clients completely dependent on their devices.

Last year, one in three clients treated for drug dependency by UK Addiction Treatment Centres (UKAT), which supports 3,500 people a year, also had a secondary phone dependency. That's up from just one in 10 in 2019.

Some clients even back out of treatment for their primary addiction because they refuse to surrender their device when they enter the clinic, says UKAT.

But when does someone tip over from being an overkeen texter to needing professional help?

As I drive up the tree-lined driveway to Rainford Hall, I'm greeted by huge stained-glass windows dating back to Jacobean times, overlooking manicured gardens.

It's an unlikely venue for treating people with a digital addiction.

This Steps Together rehab centre in St Helens, Merseyside, also hosts people struggling with other addictions (including drugs, alcohol and gambling) but its therapists are seeing an increasing number of people who cannot switch off from their devices.

"It can affect anyone from any background," lead therapist Kelly Watson explains. "We all have phones, we all have similar brain circuitry, and so many of us can become addicted."

Part of our brains work on a reward system, she says. We get a message, a like on social media, or even read some new information on a website and then dopamine (a chemical messenger in the brain that regulates pleasure and motivation) is released.

Eventually, for some of us, the need for this hit becomes too much. It can take over, causing hours - or even days - of our lives to disappear into the online world, she explains.

James, who is being treated at another Steps Together centre in Leicester, knows how that feels.

The 48-year-old initially sought help for alcohol addiction but it soon became clear his digital dependency was also out of control.

After James lost his job, his day became consumed with scrolling on social media, checking news websites and obsessing about what was happening in different parts of the world.

If he posted anything on social media, he would be awake in the middle of the night checking for likes and comments. He tells me it felt like the digital world was holding him hostage.

But any enjoyment of using his phone was gone. "I would be dreading it," James recalls. "It felt like bit of my soul had been sucked out of me, but I couldn't stop."

Watson says when clients first come to Rainford Hall, they are worried, confused and don't want to let go of their phones.

"They say: 'But I need it for work, I need it for keeping in touch with family.'

"I can hear the fear in their voice. It's their safe place."

Many spend at least 28 days at the residential centre, receiving group and one-to-one therapy for the issues driving their addiction, while being helped to slowly break their dependency.

Watson works with them to gradually reduce their screen time and discover what thoughts and feelings appear when they are not on their device.

"That's often the issue – life can be too much, by scrolling on their phone they can disassociate from the real world."

Away from the luxury of Rainford Hall, people across the world are coming together to support each other with digital addiction.

In 2017, several people concerned about their tech and internet use banded together to create Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous (ITAA), a global fellowship inspired by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).

Jenny is one of their members. At the height of her phone addiction, she would not sleep for days. She would barely eat or drink, her dependency was so strong.

"I would lose chunks of my life," explains the 30-year-old, who doesn't want the BBC to use her real name.

She didn't care what popped up on her screen - a film, a series, a short video - as long as she was watching something.

"I did not realise how I addicted I was until I was in withdrawal and I had to ask friends and family to keep my devices under lock and key," Jenny recalls.

"It was so bad, I thought I am going to die if I don't watch something."

If she relapsed, she would resort to taking or "borrowing without permission" a laptop or a smartphone from her family.

But then the guilt and shame would kick in, and she would want to stream more content to block out the feelings.

After years of "searching for help", she came across ITAA and followed their 12 steps. She is now in recovery and has not streamed or watched anything for five years.

Jenny says she feels comfortable with having a basic phone, and going online for her job. "I'm now in control," she says.

Another ITAA member, Tom, says his addiction led him to dark places. He could lose whole months of his life to his phone and other screens.

"I would binge for 10 hours straight – I could be listening to music, watching something on YouTube, scrolling through social media and playing a video game – all at the same time.

"Then I would go for a two-hour walk, and binge again. This could go on for months."

Tom's addiction was so overpowering that it led to him losing his business and his sense of purpose in life.

"I became suicidal," he says.

"I am starting to get real joy in life again. I play lots of pickle ball, I get outside and I go to the gym."

Hilda Burke, a psychotherapist accredited by the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), recently wrote a support book called the Phone Addiction Workbook after seeing an increasing number of clients coming to her with a digital dependency.

If you are worried you are spending too much time on your screen, she recommends analysing your own behaviour and reflecting on what might be behind it.

"Ask yourself questions like: 'What was going on that day? Was I waiting for someone to message back?"

Often, it's waiting for a response to a message that causes our initial discomfort, Burke explains. This then triggers us to use our phone as a distraction.

"Instead of going online, maybe do something else to distract you. Call a friend, go for a run, read a book.

"And try not to feel any guilt or shame - instead, think about how you could manage it next time."

Phone companies have also introduced features which help people track their screen time and restrict access to certain apps in an attempt to counteract the addictive loop many of us get caught in.

Back in north London, Marios is hopeful that his course of therapy can help him crack his phone dependency. He is also on the way to becoming fluent in Spanish - thanks to various apps on his phone.

"It's not all bad," he says.

But a second later, he reaches for his phone, on impulse. As soon as he touches it, he appears to remember his resolve. He jabs the phone, defiantly.

"Every day, I set myself an intention to not be on it as much and it is making a difference," Marios says. "And every day, I am slowly beginning to enjoy things again. It can be done, I'm sure."

Just how much trouble is Canada's economy in?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70y1y909pdo, yesterday

Prime Minister Mark Carney has promised to reboot Canada's economy, building it into the "strongest in the G7".

He has spent weeks travelling overseas in the last year seeking to drum up business interest in Canada as an investment destination.

But there is no doubt the country's economy is struggling, and from tariffs on certain industries to younger Canadians struggling to find work or buy a home, some Canadians are feeling the pain more than others.

Five charts help illustrate the state of Canada's economy - and how it's performing compared to other wealthy nations.

1. Technical recession - but it could be worse

Economic growth in Canada this year is forecast to be 1.6%, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). That's behind the US but ahead of European G7 partners.

As the country's economy recovers from the slowdown triggered by US tariffs, the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an influential global policy group, projects a modest improvement in gross domestic product (GDP) - growth of 1.7% - in 2027.

Earlier this month, data from the country's statistics agency said Canada had slipped into a technical recession - two consecutive quarters of GDP decline, in late 2025 and early 2026.

"The government is responding in real time to shifting global economic volatility and broad-based supply chain disruption with a serious plan to grow exports, create jobs and invest in productivity forward projects," said John Fragos, a spokesman for Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne.

Economists cautioned against panic, saying the country is likely to avoid a prolonged downturn especially given the small decline.

"Whether one chooses to divine the fact that we're in a recession or not really does miss the point," said Jeremy Kronick, president of the CD Howe Institute, a non-partisan economic think tank.

"I mean, it, the economy, is weak, right?"

2. Rising inflation and pocket book pain

For many Canadians, the cost of living is a major worry.

Some 61% of respondents told the non-profit Angus Reid Institute research firm in a recent poll that it was their top concern, ahead of housing affordability, crime and US tariffs.

Inflation in May was 3.2%, up from 2.8% in April, driven by higher energy prices, notably gasoline prices due to the fallout from the Iran war. That's still down from the post-pandemic highs of 7% or 8% in the summer of 2022.

It's a pattern repeated across most other wealthy nations, with Canada's inflation rate similar to those in major European economies but still lower than in the US.

"It is clear that inflation does cause hurt for a range of people, and that the majority of us see that inflation as we go to a grocery store, we see our energy prices inflate," said Paul Kershaw, founder of the generational fairness advocacy group Generation Squeeze, and a professor at the University of British Columbia.

3. More equity for some, higher debt for others

Kershaw called rising housing costs a "third kind of inflation" - one which has led to a boom in equity for current homeowners but has left many, mostly younger people, out of the market.

He said there are "Canadians who are doing just fine, who've actually probably gained wealth over some of these harder years... and who are managing the frustrations that come with higher food costs and higher energy costs."

Canadian households now carry the largest debt burden among G7 nations. Much of it is driven by mortgage debt, which analysts argue helps increase net worth, while the rest is consumer credit and other loans.

The recent Angus Reid survey indicates that seven-in-10 Canadians describe their current household finances as "good" or "very good", while the 27% who say they are in poor financial shape are also more pessimistic overall about their financial future.

A separate survey from the firm suggests more than a third of Canadians say the financial aspect of their current living situation is tough or very difficult. That rises to 45% among renters. People who have secured a home and a mortgage whose households make less than C$100,000 (£53,400) are also under financial pressure.

4. Many younger Canadians are struggling

Canada's unemployment ‌stood at 6.6% in May, while youth unemployment is at 13.4% - the first decline since January but still stubbornly higher than pre-pandemic averages of about 10%.

Kershaw from Generation Squeeze said: "We are at a moment where the economy disproportionately isn't working for younger people, and some newcomers of any age."

He argues that Carney's plans to make the economy more productive and resilient, which come with significant investments in infrastructure projects and defence spending, won't help the many Canadians just trying to make ends meet now.

Carney has acknowledged affordability challenges, most recently offering a one-time grocery benefits payment to eligible Canadians.

But the prime minister has repeatedly urged patience.

"This government's been in the process of laying the foundations for a stronger, more resilient, more independent Canadian economy," Carney said earlier this month.

"That process is settling in during that time as the major investments, major changes to how the government operates, how we do major projects, how we have new trade agreements with other countries."

His Liberal government has plans to, among other actions, double Canada's non-US exports over the next decade by expanding trade relationships across Europe and Asia, and to fast track major infrastructure projects.

Dave McKay, CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada, the country's largest bank, cautioned during a talk hosted by Bloomberg earlier this month that the clock is ticking.

"We have to see tangible progress on a couple of these big ideas," he said. "The capital is impatient, and it will move where it thinks they can get the most sure and fastest return."

Kronick, of the CD Howe Institute, said uncertainty with Canada's largest trading partner, the US, is another headwind.

5. Canada still depends on US trade - and Trump

For James White, the US-Canada trade war has had a major impact on his family-owned company, Wellmaster.

The Ontario-based firm manufactures products for drillers, and White, the firm's president and CEO, said 60% of its profitability is reliant on access to the US market.

But since the tit-for-tat tariffs began last year between the two trading partners, sales are down by 20%. His business has been affected by US levies on steel derivatives - and Canada's similar retaliatory tariffs.

"I'm being pulled down in my ability to make investments in my people and my technology and my equipment. That's not happening with my competitors," he said.

US tariffs hit Canada slightly differently compared with other nations, as the country shares a border with the largest economy in the world. More than 70% of Canadian exports head to the US, and the economies are deeply integrated.

While the majority of products are exempt from US tariffs under the current free trade agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico - the USMCA - the White House has imposed tariffs on specific sectors, including 15% to 50% tariffs on steel, aluminum, and copper - the ones proving challenging to White - and 25% tariffs on vehicles.

"What's key is just that there are these different parts of the economy or the country that are affected differently," said Kronick from the economic think tank.

"We've seen big changes in [auto hubs] Brampton and Windsor and changes where steel, aluminum, and autos are all impacted. I think they're experiencing it far more acutely than, perhaps, people in downtown Toronto."

Ottawa is negotiating with the US both to reduce these sectoral tariffs and on a review of the USMCA but have yet to reach a deal. Businesses in Canada just want certainty.

So, how is Canada positioned for the future?

Kronick said Canada's economy has some structural issues feeding the stagnation, such as trade barriers between provinces - things like different trucking requirements, or professional licensing - and a tax system he calls "uncompetitive".

But there are some fundamental strengths too.

"If you were drawing up a country from scratch, a well-educated, well-resourced, not overpopulated country would be what you would want, right? So, I think Canada has all those things, all those features," he said.

"I think we just have to unlock them."

With additional reporting by Nadine Yousif

These women said no to having kids - here's why

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz0jx2z2l41o, today

Jess King always assumed she would have children. To her, it felt like a natural path all women eventually followed.

But as she got older, she couldn't shake a persistent feeling that she wasn't ready. With time, her doubts deepened.

"It turned into 'Am I not ready for this, or do I not want this?'" she recalls.

Everyone she spoke to with children said they'd been really sure about it and they had a maternal urge.

"I didn't have that and that made me start questioning it."

Like Jess, more and more women in the UK are choosing not to have children. Research by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) suggests around three million women aged 16 to 45 are likely to stay childfree.

If women in this age bracket were still having children at the same rate as their grandparents, 600,000 more of them would be having children.

According to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), births in England and Wales fell for the fourth year in a row in 2025, to their lowest level in nearly half a century.

The CSJ's report cites "a range of social and economic pressures" as the reasons behind their figures. It found that rising housing costs, delayed financial independence, later marriage and growing uncertainty about careers all played a role.

Financial pressures are also a consideration for Jess, who lives in west London with her partner, Ollie.

Jess, a content creator, is self-employed, meaning her income is "up and down", which would be a worry for her if she chose to have children.

"There are so many people struggling to get by. Some months, we are really scraping the pennies and it can be difficult."

Several women I spoke to identified financial constraints as a limiting factor. But they also pointed to a broader set of considerations: anxieties about climate change, a strong commitment to their careers, an eagerness to travel, and a sense that today's world offers them greater freedom of choice.

Both Jess and Chy, 33, say they found support in online communities of people who had built happy lives without children.

The hashtag #childfree features over 127,900 videos on TikTok, while #childfreebychoice has more than 68,100. Scrolling through them, I can see there are thousands of women discussing their reasons for not wanting to become mothers.

Jess says social media didn't influence her decision not to have children, but it "validated it" and made her feel more comfortable to share her thoughts on the subject.

Chy, a 33-year-old account manager from the Midlands, has also found a community of like-minded women online. In real life, while her parents and close friends have been supportive of her being childfree, her wider family could not understand her decision.

"I come from an African background," she says, explaining that many of her relatives are from a culture where "women are supposed to have kids".

"Being someone with resistance to that idea was met with a lot of shock and disbelief."

Chy wouldn't feel comfortable being "responsible for someone else". She says a child would "need the love I don't think I could provide in abundance".

Her priorities include pursuing her career and travelling, things she believes "would be a lot harder" with children.

Wanting to focus on a career is one of the key reasons women choose not to have children, the CSJ report states. It cites a survey of more than 1,500 18-35-year-old women living in the UK, commissioned by the New Social Covenant Unit in 2023, which found that of those women who don't want to become mothers, 38% said this was because they wanted to advance their career.

Almost half of respondents cited the steep cost of childcare and 41% said they would want to move into a bigger house if they were to have children.

Chy thinks that mothers don't get enough support and that the cost of childcare and the current parental leave system make it "harder for women to live life outside of just being a mum".

She mentions one of her friends, who has had to cut her working hours to be able to do the school drop-offs and picks-ups.

"If those systems were to change, maybe my decision could have been swayed earlier on," she tells me.

The CSJ report argues that, in the UK, we need to place "greater value on the role of being a mother", both socially and in public policy, and that motherhood was "held in higher esteem" in the 20th century.

Several of the women I spoke to described people they knew, or even strangers online, telling them they would change their minds about becoming mothers or were making the wrong decision.

Sasha, an assistant manager of a cocktail bar, finds this scrutiny particularly acute in the small village where she lives.

"Everyone has kids, has a boyfriend, gets married," says the 28-year-old, who lives in Wales. "I've had a bit of backlash from people."

Sasha and her boyfriend Tom, 31, would prefer to spend their money exploring the world. "We're going to the Maldives this year, we definitely couldn't afford that if we had kids."

But despite some resistance from those around them, many told me that, in a broader sense, they felt having children no longer had to be the default.

Sian, a dog trainer, was brought up thinking that having children was simply "the thing you needed to do", despite not having any "real deep desire to be a mum". But at 37, she is now confident in her decision to be childfree.

The conflicts in Russia and the Middle East, as well as climate change, factor into Sian's choice.

"Do I want to bring a child into the world the way that it is right now? No. That was the answer and I've not changed my mind from that."

Jess agrees. "Environmentally, is there even going to be much of a world in the future? There's already so many people on the planet, do I really want to add to that?"

She, too, is firm in her decision: "I would rather regret not having kids, than have kids and regret them.

"Had I been born into a different generation, I maybe would have had kids, even if I felt the same as I do now," Jess says. "I would have probably felt more pressure and more expectation to go along with it."

Sian, who lives in Staffordshire, has two lurchers called Bonnie and Oliver. "I'm happy with my dogs," she says. "I care for them and they're family to me."

She adds: "I'm passionate about what I do and it meets an emotional need that I have. Maybe for others, a child meets that need."

Millie Bobby Brown and Louis Partridge on belly laughs, sibling vibes and Enola Holmes

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c77ydenvkv1o, today

It is rare to meet two co-stars whose chemistry is obvious before the interview has even begun but before I ask Millie Bobby Brown and Louis Partridge a single question, they are already laughing together.

As they return for Enola Holmes 3, they say that off-screen friendship has helped them bring more ease and affection to Enola and Tewkesbury's developing relationship.

"We realised we don't do much prep for some of the scenes - we learn our lines and rehearse and it's not that we don't take it seriously but we're really able to be in it," Partridge says.

Brown laughs as she jumps in, turning to Partridge with the kind of mock-seriousness that suggests this is a familiar routine between them.

She says they bring out each other's sillier side and they spend most of their time on set "belly laughing about the most random things".

"People will say to me, 'I just met Louis Partridge and I had a really interesting conversation, he's a really smart guy. I'm like, who? Louis Partridge is a smart guy? When?" We definitely regress into our younger selves."

Partridge, 23, smiles at this and tells me there is something almost sibling-like about their dynamic, which may explain why they are so comfortable teasing each other.

"We were just remarking that we look like brother and sister," he says. "There's definitely a bit of that relationship between us."

The third film takes Enola, the teenage sister of Sherlock Holmes, to Malta, where her future with Tewkesbury is interrupted by a dangerous new case involving Sherlock's disappearance.

This chapter pushes the franchise into darker, more grown-up territory which was part of the appeal for new director Philip Barantini, best known for Adolescence and Boiling Point.

"My nine-year-old daughter can't watch anything I've ever done," he says. "She's a big fan of Enola, and I wanted to make something we could watch together and challenge myself to do something different."

His job was made easier by the fact that Brown - who has been a producer on the franchise from the start - was already thinking along similar lines about the direction of the film.

"When I pitched my idea, she was already thinking about incorporating some of the darkness so it made my job easy because we were so aligned."

The film also gives Himesh Patel a proper introduction as Dr Watson, after a brief cameo at the end of the second film.

"I was just waiting on news for a third movie and it took longer than expected so for a while I was thinking I was going to be the briefest Watson in history, but thankfully that didn't happen," he laughs.

Patel says Brown "cares so much about this franchise, the characters and this world" and is not afraid of "creative friction".

"It's not an argument, but she puts her opinion forward and wants to have that discussion," he says.

'No problem speaking up'

When I ask Brown how she manages to feel so self-assured so young, she laughs before answering.

"I have no problem speaking up, that's probably my red flag."

Her confidence seems to come from a deep sense of ownership over Enola - she read the book series, pitched the idea, sold it and helped bring it to Netflix.

"It feels like a part of my heart forever and I have my heart and hands all over this project, and in so many ways it feels like mine.

"I am protective, so I'm making sure we're bringing it to life in the best way possible."

But she says she is careful not to tell other actors what to do and never gives them notes.

"I've been on the other end of it and I don't want to be that annoying producer but I think about it a lot when I go home and write everything down."

Enola stays with her so much that Brown's husband, Jake Bongiovi, who also worked on the film, says she sometimes takes the character home with her.

Brown agrees that Enola definitely stays with her and jokes that the teen detective's high standards can also follow her home.

"Enola is high maintenance and sometimes I go home and I'm like, 'Why does the bed look like that?' Then I'm like, Millie, chill, you do not need to speak like that."

What she is most protective of, she says, is Enola's intelligence.

Partridge remembers filming once stopping "for five hours" because Brown felt Enola would have worked something out sooner.

"She was like, no, no, no, Enola would know that flag is from this country and she would have worked that out."

Brown cuts in, laughing. "Oh please, it was not five hours," she says. Partridge revises it to three, but Brown is still not having it.

"He's such a liar, it was not three hours," she says.

She insists she is usually "the biggest girl on getting things done quickly", but says this mattered.

"Like those fans who critique absolutely everything, I want to make sure I'm bringing to life a plot that makes sense and characters that people can believe in."

Brown is keen to draw a distinction between caring about detail and picking a film apart for the sake of it.

After first-look images from the film were released, some fans questioned whether Enola's nails looked too modern for the period setting.

"How bleak and boring of the internet, I love a good manicure and so does Enola."

She sees it as part of a wider habit of people picking things apart online.

"I wasn't disappointed but I was like, oh OK, that's what the articles are about. But then again, the internet does not surprise me these days.

"I've been through it on the internet."

Barantini was more amused by the reaction and says he doesn't think "small things like that matter".

"Maybe they do for some people but it made me laugh. We just live in a world where everyone is hyper-aware and they find something to zone in on, and it becomes a huge thing."

"Hopefully in years to come that will change and we can uplift boys and girls," Brown says.

What news reports from 1600s tell us about life in Mughal India

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1dy5y3y2g3o, today

While Europe was inventing newspapers, Mughal India had its own news network.

From the late 16th Century, armies of scribes, agents and secretaries compiled akhbarat - brief news reports on court intrigue, military campaigns, appointments, finances and gossip.

Written in Persian on brittle paper in hurried hands, they formed the Mughal empire's information network: part intelligence brief, part official circular, part news bulletin.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, circulated daily between the imperial and provincial courts, helping knit together an empire that, at its peak, ruled much of the Indian subcontinent and nearly a quarter of the world's population. Many were read aloud before assembled officials, carrying news from the imperial court to distant corners of the empire.

For decades, tens of thousands of pages of these reports, orders and administrative records sat in libraries and archives across India and Britain. Historians knew they existed. Few ventured far into them.

Munis D Faruqui, a historian at the University of California, Berkeley, spent almost two decades doing just that.

Beginning in 2007, he immersed himself in the Akhbarat-i Darbar-i Mualla (Newsletters of the Exalted Court), a vast collection preserved in archives across India and Britain.

Working through more than 6,500 pages in Kolkata's National Library, he followed princes, generals, courtiers, royal women, imperial eunuchs and many others through tens of thousands of entries.

The result is a forthcoming history of Aurangzeb (also known by his imperial name, Alamgir) and the Mughal empire in the late 17th Century. It offers not only a fresh portrait of India's most controversial Mughal ruler, but also a rare glimpse of how one of the world's great early-modern empires actually worked.

The Mughal news reports survive in at least four known collections - in London, Bikaner, Sitamau and Kolkata - though historians suspect others may be in private hands.

One cache was preserved in bundles in the cool, dry basement of Jaipur Fort. In the early 19th century, James Tod, an East India Company official and antiquarian, borrowed a large number of these reports and failed to return them when he left for Britain in 1823. He later donated the collection to the library of the Royal Asiatic Society.

The richest cache, in Kolkata's National Library, consists of 21 volumes devoted to the reign of Aurangzeb, who ruled the Mughal empire from 1658 to 1707 and was its last great expansionist emperor. The volumes were once part of the personal library of pioneering Indian historian Sir Jadunath Sarkar, Aurangzeb's most influential biographer.

At first glance, much of the material appears crushingly mundane: appointments, disputes, military movements, gifts, illnesses and endless administrative minutiae.

Yet taken together, the reports amount to something rare - a near-continuous record of an empire watching itself, says Faruqui.

Archival coverage of Aurangzeb's first two decades on the throne is patchy. But the amount of surviving material from the early 1680s onwards is extraordinary, providing access to an almost daily flow of reports for years on end. All told, they illuminate roughly a third of the emperor's nearly half-century reign

Faruqui has spent much of his academic life thinking about the late Mughal world in the late 17 century. At the time the empire was at its peak, yet also edging towards a decline that would eventually clear the way for British rule. The akhbarat gave him a new way of seeing that world.

"My whole experience of working with the akhbarat has been one big eureka moment after another!," Faruqui told me. "It never ceases to amaze me how the density of the informational ecosystem was at the time".

The news reports Faruqui studied were written for the Raja of Jaipur. Hundreds of other nobles, princes and officials likely received similar reports from agents across the empire, forming one of the early modern world's most sophisticated information networks.

"I am floored when I think about the ecosystem that spawned such rich knowledge gathering and transference," Faruqui says.

The sheer volume of information suggests that, by pre-modern standards, the Mughal state had a remarkably sophisticated grasp of its sprawling empire.

Faruqui believes its ability to act on that information varied, but its reach affected - "sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse" - the lives of tens of millions of people.

Again and again, the reports upended Faruqui's assumptions.

He says he found little evidence of the widespread religious conversions often associated with Aurangzeb's court. The imperial harem and the eunuchate were far more "politically influential than anyone imagined".

The emperor appeared less distant and austere than expected, and the reports contained far fewer hostile references to groups such as the Sikhs than Faruqui had anticipated. This contrasted with a long-standing Sikh tradition that, by as early as 1711, held Aurangzeb responsible for persecuting their spiritual leaders and community.

Some discoveries emerged not from dramatic revelations but through repetition.

Faruqui found one name appearing again and again in the newsletters: Zinat-un-Nisa, Aurangzeb's daughter. Historians knew of her, but little had been written about her role at court. Yet page after page, she surfaced in the record.

Within weeks, Faruqui realised this was no minor royal figure.

Zinat-un-Nisa was a powerful political actor and an "extraordinarily influential and important political bulwark for her ageing and politically vulnerable" father toward the end of his life. Faruqui began noting every mention of her name. She would go on to feature prominently in his account of the Mughal harem.

Each discovery forced a rethink. "Many of the stories I had been telling myself since the 1990s [when I first heard about the akhbarat] required rethinking," Faruqui says. The akhbarat, he says, offered an opportunity to reassess not just Aurangzeb, but the Mughal empire itself.

Why have historians largely steered clear of the akhbarat?

Faruqui says he understands the hesitation. Early in his career, he spent seven frustrating weeks wrestling with another vast Mughal archive before abandoning it. The experience left him wary of sprawling, unindexed collections for nearly a decade.

The akhbarat posed a similar challenge.

"Searching for anything in it is like hunting for a needle in a haystack," he says.

With no index and tens of thousands of entries, the archive demands patience, stamina and a willingness to read page after page in search of patterns and relevant information.

One reason Aurangzeb continues to provoke fresh debate is the sheer abundance of material, says Faruqui.

While the evidentiary record for the early Mughal emperors left behind is relatively sparse, by Aurangzeb's reign the documentary trail explodes: administrative archives, private correspondence, regional histories, biographical dictionaries, poetry, European trading company papers and travellers' accounts are all abundant.

For Faruqui, the akhbarat were indispensable. But they are only one part of a much larger archive that remains surprisingly underused. "Dozens of books, if not more, can be written based on all the materials that are out there waiting for intrepid historians to come along and utilise them," he says.

When Faruqui first opened the collection in Kolkata, he had little idea what awaited him.

"Upon turning the very first page of the first volume, I realised what an extraordinary resource this collection is," he recalls. "I immediately saw storylines that had been long ignored or barely touched."

He says his book explores only a fraction of them.

"There are so many, many others that remain to be explored by others."

GTA 6 will launch as download only - does that mean the disc is dead?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6210nj8gpro, yesterday

Once, video games came with lots of physical goodies, such as guides, maps and manuals.

Those days are mostly gone, but gamers have, up to now, usually been able to rely on one thing they could literally get their hands on - a disc.

But when pre-orders for Grand Theft Auto 6 went live on Thursday, developer Rockstar said customers who opted for the physical edition would get a box that just contained a code for a digital download instead.

It's not the first time a physical edition has launched this way.

But if the makers of one of the biggest franchises in entertainment history has decided to follow suit, does that mean the disc is dead? And what does that say about game ownership in the digital age?

Unacceptable - or inevitable?

"My initial reaction was one of confusion and shock," Ben, a UK-based 24-year-old gamer who covers GTA news on social media under the handle 'videotech', told me following the announcement.

In an interview with Variety in February, Strauss Zelnick, the chief executive of Take-Two, Rockstar's parent company, had said a digital-only launch was "not the plan".

Ben said this led many to hope the physical disc would be available at launch too - and for more than sentimental reasons.

"An important benefit of owning a disc is that you can lend the game to a friend or sell it later," he said.

Online retailers selling the physical edition have stated that, as with other digital game codes, the one being offered for GTA 6 is single-use and will become invalid after it is redeemed.

Digital sales now account for the vast majority of game revenue, and online stores such as Steam for PC and the PlayStation Store have been around for many years.

The addition of consoles without physical disc drives is only helping further this trend, said Mat Piscatella, senior director and video game industry advisor at market research firm Circana.

"More than half of all Xbox Series consoles in the US don't have a physical drive, while over a quarter of PS5's are the same," he posted.

For some gamers, the news they wouldn't be able to play GTA 6 on a disc therefore felt like less of an upset.

"I'm pretty much all digital these days, I download most of my games directly onto my console," Alogirlx, a gaming content creator from Canada, told the BBC's What in the World podcast.

"Whether there's a physical disc or not it doesn't really change anything for me," she said.

With physical game sales at an all-time low, the issue may well be less about the disc itself than what its absence may represent.

For some, it appears to be another step away from buying a physical product, and instead towards buying a licence or access to software controlled by the publisher and platform holder.

Ross Scott is the founder of the growing consumer rights movement Stop Killing Games.

The group is campaigning for publishers to leave online games playable if they end up switching off their servers.

He told me the issue raised by Rockstar's code-in-a-box is less about the missing disc itself - after all, an online game on a disc can still become unplayable if its servers are shut down.

Instead, he said, it was about a lack of trust that publishers will preserve access to games consumers have already paid for.

"The problem is the industry has a very poor reputation of disabling games once they end support, so the trust from customers for many large publishers just isn't there," he said.

"I don't think the lack of a disc is the problem in itself, but rather it can be a symptom of a larger, very consumer-hostile practice."

Why might Rockstar have done this?

The BBC has reached out to Rockstar for more details on its decision, but it is yet to comment.

Chris Scullion, deputy editor of Video Games Chronicle, pointed to previous data leaks suffered by the studio as a possible explanation for why it may want to ensure its content cannot be easily ripped from a disc and shared before release.

He added that the game, which has already been delayed twice, may also be "so close to the wire" in development that players could still get an out-of-date version if they picked up a disc rather than the digital edition.

"A cynic would also say it's simply a way to make more money on each physical copy sold," he said.

Rockstar is not the only company moving away from the traditional physical format, however.

Nintendo has also shifted further towards digital distribution in recent years with the introduction of Game-Key Cards - physical cartridges that act as a key to download a game, rather than containing the game itself.

What have physical retailers said?

The GTA franchise is one of the biggest and most profitable entertainment properties in history.

GTA V has sold nearly 230 million copies, and the launch of its successor is expected to be such a major economic event that Bank of America has weighed in on its price.

Despite this, Rockstar's announcement has prompted some independent retailers to refuse to stock the code-in-a-box version.

VGP, an online retailer with a physical store in Toronto, said while it had "tremendous respect" for Rockstar, it was "committed to preserving the value of physical game ownership", so would not be offering the product.

Lootbox Gaming, an independent retailer in Delaware, also declined to stock it, telling me the decision "speaks volumes about the future for AAA (big-budget) releases on physical media".

Meanwhile, PNP Games, an online retailer with three stores in Winnipeg, has launched a petition, calling on Take-Two to release a physical disc version.

Piscatella suggested the code "may provide a better opportunity for retailers, particularly those that don't sell used games", given the number of PlayStation 5 and Xbox consoles without disc drives.

If the disc is dying, another gaming tradition is at risk of going with it.

One hallmark of a game release as big as GTA has been the midnight launch, where gamers queue up at stores, often for hours, to be the first to walk through the doors and pick up a physical copy.

It's not yet clear whether shops intend to carry on the custom when the game launches on 19 November for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S and X.

Ben said while he had originally planned to go to a launch in person if it happened, he will now settle for a digital version instead.

But he added he hoped those that do decide to make the journey to a store will be greeted with more than just a code, if not a disc.

"The coolest thing about opening a GTA game case is the unboxing/opening experience," he posted.

"The map, the manual, it's very much part of GTA's DNA. GTA IV nailed this experience for me."

"Hopefully the code comes with this at least."

Sort Your Life Out: The four most common cluttering mistakes and how to fix them

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgd54yvjz1o, today

Decluttering is Dilly Carter's love language.

The tidying expert from BBC One's Sort Your Life Out once helped an ex-boyfriend clear up and organise his mother's home after she died.

"It was a way that I could help him," Carter says. "And in doing that, we ended up getting back together." They're married now.

Growing up in a chaotic home with two working parents, she learned early on that she preferred being tidy and organised.

Carter worked as a PA for business executives and, as well as keeping their diaries in order, began making sure their homes were too.

In her new BBC video podcast, Sort Your Life Out Unpacked, she interviews famous faces, including Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Lorraine Kelly, about their favourites items and advises how they can best keep their homes free of clutter.

I asked Carter what she thinks are the four most common cluttering mistakes - and how you can fix them.

Kitchen counters are 'prime real estate'

Bread maker? Air fryer? Blender? Juicer? Mandoline slicer with cut-resistant gloves and hand guard?

The array of kitchen appliances promising to optimise your cooking experience and save you time is endless.

But they need to go somewhere and often that's your kitchen counter top, which - thanks to such clutter- feels increasingly cramped.

"I like to think of kitchens as real estate," says Carter. "Everything in your kitchen has to earn its place in there."

She commonly sees kitchens where infrequently used gadgets take up "prime real estate"; things which could be stored in drawers, cupboards or even the loft, if it's something really gathering dust.

"Go through your kitchen regularly and check what you need, see what you use regularly and [what] you don't."

Another tip is not to buy so many kitchen appliances to begin with but, if you do, make sure it's a "multi-use product".

For example, blenders are more versatile than juicers. If you want to make juice instead of a smoothie, you can extract liquid from the blended pulp of fruits and vegetables using a sieve or cheesecloth - no need for a specific gadget only does one thing.

Too many clothes, not enough drawers

Rolling your T-shirts may be an efficient way of getting them into a drawer but you won't be able to see them all when you're picking your outfit for the day.

File folding (where the pile is on its side instead of clothes being stacked on top of each other) ensures you can at least see the colour of the T-shirt even if you can't see the image or design on the front.

"We only roll or fold when we're trying to maximise the space of a drawer," says Carter, though you should be careful about which clothes you choose to file fold.

She recommends looking at the age and material of your shirts, blouses and T-shirts before deciding how to store them.

"I would say that your shirts (and blouses) definitely need to be hung, but your T-shirts definitely can be file folded."

One big box for toys won't help you

For families with young children, toys spread all over the floor are an ever-present hazard.

For the sake of convenience, you might be tempted to store them all in one big box that you keep in the corner of the room - but Carter thinks that's unwise.

"When your child is trying to look for that one toy, how are they going to find that toy? They're not going to find it easily because they have to chuck out everything else [in the box] to find it," she explains.

"And then you're going to be stressed because all the other toys are now all over the place."

She suggests having a few different, smaller toy boxes around your home that are categorised.

They will help your child find the toy they're looking for more quickly and mean a smaller mess for you to clear up afterwards.

"Whether it's cardboard boxes, baskets, clear containers - it has to be a system that makes sense for you and so that your children can find their toy."

Don't let paperwork piles get overwhelming

Another peril of trying to keep a tidy home is dealing with all the paperwork related to having a house to begin with - utility bills, council tax, TV licence, and all the other things in life that need paying for.

Unlike the toy problem, Carter thinks keeping all of this together in one place is the solution as it makes it easier to deal with mentally.

"For a lot of people, paperwork [is something] negative... it's bills, it's invoices, it's things you have to do," she explains.

"So when it's spread across the house - it's on the kitchen counter, it's on the side table, it's in your bedroom, it's in your handbag - [it feels] like 15 different piles of things that you have to deal with."

Gathering it all in one place makes it feel less like its encroaching on your life.

"It feels like, OK, well, I've only got this one box of paperwork to deal with now - so I'm going to sit and just go through it. It makes it much easier."

For Carter, the positive mental benefits of an organised and tidy home are clear.

But what if you left it untidied? "Well, all clutter does is look back at us - doesn't it?"

Tech firms are blaming AI for mega device and console price rises

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd95k584pzqo, today

For years, buyers of tech could rely on a familiar trend - that older devices would get cheaper over time.

That now seems to have stopped, or in some cases, completely reversed.

Apple and Microsoft's Xbox have joined the firms hiking prices for devices and games consoles which are years old.

They and other tech companies have pointed to the rising cost of crucial components needed to build their machines, laying the blame on AI.

Compute-hungry data centres, which power AI, need more and more chips to keep up with demand from AI companies - which means the demand for them is far outstripping supply.

Some people have called it "Ramageddon" - as random access memory (Ram), a once-cheap part of any computer, has now shot up in price.

But big tech's Ram woes are failing to gain the sympathy of many consumers facing eye-watering costs for barely-new electronics.

Apple has raised the prices of its tablets and laptops by nearly 20%.

The news was swiftly followed by Microsoft saying it would yet again raise the price of its five-year-old Xbox Series S and X consoles by at least $100 (£75.70).

The pricing changes, which will take effect from August, are its third in just over a year - and see the cost of a new console be 30% to 40% more expensive than it was this time last year.

"Xbox with another hardware price increase? I gotta laugh to keep from crying," wrote one X user reacting to Xbox's console price hikes. "My favorite hobby is cooked."

On Reddit, another user responding to the news said Xbox "may as well just cancel" its upcoming console Helix "because no one will be able to afford it".

Investors may not have been too overjoyed, either.

Apple's share price took a tumble following the announcement of its price bumps on Thursday.

Yang Wang, principal analyst at Counterpoint Research, called the memory crisis "the most disruptive supply-side event the smartphone industry has ever faced".

The iPhone has so far been shielded from price hikes, and Wang said premium phone makers such as Apple and Samsung were "better positioned to weather the disruption".

But Apple was part of a wider sell-off of tech stocks, amid concerns AI investment would impact device sales.

And these companies are by no means alone.

Nintendo has said it would raise the Switch 2's price globally from September.

Valve recently launched its new Steam Machine gaming PC with a higher price than expected, starting its announcement with a long explanation about spiking component costs.

It has already raised the cost of its handheld Steam Deck by 40% for similar reasons in May.

Why is this happening?

The companies blame AI.

Apple's announcement on Thursday, which cited an "unprecedented challenge" with memory chips facing the industry, has been seen by several analysts as indicating that the cost of massive AI investment is finally coming to bear.

It is no secret that AI developers are seeking to capitalise on excitement about generative AI tech, claiming it can deliver productivity boosts and help firms make more profit.

But to do so means building giant data centres filled with racks of powerful servers to enable high-speed processing of heavy AI workloads.

They use some of the same raw ingredients needed to make our smaller consumer devices, such as computer chips.

Once an affordable component used to build devices, Ram prices more than doubled in price between October 2025 and the start of 2026.

"The race to build out AI data centres is resulting in a swift and significant increase in demand that chip makers are rushing to meet," said Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at investment firm AJ Bell.

She said such demand was enabling big chip makers such as TSMC to raise prices "knowing that customers are vying with each other for production capacity".

Prices of popular memory kits like DDR4 and its bandwidth-boosting successor the DDR5 have shot up accordingly.

According to Counterpoint Research, some 32GB DDR5 components for PCs jumped from $94 in the three months to September 2025 to $127 in the next three months.

In the first quarter of 2026, spanning the start January to the end of March, the same components had soared 122% to $282.

Since then Dram, which provides a sort of short term memory for devices to facilitate what you do on them in real-time, and Nand flash - long-term memory that stores data even when a device is turned off - have climbed further in price.

Can we just blame AI for this?

RSM UK's tech senior analyst James Bull noted that the four largest US tech firms are expected to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on data centres and AI equipment in 2026.

"That level of demand for memory chips has created a shortage the supply chain cannot keep pace with," he said.

With big tech and AI firms buying memory at scale, and able to pay a premium for longer contracts, manufacturers were also being incentivised to prioritise their orders over consumer electronics, Bull added.

"Essentially, the MacBook on consumers' desks is now competing for the same Dram as the data centres powering ChatGPT and is losing."

Of course, some of the big tech companies, such as Microsoft, have a foot in both camps - investing billions in AI infrastructure while also making consumer products such as the Xbox.

But the memory shortage and price rises have also been compounded by inflation and geopolitical issues, say some.

When Sony announced further price increases to the PS5 console in the UK and elsewhere around the world, it cited "continued pressures in the global economic landscape".

Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis said at the time that alongside rising Ram prices, further waves of inflation linked to the war in Iran might have influenced the scale of Sony's price increases.

Hewson told the BBC more recent price hikes could "go even higher as chip makers deal with increased costs resulting from the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz".

"Whilst the last few days have brought renewed optimism that the situation in the Middle East is being resolved, the impact of the last couple of months means some inflation is now baked in," she added.

'Corporate greed'

However, some have been more cynical about big tech firms reaping billions in annual revenue putting up product prices.

Prominent left-wing US senator Bernie Sanders was among those criticising Apple's move on Thursday - writing in a post on X that it amounted to "corporate greed".

Apple reported its revenue in the last three months of 2025 rose by 16% compared to the same period the previous year to $144bn (£109bn) - its strongest growth since 2021.

But the tech giant is not alone in raising prices, with many analyst firms expecting others will follow suit.

Counterpoint's VP of research Neil Shah expects a "constrained supply situation" to last for as long as two years.

Not all companies are suffering, though.

The AI boom has created a windfall of sorts for some chip makers, including American company Micron, which reported on Wednesday that its quarterly revenue had quadrupled.

"Even as we expect industry supply to improve gradually in 2028, we currently do not have line of sight as to when memory supply will be able to catch up with increasing demand," Micron's boss Sanjay Mehrotra told investors on Wednesday.

In the mean time, gamers and tech fans can expect prices to stay high - or even continue to rise.

Israel strikes southern Lebanon as Hezbollah condemns new deal

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2kpn0eeweo, today

Israel has carried out a strike in southern Lebanon, a day after the countries signed a framework agreement aimed at easing tensions along their border.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it carried out the drone strike on an individual who posed a threat ⁠to its forces, without providing details.

Lebanon's state news agency said the attack hit the town of Nabatieh al-Fawqa.

Shortly after the strike, the leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group - which was not involved in the negotiations - rejected Friday's US-brokered deal and accused the Beirut government of undermining Lebanon's sovereignty.

Lebanon was pulled into the conflict on 2 March, when Iran-backed Hezbollah launched missiles into Israel in retaliation to an Israeli strike that killed Iran's supreme leader.

Israel responded with an air campaign across Lebanon and a ground invasion in the south.

Under the four-point framework agreed in Washington on Friday, Israel will withdraw its forces from the South Litani area, with the Lebanese army taking exclusive control of the vacated territory.

But Israeli forces are permitted to remain in an expanded security area in southern Lebanon.

On Saturday Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem accused the Lebanese government of making unilateral concessions.

"The framework agreement in Washington is humiliating, shameful, and a surrender of sovereignty. This agreement is null and void," he said.

Qassem criticised provisions linking Israel's withdrawal to the group's disarmament, saying ‌they crossed "all red lines".

He accused Lebanese authorities of committing a "grave blunder" which "may even lead to the annexation of these lands", and vowed that Hezbollah would continue its armed resistance.

Later on Saturday Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israeli forces had been ordered to "prepare for an extended stay in the security zone" - referring to an area up to 10km (six miles) inside Lebanese territory.

Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed at least 4,192 people since the current round of hostilities began, according to the Lebanese health ministry. More than 11,600 have been injured, and more than 1.2 million people have been displaced, Lebanon says.

Israel say 36 of its soldiers and four civilians have been killed on both sides of the border.

A US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon on 16 April failed to stop the fighting.

Israel and Lebanon agreed in June to renew their fragile ceasefire, and the US said it would help guide the creation of "pilot zones in which the Lebanese Armed Forces will take exclusive control of the territory to the exclusion of all non-state actors".

Uganda's leading media outlets shut down by army chief

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj9gyk1z7ngo, today

Uganda's leading independent media group says it is under "military siege" after the army chief - who is the son of President Yoweri Museveni - ordered the closure of TV stations, newspapers and radio outlets.

The Daily Monitor newspaper said that armed soldiers were stationed outside its headquarters in the capital Kampala and both NTV and Spark TV had been taken off air.

The outlets are part of the Nation Media Group, one of the most influential media companies in East Africa.

It is unclear what exactly led to the crackdown, but in posts on X, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba said: "I DO NOT believe in a free press! The press should be guided by cadres of the revolution."

Opposition and human rights groups accuse Gen Kainerugaba of being a central figure in a highly repressive regime led by his father.

Supporters of the president and his family say they have guaranteed stability in Uganda, and the economy has improved under their rule.

President Museveni, 81, is a former rebel leader who took power about 40 years ago.

He won a record seventh term in disputed elections in January, with widespread speculation that he is grooming his son to succeed him one day.

Gen Kainerugaba said on X that his "great father" had given him the "power to shut down any media house I want to".

He said that both NTV and Daily Monitor would "not re-open without my permission".

"From now on ALL media in Uganda will follow the rules!" the general added.

The Daily Monitor said on X that the newspaper and its fellow outlets were ordered to close "in a crackdown during the wee hours of Sunday".

It did not give reasons for the crackdown, but covered the story on its website.

It said staff had reported that "no-one was allowed to enter or leave the compound", while NTV Uganda and Spark TV viewers "were met with blank screens displaying the message 'video unavailable'."

The article pointed out that the Daily Monitor had also been raided by police in 2013 over the publication of a letter allegedly linking senior government officials to a succession plan dubbed the 'Muhoozi Project', while NTV had been forced off air in 2007 following accusations by the government that its news coverage was negative.

"Over the years, Museveni has also repeatedly criticised the Daily Monitor, at one point referring to it as an 'enemy and evil newspaper' over its critical journalism," the article said.

During January's fiercely contested election, Gen Kainerugaba caused outrage when in posts which were subsequently deleted, he threatened to have the testicles of defeated opposition candidate Bobi Wine removed.

Before the polls, opposition rallies were disrupted, with security forces at times opening fire.

The United Nations said the election was held in an "environment marked by widespread repression and intimidation against the political opposition".

Election officials said the poll was free and fair.

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

Billionaire Leon Black walks out of Epstein investigation hearing

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn948lwyl3jo, yesterday

Billionaire investor Leon Black walked out of a closed-door hearing with the congressional committee investigating late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after refusing to answer questions on non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), say lawmakers.

Black, whose name comes up in the Epstein files released by the justice department, testified voluntarily. But he left after he was asked about NDAs he may have signed, the panel chairman said.

The House of Representatives Oversight Committee issued two subpoenas for Black to share NDAs and give an on-camera deposition under oath.

Black left Apollo Global Management, which he co-founded, in 2021 amid scrutiny over his Epstein ties. He denies wrongdoing.

"We want to know, was Jeffrey Epstein involved in the NDAs?" the committee's Republican chairman, James Comer, said on Friday.

"Was he involved in writing? Was he involved in awarding funds to the women for the NDAs? What was the reason for the NDA? We want to know everything about the NDAs."

Nondisclosure agreements, commonly called NDAs, are contracts where both parties agree to keep information confidential, often as part of a settlement or employment agreement.

Black's attorneys confirmed to the BBC he walked out after his legal team "made their final comments".

The private equity tycoon hired Epstein as a wealth management adviser and allegedly spoke to him about personal matters, including extramarital affairs from which NDAs resulted, according to the BBC's media partner CBS News.

During his brief appearance on Friday, Black reportedly told the committee he had paid Epstein $158m (£120m) for legitimate purposes over the course of their years-long association.

That amount was the subject of a Senate investigation into whether Black had intentionally overpaid Epstein, cloaking money paid for personal reasons in the guise of financial services.

Black's attorneys have pointed out that an internal investigation at Apollo by the Dechert law firm concluded the fees that Black paid to Epstein were for legitimate tax advice.

Like many others who have spoken to the committee as it investigates Epstein's connections to the wealthy and powerful, Black said the disgraced financier had deceived him.

"I knew Jekyll. I didn't know Hyde," he said in his opening statement, a copy of which his lawyer shared with the BBC.

Black continued: "With the benefit of hindsight, I now know, as does the world, that Epstein was engaged in horrific, sordid activities. I feel terrible for Epstein's victims.

"I want to state clearly that I did not know about this nefarious activity until Epstein was charged with trafficking in July 2019."

Black denied ever abusing a woman, or being with an underage woman, or sex trafficking, or paying Epstein for access to women, or being blackmailed by him.

Black's attorney, Susan Estrich, called the subpoenas "a planned political stunt".

"Mr Epstein had no involvement with any NDAs, whether they exist or not," she said, adding that the committee "did not ask a single question about the legitimate payments to Epstein for professional services on tax and estate matters".

Black had a six-year affair with a former Russian model, Guzel Ganieva, which ended in allegations of abuse, according to court records.

According to a lawsuit filed by Ganieva against Black, which was later dismissed, he prepared a nondisclosure agreement in 2015 to secure her silence.

Epstein offered Black advice, including suggesting in an email to his assistant that Black hire former law enforcement officers to approach Ganieva, according to files released by the US justice department.

"Choose method of message delivery, my choice. - two highly respected former ---- fill in the blank, immigration, scotland yard. sfo. . who may knock on her door and present the terms," Epstein wrote.

Estrich, Black's attorney, has dismissed Ganieva's accusation as "demonstrably false". Black himself has previously said he was the victim of extortion.

A judge ultimately dismissed Ganieva's lawsuit, citing the NDA she signed and about $9m that she had received in the years after entering the agreement.

The House Oversight Committee's top Democrat, Robert Garcia, said in a statement that Black had "stormed out" of Friday's transcribed interview when asked about NDAs.

"Leon Black had a chance to do the right thing and help us bring justice to the survivors," Garcia said.

"Instead, he ran out of the room when he was pressed for information about his non-disclosure agreements with women and his relationship with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein."

Black "will be held accountable if he doesn't comply with our investigation", Garcia added.

The US that World Cup fans didn't expect to love

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260625-the-us-that-world-cup-fans-didnt-expect-to-love, yesterday

From roadside convenience stores to lonely landscapes, travellers are discovering little-known slices of Americana away from the host cities.

In the build-up to this summer's Fifa World Cup, much of the attention was on the host cities and stadiums where the matches would be held. But after two weeks, something I never expected is happening: social media is flooded with feel-good videos of fans discovering the US that exists between skylines.

Some travellers were so struck by Costco and Walmart that they declared, "I'm in love with America." As soon as a Norwegian man entered a Bass Pro Shop, he said, "Oh, gawd damn!" And when a Brit first laid eyes on a Buc-ee's convenience store, restaurant, petrol station and supermarket wrapped in one he said, "This place is absolutely insane."

With each wide-eyed video of travellers documenting their first encounters with everything from roadside convenience stores to ranch dressing, fans are highlighting the real America – one that's rarely portrayed in films and TV, has nothing to do with politics and that many visitors often miss. Along the way, they're not only reminding those of us who live here of the many quirks that make this country special; they're also helping us fall back in love with it.

From sea to shining sea

Because the US is roughly 2,800 miles (4,500km) wide and World Cup matches are being played on both coasts, many fans are flying between host cities. But some are adopting our love of the open road by driving from match to match. In doing so, they are discovering kitschy roadside stops along Route 66 and the majesty of the US National Park system.

Watching videos of World Cup travellers stand in awe under the golden orange arches of Zion National Park, peer down on the Grand Canyon and marvel at Louisiana's lowland swamps is a reminder of how stunningly diverse this nation is.

More like this:

• What it's really like to attend the World Cup

• What are foreign football fans finding in the US?

• The science behind the World Cup grass

"I don't think people realise how big, large, wild, full of wildlife, full of animals America is," said the British man who visited Zion. "There is nothing quite like American national parks and state parks. It's just incredible."

After watching the reactions of these fans, I sought out Charlotte Russell, a clinical psychologist and the founder of The Travel Psychologist, to ask why I felt so moved. She suggested that, as an American, I might take my country for granted: "Just like we don't notice our wallpaper at home, we don't spend much time thinking about our own culture in our day-to-day lives; it's normal to us."

Little-known foods

Overseas, fast food is perhaps the best-known element of US cuisine. But while most travellers coming to the World Cup have likely enjoyed a McDonald's burger, others have been struck by our regional cuisine during their road trips.

Fans are discovering Southern US institutions like Waffle House, the wonder of tater tots (fried potato nuggets) and partaking in another American past time: filling up on petrol station food, like Beaver Nuggets at Buc-ee's.

One Scot who has been eating his way around the country, from Dunkin' Donuts to Jamba Juice to an Atlanta seafood boil, needed to experience one final sugary breakfast before flying home. It was an emotional goodbye as he started crying, saying, "It's so good" while eating his last syrupy, butter-covered takeaway waffle in the backseat of a car en route to the airport.

Two of my favorite football podcasters, Ali and George from The England Pod, spent time in Kansas City. Along the way, they detoured to feast on ribs, brisket and barbecue. They marvelled that the US is so vast and diverse that the nation has myriad ways of barbecuing meats. After devouring Kansas City barbecue, they're now planning a road trip to Dallas to try their local variety, even though they're sceptical: "It's tough to imagine anything beating this."

So many fans have discovered the US's ubiquitous calorie-rich ranch dressing and are apparently trying to smuggle it back in their suitcases that airport authorities have had to issue a warning about the legal carry-on limit.

American hospitality

While many of the viral videos show travellers marvelling at American culture, they're also quietly displaying American generosity. Many are filled with comments recommending other sights to see along fans' itineraries. Others even have offers of home-cooked meals en route to their next World Cup destination. In a country that has come under such heavy scrutiny and criticism for imposing travel bans, tighter restrictions or high visa rejection rates on many of the nations participating in this World Cup, it's uplifting to see Americans open their doors and hearts to strangers.

In fact, for almost every video of visitors embracing American culture, there seems to be an instance of Americans embracing visitors. In Houston's sweltering heat, a traveller reported that mass transit workers were handing out free cold drinks to fans. Across the nation, police officers have been recorded hyping up international fans.

But perhaps no place has been more welcoming of its visitors this summer than Lawrence, Kansas.

The Algerian national team chose Lawrence as their training base this summer, and the small college city's 96,000 residents have gone all out to give the team a warm welcome. The school marching band has learned and played the Algerian national anthem, artists in the community have made a massive Algerian flag and workers at a local pub have learnt some Arabic to properly greet their Algerian guests. Hundreds of fans – many with no connection to Algeria at all – waited in the pitch black to welcome them when they arrived, with one fan saying: "Thank you to team Algeria for choosing [to stay in] our hometown."

These stories of human connection have made me and many other Americans emotional during this World Cup. They are examples of our country at its best, and they are coming exactly when I and so many other Americans need them the most.

"Many US citizens have been feeling down on their country, and sad that their nation is seen in a negative light overseas," Russell told me. "With the negative news in the run-up to the World Cup… seeing people actually enjoying the US and its people feels more intensely joyful."

She's right: after consuming so many of these social media posts and videos, I find myself overwhelmed with a sense of national pride that I haven't experienced for some time.

Before long, this summer-long cultural exchange programme will end, one country will be crowned the winner of the 2026 World Cup and everyone will return home – likely a few kilos heavier thanks to all the ranch dressing.

Here's to hoping we continue to find tiny joys in the quirkiness of our own culture, take pride in the beauty of our wild landscapes and keep our doors open so that others can continue to see who we really are.

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World Cup fans frustrated by 'confusing and expensive' tipping culture in US

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyxgjykx7lo, yesterday

Many international fans visiting the US for the World Cup have become frustrated by the culture of tipping servers, telling the BBC that tipping fatigue has set in.

England supporter Geoff Pryor said he understood tipping for good service, but he found it "weird" when buying a bottle of water and "they try to get a tip for doing nothing".

In the US, staff at some restaurants and bars are paid just over $2 (£1.50) an hour, and they expect customers to tip about 20% of the total cost of the bill so they can earn a living.

Frustrations have also been shared by hospitality staff, with one bar owner telling the BBC that many World Cup tourists have been bad tippers.

Australian supporters Chris O'Flynn and Robert McNamara told the BBC that high ticket prices for football matches have drained their finances, and paying tips is driving up expenses.

"I still find it a bit confusing why it exists... In Australia you have a flat fee, and you pay it. Here people ask for, or expect, tips. Sometimes you don't know how much you're supposed to tip," O'Flynn said.

"The way most Australians here feel is: Pay your staff a better wage. It should be on the business, not the customer, to make sure that your staff is well paid."

McNamara said they try to "abide by the customs" as visitors, but tipping has been a culture shock.

"They're expecting a tip after every drink so it gets expensive very quick. You're buying a drink and adding $5 on. It's difficult to comprehend."

Fan says the prices without tips are already expensive

Pryor, an England supporter from Norwich, is travelling around the US for the tournament. He said despite his frustrations at being asked to tip for a bottle of water, he did understand the need to tip at restaurants.

"I appreciate they're not paid as much as perhaps back in the UK, but overall the service is generally good, so when it's good they deserve a good tip," he said.

Maiko Asahi and her family are visiting from Tokyo to watch Japan play in Dallas, and told the BBC that tipping is not something they do back home. "The prices without the tips are already very expensive, with tipping it is way too much," Asahi said.

Another Japanese fan, Akihiro who is travelling with his son, also complained about high prices.

"Even the cheapest meal at a restaurant still costs around $30, and when you add on a tip of say, 13-20% you end up thinking - Oh dear, I could have had another portion for that," he said.

Europeans don't tip like Americans, bar owner says

Banter, a football bar in Brooklyn, sees its fair share of British and European tourists - especially during the World Cup.

But they are notoriously bad tippers, if they tip at all, owner Chris Keller told the BBC.

"It's always the case. There's no getting around it," he said. "There's always a lack of tipping or playing ignorant like they don't know."

Keller said he's changed the system so customers with reservations have to pre-pay for drinks, including a service charge. "It's just to protect our staff," he said.

Hurley's Restaurant & Bar in New York City has had massive foot traffic at a time of year that would normally by quieter, co-owner Ann Calimano said. But not all of the new customers are used to tipping.

"Europeans don't tip like the American people," she said. "That's the culture."

She said when customers order $600 (£455) worth of food and drink without tipping the servers, a conversation is necessary.

"The bartenders will graciously ask, 'was the service okay?' and they'll say 'yes, of course,'" she said. "And then they'll explain that the service is not included, whereas in Europe, the service is included in the price of everything."

It's impossible for staff to survive without tips, restaurant owner says

In Los Angeles, California, the base wage for tipped employees is among the highest in the country at $16.20 per hour.

Joseph Pitruzelli, owner of Wurstküche, a German-themed restaurant in Downtown LA, said they have not seen much difference in tipping habits during the World Cup.

"We keep our [suggested] tips as low as in the 10, 15 and 20% range but I've seen some places suggest 20, 25 and 30%, which I think is really high," he said.

"We share the tips amongst everybody on the team that goes into making the experience great, from the dishwashers that make sure that the dishes are clean to the chefs in the kitchen and to the bartenders and servers."

Rosa Thurnher, owner of El Ponce restaurant and a board member of the Independent Restaurant Coalition, said businesses have noticed changes in tipping behaviour since World Cup fans arrived.

"It's very different around the world, but in the US it is unique the amount of tip that is expected in our industry. For here, 20% is pretty standard," she said.

"And that is mainly due to the fact that the minimum wage and wage structure is very different here."

For instance in Atlanta, the minimum cash wage for a tipped server is $2.13 per hour. If tips combined with wages do not reach the state minimum of $7.25, the employer must make up the difference.

"If they don't receive any tips, it's impossible to survive in the service industry," Thurnher said.

And while US states can legislate for restaurant workers to be paid more, tips are seen by the US government as a core - and expected - component of such employees' income.

How heat is affecting a butcher, baker and candlemaker

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6215j70l64o, 2 days ago

From school closures and melting tarmac to cancelled sports clubs and disrupted rail services, the scorching heat is just about affecting everything and everyone.

In London and parts of south-east England, a rare red weather warning for extreme heat is in place, which means there is a risk of serious illness and a danger to life.

Suffolk is currently covered by an amber weather warning, with temperatures set to soar to as high as 38C (100F), according to the Met Office.

But to what extent is the heat making life difficult for the county's butchers, bakers, and candlemakers, if at all?

Alastair Angus, owner of Thurston Butchers, says hot weather can actually be good for his business – just as long as it does not get too hot.

"It's busy because we find that people are outside a lot more, cooking outside, and the trade certainly goes up when it's hot like this," he said.

"But there's a fine balance - I find between 22 and 28C is the perfect temperature that most people want to barbecue in.

"When it gets to sort of 30C and upwards, people get put off and it goes the other way slightly and people just want to eat less or have more salads."

'A constant battle'

Thurston Butchers is kitted out with air conditioning and large fridges, so Angus and his team can "pretty much keep operating as normal".

But they still have to be mindful of what the weather is doing.

"If the weather just drops off overnight and we've made a lot of barbecue stuff, that's a nightmare for us," he added.

"So, we're constantly keeping tabs and monitoring our stock coming in because of that. It's a constant battle."

Will Wooster, owner of Wooster's Bakery, in Bury St Edmunds and Stanton, has been shutting up shop a little earlier this week due to the weather causing a "dip in sales".

"People have got less of an appetite," he said. "They don't want to come out as much, which is sort of understandable.

"So, there's no point putting our front-of-house team through that and having them hang around in 35C heat potentially not to see anyone."

Despite previously having a "big cooler" installed, Wooster added that when the sun hits the production site, "you do feel it".

"Baking is generally associated with being hot and sweaty work, and the team are dealing with it really well," he said.

"But it is hot in there, particularly by the ovens. So, if we are baking in the hot part of the day, we have people swap to make sure everyone's taken out of the heat for a bit."

Jill Edwards started the Ruby Grace Candle Co. in Eye in 2017 when she decided to pursue her passion after being made redundant from her job.

She mostly makes container candles and said that cold weather actually proved more of an issue for her than the sweltering heat we are all having to endure.

"They do take longer to set in this heat but if the weather's very cold I have to bring the heat up in our workshop so they don't set too quickly," she said.

"A slow set is actually better and that's what the heat does encourage. So making them in this weather is not an issue."

'They won't spontaneously combust'

Edwards does, however, say that selling her candles outdoors during the heights of summer at a market, for example, is her "biggest challenge".

"Once you put candles out on display, and if they're in direct sunlight, when you are getting up to 30C or above, they don't melt," she said.

"But what you notice is the oils you've used to fragrance them start to rise to the top slightly and you get a sheen across the top and they don't look as beautiful.

"We always say to our customers to not have them on windowsills in this sort of heat - they're not going to spontaneously combust, but they will soften a lot."

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Thunderstorms delay hundreds of Heathrow and Gatwick flights

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjwgynnwyw2o, today

Hundreds of flights at London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports have been delayed as the UK's air traffic control service warned disruption was expected to continue into Sunday.

More than 900 inbound and outbound flights at the two travel hubs have been delayed for up to 11 hours and dozens cancelled, according to tracker FlightAware, many due to thunderstorms.

NATS, the UK's air traffic control service, said adverse weather conditions meant aircraft needed to "avoid affected areas and be spaced further apart" and this would impact flights for the "remainder of Saturday and overnight".

Gatwick and Heathrow advised passengers to check the status of their flights with airlines before travelling.

More than 474 flights arriving at or departing from Heathrow were delayed and another 439 in and out of Gatwick on Saturday, according to FlightAware.

Delays to affected flights vary. Heathrow's arrival board showed a British Airways flight from Santiago, Chile, that was due to land at 10:00 BST was not expected to arrive until 21:00.

Europe-wide aviation agency Eurocontrol mapping showed the most severe air traffic control delays were in airspace between south-east England and north-western Europe, where the storm clouds were located.

However, other UK airports remain largely unaffected.

In an updated statement on Saturday afternoon, NATS said: "Severe thunderstorms across the south east of England and Europe continue to impact flights, and this is expected to continue for the remainder of today and overnight.

"To ensure the safety of the travelling public, aircraft need to avoid affected areas and be spaced further apart, which limits the number of flights that can operate safely.

"We understand disruption is frustrating, but we're working closely with airlines and airports to reduce disruption as much as possible.

"Passengers should continue to contact their airline for the latest information on their flight."

NATS added that the forecast in UK airspace looked generally fine on Sunday, but that further thunderstorms were forecast in Europe, which may have a further impact on travel routes across the continent.

The thunderstorms developed overnight following a record-breaking heatwave, with the UK's hottest ever June high of 37.3C recorded in Suffolk on Friday.

Eurocontrol said a "broad area of hot, unstable air" stretching from northern Spain to southern Sweden was likely to see further storm-cloud development overnight, adding that there was "a large degree of uncertainty" over when and where they would develop.

Passengers grounded for hours

Passenger Adam Joseph, 29, told BBC News that he had been stranded at Venice airport in Italy without air conditioning because his flight to Gatwick had been delayed by four hours and counting.

He was due to depart Venice at 12:30 local time but said the plane had not yet left London on its outbound leg.

"We could've stayed at the hotel for another three to four hours," Joseph said.

"We are also being told that even in the event of a four-hour-plus delay, because of an air traffic control restriction, we will not be entitled to compensation.

"I've had to give up my chair to a family with a pregnant mother.

"People are very angry. We have had no communication from [BA] whatsoever."

BA apologised for the inconvenience, adding: "Like other airlines, we've had to make some adjustments to our schedule today due to air traffic control restrictions caused by adverse weather conditions affecting parts of UK airspace."

Meanwhile, Easyjet passenger Will Poole told the BBC he had cancelled his holiday to the Greek island of Skiathos after his flight from Gatwick was cancelled and moved to Bristol.

He said he boarded shortly after 05:00 on Saturday but was brought back to the gate at 11:00.

Poole said he "was eventually offered a complimentary snack and drink after five hours and an email with a £6 voucher to spend in Gatwick".

Poole, who booked with Easyjet Holidays, told the BBC he was then offered a replacement flight at 07:00 on Sunday from Bristol Airport, more than 100 miles away.

"In the email it said 'details to follow' about them arranging a transfer, but no mention of a hotel," he said.

"Easyjet staff in the terminal were not very helpful, saying we needed to speak to someone at Easyjet Holidays.

"I got through eventually and decided to cancel the holiday as they couldn't get us on another flight within 12 hours."

Poole said passengers understood the situation was out of Easyjet's control, but "you'd like to think" the replacement flight would have been scheduled from Gatwick. He said he has been promised a refund within 28 days.

Easyjet said in a statement that Poole's flight was unable to operate due to thunderstorms restricting the number of arrivals and departures at Gatwick.

"We're really sorry that Mr Poole had to cancel his holiday with us due to weather disruption affecting his flight," the spokesperson said, confirming that he would receive a full refund as the company could not find an alternative flight suitable for his travel plans.

It added that affected passengers were being given options including refunds, re-bookings, hotel accommodation and meals where required.

A London Gatwick Airport spokesperson said "temporary air traffic restrictions" had been put in place "due to ongoing thunderstorms across the network last night".

A Heathrow Airport spokesperson said "adverse weather conditions" had led to "temporary air traffic restrictions impacting some flights".

Trump threatens 100% tariff on European nations over tech tax

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4rd71411ko, yesterday

US president Donald Trump has vowed to impose a 100% import tariff on any European country that introduces a digital services tax on American technology giants.

Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump said "numerous European countries" had been discussing bringing in such a levy and some were close to doing so.

He warned that the punitive penalties would be applied immediately and would completely "supersede" any existing bilateral trade agreements.

While the post targets nations planning the "imminent implementation" of new levies, the precise implications for the UK were not immediately clear, given London has had such a tax in place since 2020.

"Please let this statement serve to represent that any Country that imposes such a Tax will immediately be met with a 100% TARIFF on any and all Goods sent to the United States of America," he wrote.

Britain's 2% Digital Services Tax (DST) applies to major search engines, social media platforms, and online marketplaces with global revenues from their digital businesses exceeding £500 million, and total UK revenues surpassing £25 million.

It impacts some of the largest US companies, including Apple, Google, Meta, and Amazon and raised more than £800 million in 2024–25, up from £678 million in 2023–24, according to the Treasury.

In April, Trump said that the UK faced "a big tariff" for purportedly targeting major US companies with a tax.

"They think they're going to make an easy buck, that's why they've all taken advantage of our country", Trump said at the time.

The Department for Business and Trade and the Treasury have been contacted for comment.

Trump's threat of retaliation against European nations that may be planning to launch or revise their own such tax comes just days after the US and EU finalised a new trade deal.

Michael Damianos, minister of energy, commerce and industry of the Republic of Cyprus, said at the time that "the EU can respond swiftly and proportionately when the deal is not respected or its interests are at stake".

France, Italy and Spain also impose a digital services tax of 3% on large companies operating in their countries, and several other EU nations have implemented or proposed a similar tax, according to Tax Foundation, a nonprofit group focused on tax policy.

Amazon earlier this year upped its fees on sellers citing such taxes.

Trump has attempted to impose large tariffs on many countries since he became president again in 2025.

The US Supreme Court in February struck down Trump's earlier attempt to impose a global tariff of 10%.

Nevertheless, the US recently announced new tariffs of 10-12.5% on dozens of countries accounting for almost all its imports over claims that such countries are not doing enough to tackle forced labour.

Three unusual things about the King's tax bill

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8kg7zg09ko, yesterday

King Charles has made history by revealing his £12.9m tax bill, but the payment is far from ordinary.

The announcement comes alongside the Royal Household publishing its annual financial report.

Here's what the document tells us – and doesn't tell us – about the King's unique tax situation.

1. The King pays some taxes voluntarily

King Charles is not legally required to pay income tax, capital gains tax, or inheritance tax.

Instead, he voluntarily pays some income tax, capital gains tax, and inheritance tax according to an agreement with the government called the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)

The MoU came about in 1993 following public pressure over the cost of running the Royal Family and is occasionally updated, most recently in 2023 to reflect the change of monarch following Queen Elizabeth II's death.

The fact that some of the King's taxes are voluntary is not the case for regular taxpayers, and some argue this means that it is not a tax at all.

HMRC defines tax as "money that individual people and businesses are legally required to pay to the government".

Dan Neidle, founder of Tax Policy Associates, told the BBC: "If it's voluntary, it's not tax."

Meanwhile, the report says King Charles pays VAT, employer taxes, and local rates "in line with requirements".

2. We don't know how his tax bill was calculated

While the Royal Household describes releasing the King's tax bill as part of its "commitment to transparency", it's not clear how it has been figured out.

So although we know that the King has agreed to pay tax on personal income, income from the Privy Purse not spent on official duties, and capital gains tax on private property sales, we don't know what proportion of those taxes make up the £12.9m paid.

The Privy Purse is a source of private income for the ruling monarch.

It mostly comprises income from the Duchy of Lancaster, an estate that belongs to whoever is the ruling monarch and includes, among other things, thousands of hectares of valuable land, castles and quarries.

The report does say that the Privy Purse received £25.2m from the Duchy of Lancaster for the year to 31 March, but that is not all of the King's income.

He also has personal earnings which the Royal Household says may include "investment income and trading profits". The report does not put a figure on this.

Buckingham Palace described the move to publish the King's tax bill – as well as Prince William's – as increasing transparency which it said aimed to "encourage wider understanding of our accountability".

Historian Anna Whitelock said the King revealing his tax bill puts him "front and centre as a very rich man".

"I do think this is very much a sign of the times, and it's an attempt by the monarchy to try and get on the front foot and before they were absolutely pushed to try and show they are responsive and not reactive."

However, Shaun Moore, tax and financial planning expert at wealth manager Quilter, said there's ultimately not much detail to look at in report.

"The headline figure is a large sum of tax and there's also a large sum of income quoted as well, but there's not any breakdown of about how that was arrived at."

3. He can deduct official royal business from the bill

Another thing not detailed in the report is what proportion of the Privy Purse income has been spent by the King personally and what proportion of it has been spent for official royal duties.

This matters because the King only voluntarily pays tax on income spent personally, meaning the King can effectively deduct royal business from his tax bill.

The King also does not pay tax on the Sovereign Grant, which is money paid from the Treasury to the Royal Household to pay for official duties.

This system is a bit like how a self-employed person can file expenses on their self-assessment tax return for things like uniform or training.

Except that the King has two tax-free ways in which he can fund official duties.

Also, what counts as official duties is very different from what a regular self-employed taxpayer can expense.

For example, the untaxed Sovereign Grant can be used to fund the staff costs and running expenses of the King's official household while untaxed official duties that can be paid by Privy Purse include the personal income of working members of the Royal Family.

The Keeper of the Privy Purse, James Chalmers, said: "While Royal finances can sometimes appear complex, the underlying system is clear in principle, structured in law and refined over time to ensure the Monarch can serve with independence, accountability and in the long-term interests of the nation."

Correction 27 June: A previous version of this story incorrectly said the Duchy of Lancaster estate owns the Savoy Hotel in London. This has been removed.

Could you handle a 20-plus hour flight? This airline is banking on it

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2j7v51l5ko, yesterday

On a stage at the Airbus headquarters in Toulouse, the chief executive of Australian airline Qantas declares: "The tyranny of distance has finally been conquered".

Vanessa Hudson was in the French city last week to announce the world's first 20-plus hour flight route.

The airline first flew what it named the Kangaroo route between London and Sydney in 1947. At the time, it was an odyssey spanning seven stops and four days.

Those stops have been gradually reduced, with Qantas now stopping only once, in Singapore, on the way through.

But 80 years after that 1940s venture, the first non-stop flight between the two cities is set to take off from October 2027.

Using specially designed ultra-long-haul Airbus planes, Qantas expects to shave about four hours off the current journey time. It is expected to last around 22 hours.

The much anticipated - and delayed - breakthrough comes after a turbulent few years in the airline's history, and bosses are banking on customers embracing the premium but marathon flight.

"We feel really confident that this is going to be a success," Hudson tells the BBC.

Some analysts say it is a major milestone in aviation history. But is it really what people want?

One stop too far in price - or not?

Qantas has overcome some challenges to get this far - and still faces others.

The flight will save money on landing fees by eliminating a stop, but Hudson admits the longer flight has a higher relative fuel bill.

There are also fewer seats, nearly half of which (40%) will be premium economy, business, or first class.

To counter the increased risk of issues such as deep vein thrombosis which can occur from flying for such long periods, Qantas has increased the legroom in economy and also created a dedicated "wellness" space where passengers can follow stretching exercises on a screen and have a little more room to move about.

Hudson points to the success of the Perth to London route, saying "customers have been prepared to pay a premium" for that service.

Australian travel agent Karis Heemskerk is among the fans of spending more time on one plane to get to their destination faster.

The 41-year-old has taken the roughly 18-hour flight from Perth to London a couple of times, including with her husband and two children, and says being able to fly direct is "amazing" and an efficient use of time.

"I think the direct flights cut time and there is no risk of missed connections and the stress of your luggage being lost," she tells the BBC.

"Cons are that it can be gruelling and it is a long time for some individuals to be confined to a cabin. [But] overall, I'm a big fan of the direct flights."

However, some frequent fliers such as Tom Gill are less interested.

The 33-year-old cultural consultant, who is originally from London but lives in Melbourne, travels at least once a year to London plus other trips to Europe.

"I don't mind an airport stopover at all: the idea of sitting in a plane for 20, 21 hours non-stop would be quite unbearable for me," he says.

For Gill, the main factor is cost. Given the new route is expected to cost about 20% more than its current Sydney to London offering with a stopover, he doesn't think it will be a flight he'll catch anytime soon.

"To be clear, I'd try anything once. If it was cheaper I would definitely consider it."

Research from ABTA suggests an increase in the number of people who travelled from the UK to Australia in the past year, particularly among 18-24-year-olds.

"Australia is for many of us a bucket list destination," the UK travel industry body tells us.

But Bryan Terry, managing director of Alton Aviation Consultancy says demand for this sort of service is narrow - posing a risk for the airline.

"Qantas is targeting premium and time-sensitive travellers willing to pay a meaningful premium to avoid a Dubai, Singapore, or Los Angeles connection," he says.

Singapore Airlines currently has the world's longest flight - between Singapore and New York - and Terry notes the route proves people are willing to pay "significantly more" to eliminate a stopover.

The last frontier

Terry says Qantas is conquering "one of the last frontiers in commercial aviation".

"Every generation of aircraft has chipped away at Australia's isolation, but a non-stop Sydney to London or New York has always been just out of reach," he adds.

It's an effort that has been years in the making, but which has also faced several setbacks and delays.

The programme to develop the non-stop London to Sydney route, dubbed Project Sunrise, was launched in 2017 - around the same time as the first direct London to Perth flights were announced.

Previous announcements about the route launching have stalled, but the project now seems to be coming to fruition with the first of 12 Airbus A350-1000 aircraft being delivered to Qantas in April 2026.

These come with an extra fuel tank to help increase the plane's flying time to 22 hours, with cabin lighting and meal times optimised to minimise jetlag on arrival.

Airbus chief test pilot Malcolm Ridley says it has taken a relatively modest engineering change to adapt the aircraft for ultra-long-haul flights.

While the first 12 aircraft must be delivered to Qantas before other airlines can buy them, he says there has already been some informal interest in the modified planes from competitors.

"When the aircraft goes into service and people can see what it's capable of, we may see more interest," he adds.

'Leaps and bounds'

The unveiling of the new premium aircraft and world-first route comes after a tumultuous first half of the decade for Australia's flag carrier.

In 2024, Qantas agreed to pay a A$100m ($66.1m, £52.7m) penalty to settle a legal case with Australia's consumer watchdog after it was accused of selling tickets for flights that had already been cancelled, affecting up to 880,000 consumers.

The next year, Qantas was fined a record A$90m following a years-long industrial relations dispute after it outsourced its Australian ground handling operations, sacking 1,800 staff.

The controversies and poor punctuality led to Qantas plummeting in the industry benchmark Skytrax Awards to rank the world's 24th-best airline in 2024, its worst-ever ranking and down from 5th just two years prior.

Hudson, who began her tenure as chief executive in 2023 by apologising for the airline's failings, says Qantas has been focused on rebuilding trust.

"It's been hard work in lifting on-time performance, investing in the customer experience and that's in all of our fleets, all of our networks," she says.

While she says customer satisfaction and the airline's reliability has come on "leaps and bounds", she doesn't ever want to say the job is done.

For this airline, Project Sunrise is another step forward in delivering more of what customers want - and many in aviation are watching closely.

The legal fight to get equal pay for Germany's disabled workers

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy0v1d24elo, 4 days ago

A test case before a German court could have implications for hundreds of thousands of disabled people in the country who currently work for less than the legal minimum wage.

The legal action has been brought on behalf of 57-year-old Jürgen Linnemann, who has spent all his working life in a "Werkstatt für behinderte Menschen" – a workshop for disabled people.

In English these would be called sheltered workshops, and in Germany some 300,000 disabled people work in them.

The workshops produce a range of goods for companies and brands that are often known internationally, but the people who make them are paid less than the minimum wage, less than a worker in the mainstream economy would be paid for doing the same work.

This is possible because disabled people in sheltered workshops are technically not employees. That means not only that the right to the minimum wage does not apply to them, but also that they do not enjoy other rights, such as the ability to join a trade union.

Linnemann is asking the court to rule that people like him should be treated as employees and be paid the minimum wage.

According to Hubert Hüppe, a former federal commissioner for the interests of disabled people, and a prominent critic of the workshop system, once you become part of what is a segregated system it's very hard to get out of it.

"You go from a special kindergarten to a special school and then into one of these sheltered workshops," he says.

This is what happened to Dirk Hähnel, now in his 50s, who spent most of his adult life in sheltered workshops near the central-western city of Paderborn.

He was sent initially to a regular school, but before long was transferred against his wishes to a special school. "My parents were told that a special school was the best choice," he tells me.

Later, when he was preparing to leave that institution, he was told his only option was to go to a workshop. "I didn't want to do that," he says.

So he tried to find an apprenticeship instead. He remembers one devastating job interview. "I told my potential employer that I had epilepsy and he said, 'we don't employ idiots here'."

I have heard many similar stories. I myself was born blind, and remember very well my first school report, when I was six, which advised my parents to send me to a school for children with learning disabilities.

I grew up speaking both German and Arabic and constantly mixed them up, not understanding that they were separate languages. If my parents had not ignored that first school report, I too might have ended up in a workshop. Instead, today I'm one of only a handful of journalists in Germany with a visible disability.

Hüppe says the workshop system fails in one of its most basic responsibilities – to rehabilitate disabled people in order to prepare them to work in the mainstream economy.

"This responsibility just isn't taken seriously," he tells me.

The reason for that is in part the economic incentives that are offered to German companies to support the system. In Germany, any company that employs more than 20 people is legally obliged to employ at least one disabled person.

Larger companies have a minimum quota of 5%. Those who fail to meet this commitment have to pay a sum in compensation into a central fund that supports disabled people in the workplace.

Many companies choose simply to pay this money rather than meet their quota. They are offered a further incentive by the system, in that if they outsource production to a workshop the compensation they have to pay is reduced.

The result is that fewer than 1% of disabled people make a successful transition from workshop to a job with a mainstream company.

Hüppe also says workshops are reluctant to see their best staff move on. "Obviously a workshop is a commercial enterprise that survives on what it produces," says Hüppe. "And so obviously they want to hold on to their best workers, the ones that would have the best chance of making it out in the mainstream economy."

He points me to a 2023 report by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which criticised Germany's record on disability.

Specifically, it noted "the high number of persons with disabilities enrolled in sheltered workshops and the low rate of transition to the open labour market".

Not everyone, however, is unhappy being employed in a workshop, including Medina Arnaut, 35. She works for one in Paderborn that is operated by a charity called Caritas.

Arnaut is also the chair of the local workshop council, which represents the interests of the workers in a similar way to a trade union.

"We have colleagues here who are so grateful that workshops exist," she says. "These are colleagues who quite simply need this workshop environment because of their disability."

Arnaut adds many of her colleagues have worked in the mainstream economy and the pressure there is completely different. "People come to me and say, I've experienced life out there in the commercial world and it made me sick."

Karla Bredenbals, the boss of the Caritas workshops in Paderborn, agrees that the rate of transition to the mainstream economy is too low.

"Quite often we'll find companies that, for example, don't have any accessible toilets," she says. "Or we might have someone with the potential to move on, but they are not able to use public transport."

Bredenbals acknowledges, however, that on occasion she does hear colleagues express reluctance to let the more productive workers leave the workshop.

"That's the one sentence that makes me really angry," she says. "When I hear someone say 'I can't let this person leave because I don't know how we'll get the work done without them'.

"Hanging onto people means we are robbing them of the chance to take responsibility for their own working lives."

On the question of workshop workers receiving the minimum wage, Bredenbals responds carefully.

"If you are talking about what it means to be employed and you are talking about rights, then you also have to talk about obligations," she says.

"Someone who is in employment is obliged to perform certain tasks, to perform to a certain level, as per their contract. But many of the people in our workshops are not in a position to fulfil these obligations fully, and we have to talk openly about this."

Linnemann's legal case is against a different set of Caritas-run workshops near the city of Münster, so separate to those where Karla Bredenbals works. It has been brought on his behalf by Berlin-based human rights organisation Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (The Society for Civil Rights).

The next hearing at Münster Labour Court is due in September. A decision is not expected for a year.

Additional reporting by Tim Mansel.

Is Germany looking again at coal-powered electricity?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy04ykxrj5eo, 7 days ago

They have a word for it in German – kohleausstieg, which means "coal phase out".

Germany is the biggest user of coal for power generation in Europe, and the fourth largest in the world after China, India and the US. But it has pledged to stop using it altogether by 2038.

For lignite, the low-quality soft coal that is the most polluting, Germany has even brought the phase out forward to 2030.

Currently some 20% of German power generation comes from coal, but it wishes to end this as it focuses on growing wind and solar.

In fact, Germany already gets more than half of its electricity from renewables, 59% last year.

As back-up to wind and solar, especially for the winter months, it wants to replace coal with more natural gas power stations. These generally release half as much carbon dioxide as coal, and gas currently accounts for 13% of German electricity generation.

However, the recent jump in global gas prices following the US-Israel conflict with Iran, has encouraged a number of countries to reconsider coal as an energy source.

Japan has loosened rules to allow for the increased use of coal-fired power plants, Italy is delaying the closure of its remaining stations until 2038, and India has postponed maintenance shutdowns.

But what about Germany? Back in March, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said: "We must supply this country with electricity. I am not prepared to jeopardise the core of our industry simply because we have adopted phase-out plans that have become unrealistic."

Was this the start of a phase-out of the phase-out? Is Germany going to keep coal power after all?

The problem for the German government regarding what the country burns to make electricity is a two-fold one of supply and price. Germany has an abundance of readily available, cheap lignite. It has the largest reserves in Europe and the third biggest globally. It is entirely self-sufficient in the fuel.

By contrast, it has to import 95% of its natural gas supplies. So when the global cost of gas shoots up, switching back to the much cheaper lignite is financially very appealing. And Germany doesn't have to worry about supply shortages.

Meanwhile, nuclear is not an option, as Germany closed the last of its nuclear power stations in 2023.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, German energy firm LEAG, which is the country's second biggest miner of lignite, is upbeat at the suggestion that coal-powered energy power could get a reprieve.

"We very much welcome the fact that the German federal government is placing not only medium, but also long-term, security of supply at the heart of its energy policy considerations," it said in a statement.

It also highlighted that it increased supplies of lignite to compensate for the halting of Russian gas imports after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. "We already demonstrated our ability to quickly draw on reserves to return to the market when the situation demands it."

By contrast, Hauke Hermann, a senior researcher with the Öko environmental research institute insists that more coal is not the answer. Instead, he wants to see a further increase in the use of renewables.

For some in German industry, they just want a decision regarding gas or coal. "Our industry needs reliable energy," says Wolfgang Große Entrup, director general of the German Chemical Industry Association (VCI).

"Renewable energy alone cannot yet guarantee this… Companies will only invest billions if they can trust that energy will remain reliably available at competitive prices in the future."

While practically no-one outside of the far-right AfD party is calling to scrap the coal phase-out altogether, some loosening of the phase-out is another matter.

One possible compromise being put forward concerns six coal power stations that use imported hard coal, which is less polluting than the domestic German lignite. These are currently only used as back-up, to top up the national grid as and when required, such as during a cold winter.

The owner of some of these power plants, Steag Iqony Group, says they should be allowed to operate all the time.

"If they were temporarily allowed to resume regular production, they could deliver electricity to several million homes," says a spokesman for the company. "We think these plants should be used in order to strengthen security and affordability of supply."

A parliamentary committee set up in March is studying this possibility.

The difficulty for the German government is that it is a grand coalition comprising the centre-right CDU/CSU parties and the left-wing SPD. The former are more favourable to extending the use of coal, while the latter is against.

The SPD's energy spokeswoman Nina Scheer warns that relaxing the rules for coal would be "counterproductive for the energy transition and mean new fossil lock-in effects".

By contrast, the deputy leader of the CDU, and Minister-President of the German region of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, says: "Germany, as a major industrial nation, must do everything in its power to ensure that energy remains affordable."

He adds: "The energy transition must be completely recalculated. It should not be a matter of cost, but rather a matter of realistically considering security of supply and affordability."

The government must decide this year whether the 2030 deadline for lignite phase-out must be respected, or whether some capacity may be maintained for a limited period as a strategic reserve.

And in August, the government will publish a statutory review of the coal phase-out which will include the impact it is having on energy supply, security and prices. The original purpose was to see if the Kohleausstieg could be accelerated. It is now quite possible that it will be used to slow it down.

The abundant but expensive energy source that's under your feet

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj3gj1n8yz8o, 2 days ago

It's hard to get Democrat and Republican politicians to agree on much at the moment, but the benefits of geothermal energy is one rare area of consensus.

Geothermal energy makes use of natural heat below the Earth's surface and the next generation of technology can access hotter, deeper and more varied locations than ever before.

Broadly, the low greenhouse gas emissions of geothermal plants appeals to liberals, while conservatives like the additional energy independence of geothermal, plus the use of drilling technology familiar in the oil and gas industry.

Some US states are trying to accelerate permits for geothermal plants and in April senators from both parties introduced the Next-Generation Geothermal Research and Development Act.

The legislation would direct the Department of Energy to support the development and commercialisation of the next generation of geothermal energy systems.

One emerging type is known as enhanced geothermal systems (EGS).

In EGS, underground rock is fractured hydraulically. That's done by pumping pressurised fluid into one well, and then collecting steam or hot water from another well.

Better known as fracking, this technique has become well known and controversial (particularly in the UK) in the oil and gas industry.

"It's the same techniques and up to a point it's the same industry as well," sums up Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School in New York. But "from a climate perspective, there's a huge difference," he adds.

For him, the risk of seismic activity, by creating cracks underground, is outweighed by the benefits of an energy source that is renewable, always-on and large-capacity.

"Based on where we are, moving much faster, much bigger in the direction of using much more geothermal, frankly, is all good news," Wagner says.

To go faster and deeper will require advances in drilling technologies.

Companies are developing drilling equipment that is more stable when breaking through hard rock at high temperatures.

Some firms are even aiming to penetrate rock without using standard drills.

Quaise, a company with roots at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is using a technology called millimetre wave drilling. The frequency is similar to that of microwaves.

Quaise's application involves "sending electromagnetic waves in the microwave millimetre wave spectrum to essentially melt and vaporise through the rock," explains Harry Kelso, Quaise's communications manager.

Traditional geothermal energy clusters around hotspots on the earth's surface where very hot rocks can be easily accessed.

"Millimetre wave drilling really enables you to access super-hot geothermal just about anywhere in the world," says Kelso.

While Quaise is planning to use some conventional drilling at the project site it's developing in Oregon, Kelso says that conventional drills start to break down more quickly when it reaches very hard rock.

Replacing drill bits increases the cost and time of drilling.

In Quaise's case, Kelso says, "millimetre wave drilling is really what changes that because we're not using a physical drill bit."

Other companies are also working on advanced drilling technology, such as projectiles that move several times faster than the speed of sound.

Another crucial resource in the process is water. While some types of next-generation geothermal could create risks of water contamination or overconsumption, careful design can avoid this problem.

Initially Quaise's system requires a lot of water, but according to Kelso, once the water is in the system it is continually circulated over the super-hot rocks.

"We're essentially just recycling the water over and over," he says.

Quaise is continuing to raise funds, with the aim of its Oregon project being up and running by 2030.

Like other early versions of geothermal systems, it's an expensive project to get up and running.

"The economics are somewhat challenging," Kelso admits. "Geothermal today is still more expensive because you are not getting as much power out of the well as you would if you were using that well for fossil fuel."

But Quaise hopes that by targeting very high temperatures, of between 300C and 500C, the economics will improve.

While the higher end of that temperature range is ambitious, it's a case of the-hotter-the-better.

"It allows you to get 10 times more energy per well from geothermal, which changes the economics and the power potential of geothermal," according to Kelso.

In May, the Texas company Fervo Energy generated huge interest by becoming the first next-generation geothermal company to become publicly traded. It was initially valued at around $7.7bn.

At the time of writing, shares are up around 18% from their IPO price.

Fervo quotes a construction cost for its Utah plant of $7,000 per kilowatt of electricity, which it says is comparable to traditional nuclear power.

And while that's expensive, Fervo points out that, like other renewable energy sources, it does not have any ongoing costs for fuel.

"Over time, our goal is to achieve scale and drive down prices such that we're able to outcompete gas," the company said in its IPO filing.

Fervo has one high-profile customer - in 2021 it signed a deal sell its energy to Google, which needs vast amounts of electricity of its new datacentres.

It also has backing from Breakthrough Energy, a venture by Microsoft founder Bill Gates to accelerate innovative electricity production.

Such investment is badly needed for next-gen geothermal firms, which have enormous capital costs. Datacentre projects alone won't be enough to move the needle, according to the International Energy Agency.

Both customer demand and costs remain uncertain. The climate solutions organisation Project Drawdown notes that "early projects carry a significant risk of cost overruns".

Nevertheless Columbia researcher Wagner believes geothermal has tremendous potential and is not just hype.

He emphasises that commodities like oil, gas and coal are vulnerable to political disruption, but "geothermal is a technology" and more secure.

Wagner is confident that geothermal energy has now achieved liftoff, and will only get better and cheaper over time.

Correction 26 June: This article was updated to clarify that the $7,000 per kilowatt of electricity figure was related to construction costs and not energy production.

What's happening to petrol prices now oil is back to pre-Iran war levels?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20zgjzz0e4o, yesterday

Motorists in the UK are already seeing cheaper fuel prices after the US and Iran struck an agreement to end their war, with further falls expected in the coming weeks.

When the conflict began on 28 February, fuel costs jumped as the war significantly disrupted the production and transportation of energy across the Middle East.

However, in recent weeks they have dropped and the framework deal reached between the US and Iran has sent them to their lowest point since the first days of the war in early March.

Motoring group the AA has said it expects pump prices to fall further and "the timing is perfect for the start of the summer holidays". Meanwhile rival group the RAC has said price reductions "should be faster and greater, particularly for diesel".

How do wholesale oil prices affect the cost of petrol and diesel at the pump?

Crude oil is a key ingredient in petrol and diesel, which means that higher wholesale costs make filling up a car more expensive.

Analysts say every $10 (£7.53) increase in the oil price pushes up pump prices by roughly 7p a litre.

Since the war began, the price of a barrel of Brent crude – the global benchmark for wholesale oil prices – has been very volatile.

Before the conflict, Brent was about $70 a barrel, but the conflict saw it peak at above $120.

The price has been slipping in recent weeks and after the framework deal was signed it fell to around $76 a barrel. It has continued to drop and at one point fell below $72.48 (£55) a barrel, the price it was at the day before the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on 28 February.

What has happened to petrol prices in the UK?

According to the RAC, the price of petrol reached an Iran war peak of 159.53p a litre on 28 May, while diesel's highest price during the conflict was 191.54p a litre on 15 April.

Since 28 May, the price of petrol has come down. The RAC said that on Friday, 26 June show the average price of petrol had fallen 2p in a week to 151.98p and diesel by 4p to 168.64p.

The RAC says it now costs £83.59 to fill up a 55-litre family car with petrol and £92.75 for diesel, However, this is still £10.50 and £14.40 respectively more than it did at the end of February before the conflict began.

The RAC's head of policy, Simon Williams, said: "Fuel prices are falling steadily in reaction to the drop in the price of oil and wholesale petrol and diesel costs which is good news for drivers who've had a torrid time at the pumps this year.

"But our analysis of wholesale data shows the reduction should be faster and greater, particularly for diesel. Drivers really ought to see average prices of below 150p for unleaded and below 160p for diesel in the next week or so."

Despite the conflict, petrol and diesel prices remained below the levels reached in the summer of 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, when petrol reached 191.5p a litre and diesel hit 199p.

Because transporting oil is a slow process, price movements in the wholesale markets take about a fortnight to show at the pump.

Fuel retailers have denied accusations of price gouging during the conflict. The official markets regulator said it had "not seen evidence of retailers actively changing their pricing strategies to take advantage of the crisis".

A government scheme called Fuel Finder lets drivers compare the cost of fuel offered by petrol stations across the UK.

Luke Bosdet, the head of policy at the AA, said the group had been surprised at the speed that prices had fallen and put it down to the scheme.

On 20 May Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said a planned 5p increase in fuel duty due in September would be postponed until 31 December because of the conflict.

Why has the Iran war had a big impact on oil prices?

The Middle East conflict sent global oil prices soaring as it effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz - one of the world's key water transport routes for oil, liquid natural gas and other essential commodities - limiting global supplies.

About 20% of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes through the waterway.

Despite the deal between the US and Iran, experts warn a return to normal levels of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz will take time, and the impact of the war will continue to affect the global economy for potentially months to come.

Where does the UK get its oil and gas?

The UK is heavily reliant on oil and gas imports, with the majority coming from the US and Norway.

The price of oil on the global market determines how much the UK pays for it.

Although the UK does get some oil from the North Sea, most of that is exported for refining elsewhere.

You can also send us your questions by following this link

Who could be the UK's next chancellor?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c36yj4pn7jdo, 2 days ago

With Sir Keir Starmer resigning, Andy Burnham, the newly elected Makerfield MP, is almost certain to be the next UK prime minister.

And it is expected he will want a new chancellor to replace the current occupant of Number 11 Downing Street, Rachel Reeves.

That person will face quite the in-tray – high debt, low growth, welfare reform, defence spending, and the economic fallout from the US-Israel war with Iran to name a few issues.

Here are the names of those believed to be in the running for the job and what they could mean for your finances.

Ed Miliband

Miliband is now the bookmakers' strong favourite for the number two job in British politics, with the former Labour party leader politically closer to Burnham than other rivals.

Paul Johnson, former director of think-tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies, sees this closeness as a positive.

"You really don't want people in Number 10 and Number 11 having very different views," he says.

However, opinions differ on whether former Treasury adviser Miliband would receive the backing of the financial markets, which the government depends on to lend money.

Nick Macpherson, the former permanent secretary at the Treasury, told the Financial Times: "The key to gaining the confidence of the markets is to articulate, implement and deliver a coherent strategy.

"Miliband is one of the few cabinet members with the intellect, experience, and authority to do that."

Yet, others see Miliband as an inflation risk, believing his drive for net zero as energy secretary as partly responsible for the UK's high energy prices compared to other countries.

Analysts say that reputation, whether accurate or not, could affect how bond markets react to his time as chancellor.

Lord Richard Walker, the boss of Iceland and the government's cost-of-living tsar, has warned Miliband would be "a disaster" in the role.

He said Miliband had been "far too ideological" about tackling climate change, and that his policies were "putting unfair pressure on households... in a very regressive way".

The head of the Unite union, Sharon Graham says Miliband as chancellor would be a "noose around the neck" of job creation because of his opposition to new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.

However, the TSSA union backs Miliband, with the Labour-affiliated rail union saying he would be willing to take a "different approach" to "delivering an economy that works for everyone".

Wes Streeting

Wes Streeting, a former contender for the Labour leadership, was the early favourite for chancellor, with suggestions that he could be awarded the job for coming out and backing Burnham and withdrawing his own ambitions.

However, economist and cross-bench peer Lord Jim O'Neill, who has been providing advice to Burnham, has warned against this approach.

While not naming any specific person, he told the BBC: "There are clearly some people pushing to be chancellor who feel they are owed it for their support."

Lord O'Neill says the advice he has given Burnham is to "figure out what his priorities are as prime minister before he picks a chancellor".

Though Burnham may appreciate Streeting's backing, the pair's politics differ - with Burnham seen to be inclined to spend more than Streeting.

Simon French, chief economist at consultancy Panmure Liberum, says Streeting is a "relatively market-friendly option" because of his pro-growth comments, but also a political risk because he might someday want to be prime minister.

As for the idea that Streeting could get the job because of his support rather than his abilities, French said: "Politics is what politics is. It's a popularity contest."

Pat McFadden

Though seen as a less likely option than Streeting or Miliband, some view Pat McFadden as the most qualified pick, having held shadow Treasury jobs, been a business minister in a previous Labour government, and also being the current work and pensions secretary.

It is his experience in the latter role that could help him to tackle what many say will be any future chancellor's biggest task: welfare reform.

Panmure Liberum's French believes the markets may view McFadden as "the safest pair of hands" out of those in the running and will either react positively or neutrally if he were picked.

But if Burnham is looking for a clean break from the previous government, he will likely overlook the Sir Keir-loyalist.

Yvette Cooper

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper could be a surprise compromise pick.

She has years of experience in government, serving as chief secretary to the Treasury under Gordon Brown, and sits somewhere in between Miliband and McFadden or Streeting politically.

Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at financial services firm AJ Bell, calls her a "middle of the road" option but also "a bit more of an unknown".

Rachel Reeves

It's looking increasingly unlikely that the current Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will keep her job.

A spokesperson for Burnham said no decisions had been made about who he would appoint, but reports suggest Reeves would be replaced and offered a junior or mid-level cabinet position.

Reeves has urged a Burnham-led government to stick to what she is doing because it is "beginning to bear fruit". Burnham has said previously he would stick to Reeves' fiscal rules.

She defended her handling of the UK economy in an interview with the BBC, in which she backed the former Manchester mayor, despite the reports of her potential demotion. She opted to welcome him to parliament in a photoshoot with other MPs and was notably absent from Sir Keir's resignation speech.

Reeves told the British Chambers of Commerce conference she was proud of her record so far but there was "more to do".

And the rest

Then there are the longlist of wildcards.

One of those is current Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who is reported to be financially conservative but has limited economic experience.

Former defence secretary John Healey, who very publicly quit because he did not believe the government was spending enough on defence, is another option.

However, Paul Johnson says Burnham would essentially be committing to meeting that spending demand if he chose him.

"If I was Andy Burnham, I would not want to tie myself to that particular pillar that quickly," he said.

Bookmakers and reports also mention chief secretary to the prime minister Darren Jones, who ruled himself out of the running for the leadership, and former chief executive of the Resolution Foundation Torsten Bell as outsiders.

While some politicians are more likely to be hired than others, each one will want the job.

As Lord O'Neil puts it: "The ones whose names are in the papers are the ones who are putting themselves forward."

Asia stock markets slide as tech shares slump

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8jz40k00ro, 2 days ago

Asian stock markets fell sharply on Friday, led by a sell-off in technology firms as investors worried that recent jumps in share prices had gone too far.

Trading on South Korea's Kospi was temporarily halted as an 8% fall in the benchmark index triggered a mechanism intended to curb panic selling. The index closed 5.8% lower.

It comes after shares in Apple fell sharply on Thursday after it announced it would raise the prices of its iPads and MacBooks due to the soaring cost of computer chips.

Some investors are also concerned about the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent this year by big tech firms to build artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.

Traders are reassessing the valuations of tech stocks, while some are taking profits after a rally in recent months, said senior partner David Makaryan from the Alpha Pacific Group, an investment firm.

"The long term investment case for AI remains compelling, but investors are becoming far more selective about which companies can justify the valuations the market has assigned to them," Makaryan said.

Elsewhere in Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 closed more than 4% lower as shares in technology investment giant SoftBank fell by 12.5%.

Other major indexes in the region, including in Taiwan and mainland China, were also sharply lower.

Share trading in South Korea has been particularly volatile in recent months.

Friday's 20-minute halt on the Kospi marked the third time the so-called circuit breaker has been triggered this week and the fifth such event this year.

On Thursday in the US, Apple shares dropped by 6% - its biggest one-day fall in more than a year.

Microsoft shares also fell after it announced higher prices for its Xbox gaming consoles, citing higher costs of components.

The moves have raised concerns that rising component prices could hit sales of devices, which in turn may slow demand for computer chips.

The high cost of commercialising AI tools is gradually being passed on to consumers, said analyst Raymond Woo from Kyoto University Innovation Capital.

That "naturally raises questions" about how quickly demand for such tools will match the investment into AI, and whether the valuations of tech stocks today are realistic, Woo said.

Power banks and vapes now biggest fire risk on planes

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly716qd146o, 3 days ago

Flight passengers are being warned not to pack power banks or vapes in their hold luggage ahead of the busy summer holiday travel period beginning for parts of the UK.

The fire risk posed by lithium batteries is now the number one safety risk to aircraft, according to the aviation regulator, as the number of devices found in hold bags has nearly doubled in a year.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says the average person now takes four different lithium powered devices on a flight.

Ahead of the school summer holidays, which begin in Scotland first this week, people are being reminded to take devices in the cabin with them.

The batteries can store huge amounts of energy in a small space, and are now commonly used in lots of electrical items including laptops, vapes, power banks, mobile phones and smart watches.

They're incredibly useful and versatile. But if the batteries overheat or are defective, a fire can result which spreads very quickly and is hard to control.

In 2024, 316 incidents of devices with lithium batteries detected in hold bags were reported to UK authorities. In 2025, that rose to 643.

Reports of devices overheating or malfunctioning also nearly doubled the same year, from 123 to 206.

Most of these issues occurred in the cabin where crew could deal with the situation, but the concern is that if this happens in the hold, the problem may not be discovered until it's too late to control it.

The CAA says around two lithium battery incidents are now occurring each week.

Apart from the risk of fire, having to remove bags from the hold can cause delays.

Planes can even be diverted. Last month an EasyJet flight had to divert to Rome because it emerged a power bank had been packed in the hold.

In October, video was widely shared of flames belching from the overhead storage compartment of an Air China flight, reportedly caused by a lithium battery.

'Growing challenge'

The CAA believes many passengers still aren't aware of the rules.

Passengers are being reminded:

* To take items like mobile phones, vapes and power banks on board in the cabin.

* Only two power banks per person are allowed on a flight, and they can never be charged onboard.

* To turn off laptops completely if they're going to be put in check in bags.

Tim Alderslade, Chief Executive of Airlines UK, says the risk of lithium battery incidents was a "growing challenge" as the number of electronic devices people use increases.

"Whilst pilots and cabin crew are trained to deal with any situation the best outcome is always prevention, which starts when passengers pack their bags," he says.

Giuseppe Capanna, a product safety engineer at the campaigning charity Electrical Safety First, said lithium batteries carry enormous amounts of energy, which is handy for recharging devices.

However, it also means that when things go wrong, they can cause "ferocious" fires which are difficult to put out.

"When these products are packed in your baggage, there is no access to them. So if something goes wrong, they can cause a really devastating fire that can have real dangerous consequences," he said.

While most devices with these batteries are safe, Capanna said it was "substandard versions" bought through third-party sellers that usually caused these problems.

"It is really important that we make sure that we only bring safe, tested products with us on holiday," he added.

Additional reporting from Danielle Codd

I'm back at home again after uni - here's how I'm making it work

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg53q6dl0plo, 3 days ago

When 24-year-old Natasha Suman moved back into her parents' home in Bedford after university, she only expected it to be for a "few months" while she searched for her first job. But almost three years later, she's still there, saving for a deposit on her first home.

The marketing coordinator pays towards bills but doesn't pay rent, so is able to put aside £1,000 a month into savings.

That would have been impossible had she lived by herself, she says, given the "cost of living".

However, Natasha admits she has "less freedom" than when she lived independently and generally does fewer "spontaneous things".

She also argues more with her family than she used to, despite feeling very fortunate to live with them.

"When I left home [for university], I was a very different person, and by the time I came back, I had essentially become an adult," she says.

"Because of that, there have definitely been some clashes between me and my parents."

'It's been an adjustment for all of us'

The proportion of people in their 20s and 30s living with their parents has increased sharply over the last three decades, as rising house prices and rents have forced many to move back in to save for their first home.

But while it can be a practical way to save money or deal with the loss of a job or a relationship breakdown, it often comes with frustrations, such as feeling like you've lost your independence or even regressed to childhood.

For Natasha and her parents, Rita and Pawan, flashpoints have included shared use of the family car after her own vehicle broke down, disagreements over how chores are divided, and how much time to spend together - with her parents wanting to see more of her.

"It has been an adjustment for all of us.

"A lot of these disagreements stem from the fact that we are now four adults living together, all with our own routines, expectations and opinions."

Problems have been avoided by having conversations early on, she says.

Her parents set "clear expectations" such as cleaning up after herself and making her own lunch.

The family has also discussed privacy, with Natasha asking her parents to knock before coming into her room.

"I tend to spend more time in my room to relax and unwind than I did before. Initially, my parents did not really understand this, but after talking about it, they have become more understanding."

Loss of privacy is one of the most common issues adult children face when they live with their parents, says Dr Fenia Christodoulidi, head of training and consultancy at counselling service Relate.

Disagreements about overnight stays, guests, noise levels and use of shared spaces are all common problems, she says.

Some parents also comment on their adult child's lifestyle or relationships, which can make them feel "scrutinised or controlled".

Christodoulidi says things tend to work best when both sides recognise "they are no longer in a parent-child relationship alone, but also 'adult housemates' sharing a home.

"The biggest challenge is often not money, but role confusion. Parents can slip back into parenting, while adult children can unconsciously revert to acting immature."

'Parents can slip back into parenting'

Caroline Bentham, 37, who has lived with her mother Mary in Yorkshire for nearly seven years, got in touch with BBC Your Voice. She says the experience has been really positive - although she "never imagined this would be me in my 30s".

She split from her partner in 2019 and was only supposed to live with her mum for six to 12 months while she started her PhD. But then the pandemic hit, along with various other life events, and she says it "kept making sense" to stay.

The transition to living together again was a "real challenge" at first, she says, as her mum struggled to give up control in areas like the kitchen. They also had "lots of arguments" as they worked out "how to be around each other".

"It might sound cliché but we had to learn a new way of communicating," she says.

One of the biggest benefits of living with her mother is the emotional support they give each other, Caroline says. But she admits the arrangement is sometimes not great for her self-esteem and there is "definitely a stigma about living with parents".

Tips for adults who live with their parents

* Agree practical expectations around finances, chores, visitors, quiet times and shared spaces

* Recognise that living at home does not mean reverting to dependence and contribute where you can, financially and/or in terms of housework

* Don't assume old family roles still apply: what worked when you were 16 is unlikely to work when you are 36

Source: Relate

Christodoulidi says one of the overlooked advantages of living as an adult with a parent is the chance to know each other differently.

"Parents often begin to see their child as another adult, while adult children gain a fuller understanding of their parents as people rather than simply as parents."

She also says society needs to ditch the stereotype that adult children who still live at home have "failed to launch".

Natasha says it helps to remind herself that living with her family is a "temporary" situation that will "lead to a better outcome in the future".

The extra time she gets to spend with her parents is a "blessing", she adds.

"One day I'll move out, get married and have my own family, and I won't have as much time with them," she says.

Oil price falls back to pre-Iran war levels

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0jy7d7wzv4o, 3 days ago

The price of oil has fallen to levels not seen since before the Iran war as traffic through the key Strait of Hormuz shipping route gradually resumes.

Global benchmark Brent crude briefly fell below $72.48 (£55) a barrel, the price it was at the day before the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on 28 February, before edging up to $73.23.

Energy prices have been on a wild ride since Iran responded to the strikes by effectively closing the strait, a critical waterway for oil and gas shipments.

The cost of crude has been moving sharply lower since the US and Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on 17 June which set out a 60-day period for negotiations on Tehran's nuclear programme and other measures to end the war.

However, Pratibha Thaker, regional director of Middle East and Africa at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said though oil prices have fallen back to pre-conflict levels, risks still remain.

"Markets are still watching the region closely, and any renewed tensions could quickly send oil higher again," she said.

More ships crossing the strait

Representatives from the two sides met in Switzerland last weekend for talks to end the war, which resulted in the US partially lifting sanctions on Iranian oil exports.

The number of vessels crossing the Strait of Hormuz has risen significantly since the MOU was signed, according to maritime intelligence firm Kpler.

Its latest data suggests 284 vessels have made the transit from 18 June, the day after the deal was signed, although that is is still well below the pre-conflict average of some 138 crossings each day.

The ships passing through the waterway in recent days include those carrying crude oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG), fertiliser and other goods, Kpler told the BBC.

The US and Iran had also formed a "communication line" to prevent misunderstandings "with the aim of safe passage for commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz", mediators Qatar and Pakistan said in a joint statement on Monday.

There has been a "tremendous shift" with far more ships using the strait in recent days, said Dimitris Maniatis, the chief executive of Marisks, a maritime risk advisory firm working with ships stuck in the region.

A limited number of ships can cross a northern passageway with the permission of Iranian authorities, he said.

The US navy has also provided guidance for vessels to travel through a southern route that is safe from mines and other obstacles that has been laid out since the war, Maniatis said.

But the number of ships crossing the strait is still below levels seen before the war, when it was used by more than 100 ships a day.

Hundreds of ships still appear to be waiting in the Gulf.

Fuel prices at the pump rose sharply when the Iran war began, and now the focus is on how quickly they will fall.

"On the back of the lowest oil price since before the Iran war started, drivers should see the average price of petrol fall below 150p [a litre] in the next week or so," said Simon Williams, head of policy at UK motoring group the RAC. He added the price of diesel "ought to go back under 160p.

Petrol peaked at 159.53p a litre on 28 May, according to the RAC, while diesel has fallen from a high of 191.54p on 15 April.

The average price of regular gasoline in the US has dropped to around $3.93 a gallon after reaching $4 a gallon in April, its highest since 2022, but is still well above pre-war levels.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered an investigation into major energy companies, accusing Shell, ExxonMobil and other firms of "gouging" drivers by not reducing fuel prices even as oil costs fell.

"Oil prices have come down so much and we are not seeing anything at the pump by comparison the way they should be," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil and gas industry in the US, said fuel prices "don't move in lockstep with crude oil".

British energy firms have faced similar accusations of unfairly hiking petrol prices since the Iran war.

The UK competition watchdog said last month that there was no widespread evidence of this, adding that average profit margins were "broadly unchanged" between February and March.

Why the tech industry wants to take away your screen

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260624-why-tech-companies-want-to-take-away-your-screen, 4 days ago

Some tech leaders have a vision for a world where you spend a lot less time looking at your phone. Is it the solution to screen time, or just a new dystopia?

If you've ever wanted your ears to have eyes, then I've got great news. It seems Apple is gearing up to release AirPods with cameras in them as soon as next year.

Apparently, these cameras aren't for taking pictures. According to Bloomberg, they'll feed information about your surroundings to its virtual assistant Siri, unlocking a whole set of new possibilities for how you might interact with your devices without looking at them.

Apple hasn't confirmed or denied the news, but the Bloomberg report comes from a journalist with a stellar reputation for leaking the company's secrets. And it's part of a broader trend.

For the past 60 years or so, screens have been the predominant way we have interacted with computers. Now it's possible they could fade further into the background.

Together with smart glasses and other wearable products like AI pendants you hang around your neck, some of the biggest tech companies are building a suite of devices that could let you spend far less time with screens. If this vision comes to pass, it might revolutionise the way we interact with computers.

This may or may not be a rosy picture. It would usher in either a softer and more humane relationship with the technology we use every day, or a future where tech invades even more of our lives.

But before we get there, you and millions of others will answer a more fundamental question: does anybody actually want this?

A farewell to screens?

Last week, Snap, the company behind Snapchat, unveiled a new pair of AI-powered smart glasses called Specs. They come with a spectacular price tag: £1,995 in the UK and $2,195 in the US.

And the biggest news about Specs was a TV appearance where the glasses seemed to be crushing chief executive Evan Spiegel's ears in a way that looked decidedly uncomfortable. (He later said his ears just look like that.) The Specs are significantly larger and heavier than most competing smart glasses – though a spokesperson tells the BBC they're comfortable enough to be worn for hours.

But Specs may have unprecedented features. Most importantly, the company says you can use them independently of other devices. Smart glasses usually need to be paired with your phone.

"For decades, computers have asked us to look down, sit still or step out of the moment," said Spiegel in a press release. "Specs are the beginning of a new era in computing."

To be clear, the specs have a display in the lenses, as do some models of Meta's smart glasses, but they're not designed to replace your field of vision or even be a constant presence. Instead, the glasses will temporarily overlay a display on top of the world as you see it through your glasses.

There may not be a large group of people with the wallet and ear strength to bear a product like this. But for those who fit this unusual demographic, Specs offer something that really is new.

The market for smart glasses and other computers you wear on your body, meanwhile, is booming. Meta's smart glasses are the most popular with a reported seven million pairs sold, and just this week the company just announced a new line of cheaper models. However, these devices raise serious privacy concerns.

Smart glasses are controversial, to say the least. There's an entire genre of people on the internet who make money using the Meta smart glasses' built-in camera to harass strangers and surreptitiously record them. It can often be difficult to tell whether they're filming. (Meta and Snap's glasses have a little light that turns on that's supposed to alert people. Many argue this isn't enough.)

I talked to CNBC reporter Brandy Zadrozny on The Interface, the podcast I host for the BBC, about the privacy concerns.

"I was on my morning run and I asked a parks department worker when the water fountains were turning on, and he had the Meta glasses on," said Zadrozny. "Even for me, a tech reporter, it was so jarring. There's going to be so much backlash."

But Meta is reportedly considering audio-only smart glasses that don't use cameras. And if anyone can navigate this privacy minefield, it might be Apple. Privacy is core to Apple's marketing. And it's easy to imagine how its rumoured new product could skate around the privacy concerns.

Assuming the reporting is correct, the AirPods cameras won't let you take pictures or video like a regular camera. And Apple could – theoretically – process all of the camera's visual information on your on your phone without sending it to the cloud or saving it afterward.

So if we set the privacy concerns aside for a moment (and to be clear I'm not saying we should) what might this new world look like?

I see two ways to look at it. One is positive. Cameras in your AirPods could let you interact with all kinds of information about your physical environment without ever touching or looking at a screen.

You could ask questions about things you're looking at, open your fridge and get recipe ideas based on the ingredients you have without typing them in, or get navigational directions based on what's in your field of vision. And it would unlock new, far less intrusive ways to control devices, like hand gestures.

Maybe you don't want to do any of that stuff, but think of it this way. Right now, there's an extremely limited number of computing tasks you can accomplish without staring at a big glass rectangle.

Don't throw away your phone just yet

"Apple would not embed technology like this unless they had very credible use cases in mind," says Ben Wood, chief analyst at the tech industry market research firm FDM CSS Insight, and a noted expert on wearable tech. "It's almost limited by our imagination – what people will be able to do with these devices."

This surrounds what I think is one of the more interesting promises about AI. At its most successful, AI would let us talk to computers the way you would talk to a person who can operate your device on your behalf.

More like this:

• The unsettling world of the 'TikTok Farlands'

• The spy in your driveway: How cars sell your data

• Wired headphone sales are booming. What's with the Bluetooth backlash?

And Apple is already launching a revamped, AI version of Siri which takes baby steps in that direction.

It all means you could move through the world, doing things with your devices, without taking your eyes off what is around you. In an era where screen time continues to be a persistent worry for some, this could be a very welcome change.

But here's a potentially grimmer vision of what may come. The tech industry is heavily invested in screens. Apple, for example, is a company that makes almost all its money selling products with screens on them.

If screenless devices go mainstream, there it could just be another way to get us to interact with technology more often. We'll could start at screens just as much as we do now, and then have new screen-free technology for those moments when need your eyes for something else, like when you’re walking around.

"I'm a firm believer that the smartphone is going absolutely nowhere, it's part of the fabric of society," says Wood. "But I think there is a desire, by the tech industry and by some users, to lift our heads."

For more insights, sign up to our Tech Decoded newsletter, where Thomas and Lily Jamali break down the biggest stories of the tech world, and help you live a better digital life. Sign up for free here.

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The unsettling world of the 'TikTok Farlands'

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260618-the-terrifying-world-of-the-tiktok-farlands, 9 days ago

There's a hidden corner of TikTok the algorithm won't show you, full of weird, creepy and downright disturbing videos. It could all be a myth – or it may be a preview of the internet's future.

TikTok has a reputation for serving up an endless stream of videos that are, in general, fairly positive. Some detractors even call it sanitised. But beneath the surface are billions of videos TikTok normally won't show you. Some are boring. Some are bizarre. Some of them are truly unsettling.

Rumour has it if you stay up too late, scrolling for hours until you exhaust TikTok's normal recommendations, you might get a momentary glimpse. But users of the platform say they've found a way to go deeper.

With the right tricks, you can reach this uncanny digital space, that's weirder, darker and more grotesque than the happy path the algorithm typically steers you along. It's known as the "TikTok Farlands".

The best way to reach it, apparently, is to plug in a string of random numbers and letters that another user has posted in the comments of a video.

"You can't get there through algorithmic recommendation alone – you need a human to invite you in," says Aidan Walker, an internet culture reporter and meme researcher, in a post on the subject.

Conversations about TikTok's Farlands erupted over the last few months, blending conspiracy theories and urban legends with earnest discussion about the power of social media companies.

Users have figured out ways to hijack the TikTok algorithm to make it surface videos they believe the app doesn't want you to see. It is a social movement as well as a meme trend. People are pushing up against the walls of the machine.

And in a world of AI slop and mindless scrolling, it's left me more optimistic about the future of the internet than I've felt in a long time.

Down the rabbit hole

The name "Farlands" comes from a famous, ancient glitch in the game Minecraft. In early versions of the game, if you walked far enough, it caused an error that generated distorted and chaotic landscapes full of tunnels and weird structures.

"The Minecraft Farlands were the edge of the game. You would literally reach the end of the world, and you could not go further," says Jessica Maddox, an associate professor of media studies at the University of Georgia in the US, who focuses on social media.

The TikTok Farlands are the same idea. "It's the end of the internet where things get weird. You've left the mainstream and taken a wrong turn."

With the help of comments left under Walker's video post, I was able to follow some random strings of characters into the void. I plugged a code into the search bar, and what I found was nothing like my usual experience on TikTok.

Nightmarish, AI-generated figures paraded across the screen. Faces contorted in a haze of pixelated distortion. Some kind of alien creature with his veins plugged into the wires of a TV screamed in agony, as a teenager looked on with a videogame controller.

A lot of it was too disturbing for the BBC to link to. (And I'd offer a little caution before you go looking yourself.)

Even the strings of random letters and numbers that people share like passwords to the Farlands are a mystery. Sometimes, users tag their own videos with these codes and share them to promote their work. But I spoke to a few people who swore they found Farlands codes through guesswork by mashing the keyboard.

Some of the codes seem to bring up truly random results. It's hard to parse what's really going on, as TikTok's search function gives different results to different users.

The whole idea is deliberately subverting TikTok for your own purposes, says Walker. "That's part of the thrill. You're using the platform in a way it's not built to be used," he tells me. "You're past the limits of the normal TikTok, out at the frontier where nobody really knows what's going on."

In the comments of these strange videos you'll also see people writing "I WANT TO STAY IN THE FARLANDS" over and over in large blocks. Some travellers seem to believe posting a 500-word-long comment triggers the algorithm to show you similar content. Is that true? Impossible to say. Social media algorithms are a black box.

I contacted TikTok but they didn't respond.

"People are trying to take control back of their feeds and their online experiences," says Maddox. "It speaks to being fed up with algorithmic feeds, and our anxieties about the force they play in our lives, dictating what we see.

"The internet is so overwhelming. In a way, the Farlands represents hope that you've actually found the end and you've reached a place where you could actually stop."

Everything old is new again

The whole "edge of the internet" conversation is a bit of a paradox.

The goal of "entering" the Farlands is uncovering hard-to-find videos. Some are genuinely weird, made by people who don't understand or care about the norms of social media. Other videos are intentionally artistic or edgy.

But some of these supposedly "obscure" Farlands posts have millions of views. And as its popularity has increased, so some users have made new videos to fit the trend. Finding this stuff is easier – just type in "Farlands".

But users say this isn't the real deal. Real Farlands videos have no tags or titles, and "certainly not the Farlands hashtag", one user commented in a popular video.

A true Farlands video, some will tell you, will only have 30 views and be from an account with no followers, reachable only for those determined enough to find it.

The TikTok Farlands are relatively new, but a lot of the ideas, memes, aesthetics and videos themselves are old. Some of it resurfaces tropes from the era of creepypasta, a genre of online ghost stories from the early modern internet.

Many videos share the deep fried meme aesthetic, where images are passed through numerous filters until they're pixelated and washed out – a trend at least as old as 2015. And people discussed the hidden side of TikTok in 2019 and 2020 as users explored "Deeptok".

"It really feels like this hodgepodge of a bunch of different stuff from all over the internet's history," says Walker. "Niche, kind of spooky, kind of bizarre."

Still, there's also something new here. For one, a lot of popular content that people describe as Farlands feels like commentary on technology and social media itself.

Shane Moore, better known as @smoorel8r, makes posts that begin as stereotypical TikTok food reviews, before the image degrades in the style of a corrupted video file, with horror-movie-style scenes that glitch in and out.

Others, such as @realityisoptional.net and Lucas Wilm make videos that look less like social media and more like the video art you find in museums. A number of creators told me they've been making this style of content before anyone started talking about the Farlands.

I asked Walker if covering the Farlands in a mainstream media outlet like the BBC might make the whole thing uncool. "It's already mainstream," he says. "It's a big part of some people's media diets." In other words, the cool kids have probably moved on by now.

But there's feeling in the Farlands discourse that something subversive is going on – especially when people are finding methods to manipulate the algorithms.

"It defies the logic of what should make good content," Maddox says. "TikTok has stuff it likes. Instagram has stuff it likes. The Farlands goes against that."

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Though it's worth remembering that if it all makes you spend more time on TikTok, that's exactly what the company wants.

However you spin it, the Farlands is part of a larger trend. People have been switching to "dumb phones" for years. Analogue cameras and wired headphones have made a comeback. AI backlash has grown so popular the Pope is talking about it. There is, in general, a feeling of tech rebellion rumbling across our society.

Maybe it's just an interesting historical blip. Or it could be a sign of things to come.

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Kunal Shah: The Indian entrepreneur taking charge of WhatsApp

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0my4n38myjo, 5 days ago

Until recently, Kunal Shah was a familiar name mainly within India's startup and investor circles.

The founder of fintech company Cred had steadily built a following beyond the businesses he created. His podcast appearances often ventured into topics such as trust, incentives, wealth creation and human behaviour. His social media posts ranged from artificial intelligence to philosophy.

Now, with Meta appointing him to lead WhatsApp, he has been propelled into the global spotlight.

The appointment follows Meta's $900m (£679m) investment in Cred and comes at a time when WhatsApp is seeking to expand beyond messaging into payments, business services and AI-powered products.

While Indian-origin executives have led some of the world's biggest technology companies, it is less common for a founder who built his career within India's startup ecosystem to be handed control of a global consumer platform of that scale. WhatsApp has more than three billion users worldwide.

Long before Meta came calling, Shah had become a recognisable figure in India's startup ecosystem.

His first major breakthrough came with FreeCharge, a mobile recharge platform he co-founded in 2010 as India's internet economy was beginning to take shape.

The company grew rapidly and was acquired by e-commerce firm Snapdeal in 2015 in what was then one of the largest startup acquisitions in the country.

But Shah's reputation would eventually expand beyond the companies he built.

After leaving FreeCharge, he spent several years investing in young technology firms and advising founders.

He also worked as an adviser with startup accelerator Y Combinator and Sequoia Capital - roles through which he became closely involved with a generation of founders, especially in the technology sector, as India's startup ecosystem expanded rapidly.

Raised in Mumbai, Shah studied philosophy in college and did not follow the path taken by many of India's best-known technology founders through elite engineering or management institutions.

In a post on X, Indian entrepreneur and investor Sanjeev Bikhchandani once recalled Shah telling him that he chose philosophy largely because the subject's morning class schedule allowed him to continue working full-time after his family's business ran into financial trouble.

In interviews and podcast appearances over the years, Shah has also spoken about taking up odd jobs while studying. Those early experiences, according to him, were followed by the launch of FreeCharge, the company that first brought him national attention.

Founded in 2018, Cred came up with a simple business model centred on rewarding people for paying their credit card bills on time.

In public appearances, Shah has often linked the company's origins to questions of trust and incentives. The company later expanded into lending, insurance, commerce and wealth management products.

Meta's latest investment values Cred at about $4.5bn, above its previous funding-round valuation but below the peak valuation it achieved in 2022, according to a Reuters report.

Cred also became a recognisable fintech brand, especially with its advertising campaigns that often relied on humour, nostalgia and unexpected celebrity appearances.

But its rise also brought scrutiny. For years, the company was admired for its brand and growth but frequently questioned over its path to profitability.

Critics questioned whether investor enthusiasm and lofty valuations were justified by the company's financial performance, while supporters argued that many successful technology businesses had also endured long periods of losses while building scale.

The debate resurfaced last year when a social media post questioned why entrepreneurs were often celebrated despite a lack of sustained profits.

Shah responded by agreeing that profitable businesses deserved recognition but argued that entrepreneurship itself should be encouraged because it creates jobs and involves taking risks.

To his supporters, Shah represents a generation of entrepreneurs who helped shape India's modern internet economy, first through digital payments and later through financial technology.

Shweta Rajpal Kohli, chief executive of the Startup Policy Forum, who has worked with Shah on policy issues for several years, described him as someone with "a rare ability to bring a product lens to regulatory complexity, and a regulatory lens to product design".

"His creativity and problem-solving instinct have been consistently fascinating," she told the BBC.

To critics, he embodies a startup culture that has sometimes prioritised valuations, fundraising and rapid growth over sustainable business models.

The latest appointment also reflects several themes that have run through Shah's career.

WhatsApp is increasingly expanding beyond messaging into payments, commerce and business services - areas where Shah has spent much of the past decade building products, investing and advising companies.

India, which is WhatsApp's largest market, has also been the centre of much of his entrepreneurial career. With this appointment, Shah is set to become the first Indian to lead WhatsApp.

But some observers caution against viewing Shah's appointment solely through the lens of fintech or payments.

"There's a tendency to assume Shah was chosen for this role because of his background in fintech and payments. I think that's too narrow a view," Nikhil Pahwa, the founder and editor of tech news website MediaNama, told the BBC.

"He's someone who has spent years thinking about products, consumer behaviour, incentives and growth. And in his businesses, payments have been a mechanism for consumer acquisition, so that products can be marketed to them. This looks less like a payments appointment and more like Meta choosing a founder with experience in scaling the business side of a consumer business."

Meta has not publicly detailed why it chose Shah for the role. In announcing the appointment, however, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg praised his "builder mentality" and "global perspective".

Those qualities are likely to be tested as WhatsApp seeks to deepen its presence in payments, business tools and AI-powered products while serving billions of users around the world.

The challenge before Shah is also quite different from anything he has faced before.

At Cred, he was building products for financially active users. His audience consisted largely of founders, investors and technology enthusiasts.

At WhatsApp, he will now be responsible for a service used by people far beyond those circles.

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'We had to get out of the way': The backlash over delivery robots

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0rygp005wjo, 11 days ago

The first time Chicago resident Josh Robertson saw a delivery robot trundling down the sidewalk on his street he was impressed.

"I actually thought they were kind of neat – it felt futuristic," he says.

But his attitude started to change when, soon after, he was out for a walk with his family. As another robot approached, they found themselves having to dodge it.

"To us it felt a little off - the fact that we were on the one strip reserved for walking, and we were having to get out of the way," says Robertson. "I started thinking about what it would be like for us to go for a walk as a family if there were dozens of robots with lights and cameras zipping around."

The robots, more formally known as autonomous urban delivery vehicles, have started to appear on pavements in a number of cities across the US, plus in the UK, Japan, South Korea and Germany, transporting groceries and fast food, using cameras, sensors and GPS to navigate.

According to the companies operating them, they can reliably identify and avoid objects in the path, cross streets safely and react to their environment. The robots provide a useful service and help cut down on traffic and emissions, they claim.

However, some local authorities in the US and Canada, and members of the public, are less than enthusiastic. Bans have been put in place, and protests have been launched.

San Francisco has limited the access of the vehicles to less busy parts of the city, and Toronto has since 2021 prohibited the robots from using sidewalks.

Meanwhile, in Chicago the machines have now been banned from two small areas of the city.

Robertson wants the robots to be suspended across all of Chicago until safety tests are carried out, and clear rules are set on their usage. He has launched a petition calling for this, and so far, it has around 4,400 signatures.

People frequently find themselves having to step into the street in order to get out of the machines' way, says Robertson.

"There have been reports of collisions and injuries. I saw one a few days ago where somebody had been struck by one of the robots' safety flags, which is a little ironic," he says. "We've got reports of robots causing issues with traffic, blocking emergency vehicles because they're acting erratically at crosswalks."

Similar concerns have emerged in Glendale, California, where the local council is considering a temporary ban on the use of the vehicles. Councillors say the robots appeared without warning, and at first they didn't even know which company was supplying them.

"What triggered the concern and the discussion was a number of factors," says Coun Ardy Kassakhian. "The increased visibility of the robots in the downtown, and the question about accessibility and pedestrian movement on our public sidewalks.

"Plus, uncertainty regarding the regulatory authority - because no-one asked us for permission to use the sidewalks for this business enterprise - and then the broader concern was about the impact on workers and public places."

Sidewalks in Glendale aren't particularly wide, adds Kassakhian, and he personally has witnessed a "stand-off" between a delivery robot and an elderly person, as well as broken-down robots causing obstructions.

Kassakhian says the council is seeking a regulated approach for the longer term. "We need a regulatory framework, we need to designate operating rules, insurance requirements, accessibility standards, possibly permitting fees, operational limits in high pedestrian areas, and to have accountability for the operators."

In the UK, where delivery robots are being piloted in a number of cities, some locals have taken matters into their own hands. There have been reports of Uber Eats vehicles being vandalised in Sheffield.

The supplier of these machines, Starship Technologies, says they are perfectly safe and that perceptions need to change.

"We know it's a new experience for a lot of people to share a pavement with a robot," says the company's European operations director Danny Pass.

"But the robots are friendly, they're polite and they're programmed to be careful. They've slotted into everyday life in loads of communities since we started out in the UK back in 2018."

Not all concerns, though, are centred around pedestrian safety. The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), whose members include delivery drivers, is worried about the impact on jobs. It says it is keeping a watchful eye, and it has already expressed its concerns to the government.

"I think if it became more of a [permanent, countrywide] reality, we'd definitely have to be thinking about where we put on pressure - whether that's government, TfL [Transport for London], or local authorities - to ensure that these things are banned, because the human impact would be massive," says president Alex Marshall.

"This would mean whole communities in London, where a lot of people are precarious workers, would really suffer. People would be fighting for their lives against these pointless robots."

While the use of autonomous delivery robots is still limited, analysts believe they're set for a major boom. A report last summer from research firm Transforma Insight, indeed, concluded that by 2034, there will be 2.1 million in operation around the world.

Currently, there's a hotchpotch of regulation worldwide. Some countries, such as South Korea and Japan, have taken a liberal approach.

Back in Chicago, Robertson says he is fighting for the best possible outcome for pedestrians city-wide.

"There's a sense that change like this, even when it's unwanted is inevitable. But even if none of us can stop the future, we can at least choose which future we move into."

I tested AI glasses in Paris. Here’s what they got wrong

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260612-i-tested-metas-ai-glasses-in-paris, 14 days ago

Wearable AI can help travellers navigate cities, translate menus and fundamentally transform travel. But a weekend in Paris showed me the trade-offs behind the convenience.

In Paris, I find myself standing beneath the Eiffel Tower having an argument with my glasses about how tall it is.

The first time I ask, the answer comes back as 330m. A few minutes later, I try again. This time, the glasses confidently tell me, through a tiny speaker near my ear, that it is 324m tall. This is not the kind of discussion I had expected to be having during weekend testing Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses as a travel companion.

This small discrepancy in height – the official Eiffel Tower website lists it as 1,083ft, or 330m – throws up some big questions for me. If I can't trust the glasses to tell me the correct answer to something easily verifiable, what can I trust them with?

Why wearable AI is becoming mainstream

Launched in late 2023 by Meta and EssilorLuxottica, the parent company of Ray-Ban, the glasses are part of a fast-growing category of AI wearables that is moving from novelty to mainstream use. More than seven million Meta smart glasses were reportedly sold in 2025, and rival products from companies like Google and Samsung are now in development. Apple is also widely reported to be working on smart glasses of its own.

The promise for travellers is immediately appealing: live translation, help with directions, hands-free photography and quick answers about restaurants, landmarks, menus and whatever else happens to be in front of you. In theory, they combine the functions of a guidebook, translation app, smartphone and audio guide in a single wearable device.

As someone who spends too much time in new places navigating with Google Maps and staring at her phone, I am excited to see whether they make me feel a little less like an awkward lost tourist as I wander around Paris.

But I am also uneasy. Camera-equipped smart glasses have attracted growing criticism for the way they can be used to film and photograph people without their consent. I wonder whether this particular type of travel tech will help me connect more deeply with the city, or mark me out for all the wrong reasons.

A travel guide for your ears

The Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses I packed for my weekend trip to Paris are chunky and black-framed. They look like a standard pair of glasses but I find speaking to thin air a little strange, so I hide my mouth behind my hand, as if I am about to cough, before asking a question.

Unlike augmented-reality headsets, the glasses do not project information across the lenses. Instead, they use cameras, microphones, speakers and voice AI to create a kind of audio-first layer between you and the world around you. Wearers can make phone calls, take photos, record videos, listen to music and podcasts, translate text and speech, ask questions about what they are seeing, set reminders and request recommendations.

I begin by asking the glasses to give me directions as I walk with my travel companion from the Gare du Nord through Le Marais and down to the Seine. They quickly send the route to the maps function on my phone and alert me to open it. I suppose it's technically what I asked for, but it means I have my head down, staring at my phone, instead of looking around and enjoying the city, which is not what I hoped for.

That said, the experience improves dramatically when realise I can set a route on Google Maps and follow voice directions through the glasses, using them as a headset rather than a navigation tool. That works surprisingly well, and it's better than wearing headphones because I can also hear everything around me.

At Place de la Concorde, I ask for a brief history of the square. The glasses tell me that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed here when it was called Place de la Révolution. So far, so good. Later, my travel companion asks me how long it took to build the Louvre. I tell her, via the power of the glasses, that it took more than 800 years.

This becomes one of the device's most useful functions, acting like travel guide for my ears, able to pull up information quickly and efficiently without forcing me to scroll through my phone or flick through a guidebook. Instead of looking like a lost tourist, I can keep walking while satisfying my curiosity.

I try out some other applications on the go. I ask it to convert currencies to give me a ballpark idea of prices, and it is successful. The translation function works well too, when I look at a French newspaper and ask for an English translation. Later in a café, the glasses provide both a verbal summary of the menu and a line-by-line translation. As someone who speaks French, I find myself nodding along.

Useful, but not always trustworthy

But at the Eiffel Tower, things start to unravel. Suddenly I'm questioning everything that has happened so far today.

The issue isn't the size of the mistake so much as the confidence with which it was delivered. When I ask where the information came from, the glasses respond vaguely: "I get my information from my training data, internet searches and other sources." This leaves me wondering how I am supposed to judge which answers are reliable. All sources seem to be treated as equally valid, whether they are accurate or not – a known AI issue in other areas. Still, it handles most of my basic travel-guide-style questions well, and when I later verify the answers, it is correct in all other cases. The technology is useful – provided I have time to check the information that matters.

Some features are less convincing. While I can take photos and videos from my point of view, I can't zoom or focus manually, and unless the glasses sit perfectly level on my face, the results can be slightly crooked. I far prefer the control and options available on a smartphone camera.

The object-recognition feature is similarly mixed. Sometimes it identifies what I am looking at accurately, while other times it just offers vague observations such as "you're looking at a view of a street, maybe in Paris, with tall buildings". Which is true, but not exactly revelatory.

The darker side of travel tech

And then there are the privacy issues. Wired has reported instances of Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses being used to record women without their knowledge or consent, earning the glasses the ugly nickname "pervert glasses". Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet also reported that workers reviewing data from Meta smart glasses had seen intimate and sensitive footage, including people who appeared not to know they were being recorded.

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Meta's own privacy policies state that voice interactions can be stored and processed using machine learning and trained reviewers to improve its products. Its voice privacy notice also says transcripts and stored audio recordings may be kept for up to a year unless users delete them sooner.

Those concerns are serious. But as a traveller, my biggest reservation turns out to be something else. The longer I wear the glasses, the more I feel they undermine one of the things I value most about travel.

In years gone by, if I was lost, I might have asked a stranger for directions or relied on a hotel concierge for recommendations. I might have wandered aimlessly in the city and discovered something through serendipity.

With the glasses, I don't need to ask anyone anything, because the glasses handle it all.

The technology deals with directions, translation, information and recommendations. It reduces issues and increases convenience. But the glasses don't live up to the promise of helping me connect well to the world around me. If anything, they sometimes place another invisible layer between me and the city.

This feels like part of a wider issue in travel technology, where every innovation promises to make travel easier. Yet some of the most memorable moments on a trip happen precisely because things don't go according to plan.

It has me thinking about what I really want. Swapping accidental discoveries and human interaction for convenience feels like too much of a trade-off.

The verdict

I can see the appeal for trips where language, logistics or cultural context are more challenging – for example, an upcoming trip to Japan, where translation and basic travel-guide functions could genuinely improve the experience. But for future trips around Europe, where I already have some familiarity with the language and customs, I'm less convinced they would add enough value for me. They might also make sense for business travel, when time is limited and convenience matters. That said, I would still verify important information, and I remain uneasy about what Meta is doing with my data.

My advice is to stay conscious of how and why you're using them, and what you want to get out of your trip in the first place. As wearable AI becomes increasingly woven into daily life, travellers will need to think carefully about what they want technology to do for them. The glasses excel at making some elements of travel easier. The question is whether easier always means better.

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'Social media contributed to our son's murder'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20yeykv2yxo, today

The parents of a teenager who was murdered by another boy have said they believe social media played a role in his death and have welcome the proposed ban for under-16s.

Joshua Hall was 17 when he was stabbed by a 15-year-old after meeting to "sort out their differences" in relation to alleged comments made about a girl – something his family said may not have happened without online contact.

"Without social media Josh may still be alive today," his father, Michael Hall, from Cam, near Dursley in Gloucestershire, said.

Michael and Kirsty Hall recently spoke of their anger that the killer had been posting on social media from prison.

'We're losing a generation'

Joshua's parents said they are increasingly concerned about the impact social media is having on young people.

"I truly believe social media will become the smoking of our time," Michael Hall said.

"We're losing a generation of kids."

Kirsty Hall said online platforms had made it easier for strangers and acquaintances to contact young people.

"Social media gives everyone access to your child," she said.

"Whether that's TikTok or someone on Snapchat who has an iPhone and wants to meet you in a park."

Joshua‘s parents believe social media can influence behaviour and escalate conflicts in the real world.

They have welcomed proposals to introduce restrictions on social media use for under‑16s.

Other families have raised similar concerns, including Cheltenham mother Ellen Roome, whose son Jools died in what she believes was an online challenge gone wrong.

Experts have said the relationship between social media and violence is complex, but concerns about its impact on young people are growing.

Hannah Swirsky, head of policy and public affairs at the Internet Watch Foundation, said: "The point to really highlight is that we need age appropriate experiences and a safer internet, no single piece of legislation is going to turn the tide.

"It’s clear that there are a number of harms associated with a lack of safeguards on platforms and I would say it’s really important that there are interventions at every stage of the harm pathway.

"It’s right that effort is being put into this, I think it’s a question of 'what are all the different things that need to happen'.”

Swirsky believes that one area that the new legislation fails to tackle is restrictions on messaging platforms.

"We see a lot of incidents of harm going on in end-to-end encrypted environments," she said.

A family still seeking answers

Joshua's parents are now focusing their energy into remembering him through fundraising events.

His mum organises an annual event called Skate4Josh, bringing the community together while promoting education around knife crime.

She said the teenager loved his scooter and it is an opportunity for a family day out whilst also raising awareness around knife crime.

"It's turned into a massive event within the local community, but there's lots of educational pieces that go on there, coupled with really fun family events," she said.

'It's where I find peace'

Michael Hall raises funds for men's bereavement charity Strongmen and has completed a number of mountain climbing challenges over the years.

"It's been a place where I can put my grief, on the top of mountains I speak to Josh, that's where I find peace," he said.

"I feel close to him, I can feel him in the wind.

"Every time I get a little sunshine, I thank him for it, and every time I get a bit of rain I just blame him as well."

This September, to mark Joshua's birthday they are planning to carry the equivalent of his body weight to the top of three mountains - Snowdon, Cadair Idris and Pen Y Fan - in 24 hours .

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Warning as AI clones voices and law falls behind

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7v9py713g4o, 2 days ago

People in the UK could have their voice or face cloned using artificial intelligence without their knowledge and current laws may not be strong enough to stop it, experts have warned.

Rapid advances in AI mean realistic digital copies can now be created from short audio or video clips, raising concerns about identity misuse, scams and loss of control.

Media lawyer Dr Mathilde Pavis, said UK legislation was now "unfit for purpose" because it was written before this technology existed.

"The law comes close, but it doesn't fully protect your voice, your face or your identity," she said.

She added other countries including France, Italy, the Netherlands and Denmark have "effective laws" that protect personality rights.

A Bristol voice-over artist, Faye Dicker, said she was in "disbelief" after discovering her voice had been cloned and sold online without her consent.

Dicker said her voice had been downloaded on US-based AI firm Fish Audio more than 900 times.

She said: "I have no idea who has used my voice, how they have used it and what they have recorded me saying," she said.

Fish Audio said it takes "the protection of recognisable public voices seriously" and removed the content.

Laws struggling to keep up

Dr Pavis said the UK relies on a "patchwork" of laws - including copyright, data protection and trademarks - to protect someone's likeness.

But she said these "come close to protecting your likeness", for example your face, voice and body - but were not designed with AI cloning in mind, leaving gaps.

"Instead they protect films, they protect recordings they protect what classes as personal data when it is used in certain contexts.

"But it doesn't protect your physical and personal likeness," she said.

Trade union Equity says AI cloning is now a major issue.

Representative Shannon Sailing, who looks after voice artists, said the union has submitted claims on behalf of more than 20 members whose voices were allegedly used without permission.

"It's taking up so much of my time," she added. "It's one of the main things I deal with now."

A Fish Audio spokesperson said the company's terms of use prohibit users from uploading material and the creation of voice models without the necessary rights and consent.

"We will continue to work on technical solutions that better support rights," they added.

Calls for stronger protection

A leading global campaigner for digital regulation is Baroness Beeban Kidron OBE, a crossbench member of the House of Lords.

She believes the government is not doing enough to protect creative rights.

Kidron said: "The failure of the current government to strengthen and protect UK copyright, and to swiftly give likeness the same status as other forms of protected IP [intellectual property] is a disaster."

She also accuses the government of "protecting big tech [companies] over UK citizens."

Kidron, a successful film director making movies such as Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, said: "I have been inundated with calls saying US artists are being offered vastly bigger sums than those in the UK for their likeness."

The government said it recognises that digital replicas "can be a powerful tool", but it understands AI can be harmful when someone's likeness is replicated without permission.

"We will launch a consultation to seek views on how we address these harms, while protecting legitimate innovation," a spokesperson for the government said.

'A gap in protection'

Pavis said some European countries have long recognised personality rights as part of protecting identity.

"And they didn't wait for AI or the internet," she added.

Since 1858, French law has treated image rights as part of protecting a person's identity, alongside rights such as privacy and reputation.

Today, French law protects specific personal features like a person's name, image, voice and privacy, rather than giving one broad "personality right".

GDPR is a gap in UK law at the moment which lawyers are "desperately" using against deepfakes and cloning, Pavis added.

"But it's not that effective because it wasn't written with voice cloning or digital cloning in mind," Pavis said.

She said one of the rights that can be effective in cloning is GDPR, because when you make a clone of someone, you have to process their personal data.

"As for Faye they [the individuals that cloned her recording] are still interfering with her digital dignity and personal autonomy and as a voice actress they are actively interfering and competing with her business which is not ok," Pavis said.

Dicker now wants more protection for voice actors in the industry.

"This was so upsetting because the industry is in decline, my income is in decline, and for something like this to happen makes a massive impact," she said.

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Will our peaceful rural life be destroyed by a huge AI data centre?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cddle43jr1go, 2 days ago

Lindsey Charnley and her family moved to peaceful Auchtertool so her children could enjoy a rural childhood.

Her youngest son, Teddy, is nine and has had 27 brain operations in the last four years. Noisy environments cause him debilitating pain.

But their future in the Fife village is uncertain as plans are underway to build one of the world's largest data centres on the other side of their garden fence.

The hubs store, process and run large amounts of data and software which power the internet, and there are 24 currently in the planning process in Scotland.

With a plentiful supply of renewable energy to power them, Scotland is considered an ideal location - but they are controversial in local communities.

The 600MW data centre planned for Auchtertool would span 60 hectares (150 acres) and run round-the-clock to support artificial intelligence (AI).

Developers say it would create 120 jobs in an area which has recently seen large-scale job losses with the closure of Mossmorran chemical works.

They pledged to speak to local people individually in a bid to address their concerns.

Lindsey said her family would have no choice but to move if the plans were to go ahead.

"I can't believe anyone would think it is appropriate to build a data centre the same size as our village on our doorstep," she said.

"There are so many concerns, but for my family it will be the noise and chaos from the construction, my son won't cope with that."

"We are still trying to figure out how best to support his pain so the noise levels are a huge factor for us," Lindsey added.

"If the centre goes ahead we can't stay here. We will have to uproot.

"All his medical staff are nearby and his additional support needs school, it will be a complete disaster for us."

There are currently 15 data centres operating across Scotland - the biggest is in Lanarkshire and has a capacity of 12MW.

But there has been a spike in applications to build hyperscale data centres - which have a power capacity of more than 100MW - since the Scottish government launched an action plan in 2021.

The Cato data centre in Auchtertool is in the early stages of the planning process, with the Scottish government currently considering whether an environmental impact assessment will be needed.

ILI Group, the company behind the proposal, also has plans to build similar hyperscale hubs in North Lanarkshire and Ayrshire.

Michael Hodgson and his partner Jonathan Leitch have lived in Auchtertool for 13 years and are worried about the impact a data centre could have on their holiday rental business.

"It's a quiet log cabin surrounded by trees and nature," Michael said.

"The construction noise and the development would destroy the attraction of staying here and consequently a drop in bookings would hit us greatly."

If the hub gets the go-ahead, it would be built across the road from Michael's home and his Airbnb.

He said that at 35m (114ft) high, it would be "three times the height of my house".

"It is going to be 600MW - just 50MW less than the largest one in Nevada which is 650MW," he added.

"The village will be left in the shadows of the data centre.

"It's huge. It is like having a tower block laid on its side plonked in the middle of the countryside."

Campaign group Action for Protecting Rural Scotland has called for a moratorium on hyperscale data centres.

It wants to see research to properly understand their impact before more applications are approved.

And on Wednesday about 50 people from Edinburgh, Falkirk, Fife, the Borders and beyond gathered outside the Scottish Parliament to protest data centre plans across the country.

The group chanted "say no to data centres" and held up signs that read Say No to Cato Data Centre, Stop Hermiston AI Data Centre, and Save the Lammermuir.

Why are so many data centres planned in Scotland?

The planned data centres would rely on renewable electricity, which is produced in abundance in Scotland by wind turbines.

But turbines are often effectively "turned off" due to lack of capacity in the electricity grid - resulting in substantial "compensation" payments for the wind farm companies.

ILI Group CEO Mark Wilson said they want to make better use of that surplus energy.

"The head of the National Grid said that if you are going to put a data centre in the UK, put it in Scotland because if it is going to help with that extra supply, billions won't be wasted and it should eventually bring consumer household bills down.

"Scotland is in a position not a lot of other countries are and we feel this is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss," he said.

However, Wilson acknowledged that there had been negative feedback to their plans for Auchtertool.

He said they wanted to talk to people individually, listen to their concerns and consider what they can do to alleviate their worries.

Their planned hubs in Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire and Fife would have a combined energy capacity of 1540GW, he added.

"We believe we will create a blueprint for an all-green AI data centre that will be replicated all over the world," he said.

The construction of hyperscale data centres across the country could create hundreds of new jobs, he added.

Wilson said: "We believe the sites for our data centres are the right sites for Scotland.

"The site in Fife is already in an industrial area which is ideal for employment.

"It is also close to the Mossmorran power plant that shut down recently causing job losses.

"We are creating hundreds of apprenticeships so we can retrain those who worked at Mossmorran to move into the data centre or renewable energy sector."

The issue was raised this week by the Scottish Greens at the final First Minister's Questions before the summer recess, where they called on John Swinney to back a moratorium on planning approvals.

Swinney replied that he understood the environmental concerns over hyperscale data centres and was giving "active consideration" to whether local authorities should be given new national planning guidance.

He said such guidance might be a way of balancing the rapid expansion of such centres with national energy and climate goals.

A Scottish government spokesperson said the voices of communities affected by these developments must be central to any considerations.

They added that planning authorities have a responsibility to consider the environmental implications of all developments which require planning permission.

Teens who hacked TfL were known to police years before cyber-attack

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2kx8jr244o, 3 days ago

Two young men convicted over the cyber-attack that crippled Transport for London (TfL) in 2024 had long histories of cyber-offending and were both known to law enforcement bodies, the BBC has learnt.

Owen Flowers, 18, from Walsall, and Thalha Jubair, 20, from east London, pleaded guilty on Monday to carrying out the attack.

The breach disrupted TfL services for months, affected the personal data of millions of people and left all 28,000 TfL employees needing to reset their passwords in person.

The BBC has discovered the authorities made frequent attempts to curb Flowers and Jubair's offending - raising questions over the effectiveness of such interventions with young cyber-criminals.

Experts have told the BBC the case also indicates that perpetrators of cyber-attacks often do not appear to understand the real world consequences of their actions.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) says it highlights the need for its officers to be given additional powers.

Cease and desist order

Flowers and Jubair's trial heard they were part of the cyber-crime collective, Scattered Spider.

The loosely organised gang of young English-speaking cyber-criminals has been linked to dozens of other cyber-attacks including on retailers Marks and Spencer and the Co-op.

But the BBC has learned Flowers initially came to the attention of police shortly after he turned 16 years old.

In October 2023 he was caught carrying out low-level cyber-crime and visited by West Midland's Regional Cyber Crime Unit officers.

Police say that during the visit Flowers did not engage with officers and was given a cease and desist order to deter him from further offending.

Police had the option to invite him to enrol in the national Cyber Choices programme, which works to steer young people away from cyber-crime.

However Flowers was already being investigated for an offence and was reluctant to engage with officers, so they deemed him not suitable.

Just months later, the teenager - who was living with his grandmother - went on to commit a series of increasingly serious cyber-offences with Scattered Spider which culminated in the TfL attack.

NCA deputy director Paul Foster, head of its National Cyber Crime Unit, said the case highlighted the challenges posed by a small number of highly capable offenders.

He called for stronger legal powers - such as the proposed Cyber Crime Risk Orders (CCROs) - to deal with cases like this.

CCROs, announced by the UK government as part of planned reforms to the Computer Misuse Act, are designed to let police and courts place restrictions on people considered high risk before they carry out further serious breaches.

They would "enable earlier law enforcement interventions against high-risk cyber-crime offenders," Foster said.

Millions in crypto

Flowers was eventually arrested in September 2024 in connection with the TfL attack, which had started on 31 August.

In the arrest raid, investigators seized multiple devices from his bedroom, including laptops, desktop computers, hard drives and USB storage devices.

They reportedly discovered cryptocurrency holdings worth millions of pounds.

During the investigation, NCA officers uncovered evidence that computer systems belonging to two US healthcare organisations, SSM Health and Sutter Health, had also been infiltrated and damaged.

Flowers later pleaded guilty to offences relating to those hacks. He is wanted in the US but the BBC understands authorities there will not be persuing further action against him.

After being charged, Flowers was released on bail under strict conditions. He breached those conditions twice, in October 2024 and May 2025. He was also given a waning in March 2025.

His co-defendant Jubair had also been known to police for years.

In 2023, while still a juvenile, he received a Youth Rehabilitation Order for cyber offences linked to the Lapsus$ hacking group, which targeted major companies including Nvidia and BT/EE.

Because he was under 18, his identity could not be reported at the time.

Jubair has 22 previous convictions in total and began offending at 14 years old.

He is also wanted in the US in connection with cyber-crimes that allegedly stole and extorted $87m (£66.1m) from victims.

Flowers and Jubair are due to be sentenced for the TfL hack on 16 July.

An expert witness who previously gave evidence in the Lapsus$ case involving Jubair agrees that the case demonstrates the need for stronger deterrents for the most prolific young cyber criminals.

"You have people who have already been caught and know they are in trouble with the law but carry out more crimes even under surveillance," Prof Peter Sommer said.

"They don't seem to understand the consequences and there are real victims here losing their life savings in some case as well as corporations and their staff that are badly impacted," he added.

Both Jubair and Flowers have been diagnosed with autism and the court heard that Jubair has depression and a severe mood disorder.

Apple hikes some prices by nearly 20% while Xbox raises console cost

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3ryj81ywlro, 3 days ago

Apple is increasing the price of MacBooks and iPads worldwide due to rising memory and storage chip costs.

The iPhone maker has hiked the prices of some laptops and tablets by almost 20%, saying the electronics industry is facing an "unprecedented challenge" due to an "extraordinary surge" in demand for chips to power AI data centres.

"We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly," the company said - adding it was working to find solutions.

Not long after Apple's announcement, Xbox said it had decided to significantly raise the price of its popular gaming console for the second time in less than a year due to the current "components crisis".

The Microsoft-owned company said on Thursday that the price of its basic console will go up by $100 (£75) to $499, while the price of a console with more memory will go up by $150, to $749. New prices will take effect from August.

Xbox previously hiked the price of its consoles in October by $20-$70, meaning the price of a new console will be 30% to 40% more expensive than it was this time last year.

The company said it had "hoped another price increase would not be necessary", but blamed the rising cost of console storage and memory for needing to raise prices on consumers.

"The entire consumer electronics industry is struggling with the current components crisis, but the effects are particularly hard on consoles," Xbox said.

The company added that while the cost of memory and storage has already more than doubled, it expects the costs to double again by 2027.

That seemingly leaves the door open for Xbox to further raise prices.

Apple's and Xbox's price hikes follow a slew of firms increasing device prices to help them absorb rising hardware costs.

Commenting before the Xbox price increase was publicised, tech analyst Paolo Pescatore said Apple's price rises showed the "AI boom was now affecting consumer electronics".

Much of the increased prices for memory and storage components - particularly Ram, a form of computer memory - have been attributed to a proliferation of data centres needed to power the AI boom.

This, experts say, has caused an imbalance between supply and demand which means everyone has to pay more.

The world's largest chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), has also said that inflation is pushing up the cost of doing business.

Speaking to the BBC earlier in June, Wendell Huang of TSMC - which makes chips for the likes of Nvidia, AMD and Apple - did not rule out its own price rises amid spiking costs.

Pescatore said Apple's actions demonstrated the extent of the challenges for "even for the world's biggest technology companies".

"This is a significant moment because even Apple, with its scale and buying power, is no longer immune to the rising cost of key components," he told the BBC.

Affected hardware included the MacBook Pro with 1 terabyte of storage, which rose to $1,999 from $1,699 on its US store.

Meanwhile in the UK, the Neo - Apple's lowest-priced laptop - has increased from £599 to £699 within months of its launch.

"We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac," the company said in its statement.

David Naranjo of market research firm Counterpoint said he expected other PC and tablet brands would follow Apple by upping their costs.

"They may raise prices on select products, cut discounts on entry-level models, or adjust their product lines to focus more on premium devices," he said.

Dipanjan Chatterjee, vice president and principal analyst at market research firm Forrester, said he believed Apple's loyal customer base would take the financial hit without too much outcry.

"If anyone can survive a price increase with minimal blowback, it's Apple," he added.

Tim Cook, Apple's outgoing chief executive, had also hinted at the changes - telling the Wall Street Journal earlier in June that price increases were "unavoidable" due to the "unsustainable" situation around memory chips.

"We definitely need memory pricing and supply to return to reasonable levels for consumer products. That's the bottom line," he told the publication.

The soaring costs have affected a wide variety of companies and products across the technology sector, including PCs and consoles.

On Monday gaming giant Valve said its original goal for the price of its gaming PC the Steam Machine was "no longer viable", instead launching it at a price of £879 in the UK and $1,049 in the US.

IBM hails new 'block of flats' design breakthrough for ultra tiny chips

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg7vpyn5pxo, 3 days ago

IBM has unveiled a new chip design which it says could enable manufacturers to cram 100 billion transistors on a silicon chip the size of a fingernail.

The current industry-standard size for chips, measured in a the unit of nanometres - a billionth of a metre and the size of a few atoms - is around two nanometres (nm).

But IBM claims its new chip tech is the equivalent of around 0.7nm, which may make it the world's first known chip technology below 1nm.

However, it will be several years before the chip tech could be ready to go into production.

The firm claims in tests, its prototype performed 50% better than its own 2nm chip and was 70% more energy efficient.

It claimed similar boosts in performance when it debuted its 2nm chip tech back in 2021 - saying at the time its tests of those, slightly larger, chips produced similar leaps in performance and energy efficiency.

Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research and IBM Fellow, described the NanoStack tech as a "landmark moment" for the future of chips.

"With our new NanoStack architecture, we're not just making smaller transistors, we're reinventing how chips are built to deliver dramatically more power and energy efficiency," he said.

Packing-in power

Transistors are the building blocks of silicon chips - which provide computing power for the world's electronics, including smartphones, games consoles and laptops.

They have also become crucial to the powerful computers housed in data centres, processing a range of everyday digital activities from streaming to online banking, and powering the generative AI boom.

The more transistors manufacturers can squeeze onto a chip, the more powerful the chip becomes, and therefore the more devices can do.

At the same time, designers strive to make the chips themselves ever smaller.

For decades, the number of transistors that can be put onto a chip has doubled every two years: this is a phenomenon known as Moore's Law.

But with billions of transistors now on some chips, it is growing more difficult to sustain and experts broadly agree this pace of growth cannot continue indefinitely.

In order to try to extend it, rather than try to cram more transistors onto the surface horizontally, chip designers have for some time focused on 3D alternatives, essentially altering the shape of the transistors to make them taller.

IBM's approach is to layer sheets of them on top of each other as well.

Professor Alan Woodward, a computer scientist at Surrey University, compared it with building a big block of flats rather than houses in a city.

"IBM's NanoStack is like proposing a 100-storey skyscraper," he said, adding that in his view, the firm's closest rivals such as Samsung and Intel are closer to 30-50 storey buildings with their own 3D chip work.

The challenges facing 3D chip designers include heat: the transistors can get hot as they work and heat rises.

Additionally, when the layers between them are too thin, sometimes this prevents them from switching off when they're supposed to, and this stops the chip from working.

"I think it's fair to say IBM's proposals are the most ambitious," said Prof Woodward.

GTA 6 - all you need to know about Rockstar's blockbuster game

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9q20djz4wno, 3 days ago

The latest instalment in Rockstar's blockbuster game franchise, Grand Theft Auto, is set to be the biggest games launch of the year.

GTA 6 became available to pre-order at midnight on 25 June in the UK and elsewhere around the world, after Rockstar revealed the game's pre-sales launch date and cover art in mid-June.

Analysts believe Rockstar's action adventure could become the most expensive game ever made, with estimates putting development costs at more than $1bn (£866m).

Here's what we do and don't know about GTA 6 so far.

When is GTA 6 coming out?

GTA 6 will be released on 19 November - and with Rockstar recently opening up pre-orders, this date seems all but certain.

But it was delayed twice previously, from autumn 2025 and May 2026.

In a statement when the second delay was announced, Rockstar said it needed extra months to finish the game with the level of polish fans had come to "expect and deserve".

Rockstar said players who pre-order will be able to begin pre-loading it on their consoles on 12 November to ensure they are able to play at launch.

How much will GTA 6 cost and what can I play it on?

The sixth game in the main series will be released on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S.

There's no news on when a PC version will be released - it's also currently unknown whether it will come to Nintendo Switch 2.

The game will cost £69.99 in the UK and $79.99 in the US - with an ultimate edition, featuring extra vehicles and weapons, priced at £89.99 and $99.99, respectively.

Physical copies of the game will contain a code for a digital download for the game inside a box, rather than a disc.

Rockstar has not yet confirmed whether an updated online mode will be released as soon as GTA 6 launches, although given the success of GTA Online it is likely to exist at some point.

How any future age verification legislation in the UK around social media and particularly messaging in gaming could therefore affect it, if at all, is still unknown.

What is GTA 6 about, where is it set and who are its main characters?

GTA 6 will feature its first ever playable female protagonist in a 3D setting - Lucia - alongside her partner in life and crime, Jason, as a second playable character.

From what we've seen so far in the two gameplay trailers, the story will follow the pair in a Bonnie and Clyde-esque adventure through the seedy underbelly of America after an "easy score goes wrong".

Like other GTA games before it, the sixth chapter is set in a fictional US state - this time in Leonida, which is Rockstar's version of Florida.

Fans of previous games will be excited to hear that Vice City, which is inspired by Miami, will return, featuring as the main city within the state.

GTA 6's cover art revealed by Rockstar on 18 June made several nods to the setting with alligators and flamingos.

How long has Rockstar taken to make GTA 6?

It's no secret that GTA 6 has been a few years in the making.

The franchise's last instalment, GTA 5, was released in September 2013 - and quickly became one of the best-selling games of all time.

It's unclear whether Rockstar has been working on the sixth instalment for all of that time, however, as in 2018 it also released another huge sequel - Red Dead Redemption 2.

Rockstar confirmed for the first time that it was working on a sixth game in the series in February 2022.

The rising cost of development and immense pressure to live up to the series' hype are all contributing factors as to why gamers have had to wait so long for the game's release.

Several months later, footage and images leaked after teenage hackers targeted the company.

It has also seen some issues since, including accusations of "union-busting" by sacked workers at Rockstar North, its Edinburgh HQ, where developers have been racing to get GTA 6 ready for release in November.

Why is there so much excitement about it?

To put it simply, the GTA franchise is one of the biggest and most profitable entertainment properties in history.

GTA 5 has sold nearly 230 million copies, making it one of the best-selling games of all time - which has generated billions of dollars in revenue for Rockstar.

The game's sandbox gameplay, where players can explore vast open worlds with considerable freedom - sometimes controversially - has seen it be continuously lauded as the ultimate expression for what the interactive medium can do.

Freelance video games journalist Vic Hood said each entry in the series "continued to push technical and gameplay boundaries", with GTA Online helping to "pioneer the live service model as we know it".

She added that the games were also "extremely culturally relevant" too.

"Rockstar has always had its finger on the pulse of music, entertainment, societal, political, celebrity, and online culture trends, and they've never shied away from satirising these things in GTA games," she said.

British gaming entrepreneur Sir Ian Livingstone told the BBC's Today programme that the series, originally developed in Scotland, was "bigger than any film or song" and an "incredible achievement in interactive software".

Speculation as to how a sixth game can top even the gigantic heights of its predecessor has meant that any latest news, no matter how small, has been met with a flurry of hype and excitement.

Both of GTA 6's previous gameplay trailers currently have a total of roughly 447 million views combined.

'My daughter took her own life after being groomed - the law needs to change'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8d24yj9leqo, 3 days ago

When a police car pulled up outside Sharon Baker's home one Sunday morning she "instantly knew" something had happened to her daughter.

As she watched the officers coming down the drive, her sense of dread grew bigger.

"They told me that she she passed away. She took her own life," she remembered. "My world crashed."

Carris Taylor had been groomed and sexually abused for two years by Oliver Beck, who she met when she was 14.

Her mother kept pushing for him to be arrested and finally, two years after they met, he was jailed for four years.

If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, help and support is available via BBC Action Line.

But then her daughter read inaccurate information online, saying that her abuser was being released early from prison.

This is one of the reasons Baker believed contributed to her daughter ending her life in April.

Now she wants to change the law, to see sexual abusers held responsible if their victims take their own lives.

"I need to focus on this because if I don't, I've got nothing left, not of her," Baker said.

"I've got a beautiful family, beautiful friends, so much support, but I haven't got her."

Taylor first met Beck in 2023, when she was 14 and he was nine years older.

Thinking back, Baker, from Nuneaton, Warwickshire, said this was when she first noticed a change in her daughter.

She had been "vibrant, happy, down to earth" and "loved the sunshine, just loved life".

But her mother began hearing rumours from her daughter's siblings, how she had an "older boyfriend".

Beck then "poisoned her against me", she said.

"She wouldn't come to me, she wouldn't tell me anything, apart from mum 'I'm OK'."

Taylor placed herself in foster care and Baker said she took her concerns to the authorities, the police, social services got involved but "it was being completely denied".

"It didn't matter how much, how many phone calls, how much I asked for them to help us... they're just friends, there's nothing going on," she said.

"Then it started to become very apparent, that he was grooming and sexually assaulting her."

Baker kept pushing the police to arrest Beck, who was also from Nuneaton and, two years after they first met, he was jailed in May 2025 for four years, after pleading guilty to the abuse of Taylor.

A spokesperson for Warwickshire Police said they acted on all the information and reports available and carried out a " full and comprehensive investigation".

"We are not aware of a formal complaint, however, if there are any concerns about how the investigation was handled, we would encourage this to be raised through our complaints process," they added.

After Taylor's death, a review was carried out by Warwickshire County Council.

"We recognise that their background and circumstances were varied and complex and a range of help and support was offered," a spokesperson said.

Then earlier this year, sixteen-year-old Taylor was online and found information which said Beck was due to be released from prison, due to the early release scheme.

But what she read, was not true.

The BBC has had it confirmed by the Ministry of Justice that the details she saw online were false and had been generated using artificial intelligence (AI).

Google started offering a new tool in the UK in 2025, "AI Mode", which gives an answer written in a conversational style, containing far fewer links to other pages.

Responding to the BBC, a spokesperson for the firm said it had been refining its AI Mode tool for more than 20 years to deliver reliable and helpful information.

The tool's responses were dynamic and could change over time, as more information or context was published on a topic, they added.

A spokesperson for the government said Taylor's death was "devastating".

They said their strategy to tackle violence against women and girls would "bear further down" on abusers while an extra £550m in victim support services would help survivors get justice.

But Baker wants more and has helped set up a petition, calling for a change in the law, to see abusers face a charge of manslaughter, if their victim goes on to take their own life.

She has the backing of her local MP, Labour's Jodie Gosling, who commended her bravery.

"I also really strongly feel that there needs to be an understanding through the prosecution system that of the long-term impact of rape and sexual assault on the victims," she added.

"It's not a single incident that then people somehow get over. It stays with them for their whole lives."

For Baker, the campaign is giving her a focus, to use Taylor's name to push for change.

"My daughter should be here. She should be with her sisters and her brother, and she's not," she said.

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Anthropic accuses Chinese rival Alibaba of illicitly extracting AI capabilities

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyklykn5dwo, 3 days ago

US artificial intelligence (AI) giant Anthropic has accused Chinese e-commerce and technology firm Alibaba of "brazenly" and "illicitly" extracting its Claude AI model's capabilities.

In a letter sent to two members of the US Congress, the San Francisco-based company said operators linked to Alibaba carried out almost 29 million exchanges with Claude using thousands of fraudulent accounts in what it called the largest extraction campaign of its kind.

Anthropic urged Congress to penalise the companies behind attacks like this and to ramp up measures to prevent US tech from being stolen.

The BBC has contacted Alibaba for comment and requested more details from Anthropic.

Anthropic's letter, dated 10 June and addressed to US Senators Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren, accused New York Stock Exchange-listed Alibaba of carrying out "the largest campaign to illicitly extract Claude's capabilities".

According to Anthropic, the campaign was carried out through what are known as "distillation attacks", which extracted answers from a stronger AI model to train a weaker one.

Alibaba-linked operators targeted Claude's most valuable capabilities, including its ability to tackle longer and more complex tasks and its approach to decision-making, Anthropic said.

These type of attacks are carried out on an "industrial scale" to enable Chinese companies to harvest and repackage US AI capabilities as their own, the company said.

The letter also cited other alleged attacks, which Anthropic said posed a threat to the US military.

"Distillation attacks turn hundreds of billions of dollars in American investment and [research and development] into a massive subsidy for our geopolitical competitors," said Anthropic.

It cited the US Department of Defense's claims that Alibaba and several major firms like car maker BYD and tech company Baidu are tied to the Chinese military.

The companies have denied any such allegations, while Alibaba this week sued the US government in a bid to get its name removed from the Pentagon blacklist.

US developers have previously accused Chinese competitors of using distillation attacks to train their models to rival American AI technology at a fraction of the cost.

OpenAI has also previously accused Chinese groups of employing the same practice.

Anthropic is a leading AI developer and, alongside ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, is gearing up for a blockbuster stock market debut that could make it one of the most vaulable companies in the world.

But some of Anthropic's more advanced models, such as Mythos, have raised cybersecurity concerns over their ability to target weaknesses in computer systems.

GTA 6 will cost £70 - and physical edition will not contain a disc

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjrg52egw1ro, 4 days ago

Grand Theft Auto 6, the latest instalment of Rockstar Games' biggest-ever franchise, will cost £69.99, with a more premium edition costing £89.99.

One of the most hotly anticipated games of the year, GTA 6 opened for pre-orders around the world at midnight local time, and is priced at $79.99 and $100 for its standard and premium versions in the US.

Rockstar said physical copies of the game will contain a code for a digital download for the game inside a box, rather than a disc.

Freelance video games journalist Vic Hood said the price tag for the standard edition was "fairly reasonable" but said the lack of disc may "irk some physical collectors".

However, she added the decision made sense from Rockstar's point of view, "as it reduces the amount of rebuying and reselling and helps prevent leaks".

The game itself - which some analysts say could be the most expensive ever made - will be released on 19 November on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S.

Following the reveal, some fans questioned the point of purchasing a physical copy, if it did not contain a disc.

Others queried whether they would be able to re-sell the game after, as can be done with normal physical editions with a disc, or whether the code would be shareable.

Fans seemed less concerned by the price - a $10 increase for the standard edition compared to the typical $70 price tag for similarly-sized blockbuster games.

"$10 won't be such a big hit to consumers pockets, but I still hope $80 won't become the norm," posted one.

When it launched in 2013, GTA 5 cost $59.99 for the standard edition.

Joost van Dreunen, a professor of games business at NYU Stern said the pricing was a "clever strategy" by Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two.

"Take-Two is catering to the largest possible audience while offering die-hards an upgraded tier," he said.

Rockstar added that players who pre-order digital versions of the game will be able to begin pre-loading it on their consoles on November 12 to ensure they are able to play at launch.

The physical version of GTA 6 will also be available starting 12 November to support pre-loading.

The more expensive "Ultimate Edition" will include features such as more vehicles, weapons and outfits for the characters.

How long has GTA 6 been in development?

It has been a long and bumpy road to this point for Rockstar.

Fans have been hankering for a follow-up to GTA 5 after it was released back in 2013, and became one of the best-selling games of all time.

Rockstar confirmed it was working on GTA 6 in February 2022, following the Covid-19 pandemic.

But after it was hacked and assets from the work-in-progress title were leaked online, the company delayed its slated release window.

Its launch date was pushed back again in late 2025 to November 2026.

At the same time, the company has also faced internal pressures - with some staff at Rockstar North, its Edinburgh HQ, claiming it tried to stop staff unionising by sacking them.

GTA 5 has sold nearly 230 million copies, generating billions of dollars in revenue for Rockstar.

The sixth game in the franchise will feature its first ever playable female protagonist in a 3D setting - Lucia - alongside her partner in life and crime, Jason, as a second playable character.

The question of how much the game will cost has been hotly debated amongst fans and analysts in the build-up to the game's pre-order release.

Hood said the price may set a new standard for AAA or big-budget games.

"The price of game production has been increasing and if GTA 6 can lead the charge for a price increase that is palatable for players, it's likely other studios will follow suit," she said.

Texas family sues Tesla over fatal crash into home

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8x2rzke05yo, 4 days ago

A Texas woman is suing Tesla and a driver for at least $1m (£759,000) in damages after one of the electric vehicles crashed into her family home, killing her mother

Jennifer Barbour filed her lawsuit in a local court on Tuesday, just days after her 76-year-old mother Martha Avila died from injuries she sustained after a Tesla Model 3 sped into their shared home.

The Tesla driver told police that he was using the car's autonomous or "full self-driving" technology at the time of the crash.

In the lawsuit Barbour accuses Elon Musk's electric vehicle company of defective design and negligence by promoting technology that is unsafe, while Musk on social media denied the technology was to blame.

Tesla was approached for comment.

Musk took to X, the social media platform he owns, to refute the idea that Tesla's self-driving technology was to blame for the crash because it happened at a high speed.

"This makes no sense," Musk wrote on Monday.

Tesla's vice president of AI software Ashok Elluswamy followed up on Musk's comment with more apparent detail on the accident.

Elluswamy wrote that the driver was going at 73mph (117 km/h) and had overridden the car's self-driving mode "by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100%."

He also claimed that the driver "had the accelerator pushed even after the crash".

Barbour's complaint, filed with her husband Justin Barbour, puts forward a different explanation.

It argues that the driver was operating his Tesla on "in a reasonably foreseeable manner" with full self-driving engaged when the car's technology "failed to detect the end of the street", went into "sudden unintended acceleration" and crashed into the Barbour residence.

In addition to the death of her mother, Barbour claims her husband also suffered severe and grievous injuries as a result of the crash.

Monetary damages being sought include those for anguish, injury and medical expenses, as well as "exemplary" damages because Tesla's actions have been "grossly negligent."

The crash remains under investigation by police in Texas and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the US government's auto safety regulator.

Tesla's self-driving technology has come under increased criticism and scrutiny.

Last week, Democratic Senators Edward Markey and Richard Blumenthal sent a letter to the NHTSA demanding that the agency investigate Tesla's full self-driving technology for its safety risks.

Work begins on UK's new £750m supercomputer

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39yr3p8m4xo, 4 days ago

Construction work has started on the UK's new £750m national supercomputer.

Those behind the project say it will be the most powerful computer in the UK, and one of the most powerful in the world, when it is finished at the end of next year.

It will be hosted in University of Edinburgh buildings on the outskirts of Penicuik and Roslin in Midlothian, near the institute where Dolly the sheep was cloned.

It is a significant step forward for a project that was shelved by the UK government when Labour came into power, and then reinstated a year later.

What is a supercomputer?

The team behind the supercomputer, and researchers who hope to use it, say they are very excited about the project.

As the name would suggest, a supercomputer is a very powerful machine. The numbers for this new one are mind-boggling.

Prof Mark Parsons, the director of the supercomputer project at the university, says it will be roughly the size of a medium-sized supermarket.

It has thousands of processers and will be able to make a billion - billion calculations per second. That's 1,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Prof Parsons said the computer would help researchers and commercial companies to "simulate the world around them".

It will do that by taking huge amounts of data, and creating models of things that are not easy to do an experiment on in a laboratory.

He added: "Supercomputers model things that happen too quickly, like quantum; that are too large, like an earthquake; or too long - like the expansion of the universe."

What will the new supercomputer do?

The UK's previous national supercomputer - ARCHER2 - is also at the same site, and will come to the end of its life at the end of this year.

It helped model aircraft engines for Rolls Royce and the materials in your mobile phone. It was also part of the global effort in the fight against Covid.

The new supercomputer - owned by UKRI - will be 50 times more powerful, and Prof Parsons says it will work on challenges that are "simply not possible on other computers".

It will help in the development of quantum computing and engage in climate change modelling. Prof Parsons wants the UK's science community "to give us ideas of what they want to do".

The supercomputer will use huge amounts of electricity, and surplus heat generated on the site will be used to warm university buildings and, potentially, nearby homes.

One of the researchers hoping to use it will be Prof Joe Zuntz, a cosmologist at the University of Edinburgh.

Prof Zuntz says we need more data processing ability and more computing power to understand what is being gathered on state-of-the-art telescopes.

He works with the Vera C Rubin telescope in Chile, and can sometimes spend weeks sending data back and forth to supercomputers in the US.

Now, he will have one on his doorstep - committed to helping UK research.

Cosmologists are working on some big questions. Prof Zuntz says they have known for around 25 years that the universe is accelerating - not just getting bigger, but getting faster.

"We have no idea why, and we are trying to understand why," he added.

There is considerable excitement at the moment, as there are indications this is changing - as if "someone is taking their foot off the pedal".

"This supercomputer will let us analyse the data that will hopefully answer that question of why."

The supercomputer is receiving £750m of UK government funding.

It was originally backed by the previous Conservative government - but then shelved in August 2024 after Labour swept into power in Westminster.

The new government said that £1.3bn promised by the Conservatives for tech projects, including the supercomputer, was an "unfunded commitment".

Prof Parsons says wryly that it wasn't the easiest conversation when he had to tell his boss the news.

However, in June the following year the government said it had granted the funding for the project.

Kanishka Narayan, the government's minister for online safety and AI, told the BBC: "Edinburgh and Scotland has been the home of frontier computing research for decades.

"The supercomputer is going to be focussed on making a real difference - whether that is in healthcare, to make sure we are finding cures to new diseases, or in space to find new innovations.

"It is a huge moment for Scotland, and a huge moment for the UK."

Why The Odyssey has caused so much controversy

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260626-why-the-odyssey-has-caused-so-much-controversy, yesterday

Chrisopher Nolan's adaptation of Homer's Ancient Greek epic, starring Matt Damon, Zendaya and many more, is the most anticipated film of 2026 – but also the most contested. Here's why.

Christopher Nolan's last film, the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer, was about the invention of the atomic bomb, and the ethics of killing tens of thousands of civilians in a global conflict. All things considered, he must have thought that his next film would be a lot less controversial.

After all, The Odyssey is based on Homer's ancient poem about warriors and kings, gods and monsters. What is there for anyone to grouse about? The height of Polyphemus the Cyclops? The wood used to make the Trojan horse? Well, maybe not. But it turns out that people have groused about pretty much everything else.

The Odyssey, released in July, has become the most contentious film of the year – a lightning rod for all kinds of political and cultural grievances. What is it about a swords-and-sandals fantasy epic that is so upsetting?

Casting controversies

Much of the grumbling has consisted of conservative fears that the film might be too liberal. Not everyone approved when Nolan hired a transgender actor, Elliot Page, and a rapper, Travis Scott, to play a so-far-unidentified male character and the poet Demodocus, respectively.

People have also objected to his choice of black actress Lupita Nyong'o to play Helen of Troy – described by Homer as "white-armed". Wolfgang Petersen's Homer adaptation, Troy (2004), loosely inspired by The Iliad, didn't have a vocal fanbase a year ago, but recently it's been held up by some on social media as superior to Nolan's, at least in its casting of Brad Pitt as Achilles and Diane Kruger as Helen.

One right-wing blogger, Matt Walsh, declared that Nolan had cast a woman of Kenyan heritage as Helen because he was afraid of being called a racist. He didn't offer evidence of Nolan's supposed fears. And indeed the vast majority of the cast is white. But that didn't stop Elon Musk chiming in with his agreement.

Some on social media, in response, accused Walsh and Musk of being bigoted. Others took a more scholarly approach. Prof Daniel Mendelsohn, whose translation of Homer's poem was published last year, said at the UK's Hay Festival in May that he was amused by "all of these bros suddenly worrying about Greek literature". According to a report in The Telegraph, Mendelsohn said: "What's so funny is that Helen has the tiniest role in The Odyssey… so the debate is particularly silly." But he proposed that Nyong'o's casting was "consonant with the concern of the Troy myth, which is how to think about beauty… I think [Nolan's] choice of this very beautiful actress who happens to be African lands you squarely in the middle of a very old discussion."

In Elle magazine, Nyong'o gave her own pithy response to the attacks. "This is a mythological story," she said. "Our cast is representative of the world." But some people have pointed out that this isn't wholly true, lamenting the lack of Greeks among the actors. Greeks had been "left out by Hollywood, again and with no explanation, from our foundational mythologies and epics", wrote a Greek-British journalist, Chris Cotonou, in The Guardian. "If your film sets out to represent the world, wouldn't it be obvious to fill one space at this large, wonderfully multicultural table with the people who are most authentically connected to the source?"

Not every criticism of The Odyssey has been explicitly conservative, then. When the first trailer was released in December, people sniped that the dark armour worn by Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) resembled Batman's costume, and that Odysseus's boat looked like a "Viking ship" – the implication being that films with giants and witches in them should nonetheless be as true-to-life as possible.

"I wonder whether we have become inclined to treat mythological material as though it were historical material," Prof Susan Deacy, the author of The Greek Gods and Their Worlds, tells the BBC. "Yet the Odyssey is continually being reimagined, with pretty well every age producing its own Homer."

The accents issue

Another fuss arose from a trailer in which the actors – even the British ones – were heard to use American accents and modern colloquialisms. Exhibit A was Tom Holland saying, "My dad is coming home," in his Spider-Man voice, instead of intoning "father" in a manner befitting the Royal Shakespeare Company.

"It sounds like they're trying to have an epic conversation on the sidewalk outside the Starbucks," cracked one commenter. "It felt so out of place," said another. "I'm hoping the dialogue isn't too contemporary and pulls the viewer out of the period."

This doesn't quite makes sense. Considering that the "place" is Greece and the "period" is thousands of years ago, the dialogue still wouldn't be true to Homer even it was slightly more pompous and old-fashioned. The fact is that the Ancient Greeks, whether real or mythological, didn't talk like 21st-Century American actors or 20th-Century British ones. But it's a time-honoured Hollywood convention that sword-wielding Greeks and Romans, much like wizards, Norse gods – and even some Nazi officers – should sound grandiose and English.

"British accents in historical epics can feel right because of a long cinematic tradition," says Deacy, "not because they're any closer to ancient Greek speech." For that matter, she adds, formal dialogue isn't any closer to Homer than informal dialogue is. "More colloquial dialogue could even be closer to the spirit of Homeric storytelling than the elevated language that can be associated with antiquity – especially as the Odyssey was oral performance and popular entertainment, not just canonical text."

Why this film has become a target

So what's the problem? One answer is that people love to protest on social media if a film isn't exactly how they wanted it to be, and The Odyssey offers the biggest imaginable target. Nolan's films are significant cultural events – massively expensive, highly publicised and endlessly discussed – so anyone who gripes about them knows that someone will listen. And this one is adapted from one of the most important works of literature ever written, so anyone with even the vaguest knowledge of Greek mythology can have a view on it.

Certainly, when Emily Wilson published her translation of The Odyssey in 2017, she was subject to what she has described as "misogynist trolling" for her modern wording, among other things. "I find it quite baffling. It's people who don't care about the poem, yet when it comes to this culture-war internet discourse, they perform anger about it and a protectiveness of it," she told Vulture this week. "It has to do with an idea of a totally stable notion of greatness and masculinity… Anything that challenges that interpretation of what ancient history is threatens their identity in terms of their gender and racial identities."

More like this:

• 10 of the best films to watch this July

• The violent, medieval origins of Robin Hood

• Toy Story 5 is this year's most traumatic film - for parents

It's significant, too, that Nolan is an unusual figure in the culture wars, says Tom Shone, the author of the definitive book on the director, The Nolan Variations. One quality that separates Nolan from his peers, Shone tells the BBC, is that his films' ideologies aren't always simple. "He's a Rorschach director. He makes films in which the left can find endorsement as easily as the right, and frequently at the same time."

Imagery and rhetoric from his Batman trilogy, for instance, have been adopted by the right, so people of that political persuasion might feel betrayed that The Odyssey appears to be more progressive. "I think of all the blockbusters that provoke anti-woke sentiment – from Star Wars to The Little Mermaid – The Odyssey is the most painful for [conservatives] because on the surface at least Nolan films feel like they might skew rightward not left," says Shone.

Nolan also makes films his own idiosyncratic way. Whether he's taking on Batman or World War One or outer space, Nolan doesn't follow genre rules – and his defiantly distinctive approach can seem sacrilegious when he's taking on a text as revered as Homer's Odyssey. Still, the things which have prompted complaints about his new film are the things which should ensure that it's a hit. The Odyssey is already known for its colossal scale, its complexity, its literary pedigree and its uncompromising individuality. That's why people are criticising it, and that's why they will go to see it, too.

The Odyssey is released on 17 July in US and UK cinemas.

This article was amended on 27 June

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Madonna was 'jealous of Kylie' - and more things we learned in her Graham Norton interview

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn07rpn0rkxo, yesterday

Madonna has confessed to being jealous of Kylie Minogue, and hinted she'll headline Glastonbury in a wide-ranging interview with Graham Norton.

The revelations came in an almost hour-long discussion about her forthcoming album, Confessions II, which finds the pop star in her natural habitat of the dancefloor.

"That's how I started," she told Norton. "I was a dancer. Dancing is in my DNA. It just creates community - and sometimes relationships."

The record reflects on her origins in 1980s New York, but also features a duet with her daughter, Lola, addressing strains in their relationship. Another track, Fragile, mourns her brother, Christopher, who died of cancer in 2024.

Madonna said she was excited for fans to hear the record, "because it's a whole story... I can't just make dance music about nothing.

However, she admitted that "nobody ever wants to dance with me" because she tends to get carried away by the music.

"I just go crazy. I think I irritate a lot of people."

Here are seven highlights from the interview, which was broadcast on BBC One, and is available to re-watch on the BBC iPlayer.

1. She dropped a strong hint about Glastonbury

Madonna was widely rumoured to headline Glastonbury in 2024, before negotiations fell apart. Ever since, fans have been hoping she'll ascend to the top of the Pyramid Stage.

Discussing plans for touring with Norton, the star suggested 2027 could finally be the year.

"I think I'll do promo tours for a while, then in the summertime something bigger," she said.

"Oh, that sounds really exciting and good, " Norton replied. "I think I know what you're talking about."

They shared a long, knowing look, before Norton sought confirmation.

"Is it in this country?"

Madonna gave a sly grin.

"It could be. Why do I have to tell you everything?"

2. Guy Ritchie made her jealous of Kylie Minogue

Kylie Minogue popped into the interview, posing as a barmaid and serving Madonna a grapefruit cocktail.

It came 26 years after Madonna wore a bedazzled "Kylie Minogue" tank top at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Sweden: A gesture of solidarity that took the Aussie pop star by surprise.

"There was no warning," Kylie recalled, saying she "probably stopped shy of fainting" when she saw Madonna's outfit.

Then Madonna had a little revelation.

"I was actually a little bit jealous of you," she told Kylie.

"Why?" asked Norton.

"Because she was so cute.

"I think my ex-husband at the time [Guy Ritchie] had a crush on her, and I was like, 'I'll never be as beautiful as Kylie'.

3. Madonna's daughter struggled with the 'nepo baby' tag

Madonna's eldest daughter, Lourdes "Lola" Leon, has largely forged her own path as a model, musician and performer - but the 29-year-old appears on Confessions II, duetting with her mother for the first time.

"She approached me," Madonna said of the track. "She's been very reticent to work with me. She doesn't want to be perceived as my daughter taking advantage of her privilege."

"She's been very stand-offish, working at her own pace, and I respect that deeply.

"But then one day she came to me and she said, 'You know what? I'm holding on to something and maybe it's a kind of... I don't want to say anger... maybe resentment?

"Because at the end of the day she didn't ask for this [life]. She had been through her adolescence struggling with those feelings for a long time. Then she came to me and she said, 'Let's write a song together, I think it'll be a very healing experience.'

"I was like, 'OK, you're on. Let's do it'."

4. One of the songs on Confessions II was made up on the spot

The first taste of Madonna's 15th album arrived in April - with a quote from the song One Step Away.

"People think that dance music is superficial, but they've got it all wrong. The dance floor is not just a place, it's a threshold: A ritualistic space where movement replaces language."

Madonna called it a "manifesto" for the record - a spiritual sequel to 2005's Confessions on a Dancefloor, which spawned hits like Hung Up and Sorry.

But her producer, Stuart Price, revealed the lyrics were written "in a flash of light".

As he played the instrumental at the end of a session, Madonna said, "Just switch on the microphone, I think I've got an idea," he told Norton.

"That whole vocal performance comes out in one stream of consciousness. The lyrics, the melody, the whole thing happens in a moment.

"It's kind of like I get possessed," Madonna said. "It's weird. The ideas come when I don't try too hard."

5. Pre-fame, Madonna was a misfit who 'didn't fit in'

The song Danceteria was more deliberately crafted. It's named after the feted New York club where Madonna got an early break by persuading DJ Mark Kamins to play her debut single, Everybody.

In the lyrics, the star namechecks her then-roommate Martin Burgoyne, the club's doorman Haoui Montaug, and actress Debi Mazar, one of Madonna's oldest friends, who she first met at the club.

One of the album's highlights, it's essentially the Madonna origin story - and one of her fondest memories.

"There will never be another time like that," she told Norton, describing Danceteria as the "Mecca of music and dance and fashion".

The only problem? She felt totally out of place.

"Everybody was cool. I wasn't cool. I was very awkward and I didn't fit in."

As a struggling artist, she couldn't afford the elaborate outfits and "cool hair" of her fellow clubbers.

But, ever resourceful, she turned those limited resources into an advantage - creating her iconic fishnet gloves from rags and cast-offs.

"Tights [were] all the clothes I had," she told Norton. "I was a ballet dancer so I just took my dance clothes and reinvented it. Hunger was the best sauce."

6. She reconciled with her brother before he died

For years, Madonna's younger brother was one of her closest confidantes. He was a background dancer on her first UK TV appearance, and later become her tour director.

But they fell out when Madonna appointed a different director - the choreographer Jamie King - for her Drowned World tour. Things got worse when Christopher wrote a tell-all book, Life With My Sister Madonna, in 2008.

The star has previously said that "for a really long time" she had perceived Christopher as one of her "biggest enemies" - but they reconciled before his death.

"It was him being ill and reaching out to me and saying, 'I need your help'," she told the podcast host Jay Shetty last year.

"I felt so relieved. It was such a load off my back, such a weight that was removed, baggage that I could put down to finally be able to be in a room with him and holding his hand even if he was dying and saying, 'I love you and I forgive you.'"

Speaking to Norton, Madonna said she had written Fragile after Christopher called her in the studio.

"He was in a lot of pain, on the phone, and he was not in a good place. I knew it was close to the end. And then I went upstairs and wrote a song."

Called Fragile, it looks back to their childhood and makes the promise: "We'll find each other on the other side."

"It's cathartic," she said of the song. "To let go of somebody you love, the best way to do it is to write about it. It's like an exorcism."

7. The thief who stole her Coachella outfit is still at large

Madonna was the surprise guest during Sabrina Carpenter's headline set at the Coachella Festival in April.

The duo, who first connected over an Instagram DM, performed Vogue, Like A Prayer and a brand new song called Bring Me Love - later released as a single.

The performance came exactly 20 years after Madonna's Coachella debut - playing the original Confessions album in the festival's dance tent.

In a call-back to that performance, Madonna wore the same boots, corset and jacket for her set with Carpenter.

"I like to prove to myself that I can still fit into my clothes," she told Norton.

But after the performance, her outfit - along with other items from Madonna's archive - went missing.

In a statement, the Indio Police Department said the clothes and jewellery were last seen "on a golf cart" on the festival grounds at 01:30 local time on Saturday.

Speaking to Norton, she confirmed the "costume hasn't come back".

"I was very disturbed by it for a couple of days. They're historical."

Correction 27 June: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Madonna's brother Christopher in the final image. The picture has been changed.

Hit South African show gets the world talking about polygamy and cheating

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2djde7v2do, yesterday

One of Netflix's hottest and sassiest new dramas has not only South Africa but the world talking about marriage, betrayal, revenge and the contentious issue of polygamy - the practice of having more than one spouse at the same time.

The Polygamist, a 22-episode Zulu-language series, is about the tangled love life of wealthy Johannesburg businessman Jonasi Gomora.

It begins at the fictional tycoon's funeral where we learn that his widow Joyce, a social media influencer wearing a striking white outfit, is not his only partner. In fact, he has two other wives and a mistress - who are all there dressed in black.

Emotions explode as secrets are laid bare - and in a dramatic rollercoaster, the plot spirals back over five years to explain their relationships and toxic family dynamics.

Released by the streaming giant on 12 June, the show topped trend lists within hours and social media has been lit up since with reactions to the controversial plot twists - some people sharing memes and their own experiences about polygamy and faithless marriages.

Some minibus "matatu" taxis in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, have been redecorated with Jonasi's face or name such is the show's popularity there and the debate around his behaviour.

Even Nigerian Afrobeats star Davido tweeted: "Yo JONASI is WILD" - and Hollywood celebrities have chipped in too.

"I thought Crazy Rich Asians was something, but crazy rich Africans is a whole 'nother level," Emmy-award winning talk-show host and actress Sherri Shepherd said on Instagram.

In reply to the post, Taraji P Henson - star of hits including Hidden Figures and Empire - said the show had had her in a "chokehold" and she had binged it in one day.

Based on the 2012 novel by Zimbabwean author Sue Nyathi, The Polygamist has been adapted for the screen by Netflix in collaboration with South African production company Stained Glass TV.

The executive producers include two daughters of Jacob Zuma - South Africa's former president and a proud polygamist who is greatly respected by his supporters for upholding his cultural and traditional Zulu beliefs. The 84-year-old currently has four wives, has been married six times and is estimated to have 20 children.

Gugu Zuma-Ncube and Thuli Zuma's parents divorced in 1998 after 16 years of marriage - and another of their half-siblings is also credited as a writer on the series.

Zuma-Ncube says their upbringing and other issues she and others in the team experienced influenced how they told the story.

"A lot of the scenes that you see in the show are taken directly out of our lives. I famously come from a very polygamist family… [so] I brought that in," she told the BBC.

The 41-year-old producer said her team at Stained Glass TV had been "floored" by the show's reception not just locally, but across the continent.

It was the most watched show on Netflix in South Africa and Kenya and made it to the top 10 in Nigeria and Mauritius within the first week of its release. It attracted two million views and was number four on Netflix's top 10 list for non-English series globally, also in the first week.

"The fact that Africa has embraced the show means a lot to us, especially considering the climate," Zuma-Ncube said, in reference to the wave of anti-migrant protests that has sprung up across South Africa and sparked a massive backlash on the continent.

Beyond Africa, it was among the most watched shows in Trinidad and Tobago, Romania and the Dominican Republic among others, the streaming giant told the BBC.

Zuma-Ncube said that while the producers had been convinced the show would entertain viewers, they had been pleasantly surprised by the "emotional chord it struck with women in relationships [and] children who've come from particular fathers or… households".

It is the character of Jonasi, the patriarch of the Gomora family, that has stirred up the most feelings.

As avid viewer Ziya M, posting on X just two days after the show's premiere, put it: "Jonasi has the whole nation riled up."

Letlhogonolo Mogale, who binged the show days after its release, described Jonasi as an "serial cheater" and "opportunist who would do anything to satisfy himself".

The 35-year-old is not from a polygamist family herself, nonetheless The Polygamist's storyline resonated and highlighted "social ills that happen and [are] normalised in South Africa".

"What stuck out for me personally was how broken families are and how broken society is," she told the BBC.

Polygamy is legally recognised in South Africa and within Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele and Venda cultures, among others, it is not uncommon for a man to have multiple wives - as happens in some other African and Muslim societies.

The women tend to be set up in their own households though there is usually co-operation between co-wives in terms of child-rearing - something that can be less realistic in urban settings.

For Mogale the polygamy in the show is duplicitous, secretive and "forced".

It is "not supposed to be that way", she said, adding that the scene that best illustrated this was between Jonasi and his eldest daughter Mpume.

Jonasi has six children altogether, with three women, and is closest to Mpume who is known as "Daddy's Girl".

But as a teenager, broken by her father's deceit, neglect and unfaithfulness, Mpume tries to express her feelings in a letter that she starts to read out loud to him.

His reaction - turning up the volume on the TV and ignoring her - stunned many, including Mogale.

The show does not shy away from tackling other issues such as sexually transmitted diseases, gender-based violence and the trauma these often inflict on African families.

There is also a controversial plotline about HIV.

With 13% of South Africa's population living with the virus – polygamous unions have divided opinion in the country with many pointing to the dangers plural families face.

But the show does have its detractors. Kenyan civil servant Geoffrey Mosiria, who has a big following on social media, has called for the Netflix show to be banned in Kenya as it is gives polygamy a bad name.

"Kenya is a polygamous nation - and polygamy is the best way to find love," the Nairobi county official told the BBC.

He explained that he was the product of a happy polygamous family - his father had three wives and he was the last born of 22 children.

"Polygamy builds a community," he said, criticising how the series would fuel distrust in marriage.

South African film and TV critic Phil Mphela said The Polygamist was less about cultural polygamy and more about "the outrageous behaviour of this husband" - someone he sees as a narcissist.

He told the BBC the show marked a "pivotal moment" for the country's film and TV industry.

While South Africa was known for its world-class productions "being able to have our stories shared globally and being appreciated for their authenticity and impact in the social discourse" was important, he said.

"It's doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing because these stories are supposed to evoke something within our society."

For 39-year-old viewer Mpiletso Motumi, it was the strong female leads that kept her glued to the screen in Johannesburg.

In an interview with the BBC, she praised the "amazing" cast and crew for their interpretation of Nyathi's novel, who has also had a boost in demand for her book.

The 48-year-old author even took to Instagram this week to warn her fans that counterfeited copies of The Polygamist were being sold in a bookshop in Nairobi.

"Please don't buy pirated copies. I am working day and night (like Michael Jackson) to make sure the book becomes available in the East African region. Copyright infringement is a crime and a violation of my rights," she said.

While Netflix and the producers bask in the show's reception, viewers are already asking if there will be more seasons.

"I think ultimately what we'll be guided by is serving the story and serving the audience… [but] who knows where we end up," a coy Zuma-Ncube said.

Additional reporting by Wycliffe Muia in Nairobi

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

Two years ago, she was delivering Amazon parcels - now she's an international star

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg74d834lzpo, yesterday

"You can fake a lot of things in this industry," says East London R&B singer KWN.

"You can fake streams, followers, likes... all of that stuff. But selling out a venue and having real people come to see you is different."

She should know. Ever since breaking out with her Worst Behaviour last year, the 26-year-old has been packing fans into concert halls worldwide.

Last month, she steamed up the windows of the Sydney Opera House, with a sultry, sensual set of bedroom jams like Touch Myself, Do What I Say, and a cover of Ginuwine's Pony.

"That was just a crazy moment for me," she says. "I don't think the Sydney Opera House has ever had anybody come in there singing a bunch of sex songs before.

"Everyone was standing up and dancing after 30 seconds, and afterwards, the people at the venue were just like, 'We've never seen it like that before'. It was insane."

Reactions like that show how far KWN (pronounced K-One, her real name is Khyra Wilson) has come in a short time.

Two years ago, she was delivering packages for Amazon after being dropped by her first record label.

When that wasn't enough to pay the bills, she sold her car and took a part-time job working alongside her dad in a restaurant.

The 26-year-old was determined to keep making music, but the odds were against her.

"Me and my manager [Carlyn Calder] were just like, 'We're so broke, we don't know how we're gonna do this'," she recalls.

"We were trying to get either a publishing deal or a distribution deal, but no one was offering the money that we wanted.

"My manager was like, 'You're worth way more than this. I'm not tying you into any of these deals because I know this time next year we're going to be in a completely different position'."

Her faith paid off.

An online gamble

At the end of 2024, KWN uploaded clips of Worst Behaviour to her social media accounts. It was only a demo, but the response was unlike anything she'd experienced.

The only problem? They didn't have enough money to complete the song and put it on streaming platforms.

Then Calder came up with a plan. How about building a website and selling the demo directly to fans?

"I was like, 'I don't know, that might make us look a little bit desperate'," KWN remembers.

"She was like, 'No, trust me. If we sell it to 500 people for £1.99, that's £1,000 in our pocket and we can release it [properly]'."

"So I said, 'I'm cool, I trust you, let's just do it'."

In two weeks, they sold 5,500 copies. Record labels who'd shunned the singer suddenly clamoured for her signature, but KWN signed instead to RCA Records (home to R&B legends D'Angelo, SZA and Miguel) just before Christmas.

Meanwhile, Worst Behaviour kept accumulating fans.

Among them was US R&B star Kehlani, who jumped on a remix, fanning the song's smouldering groove into a full-blown inferno.

Released on Valentine's Day 2025, it shot up the charts, fuelled by a video where the two performers circle one another with barely constrained desire, before sealing the deal with a passionate kiss.

But looks can be deceiving... Both KWN and Kehlani were rotten with the cold during the video shoot.

"It was crazy. We were both mad sick," KWN laughs.

"Kehlani almost cancelled because she couldn't speak at all. I had to get a doctor to come and give me an IV... But we pushed through."

Amidst the sniffles, the sparks were real. KWN and Kehlani dated last year. And while their relationship is off-limits for our interview, the couple's visibility, combined with KWN's lyrics, made a bold statement about queer relationships in a musical space that's traditionally been hostile to same-sex love.

That's why, when KWN performs Stand On It, her LGBTQ fans holler back the line: "I'm not embarrassed/ ain't gonna love you in private".

Built around a stuttering, jazzy chord progression, Stand On It was one of the standouts on KWN's debut EP, With All Due Respect, released last June.

The project opens with the defiant statement, "I don't want to be humble no more", a message to the people who doubted her star power.

"I just wanted people to put respect on me," she says. "I was never going to give up or let it push me into the ground."

The rest of the EP echoed the late-night raunch of Worst Behaviour, inspired by classic bedroom jams like Jodeci's Freak'n Me and D'Angelo's Untitled (How Does It Feel).

"Stuff like that's easy to write," KWN told me last December, when she was nominated for the BBC's Sound of 2026 prize.

"Writing emotional and vulnerable music is a lot harder for me."

Six months later, however, her new EP And All Pride Aside, thrums with emotional vulnerability.

On the heart-wrenching Rather Never Love Again, she desperately pines for her ex, singing: "Even if I get you back I don't know if it's going to be the same/ But I will sure as hell spend a lifetime taking all the blame."

The closing track, Heaven's In Your Hands, finds her mourning her grandfather, who died last autumn.

"I think I've just done a little bit of growing up, to be honest," she says of the transformation.

"And I've met people along the way who've taught me it's okay to feel, and to open up to the people around me.

"Before, I was writing stuff that didn't make me think too deeply. This time it's like a one-on-one therapy session with myself."

Musically, she's more confident, too.

Rather Never Love Again features 150 layers of backing vocals that took two days "and a lot of cigarettes" to perfect; while the single Hopeless Romantic explodes with clattering flourishes of drums.

"I was like, I really want to make a wedding love song, but I don't want it to be R&B, I don't want it to feel classic," she recalls.

"And when we put all those rock drum fills in there, I was like, 'This is fun'.

"At the end of the day, I'm very much within my right to be able to experiment, to try new things, and do whatever makes me feel good."

Fans of her earthier material won't be disappointed, though.

KWN's playful, seductive approach to sex is still present on tracks like 'Til The Bedroom Stinks and Risk It All - which contains a sly sample of Nelly's Hot In Herrre.

"I made that on tour in my hotel room, just before we had to get on the bus to drive overnight to the next show," she says.

"The next day when I woke up, I was like, 'Oh no, it's going to be so tough to clear this sample. Why have I done this? The song's so good, like, I can't not put it out'."

In the end, it was sorted without any fuss – a sign of the respect KWN's already gained from her peers, even in the notoriously closed-off world of US R&B.

Next week, she's up for best new artist at the prestigious BET (Black Entertainment Television) Awards in Los Angeles, where she'll also perform.

She's just hoping the catering is better than the UK's Mobo Awards.

"The Mobos was a crazy little experience. I was so grateful to be nominated, but I hated the food," she laughs.

"It was too small. Just tiny little bite-sized pieces. I was like, 'I'm starving, can I get another plate?' but they said no!"

On her current trajectory, though, those requests won't be ignored much longer.

Going to a festival as a neurodivergent person can be tough - but there are ways to recharge

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgl3ew1j64go, yesterday

Making sure festivals are accessible isn't just about having enough disabled toilets - there's a lot that has to be considered.

So when X user Jas posted to say she had been denied access to a space for neurodivergent people at BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend in Sunderland last month, it raised questions about how those with conditions such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia and dyspraxia are accommodated at big events.

"Not all disabilities are visible," Jas wrote - showing the difficulties that occur when dealing with these conditions, which aren't easy to spot from the outside.

It comes after recent interventions from MPs and the equality watchdog around accessibility at festivals, making it a hot topic among organisers.

We've spoken with festival-goers who have invisible disabilities to hear their experiences - and the solutions.

'I packed up and found a Travelodge'

All of us are neurodiverse, meaning our brains are different, but more than 15% of people in the UK are neurodivergent, meaning their brains process information in a different way to what is considered typical.

Beth Maybury says she has struggled with being taken seriously by festival staff because of the hidden nature of her disability.

It means she's had to find ways to recharge throughout a weekend - such as returning to her tent for a break.

She says festivals give her a chance to "feel free" as someone with ADHD who often "masks" how she feels - meaning she is hiding or suppressing her natural neurodivergent traits.

"You can sing at the top of your lungs, you can get emotional about who's on stage, nobody's going to judge you," she tells the BBC.

But even though she loves it, she can get "overwhelmed very easily".

"There are a lot of crowds and that can be difficult. There can be a lot of mud, and I get really sensitive to it when I can feel it's all over me."

Kate Graham describes herself as a "triple threat" with ADHD, autism, and dyspraxia - and can relate to Maybury's experiences.

Graham says festivals are a great place to try new activities but are often "loud with nowhere quiet to hide (except a portaloo!)" and "overwhelming if too many people are in a crowded area".

She tells the BBC that after one particularly bad festival she "packed up and found a Travelodge".

Calls for festivals to do more

They aren't alone in calling for some festivals to do better. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee released guidelines earlier this year setting out ways for disabled people to feel more included at live music events.

These included recommendations that the government in England works with its devolved UK counterparts to improve the on-site infrastructure, security, training and ticketing at festivals.

The committee suggested developing these with disability-led organisations, such as Stay Up Late, who encourage event organisers to include relaxed performances.

At this year's Download Festival, which took place in June, event organisers created a space for neurodivergent attendees.

This featured noise-cancelling headphones, fidget toys, weighted blankets and quiet activities such as colouring and puzzles.

It followed the Equality and Human Rights Commission's ruling that Live Nation - the owners of Festival Republic which runs Reading and Leeds, Download and Wireless - needed to make events more accessible.

Fans had complained about accessibility problems at Download Festival in 2023 and Wireless in 2022.

A spokesperson for Live Nation told the BBC they "recognise large-scale festivals can be intense environments, and that some fans may need additional support at different points during the weekend".

They said they put in place "dedicated sensory calm spaces, a quiet campsite, welfare facilities and specialist wellbeing support".

The challenge of differing experiences

Alex Richardson has been attending festivals such as Reading and Leeds and Truck for the last decade.

He says as a neurodivergent person, he enjoys regularly attending festivals as they provide routine in his life.

"I really like the atmosphere, I just love the whole event [of a festival], the 27-year-old says.

Richardson says it can "sometimes get a bit too much" and he needs to "find calmer areas to chill out".

He says he likes knowing that sensory spaces are available - but he recalls "there was none of that" when he first started attending festivals.

Nowadays, he feels "festivals are becoming more inclusive" but adds many festival staff need better training.

This is so staff can recognise when someone "is having a meltdown or struggling", he adds. The National Autistic Society says a meltdown is "an intense response to an overwhelming situation".

Richardson suggests trained staff should wear identifiable clothing, which would help those looking for them at an event.

Paul Hawkins, a boss at Attitude is Everything, the charity working to improve experiences for disabled people at gigs and events, says the challenge for organisers comes with recognising the varying requirements of individuals.

"Different neurodivergent people have very different experiences," he tells the BBC.

He agrees quiet spaces and sensory tents have had "a massive impact" on the festival scene over the past few years, but says there's still a long way to go in crowd management, and to create quieter routes for people to reach accessible spaces.

"There's not really a lot of excuses for festivals not getting the basics right because the information is all out there and it's quite easy to find," he adds.

BBC DJ and presenter Trevor Nelson taking a break from work due to health issues

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gykyenweyo, yesterday

BBC DJ and presenter Trevor Nelson has announced he is "taking a little break from my work commitments" due to "health issues".

The Radio 2 and 1Xtra presenter, who has been off air this week after undergoing tests, did not go into detail about his diagnosis but told his Instagram followers he was now "concentrating on getting better".

Earlier this year, the influential 62-year-old celebrated 30 years at the BBC, where he has championed black music in the UK.

The BBC's director of music, Lorna Clarke said: "Everyone at BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 1Xtra wishes Trevor a very speedy recovery and we all look forward to him returning to his shows whenever he is ready."

Nelson, known for his love of R&B, soul and hip-hop, explained: "I wanted to let my followers, radio listeners and all my Soul Nation party-people know that I'm going to be taking a little break from my work commitments.

"Some of you may already have noticed that I've not been on my daily Radio 2 slot this week."

He continued: "After a routine check-up I was advised to have some follow up tests. As a result, I will be taking some further time off. As I'm sure you can appreciate with health issues, it's important to deal with facts and not speculate.

"So I'm concentrating on getting better, being back to 100% me and to getting back behind the mic and the decks."

Earlier this week, Nelson received a special prize at the Television and Radio Industries Club (Tric) Awards, recognising his broadcasting career across radio and television.

'He's a stalwart'

Messages of love and support from music stars including Stormzy, Spice Girl Mel B, Beverley Knight, Jools Holland and Alesha Dixon have been flooding in to the replies on social media.

"Health. First and always," noted singer Knight.

Another performer, Lemar, offered: "Big love Trev. Rest up." While singer and presenter Fleur East wrote: "Take your time. Health is everything."

"Well done for listening to your body," added singer Corinne Bailey Rae.

Fellow broadcasters Clara Amfo, Tony Blackburn, Romesh Ranganathan, Zoe Ball and Lauren Laverne also sent their support.

Laverne of 6 Music and Radio 4 said: "Sending lots of love and keeping everything crossed for you. I know how that can feel - take it one step at a time and try not to jump ahead."

Vernon Kay paid tribute on his show on Friday, saying: "Everyone at BBC Radio 2, including the mid-morning show are sending Trevor all the very very best wishes, we absolutely love him to bits.

"He's a stalwart broadcaster within the UK - I played golf with him a couple of weeks ago and he was in a buoyant mood. And I know that this challenge is something that Trevor is gonna face head on.

"So Trevor we are sending you all our love and hopefully see you on the links very soon my friend."

Nelson presents a weekday afternoon show on Radio 2 and appears on 1Xtra late on a Sunday morning.

Next week, Amfo will cover his weekday show - from 14:00-16:00 BST - the corporation has confirmed. After which, DJ Spoony will take over from 6 July until further notice.

Speaking on the show on Friday afternoon, Richie Anderson, who was covering for Nelson, said: "Sending all the love in the world to our Trevor, we've got your back buddy."

The London-born DJ kicked off his career with the Madhatter sound system, putting on warehouse parties.

He then worked for pirate radio station Kiss FM in London, becoming a director once the station went legal.

He became known for his Soul II Soul Sunday night jam at the Africa Centre.

His friendship with frontman Jazzie B saw them set up a second Soul II Soul shop in London.

Working as a promotions manager at Cooltempo (EMI Records), Nelson championed acts like 90s US hip-hop group Arrested Development and Gang Starr.

After 10 years with Kiss FM, he moved to Radio 1 in 1996 to present Rhythm Nation.

Two-time best DJ winner at the Mobo Awards, Nelson also went on to host the ceremony alongside Kelis and the late Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes.

Moving into television, he presented MTV's black music shows The Lick and The Lick Chart before the BBC gave him his own shows, Trevor Nelson's Urban Choice and The Lowdown.

As well as hosting stages at the Notting Hill Carnival for Radio 1, Nelson also released the compilation albums Pure Grooves and INCredible Sound Of Trevor Nelson.

He has also presented the MTV Europe Music Awards and the Prince's Trust Urban Music Festival.

In 2002, Nelson received an MBE for his contribution to the Millennium Volunteers programme.

Listeners can hear him and DJ Spoony presenting The Music Is Black concert, recorded at Hackney Empire last month, on BBC Sounds now.

Love Island USA removes second contestant for using racial slur

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyezep8dz4o, 2 days ago

A second Love Island USA contestant has been removed from the villa after historic social media posts emerged that appeared to show her using a racial slur.

Alannah Keyser was removed after a video showed her apparently lip synching to the n-word in a song, while other screenshots showed her appearing to use the same slur in an Instagram comment and Snap message.

The posts came from a private account and were not made public until after Keyser entered the villa, and were therefore not flagged during broadcaster Peacock's vetting process, sources told US publications including Variety.

Keyser, who had appeared on the dating series since Sunday, has not yet commented.

Keyser joined the series as a "bombshell" during the show's traditional mid-season Casa Amor twist, where new islanders enter the villa to challenge existing relationships.

Before her departure, Keyser appeared in the first 20 minutes of Thursday's episode, conversing with one of the male contestants before appearing briefly in two further non-speaking scenes.

However, the show's narrator then confirmed her exit, telling viewers: "Alannah has left Casa Amor."

It is the second time this season that a contestant has left over the use of racist language, after Vasana Montgomery was removed following the announcement of the line-up.

Montgomery was seen appearing to use the n-word in two different videos that were circulated online.

She later said in an Instagram statement: "In those videos, I used a racial slur. There is no excuse for it, and I am deeply sorry.

"I am embarrassed and disappointed by my words. I take full responsibility for what I said and understand why it has hurt and upset people."

Two further contestants were also removed from the seventh series of Love Island last year.

Yulissa Escobar was asked to leave the villa after videos emerged of her using a slur in a podcast.

In a TikTok video posted after she was removed, Escobar said: "I get it. I said a word that I should have not said. But I wish I would have never said that. It is what it is. I can't go back in time. I am sorry that I said that word."

During the same season, Cierra Ortega exited after using a racist term for Asian people. She later apologised and said that she "genuinely had no idea" that the term she had used was considered a slur.

Spider-Man to The Odyssey: 10 of the best films to watch this July

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260624-10-of-the-best-films-to-watch-this-july, 2 days ago

With Tom Holland and Zendaya starring in two of the biggest releases, here are the films to watch at the cinema and screen at home this month.

1. Evil Dead Burn

Sam Raimi's Evil Dead franchise roared back to life in 2023 with the smash hit Evil Dead Rise. Now there's some more gleefully over-the-top comedy horror in Evil Dead Burn, directed by Sébastian Vaniček. Souheila Yacoub stars as a young woman who goes to dinner with her late husband's family shortly after he is killed in a car accident. It's the definition of an uncomfortable social situation – but it gets worse when the family starts mutating into demonic zombies known as Deadites. Vaniček believe that cinemagoers needn't have seen any previous Evil Dead films to enjoy this one. "My goal was to craft a powerful, singular – almost personal – story that could stand on its own," he said in Variety, "while still resonating deeply within the rich, complex world that Sam has built. I want people to feel physically drained when they leave the theatre, like they've been through an emotional and intense journey."

Released on 8 to 10 July internationally

2. The Odyssey

The director of The Dark Knight, Inception, and the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan doesn't make small-scale films. But his latest epic looks set to be his grandest undertaking to date: a near three-hour adaptation of one of the most important works of literature ever written, Homer's Odyssey. Matt Damon plays Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, who is making the long and perilous journey back to his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) after the Trojan War. The star-studded cast includes Charlize Theron, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Tom Holland, Lupita Nyong'o and many more. And the whole thing is shot on 70mm IMAX film – the first feature film to do so. "I think what separates him from other directors is the stories he wants to tell are incredibly ambitious," Matt Damon said on 60 Minutes. "And the way he wants to tell them is incredibly ambitious. In this case he wanted to do it 100% in IMAX, which had never been done."

Released on 15 to 17 July internationally

3. Spider-Man: Brand New Day

This is the fourth Spider-Man film with Tom Holland in the red-and-blue costume, but, as the subtitle suggests, it's also a new start: the first film in a proposed trilogy. It has a new director, with Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) taking over from Jon Watts. And Peter Parker is in a new situation: following a spell cast by Doctor Strange in the last film, none of his friends remember that he exists. "It's that time in your mid-20s, when the harsh realities of life can sometimes slap you in the face," Cretton said in Screenrant. "Peter is dealing with some real grown-up problems both personally and professionally, and for the first time, he's learning how to deal with them completely on his own." If that weren't enough, he's got to deal with the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), the Punisher (Jon Bernthal), and a gang of ninja assassins.

Released on 29 to 31 July internationally

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4. Enola Holmes 3

Sherlock Holmes's younger sister (Millie Bobby Brown) is off on another fast and furious adventure – this one written by Jack Thorne and directed by Philip Barantini, the screenwriter and the director of Adolescence. Enola isn't an adolescent anymore, though, but a young woman who is due to marry her boyfriend, Lord Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge). The only snag is that Sherlock (Henry Cavill) has been kidnapped, so she has to rescue the great detective with the help of his sidekick Watson (Himesh Patel) and the siblings' mother (Helena Bonham Carter). "Millie's totally different to the Millie that I first met when first thinking about Enola Holmes," said Thorne in the Radio Times. And so [the new script] was trying to capture what it is to be a grown-up Enola Holmes." The films are also Victorian history lessons, added Thorne. "The first film was about land reform and vote reform, the second film was about the birth of the unions, and the third film looks at our colonial history."

Released on 1 July on Netflix

5. Minions & Monsters

In the third Minions film – and the seventh Despicable Me film – the yellow humanoids aren't hanging around with supervillains, for a change, they're hanging around with actors and directors in 1920s Hollywood. There's a certain logic to that setting, as the franchise's love of slapstick and non-verbal humour connects it to the world of silent comedy. "All the Minions stuff is heavily inspired by silent-movie stars," the film's director, Pierre Coffin, told Empire. "The whole point of it is that you don't understand them when they speak – but you understand them nonetheless." The twist is that the Minions decide to make their own monster movie – and that means venturing to a remote island to find a real live monster…

Released on 1 to 3 July internationally

6. Moana

Disney has made plenty of live-action remakes of its classic cartoons, but Moana is different. The original film was released just 10 years ago – and Moana 2 came out two years ago in 2024. Meanwhile, the character voiced by Dwayne Johnson in the cartoons is played by him on-screen in the live-action version, and the various monsters are CGI creations rather than physical puppets. The question is, then: will this Moana film be so similar to the cartoon that it's a waste of time? The director, Thomas Kail, promises otherwise. "I'm from the theatre, where the idea of doing a revival is commonplace," he said in Polygon. "There's something about taking a text and having it evolve… But there's tons of new dialogue, lots of new jokes."

Released on 8 to 10 July internationally

7. Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass

An episode in the third series of Friends popularised the concept of a "celebrity sex pass", the idea being that there are certain famous people that your partner would allow you to sleep with – not that you'd ever have the chance. In this comedy from David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer), a young woman's boyfriend makes use of his pass when he spots his favourite celebrity in Kansas, so Gail (Zoey Deutch) tries to even the score by travelling to Los Angeles and seducing Jon Hamm. Along the way there are cameos from Jennifer Aniston, Henry Winkler, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, and Hamm's Mad Men co-star, John Slattery, all playing themselves. And there are postmodern references to The Wizard of Oz (which is why its heroine's name is a bit like "Dorothy Gale"). According to Richard Lawson in The Hollywood Reporter, Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass is "proudly stupid, a scattershot, oddball comedy that satisfies in visceral, pleasurable ways that a more sophisticated comedy could not".

Released on 10 July in the US

8. Remake

Ross McElwee is an independent film-maker who has built up a cult following by putting himself and his family in his quirky, thoughtful, bittersweet documentaries. His last film, Photographic Memory (2011), examined the friction between McElwee and his grown-up son, Adrian. His new one, Remake, looks back on their relationship in the wake of Adrian's death of a drug overdose in 2016. Like a non-fiction version of Richard Linklater's Boyhood, it sifts through Adrian's life – including when he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and went into rehab. "There is so much pain present in Remake, but there is so much love too – love that seems to radiate through the screen from McElwee's footage of Adrian and his sister Mariah from birth to adulthood," says Hannah Strong in Little White Lies. "Remake is his most nakedly intimate and devastating work, the culmination of a life lived in public for the sake of art."

Released on 10 July in the US

9. Reading Lolita in Tehran

Golshifteh Farahani stars in this inspiring adaptation of writer and academic Azar Nafisi's bestselling 2003 memoir. Eran Riklis's drama covers Nafisi's life in Iran in the 1980s and '90s as the post-revolutionary regime tightens its grip. At first, she teaches literature at the University of Tehran, but she is eventually reduced to running a secret weekly book club in her home. Behind closed doors, a small group of women analyse not just Lolita, but The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice, and they discuss how the novels relate to their own ever-more-constricted and dangerous lives. "This is a stirring, if conventionally made story of courage and curiosity in the face of oppression," says Wendy Ide in Screen International. "Farahani is a powerful and charismatic presence. Her Azar is a strong woman whose face speaks volumes even when she chooses to stay silent."

Released on 10 July in the US

10. Her Private Hell

Nicolas Winding Refn is back with his first film since The Neon Demon in 2016. It's his most extreme and divisive work to date – and considering that his filmography includes Drive, Pusher and Only God Forgives, that's saying something. Sophie Thatcher stars as an actress who moves into a luxury skyscraper in a mist-shrouded future metropolis. She is about to start shooting a science-fiction film, but a supernatural serial killer is on the loose. Meanwhile, in the dark streets below, an American soldier (Charles Melton) is on a noirish quest that pays homage to the fight scenes in Marvel's Daredevil comics. Chase Hutchinson in The Wrap calls this surreal and stylised fairy tale "a captivating cinematic experience… a series of visceral, vibrant and increasingly violent visions that you have to let wash over you".

Released on 24 July in the US and Canada

The Hawk to Little House on the Prairie: 10 of the best TV shows to watch this July

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260622-10-of-the-best-tv-shows-to-watch-this-july, 5 days ago

From a Will Ferrell golfing comedy to a Legally Blonde prequel and a new adaptation of the famous novels about 19th-Century frontier life – these are the best series to watch and stream.

1. Elle

Twenty-five years after she made Elle Woods an indelible pop-culture figure in Legally Blonde, Reese Witherspoon is a producer of this prequel. In 1995, six years before heading to Harvard Law School, Elle (newcomer Lexi Minetree) is in high school, already an underestimated, misunderstood, chihuahua-carrying heroine. She is horrified when her parents, played by June Diane Raphael and Tom Everett Scott, tell her the family is moving from posh, sunny Bel Air to Seattle. Sure enough, at her new school she is a fluffy pink vision in a sea of grunge, dismissed as a bubble-head by judgmental peers. Is there any doubt she will prove them wrong? Witherspoon has said she was inspired to make a prequel after watching the Netflix series Wednesday, which worked so well by sending Wednesday Addams to school.

Elle premieres 1 July on Prime Video internationally

2. Little House on the Prairie

Few books have been as beloved as Laura Ingalls Wilder's autobiographical Little House novels about 19th-Century frontier life, and few television families as embraced as that in the classic series inspired by Wilder's stories, which ran from 1974-83 and endlessly in reruns. This new version, starring relatively unknown actors, takes a fresh look at the family. In the first season (with a second already ordered) Pa and Ma Ingalls, along with young Laura and her older sister, Mary, leave Wisconsin in a covered wagon for a new home in Kansas. Set in 1868, the story deals with the trauma of the recently-ended Civil War, in which Pa's brother died, and gives the Ingalls family sympathetic neighbours from the local Osage Nation. But while those themes and characters reflect 21st-Century expectations, there is still plenty of the old-fashioned family sentiment that made the books and original series so popular.

Little House on the Prairie premieres 9 July on Netflix internationally

3. The Five Star Weekend

In this adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand's 2023 novel, Jennifer Garner plays Hollis Shaw, a cook and best-selling author whose husband has recently died. To deal with her grief, she orchestrates a gathering of four friends from various stages of her life for a weekend in pretty-looking Nantucket, also the location of Netflix' hit Hildebrand adaptation, The Perfect Couple. Chloe Sevigny plays a friend from Hollis's teenage years, Regina Hall plays her college roommate and D'Arcy Carden's character raised her children at the same time as Hollis did. Gemma Chan plays a new friend who carries a secret (what would a reunion be without one?) that threatens to explode Hollis's sense of her own past. The series' creator, Bekah Brunstetter, has compared it to "a marshmallow that's good for you", saying: "We set out to make a show that's uplifting, funny, and gorgeous to look at – but which also has surprising depth around friendship, grief and identity."

The Five Star Weekend premieres 9 July on Peacock in the US and 16 July on Sky Atlantic in the UK and Ireland

4. The Westies

JK Simmons is in tough-guy mode in this crime drama set in New York City in the 1980s. He plays the fictional Eamon Sweeney, head of the real-life Irish mob known as The Westies. The series laces actual period details into the story of a younger generation challenging Sweeney. The plot is set against the real-life backdrop of a convention centre being built, which offered plenty of opportunities for grift and corruption for the Westies and their more powerful rival, the Italian mob. "Who's making more money for you now, me or John Gotti?" Sweeney asks a collaborator, referencing one of the most famous Mafia figures of the day. Tom Brittany (Grantchester) plays an upstart young Westie and Allen Leech (Downton Abbey) plays an IRA cell leader. Titus Welliver (Bosch) plays Sweeney's boyhood friend, now a cop. But he's a corrupt cop, so they haven't diverged all that much.

The Westies premieres 12 July on MGM+ in the US and UK

5. Ride or Die

Octavia Spencer and Hannah Waddingham team up in this action buddy comedy as best friends of 20 years who assumed they knew each other well. It turns out that Judith (Waddingham) has been an international assassin all this time, and Debbie (Spencer) has just learned that her husband has been embezzling from the mob. Now they're both in danger. They go on the run like Thelma and Louise, racing across Europe trying to evade other assassins, assorted criminals and law enforcement officers, with Bill Nighy playing the director of the clandestine operation Judith works for. There are also disguises, flamethrowers and speeding trains that Thelma and Louise never encountered. The trailer promises droll comedy along with the action. "I kill terrible people," Judith explains. When a shocked Debbie says, "For money," you can't argue with the logic of Judith's reply: "Well if I did it for free I'd be a serial killer."

Ride or Die premieres 15 July on Prime Video internationally

6. The Hawk

Will Ferrell has starred in some wonderfully silly sports comedies, skating in Blades of Glory, playing basketball in Semi-Pro and driving a race car in Talladega Nights. It was just a matter of time before he got around to golf. In this series he plays Lonnie Hawkins, known as The Hawk, a 2004 champion now trying to make a comeback. No one else thinks that's a a good idea, including his ex-wife, played by Molly Shannon, and their son, Lance (Jimmy Tatro), also a pro golfer. Luke Wilson plays Golden Fisk, The Hawk's biggest rival from the past. Watching real golf is very, very slow and quiet – this should be faster and wilder.

The Hawk premieres 16 July on Netflix internationally

7. Heartstopper Forever

Dramas about teens go on too long at their peril. Prime example: the botched last season of Euphoria, which took its characters past high school. Heartstopper is getting in just under the wire with this feature-length final episode. After three seasons it wraps up the story of friends finding their way toward adulthood and discovering their sexuality. The central couple, Nick (Kit Connor) and Charlie (Joe Locke), are at a turning point, with Nick heading to university while Charlie, a year younger, stays behind. Alice Oseman, who created the series based on her graphic novels, has said the finale asks, "Are Nick and Charlie a forever couple? If they are, why?" Anna Maxwell Martin takes over from Olivia Colman as Nick's mother. Her response to his coming out in season one – "Thank you for telling me" – captures the warmth and acceptance that has made the series a hit with viewers and critics.

Heartstopper Forever premieres 17 July on Netflix internationally

8. Lucky

Anya Taylor-Joy dodges gunfire and gives as good as she gets in this crime thriller created by Jonathan Tropper, who also created a less gritty crime story in Your Friends and Neighbors. Taylor-Joy plays Lucky, a con woman who is abandoned by her boyfriend after a major heist they were trying to pull off goes wrong. All she can do, without money or resources, is run and try not to be killed. Annette Bening plays a scary, cold crime boss who threatens her. Aunjanue Ellis Taylor is an FBI agent trying to find her before the mob does. And Timothy Olyphant plays Lucky's convict father, who has given her advice on how to survive in the family business. The show is based on Marissa Stapley's 2021 bestselling novel. Stapley has a sequel, No Such Thing as Luck, set to be published next year, so it's safe to assume Taylor-Joy's character somehow stays alive.

Lucky premieres 15 July on Apple TV internationally

9. Stuart Fails to Save the Universe

The hugely popular sitcom Big Bang Theory has already been spun off into two successful shows, Young Sheldon and the spinoff of that spinoff, George and Mandy's First Marriage. In the latest adjunct to the franchise, Kevin Sussman recreates his Big Bang character, the hapless comic-book store owner Stuart, who here somehow breaks a device created by Sheldon and Leonard, the geniuses from the original show. Stuart, his girlfriend, Denise (Lauren Lapkus) and two friends are propelled into an alternate universe, and must try to restore reality. Failure is right there in the title, but we'll see. Chuck Lorre, the mastermind behind all the Big Bang shows, told People "I just wanted to do something that challenged me," including action and special effects, and added "I think it will be revered or reviled." This new spinoff moves the franchise from middle-of-the-road CBS to the more adventurous HBO Max, which does seem like landing in an alternate universe.

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe premieres on HBO Max 23 July in the US and 24 July in the UK

10. Furious

Emmy Rossum leads the cast of this thriller as an FBI agent, Alice, trailing an enigmatic serial killer, Catherine (Lola Petticrew). As Alice learns more about her target, she realises they have unsettling similarities in their pasts. Rossum told EW, "They're both victims of violence who are looking for justice both for themselves and also on a much larger scale in unconventional ways. And because they are constantly underestimated they are both able to – and have to – work outside the lanes of convention." The title she said, alludes to "The Furies, who are Greek goddesses seeking vengeance". Scoot McNairy plays a police officer who is Alice's friend, and Jake Lacy is another police officer who is Alice's ex. (Hmm. Might be a good idea to expand her social circle beyond the police.) Elizabeth Meriwether, the show's creator, based it very loosely on the 1987 film Black Widow.

Furious premieres 27 July on Hulu in the US and Disney+ internationally

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'Created amid high drama': The animals that symbolise pain and passion in a Frida Kahlo self-portrait

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260625-the-pain-and-passion-in-a-frida-kahlo-masterpiece, 2 days ago

A hummingbird, a spider monkey, a black cat and dragonflies – what the animal imagery in an iconic 1940 painting tells us about the artist's trauma, resilience and defiant desire.

"Fridamania" is in full force. Mexican painter Frida Kahlo's superstardom was sealed after her death (in 1954, aged 47), and she remains an unmistakably present cultural figure today. Her imagery – bold, sensuous, immediate yet fabulously intricate – inspires modern artists and activists, and adorns copious merchandise.

Kahlo's tumultuous life story – including her catastrophic injury, lifelong disability, her rocky marriage to painter Diego Rivera, and her many affairs with men and women – is evident in her powerful self-portraits. Her art helped revolutionise the genre: transforming the self-portrait from formal pose to fluid expression, revealing unapologetic beauty, raw trauma and defiant desires.

Of the 55 self-portraits she painted, a significant majority also feature animals – a lifelong love of the artist. The lead image of a new exhibition at Tate Modern, Frida: The Making of an Icon, is an arresting 1940 masterwork, Untitled Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird.

Within this powerful painting there is a wealth of information about Kahlo and her life, and by exploring its nuanced animal imagery it's possible to unlock the artist's most intimate vulnerabilities, strengths and passions. At the same time, the portrait is a glimpse into the important role that her own beloved creatures played in her life.

The painting's dense, verdant foliage backdrop seems to emit a tropical heat; the lush green leaves contrast with the darker hues of the animals around Kahlo, though these, too, are astonishingly detailed – the cat's glinting eyes and arched back with raised fur, the monkey's look of engrossed mischief. We are up close and personal with Kahlo herself: her cheeks and lips flushed; the trickles of darkening blood seeping down her collar; her expression stoical in her suffering.

This particular painting was created amid high drama. Kahlo had just divorced Rivera (they would remarry later that year), and her long-standing affair with US photographer Nickolas Muray was also ending.

'Ready to pounce'

She is depicted as the central figure in a scene that is densely loaded with symbolism. Around her neck, Kahlo wears a hummingbird (a creature traditionally associated with freedom, as well as the Aztec god of war, seemingly lifeless here); at her right shoulder, her pet monkey (gifted to her by Rivera) toys with her thorny necklace, drawing blood; at her left looms a portentous black cat.

"The way that she stares at the viewer directly: not confrontationally, but without any resistance or reticence, is quite striking," Tate Modern curator Tobias Ostrander tells the BBC. "There's also a folklore reference to the hummingbird itself: a tradition of wearing a hummingbird as a talisman, to get a lost love back." He also points out that the hummingbird's shape echoes that of Kahlo's distinctive "monobrow": "it's bringing this dialogue between that object and her own face."

Ostrander says, "She lived with a lot of animals, so it's her daily life. The monkey is the symbol of the suffering that she was emotionally feeling from Rivera, but then the cat is ready to pounce." Rather than a bad luck omen, this sleek feline arguably represents Kahlo's guardian animal, poised with latent power. "There's that sense of vulnerability, but also the strength, or a protector spirit next to her.

"Her hair is braided with this beautiful purple yarn, and silver butterfly pins that she actually owned," says Ostrander. "Above them are what look like dragonfly flowers: a more metaphoric or magic realist reference in the top of the painting. They're a fantastical hybrid that couldn't exist in reality, and there's symbolism from different cultural contexts [in Indigenous Mexican culture, both dragonflies and butterflies are associated with the rebirth of the soul]. It shows the sophistication of her references."

These rich details also reflect Kahlo's own mestiza (mixed Indigenous and European) heritage. In pre-Hispanic cultures, the spider monkey represented irrepressible creativity, playfulness and fertility. At the same time, Kahlo's thorny attire alludes to religious martyrdom and Mexican colonial religious paintings. "For a woman artist to show herself as Christ is kind of wild at the time," Ostrander says, pointing out that she created some of her most ambitious paintings during 1939 and '40.

What Kahlo's animals mean

Kahlo's use of animals in her artworks is often regarded as "exotic" or surreal. Arguably, though, they heighten the relatability of her work. In a 1953 interview with Time magazine, Kahlo explained: "They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality."

She grew up surrounded by animals at her home of Casa Azul, on the outskirts of Mexico City. They provided companionship and solace, when she was bedridden with childhood polio (which left her permanently disabled), and at 18, when she experienced a devastating bus crash (which shattered her spine, and left her in long-term pain). In adulthood, she kept many beloved pets, including spider monkeys, birds, Mexican hairless dogs and a fawn, and Rivera built a pyramid structure to house her menagerie.

Kahlo regularly portrayed herself alongside her animals – in lush works such as Self-Portrait with Monkey (1938) and the serene Me and My Parrot (1941). Occasionally, their identities become entwined; in The Wounded Deer (1946), Kahlo appears in the form of a woodland stag, her body brutally pierced with hunters' arrows. The word "carma" (karma) is at the base of the scene: the fundamental notion of suffering as fate (Kahlo once declared that "pain, pleasure and death are no more than a process for existence".

In an essay for the exhibition, Beatriz Garcia-Velasco notes that Kahlo's depicted wounds evoke "the style of a painting of Saint Sebastian, alluding to her lifelong disability and suffering but finding strength and healing in her connection with nature."

As with all Kahlo's work, her animals invite multilayered interpretations. Saatchi Art's Megan Wright observed that Kahlo regarded her pets as "soulful and insightful creatures" but also suggested that "Kahlo's fluid sexuality... resonated with that of her pet monkeys due to their rambunctious and unapologetically sexual nature, which might also explain why she had depicted them as her equals." A different perspective appears in the 2017 children's book Frida Kahlo and Her Animalitos by Monica Brown, which shows Kahlo's pets as empowering friends.

Surrogate children or sites of affection

Often, it's argued that Kahlo's animals represented the children she longed for. Certainly, her artworks deal candidly with trauma including child loss, but this also seems like an over-familiar assumption around a childless woman.

In Kahlo's hypnotic 1949 painting The Love Embrace of the Universe, The Earth (Mexico), Myself, Diego, and Señor Xólotl, it's actually her husband who appears as a man-baby, nakedly cradled in Kahlo's arms. Her splendidly named dog Señor Xólotl – Xólotl is a figure from Aztec mythology – is a tender, protective presence at her feet.

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• How 3rd-Century Saint Sebastian became a gay icon

"Kahlo had lots of animals that were sites of affection for her," says Ostrander. "She was very confined to her house, and so her house became kind of a world – it's more of a Noah's Ark situation than something sad. I don't want to simplify that they're like children, but they sometimes stood in for children or a representation of youth around her."

Our appreciation and understanding of Kahlo continually expands, and her bond to animals and nature feels timeless. She would face intense challenges throughout her life; in 1953, when her right leg was amputated following a bout of severe gangrene, she wrote in her diary: "Feet, what do I need them for if I have wings to fly?".

Kahlo's most heartbroken self-portraits ultimately resound with vivacity. As she declared: "I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint."

Frida: The Making of an Icon is at Tate Modern London until 3 January 2027.

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'The cult of Saint Sebastian': How a brutally tortured 3rd-Century saint became a gay icon

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260623-how-3rd-century-saint-sebastian-became-a-gay-icon, 4 days ago

A Roman soldier who was killed for his Christian beliefs, Sebastian has been a hero for gay men over the centuries – from Oscar Wilde to Keith Haring. Here's why.

Loaded and emotive, the term "gay icon" is often applied to resilient female celebrities like Judy Garland (embattled), Cher (high camp) and Madonna (tireless). When Dusty Springfield died in 1999, Pet Shop Boys singer Neil Tennant was asked why his friend and collaborator had become "such a gay icon". Tennant's response, as he recalled in a 2024 interview with Mojo, was pretty dismissive: "To call her a gay icon is simply to marginalise her. It's to say, 'She's only of interest to gay people.'"

Tennant made a good point regarding Springfield, but attaining "gay icon" status can also be celebratory and subversive. This is certainly the case with Saint Sebastian, a Roman soldier who was killed for his religious beliefs in AD288, during a sustained persecution of Christians by the emperor Diocletian.

Sebastian is venerated as a saint in both the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, which have long disseminated the legend that he was clubbed to death after berating Diocletian for his "sinful" pagan views.

However, it is an earlier attack on Sebastian by the emperor's henchmen, in which he was tied to a tree and pelted with arrows, that has made this unknowable martyr an enduring muse to artists of repute – there are no fewer than 14 depictions of Sebastian in the National Gallery, London's collection – and a perennial conduit for gay desire.

How the cult of Saint Sebastian grew

Sebastian's emergence as a gay icon can be traced back to the culturally transformative Renaissance period of the 14th to 17th Centuries, when prominent artists including Guido Reni, El Greco and Sandro Botticelli depicted his arrow-pierced body with a smouldering homoerotic subtext.

Daniel Fountain, a senior lecturer in art history and visual culture at University of Exeter in the UK, tells the BBC that these arrows are generally perceived by art historians as a phallic "symbol of penetrative sex and queerness". People's History Museum director Clare Barlow, who curated Tate Britain's 2017 exhibition Queer British Art 1861–1967, believes the arrows "take on a huge psychosexual significance" in a lot of these paintings whether this was the artist's intention or not. "And the fact that Sebastian is often painted as a very beautiful youth only makes him more entrancing," she adds.

During the Renaissance period, when attitudes towards homosexuality were much less tolerant, artistic depictions of Sebastian's lithe, desirable body became fashionable and fascinatingly ambiguous. Much like Michelangelo's 16th-Century masterpiece David, which crystallised an ideal of male beauty in marble form, paintings of this beautiful, persecuted saint served as an acceptable conduit for gay male desire.

Still, Barlow points out that it is "often very hard to track whether this was a particular artist's overt intention, or whether it was simply read into their work by a community of viewers who were hungry for representation". In some cases, it may well be a little of both.

Over time, though, it's fair to say that Sebastian blossomed into what we might now describe as a highbrow queer reference. According to writer performer and educator Holly James Johnston, who paid tribute to Sebastian in 2025 with a living sculpture performance at The Wallace Collection in London, the "cult of Saint Sebastian reached its peak" during the late-19th Century, when eminent intellectuals such as Oscar Wilde, English essayist Walter Pater and French writer Marc-André Raffalovich claimed an affinity with him that telegraphed their sexuality.

Raffalovich wrote extensively about homosexuality in decades when it was taboo, but ultimately struggled to reconcile his own gay desires with his religious beliefs. When he joined a Catholic order in 1896, he chose the name Brother Sebastian in tribute to his favourite saint. "Sebastian became part of a sort of queer-coded language at that time," Johnston says. "For well-educated men, it was a way of sharing and expressing your queer desires through an icon who was immediately recognisable to other queer individuals."

What Sebastian has been seen to represent

At the same time, Sebastian's queer appeal runs more than skin deep. In her 1962 essay The Artist as Exemplary Sufferer, the cultural critic Susan Sontag cites Sebastian as an archetypal example of the "exemplary sufferer", partly because his brutalised body has been glamorised by artists. "He is almost always depicted in the same way, which is in contrapposto, so his leg gives slightly and the body slumps beautifully. And then he looks up to the heavens, in this pleading or even desiring way," says art historian Professor Dominic Johnson of Queen Mary University.

The penetrative symbolism of the attacking arrows in paintings becomes even more suggestive when it is combined with an apparent expression of sexual ecstasy etched on Sebastian's face. "In one painting by El Greco, The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, it almost looks as though his loincloth is falling off," says Johnston. For this reason, Daniel Fountain suggests that Sebastian can be viewed as an historic embodiment of "contemporary BDSM (bondage, discipline, dominance and submission) practices". Though these aren't exclusive to the LGBTQ+ community, they enjoy greater prominence in certain queer subcultures.

The nature of Sebastian's emotional pain is also ripe for projection. Johnson suggests that Sebastian's story may particularly appeal to anyone with a "nihilistic" or bleakly "romantic vision of homosexuality", especially in less welcoming times. "He was someone who tried to hide who he was – a Christian – before being shunned by society and persecuted for his beliefs," Fountain says. "A lot of queer artists have found a resonance with this narrative of exclusion."

These include Oscar Wilde, who adopted the pseudonym Sebastian Melmoth in tribute to him during his final, exiled years in Paris, following his imprisonment for gross indecency for relationships with men in 1895. Late in post-war Japan, provocative author Yukio Mishima revealed that a famous painting of Sebastian prompted his sexual awakening and recreated the saint's arrow-stricken martyr pose in a series of celebrated photographs.

His impact in the 20th and 21st Centuries

Sebastian's gay icon status has burned just as brightly since the 1969 Stonewall uprising ignited the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.

In 1976, the influential artist, film-maker and gay rights activist Derek Jarman celebrated him in Sebastiane, a film deemed groundbreaking for its unselfconscious male nudity and positive depictions of gay sexuality. While Sebastian (Leonardo Treviglio) is lusted over by his commanding officer (Barney James), who eventually kills him, two fellow soldiers are shown enjoying a loving gay relationship.

"It's an important film partly because it was so controversial, especially when it was shown on British public television in 1985," says Dominic Johnson. "But it’s also significant because it’s such a beautiful, thoughtful and provocative film about gay men and desire."

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Johnston believes Jarman's tender and erotic film "helped to blow the lid off" his status as a semi-veiled gay icon. Barlow agrees with this interpretation of Sebastiane, arguing that Jarman embraced the "homoerotic subtext" in numerous Renaissance paintings of the seductive saint, then "dialled it up to 11".

Because Sebastian's gay icon status is so layered and deep-rooted, it has also proved malleable. At the height of the HIV/Aids epidemic in the 1980s and early '90s, his image was referenced in works by contemporary artists including Keith Haring and David Wojnarowicz, both of whom would die of the disease. In medieval times, Sebastian was perceived as a saint who could protect people from the plague, perhaps because of the way Irene was able to heal his arrow wounds. "There are clear parallels with the way he is embraced in the 1980s, during a very different plague, when depictions of Sebastian herald him as a kind of patron saint of queerness, sickness and perseverance," Fountain says.

And Sebastian is still inspiring LGBTQ+ artists and performers and artists today.

In 2022, when London's Residence Gallery put on a group show inspired by Britney Spears, multi-disciplinary artist Gray Wielebinski created a starkly evocative installation that referenced the whip she brandished on her 2009 world tour, the live python she performed with at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards, and Sebastian's signature attacking arrows.

The Dallas-born artist was making a connection between Sebastian’s persecution and the way Spears, a modern-day gay icon, has arguably been targeted for her intense fame. "There's a sort of knowingness to Sebastian's gaze [in many artworks] as well as a grace and gravitas in his posture," Wielebinski tells the BBC. "I wanted to give Britney that same grace and a bit more agency in terms of knowing her fate."

Having been painted by artists and embraced by queer thinkers for centuries, Sebastian's gay icon status is now as complex as it is unequivocal. But at this point, there is nothing marginalising about the way he is perceived. On the contrary, this historical figure, whom we know very little about, has become a bottomless wellspring of strength and creative inspiration.

For as long as queer people can see aspects of themselves in his image, his legacy will continue to flourish and evolve in fascinating ways.

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'His life was one of fantasy': How John le Carré's spy novels were shaped by his con-man father

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260619-how-john-le-carrs-spy-novels-were-shaped-by-his-con-man-father, 6 days ago

The author's childhood was rocked by bankruptcy and deceit. In 2008, he told the BBC that his "hectic background" trained him to be an author – and a spy.

David Cornwell was steeped in secrecy throughout his life – long before he took on the nom de plume John le Carré, long before his first novel, Call for the Dead, was published in June 1961, and long before he became one of the UK's most critically acclaimed, bestselling spy novelists. He learned deception and self-reliance from an early age, later recalling one particular childhood memory with his older brother, at the start of a day out from school.

"My father told us to wait at the end of the drive at our boarding school in Berkshire. And the reason he didn't want to present himself to the school was that he hadn't paid the bill, but we didn't know that," Le Carré told the BBC in a 2008 interview. "So we waited at the lodge at the end of the school drive with our suitcases. And he never showed up."

Let down by their father Ronnie Cornwell, a con man who was in and out of prison throughout their childhood, the boys did what they could to save face in front of their schoolmates. "We just stayed away for the whole day. We had no food. We had no money. But we wouldn't go back to school. We went back in the evening and pretended we'd had a wonderful day."

It was the first time he remembered feeling disillusioned about his father – and yet it also taught him something that was to prove useful later. "It's very interesting in espionage terms: the rendezvous collapses. You work out a cover story. You come back and dissemble."

As a child during World War Two, when other boys at his school were talking about the daring feats of their fathers, Le Carré invented a double life. "He grew up at a time when what your father did in the war was terribly important," his biographer Adam Sisman told the BBC in 2015. "He was embarrassed by his father… [who] was the most shaming of all, he was a spiv [a small-time crook who sells blackmarket goods]. He was profiteering while other boys' fathers were away fighting." To hide this, Le Carré made up stories that Ronnie was a spy.

That complicated relationship with heroics played out in the novels he wrote. His recurring protagonist, George Smiley, was the "anti-James Bond" – someone who is "bureaucratically dowdy, rarely spotted in the field… discreet to the point of self-erasure", according to The Atlantic. He "drops no one-liners, romances no tarot-card readers, roars no speedboats through the Bayou". Le Carré deliberately avoided the fast-car flashiness of Bond in Smiley, telling the BBC that he "made him tubby and physically graceless and a bad dresser".

In novels such as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), Le Carré – who died in 2020 at the age of 89 – focused on the mundane reality of espionage. It was a reality that he knew firsthand, working as a British intelligence officer for MI5 and then MI6 from 1952, after running away from boarding school and ending up in Bern.

A 'psychopath' who loved his sons

Again, his father directly shaped his career. "If I hadn't had a wildcat dad, I wouldn't have run away," he told the BBC. "If my father hadn't taken me to St Moritz to ski in 1936, Switzerland wouldn't have been imprinted on my memory as a romantic spot to go to, a kind of natural place of exile."

And this complicated relationship with his father continued throughout his life, according to Sisman. "Ronnie had no boundaries – he was in many ways a psychopath. He was a man capable of robbing old ladies of their life savings. At the same time, he clearly loved his sons."

While Le Carré's mother abandoned him at the age of five, Ronnie stuck around, albeit in a sporadic fashion. "Whenever Ronnie in later life would get in touch with David and say, 'I need bailing out, son', David would reach for his cheque book and often burst into tears," said Sisman. "So David had this peculiar love-hate thing about his father, this unresolved thing."

Le Carré recognised that Ronnie not only honed his skills in spycraft, but also shaped the books he wrote, and his ability to create fictional worlds. Coming from a respectable family in Bournemouth, Ronnie first went to prison as a young man, before being sentenced to hard labour. "From then on, he lived an extraordinarily flamboyant life," said Le Carré. Constantly reinventing himself, Ronnie "became a racehorse owner. He mixed with younger royals… [with a] chauffeur-driven Bentley and all of that."

On whether Le Carré was a writer who became a spy for a brief period, or a spy who turned his experiences into novels, he said: "I will never know… But I think actually behind both of them is the great shadow of my father and the duplicitous life that we lived as children, where we knew when we filled up the car with petrol at the local garage that it was never going to be paid for, where we pretended to live like middle-class English boys.

"We went to school. We didn't talk about our hectic background. So in a sense, we were spies." Although all of his father's family spoke with regional accents, the moment Le Carré got to private school, he adopted the speech of his fellow students. "And I started learning deportment and all the curious ways in which... people of that class communicate with each other. I never felt part of it, but I think very many creative people don't anyway feel integrated in life."

Le Carré's ability to spin fictions – and lead a double life – was in turn influenced by his father's choice to "live a criminal life, but under the guise of orthodoxy". He recalled: "My father's life was one of fantasy, he was a superb con man, and could build castles in the air, invent characters, anything. Since that gift was already an example to me, it was a natural thing to flow into writing fiction."

'Home was a very dangerous place'

His upbringing also determined the type of fiction he would write, one populated by morally conflicted characters in which no one could be trusted. "Home was a very dangerous place, as it was for George Smiley, as it is for most of my protagonists in that world," he told the BBC. "Home is where you can be found, home is where they come and arrest you, home is where the bailiffs come and turf out your toys and your clothes." That tension meant that Le Carré said he never felt safe. "Insecurity is a wonderful spark for writing."

Le Carré created his own genre of spy fiction, one in which his characters questioned themselves and the amoral methods of their agencies. It's a world away from Ian Fleming's 007. "I'm not sure that Bond is a spy," Le Carré told the BBC in a 1966 interview. "He's more some kind of international gangster… he's a man entirely out of the political context." In contrast, Le Carré's novels illuminated the Cold War ideological battleground, the political picture playing as large a role as the espionage.

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They also featured a succession of highly solitary characters, with the author describing The Spy Who came in from the Cold as "a story of loneliness". And Le Carré related to that himself, his own solitariness playing out on the page. "The condition of secrecy was a refuge for me," he said in 2008.

Although Le Carré acknowledged the scars from his unusual upbringing, he recognised the value of what had been hardwired in him from childhood. And despite the trauma of being continually disappointed by his father, Cornwell attributed much of his later success to Ronnie.

"The combination of exotic bouts of life with my father, then the hectic intermissions when he was bankrupt or at Her Majesty's Pleasure somewhere, the range and the scale of experience, in retrospect, was extremely rich. Those things contributed to the way I write, and to the sense of tension which I can never get rid of. I'm grateful for those inheritances. I often quote Graham Greene – 'the credit balance of the writer is his childhood' – and in that sense I was a millionaire."

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Café Terrace at Night: Five details that unlock the genius of Van Gogh's original 'starry night'

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260618-five-details-that-unlock-the-genius-of-van-goghs-original-starry-night, 9 days ago

With his first "starry night" painting in Arles in 1888, Vincent van Gogh transformed an ordinary city square into something extraordinary – here's how he did it, and what it means.

Before there was The Starry Night, nine months before, to be exact, there was Café Terrace at Night. Painted in September 1888, the luminous portrayal of a lantern-lit coffeehouse in the Provençal city of Arles (to which Van Gogh had moved six months earlier) is capped enchantingly by a deep blue wedge of pulsing, constellated sky.

The very first starry night that Van Gogh ever painted, it would prove to be pivotal for the artist, and not simply because it introduced a fresh fascination with the glimmering coordinates of the cosmos above.

With Café Terrace at Night (now on display in Tokyo as the climactic work in The Grand Van Gogh Exhibition) one can see Van Gogh reinventing both himself as well as the role of the artist as a witness to the universe – to what is past, or passing, or to come.

In his mid-30s when he moved to Arles from Paris in early 1888, Van Gogh had been something of a restless seeker, having tried his hand variously at art dealing, teaching, preaching, and being a self-taught artist.

Though his palette, increasingly influenced by Impressionism, had brightened considerably from the murky colours of his early Dutch canvases, his mental and physical health had sharply declined. Desperate, Van Gogh looked to the alluring light of Arles in the south of France. He saw Provence as a region of creative and spiritual renewal, where everything that came before could be erased and the self reborn.

Writing to his brother Theo from Arles in the weeks before creating Café Terrace at Night, Van Gogh began to distance himself from what he had painted previously, insisting that he no longer wished to "render exactly what I have before my eyes". Instead, he commited himself to conjuring "a sense of the infinite".

Determined to forge a new way of seeing, that Van Gogh set up his easel on a clear, warm September night in the quaint majesty of Arles' Place du Forum.

The location, a site shaped by millennia of cultural transformation from antiquity to the present, would prove crucial to the painting's enduring resonance and power. Suddenly, worldly objects began to vibrate with an otherworldly glow. The infinitude of the starscape above and fleetingness of the passing world below blurred into a single resplendent fabric.

What follows are the five key details in Café Terrace at Night that, once unpacked, reveal how Van Gogh transformed an ordinary city square into something stranger: an idealised elsewhere – a place where the past and present merge ambiguously into a dreamlike mirage that is neither here-and-now nor there-and-then, yet both at once.

1. Cobblestones

The foreground of Van Gogh's canvas, occupying a full quarter of the painting, is a rippling sea of multi-coloured cobblestones that appears perversely to push back from the viewer the titular focus of the image: the café. A letter Van Gogh wrote to his sister shortly after completing the painting suggests that the prismatic splendour of this ragged mosaic of light and stone is the real subject of this section of the work:

A huge yellow lantern lights the terrace, the façade, the pavement, and even projects light over the cobblestones of the street, which takes on a violet-pink tinge… Now there's a painting of night without black. With nothing but beautiful blue, violet and green, and in these surroundings the lighted square is coloured pale sulphur, lemon green.

But beneath this radiant surface lies another, invisible architecture – unseen to us, but known to Van Gogh. Below the expanse of cobblestones is a vast network of vaulted galleries known as "cryptoporticoes". Now a buried skeleton of Roman Arles, this sprawling underground foundation not only supported the ancient forum that occupied the site, but the very ground on which Van Gogh stood. More than dazzling proof of his mastery of the palette, the cobblestones are, in effect, the rubble of the past (both personal and historical) trampled underfoot – the shattered skin of a place that haunts from below the threshold of seeing.

2. Columns

At the centre of the painting, visible beneath the electric green boughs of the large tree on the right of the canvas, is a well-lit and finely observed corner shop from which a handsomely dressed couple appear to be walking in the direction of the café opposite it. But that's not quite how it was.

Van Gogh has studiously swapped in these windows and drawn curtains for a pair of formidable, 1st-Century Corinthian columns, complete with intricate capitals and cornice, and a striking fragment of a pediment, salvaged from the ruins of a Roman temple that adjoined the ancient forum and inserted into the façade of what was the Hôtel du Nord. Prominently visible from his vantage, these spolia, as they are known, or picturesquely repositioned relics from antiquity, would likely have preoccupied the brush of almost any other artist. But they have no place in a painting that refuses to be weighed down by the past. In Van Gogh's work, you can look back, but it's best not to stare.

3. Chairs

Imposing props from the past – buried beneath the surface or erased altogether – are not the only absences that disturb Van Gogh's deceptively straightforward work. Though the painting appears to present a lively social scene, our eyes must hurdle rows of empty tables before they meet any actual cafe goers. What are we to make of all these unoccupied seats near the foreground of the painting, which appear to be arranged as if a spectacle – to be performed in the square between them and where we stand – were about to begin?

According to contemporary accounts, including one published a decade before Van Gogh moved to Arles, Place du Forum (then known as Place du Cestier) witnessed the appalling pomp on 26 February 1399 of the beheading of a rebellious nobleman, Gaubert de Lernet, before an audience that included Queen Marie of Blois, mother of King Louis II of Naples and of the Prince of Taranto. The scaffold, like the forum, may be gone – its history erased and overwritten by time – but the muscle memory of gawking is hard to break.

4. The tower

The canvas's insistent perspective lines, accentuated by the clever alignment of cobbled gutters and the levitating tabletops, pull the gaze to the back of the painting. It is then pulled upwards by the ascent of a shadowy tower that rises in the distance. By the time Van Gogh visited Arles, this evocative tower, silhouetted by the cobalt blue sky, had itself become a totem of existential reinvention. It began life as the bell tower of the church of Sainte-Anne before being recast, a dozen years before Van Gogh relocated to Arles, as a reliquary for ancient fragments as part of the city's Musée Lapidaire.

Van Gogh attests to visiting the museum almost upon arrival in the city, and to taking in its impressive collection of Roman inscriptions, architectural remnants, and early-Christian sarcophagi recovered from the nearby necropolis, the Alyscamps, to which the artist would soon turn his brush for a series of four paintings after completing Café Terrace at Night. As a repository of the vanishing past, the Lapidaire tower serves a vital visual function, connecting the fleeting affairs of this world with the infinitude above.

5. The stars

In light of Van Gogh's willingness to manipulate the contours of the world as he encountered them, it may seem surprising that he should be so meticulous about the placement of the stars in the keystone of sky to which our eyes are ultimately drawn. But scholars have demonstrated that his stellar arrangement aligns precisely with the position of the constellation of Aquarius in mid-September 1888, just when he stood in the Place du Nord and gazed above the Rue du Palais.

Everywhere else in Van Gogh's painting, the world, like himself, is forever in flux, endlessly evolving into something else. Only the twinkling stars – the seemingly least tangible or fixable property in the painting – are spared revision and belong to a realm beyond correction. They, and they alone, are pure and represent the ungraspable zenith of creative yearning. Writing to his brother a fortnight after finishing Café Terrace at Night, Van Gogh explains his newfound remedy for feeling untethered to the ceaselessly shifting universe around him: "I go outside at night to paint the stars".

Vincent van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night is on display in Tokyo as part of the Grand Van Gogh Exhibition at the Ueno Royal Museum.

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'One of the greatest unsolved mysteries in British history': The earl who vanished after murdering his children's nanny

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260611-the-aristocrat-who-vanished-after-killing-a-nanny, 13 days ago

Lord Lucan was found guilty of killing Sandra Rivett on 19 June 1975 – but by then he had already disappeared. His wife was interviewed by the BBC in 1980.

The Lord Lucan affair is a bizarre and horrific one, but on the face of it, there seems to be little doubt about the sequence of events. During the night of 7 November 1974, it appears, the British aristocrat Lord Lucan hid in the dark in the basement kitchen of his house in Belgravia, London. Planning to murder his estranged wife, instead he bludgeoned to death their 29-year-old nanny Sandra Rivett in a case of mistaken identity, before then attacking Lady Lucan.

She managed to escape and raise the alarm, and in the meantime, Lord Lucan fled, presumed by many to have jumped into the sea near Newhaven and drowned. He has never been found, although there have since been reported sightings of him across the globe, on every continent except Antarctica.

According to evidence – and the fact that the earl went on the run – the case appears to be damning. On 19 June 1975, at Rivett's inquest, a coroner's court took just 31 minutes to find Lord Lucan guilty of murder. Yet dig a little deeper, and there are more questions than answers.

Why would someone who was apparently squeamish about blood choose such a brutal and violent method? How could he have mistaken Rivett for his wife during a prolonged attack? And why did Lady Lucan take so long before running to a nearby pub and shouting "he's murdered the nanny, help me"? It all adds up to one of the greatest unsolved crime mysteries in British history.

Both Lord and Lady Lucan's stories about what happened that night are "questionable", according to the historian Alex von Tunzelmann, presenter of The Lucan Obsession podcast. "It feels like there's almost nothing solid at the centre of it that you can go on, and it's then very open to people's theories… It's one of those mysteries that is unsolved, and I think, is probably unsolvable."

It also reveals much about the British attitude to class. Richard John Bingham, the seventh Earl of Lucan, married Veronica, a former model and secretary, in 1963. He was an Eton-educated professional gambler, who despite his "Lucky" nickname had run up debts and was facing bankruptcy at the time of the murder. When he disappeared, there were suggestions that he had been helped by wealthy friends, dubbed "the Clermont Set" after the casino they frequented in Berkeley Square. One of the more outlandish theories about Lucan's fate claimed that he shot himself, asking that his body be fed to the lions in the private zoo of his friend, the Clermont Club owner John Aspinall.

A marriage gone horribly wrong

The public obsession with the case is sustained by ambiguities. "The facts are just enough to make a narrative while leaving hugely tantalising areas of doubt," suggests the historian Rosemary Hill. If there were a murder trial today, the verdict "wouldn't necessarily be a done deal", argues Von Tunzelmann.

One of the reasons the case captured the public imagination was that it revealed in graphic detail a marriage gone horribly wrong. "This was a hugely dysfunctional relationship, it was really messy, whatever was going on," says Von Tunzelmann. The couple had separated by January 1973, with Lord Lucan moving out of the family home into a nearby flat. He fought a bitter but unsuccessful battle for custody of their three children, which together with his impending bankruptcy suggested a motive for the murder.

There is another side to the story, though. Veronica had suffered from mental-health problems throughout her life, and a few years after her husband's disappearance, their children were removed from her care. "My husband is still alive, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, since his body has not been found," Lady Lucan told the BBC's Newsnight in a remarkable 1980 interview. On the events of November 1974, she said: "For me, it was just a brief incident I've forgotten. I've recovered from it. It was just a marital thing." She remained estranged from her children until her death in 2017.

Today, argues Von Tunzelmann, "there might be a bit more of a challenge to her story. I'm not suggesting she did anything – just that perhaps she wasn't telling the full truth herself." But the journalist and author James Fox wrote in a letter to the London Review of Books that Lady Lucan "described in great detail to me how she got out of this murderous attack by her husband… She never wavered or embellished it down the years. One detail was so extraordinary it can't have been invented. When he lunged at her throat, she managed to croak: 'Don't you dare touch my pearls.'"

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Speculation over the events on the night of Rivett's murder is matched by theories over what happened to Lucan in the days afterwards. His last confirmed sighting early the following morning was at the house of friends in Sussex, the Maxwell-Scotts. While there, he wrote letters in which he insisted on his innocence, claiming that it had been a "traumatic night of unbelievable coincidence".

In the letters, he told friends that he had happened to walk past his former home and spotted an intruder, so he'd run inside to help his wife. Arguing that Lady Lucan would accuse him of the attack, he said he had decided to "lie doggo for a while". His borrowed Ford Corsair was discovered, abandoned, at Newhaven on the south coast three days later. Blood matching that of Rivett and Lady Lucan was found on the upholstery, and a lead pipe of the same kind as the murder weapon was hidden in the boot.

Protected by his wealthy friends?

Some believed that Lucan's circle of wealthy friends had closed ranks to protect him. Sussex police detective Derek Wilkinson told the BBC: "I feel that someone else brought the car down and left it here. I think it was a red herring." With suggestions that the Clermont Set might have shielded Lord Lucan, an image emerged in the press of what the Daily Express described as a "tightly knit circle" with a "masonic-style bond".

Aspinall reinforced that impression in interviews, telling the BBC in 1994 that "I would have done for him what he asked", and that if Lucan had requested asylum, "he would had got it". In 2012, someone claiming to be a former personal assistant of Aspinall's told BBC News that she had booked flights to Africa for Lucan's two eldest children sometime between 1979 and 1981, so that their father could see them without their knowledge. "He would observe them and see them, which is what he wanted to do, just see how they were growing up and look at them from a distance. It was quite clear that he wouldn't meet them or speak to them or make himself known to them."

According to Tatler, "depending on who you listen to, the auspicious earl was efficiently whisked out of the country by one of the Clermont Set… and is, to this day, to be found 'merrily swanning around colonial fleshpots'." This view supports an almost caricatured impression of Lord Lucan, one of a privileged fugitive earl whose great-great-grandfather ordered the Charge of the Light Brigade, and who had spent his time driving powerboats, racing bobsleighs and buying racehorses.

At the heart of the mystery, but often overlooked in the myths that surround an obsession The Times described as a "national game of Cluedo", is the victim herself.

"Sandra Rivett is deprived of a voice entirely in this case," says Von Tunzelmann. "A lot of the time she's just referred to as the nanny, people don't even mention her by name, and they're all focused on this incredibly dysfunctional aristocratic marriage. But it's very hard for a historian or a journalist to counteract that, because we don't have anything in her own voice. We can't hear from Sandra and what she would have said about that or made of it. We don't have her side of the story at all."

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JT donates tablets to enhance digital music access

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1ey3gj0n8po, today

A telecoms company has donated four tablet devices to help "enhance digital access to music education" for children from lower-income families.

JT said the devices would be used in the charity Music in Action's musical education social access scheme which supports about 90 children in Jersey whose families receive income support.

The charity said its bursaries in the scheme gave children specialist instrumental tuition, small-group learning, performance opportunities and access to practice clubs.

JT said the tablets would help music be stored and shared digitally during lessons to help children read music and learn music theory in a "more engaging, interactive way".

'Removing barriers'

Naomi Mews, treasurer of Music in Action, said the donation would allow it to "remove barriers for the children we support".

She said: "Music has the power to transform a child's confidence, wellbeing and outlook, but access to learning tools is not equal for every family.

"These tablets will make a real difference to our students, allowing them to read music, explore theory and develop skills in a way that is fun, interactive and inclusive."

JT's head of human resources Laura Belo said technology was important to being a force for positive change in the community.

She said: "Supporting Music in Action with devices that enhance learning and development, creativity and confidence for young people is a great example of how digital can be used for good.

"Music education builds skills for life, and we're proud to support a programme that is creating meaningful opportunities for children who might otherwise miss out."

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'Honest' images document everyday life in North East

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3vyz2rxr1wo, today

An exhibition showcasing the work of two North East-based photographers, whose images document everyday life across the region over the past 50 years, will open next week.

Born in South Shields, photographer Tish Murtha worked in Newcastle from the late 1970s and is best known for chronicling working-class communities in the city's West End.

Kuba Ryniewicz, a Polish-born photographer who has lived in the city since 2004, was commissioned by the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art to create work to go alongside Murtha's images 'offering a counterpoint to her documentary vision'.

"We have a similar approach to people," said Ryniewicz, noting a shared honesty and warmth in their photography.

Ryniewicz came to Newcastle in 2004 to study English, and - despite a difficult start - "fell in love with the place".

"I lived in a very sad area of Newcastle," he said, which he describes as "like being in some Ken Loach movie".

After completing his English course, he went on to Northumbria University to study photography, by way of Newcastle College.

"I was always kind of attracted to photographing my surroundings and my people - my friends - and when I look at these photos now they're kind of really honest

"I try to always photograph people in that way," he said.

"They're kind of respectful, but also give people freedom to express themselves [and] how they want to be photographed."

Murtha died suddenly in 2013, at the age of 56, and the Baltic exhibition has been developed in close collaboration with her daughter, Ella, who has worked hard to ensure her mother's images are seen and celebrated.

Ryniewicz said he was honoured to have been asked to create works to feature alongside Murtha's archive, but also a bit hesitant.

"It's an honour, but it's also super, super scary for me," he said.

"Immediately I was like, 'oh gosh - I think our work is actually very, very, very different. Like - how can we build a dialogue?'"

But Ryniewicz later realised, despite their superficial differences, similiar sensibilities underscore both photographers' work.

"I never met Tish sadly, but I feel like we have a similar approach to people," he said.

Ryniewicz's new body of work 'explores joy, resilience and everyday life across the region', according to the exhibition's curators, to create a 'unique exhibition [that] brings two powerful photographic voices into conversation'.

"It's about how we build a world around us with those people.... creating some kind of friendship," says Ryniewicz.

"I think you can see there's a certain level of honesty within the work - something that is sort of warm, and kind of approachable."

While Ryniewicz has enjoyed a successful career, Murtha's work was only recognised following her death, and a lot of hard work raising awareness of her mother's talent by Ella.

The Polish photographer said he understood those struggles to gain recogntion.

"You have lots of odds against you if you're based in the North East as a photographer," said Ryniewicz.

"People can see me and my work and say 'you've made it', but it's lots of years of work. I had to do lots of other jobs.

"You have to keep going. Even if it's not successful at first, you just need to keep going and build up your portfolio and build up your work."

The exhibition Close to Home opens at Baltic on 4 July and closes next April.

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Home of Lee Miller to be run as charity, son says

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr5jq1md22lo, today

The home of former fashion model turned war photographer Lee Miller is to be given over to charity as part of new plans for the house and her works.

Farleys House and Gallery in Chiddingly near Lewes, Sussex, became the home of Miller and her husband Roland Penrose in 1949 following World War Two, and later became a hub for artists including Pablo PIcasso and Juan Miró.

Now, the family home is to operate under the banner of the Farleys House and Gallery Trust, which the trust hopes will help to preserve it for future generations.

Antony Penrose, Miller and Penrose's son and founder of the gallery, said: "To see this incredible creativity was just an amazing thing to find."

He added: "She [Miller] had stood in the gateway of Dachau and seen 30,000 people all dying of starvation. To come here and grow masses of food that she could share with people was so important for her."

Beginning her career as a fashion model for Vogue and Vanity Fair, Miller would later turn her hand to surrealist photography, and document World War Two as a correspondent.

After marrying Penrose, himself a celebrated surrealist artist, the couple moved to Farleys, turning the home into a hub for art and artists.

Antony Penrose founded the Lee Miller Archives in his childhood home in 1984, and the house is now kept as it would have been when Miller and her family lived there.

Miller's life also inspired the film Lee in 2023, starring Kate Winslet.

Ami Bouhassane, co-director and Antony Penrose's daughter, said: "When mum and dad started the archive, they never thought anyone would come to Farleys.

"When you visit an artist's house, seeing the way they live shows another side of them."

On gaining charitable status, the trust says it wants to raise funds to launch conservation campaigns for the sitting room sofa, as well as other items in the collection.

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Big fish aiming to reduce plastic waste at beach

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3ex44qen9o, today

A big fish sculpture is heading to a beach as part of a project to raise awareness of ocean pollution caused by litter.

The metal design from the team at The Guernsey Institute features a mouth acting as a bin for people to feed empty plastic bottles through to help minimise waste.

Isabella Batiste, Katy Allsopp and Joe Mann said a lot of planning and prototypes were made before heading into the workshop to weld the pieces of metal together.

The initiative aims to help educate people on the impact plastic pollution has on the environment and creatures in the ocean. The beach where the sculpture will be placed is still to be decided.

Graphic design student Allsopp said: "It's a visual reminder where you put the plastic bottles in the fishes mouth to fill it up which has a literal depiction of what's going on in the sea."

The students said the idea stemmed from a child's drawing which was mocked up as a 3D model before the team created the design over a four-month period.

They had to go back and make changes to ensure plastic bottles did not fall through the shapes in the fish.

The sculpture is being sent to the UK to be galvanised - where it is dipped in zinc to avoid rust and corrosion and smoothen out the tack welds - before it returns to Guernsey.

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Taxi driver pens novel inspired by passenger

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwev9ke9zeo, today

A taxi driver in Cambridge has had his debut novel published in English for the first time after being inspired by a chance encounter with a passenger 10 years ago.

When Cenk Sözen picked up a German PhD student after the city's railway station was evacuated due to the discovery of a suspected unexploded Second World War bomb, it triggered a novel idea.

"I tried to build up a little bit more in fiction on top of the real fact of this happening," he said.

The resulting book, I Met My Dead Grandpa, was published in Turkish last year.

It sees the fictionalised German student conversing with his grandfather – the pilot who dropped the bomb – in limbo.

"My intention was to give a reflection on how we are responsible, through our actions, for the next generation," Sözen said.

In reality, the unexploded bomb discovered during renovation works at Cambridge Station in 2016 turned out to be a wartime bullet.

Sözen, who had not been aware that the Nazis had bombed Cambridge during WW2, carried out extensive research for his short novel, reading history books and visiting museums.

The 60-year-old keeps a plastic shopping bag of books in the footwell of his passenger seat, reading and writing passages of his novels on his phone in between picking up customers.

He said the German student who sparked the idea for his first published work is unaware of the part he played.

With the help of an editor, the English translation is complete and digital copies are available online.

A small number of hard copies are also ready to be sold.

He added that he has several other novels in the works; one is set in the Arabian Desert which he likened to Indiana Jones and another explores the Ottoman Empire's role in supporting Ireland during the Great Famine in the 19th Century.

But the university-educated father-of-four, who has lived in Cambridge for almost 25 years, has no plans to give up the day job.

"The achievement is self-satisfaction."

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Emerging artists take to stage in Introducing gig

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yzjg7gwevo, today

Three artists from Thanet are performing at a special BBC Introducing in Kent gig on Saturday as part of a grassroots festival to celebrate live music.

Rapper Jake St Ange will be joined by Red Eye Rascal and Mariella at the Ramsgate Music Hall from 19:30 BST.

Everywhere at Once is taking place over the Glastonbury weekend at venues across the UK, while the Somerset festival takes one of its regular years off, known as "fallow years", to allow the land to recover.

BBC Radio Kent Introducing presenter Casey Dale said: "The organisers thought 'let's celebrate our independent local venues and really get into the heart of the local scene'."

He added: "It's artists who are brand new all the way through to people who are established.

"The music hall is an incredible venue, and we want to exhibit the incredible range of genres."

Also appearing at other events across the country include Rizzle Kicks, playing at Patterns in Brighton, Becky Hill and Tom Grennan.

Sam Head, manager of Ramsgate Music Hall, says: "I think grassroots venues are struggling hard right now, so to have a feel of community is really important.

"This is great for up-and-coming bands, for them to know how it should be," she said.

"But I think the important thing to say to people, who aren't coming out to watch live music lie this, is that they're missing out.

"There is so much good stuff to take in," she added.

Supported by The National Lottery, the festival is delivered by the Music Venue Trust, Save Our Scene and the Association of Independent Promoters.

Mark Davyd, chief executive of the Music Venue Trust, said: "This is a hugely significant moment for the grassroots music sector. Seeing hundreds of venues come together across one weekend shows the true strength and scale of the network that underpins live music in the UK.

"Together, this sends a clear message - live music doesn't just happen in major cities or festival fields – it happens on our high streets, in our towns, and in the spaces communities rely on," he said.

"This is what solidarity looks like in action, and it sets a powerful benchmark for what we can achieve when venues move forward together."

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Thousands expected to flock to Dumfries for free Youth Beatz festival

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz75pxv92e0o, yesterday

Tens of thousands of music fans are expected in Dumfries this weekend as the annual Youth Beatz festival opens its gates.

About 40,000 free tickets have been distributed for the festival at Park Farm showfield on Saturday and Sunday to see acts such as Example and Caity Baser.

Organisers said it remained the largest youth music festival of its kind in the UK.

The event is alcohol-free and officials have urged those without tickets not to travel to the site.

Youth Beatz is aimed at music fans aged between 12 and 25 and was first held back in 2009.

There have been a number of attempts to introduce a charge for tickets but Dumfries and Galloway Council - which funds it - has never taken them forward.

A study of last year's event estimated it had been worth more than £1m to the local economy across its two days.

The festival has grown in scale and relies on an army of volunteers to get the site ready and ensure things run smoothly on the day.

Organisers will be hoping there is no repeat of 2022 when a forecast of high winds forced the cancellation of the second day of the festival.

A weather warning for thunderstorms was scheduled to be lifted in the early hours of Saturday and the rest of the weekend looks to be mainly dry.

The event will feature four main stages alongside a wide programme of daytime activities aimed at young people and families.

Attractions include sports sessions, inflatables, cycling displays and a youth information area promoting local and national services.

A new sports zone, supported by Commonwealth Games funding, will offer activities such as climbing, curling and mountain biking, delivered by qualified coaches.

Alongside the big names, a number of emerging local artists are set to perform.

The festival will also host The Toon, an interactive learning experience tackling issues such as health, crime and substance misuse.

Organisers and Police Scotland stressed the event would be alcohol free, with security checks in place to maintain safety.

Mountain festival announces first poet laureate

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy0kd3q1d7o, yesterday

A poet and novelist has said she is "absolutely thrilled" to have been named the first poet laureate of a long-running mountain festival.

Helen Mort, who has been involved in the festival for years, said she did a "little jump for joy" when she found out she had been selected as the inaugural laureate at Kendal Mountain Festival.

The festival has been running since 1980, while a concurrent book festival is celebrating its 10th year.

As the poet laureate, Mort will create and organise book festival events and write a festival poem, as well as running the first children's poetry competition for schools in north-west England, focusing on mountains, nature, wildlife and the outdoors.

"Kendal is my favourite festival," said Mort, who won the Boardman Tasker award for mountain literature in 2022.

"It's just a fantastic commitment to the arts and the mountain arts, which I think is really important and really quite rare in terms of programming."

Mort said she was especially excited to get involved in the schools poetry competition as she had found her confidence while taking part in a similar initiative.

"It was through competitions for young people that I first got recognised as a poet when I was at school," she said.

"I started writing really young, and it completely changed the course of my life to have that recognition and that engagement, and the idea that that writers who were published were taking me seriously."

Kendal Mountain Festival's book festival director Paul Scully said: "Over the years we've had the odd bit of poetry, but we really want to bring poetry back into the festival to sit alongside all our non-fiction and bits of fiction as well.

"Helen has been an integral member of the festival, sharing her talent, creativity and excellence in creative writing and poetry for many years."

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Can 'Hockney Country' build on painter's legacy?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c04yqp27nwgo, yesterday

Tourism bosses are hoping David Hockney's famed association with East Yorkshire can draw more people to the area.

The Wolds countryside was given international acclaim when the artist, who died earlier this month, chose it as the subject of some of his paintings.

Councillor Nick Coultish, vice chairman of Visit Hull and East Yorkshire (VHEY), described the artist as "one of our region's most famous ambassadors".

He said: "His international exhibitions have created opportunities for us to showcase East Yorkshire alongside his work and raise awareness about our destination to new audiences that might not have considered holidaying in East Yorkshire before."

Hockney was born in Bradford and spent time living in Bridlington, where his sister and mother lived.

He was inspired by the region's landscapes.

His Bigger Trees Near Warter painting in 2007 was one of his most recognisable paintings of the Yorkshire Wolds, measuring 40ft by 15ft (12m by 5m) across a grid of 50 individual canvases.

Coultish said VHEY would continue to build on the artist's legacy when encouraging people to visit the region, including highlighting the David Hockney cycling trail, and supporting exhibitions of his work.

"Hockney and his significance to the region is about showing that while we're often modest about how beautiful where we live is, it is as beautiful as some of the most beautiful places in the world," he said.

One business that has benefitted from Hockney's association with East Yorkshire is The Wolds Inn, in Huggate.

As a youngster, Hockney spent several summers working the fields in the village, which Inn owner Vicky Knocker said must have "stuck" with him as he returned to paint the local landscape in his later years.

She said "the majority" of people who are staying at the pub were walkers and cyclists taking on the Wolds Way and Way of the Roses, but guests did mention Hockney.

Knocker said: "We had three guests in last night who all talked about David Hockney, the views on their travels on their bikes were relevant to the pictures that he'd painted in this area."

She also said legend had it a young Hockney first experienced getting drunk at the pub.

She said: "Rumour has it, I think it was 1952, as a young child, he worked on the farms just outside of Huggate. And the Wolds Inn was his first pub experience where he got a little tipsy."

When discussing numbers of visitors to the region, where tourism spending recently reached £1bn for the first time, Coultish said "there's no reason" why visitor numbers could not continue to increase.

He said: "We have a capacity to grow. We have some brilliant people who work in hotels, restaurants, visitor attractions in the area that are happy to see more people come and visit the area."

Knocker was more cautious in her attitude towards attracting more visitors.

She added: "I think the villagers themselves like it to be fairly quiet and peaceful.

"Bank holidays are extremely busy, there are cars parked everywhere by people going on walks. I think David Hockney definitely put Huggate on the map.

"Business-wise, yeah, I'd love everybody to come to Huggate, but in the same breath, It's nice, it's peaceful, it's quiet and it's a bit precious."

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'All disabled bodies are beautiful'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd7wy221jrwo, yesterday

An artist and disability advocate is reminding people "all disabled bodies are beautiful" ahead of her catwalk debut.

Josie Tang, from Penryn, is taking part in the Disability Pride Catwalk in Manchester alongside 16 others, wearing adaptive fashion designs from disability friendly clothes label Recondition.

The 21 year old is autistic, has ADHD and multiple chronic illnesses including endometriosis, hypermobile EDS and PoTS.

Tang, who recently completed her degree in fashion styling and artistic direction from Falmouth University, said she signed up to the event because seeing herself "in mainstream fashion... really shows you that you're allowed to belong".

Tang said: "Even just seeing a different range of different disabled people - we come in so many different shapes and forms and we come with so many different experiences.

"We see such a standard runway figure a lot of the time and I think that sort of pushes this idea that only this type of body can be beautiful.

"For this to platform such a wide range of different bodies, and just to celebrate that, I think that's really huge and really shows that - you know what - all disabled bodies are beautiful."

'Have fun with fashion'

Tang said having adaptive clothing represented on the runway but also in mainstream life was important.

"I think with some of my conditions it can make dressing and undressing quite difficult and things like little buttons and getting things over my shoulders sometimes I really struggle with.

"Adaptive clothing is really, really helpful in that sort of sense where there might be little pull tabs to help you put things on, or velcro and magnets that make things a bit easier.

"I don't want to compromise on style for adaptability and things that make my life a little bit easier, I still want to really have fun with my style and fashion."

Tang said she hoped future designers would create lines for disabled people "with disabled people".

She said: "You can't really have something for someone without their input and their experience - that feedback is so so important.

"I think seeing something that reflects such a like a wider range of personal styles as well as adaptability would be something really cool."

The Disability Pride Catwalk is set to take place at Manchester's Aviva Studios later on Saturday.

Tang said she wished an event like this had been around when she was younger: "That would have made my journey with accepting my disabled body so much easier.

"Being able to see a beautiful disabled body just accepted and celebrated in this way would have been so helpful in my journey, and understanding that I'm allowed to be beautiful in whatever way that is."

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The Bhojpuri singers fighting vulgar tag on one of India's oldest languages

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20y56y391do, yesterday

On a recent season of an Indian music show, a young singer from the northern state of Bihar performs a haunting, century-old folk song about separation, colonialism and longing.

It tells the story of a woman watching her husband leave to fight in a distant war under British rule. She mourns his absence, curses the empire that claimed him and, at one point, imagines taking up a dagger herself.

Performed by Bihar folk singer Utpal Udit in collaboration with acclaimed vocalist Rekha Bhardwaj, Kachaudi Gali went on to attract millions of views, becoming one of the breakout successes of the show Coke Studio Bharat, the Indian edition of the popular music franchise that has introduced regional and folk traditions to new audiences across South Asia.

The success thrust Udit into the national spotlight. More unexpectedly, it also brought renewed attention to Bhojpuri, a language often stereotyped as the tongue of migrant labourers and low-brow entertainment despite a rich literary and cultural history that stretches back centuries.

Spoken by tens of millions across northern India and a diaspora stretching from the Caribbean to the Pacific, Bhojpuri is one of South Asia's most widely spoken languages, with a vast canon of folk songs, poetry, storytelling and theatre.

Yet that is not how many Indians encounter it today.

For many, Bhojpuri is synonymous with a hugely popular music industry known for songs rife with sexual innuendo, misogyny and double entendres. In films and television, Bihari accents and characters are often reduced to comic sidekicks, migrants or rustic outsiders.

Regional artists have spent decades preserving Bhojpuri folk traditions, but these are often eclipsed by the language's more visible - and more stereotyped - image.

Now musicians like Udit are trying to broaden the picture.

"It hurts when you are deeply connected to the music of your roots, yet others perceive it poorly," Udit told the BBC. "I really want to change that."

Born in Saharsa district, Udit grew up moving across different parts of the state because of his father's work, absorbing folk traditions along the way.

He says that at first, the melodies stayed with him more than their meanings. Later, curiosity led him deeper into the works of Bhikhari Thakur and Mahendra Misir, the poets and playwrights who helped shape Bihar's folk imagination.

Many of those stories revolve around migration - a defining theme of Bhojpuri folk music and of Bihar itself.

One of India's poorest states, Bihar has long been shaped by people leaving in search of work: first under colonial labour systems, later for the factories, construction sites and expanding cities of modern India. That journey has echoed through its music for generations.

One song Udit frequently performs, Jani Ja Bideswa Ke Or, from Bhikhari Thakur's celebrated play Bidesiya, tells the story of a woman pleading with her husband not to leave home in search of work. The house will feel empty without him and her soul will suffer, she sings.

Written more than a century ago, the song emerged from a period of mass migration, but its themes remain strikingly familiar today.

Udit says preserving that connection between past and present has become central to his work.

"I want people to realise that Bhojpuri and Bihari music have much more depth than the stereotypes suggest," he said. "I want them to hear the stories the music conveys."

On social media, Udit often accompanies his performances with detailed explanations of their history and cultural significance. A short rendition of a folk song might be paired with a reflection on migration, colonialism or the work of a playwright.

It was what drew Khwaab, the producer of Kachaudi Gali, to Udit's universe.

About a year ago, he came across a video of Udit performing the song in his village on Instagram. The video caught Khwaab's attention. The caption held it.

"Utpal is obviously a brilliant singer," Khwaab said. "But when I read his explanation of the song's history, I literally sat up in bed. I knew then that something significant had to come from this."

What also struck him was the sense that an entire cultural archive had been obscured by stereotypes.

So he and Udit decided to reimagine Kachaudi Gali for a new audience.

For the Coke Studio version, Khwaab wanted the production to feel modern while remaining faithful to its roots. Traditional instruments - including the shehnai, tabla, dholak, harmonium and dotara - were recorded live, while the arrangement drew on the scale and polish of popular music.

The challenge, he explained, was not simply preserving folk music, but translating it for listeners unfamiliar with the tradition.

"It's about preserving what might be lost while creating something fresh. I wanted others to realise that folk music can be cool too."

Not every artist seeking to reshape perceptions of Bhojpuri looks to the past, though.

A few hundred kilometres away, rapper Sanket Shikriwal has arrived at the same question from almost the opposite direction.

Over the past few years, Shikriwal has emerged as one of the most distinctive voices in India's independent music scene, described as a rapper challenging assumptions about what Bhojpuri music can sound like.

If Udit's work is rooted in recovery, Shikriwal's thrives on collision.

In his music, Bhojpuri shares space with jazz, spoken word and hip-hop. Village memories coexist with references to Franz Kafka and John Coltrane. Bihar appears alongside Mumbai; migration alongside internet culture. His songs sound less like a folk revival than an ongoing conversation between past and present, village and city, belonging and escape.

The music can also be abrasive. It contains street language and profanity, complicating any attempt to cast him as a clean alternative to the excesses often associated with commercial Bhojpuri music.

But Shikriwal rejects the idea that profanity itself is the problem.

"I'm not using profanity for the sake of a tough-guy persona," he said. "It's my way of expressing agitation."

The distinction matters, he argues, because Bhojpuri is often judged by standards that other genres are not.

Hip-hop has long used profanity as a vehicle for anger, social commentary and self-expression. Closer to home, Punjabi music - despite controversies over violence and hypermasculinity - has evolved into one of India's most successful cultural exports. Artists such as Diljit Dosanjh and the late Sidhu Moosewala transformed regional identity into a source of pride and aspiration.

Bhojpuri, Shikriwal argues, has rarely been afforded the same generosity.

"The question isn't whether Bhojpuri can be made respectable," he said. "It's why Bhojpuri speakers are always expected to prove that they are."

What he hopes for is not a sanitised version of Bhojpuri culture, but a more confident one - secure enough to define itself on its own terms.

"I want people to look at Bihar and see philosophers again," he said.

"We call it the Land of Buddha, yet we treat its people with such disrespect."

Udit believes that shift may already be under way.

The response to Kachaudi Gali, he says, offered a glimpse of what that future might look like.

"It was a reminder," he said, "that one of India's most widely spoken languages is still waiting to be heard on its own terms."

Singer asks council to retain teenage music venue

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c23y10gd1dko, yesterday

A teenage musician has begged a council to ensure a music venue continues to educate local children, after it announced the site will be handed over to a private operator.

Songwriter Noah said he was "incredibly concerned" by Redcar and Cleveland Council's plans to secure a new operator for Tuned In!, which is undergoing a £2m redesign.

The 17-year-old said he understood the council's need to raise funds by holding events at the Redcar venue, but this needed to be balanced against "supporting youth" in the community.

The council said it envisioned the revamped Tuned In! as a "place where young people can thrive and express themselves".

When Noah was 13 he was too anxious to go to school and was home-schooled, and it was during this period that he began attending Tuned In!, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

"Through Tuned In!, I met my producer and vocal coach.

"I've now become an actual artist, with nearly two million views on TikTok, more than 11,000 streams on Spotify, and have played gigs across the Teesside area," he said.

"Without Tuned In!, I never would have found the courage to pursue music."

Tuned In!, which opened in 2011, cost £5m to construct and was paid for by the European Regional Development Fund scheme to provide arts and media facilities for 13- to 19-year-olds in the area.

But it has been under-utilised and has been partially used as office accommodation, as well as being used as a Covid-19 testing centre and a hub for runners.

Noah said Tuned In! had not been properly open for two years and a weekly music group which used the site now had to attend a smaller venue in Skelton, making it less accessible for many people.

A £2m investment from the government's Levelling Up fund has paid for a redesign of a studio theatre, a new box office, a bar and café, and a new creative spaces at the venue.

A council spokeswoman said the redevelopment was expected to be completed soon and the authority was looking for an operator to run the site.

"While that process is ongoing, we have been clear that Tuned In! will continue to be an inclusive creative space, with a focus on arts activity and a performing arts element as part of the overall offer," she said.

"The council continues to invest in youth provision across the borough, including dedicated youth centres, community engagement and recent capital improvements."

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Tinie Tempah 'excited' for grassroots music festival

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgl4z1n0yvo, yesterday

Singer and rapper Tinie Tempah has said he is "super excited" as he prepares to take part in a festival which celebrates grassroots music venues.

Tempah will be in Southampton on the weekend for the Everywhere at Once festival, which will see thousands of artists perform at hundreds of venues nationwide.

The festival takes place on what would normally be Glastonbury weekend and venues in Hampshire, Dorset, Isle of Wight, Oxfordshire and Berkshire are all taking part.

Tempah whose hits include "Pass Out" and "Written in the Stars" has performed at Glastonbury's Pyramid stage twice but told BBC South Today's Sophie Law that a festival celebrating grassroots music venues was important to him.

This weekend he will take to the stage at The 1865 and The Brook in Southampton.

"The reason that I love grassroots venues is because you can really look into the white of a person's eyes and build a way more solid connection," he said.

"These venues are the venues that house you initially."

He added: "When I look back on those memories, that was my moment when I was gaining my confidence, doing my 10,000 hours but also building a real core fanbase that has stuck with me all these years, even decades."

He said he was worried for the next generation of artists and how they will build up "a long sustainable career where they are also able to earn a basic living off of their art".

'Gateway for artists'

Everywhere at Once is funded by the National Lottery and delivered by Music Venue Trust, Save Our Scene and The Association of Independent Promoters.

Artists including Fatboy Slim, Becky Hill and Rizzle Kicks will take part in the festival across the country.

"We're all kind of feeling the same thing, these venues have been a part of our lives," Tempah said.

"It would be a shame to lose institutions that have almost been a gateway for artists like me to get as far as I have done."

According to the Music Venue Trust there are more than 800 grassroots music venues in the UK and 53% showed no profit at all in 2025.

The Everywhere at Once organisers said: "With Glastonbury taking a fallow year in 2026, we saw an opportunity to create a national moment that shines a spotlight on the places where live music begins – the venues on our high streets, in our towns and cities, that give artists their first stage and audiences affordable unforgettable experiences."

How festivals are trying to survive heatwaves

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8724d959qqo, 2 days ago

If Glastonbury Festival had not been taking a fallow year, revellers would have been arriving during a rare red alert for heat and then faced days of extreme temperatures.

Scientists are warning even hotter temperatures are likely in the years ahead, leaving some to fear for the future of major festivals.

Susan Tanner is the CEO of the National Outdoor Events Association and was the events director at the Bristol Balloon Fiesta for 16 years. She said that an event's success or failure depends on the forecast.

"The weather is an event organiser's biggest worry and we spend months planning for all outcomes. It can make or break a year.

"We are having to take into account climate change now and starting to look at [the fact] these events [heatwaves] may not just be one-offs," she said.

Most organisers agree that, as heatwaves become more frequent, festivals needs to adapt to survive.

What are organisers doing to adapt?

Even during this week's extreme heat warnings, events were still able to go ahead, with organisers announcing a raft of new safety measures.

Despite temperatures reaching 36C (96.8F) in Bristol, the city's annual Bristol Sounds took place with no reports of people falling ill on Wednesday or Thursday night.

The site included extra water stations and a medical team was also on alert for signs of people suffering from sunstroke or dehydration.

In London, a Harry Styles' Wembley concert is going ahead later with half-price water and free sunscreen.

Andy Bennett, BBC Radio Somerset presenter, has been to various Glastonbury Festivals since 1998.

He said the event has already changed to help people during hot weather.

"I've definitely seen the changes in weather preparations at the festival in the last 28 years, whether that's rain or sun.

"In recent years, 2022, the first festival after Covid, was really hot and you could see the organisers bringing in a huge amount of pallets of water and sunscreen. They often might open the gates a bit earlier when it's hot as the queues are long.

"Just in the last ten years, there are a lot more water stations. I'd say almost double the amount of refillable stations in fact," he added.

Should it be all down to the organisers?

Tanner said while organisers prepare lots of measures to keep people safe, the public has to meet them halfway.

"The event organisers can put in lots of mitigation things to help you at the event, but if the public could also help us in that come with hydration, come with your extra water, sunscreen, it really helps us.

"We have to be creative with this. One of our members has started using gazebos as a tent to spray mist and water over guests which makes a difference," Tanner added.

At Bristol Sounds, people were urged to bring their own refillable bottles and to make sure they came wearing sunscreen.

What dangers do people face at festivals?

Nich Woolf, a trustee for Festival Medical Services who supports the health services on the ground at Glastonbury Festival, said he has had rain, sun and about every weather condition onsite.

And despite rising temperatures over the last decade, most patients were not presenting with weather-related ailments.

"There is so much pre-planning that goes into an event like Glastonbury and looking after people's health - and the weather forecast plays a huge part," Woolf said.

"The largest numbers of cases that we deal with are soft tissue injuries...some bruises and maybe a few fractures.

"We see about 5,000 patients over a usual festival and 98% or more are treated on site, so we do not unload it onto the local health services," he added.

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Plays from local festival chosen for Fringe

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cddlmnrvp6jo, yesterday

Five plays showcased at a Suffolk festival have been selected for this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

The plays were first performed in April at the annual INK Festival in Halesworth and chosen out of a pool of more than 540 submissions to be part of a wider show at the Edinburgh Fringe in August.

Julia Sowerbutts, founder and artistic director of INK Festival, said the team was "absolutely thrilled" by the news.

"To have a third of the final programme coming from INK is a wonderful testament to the quality of the writers we attract and the strength of the work being developed here in Suffolk," she said.

She continued: "One of INK's core aims has always been to provide opportunities for emerging and established writers to have their work seen, developed and taken to wider audiences.

"Seeing these plays progress from INK to the world's largest arts festival is exactly the kind of success story we love to celebrate."

The Edinburgh Fringe takes place from 7 to 31 August and has a vast programme of performing arts shows.

The selected plays from INK Festival are:

* Vowel Movements by Gary Bates

* A Perfect Two by Guy Newsham

* Dying Stars by David Roberts

* Here She Comes by Lucy Singer

* Narratively Speaking by Barry Wood

They will be performed as part of The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show at the Pleasance Courtyard during the Fringe.

Tom Hartwell of Bite-Size Plays said the quality of the work from INK Festival "stood out".

"We are delighted to be bringing these five plays to Edinburgh and continuing our relationship with the festival," he added.

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Artist bids goodbye to Danish postal system

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8d270dpmd6o, 2 days ago

A paper artist has used letters sent to her in the final days of letter delivery by the Danish national postal system to create an art installation of hanging daisies.

Gillian Taylor, from Cockwood, in Devon, has spent time in Denmark and several of her Danish friends have contributed to the exhibition, as have strangers who have shared their memories of opening and reading letters.

The exhibition called The Last Post is being held at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Honiton.

"Lots of people have gone away and written letters as a result of this because they realised that if we don't use our own postal service then we might lose it as well," she said.

The national postal service PostNord said Denmark was one of the world's most digitalised countries and email and phone apps were now the preferred methods of communication.

PostNord stopped its letter delivery service in December 2025 and now only delivers parcels.

One of Taylor's friends tried to send her a letter on the final day of the service, only to find the post box had already been removed and had to send it by courier via Austria which took two months.

When she received post, Taylor used the stamps as the centre of the daisies and the letters and envelopes for the petals.

The artist said she chose the daisy because it is the national flower of Denmark and also represented hope.

"This project has made me think about the way I communicate with old friends and although this is a really sad moment, I'm an optimistic person and I like to offer that hope for the future and that we will return to those more personal ways of communicating," she said.

Music for the exhibition has been composed by Laura Reid.

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Blue plaque for woman who secured theatre's future

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crkvl611p2ko, 2 days ago

A blue plaque will be unveiled to honour a 19th Century woman who secured the future of the Theatre Royal Brighton.

Ellen Nye Chart managed the theatre from 1876 to 1892 and is credited with transforming it into a venue of national standing.

The plaque is due to be unveiled on Friday to mark the 150th anniversary of the start of her leadership, as well as the theatre's 219th birthday.

It was arranged by Theatre Royal Brighton in partnership with Brighton and Hove Women's History Group, which works to raise awareness of women's contributions to history in Sussex, particularly Brighton and Hove.

Sophie Denney, director of Theatre Royal Brighton, said Nye Chart's legacy was "nothing short of extraordinary".

She said: "At a time when women were rarely given the opportunity to lead - let alone transform - cultural institutions, Ellen not only secured our theatre's future but elevated it."

She added: "We are so grateful to Brighton and Hove Women's History Group for their collaboration in securing a blue plaque.

"Ellen is an incredibly important figure in Brighton's history; it's brilliant to see her receive the recognition she deserves."

Nye Chart took over the running of the theatre after the death of her husband, Henry Nye Chart, in 1876.

Born in Islington in 1839, she had been working as an actor before she became a theatre manager.

During her time in charge, she introduced a year-round programme of performances instead of a summer-only season, and established pantomimes that were both profitable and modelled on the elaborate productions seen at the Drury Lane Theatre in London.

She also pioneered the "flying matinee", bringing London productions with full casts and sets to Brighton for afternoon performances before they returned to the capital for evening shows.

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'True jewel' museum and gallery wins UK award

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gyv40mnnvo, 3 days ago

A museum and art gallery has won a national award for being "a leading example of what a civic museum can achieve".

The Box, in Plymouth, was named the 2026 Art Fund Museum of the Year at a ceremony on the Cutty Sark at Royal Museums Greenwich, London, where it also received the £120,000 prize fund.

Judges said it had generated more than £100m in health and wellbeing benefits, boosting Plymouth's local economy by £244m and reaching almost nine in 10 of the city's schools.

Art Fund director Jenny Waldman, who chaired the judging panel, described The Box as a "true jewel in the crown of the South West".

The museum, owned by Plymouth City Council, has more than two million artworks, objects and archival materials in its collection.

Since it opened in September 2020, it has welcomed more than 1.3 million visitors.

The Box celebrated a "record-breaking" 2025/2026 season, with 356,000 visits, beating its target of 300,000, following the success of its Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy and Journeys with Mai exhibitions.

Waldman said it had "transformed how Plymouth's remarkable collections are shared and experienced".

The other four finalists were The National Gallery and V&A East Storehouse, both in London, Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, and Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum, with each one set to receive £20,000.

June Sarpong OBE, broadcaster and judge for the awards, said what had stood out with The Box was "the sense of pride and connection it has created across Plymouth".

She said: "It is a museum that genuinely belongs to the people it serves.

"Through exhibitions that uncover overlooked histories to welcoming spaces for learning and creativity, The Box is reimagining what being a museum can mean."

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Woman recalls posing for Freud after £25m art sale

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8dvejdlylo, 3 days ago

A portrait by Lucian Freud featuring a woman from Sussex has sold at auction for £25m.

The artwork, Sleeping by the Lion Carpet, went under the hammer at Sotheby's, with the sitter Sue Tilley describing it as showing her in "my glorious naked bigness squashed into a chair with a lion carpet behind me".

Tilley, who lives in St Leonards, spent months sitting for the work in Freud's studio in London's Holland Park. She described his studio as "really shabby", with "all sorts of rubbish on the floor" and even "a Rodin being used as a doorstop".

The portrait, which had a sale estimate of £25m to £30m, was sold for a total of £29,260,000, including the buyer's premium and the final bid of £25m.

Tilley said the portrait took about nine months to complete, with sittings typically lasting from early morning until mid-afternoon several days a week – but including long restaurant lunches with champagne.

Despite the high price achieved at auction, Tilley said she never received a share of proceeds from the painting.

"I've never got actually paid any money from the portrait selling, but I've got little jobs and bits and bobs, and Sotheby's were very generous to me for helping them out," she said.

"So I have earned money along the way, but nowhere near £25m."

She also rejected being described as the artist's "muse".

"I hate that word because I imagine a very thin little person you know, all in love and wafting around in chiffon dresses, pining for the artist which wasn't me, I have to say," she said.

Tilley said her involvement in Freud's work came about by chance and that, despite the painting's global profile, her life by the sea remained largely unchanged.

Most of the time, she said, her days were "very mundane".

"I lie around watching telly, going down the beach, sit in the sun, chit-chat, chat to my friends, and then out of the blue suddenly something really bizarre happens and I'm all busy for about a week and it's all over," she added.

The sale coincided with Hastings Contemporary's new exhibition on Henry Moore and Lucian Freud.

The event includes Woman with an Arm Tattoo, an etching depicting Sue Tilley, and runs until 13 September.

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Public invited to pay tribute to David Hockney

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8724d485d4o, 3 days ago

A book of condolence has been opened at Bradford City Hall to allow David Hockney's home city to remember him.

Hockney, who died aged 88 on 11 June, was born and educated in Bradford and was one of the UK's favourite artists.

Bradford Council said the book would provide a place of reflection from people whose lives have been "touched by Hockney's remarkable contribution to the world of art and culture".

Speaking at a meeting of Bradford Council on Wednesday, Lord Mayor Chris Herd paid tribute to one of the area's "most well-loved sons".

"A proud Bradfordian, his extraordinary success brought great distinction to our district and helped place Bradford firmly on the global cultural map," he said.

Hockney was awarded the Freedom of the City in 2000.

The book is located at the foot of the civic staircase at Bradford City Hall where a floral tribute has been created by local florists Blossoms & Co.

It has already been signed by the Lord Mayor, council leader Stephen Place, and council boss Lorraine O'Donnell.

The entrance to City Hall will be open each day between 12:00 and 14:00 BST until 5 July.

An online book of condolence is being prepared and will be available on the council website from Friday.

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Comedian Ted Robbins returns 10 years after collapse

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2jz3yewvro, 5 days ago

Comedian Ted Robbins is returning to the stage after collapsing during a charity show more than 10 years ago.

Robbins fell to the floor during his solo sketch at the opening night of the Phoenix Nights Live tour at the Manchester Arena on 31 January 2015.

The comedian, actor, and broadcaster - best known for playing the villainous Den Perry in Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights - will headline The Don Banks Afternoon Variety Show on 1 July at Darwen Library Theatre in Lancashire.

"It's a smaller audience... but hopefully with a happier outcome," he said.

The "traditional variety show" will have comedy, singing and a questions from the audience, the 70-year-old said.

The comic said he was "eternally grateful" to the off-duty cardiothoracic doctor and paramedic who were in the audience and resuscitated him after he suffered a cardiac arrest.

The doctor and paramedic carried out CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), with the doctor having to crack his ribs.

'Died for 20 minutes'

He said if it was not for their swift action he would never have seen his grandchildren "because I died for 20 minutes".

Without them, "I'd have been a gone-r in minutes," he told BBC Radio Lancashire.

"I was due to have surgery for a faulty heart valve, which was caused when I was 11 and had rheumatic fever, which left a scar on it," he said.

"The surgeon had let me get on the stage because I said I really wanted to do the show.

"I got up and I did get a few laughs and I just remember thinking 'ooh, think I'll lie down'", before he fell to the stage.

East Lancashire-based Robbins played the character Den Perry, the rival of Kay's character Brian Potter, in the Phoenix Nights show in 2001 and 2002.

The 2015 stage show saw the original cast of the programme reunited, with profits going to Comic Relief.

Members of the audience were asked to leave the 20,000-capacity venue after Robbins collapsed shortly after the interval.

He has also appeared in Brookside, Doctors, Holby City, Little Britain and Coronation Street.

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Theatre to remain shut until 2027 amid repairs after water damage

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy9r8pqnxe0o, 5 days ago

The Alley Theatre in Strabane, which closed after a water leak, is to remain shut for much longer than first expected, sparking concern over arts provision in the County Tyrone town.

The theatre closed in September last year and was expected to remain shut for about six months while the necessary work was carried out.

However, Derry City and Strabane District Council has now said it would "remain closed for the remainder of 2026 due to the extent of repair works required following water damage within the building".

Ciara McCay, director of the Strabane Drama Festival, said the theatre's ongoing closure was "absolutely devastating for everyone in the town".

"The Alley is an amazing theatre, a brilliant theatre, one of the best in the country," she told BBC News NI.

"It is devastating for the town to have no access to the arts for this length of time. It's devastating for the community, for the community organisations who use the theatre."

The Alley's doors closed on 25 September 2025 after the discovery of what was described as a substantial water leak.

At that time Derry City and Strabane District Council (DCSDC) said the closure would allow for extensive repair and restoration works, including a lengthy drying out period.

It had been hoped the work would take around six months to complete but earlier this year the council confirmed the Alley's reopening was being pushed back to late summer.

'Disparity between Strabane and Derry?'

The council said subject to the completion of works and confirmation of timelines, it was anticipated the Alley Theatre would resume programming in early 2027.

Mayor Grace Uí Niallais said the council recognised how disappointing the news was for audiences, artists and promoters.

"We are committed to supporting promoters and customers during this period, including facilitating alternative arrangements where possible, and we appreciate the patience and understanding of the public while these essential works are completed."

McCay said it had been a very difficult decision to postpone the annual drama festival, which is hosted at the Alley.

This year would have been its 40th anniversary.

McCay said she was "staying hopeful" those celebrations would go ahead at the Alley in March 2027.

"It was such a big deal to have to postpone this year, we really don't want to have to do it again," she said.

Writing on social media, independent councillor Raymond Barr described the prolonged closure as "disappointing".

"While accidental damage and repairs are a fact of life, the projected costs of the repair work would seem to be out of line with the time it's going to take for the work to be carried out," Barr said.

He asked that if a similar problem existed at the Millennium Forum in Londonderry would it take so long to rectify.

It "raises the question of disparity in council when it comes to Derry and Strabane and the rural areas," he added.

Edinburgh International Festival will be phone-free - Benedetti

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gy64r7q9vo, 5 days ago

Nicola Benedetti has declared her latest festival a "phone free" environment.

The Grammy-winning violinist, who has been director of the Edinburgh International Festival since 2023, says the "lights down, phones off" policy has come at the request of artists and audiences.

"Live performance is unlike anything else and the Edinburgh International Festival is here to protect the rarity of this experience," she says.

"The power of our programme is intensified by the tangible, collective presence of everyone in the room, and we want you to be with us fully. "

"When the lights go down and the performance starts, we would like phones to disappear from our hands, minds and ears."

The festival says that every single concert in their Queen's Hall chamber series was disrupted last year by mobile phones.

Many of them were broadcast. Frustrating not just those in the room, but those listening at home too.

They also say they've taken notice of a number of high-profile cases involving phone use.

Californian singer Phoebe Bridgers recently announced a complete ban on phones at her gigs, with fans having to place them in special pouches during her shows.

Bob Dylan, Jack White and Swedish rock band Ghost have all insisted on similar no-phone policies at their gigs.

Actresses Rosamund Pike and Jessie Buckley have spoken out about audience members was texting during their theatre performances.

Another actress, Lesley Manville, also complained after someone filmed the actors while they were taking their bows during a curtain call after the performance had ended.

But the Edinburgh International Festival doesn't intend the ban to go that far.

They say audiences will still be able to take photos at their curtain calls and share the moment online.

They're also happy for people to use their phones before and after concerts and at the interval.

Drop-in outdoor performances and dementia-friendly concerts will be exempt from the ban.

Staff will be on standby to assist those who aren't sure how to silence their phones, or any scheduled alerts or alarms.

Nicola Benedetti is confident that the festival can return to its once phone-free existence.

"Views on this have been widely and boldly expressed in recent months and we are acting in communion with our beloved audiences, and extraordinary artists," she says.

"The late, great Alfred Brendel -whom we pay tribute to in our Queen's Hall series this year - said it best: 'The audience's contribution is concentration and silence – it's an electricity the musician can charge from'.

"That electricity is real, I've felt it from the stage my whole life. We encourage our audiences to switch off their phones, and let the art do the rest."

Boon and Coronation Street actor David Daker dies

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxd040z2d7o, 6 days ago

Actor David Daker, best known for playing Harry Crawford in ITV comedy-drama Boon, has died aged 90, his agent has confirmed.

Daker, who was born in Bilston, died peacefully at his home on 30 April with no cause of death revealed as yet.

He began in theatre, working at Oldham Rep in 1957 and then the Salisbury Playhouse, the Alexandra theatre in Birmingham, the Everyman in Cheltenham, and the Castle in Farnham before making his London debut at the Mermaid theatre.

His on screen career included Z Cars, Dick Turpin, Coronation Street and Doctor Who before appearing Boon from 1986 until 1992.

His television career started by appearing in more than 80 episodes of the BBC drama Z Cars as PC Owen Culshaw.

After appearing in Chips With Everything, The Widowing Of Mrs Holroyd, Holocaust and Dick Turpin he played a character in a 1982 episode of Only Fools And Horses.

He had two roles in Coronation Street in the late 1960s and later appeared three times between 1981 and 1985.

On film Daker appeared in Time Bandits and I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle, and also worked at the Royal Court and with the Royal Shakespeare Company in theatre.

The actor, who initially training as a draughtsman after leaving school, married Stella Newton in 1957, having a son and a daughter, Pippa, who had multiple sclerosis and died in 1997.

The couple later divorced and Daker is survived by his second wife, Hilary, their daughter, Rebecca, his son, Tim, and a sister, Hazel.

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Archive of photographic 'trailblazer' featured in exhibition

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj0g435d311o, 6 days ago

The work of an artist credited with helping to reshape the photography landscape while campaigning for women's rights and fair pay is being celebrated through a new exhibition and community archive.

Rhonda Wilson spent more than three decades in Birmingham as an artist, cultural entrepreneur, journalist and activist, according to organisers.

The project, named Seeing Rhonda and hosted in the city, features photographs, letters, posters and publications alongside personal notes and sketches that offer an insight into her life and work.

"She was a photographer but didn't concentrate on her own practice because she was engaged so much in supporting others and creating different mechanisms for others to develop their careers," said Dr Annette Naudin, associate professor at Birmingham City University.

"She really was a formidable trailblazer," she added.

The event at The Old Print Works in Balsall Heath also highlights women whose contributions have "too often been overlooked in formal collections, reframing Birmingham's cultural history through their work", Naudin said.

Among the highlights are posters from the Worth Paying For campaign - which included testimonies from women workers exposing pay inequality in female-dominated industries during the 1980s.

"Instead of making women look downtrodden because of their extremely low pay, Rhonda captured their positivity and energy - making them visible," Naudin said.

During this time she was also "very much engaged with female artists", setting up magazines and highlighting their work, the academic added.

Wilson set up several organisations enabling others to thrive in the city and internationally, as well as herself writing about photography.

From co-founding Poseurs Studio and Gallery in the late 1980s to developing initiatives such as Seeing the Light and Rhubarb-Rhubarb, "she was always actively looking for funding and thinking about the next project", Naudin said.

"It is very fitting to have Rhonda's archive in Balsall Heath where, in 1989, she set up the Poseurs Studio with fellow photographer Ming de Nasty," she said.

"The process of uncovering letters of thanks, rolls of her photographs and her personal notes is both exciting and profoundly moving."

The artist, who died in 2014, was made an MBE for her contribution to photography and international trade.

Seeing Rhonda runs at The Old Print Works from Tuesday 23 June to Saturday 27 June, 11:00 to 17:00 BST, and returns on Saturday 11 July as part of Balsall Heath Second Saturday.

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The Ardèche: France's stunning outdoor playground

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260623-the-ardche-frances-stunning-outdoor-playground, 3 days ago

It's filled with rock-strewn ravines, stunning villages, more than 6,000km of cycling trails and blissfully few crowds.

My bike glides downhill and the wind washes over me in an exhilarating wave. To the right, a waterfall tumbles down an emerald hill. Stone houses line the road up ahead. Minutes later, the medieval village of Chambonas appears, its charcoal-turreted castle perched on a hill. I pedal on, take a sharp left after crossing a bridge, and roll into the village of Les Vans, exhausted and elated.

I've just spent three days cycling around rolling mountains, past rock-strewn ravines and through forests and stone villages in the western Ardèche, where signs for homemade goat cheese, chestnuts and honey frequently appear on the roadside.

Despite its beauty, many international travellers never explore the Ardèche. Located between two of France's popular destinations (Lyon and Provence), it's one of the nation's most rural corners, which adds to its appeal. Its forested mountains, rushing rivers and steep karst valleys have made it a veritable playground for outdoor enthusiasts and a refreshing alternative to the crowds who descend on the streets of Paris or the beaches along the Riviera each summer.

Due to its unruly mountainous geography and low population density, the Ardèche is the only of France's 101 departments without passenger train service, an airport and a highway. Instead, its historic Train de l'Ardèche tourist steam train, centuries-old vineyards, medieval villages and ancient caves evoke a sense of France as it once was.

As I'm discovering, the Ardéche boasts more than 6,000km cycling trails and a rushing river, making it easy for adventurous travellers to explore the region's hills and rivers on two wheels and with a paddle. So, after filling up on Dauphiné ravioli at Don Camillo restaurant and strolling Les Vans' cobblestone lanes, I head east and explore the best of this rugged region.

Serpentine river

It's a 35km cycle (or drive) east from Le Vans along section six of the Grande Traversée de L’Ardèche to the village of Vallon Pont d'Arc. As I pass by rock formations, forest and sprawling vineyards, I'm lured by the sparkling Ardèche River snaking along the trail, and decide to take a 7km guided kayaking tour through some of its most scenic spots with Base Nautique du Pont d'Arc.

"You can drive for two hours and feel like you're crossing five different countries," Fabien Pignede, my guide with Base Nautique du Pont d'Arc, says of his home department as we paddle along the Ardèche River. "Different altitudes result in different ecosystems. That creates a lot of diversity."

This serpentine river was carved a canyon out of limestone 30 million years ago. Today it's the 1,575-hectare protected Réserve Naturelle des Gorges de l'Ardeche (Ardèche Gorges Nature Reserve), and one of the most striking natural landscapes in France. Ripe with opportunities for hiking, canyoning, climbing, water sports and spelunking, it's also home to some 500 plant and 100 animal species.

On the water, Pignede and I paddle through forests of holm oak and Aleppo pine, under towering limestone cliffs and past sandy beaches where eager swimmers embrace the unusual May chill. After about an hour, the stunning Pont d'Arc emerges: a 54m-high (177ft) natural rock bridge carved by the currents 124,000 years ago. At the height of summer, this place is clogged with canoes and kayaks, but in late spring there are just a handful of other kayakers and cliff climbers.

Chauvet Cave was discovered next to Pont d'Arc in 1994. With paintings dating back 36,000 years to the Paleolithic era, it's 14,000 years older than the better-known Lascaux cave in Dordogne. Though the cave is too fragile to be open to the public, the nearby Grotte Chauvet 2 offers a visitor-friendly replica with a museum, and I'm soon wandering amongst replicas of a cave lion and woolly rhinoceros in its Aurignacian Gallery.

After my visit, I return to Vallon Pont d'Arc. From here, experienced cyclists could continue along route D290, known as the "Route des Gorges", which starts in Vallon Pont d'Arc and offers nearly a dozen incredible viewpoints of the river's oxbow bend and surrounding cliffs. It's not unusual to cross paths with wild goats as you navigate the winding, narrow mountain roads. Instead, I opt to head south.

Subterranean worlds

After winding 20km south along route D217, I arrive at the Aven d'Orgnac, the only cave classified as a Grand Site de France, a label that both recognises its importance and guarantees it is sustainably managed. I don't like heights or tight spaces, but I find myself strapped into a harness, teetering over a 50m drop into a dark passage below.

Locking ankles with my descent companion, Chloé, we steadily lower our ropes, careful to keep the same pace. We pass through darkness until everything expands into a glorious yawning space resembling an underground cathedral, expertly lit to reveal a cluster of towering stalagmites like gravity-defying sandcastles.

"It's like the Sagrada Familia!" Chloé says, as if reading my mind.

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Though I chose to enter the cave the same way as those who discovered it in 1935, travellers don't have to rappel like I did. In addition to a standard tour, they can descend into this 121m-deep cavern for wine tastings (Les Vignerons Ardéchois actually age their wine inside this cave) or embark on an aerial climbing course along the cave's ceiling called the "via-cordata".

From the land

There are countless signs advertising châtaignes (chestnuts) and chestnut-based products across the Ardèche. After stopping to taste everything from chestnut sorbet to a chestnut-baked financier cake to a Chestnut Kir Royale cocktail, I venture to the medieval village of Joyeuse to learn more about the region's most prized product at the Espace Castena museum.

The museum shows how the Ardèchois have long relied on chestnuts for food and its trees to help build their homes. Today, half of France's chestnuts, (about 5,000 tons per year) come from the Ardèche. The region holds a huge chestnut festival each autumn, and as a sign in the museum attests, the nut is a strong source of local pride: "The chestnut is not a wild tree, it is the fruit of the labour of its people."

Signs for lavande (lavender) also dot southern Ardèche. One of the best places in the area to learn about them is La Maison de la Lavande, a 23-hectare estate with an on-site museum in Saint-Remèze. When I arrive, the fields have not yet exploded in purple, but I can still see violet speckles emerging in tidy lines of squat bushes. Nicolas Jouve, my guide, explains how pesticide elimination slows down cultivation but allows for a competitive product. "It remains artisanal," he says. "We're trying to showcase French craftsmanship."

According to vintner Nelly De Boel France, owner of Famille De Boel France winery in Lemps, the region's steep slopes have historically thwarted large-scale agriculture. Instead, growers have had to create terraced faïsse gardens to survive.

"The land is wild and dynamic and that has impacted everything," she tells me. "Everything had to be worked by hand. The land makes the people as well. It shapes their character."

Perhaps the most intimate way to explore this wild, dynamic land is the way its earliest residents did: on two feet. In addition to the Ardèche's 6,000km of cycling trails, it also boasts 6,000km of hiking paths. So after exploring the area by bike and kayak, I lace up my boots, follow a trickling stream up a rocky incline and climb past jagged rocks and pines to hike along the Tour du Tanargue trail.

As I step up the path, I turn around and gaze over the treetops behind me. Green mountains fold into one another in the distance and a breeze ruffles the nearby chestnut and pine trees. A couple of cyclists clad in Tropicana orange whirl past along the mountain road below. Apart from them, I seem to have this corner of France to myself.

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What a British etiquette expert would never do in a hotel

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260619-what-a-british-etiquette-expert-would-never-do-in-a-hotel, 4 days ago

From noisy corridors to thieving toiletries, William Hanson reveals the hotel habits that horrify him most.

People often behave differently in hotels than they do at home, and not always for the better.

Prominent British etiquette expert William Hanson, who directs The English Manner institute in Central London, puts bad hotel behaviour down to the "commercial" factor. "It's a transactional proposition, so some people wrongly feel they are entitled to behave in a way that they wouldn't at home. Whether that's leaving their room an absolute bomb site or being rude to the staff."

A new etiquette report by Hotels.com found Brits committing all sorts of dark hotel deeds, including breakfast buffet queue-jumping, reserving sunbeds with towels, smoking inside their rooms and washing their underthings in kettles. Yet, the same study found that Brits rank themselves among the world's most polite travellers. Hanson wasn't surprised by the self-appraisal: "We are a tiny, tiny, tiny island nation and one thing that we pride ourselves on is our good manners."

Nonetheless, Hanson says he is "relatively horrified" on a daily basis by social faux pas. Here, he explains some of his biggest hotel pet peeves – and how he thinks we should all do better.

Take a cue from the Yanks

Brits consider Americans and Germans the rudest guests, [but] in my opinion, Brits can learn something from Americans. There's that lovely sketch in [the 1970s British sitcom] Fawlty Towers where there are two diners sitting at the table complaining about the meal to each other saying, 'The beef is terrible!' and then Basil Fawlty comes over and says, 'Everything alright?' They go, 'Oh, yes, lovely! Thank you so much!' Whereas if there's a problem. an American has less resistance to talk about it sooner.

We're all human, things do go wrong. You can still deal with this in a courteous way. I think that's where Brits sometimes lack the confidence to say, 'Well, actually, this isn't quite up to par' or 'The towel's a bit dirty' or 'My room hasn't been cleaned and it's now 18:00'. Brits sometimes mistake being polite for being a pushover, and they are very different things.

Want an upgrade? Start with dignity

Treat the staff with respect; everyone in any industry deserves that. Just like we judge hotels when we walk in, the staff are forming a first impression of us. If you've used a reward scheme, that's probably going to put you in good solid footing for some sort of upgrade or additional perk. But you can probably get upgraded just by being decent human being. If you scowl at them when check in is taking far too long – even if it is – you're not going to stand yourself much luck.

Call them by name! They've got name badges for a reason. Or if they introduce themselves, "Hello my name is William, I'm your concierge for today", remember the name and use it back. They will go the extra mile because you have seen them as a person rather than as a function. In my phone, I always write down names of staff in restaurants and hotels I go to frequently – yes, I look at it before I turn up again.

Last night I was in a bar, and the manager had moved from somewhere else but because I've trained my brain to get better at names, he brought over three glasses of Champagne – just because I had used his name. In this slightly anonymous society that we now seem to live in, actually using someone's name and giving them the recognition goes the extra mile.

Leave a thank you note

I think Brits are particularly susceptible to this; hotel reviews are not just there to complain, they are there to praise as well. If something's gone wrong, we're more programmed to think, "Right, when I get home I'm going to write a damning review" and that's going to be like a therapist and get it all out of [your] system. We are less predisposed as a society to use a review site to write "The most fantastic pain au chocolate I had at breakfast" or "The staff were really helpful and went the extra miles for my mother who was staying with us." If there are 10 bad reviews of the hotel there will be 100 positive reviews that were not written. So sometimes I do think reviews can be a bit skewed to the negative, particularly Brits who are slightly more pessimistic.

The hotel corridor is a cathedral

Do remember that people don't just sleep in hotels at night; people might be sleeping in the day because they've been working overnight. It's amazing how many times I've been in rooms getting ready and there's a child tearing down the hallway chasing another child. Hotel corridors should be cathedral-like in their quiet serenity because you don't know what is happening behind the doors. The primary function of the hotel, other than to rest and have a nice time, is to sleep.

When it comes to hotel toiletries, there's a line between souvenir and theft

If it is the hair dryer, that's just theft. The cotton pads that you get in the amenities kit, sometimes you get a nail file and a sewing kit, all of that is fine. Most hotels are now going down the sustainable route of fixing bottles to the wall that they will refill so you can't take those away. [No to] towels, bedding, robes… the slippers will be fine, you can absolutely take the slippers.

Don't commit this luggage faux pas

In a really nice hotel, I have a real aversion to seeing luggage. Concierge are there to assist you with [it]. You are meant to phone up and go, "Please, could someone come and collect my luggage? We're checking out in 15 minutes" and they come and get it for you rather than you schlepping it down the carpeted corridors. You can of course do it; it's not the end of the world, but the concierge, porters and bellboys are there to assist with that so don't feel as if you have to overcompensate or be too nice – "Oh, I can't possibly phone up and get someone to take my case" – because that is the service that they are providing and that's why they are charging the prices they do.

This interview has been condensed for length and clarity.

BBC Travel's The SpeciaList is a series of guides to popular and emerging destinations around the world, as seen through the eyes of local experts and tastemakers.

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The world's largest mammal migration that few travellers ever see

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260603-the-worlds-largest-mammal-migration-that-few-travellers-ever-see, 13 days ago

Every year, millions of straw-coloured fruit bats descend on Zambia's little-known Kasanka National Park, creating one of Africa's most extraordinary wildlife spectacles.

There's a storm on the horizon. Lightning flickers, illuminating the Central Zambezian miombo woodlands with brief flashes of silver. The sun is setting, the air smells of damp earth and somewhere ahead of us, millions of bats are waking up.

We park our vehicle in front of the Musola Hide, Kasanka National Park's prime bat observation point. The 10m (33ft) climb up to the wooden platform feels precarious, the ladder swaying slightly beneath my feet. Across the canopy, the sky glows orange and purple behind the distant thunderclouds. The forest beneath us begins to tremble.

Legions of straw-coloured fruit bats (Eidolon helvum) hang in the trees, packed together so tightly some seem to cling to one another rather than to the actual branches, which sag under their collective weight. The air fills with chatter, whistles and shrieks. And then the bats begin to fly.

At first, it's only a few, then, one by one, others take flight. Soon, the sky is a vortex of movement. Bats stream out of the forest in every direction, swirling and tumbling like smoke in an updraft. From our perch above the canopy, we see bats pour endlessly from the forest against the glowing evening sky. The air vibrates with the beating of millions of wings.

Night fliers

This is the Kasanka Bat Migration, the largest mammal migration on Earth. Each year, drawn from across Central Africa by a seasonal explosion of fruit, an estimated eight to 10 million straw-coloured fruit bats (Eidolon helvum) gather right here in the park. That's eight times as many mammals on the move as the Serengeti Great Migration.

The nightly spectacle takes place from late October to December. By the end of January, they'll be gone. Somewhere between 500,000 and 700,000 people visit the Serengeti-Maasai Mara migrations annually, but only around 800 will witness the bats while they're here in Kasanka.

Often overshadowed by Africa's larger, more famous protected reserves, Kasanka is one of Zambia's smallest national parks at just around 390 sqkm, and is tucked away in the country's central province, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. There are no vast open plains here, no huge prides of lions, but also no endless convoys of safari vehicles with their camera-clicking crowds. Instead, Kasanka is feels startingly quiet, home to wetlands and lagoons, papyrus swamps and forests, wonderful bird species and just a sprinkling of traditional safari wildlife. Most visitors who make the journey come for the bats.

Researchers have discovered the small mammals disperse across enormous distances. Some travel up to 96km (60 miles) in a single night, consuming their own body weight in fruit before returning at dawn. Former Kasanka chief ecologist Frank Willems says the bats burn extraordinary amounts of calories on their night flights. A straw-coloured fruit bat weighs about 250g and can consume roughly its own body weight in fruit each night. Willems calculates that eight to 10 million bats will put away around 230-250 tonnes of fruit in a single night.

The sheer scale of consumption is hard to comprehend. An estimated 330,000 tonnes of fruit are consumed by the bats while they are at Kasanka, mostly wild loquat, milkwood and waterberries. As they feed, they disperse seeds across huge swathes of land. "Eidolon helvum disperse seeds both locally and over long distances," says Helen Taylor-Boyd, a Zambian bat ecologist and board member of Kasanka Trust. "In fact, they're capable of dispersing seeds further than many vertebrates studied, including elephants."

With a wingspan of up to a metre and a body length of 30cm, the straw-coloured fruit bat is an extraordinary long-distance flier. In 2005, biologist Heidi Richter fitted four bats with solar-powered transmitters. Satellite tracking revealed that each bat travelled more than 997km (619 miles). One, aptly named Hercules, flew more than 2,400km (1,419 miles).

Researchers still don't know precisely where the bats come from, or where they to when they leave Kasanka. "Only a handful of tracking studies have been carried out, and on a relatively small sample size," Taylor-Boyd explains. "We're only just beginning to understand the migration routes."

That mystery is part of the park's appeal. As we climb down from Musola Hide, the last of the bats vanish into the darkness.

Tracking fruit bats

Back at Wasa Lodge, where we are spending the night, a hippo grumbles out on the lake and frogs chorus in the reeds.

The scenery wasn't always this peaceful. By the late 1980s, poaching had emptied much of the park and it was at risk of losing its national park status. In 1990, David Lloyd, a former British colonial officer, took over its management, using his own money to build roads, bridges and seasonal camps. Since then, populations of puku, bushbuck and sable antelope have recovered, and even elephants have returned. In the morning, we'll be off to look for another of Kasanka's signature species, the secretive sitatunga.

The next morning, coffee rouses us just after 05:00. Half an hour later we're driving 10km (6.2 miles) from the lodge to Vivienne's Hide, a wooden platform raised above a maze of reeds and papyrus. When we arrive, the swamp is almost invisible. A thick mist hovers low over the floodplain as the sky changes gradually from charcoal grey to pale pink. Tall reeds line the shallow channels of water, and somewhere inside them comes the soft rustle of movement.

Then a sitatunga emerges: a female stepping cautiously from the papyrus. Another follows, then a calf and finally a dark-coated male with elegant spiralled horns. Kasanka is one of the best places in Africa to see the shy sitatunga, the continent's only truly amphibious antelope. The park holds an estimated 500 to 1,000 of them. We spend an hour watching them graze before they slip silently back into the reeds.

Kasanka's wildlife often feels like this, fleeting and elusive. Elsewhere in the park are elephants, crocodiles, bushpigs, civets, puku, rare blue monkeys and hippos wallowing in the lagoon at Wasa Lodge, though numbers are not high. The birdlife is extraordinary – more than 450 species have been recorded here, making Kasanka one of Zambia's premier birding destinations.

We spend the rest of the day driving through the park and canoeing in the river. But by 05:30 the next morning, we're back at the bat forest.

This time it's like watching everything in reverse. A golden stripe of sunlight appears on the horizon like an invisible signal, and the bats begin pouring back towards the roost. They arrive shrieking and colliding, spiralling downwards before crash-landing clumsily into the trees. Landing, it turns out, is not their greatest strength. Some successfully grab branches, while others collide into clusters of other roosting bats. The noise inside the colony is deafening.

As the bats settle back into the trees, the forest seems to sag once more under their collective weight, with the odd crack of a breaking branch. Eventually, the activity slows. The bats wrap themselves tightly in their wings, protection from the growing heat of the day. The chatter fades, and gradually the colony appears to sleep. In less than 12 hours the spectacle will start all over again.

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For scientists, the unanswered questions surrounding the bats remain irresistible. For conservationists, their ecological importance is immense. But for travellers lucky enough to witness the migration first-hand, the experience is something like standing inside a living storm.

Kasanka may never rival Kruger, the Serengeti or the Okavango in safari fame. There are no luxury lodges here, no traffic jams around leopard sightings, no guarantee of postcard-perfect wildlife moments.

What it does offer is a storm rolling across the woodland at dusk, a hippo grunting in the lagoon before dawn, mist lifting from papyrus swamps as a sitatunga appears and, when the timing is just right, millions upon millions of fruit bats pouring into the African sky, so dense that, for a few extraordinary moments, the sky itself seems to disappear.

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The hidden Edo-era bathhouse that embodies Tokyo

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260618-the-hidden-edo-era-bathhouse-that-embodies-tokyo, 6 days ago

There is no more intimate way to understand Tokyo's unique blend of past and present than shedding your clothes and engaging in "naked friendship" in this Edo-era insitution.

There are few cities where the future and past feel as present as in Tokyo. Neon-lit skyscrapers rise above centuries-old temples, bullet trains speed past meticulously tended Japanese gardens and robot cafes sit nearby family-run businesses that have existed for generations.

But there may be no better place to experience Tokyo's unique blend of innovation and ancient roots than inside Konparu-yu: a 163-year-old sento (public Japanese bathhouse).

First-time visitors could easily walk past Konparu-yu without noticing it. Hidden amidst a sea of modern glass towers, Michelin-starred restaurants and high-end department stores in the ritzy Ginza shopping district, a narrow side street leads to discreet doorway marked by a traditional lantern and a faded indigo noren curtain.

As I push past the noren, shed my clothes and sink naked into a steaming-hot tub, I begin one of the most uniquely Japanese experiences you can have.

A 1,200-year-old tradition

Sento have played an important role in daily life among Japanese people for more than 1,200 years. Born during the spread of Buddhism in the 700s when cleansing one's body and spirit was thought to be an important duty to serve Buddha, these temple-shaped structures became particularly popular during the Edo period (1603-1868) and spread throughout the archipelago. Since most citizens didn't have private bathtubs at home, the local sento (literally: "coin bath") was a place to cleanse oneself relatively cheaply while socialising with friends and neighbours.

"In Edo, when society was sharply divided by class, bathhouses were among the few public places where samurai, merchants and labourers could bathe together," said Shinobu Machida, a researcher of Japanese bathhouse culture. "Samurai removed their swords before entering. Once people stepped into the bath, they returned to being simply human."

Centuries later, this sense of hadaka no tsukiai ("naked friendship"), where everyone is nude and equal, is still true at Konparu-yu. Outside, the world's largest metropolis might often feel frenetic and status-obsessed, but inside this Edo-era institution, watches and handbags disappear into lockers, job titles and salaries melt away in the steam and people from all walks of life sit nude in the same soothing water.

Over the years, I've shared steaming-hot baths at Konparu-yu with elderly regulars, white-collar office workers, young creatives and even the occasional visitor from overseas. Its tranquil tubs attract a perfect snapshot of life in Tokyo – past and present.

Entering Konparu-yu is also – quite literally – an immersion into Japanese culture. While no two sento are the same, visitors always follow the same time-honoured bathhouse etiquette: place your shoes and belongings in wooden lockers, wash yourself thoroughly and then enter a gender-divided room.

Inside, strangers sit side by side in the same steaming water in near silence, greeting familiar faces with a quiet "konnichiwa" (hello). Long hair is tied up, towels are kept out of the bath and voices remain low, reflecting the shared understanding that – in the sento as in Japan itself – everyone is expected to abide by the unwritten rules of social etiquette to preserve the calm atmosphere and environment.

A singular sento

While hundreds of sento are scattered across Tokyo's outskirts, Konparu-yu is one of the last surviving ones in central Tokyo. The bathhouse has stood in Ginza since 1863, and over the years, it has witnessed the city rise, burn and transform from its unique location.

Ginza is often considered the birthplace of modern Tokyo. When Japan opened to the West following its centuries of self-imposed isolation at the end of the Edo period, Ginza was rebuilt with brick buildings and broad streets. By the 1930s, it had become the centre of Tokyo's urban culture, filled with cafes, theatres and jazz halls.

Visitors experience this layered history before they even enter the bathhouse. After wandering through Ginza's polished main streets full of international chain brands, Konparu Street feels like a time capsule: the narrow, brick-lined backstreet brims with small, locally owned restaurants, bars and long-standing shops. A few steps away from the sento, a wooden Edo-era wooden water pipe and bricks from Ginza's early development are hiding in plain sight.

Like Tokyo itself, Konparu-yu fell victim to the city's turbulent 20th Century. The original bathhouse was destroyed in the March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo during World War Two, when much of the capital was reduced to ashes, and rebuilt in its original location in 1957.

When Tokyo redeveloped in the decades after the war, many of its newer homes were designed with private bathrooms. As a result, the number of sento across Tokyo – as well as in Japan – has been steadily vanishing for decades. To help attract a new generation of bathers, many sento owners have renovated their bathhouses in recent years with sleek contemporary designs, social media marketing and even in-house craft beer bars.

Tokyo resident Akihiro Fujimoto has visited bathhouses across the capital and believes that what makes Konparu-yu so unique is that it has stuck with tradition. Visitors are greeted by the receptionist from an elevated wooden bandai (welcome desk), retro wooden lockers line the changing rooms and tiny plastic stools are placed in each gender-separated bathing area for patrons. "Konparu-yu has stayed true to the classic Tokyo sento. The baths are simple, the water is hotter than most, and the atmosphere still feels like the Tokyo of decades ago."

After sinking into the piping-hot 43C tub alongside a group of elderly regulars, I leaned back against the smooth tiles and looked up at a hand-painted mural of Mount Fuji's snow-covered summit. Below it, a vivid Kutani porcelain mural depicted plump koi carp gliding through a pond, their scales shimmering in crimson, yellow and cobalt blue. Back in the changing area, another painted wall showed sparrows and ducks flying through the changing seasons of cherry blossoms giving way to hydrangeas and crimson maple leaves.

These bucolic landscapes (especially those showcasing Japan's most iconic mountain) are one of the defining features of traditional Japanese sento, as the soothing scenes help transport bathers into a Zen-like oblivion. But because there are just a handful of sento mural masters left, these once-iconic murals have become increasingly harder to find.

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To first-time visitors, the tiles may simply seem decorative. But according to bathhouse historian Shinobu Machida, they reflect a uniquely Tokyo tradition of transforming ordinary spaces into unexpectedly elaborate oases that help residents escape the bustling city outside.

"If bathing were only about washing, there would have been no need to paint Mount Fuji or decorate the walls," he said. "Konparu-yu's owner wanted ordinary people to experience something extraordinary."

More than a century later, that sense of escape still draws people through Konparu-yu's indigo noren.

Tokyo office worker Kaho Nagashima says she frequents Konparu-yu so much that it has become a home away from home for her. "Before going home, I stop by and switch myself off," she said. "It is a place where I reflect on the day and put my thoughts in order. The traditional atmosphere helps me relax."

Tokyo-based journalist Emiko Yodogawa says she had visited Ginza more than 100 times before she discovered this "oasis in the city".

"I had no idea such [a traditional] bathhouse existed in the middle of Ginza," she said. "Being able to wash away sweat for a few hundred yen [about £3] in the middle of Ginza is something I am truly grateful for," she said.

During my last visit, I ended up staying at Konparu-yu far longer than I'd intended. Time seemed to slip away as I watched the mist rise beneath Mount Fuji's brush-stroked crater. When I eventually stepped back out onto the streets of Ginza, the city was still racing forwards. But behind an old noren, Tokyo had reminded me that its future has always made room for its past.

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A Wimbledon etiquette guide for first-time visitors

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260618-wimbledon-etiquette-for-first-time-visitors, 8 days ago

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people descend on Wimbledon expecting world-class tennis. What many first-time visitors don't realise is that they're also signing up for an immersive introduction to British etiquette.

Nearly 150 years after the Championships began, Wimbledon remains one of England's most revealing social rituals, a place where people camp overnight for tickets, queue with near-religious devotion and tut theatrically when their neighbour opens a bottle of Champagne at a peak match moment.

To outsiders, the event can seem forbiddingly formal: all-white kits, cathedral silence during rallies and an unapologetic national fixation with strawberries. But beneath the military precision, is a surprisingly human system that's underpinned by patience, fairness and a set of unwritten rules that have remained largely preserved since the Victorian era.

Learn those rules and you'll fit right in. Ignore them and you may find yourself on the receiving end of one of Britain's most feared social sanctions: a look of withering disapproval.

Rule one: Respect the Queue

While most tickets are allocated through a heavily oversubscribed ballot each spring, Wimbledon remains one of sport's great democratic institutions. Unlike the Super Bowl or the World Cup, The Championships can still be accessed at a day's notice, provided you're willing to follow the rules, stay in your place and, in some cases, sleep in a field.

Welcome to the Queue.

It's disarmingly simple. The day before you want to watch a match, head to Wimbledon Park, find the back of the line and receive a Queue Card, which marks your position. Those who join by mid-afternoon and camp overnight are usually in contention for a show court ticket the following day: Centre Court, No 1 or No 2. Nothing is guaranteed, but from the point you receive your Queue Card, everyone is equal; whether you're a millionaire, a confused first-timer or a lifelong tennis obsessive, you will all move at exactly the same speed.

By early evening, you and thousands of strangers will have formed a temporary village, sharing mallets, phone chargers and opinions on who deserves Centre Court the following day. Stewards patrol with the calm authority of experienced schoolteachers, and disappearing to a nearby hotel for the night is a serious breach of the rules – and instantly disqualifying.

The system works largely because everyone agrees that it should – a mixture of trust, fairness and genteel social pressure. Nobody will make a scene if you bend the rules; far worse, you’ll find yourself judged by several thousand people in camping chairs.

The following morning, the same tents are dismantled and everyone lines up according to their Queue number, filing quietly towards the gates to buy their tickets.

Tip: If you’re not the camping type, you can likely secure a Ground Pass – with access to all courts besides Centre and Numbers One and Two – if you arrive before 07:00 on the day of play.

Rule two: Dress for a picnic, not a palace

Wimbledon projects an image of immaculate British formality, with television cameras dutifully locating Panama hats, linen suits and figures who look like they've wandered in from a royal wedding in the 19th Century.

Unless you're heading for the Royal Box or corporate hospitality, the reality is far less intimidating. There is no official dress code for ordinary spectators, though many visitors still enjoy dressing up for the occasion, reflecting another peculiarly British habit: even when there are no formal rules, people often behave as though there might be. You'll see trainers beneath tailored suits across the grounds, but how you dress really isn't as important as it may appear from the outside.

A bigger surprise to first timers is how much of the day revolves around food. You can bring your own food and limited alcohol into the grounds – one bottle of wine or Champagne, or two cans of beer, lager or premixed aperitifs per person – including to your seat on court. Bottles of spirits and fortified wines are not allowed, and corked bottles need to be opened before being taken into court seating areas.

The Hill, behind Centre Court, quickly becomes centre stage, filling with spectators unpacking their wares. Like The Queue, there is a streak of egalitarianism here. Nobody is particularly impressed by how much you've spent.

On any given patch of grass, you'll find elaborate Tupperware spreads of homemade dishes sitting alongside hastily assembled supermarket picnics, all being discussed with equal enthusiasm. A couple of years ago, a neighbour offered me a choice of seven cheeses. We had been speaking for less than 10 minutes. It feels somehow fitting that memories of one of the world's most famous sporting venues often revolve less around the tennis than around a particularly good sausage roll shared with a stranger.

Rule three: Know where the regulars go

One of the quickest ways to spot a Wimbledon newcomer is that they usually head for Centre Court upon arrival, then look confused when nothing much is happening there yet.

Regulars know better.

If you're fortunate enough to have a ticket for Centre or No 1 Court, don't spend the morning waiting there. Show-court play doesn't begin until early afternoon, leaving plenty of time to explore the outside courts, where you can often watch the action from just a few rows away. Mention that you've spent the morning cheering on a plucky underdog – particularly a British one – and you'll receive your share of approving nods from Wimbledon regulars.

But once you're through the gates, don't linger. Experienced Ground Pass holders have already done their homework, scrutinising the previous evening's Order of Play and identifying exactly where they need to be for the most interesting matches. You'll recognise them by their pace: not running, which would be deeply un-Wimbledon, but moving with unmistakable purpose. Follow in their wake – don't try and keep up with them, you never will – and you'll usually arrive just before everyone else has the same idea.

Even Centre Court isn't necessarily out-of-reach for Ground Pass holders, but treat returned tickets as a bonus, not a plan. From 15:00, returned Show Court tickets are resold through a virtual queue in the Wimbledon App, with proceeds going to the Wimbledon Foundation. Join the queue, watch your progress and be ready to move when called. Patience, as ever at Wimbledon, is part of the proceedings.

And while branded towels and caps are bestsellers, my favourite souvenir remains the used balls sold on site. Every year, thousands of visitors buy them, convinced that owning a ball that may have been struck by Jannik Sinner or Iga Świątek will transfer Wimbledon champion ability to their own tennis game.

In my case, the evidence suggests otherwise.

Rule four: Never move during a point

If you've secured tickets for a show court, your seat is reserved for the day. The challenge is knowing when to leave it.

Wimbledon crowds treat movement during play with the utmost seriousness. Nobody enters or leaves while a game is in progress, only at changeovers, which last precisely 90 seconds before the rope dividing court from concourse descends like a portcullis. Miss your moment and you'll end up listening to applause from behind a steward's shoulder for longer than you bargained for.

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Outside courts operate under a different logic. Seats are effectively communal property: leave and somebody else will claim yours within seconds. You'll need to weigh up every coffee run against the possibility of losing an excellent spot for a five-set thriller.

Regardless of the court, silence during rallies is non-negotiable. Enforcement comes partly from stewards, but mostly from fellow spectators. A ringing phone or rustling crisp packet can trigger an entire row of synchronised disapproval.

The etiquette extends beyond silence. Cheer brilliance, applaud effort and accept the umpire's decision, whether you agree with it or not. Wimbledon crowds can be partisan, but they're rarely hostile. The unspoken rule is that you're there to watch and appreciate the players, not become one of the day's talking points.

And if you're planning to open a bottle of Champagne, whatever you do, wait until the changeover. Few things unite Centre Court faster in murmured disapproval than the sound of a bottle popping between points.

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Insane costs and 'luck in many ways'. What it's really like to attend the World Cup

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260617-the-real-fans-who-are-coming-to-the-world-cup, 9 days ago

Record-setting ticket prices shut many football fans out of this year's tournament. We asked four groups who actually made the trip what the experience was like.

German honeymooners who snuck a match into their itinerary. Croatians and Americans who splurged on once-in-a-lifetime trips. Scots who scrimped wherever they could.

The 2026 World Cup is easily the most expensive in history. Prices for many first-round games range from $350 to $5,000 (£260 to £3,735), and that's before factoring in flights, hotels and hundreds of other incidentals. There were real fears that such high costs would lead to empty stadiums or price out real fans.

Instead, stadiums have been packed across the US, Mexico and Canada – many of the seats filled with loyal fans who are making it work. For sheer love of the game, they've found ways, big and small, to keep the budget down (or rationalise their spending).

One week in, this is the story of how four groups of friends scored tickets and what it's really like to attend this World Cup.

The Croatian mega-fans

Who: Tomislav Špoljarić, 43; Danijel Koprivnjak, 38; Zoran Kos, 46; Milan Pavic, 55

Home cities: Zagreb, Krapina and Ludbreg, Croatia

Match: All Croatia matches, plus the opening game, Mexico vs South Africa in Mexico City (11 June)

Overall costs: Declined to share due to the evolving costs of an open-ended trip, but paid $60 (£45) per ticket

Tomislav Špoljarić and his friends are used to travelling to games – they attend each and every match the Croatian national team plays. They're such a common sight, even the players now greet them.

When Croatia qualified for this year's World Cup, nothing could have kept them away. Luckily, their fan status scored them tickets for just $60, allowing them to plan a mammoth 35-day trip through Mexico, the US and Canada with tickets to each Croatia match, plus the opening game in Mexico City. The group was so keen to see the opener live at the legendary Estadio Azteca that they booked flights to Mexico City last year, even before they knew where Croatia would play. They booked their other flights five to six months in advance to get the best prices and have endeavored to keep both meal and hotel costs low.

When the BBC caught up with Špoljarić and his friends the day after the opening game, he raved about the fantastic vibes, starting with the sense of excitement in the air on the approach to the stadium. He praised Shakira's opening performance and reported snagging a selfie with Italian sportscaster Diletta Leotta: "The combination of music, culture and football created an incredible atmosphere that made the event feel much bigger than just a football match."

That celebratory mood was also palpable outside the stadium, said Špoljarić, who enjoyed the attention the group got in their distinctive red and white chequered Croatian football shirts. Like Špoljarić and his friends, the crowds of singing and cheering Mexican fans were enjoying every moment, and eager to share their football traditions with visitors.

Would it have been worth it even if tickets had cost more than $60?

"Absolutely," said Špoljarić. "We are all delighted that we decided to embark on this unforgettable football journey together."

Where will the journey take them next? After Mexico, the group will fly to Las Vegas, then rent a car to drive to Dallas in time to see Croatia play its first match against England. They plan to drive Route 66 all the way up to Niagara Falls. But their route depends on where Croatia finishes in the group: "It would be a dream come true to see Croatia lift the World Cup trophy in North America."

The American childhood football friends

Who: Michael LoRé, 39; Michael Lally, 41; Kyle Petrichko, 41; Shane Donovan, 41

Home cities: New York City, NY; Freehold, NJ; Phoenix, AZ; Los Angeles, CA

Match: US v Paraguay in Los Angeles (12 June)

Overall cost: $3500 - 4000 (£2642 - 3020) per person

American football journalist Michael LoRé regularly attends games all around the world, but witnessing a World Cup on home soil was a glorious first. When the host cities were first announced, he immediately contacted his childhood football friends. Now dispersed across the US, they relished the chance to reconnect over their love of the sport.

They opted to meet in Los Angeles to see the US play Paraguay, splurging on the highest-priced, premium Category 1 seats at a whopping $2,735 (£2,041) each. "It's very expensive," LoRé admitted before the game. "But it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so begrudgingly we're giving Fifa a lot of money to go to this game."

LoRé plans to attend three other matches and said he will likely spend an estimated $10,000 between travel and tickets, quipping that since it's partly for business he can justify it on his taxes.

For the first time in World Cup history, Fifa used dynamic pricing (where prices rise with demand) to maximise revenue, which disappointed LoRé as both a journalist in the industry and a lifelong football fan. "It's disheartening because this is going to be the biggest sporting event ever. It's ostracising a lot of people who want to take part. Soccer has roots as a blue-collar sport. Now it's the billion-dollar game."

Nonetheless, the crew reported an incredible atmosphere ahead of kickoff, starting at the Los Angeles airport where their US football shirts attracted head nods and waves. Even waiting in a long queue to go through security didn't feel like a problem. Chanting crowds, beating drums and celebrity sightings on the stadium screen (they spotted Jason Sudeikis, Halle Berry and Tom Cruise) added to the buzz.

But for the men, who used to watch televised World Cup games together before school, simply witnessing the US play on home turf was emotional. The experience was only boosted by their 4-1 victory.

LoRé acknowledged that paying premium prices didn't yield premium perks. "There was no, 'you have access to a suite'. But, $27 or $2700, we were still going to have an absolute blast. It was a premium experience because it was with these guys, not because of what we paid."

The Scottish shoestring budgeters

Who: John Farley, 47; Allan Little, 47; Stuart Mackie, 47; Alistair Young, 47; Nigel Smith, 45; Alan Rennison, 48

Home city: Glasgow, Scotland

Match: Scotland v Haiti in Boston (13 June)

Overall costs: £1200 per person (£400 for tickets)

When John Farley saw how much World Cup tickets cost, he was shocked. But 2026 was the first time the Scottish National Team had qualified for the tournament since 1998, when Farley and his friends were teenagers.

"We've been friends since we were at school, so we've been to lots of Scotland games together in Scotland and abroad," he said. "It's a big emotional connection."

The group is on a tight budget, so Farley put much of their trip down to "luck, in many ways". They used points to book flights to New York City before the games were announced, hoping that Scotland would end up in a group nearby. When the team was drawn to play two games in Boston, the group got flights up for the first match.

They were also clever with accommodation, sharing budget-priced rooms in Boston and crashing with friends in New York City.

On 13 June, the group arrived at Gillette Stadium in Boston – faces painted, kilts fluttering, Scotland flags waving – and found an electrifying atmosphere. They were amazed by the stadium, much larger than where they've seen Scotland play in the past, and the view from their top level seats.

Farley would have liked to see Scotland score more goals but was thrilled with their 1-0 win. "The feeling when John McGinn scored our first World Cup goal for 28 years was something I will never forget."

"We expected fun, hospitality and excitement and got it all."

The German honeymooners

Who: Nathaniel Grundmann, 30; Ines Grundmann, 31

Home city: Munich, Germany

Match: Houston for the Germany vs Curaçao in Houston (14 June)

Overall costs: $1500 (£1132) per person for the World Cup leg of their journey; $180 (£134) for tickets

Nathaniel and Ines Grundmann already had a reason to come to North America this summer: their honeymoon. Both of the football-loving newlyweds had spent much time in the US and looked forward to reconnecting with memories and old friends. The World Cup was merely the icing on the wedding cake.

The Grundmanns, who are spending a week in Mexico and 10 days in the US, planned a World Cup detour in Houston. Thanks to their membership in the German Association's fan club, they scored (relatively) inexpensive tickets for the Germany versus Curaçao match. While global tensions had initially made them apprehensive about returning to the US, the Grundmanns looked forward to their trip and were curious to experience American football culture.

Once they landed, any concerns were quickly assuaged. "At Homeland Security, you're never sure how they'll react to you, but this time we had a very good experience and everyone is always super nice and friendly," said Ines.

The good vibes continued during the match. "We had a super fun time," said Nathaniel. "The stadium was amazing and the entire city [of Houston] was quite excited. The vibe between the people [was] very engaging and not like a local soccer club where everyone stays within their fans."

They did report waiting half an hour in Houston's notorious heat and humidity to enter the stadium, as well as surprising food and drink prices ("$19 (£14) for a beer!") but were impressed by the convenient self-service checkouts.

The Grundmanns were also impressed by their breakfast of chicken and waffles at the "very stereotypical" Texan diner they visited the day of the game. "It was really funny at 06:00. It's a unique combo."

Overall, the couple said their World Cup expectations were not just met, but exceeded. "The most important thing is the vibe and [it] was definitely there, more than [we] would have expected," said Nathaniel. "At a certain point it's not about the specific dollar amount."

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How Valencia came to host this summer's Gay Games

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260615-how-valencia-became-an-lgbtq-hub, 11 days ago

The Spanish city has become one of Europe's most gay-friendly destinations. Now, it's welcoming the world this summer to host the world's largest LGBTQ+ sporting event.

During a nighttime rowing practice last spring, our crew stopped in the middle of a split and our nine-person racing shell drifted towards the Valencia Marina. As we caught our breath, someone from the all-queer rowing group asked, "Is anyone competing in the Gay Games?”

Despite being an LGBTQ+ athlete living in the Spanish city where this year's competition is held, I had never heard of the Gay Games. But after my fellow rowers told me about the world's largest international LGBTQ+ sporting event, I was immediately inspired to enter.

Founded by former Olympic decathlete Tom Waddell in 1982, the Gay Games take place every four years in a different city and essentially serve as the Olympics for LGBTQ+ athletes. Waddell created the Games after noticing how much sexism and homophobia there was when he competed at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City as a closeted gay man. When Waddell came out in 1976, he wanted to create a space for fellow gay athletes to compete free from prejudice and judgment. Six years later, he launched the Gay Games in San Francisco, and Tina Turner performed at the opening ceremony.

Since the inaugural competition, the Gay Games have been held in places known for their cultural tolerance, such as Amsterdam, New York, Sydney and Paris. Spain's third-largest city will be hosting from 27 June to 4 July 2026 – and while Valencia might be best known for its paella, beaches and mix of Art Nouveau architecture and contemporary design, it's also one of Europe's most queer-friendly places.

I moved to Spain from the United States in 2022 specifically because of its tolerant culture. The nation has some of the most progressive same-sex marriage and anti-discrimination laws in the world, and last month, it overtook Malta as Europe's top nation for LGBTQ+ rights, according to the ILGA (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association).

Between Torremolinos; Chueca, Madrid; Barcelona's Eixample district (affectionately known as "Gaixample"), and many other areas, Spain has no shortage of long-established queer-friendly hubs. But while it may not have as many explicitly gay clubs as in Spain's two larger cities, Valencia's famously laid-back culture and "live-and-let-live" attitude fosters a broad culture of acceptance that's subtly woven into the city's fabric.

It's common to see same-sex couples kissing and holding hands in the city's narrow, medieval streets. Rainbow flags and stickers are displayed on storefronts. Places like clothing-optional Pinedo beach are queer havens where families are also welcome. And nearly 50 years since the city's first Pride Festival attracted a few thousand people, it now draws more than 20,000, with LGBTQ+ booking site misterB&B reporting a 58% booking surge in accommodations for this year's 20 June celebration compared to last year's event.

With Pride and this summer's Gay Games just a week apart, Valencia is keen to showcase its culture of acceptance to the world.

According to David Gómez from Visit Valencia, more than 9,000 athletes from 75 countries will compete in 39 sports at the competition, attracting an estimated 40,000 spectators. While the Games will be held across the city, each of the 46 competition venues is within a short bike, metro, bus or taxi ride from the Gay Games Village at the Jardín del Túria, one of Spain's largest urban parks.

"In 10 minutes, you'll be at the furthest [venue]," said Gay Games sports coordinator Déborah Giaoui, adding that the city contains more than 200km of bike paths laid across mostly flat terrain.

On 27 June, the day of the opening ceremony, there will be a public 3K International Rainbow Memorial Run through the Jardín del Túria.

Exploring Valencia's LGBTQ+ scene

During the Gay Games, the city will be filled with events catering to all types of people, including the opening ceremony on June 27, which will feature a parade of nations, a lighting ceremony and live performances. At the historic City Museum (Museu de la Ciutat), a "Contemporary Artistic Identities" exhibit will run throughout the games showcasing works from eight local LGBTQ+ artists and sculptors. The closing aquatics party, Pink Flamingo, will be held on 3 July and will feature synchronised water performances. Visitors of all stripes will likely hear the Choral Festival on 30 June, as hundreds of voices will be singing famous pop songs in unison.

Beyond the Games, Valencia's LGBTQ+ scene is expanding, and worth exploring. The city's most famous LGBQT+-friendly district is arguably Barrio del Carmen in the city's Old Town. After Spanish dictator Francisco Franco died in 1975 and homosexuality was decriminalised four years later, artists and queer individuals began moving into the formerly dilapidated neighbourhood. The punk scene helped further establish the area as a queer refuge, with clubs like Radio City and Peter Rock Club catering to counterculture crowds.

Walking through Carmen's narrow, maze-like, car-free streets, you'll notice many queer-owned and queer-friendly places. The recently opened Axel Hotel Valencia (a straight-friendly Spanish hotel chain) is a great place to base yourself. Nearby, spots like La Carmen VLC, Trapezzio Café and El Cafetín are easygoing gay bars where drinks are sometimes accompanied by a piano show. For a more energetic scene, check out Café de las Horas housed inside a baroque landmark where the city's iconic Agua de Valencia cocktail became popular among travellers. Other bars, like the bear haven BUBU, are within walking distance.

Just south of Carmen is Valencia's other famous gay-friendly district, Ruzafa. Historically a hub for immigrants from Arabic countries, recent years have seen an influx of LGBTQ+-owned shops and restaurants. Queer travellers should wander past its colourful Art Nouveau and Art Deco buildings towards the corner of Sueca and Dénia streets – which locals affectionately call Cantó de les Mariques ("Corner of the Queers") because LGBTQ+ people would discreetly meet or cruise when homosexuality was forbidden during the Franco era.

Here, outdoor tables spill out of restaurants and cafes while a rainbow flag sits at the COMIC café proudly waving at passersby. Just a few streets down, La Boba y El Gato Rancio is a relaxed queer-owned bar. You can find more energy (and a younger crowd) at places like Templo and the lesbian favourite, Las Vegas – all of which is an easy seven-minute bike ride or 20-minute bus ride from the Gay Games Village.

"COMIC Café has grown within the community, living peacefully with its neighbours here in Ruzafa,” said the cafe's owner, Carlos Soler. "At first, COMIC was only a point of reference for our community, but over the years, other open-minded bars joined in, allowing the space to remain safe and free for our community." When asked about why Valencia was the perfect city for the Gay Games, Soler said, "First, because we have the Mediterranean Sea, a good climate, tons of sports infrastructure, and everyone here is already open-minded."

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• Six LGBTQ+ destinations around the world

Gómez added, "For Valencia, the Gay Games represent much more than hosting an international sporting event. They are an opportunity to reinforce the city's identity as an open, inclusive and welcoming destination, where diversity is part of everyday life."

For those of us participating, the Games are as much about competition as camaraderie.

"I expect a safe and fun environment, but also a competitive one. Above all, I hope to see a massive sense of collective unity," said Nerea Forcadell, who will be competing in the dragon boat race.

Moving to a place where I never feel judged and finding a community of LGBTQ+ rowers has allowed me to embrace my identity as a queer athlete. Part of that is thanks to Valencia's climate of acceptance, and the other part is thanks to people like Waddell who fought for something I can enjoy freely today. Fifty years after he came out and had the vision to create the Gay Games, I can proudly compete and be who I am without shame or fear.

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The health wonders of watching the sunset

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260625-watching-the-sunset-the-free-daily-activity-that-gives-us-a-health-fix, today

Humans appear to see sunrises and sunsets "almost like bookends". Here's what a dose of golden hour does for our memory, sleep and mood.

On the eve of my wedding, my parents, husband-to-be and I watched a beautifully memorable sunset from the deck of a house in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Cape Cod is famous for its "golden hour" light. On a narrowing peninsula almost entirely surrounded by water, moisture scatters the light of the Sun when it nears the horizon, creating a series of especially vivid oranges, golds and pinks that appear to melt into the sea.

That day, a storm was also approaching from the west, making the unfurling colours look almost psychedelic. While the men snapped photos of the scene, my mother and I stood and watched, shivering in the crisp September air. As we went back inside, I wrapped my mother in a hug. All our nagging pre-wedding worries seemed to have set with the sun.

While the release that comes with the end of a long day no doubt helped, watching the sunset likely also played a role. In fact, there's growing evidence that sunsets – and sunrises, for that matter – can have a meaningful impact on our brain and mental health: diminishing anxiety and depression while boosting memory, creativity, sleep and even altruism.

The sunset awe effect

One of the main benefits stems from the awe a sunset inspires, which research shows can have a startling impact on many aspects of our health.

Awe is the feeling we get when we witness something immense and profound that we can't quite comprehend. It could be a piece of art, a human achievement like watching someone give birth, or a natural wonder. Experiencing it changes our perception, often eliciting a physical response, like tears or chills. But it's also doing a lot more behind the scenes.

"One of the most reliable properties of awe is the feeling of being small, that one's personal issues, problems and life are insignificant in the grand scheme of things," says Michelle Shiota, a professor of social psychology at Arizona State University in the US and a long-time researcher of awe. "This is great for mental health because we realise that maybe some of the things causing us so much distress are not really that important after all."

Keeping an inward focus can lead to overthinking and anxiety, but when we get stuck in negative thought loops, awe-inspiring events can demand our attention, breaking the loop and bringing us back to the present.

Research has shown that this perspective shift also inspires more prosocial behaviour, such as volunteering and a greater sense of purpose.

While awe can be found in many aspects of life, from spirituality and moral beauty to wonderful music or visual design, surveys indicate that most people find it is nature that inspires it the most. "When we ask people in the US to tell us about a time they felt strong awe, the most common category of answers is natural phenomena – typically a panoramic view of some kind," says Shiota.

Sunsets and sunrises are the prime examples of this, according to a 2023 study, which measured over 2,500 participants' reactions to images of different natural environments.

"Sunsets are exceptionally beautiful [and] beauty tends to elicit awe," says Jennifer Stellar, a psychology researcher at the University of Toronto in Canada who studies the impacts of positive emotions on health and wellbeing. "[Sunsets have] a kind of beauty that is incredibly immersive, large in size and unusual, when you think about what the sky normally looks like."

Supercharging awe

As well as making us feel better, a captivating sunset may also boost our brain power by increasing our information retention. In an age where technology-fuelled distractions abound, it's a welcome notion.

For example, in an experiment to see whether awe helps humans better retain information, Shiota asked participants to watch three films, one of them an awe-inspiring science film. They then listened to a story and were asked to immediately recall details about it. The participants who watched the science film had by far the most accurate recall.

It's not yet understood what's happening in the brain to produce such an effect, says Stellar. It may be that people are more focused on what's going on in front of them because the awe-inspiring thing has caught their attention.

Research also indicates that consistent doses of awe could provide serious mental health benefits. One study, for example, found that regularly experiencing awe helped diminish the acute and chronic stress people experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In another study, researchers asked a group of older adults to try to experience moments of awe, from the glow of autumn leaves to the look of wonder on a child's face, whilst on short weekly walks. After eight weeks, their responses to a survey about what they felt and saw on their walks were much more outwardly focused and descriptive than those of a control group, which hadn't been asked to search for awe.

Both groups were also asked to take selfies; the awe groups' smiles were consistently wider, and they made themselves increasingly smaller in their photos as the weeks went on, favouring their natural surroundings instead.

Catching a sunset while also on a nature walk might be like getting supercharged awe. "Nature has [health] benefits, and sunsets, which are especially awe-inspiring nature events, have their own benefits, so my guess would be that sunsets [are] especially beneficial compared to non-nature events," says Stellar.

A daily dose

Since sunsets are reliable awe-inducers, they can give us a daily dose of the health benefits awe may provide.

Experiencing awe more often also seems to have wider health benefits. In a study of 200 people, Stellar found that those who reported often experiencing positive emotions like joy and awe consistently had the lowest levels of cytokines, markers of inflammation in the body. "People who have higher chronic levels of these tend to be at higher risk for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and depression," notes Stellar.

It's not known for sure why awe has this effect on cytokines. "It might be through the sense of connection people feel, since social support and connection may help reduce pro-inflammatory cytokines," says Steller. "It may be due to its capacity to reduce stress."

Awe may even make you a kinder person, since feeling small amid something so magnificent has been shown to inspire altruistic behaviour. One study observed undergraduate students' behaviour after they looked at either a group of giant eucalyptus trees or a building. When a purposefully clumsy researcher dropped a bunch of pens during the experiment, the students who looked at the trees and reportedly felt awe helped him pick up many more of the pens than those who looked at the building.

Similarly, if you're awe-struck by the beauty of a sunset, you may find yourself more inclined to be helpful or have more compassion for those around you. I discovered this the night before my wedding: after our sunset experience, I found myself volunteering to do a lot more than I had the day before. That, in turn, helped me feel calmer when I walked down the aisle.

A better night's sleep

The way the sun cycle regulates our circadian rhythm may have also played a role in my more relaxed state that evening.

Exposure to sunlight's natural progression, from sunrise to sunset, has a direct impact on our mental and physical health. It has been shown to help regulate our circadian rhythm – the natural sleep-wake cycle that repeats every 24 hours – ultimately improving sleep quality. When the circadian rhythm is aligned with our natural environment, our brain's pineal gland knows when and how much melatonin to produce to prepare the body for rest.

While watching the sunrise is considered the stronger circadian cue, dusk's diffused light still plays a key role as a natural timer, signalling to the body to start winding down. Just as daytime's blue light energises us, a sunset's soft red and gold hues trigger the parasympathetic nerve system, reducing cortisol for a more restful sleep. Artificial light at night, in contrast, disrupts these cues, leading to poor sleep quality and a host of other maladies.

"Circadian disruption has been linked to increased risk for depression and anxiety," says Mariana Figueiro, a professor of light and health research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

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Our circadian rhythm also governs our cortisol cycle, and when it's out of sync, it can cause cortisol spikes at inopportune times. In a regulated system, cortisol spikes about 30 minutes after waking, providing us with energy for the day, then slowly decreases as the day approaches night. But regular exposure to artificial light, especially blue light from screens after the Sun has set, can trick the system that produces cortisol into making more when we don't need it. (Read more about how to "un-blue" yourself to improve sleep.)

Chronically high cortisol levels can cause a host of health impacts, including depression, anxiety, cognitive impairment and cardiovascular strain. Figueiro says regulating our light-dark exposure can counteract this, though. It's no wonder scientists have hypothesised that we are "designed to see both sunrises and sunsets – almost like bookends", she says.

If your schedule doesn't permit you to watch both sunrise and sunset, scientists may have a workaround. A 2024 study found that an LED light that mimics the diffused hues of a sunset and sunrise meaningfully helped regulate people's circadian rhythms.

I didn't sleep so well after watching my pre-wedding sunset, but that's no surprise given what was on the horizon. My husband and I will be married 10 years this autumn, and we now watch every sunset we can. The best ones we've seen are still in Cape Cod, where we'll be for our anniversary, hopefully enjoying them from an obliging deck.

Based on the science of sunsets, they may be doing more good for our bodies and minds than I ever realised.

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Why the French are painting their windows with chalk to beat the heat

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260625-why-the-french-are-painting-chalk-on-their-windows, 2 days ago

A simple, low-tech remedy may help cool homes. Here's the science behind the trend.

As record-breaking heat sweeps over France, some shops are running out of a simple, cheap and unexpected product – crushed chalk.

Known as Blanc de Meudon, or Meudon whiting, it is normally used to make paints or as a cleaning product. But faced with punishing temperatures, there are reports that ingenious people have been using the chalky material as a home remedy against the heat, covering windows in schools and private homes.

Mixed with water, then painted on glass, the result is a milky, whitish coating that lets in some light but reflects the heat. And a growing body of research suggests that there may be some solid science behind the DIY cooling hack.

With heatwaves growing ever more frequent and intense due to rising global temperatures – and posing a particular danger to populations in cities – could a simple lick of white paint help people cope better when it hots up?

Radiative cooling

White paint – on walls and roofs, usually – is widely known to have a cooling effect. Generally speaking, white surfaces reflect sunlight and heat, while dark surfaces absorb it. This principle can be used to cool buildings and cities. Commercially available white paint on a surface can reduce temperatures on the other side by at least 1.7C (3F) compared to the ambient temperature at noon.

Paints specially developed to maximise cooling, such as ultra-white paint, have been shown to reduce the indoor temperature by several degrees by not only reflecting sunlight but also shedding heat through a process know as "radiative cooling".

One study of ultra-white paint found it could reflect up to 98.1% of sunlight, while a previous formulation reflected 95.5% of sunlight. Another study showed that combining it with a layer of ultra-black paint underneath could lower daytime temperatures by up to 7.6C (14F).

One of the reasons why chalk might be effective, however, lies in the properties of its main component, calcium carbonate, which is not only highly reflective but also resistant to solar radiation. This property has led some researchers to use nanoparticles of calcium carbonate in new kinds of "super cool" paint.

"These kinds of particles are widely used in radiative cooling paint, also in our super cool paint," says Jiashuo Wang, a student at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, who is part of a team working on cooling paint.

Chalk has also been used as a coating for fabric that keeps the wearer cool. Particles of calcium carbonate – the main ingredient in chalk – are good at reflecting ultraviolet and near-infrared light (the portion of sunlight that transmits heat).

In addition, chalk is considered to be relatively benign in terms of its health and environmental impact – though there may be some risks to respiratory health from indoor chalk use, and inhaling particles.

White windows and 'le cool roofing'

According to French media reports, demand for Blanc de Meudon is leading to stock shortages around the country as people struggle against temperatures of more than 40C (104F).

Blanc de Meudon is traditionally used to whiten shop windows during renovations or by gardeners in their greenhouses. But after the chalk-paint trick circulated on social media, demand for the product soared, French newspapers report.

"We'd known about the idea for a while, we talked about it during the last heatwave but forgot to buy any," Ouest France quotes a shopper called Philippe. "Now it's too late! It's sold out everywhere!"

Some French schools have also used the chalk paint on their windows, though an official warned that it's "not a miracle solution" and that properly insulated roofs are needed instead.

People have also whitened the windows of their apartments.

The chalk, as well as white paint more generally, is cheap. And unlike air conditioning, which worsens the overall heat effect and emissions problem by consuming energy and releasing heat outside, paint only uses energy when it's produced.

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White-painted cool roofs – also known as "le cool roofing" in France – are also getting more attention there as a sustainable, low-tech way of combating extreme heat. The idea taps into a long tradition in many southern parts of Europe, such as Greece, of painting houses white to ward off the heat.

One study suggests that cool roofs – roofs painted white or with reflective coating – could have cooled London "by about 0.8C (1.4F) on average during a heatwave, preventing the heat-related deaths of an estimated 249 people". (Read about how women in India are using white paint to cool their homes.)

For those interested in another home remedy, there is an alternative: yoghurt. An experiment by researchers in the UK found that the indoor temperature of a house with yoghurt-painted windows was on average 0.6C (1.08F) cooler. They found that a thin film of the dairy product could lead to rooms being up to 3.5C (6.3F) cooler when it was "hot and sunny". While a smelly solution at first, the odour apparently disappears quickly as the yoghurt paint dries.

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Droughts are transforming the Turkish landscape with massive sinkholes

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260624-droughts-are-transforming-the-turkish-landscape-with-massive-sinkholes, 3 days ago

The "breadbasket" of Turkey, Konya's valleys are filled with the farms needed to feed a growing nation. But the available groundwater is drying up and causing fields to collapse.

In a green field of freshly-watered ground, patrolled by four dogs with short legs and big barks, a stretch of thin razor wire twists in a circle. On the other side of the wire, the ground falls away. A chasm has opened in the middle of this field, deep enough that standing on the edge could make anyone treacherously dizzy.

Two years ago, the ground collapsed, adding one more to the large number of sinkholes in Konya, a province in central Turkey. Mehmet Akıf Işıklı gazes into this sinkhole on his neighbour's farm, a match for the one that opened up in the middle of his own field.

Işıklı's farm outside of Karapınar is a family business, and he's been farming since 1995. He grows alfalfa, corn, wheat and other contract crops, and he has the first company growing seed corn in Karapınar. Smack in the middle of his own field is another crater – a sinkhole that opened nearly 20 years ago and punctuates a lush field like an asteroid crater. "We were in our field when the villagers informed us [about the sinkhole]. When we arrived, the land had just begun to collapse, and there was water bubbling and boiling within it," Işıklı says.

Konya is plagued by rapidly proliferating sinkholes. In central Anatolia, where the agricultural fields of corn and wheat and beets stretch out for miles and miles, the ground looks like it has been attacked by a cosmic hole punch, punctuated by a plague of craters. According to the Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), 684 of these massive abysses have opened in the Konya basin, with one of the largest stretching to 228m (752ft) in diameter and 171m (564ft) deep, marring the region often called the "breadbasket of Turkey". But they are not the result of bombs or meteors or anything from above. The problem is below the surface.

A perfect storm

Turkey has been seized by ongoing drought, with a United Nations report predicting that Turkey would become a water-poor country by 2030. This is exacerbating existing water scarcity problems throughout the country, making lakes dry up and agriculture falter. Konya's sinkhole problem is a perfect storm of geology, drought and intensive agriculture draining the groundwater.

In order to compensate for the lack of water brought on by the drought, local farmers are illegally tapping into the groundwater. The natural disaster, combined with irresponsible agricultural practices that include siphoning away the groundwater for crops, has left a devastating mark on Konya, creating these new hazards that pockmark the land in all directions, and potentially harming Turkey's food security.

Konya is located in a closed basin, a rare geological quirk that means the rivers and underground water that feed it never reach the sea, instead pooling in a series of lakes. The groundwater is key to the entire water system of this agricultural region. The Konya Basin is full of salt lakes, freshwater lakes, marshlands and other biodiverse water spots, all sustained by groundwater that balances out the soft karst rock of the ground. But without the underground water, those structures quickly weaken.

"Water, underground rivers in this case, act as underground structures that hold the humidity and the stability, strength of these karstic areas," says Güven Eken, founder of Doğa Derneği, a an environmental agency based in Turkey. "The water capacity is decreasing there because of the wrong excess irrigation policies; these underground rivers have virtually dried out. So the water which once flowed underneath the Konya basin is no longer there. The whole system has dried out."

In the closed basin, farmers have relied for many years on underground wells, including a large number of illegally dug wells, to water their fields. This irresponsible siphoning of groundwater has been going on for many years. World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Türkiye did a study in 2014 in the Konya Basin on the water issues that were already plaguing the region, and found that of the 100,000 wells in the region at the time, 66,000 were illegal.

"Back in 2014, WWF Türkiye identified that there was 50% over-consumption of the water available. We call it water budget. You have water availability, and then you have the demand, then there was already an overconsumption issue, mainly because of the illegal wells," says Eren Atak, freshwater programme manager at WWF Türkiye.

The extraction of the groundwater might let the farmers water their fields for now, but without allowing time for the groundwater to replenish, they are borrowing from the future to succeed in the present – and causing the ground to collapse under their feet.

"Sinkholes right now are the final stage of the whole story. It is visible now, but it was visible way before, [just] not as sinkholes," says Atak.

An expanding problem

Sinkholes have been a feature of the Konya plain throughout history. "Sinkhole formations were formed thousands of years ago in the region. The plateau where the Kızören sinkhole is located is already known as the Obruk Plateau. "'Obruk' is a local Turkish expression for 'sinkhole'," says Fetullah Arık, head of the Geological Engineering Department at Konya Technical University. The area has experienced natural sinkholes over generations, with paleo-sinkholes from thousands of years ago formed due to the limestone caves and crevasses collapsing into themselves.

But the number of sinkholes has expanded rapidly in recent years. When the İnoba sinkhole was formed in 2008 right next to a village and the Yarımoğlu Sinkhole appeared close to the Konya-Adana highway in 2009, some began to realise the threat.

"The sinkholes are dangerous structures," says Arık. So far, they have not killed anyone, but there is always the threat that it could happen as the ground collapses, and that the way local farmers treat the sinkholes could exacerbate the problem. "Most of the time, [the farmers] try to close [the sinkhole] in panic… However, it is quite dangerous to fill it randomly without awareness. Because there is a cavity at the bottom that swallows the existing material, the collapse can be repeated and new hazards can be created," says Arık.

Back in the 1960s, Turkish authorities brought in agricultural policies for water allowances, establishing subsidies and recommending appropriate practices. However, those policies are outdated and haven't been adapted to reflect the current water issues facing Turkey and, specifically, the Konya Basin.

"Turkey requires a drastic political change immediately in these areas, which will both generate sufficient income to the agricultural community in the area and to the citizens of Konya Basin," says Eken. "It requires a very systematic agricultural basin-wide planning and implementation of it. Unfortunately, at this stage, we cannot see the signs of these.

"The symptoms are diverse, very different, but the solution is really simple: design a new agricultural strategy." (The Turkish authorities were contacted for a response, but declined to comment.)

Currently, water-thirsty crops such as sugar beets and maize, which are subsidised by the government, are grown throughout the Konya Basin. While these crops might be profitable, it is at the expense of the ecosystem where they are grown; there is not enough water to support expansive fields of water-thirsty crops in central Anatolia.

Incentivising crops that are better-suited to the climate and water budget of the Konya Basin, like grapes or native wheat varieties, would lead to a healthier ecosystem overall and slow the depletion of Konya's groundwater. Otherwise, the agricultural industry in the region could collapse as it dries out, and the consequences would reverberate throughout the country, authorities say.

Simmering issue

"It's very important for our food security…we as a country depend on fisheries, forestry, agriculture, so we need to sustain these resources. Livelihoods are dependent on that," says Atak. "I never blame the farmers. I never blame the local communities. I mean, they were born into a traditional system: fisheries, forestry, farming. And it is the government duty to plan, to inform, to guide, provide incentives and everything." (Turkish authorities declined to comment when contacted by the BBC.)

There are efforts to track the sinkholes, led by Arık and his team at Konya Technical University Sinkhole Research Center. "Currently, efforts are underway to create sinkhole sensitivity and hazard maps," says Arık. "The Obruk Susceptibility Map for Konya Province was made by a team including us. These maps are taken into account in zoning plans. In addition, in the zoning planning studies, special research is carried out for the sinkhole problem and measures are determined."

But ultimately, unless the larger issue of water usage and agricultural practices are addressed, the problem will continue to grow. It's easy to blame the drought, but the drought has only brought a simmering issue into closer focus. "The conditions that we observe in the Konya basin, these sinkholes… this is a fully anthropogenic problem. We have created this problem. The climate crisis, yes, has accelerated the problem further, but it's not the underpinning cause," says Erek, referring to the drought throughout the region. "The sinkholes are really the tip of the iceberg."

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In Karapınar, the area most plagued by the sinkholes, Işıklı and his friend, another farmer named Caner Çorakçı, sit drinking tea and reflecting on the strange phenomenon of farming in a region where the ground might give out. There's a sinkhole in Çorakçı's field, and he tries to farm around it.

"We've gotten used to this situation, because this kind of mess is happening in all regions now. As a result, we're seeing that many parts of our fields are being affected and their surface area is sinking." He knows ultimately the government is responsible for dealing with the water issues that affect his farming and his field, and fears where the sinkhole will strike next. (Turkish authorities were contacted by the BBC, but did not respond.)

Çorakçı and Işıklı are most concerned about their pressing issues now: drought and the economy and farm yields and water availability. But if the problem isn't addressed, the future of the Konya Basin could be bleak.

"The risk is the whole basin is sinking. What's going to be in the future in 10 years' time? Twenty years' time? Will these people migrate elsewhere? Will agriculture be completely out of the agenda of Turkey in the Konya Basin?" says Atak from WWF. "[The farmers] are aware of what's going on. They are concerned. But in the end, this is their income. They depend on the harvest; for harvest, they have to dig these wells and get water. So I think it's an example of tragedy of the commons."

But the farmers hold onto their optimism in the face of the uncertain ground they stand on. "We are not happy with how things are going," says Çorakçı, but adds: "We believe that everything will get better, God willing."

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The risk of a 'super' El Niño is rising. Here's what it means for North America

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260622-what-a-super-el-nino-means-for-north-america, 5 days ago

The El Niño global weather phenomenon is likely to be particularly intense this year, scientists warn. If so North America may face extreme weather, higher food prices and greater health risks.

El Niño – the Pacific weather pattern that pushes up global temperatures – has started and forecasters tell the BBC it is likely to be incredibly strong.

This natural phenomenon occurs when sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean are 0.5C (0.9F) higher than normal for several consecutive months. Scientists forecast a 63% chance of sea surface temperatures exceeding 2C (3.6F) later this year. This would make it a "very strong" or "super" El Niño.

A strong El Niño will lead to weather changes across North America, bringing wetter and stormier conditions to the south and drier, hotter temperatures to the north. Here's what scientists say lies ahead in the coming months.

More storms in southern US

The southern US will start to experience wetter conditions in autumn, says Johnson.

Increased rainfall will provide some much-needed relief to drought-stricken states in the southeastern US but "there is also an enhanced risk of flooding", says Johnson.

El Niño also causes atmospheric rivers – huge, invisible ribbons of water vapour in the sky – to make landfall more frequently. (Read more about these giant "sky rivers".)

This in turn can lead to heavier rainfall and windier conditions, "so that could be a threat, particularly over parts of the US west coast later in the winter", says Johnson.

The southern states are also likely to experience more storms, says Baule. "When El Niño is present, the jet stream is more east to west and that allows storms to pass through more quickly."

Hotter weather in Pacific Northwest

The northern states and Pacific Northwest, meanwhile, will see hotter and drier conditions as El Niño causes the Pacific jet stream to move further south. "It tends to be warmer over the northern parts of the US and Canada and drier over the Pacific Northwest," says Johnson. "We also tend to have less snowfall over the northern Rockies."

During an El Niño, states in the Pacific Northwest are usually very warm and dry "because the jet stream is below them so they miss the storm track," says Baule.

The weather changes brought by a strong El Niño can also spread infectious diseases by creating favourable breeding conditions for mosquitoes and other pests. During the super El Niño in 2015-2016, disease outbreaks of West Nile virus, hantavirus and the plague increased in parts of the US.

Fewer hurricanes

The earliest impact North America is likely to experience is a quieter-than-normal Atlantic hurricane season, between June and November.

"During an El Niño, the wind environment isn't favourable for hurricane or tropical cyclone development [in the Atlantic]," says William Baule, an atmospheric sciences researcher at Texas A&M University. The increased wind shear makes it harder for thunderstorms to form into hurricanes, he explains.

Forecasters at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) expect a below-normal hurricane season in the Atlantic this year, suggesting at most six hurricanes and 14 storms could emerge this year, with potentially three of these becoming major hurricanes and reaching Category 3 or higher. An average season has 14 storms with seven hurricanes, including three major ones.

Meanwhile, in the Pacific Ocean, hurricane activity is expected to increase as warmer waters provide more energy for storms to form. This is mainly expected to impact western Mexico, says Nat Johnson, a meteorologist in Noaa's El Niño–Southern Oscillation forecast team.

"Even though Hawaii does not see direct landfalls from hurricanes that often, the risk is enhanced during an El Niño year," Johnson adds.

Less snow in Canada

In Canada, the impacts of El Niño tend to arrive around the end of the year, resulting in a milder winter, says Bill Merryfield, a climate scientist at the Canadian government's environment department.

"The warm tendency is most pronounced in the western half of Canada, but in a super El Niño, winter warmth can extend right to the eastern provinces," he says. The warm temperatures can continue into spring, especially in western Canada.

The winter and spring warmth, combined with less rainfall can lead to less snow and drier soil, Merryfield adds. "A couple of degrees of added warmth can make a big difference and the extension of the mild temperatures into the spring can also lead to early melting of the snowpack."

An early snow melt, drier soil and below-average rainfall are also "conducive to more severe wildfires" next summer, he says.

Economic impacts

El Niño is also likely to disrupt agriculture across North America, which could impact supply chains and food prices.

"There is some concern for agriculture going into summer and into the fall [autumn], that if the Midwestern states see less than normal precipitation, this could impact crop production in the breadbasket," says Baule. Meanwhile, flooding in the southern US could impact wheat and cotton production, he adds.

More like this:

• Why cool air is becoming a luxury in the US

• How climate change is super-charging storms

• The ocean drones tracking hurricanes

But more rainfall could also lead to increased winter wheat yields in the Southern Great Plains, says Weston Anderson, an assistant research professor at the University of Maryland in the US who studies how El Niño events impact crop yields.

The world recently emerged from its cooler counterpart, La Niña, which has "led to frequently poor years and greater crop failures in the drier portions of the Southern Great Plains," says Anderson. "So I hope this El Niño will bring some much-needed relief to the area."

Johnson says this El Niño "could be among the strongest we've seen over the past century". The last event of this kind occurred in 2015-2016 and resulted in a new global temperature record and a once in 500-year drought in the Caribbean.

Scientists will keep tracking how this El Niño unfolds, but however it plays out, it appears likely impacts will significantly affect many people's lives.

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Zoo repopulating one of UK's rarest butterflies

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c07ymknp11do, today

A zoo is hoping to repopulate a species previously described as extinct in the UK for nearly 100 years.

Dartmoor Zoo said it was working to reintroduce black-veined white butterflies which were believed to have become extinct after World War One, partly due to increased use of pesticides and removal of native hedgerows.

The zoo said nine female butterflies had arrived on Tuesday from Normandy, France, and within 10 minutes of arrival one had already laid a batch of eggs.

Chief executive officer Dr David Gibson said black-veined white butterflies were some of "the rarest animals in the UK at the moment" and the team hoped to change that.

First listed as a British species during the reign of King Charles II, black-veined white butterflies officially became extinct in Britain in 1925.

However, there were sightings of the species in hawthorn and blackthorn trees on the edge of London in June 2023.

Gibson said the UK was "one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world" and more needed to be done to help all species.

He said: "We have done an awful lot of damage to UK wildlife and biodiversity, and bringing one single butterfly back is just as important as reintroducing pine martens, lynx or even wolves and brown bears.

"You've got to start somewhere - pollinators are the absolute foundation of food systems, and plant life, and nature as a whole."

The zoo is working on the breed release project alongside partners Knepp Rewilding, Royal Holloway University and Butterfly Conservation.

A number of the black-veined white butterflies would be set free in a designated release site in east Devon as soon as next summer, Gibson added.

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'Lost' ant species reintroduced to woodland

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg4kxnpy9ko, today

A species of ant has been reintroduced to an area of Shropshire as part of a restoration project to support the health of woodlands.

Southern red wood ants are considered a keystone species, meaning they play an important role in supporting healthy ecosystems.

The conservation project is led by the National Trust in partnership with Swansea University and ant conservation specialists Ant Antics, has seen the species moved to woodland near Bridgnorth in an attempt to boost biodiversity across the Dudmaston Estate.

Ewan Chapman, countryside manager for the National Trust, said: "Southern red wood ants play an extraordinary role in woodland ecosystems."

He added: "By bringing them back to Comer Woods, we're restoring natural processes that support healthier soils, richer biodiversity and more resilient woodlands.

"This project is a great example of how targeted conservation action can help rebuild the complex relationships that make these landscapes thrive."

The project also contributes to wider conservation efforts across the region, including habitat restoration work at Kinver Edge, also cared for by the National Trust, where southern red wood ants are being reintroduced.

They help maintain the balance of woodland habitats by influencing soil health, insect populations and the wider food web.

They also provide natural pest control, preying on insects such as caterpillars and aphids that can damage trees, helping to regulate insect populations and support the long-term health of the woodland.

Their large dome-shaped nests also act as biodiversity hotspots.

Across the UK, the ants have declined due to habitat loss, woodland fragmentation and changes in land management that have reduced the sunny woodland edges and glades they rely on.

In some regions they have completely disappeared, including much of the Midlands, East and North.

They are listed as near-threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species.

The project involves carefully translocating ant colonies into suitable habitats within Comer Woods, where conditions such as woodland structure, sunlight levels and food provide the best chance for the colonies to establish and expand.

Researchers from Swansea University have helped to plan the ants' transportation and will support ongoing monitoring to understand how the colonies develop and how they influence the surrounding ecosystem.

Dr Wendy Harris, from Swansea University, added: "Wood ants are true ecosystem engineers. Their nests influence soil nutrients, plant growth and whole communities of other invertebrates.

"Reintroducing them allows us not only to restore a lost species but also to study how their presence helps woodland ecosystems recover and function more naturally over time."

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Why some trees might fall during extreme heat

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c87241v13x8o, today

In the last week, a group of bowlers had a lucky escape when a tree crashed down onto a green. A few days later, an MP in the House of Commons revealed a mature tree had fallen on her house. So could this be linked to the recent soaring temperatures?

Trees can really suffer during a heatwave and the heat stress can show in lots of different ways.

It can affect processes on a molecular level, right up to the biology of the whole tree itself.

A three-day heatwave has been shown to be more than enough time to cause real damage to a tree population.

Dr Anna Gardner, a research fellow at the University of Birmingham's Institute of Forest Research, studies the effects of climate change on trees.

"During prolonged hot, dry weather, trees lose more water through their leaves than they can replace from the soil, placing them under water stress," she said.

"This can alter the physical properties of their tissues and reduce the margin of safety against mechanical failure, making large branches more likely to fail under their own weight, even in calm conditions."

Not every tree or branch would respond in the same way, she explained, with factors such as species, age and overall health influencing their resilience.

Last Sunday, bowlers narrowly escaped injury when branches fell from a tree onto a green in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire.

Then during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, MP and chair of the Environment All-Party Parliamentary Group Fleur Anderson said a mature tree fell on her house that morning, blaming extreme heat.

In parts of the country, some councils have warned people not to gather in the shade under a tree because of an increased risk of falling branches, known as sudden branch drop syndrome, possibly linked to the extreme heat.

Scientists are now researching how different species of tree react to heatwaves and the differences between how urban trees and those in forests and woods cope.

Understanding the responses helped us better care for urban trees, Gardner said, so they could continue to deliver benefits such as "cooling our towns and cities, improving air quality and supporting biodiversity".

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Europe's deadly heatwave breaks German record and halts public events

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2knzzwprgo, today

Temperatures broke June records in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands on Friday as the death toll from Europe's heatwave climbed in Spain and France and authorities cancelled concerts and other public events because of health risks.

Germany's highest ever temperature of 41.3C was recorded provisionally in the south-western city of Saarbrücken, just over the border from France, which this week endured its hottest temperatures three days in a row.

Although France's heatwave has peaked, its health minister said the "emergence of deaths at home" was of particular concern.

The World Meteorological Organization warned of "major impacts" to health, ecosystems, agriculture and labour.

Spokeswoman Clare Nullis said: "We need to get used to it, unfortunately."

Europe's deadly June heatwave has moved slowly north and east, and Belgian forecaster David Dehenauw said unofficially that 40C had been recorded in Kleine Brogel, close to the Dutch border.

A top temperature of 39.4C was recorded in the southern Dutch province of Limburg. Meanwhile, in the UK a provisional June record of 37.1C was recorded at Cavendish in Suffolk.

At least 150 million people across the European continent were facing temperatures higher than 35C on Friday, according to calculations by the AFP news agency.

Czech meteorologists believe a 2012 record temperature of 40.4C could be broken on Saturday, while Austrian forecasters believe the national record will fall on Sunday. Balkan countries are seeing extreme heat too, with up to 39C forecast in Serbia over the weekend.

In Switzerland, the Beznau nuclear power plant took both reactors off grid on Friday because the temperature in the River Aare reached 25C. The operator said the measure was to protect the environment, as water taken from the Aare to cool the reactors is returned to the river at a warmer temperature.

Across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and southern England, temperatures are reaching 5–12°C above seasonal averages, driven by a persistent high-pressure system, scientists at World Weather Attribution said on Friday.

The group found that June was warming faster than any other month and, over the region studied, the current heatwave was "the most severe ever recorded".

Climate change is driving up temperatures around the world, but in Europe especially. It is the fastest warming continent, heating up twice as fast as the global average, according to the Copernicus climate service.

The extreme heat led to a Eurostar rail service from Cologne to Paris breaking down east of Brussels with about 400 people on board on Friday morning. Three passengers were treated in hospital as a precaution, Belga news agency reported.

Health fears led to the cancellation of two big Paris events at the weekend, following pressure from the local prefecture, which said the hospital system was "saturated" and resources had to be focused on "helping the most vulnerable".

The organisers of Saturday's Paris Pride said they were looking to reschedule the march in September. The Solidays music festival at Longchamp racecourse had been due to start on Friday and run into Sunday, and attracted more than a quarter of a million visitors last year.

However, a third event threatened with cancellation, the Diamond League athletics meeting at Charléty stadium, will go ahead on Sunday after organisers agreed to an "adapted format" involving moving the start later into the afternoon.

Thousands of people had already arrived for Dutch music festival Defqon.1 on Thursday night when organisers said they had to pull the plug on the event because authorities had announced an unprecedented code red warning for extreme heat.

Festival goers reacted angrily to the decision, prompting police to be called to respond to reports of unrest.

Numerous events have also been cancelled in Germany, including Saturday's Hamburg Half Marathon.

The French health minister has warned that the extreme conditions will result in additional deaths, and an emergency plan has been put in place for all hospitals in the Paris region because of "multiple tensions" in healthcare.

In Marseille, an 18-month-old child died after being found in a car in a state of hyperthermia, in the latest such episode in France in a matter of days. A three-year-old became trapped in a car in Paris on Wednesday, and two young children lost their lives in a car in the southern town of Carpentras on Monday.

The number of deaths by drowning in France since the heatwave began has risen to 55. An estimated two-thirds of them had been swimming in unsupervised areas.

Spain's MoMo monitoring system for reporting temperature-related deaths has counted 327 fatalities between Sunday and Thursday that could be linked to the heat, and most of them have been recorded in the past two days.

The high temperatures have begun to subside in Spain, however a forest fire broke out north-east of Barcelona forcing 16,000 to stay in their homes on Friday morning. A man was arrested on suspicion of arson.

Little relief is expected in much of Europe over the weekend, and a glacier research team in Switzerland has warned that the heatwave is being felt in the mountains too.

The Zurich team says almost all the winter reserves built up on the glaciers are about to run out, most likely on Monday, at which point the glaciers will start melting.

That moment usually takes place in August, but Swiss researchers say the current course of glacial melting is almost as bad as in 2022, the worst year on record, when as much as 6% of the glaciers' mass was lost.

Correction 27 June: This article has been updated to explain that the Beznau power plant was shut down on Friday, not because the temperature of water from the River Aare was too high to cool the reactors sufficiently, but because of the risk to the environment from water returned to the river after the cooling process.

Reform UK climate debate delayed over extreme heat

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy49p3epzr2o, yesterday

A Reform UK councillor's bid to scrap his authority's climate emergency declaration has been delayed because the chamber was too hot to debate it.

Austen Moore is calling for the Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk to end the climate emergency it declared in 2021 and to instead focus on "practical environment action".

The motion was due to be debated at a full council meeting at King's Lynn Town Hall on Thursday.

However, due to the Met Office issuing an amber extreme heat warning and the chamber having no air conditioning, it was deemed unfit.

The news of the postponement was shared on Facebook and has been rearranged to Thursday.

It said: "This decision has been made in the interests of the comfort, wellbeing and safety of councillors, staff and members of the public."

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, independent deputy leader Simon Ring said the weather had "submitted its own amendment to the motion".

"Postponing a climate debate because of a red heat warning is undeniably ironic," he said.

"It may be amusing, but it also reminds us that practical measures, like improving the energy efficiency of homes and making our communities more resilient, deliver benefits that people can feel today."

Moore argues the council should replace its declaration with a practical environmental and resilience strategy focused on flood defence, water management and protecting farmland.

"I've proposed a motion to replace the current emergency that focuses on CO2 with a resilience strategy so we can make ourselves more resilient to the effects of climate change," he said.

"You don't spend all your money trying to stop a hurricane, tornado or earthquake – you create infrastructure that is resilient to as much of it as possible."

Since the climate emergency was declared five years ago when the council was controlled by the Conservatives, money was set aside for decarbonisation, several council buildings were retrofitted for energy efficiency and the authority brought forward its net zero target from 2050 to 2035.

Net zero refers to an equal balance between the amount of gases or carbon being produced and the amount we are able to remove from the atmosphere by changing the way we do things, like driving electric rather than fossil-fuel powered vehicles.

Scientists have little doubt that human-caused climate change - largely the result of the burning of coal, oil and gas - has supercharged the heat.

The Earth's 11 warmest years on record have all happened since 2015, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

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Future generations being failed if more trees not planted, experts say

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70yj76n4dko, yesterday

Red tape is making it "far easier" to cut woodlands down in Wales than to create new ones, a charity has warned.

Chris Matts, from the Woodland Trust, said "nature-based systems" are some of the most important tools for tackling climate change, but said bureaucracy was an issue.

Government statistics show the number of trees being planted is increasing, but conservationists have said it is not keeping up with targets.

The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit predicts that, based on current planning rates, Wales will only meet 10% of its target by 2030, "lagging behind" other devolved nations.

The Welsh government said the statistics do not take into account everything happening on Welsh land.

Keith Roberts, a volunteer with the Woodland Trust who helps maintain a woodland area in Neath, said he gets "a strong sense of ownership" from the area.

"One of the main reasons for planting the trees is part of the local flood defence system, so that's why we wanted to get involved in making the whole area safer for the Neath residents."

"The whole point is creating something for future generations," he said.

Trees can help tackle climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide, offering cooler shaded areas in hot weather and acting as part of flood defence systems.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC), an independent body advising UK nations, includes woodland cover as part of its recommendations for reaching emissions targets, as well as preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change.

Devolved governments use the committee's recommendations to set their own targets and plans.

Matts, site manager for south and west Wales for the Woodland Trust, said that amid the extreme temperatures and weather warnings this week, woodland areas offer "a nice, stable, climatically cool environment".

"We know that nature-based systems are really some of our most important tools in the box for dealing with climate change," he said, adding that bureaucracy was a challenge.

"As a land manager it's far easier for me to cut a woodland down than it is to create one."

"That's not to say we should just plant trees anywhere and we should forgo all of the other things that we need in our landscape, like farming for example, but these things should work alongside and support those systems," he said.

In 2024, planned targets for farmers in Wales to achieve 10% tree cover on their land to access the government's Sustainable Farming Scheme were scrapped after widespread protests.

Matts said the issue showed the importance of looking at how everyone can contribute, calling for long-term funding opportunities or "a slightly less rigid approach to how we create woodland".

That view is echoed by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a climate not-for-profit think tank, which says its analysis shows that, compared to CCC advice, by 2030 the UK is set to have a tree planting gap of more than 4,000 hectares - an area equivalent in size to the city of Portsmouth.

Tom Cantillon, a senior analyst with the group, said that based on current tree planting rates, Wales is set to achieve about 10% of its government Carbon Budget 2 target and 27% of CCC advised levels by 2030.

Scotland is set to achieve 74% of its own government target and 98% of CCC advice by 2030, while Northern Ireland is on course to achieve 48% of both its own government target and CCC advice over the same period.

"Underplanting now will have significant knock-on impacts on the UK's net zero ambitions – due to the time lag between when a tree is planted, and when it can effectively remove carbon from the atmosphere," Cantillon said.

"It does raise questions for the Welsh government in how that shortfall in tree planting will be made up for in the future, either with more planting or with other actions across the wider economy."

The Confederation of Forest Industries (Confer), a membership organisation which lobbies on behalf of the private forestry and wood sector, said the data shows we are "failing future generations".

Elaine Heckley, the organisation's Wales manager, said: "This is a dismal failure, when all the evidence shows that we need to plant many more trees to create green jobs, build sustainable homes and support our climate change ambitions."

In response, the Welsh government said the statistics only reflect areas meeting certain criteria and do not take into account every tree planted on Welsh land.

"Increasing tree cover benefits our environment and the health of people in Wales, and will be felt for generations to come," a spokesperson said, adding that it was "committed to increasing tree planting rates".

"We will be working collaboratively with public sector bodies to better understand the contribution they can make to increasing canopy cover in Wales," they added.

Heatwave blazes prompt fire service warning

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8ryx1rj48o, 2 days ago

Firefighters have urged people to be careful after being called out to more than a dozen garden fires, bonfires and fires in fields during the heatwave this week.

On Wednesday, 80% of a field at Craven Arms was lost to a fire which was later found to have been caused by the hot exhaust of a tractor.

On Monday, firefighters were called out to a field fire affecting an area of approximately 40m by 60m near Cleobury Mortimer.

Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service's area manager Scott Hurford said: "Open areas and fields are particularly dry during these weather conditions and therefore are highly flammable."

He asked people to avoid using disposable barbecues in flammable areas such as fields and dispose of cigarettes properly.

He also said farmers should be aware their machinery could quickly overheat during the hot weather and said they should ensure they allowed them to cool between uses.

"These small changes can a big bit difference in keeping Shropshire safe during the heatwave," he said.

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Heatwave caution urged as London pavements hit 57C

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz9l1n4kn34o, 2 days ago

Londoners, especially those looking after children and pets, have been urged to be cautious when outside after thermal imaging technology recorded temperatures of 57C (135F) along the city's pavements and playgrounds.

The images, which record surface temperatures rather than air temperatures, were captured by thermal imaging engineers on Wednesday between 14:00 and 17:00 BST, when temperatures in London were around 35C (95F).

Experts speaking to the BBC, including animal welfare organisations, urged people to consider using public spaces at cooler times, or not at all.

City Hall said as part of its Heat Ready London action plan, it was committed to increasing urban greening and shade.

Greenpeace - which commissioned the imaging - said the black rubber floor at a children's playground in Islington, north London, recorded a temperature of 53C (127F) at 17:00, while the tarmac at roadworks in Holborn, central London, registered 65C (149F).

In Piccadilly Circus, ground surfaces were showing as 56C (133F), the environmental campaign group added.

Anna Mavrogianni, professor of sustainable, healthy and equitable built environment at the University College London (UCL), said the images "help us think about heat risks differently".

Speaking to the BBC, Mavrogianni warned of the dangers of being around such hot surfaces and said it was "important to assess the levels of heat exposure in playgrounds and other public spaces before spending time there with children or pets."

The professor added the images highlighted the importance of "embedding climate resilience in urban design", essentially heat-proofing London for the future in the way it is built.

"Overheating is a public health and social justice issue," Mavrogianni added.

"A lot of solutions already exist: incorporating greenery and water features, using innovative reflective materials and providing shading are key priorities.

"These need to be applied in an inclusive manner to ensure they are appropriate for the most heat vulnerable groups."

"It is encouraging that there are now significant efforts to improve heat resilience across London, and public awareness around heat risks is increasing," she added.

This week, Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan set out an action plan to prepare London for future extreme heat, including plans to increase greenery.

His spokesperson said: "In extreme temperatures like we've seen this week, pavements and buildings can become very hot as they absorb heat.

"Trees and canopy cover make a huge difference in providing shade and keeping our surroundings cool as well as providing essential green spaces for Londoners, which is why we have planted over 640,000 trees since Sadiq took office."

The mayor's website also provides a map of cool spaces around London where people can find a break from the sun.

Many local authorities across the capital have issued advice to local residents during the heatwave, including Barking and Dagenham Council, which urged those going to a park or playground to check play equipment was not too hot before using them.

"Metal slides and other equipment can get really hot in this weather," they added.

In its latest guidance, published during the heatwave, the British Veterinary Association (BVA) said it was best for dogs to go on walks early in the morning or late evening when temperatures were lower or to skip them altogether because they were particularly vulnerable as they cannot cool themselves efficiently through sweating.

"Even a short walk during the hottest part of the day or being left in a vehicle for a few minutes can have devastating consequences," it said.

"Take the five-second tarmac test before taking your dog outside: place the palm of your hand on the pavement for five seconds. If it is too hot for you, it is too hot for your dog's paws."

Commenting on the findings, Greenpeace UK's head of climate, Mel Evans, said: "This isn't just weather – it's a public health emergency driven by fossil fuel giants and their planet-heating emissions.

"These abnormal temperatures are stretching homes, schools, transport and our own health to breaking point."

Evans said adapting public spaces was not enough though and said political leaders "must also stop fossil fuel companies from turning up the heat on our planet – and make them pay their fair share to fix the problem they've caused."

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Council rescinds climate emergency declaration

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8023pexnnlo, 3 days ago

A newly elected council leadership has rescinded the authority's climate emergency declaration with the councillor who put forward the motion to repeal saying the "polar bears are not extinct" and Sir David Attenborough's shows always contain "a global warming narrative".

Sunderland City Council, which was taken over by Reform UK in May, repealed the 2019 declaration on Wednesday at the new council's first full meeting.

Councillor Bill Blackett said the previous position distorted spending priorities.

The Lib Dems described the move as "virtue signalling" while Labour questioned the message it sent to investors and companies in the region's renewables sector.

Blackett told the council: "The well-meaning but ultimately false climate emergency is not good for residents.

"So let us take this opportunity to rescind the climate emergency and refocus on energy-efficient and cost-of-living interventions that provide practical help to residents."

'Foolish to deny'

Blackett said he was not a climate change denier, but told the meeting: "Polar bears are not extinct, their numbers are increasing. The Maldives hasn't sunk. In short, there is no climate emergency."

He later added: "Think of Sir David Attenborough, still on TV and every show contains a global warming narrative."

In response, Liberal Democrat councillor Paul Edgeworth called the motion "performative" and "virtue signalling".

"We're sitting here while the country grinds to a halt with national infrastructure completely melting due to record temperatures," he said.

"It's foolish to try and imply or deny that there's a climate emergency."

Labour councillor Fiona Tobin said numerous people in Sunderland worked in renewable and low carbon industries and asked: "What impact does that have on investor confidence?

"What message does that send to employers? What opportunities would Sunderland lose?"

Blackett said: "We have a situation that anybody who goes away [from] the holy edict of man-made climate change is ridiculed."

The motion to repeal the climate emergency declaration was voted for by 48 councillors and against by 15.

At the same meeting, the council voted through a motion to cease its involvement in the nationwide City of Sanctuary scheme.

The programme involves sharing best practice on how to make the UK more welcoming for groups such as asylum seekers.

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Firms notice drop in business due to heatwave

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgdrd81vqro, 3 days ago

Business owners in a Shropshire town say they have noticed fewer people are shopping on the high street due to the hot weather.

It comes as the United Kingdom is in the midst of a heatwave, with temperatures expected to reach up to 38 degrees in Shropshire, two degrees warmer than the all-time June record, broken on Tuesday.

Jennifer McHale runs a florist in Whitchurch and said the high temperatures were "cooking" her plants.

"Direct sunlight, it's a scorcher so it burns so any sort of new growth, new foliage just burns," McHale said.

"It obviously doesn't look good for selling so currently we're just bringing everything inside, back indoors to the cool."

Some other parts of the West Midlands are subject to a red weather warning by the Met Office, meaning there is a risk to life in the healthy population.

Meanwhile, bookshop owner Amanda Logan said she was used to the high temperatures as she grew up in southern California.

She added she had noticed fewer people come to the high street in the hot weather.

"I'm a desert being anyway. I always say that I'm a tropical person, but this is pretty unpleasant, but I'm managing," Logan said.

"Yesterday was a lot busier than I expected it to be, but then today it's kind of tapered off.

"You will find as a small business owner that when the temperatures rise, the high street gets quiet because either people are in their houses or they're in the pubs."

Meanwhile, people working in the hospitality trade said they were seeing a similar picture.

Joshua Smyth runs Walter's House of Coffee. He said he was making sure his staff and customers could cool down.

"[We] make sure all the doors and windows are open constantly, having a nice draft coming through the building," Smyth said.

"Obviously staying hydrated throughout the day is important too, and ensure all of my staff get breaks."

"We are going to have to get used to coping with higher temperatures as a result of climate change," according to BBC West Midlands environment correspondent David Gregory-Kumar.

He said when he started in his role, heatwaves were the sort of thing we could expect with climate change, though we could not be sure it was the definite cause.

"Twenty-five years later, the science is very different," he added. "Not only can we say climate change is making this heatwave worse, scientists can say by how much."

He said studies from scientists at Climameter, a consortium of researchers that puts weather events in a climate change context, found it was making current weather patterns 2C to 4C warmer than what was typical in the 20th Century.

Gregory-Kumar said they found this out by searching records for previous similar weather events and comparing them to what was happening now.

"One worry is heat events like this week seem to be happening more often than models predicted," he added.

"It raises the prospect of the impact of climate change on us when it comes to intense heat being worse than we thought."

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Children talk about fears for life in the future

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9v27x4ndkyo, 3 days ago

Young people are worried about the future, with concerns ranging from rising costs to climate change and the impact of new technology, a school study has found.

Year 7 students at Nova Hreod Academy in Swindon shared their views after comparing their own expectations with predictions made by children in the 1960s.

"We are going to have to prepare for a lot of bad stuff," said Navaj, aged 12. He also suggested "we might have to start living underwater".

Child psychotherapist and researcher at the University of Bath, Caroline Hickman said: "We are raising a whole generation of children and young people who perceive the future to be frightening."

Concerns over cost, climate and jobs

Students spoke about pressures closer to home as well as global issues, using critical thinking to compare their concerns to those of former pupils imagining life in the year 2000.

The exercise for this cohort was to try to picture what the world would be like in 2070.

Millie, 12, said: "Prices are going up in the shops and everything is getting very expensive," while others raised fears about animal extinction, artificial intelligence replacing jobs and the long-term effects of climate change.

Navaj added that there might even be "walking microwaves, floating phones and flying cars" in 2070..

Their concerns reflect wider anxieties among young people, according to Hickman.

In 2021 she published a study which asked 10,000 children across the world how they felt about climate change.

She found that: "Emotionally, children are very, very worried [about climate change] but they're not just worried, they're also sad."

More than half of UK children (51 per cent) surveyed said they believed humanity was "doomed".

'Children need support and reassurance'

Hickman said it was important for adults to talk openly with young people about their concerns.

"One thing we can absolutely do is talk with our children about climate change," she said.

"We might not be able to tackle climate change this afternoon, but we can certainly make sure our children are not left alone with their fears.

"We must trust that children need to be part of the solution."

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France, UK and Spain see record temperatures as heatwave grips western Europe

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78y4102n1zo, 4 days ago

A heatwave gripping western Europe has led to a series of unprecedented temperature highs, with France experiencing its hottest day ever, the UK seeing record heat for June and Spain reaching its highest daily average since 1950.

Tens of millions of people are grappling with punishing temperatures, which hit almost 41C in Paris and have led to red heat alerts across swathes of the continent.

France's national temperature indicator - an average of day and night temperatures across dozens of locations - hit 30C on Wednesday, the hottest day since records began in 1947.

More than half the country remains under a red heat alert, with tens of thousands of homes in the west without power.

Climate change is driving up temperatures around the world - but particularly in Europe. It is the fastest 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 water supply, and more intense wildfires.

Météo-France recorded provisional maximum temperatures across France that "remained relatively stable compared to the previous day".

Highs ranged from 39C to 43C across much of western France, with with 43C recorded in the Poitou-Charentes-Val de Loire region, slightly lower than the 44.3C seen in Pissos on Tuesday.

The intense heat saw two of Paris's landmarks - the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower - close earlier than usual.

A spokesperson for the Louvre said the building was "not sufficiently adapted to climate change".

At least 40 people drowned in heatwave-related incidents in France since Thursday, including a six-year-old at a beach in Bègles, Gironde.

Authorities have also warned the risk of forest fires is higher during intense heat.

In the Maine-et-Loire region, more than 150 firefighters were deployed on Tuesday to fight a major fire in the Breignon forest in Saint-Macaire-du-Bois. It was brought under control overnight, officials said.

Labour minister Jean-Pierre Farandou said France is "in the process of finding out we've become a hot country" and warned society may need to adapt.

Some relief from the heat is expected from Friday, with temperatures expected to gradually drop.

The heatwave spread to other parts of western Europe on Wednesday, with a rare red heat alert extended in parts of the UK.

The UK saw its hottest June day on record in Gosport, Hampshire, on Wednesday afternoon after temperatures soared to 36.1C (97F). Temperatures could hit 38C on Thursday, forecasters say.

Spain also experienced baking heat over the last few days, with its weather agency reporting that the daily average temperature on Monday was 28.08C and 28.17C on Tuesday - the highest ever recorded for June.

Red heat alerts remain in place for parts of northern Spain, with a maximum temperature of 42C possible in parts of the Basque country, forecaster Aemet said.

In Italy, there are 16 red alerts in place, mostly northern and central parts of the country.

Temperatures are expected to peak in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium nearer the weekend.

The heatwave will also extend to eastern Europe over the next few days, with severe heat warnings issued for countries including Poland, Croatia and Hungary for later in the week.

Germany has also reported several drownings, including a 26-year-old man who died after going into the Danube River near Regensburg in Bavaria on Tuesday evening.

There are also fears of drought in some regions. In Brandenburg, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, authorities are urging people to use water sparingly, German newspaper Die Welt reports.

Barbecue bans have also been introduced in cities including Stuttgart and Freiburg in Baden-Württemberg, local media report.

The Dutch weather service, the KNMI, has issued a Code Orange weather alert, which refers to a "high chance of dangerous weather" in southern and central areas of the Netherlands from Wednesday until at least Friday.

KNMI said maximum temperatures of 37C were expected, while Friday could see the mercury hit 39C.

Most of Belgium is under an orange alert, with highs of 37C expected over the next few days.

Wales' emissions fall significantly after steelworks changes

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39yrnm34d0o, 4 days ago

There has been a "significant" cut to Wales' greenhouse gas emissions, mainly due to the closure of the blast furnaces at Port Talbot steelworks, according to a new report.

Wales' 2024 emissions were 8.6% lower than in 2023, taking the overall reduction since 1990 to 44%, according to the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC).

Port Talbot steelworks had been the UK's biggest single emitter of carbon dioxide, responsible for about 2% of its total emission of planet-heating gases.

The traditional coal-fed furnaces were turned off in July and September 2024 with the loss of 2,000 jobs, and are set to be replaced by a £1.25bn electric arc furnace which will recycle scrap steel.

Nigel Topping, CCC chair, said Wales had seen "a steeper decline" in emissions than the UK as a whole.

This was largely driven by the closure of the Port Talbot blast furnaces ahead of their transition to electrified steel-making, he said.

"Looking ahead, the biggest opportunities for further progress lie in how we use land, heat our buildings, and decarbonise transport."

"Seizing these opportunities will be critical if Wales is to sustain momentum and continue to play its part in tackling climate change," he added.

The advisory body published its annual assessment of the UK's progress in reducing emissions to reach net zero by 2050.

Changes in industry accounted for 74% of the total reduction in greenhouse gases directly emitted from Wales in 2024.

There were also reductions in emissions from electricity and fuel supply, land use and agriculture but these were partially offset by increases from buildings, transport and aviation.

Provisional figures for 2025 show further falls in industrial emissions, bearing in mind that Port Talbot's blast furnaces were still operational for much of 2024.

The committee said that overall, the temporary closure of Port Talbot was responsible for almost two-thirds of the emissions reduction in industry across the UK between 2023 and 2025.

But it repeated previous criticism over how the changes to steel-making in south Wales were handled, suggesting the Welsh and UK governments should have done more to prepare the area.

Environmentalists have warned the situation at Port Talbot could damage public support for climate action if it is seen to mean job losses and the demise of heavy industry.

The CCC said "a more proactive and decisive transition plan should have been developed to mitigate impacts on the local economy".

One of its recommendations to both the Welsh and UK governments is to "work with communities, workers and businesses in areas of the economy that may have been adversely impacted by the net zero transition" on plans for new green jobs and opportunities.

The Welsh government said it would work with the UK government on the report's recommendations but called for further investment from Westminster.

"We recognise the recent fall in emissions reflects significant industrial change, including at Port Talbot, with real impacts on local communities," a spokesperson said.

"We are working with the Tata Steel Transition Board to deliver £100m of funding to support those affected by the move to electric arc steel-making."

The spokesperson added more UK government investment was needed in clean energy infrastructure to "support the ongoing transition of Port Talbot and the wider south Wales industrial corridor in order to retain skilled jobs, attract new industries and strengthen the resilience of our communities".

The UK government said it had committed £2.5 billion of investment, in addition to £700m allocated to Port Talbot, "to rebuild the steel industry for decades to come and ensure a bright and sustainable future for UK steel-making".

"We have taken decisive action to protect people and businesses in the area to mitigate the impact of the blast furnace closure on the local economy," a spokesperson added.

"Driving forward with clean, homegrown power is the best route to bring down bills for good, deliver energy security and create jobs."

Wildfire risk 'very high' as hot weather continues

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrxp3xjepro, 4 days ago

There are warnings that the risk of wildfires on Dartmoor is "very high" as the hot weather continues, with a Met Office amber warning in place for Devon and much of Cornwall.

Conditions on the moor are "tinder dry", with Dartmoor National Park Authority Head Ranger Simon Lee urging visitors to leave barbeques at home and picnic instead.

The Met Office said it expected Devon and Cornwall's heatwave to "increase in intensity" in the days ahead, with the potential for "health impacts, as well as transport disruption and more incidents near the coastline".

Met Office meteorologist and presenter Alex Burkill said: "Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of heatwaves world wide."

A huge wildfire destroyed more than 1,000 acres (405 hectaes) of moorland in May 2025, with Dartmoor farmers taking steps to try and reduce the risk.

Lee said: "It's incredibly hot and it's incredibly dry.

"Fires can start and spread very quicky are can be absolutely devastating for communities, livestock, wildlife.

"We're asking people to leave their BBQ at home and bring a picnic instead, and reminding people that open fires are not permitted on Dartmoor."

Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service has also issued advice on how to safe during a heatwave.

Firefighters said they were urging people to enjoy the sunshine safely and take extra care around open water, as well as in the countryside and at home.

Anyone outside should avoid entering rivers, lakes, quarries and reservoirs, and should not have campfires and barbecues in the countryside, they said.

Alex Burkill said the heatwave "will increase in intensity on Wednesday and Thursday" and bring the "potential for health impacts, as well as transport disruption and more incidents near the coastline".

He said: "Some stations across Devon and Cornwall could see June temperature records broken.

"The figure to beat for Devon in June is 33.5 [92.3F], which was set during the 1976 heatwave.

"No matter what the figure that is reached as part of the heatwave, this will heat will be very disruptive for many, and that is partly down to the humidity, which means it's harder for bodies to stay cool.

"High night-time temperatures, possibly staying over 20C [68F] overnight, also reduces the recovery time for many.

"We know that climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of heatwaves world wide.

"This latest event, where more national records are likely to fall, is another marker in the changing UK climate and reaching temperatures that were previously unthinkable."

Recent hot summers and extended spells of dry weather reduce the soil moisture content of our moorland and heathland areas.

Extended high temperatures force vegetation to pull water from the ground; when soil dries, the water content inside leaves and branches drops and dry, stressed vegetation is highly combustible.

With climate change this water stress in summers is becoming increasingly common.

High growth of vegetation with milder, wetter winters and springs produces an abundance of vegetation and when this dries out it becomes a very flammable fuel.

Wildfires also need a spark and whilst we often consider a summer thunderstorm as a welcome relief from the heat, they are a source of spark to create wildfires along with human outdoor activity when the weather is nice.

What we can expect with human induced climate change is our summers to be hotter and drier, and when rain comes it will be intense and often thundery, so ideal conditions to create wildfires

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Heat pump growth stalls as government support cut, warns climate watchdog

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8k4pek3gzo, 4 days ago

Installations of heat pumps in the UK grew just 7% last year - down from a bumper 56% in 2024 - in a worrying sign for government climate efforts.

The UK's independent climate advisors published the figures on Wednesday as part of its update on the country's progress to reduce planet-warming emissions.

The fall in sales comes after the government withdrew a controversial grant scheme to help poorer households install the technology - which can help tackle emissions by heating homes using electricity instead of gas.

Overall, carbon emissions continued to fall, the advisors said, putting the UK in a "leading group of countries"- but slow progress in home heating risks future targets being missed.

Almost a fifth of the country's emissions come from the way that we heat our homes.

The vast majority of households currently use gas boilers, but the government's ambition is to move most properties over to heat pumps. These run on electricity rather than gas which can be generated from green energy sources like solar and wind.

However for most, heat pumps are prohibitively expensive to install. The government does have the Boiler Upgrade Scheme which offers a £7,500 grant upfront towards the cost of the technology but that can still leave households more than £2,500 to pay.

And the government removed the ECO scheme, that provided heat pumps fully funded to lower-income homes in Great Britain, after reports of botched installations.

The Committee and the industry have said a new grant system needs to be provided but also efforts need to be made to bring down running costs.

"This transition in our homes is no different to the ones we've had before. Fresh running water in homes, indoor sanitation, central heating, heat pumps. It's just another transition. We have to find a way to make it affordable. And that's the government job," said Bean Beanland, former director of the Heat Pump Association.

The UK has some of the highest electricity bills in Europe because of upgrades to the network, charges on energy bills and spikes in gas prices which can affect the price of all electricity.

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson acknowledged the ECO scheme "faced serious challenges".

But added: "We are taking action on energy bills, as well as going further and faster in our clean energy mission, to end our dependency on fossil fuels, give us energy security and get bills down for good."

In contrast to heat pumps, continuing record sales of electric cars indicate they are all but set to replace their petrol and diesel counterparts in the coming years on UK roads.

Emma Pinchbeck, CEO of the Climate Change Committee, praised the improvement in greener transport.

"We've made big progress on things like electric vehicles, where one in four cars being bought in the UK today is now an EV."

She said the growth had been accelerated by the Iran fuel crisis, which has seen significant increases in petrol and diesel prices at the pump pushing people to seek out other options.

"We can see in the numbers what people want - cheap cars and cars that will save them money, particularly as fossil fuels are volatile," she said.

But the industry body, Society of Motor Manufacturers (SMMT), said most of this demand had been brought about by huge discounts offered by car manufacturers.

"This has cost the industry more than £10 billion since 2024 – an unsustainable amount when that money should be going into R&D, manufacturing and the workforce," said Mike Hawes, CEO of SMMT.

It supported the government's plan to weaken its Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV) mandate - which sets a target for the number of EVs that manufacturers sell in the UK and potential penalties for failing to meet that target.

The UKCCC disagreed and urged the government to keep the policy.

Nicholas Theobald, who lives in London, made the switch to a second hand EV earlier this year over concerns about petrol prices.

"It seemed like the right thing to do we just [had] this whole feeling of being dependent upon fossil fuel countries," he said. "I did have anxieties that, oh, we're going to have to charge all the time but my experience in the last five months I've been astonished at how easy it is."

But he added that not having access to his own charger at home, and having to rely on public chargers, was making it more expensive - up to ten times more than if he charged at home.

This was one of numerous other issues highlighted by the Committee that the government was too slow in addressing.

It said minimal progress in sectors like farming and aviation risked the country missing future targets.

The advisors reminded the government of the importance of cutting emissions to reduce the country's contribution to climate change.

Parts of the UK are under a red alert for extreme heat this week, as temperatures are set to climb to close to 40C.

The Met Office have said such extreme temperatures are made more likely and more frequent by climate change.

Additional reporting Mark Poynting and Becky Dale.

Farmers struggling to plan for extreme weather

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg4z8j11j0o, 4 days ago

A farmer from Shropshire has said he believes it is becoming impossible to plan for increasingly extreme weather.

Rory Lay, who farms beef, sheep and arable fields near Wem, said the current hot weather was likely to cost him up to 20% of some crops and he is having to take extra measures to keep his animals cool.

He said it was "really difficult to know what to do", because increasingly he was seeing "very wet seasons in the summer and the hot spells earlier on in the year".

Last month, the National Farmers Union produced a report on the impact of climate change, which said farmers needed more help to adapt their businesses.

Lay has about 200 sheep and the same number of cows.

He said his cattle were feeling the effects of the extreme heat the most and because they could not sweat to cool themselves down, "they look absolutely fed up", particularly in the middle of the day.

Cows pant when they get hot, to cool themselves down, and he said they were "moping around", looking like "grumpy teenagers".

The solution, Lay said, was fans in the cow sheds, shelter in the fields and "plenty of water".

Some of his crops have already been lost.

The hot weather this week, combined with the heatwave last month meant his cereal crops were "literally just burning up".

"It is really, really difficult to try and plan to change our crops or varieties to suit a weather we can't predict," Lay said.

He is hoping for some cooler, wetter weather soon and added: "We need a bit more really to take us through to harvest."

The NFU's report on the impact of climate change made a number of recommendations.

It suggested removing regulation that hindered farmers from adapting their businesses and giving them incentives to seek training.

The report said farmers were already taking measures, like planting different crops and installing solar panels, but extreme weather was expected to become more common.

NFU Deputy President Paul Tompkins said: "While farmers and growers are making real improvements in this area, they cannot work on this alone."

Learning to cope

We are going to have to get used to coping with higher temperatures as a result of climate change, according to BBC West Midlands environment correspondent David Gregory-Kumar.

He said when he had started in his role, heatwaves were the sort of thing we could expect with climate change, but we could not be sure it was the definite cause.

"Twenty-five years later, the science is very different," he added. "Not only can we say climate change is making this heatwave worse, scientists can say by how much."

Gregory-Kumar said they found this out by searching records for previous similar weather events and comparing them with what was happening now.

"One worry is heat events like this week seem to be happening more often than models predicted," he added.

"It raises the prospect of the impact of climate change on us when it comes to intense heat being worse than we thought."

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The US that World Cup fans didn't expect to love

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260625-the-us-that-world-cup-fans-didnt-expect-to-love, yesterday

From roadside convenience stores to lonely landscapes, travellers are discovering little-known slices of Americana away from the host cities.

From sea to shining sea

More like this:

• What it's really like to attend the World Cup

• What are foreign football fans finding in the US?

• The science behind the World Cup grass

Little-known foods

American hospitality

But perhaps no place has been more welcoming of its visitors this summer than Lawrence, Kansas.

She's right: after consuming so many of these social media posts and videos, I find myself overwhelmed with a sense of national pride that I haven't experienced for some time.

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Meloni and Trump: A very public fall-out that is proving very hard to fix

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cze962pgk27o, yesterday

There is an AI-generated meme doing the rounds on social media in Italy that shows Giorgia Meloni doing all the things you might expect from someone fresh out of a tough break-up.

In one fake photo she has a new haircut; in others she is imagined booking herself on a singles' holiday, training for a marathon and creating a profile on a dating app.

Of course none of the images are real, but the joke has landed because it captures the very public political fall-out between the Italian prime minister and US President Donald Trump.

Their relationship has over the past few months gone from public attacks to personal insults and back again, cooling what used to be one of the most watched alliances in European politics.

It was not that long ago that Meloni was being called the "Trump whisperer", and she was the only European leader with a front-row seat at his January 2025 inauguration.

Last April, she was also the EU leader of choice to head to the White House for a meeting aimed at easing tensions over US tariffs on European goods.

For someone who started out on the fringes of Italian politics, with her roots in Italy's post-fascist tradition, and who has spent years trying to rebrand herself as a moderate, credible face of the European right, that closeness to Trump was never just seen by observers as a useful diplomatic tie.

It was proof, on the biggest stage available, that she belonged there.

But Trump's unpredictability has proved difficult for Meloni to handle, denting her credibility both nationally and internationally.

The first real fracture came in late March, when Italy's defence ministry refused to let US military aircraft bound for the Middle East use the Nato airbase at Sigonella in Sicily without parliamentary approval, a decision rooted in Italy's constitution and the public's deep opposition to the war.

Weeks later the row deepened.

Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV on Truth Social in April over the pontiff's criticism of the war, calling him "weak on crime".

Meloni, governing a deeply Catholic country, called the attack "unacceptable".

Trump did not take it well. "I'm shocked at her," he told Italian daily Corriere della Sera. "I thought she had courage, but I was wrong." He added: "She is unacceptable... she is not the same person, Italy is not the same country."

By June things seemed to be getting better. At the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains in France, Trump and Meloni were photographed deep in conversation on a sofa, and Italian officials spoke of a "clarifying discussion".

Meloni told reporters the atmosphere had been "very positive," with "no friction".

Journalists barely had time to file the story before it fell apart again.

Days later, Trump told Italian broadcaster La7 that Meloni had "begged" him for a photo at the summit, in a phone interview dubbed in Italian and never aired in English.

"She wanted a picture with me so badly," Trump's Italian voiceover said. "I wouldn't have taken it, but I felt sorry for her."

Meloni did not wait long to respond. She posted a video, delivered in Italian, calling Trump's account "completely fabricated."

"I don't know why the president of the United States behaves this way toward his own allies," she said. "I can only say it's a pity he doesn't show the same resolve toward the enemies of the West... But there's one thing he must remember: neither I nor Italy ever beg."

Italy's foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, cancelled a planned trip to Washington.

Reaction in Italy was swift and across the political spectrum.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella phoned her to express solidarity. Meloni's government colleagues and MPs called the remarks offensive, damaging to Italy's dignity and deserving of an apology, while opposition members condemned the comments as an unacceptable affront to the country as a whole.

Trump doubled down from Camp David, insisting on Truth Social that she had asked "over and over" for the photo and accusing her of trying to be "friends again" now that the US had "defeated Iran militarily".

Just as that dispute seemed to be cooling, a separate row re-opened over military bases.

Last Wednesday, Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte told Fox News that around 500 US aircraft had taken off from American bases in Italy in support of "Operation Epic Fury", the codename for the US-Israeli campaign against Iran. It was part of what he described as broader European support running into thousands of flights across the continent.

Rome did not take it well.

Italy's defence ministry called Rutte's account "fallacious" and "totally misleading", insisting it had only ever authorised technical and logistical flights, not combat operations, and had refused any request that crossed that line.

A Nato spokesperson later clarified that Rutte had simply meant to highlight how allies, Italy included, had honoured existing bilateral basing agreements.

Those remarks have stirred a political row in Italy where Meloni's government has repeatedly said it did not authorise the use of Italian territory for direct military action against Iran.

For Meloni, who has had a difficult few months following her recent defeat in a constitutional referendum and faces an election in the coming year, some big questions remain.

How will she reposition herself on the international political spectrum? What next for her uneasy alliance with France's Emmanuel Macron, for so long her political "frenemy" but now increasingly important to her standing? And most of all, will she and Trump ever make up?

"This might be a tough situation to turn around," said Gianni Riotta, author and vice chairman of the Council for the United States and Italy.

"Meloni's ability to build a bridge now looks like a mere illusion, she couldn't stand between Europe and the US," he told the BBC.

"She tried to please both sides, on Ukraine, on tariffs. Then the Pope broke it: she had to back him, and Trump doesn't accept that. Trump has had a friend-or-foe outlook since his property days in New York, you're either with me or against me, and once that understanding broke down, he pushed harder, and Meloni played up her tough-woman image."

In Rome's diplomatic circles, nobody wants a full rupture.

Reports earlier this week suggested several government ministers were ready to skip the US Embassy's Independence Day reception at Villa Taverna, brought forward this year to 2 July, in solidarity with Meloni, who is not expected to attend regardless.

That mood has since softened. Tajani has said he will go "with my head held high", and allies of the prime minister now suggest the boycott talk has cooled into a quieter "everyone's free to do as they please".

But the real test will come at the Nato summit in Ankara early next month, when Trump and Meloni are due to be, for the first time since the G7, in the same room again.

Religion row as Texas makes Bible stories required reading in schools

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg8m2xkg84o, yesterday

A Texas education panel has approved plans to make Bible stories mandatory for all five million public school students in the state, sparking a row about separation of church and state.

The required readings, which don't come into effect until 2030, include Bible passages about Adam and Eve and from the book of Exodus, where God speaks to Moses through a burning bush.

Critics say the new reading requirements, which also include Dickens and Shakespeare, infringe on religious freedoms and lack diversity.

The Republican-controlled State Board of Education approved the measure in a 9-5 vote with one Republican joining Democrats to vote against it.

"We are bringing the Bible back into schools this week for the first time in 60 years," Brandon Hall, a Republican member of the board of education, said this week.

Supporters say schoolchildren ought to learn about Judeo-Christian traditions that they argue were essential to the nation's founding.

The new list establishes for the first time books that students across Texas must read.

It includes English literature classics such as Charles Dickens's Great Expectations and William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr's I've Been to the Mountain Top speech and Margaret Thatcher's eulogy for President Ronald Reagan are also on the wider-ranging list.

But it is the mandatory religious texts that have drawn fierce opposition from education and civil liberties groups.

Students will learn passages about Jesus in the New Testament and read the Parable of the Prodigal Son, under the curriculum.

Felicia Martin, executive director of Texas Freedom Network, a left-wing activist group, said ahead of the vote that the reading list "centres Christianity above all other religious faiths and traditions".

"[It has] a very Western-centric view of the world that omits the contributions and the histories of black, brown, indigenous people, of other religious faiths and traditions that are critical to the overall understanding of our history."

Others also raised concerns that the mandate risks undermining the independence of teachers to steer their classes.

"Texas teachers have expressed concerns about the length of the list and the potential loss of teacher autonomy in determining which works are appropriate and relevant for their own classrooms," Clare Haefner of the Texas Classroom Teachers Association told the BBC.

Even though the board's final approval reduced the required list, the association says it remains too cumbersome.

The BBC contacted the Texas State Board of Education for comment.

Friday's approval was the latest example of moves by conservatives to bolster the presence of Christian beliefs in the Texas education system.

Last year, it became the largest US state to require classrooms to display the Ten Commandments - biblical laws that some Christians believe God set for people.

In April, a federal appeals court upheld the law mandating the display after a legal challenge.

On Friday, President Donald Trump took credit for what he saw as spreading religious values in the US.

"Religion is back in our country, bigger and stronger than it has been in many, many years," he told a religious freedom event in Washington DC.

Why the trail went cold in Nancy Guthrie case

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy064kg3n0ko, 3 days ago

There's a different kind of depth to the darkness at nighttime in the upscale Catalina Foothills neighbourhood of Tucson, Arizona.

Lights are limited by both the county and the homeowners' association; they must be shielded and can only face down, a deliberate effort to maintain Tuscon's "dark sky" status - designed to minimise light pollution, reduce energy waste and protect astronomical research at nearby facilities.

The result is a quiet, peaceful blackness making Catalina Foothills the perfect spot for stargazing - or for furtive criminal activities like kidnapping an elderly woman.

That's what happened overnight on 31 January, when 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, mother of US television presenter Savannah, was pulled from her bed. The assailant - or assailants - vanished into the "dark sky" night with the church-going grandmother.

And the case ever since has been nearly as obscured as the Catalina Foothills after nightfall - beset by everything from tricky terrain to law enforcement infighting. The list of challenges facing the investigation into Nancy Guthrie's disappearance goes on and on - and perhaps goes some way toward explaining why answers remain elusive nearly five months after the 84-year-old was abducted from her Arizona home.

The lack of resolution, with no suspects identified and no information as to where Guthrie was taken, is all the more perplexing given the spotlight that's been on the case from the outset thanks to the celebrity of Guthrie's daughter, famous US news presenter Savannah.

Law enforcement consultants, media and citizen sleuths have been poring over the case with no success - and details made public this week from ransom notes raise only more questions.

The Guthrie family believes the notes, received in the days after the crime, to be real. One of them allegedly demanded millions in bitcoin, the second allegedly said she had died, while expressing regret on the part of the writer.

And the simple possibility of a kidnapping gone awry could be one explanation for why the case seems stalled, according to experts - though the Pima County Sheriff's Department says it remains "active and ongoing."

If Guthrie died during the crime, says private investigator Dan Ribacoff, "now it's a murder and not just a kidnapping".

"It probably drove the criminal underground," said Ribacoff, who founded the International Investigative Group and has dealt extensively with kidnappings and missing persons cases throughout his career.

"He doesn't want to release … where the body is buried, because he doesn't want to expose himself," said Ribacoff, who agrees with the Guthries that the notes could be genuine.

If the kidnapping had gone according to plan, he says, there'd likely be a better chance of a happier ending - and even arrests.

"I believe that a ransom would have been paid, she probably would have been released, causing additional leads to be generated - maybe through IP addresses or telephone records, things along those lines, but it went cold very, very quickly evidence-wise right after that kidnapping."

And evidentiary issues have plagued the case from the start for a variety of reasons, according to law enforcement experts.

Not only are the Catalina Foothills area incredibly dark at night, but the region is also filled with terrain that makes it easy to hide - and hard to find evidence.

"The Tucson Valley, if you look at it, it's rimmed by four mountain ranges, and they're pretty rugged, and the Catalinas are the most rugged - and [Guthrie's house is] right at the base of the Catalinas," says consultant David Smith, who spent 17 years in Arizona law enforcement, including time as a police officer in Tucson - the location of the home from which Guthrie was taken.

"The terrain is such that it's difficult to see the actual roadway," he said. "If you look at the aerial view of her property, you could actually pull in the driveway and not ever be on her Ring camera."

The neighbourhood is filled with dry watercourses called arroyos that "go right up to people's backyards, and very often the criminal element would use those to get around - and so would the innocent," said Smith, who's walked the area around Guthrie's house and personally witnessed the foot traffic.

On top of that, he said, the evidence is "transitory" because of the weather.

"Frankly, there's so much traffic, it's hard to pick out footprints, those types of things," he said. "That's the geographic challenge."

On a wider scale, Tucson presents several criminal challenges because of its proximity to an international border, its high homeless and crime rates and its high drug use, he said.

On top of that, local vs federal feuds have complicated the investigative effort. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has repeatedly insisted that he involved the FBI immediately, including working with a liaison on site the night of the kidnapping.

But FBI Director Kash Patel has criticised the county's actions, stating in a May podcast interview that his agency was "kept out of the investigation" for "four days." Patel also claimed that local authorities rebuffed FBI offers to fly DNA evidence to the agency's lab at Quantico, instead choosing a private lab in Florida.

"Decisions regarding evidence processing were made on scene based on operational needs," Nanos said in a rebuttal statement posted to the Department's X account. "The laboratory utilized by the Pima County Sheriff's Department and the FBI Laboratory in Quantico have worked in close partnership from the outset and continue to collaborate in the analysis of evidence."

Patel, however, wasn't the only one to criticise the actions of the sheriff's department; multiple law enforcement experts have questioned various decisions and pointed to alleged missteps - such as unsealing the crime scene too early on. Nanos said during a 4 February press conference that the scene was "done" and had been turned over to the family the previous day.

Despite that, crime scene tape was later put back up for further processing.

"There was absolutely no reason to release that crime scene," said Joseph Giacalone, retired NYPD sergeant, adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the author of a textbook about criminal investigation now in its fourth edition.

"That entire house, the property, should have been cordoned off. No one should have stepped foot in that location other than law enforcement, and only for the purposes of doing the investigation."

Even if arrests were made in the future, he said, possible crime scene management issues mean "everything is going to be questioned" by the defence.

Mishandling a crime scene drastically reduces the odds of solving a case, he added.

Sheriff Nanos has alternately denied and admitted to mistakes. At a 5 February press conference, he said he'd have preserved the crime scene longer if given another opportunity.

"I probably could have held off on that," he said, adding: "We got what we thought was complete."

But Nanos has been embattled throughout the investigation, not just by criticism surrounding the Guthrie case. Local media have delved into his past - he had received written reprimands in El Paso, according to documents obtained by the Arizona Republic.

When contacted by the outlet, Nanos responded on 9 March: "That's your 'urgent' request? You sure you don't want to go back to my high school and ask why I got swats from the principal? Good luck with your hit piece."

The following month, the Pima County Board of Supervisors demanded answers from the sheriff who submitted written responses through his attorney, according to Arizona media. The board later voted not to remove him but Supervisor Rex Scott said the sheriff needed to repair a lack of trust in his leadership.

As investigators soldiered on, the global interest in the case, and the celebrity of Guthrie's daughter, likely didn't help matters, experts said.

"The fame probably drove the kidnapper underground, realising that there was a massive manhunt," said PI Ribacoff, who speculated that Guthrie probably died early on, prompting suspects to dispose of her body.

Other theories differ. Smith, for his part, is dubious about the veracity of the ransom notes - and believes Guthrie was ferreted down to Mexico where she could more easily be kept out of sight.

Nanos, meanwhile, told BBC News early on that he was confident Guthrie would eventually be found - whether it took "10 days, 10 months or worse." Nearly 40,000 tips had already poured in by February, he said, and the sheriff has stood by his commitment to solving the crime ever since.

And the eyes of the world remain riveted to the case - while global sympathies remain with Guthrie's family. They continue to offer a $1million reward and plead for tips.

Savannah Guthrie, after details of the two notes became public this week, renewed her appeals during a tearful segment on her NBC morning show.

"I just want to take the opportunity to ask people, really to beg people, to come forward," she said. "Somebody knows something."

Canada's vacant and crumbling official residence gets a lifeline

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1ey3xpdl2po, yesterday

The abandoned official residence of Canada's prime minister is getting a lifeline after Mark Carney announced a crowd-funded plan to pay for its multi-million dollar restoration.

The plan includes a competition for Canadian architecture firms to submit proposals for the future of 24 Sussex Drive, as well as a call for donations to help fund the project.

The restoration costs are estimated at north of C$100m ($71m; £53m) - a price tag that has discouraged previous prime ministers, both Liberal and Conservative, from having taxpayers foot the bill.

Lack of political will to maintain the historic building has left it in disrepair, with one expert referring to it as a "national embarrassment".

The residence was built in the 19th Century and acquired by the government in 1949, refurbished as an equivalent to the White House or 10 Downing Street, albeit more "modest", said Joseph Clarke, an associate professor of architecture at the University of Toronto.

The residence has witnessed key moments in the country's history, and its construction coincided with Canada's emergence as a nation, he said.

The structure has been modified over the years from the original Gothic Revival design, Clarke said, adding that it became "a living record" of changing architectural styles, domestic Canadian life and public office.

But the building has been uninhabitable for more than a decade due to years of deferred maintenance, with problems ranging from asbestos-filled walls to a rodent infestation.

Prime Minister Carney and his predecessor Justin Trudeau chose instead to live at Rideau Cottage, a government-owned residence nearby.

Workers in 2024 successfully removed asbestos, mould and rodents from 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa, the nation's capital, but it still needs more work before it can reopen its doors.

During his announcement on Friday, Carney said the residence - which has served as the home of 10 prime ministers and welcomed world leaders like Queen Elizabeth II and Sir Winston Churchill - "has not been cared for with the respect that it deserves".

He added that while it is likely too late for him to take up residence at 24 Sussex, his government wants to ensure it becomes a "secure, accessible and sustainable official residence" for future prime ministers.

The design and build competition will ask for proposals to renovate the home, with a winner selected by an independent jury by next July, Carney said.

To help with the costs, the Rideau Hall Foundation will spearhead what Carney called "a national fundraising campaign" with the goal of funding part of the restoration.

He added there will be parameters in place to put a cap on donations, and that it will be individuals and philanthropic organisations that will be allowed to donate, not corporations. The list of donors will also be made public, he said.

Asked why he decided not to fully fund the refurbishment using taxpayer money, Carney said his government has to choose its priorities, like building affordable housing and strengthening Canada's economy.

He added that Canadians have "a sense of ownership and responsibility" over the home, and that there is a public willingness to support shared heritage.

"This is their house," Carney said. "It is a symbol of the nation."

Fundraising may be the most "politically elegant solution" to the problem of the challenging political optics of using public funds to fix the residence, Clarke said, adding that he is relieved the building is "finally getting the attention it deserves".

"I think Canadians should have some self-respect in our institutions and symbols," he said. "This has become a national embarrassment that the building has been neglected."

Could a Madison Square Garden wedding be the love story of Taylor Swift's wildest dreams?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy73e5xek8xo, 3 days ago

Rumours continue to swirl about whether pop queen Taylor Swift will marry NFL star Travis Kelce at New York City's Madison Square Garden over the 4 July Independence Day weekend, after city officials confirmed someone applied for a street closure permit nearby.

Dora Pekec, a spokesperson for the mayor's office, told the BBC a permit was filed in early June to close roads around Madison Square Garden from 2 to 4 July.

The New York Times first reported the permit news and that several players on Kelce's Kansas City Chiefs team had booked hotel rooms nearby.

Since Swift and Kelce announced their engagement in August, fans have obsessively hunted for clues about where the two megastars will wed.

Pekec did not say who filed the permit application, and CNN reported that neither Kelce's nor Swift's name was on the application.

The New York Times reported several other developments that indicate that Swift and Kelce could hold their upcoming nuptials at Madison Square Garden, including that Amtrak police officers - who provide security at Penn Station underneath the arena - have been told to expect a Swift wedding during the busy holiday weekend.

The outlet reported that Swift will have an intimate gathering of 100 people at Madison Square Garden on 2 July, followed by a bigger celebration on 3 July, with potential performances at the event.

The potential venue choice shocked many Swift fans, who envisioned the singer getting married in a more scenic outdoors location, such as a spot near her oceanside Rhode Island mansion. The couple's engagement photos show Kelce proposing to Swift in a fairy tale-like garden decorated with dozens of flowers.

Instead, Madison Square Garden, a window-less 19,500-seat arena in the middle of Midtown Manhattan, has no natural light and offers little in terms of scenic views.

Molly Gaffney, a Swiftie from Albany, New York, said the location choice made "little to no sense".

"Her getting married in Manhattan at all, let alone during the Fourth of July during America 250, plus the World Cup, is insanity," Gaffney said, referencing the 250th anniversary of the US and the FIFA World Cup games taking place nearby.

The city is planning several events related to the nation's 250th birthday for the 4 July weekend.

"This dark, industrial location as her wedding venue couldn't be more perplexing," Gaffney said.

Some fans speculated that Swift was using the arena to distract from her real wedding venue - but Gaffney said it seemed like much effort just for a decoy.

To other fans, Madison Square Garden - where Swift has performed several times and where the championship-winning New York Knicks play - made sense symbolically and practically for the singer and her football star fiancé.

"MSG is where music and sports come together at the most famous venue in the world," said Nicki Vleisides, a New York City resident who co-hosts a podcast about Swift's music. "The more I've thought about it, it kind of seems like the perfect choice for both Taylor and Travis and their respective industries."

Vleisides' podcast co-host, Andie Furber, said the arena was also ideal from a security perspective.

"No drones or paparazzi can get in or out, and Taylor, Travis and guests can enter underground from blocks away with no chance of getting photographed," Furber said. The arena has a separate private entrance and ramp where celebrities can enter.

The occasion would mark yet another massive security undertaking for the city's largest indoor arena, which hosted US President Donald Trump earlier this month for a National Basketball Association (NBA) finals game featuring the Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs.

Mamdani's growing clout pulls Democrats leftward, shaking party establishment

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly818y4v22o, 4 days ago

At polling stations across New York City on Tuesday, an electoral storm was brewing.

Less than seven months after Zohran Mamdani completed his stunning run to defeat former Governor Andrew Cuomo and become the youngest mayor of New York City in a century, a trio of Mamdani backed left-wing congressional candidates accomplished similar feats.

Two of the candidates Mamdani endorsed, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and community activist Darializa Avila Chevalier, unseated incumbent Democratic congressmen.

One of the defeated, 79-year-old Adriano Espaillat, had served five terms in the House of Representatives and was the leader of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The other, Dan Goldman, made his name as the lead lawyer in Trump's first impeachment trial and had the financial support of Aipac, the deep-pocketed pro-Israel lobbying group.

In the third race, state assemblywoman Claire Valdez beat an opponent who had the backing of much of New York City's Democratic establishment.

It was the kind of clean sweep that suggests Mamdani's decisive mayoral victory last year was no fluke. He has assembled a coalition in New York City that is capable of elevating like-minded candidates to office, all of who celebrated Mamdani's backing in their Tuesday night victory parties.

"I want to thank our mayor," Valdez said. "Tonight we have not just won an election, but we have proved that this movement is durable."

The trio of victories were a stark illustration of the divisions in the Democratic Party and sent clear a message to its leaders across the US.

Given that the three newly minted Democratic congressional nominees in New York are virtual locks in the city's November general election, Mamdani's socialist movement – with its focus on populist economic issues like government-funded health insurance, higher taxes on the wealthy and affordable housing - is no longer limited to the confines of America's largest city.

It is spilling out into national politics.

If Democrats succeed in gaining a majority in the House of Representatives in November, there is likely to be a larger, more vocal left-wing contingent among their ranks. That could prove to be a challenge for leaders like Hakeem Jeffries – who represents a portion of New York City in the House of Representatives – as he seeks to unite the factions within his party.

Neither Chevalier nor Valdez have said whether they would support Jeffries if, as expected, he seeks to be speaker in a Democratic-controlled House next year.

At the very least, the anti-incumbent, anti-establishment sentiment among Democratic voters on display on Tuesday has drawn comparisons to the right-wing Tea Party movement that unseated longtime Republican officeholders starting in 2010 and led to a rowdy, and at times uncooperative contingent of conservatives in Congress.

Lander, for his part, sought to dispel what could be growing concerns among Democratic leaders.

"We're joyful about what it looks like to deliver," he said in a television interview on Wednesday. "That is very different energy than what the Tea Party brought. We want to build something, not just break something.

Democrats, however, will have to agree on what to build – and a legislative agenda that can serve as a counterpoint to Trump and the congressional Republicans.

Those Republicans are already eager to paint the New York primary results as an indication that the Democratic Party is swinging dangerously to the left.

"America the beautiful will never be communist country," Trump wrote in a late-night social media post.

"Mayor Mamdani pulled through 3 solid Communists," he wrote later on Wednesday, before going on to complain that the media ignore his own, more impressive endorsement power.

Republicans have already begun amplifying comments on social media by Chevalier, who has called for a world with open borders, no prisons and no police. She has also been sharply critical of Democratic leaders, directing an expletive at former Vice-President Kamala Harris and accused former President Joe Biden of being a rapist.

During her campaign, however, the 32-year-old community organiser disavowed her past comments, made between 2018 and 2022, and said she is a different, more mature person now.

Her victory, however, prompted quick pushback from some Democrats, including former national committee chair Jamie Harriosn.

"If you hate the Democratic Party, then please don't run for our nomination," he wrote on the social media website Bluesky. "Don't use our resources. Don't rely on our volunteers. Don't use our infrastructure. Don't ask Democrats to invest their time, money, and energy in your campaign."

Chevalier's victory, however, is the latest example of Democratic voters showing a willingness to embrace a candidate's message even if it comes with a chequered past.

Two weeks ago, Maine Democrat voters backed Graham Platner as their Senate nominee despite his inflammatory social media posts, Nazi-affiliated tattoo and allegations of menacing behaviour toward romantic partners.

In other races on Tuesday, however, more traditional, centrist Democrats prevailed – suggesting that while voters in places like New York City and Maine may be restive, the national trends are not as clear.

In Utah, Democrats backed former Congressman Ben McAdams for a newly created Democratic-friendly congressional district over more liberal alternatives. And in a Maryland seat outside of Washington DC, Democrats opted for a moderate candidate who endorses continued US support for Israel – a stark a contrast to the pro-Palestinian sentiment among many New York City's victorious candidates.

In November's midterm congressional elections, Democrats will have to win in battleground seats scattered across the nation – including some in the suburbs outside solidly liberal New York City – if they want to secure a majority. And the winners of those races will have politics decidedly different from the three Mamdani-backed socialists.

All this suggests a Democratic party still grappling with its identity and direction heading into November and on into the 2028 presidential campaign – a race that Mamdani, in endorsing the left-wing candidates, has said he hopes to influence.

"The old politics that got us into this crisis is not the politics that's going to get us out of this crisis," he said on Tuesday night, as he bounced between victory parties.

For one night, at least, the old politics – and the Democratic old guard in Washington – has been caught on its heels.

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.

Trump launches America250 festivities with a rally on the National Mall

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y8nnj33e1o, 3 days ago

President Donald Trump has kicked off weeks of festivities celebrating America's 250th birthday with a rally on the National Mall in the nation's capital.

The event featured a flyover by "some of the nation's most iconic fighter jets and stealth bombers", military bands, and a speech from the president.

"Tonight, as we stand on the edge of our 250th year of independence, I am thrilled to declare that America is back," Trump said at the rally.

Trump announced his plans to headline the event after several musicians cancelled their performances citing concerns the celebrations had been politicised.

"A short time ago we were a dead country," the president said at the rally. "We were dead. Now we're the hottest country anywhere in the world, we're respected by everybody."

Trump touted his record on immigration, drug prices, the economy and on foreign affairs, including in Iran and Venezuela.

"For the first time in 3,000 years, we are finally going to have peace in the Middle East," he told the crowd.

A range of events have been planned to celebrate America's 250th birthday, including the rally on Wednesday tied to "The Great American State Fair" on the National Mall in Washington DC.

Organisers say these festivities are to commemorate the anniversary, but certain events, including those funded by a body that supports Trump, are leading to questions around whether the celebrations could become politicised.

America250, one of the groups planning celebrations, was established by Congress a decade ago to plan nonpartisan events. Freedom 250, another organisation also planning events, was created by Trump and is a public-private partnership.

Congress has reportedly allocated $150m (£112m) in federal funds for the birthday celebration. Millions of dollars more are apparently being spent by Freedom 250.

Both America250 and Freedom 250 are expected to host large events as part of the celebration - here is what you need to know.

The president said he will speak at "the greatest show of all" on the National Mall on the Fourth of July.

American state fair

A massive 16-day State Fair is among the biggest attractions of the 250th celebration.

It runs from 25 June to 10 July across the National Mall from the US Capitol to the Washington Monument.

All 56 US states and territories will be showcased in the exposition, according to Freedom 250, which is organising the event.

Among the features of the celebration was a now cancelled concert series entitled the Great American State Fair concert series, which has made headlines after a number of the performers scheduled to take the stage, backed out.

Several artists, including Martina McBride, The Commodores, Young MC and Bret Michaels, withdrew, citing the event's affiliation with the White House.

Some said they did not realise the event was affiliated with Freedom 250.

In turn, Trump axed the planned musical acts and instead said in a social media post that he would host "the Greatest Rally, EVER!"

He billed it as the "Rally to end all Rallies" and said some artists would still be at the event.

He noted Lee Greenwood, whose song God Bless the USA is the curtain-raiser at Trump rallies, would introduce him and tenor Christopher Macchio would also sing at the event.

"We don't want singers with no talent, but big fees to put you to sleep, we've told them all to stay home," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

"All we want is you, me, a few speakers, and the Greatest Music ever played, the same Music you have listened to for years!"

On Tuesday afternoon, country singer Alexis Wilkins, the longtime girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel, announced she would be performing at Wednesday's event.

UFC Freedom 250

Trump celebrated his 80th and America's 250th birthday with an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event on the White House lawn - the first ever professional sporting event held at the presidential residence.

He and thousands of other mixed martial arts fans watched on as US fighter Justin Gaethje beat Spanish-Georgian opponent Ilia Topuria to win the lightweight championship in the main event.

Other administration officials attended, along with UFC chief Dana White, Trump's longstanding friend. At one point in the evening, the crowd sang happy birthday to the president.

The White House said that the event was planned by Freedom 250, but UFC were paying for it. White said the same, telling the Sports Business Journal in January: "We're eating the whole thing."

The event was free and ticketed.

A federal judge tossed out a lawsuit that had sought to shut down the event.

4 July fireworks display

Across America on 4 July fireworks fill the skies. In Washington, every year, there is a massive display run by the National Park Service.

This year, the 40-minute show will be run by Freedom 250, the Trump-created public-private partnership that is hosting a number of events.

It will reportedly include more than 860,000 fireworks in a show that will last some 40 minutes. A typical display will include some 10,000 fireworks and last less than 20 minutes.

The only request from Freedom 250 to Pyrotecnico, the company tasked with creating the show, was for it to beat the Philippines' 2016 record for the largest fireworks display in history, according to USA Today.

Outside Washington

It is not just the nation's capital that is hosting events to celebrate America's semiquincentennial, there will be celebrations across the country.

A ball will drop in Times Square on 4 July, similar to the New Year's Eve drop.

But unlike on New Year's Eve, the ball will drop eight times to mark midnight in each of the American time zones, and each time with its own special design, according to America250.

In Philadelphia, a time capsule will be buried and remain sealed until 2276, according to America250.

"When it is opened in 2276, we want future generations to have a clear, authentic window into who we were at 250 – what we valued, what we built, and how we saw ourselves as a nation," Rosie Rios, Chair of America250, said.

Across the country, in Los Angeles, America250 will host a concert at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum with musical artists and a crowd of up to 50,000.

And block parties are planned in cities such as Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Reflecting Pool renovations

In an effort to prepare Washington DC, the nation's capital, for the anniversary, Trump began a number of beautification projects across the city.

Some projects have been viewed as gaudy or unnecessary, while others have been applauded by local residents.

Among the sites has been the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

In April, workers began painting the historic pool, which stretches 2,030ft (620m) between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, blue.

Trump has said his project to restore and paint the monument would solve a leaking problem, the paint would last for 40 or 50 years and "there'll be no leaks, there'll be no anything".

But after its completion, the blue paint began to peel, catching the eyes and criticism of onlookers as it floated to the surface. Blooming algae also started to form, prompting officials to drain the pool again. Trump blamed the developments on vandals.

The painting had faced legal challenges from a non-profit group asking for the work to be halted. The group argued Trump ignored laws that limit changes to historical landmarks.

Before a court order was issued in the case, Trump said in a Truth Social post on 3 June that a final coat of protection on the pool was to be completed that day, writing that "the water will start flowing, shortly thereafter".

Stanford graduates rethink their futures as AI transforms tech

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c872j82j2qyo, 5 days ago

American college graduates have made one thing clear to this year's batch of commencement speakers - beware of bringing up artificial intelligence (AI).

Some of the biggest names in tech, including former Google boss Eric Schmidt, have been booed when they mention the technology.

At Stanford University recently, in the heart of the American tech hub of Silicon Valley, Sundar Pichai - the CEO of Google, a major AI developer - joked about having been told to avoid the topic.

A group of graduates nevertheless walked out during his remarks.

Some students carried signs with them as they left - one sign read "ICE spies with Google AI", while others were seen waving Palestinian flags.

Stanford occupies a unique position in the American tech ecosystem. It's regarded as a hotbed of innovation and resides in the shadow of some of the most influential Big Tech companies on the planet, including many pioneers in the AI field. Its elite students enter the job market with an undeniable edge.

Yet even there, the backlash was inescapable.

The BBC spoke to Stanford graduates shortly after Pichai finished his address and they expressed a wide range of views on AI. Some are scared. Some are excited. But nearly everyone agrees that AI is already changing the world around them, whether they like it or not.

Ifdita Hasan is among the hopeful. And she knows a thing or two about the technology - it's her degree subject.

"I feel optimistic about AI," said the graduating computer science and AI major. "I think AI gives us the opportunity to learn more about the universe. It's a tool that people should try to use and try to adapt to."

But, she added, she's not surprised by the backlash, noting that early pessimism is common with emerging technologies.

"This is what happens. It happened with the internet," she said. "But I would encourage people to be optimistic about AI - to try to learn and explore more."

Some Stanford graduates are less sanguine about AI's arrival. They are, after all, entering the corporate world just as AI is transforming it.

What frightens Atash Heil is the uncertainty of what an AI-dominated future might look like - and the speed of the transformation graduates have witnessed during their college years.

"It's already had such a big impact in such a small time," Heil added.

Heil said he had just visited an exhibit featuring art made by artificial intelligence - an experience which he described as jarring.

"I thought it was scary, especially on my graduation day, to see that. The future is… that? I want art to be made by humans. That's what makes it art, right?" said the major in Earth Systems, which focuses on environmental science and policy.

Heil was one of several graduates who expressed concern about the approach many AI companies have taken towards developing the technology.

"It has to be done ethically, and it's not being done ethically these days," said Heil, as he waited for the ceremony to begin.

AI is also threatening some students' future prospects.

Analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found recent college graduates are struggling to find work.

And employment for early-career workers in the US has substantially fallen in fields considered most exposed to AI, according to a Stanford study published in November.

These include software development. Unsubstantiated rumours have swirled on social media claiming that students in Stanford's coveted computer science programme have had trouble finding jobs.

Stanford told the BBC it did not have statistics to share about the job placement rate for students. But most graduates interviewed by the BBC either had a job lined up or planned to continue their studies.

When most of them entered Stanford as undergraduates in 2021, AI chatbots were still a year away from being a reality for most Americans. The arrival of OpenAI's ChatGPT changed everything, for better or worse.

Students expressed concern about the rise of so-called "cognitive offloading," the practice of relying on AI to carry out problem solving and other mental tasks.

"I think it's really impacted how people are learning," said Lucy Zimmerman, a computer science major who served as a teaching assistant.

She's noticed a difference between the take-home work people turned in - often with the aid of AI, she suspects - and their exam results.

Some classes have started reintroducing proctoring - the supervision of candidates during an examination - and spoken-word tests to avoid cheating, she said.

"I'm worried about future generations," said Zimmerman, before adding "and for my generation".

Despite these misgivings, she's looking forward to working as a software engineer at a tech startup in nearby San Francisco.

"I'm right in the thick of it."

Stanford is not just any school.

The university opened in 1891, long before the stretch of peninsula where the campus is located became known as "Silicon Valley". Although it is not a part of the Ivy League, it is considered by many to be on par with schools like Harvard University, founded in 1636, or Columbia University, founded in 1754.

In the latter half of the 20th Century, the school's prominent leaders and researchers helped develop the area into the tech hub that it is known as today.

The headquarters of Google, Meta, and Apple are all located within a 25km (15-mile) radius of the university.

Stanford has laid claim to innovations ranging from computer time-sharing to the synthesis of biologically active DNA.

It's home to the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory where the first website in North America went online in 1991.

Alums include Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google, which began as a research project while both were PhD students at the university. Brin could be spotted strolling around the campus in track pants years after he started the search giant here.

Over many decades, researchers at Stanford have played a pioneering role in the development of AI. The term "artificial intelligence" was coined here by computer scientist John McCarthy, according to the university.

Several members of the present-day AI illuminati have ties to the university. Renowned computer scientist Fei-Fei Li, known as the "Godmother of AI," serves as a professor here. OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman dropped out of Stanford in 2005.

A four-year undergraduate degree from Stanford can run to almost $400,000 when expenses are included. But for students who land a seat here, it can be a golden ticket to a successful career in tech.

There was a time when lecturers with day jobs at nearby tech companies would reportedly include offer letters beneath graded exams as they returned them to those who showed the most potential.

While that practice appears to have been phased out, Stanford's reputation as a hunting ground for the next generation of tech talent remains intact, with prominent industry leaders - alums and otherwise - regularly appearing on campus.

The university's reputation is a draw for tens of thousands of applicants each year – less than 4% of whom are admitted.

"Stanford is the centre of ingenuity in the entire country and in the world," said Harry Kaplan, a graduate in the Management Science and Engineering programme. "A lot of knowledge, research and innovation comes from here. And it's a proud legacy for all of us to be a part of."

Kaplan said the impact that artificial intelligence would have on his future remained unclear.

"It's too early to tell," he said, clutching an inflatable palm tree as students prepared for the Stanford graduation tradition known as the "Wacky Walk".

"It's an exciting place to be. It feels like we're at the edge of something," Kaplan added.

Psychology major Colbey Harlan sees it as a helpful tool. He has used it for creative writing, and said it helped him get projects started despite his ADHD. But like many of his generation, he worries about the societal impacts.

"I'm not a fan of how it's destroying the environment. Data centres are taking a lot of resources, a lot of energy," Harlan said. "I'm kind of at a point where it's like – 'Okay, AI is cool, but can we just stop progressing it?' because if we continue, things are going to get out of control."

When Google CEO Sundar Pichai - who got his master's degree at Stanford - took the stage last weekend, he made only a passing reference to AI.

"People have been giving me a lot of advice on what to say. Actually, it's been the same advice – and it's about what not to say," he said early in his remarks. "People thought it would be really difficult for me; it is the last two letters of my last name, after all."

But his words were partially drowned out amid "free Palestine" and other chants by a group of at least 200 students who stood up and walked out of Stanford Stadium as Pichai took the podium.

Some carried signs critical of Google's so-called Nimbus contract to provide artificial intelligence tools to the Israeli military.

"ICE Spies With Google AI" was written on another sign carried by a protesting graduate, in a reference to the company's ties to the Trump administration's at times violent and deadly crackdown on immigration.

Pichai walked in silence when the BBC asked him for a response to the walkout following the graduation.

"His presence represents what this political climate is empowering, and who is benefiting from the AI race," said one graduate who walked out but asked not to be identified. "We cannot relate to him at all."

Some students who walked out headed to another location on campus to participate in an alternative ceremony attended by pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil.

Khalil was a key figure in the 2024 Gaza war protests at Columbia University, from which he has graduated. He drew global attention after ICE agents tried to deport him despite his status as a legal permanent resident.

Stanford students also staged protests at the university's graduation ceremonies in 2024 and 2025.

While scepticism abounds among this generation of students, some believe AI may be able to solve some of the very problems it's exacerbating.

Atash Heil, the Earth Systems major, plans to move to New Orleans to work on climate resilience. He believes AI can actually help with that mission.

"I think AI can be useful in training models – like, for example, climate models that predict how the climate will change," Heil said.

Heil said he felt privileged to have grown up without AI because he was able to "actually use my brain". But he is bracing for a future that will be heavily defined by it.

"I'm young," Heil said. "It's going to take up most of my lifetime."

Video by Katy Bailes, photographs by Seeger Gray and design by Jez Frazer

Ex-Trump adviser John Bolton pleads guilty to mishandling classified documents

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxqwg4nrvlo, yesterday

John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Donald Trump, has pleaded guilty to mishandling classified security information as part of notes he compiled for a book.

Bolton, now a prominent critic of the US president, was indicted on 18 counts related to improper handling of classified material, and initially pleaded not guilty.

On Friday, he admitted to a single charge of illegal retention of classified information. The documents he retained included diary entries containing national defence information, some of it classified at the top secret level.

Bolton faces a prison sentence of up to five years and has agreed to pay $2.25m (£1.7m) in fines, prosecutors said.

Bolton will also debrief national security officials on the classified information he illegally retained as well as perform 100 hours of community service, the BBC's US partner CBS News reported.

After the judge read the allegations against Bolton in court on Friday, including about sending diary entries with sensitive information to his family members, Bolton said the accusations were accurate.

"I did your honor," Bolton said about whether he committed the actions at hand today. He added he was "sorry for it."

He is set to be sentenced on 28 October, US media report.

Trump posted on Truth Social saying: "Hopefully, he will be dealt with harshly."

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, US Attorney Kelly Hayes said Bolton knew how to handle classified information and with whom he could share it.

"He also knew the damage to national security that could be caused by mishandling that sensitive information," she said. "Nevertheless, as Mr Bolton just admitted, he put our national security at grave risk in violation of the law."

In a statement, Bolton's lawyer Abbe Lowell said his client did "what real leaders do".

"He took responsibility for a mistake he made, thereby saving the government resources to pursue a case that could expose additional sensitive information," Lowell said. "By contrast, President Trump thumbed his nose at the classified information laws, took actual classified documents to his Florida mansion, interfered with the investigation of that conduct, and has never accepted any accountability for his conduct."

Trump was charged in 2023 with illegally retaining classified defence information, but the case was later dismissed after he was re-elected.

Bolton was fired from Trump's first administration in 2019. His 2020 memoir, The Room Where It Happened, recounted his time working under Trump, portraying him as a president who was ill-informed about geopolitics.

The White House filed a lawsuit to block publication of the book, arguing that it contained classified information and had not been properly vetted. A judge denied the request and the book was released days later.

The US Department of Justice then opened an investigation into whether Bolton had mishandled classified information by disclosing parts of it in the book.

He was also accused of transmitting some of the classified materials from his time as national security adviser to two relatives.

Bolton has continued to be critical of the president in the time since. Trump, in return, has suggested that Bolton should go to jail and called him a "sleazebag".

The indictment said that at one point a hacker gained access to Bolton's account, where documents were stored and sent an apparent threat to cause "the biggest scandal since Hillary [Clinton]'s emails were leaked".

Bolton's indictment came on the heels of other high-profile criminal cases brought against Trump critics, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

But former federal prosecutors and other legal experts told the BBC that Bolton's case stood apart from prosecution of other Trump critics due to the evidence gathered by prosecutors.

"The ambassador has admitted to what he has done," one of the people familiar with Bolton's plea deal told the BBC.

Bolton also understood that if he continued to fight the case, "other classified information might have been released in his defence" and he did not want to "damage" the United States, the person said.

The decision to charge such a high-ranking official for mishandling classified documents is "rare" but not unprecedented, said Carrie Cordero, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

"Cases that involve classified information present challenges to prosecute, but they can and are brought against both low-level and high-level officials, from time to time," she said.

Before joining the Trump administration, Bolton served as George W Bush's UN ambassador. He was also among the former officials critical of Trump who had their Secret Service protection stripped in January.

Kayla Epstein and Ana Faguy contributed to this report

Pete Buttigieg briefly separated from children after false police report

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwydx95kjx0o, yesterday

Pete Buttigieg, the former US transportation secretary, has revealed he was forced to spend a night away from his children because of an anonymous allegation against him, which police say they later determined to be false.

Michigan State Police found no evidence to substantiate the claim and believed it was politically motivated, the Democrat said.

After receiving an anonymous report that he posed a danger to his children, the police arranged forensic interviews for his four-year-old twins and notified him that he could not be alone with the children until interviews were conducted, he said.

Michigan State Police told the BBC the anonymous allegation against Buttigieg was false.

Buttigieg, who mounted an unsuccessful presidential bid in 2020 and is widely touted as a 2028 White House contender, wrote in a post on Substack that it was "among the darkest hours of my life".

In the post, he said the latest incident occurred shortly after he shared photos of his family on social media for Father's Day.

"I cannot describe the mix of rage and sadness that I feel at the idea that someone brought our children into this," he added.

"They are four years old. Four. They do not know or care what a Democrat or a Republican is."

Buttigieg said he worried about the "unseen effects" of the ordeal on him, his husband, Chasten, and their children.

He described the false allegation as the Child Protective Services (CPS) equivalent of Swatting, in which hoax callers dispatch armed police to homes.

Buttigieg said he was told an anonymous caller had contacted CPS.

"The caller said that he had spoken to a woman who claimed to have met me at a conference several years ago in Alabama, where she said I told her that I had committed unspeakable violent crimes, and the caller believed my children were still at risk," he said.

He said the officer who responded to his home "made clear that he believed this was politically motivated" and that it would not be referred to a prosecutor.

"Their time and resources were wasted in a cruel, politically motivated hoax that harmed our family," Buttigieg wrote.

Michigan State Police told the BBC: "This week, the Michigan State Police received an anonymous report.

"The Michigan State Police and Child Protective Services responded and determined the report was false."

Their statement described such false reports as "dangerous" and that they divert "workers from responding to legitimate emergencies and protecting vulnerable children and families".

Buttigieg has been the target of LGTBQ attacks in the past, and noted that it was not lost on him that the latest incident took place during Pride Month.

"We're used to nasty, hateful, and sometimes violent things being said about us and even about our family," he wrote. "But this is the first time someone managed to invade our lives like this - and drag our children into it."

Buttigieg and his husband became first-time parents in 2021 when they adopted fraternal twins Joseph August and Penelope Rose.

Judge declares mistrial in case against man accused of sparking deadly California fire

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2w0k5zzryo, yesterday

A judge has declared a mistrial in the case of a man accused of starting the deadliest wildfire in Los Angeles history.

Jonathan Rinderknecht, 30, is accused of deliberately igniting a blaze in January 2025 that grew into the Pacific Palisades fire, killing 12 people and destroying more than 6,000 buildings.

Jurors told the court on Thursday that they were unable to reach a unanimous decision in the case after two days of deliberations, prompting the judge to declare a mistrial.

Prosecutors said they intended to retry the case.

On Friday, one of the attorneys for Rinderknecht said the mistrial was a "pretty resounding indication of what the jury felt about this case" and that they were not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, US media reported.

Rinderknecht, who once lived in the affluent coastal community, was arrested in October and pleaded not guilty to the charges. He faced up to 45 years in prison if convicted.

"The evidence is strong that Jonathan Rinderknecht is responsible for igniting the fire on January 1, 2025, which eventually became the Palisades fire," US attorney Bill Essayli said in a post on social media after the mistrial.

Prosecutors accused Rinderknecht of lighting a small brush fire on New Year's Eve 2025, which became known as the Lachman fire.

The fire was one of several that ignited back-to-back across the LA region in January, which in total left 31 people dead and destroyed 16,000 structures.

Fire officials believed they had extinguished the Lachman fire, but it smouldered underground for six days before extreme Santa Ana Winds rekindled its embers near a hiking trail that overlooks the wealthy coastal neighbourhood.

Rinderknecht - a dual French and US citizen and former Uber driver - was charged with destruction of property by means of fire, arson affecting property used in interstate commerce, and timber set afire.

Prosecutors argued that Rinderknecht was driven by revenge, anger and loneliness because he had nowhere to go for the holiday.

They cited geolocation data from his iPhone, security camera footage that showed his car's location and witness testimony from passengers.

Evidence allegedly recovered from Rinderknecht's digital devices included an image generated using ChatGPT depicting a city on fire.

Prosecutors argued the accused used ChatGPT like a diary, chronicling his fascination with fire before travelling to the area and lighting the blaze.

They alleged that Rinderknecht had a "deeply entrenched belief that the wealthy were destroying the world" and in turn purposely started the blaze in the affluent neighbourhood.

Defence attorney Steve Haney argued that Rinderknecht did not start the blaze and had reported the fire to authorities when he saw it break out.

DR Congo takes Rwanda to international court over decades of conflict

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8724zn3491o, yesterday

The Democratic Republic of Congo has filed a case against Rwanda at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing its neighbour of breaching multiple international treaties.

In a statement, DR Congo said Rwanda had dispatched forces and backed armed groups to carry out unlawful military operations on its territory following the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

On Friday, Congolese Justice Minister Guillaume Andali said his country is seeking accountability for alleged breaches of conventions covering genocide prevention, racial discrimination, women's rights and torture.

Rwanda has not yet responded to DR Congo's filing, but it has long-dismissed evidence that it backs rebel groups in the country.

UN experts and Western governments are among various parties who say Rwanda is supporting the M23, a major armed group in DR Congo's east.

The country's application asks the ICJ, based in the Netherlands, to order Rwanda to cease its alleged crimes and award reparations to the Congolese authorities and its victims.

The ICJ will now examine the claims.

This is not the first time DR Congo has filed a case against Rwanda at the ICJ.

An initial case was dropped by the Congolese authorities in 2001. In 2006 the ICJ dismissed a second case, saying it could not proceed because Rwanda had not recognised its jurisdiction.

The decades-long conflict in DR Congo is rooted in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

About 800,000 people – mostly from the Tutsi community - were slaughtered by ethnic Hutu extremists.

Fearing reprisals, an estimated one million Hutus then fled across the border to what is now DR Congo. This stoked ethnic tensions as a marginalised Tutsi group in the east – the Banyamulenge – felt increasingly under threat.

Rwanda's army twice invaded DR Congo, saying it was going after some of those responsible for the genocide, and worked with members of the Banyamulenge and other armed groups.

One of the Hutu groups, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which includes some of those responsible for the Rwandan genocide, is still active in eastern DR Congo.

Rwanda describes the FDLR as a "genocidal militia" and says its continued existence in eastern DR Congo threatens its own territory.

Rwanda accuses the Congolese authorities of working with the FDLR - DR Congo denies this.

The conflict flared last January, when the M23 captured large parts of the mineral-rich east, including the regional capital Goma.

The fighting has continued despite Rwanda and DR Congo signing a peace deal, spearheaded by the US, in December.

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

Burkina Faso severs diplomatic ties with France

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7vymlgl5vgo, today

Burkina Faso's military junta has broken off diplomatic ties with France, accusing Paris of persistently acting against its national interests.

Relations between Burkina Faso and its former colonial ruler worsened after Capt Ibrahim Traore seized power in a coup in 2022 and pursued largely anti-Western policies.

In a televised statement on Friday, communications minister Pingdwendé Gilbert Ouédraogo said France was guilty of "ceaseless activism" against his country and accused it of "neo-colonial ambitions".

The French foreign ministry called the decision "hostile and unfounded" and said it "illustrated the troubling drift by the Burkinabe government".

France also urged nationals in the country "to exercise heightened vigilance".

Burkina Faso, like its neighbour Mali, has been battling an Islamist insurgency for over a decade, often alongside French forces deployed in the region.

Soon after he took power, Capt Traoré expelled French troops. His government has accused France of having a "secret agenda" and pivoted towards China and Russia.

The latest Burkinabe statement says conditions for mutual respect no longer exist between the two countries. It alleges French support for "subversive networks and an intent to marginalise" Burkina Faso on the international stage.

The statement adds that the decision to sever ties "concerns exclusively the institutional framework of relations" but "in no way calls into question the historical, human, cultural and social ties that unite the Burkinabe and French peoples".

The junta pledged to restore democracy in 2024, but reneged on this promise and formally dissolved political parties in January this year.

In January 2025, Burkina Faso, along with two neighbouring military-led states – Mali and Niger, officially broke away from the regional West African bloc, Ecowas, to form a new group, The Alliance of the Sahel States.

France has had no ambassador in Burkina Faso since January 2023.

In 2024, the country expelled three French diplomats, accusing them of "subersive activities". France denied the claims.

Twins marry twins in joyous Nigerian joint wedding

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvglvkxwxj8o, 6 days ago

When guests gathered at a church in the south-west Nigerian city of Ibadan at the weekend, they knew they were witnessing something rare.

A pair of twin brothers - Taiwo and Kehinde Oguntoye - were marrying twin sisters Taiwo and Kehinde Adediran in a joyous joint ceremony.

The Yoruba people, who predominate in south-west Nigeria, are known for having an unusually high number of twin births, but it is not every day two sets of twins tie the knot.

"We know many twins, but this marriage feels like it was arranged by God. We have always dreamed of marrying twins," Taiwo Oguntoye told BBC Yoruba on his wedding day.

"With God's grace, we pray for twins in our first and second children. That is our heart's desire."

Twins are considered a blessing in Yoruba culture and their names are predestined. The older child is called Taiwo, meaning "the one that tests the world", while the younger is called Kehinde, meaning "the one that came after".

The Oguntoye-Adediran love story began a decade ago, when all four were studying at the University of Ibadan.

A lecturer told the Oguntoyes that she knew a set of twin sisters they should meet, which piqued the brothers' interest.

"It's not that we haven't met other twin sisters before. We did date some, but sometimes things just didn't work out," Taiwo Oguntoye said.

The Adedirans initially resisted an introduction and did not answer the lecturer's phone calls. Then, eventually, a meeting was set up.

Taiwo Oguntoye, now in his early 40s, remembers: "We eventually visited them, we had a talk but they were not interested in a relationship then."

Instead, the foursome became friends. Life took them in different directions, however.

The sisters, who had been studying for master's degrees in Ibadan, moved abroad for further studies, while the brothers travelled and worked in several countries, including the United States and South Africa.

Years passed before the brothers reached out again.

Over time, despite some initial scepticism, their connections became undeniable.

The couples' families were thrilled by the relationships - Taiwo Oguntoye recalls bonding with his in-laws instantly.

"Everyone was so happy to see us, it felt like we had known them all our lives," he said. "We were treated like sons in our own father's house."

Proud relatives showed up in style to the wedding, where the couples co-ordinated their outfits.

Several other pairs of twins were in attendance - perhaps unsurprising as the grooms are well known locally for promoting twin culture. Known as the Oguntoye Twins, the brothers are active in culture and tourism initiatives.

The Oguntoyes have some physical differences, being fraternal twins, but their wives are identical.

"Our wives look so alike that even their family members sometimes confuse them. We don't mix them up, we know our own wives very well," Kehinde Oguntoye said.

The brothers say they share similar personalities to their wives, describing themselves as ambiverts - sometimes quiet, sometimes outgoing, depending on the situation.

Although they are very close, the married couples will live apart, Taiwo Oguntoye said.

"We have our unique plan about that, over time people will get to know about that."

For now, the newlyweds are enjoying a new chapter of their love story, which began with a near-perfect meeting, but was paused for years, before eventually blooming into two of the area's most talked-about unions.

Additional reporting by BBC Yoruba's John Alabi

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

'I buried my parents one day after the other' - Ebola mourners learn how to grieve safely

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj3gx8jl6d5o, 10 days ago

Nyamurongo cemetery in Bunia, a city in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that is the epicentre of the current Ebola outbreak, is much busier than usual.

"Today is the sixth time I have come to the cemetery," says Joel Lonza Makumbu as he explains how the virus has devastated his family and community.

"Yesterday I buried my father. Today I have come to say goodbye to my mother."

As he fills the grave with soil, he says he has also lost three sisters and a brother-in-law to Ebola.

"I want to say for all people [to hear] that Ebola is true."

It is a message he is desperate to communicate as the authorities try to tackle misinformation around the disease which has so far killed almost 200 people in the last few months, mainly in the province of Ituri of which Bunia is the capital.

The current outbreak has been caused by a rare species of Ebola known as Bundibugyo, which kills about a quarter of those infected.

Ebola is transmitted through contact with infected bodily fluids, including blood, urine, vomit, semen and breast milk. Stringent protocols have to be followed to stop it spreading - and safe burials are vital.

One of several gravediggers hard at work at the cemetery tells me that 15 families were currently attending burials - but there is none of the usual crowds, ceremony, singing and other rituals.

One traditional practice that is now strongly discouraged is the washing of dead bodies by family members before burial.

It is a tricky and sensitive job to get grieving families to understand why these changes need to be made.

Julienne Anoko, an anthropologist with the UN's World Health Organization (WHO), says mourners would usually dress a dead body in smart clothes while funeral rites could last several days.

She explains that most communities in Ituri believe a dead person needs to look their best as they are "travelling from one world to the other world - to the world of the ancestors".

"Women are dressed in a wedding dress with make-up… They sing, they celebrate that person, because it's a journey, it's not the end of the life," she tells the BBC.

But in the case of someone who has died of Ebola, they must immediately be put in a leak-proof body bag for burial.

Maria Munoz-Bertrand, public health emergency co-ordinator for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC), says efforts are being made to accommodate the needs of families.

In Ituri this means that coffins are used - with the body bag placed inside. The coffin has a few transparent panels on the side to allow mourners to be able to see inside.

Another change has been to body bags, which now have clear film at the top so the face inside can be seen.

"We need to be very close to the communities and engage with them very closely and make sure that they understand what's going on, they're informed and they consent," says Munoz-Bertrand.

"If the family asks for something special to be included in the procedure, as long as it respects the infection prevention and control measures, and it doesn't put anyone at risk, we will try to accommodate the wishes of the family as much as possible, because we understand that it's a very difficult time for families.

"We want to be as supportive as possible, while at the same time protecting them, the community, and our volunteers."

I joined a team of IFRC volunteers as they went to an Ebola treatment centre at a hospital in Bunia to pick up a body for burial.

Family members sat by the roadside waiting to accompany their deceased kin to the cemetery.

One of the groups included a weeping mother who had lost her child.

A tent just outside the treatment centre acts as a temporary morgue or transit zone where we see health workers in full personal protective equipment (PPE) take a body bag and place and seal it inside a coffin.

They go back to the hospital, their path disinfected as they retreat. Then the IFRC team, made up of six people also in full protective gear, goes inside the tent from the opposite side to pick up the body and take it to a truck.

It contains the body of a 34-year-old mother of four, whose father and brother-in-law quietly observe the process from a distance.

"This is a big blow for us," says her father Simone Nyal.

"She was ill for just one week before she succumbed. She has left us her four children - I don't know how we will cope."

At the cemetery her mother and sister wait by the newly dug grave. In under 10 minutes, the burial is complete. The volunteers decontaminate once again before departing, leaving three gravediggers to cover it with soil.

Anoko, the WHO anthropologist, says it takes patience to help a community at a time like this. Her team listens, condoles with the families and tries to humanise the situation.

"We negotiate to make the family accept the unacceptable. Sometimes it may take three days, but we negotiate, and I use the knowledge of their culture," she says.

The most challenging scenario, she tells me, has been negotiating the burial of pregnant women.

The community believes that a pregnant woman should not be buried with the foetus inside her - needing to "travel light" into the afterlife.

This means the foetus is often removed and either buried separately or in the same grave as the mother, she says.

But that would involve interaction with a lot of fluids, the very agent of transmission of Ebola, so Anoko reminds them how ancestors in their culture have foresight.

"I explain to them very clearly that our ancestors have already planned something to repair this type of thing," she says.

Anoko, who has worked through several Ebola outbreaks in DR Congo and West Africa, has been welcomed back by many families as a result of the bond she has built during their most vulnerable moments.

She has managed to bridge the gap between communities and healthcare workers - between science and culture.

But there is still a long way to go for all those involved in the current crisis.

Back at Nyamurongo cemetery, as Joel Lonza Makumbu finishes covering his mother's grave, he tells me he fears he may yet return for a seventh time.

"I have relatives who are in the treatment centres - two sisters in Rwampara and a cousin and another sister [at a different facility].

"I don't know if it will continue like that and I don't know the future. But I want everybody to know that Ebola is real."

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

'They came with machetes' - deadline looms for migrants to leave South Africa

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg740l2jpr0o, 11 days ago

South Africa has become a hostile place for undocumented migrants, as a deadline set by protesters for them to leave the country approaches.

"I am very scared and traumatised," Esnat Joseph, a 36-year-old Malawian woman, told the BBC as she tried to comfort her crying one-year-old triplets.

She fled her home in an informal settlement in the port city of Durban, in KwaZulu-Natal province, seeking refuge in an open field where up to 7,000 foreigners - mainly Malawians - began gathering with their belongings two weeks ago.

"The people came to my house and told me: 'You must leave. We don't want you people to stay here any longer, so you have to go to your country.' There were 10 and they were carrying weapons," she said, describing how the group of South African men were holding machetes and whips.

"They cut my husband on his head and his neck. They were holding his neck like they wanted to kill him. Because of God he still survived, but he's in the hospital."

Many others at the field, where aid groups have been giving out blankets and food, report such door-to-door intimidation.

It follows a series of mainly peaceful protests this year led by the anti-migrant group March and March, opposition party ActionSA and others which have set 30 June as the deadline for undocumented migrants to leave.

Sticks in hand, the marchers have been chanting "Mabahambe" - a Zulu phrase meaning "They must go".

As the countdown continues, President Cyril Ramaphosa warned South Africans on Tuesday that the "scapegoating of vulnerable people" was not the solution to country's complex economic challenges.

Joseph came to South Africa three years ago and was working as a domestic servant before having her children.

Her legal status is not clear - she says she lost her passport and other paperwork in a robbery. She aims to go back to Malawi on one of the buses the Malawian consulate has been arranging with the help of donations for its desperate citizens to leave Durban.

Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria and Zimbabwe have also been organising repatriations by air or bus over the last few weeks - with about 3,500 foreigners volunteering to leave so far.

The South African authorities said the more than 500 Nigerians recently repatriated had been in the country illegally, although this was disputed by the Nigerian authorities.

Arriving in Lagos last week after nearly nine years in South Africa, Benjamin, a returnee who only gave his first name, told the BBC: "South Africans don't like foreigners, especially Nigerians. South Africa is not a place to be - it's a place you can lose your life at any time."

Protest organisers deny their actions are xenophobic. They say they are sick of other Africans abusing the system and, as March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma put it, "playing the victim card".

"If you come into South Africa with a passport that allows you to stay for 30 days. When it's 50 days, when it's two years, when it's five years, you know you're breaking the law," she told the BBC at one protest in Durban.

"We can't have South Africa being turned into a refugee site for all failed African states… every country prioritises its citizens and we want the South African government to do the same."

Latest figures show South Africa is home to more than three million foreigners, about 5% of the population - most from neighbouring countries in southern Africa.

But the statistics do not record the many more migrants believed to be in the country without papers - a bone of contention for the protesters.

Their anger is rooted in growing hardship as the country grapples with growing youth unemployment and economic inequality.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the world at 32.7%, according to Statistics South Africa, which recorded 350,000 job losses in the first quarter of 2026 - the majority of whom are young people.

However, the continent's most-developed economy remains a magnet for citizens of poorer countries who risk their lives to go there to seek work such as security guards and domestic servants.

Protesters, like Mecha Ramorola, also point to the country's strained public services with South African "people fighting for scarce resources".

"We are struggling to get our children into schools. We are struggling to get our old people into hospitals," Ramorola told the BBC during a march in the capital, Pretoria.

But there are fears these protests could lead to a repeat of the violence that broke out in 2008, when 62 people, including 21 South Africans, were killed in riots that forced thousands from their homes. There were also outbreaks of xenophobic violence in 2015, 2016 and 2019.

Last month the Mozambique government said five of its citizens had been killed in xenophobic attacks in Western Cape province. South Africa's foreign minister disputed this, saying two Mozambicans had died and that the circumstances of their deaths were being investigated.

Videos on social media are fuelling the hostility towards foreigners.

In one, a Ghanaian man is harassed by protesters telling him to go home, which prompted Ghana to summon South Africa's ambassador to demand better protection for foreign nationals.

Another widely shared one shows prominent protester Nkosikhona Ndabandaba, popularly known as Phakel'umthakathi and who has 1.4 million followers on Facebook, approaching a man standing by the roadside and asking him his nationality.

When he replies that he is Congolese, Ndabandaba - wearing his trademark Zulu headdress - tells him in a polite tone but without inquiring about his legal status: "30 June is the deadline, but it's not that you have to leave on 30 June. Leave now."

But foreigners living in the country legally say they are also being targeted - some are camping outside Durban's Home Affairs office for protection.

"I have my own document that recognises my refugee status in South Africa, but all of us are still being chased away," a Burundian woman, who was there with her four children, told the BBC.

"I am very afraid for my life. The children are afraid. There is no respect. When you pass by here, you are insulted. The children are insulted even at school," she said as she wrapped herself in a blanket to shelter from the cold of the southern hemisphere winter.

Just going to the shops can be intimidating these days, a Malawian beauty therapist in Cape Town, who has lived in South Africa for 16 years without legal status, told the BBC.

She, her husband and their nine-year-old daughter had a scary incident in a taxi on the way to a shopping centre: "We were in an Uber, just the three of us, and we were being asked by an Uber driver where are your papers? Where are you from? You sound different."

The beauty therapist says she can understand why Ramaphosa recently set out an action plan to deal with illegal migration - but stressed that human beings, legal or not, had a right to safety.

"My child is not even going to school because we're scared. We're terrified of what would happen now."

In a special national address earlier this month, the president warned that no individual or group had the right to demand proof of nationality from people in public spaces and said government would act against them.

"There is no space for xenophobia, racism, sexism, Afrophobia or any other forms of intolerance in South Africa," he said, explaining his coalition government's five-point strategy to deal with the crisis.

These include refusing asylum claims from people who had travelled through other "safe" countries, the introduction of a quota for the naturalisation of citizens and extending the reach of digital IDs to non-citizens.

There will also be jail terms for employers who give low-paying jobs to undocumented migrants.

"You find an immigrant being employed in jobs that a South African will ordinarily not accept, or that pays less than what the government demands, because one, they're desperate, two, they're open to abuse in being short changed," analyst Prof Shepherd Mpofu told the BBC.

Ramaphosa said efforts would also be made to crack down on corruption within the system.

A 36-year-old Malawian woman in Johannesburg, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, told the BBC that she came to South Africa on a visitor's visa and had been bribing border officials to stamp her passport for a fee every couple of months without crossing the border.

"I have decided to go back home for a while and close down my hair salon because of threats," she said, explaining that she feared for her young children's safety.

The latest spike in protests comes as political parties seek support ahead of local government elections in November.

Some unscrupulous politicians have been using misinformation to fuel fear and anger over illegal migration - sharing old videos and confusing the narrative.

A debunked claim that South Africa has 15 million undocumented migrants, first popularised five years ago by ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba, who is campaigning to become mayor of Johannesburg, keeps resurfacing.

"Political parties are scraping the bottom of the barrel in trying to lie to people that all our problems are the migrants, and if we get rid of the migrants, then we'll have no problems in South Africa," says Sharon Ekambaram, a human rights lawyer and member of the Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia movement.

"This has been an ongoing phenomenon in South Africa and more recently, it has been associated with elections."

The government keeps pushing back - its ministerial task team on migration saying this week that 40,000 illegal immigrants have been arrested so far this year for contravening the Immigration Act.

The public face of this - known as Operation New Broom - can be seen in downtown Johannesburg where for the last few months excavators have been demolishing informal corrugated iron shops set up on pavements.

Officials see the areas as possible "hot spots" for criminals and illegal migrants.

On the day I visited, Ethiopian migrants looked on at horror at the destruction - though they had been warned by the authorities.

Such measures as well as the protests are leaving many migrants feeling like the walls are closing in.

uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the country's third largest party led by former President Jacob Zuma and which has a lot of support in KwaZulu-Natal, has not backed the deadline for migrants to leave - but endorses its sentiments.

"We all agree that undocumented migrants are breaking the law… They must leave our country peacefully without any violence or intimidation," MK member Bonginkosi Khanyile told the BBC.

Nonetheless there is a tangible fear nationwide given the ominous warning from Ndabandaba, one of the main protesters.

"On 30 June I can't control the people of South Africa," he said.

Lines of vehicles are reportedly backed up at Mozambique's border post with foreigners anxious to leave.

Back at the field in Durban, terrified Malawians - most, according to officials, without papers - cannot wait to get out.

When the first bus arrived to evacuate some of them on Sunday, the crowds chanted in Zulu "Siyahamba", meaning "We're leaving".

Additional reporting by Thuthuka Zondi

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Recovery of Ebola patients offers rare moments of joy at epicentre of outbreak

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3xyvww1lqo, 13 days ago

It is strange to witness singing and dancing in a place which has seen so much death but the successful treatment of an Ebola patient is cause for celebration at a hospital in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Just after midday on Friday, about a dozen healthcare workers in green scrubs sang songs of praise – "grace has been shown to us; grace has been shown to patients" - as they escorted Daniel Kitambala out of the clinic.

Two negative Ebola tests confirmed he was free of the virus after spending about three weeks at the facility.

"That disease is terrible. I was feeling very ill [when I came here]. But God is great, I am well now," Kitambala, a devout Christian, told the BBC as the medics continued to cheer.

The 49-year-old, dressed in a black T-shirt and trousers and carrying a black polythene bag with his sterilised belongings, was beaming with joy and relief as he walked between the two lines of orange netting that mark out the path out of the treatment centre.

More than 140 people are confirmed to have died from the rare Bundibugyo species of the disease here in Ituri province, the epicentre of the latest outbreak that was first declared just over a month ago.

But this virus, which has killed around one in five of those known to have been infected, could have been spreading undetected for months. The authorities are now battling to get infections under control.

That struggle is in part about overcoming local myths, including that the disease is the result of something known here as the "coffin curse" and that treatment centres are the problem rather than the solution.

But it is possible to survive the virus and the celebrations at the Ebola treatment centre in Mongbwalu were a sign of that.

"See… I recovered," the subsistence farmer said as he raised his hands in the air three times in a victory salute and in praise of God.

"People should seek treatment when they fall ill," he said as he turned to thank the healthcare workers behind him who were clapping.

Reflecting on how he became infected, Kitambala said he went to see someone in his community who was unwell and pray for him. Shortly afterwards, he fell ill himself.

The virus spreads from one person to another by contact with infected bodily fluids such as blood or vomit.

When Kitambala first became sick, like many people in DR Congo, he initially tried traditional medicine. But when his condition deteriorated, he went to hospital.

"We have seen a huge difference in the community since the first patient recovered and returned home," said Dr Richard Lukodu, Mongbwalu hospital's medical director.

"More people are coming here now seeking treatment."

Fifty-five-year-old pastor Deogratias Kasereka became the first Ebola patient to leave the centre a week ago.

Dr Lukodu is optimistic that the recoveries will help build trust in the healthcare system as his hospital has been a target of violence connected to misinformation.

On 21 May, a tent set up to treat Ebola patients in the hospital's grounds was set on fire.

Myths about what medics were doing had been circulating since February - three months before the Ebola outbreak was confirmed - when people started dying in noticeable numbers from an unusual illness.

"The people here had been misled to believe that Ebola ended during previous outbreaks after they burned down the treatment centres," Lukodu said.

During the 2018-2020 outbreak in neighbouring North Kivu province, Ebola treatment centres were attacked and set ablaze multiple times.

This is just one of several rumours circulating in the community since people started dying from this disease, said Mongbwalu's mayor, Sesereki Mandro Israel.

Seated inside his blue office in the heart of the town, which has no paved roads, he explained that an incident in early February appeared to have triggered a large number of infections.

"There was a time a family was bringing a body from Bunia for burial here," the mayor said, referring to the provincial capital some two-and-a-half hours away by road.

"But the coffin broke on the way here. The man was buried and the broken coffin burnt."

That led to what became known as "the coffin curse" in the community. The deaths were blamed on the act of burning the coffin.

"The situation was bad. Many people died," he says. "People were dying daily - seven, eight or even 10 people every day."

But things are now changing gradually, he says.

Initial tests on those suspected to have the virus were negative as medical investigators were looking for other more common species of Ebola rather than Bundibugyo.

"We called community leaders to explain the symptoms and encouraged them to refer people with signs of the illness to the treatment centres."

A fortnight ago, the hospital in Mongbwalu got a laboratory and can now return results within a day. Until then, it took more than a week to get results from the nearest testing laboratory in Bunia.

Medics are among those most at risk of infection in every Ebola outbreak and this one is no exception.

"Five health workers have died here and several more who are infected, they are admitted here," said Lukodu.

But improved practices to prevent infection had been put in place since the outbreak was declared, reducing the risk of infection, he added.

There is a similar situation in Rwampara, a second town at the heart of this outbreak.

A treatment centre here was set on fire two days after the one in Mongbwalu.

But it has since reopened and late afternoon is visiting time for families to see their loved ones. A wife and her sister are kept waiting as the doctor is checking on the husband. The apprehension is visible.

Inside, things are carefully managed to ensure patients do not interact closely with hospital workers and visitors.

Patients with more severe illness are in their own cubicles and only medical teams in full protective equipment are allowed in. There is an open space that patients can access, but anyone coming to see them is separated by a barrier about two metres wide.

Elsewhere, there are large glass screens and curtains where those being treated can also be seen safely.

"I feel very happy. I'm looking forward to going back home," Mireille Gahindo said, speaking from the other side of the glass after two weeks of being here.

She had taken her 11-month-old child to a local hospital after he got a fever and diarrhoea. He was treated but did not improve after two weeks.

When he started bleeding from the mouth she brought him to the treatment centre and she too then tested positive. Both the mother and child are now improving.

She can't wait to rejoin her two older children - aged five and two-and-a-half - and her husband when she gets discharged.

"If it was any other infection, I would have discharged her," her doctor said. But with Ebola, each patient has to be tested twice for the infection and obtain negative results before being allowed to go home.

At the entrance to the treatment centre, Eli Asimwe Bawere said he had gone to see his older sister and brother.

His stepmother was also admitted here.

"We have already lost our mother and sister-in-law who was married to my brother who is here. We have mourned a lot. We don't want to mourn any more," he told the BBC.

So many people in Ituri seem to know someone who has died from suspected Ebola. Videos and photographs are circulating on social media showing families who have been affected.

Amid all the desperation and death, every recovery of an Ebola patient brings the community and healthcare workers much needed hope that the outbreak can be controlled.

But much still needs to be done. In order to really stop the virus spreading everyone an infected person has been in contact with needs to be traced in order to see if they've been infected.

Health officials have warned that many of these are still being missed and until they are found, any optimism may be short-lived.

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

Tanzania suspends political rallies three years after lifting ban

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2vp83grpdo, yesterday

The Tanzanian government has suspended political rallies across the country until further notice, saying the move is necessary to maintain security in the country.

The government says it has identified security threats, including individuals allegedly found in possession of weapons while planning criminal acts.

The decision has been criticised by opposition groups, which say the suspension is unlawful. Opposition party ACT Wazalendo has said it will challenge the directive in court.

It comes amid reports of planned demonstrations calling for democratic reforms and accountability for the deadly suppression of protests after last year's election.

The suspension marks a reversal of reforms introduced by President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who lifted a six-year ban on political rallies in 2023 after restrictions imposed by her predecessor, John Magufuli.

At the time Samia acknowledged that political parties had the right to hold rallies but urged them to be "civil" and not to "trade insults".

When announcing the current suspension, Home Affairs Minister Patrobas Katambi told parliament: "We should focus on building our economy."

He highlighted an upcoming international trade fair that the country was hosting "where we anticipate receiving guests from various countries".

"During this period, we will not tolerate anyone who engages in any form of disorder."

ACT Wazalendo has accused the governing CCM party of using state institutions to suppress the opposition. CCM has not responded to the allegations or commented on the government's move.

Veteran opposition politician Joseph Selasini, from the Chadema party, said the government's move came as opposition rallies had been drawing big crowds demanding justice for those killed in last year's post-poll violence.

During widespread protests that followed the results of the 29 October election, 518 people died from "unnatural causes", including 197 who were shot dead, a commission of inquiry set up by President Samia to investigate the violence found.

The scale of the violence was shocking for a nation that had cultivated an image of calm, consensus and order for nearly six decades.

The two main opposition presidential candidates were blocked from contesting the 2025 poll.

Magufuli first banned political rallies between elections in 2016 what was widely seen as an attempt to weaken the opposition.

He said they were a waste of time and money, adding that they distracted from the country's key challenge of building the economy.

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

Four men held over child marriage in Sierra Leone appear in landmark court case

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9q212y8p21o, yesterday

For the first time since child marriage was banned in Sierra Leone two years ago, people accused of committing the crime have been brought to trial.

Four men appeared at a High Court on Friday in the capital city, Freetown, charged with the forcible marriage of a 17-year-old girl.

Among the accused are the girl's father and her so-called husband. The BBC is not naming them to protect the child's identity.

All four men pleaded guilty - but because the alleged groom claimed he had obtained consent from the child's mother for the marriage, relying on the outdated customary marriage act, his plea was re-classed by the prosecutor as "not guilty".

If convicted, the defendents will be jailed for at least 15 years or fined around $4,000 (£3,200), or both. Their next hearing is due on 2 July.

Under the new law, even those who attend the wedding of a child can be arrested and jailed.

Sierra Leone is a patriarchal society and it has long been common for a father to give his daughter's hand in marriage forcibly.

Despite the fact that 18 is now the minimum age to wed, many instances of underage girls being forced to marry persist in the country, often officiated by local religious figures.

Prosecutors say this particular marriage happened in Grafton, in the outskirts of the capital city Freetown.

"The charges represent a significant milestone in the enforcement of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2024", Sierra Leone's Attorney General and Minister of Justice Alpha Sesay told the BBC.

He confirmed this was the first time that charges had been brought against anyone for offences related to contracting, consenting to or facilitating child marriage.

"Before 2024 we had conflicting pieces of legislation one of which – the Customary Marriage Act – allowed parents to give their consent if the bride was a minor."

But this changed two years ago when customary law was struck out, he explained, giving "a new regime to indict anyone taking part in the marriage of someone below the age of 18".

The four men in this landmark case are charged with contracting marriage with a child, consenting to child marriage, plus aiding and abetting child marriage.

The bride's father is alleged to have facilitated the marriage between one of the defendants and the child, and allegedly played active roles during the marriage ceremony, "ensuring that the marriage was successfully conducted".

Gender activists have been quick to respond to the unprecedented move. The president of the all-female lawyers' group, Legal Access through Women Yearning for Equality Rights and Social Justice, told the BBC she felt "extremely happy".

Menisa Sesay said it showed the legal reforms for which they had fought so hard were finally being enforced, vindicating their mission to protect the rights of vulnerable women and girls.

As many as 30% of girls in Sierra Leone are married before they turn 18, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch, while in rural areas some of the brides are said to be as young as 14.

Activists had expressed concerns that despite the tough laws, lawbreakers were not being reined in.

"The charges brought against the four… is reassuring that there is light at the end of the tunnel for women and girls in Sierra Leone," Sesay said.

Friday's development comes a day after the regional Ecowas Court of Justice in Abuja, Nigeria, delivered a judgment involving an 11-year-old Sierra Leonean girl which was filed in 2024 by the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa and AdvocAid Limited.

It found that "Sierra Leone failed to take adequate measures to prevent and eliminate child marriage and to effectively protect the minor in the case and other girls from the practice".

The ruling said that child marriage constituted a form of gender-based violence and found that Sierra Leone failed in its obligation to properly investigate the child marriage of the minor.

Additional reporting by Natasha Booty

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US sanctions Rwanda gold refinery accused of smuggling DR Congo's minerals

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9d268xy90xo, yesterday

The US has sanctioned a major gold refinery in Rwanda and two of its executives, accusing them of smuggling minerals from rebel-controlled areas of neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Washington alleged what it described as a "network" was collaborating with the M23 rebel group, which commands tracts of DR Congo that are home to vast reserves of gold and coltan, a metallic ore key to making electronics.

Despite overwhelming evidence from the likes of UN experts, Rwanda has long denied supporting the M23.

The government there has not responded to the US' recent sanctions, but have previously described similar measures against Rwanda as unfair and one-sided.

The sanctions, announced on Thursday, target the Gasabo Gold Refinery, its chairman Jean Malic Kalima and its general manager Bosco Kayobotsi.

In a statement, the US alleged at least 60kg of gold, valued at millions of US dollars, were smuggled from eastern DR Congo to Gasabo Gold in early 2026.

The statement accuses Rwandan government officials and soldiers of overseeing the system.

Last year, Gasabo Gold Refinery was sanctioned by the European Union for "exploiting the armed conflict" in DR Congo.

Three separate mining companies controlled by Kalima - Bugambira Mines, Wolfram Mining and Processing and Rwinkwavu Mining Corporation - were also sanctioned by the US on Thursday.

The sanctioned parties have not responded to the BBC's requests for comment.

Any assets they have under US jurisdiction will be frozen. The sanctions also bar American citizens and companies from dealing with the designated parties.

"The United States will not allow rogue groups to profit from the illicit mineral trade and destabilise the region," Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said.

"The Democratic Republic of the Congo's mineral wealth rightfully belongs to the Congolese people."

The move builds on a peace deal, spearheaded by the US and signed last December by the presidents of Rwanda and DR Congo.

The agreement aims to end the long-running conflict in eastern DR Congo and also create a transparent minerals sector in the region.

Donald Trump's administration also hopes the deal will boost US investment in minerals in the region, some experts believe.

Fighting in eastern DR Congo has continued despite the peace deal being signed.

On Wednesday, at a summit held to assess the impact of the agreement, officials from DR Congo, Rwanda and the US "expressed serious concern over the escalating fighting", a joint statement said.

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

Families lay flowers on barbed wire barricade on anniversary of deadly Kenya protests

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgqjl8kj8wpo, 3 days ago

Families of those killed during Kenya's anti-government protests in 2024 have placed flowers on barbed wire outside parliament, as demonstrations took place to mark two years since the deadly clashes.

Police arrested 355 protesters nationwide and blocked key roads in Nairobi, though turnout in the capital was low compared to 2024 and anniversary demonstrations last year.

The authorities also barricaded parliament with barbed wire, preventing families of the deceased from laying wreaths and flowers by the building.

"All I want is for the government to bring the officers responsible for killing our children before us and let them apologise," Jacinta Anyango told the BBC outside parliament.

Anyango, whose 12-year-old son Kennedy was killed in 2024 in clashes on the outskirts of Nairobi, said: "Who does the president expect to vote for him next year if he continues killing us like this?

Some had called for nationwide protests to demand justice for more than 80 people who were killed and dozens more injured during the youth-led demonstrations. The 2024 protest was sparked by anger over controversial tax proposals.

Caroline Mutisya attended parliament on Thursday to honour her late son, Erickson, but said the heavy police presence made it difficult for her to speak freely.

"I came here today to remember my son who was killed just 50 metres (54 yards) from parliament buildings," she said. "But I do not feel safe enough to express myself."

Opposition leaders led by Kalonzo Musyoka, Martha Karua and Eugene Wamalwa joined the families and a small number of activists on their march to parliament.

In the coastal city of Mombasa, hundreds of young protesters walked through the streets dressed in black and draped in Kenyan flags.

Escorted by security officers, they carried banners calling for justice and an end to extra-judicial killings.

Muted protests took part in a number of other locations across Kenya.

Central Nairobi was deserted after security forces blocked access, stranding commuters on the city's outskirts. Many businesses and schools remained closed.

There were pockets of clashes between police and protesters in the capital, with security forces firing tear gas and demonstrators throwing stones in some areas.

Police officers on horseback dispersed crowds, while footage from a local TV station showed flames and smoke rising in the Githurai area near Nairobi, as protesters lit fires during clashes with police.

In June 2024, tens of thousands of Kenyans protested against the proposed tax hikes, culminating in the storming of parliament and the eventual withdrawal of the controversial finance bill.

But the security forces were accused of using excessive force, with a BBC investigation finding that police had deliberately tried to kill protesters.

In the days that followed, dozens of people were reportedly abducted, allegedly by members of the security forces. Some were later found badly beaten, while others were found dead, fuelling concerns over enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

On Thursday, deputy police chief Gilbert Masengeli said roadblocks had been mounted to ensure no criminals or weapons entered Nairobi, adding that the country had remained calm, with citizens going about their daily activities without disruption.

President William Ruto said last Friday that people had a right to protest but warned that anyone "mobilised to destroy property or cause chaos" would not be tolerated.

Several political leaders, civil society groups, and human rights organisations expressed support for peaceful demonstrations, describing them as part of the right to democratic expression protected under the country's constitution.

Ruto's former deputy Rigathi Gachagua, now a bitter rival, urged Gen Z activists to stay away from the streets, citing concerns that the protests could turn violent. Instead, he called on Kenyans to remain at home in a symbolic show of dissent.

Last week, President Ruto announced a fund of nearly $15m (£11m) to compensate nearly 2,000 victims of protest-related human rights abuses between 2017 and 2025 identified by rights groups.

Ruto said the compensation was not a "price for life, pain or loss" and should not be seen as rewarding violence or criminality.

However, human rights organisations have rejected the compensation plan, citing the exclusion of some victims, inadequate pay-outs and a lack of transparency.

President Ruto is facing growing public discontent ahead of the 2027 elections, with critics accusing his government of failing to deliver on key campaign promises.

He rejects those claims, insisting his administration has fulfilled most of its pledges and saying he is ready to defend its record as he seeks re-election.

More about Kenya from the BBC:

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Key figure in South Africa police corruption scandal pleads guilty

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2j4g5k52jo, 3 days ago

Vusimusi "Cat" Matlala, a central figure in a major ongoing police graft inquiry in South Africa, has pleaded guilty to corruption, fraud and money-laundering charges as part of a deal with state prosecutors.

He was accused of bribing top police officials to win a 360m rand ($22m; £16.5m) tender for his health company Medicare24 in 2024.

The plea deal, which has not yet been accepted by the magistrate, would result in Matlala giving evidence against "high-ranking officials", state advocate Santhos Manilall said.

Police chief Gen Fannie Masemola is one of those facing charges in relation to this case. He has denied the charges.

Manilall told the court in the capital, Pretoria, that it had taken almost two months of negotiations to put the deal together.

If accepted, it would result in Matlala, 49, serving eight years in prison.

The state's lawyer said that the "sacrifice" of a more lenient sentence would be worth it, as "for the first time we have an accused who has... given us detail that we would not have been made aware of".

As part of the deal, Matlala is required to give honest and frank testimony at future trials.

But in a blistering attack, the Democratic Alliance (DA), the junior partner in South Africa's governing coalition, called the arrangement a "sweetheart deal" and "a betrayal of accountability" that may not result in a successful prosecution.

DA justice spokesperson Glynnis Breytenbach said it was evidence of a two-tier justice system, as "one of the country's most prominent corruption accused is allowed to negotiate what amounts to a discounted sentence".

The magistrate at the Pretoria court is expected to give his ruling on the plea deal next week.

Matlala, who is also facing a separate murder charge that he denies, has been named by a witness at the corruption inquiry known as the Madlanga Commission as being part of a drug-trafficking cartel that has managed to penetrate the police.

He has not commented on this accusation but, giving evidence at a parallel parliamentary corruption inquiry last year, denied knowing senior police officers and politicians personally.

Matlala has yet to appear at the Madlanga Commission.

Witnesses at that inquiry, which began last September, have alleged collusion between criminal underworld figures and senior police officials.

It was set up after senior police officer Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi alleged last July that organised crime groups had infiltrated the government.

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Row over alleged theft of donations from India's landmark Ram temple

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn07gl6wx6go, 2 days ago

Two-and-a-half years after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a grand temple to Hindu god Ram, the shrine is embroiled in an unsavoury row over allegations that donations from devotees worth tens of millions of rupees have been embezzled.

The temple in the once-flashpoint city of Ayodhya in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh replaced a 16th-Century mosque torn down by Hindu mobs in 1992, sparking riots in which nearly 2,000 people died.

Since its inauguration in January 2024, the three-storey temple spread over 2.7 acres has become one of India's most important pilgrimage centres, attracting an estimated 50 million visitors annually.

But in recent weeks, questions over the handling of cash, valuable jewellery, gold and silver offered by devotees have triggered a political controversy and petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a court-monitored investigation by the federal police.

The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust - an independent trust which manages the shrine - has denied any wrongdoing. The state government has set up a three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) to inquire into the allegations.

Following an interim report from SIT, Ayodhya police registered a case of alleged embezzlement on Thursday, naming eight people.

All eight are in custody and being questioned, senior police officer Gaurav Grover told BBC Hindi. They are expected to be produced before a magistrate within a day or two, he added.

The temple complex, which also includes six smaller shrines, draws 70,000 to 80,000 devotees daily, with crowds tripling on weekends and festivals. Most leave offerings in about 35 donation boxes around the site.

The trust - which collects, sorts and counts the offerings - recorded an annual income of 3.27bn rupees ($35m; £26m) in the financial year 2024-25, making it one of India's largest temples in terms of earnings, the Hindustan Times reported.

A former city legislator has alleged more than 70m rupees ($739,550; £560,420) have gone missing.

The temple trust rejected claims that donations or offerings were improperly handled.

In a video statement on Facebook, its general secretary Champat Rai said the trust's activities, including the process used to count donations and even the counting room, were routinely audited by their trustees and workers along with some State Bank of India employees.

"This work continues for several days. This is what is happening nowadays. No-one has noticed any discrepancy yet," he added.

The allegations of embezzlement at what is considered one of India's most consequential religious sites has made headlines in India. The temple stands on a site that has been at the centre of one of India's most consequential religious, political and legal disputes for decades.

Many Hindus believe Ayodhya to be the birthplace of deity Ram. A vigorous nation-wide campaign spearheaded by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to reclaim the land led to the demolition of the Babri mosque by Hindu activists in 1992.

After a long legal battle, the Supreme Court in 2019 awarded the disputed land for the construction of a temple and ordered that alternative land be provided for a mosque.

The dispute shaped Indian politics for decades and became closely associated with the rise of the BJP in the 1990s in a country where 80% of the population is Hindu.

The construction of the temple was one of the main election promises of the BJP and its opening in January 2024 is believed to have contributed to Modi's win in the general election held a few months later.

So even though the temple is managed by an independent trust, opposition parties are demanding answers from Modi and his BJP - which is also in power in the state.

How did the controversy begin?

The alleged irregularities in the handling of donations and offerings made by devotees were first made by Mahipal Singh, who previously supervised the trust's accounts team and is now being called the "whistleblower".

Singh has publicly claimed that he was replaced after he raised concerns internally about the handling of cash offerings and precious metals received as gifts. When contacted by BBC Hindi, Singh refused to talk citing threat to his life.

"I have received death threats. I am under immense pressure and stress. I am not in a position to say anything. Whatever I have said in public so far, please accept it as my word," he said.

The concerns raised by Singh have not been independently verified, but the issue gained political attention on 7 June when former state chief minister and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav raised questions about the alleged siphoning off of donations and called for an investigation.

In a series of social media posts, he demanded explanations from those managing donations and questioned what he described as a lack of clarity over the matter.

His party colleague Ayodhya MP Awadhesh Prasad said the matter should be investigated by a court-monitored team. He also called for trust members to be suspended from their positions while any inquiry is under way.

Several other politicians - from the opposition as well as the BJP - also raised questions about the alleged financial irregularities.

Local BJP leader Rajneesh Singh sought an investigation into issues linked to donations and the people involved in managing them.

Meanwhile, the long-time residents of Ayodhya told BBC Hindi that they were shocked by the allegations of corruption at the temple.

"The offerings are meant for the temple's upkeep and for the welfare of pilgrims. It's not meant for people to take home," said Vijay Lakshmi.

Santosh Puri called the allegations "a fatal blow to our religion".

Talking about the claims, Ajay Kumar Varma described Ayodhya as "god's abode" and said such things should not happen here. "The people being blamed have been involved with the temple for a long time, so it's hard to believe that they could do this," he said.

BP Pandey called the allegations "a stain" on the government and the trust. "The government must ensure that there is no repeat of this sort of thing."

Meanwhile, the SIT has sought more time to complete the inquiry. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has urged anyone with evidence to submit it to investigators. He said the inquiry would establish the facts and appealed to devotees not to prejudge the outcome.

Adityanath added that people who had waited centuries for the construction of the Ram temple could wait a few more days for the SIT to complete its work.

But there's a growing clamour to hand over the investigation to the federal police as it's a matter involving one of India's most prominent religious institutions.

A number of petitions have been filed in the state high court and the Supreme Court asking for a police complaint to be registered and judges to supervise the investigation.

A top court lawyer has also written a letter to the prime minister, the state chief minister and chief justice, seeking an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation "to restore the faith of the devotees".

"These were not ordinary commercial receipts, but sacred offering," he wrote. "Any diversion or embezzlement of funds constitutes a profound betrayal of the faith reposed by millions of devotees in one of the most sacred institutions of Hindu faith."

Additional reporting by BBC Hindi

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Beaten and starved: Shock in India as police rescue men from bonded labour

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czder5nnpgno, 3 days ago

Police in India's Uttar Pradesh state have rescued 12 men who were allegedly being held as bonded labour at a small factory, sparking outrage across the country.

The men were lured with promises of jobs but were then held against their will for months, police said. They were allegedly forced to work around the clock and brutally beaten if they demanded wages or tried to leave.

Two people have been arrested in the case, while the factory owner is on the run, police added.

The incident has once again drawn attention to bonded labour in India. Although made illegal 50 years ago, it continues to exist in parts of the country, with poor workers often trapped through debt, threats and coercion.

Warning: Some readers may find details in this story distressing.

The incident that took place in Muzaffarnagar district came to light after police received a tip-off last week about workers allegedly being held captive at a disposable plate manufacturing factory.

Senior police official Sanjay Kumar Verma told the BBC that they first sent in a decoy and then raided the factory on Monday along with labour department and district officials.

The 12 rescued were from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar and Uttarakhand, while one was from Nepal. Some had been held at the factory for as long as 18 months, the police said.

Verma described the living conditions as marked by "tremendous atrocity", adding that the injuries on the workers' bodies were "shocking".

Police said the accused preyed on people looking for work at railway stations and other public places and brought them in offering jobs, food and accommodation.

Once they arrived at the factory, the workers' mobile phones were confiscated and they were allegedly locked inside and forced to work around the clock.

The statement issued by the police said the labourers were fed just one dry roti (Indian flatbread) a day and guarded by pit bull terriers.

"When they demanded wages or spoke of leaving, they were beaten with sharp sticks," the statement added.

Some of the rescued workers spoke to BBC Hindi about their plight.

Ramu, from Uttarakhand state, said they were "kept like prisoners" and never allowed to leave the factory.

"Our mobile phones were taken away and our Aadhaar cards were burnt. We were beaten with sticks and given only bran bread to eat," he said.

Narayan, who is from Chattisgarh, said he was approached at a railway station in Delhi with the promise of a job.

Responsible for supporting his two brothers and his two young children, he accepted the offer and was brought to Muzaffarnagar.

"I have been here for four months. I have missed my family a lot," he said.

Nepal resident Dan Bahadur Thapa said he had been held at the factory for nearly two years without any contact with his family.

"We were forced to work. We were given only bran bread with salt and red chilli powder. There wasn't even sugar in the tea," he added.

Some workers, including 26-year-old Shivam Kumar, showed the media injury marks on their backs and other body parts which they said were caused by repeated beatings.

The police have registered a case under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, child labour laws and other provisions. A special investigation team has also been constituted to investigate the case, police official Verma said.

Alongside, the police are also investigating allegations that some workers may have died at the factory.

The rescue and the workers' ordeal has sparked widespread anger on social media, with many asking how such abuse could continue decades after India outlawed bonded labour.

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi condemned the incident, calling it an attack on human dignity.

"Victims must receive justice along with rehabilitation and the perpetrators the harshest possible punishment," he wrote on X.

Many others also expressed shock online.

One user described the alleged abuse as "inhumane", while another wrote that the incident "is a stain on our collective conscience. Justice must be swift and exemplary".

Police said all 12 workers have received medical treatment and are now undergoing psychiatric counselling.

"Eight have already been reunited with their families," Verma said. Officials are trying to contact the relatives of the remaining workers and are coordinating with government departments to arrange their rehabilitation, he added.

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Top Australian TV star to leave job after Tommy Robinson interview, reports say

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjrg5qg70qxo, 4 days ago

One of Australia's biggest TV presenters, Karl Stefanovic, will reportedly leave his job amid backlash over his podcast project after an interview with British far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

Stefanovic became a household name as the long-time host of breakfast programme Today, but local media say Nine Entertainment is negotiating his exit from the network.

For years Australia's highest-paid news presenter, Stefanovic in January launched his own independently produced podcast in which he sat down with a string of controversial figures.

This week's interview with Robinson was pulled offline within hours as viewer and advertiser fallout grew in Australia.

Nine - one of Australia's two major commercial broadcasters - would not confirm his departure to the BBC, but on Wednesday distanced itself from its star's recent work.

"The Karl Stefanovic Show is a completely independent production. Nine has no involvement, including in the guest selection and other editorial processes. However, Nine is taking this matter seriously," a spokesperson said.

His impending exit was first reported by The Australian, and confirmed by the Sydney Morning Herald, a masthead owned by Nine. His contract was due to expire at the end of the year.

Representatives for Stefanovic - who is currently on leave and in London - have been contacted for comment.

The 51-year-old has been under pressure over his podcast for months, due to guest selection and his own comments on issues like alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, "woke" culture and vaccinations.

During his 55-minute chat with Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, Stefanovic said he admired his "tenacity" and "courage" in "trying to stand up for what you believe is right".

In a video promoting the episode, Stefanovic also threw his arm around Robinson and referred to outgoing UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer with an offensive term.

Local media have reported that journalists at Nine have raised concerns about Stefanovic's project on the firm's editorial brand, and that advertisers have also expressed displeasure.

Stefanovic had survived multiple scandals to helm the Today show for the better part of two decades.

He has made headlines for appearing drunk on air after an awards show - saying he did not realise he had not sobered up yet - and apologised on air after he was caught disparaging his co-host in an Uber.

He stepped down in late 2018 amid poor ratings and intense coverage of his personal life but returned a year later.

Over his career, Stefanovic built a public persona as a larrikin - a lovable rogue figure - and won Australian TV's top award, the Gold Logie, for most popular presenter in 2011.

Philippines bans video game played by alleged high school shooter

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c14y7738nm8o, 4 days ago

The Philippines has temporarily blocked gaming app Gorebox after an initial investigation found that a teenage suspect in a rare school shooting had been playing the game.

Three students were killed and 20 others wounded after two suspects - aged 15 and 14 - allegedly fired handguns inside a classroom in Tacloban, south-east of Manila, on Monday.

Police said the 14-year-old was a player of Gorebox, a game where players can "obliterate anything [they] desire" and "engage in brutal combat with an extensive arsenal of weapons and explosives", according to its Google Play listing.

"We cannot ignore possible online influences that may have contributed to this tragic incident," the country's cyber-security agency said.

"Temporarily blocking the game will allow authorities to conduct a thorough assessment into whether the platform played any role in the actions of the suspects," said Aboy Paraiso, an undersecretary at the Cybercrime Investigation and Co-ordinating Centre.

BBC News has contacted Gorebox's maker, Germany's F2Games, for comment. Scientific studies have not found a direct link between video games and violent behaviour.

Gorebox is a first-person shooter video game that can be played as solo or online multiplayer. The International Age Rating Coalition gave it an R18 rating due to extremely violent, explicit, and unrestrictive gameplay.

Mass shootings are rare in the Philippines, though gun-related crimes are not uncommon and the most sensational cases are staples of early evening newscasts.

What was unusual this time round was that the suspects were minors.

Akbayan party-list congressman Chel Diokno called for stiffer penalties for those who allow minors access to firearms.

The worst mass shooting in recent Philippine history happened in November 2009, when a town mayor in the southern province of Maguindanao shot dead 58 people, mostly journalists, who were travelling with the convoy of a political rival.

'Influenced by online content'

Late on Tuesday, police filed murder charges against the 15-year-old suspect.

The 14-year-old suspect who allegedly played Gorebox is too young to be charged under Philippine law.

He appeared to have been "heavily influenced" by online content, said Allan Rae Co, spokesman of the Philippine National Police.

The boy had also been posting violent content online, he added.

Police said the 9mm pistol the 14-year-old is alleged to have fired belonged to his aunt, a policewoman who was suspended from duty after the shooting. The 15-year-old's .38 was registered to his grandfather's security agency.

According to the preliminary investigation, the suspects claimed they were bullied in school.

Before Monday's shooting at the San Jose National High School, Co said the two boys had holed themselves up in the bathroom.

"All indications point to the fact that it was planned," Co said.

A friend of the 15-year-old suspect, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity, described the boy as uptight, who got into fights with his bullies because he refused to let insults pass.

"I would tell him to be the bigger person if there are misunderstandings, or say sorry if he gets into fights, but he won't listen. He won't allow anyone to offend him.

"You'll notice his hairstyle and outfits, like he's someone from the army. I think he was influenced by his grandfather to be very disciplined," the friend said. "I couldn't think that someone could do such a heinous thing."

The friend said the boy appeared to "know everything" about guns.

'Brainwashing children'

In response to the Tacloban shooting, Philippine senators will continue a previous investigation into the effects of violence in online platforms on children.

Sen Risa Hontiveros said platforms had become "nests for brainwashing and radicalising our youth".

"If the internet is being used to victimise children, we will not wait for the next victim before we act."

Joy Belmonte, mayor of densely populated Quezon City, said a review of security protocols was needed.

In Tacloban, "some were shocked, some were shouting, running. We need to have drills and simulations so that children will know what to do," she told reporters.

Education minister Sonny Angara said the government was "very concerned", adding: "We don't want a situation seen in the United States, where there have been concerns about copycat incidents."

Leading Pakistan activist given life sentence over soldier's killing at rally

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpweywvygylo, 5 days ago

A leading human rights activist who has spent years campaigning against enforced disappearances in the Pakistani province of Balochistan has been sentenced to life in prison over the killing of a paramilitary soldier at a rally in 2024.

Mahrang Baloch, leader of the Balochistan Unity Committee (BYC), was convicted of murder and terrorism alongside fellow activist Sibghatullah.

Prosecutors accused the pair of inciting a mob which fatally attacked paramilitary soldier Shabbir Ahmed.

The activists, who boycotted the trial along with their legal team, deny the charges.

A security official had accused Baloch of giving a "very provocative speech" at the protest in the port city of Gwadar, resulting in 30-40 people striking one of his soldiers' vehicles with sticks and stones.

The official claimed Shabbir Ahmed became separated from the others and was beaten to death.

An anti-terrorism court in Quetta said Baloch and Sibghatullah had been "active in the illegal gathering of the Baloch Unity Committee and had common objectives in the murder of the Federal Constabulary official".

It sentenced them to life imprisonment and ordered they pay a fine of 200,000 Pakistani rupees (£543; $719) to Ahmed's heirs.

Baloch and Sibghatullah have already been in jail for two years on a range of charges, according to local media.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan called for an immediate review of the verdict.

It said the state had "continued its policy of treating fundamental rights advocacy in the same way it treats extremism, resulting in administrative and judicial decisions that are one-sided and biased."

Baloch's sister, lawyer Nadia Baloch, and the activists' legal team said they had been denied due process and rejected the verdict.

They said the ruling was delivered by a "faceless court" and that defence lawyers had been unable to cross-examine eyewitnesses properly, who testified via video link.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg also criticised the proceedings, posting a statement describing the trial as a "mockery of justice" conducted "in utter secrecy" and accusing the Pakistani state of criminalising dissent.

A spokesperson for Balochistan's government told the Associated Press news agency that prosecutors had "undeniable evidence" and said the case was not politically motivated.

Mahrang Baloch, who was listed as one of the BBC's 100 Women of 2024, began campaigning after her father was allegedly taken by security service officers in 2009 and found dead two years later with signs of torture.

In late 2023, she led hundreds of women on a 1,000 mile (1,600km) march to the capital Islamabad to seek justice for missing family members.

Her organisation, the BYC, campaigns against enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Balochistan, which has been the site of a decades-long struggle for more autonomy.

The BYC rejects allegations by the Pakistani government that it has links to Baloch militants.

Sydney woman wakes from induced coma more than a week after shark attack

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8drk2dk3no, 4 days ago

A woman who was bitten by a shark more than a week ago while swimming at a popular Sydney beach has woken briefly from an induced coma, her family has said.

Leah Stewart was attacked by a shark on Saturday 13 June at Coogee Beach, suffering multiple bites on her arms and legs and extreme blood loss.

The 34-year-old mother was taken to hospital in a critical condition and underwent several surgeries including having her arm amputated.

On Tuesday, her brother said doctors had reduced Stewart's medication so she could wake up briefly from an induced coma. She said "I love you" to her mum and partner who were both by her bedside and asked if her daughter was ok.

"This is a lot faster than anyone expected, and for us this feels like a miracle and is everything so many of us have hoped and prayed for over the past week," Joshua Stewart posted in an online message to his sister's supporters.

He said she remains in intensive care and had five days of surgery in the past week, with more scheduled in the coming weeks.

"Leah has a long road ahead and still remains in critical care, but this is such a positive first step and gives us hope for Leah's long term recovery."

Stewart, who works as a teacher, had gone to Coogee Beach on Saturday morning for a swim and was in the water close to the shore when the attack happened.

There have been a spate of shark attacks in Australia this year, with four attacks in a two-day period in January including a young boy who was bitten at a Sydney beach and later died from his injuries in hospital.

Last month, there were two fatal shark attacks with one man killed by a shark in Queensland while spearfishing and in Western Australia, father-of-two Steven Mattaboni, 38, died after he was bitten by a 4m (13ft) shark.

Dettol apologises after ad to clean up 'toxic men' backfires in China

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ced4vq6zylpo, 5 days ago

British hygiene brand Dettol has apologised for an advert in China that it claims was meant to call out sexism, but has instead backfired.

The five-minute long advert for a multipurpose disinfectant, styled like a micro drama, starts out with a man looking for a partner who is "clean" and "not tainted by other men".

A plot twist comes late in the advert when his new girlfriend calls him out for his misogyny and breaks up with him. Dettol is then presented as the solution against "toxic men [who] are just like bacteria".

The advert sparked an uproar on the Chinese internet, with some users saying it objectifies women and others calling for a boycott of the brand.

Dettol said the advert, which has been removed following the backlash, was intended to criticise gender stereotypes, but that snippets of it that later circulated online distorted its core message.

"We recognise that it has offended many people, especially women. We take responsibility for any negligence in creating and reviewing the content of the advert," Dettol said in a statement on Monday.

The company also said it would review its content moderation processes.

Dettol was founded with a mission to "protect the health" of families, it said, adding: "But we are well aware that true protection also lies in safeguarding the dignity of every individual and their right to be treated equally."

The advert has sparked heated discussions across Chinese social media platforms over the last few days, with many people angered by its attempts to compare a person's "purity" with the disinfecting abilities of Dettol products.

"What a trashy advertisement. It's left me speechless," a user wrote on Weibo, China's X-like platform.

"What a hopeless company. What is their senior management doing?" read another comment. "I'm never using Dettol again. There are so many brands in the market after all."

Manya Koetse, who runs the Eye on Digital China newsletter, described the campaign as "quite a mess for a brand whose entire business revolves around cleanliness".

"Even if the intention was to portray the male character as being in the wrong, the message was conveyed so poorly that it backfired spectacularly," she said.

This is not the first time Dettol, which is owned by British consumer goods company Reckitt, has found itself at the centre of controversy in China.

It drew backlash last year with an advert that featured the line: "The woman was 'returned' just before her wedding; it must be because she was not clean."

A Chinese box office hit sparks a debate about identity in Singapore

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yzv23g75eo, 3 days ago

A nostalgic tale about family, hope and hardship, Dear You has swept the box office in China this summer - and opened an unexpected conversation about identity thousands of miles away in Singapore.

The sleeper hit was filmed almost entirely in Teochew, a language from China's Chaoshan region which is still spoken among older generations of Chinese in South East Asia.

But when the movie hit Singaporean cinemas this month, many were dismayed to learn that most of the screenings would be dubbed into Mandarin - the lingua franca of China and one of Singapore's four official languages, along with English.

"Being Teochew, watching it in Teochew makes it even more special," says Wu Silin, a church worker. She and her mother watched Dear You last week, after snagging tickets to one of just eight special Teochew screenings. The tickets reportedly sold out in less than two hours.

When the film is being screened in its original language in China, why not in Singapore, where Teochew is still spoken by many older Chinese people? That's what many locals are asking.

The film has inadvertently sparked a debate over the government's long-standing push for Chinese Singaporeans to speak Mandarin instead of other languages, or what they call dialects, from China.

What began as an attempt to unify the Chinese community in Singapore has proven so effective that, some argue, it has driven dialects like Teochew, Hokkien, Cantonese and Hakka into an irreversible decline.

Authorities have responded to the impassioned calls for the movie to be screened in Teochew. "We hear the calls for dialect films to be more freely screened in cinemas," Singapore's information ministry said in a statement on Monday, promising to "take a more flexible approach".

As people commiserate online, some have shared plans to travel to neighbouring Malaysia to catch Dear You in Teochew. Another eight shows - nearly 5,000 tickets - went on sale on Monday, and sold out within two hours, local media reported. On Thursday, 50 more screenings were approved in Teochew.

To many Singaporeans, Dear You is a bittersweet journey into their own past, told in a tongue that has crossed the seas and entered a new era.

But even those who don't understand Teochew have been seeking out the movie in its original form.

"I think sometimes it's just the vibe," says Anna Zhang, a 35-year-old from Beijing who moved to Singapore for work.

She watched it in Teochew with subtitles, she says, as she would any foreign film.

"I'm not saying these translated versions are not good, but I do feel there is a bit of difference … It doesn't feel like this is coming from the original character."

With a modest budget and a cast of mostly rookie actors, Dear You tells the story of a young man from a southern Chinese village who sets off to Thailand to find his grandfather.

His grandfather had fled their village in 1948 to avoid being conscripted in the civil war that was upending millions of lives. He ended up as a trishaw rider in Thailand in the 1950s, living in a hostel with other Chinese migrants and sending letters filled with longing to his wife and children back home.

Dear You, and especially in Teochew, strikes at the root of identity because it is set against a historical wave of migration when millions of Chinese undertook perilous sea journeys to reach Singapore and other parts of South East Asia between the 19th and mid-20th Century.

"Dialects have always been the root of where the Singaporean Chinese come from. Mandarin, I would say, is mostly a superimposed language that we learn from schools," says Lee Cher Leng, associate professor of Chinese studies at the National University of Singapore.

"I think it's really interesting that a small movie like that would bring [up] something so impactful."

Dialects were once spoken widely among Singapore's Chinese community, which makes up more than 70% of the country's population.

But they disappeared from the airwaves in the 1980s after the government launched a campaign to encourage Chinese residents to use Mandarin instead of their various tongues.

Dialects have since been dubbed over in cinemas and scrubbed from radio and television programmes.

It was part of a broader bilingual policy adopted in the 1960s, which stipulated English to be spoken by all Singaporeans, along with their "mother tongue", a language determined by their ethnicity.

At the time the Speak Mandarin Campaign was launched, nearly 70% of Singaporeans spoke one of several Chinese dialects at home.

By 2020, that figure had plummeted to 8.7%.

Many of those curbs remain in place today, even though English is now cited as the most comfortable language for nearly half of Singaporeans.

Since the 1990s, the Speak Mandarin Campaign has shifted its focus to English-educated ethnic Chinese, and away from those who speak dialects.

"The campaign has achieved what it set out to do - it has established Mandarin as the common language among Chinese Singaporeans and dismantled the dialect landscape," reads a letter by two filmmakers published last week in local newspaper the Straits Times. "Screening a dialect film is now no different from screening a French or Malay film."

"What better way to confirm the success of the Speak Mandarin campaign than to relax this rule completely," they asked, to "signal a maturity" in dealing with cultural diversity among Chinese Singaporeans?

This has echoed across social media and commentaries over the past week, drawing even politicians into the conversation. In a post on Facebook, opposition MP Dennis Tan hailed dialects as "the living, breathing repositories of our forefathers' journeys, customs, and identity".

The discussion looks set to continue, after two lawmakers said they had asked authorities about screening movies in their original dialect.

"Actually a lot of people can't speak dialect [anymore]," Wu says. "I think it's time they revisit this policy. If they want to retain some of our culture, then I think it's important."

It's not just the dialects that are disappearing, but also the traditions that came with them.

One of the things Wu was touched to see in Dear You is a Teochew ritual that she herself followed.

When she turned 15, a culturally significant age in the community, Wu's parents gave her a gift to mark her coming-of-age, known in Teochew as "leaving the garden".

When her niece turned 15 last year, Wu says there was no such celebration.

Still, young Singaporeans have shown growing interest in connecting with their heritage, from learning the dwindling dialects of their grandparents to taking lessons and organising trips to ancestral hometowns in China.

But Tan Ying Ying, an associate professor at Nanyang Technological University who studies dialects, isn't optimistic that this will reverse the trend.

"Young people who are learning them now … You can learn it like a foreign language and learn it for fun. But if no-one is speaking it, you're not going to be able to retain it," she says.

The uproar over Dear You, Tan says, is perhaps "like grieving a loss".

The woman who fought for Pakistan's disappeared men now faces life in jail

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0ry07x87kvo, 4 days ago

When Dr Mahrang Baloch was a teenager, she joined hundreds of families across Pakistan's south-western province of Balochistan to search for her father, who was allegedly arrested by security forces and later killed.

Years on, the doctor-turned-activist became one of the most recognisable faces of a movement demanding answers about enforced disappearances in the province.

Now, she faces life behind bars.

A Pakistani anti-terrorism court sentenced Mahrang and fellow activist Sibghatullah Shah to life imprisonment on Monday after convicting them of terrorism, sedition and murder in connection with the death of a paramilitary soldier during a protest in the town of Gwadar in 2024.

The pair deny the charges and are expected to appeal.

Speaking to the BBC after the ruling, Mahrang's sister Nadia Baloch said the family remained defiant.

"We will challenge this decision in the higher courts," said Nadia, who is also part of her sister's legal team.

Asked whether she had visited her sister in prison, Nadia paused.

"I don't have the courage to see her," she said, because she feels she has failed her by not getting Mahrang justice.

For Mahrang, 33, the issue of enforced disappearances is not merely political. It is deeply personal.

Her father, Abdul Ghaffar Langove, who was also a political activist, disappeared in 2009, when she was 16.

Nearly three years later Mahrang's family received a phone call informing them that his body had been found in Lasbela district, in the south of the province.

"When my father's body arrived, he was wearing the same clothes, now torn. He had been badly tortured," she told the BBC in her last interview before her arrest in 2025.

The circumstances of her father's death would shape much of her life.

In the following years, Mahrang became involved in campaigns demanding information about missing persons in Balochistan. Activists and rights groups say thousands of ethnic Baloch people have disappeared over the past two decades, alleging many were detained by security forces without due process or abducted, tortured and killed as part of operations against a long-running separatist insurgency.

The Pakistan government denies the allegations, insisting that many of the missing have joined separatist groups or fled the country.

Some come back after years, traumatised and broken - but many never return. Others are found in unmarked graves that have appeared across Balochistan, their bodies so disfigured they cannot be identified.

And then there are the women across generations whose lives are defined by waiting. Their grief, and the search for their relatives, became a central focus of Mahrang's activism.

Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize last year, she has become one of the movement's most prominent leaders over the past decade.

Balochistan's struggle

In 2025, the BBC documented the stories of Baloch women who had spent years searching for missing fathers, husbands, brothers and sons. Some travelled from morgue to morgue, hoping to find answers. Others described the anguish of identifying bodies recovered from remote areas.

Balochistan is the largest of Pakistan's provinces, covering about 44% of its national territory. The land is rich with gas, coal, copper and gold.

But Balochistan has been locked out of progress. Access to many parts of the province is restricted for security reasons. Infrastructure is poor, electricity is sporadic and water is scarce. Foreign journalists are often prohibited from visiting.

Balochistan became a part of Pakistan in 1948, in the upheaval that followed the partition of British India - and in spite of opposition from some influential tribal leaders, who sought an independent state.

Some of that resistance turned militant, and has been stoked over the years by accusations that Pakistan has exploited the resource-rich region without investing in its development.

Militant groups like the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), designated a terrorist organisation by Pakistan, the United States and several other countries, have intensified their attacks in recent years. Bombings, assassinations and ambushes against security forces have become more frequent.

Disappearances in the province are widely believed to be part of Islamabad's strategy to crush the insurgency - but also to suppress dissent and weaken nationalist sentiment and support for an independent Balochistan.

Many of the missing are suspected members or sympathisers of Baloch nationalist groups that demand more independence. But a significant number are ordinary people with no known political affiliations.

Many in the government deny that enforced disappearances are happening on a large scale, calling it "systematic propaganda".

"Self-disappearances exist too," said Balochistan's chief minister, Sarfraz Bugti. "How can I prove if someone was taken by intelligence agencies, police, FC [Frontier Constabulary], or anyone else?"

Pakistan's government also says that of more than 2,900 disappearance cases reported in Balochistan since 2011, around 80% have been resolved. Activists put the number of disappearances much higher, at around 7,000 – but there is no reliable source of data and no way to verify either side's claims.

Enforced disappearances intensified after 2006, when a key Baloch leader, Nawab Akbar Bugti, was killed in a military operation, leading to a rise in anti-state protests and armed insurgent activities.

The government cracked down in response – and as enforced disappearances increased, so did the number of bodies found on the streets.

After her father's death, Mahrang says her family's world "collapsed".

Then in 2017, her brother was picked up by security forces, according to the family, and detained for nearly three months.

"It was terrifying. I had made my mother believe that what happened to my father wouldn't happen to my brother. But it did," Mahrang told the BBC before her arrest more than a year ago.

"I was scared of looking at my phone, because it might be news of my brother's body being found somewhere."

It was then that Mahrang decided to fight against enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

A legal battle begins

A trained doctor, Mahrang Baloch rose to prominence through the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), a movement that campaigns against enforced disappearances and alleged human rights abuses, while also advocating greater control over Balochistan's natural resources.

She led protests, organised long marches and became one of the most influential voices emerging from Balochistan – all despite death threats, legal challenges and travel bans.

Supporters view her as a peaceful human rights campaigner who gave a voice to families, especially women, affected by conflict.

Critics, including state officials, have accused her movement of amplifying narratives that benefit separatist groups – allegations she has consistently rejected.

In her last interview with the BBC, Mahrang said her campaign was for ensuring the rights of Balochistan's people.

"We want the right to live on our own land without persecution," she said. "We want our resources, our rights. We want this rule of fear and violence to end."

In late 2023, she led hundreds of women on a 1,000-mile (1,600km) march to the capital Islamabad to demand information on the whereabouts of their family members. She was arrested twice during the journey.

Finally, Mahrang was arrested in March 2025, as she was leading a protest in Quetta after 13 unclaimed bodies - feared to be missing persons - were buried in the city. Authorities claimed they were militants killed after the Bolan Pass train hijacking, though this could not be independently verified.

Mahrang warned that enforced disappearances fuelled more resistance, rather than silencing it.

"They think dumping bodies will end this. But how can anyone forget losing their loved one this way? No human can endure this."

Throughout her campaigns and protests, she demanded institutional reforms.

"We don't want our children growing up in protest camps," she said. "Is that too much to ask?"

She was included in the BBC's 100 Women list in 2024 and was named among TIME magazine's TIME100 Next, recognising emerging leaders and changemakers around the world.

The life sentence marks the most serious challenge yet to her activism. Her family says it is an attempt to silence dissent in Balochistan.

Authorities insist the case concerns criminal acts rather than political activity.

But Mahrang's sister has questioned the integrity of the trial, and says her legal team remain determined to fight the case.

"It was not transparent," Nadia says. "Her lawyers were changed as we went on a protest demanding an open court trial; she was assigned state lawyers; she was not given access to witnesses' accounts or their details. She was not given a chance to a fair trial."

Before her arrest, Mahrang told the BBC she knew imprisonment was a possibility, but wasn't fearful of the prospect.

Now, her family says, she remains resolute, and her message is unchanged: "The struggle will continue."

A brutal gang rape in India revives painful memories of 2012 Delhi assault

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewqyn2p1lno, 6 days ago

Thirteen years after the gang rape of an Indian woman on a bus in the capital Delhi made global headlines, a new case that comes close in brutality inflicted on a woman has been reported from the northern state of Bihar.

Campaigners say her story is also one of apathy from the police and medical authorities that women who face sexual assault, especially in small towns and villages, routinely encounter in India.

Warning: This story contains details that some readers may find distressing.

Indian law prohibits naming victims of sexual assault so we are going to call the survivor Soma (not her real name).

The 28-year-old mother of four young children told BBC Hindi that she was attacked in her own home and gang-raped by a group of men who allegedly inserted objects into her vagina.

The incident took place on the night of 11 June in a village in Begusarai - a district that is officially recognised as one of India's most socially and economically backward.

The case gained national attention after hospital officials confirmed she was assaulted with objects, which doctors removed. She also brought a bullet casing, which she said was one of the items used.

Giving details of the horrific assault, Soma said she was in the toilet outside her one-room home at night when five men barged in. The toilet does not have a door, only a curtain hangs over it to provide some privacy.

"They stripped me, gagged me, and tied my hands. When I tried to fight back, they slashed my chest with a blade and raped me," she added.

Her husband, she said, initially dismissed her groans as noises made by a stray cat, but then he grew suspicious and tried to check.

"But the house was locked from the outside. He called a neighbour who came and unlocked the door and everyone saw my condition and began to cry."

Begusarai superintendent of police Maneesh (who uses only one name) told the BBC that Soma's "medical report has confirmed sexual assault".

"There are three named and two unidentified accused in this case. We have arrested two of them. A Special Investigation Team (SIT), which has been constituted for the case, is conducting raids to arrest the others and the investigation is ongoing," he said.

Police say some of the accused have a previous history of crimes and have invoked sections dealing with gang rape against them.

On the night of her horrific assault, Soma said she received little help from the police or medical authorities.

The husband, an e-rickshaw driver, reportedly took his unconscious wife to a police station about 3 km from their home. He says the police refused to file a complaint and sent them away, advising him instead to take her to a doctor.

The police station head Rajiv Kumar has since been suspended for "negligence, apathy, and insensitivity", Begusarai police said. They said an FIR (First Information Report) in the case was registered at the local police station on 13 June.

Since the assault, Soma and her husband say she has also struggled to get proper medical attention.

On the night of the attack, she was reportedly turned away by a nearby private clinic, which said it did not handle emergencies and had no doctor on duty. She was then taken to a government community health centre, where she received first aid before being referred to a district hospital.

Soma told the BBC the initial treatment she received at the hospital was far from satisfactory.

After she regained consciousness on 12 June, she told her husband and the doctor who treated her about the gangrape. "The doctor asked me while administering an injection, 'Were you raped as well?' I kept telling her, 'Yes, Madam, I was'," she said.

Ashok Kumar, the Civil Surgeon of Begusarai, however, told the BBC that the woman was brought in with complains of stomach pain. And that they were informed of the gangrape only on 13 June "after which the physicians immediately conducted her medical examination".

The hospital sent Soma home after that, but she was back in hospital the next day after she lost consciousness, her husband told the BBC. She was again discharged a day later.

"A village midwife, who examined her after she kept fainting and complaining of intense stomach pain, warned that there was something inside her body. On the morning of 18 June, Soma showed us a bullet casing which had dropped out from her vagina," he said, adding that he then took her back to the hospital.

"It was an empty cartridge or shell casing," Civil Surgeon Kumar said. "We re-examined her and doctors removed other objects from her. She is currently stable and recovering."

Soma's case has provoked outrage in India and drawn comparisons with the horrific 2012 Delhi gang rape - and subsequent death - of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student who was also violated with objects.

The crime sparked global outrage, mass protests across India, and prompted tougher anti-rape laws, including the death penalty in severe cases. Four men convicted were executed in 2020, one died in prison, and a juvenile offender was released after serving time in a reform centre.

But despite the heightened scrutiny of sexual crimes since then, more than 30,000 cases of rape are recorded in India every year.

"We have learnt no lessons," says anti-rape campaigner Yogita Bhayana, adding that most cases go unreported or unnoticed because society has become desensitised to extreme brutality.

"Such cases keep happening because the message has not percolated down to every last corner of India that rape can get them capital punishment. Fear has not been instilled in society," she told the BBC.

"The media attention Soma's case has received is only because of the reports that a bullet was inserted into her private parts. At least she survived and I see that as a positive," Bhayana says.

Back in Begusarai, Soma remains in a hospital bed, frequently disturbed by visits from journalists, politicians, and social workers. She is still in significant pain but hopes to recover soon and return home to her children.

"I am very worried about my children, they are so young. They are being look after by relatives in the village about 35km away from here. I want to get back home to them soon."

The BTS fans losing thousands as scammers cash in on comeback tour ticket war

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdr45nrr2jyo, 7 days ago

When Vevee logged in to Ticketmaster on 9 June, she hoped her years-long wait to see supergroup BTS was finally drawing to an end.

Like millions of fans everywhere, the 26-year-old thought she was ready for battle. She had even taken the day off from work.

The septet's mammoth global tour was making a stop in her backyard – the Indonesian capital, Jakarta – and as a longtime fan, she couldn't fathom missing it.

Perched in front of her computer, eyes glued to her fateful queue number, Vevee waited for hours. When it was her turn, she was told the tickets had been snapped up.

But there were more sales. So she tried again, and again, but her luck did not change. "It felt impossible because the demand was just too crazy", she tells the BBC.

Determined to secure her spot, Vevee found an account reselling tickets on X and splashed out $1,200 for four VIP seats. That's worth about two months of her salary at a logistics firm.

But they soon stopped responding. "Right after I sent the money, they ghosted me. It's horrible. I am so sad and heartbroken," says the 26-year-old.

Desperate fans in South East Asia, where BTS is performing 15 of 88 shows, have lost more than $100,000 as scammers cash in on explosive demand.

It has been a rollercoaster of a month for the band's fans, who call themselves Army. Elated to see BTS on the road again after the pandemic and a three-year hiatus, but frustrated by super-competitive ticketing wars, they have become easy targets.

In Thailand, lawmakers are hearing a complaint by 126 fans who were duped by an offer to help them "wait in line" for tickets.

Scammers have also infiltrated fan groups online, promising exclusive access or lower prices. Once money changes hands, they vanish. Some even offer "power of attorney forms" – typically used to hand over legal decision-making to someone else – to convince targets the tickets are authentic.

These are familiar enough tactics that authorities have issued multiple warnings. But fans are still falling prey to them.

The tour, which kicked off in April and stretches well into 2027, will span 34 cities. BTS and their record label Hybe stand to make nearly $2bn (£1.5bn) from their reunion, derived from concerts, merchandise, licensing, album sales and streaming revenue, some analysts told Reuters news agency.

Across Asia, the number of people vying for tickets exceeded what's available by 15 times, the BBC understands.

They are still adding new dates because of the staggering demand. Just last week, Jakarta and Bulacan in the Philippines learned they would each host a third show.

When the new date was announced, Vevee decided to "fight for those tickets again", but on official channels, unlike last time when panic got the better of her, she explains.

"I was about to go into a meeting at work and was so terrified that someone else would grab the tickets. I just wanted to transfer the money quickly to lock them in, she says.

"If I had just taken a moment to calm down, I might have spotted the red flags."

In Singapore, the police have received at least 62 complaints involving BTS concert tickets since 1 June, with losses amounting to more than S$68,000.

E-commerce company Carousell has suspended the reselling of tickets on its platform, and the ban will be in place until 22 December, the date of BTS' final show in Singapore.

Last week, the Malaysian police said they have received 28 reports from individuals claiming they had been cheated while trying to secure tickets. Authorities are trying to trace "mule accounts" involved in the transactions, they say.

In the early years, BTS' concerts were largely in South Korea, Japan and the US. As the band grew more famous, and fans from across the world joined their "Army", their schedule expanded to more of Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America.

But the ongoing Arirang World Tour is the first time the band will stage multiple shows in five South East Asian countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

Tickets in the region are priced between $100 and $300. The most expensive package includes access to pre-show soundchecks, premium seats and BTS merchandise.

For fans like Vevee, who have followed the group through its ups, downs and then its meteoric rise, watching the comeback tour on home turf is special.

Vevee says she was 14 when she discovered BTS, about a year after their debut in 2013. She loved the music, but she also loved the seven members – RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, V, Jimin and Jungkook – whom she says she found "very genuine".

In 2019, she flew to Bangkok alone to watch BTS on their last world tour. She says it was her first time travelling alone and she didn't know anyone at the concert but she got "so much help" from fellow fans. "It was truly an unforgettable and wonderful experience."

Seven years on, when she found out BTS was coming to Jakarta, she began saving up. "I prepared so much to get these tickets, but honestly, it's not just me. Every single army [fan] prepares intensely for this."

She says some fans rented computers at internet cafes for a whole week because they couldn't risk not finding a spot on the day of the sales. They hoped the high speeds would boost their chances.

"In Indonesia, we aren't just fighting the ticket war," Vevee says. "We fight to secure the best internet cafe and we even fight to rent high-end phones. It's a war on every front."

And when they lose, they are despondent.

"Now that the Philippine stop is finally happening after what feels like forever, it hurts knowing that people who waited nearly a decade might not get the chance to see them," a Filipino fan wrote on Threads.

"Some of us aren't just trying to attend a concert. We're trying to finally see the seven people we've been rooting for for years."

There are also fans who simply don't want to stake it all on their luck.

Last week, Juraluk Kunaruk lodged a complaint before the Thai parliament on behalf of 125 victims, each of whom transferred hundreds of dollars to the same X user days before tickets went on sale.

The user had promised to help snag good seats. But the day sales opened, the X account disappeared.

"I had been observing this account for quite some time... They have many reviews and followers so they looked reliable. The prices were reasonable too," says Juraluk, who lost 25,000 baht ($760) paying for what she thought were VIP packages.

Over the last two weeks, the 23-year-old has spent hours travelling from her hometown to Bangkok to meet lawmakers.

"The MPs have promised us they will push things through to try to get us back the money. So I'm still hopeful," she says.

She also hasn't given up on the concert: "I still want to go because I don't know when I will get another chance to see them."

This is not surprising because scams have hit hugely popular concerts in the past, including Taylor Swift's Eras Tour. Some fans have called on concert promoter Live Nation and its ticketing partners to do more to guard against this.

Ticketmaster, a Live Nation subsidiary managing ticketing for the BTS tour in many countries, says it has already "stepped up its fight against ticket scalpers and bots with new AI technology and tougher rules".

For example, tickets will be verified against concertgoers' email addresses, while fans holding resold tickets may be turned away on concert day.

Fans should "only ever purchase tickets through official sources", a Ticketmaster spokeswoman tells the BBC. "The artist's website will always be able to point fans in the right direction."

But disappointed fans seem unable to resist what feels like one last shot.

Cookie, a fan in the Philippines, turned to a reseller after failing to get tickets twice. She thought she had been careful.

"I added her to Facebook, I checked her account, what she studied, where she's from," says the 30-year-old customer service associate.

Like other victims the BBC spoke to, Cookie hit a wall after paying. The scammer blocked her on Facebook, and she never got the tickets.

"I feel ashamed. I didn't even tell my family or my closest friends what happened," Cookie says.

"I don't want to be judged or hear [them say] 'you're dumb'. It was a desperate move since I really wanted to be there."

Vevee tried her luck again knowing it would be "a tough fight" because the latest show in Jakarta falls on the birthday of one of the members, V.

She failed in her first attempt at the pre-sale on Friday. "It seems like absolutely everyone is aiming for that final show."

Ticketless and in tears, she strategised for the next day's general sale.

She and her friends split up across Jakarta, and "each of us tried to buy tickets from different locations, using different internet connections and accounts".

And this time, it worked. She got the tickets.

With reporting by Virma Simonette Rivera in Manila

Currency crash and visa crackdowns force Indian students to rethink studying abroad

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8x2gd9lkxzo, 7 days ago

After many years of careful planning, Pragati Priya, a 29-year-old content creator from the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, finally decided to enrol in a master's programme abroad this year.

Priya will head to university in Rome in September to study global economic affairs - a move she hopes will open the door to better professional opportunities in Europe.

She's excited about what the future holds, but also questions whether she's made the right decision. The amount she needs to borrow for her programme has risen sharply because of the steep decline in the value of the Indian rupee against a basket of currencies, including the euro, over the past few months.

"It has kept me up at night. I don't want to burden myself with a student loan that [I] will never finish [repaying]," Priya told the BBC over phone.

Her anxiety mirrors the dilemma facing hundreds of thousands of middle-class Indian students who leave home each year to study at universities across Europe, North America and Australia.

More than 1.2 million Indian students were enrolled in higher education abroad in 2025, with India having overtaken China some years ago as the leading source of international students.

But a weakening currency, bleak job prospects in the US and Europe, stricter visa requirements and immigration crackdowns have forced many to reconsider whether it is worth taking on hefty debts to move abroad.

"I considered dropping my plans, but my parents and sister promised to support me. That's the only reason I'm able to take this risk," Priya said.

For many others, that is not a luxury they can afford - a reality reflected in declining enrolment numbers for the upcoming September intake at universities.

"The market is clearly showing signs of slowing down. We've already seen enrolments to the UK and US fall by 20% over the last two years, and I expect another 10-15% decline from those levels going forward," Sushil Sukhwani, founder of Edwise International, which sends thousands of Indian students to universities abroad each year, told the BBC.

Tougher visa requirements have already taken a toll. In the UK, 76% of universities reported a decline in Indian student enrolments for the January intake, while in the US, enrolments fell by nearly 7% between February 2025 and February 2026.

The sharp fall in the rupee has compounded the challenges facing both prospective students and those already studying overseas.

"Many students who are already abroad have paid part of their tuition fees, but are now having to refinance loans and arrange additional funding to cover future instalments, with the rupee down more than 10% against the US dollar in the last year," Sukhwani said.

According to his calculations, the Indian rupee has depreciated by between 35% and 47% against the currencies of major study destinations since 2019.

While incomes have risen for some graduates who have got jobs and stayed overseas, climbing onto the career ladder is becoming increasingly difficult for many international students.

"They arrive hoping to secure skilled jobs in the fields they trained for and end up working in the gig economy. Earlier, that work helped fund their education. Now many are graduating and doing it full-time," Sudhanshu Kaushik, founder of the North America Association of Indian Students in Washington, told the BBC.

This, he said, is affecting the risk appetite of upper-middle-class Indian families, particularly as the weaker rupee has made an overseas education more expensive than ever.

Yet overall demand for foreign education remains strong.

According to the Global Student Flows Report 2026, Indian student enrolments in the US, UK, Canada and Australia - often referred to as the "big four" destinations - are forecast to decline by an average of 0.5% annually through 2030.

At the same time, interest in alternative destinations is growing.

"Countries such as Germany, Ireland, Italy and several other European destinations are attracting increasing interest from Indian students because of lower tuition costs, favourable post-study work pathways, strong employment prospects and a more attractive overall value proposition," said Mayank Maheshwari, co-founder and COO of University Living, a student accommodation platform.

Sukhwani says his company has also shifted its focus towards these "new-age destinations" in response to growing student interest.

Affordability was a key factor in Priya's decision to choose Italy over the UK or the US.

Her tuition fees are roughly half of what she would have paid in the UK, while the US was "out of the question", she said, because completing her degree there would have taken two years rather than one in Rome.

Experts say these trends are a worrying sign for countries such as the UK and the US, which have spent decades building globally competitive higher education sectors.

The concern is particularly acute because India remains one of the largest sources of international students for both countries, even as enrolments from China have slowed.

"The depreciating currency, the job market, the rise of AI, the visa issues and the current [Donald Trump] administration's policies have all combined to create a perfect storm. No one wins," said Kaushik.

"The students suffer, the universities suffer, college towns suffer and the broader economy suffers."

He argues that the US especially risks undermining one of its most successful sources of influence abroad.

"We are retreating from the gains we made in promoting higher education as one of our most influential and profitable forms of soft power," he said.

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This Indian state is trying to ensure no one grows old alone

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg74dj4xev5o, 3 days ago

In India's southern state of Kerala, 70-year-old TO Dominic starts most of his days with a phone call to one of his sons.

One of them lives in the neighbouring Karnataka, the other in the Middle East. Both left home some years ago in search of better employment opportunities, leaving him and his wife MJ Martha to manage on their own.

The calls are comforting, revolving around familiar topics such as health and the weather. But when the couple need help at home, it is not their sons who can provide it.

Their predicament is becoming increasingly common in Kerala, India's fastest-ageing state, where migration has left growing numbers of elderly people living alone.

Last month, the state government announced a dedicated department for elderly welfare, which officials say is the first of its kind in India, to address the challenges of an ageing population.

"We depend entirely on our neighbours," Dominic says, sitting in the house that was once filled with the chatter of children but where he now often sits in silence.

"Our children visit very rarely and we don't have relatives nearby to assist us. Things are becoming increasingly difficult."

Seated next to him, Martha says loneliness has become an increasingly common part of growing old.

Their story is not an isolated one.

For generations, elderly Indians lived with their children and depended on them for care. But migration for work and education has steadily weakened that tradition, particularly in Kerala, India's fastest-ageing state, where the government is now trying to respond.

The new department's strategy is centred on "ageing in place" - helping older people remain in their homes and communities rather than moving into institutions, says its head, Dr Rathan Kelkar.

The plans include expanding community and home-based care, and introducing "social prescribing"- connecting older people with meaningful social activities.

The state also plans to launch a certified caregiver training programme, build a professional care workforce, and create elderly parks, day-care centres and fitness facilities. A statewide survey of senior citizens will inform a long-term Silver Economy roadmap.

"Ageing is no longer just a welfare issue," says Kelkar. "It cuts across healthcare, housing, transport, local governance, technology, employment, safety, financial services and community life."

Kerala has the highest share of elderly residents among India's major states. By 2036, nearly one in four people in the state - 22.8% - is projected to be over 60, compared with a national average of 14.9%, according to a recent Reserve Bank of India report.

The state's ageing population reflects both social progress and migration.

Better healthcare, longer life expectancy and falling birth rates have made it one of India's oldest states, while generations have gone to the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere for work, often leaving parents behind.

Remittances have boosted incomes and living standards, but they have also created a growing challenge: more older people are spending their later years apart from their children.

And for those living overseas, this separation can carry an emotional burden.

"Even though I regularly send money home, financial support alone is not enough," says a Sydney-based IT professional whose parents live alone in Kerala.

"Being physically present during important moments - especially medical emergencies or simply providing emotional support - is something money cannot replace."

When his parents were unwell, he has had to rely on phone and video calls from thousands of kilometres away - "I felt so helpless."

This is the challenge the Kerala government is now trying to address.

Kelkar says the state is not starting from scratch, with pensions, the Vayomithram programme - a widely studied community-based palliative care system - and other welfare schemes already in place. What was missing, he adds, was a single system to bring them all together.

"There was no single institutional mechanism responsible for bringing all these sectors together, identifying gaps, building convergence and planning for the future," he says.

But he also acknowledges that infrastructure and services alone will not solve all the challenges of ageing.

"Loneliness and social isolation have become one of the defining challenges of ageing in Kerala," Kelkar says.

To address that, the department is exploring volunteer networks and community programmes to tackle isolation among the elderly.

"Our vision is that no elderly person in Kerala should feel invisible or abandoned, regardless of where their children live."

The fear of ageing alone, doctors say, is becoming increasingly common across the country.

"My patients ask me - if they become dependent, who will take care of them?" says Dr Prasun Chatterjee, who leads the geriatrics unit at Apollo Hospital in Delhi.

Others worry about something more immediate - who would take them to hospital if they fell ill in the middle of the night.

Many of his patients live alone after losing a spouse or seeing their children move away.

Dr Chatterjee also points to a wider gap in India's healthcare system: too few geriatric specialists, with many older people still relying on services not designed for their needs.

He says what is needed is a broader support network, from day-care centres and community spaces to accessible primary healthcare and opportunities for older people to stay socially connected.

"No single department can do all of that," he says.

Alongside these plans, questions remain over whether Kerala's new department has the resources to match its ambitions.

The state has allocated 100 million rupees ($1.06m; £802,605) for elderly welfare this year, a figure some have described as largely symbolic.

Kelkar says the funding is meant to build coordination capacity, support pilot projects and develop the data systems needed for a longer-term response.

"The government views ageing not as a short-term project but as a long-term development priority," he adds.

Some experts also argue these policy steps alone are not enough. They point at a need for private facilities and adoption.

"There is still no properly regulated market for senior care," says Srinivasan Govindaraj, CEO of Athulya Seniorcare, which operates senior-living facilities across several states, including Kerala.

"There are many small players, but no uniform standards or quality measures."

He says Kerala's ageing population will need not just welfare schemes but a trusted and regulated care ecosystem that can support families who cannot afford private solutions.

For MSR Dev, an 82-year-old retired scientist, the question is also about something simpler - whether older people remain connected to the world around them.

He believes Kerala can draw lessons from countries such as Sweden, where community support systems help older people remain active and independent.

"Communication is essential," he says.

"Not just food or health services. As social beings, people need places to connect."

Back in their home, Dominic and Martha are not waiting for policy to catch up. They depend on neighbours, as they always have.

What they want, Martha says, is not complicated - someone to call who can actually come.

Whether Kerala's new department can help provide that support, in a state where families are often separated by oceans and time zones, remains to be seen.

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Independent MPs launch new Australian centrist party

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg76mgz0m1o, 3 days ago

Two independent Australian MPs have banded together to launch a new centrist political party which they say is a response to an increasingly divisive landscape.

The Community Strong Australia party - launched in Canberra on Thursday - will offer "unity over division and reason over rage", will have no leader and will allow members to vote freely, rather than along party lines.

Its two members - Sydney MPs Zali Steggall and Allegra Spender - are from a group of independent MPs known as "teals" who share socially liberal values and want greater climate action.

The party will offer an "alternate political force" to the current two-party system in Australia, the pair said.

Australia's political landscape had traditionally been dominated by the two major parties - the centre-left Labor and the Liberal-Nationals Coalition, which leans conservative.

Labor won a landslide victory at last year's federal election, securing a second term in power, while the Coalition suffered its worst defeat ever, followed by months of in-fighting.

In recent months, right-wing party One Nation - led by Pauline Hanson - has seen a surge in support, including one poll that found she was the preferred prime minister.

Asked if the recent rise in support for One Nation and its anti-immigration rhetoric had spurred their decision to form a new party, Steggall and Spender said they had been guided by what their voters were telling them.

"We absolutely hear those grievances," Spender said. "People are frustrated and tired of the status quo," she said, adding that "if I wasn't in politics, I wouldn't know who to vote for".

Spender, who won her seat in 2022, said the party wants to "hear from communities beyond our own that want a voice that genuinely reflects them".

Steggall, a former barrister and Winter Olympian, has been a federal MP since 2019, after she unseated the former prime minister Tony Abbott in an electorate that had been held by the Liberal Party for more than a century.

"We don't want the in-fighting, we don't want the blame game. We want solutions that will make a difference to us," Steggall said.

The new party "offers unity over division and reason over rage," she said, and was an "invitation" to voters "to come and build the kind of Australia we want".

Key issues for the party will be housing affordability and cost of living pressures as well as climate change, childcare, education and healthcare.

The pair also told local media that Climate 200, a political organisation that has helped fund independents that have won several Liberal seats in recent elections, was not involved with the new party.

New electoral funding laws allow political parties a much bigger budget for campaigning, which some independents have said will disadvantage them.

Several other independents have ruled out joining, with another two "teal" independents considering their options.

The party has lodged an application with the Australian Electoral Commission with registration expected to be finalised in October.

Spider which uses spring trap to capture prey discovered in Australia

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70y138y995o, 5 days ago

A new species of spider which weaves a catapult-like silk trap to snare a single type of ant has been discovered in the remote rainforests of northern Australia.

Researchers believe the nocturnal predator developed the unique hunting method to make meals of aggressive ants which are notoriously dangerous - and unusual - prey for arachnids.

The snare's "exceptionally high power" flings the ant into a bigger web at "15 times the most extreme g-forces experienced by jet pilots", said lead researcher Prof Ajay Narendra.

Though it is yet to be formally named, scientists have nicknamed the tiny spider "ballista", after the ancient weapon used to hurl stones in battle.

"The snare mechanism seems to have evolved as a highly specialised way of allowing the spider to 'pick off' potentially hazardous prey one at a time and transport them a safe distance away from ant trails and nests," researcher Dr Jonas Wolff said.

Ants have chemical defences, including the ability to sting in some species, and can recruit throngs of other ants rapidly as backup to overcome potential predators, Narendra explained.

Their team, from Australia's Macquarie University, spent 10 nights in the tropical rainforests of northern Queensland, capturing the spider's behaviour using high-speed and infrared cameras.

According to their findings, published in the journal Current Biology, the ballista spider resides on trees occupied by the aggressive and territorial green tree ant Oecophylla smaragdina, spending the day in webs hidden beneath the underside of leaves.

After nightfall, it drops down some 50cm to a leaf, a branch or the forest floor and creates an anchor point using a silk line.

It then spends hours creating a cone-shape "scaffold" of dozens of tension lines, around which it finally wraps a thinner type of silk before retreating upwards.

Within moments, scientists found green ants approached the trap and bit it - causing the snare to spring and the prey to be launched into the spider's web at "extreme" acceleration.

The scientists found that these green ants were the only prey captured by the spider, even when they released other nocturnal ants near the trap. They suspect the spider adds pheromones to the trap to lure and anger the green ants alone.

That is unprecedented, Narendra said.

"This seems to be the only case where a spider's web is designed to catch a single prey species, and where the mechanism is triggered by the prey rather than by the predator."

The spider, which belongs to the genus Propostira, was initially observed by biomedical researcher Greg Anderson - also a spider researcher and photographer.

Australia's coal and gas exports violate our human rights, group says in new UN case

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8q5nx6jw6o, 5 days ago

A group of Australians have accused the government of violating their human rights by continuing to export coal and gas and are asking the UN to take action.

The group say their lives have been harmed due to extreme weather in Australia - bushfires, floods, heatwaves, rising sea levels and toxic algal blooms - and the government's support of fossil fuel companies is to blame.

It is the first legal claim taken to an international body or court since 2025's ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that countries can be sued over climate change.

Any decision by the UN is not legally binding but Australia - one of the world's largest coal and gas exporters - would be expected to respond.

The BBC has contacted Environment Minister Murray Watt for comment.

Dr Barry Traill, a wildlife ecologist and volunteer firefighter, is one of the ten litigants.

In 2009, several of his friends died during the devastating Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, despite being prepared and experienced, he said.

"That deeply changed me," Traill said, and "it became clear that the old rules around fires and survival no longer applied".

In 2019, he was on the frontlines battling severe blazes in Queensland during the so-called Black Summer fires where he saw that climate change was not a future problem.

"It is already killing people and hurting lives, landscapes and communities across Australia," he said.

"Continuing to allow coal and gas companies to increase pollution, while people face worsening disasters, is a profound failure of responsibility."

Brendon Donohue has also joined the legal claim, describing how he was trapped in his home for 10 days in 2022 when floods in Brisbane damaged the power supply of his apartment block, meaning the lifts, intercom and exits were not accessible.

"Because I live with blindness and mobility challenges, climate impacts affect me differently and can make everyday life much harder to navigate safely," he said.

Another case is that of Prof Anne Poelina, an Indigenous woman from the Kimberley region in Western Australia, who describes being displaced from the area around the Fitzroy River, one of the state's most important waterways, because of catastrophic flooding.

"When the river is healthy, our people are healthy," she said, and "when the river suffers, our people suffer."

"What concerns me most is the intergenerational loss of cultural knowledge," she added as "so much of our knowledge is not written down", but passed on by being physically present on the land.

One of the lawyers helping the group with their claim said that "climate harm caused by Australia's coal and gas doesn't stop at a border, and neither does Australia's responsibility for it".

"They are asking the United Nations Human Rights Committee to declare that it's unlawful for Australia to continue approving and subsidising coal and gas for export without a plan to protect people from dangerous climate change," said Hannah White, senior lawyer with Environmental Justice Australia.

Last July, the ICJ - considered the world's highest court with global jurisdiction - ruled that countries can sue each other for climate change, including over historic emissions of planet-warming gases.

Bondi Beach shooting hero pleads not guilty to alleged assault on his father

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8q33gdgjjo, 4 days ago

The man hailed a hero for tackling one of the gunmen who killed 15 people at Bondi Beach has pleaded not guilty to allegedly assaulting his father, a Sydney court has heard.

Ahmed al Ahmed, 44, appeared before Bankstown Local Court on Wednesday to face charges of assault as well as stalking and intimidation in relation to an incident in March.

Outside court, Ahmed's lawyer said the case has been "very difficult" for his client and it is a "family situation he never expected".

On 14 December, Ahmed jumped on Sajid Akram from behind as he opened fire on a crowd at a Jewish event, wrestling a long-arm gun from the gunman. A second alleged gunman shot Ahmed several times in the arm.

The attack was Australia's deadliest mass shooting since 1996 with police declaring it a terrorist incident that had targeted the Jewish community.

Video footage of Ahmed's actions received international coverage, prompting a fundraiser that collected more than A$2.5m (£1.24m; $1.7m) for him.

After he was charged earlier this month, Ahmed told local media that the claims of assault were "not true at all".

In a separate matter, two of Ahmed's brothers have recently been charged over allegations they threatened him and tried to extort some of the donations he had received.

Hozifa al Ahmed and Sameh al Ahmed moved to Australia after the shooting and lived with Ahmed, but their relationship broke down. It is alleged that the two brothers threatened to hurt Ahmed if he did not hand over $100,000 to each of them.

As he left the court on Wednesday, Ahmed replied "no comment" when asked if his family was lying and if he thinks he can make peace with his father and brothers.

In the days after the Bondi Beach shooting, Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Ahmed as he recovered in hospital, calling him "the best of our country".

In a TV interview, Ahmed - who was born and raised in Syria - described the moments before he tackled the gunman, saying he wanted to stop innocent people being killed and that "my soul" was "asking me to do that".

The case is due back in court in August, with a hearing set for December.

Largest ever cocaine bust in Australia after police raid underground bunker

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c14ygjzr8j7o, 6 days ago

Australian police have seized 2.7 tonnes of cocaine - the country's largest ever such bust - from an underground bunker system in western Sydney.

The drugs, with an estimated street value of A$816m (£433m, €500m), were found on Friday in compartments concealed beneath false floors in three shipping containers at a property in Londonderry.

Two men aged 21 and 25, who allegedly attempted to flee from police, were arrested at the scene and charged with possessing a commercial quantity of an unlawfully imported border-controlled drug.

Police say the cocaine was smuggled into Australia via the small town of Midge Point in North Queensland on the orders of an organised crime group.

The two men, who were remanded in custody after appearing in court on Saturday, face life in prison if convicted.

Police said the raid on the Londonderry property was part of "Operation Minjiang" which was launched in May after 40kg of cocaine was found floating in the water off a boat ramp at Midge Point.

Another six people in Queensland and New South Wales were arrested and charged as part of investigations sparked by the find, police said last week.

An alleged "mother vessel" suspected of being part of the smuggling operation has also been detained in Solomon Islands.

Despite its remoteness, Australia is a lucrative market for the drugs trade, with cocaine typically fetching around A$300 per gram, according to an illegal drugs monitoring system run by the University of New South Wales.

Australians and New Zealanders also have the highest cocaine use rates in the world, according to last year's UN World Drug Report.

Australian Federal Police Commander Stephen Jay said the alleged plot showed "how highly organised and determined these criminal networks are, and the extreme lengths they are willing to go to in pursuit of profit.

"Investigations into the origin of the drugs remain ongoing, and we will work with our international and domestic law enforcement partners to identify the criminal syndicates and anyone else involved in facilitating this alleged attempted drug import."

Australia confirms first case of H5N1 bird flu as virus reaches every continent

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gykxklvl5o, 8 days ago

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has for the first time been found in Australia, the country's agriculture ministry confirmed. It means the highly contagious variant has now reached every continent.

The disease was found in a migratory seabird, a brown skua, in remote Western Australia, Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said on Saturday.

The bird was found on a beach at the Cape Le Grand National Park near the town of Esperance, about 700km (434 mi) south-east of Perth, according to local media.

Australia was previously the only continent where the H5N1 bird flu strain had not been found.

The strain can spread quickly among poultry and wild bird populations. Human cases tied to the disease remain uncommon.

"We all knew we couldn't be bird flu-free forever," Collins told a press conference.

Collins added that there was a second suspected case of bird flu - a southern petrel that was found exhausted on an Esperance beach, though she added that there was no "evidence of mass mortalities at this time".

Threatened Species Commissioner Fiona Fraser said authorities would know "within a few days" if the virus was present in any other animal populations in Australia, according to a report by the national broadcaster, the ABC.

The report also quoted the country's Chief Veterinary Officer Beth Cookson who said authorities had been "preparing for this event for a long time" and that the committee for emergency animal disease had convened on Saturday.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu was detected on the remote Australian territories of Heard and McDonald Islands in October last year - located in the southern Indian Ocean.

A study released this week estimated that around 13,000 baby seals from a group of 17,000 on Heard Island were killed by the H5N1 strain of bird flu since last August, more than 75% of the entire group. They also found higher than expected deaths in penguin populations.

Scientists believe bird flu was likely introduced to the islands last August from migrating birds from the French-owned Crozet Islands, about 1,800 km away.

Bird flu is a disease caused by a virus that infects birds and sometimes other animals, such as foxes, seals and otters.

The major strain - circulating among wild birds worldwide - is a type of the virus known as H5N1. It emerged in China in the late 1990s.

Bird migration has led to outbreaks in domestic and wild birds- and in very rare cases also infected humans, usually from contact with sick animals.

Christmas market attacker jailed for life for murdering six in Germany

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy06y63y6lno, 2 days ago

A court in Germany has sentenced a man to life in prison for an attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg in 2024, in which six people were killed.

The court imposed the maximum sentence on the defendant, Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen, who is from Saudi Arabia. The 51-year-old was found guilty of murder.

Prosecutors say he drove a rented BMW car at speeds of up to 48km/h (30mph) through the Christmas market in the centre of Magdeburg on 20 December 2024.

They say the attack took place at 19:02 local time when the market was very crowded with Christmas revellers celebrating at the gingerbread and mulled wine stalls. It lasted just a minute and four seconds.

A nine-year-old boy and five women between the ages of 45 and 75 were killed. Around 300 others were injured.

Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen was arrested immediately after the incident.

Prosecutors said he planned the attack well in advance and had acted alone. They said he was not pursuing any serious ideological goals, but acted primarily out of personal motives.

"The defendant's sole concern was, and remains, himself," the Chief Public Prosecutor Matthias Böttcher said.

A psychiatric expert said the man had narcissistic personality disorder and an overwhelming need for attention.

Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen told the court he had been motivated to carry out the attack because of conflicts with the German authorities. He said he was angry that the rights of Saudi women were being ignored.

He said very little about the attack itself.

Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen was granted asylum in Germany in 2016. It is understood that he claimed to face the threat of persecution in Saudi Arabia, due to his criticism of Islam and the ruling family. The German Press Agency DPA said he came from Hofuf in Saudi Arabia, and is from the Shiite minority there.

Officials say he had a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric and far-right sympathies.

He has been described as critical of Islam and he also voiced support on social media for the far-right Alternative for Germany party, hailing the party for fighting the same enemy as him "to protect Germany".

Before the attack, he worked at a clinic in Bernburg, as a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy. He had been employed since 2020 in a secure psychiatric facility for people with addictions, but had most recently been registered as unfit for work.

He has the right to appeal against the verdict.

A temporary courthouse was erected in Magdeburg for his trial, because of the large number of victims.

Germany's Christmas markets and festivals have come under attack before, mainly from extreme Islamists.

At the time of the attack, officials said Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen was an "untypical" attacker.

Poland's Tusk calls for 'mutual respect' during row with Ukraine

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyrkze46p0o, 3 days ago

Poland's prime minister has called for "truth" and "mutual respect" at an event on rebuilding Ukraine that Volodymyr Zelensky skipped amid a diplomatic row between the two neighbours and allies.

Donald Tusk opened the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdansk without the Ukrainian president after he was stripped of Poland's highest state honour over the naming of a military unit after controversial World War Two fighters.

Warsaw and Kyiv have fallen out over the allusion to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), who many Ukrainians consider freedom fighters but who Poland accuses of genocide.

The row comes as Ukraine seeks further support and investment as it continues to fend off Russia's full-scale invasion.

"We can build the future only on truth, on mutual respect, on an understanding of history," Tusk told the annual event on Thursday.

Zelensky has led Ukraine's delegation to the conference in previous years, but this year it is being headed by Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki branded Ukraine's decision late last month to name a unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) "outrageous", "incomprehensible" and "deeply disappointing".

Many in Ukraine regard the UPA, which existed in the 1940s and 1950s, as heroes who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Soviet Red Army, as well as Nazi Germany and Polish authorities.

Poland, however, accuses the UPA of carrying out a genocide of around 100,000 ethnic Poles in Volhynia (now Volyn in Ukraine) between 1943 and 1945.

"It hurts not only our historical memory. It also undermines the trust built up over the years and in recent months," Nawrocki added.

While Nawrocki has stressed the row would not impact Poland's support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, it comes as Kyiv is seeking billions in aid and investment in post-war reconstruction - and as it hopes to demonstrate it is ready to accede to the EU.

Both issues will be key topics of discussion at the two-day summit.

Zelensky said this week that he had returned the Polish Order of the White Eagle, which had been bestowed on him in 2023.

He wrote that Ukraine would "remain open to all meaningful formats of engagement with Poland in order to try to avoid conflicting interpretations of the difficult and painful chapters of our shared past".

He added Ukraine was "grateful to the Polish people for their support and co-operation".

It came after Tusk attempted to dampen the diplomatic tensions, saying the feud "delights" Russian President Vladimir Putin, and calling on Zelensky and Nawrocki to "calm emotions, not to stoke tensions".

Poland has been one of Ukraine's main allies during the war against Russia, taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees and serving as a logistics hub for aid to Ukraine.

Representatives from Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Sweden are attending the summit.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council head Antonio Costa are also there.

Ukraine has ambitions to become an EU member state and attended the first phase of membership negotiations last week in Luxembourg.

Senior Ukrainian intelligence official jailed for life for spying for Russia

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg4w3wyxzzno, 2 days ago

A former high-ranking Ukrainian intelligence official has been sentenced to life in prison for spying for Russia's FSB security service.

Col Dmytro Kozyura was found guilty of high treason under martial law, Ukraine's prosecutor general said. He was previously chief of staff of the Security Service of Ukraine's (SBU) anti-terrorism centre.

An operation codenamed "rat" found he had used a safehouse in Kyiv to communicate with Russian handlers seeking classified information about Ukraine's military and leadership, the SBU said.

The prosecutor general said Kozyura had agreed to share information "constituting state secrets" for financial reward and deserved the harshest punishment.

Kyiv has announced numerous operations to expose Russian agents on its soil since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

After his arrest in February 2025, the SBU released an image of the former official with Ukraine's intelligence chief Vasyl Malyuk, who led the investigation.

In a statement after his sentencing, the agency said he had been recruited by Russia's FSB in Vienna in 2018, but several years had passed before his handlers resumed contact with him in December 2024.

The SBU said he was subsequently asked to gather and share what Ukraine knew about the deployment and movement of Russia's armed forces, and information about Ukraine's weapons, infrastructure and its political and military leadership.

His activities included spying on SBU command posts and "systematically" sharing the consequences of Russian strikes, including the number of wounded soldiers and civilians, a statement from the office of Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said.

He was in "constant communication" with his handlers, including sharing documents marked "secret", he added.

"The colonel, a career officer in the SBU, had access to state secrets and was responsible for co-ordinating the fight against terrorism," the statement added.

"Anyone who wears Ukrainian epaulets and begins working for the FSB becomes an enemy of Ukraine," Kravchenko said. "Only the harshest punishment is appropriate for such individuals."

Kozyura was arrested last year after SBU officials "monitored every step of the agent around the clock" and found he had communicated with a Russian operative from a safehouse using a separate mobile phone and Wi-Fi router, the SBU said.

It named his FSB handler in Russia as a man called Yuriy Shatalov whose role was to co-ordinate a network of agents.

Ukraine's security service maintained that before Kozyura's eventual arrest, it had used him to "flood Russian forces with a massive amount of disinformation", while at the same time preventing him from getting hold of important intelligence.

He was found guilty of high treason under martial law and the illegal handling of weapons, ammunitions or explosives by the Shevchenkivskyy District Court in Kyiv.

Women alleging rape and sexual assault in France call to abolish statute of limitations

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg7z5dvxnzo, 3 days ago

A group of women, who have alleged sexual assault or rape in France, are calling for the abolition of the statute of limitations which they say has prevented them seeking justice in criminal proceedings.

It is the first time more than 50 women alleging sexual assault and rape by men, including Jeffrey Epstein, his former business partner and model agent Jean-Luc Brunel and billionaire businessman Mohammed Al Fayed, have come together collectively to demand the change to French law.

Currently, there is a 20-year statute of limitations for adults wanting to report to sexual assault or rape to French authorities and a 30-year limitation from the date the crime occurred if they were a minor.

The women, who have formed a collective called Survivors' Voices, said during a press conference, the restriction of reporting their assaults makes them feel like their case "doesn't matter simply because of the date" it occurred.

"Rape doesn't expire, trauma doesn't expire," Thysia Husiman said.

She alleges she was raped at the age of 18 in Paris by model agent Jean-Luc Brunel.

He was found hanged in his cell in La Santé prison in 2022 whilst being held on suspicion of the rape of minors and trafficking of minors for sexual exploitation.

Former BBC producer Lisa Brinkworth, who claims she was sexually assaulted while working undercover to expose abuse in the fashion industry by Elite Model Management boss Gerald Marie, announced she was taking her case to the European Court of Human Rights.

She posed as a model in a documentary for the BBC's Donal McIntyre Investigates series in 1998, but reported her allegation to police in 2021.

Her case against Marie was dismissed because her 20-year statute of limitations had ran out in France.

After two appeals, including an appeal to France's highest court, Brinkworth was told her case exceeded the statute of limitations and could not be pursued.

"At the time I was directed not to report the assault [by people who worked for the BBC]. I was in the middle of a high profile, very expensive television documentary series.

"Then to have a producer on the show who was assaulted was a huge embarrassment to the corporation. I think it was an inconvenience but it also meant that had I reported it at that time filming would have stalled for however long or probably disbanded altogether."

She also said, even if she had wanted to report the accusation to police, evidence gathered at the time was denied to her by senior people on the team.

Brinkworth said the BBC is still refusing to assist her case by not giving her "vital evidence" from the raw footage where she says she recorded her account of the assault in the minutes after it had happened.

After the documentary aired in November 1999, Elite Models sued the BBC alleging misrepresentation. They entered a legally binding agreement which the BBC will not divulge the details of.

Brinkworth said she was "specifically and categorically told a number of times" by the BBC that she was "legally bound" not to speak out about any aspect of the documentary, including her own alleged assault.

A lawyer for Gérald Marie said: "The allegations made by the complainants have already been the subject of a thorough investigation in France. That investigation was closed without further action."

A spokesperson for the BBC said: "As we've always made clear, we take these matters very seriously and we know the situation is distressing for Lisa Brinkworth. The BBC is not trying to silence Ms Brinkworth; she is free to speak about the BBC investigation and her experiences, and has done so.

"We have already provided material to the French authorities to help Ms Brinkworth pursue the matter and investigators have assured us they have what they currently need from the BBC. We have also provided material to Ms Brinkworth directly. We will continue to do whatever we can to assist with the process."

France confirms first Ebola case

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj9gzr9rdjlo, 4 days ago

France has confirmed its first case of Ebola - a doctor who had returned from a humanitarian mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The doctor was "immediately admitted to a specialised facility" and is in a stable condition, the French health ministry said on Wednesday.

DR Congo announced an Ebola outbreak last month, but experts believe the virus had been circulating for weeks previously.

More than 260 people are confirmed to have died from the virus in the central African country, while 1,000 people have been infected.

This is the first Ebola case to have been confirmed in Europe, although an American doctor who tested positive in DR Congo was treated at a German hospital last month.

DR Congo's neighbour, Uganda, has also confirmed Ebola cases. The World Health Organization (WHO) says 20 people are known to have been infected there and two deaths have been confirmed.

France's health ministry stressed that the risk to the population was "very low". Likewise, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said "the risk to the rest of the world is low" and that there was "no need to panic".

Efforts are underway to trace people who may have been in contact with the doctor.

Healthcare workers are especially at risk from Ebola, which is spread through bodily fluids.

Last week WHO said 17 of the 75 health workers who had caught Ebola in DR Congo had died.

The current Ebola outbreak was caused by the Bundibugyo species of the virus, for which there is currently no vaccine.

France has set up a "dedicated monitoring system" for aid workers returning from DR Congo, the health ministry said.

According to both Africa's Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and US public health authorities, the current Ebola outbreak has the potential to be one of the largest ever.

In DR Congo, cases are currently concentrated in the eastern provinces of Ituri, South Kivu and North Kivu.

Ituri remains the main centre of transmission, accounting for more than 90% of confirmed infections.

The WHO has warned that conflict in eastern DR Congo is making it more difficult to tackle the Ebola outbreak. The M23 rebel group is in control of large parts of both North and South Kivu.

Crime boss Steven Lyons arrives in Spain after extradition

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0jyq3990jeo, 4 days ago

Steven Lyons, one of Scotland's leading gangland figures, has arrived in Spain after losing a bid against his extradition on a series of charges related to organised crime.

Lyons, 46, was arrested in Bali in March under a European Warrant issued by Spain's Guardia Civil.

And last week he lost his bid to block extradition from the Netherlands.

In a fresh development, the Guardia Civil said Lyons was now also under investigation for "his alleged involvement in a murder in Spain".

In a video posted online, Lyons was escorted off a flight from Amsterdam on the runway at Madrid's Barajas Airport by officers and placed into the back of a police van.

Spain's national police force said he was sought in connection with drug trafficking, money laundering and an alleged murder in 2024.

The crime boss is the head of the Lyons group which has been involved in a bloody feud with the rival Daniel organisation for more than 20 years.

It is expected Lyons will appear before a duty judge in Madrid before being taken to a jail in Andalusia.

After his arrest he was initially flown to the Netherlands as Spain does not have an extradition agreement with Indonesia.

Lyons appealed against his extradition but a court in Amsterdam turned down that bid last week.

Last year his brother, Eddie Lyons Jr and associate Ross Monaghan were shot dead in a beach-front bar in Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol.

Michael Riley, 44, from Liverpool, has been accused by Spanish police of the murders.

Officers in Scotland and Spain carried out a series of simultaneous raids in March, following a years-long investigation into serious organised crime.

Co-ordinated with the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA), it targeted alleged members of the Lyons - Scotland's dominant crime group - and resulted in 14 arrests across four countries.

Electronic devices, large amounts of cash, company documents, high-end watches and cryptocurrency wallets were said to have been seized as part of the investigation.

A statement in April by the Civil Guard in Spain said the Lyons gang had developed a criminal network in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, using "a complex money laundering network based on shell companies and international financial transactions, managing millions of euros derived from drug trafficking".

It added that the group operated across several countries, including Spain, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, and is "one of the most significant players in contemporary European organised crime".

It said the Lyons operation involved 18 raids, mostly on the Costa Del Sol and Barcelona.

Biggest city in Crimea without power after Ukraine strikes

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3ryv72pjqno, 4 days ago

A Ukrainian air attack on Russian-occupied Crimea has knocked out power in its largest city, Sevastopol, Moscow-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev says.

Ukraine says its drones struck the city's main power substation overnight.

Razvozhayev warned some areas would be left without power until Wednesday evening.

Kyiv has been intensifying attacks on power facilities in areas held by Russia to damage oil revenues and try to force President Putin to the negotiating table.

The port city of Sevastopol is an important logistical and strategic location.

"We will not be intimidated by the lack of light. We have gone through more than that, and we will survive now," Razvozhayev said in a Telegram message to the public.

"The enemy is again striking vilely, trying to deprive us of our usual living conditions and sow panic."

He said a "special regime" had been put in place at the energy facilities as the damage was assessed and that all emergency services are on full alert.

Those living in Sevastopol were told to introduce power-saving measures including saving mobile phone battery by turning the screen brightness down and switching off background apps.

They were also urged to check on elderly neighbours throughout the day, when temperatures are expected to reach 30C.

Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, said on Wednesday drones had targeted 48 operational and planned military sites.

He said that the main power substation of Sevastopol had been hit during the attacks.

Explosions had also been heard in Bakhchisarai, Kerch and in the area of Mount Ai-Petri, where the radio engineering battalion of the Russian Aerospace Forces is based.

It comes amid fuel shortages in the city after intense efforts by Ukraine to isolate the peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014.

On Sunday, Russian-installed leader Sergei Aksyonov announced all petrol sales had been suspended.

It is now mostly reserved for government services, despite local residents saying garages did have supplies in its tanks.

Panic-buying has also started in some shops, with sugar said to be in especially short supply.

Kyiv has also targeted key bridges connecting the Crimean peninsula with other areas of occupied Ukraine.

Crimea is recognised internationally as Ukrainian, but since Putin's invasion it has been linked to Russia by road and rail links.

A land corridor goes through occupied areas of southern Ukraine as well as a road and rail bridge through the Kerch Strait.

Russia's defence ministry has said that it destroyed over 300 drones from Ukraine overnight.

Meanwhile Kyiv's air force has said Moscow launched its own 101 drones at Ukraine overnight, but 95 were intercepted and destroyed.

On Thursday a 200-strong Ukrainian drone strike hit an oil refinery in the south-east area of Moscow.

People reported specks of black oil rained down on the streets after the attack, which also saw columns of thick smoke going into the sky.

Moscow authorities denied the "oil rain" but residents insisted to the BBC the dirty drizzle had marked their clothes.

The war has been going on for four and a half years since Ukraine was invaded by Russia.

On June, 4 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sent an open letter to Putin calling for direct negotiations face-to-face to end the war and a ceasefire.

Putin called the note "rude" and refused the request for a meeting, insisting peace talks should precede any ceasefire.

Air conditioning creates political divide after France records hottest day

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gyqldl3p5o, 4 days ago

With temperatures soaring, France is being forced to re-think its longstanding reservations about one possible answer to climate change: air-con.

This week debate about la clim (climatisation) has once again burst out, with Marine Le Pen on the populist right urging a mass subsidised roll-out and traditionally hostile Greens conceding that some air-conditioning may now be inevitable.

Currently the country has a low take-up, with only 25% of households equipped with an air-con unit. In Spain and Italy the figure is 50%, and in the US and Japan 90%.

French hospitals and schools are also only rarely equipped. Thousands of schools have had to shut this week, and medical and nursing staff complain of conditions fast becoming intolerable.

But with temperatures nudging 40C - Tuesday was France's hottest day on record - there has been a rush to buy portable air-conditioning appliances, just to let children enjoy a few hours in class, or for suffocating apartment-dwellers to make it through the night.

And more and more, it seems, long-standing opponents of air-conditioning - mainly on the environmentalist left - recognise that it is bound to be part of the country's response to global warming.

This week the head of the Ecologists party Marine Tondelier broke something of a taboo when she said that air-conditioning would be needed in schools and hospitals.

"There are places where we just can't do without it now," she said.

Her break with what she called "anti-clim dogma" is significant because until now the Green movement in France has regarded air-conditioning as the worst of solutions to climate change.

Far from attacking the root causes of global-warming, activists said, recourse to la clim was merely attenuating the effects of global-warming.

And by making those effects more bearable, it distracted from the essential fight against the causes.

Not only that, but air-conditioning is often criticised by environmentalists for aggravating climate change.

This is because it requires electricity to run - and though most of France's electricity comes from nuclear power, elsewhere it means more fossil-fuels being burned.

There is also the question of the refrigerant gases used in air-conditioning, which are greenhouse gases and often leak.

And there is the urban heating effect, caused by the expulsion of hot air onto the street.

Arguments rage, but some studies suggest this can raise city temperatures by two or three degrees.

Suspicion of air-conditioning has also infiltrated government policy.

New building and renovation norms focus quite naturally on insulation, greenery and hi-tech methods for air-circulation - with the express aim of making air-conditioning unnecessary.

A giant new hospital being built in the Brittany city of Nantes for example will have air-conditioning in only half its rooms, provoking the wrath of medical trade unions.

"In the environmental context, we should have la clim everywhere," said Olivier Terrien of the CGT union.

According to Valerie Pécresse, the conservative president of the Paris regional council, "The state operates under an anti-clim ideology. But air-conditioning has got to be brought into the picture, along with other methods for creating cool."

Pécresse, who controls Paris regional transport, hopes to have all buses and trains equipped with aircon by 2032, and she castigates her Socialist predecessor for failing to see its importance.

The political right has always been more pro-clim than the left - and none more so than the National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen.

This week she has been calling for a nationwide "plan clim" to equip all schools and hospitals with air-conditioning.

According to RN spokesman Jean-Philippe Tanguy, the plan would also include government-backed interest-free loans worth €20bn ($22.7bn; £17.2bn) to allow 30 to 40 million householders to install cooling units.

Critics denounced the RN plan as opportunistic and uncosted. They say the populist right was the last to recognise the reality of climate change, so it has little credibility today when it talks about its effects.

But the truth is that with temperatures approaching danger levels in France, with lives at stake and schools and hospitals at risk of breakdown - everyone is coming to the same conclusion: that more clim is inevitable.

Would farmers and fishermen back Brexit today?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c621zrjl8z5o, 2 days ago

In the run-up to the 2016 EU referendum, farming opinion over Brexit was split, with polls suggesting a narrow majority of farmers wanted to leave the EU.

Eurosceptic MPs said outside of the union Britain would be free to set its own subsidies and - crucially - its own environment policies.

The vote among the fishing industry was more united. A poll conducted before the referendum showed 92% of fishermen intended to vote to leave the EU.

A decade on, the BBC spoke to farmers and fishermen in the South East and asked if, given what they know now, would they vote the same way today?

Surrey beef farmer, Simon Maiklem, voted to remain in the EU.

He said he has not seen any advantage from coming out of Europe.

"If anything, things are probably worse than were predicted," he said.

Maiklem said his business model was built around exporting "high health, high pedigree cattle to Europe" and as soon as the UK left the EU that market disappeared for him.

"That market has now been taken up by the Southern Irish," he explained, adding that because Ireland are still in the EU "they've done very well out of it".

He also said farm subsidies have been "lost" over time with changing governments.

"I still haven't got my head round why we did it [vote to leave]," Maiklem added.

He said he recognised that Europe had become "top-heavy" with legislation, but added: "It would have been far better if we'd just stayed in and tried to change it from within."

Promises of less bureaucracy have not materialised, he said.

"A very old friend of my father's said that farmers voting for Brexit was turkeys voting for Christmas. I think he might have been proved right," added Maiklem.

Sussex fisherman, Mark Ball, voted to leave the EU.

He said when the UK was in the European Union "everything was one-sided and unfair".

"I felt that if we could leave, we could get control back of our waters and hopefully make fishing a bit better," he said.

Ball said he wanted European boats to be banned from fishing inside 12 miles off the UK coast.

Ten years on from the referendum he said nothing has changed.

He said EU boats "still come to six miles" and that for British fishermen there was now "loads of red tape around exporting fish".

"It's so unfair," he said. "They've got everything they wanted and more on top. And all we've got is a load of regulation."

'I'd still vote leave'

Ball says he would still vote leave today, adding: "I just think they're bullies."

He said it was not Brexit that was the problem but the agreement that was made.

"Hopefully in the future we can tear that agreement up and get another agreement," he said.

He said fishermen feel betrayed by what has happened and he hoped for a change adding that if things don't change, "inshore fishing just doesn't stand a chance".

Jim Partridge, from Monteum Ltd, a fishing company in Shoreham, voted to leave the EU but said of Brexit: "We really haven't had it."

He said the UK was "meant to be freed from Europe", but French fishermen were still operating in the Channel up to six miles from Sussex.

The current fishing boundary is set at six miles from the UK based on "historical rights", he said, but UK fleets wanted "a line down the middle" of the Channel.

Partridge said French boats were taking fish stocks, leaving "very little" off the Sussex coast – an area where there should be Dover sole, plaice, cod in season, brill and turbot.

After 69 years of selling fish, stocks in the Channel now, compared to when he started at eight years old, were like "chalk and cheese", he said.

Partridge said since Ted Heath took the UK into Europe, fishing fleets had "been suffering ever since".

"The best fish stocks have been off the UK," he said, and "that lot over there want it".

When asked about calls to rejoin the EU, he said: "Europe is not performing and people think we would perform better with them."

Partridge said there was "no question" when he voted to leave 10 years ago, and "no question" he would do the same again.

Kent fruit farmer Robert Pascall, voted to leave.

Ten years on he said purely on economic terms "remaining in the EU probably would have been the right answer".

But he said "national pride" also comes into the debate, adding that at the time of the referendum he "felt quite dominated by the EU".

Pascall said his business no longer receives the same farming subsidies as European fruit farmers, making it difficult to compete in the EU market.

However, he said there are positives to leaving the EU.

He said tighter post‑Brexit plant health checks, introduced to reduce pests and diseases, have made importing harder.

But, he said, it has pushed his farm to grow more of its own stock plants so that they were "no longer reliant on importing through the channel tunnel".

A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson said the government was "determined" to give "farmers, fishers and food exporters the support they need to enable them to thrive".

The government says it has renewed its Sustainable Farming Incentives deal and has invested around £800m in farmers and food producers, alongside £360m through its Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund.

"Our reformed SPS deal will also make trade with EU, our biggest market, cheaper and easier," the spokesperson added.

Follow BBC Sussex on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram and listen to BBC Radio Sussex on Sounds. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250.

How 100 hospitals switched to pen and paper to defeat a national cyber-attack

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gyk756mzlo, 6 days ago

One after another the calls came in from hospitals; criminals were infecting computer networks in a mass hack that was putting countless lives at risk.

At Bucharest's national cyber-security centre (DNSC) they watched helplessly as the hackers spread across Romania through a popular piece of medical software.

Cyber-chief Dan Cimpean had a tough decision to make, but it was the only option they had.

The order went out to more than 100 hospitals. Disconnect from the internet, now.

The cyber-attack on Romania's hospitals in February 2024 is one of the worst to target healthcare systems around the world, but these incidents are becoming increasingly common.

Healthcare is now the most targeted area of critical national infrastructure, the FBI has said recently.

Cutting off 100 hospitals in Romania from the internet stopped the hackers in their tracks, buying time to work out how bad the attack was.

But it meant no connected devices, emails or web browsers.

Medical staff had to switch to pen and paper, improvising workarounds to protect patients while IT teams scrambled and the national cyber response centre tried to find out how the hackers had got in - and how they could stop them.

Their actions over four days from 10 February 2024, and those of the doctors and nurses, have been widely praised.

How they reacted and how they coped has become a test case for disaster planners internationally, as officials look for advice on responding to a mass hospital hack.

Surgeon Oana Goidescu was on shift at Buzău Hospital, 120km (75 miles) north-east of Bucharest, when the alert came that attackers had breached Bucharest-based software firm RSC, burrowing into a widely used medical system called Hippocrates.

"It was quite an unpleasant experience, because an IT record is not just a list of patients," she said. "For each patient, we request lab tests, radiology, medicines and supplies. All of that was gone."

Hippocrates is used by doctors, nurses and surgeons to manage everything from admissions to payroll, pharmacy logistics and test results.

Quietly, the cyber-attackers had begun infecting hospitals across the country that used the system with a ransomware strain called BackMyData. Files were being scrambled into gibberish and the demand was a ransom in bitcoin.

Staff at Pitești children's hospital, north-west of Bucharest, were the first to notice errors on Sunday morning, the day after the attack had begun.

By dawn on Monday, many other hospitals had reported the Hippocrates system was down.

With hospitals offline, the cyber-experts worked closely with the Hippocrates maker to work out how many systems had been infected and kick the hackers out.

Hospital doctors responded by creating workarounds to protect patients until things were back online.

"When we saw the system would not be repaired quickly, we developed an offline method so we could register every patient," said Vlad Paic from Carol Davila Hospital in Bucharest.

"We asked the laboratory to give us results on paper. We used Excel and other offline tools to ensure care was not affected."

Some doctors said the fallback to more analogue processes was helped by Romania's relatively recent shift to digital systems.

Cyber-investigators worked through the night and found 26 hospitals had been infected with BackMyData.

The next day, uninfected hospitals were brought back online with added protections.

The DNSC says part of the success of the operation was how they used the media to communicate with hospitals and the public.

Public messaging urged patients to avoid hospitals unless necessary.

But waiting rooms were still filling up and Goidescu said some frustrated patients took their anger out on staff.

"We were asked, 'What if it were your mother?' They were right to be angry, but we tried to explain we were not at fault," she said.

Another key message was that hospitals should not contact the hackers or pay the ransom.

The attackers had demanded €160,000 (£138,000; $183,000) in bitcoin, but a national decision was taken not to pay.

At hospitals still offline, IT teams raced to restore systems from backups.

Most had relatively recent copies of their data – a key lesson. Regular backups allow organisations to recover more quickly.

Within five days, most hospitals were back online and operating close to normal, with no reported deaths or serious harm to patients.

It would take weeks longer to input all the new information recorded on paper during the outage. Some data was lost forever.

Police are not commenting on their investigation into who was behind the attack.

However, last year a ransomware gang linked to BackMyData had its website taken down in an international operation.

Four Russians were arrested outside Russia, whose authorities do not co-operate with Western law enforcement.

Cimpean said the attack could have happened anywhere.

"The more technology you have, the more digitised you are, the greater the risk," he said.

Last year the UK's NHS health service confirmed a hack on a blood testing company that affected around a dozen medical centres in London contributed to a patient's death.

It was the first case of a death officially linked to a cyber-attack.

Around the same time, Change Healthcare in the US was hacked, leading to widespread disruption. The company paid a $22m (£16m) ransom to hackers.

Hackers also caused chaos later in the year with an attack on another US healthcare provider called Ascension.

Alina Bîzgă from Bucharest-based cyber-security firm Bitdefender says attacks on hospitals are attractive to criminals who try to cause chaos for money.

"Hospitals handle critical services, and the criminals think that the more disruption that can be caused, the more likely they are to get paid a ransom," she said.

On 23 June BBC World Service is launching a Romanian-language offer, BBC News România to serve audiences in Romania, Moldova and wider Europe with trusted journalism. BBC News România will be available on the website, Facebook and Instagram.

From cool-down spots to chalk on windows - how Europe is coping with the heat

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz0j87vpz79o, 5 days ago

Europe is in the throes of a scorching heatwave, with temperature records expected to tumble in the coming days.

We asked our reporters across the continent how people are dealing with the searing temperatures where they are.

Dutch schools go 'tropical' and 'cool-down' spots in Amsterdam

By Anna Holligan, in Amsterdam

Amsterdam is rolling out a network of "cool‑down" spots across the city, offering residents a place to escape the worst of the heat.

These spaces - in libraries, city farms, theatres, churches, community centres and even supermarkets - provide seating, drinking water and toilets, and many are open to pets as well.

In the pilot phase, most of the 12 cool‑down spots will be concentrated in Nieuw‑West, the district that city modelling identified as facing the greatest heat risk.

Officials weighed up how much shade is available, how many vulnerable residents such as young children and older people live there, and how quickly homes heat up.

Schools are also adapting. Many are moving to "tropical" timetables in the coming days, with shorter school days or fewer lessons, more breaks, extra drinks and increased ventilation.

Each school decides its own measures as there is no legal maximum classroom temperature.

The guiding principle is that pupils and teachers must be able to work in conditions that are safe and healthy.

Free cinema tickets and a French chalk frenzy

By Hugh Schofield, in Paris

The town hall of the 10th arrondissement of Paris is offering free cinema tickets to help people get out of the heat.

The plan is organised with three independent – and air-conditioned – cinemas.

To qualify you have to be under 25 or over 65, and the offer is for afternoon sessions only.

Cinemas, libraries and museums have been identified as places where people should be encouraged to go to escape the punishing temperatures.

Some towns, such as Lyon, have temporarily suspended charging in municipal museums.

According to French newspapers, there has been a run on a chalky product called Blanc de Meudon, or Meudon Whiting, in DIY shops.

The powder is mixed with water and then painted on windows, thus diminishing the power of the sun's rays and in theory bringing down the inside temperature. It does actually seem to work.

Fountains, pools and sprinklers working overtime in Spain

By Guy Hedgecoe, in Madrid

The north-eastern Spanish region of Aragón is seeing some of the highest temperatures of the heatwave, and in the cities of Zaragoza and Huesca local authorities have responded by reducing the price of entry for public swimming pools.

The northern city of Logroño, which is expecting temperatures of up to 40C on Tuesday, has made entrance to swimming pools free for the duration of the heatwave and authorities there have announced that ornamental water fountains will be turned on until 23:00 at night.

People can also cool off under water sprinklers which have been switched on in several areas of the city.

Some places have suspended the traditional burning of a bonfire to celebrate the festival of San Juan (John the Baptist) because of the fire risk posed by the extreme conditions.

The northern city of León has cancelled a fireworks display which had been scheduled for tonight to mark the festivities.

Meanwhile, many cities have established "heat refuges", which are air-conditioned public buildings where anyone can go in and escape the worst of the weather.

A 2024 law seeks to protect Spanish workers during heatwaves, ensuring employers take safety measures, including making sure outdoor manual work is not done during the hottest time of the day.

Furlough pay for Italian workers - and don't forget to eat pasta

By Sarah Rainsford, in Rome

Even for sun-loving Italy, current temperatures are extreme for June.

The list of cities issued with a red alert warning is long and set to grow on Wednesday, with the most sweltering spots in the centre and north of the country.

As the temperature climbed this week, the government reintroduced measures to help workers most exposed to the heat: either those baking outside, like farmers and construction workers, or those indoors with poor ventilation.

It means certain businesses can suspend or reduce their activity when the temperature is exceptionally high, then access state funds for furlough payments to workers.

For the rest, it's air con time. Anyone who has it installed at home or work now has it on full blast and the shutters closed.

Those without, especially the elderly and most vulnerable, have been advised to head for air-conditioned public spaces instead.

In Palermo, tourists who still insist on a horse-drawn-carriage ride will now have to wait until evening, or a cooler day.

In Turin, some restaurants have closed their terraces - elsewhere, including in Rome, giant outdoor fans and sprinklers are working overtime.

For those who do head out to eat, the health ministry has issued some advice: to choose pasta over meat, and switch dehydrating coffee or cold beer for a glass of water.

Old Belgian trains pulled from service and divine cooling for pupils

By Jessica Parker and Pol Reygaerts, in Brussels

Belgium's hottest days this week are yet to arrive, with an orange alert soon due to come into force for the whole country.

That's as temperatures in some areas start climbing towards the high 30s, with an expectation that the daytime record for June could be broken.

It was back in 1947 that the country's official weather service measured a local temperature of 36.8 degrees but that could be topped this week.

The federal government had an emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss the situation.

It is already affecting travel, with some older commuter trains not yet equipped with air conditioning being pulled from service for now.

However, there will also reportedly be some extra services to cope with the crowds, who are likely to head for the country's northern coast.

Meanwhile, Flemish news site HLN reports that teenage students in the Brussels suburb of Tervuren took their exams inside the cooler confines of a church.

"Kids are doing their best and the Holy Spirit is doing the rest," the local pastor posted on Facebook.

Bermuda shorts for posties in Germany

By Bethany Bell, in Leipzig

In Germany, people are bracing for record-breaking June temperatures on Friday, when it could get as hot as 40C in the west and south-west of the country.

Postal workers from Deutsche Post have been advised to wear long-sleeved shirts and caps - while the DHL Group said that they could also order Bermuda shorts from their corporate clothing catalogue.

After several people drowned in Germany over the weekend, the German Life Saving Association (DLRG) has urging people not to underestimate the dangers of swimming.

The Conservation Association for German Forests has warned that with the heatwave continuing across the country, the risk of forest fires is rising dramatically. It said "lighting any kind of fire in the forest or at the edge of the forest is only permitted at designated fire pits".

The DAK health insurance company has set up a hotline on how to deal with the heat.

Has Ireland lost a friend with the departure of Sir Keir Starmer?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8724d99xp1o, today

On 21 July 2024, the sun was blazing down on Chequers, the British Prime Minister's countryside residence.

In the Hawtrey Room, two newly crowned prime ministers - Sir Keir Starmer and Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Simon Harris - were laughing.

Surrounded by their closest advisors, which included chief of staff Sue Gray and cabinet secretary Simon Case on the UK side, Starmer told Harris a story about getting a Donegal jersey while on his honeymoon in Ireland.

He said he still wears the jersey while playing five a side football.

Luckily for Starmer, Harris furnished a brand new Donegal jersey as a ceremonial gift for the prime minister.

It did not go unnoticed that the meeting in Chequers was the first official hosting of an international leader there under Starmer's premiership - and Ireland was chosen as the guest.

The two men agreed to set up the annual British Irish summit, the most recent of which took place in Cork last March.

They pledged a "reset" in the British Irish relationship, which had basically completely collapsed during Brexit.

While Rishi Sunak made some attempts to rekindle it, he came under too much domestic pressure and Labour wanted to rebuild ties with EU member states which were once key UK allies.

But Starmer was distracted - under pressure domestically due to the ever growing Peter Mandelson affair and the former Ambassador's links to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Will Starmer be missed?

In short, yes.

Fianna Fail and Fine Gael ministers who dealt with Starmer and his officials over the past two years and spoke to BBC NI were glowing in their reviews.

They paid tribute to Starmer's strong stance on Ukraine and the EU and how he "didn't fall out with anyone" or "give in to Trump's bait".

One Fianna Fail source drew comparison between the state of the British economy two years ago, when Starmer took power, and now.

One Fine Gael minister said: "Starmer did nothing wrong. Brexit has put them up the swanny."

They all agreed he will be "missed" - but there is concern in Dublin that domestic issues, such as Reform biting at his toes and the economy, will preoccupy Andy Burnham and push Irish affairs to the side.

What does Dublin think of Andy Burnham?

One source said there is a "cigarette paper" in the differences between Starmer and Burnham and warned that the "shine" may come off Burnham "very quickly".

Burnham has met Taoiseach Micheál Martin both on visits to Government buildings in Dublin and also in Manchester, in Burnham's capacity as Manchester mayor.

But Burnham and his team are viewed to already be close to Ireland.

Louise Haigh, who was a key part of Burnham's campaign in the Makersfield by-election, was shadow NI secretary towards the end of Brexit and "knows a lot of Irish politicians", said one Fianna Fail minister.

She previously served as transport secretary and is tipped to get a senior job in Burnham's cabinet.

Burnham also has Irish roots - his great grandfather Edmund "Ned" Burke came from Drogheda in County Louth and emigrated with his family to Liverpool in the late 1800s.

Legacy

Legacy is now the only "wrinkle" in the British Irish relationship, said one source.

The 2023 Legacy Act was introduced by the previous Conservative government and offered conditional immunity for perpetrators of some Troubles crimes in exchange for co-operation with a new body, the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR).

The Labour government has since introduced a new bill in parliament, with MPs already having voted to repeal the conditional immunity provision.

London and Dublin previously agreed a joint framework but the government's Troubles' legacy bills still has to pass the House of Commons and Dublin believes it is not a "priority" for the UK.

Even though hopes the newly positive ties can continue with their neighbours across the pond, domestic and national issues may nudge ahead the priority list for the new prime minister.

They quit the West for Russia's traditional values, but it wasn't what they expected

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn075j04pnyo, yesterday

When Leo Hare moved to Russia from Texas in late 2023, after being granted asylum, he was convinced he was building a better future for his family.

The father of three threw himself into his new life: sampling dumplings , milking goats on a farm and filming videos about life in Russia for his online followers.

Leo is a devout Christian who had become increasingly disillusioned with everything from political division in the US, to genetically modified food and what he sees as the rise of the LGBTQ movement.

At the time, he believed Russia offered an attractive alternative: a society built on Christian faith and family values – a view heavily promoted by the Russian state.

But over time he has also become increasingly concerned about elements such as restrictions on access to information.

He is part of an unlikely migration. As Russia faces international isolation, a few thousand people from countries including Canada, Britain, the United States and parts of Europe are choosing to move there.

Their view of Russia differs sharply from the one many in the West might be familiar with: a country that invaded Ukraine and occupies large parts of it, jails political opponents, places heavy restrictions on civil liberties and faces a raft of international sanctions.

Many of the would-be migrants are attracted by Russia's Shared Values visa, sometimes called the "anti-woke" visa, which was introduced a month after Leo was granted asylum.

Introduced by President Vladimir Putin in 2024, the visa offers temporary residency for up to three years to citizens of 47 countries Russia considers "unfriendly".

There is no limit to the number of people who can apply and applicants do not need to pass the usual Russian language, history or law tests.

Instead, they must declare that they share Russia's traditional spiritual and moral values and reject what the Russian government describes as the "destructive neoliberal ideology" of their home countries.

After three years, those on the Shared Values visa must either convert it into a Permanent Residence Permit (PRP) or leave the country. The PRP requires people to sit a language and history exam and more thorough documentation.

Unlike some immigration programmes, the Shared Values visa does not come with housing or financial assistance from the Russian government.

Applicants must pay an administrative fee of 1,600 roubles (£17 or $22) and pass medical and criminal records checks.

Russia says nearly 3,400 people have applied under the scheme as of spring 2026. However, these figures are difficult to verify independently, and do not reveal how many applications were approved.

The visa reflects a broader effort by the Kremlin to present Russia as a defender of traditional values in opposition to what it sees as the moral decline of the West.

In a 2022 decree, Putin warned that Western ideological influence threatened Russian values including marriage and the traditional family and called for Russia to promote a more positive image of itself abroad.

Two years later, the Shared Values visa offered a practical expression of that vision.

An online ecosystem of relocation agencies and influencers promote Russia as a place where family values remain strong and everyday life feels safer.

Ilja Belobragin, general managing partner at Move To Russia, a company which helps foreigners relocate to Russia, says something he frequently hears from his clients is that they "don't recognise the community around me anymore".

Some prospective migrants complain about high immigration in their own countries or what they see as declining living standards, he says.

Russia's war in Ukraine, which has dominated international perceptions of the country since 2022, does not appear to be a decisive factor for many of those making the move.

Some openly support Russia, while others insist their decision is driven by cultural values rather than geopolitics.

Philip Hutchinson, a Moscow-based former Conservative Party candidate from the UK who now helps other Westerners relocate to Russia, says he avoids discussing the war.

"What are my thoughts on it? Look, I don't really get involved in that," he says. "I'm not here as a politician. I'm here to live a nice quiet life with my family."

When asked whether helping Westerners relocate to Russia under the Shared Values visa is itself a political act, Philip disagrees.

"We guide a lot of people towards the Shared Values visa because it's the easiest way to become a full resident here right now. It's not political helping people move to Russia."

Following their move to Russia, Leo's family became one of the most visible examples of Western migration.

Russian state media filmed their asylum ceremony and Leo publicly thanked President Putin for welcoming them. At the time, Leo believed he was helping to pioneer what he calls "an unprecedented piece of immigration legislation".

But the reality proved more difficult than he'd anticipated.

Within weeks of arriving, Leo says they were defrauded of 5 million roubles – about £52,000 ($66,000) – by a contact they trusted, leaving them homeless.

When I spoke to Leo earlier this year, he was living separately from his wife in the city of Ivanovo, and his older children had returned to the United States.

Asked whether Russia had lived up to his expectations, Leo describes the last two years as the best and worst of his life.

He says he has experienced many sides of Russia: working in an Orthodox monastery, staying in a high-rise apartment and later moving into a small Soviet-era flat. He eventually found work as an English tutor.

He still speaks fondly about ordinary Russians, describing them as generous and welcoming. He praises members of his church community who helped the family survive after they lost their savings and recalls one woman who invited his youngest son into her home and taught him Russian free of charge.

"My heart is just full of love for these people," he says.

But he has also become increasingly concerned about the state of Russia's economy and restrictions on access to information.

Leo is now reconsidering the role he played in promoting Western immigration to Russia.

"I believed in the propaganda," he tells me, admitting that previously he was "the guy who would've written the script".

Although he is committed to staying in Russia out of a sense of "destiny", he now says he misses the freedoms that have shaped the American personality.

"[In] Russia you don't have these human rights values."

Other Westerners who have moved to Russia take issue with how the Shared Values visa itself is being promoted.

Ben - who asked that we use only his first name - moved to Russia in 2023 from Derby in the UK after falling in love with a Russian woman he met through a language exchange website. The couple live in Kursk, near the Ukrainian border.

His family thought he was "a bit insane" for moving to a war zone.

Ben's view of Russia is more nuanced than the one its supporters often portray.

He praises the friendliness of Russians and says he feels safer day to day. At the same time, he rejects the idea that Russia is some kind of conservative paradise.

Ben cites the prevalence of single-parent households, abortion - which he describes as "very widely accepted" - and "extremely high" divorce rates.

"Russia isn't some utopia," he says.

He moved to Russia on a private family visa rather than under the Shared Values scheme, but on his YouTube channel he has challenged what he sees as exaggerated claims by some Western influencers who portray Russia as a perfect alternative to the West.

"There are some people with some kind of agenda that they want to push," he says.

Nearly two years after the Shared Values visa was launched, Russia's experiment in attracting ideological migrants remains small in scale.

While it has failed to attract a large wave of "anti-woke" immigration, it has made it easier for some Westerners to build new lives in the country - whether for love, faith or simply a change of direction.

Paris restricts alcohol consumption and sales as Europe's heatwave shifts east

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy0pdq89zno, 2 days ago

French authorities have announced public alcohol consumption and sales bans in Paris, in a bid to ease pressure on the capital's hospitals during the heatwave.

Parisians will be restricted from drinking alcohol in public from noon on Friday until 07:00 on Saturday. The measures will be in place during the same hours from Saturday to Sunday.

Heatwave conditions that have left Spain, the UK and France sweltering for days are set to shift to the east, with forecasters in Germany and the Czech Republic warning of extreme conditions.

Temperatures in Germany could hit 40C across the country on Friday. An extreme weather warning is now in place in much of the Czech Republic.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said the health alert level was being raised to its highest, to boost hospital staffing and protect the vulnerable.

Bans on takeaway alcohol sales will be in effect from 18:00 on Friday until 07:00 on Saturday in the capital, and again during the same hours from Saturday to Sunday.

Licensed bars and restaurants are exempt from the restrictions.

Speaking to local media, Paris police chief Patrice Faure said: "We are reaching a saturation point in hospital facilities."

United Nations climate change chief Simon Stiell has said "Europe's savage heatwave has the fingerprints of the climate crisis all over it", and he has called for "a faster shift to renewables, protecting forests and boosting climate resilience".

After France recorded its hottest day on Wednesday for the second day in a row, records continue to be broken. Météo-France said the average minimum temperature reached 22C on Wednesday night. Nantes saw 27.2C in the north-west.

After days of record-breaking temperatures in France, officials have warned people to adjust their behaviour, with Health Minister Stéphanie Rist saying there were risks to young people as well as the elderly.

Rist said "young people are also suffering from cardiac arrests". The ambulance service in Paris had seen four times more cardiac arrests than normal over a 24-hour period, said Rist, while stressing there were no confirmed figures for the number of deaths linked to the heatwave.

Paris mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said the mortality rate was on the rise in the capital.

"We must not believe we are invulnerable," he told French TV. "I am thinking especially about the youth... At about 19:30 last night... I saw 100 or so joggers on the street. Frankly, that's irresponsible."

"It's fine to take a couple of days off from exercising," he added.

Rist said everyone had to adjust their personal activity to the high temperatures: "Even if you are young and in good health with no underlying medical issues, this heat will affect you too."

Even cycling came with risks, she warned, from high temperatures that lasted a week, as people would start feeling faint and might fall and even end up in hospital.

Meanwhile, a three-year-old child has been found dead in a car in the Paris region, days after two young children were found dead in the family's car in the southern town of Carpentras.

In the north-western city of Rennes, the head of the Accident and Emergency department Professor Louis Soulas linked the deaths of five or six people in their homes in the region to the extreme temperatures.

Emergency services had gone to check in on them after they had failed to pick up their phones during welfare calls, said Soulas: "It's not just the very elderly; it's people aged 60 and up."

Rennes saw a record 40.6C on Monday, only for that to be broken by 41C the following day. The previous record dated back to 2022.

The region's intensive care units were "saturated," he warned. "We are truly at a peak of activity."

Lecornu said France's Orsan health emergency plan was now moving to level three so the health system could "withstand the strain over time and protect the most vulnerable".

French teachers' unions are calling for a strike in response to "unacceptable working conditions" in the heat. They said that despite having called for mitigation measures to be taken "nothing was done" and the "health of staff, students and their working conditions are being jeopardised".

Three nuclear plants in France have gone offline due to the heat.

Some western regions are now bracing for huge thunderstorms from Thursday afternoon onwards.

Gusts of up to 110km/h (68mph) were expected on France's Atlantic coast, and the first day of the Garorock festival has been cancelled in the Lot-et-Garonne region - where temperatures could reach 42C.

This is causing increased summer heatwaves, greater pressure on Europe's water supply, and more intense wildfires. Last year, more than 1 million hectares burnt across Europe - a record level - with Spain particularly affected.

Although temperatures in Spain are set to peak at 38-39C in some areas on Thursday, forecasters say a cooler mass of Atlantic air is coming in, after the highest June temperatures were recorded this week, with 45.1C in the southern town of Andújar on Monday.

Spain's MoMo monitoring system for reporting temperature-related deaths has counted 213 fatalities between Sunday and Wednesday that could be linked to the heat, including 95 on Wednesday alone.

In Germany, overnight temperatures in the southwestern town of Bad Bergzabern did not fall below 26.2C on Wednesday night, equalling a national heat record set in 2019.

Germany's DWD weather service said large areas of the country were experiencing "heat stress" and DWD meteorologist Oliver Reuter said it was "quite likely" the heatwave would ultimately be seen as historic.

Luxembourg recorded its highest June temperature of 38.3C in Wormeldingen on Wednesday. A red alert level for "extreme thermal stress" has been extended in the grand duchy until Saturday night.

In Germany, Hamburg's half marathon has been cancelled on Sunday and national train operator Deutsche Bahn is offering free ticket cancellations over the next few days for anyone not wishing to travel because of the extreme heat. Czech Railways have told passengers they should consider postponing their trips if they do not have to travel.

Much of northern and southern Switzerland was put on maximum weather alert by MeteoSuisse, which warned of a "significant drought situation".

Temperatures across the Czech Republic were well into the 30s on Thursday and the ČHMÚ Hydrometeorological Institute said the heat would intensify on Friday with temperatures climbing up to 40C at the weekend.

Weekend temperatures could also hit 40C in the Austrian capital Vienna, and a code red comes into effect in eight out of 12 provinces in the Netherlands from midnight on Thursday local time, with the chance of 39C in localised eastern areas.

The UK's Met Office has extended its red extreme temperatures warning until Friday evening, for parts of London and south-eastern England.

In Italy, Florence's Uffizi museum has halted ticket sales until 28 June, and only those with a previous booking will be allowed in.

Management said the air conditioning system could not cope with the high flow of visitors and the extreme temperatures, which reached 32C inside the museum on Wednesday.

Italians have been experiencing high temperatures since the start of this week - but the peak of the heat is expected for Monday, when 40C are expected in various northern regions.

Night-time temperatures in those areas might not drop below 29C.

"Gone are last century's June days of 32C daytime temperatures and cool 17C nights," forecaster Lorenzo Tedici told Italian media.

"We have become so accustomed to excess that, paradoxically, today we welcome a forecast of 34C as good news."

Venezuela earthquakes kill 920 people as international rescue teams arrive

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39y79g7gzko, yesterday

More than 900 people have been killed and 3,360 others injured in the Venezuela earthquakes, according to the government, as rescuers keep searching for survivors and families wait desperately for news.

The injured are being treated in makeshift medical facilities after dozens of buildings in the country's north were destroyed by the two quakes, including in the capital Caracas.

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher says almost 2,000 international rescue workers are part of the response.

Two powerful earthquakes rocked Venezuela within seconds of each other on Wednesday. The second quake was one of the strongest tremors to hit the country in a century, at a magnitude of 7.5.

La Guaira, a region north of the capital, has been hit the hardest, officials said. The state is also home to one of the country's two main ports and to Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía - the country's main airport.

Many people are missing, and it is likely the death toll will rise as rescue efforts continue.

In La Guaira, Natacha Diaz told the BBC that her two daughters - aged 22 and 23 - were trapped under the rubble of a collapsed shopping centre, where they worked as manicurists.

"They were with their friends," she said. "I just want them to be found. I have faith and hope that they are there."

"I just want them back with me. They are all I have, please."

National assembly head Jorge Rodriguez said in a state TV broadcast on Friday that the death toll had reached 920, with at least 172 people still believed to be trapped.

In La Guaira alone, at least 243 people have been rescued, the top lawmaker - who is the interim president's brother - said.

Dozens of people have been rescued alive, which "brings us joy that they can embrace their families and loved ones", Acting President Delcy Rodríguez said at a televised briefing on Friday.

There have been 214 aftershocks since the initial quakes, she added.

On Saturday, the UN's Tom Fletcher told BBC Radio 4's Today programme teams were surging in, as the first 72 hours after the earthquake were "crucial".

"It's absolutely grim, it's devastating and for us we are driven on minute by minute, hour by hour, by the sound of the survivors underneath the rubble."

"We cannot pause for a second while we hear them, but the worst thing is when those voices go quiet. We're determined to save as many lives as we can."

Hundreds of buildings have been damaged or destroyed, including a number of hospitals and shopping centres, Jorge Rodríguez said, adding that at least 1,000 other infrastructure sites have also been damaged.

Surviving medical facilities are said to be overwhelmed, with medics telling the BBC that even before the disaster it was difficult to treat patients.

"All our hospitals lack supplies, lack medicines, we are not able to provide medical attention to our people in a normal day," doctor Pedro Javier Fernandez said.

"Now with this tragedy, the emergency is even bigger and it's more difficult to face than in other countries," he added.

There are reports of rescuers pulling people out of collapsed buildings with their bare hands, as disrupted communications, damaged roads, and a lack of resources made the initial emergency response difficult.

Fletcher said the UN has 39 search and rescue teams deployed, with each consisting of 50-100 people.

"You're looking at almost 2000 people surging in, 111 dogs, medical teams as well. We go in with these micro drones, they call them cockroach drones, that help us find people in the buildings."

A UK military flight carrying British search and rescue teams, dogs and drones left RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on Friday, bound for Venezuela.

The flight is carrying specialists from 14 UK fire services, led by Merseyside Fire and Rescue.

Other countries, including the United States, the Netherlands, Mexico and Switzerland have sent teams. The US has also announced the deployment of warships and transport planes as well as $150m (£113m) in aid.

A BBC reporter in Caraballeda, in La Guaira state, has seen heavy machinery arrive to begin the task of removing rubble.

International rescue workers already on the ground have seen "horrific damage", the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council said.

Venezuela was ill-prepared and vulnerable in an emergency situation because of its already "crumbling infrastructure" following decades of underinvestment, Jan Egeland told the BBC.

Venezuela has experienced more than a decade of intense economic crisis, which has led to deteriorated living standards in the oil-rich country.

Earlier, the UN's humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said the disaster "needs an international global response and we'll co-ordinate that and we will deliver".

"I want people to know in Venezuela that help is coming," he said.

One case that boosted morale across Venezuela is the rescue in La Guaira of three young siblings, who emerged from the rubble covered in dust and debris, footage broadcast on state television showed.

"Come here, my child, come here," a man says to the first child as he emerges alive from a gap between chunks of concrete.

A girl then comes out, as the man asks her: "Are you siblings?", to which she replies: "Yes, there are three of us."

Shortly afterwards, with a little more difficulty, the third sister emerges, sobbing and covered in dust from head to toe.

Tributes are being paid to those who died. The wife of Venezuelan footballer Héctor Bello was killed while saving their daughter, according to his social media and local news.

Bello wrote on Instagram that "his precious love", named by Venezuelan news outlets as his wife Andrea, saved the life of their toddler during the quakes.

"I'll tell her the story of how you saved her, my love - how you gave your own life for our daughter, how you were a brave woman who never abandoned her, even as you took your last breaths," Bello wrote in one post.

One Portuguese national and two Brazilian citizens were also among those killed, their governments confirmed.

Four Spanish nationals were also among the dead, with 106 still unaccounted for, Spanish media reported, citing its foreign ministry.

Venezuela's Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said multiple states had been affected by the twin quakes. In Caracas, the worst-hit areas were the neighbourhoods of Los Palos Grandes and Altamira.

The government said aftershocks had largely affected the country's northern coastline, including La Guaira, Aragua, Carabobo and Falcón.

Leopoldo Lopez, a Venezuelan opposition leader living in exile in Spain, told BBC News the devastation has been "huge" and people were in "shock".

He said that "unfortunately, we are seeing a parallel collapse of the infrastructure, and also the incapacity of the state to provide timely rescue support for the people in the devastated areas".

However, there has been "tremendous support by the civil society in Venezuela", he added.

This natural disaster has hit at a time of great uncertainty for Venezuela.

Less than six months ago, Nicolás Maduro, the left-wing leader who had ruled the country since 2013, was seized by US forces in Caracas before being flown back to New York to face drug-trafficking charges.

Maduro's ally and former vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, took over running the country, to the frustration of opposition supporters who had hoped the Trump administration would put opposition leader María Corina Machado in charge.

Additional reporting by Vanessa Silva in La Guaria

Earthquake is devastating blow to Venezuela at time of uncertainty

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3vynpw7rk4o, 2 days ago

With the number of people killed in the powerful twin quakes which struck Venezuela on Wednesday still rising, there is no doubt that this natural disaster is a devastating blow to a country already mired in uncertainty.

It has been less than six months since Nicolás Maduro, the left-wing leader who had ruled the country since 2013, was seized by US forces in a dawn raid on his presidential compound in the capital, Caracas, and taken to New York to stand trial on drug-trafficking charges.

Venezuela has since been governed by Maduro's ally and former vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, much to the chagrin of opposition supporters who had hoped the Trump administration would put opposition leader María Corina Machado in charge.

Rodríguez's response to the quake has revealed some of the things which have - and have not - changed since the January raid, as well as the many challenges facing the country's battered infrastructure.

Rodríguez addressed the nation on state television channel VTV more than two hours after the quakes.

Prior to that, official information had been very scant, no doubt due to the fact that communication channels to some of the worst affected areas were down. But it is also a result of restrictions placed on independent media under the Maduro government, which have led to the closure of hundreds of mainly local radio stations and news sites, which in the past would have been key to providing localised updates.

Rodríguez was flanked by her brother Jorge, who in his role as president of the National Assembly swore her into office as interim president just days after Maduro was seized, and by Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, another staunch Maduro ally.

Unlike he so often did in the months leading up to the US military intervention, Cabello was not wearing military fatigues. He stood silently next to Rodríguez, as did her brother.

Rodríguez was visibly shaken as she delivered her speech, in which she called "first and foremost" for unity from the Venezuelan people, who for more than a decade have been deeply divided between those who supported Maduro, and his predecessor and mentor Hugo Chávez, and those who opposed him.

She also declared a state of emergency and tasked General Juan Ernesto Sulbarán, the commander of Venezuela's National Guard, with leading the emergency response.

During the more than a quarter century that Chávez and Maduro were in power, key positions in the government have been held by high-ranking military officers.

Many state ministries have for years been in the hands of generals, and analysts have said that part of the reason why Venezuela's infrastructure has become so run down is the lack of expertise of those in charge.

Under the watchful eyes of the Trump administration, Rodríguez has recently replaced the general running the ministry of housing with a civilian who has a degree in architecture and the general who headed the electricity ministry with an electrical engineer.

However, years of shortages - exacerbated by US sanctions - and mismanagement have meant that much of the public housing stock in particular has deteriorated.

A shortage of cement, for example, triggered by the collapse of the state-owned cement industry after its nationalisation under Chávez, has meant that badly needed repairs have often not been carried out on buildings and home, making them more prone to collapse.

The power and influence of the military over the past two decades also means that equipping it has often taken precedence over providing civil protection units with modern tools and vehicles.

Aware of these shortcomings, Rodríguez expressed her gratitude to foreign governments which have offered their help.

Among those she singled out was US President Donald Trump and his government, who, she said, had been "in constant contact with all our authorities offering support and solidarity".

She also said she had spoken to the presidents of the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, and thanked the president of Chile - all of whom lead right-wing governments.

While the offers of help are hardly surprising after such a devastating quake, the fact that Rodríguez is accepting them is a clear break from the policies of Maduro, who only accepted help from ideological allies.

"The solidarity between our people is a invaluable source of strength in moments like these," she said.

For all those Venezuelans waking up to scenes of devastation, and in particular for the relatives of those buried under the rubble, this openness to allowing in critical help will provide them with a ray of hope at a time of anguish and uncertainty.

Colombia's left-wing presidential candidate concedes defeat

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrkqky5lzpo, 4 days ago

The left-wing candidate in Colombia's presidential run-off, Iván Cepeda, has conceded defeat three days after a record number of Colombians cast their vote.

Preliminary results released hours after the polls closed showed Cepeda had been beaten by less than a percentage point by his rival, right-wing businessman Abelardo de la Espriella.

Cepeda originally said he would wait for the legally binding final count - which is still under way - but on Wednesday announced he had "decided to accept the result".

He criticised US President Donald Trump for his endorsement of de la Espriella.

"We denounce the open and undue foreign interference in Colombia's internal affairs, in particular the interventions of President Donald Trump," he told journalists.

Trump had praised de la Espriella following his win in the first round of the election and labelled Cepeda a "radical Left Marxist".

After de la Espriella beat Cepeda in the run-off, Trump said he had won "easily", even though his 0.96-percentage-point lead was the narrowest win in recent Colombian history for a presidential candidate.

Referring to the deep polarisation in the country, Cepeda said he had decided to concede "as an act of democratic responsibility; I do so to contribute to co-existence, to peace, and to dialogue among Colombians".

As the second-placed candidate he is entitled to a seat in the Senate, where he said he would exercise "a democratic, vigilant and constructive opposition".

Abelardo de la Espriella, who during the campaign had threatened to "gut the Left", also struck a conciliatory note during his victory speech, saying that those who thought differently from him would have nothing to fear.

Since Sunday's run-off de la Espriella has already established closer ties to the Trump administration than the outgoing president, Gustavo Petro, who had repeatedly clashed with his US counterpart.

Colombia's president-elect said on Tuesday that he would accept an invitation for his country to join the "Shield of the Americas", a US-led alliance of Western Hemisphere countries created to combat criminal cartels and drug-trafficking.

De la Espriella will be sworn in on 7 August.

Trump anticipates better relationship with Colombia under new leader

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9v278ny9meo, 5 days ago

US President Donald Trump has predicted a "much better relationship" between his government and Colombia after preliminary results suggested that the right-wing candidate Abelardo de la Espriella had won in Sunday's presidential run-off.

The official, but not legally binding, preliminary vote count showed de la Espriella beating his left-wing rival, Iván Cepeda, by a razor-thin margin of less than one percentage point.

Cepeda has not yet conceded, saying he would wait for the results to be cross checked, a process which usually takes several days.

Trump had endorsed de la Espriella ahead of the run-off vote and derided Cepeda as a "radical Left Marxist".

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump said that de la Espriella had "won easily", even though his lead of 0.96 percentage points in the preliminary count is the narrowest in recent Colombian history.

Writing on Truth Social, Trump said he was looking forward to working together "to build a powerful relationship".

The relationship between the two historic allies had suffered in recent years as Trump traded insults with Colombia's outgoing president, the left-winger Gustavo Petro.

Trump had called Petro a "sick man" and a "drug-trafficking leader" without providing any evidence, while Petro had said that the US president was basing his immigration policy on that of the Nazis.

Following the US military operation to seize Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January, Trump had also remarked that a military operation targeting neighbouring Colombia sounded "good".

Asked by a Colombian journalist about how he saw the relationship between the US and Colombia developing following Sunday's election, Trump said "it'll be better, he [de la Espriella] is going to be a great president".

De la Espriella campaigned on a promise to crack down on drug-trafficking gangs and criminal organisations which have long blighted the country, which is the world's largest producer of coca, the raw material used to make cocaine.

He has said that he wants Colombia to join the "Shield of the Americas", an alliance of Latin Americans countries and the US aimed at combating cartels.

President Petro had derided the alliance's inaugural summit held in Miami in March, saying that "the 17 countries gathered are the least experienced in the fight against drugs in the Americas".

De la Espriella has promised to co-operate more closely with the US in the fight against drug trafficking, saying that he plans to bomb drug-trafficking gangs and allow the US to have military bases inside Colombia.

Some voters who backed Cepeda, expressed their concern that under de la Espriella Colombia could see a resurgence of human rights abuses such as the "false positives" scandal, when more than 6,400 civilians were killed and falsely passed off as left-wing guerrillas to boost the army's kill rate during Colombia's armed conflict.

But in his victory speech, de la Espriella insisted that while he would come down hard on drug traffickers and "bandits", he would do so within the confines of the law and the constitution.

The new president will be sworn into office on 7 August.

Rescuers race to find Venezuela quake survivors: What we know so far

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gyjgreg1ro, yesterday

More than 900 people have been killed in the Venezuela earthquakes and 3,360 others injured, according to the head of the country's national assembly.

Jorge Rodriguez said in a state TV broadcast on Friday that the death toll had reached 920, with at least 172 people still believed to be trapped.

Two powerful earthquakes rocked Venezuela within seconds of each other on Wednesday. The second quake was one of the strongest tremors to hit the South American country in a century, at a magnitude of 7.5.

There has been 214 aftershocks since the initial quakes, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez said at a televised briefing on Friday.

Buildings collapsed and residents ran into the streets for safety as tremors from the twin quakes struck the capital Caracas, with rescuers racing to find survivors who may be trapped beneath rubble.

Multiple states have been affected. Interim President Rodríguez said earlier that La Guaira, a region north of the capital, had been hit the hardest.

A state of emergency has been declared while airport, rail and transport services have been halted.

What were the magnitudes of the earthquakes?

Both earthquakes shook the capital Caracas - home to around 5 million people - at about 18:04 local time (22:04 GMT) on Wednesday.

The first was magnitude 7.2 and struck the state of Yaracuy to the west of Caracas at a depth of 22km, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

Less than a minute later, a stronger magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck nearby at a depth of about 10km.

While both epicentres were outside the capital, powerful tremors were felt across the city - causing buildings to shake and some to collapse entirely.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said multiple states had been affected by the quake.

The quakes hit while Venezuela was celebrating a national holiday, meaning more people would have been at home than on a normal weekday.

Cabello said that in Caracas the worst-hit areas were the neighbourhoods of Los Palos Grandes and Altamira.

They were also among the worst affected in 1967, when the last major earthquake to hit the Venezuelan capital struck, killing 200 people and destroying buildings.

The government said aftershocks had largely affected the country's northern coastline, including La Guaira, Aragua, Carabobo and Falcón.

Tremors were also felt more than 1,000km (630 miles) away in the Colombian capital Bogotá.

How many people have died?

Earlier on Friday, Delcy Rodríguez said 589 people had been killed, more than doubling Thursday's toll of 235.

She said 2,980 people had been injured - seeming to revise downward the government's earlier figure of 4,300.

Dozens of people have also been rescued alive, which "brings us joy that they can embrace their families and loved ones", she added.

National assembly head Jorge Rodríguez - who is the interim president's brother - then later announced another jump in the death toll, to 920, on state TV.

In La Guaira, 243 people have been rescued, he said.

One Portuguese national and two Brazilian citizens were among those killed, their governments confirmed.

Three Spanish nationals were killed, the AFP news agency reported, citing its foreign ministry, with 99 unaccounted for. It also reported that 56 Portuguese citizens were among the missing.

There are fears many people still trapped under the rubble, and it is likely that the death toll will climb further as rescue efforts continue.

In the hours after the earthquakes, USGS said there was a 44% chance it could hit up to 10,000 and a 30% chance it could reach 100,000.

However, these figures were calculated based on previous earthquakes with similar characteristics and other factors such as the size and depth of each quake, so are not exact predictions.

Other factors play into the potential injuries and deaths, including the quality of the buildings and the time of day the quakes struck.

The area where the quakes struck is particularly vulnerable, the USGS noted.

It said many buildings there were made of reinforced brick masonry and adobe blocks, and the sheer force of the shaking meant a high chance of destroyed buildings and deaths.

US President Donald Trump referred to a "devastating number of deaths" in a post on Truth Social.

What damage was caused?

Jorge Rodríguez said hundreds of buildings have been damaged or lost, mostly in La Guaira.

This number includes 13 hospitals and 25 shopping centres, he added.

Photos and videos showed debris strewn on the streets. In some footage, people can be heard calling for help.

The BBC has verified footage of a 10-storey hotel reduced to rubble in La Guaira, and another video that recorded people screaming and fleeing as a multi-storey collapses in El Junquito, west of Caracas.

Other verified footage shows destruction further from the capital. One video shows a multi-storey building, reportedly a hotel, totally collapsed in Tucacas, on Venezuela's coast, about 250km (155 miles) northwest of Caracas.

Mayor Gustavo Duque of Chacao, which forms part of the greater metropolitan area of Caracas, said on Thursday outside the rubble of one collapsed building that 11 people had died there and 23 had been rescued.

In an Instagram video, he said the team was trying to clear the rubble so that specialists could go in "to reach people who are hopefully still alive".

"We're trying to rescue as many people alive as possible," he said.

Fuel supplies into the city have been cut off and internet blackouts have also been reported.

Venezuela's main international airport, Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía – located on the outskirts of Caracas – has also been closed due to earthquake damage.

Metro and train services across the country have also been suspended, and school classes are also paused for the remainder of the week.

Rodríguez's declaration of a state of emergency allows extra resources and personnel to be used for recovery efforts.

Many Venezuelans spent the night on the street, with the country's interior ministry urging people to leave damaged homes over concerns of building stability and gas lines possibly being affected.

A tsunami warning was issued for the coast of Venezuela and the islands of Aruba and Bonaire, but was later cancelled.

What caused the quakes and why were they so destructive?

Venezuela lies along the boundary between the Caribbean and South American tectonic plates, which are moving past one another.

The USGS says the sudden release of friction between these two plates is likely to have triggered the earthquakes.

The second, 7.5-magnitude quake was the strongest to hit Venezuela since 1900, according to the USGS.

But another crucial factor is how far below the Earth's surface it occurred.

Earthquakes which strike closer to the surface typically cause stronger and more concentrated shaking.

Both of Wednesday's quakes occurred less than 25km below ground. "Shallow" earthquakes are defined as those which strike at a depth of 70km or less.

The combination of such a large magnitude with their shallow depth goes some way to explaining why the damage has been so extensive.

The quakes also occurred in a "doublet" sequence, according to the USGS, which is when two earthquakes of a similar magnitude strike shortly after one another in a similar place.

This suggests that the first earthquake helped to trigger the second, unlike a typical sequence where a larger one is followed by much smaller aftershocks.

Having two such large earthquakes so close together in time is particularly unusual, but not unprecedented in this part of the world.

Northern Venezuela was hit by a doublet in September 2025, but the quakes were much weaker, at 6.2 and 6.3-magnitude.

The Turkey-Syria earthquakes of February 2023, which killed more than 50,000 people, was also a doublet sequence.

How have the US and other countries responded?

The US has announced the deployment of warships and transport planes as well as mobilising $150m (£113m) in aid.

In a statement, the US military's Southern Command said that its forces would provide support "for search and rescue teams" and "US interagency partners as they assess damage, locate the injured, and deliver critical, life-saving assistance".

US President Donald Trump had said earlier that Washington was "ready, willing and able" to help and said he had instructed government agencies to "move quickly".

"We will be there for our new and great friends," Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that "early reports are not good".

In the early hours of Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US was "immediately" deploying search and rescue teams, medical resources, and humanitarian assistance.

Rodríguez thanked Trump on X, writing that her country would "never forget the helping hand" extended by the US.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said his country prepared 50 tonnes of equipment and supplies, as well as 300 rescuers who are "ready to depart for Caracas".

The presidents of Ecuador and Mexico both said they would be sending aid, while Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said his country would assess what assistance it could extend to its "sister nation".

The Dominican Republic would be sending specialised teams for search, rescue, and emergency care from its armed forces, President Luis Abinader said, and Chile's President José Antonio Kast Rist offered support with coordinating humanitarian aid.

The United Nations' relief chief said it was "fully mobilised" to support the people of Venezuela, including the rapid deployment of search and rescue teams and strengthening its humanitarian mission in the country.

"The coming days will require a massive collective effort," Tom Fletcher said in a statement.

The EU activated its satellite surveillance system to help recovery efforts and was ready to "step up assistance", its commissioner for crisis management Hadja Lahbib said.

Additional reporting by Mark Poynting, climate reporter

'I thought I was going to die' - Venezuelans describe earthquake panic

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czj8vjvmz38o, 3 days ago

When the ground beneath Venezuela started violently rocking on Wednesday evening, Verónica feared the walls of her Caracas apartment would bury her.

"I thought I was going to die," she told BBC Mundo.

She was at home celebrating a national holiday with her mother when tremors from two large earthquakes hit the city, seconds apart, around 18:00 local time (22:00 GMT): the first at a magnitude of 7.2 and the second at 7.5.

At least 235 people have been confirmed dead so far and more than 1,500 others are injured - but authorities have warned they have not even begun to gauge the losses in some of the hardest hit areas.

Officials said 250 buildings were damaged or lost, mostly in the coastal area of La Guaira, and debris was strewn around the streets of Caracas, Venezuela's capital.

Rescuers were digging through the wreckage of collapsed buildings to locate survivors, and in some footage, people could be heard calling for help.

Juan Ortiz told the BBC one of his close friends had been confirmed dead, another was believed to be under the rubble, and around 20 people he knew who live in the coastal area were missing.

"I'm in shock and confusion, and frustrated that I can't help," the medical student in Caracas said.

As night fell, dazed locals - many rendered functionally homeless - milled the streets, waiting for news on their homes or loved ones.

Verónica is the sister of BBC Mundo's Valentina Oropeza - and the journalist spent hours trying to track down her family after the quakes.

Valentina's phone had pinged with a breathy voice message from Verónica describing the "awful" tremors in real time, their mother's voice distant in the background. Then radio silence.

Panicked, Valentina began asking her network for help to contact the pair as images of crushed buildings on their street began filling her phone.

When she finally was able to reach them, Verónica confirmed she and her mother were safe but said she has likely lost her home.

"The building is completely destroyed, the walls are cracked."

This is not the first time the Venezuelan capital has been hit by a major earthquake.

In 1967, a 6.6-magnitude quake struck Caracas and killed more than 200 people, destroying buildings in Palos Grandes and the upper-class area of Altamira.

But the ones on Wednesday felt worse - much longer and more intense, said Valentina's mother.

"I never thought we would experience something like this," she said, audibly shaken.

BBC Mundo contributor Nicole Kolster saw the windows of her seventh storey apartment in Palos Grandes, a prime district in central Caracas, begin to shake and had just moments to shelter.

"The only thing I could think to do was to get between the front door and a stone wall... to try to protect myself."

"I thought the building was going to fall on top of me."

Evacuating to the street, she said she could hear voices coming from mountains of rubble. Survivors, so desperate to flee that they had not paused to put on shoes, were hugging and crying.

Hours later, many were unable - or too fearful of aftershocks - to return to their homes.

Hundreds of people around the city slept in squares or on the streets, tents packing sections of pavement and parked cars turning into makeshift beds.

Leander Pérez - whose home is in the Santa Rosalía parish in the centre of Caracas - spent the night on the pavement in a public square with his neighbours as his apartment block was unsafe.

He told the BBC that he and his neighbours "are in deep shock".

"All the walls cracked during the earthquake and we had to evacuate the building," he said, adding that they were trapped for a while as one of the security gates was bent and would not open, but they eventually kicked it open.

One Los Palos Grandes woman, who was not even pretending to sleep, told BBC Mundo she was in shock.

"How do you go back to living like this? This is like something out of a movie," she said in the early hours of Thursday.

A handful of people in the suburb - one of the most affected areas of Caracas - managed to escape with their pets.

Others across the country, like teacher Alan Chung, face an anxious wait to see whether theirs have survived.

"I have two cats. Unfortunately I've not been able to get back to my apartment to see if they are okay... fingers crossed," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Information flow from places like La Guaira - the most affected state, north of Caracas - has been hampered by infrastructure damage.

But images and footage from the area show flattened buildings, large fires, and the injured flooding field hospitals in the state capital.

Interim President Delcy Rodríguez said "dozens" of buildings had collapsed in the city, calling it a "disaster zone" and a "true tragedy".

The situation is so dire authorities have not yet been able to estimate how many people have died.

Other hard-hit regions include the states of Miranda, Aragua, Carabobo and Falcón.

Additional reporting by Gabriela Pomeroy

* If you are in Venezuela, please share your story.

Supreme Court allows Trump to end protected status for Haitian and Syrian immigrants

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g8ym422lko, 2 days ago

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Trump administration can strip protected status from hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian migrants which has allowed them to stay in the US for years.

The 6-3 ruling overturned decisions by federal judges that had blocked the administration from terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 350,000 people from Haiti and 6,100 from Syria.

TPS is granted to individuals whose home countries are unable to accommodate them, due to war or natural disasters.

In a separate ruling, the court has said that migrants arriving at the border are not entitled to apply for asylum until they set foot on US soil, giving another win to the Trump administration.

TPS recipients can legally live and work in the US for up to 18 months, subject to extensions. During this period, they can not be removed or detained by authorities on the basis of their immigration status.

The US first provided TPS to Haitians after a major earthquake in 2010 and to Syrians after their country descended into civil war in 2012.

Thursday's decision is likely to have implications for TPS holders from other countries too.

In his ruling, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the law governing TPS clearly prevents courts from reviewing government decisions.

Justice Alito also said the Haitian migrants who sued were unlikely to prove that the administration's actions were racially discriminatory and violated US constitution's equal-protection rights under the Fifth Amendment.

The three liberal justices in the top court dissented.

Justice Elena Kagan said that the government's decision to remove these protections were racially motivated.

"The statements fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into the President's resolve to remove Haitians from this country," she said.

The Trump administration welcomed the ruling.

"The T in TPS stands for TEMPORARY, yet many of these designations became de facto amnesty," James Percival, the general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, said on X after the ruling.

"This is a win for the rule of law and common sense."

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump amplified false rumours about Haitian immigrants, including that they were abducting and eating house pets.

With this ruling, the court has now cleared the way for the Trump administration to remove legal protections for TPS recipients, meaning they could face deportation.

"Today's decision puts hundreds of thousands of people at risk", said Jill Habig, CEO and Founder of Public Rights Project, which filed amicus briefs on behalf of 47 local governments and leaders, urging the Supreme Court to preserve TPS for Haitian immigrants.

The local fallout of the ruling will result in a community crisis, she said.

"Families will be separated, local economies will take a hit and people will be forced back to countries in the grip of violence, instability and humanitarian collapse," Habig said. "The human cost will be felt all across America."

The court backed the Trump administration in another immigration related ruling on Thursday.

In the 6-3 ruling, the court has said the Trump administration can turn away migrants seeking asylum along the US-Mexico border if they have not set foot on US soil.

Under federal law, a migrant who "arrives" in the US may apply for asylum, which the Trump administration had argued ruled out those stopped on the Mexican side of the border.

Justice Alito delivered the opinion of the court on Thursday, calling the case "straightforward".

"In ordinary speech, no one would say that a person 'arrives in' a place . . . before the person enters that place," he said in his opinion.

When this case reached the Supreme Court in March, arguments focused on what it means to arrive in the US.

Vivek Suri, an assistant to the solicitor general, arguing for the Trump administration, told the court: "You can't arrive in the United States while you're still standing in Mexico. That should be the end of this case."

A lawyer for an immigrant advocacy group had argued that asylum seekers arrive in the US when they reach a port of entry.

Justice Sonia Maria Sotomayor, who voted against the ruling, called the consequences of the court's decision "predictable" in her dissent.

"More people will die," she said. "More people will attempt to cross the border illegally, and some will make it while others will not."

The requirement to be physically present in the US to apply for asylum was first introduced in 2016 during the Obama administration.

The policy, called "metering" was put in place to allow border control agents to limit the number of asylum seekers allowed to request protection each day on the grounds that the facilities on the US side of a border crossing area were at capacity.

The court's ruling has allowed Trump, a Republican, to revive the 2016 policy which was rescinded in 2021 under the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden.

Trump-backed political outsider wins Colombia election, initial count shows

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clye4ky2yzpo, 6 days ago

Right-wing candidate Abelardo de la Espriella has narrowly won Colombia's presidential election, an initial vote count shows, marking a dramatic shift in how the government will tackle the country's internal armed conflict and violence.

De la Espriella, who was endorsed by Donald Trump, has pledged a military crackdown on illegal armed groups, drug trafficking and crime.

He appeared to defeat left-wing Iván Cepeda, a close ally of the president, Gustavo Petro.

De la Espriella said "today begins a new stage for our country, a stage built on the free and democratic will of millions of citizens who chose to believe in a great, safe, prosperous Colombia full of opportunities".

With over 99% of votes counted, de la Espriella had won nearly 49.7% of the vote, while Cepeda won 48.7%, according to an initial count of the runoff election.

Cepeda has not conceded, saying the preliminary count was "not yet official or binding".

"Once the official canvass takes place and its final result is produced, and the corresponding verifications have been carried out, we will recognize the official result that emerges from that structure."

The verification process showed little difference to initial counting in the first round of voting on 31 May, Reuters news agency reported.

De la Espriella, who was raised in the Caribbean coastal region, enjoyed significant regional support there.

After the initial vote count came through, de la Espriella addressed a huge crowd of supporters who had gathered to celebrate in Barranquilla, a city on the coast.

"Tonight marks the beginning of a new story for the nation, tonight a new era begins, a change of order," said De la Espriella, who has nicknamed himself "El Tigre" (The Tiger.)

"I'm going to govern for all Colombians. For those who voted for me, and for those who chose the other candidate."

He also pledged loyalty to the country's 1991 constitution and said he would protect it.

De la Espriella's supporters donned the country's yellow football jersey and waved Colombian flags. They sang and danced to music from a stage lit up with photos of de la Espriella's face, chanting, "stand firm for the homeland" and "Petro out!", before a fireworks display.

Some wore hats akin to US President Donald Trump's supporters, but saying "Make Colombia Great Again!"

Trump responded to the result, writing on Truth Social: "He Won, BIG!"

"We are tired of the killings in this country. And tired of the bureaucracy of this government. We have a president from the coast!" one supporter, Patricia said.

"We are proud of The Tiger. We hope he will change the country, to a new one where we can have jobs, and more security above everything," another supporter said.

Supporters of Cepeda were also on the streets of Barranquilla, voicing their concerns over the tight win.

"There's a palpable sense of unease in the air," Catalina La Grande, a student and activist who supported Cepeda, told the BBC.

"Such a narrow margin also worries us, because it reflects how divided the country is and the enormous challenges we face in defending democracy, peace, and people's rights."

Maria, another young supporter of Cepeda, said the results showed the country was divided but said people had remained peaceful.

"There have been no violent incidents in the streets, which is positive considering the level of polarisation we are experiencing," she said.

The polarising differences between the two candidates have led to mounting fears that there could be unrest in the country after the result, especially if some critics do not recognise the result.

Late on Sunday, there were reports of clashes between protesters and police in Colombia's third-largest city Cali, with demonstrators burning US flags and police using tear gas to break up large crowds angry at de la Espriella's win.

Petro may challenge the result. He posted on X that "neither can be proclaimed president" after a "pre-count result" and demanded an audit of voting software, making allegations that some polling stations were "compromised", without providing evidence.

Who is Abelardo de la Espriella?

De la Espriella is a lawyer and businessman with no prior political experience.

As a lawyer his clients included Alex Saab, an ally of Venezuela's ousted president Nicolás Maduro, who faces US charges of money laundering, and David Murcia Guzman, one of Colombia's biggest fraudsters. He has said this was part of his job as a defence lawyer.

He has drawn comparisons with El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele for his security policies and even the style of his beard.

At rallies and on social media, he and his supporters frequently dress in the Colombian national football jersey, which his critics accuse him of politicising, and do military-style salutes. He has often addressed crowds behind bulletproof glass screens.

Military crackdown

Colombia's internal armed conflict has lasted for decades, but it has escalated in the last few years. Membership of armed guerrilla groups and cartels, including FARC dissidents, the ELN and the Clan del Golfo, has doubled in the last five years.

Violence has escalated as they battle over lucrative cocaine trafficking routes and illegal mining sites. Last year, a brutal offensive along the Colombia-Venezuela border displaced tens of thousands of people. Cocaine production, in the world's largest producer, has hit a record high.

Critics of the current President Petro say his "total peace" strategy to prioritise negotiation with armed groups has failed, including by allowing armed groups to take advantage of ceasefires to expand their influence and territories.

De la Espriella has pledged to scrap any negotiations with illegal armed groups and instead introduce a tougher military crackdown on armed groups to restore order, including closer collaboration with the US.

He has also vowed to build mega-prisons in Colombia's jungle, and to shrink the state and reform the health system.

Trump endorsement

De la Espriella has been a US citizen since 2023 after living and working in Miami for many years.

He was endorsed by Trump who said he would "stop illegal immigration, crack down on crime and drugs, and restore LAW AND ORDER!"

Before the election, Trump added that de la Espriella would have the "total support and strength of the United States behind him".

Colombia has historically been one of the US's closest allies in the region, but that relationship was strained in recent years due to often fiery exchanges between President Trump and President Petro who clashed over the US's migration policies, tariffs, and military intervention in Latin America.

His election is part of a wider shift in the region, as several Latin American countries have shifted to the right in recent elections, driven in particular by concerns about security.

De la Espriella received praise from other right-wing leaders in the region, including Argentina's President Javier Milei who said Colombians had chosen the path of "economic freedom, prosperity, unwavering security, and telling organised transnational crime and drug trafficking ENOUGH ALREADY."

Chile's president José Antonio Kast said "a new stage of freedom begins for Colombia that will allow them to recover security and prosperity".

'I witnessed Maradona's Hand of God' - a goal still talked about 40 years on

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqx1gwl7wnno, 6 days ago

I wasn't supposed to be there.

I was 17, I had never been to a football match and I wasn't interested in the sport. But that afternoon, walking into the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, I was about to watch Argentina play England in a World Cup quarter-final - and to witness something I would only fully understand many years later.

That morning, we had no plans. Then the phone rang. A friend of my father had two tickets he couldn't use. Would my mum and I like them?

My father wasn't sure about his "princesses" going. This was less than five years since the end of the Falklands War and he was worried that tensions between Argentinian and English fans would spill over.

My mother didn't hesitate. This was the World Cup, after all. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and she wasn't going to let her daughter miss out.

The excitement started as soon as we were en route, as we headed to cross the city to the stadium. Flags hung from car windows and strangers shouted chants across traffic.

I joined in, of course-shouting "Viva México!" with everyone else, even though our team had already been knocked out of the tournament. Football didn't matter much to me, but being part of the moment did.

If anything, I treated it more like a party than a match. I dressed up, wore far too much make-up, and imagined the stadium would be full of handsome foreign fans rather than legendary players. My mother raised an eyebrow, but let it slide.

Inside the Azteca, the scale of it all was overwhelming. The noise, the colours, the sense that the whole world had gathered in one place. Around us were fans from everywhere - singing, laughing, dressed in costumes, faces painted in bright colours. I remember thinking less about the game itself and more about how exciting it felt to be there among them.

When the match started, I barely followed what was happening on the pitch. I was too busy joining in the Mexican wave - known as "la ola" in Spanish - caught up in the rhythm of the crowd. The football felt distant, almost secondary.

Suddenly, everyone was on their feet. For a second there was celebration then confusion, arguments, noise swelling in different directions.

It was a moment that would be talked about for decades.

The ball was airborne above the England penalty area. Argentina's star player Diego Maradona launched himself into an aerial contest with English goalkeeper Peter Shilton who had also leapt up in an attempt to punch the ball away. But instead it bounced off Maradona and crossed the goal line.

It looked as if he had headed the first goal - and that is when things changed for me. Suddenly it was the football that mattered.

People around me started questioning whether it was really a goal or not - did he head the ball into the net or... was it his hand that pushed it in? You could hear loud protests from the English fans.

I turned to the man next to me, a bit confused. "Porque tanto alboroto [what happened]?" I asked. He said Maradona had punched the ball into the net with his hand but the referee didn't see it, and allowed the goal.

I was puzzled and at that moment I certainly never thought that what we had just seen would become one of the most talked about events in sporting history.

In time, it became known globally as the "Hand of God" incident - coined by Maradona himself: "[The goal was scored] a little bit with my head and a little bit with the hand of God," he famously said.

But so intense was the debate in the stands that day about what we had just seen that, four minutes later when the next goal came from Maradona, we almost missed it.

And here's the thing. When I think back to being one of thousands of people in the stadium that day, it's not the "Hand of God" that I immediately recall - it was that second goal. Unlike Maradona's first spectacle, the whole stadium went quiet when he was charging forward with the ball.

He began in his own half with a pirouette to escape the attention of two England players, then you could see him advancing up the pitch, weaving from one side to the other, eluding tackles, then into England's penalty box and then - boom! The ball in the back of the net. The stadium exploded.

I remember thinking: "This is why people love football - now it makes sense."

I looked around and was amazed to see that, unlike the first goal, this one was celebrated by everyone, even some of the English fans nearby.

After the game ended with the now famous 2-1 Argentinian victory, my mother and I left the stadium and walked towards our car.

At that moment, what stayed with me wasn't the match but the overwhelming feeling of having been inside the Azteca itself - this vast, iconic place that carried so much of Mexico's history within its walls. It wasn't just a stadium; it was part of our collective memory.

Even then, the echoes of the 1985 earthquake, when whole sections of Mexico City were reduced to rubble, were still vivid for me - the weeks when the air smelled of dust and loss, and the city seemed to hold its breath. I knew that the Azteca had been one of the great places of refuge, where families who had lost everything found shelter and hope. Being there felt deeply moving, almost solemn, and yet outside it transformed into something joyful and alive.

As my mum and I walked, talking and eating tacos and fruit drenched in chilli and lime from street vendors, we felt immense pride in being Mexican. We laughed about how we embraced every stereotype - the sombreros, bright colours, all of it worn with humour and defiance, and how, as hosts, we gave warmth, laughter and generosity to the world.

Even the World Cup mascot, a chilli pepper with a sombrero, seemed to capture that spirit perfectly - bold, playful, and unmistakably ours.

It was only years later that I understood that I had witnessed a truly magical moment. Football itself never really became that exciting for me, even after being at that game, but that particular moment has stayed with me.

Yes, the first goal was controversial, and enraged many - not just around me that day but in England and all over the world for many years.

When I subsequently lived and worked in Argentina, people regularly brought up the Hand of God, and my Argentinian friends never missed an opportunity to mention it to my English colleagues.

But this is to forget that the second goal was just spectacular - almost unbelievable if I hadn't seen it with my eyes.

Personally, I would be much keener to boast about that one.

US strikes Iran after attack on cargo ship

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg590wqxwpo, yesterday

The US military has conducted strikes on Iranian targets after President Donald Trump accused Iran of a "foolish violation" of its truce following an attack on a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz.

US Central Command said it had struck missile and drone storage facilities and coastal radar positions on Friday, in response to a drone attack on a cargo ship on Thursday which halted a planned evacuation of sailors stuck in the region.

Tehran said the cargo ship was attacked because it was using an unauthorised route to transit through the Gulf waterway.

After the US strikes, Iran in turn accused the US of violating their interim deal and said it had struck targets linked to American forces.

US Central Command - or Centcom - described the American strikes as "a powerful response" to the drone attack a day earlier.

"The unwarranted aggression against commercial shipping by Iranian forces clearly violated the ceasefire," it said in a statement.

"Furthermore, Iran's dangerous behaviour undermined freedom of navigation as commerce increasingly flows through the vital international trade corridor."

Centcom said the US military would "continue to provide safe passage coordination and support to commercial vessels transiting the strait".

Iran's foreign ministry released a statement on Saturday morning, saying the country had carried out strikes against targets linked to American forces in response, and blamed the "treaty-breaking US regime" for the situation.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said its navy had struck US military positions in the region, without providing further details. The BBC contacted the Pentagon for comment.

Bahrain's foreign ministry said the country had come under attack from "several Iranian drones" early on Saturday, condemning the action as a "flagrant violation" of its sovereignty and accusing Tehran of undermining peace efforts.

Also on Saturday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said a tanker was struck by an unidentified projectile in the Strait of Hormuz.

The vessel sustained damage to its bridge, but all crew were safe and no environmental damage had been reported, UKMTO added.

Tehran effectively closed the strait after US and Israeli attacks against Iran began at the end of February.

The shutdown of the critical waterway for oil and gas shipments caused a spike in global oil prices and choked off shipments of other crucial commodities such as fertiliser.

In a post on X following the US retaliatory strikes, Vice-President JD Vance said that if Iran "has disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone".

"But violence will be met with violence," he added.

Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament's national security commission, though, said on social media that the US had "attacked Iran in the middle of negotiations once again".

He continued in his social media post: "This reckless violation of the ceasefire will, as always, lead to retreat and regret on their part. The blame game does not work anymore."

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday afternoon, Trump refused to be drawn into questions on how the US might respond to the drone attack, or whether he viewed the ceasefire as still intact.

"You'll find out," he said. "I don't like the fact that they took a shot yesterday. They shouldn't be doing that."

Asked why he believed Iran would conduct such an operation, Trump said only that "they're a little bit different".

In recent days, Trump and other US officials insisted negotiations with Iran were progressing well, saying Iran had given up any suggestion of tolling vessels transiting through the Strait of Hormuz.

In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump said Iran had informed the US that there would be "no tolls, no insurance costs and no other charges of any kind being sought or received".

"If this is false information, negotiations would end, immediately," he added.

The US has condemned reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the strait, and many see any tolling system as breaking with international maritime law.

The cargo ship hit by a projectile on Thursday was the Ever Lovely, a Singapore-flagged vessel.

According to British maritime security agency UKMTO, the ship was struck 7.5 nautical miles south-east of Oman's port of Dahit.

The Ever Lovely had been following the UKMTO's recommended route through the strait when it was struck, the ship's owner, Evergreen, said.

"All crew members remain safe as does the vessel itself and all cargo," it added.

In response, the UN's International Maritime Organization (IMO) paused its planned evacuation of more than 11,000 sailors who have been stranded in the key shipping lane since the war erupted.

TikTok influencer charged with Dubai murder

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy0p813jn7o, 3 days ago

A 23-year-old TikTok influencer charged with the murder of her boyfriend in Dubai is facing death by firing squad, a human rights group has said.

Brooke George, from Gravesend, Kent, has been charged over the stabbing of a man who she was in a relationship with after they met online, advocacy group Detained in Dubai said.

The group said she claimed she grabbed a knife in self-defence during a violent attack by her partner in the UAE. The organisation called for her to be released on bail and for the case to be dealt with as domestic violence.

The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office said it was supporting a British woman detained in the UAE and her family.

Former John Lewis worker George was arrested in the early hours of 22 June and charged with premeditated murder.

She faces execution under UAE laws if convicted.

While being held at Bur Dubai Police Station, she has alleged being forced to strip naked in front of male officers, without a female officer present, which she said was "deeply humiliating and distressing", Detained in Dubai said.

'Change in behaviour'

On her first visit to Dubai, George had described it as "the time of my life".

But, according to Radha Stirling, chief executive of Detained in Dubai, the relationship became abusive on their second trip to the Gulf city.

Stirling said George claimed her partner became "increasingly controlling and abusive" and she was trying to leave Dubai after he allegedly punched her, witheld her passport and then attacked her again at their apartment.

She claimed she "feared for her life and, reaching for a kitchen knife within her grasp, acted in self-defence", Stirling added.

In a statement, her mother Thereza George said: "After Brooke returned to Dubai for the second time, the dynamic between them had clearly changed.

"The day before the incident, she did not seem like herself. She was quieter and not her usual happy, cheerful self, but she did not tell me why.

"That evening they went to a bar in Dubai. When I spoke to Brooke right after the incident, she was absolutely terrified. I have never seen my daughter so frightened in my life. She was crying uncontrollably. I could see that one of her eyes was badly swollen and was beginning to close."

She added she was "deeply concerned" for her daughter's welfare.

"The daughter I spoke to that night was utterly terrified," she said. "I firmly believe she was desperately trying to get home and away from whatever had happened to her."

Stirling said: "Those closest to Brooke became increasingly concerned that she may have been lured to Dubai under false pretences for the purpose of exploitation.

"Their concerns were fuelled by his unexplained change in behaviour, the one-way ticket, the bikini-clad professional photo shoot arranged during her first visit, the alleged withholding of her passport, Brooke telling friends that 'things weren't right', and her growing fear that she needed to escape."

Legal rights

Detained in Dubai said George had not been given access to her embassy and had to make statements without a lawyer present.

The case "raises serious concerns about violence against women, the right to self-defence, due process and the treatment of British nationals detained overseas", Stirling said.

She added: "We are calling for Brooke to be released on bail pending the outcome of the investigation. The UAE has a well-documented history of criminalising and revictimising women who report violence."

Detained in Dubai has called for George to receive "protection, appropriate medical care, legal representation and immediate British consular assistance while the investigation proceeds".

In a statement, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office said: "We are in touch with a British woman detained in the UAE, we are supporting her family, and we are in contact with the local authorities."

Follow BBC Kent on Facebook, X and on Instagram, and listen to BBC Radio Kent on Sounds. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250.

UN pauses Strait of Hormuz evacuation plan after cargo ship attacked

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjwg9np904qo, 2 days ago

The UN's International Maritime Organization (IMO) has paused the planned evacuation of more than 11,000 sailors stranded in the Strait of Hormuz after a cargo ship passing through the waterway was attacked.

IMO chief Arsenio Dominguez said several boats had already been evacuated, but the agency wanted to ensure that "necessary safety guarantees" would continue to be in place.

The British maritime security agency UKMTO reported on Thursday that a ship had been struck 7.5 nautical miles southeast of Oman's port of Dahit by "an unknown projectile". No casualties were reported.

The ship's owner said limited damage had been caused and that it had since safely transited the strait.

US officials said Iran had fired on the ship, according to US media reports.

The attack came after Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had warned that attempts to cross the strait along a route designated by the IMO would be "unacceptable and completely dangerous" and vessels should coordinate with Iran.

The Ever Lovely, a Singapore-flagged ship, had been following the UKMTO's recommended route through the strait when it was struck, the ship's owner, Evergreen, said.

"All crew members remain safe as does the vessel itself and all cargo," it added.

The vessel followed a southern route identified by the IMO on Thursday morning, data from the ship-tracking website MarineTraffic reviewed by BBC Verify shows.

IMO chief Dominguez said in a statement on Thursday the ship "did not transit under IMO's evacuation framework", without going into further detail.

Announcing the suspension of the evacuation plan, he said: "I have always reiterated that the safety of the seafarers remains paramount. Therefore, to ensure a coordinated approach and navigational safety, the evacuation plan will be paused until further clarity is obtained."

Hundreds of ships and thousands of sailors have been stranded in the Gulf since February because of the US-Israel war against Iran.

The UN evacuation effort was announced on Tuesday following the reopening of the strait, with Dominguez saying the "large-scale operation" had the cooperation of Iran, Oman, the US, other coastal states in the region and the maritime industry.

The attack came after the body set up by Iran to manage the strait said vessels passing outside designated routes would not be guaranteed safe passage.

In a post on X, the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) said: "Any consequences arising from the use of unauthorised routes shall be the responsibility of the vessel's owner, operator and master".

Many ships had been using an alternative route on the southern side of the strait, hugging the coast of Oman, the New York Times reports.

Last week the US and Iran agreed to end hostilities under a 14-point deal - which also called for Iran to use its "best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days".

However, Tehran has repeatedly said it plans to charge what it calls maritime service fees for crossing the strait, as opposed to tolls.

The plan is fiercely opposed by the US, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio warning on Tuesday that no country is allowed to impose tolls on the Strait of Hormuz, which he called "an international waterway".

Rubio is currently in Bahrain as part of a tour of the Gulf to discuss the deal with Tehran.

After US and Israeli attacks against Iran began at the end of February, Tehran effectively closed the strait - a critical waterway for oil and gas shipments - causing a spike in global oil prices and choking off shipments of other crucial commodities such as fertiliser.

However the cost of crude has been moving sharply lower since the US and Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on 17 June, which set out a 60-day period for negotiations on Tehran's nuclear programme and other measures to end the war.

Earlier on Thursday, the price of oil briefly fell below $72.48 (£55) a barrel, the price it was at the day before the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran, before edging up to $73.23.

Trump accuses Iran of ceasefire breach after Strait of Hormuz attack

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg54g0ry0vo, yesterday

US President Donald Trump has accused Iran of a "foolish violation" of its truce with Washington after a cargo ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz was attacked.

No casualties were reported after the ship was struck by a projectile on Thursday. In response, the UN's International Maritime Organization (IMO) paused its planned evacuation of more than 11,000 sailors stranded in the key shipping lane.

Trump took to Truth Social on Friday to accuse Iran of shooting at least four drones at traversing ships, with one hitting.

"Obviously, this is a foolish violation of our Ceasefire Agreement," he wrote.

Tehran has not responded directly, but Iranian state media is reporting his remarks.

The attack came after Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned that attempts to cross the strait along a route designated by the IMO would be "unacceptable and completely dangerous" and vessels should coordinate with Iran.

Iranian state media is also reporting on Friday fresh assertions from the IRGC that the strait is Iran's territory.

Trump said while "we knocked down" three drones, one hit the upper deck of a "large and very expensive Cargo Carrying Ship".

"Damage was done, but the Ship was able to proceed on its way," he said.

His remarks reflect the ship's owner's report that limited damage had been caused and that the vessel had since safely transited the strait.

According to British maritime security agency UKMTO, the ship was struck 7.5 nautical miles southeast of Oman's port of Dahit by "an unknown projectile".

The Ever Lovely, a Singapore-flagged ship, had been following the UKMTO's recommended route through the strait when it was struck, the ship's owner, Evergreen, said.

"All crew members remain safe as does the vessel itself and all cargo," it added.

The vessel followed a southern route identified by the IMO on Thursday morning, data from the ship-tracking website MarineTraffic reviewed by BBC Verify shows.

IMO chief Dominguez said in a statement on Thursday the ship "did not transit under IMO's evacuation framework", without going into further detail.

After announcing the pause of the evacuation plan on Thursday, Dominguez on Friday said he was working with parties, including the US, Iran and Oman, to obtain guarantees vessels would not be targeted.

"As soon as I get further confirmations of that, we're ready to re-initiate the process of evacuation," he said.

The IMO said some 115 vessels and 2,500 seafarers had been able to cross the strait before the evacuation was paused.

The strait was reopened as a result of a ceasefire deal between the US and Iran earlier this month.

The US and Iran agreed to end hostilities under a 14-point memorandum of understanding - which also called for Iran to use its "best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days".

However, Tehran has repeatedly said it plans to charge what it calls maritime service fees for crossing the strait, as opposed to tolls, in a plan fiercely opposed by the US.

UN nuclear chief says inspectors will visit Iran sites as part of war deal

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd395zv81vo, 4 days ago

The head of the global nuclear watchdog has said it will carry out inspections in Iran under the country's preliminary peace agreement with the US.

"The inspections will indeed take place," International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi told reporters in Japan. "We will be working on the modalities - dates, procedures, places - very soon."

The agreement signed last week said "explicitly" that the dilution of Iran's highly enriched uranium would be carried out under IAEA supervision, he added.

However, Iran's deputy foreign minister said access to its damaged nuclear facilities and nuclear material would only be addressed within the framework of a final deal with the US.

Grossi's comments came as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan before travelling to Kuwait and Bahrain to discuss the deal.

Speaking in Kuwait City Rubio said the US would not agree anything with Iran that would undermine the security of US allies in the region.

"We're going to be completely aligned with our partners in the Gulf," he told reporters.

"If Iran wants to make a good and real deal, the United States is open to that. If they're not, then of course the president has options," Rubio said, adding that negotiators were likely to meet again in Switzerland before the end of the month.

The initial US-Iran agreement also said that Iran would allow shipping to pass through the Strait of Hormuz while the US would lift a naval blockade on Iranian ports.

On Wednesday the price of Brent crude oil fell to below $75 (£57) for first time since the US-Israeli war on Iran began.

Meanwhile the UN said some ships had already passed through the strait under a scheme to evacuate thousands of sailors stranded by the war.

In recent days, there has been a dispute between the US and Iran over the issue of UN nuclear inspectors visiting sites in the country.

On Monday, following talks in Switzerland with Iran's chief negotiator, US Vice-President JD Vance said Iran had "agreed to invite IAEA inspectors back into their country".

The next day, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said there had been "no detailed discussions" and that Iran had no plans to grant IAEA inspectors access to nuclear facilities which were bombed by the US during a 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June 2025.

US President Donald Trump then dismissed Iran's "protestations and false statements to the contrary", saying the country had "fully and completely agreed" to inspections.

"There's a war or words here. Some say 'yes', the others say 'no'," the IAEA's chief said on Wednesday. "I can understand political statements. They are part of the reality.

"But the fundamental thing... is that there has been a memorandum of understanding signed by both presidents," he added. "[It] says explicitly that the nuclear activities that are going to be carried out, with regards to nuclear material, facilities, will be supervised by the IAEA, in bold letters. This is going to happen."

Grossi said the inspections would take place in collaboration and co-operation with the Iranian government. "Whether this happens the day after tomorrow, or in one week, or in 10 days, it's important but not essential."

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi appeared to push back at the comments.

He wrote on X that access to Iran's damaged nuclear facilities and its nuclear materials would only be addressed within the framework of a final agreement with the US and after practical steps had been taken to lift all sanctions.

"Media noise cannot be used to impose facts on the ground," he added.

Under the 14-point memorandum of understanding, the US and Iran have committed to negotiating a final deal within 60 days.

It says they have "agreed to resolve the disposition of stockpiled enriched material, pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon... with the minimum methodology to be down-blending on site under the supervision of the IAEA".

The IAEA said in a recent report that its inspectors were allowed to visit Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant earlier this month, but that they were still not given access to the sensitive nuclear facilities that were bombed last June.

The watchdog said that meant it could not provide any information on the current size, composition or whereabouts of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium, or whether Iran had suspended all enrichment activities. Much of the stockpile is believed to be inside underground tunnels at the Isfahan site.

Enriched uranium can be used to make reactor fuel but also nuclear weapons.

Before the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran on 28 February, the IAEA reported that Iran had 440kg (970 lbs) of uranium that was enriched up to 60% purity, which is near weapons grade. That would theoretically be enough, if enriched to 90%, for as many as 10 bombs.

Iran insists its nuclear activities are entirely peaceful and that it would never seek to develop or acquire nuclear weapons.

Under a 2015 deal with the US and five other world powers, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities and allow continuous and robust monitoring by the IAEA's inspectors in return for relief from crippling economic sanctions.

However, Trump abandoned the agreement during his first term in 2018, saying it did too little to stop a pathway to a bomb, and reinstated US sanctions.

Iran retaliated by increasingly breaching the restrictions of the deal, particularly those relating to uranium enrichment.

Dozens of ships head through Strait of Hormuz after US-Iran deal

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx23rnzdgl8o, 5 days ago

At least 172 vessels have crossed through the Strait of Hormuz since the US and Iran signed a deal aimed at ending the war, including 42 ships on Saturday alone, according to new data from maritime intelligence firm Kpler.

The number of vessels making the transit from 18 June, the day after the deal was signed, is still well below the pre-conflict average of some 138 crossings each day.

Ship-tracking data analysed by BBC Verify shows more than 200 tankers appear to be waiting inside the strait on Tuesday, with at least 10 ships moving west into the Gulf so far.

The price of a barrel of Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, has dropped to its lowest level since the war began.

Many of the tankers that have transited the strait in recent days have been linked with Iran following the lifting of the US naval blockade as part of the deal.

At least 30 tankers have departed from the Gulf laden with Iranian oil and petrochemicals since the deal was agreed, according to Jemima Shelley, a senior research analyst at the United Against Nuclear Iran campaign and monitoring group.

The US Treasury has also eased decades-old sanctions by issuing a license to allow the sale of Iranian crude oil, petrochemicals and other oil products until 21 August.

On Monday at least five tankers previously sanctioned by the US for links with Iran moved through the strait, ship tracking data shows, carrying up to four million barrels of oil.

"That said, there has been an increase in 'normal' trade too," said Martin Kelly of crisis management firm EOS Risk Group.

Four liquefied natural gas tankers were seen on ship-tracking platforms heading through the strait to Qatar's Ras Laffan port on Monday and at least three tankers and three cargo vessels sailed out of the Gulf on Tuesday.

All of these transits were made along the Iranian-approved northern route through Iranian waters, rather than the US-recommended southern route close to the coast of Oman.

And, according to ship-tracking data, more than 250 tankers and 440 cargo ships are still inside the Gulf, based on their last reported positions. More than 80% of the tankers are stationary or at anchor and about one in six appears to be carrying cargo.

Despite the US and its Gulf allies repeatedly rejecting Iranian attempts to exert control over the strait during the conflict, the deal signed last week committed Iran to using its "best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days".

The agreement also said Iran will work with Oman to "define the future administration and maritime services" of the strait.

Iran's Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) published its terms for transiting the strait on Friday. "No vessel is permitted to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without a valid passage permit issued by the PGSA," the authority said.

The PGSA has been sanctioned by the US and Kelly said this may be holding some ship owners back from requesting Iranian permits.

There have also been conflicting messages from Iranian officials about the status of the strait.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Saturday the strait had been closed in response to Israeli strikes on Lebanon, but some traffic continued to flow.

Then on Tuesday Tehran's ambassador to the UN in Geneva reportedly said the strait was open while a military source told an Iranian news agency the number of daily transits would be capped.

Concerns about sea mines in the internationally recognised shipping lanes through the middle of the strait used before the conflict have also played a part in holding ship traffic back from its pre-war levels.

The Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC), a multinational maritime group which includes the US, has warned ships to avoid this central part of the strait "due to the existence of mines".

So far, the JMIC has issued warnings and co-ordinates for two mines and said "active mine clearance operations are ongoing".

The JMIC has recommended vessels take a narrower southern route through the strait, closer to the coast of Oman, which it says "has been confirmed clear of mines".

"We saw tankers passing along the southern corridor at the end of last week and then when Iran declared the strait closed again on Saturday 20 June the transits stalled," said Shelley.

"There has been some resumption of tankers passing today but still only a trickle," she added.

At least four tankers appeared to be transiting the strait through the southern route on Tuesday, ship-tracking data showed, including a Norway-flagged ship sailing to Singapore and a Liberia-flagged vessel heading to Taiwan.

Additional reporting by Ghoncheh Habibiazad, BBC Persian

Israeli troops kill two in south Lebanon after lull in fighting, authorities say

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c36ykpw0yego, 5 days ago

Israeli soldiers have shot dead two people in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese health ministry says, in the first fatal incident reported since the latest ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah appeared to take hold at the weekend.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said two men were killed while they were standing near a bulldozer that was unblocking a road in the town of Nabatieh al-Fawqa.

Hezbollah condemned the shooting as "a blatant violation of the ceasefire".

Israel's military said soldiers in the Ali al-Taher ridge area, just east of Nabatieh al-Fawqa, fired at "four Hezbollah terrorists riding a bulldozer and a motorcycle" who posed a threat.

It added that the group had crossed into the Israeli-declared "security zone" in southern Lebanon and ignored warning shots from the soldiers.

The Israeli military also said that, in a separate incident, soldiers struck a "cell of armed terrorists" north of the security zone. It released a photo that it said showed one of the men holding a rifle. There were no immediate reports of any casualties.

NNA identified the two men killed in Nabatieh al-Fawqa as Mohammed Amhaz and Sajed al-Hajj Ali. It said they were with a team from the Islamic Health Association, an emergency service linked to Hezbollah, and a bulldozer that was working to reopen roads and recover bodies underneath rubble in the al-Deir neighbourhood.

Hezbollah's military wing, the Islamic Resistance, said in a statement: "What the enemy has committed constitutes a blatant violation of the ceasefire, which the Resistance has adhered to up to this point". It did not say whether the group would retaliate.

Ali al-Taher ridge, which overlooks much of south-eastern Lebanon including the major town of Nabatieh, has been one of the most fiercely contested positions in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israeli ground forces attempted to seize the ridge - where they believe there is a Hezbollah "underground military fortress" - in the days before the new ceasefire deal was announced. Four soldiers were killed in a Hezbollah attack on their tank in the nearby village of Kfar Tebnit early on Friday.

The Israeli military responded by carrying out more than 150 air strikes on what it said were Hezbollah targets. The Lebanese health ministry said 83 people were killed.

On Friday afternoon, the US said Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to a ceasefire, following concerns that the continued fighting in Lebanon would undermine the preliminary agreement ending the war between the US, Israel and Iran.

However, another 20 people were killed in fresh Israeli air strikes across Lebanon on Saturday, according to the country's civil defence agency.

The Israeli military said it was reacting to attacks from the group against Israeli troops occupying Lebanon. Hezbollah said it had targeted soldiers who were trying to advance saying it will confront efforts by Israel to seize Lebanese territory.

The ceasefire has largely held since Sunday, marking the longest lull in weeks of escalating hostilities that spilled over from the US-Israeli war with Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday night that Israeli troops had full freedom of action against any Hezbollah threat and would remain in Lebanon "as long as is necessary".

Tuesday's deaths came as Lebanese and Israeli officials opened talks in Washington aimed at advancing what the US state department described as "a comprehensive peace and security agreement between the two countries".

Iran has insisted that Lebanon be covered by the agreement signed with the US last week, warning that violations of the ceasefire could undermine wider diplomatic efforts.

Iran's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, warned on Tuesday that violations of the ceasefire framework risked derailing broader diplomatic progress.

"Lebanon is an unquestionable part of the agreement, and whatever happens in Lebanon affects the whole process, and it is the United States which should use all its leverage against Israel to make it stop attacks against Lebanon."

Lebanon was drawn into the war between Israel, the US and Iran on 2 March, when Hezbollah 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.

Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed at least 4,192 people since the current round of hostilities began, according to the Lebanese health ministry. More than 1.2 million people have also been displaced, Lebanese authorities say.

Israeli authorities say 36 Israeli soldiers and four civilians have been killed on both sides of the border during the conflict.

UN commission of inquiry says Israel committing genocide in Gaza by deliberately targeting children

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0jy96w6pw2o, 5 days ago

A UN commission of inquiry says Israel has deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip, as well as war crimes in the occupied West Bank.

A new report alleges that Israeli authorities and security forces have "deliberately carried out acts inflicting death and severe bodily and mental harm on hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children", and that the killings continued even after last October's ceasefire in Gaza.

The commission says it has reasonable grounds to conclude that those acts "form part of a deliberate strategy to destroy the future of the Palestinians in Gaza by targeting their children".

Israel's foreign ministry said it "utterly rejects" the commission's report, calling it a "libellous sham" and "a propaganda piece as outrageous as its previous ones".

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the unprecedented Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

At least 73,035 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, including more than 21,280 children, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are seen as reliable by the UN.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

Its three-member expert panel does not officially speak for the UN.

Last September, the commission accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. A report said there were reasonable grounds to conclude that four of the five acts of genocide defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention had been carried out by Israeli authorities and security forces. Israel strongly rejected that report, calling it distorted and false.

The commission has previously concluded that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and other grave violations of international law on 7 October 2023, and that Israeli security forces have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.

Last October, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire as part of US President Donald Trump's plan to end the war.

Since then, both sides have accused each other of violating the truce repeatedly. Gaza's health ministry says more than 1,020 Palestinians have been killed, among them 265 children. The Israeli military says four soldiers have also been killed.

On Tuesday, the commission of inquiry said in a statement released together with the report that "the intense scale and systematic nature" of Israeli military operations in Gaza had continued, resulting in "unprecedented death, injury and trauma of Palestinian children".

"Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law," said Srinivasan Muralidhar, an Indian jurist who chairs the commission.

"The protection, care and survival of Palestinian children are inseparable from the Palestinian people's right to self-determination," he added. "By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future."

The commission's new report says Israel has targeted Palestinian children in Gaza directly by shooting at their vital organs using precision weapons, such as quadcopter drones and snipers, and by using high-impact weapons in strikes on residential buildings, schools, and displacement camps crowded with children.

Israel is also legally responsible for failing to protect Palestinian children from being targeted by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank, it adds.

The report also says that children in Gaza and the West Bank, especially adolescent boys, have been "arrested, tortured, and ill-treated in Israeli prisons and detention facilities", and that it has documented "incidents of sexual and gender-based violence targeting Palestinian children, often during arrests or in detention".

Israeli attacks on neonatal and paediatric hospitals in Gaza have meanwhile "systematically dismantled children's access to life-sustaining care, undermining their survival as a protected group", according to the report.

It also accuses Israel of using starvation as a method of war, and warns that restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza have "produced acute and chronic malnutrition among children in Gaza, removing the basic conditions necessary for their survival".

And it alleges that through attacks on schools, mass displacement and enforced closures, Israeli authorities have "systematically disrupted children's ability to learn, thereby sabotaging the intellectual and social foundations of Palestinian society itself".

The Israeli foreign ministry condemned the report, saying the commission was a "fundamentally flawed mechanism whose very purpose is to single out and vilify Israel rather than seek the truth".

"It completely erases Israeli children who were brutally murdered, kidnapped, and targeted by Hamas, while ignoring Hamas' cynical use of Palestinian children as human shields and pawns of war," it added. It accused the commission of lacking "any credible verification mechanism for its claims".

Israel's leaders have consistently rejected allegations of genocide, and say its military's operations in Gaza have been conducted in self-defence, to defeat Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, and to secure the release of Israeli hostages.

They have also insisted that Israeli forces have operated in accordance with international law and take all feasible measures to mitigate harm to civilians.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is currently hearing a case brought by South Africa that accuses Israeli forces of genocide, but it could take years to reach a conclusion. Israel has called the case "wholly unfounded" and based on "biased and false claims".

Iran says no new commitments on nuclear sites after Vance says inspectors to be invited back

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3vy3nr63gxo, 5 days ago

Iran has denied a claim by Vice-President JD Vance that it will allow nuclear inspectors back into the country, after the first round of talks between Washington and Tehran to reach a final deal to end the war.

Following negotiations in Switzerland, Vance said on Monday that discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could be happening "as soon as today".

But Iran's foreign ministry told state media that Tehran had made "no new commitments" on nuclear inspections.

Iran and the US continued to share conflicting remarks on the nuclear issue on Tuesday.

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said it had no plans to allow inspectors to access nuclear sites bombed by the US and Israel last year.

US President Donald Trump said that despite Iran's "protestations and false statements to the contrary", it had "fully and completely agreed" to inspections.

"If they did not agree to this, there would be no further negotiations!" he posted on social media.

Meanwhile, the US has temporarily waived sanctions, allowing Iran to sell oil in US dollars for the first time in decades.

In a joint statement released on Monday, mediators Qatar and Pakistan said that after the first round of talks in the Swiss resort of Bürgenstock, the US and Iran had agreed to "a roadmap towards reaching a final deal within 60 days".

Vance described the talks as having laid a "very good foundation".

The US vice-president said the teams had discussed the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and "de-confliction for the regional ceasefire".

The 60-day sanctions waiver issued by the US Treasury on Monday dismantles central pillars of Washington's long-running embargo, which has historically choked off Tehran's economy.

The emergency licence authorises the production, sale and delivery of Iranian crude and petrochemicals until 21 August.

Iranian oil can even be imported directly into the US, under the sanctions relief.

It unlocks banking transactions, insurance and transportation and does away with the complex networks that Iran has previously used to sell crude.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that in exchange for the 60-day waiver, Tehran had committed to keeping the vital Strait of Hormuz open and allowing IAEA nuclear inspectors back into the country.

Speaking in Switzerland on Monday morning, Vance was asked by reporters when nuclear inspectors would be returning to Iran.

He said he expected the process to start "at a minimum this week", but conversations with inspectors "could happen as soon as today".

US President Donald Trump also posted on social media that Iran "will agree to have Major Weapons Inspections".

However, in an interview with Iranian state news agency Irna, foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqai said Tehran had made "no new commitments" on nuclear inspectors.

He maintained that any engagement with UN inspectors would take place "under existing procedures set by Parliament and the Supreme National Security Council".

The IAEA did not immediately comment.

Iran suspended IAEA access to sites bombed by Israel and the US during the 12-day war last summer.

The following month, the UN's nuclear watchdog said it had pulled out its remaining inspectors from the country.

In 2015, Iran and six world powers – the US, China, France, Russia, Germany and the UK – struck a deal allowing IAEA inspections of nuclear sites in Iran.

During Trump's first term, in 2018, he withdrew the US from this agreement, arguing it was a "bad deal".

Vance said on Monday that the Iranians had threatened to walk out of the talks on Sunday after Trump warned on Truth Social that the US could "hit Iran very hard again".

The US vice-president said he told Iranian negotiators that Trump was merely responding to Iranian "trash talk".

On Monday, Trump issued a fresh warning to Iran from the Oval Office.

"If Iran doesn't live up to their agreement, or if they're not behaving, I will do what I have to do," the US president said.

The Qatari and Pakistani mediators' joint statement said that a "communication line" had been formed "to avoid incidents and miscommunication with the aim of safe passage for commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz".

Both sides also agreed to the creation of a "de-confliction cell" between the US, Iran and Lebanon, facilitated by the mediating countries, to end military operations in Lebanon, their statement said.

Iran's Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said the first "real test" would be Lebanon.

Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon has abated since Saturday night and a fragile ceasefire was holding.

Negotiating groups are to be set up covering areas such as nuclear issues and sanctions as talks continue, Iranian state media reported on Tuesday.

At least 13 killed and dozens injured after Qatar gas explosion

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy05llpjpno, 6 days ago

At least 13 people have been killed and 66 injured after an explosion at Qatar's largest gas facility.

The city's main liquified natural gas (LNG) processing site suffered a "technical accident" in Ras Laffan industrial zone on Sunday night, the interior ministry said, with the city's skyline turning orange because of the explosion.

Qatar's Energy Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi said the explosion would not affect the country's exports, adding "this was an accident and not sabotage or hostile in nature".

The Ras Laffan Port is the largest artificial harbour in the world and has the world's largest LNG export facility. It was targeted by Iranian strikes earlier this year.

The blast on Sunday rattled windows and was felt across central Doha, panicking residents more than 70km (43 miles) from Ras Laffan.

Sherida al-Kaabi added the government was working on determining the cause of the blast which occurred at the Barzan local gas supply facility, he added there was no environmental risks.

However, the energy minister said it would be difficult to determine when operations would resume.

"Plant production was intentionally completely stopped since December 2025 due to urgent maintenance requirements, it was first restarted again only two days ago," Sherida al-Kaabi said.

An investigation has begun into the cause of the accident and Sherida al-Kaabi confirmed those killed from the blast were all from India and Pakistan.

The Embassy of India in Doha said it was in constant touch with the Qatari authorities and will render all help to the families of those who lost their lives or have been injured.

"We convey our deepest condolences to the families of those who have unfortunately passed away in the sad incident at Ras Laffan Industrial City last night," the embassy said in a post on X.

On Sunday, QatarEnergy, which is the country's state-owned energy company, confirmed the explosion occurred at "Barzan local gas supply facility in the evening hours of Sunday 21 June".

"Emergency response teams were deployed immediately to contain the fire, which is now under control."

The blast occurred as workers were restarting operations that were previously halted in March.

During the US-Israel war with Iran, the Ras Laffan Port suffered "extensive damage" from retaliatory strikes as Qatar is a major supplier of global energy.

QatarEnergy said the required repairs to the facility would reduce output by 12.8m tons of LNG for three to five years.

Qatar had halted production in response to the conflict, pausing a fifth of the world's LNG. Shipments had begun to resume recently.

Thousands killed in US-Israeli war on Iran - but experts say true total may never be known

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy735xlv50ko, 9 days ago

Thousands of people have been killed across the Middle East since the US-Israeli war with Iran began in February, official figures show, with a deal now agreed to end the war.

More than 7,300 people have been killed in Iran and Lebanon since 28 February, according to official casualty reports from those countries. Among them are hundreds of children and dozens of healthcare workers. Scores more people have been killed across the wider region.

However, some analysts say the figures are almost certainly an undercount and experts told BBC Verify that internet, media and government restrictions - coupled with unreliable figures due to the presence of armed groups in some areas - have hampered reporting.

Dr Iain Overton - executive director at the UK-based charity Action on Armed Violence - said the conflict being fought across multiple countries means casualty figures "are often incomplete, delayed or impossible to independently verify".

He added that "the final death toll will likely remain contested" for years after the conflict ends.

Iran

As of mid-April, at least 3,468 Iranians, including 499 women, had been killed since US and Israeli strikes began, according to official Iranian government figures.

This is made up of 1,460 civilians and 2,008 military personnel, state news agency IRNA reported on 26 April.

But the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said that their count was higher, with 3,636 killed.

In a report issued on 18 May, HRANA said their figure comprised 1,701 civilians, including 307 children, 1,221 military personnel, and 714 individuals whose identity or status could not be confirmed.

The organisation said their documented figures should be seen as "absolute minimums", as getting information on deaths was severely limited by difficulty accessing sites, government-imposed internet blackouts and political repression.

"Authorities routinely withhold information about casualties, and families may face pressure not to speak publicly about the circumstances of a death," said Skylar Thompson, the organisation's deputy director.

Iranian authorities have accused the US and Israel of hitting civilian infrastructure in strikes across the country. Multiple investigations have found that a US missile strike on the opening day of the war hit a school in the town of Minab, which Iranian officials say killed 168 people, including 110 children. The US military has said it is investigating the strike.

Days later, Iranian authorities said 20 people were killed when a missile hit a sports hall during a girls' volleyball match in the town of Lamerd.

The US has denied it was behind the strike, but experts told BBC Verify that a US-made Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) was likely used in the attack.

Lebanon

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah restarted on 2 March when Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran's supreme leader. Israel responded with a campaign of air strikes and a ground invasion in southern Lebanon.

Since then, Lebanese health authorities say that 3,912 people have been confirmed as killed in Israeli attacks, among them 366 women and 247 children.

It's not clear whether or how many Hezbollah fighters are among them. BBC Verify contacted the health ministry but has not received a reply.

While Hezbollah has not released its own figures, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month that 3,000 fighters had been killed since the war with Iran began.

In early March, the Lebanese health ministry said 41 people were killed in a major Israeli air and ground operation around a town in the eastern Bekaa Valley. The IDF said its troops were recovering the remains of an Israeli military airman who went missing during a previous conflict in Lebanon 40 years ago, but Lebanese officials said three of its troops were killed - alongside a number of civilians and children.

And on 8 April a massive wave of Israeli strikes killed at least 361 people in the space of 10 minutes, according to Lebanese authorities. The IDF says it targeted 250 Hezbollah operatives that day. But Lebanon's health ministry disputed that, saying the vast majority of those killed were civilians.

Meanwhile, the United Nations says seven of its peacekeepers have also been killed in Lebanon, the most recent on 4 June.

The Israeli campaign has attracted significant criticism for inflicting heavy civilian casualties. On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump sharply attacked the IDF's conduct, saying that "too many people have been killed" by the strikes.

"You don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you're looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they're not all Hezbollah," Trump said at the G7 summit in Paris.

Israel

Israeli authorities said 60 people have been killed, most by Iranian attacks and fighting with Hezbollah, as of 18 June.

Among these were 29 civilians, 21 of whom were killed in Iranian missile strikes, according to government figures supplied to the BBC. Another 31 were IDF soldiers killed in combat. One person was killed in accidental friendly fire, the government said.

Israel has frequently accused Iran of deploying cluster munitions against population centres in the country. In one attack, the IDF said a couple in their 70s were killed while travelling to an air raid shelter after bomblets released by a cluster bomb hit the town of Ramat Gan.

In March, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Tehran of committing war crimes by targeting civilian centres with cluster munitions.

"Cluster munition bomblets are dispersed over a wide area, making them unlawfully indiscriminate in violation of the laws of war," said Patrick Thompson, a crisis, conflict and arms researcher with HRW.

Deaths across Middle East

Iran's initial response to US-Israeli strikes also saw it strike against neighbouring Arab states hosting US bases.

Iranian forces launched waves of ballistic missiles and explosive drones, many of which hit a range of civilian locations, including airports, energy facilities and ports. In many cases falling debris from interceptions fell on residential areas.

BBC Verify has previously documented attacks on military bases in eight countries - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain and Oman.

The wave of strikes have prompted angry responses from Iran's neighbours. Dr Anwar Gargash - an adviser to the UAE's president - wrote on X: "Your war is not with your neighbours, and through this escalation, you confirm the narrative of those who see Iran as the region's primary source of danger.

Reaching a definitive total for deaths across the region is difficult as not all states have published cumulative tolls. However, official statements and media reports have recorded deaths in most of the Gulf states, including 13 in the United Arab Emirates, according to the country's defence ministry.

In Iraq, more than 100 people have died, according to figures gathered by Al Jazeera and Agence France Presse. Of those, at least 80 were reported to be members of the paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), which is dominated by Iran-backed Shia militias, killed in US and Israeli strikes.

Meanwhile, 13 US military personnel based in the Middle East have also been killed, seven in Iranian attacks and six in a refuelling plane crash in Iraq, according to the Pentagon.

The International Maritime Organisation said 14 sailors with a range of nationalities had died in strikes on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Dr Overton noted that "access restrictions, damaged infrastructure and political sensitivities" in parts of the Middle East have limited reporting and in some cases suppressed casualty numbers entirely.

"Experience from conflicts in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere suggests that the final death toll will likely remain contested and could prove substantially higher than the numbers currently available," Dr Overton said.

Additional reporting by Gidi Kleiman.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

What Iran and US get from deal and why both could struggle to keep it

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c932yqz8lggo, 10 days ago

More than 100 days after US and Israeli bombs began falling on Iran, both sides are claiming victory - a sign of how much each needed a way out.

A deal has officially ended the fighting, but the harder negotiations are just beginning.

Both sides have sold the deal to their public as a win but, as our analysts here explain, neither has fully convinced them and domestic critics on both sides argue that too many concessions were made.

For Iran, the deal with the US offers something just as important as a ceasefire: a way to claim that it has not just survived the war without surrendering but has emerged from it stronger.

From the start, Tehran's core objective was not necessarily to defeat the US and Israel in conventional military terms. It was to come out of the conflict with the Islamic Republic intact, its leadership still functioning and its negotiating position not completely broken.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) – as the deal is known - allows Iran to say it has achieved that.

The document, signed separately by US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, sets out a 60-day framework for negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme but it also confirms an immediate halt to military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon, mutual respect for sovereignty, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the lifting of the US naval blockade on Iranian shipping.

Iran's immediate obligations are significant, but relatively limited. Tehran has agreed to help ensure safe commercial passage through Hormuz, something that had long been the status quo before the war, reaffirm that it will not pursue nuclear weapons, and enter talks on the future of its highly enriched uranium and enrichment programme.

The US commitments appear broader. According to the MoU, Washington will begin removing its naval blockade, issue waivers for Iranian oil exports, make frozen or restricted Iranian assets available, work towards easing sanctions and pursue with regional partners a reconstruction and economic development plan for Iran worth at least $300bn (£224bn).

That helps explain why the reaction from Iranian critics has so far been muted. The MoU gives the leadership enough to present the deal as a victory: Iran's sovereignty is recognised, the blockade is due to be lifted, sanctions relief is on the table and reconstruction funding is explicitly mentioned.

But that silence is unlikely to last. Even the first response of Iran's supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was carefully balanced: he allowed the deal to proceed, while making clear that it had been accepted on Iran's Supreme National Security Council responsibility.

The most difficult issues have been deferred, not resolved. The future of Iran's highly enriched uranium, the scale of its enrichment industry and the rebuilding of damaged nuclear facilities will now be negotiated under intense pressure.

That creates a problem for Tehran's leadership. State media, the Revolutionary Guards, parliament and hardline figures have spent weeks telling their base that Iran defeated the US and Israel. Expectations are now high. Any compromise over enriched uranium or nuclear infrastructure could be portrayed by critics as a concession made after victory had already been declared.

But no compromise could be just as dangerous. If Tehran refuses to move on highly enriched uranium or the future shape of its nuclear programme, the process could collapse and the ceasefire itself may come under pressure. That would strengthen those in Washington and Israel who already argue that Iran has only used the MoU to buy time and could push both sides back towards war.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of parliament and head of Iran's negotiating team, has tried to frame the talks in defiant terms. "I am not a diplomat," he said on state TV, "but I know well how to make America understand."

Khamenei's reaction has made that task even harder. He said he held "another view in principle" but had authorised the MoU after Pezeshkian, as head of the Supreme National Security Council, accepted responsibility for defending Iran's rights and those of Iran's allies.

That wording keeps him close enough to the deal to allow it to proceed, but distant enough to avoid full ownership if it fails. For Iran's negotiators, that may narrow the room for compromise. They must satisfy Washington without appearing to have crossed lines the leader himself has not fully embraced.

Ghalibaf's language is aimed as much at Iran's domestic audience as at Washington. The former Revolutionary Guards commander has to sell the deal to a hardline base deeply suspicious of compromise with the US.

The comparison with the 2015 nuclear agreement is unavoidable. In Washington, some may present the MoU as worse than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the earlier agreement was known, arguing that Trump has accepted a framework that gives Iran sanctions relief and economic benefits while postponing the hardest nuclear questions.

In Tehran, however, the danger is different. Hardliners may accuse the government and negotiating team of repeating what they saw as the betrayal of 2015, when President Hassan Rouhani came under attack by MPs, conservative media and political rivals who accused him of making too many concessions over Iran's nuclear programme.

For Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf, the challenge is to turn a ceasefire framework into a political success before that backlash gathers force.

Iran has gained time, relief from immediate military pressure and the prospect of major economic concessions. It has also avoided the outcome Washington demanded most publicly: total surrender.

But it has not yet secured the final deal. The MoU strengthens Iran's hand in the short term because the system has survived and Washington has made visible commitments. The risk for Tehran is that the next 60 days expose the gap between the image of victory sold at home and the compromises required to keep the war from returning.

Iran has come out of the war's first chapter stronger than many expected, but its next challenge may be harder: keeping its own political base behind the process long enough to reach a final deal, without allowing compromise to look like a concession or even a defeat.

Trump hails deal as 'major win' but critics say concessions too great

Donald Trump has hailed the agreement as a "major win" for the United States that ultimately accomplishes his overarching war aim of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

In the near term, however, a much more immediate "victory" is the re-opening of the global economy as a result of the Strait of Hormuz opening.

As the conflict wore on and the Strait of Hormuz remained essentially closed, polls consistently suggested that the American public was growing exasperated with the high price of petrol and what the war meant for them at home.

Dissatisfaction with the economy was among the primary reasons voters sent Trump back to the White House in 2024, and a perception that the war the president chose to initiate was hurting their pocketbook had become politically damaging for Trump.

And while he may himself not be on the ballot in the November midterm elections, that unease came at a difficult time for fellow Republicans, many of whom have faced increasingly angry constituents, and would-be voters who were growing more and more vocal about the prospect of a long-running, frozen conflict.

With that in mind, the deal gives Trump breathing room and, his political allies hope, the ability to portray himself as the figure who brought the conflict to a relatively quick close and avoided the sort of seemingly endless foreign entanglements of the forever wars that he campaigned against.

However, critics of the agreement - including some from within the Republican Party - have already accused Trump of giving too much as far as concessions go.

At the heart of this argument is the pledge that Iran will benefit from the $300bn reconstruction fund.

"There is no 300 billion dollar payment to Iran by the US. That's fake news," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "All there is for the US is success, lower oil prices, and victory."

While Trump and other administration officials too have made clear that none of this money will come directly from the US, it has some within the party feeling uneasy.

"History teaches us that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is not a good idea," Texas Senator Ted Cruz - an otherwise reliable ally of Trump - told The Hill. "I think the president is receiving some very poor advice."

Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson who, despite recent criticism of the administration remains a powerful figure among the Maga base, put it more bluntly.

"This is a pretty humiliating loss for the United States," he said on his show on X. "This is a loss."

Notably, the administration has also been forced to acknowledge that several of its war aims have seemingly become non-priorities that go unmentioned in the MoU.

Early on in the conflict, for example, Trump vowed that the US military would "destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground", leaving it "obliterated".

Similarly, the MoU contains no references to Iran's ties with regional proxy groups, despite Trump's March promise that the US was working to ensure "the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund and direct armies outside of their borders".

The administration has now backed away from that aim, with Vice-President JD Vance telling reporters that the US "expects" that Hezbollah will refrain from firing on Israelis.

Ceasefires, he added, are a "little messy" and "flare-ups" can be expected to take place.

That alone will make the deal unpopular among those Republicans who view US commitment to Israel's security as an ironclad aspect of US politics.

Bowen: US-Iran deal raises inescapable question of what the war was for

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyegr2mp8jo, 10 days ago

The memorandum of understanding signed by President Donald Trump and President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran lays out the political, military and economic consequences of the ill-judged decision to attack Iran on 28 February.

The human cost is already clear. Thousands have been killed, many of them civilians, in Iran and Lebanon.

The US, and by extension Israel, have suffered a strategic defeat. The regime in Tehran faced its worst nightmare: a joint military operation to cripple or destroy it by the US, the world's strongest power, and Israel, the Middle East's superpower. The regime has not just survived. It has been empowered.

Its strategy of blocking the Strait of Hormuz, and with it one fifth of the world's supplies of oil and gas as well as other vital components in the global economy, has forced Trump to agree to a series of concessions that have infuriated and alarmed America's Iran hawks and the Israeli government.

The memorandum of understanding - or MOU - calls for an end to the war in Lebanon. Israel says that cannot happen. It wants a free hand in Lebanon, and that issue has the capacity to cause an even sharper rift between Israel and the US, and play into the hands of Iranian hardliners who oppose any deal with the Americans.

In return for reopening the Strait, the MOU's language says the US will lift its counter blockade of Iranian ports, waive sanctions allowing Iran to earn billions of dollars from exporting oil and start the process of returning billions more to Iran by unfreezing assets that it held abroad.

That is before they get down to the hard business of negotiating a nuclear deal. It is the price of returning to the way they were on 27 February, the day before the US and Israel launched the war. On that day the Strait of Hormuz was open for shipping and American and Iranian negotiators were discussing a nuclear deal.

The signing of the MOU means that the negotiators will go back to work and ships will be able to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

Joe Biden's Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, posted on X "the only 'achievement' of the ceasefire is the likely reopening of the Strait of Hormuz – which was open before the war started. And we will apparently pay Iran to do so."

The question of what exactly the war was for is inescapable and will not go away. It amounts to Trump's worst foreign policy blunder so far.

It might also spell the end of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's long political career. He faces elections in October, and a reckoning from Israeli voters for his part in security failures, the worst in Israel's history, that meant its vaunted military and intelligence services failed to spot the Hamas plan to invade Israel from Gaza on 7 October 2023. Netanyahu's hardline military policies and dismissal of diplomacy were designed at least in part to restore his reputation as Israel's Mr Security.

Tehran was always aware of the potential power of closing the Strait of Hormuz. So was the US military, its diplomats and spies.

But the former Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamanei, a cautious, elderly man, chose not to take the risk of using the Strait as a weapon.

After Israel killed him, and his closest advisers, in the first bombing sorties of the war, his successors believed, correctly, that they were in an existential struggle and did not hesitate to close the Strait.

They have discovered the power of controlling a global economic chokehold. It is a far more usable weapon, and much cheaper, than the network of allies and proxies it spent decades and billions building in the Middle East.

Except for the Assad regime in Syria, which collapsed at the end of 2024, Iran's so-called axis of resistance survives, just about. But it has been so damaged by Israel that whether it can "resist" is a moot point.

Iran has also poured money into a nuclear programme that it continues to deny was aimed at building a weapon but undoubtedly gave Tehran an option and a threat. But it provoked a war that despite the regime's survival has done huge damage to Iran.

Closing the Strait, in contrast, was easy and had a rapid and devastating impact, spreading the pain to the Arab oil states and much of the rest of the world.

The power of the US and Israeli air forces scored a series of tactical victories. But they were not enough to avoid a strategic defeat. That was because the US-Israel strategy of regime change was based on a series of lazy and misplaced assumptions.

They assumed killing the supreme leader would cause a collapse of the regime. But over nearly half a century the Islamic Republic's institutions have been engineered to resist attempts to destroy them.

It was not like Venezuela, a corrupt Latin American dictatorship, that crumpled when its leader was abducted and put on trial in the US. The Iranian regime is undoubtedly corrupt and highly repressive – its men killed thousands of protesters in the streets of Iran in January – but it is also based on ideology, religious conviction, and a conception of national security, martyrdom and survival that grew out of the devastating war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1980s.

When they went to war President Trump said the regime in Tehran would fall. He told the Iranian people to prepare for a once-in-a-generation chance to take back their country. Not long after that he called for its unconditional surrender.

Netanyahu, who had tried and failed repeatedly to persuade Trump's predecessors in the White House to go to war against Iran, used biblical language to sum up the enormity of what he believed was about to happen: "This coalition of forces allows us to do what I have yearned to do for 40 years: smite the terror regime hip and thigh."

Neither man has delivered.

The memorandum of understanding is not a final deal. It is an agreement to talk about the biggest issue between them – Iran's nuclear programme. But it is front-loaded with key inducements for Iran. If the talks progress, the US has said it will lift sanctions.

It is all dependent on the success of 60 days of talks on a nuclear deal – that can be extended and probably will be, as the issues are complex. Neither trusts the other. Much can go wrong. Hardliners in Washington, Tehran and Israel do not want the deal to work.

Iran might overplay its hand, taking maximal positions in the forthcoming negotiation and potentially jeopardising economic gains that could rescue its broken economy.

But this agreement is way better than a war that has killed thousands and threatened a global economic recession.

If a nuclear deal is made, to the satisfaction of the US and Iran, and if both sides keep their promises, the Middle East could be transformed. That is a big if, at the other end of a long and difficult negotiation.

US-Iran deal leaves core sticking points unresolved - and a $300bn question

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgmd8dgklzzo, 10 days ago

The US-Iran memorandum of understanding announced on Wednesday amounts to a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and a deal to try to reach a final agreement on almost everything else.

President Donald Trump framed it as a major win for the US in a lengthy press conference at the G7 summit in France.

Both countries later confirmed the memo had been signed electronically on Wednesday and was now in effect.

But new details released by US officials in a call with reporters confirm both countries still have a long way to go to reach a comprehensive final peace agreement that achieves Trump's primary goal of stopping Iran from ever developing nuclear weapons.

Trump has insisted the deal ensures that Iran will never buy, develop or produce a nuclear weapon. But the text of this agreement, which was read aloud by officials on the call, falls short of that.

Instead, the ceasefire extension jumpstarts a high-stakes scramble over 60 days for the two adversaries to achieve a lasting nuclear pact. It took the Obama administration 20 months of negotiations to reach the original Iran nuclear deal in 2015. Can the Trump administration do that in just two months?

For now, the text of the deal only commits Iran to "downblending" its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). A senior US official on Wednesday called it a "significant concession" by Iran.

But all of the technical details of how that might happen, and on what timeline, must still be ironed out in the 60-day period of negotiations that commence after the scheduled signing takes place on Friday.

Trump has also said the US will not provide any money to Iran. This is a key issue for the president, who has been critical of the Obama administration's $1.7bn payment to Iran in 2016.

With an eye toward his legacy, Trump has been keen to frame his Iran deal as better than former President Barack Obama's, and has used the money issue as a way to argue he has taken a stronger stance against Tehran.

But according to the text of this agreement, the US will work "with regional partners to develop a definitive mutually agreed plan with at least USD $300 billion" for Iran's reconstruction.

A senior US official said the deal does not commit the US to paying Iran a single cent. But the actual language in the agreement is opaque, and appears to leave the door open for the US to eventually make some payments to Iran as part of a negotiated settlement to the war.

That could be a major political problem for Trump and Vice-President JD Vance, who campaigned on a promise not to start new "forever wars." The anti-interventionist Maga base may take issue with the arrangement, even if any eventual payoff to Iran doesn't come directly from the US.

Criticism has been swift, including within Trump's own political party. Lawmakers in Congress are demanding briefings and information from the Trump administration about the deal and the uncertainties it carries.

Some Republicans said they were skeptical of the agreement, with one prominent Republican senator denouncing it and arguing Trump gave up too much to Iran and didn't get enough in return.

"Iran's nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future," outgoing Sen Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who lost a primary challenge to a Trump-backed opponent, said in a post on X.

"This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades," the Republican added.

Other key issues also get short shrift in the page-and-a-half deal.

When the war started Trump said a top priority was preventing Iran from funding proxy groups in the region, like Hezbollah. That was a priority for Israel, as well, which joined the US in launching the war and has waged a separate conflict with the Iranian-backed militia group in Lebanon.

The cessation of hostilities under this initial agreement extends to Hezbollah. But the group barely received any other mention in the deal, and it is unclear if Iran will be pressured to drop its support for the group and other regional proxies in the next round of talks.

The text released on Wednesday also doesn't address Iran's missile program in detail, another issue that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was a priority at the start of the war.

Whether the deal signed in Geneva this week leads to a final agreement is up in the air. The text gives both sides a 60-day deadline, but notes that this is open to an extension if necessary. That could suggest both countries aren't deeply optimistic that they can strike a more comprehensive agreement.

At his G7 press conference, Trump himself sounded noncommittal about the prospects of a lasting peace with Iran.

"If it doesn't get done in 60 days, it's all right," Trump said. "We go back to bombing."

Status quo at Jerusalem's holiest site under threat as Israeli nationalists flout rules

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy0nlv90jno, 11 days ago

"The whole land of Israel was promised to the children of God… and this is where we are going to build a new Temple for the entire humanity to come and pray together."

Those were the potentially incendiary words of Moshe Feiglin, a right-wing nationalist Israeli politician, who spoke to me as he came down from the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, where he had been praying and singing religious songs with a group of around 20 other religious Jews.

Feiglin spoke openly and clearly, almost as if his argument was neither controversial nor contested.

But what he was saying and doing was in complete contravention of a sensitive agreement that seeks to maintain the peace at one of the most holy and emotionally charged places on Earth.

For Moshe Feiglin and others like him, it is simple. They want to build a huge new Jewish temple on the very site which, for the last 1,400 years, has been one of the most sacred places in Islam - al-Aqsa.

The compound - also known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), and to Jews as the Temple Mount - is one of the most recognisable and visually impressive sites in the Middle East.

The gold-covered Dome of the Rock dominates the 35-acre site and can be seen for miles around. Al-Aqsa is mentioned in the Quran, and it is from where Muslims believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended to Heaven. It is also a site reserved exclusively for Muslim prayer – but is that about to change?

The site is also the most important place in Judaism. Below the compound, alongside its supporting Western Wall, Jews pray and mourn the destruction by the Romans of the Jewish Temple on the platform above, almost 2,000 years ago.

Under what is known as the Status Quo, a decades-old understanding, custody of the al-Aqsa compound is the responsibility of a Jordanian-administered Islamic body - the Waqf (Endowment).

Non-Muslims are allowed to visit al-Aqsa but they are not allowed to pray there or carry out religious rites. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel and most ultra-Orthodox rabbis also prohibit Jewish prayer on the site on halachic (Jewish legal) grounds.

Those are the conventions and rulings that Feiglin and others now openly flout and disregard.

'Multi-faith centre'

Recent reports and claims that Israeli and US officials are working together to abandon the Status Quo have caused widespread alarm.

The news outlet, Middle East Eye, was told by multiple sources that a new body created by the Israeli government would declare the al-Aqsa compound a "multi-faith centre".

When questioned about those reports recently at a Congressional hearing, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said he had "no knowledge of them", although the high-profile US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has often spoken out about Jewish connections to the holy places in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.

Other reports suggested that large-scale Jewish prayer would be allowed on the site and that all aspects of its governance would be gradually taken over by Israel, which captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy places, along with the rest of the West Bank, from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War and later annexed it in a move that is not recognised by most countries.

The Israeli prime minister's office has repeatedly said that there has been no change to the Status Quo.

"It will not happen," warns Dr Mustafa Abu Sway, the Deputy Head of the Islamic Waqf Council.

On a vantage point in the Old City, he acknowledges that control of al-Aqsa is a sensitive issue in which Israeli protagonists feel empowered.

He also fears, with some justification, given the historical context, that any formal change in the Status Quo could easily lead to another explosion of tension between Jews and Muslims.

"Peace without leaving al-Aqsa Mosque alone, is simply opening a Pandora's box. It is jeopardising the peace in the region, and it pitches everyone against everyone," says Abu Sway, a respected Palestinian expert in Islamic studies and regional history.

International alarm

Jordan, Gulf countries and Egypt have all expressed alarm and concern at the recent erosion of Islamic authority at al-Aqsa. The British government, too, has said that "the historic status quo arrangements at Jerusalem's Holy Sites must be respected".

But some outspoken nationalists in Israel feel that momentum is with them.

"The Temple Mount is ours. It's in our hands!" chanted Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, in a widely circulated video from last month's Jerusalem Day march, after he led a group of flag-waving Israeli nationalists through East Jerusalem, including the Old City's Muslim quarter, and up to the al-Aqsa compound.

The hugely controversial member of Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government is a regular visitor to al-Aqsa.

In the video, he sings songs and unfurls an Israeli flag in complete contravention of the Status Quo.

But for Ben-Gvir, who has already used his ministerial office to permit Jewish prayers and songs in parts of the compound, it's just the start of increasing Jewish and Israeli control of the site.

More than 25 years ago, in September 2000, the right-wing Israeli nationalist politician, Ariel Sharon, did what was then unthinkable. Accompanied by hundreds of armed Israeli police officers, the leader of the opposition Likud Party walked through the Old City up on to the al-Aqsa compound.

It was widely regarded as a deliberately provocative and inflammatory act and one of the sparks that lit the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, also known as the al-Aqsa intifada. In the following five years, more than 4,000 people were killed in violence across Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

It is not difficult to envisage a scenario where the pressures today to radically change the running and ownership of the most politically sensitive piece of real estate on the planet could lead to a similarly disastrous outcome.

First round of US-Iran talks ends with encouraging progress, mediators say

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy0q41v1lzo, 6 days ago

The first round of negotiations between the US and Iran to reach a final deal to end the war has ended with "encouraging progress", mediators Qatar and Pakistan say.

In a joint statement early on Monday, Qatar and Pakistan said that the parties had agreed to "a roadmap towards reaching a final deal within 60 days".

Iran's foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said there had been "major progress" towards ending the conflict in Lebanon.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed last week includes a commitment to ending the fighting on "all fronts" - including Lebanon - and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

"Pakistani and Qatari mediation has delivered major progress to end Lebanon War," Araghchi posted on social media.

"Oil and petrochem exports are waived, blockade lifted, some frozen assets released, and major reconstruction & development plan launched for Iran."

The Iranian lead negotiators left the talks in Switzerland on Monday, Iranian media said, with technical discussions between the parties due to continue.

The mediators' joint statement said that a "communication line" had been formed "to avoid incidents and miscommunication with the aim of safe passage for commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz".

Araghchi said the first "real test" would be the Lebanon de-confliction cell.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun spoke to senior officials from the US and Qatar on Monday about the issue, and more broadly about consolidating a ceasefire in Lebanon, his office said.

Since the MoU was signed, there has been an upsurge in fighting between Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, and Israeli air strikes that the health ministry says have killed dozens of Lebanese including women and children.

A new ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was declared on Friday. Continued clashes and air strikes prompted Iran on Saturday to announce it had shut the Strait of Hormuz, though tracking data shows vessels have continued to pass through it.

Hezbollah said it was committed to the ceasefire but that it would confront any attempt by Israel to "seize territory or expand its occupation".

The group said its fighters had clashed with Israeli forces advancing towards the Ali al-Taher hill area, which is on the edge of the southern village of Kfar Tebnit and overlooks the major town of Nabatieh in the south.

The Israeli military's chief of staff said on Sunday that Hezbollah had built an "underground military fortress" beneath the hill and that its destruction was one of the "primary operational focuses" of Israeli forces.

Fighting was reported to have diminished on Sunday but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that the Israeli military would remain in southern Lebanon for as long as was necessary to protect northern Israel.

Speaking before the talks at the Swiss resort of Bürgenstock, US lead negotiator Vice-President JD Vance said Trump had asked negotiators to "turn over a new leaf".

He added that if Iran's leadership was willing to give up being a "driver of regional instability" and its "nuclear weapons ambitions for the longer term", then the US "is willing to fundamentally transform our relationship with that country".

Iran has insisted its nuclear programme is peaceful.

Under the initial deal signed last week, Iran was to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the key shipping channel through which 20% of the world's oil and natural gas travels.

The US also agreed to lift a military blockade on ships going to and from Iranian ports.

The deal also includes a $300bn (£224bn) plan for Iran's "reconstruction", and the US terminating "all types of sanctions" on it.

But the issue of Iran's nuclear programme is still to be negotiated.

On Sunday some vessels appeared to be entering, exiting and transiting the strait, according to location data on the maritime tracking website MarineTraffic, despite Iran's claim - disputed by the US - to have closed the strait.

The initial deal also called for fighting to stop on all fronts, but in Lebanon Israeli air strikes have since killed at least 67 people, while Hezbollah attacks have killed five Israeli soldiers.

Israel has insisted that its conflict with Hezbollah is separate from the war on Iran, which it mounted alongside the US on 28 February.

Lebanon was drawn into the war shortly afterwards, when Iran-backed Hezbollah 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 occupying around 5% of the country's territory in the south - hoping to drive back Hezbollah fighters from its northern border - and has said it has no intention of withdrawing.

Since 2 March, at least 4,106 people have been killed in Lebanon, the country's health ministry says. Its figures do not differentiate between combatants and civilians.

Israeli authorities say 36 Israeli soldiers and four civilians have been killed on both sides of the border.

Additional reporting by Lana Lam, Emma Pengelly and Richard Irvine-Brown

Israeli strikes kill six people in Gaza including Al Jazeera cameraman, officials say

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gy26p6pwzo, 8 days ago

Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed at least six people, including an Al Jazeera cameraman and at least one child, according to health officials and rescuers.

Al Jazeera said it "strongly condemns the heinous crime of targeting and killing" of its correspondent Ahmed Wishah, who was killed in a strike on a central Gaza home on Saturday.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) accused Wishah of being "a terrorist in Hamas' military wing who served as a sniper operative".

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures the UN regards as reliable, says the Israeli military has killed 1,007 people since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect last October.

Al Jazeera said Wishah's death on Saturday "constitutes a new and flagrant violation of all international laws and norms, and reflects a continued systematic policy of targeting journalists and silencing the voice of truth".

The IDF said that Wishah in recent months had advanced sniper attack plans against Israeli troops, without providing evidence.

Two other people were killed along with Wishah in the strike on the home in Bureij refugee camp, according to a local hospital and the Hamas-run civil defence agency, which conducts rescue operations. The IDF also accused the two others killed of being a part of Hamas.

Wishah's brother Mohamed, who was also a correspondent for Al Jazeera, was killed in an Israeli strike in April. In a post on X in February 2024 the IDF posted images which they said was evidence he worked in Hamas's rocket and weapons production headquarters, which Hamas reportedly denied at the time. Al Jazeera called his killing a 'deliberate and targeted crime'.

Meanwhile in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City, four family members were killed in an overnight strike on a home, according to the civil defence, relatives and a nearby hospital.

Shifa Hospital told news agencies that it had received the bodies of the family, including two children. Medics told Reuters that the dead from this strike included two women and a child.

Relative Nael Safadi, who told AFP that the strike hit around 02:00 local time, said his cousins "have no connection to Hamas, nor are they involved in anything. They're just innocent children".

"Is this really a ceasefire?" another cousin, Mohammad Safadi, asked the AP. "We are civilians. I never held a weapon."

Strikes were also reported in southern and northern Gaza.

Both Israel and Palestinian armed group Hamas have accused one another of violating the ceasefire since October.

The deal also promised a flood of humanitarian aid into the territory, where the UN says around 81% of buildings were damaged, but aid groups say more help is needed.

Tom Fletcher, head of the UN's humanitarian agency, told the UN Security Council this week that the share of households reported going to bed hungry had dropped from 92% to 36% since the ceasefire as more aid trucks entered.

But he said 70% of the population still needs proper shelter, as sanitation conditions deteriorate and essential services are "on the brink".

"Today, Palestinians in Gaza remain deprived of the basics that you would all demand for your own families: safety, shelter, clean water, healthcare, education," he said.

The ceasefire also required Hamas to disarm and have no role in the governance of Gaza, which has yet to happen.

Meanwhile, a "Board of Peace" made up of international diplomats was created to oversee an apolitical Palestinian technocrat committee to govern Gaza.

The agreement also states Israel will not occupy Gaza and will progressively hand over territory it had seized in the war. In May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he had directed the IDF to increase the area of Gaza under its control to 70% of the territory.

The latest conflict started when Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage back to Gaza.

Since then, more than 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza by Israeli military operations, the territory's health ministry says.

Correction 24 June: This article previously stated that the IDF accused Mohamed Wishah of working with Hamas but provided no further details. We have amended this sentence to explain that prior to killing Mohamed Wishah, the IDF published photos which it said were evidence that he had worked for Hamas. Al Jazeera has accused the IDF of making false claims against its journalists in Gaza.

How male infertility is still not getting enough attention

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2w4kz7z1ko, 2 days ago

In mid-2020, while Covid lockdowns gripped the country, Luke and his wife decided to start a family.

"All through my teens the message was clear: don't have sex without a condom or you might get someone pregnant," he says. "So, when you're older, you expect everything to just happen normally. When it doesn't, you don't know what to do or where to go."

After 18 months without success, the couple saw their GP and were referred for further tests in hospital and at a fertility clinic.

Over the next year or so, Luke says the focus was entirely on his wife. Appointments were all in her name. When he had to fill out paperwork, his wife was contacted even though all his details were on file.

"At the heart of it, the whole system is based on the assumption that it's a woman's problem," he says. "The male side gets totally overlooked."

It took more than a year, and a failed round of IVF, until Luke was told there might be an issue with his sperm. "I was like, 'Now you're telling me?'" he says. "There were things on my side that could have been looked into much sooner, rather than treating me as an accessory to the process."

Infertility affects roughly one in six couples and about half of those cases are linked to male problems, either alone or alongside female causes. Under the latest clinical guidelines from NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence), couples still struggling to conceive after 12 months of unprotected sex should be assessed together as one unit, with men and women offered further checks in parallel. Yet experts say men are often sidelined in diagnosis, treatment and in fertility conversations.

"There can be genuine exclusion even if it's unintentional," says Prof Bola Grace from University College London. "Men tell us it can happen across services - in how care is delivered, in fertility clinics and in counselling."

A study led by Grace in 2019 found many men wanted to be more involved in the fertility process, but often felt their voices were not heard. The result, she argues, is often self‑perpetuating - some fertility services don't include men, so men engage less, which reinforces the idea they are simply not interested. "We've created a cycle where men are excluded, but then they're also blamed for not showing up," she says.

This can have real consequences, she adds - not just for men but for women, who often end up having to deal with far more of "the coping, the planning, the worrying, the decision-making".

It can also mean problems are picked up later, tests and treatment can be more invasive, and couples may face a tougher, more expensive path through fertility care. So how could the system offer more support when a man has been told he may have a problem? And what more could be done to get men to talk more openly about fertility?

'Ignored by the system'

Since the first IVF birth in 1978, fertility treatment has largely been framed around women, partly for biological reasons. IVF involves stimulating the ovaries to produce eggs, retrieving them, fertilising them in a laboratory and then implanting the resulting embryo back into the womb. By contrast, most men provide a sperm sample and wait for science to do its thing.

That imbalance has shaped how fertility care has developed, argues Allan Pacey, professor of andrology (a medical specialty focused on male reproductive health) at the University of Manchester. He says fertility units and clinics are typically led by gynaecologists, whose training focuses on female reproductive health, while male fertility can often be treated as a secondary concern.

"Now, there are some really good gynaecologists that do it well, because they're interested in this, but at the level of the GP or the secondary care clinic or the tertiary care clinic, men can be an afterthought."

At a policy level, there are similar imbalances, he says.

The Department of Health has recently published separate men's and women's health strategies, setting out the government's 10-year vision for healthcare in England. Fertility features around 20 times in the women's version, with a page devoted to support and clinical guidance. In the men's document it is mentioned just five times, and mostly in relation to obesity, alcohol or other health issues.

Pacey, also a former chair of the British Fertility Society, calls this a "missed opportunity to level the playing field".

"This is absolutely not saying that we should do less for women, we should probably do more for women as well," he says. "But by giving men a proper role, we can fundamentally change what happens in the future, both in terms of their experiences, but also in the terms of what we can do research-wise or treatment-wise."

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "It is right that men receive the same level of support, information and care as women when navigating fertility problems". It says it will continue to work with NHS England to make sure men's fertility is "properly reflected in how services are designed and delivered".

At one point, Luke had an ultrasound scan of his testicles but didn't hear back for more than a year - until he reminded the clinic about it. A review revealed a varicocele - a swelling of veins in the scrotum that can affect sperm quality. He was treated, but the couple's fertility problems persisted.

It took another nine months, after paying to see a private andrologist, for Luke to receive any detailed one-to-one advice on lifestyle and diet.

"It's been a pretty tough, lonely place," Luke says. "There's the blow of finding out there's a male factor involved - which goes against all sorts of stereotypes about masculinity. But then there's a second level: feeling completely left out and ignored by the system."

Now, the couple are in the middle of another round of IVF using ICSI, a technique in which a single sperm is injected directly into an egg with an ultra‑fine needle, rather than allowing fertilisation to occur by exposing the egg to thousands of sperm in a laboratory dish.

An ostrich moment

Clinicians say the picture is beginning to shift, but only gradually. "Things are moving in the right direction, but we are still well behind," says Prof Hussain Alnajjar, a consultant urological surgeon at University College London Hospitals and the Cleveland Clinic London.

For example, it is starting to become more common for a man to see a specialist before his female partner - if an initial semen analysis suggests a potential problem. "That's what I mean by things are changing but it's happening slowly," he adds. "Overall, women are still far more likely to be assessed first when it comes to infertility."

For men like James, 34, from North Yorkshire, that slow pace of change has shaped their experience.

After James and his wife had difficulty conceiving, he had what he describes as an "ostrich moment"; months of burying his head in the sand while his partner went through all the checks and tests. "Every day, I think about that moment and the time wasted," he says.

James was away for work on a construction site when the results of his semen analysis eventually came through. He was told his sperm were "weak, slow and malformed" and later found out he would struggle to conceive naturally. The near three-hour drive home that day was "like a blur, very painful".

There were delays with his diagnosis. It took another two years - and a private consultation with a urologist - before he was given a full physical examination and more advanced hormonal tests. After years of trying, and multiple rounds of IVF, the couple's fertility treatment was ultimately unsuccessful.

"You're the partner of someone who you love unconditionally, but you view yourself as the cause of their pain," he says. "You feel you're the reason they can't have a child."

Male infertility can often be mixed up with ideas of virility and masculinity, making it more difficult for some men to acknowledge or discuss the problem. Prof Pacey recalls hearing about a barbecue where "all the women were at one end talking about IVF, and all the men at the other talking about football".

James did not see his fertility problems as a challenge to his masculinity, but the stigma surrounding the issue meant he struggled to find support during that time. "It's just you and your partner dealing with this, so it feels like you're an island and there's no-one else out there like you," he says. "You don't know where to go, who to turn to, or what to say."

Under UK law, fertility clinics must offer counselling before treatment, but it need not be free or ongoing. The fertility regulator, the HFEA, says that there are far fewer support groups - either online or in the real world - for men than for women. But there are some signs that may be starting to change.

Shaun Greenaway, 43, was diagnosed in 2018 with azoospermia - a condition in which no sperm are present in the semen. The cause is unclear, although he had severe mumps as a teenager - a virus known to be linked to male infertility.

He and his wife eventually had children through sperm donation, but Shaun says he navigated much of that experience alone. "There was absolutely no support, and no-one was talking about it from a personal perspective, so I decided I was going to share my story," he says.

Along with a friend, Ciaran Hannington, 40, he co‑founded the Male Fertility Podcast and a support network for men experiencing fertility problems, with WhatsApp groups and in‑person meet‑ups. They compare the conversation around male infertility today to where mental health was a decade or so ago - still taboo but slowly becoming more open.

"There's such a deep-rooted stigma but, sadly, it's one of those topics that you don't really take any notice of until you have to," says Ciaran, who was also told he had fertility problems in 2012. He says it took two years until he "started to take control" of his situation and make lifestyle changes – improving his diet, cutting out alcohol and adjusting his exercise regime.

After seven rounds of IVF and two miscarriages, his wife, Jennifer, finally gave birth to a boy and a girl.

Studies show that stress, poor sleep, smoking, alcohol and diet can all damage sperm quality. But small, short-term changes are unlikely to have much impact, says Prof Pacey.

"Any lifestyle change needs to be sustained," he says. "It takes three months to produce sperm from start to finish, so if you stop drinking on a Friday night then don't expect an improvement by Monday morning."

Not all men act on that advice.

Shaun says he's spoken to some women – "never blokes, by the way" – who say their partners have refused to give up cigarettes, alcohol and drugs, despite being told it could affect their chances of having children.

"We know the healthcare system needs to catch-up but ultimately it's a two-way street," he says. "And some guys – and some women – need to catch up as well."

A small study by researchers at the University of Dundee in 2022 found that roughly one in six European fertility specialists said they regularly struggled to persuade men to take a sperm test.

On a global basis, some men were uncomfortable providing a sample, while others assumed they had no fertility problems because they were sexually active or had previously fathered a child.

Signs of a shift

There are indications that awareness is starting to shift.

New PSHE lesson plans for schools in England, developed by the British Fertility Society and Cardiff University, now give male fertility risks - from poor diet to smoking and steroid use - the same prominence as those faced by women.

And at this year's giant Fertility Show in London's Olympia, attended by around 2,000 people over two days, organisers said male infertility would be placed centre stage for the first time. Stalls offering high-tech sperm testing kits sat alongside more established services such as egg freezing and pregnancy supplements, while seminars focused on sperm quality and the latest treatment options for men.

"[It's] not a token addition. Not a side conversation," said the show's content director, Sophie Sulehria. "It's about recognising that male fertility is not a niche topic. It's a fundamental part of reproductive health. And it deserves the same visibility, the same investment, and the same compassion."

Doctors working in the field also say they are seeing a shift and that it matters for reasons beyond having a family. Growing evidence suggests male infertility can be a marker of wider health problems from obesity to smoking or hormonal abnormalities, according to Prof Alnajjar, who also speaks for the British Association of Urological Surgeons.

"Healthier men tend to have better reproductive health, and an abnormal sperm test can sometimes be the first sign that further medical assessment is needed," he says. "That's why I believe male infertility should not be viewed solely as a pregnancy issue; it should also be recognised as an important men's health issue and an opportunity for early intervention."

For men like James, whose lives have been shaped by infertility, progress like this cannot come soon enough. "We're not going to change the stigma that still exists by burying our heads in the sand and ignoring it anymore, but by getting it out there," he says.

"As soon as we're more open, then fewer people are going to think it's taboo, or that anyone is any less of a man for actually talking about it."

Top picture credit: Getty Images

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Ten years on, Brexit's economic impact is becoming clearer

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyv0m164m84o, 5 days ago

Not long after the UK left the EU in 2020, a Bristol-based firm called Eskimo started selling a new kind of high-fashion and energy-efficient electric radiator, based on new technology developed by academics in the city.

They planned to send them around Europe using the Channel Tunnel.

It was a timely product given Europe's green ambitions, and with orders flowing, its Birmingham factory was being kept busy.

The boss Phil Ward tells me his start-up has continued to grow, but that in his view it could have been so much more without what he calls "the Long Brexit effect": in 2020, 40% of his exports went to the European Union, and by 2025 it was just 5%.

The post-Brexit deal agreed with the EU by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson in December 2020 guaranteed zero tariffs on exports to the EU, but Ward says that despite this, red tape and paperwork not directly related to tariffs were enough to create delays, costs and the expectation of hassle for prospective customers.

Eskimo did manage to export some goods to agents in France but it stopped selling directly to European consumers entirely. A planned expansion to Germany floundered.

And as Eskimo discovered when it attempted to export towel rails to Australia and New Zealand, both countries abide by international safety standards that are heavily influenced by the EU's CE mark.

This matters because one theoretical potential Brexit benefit was that it would allow UK regulators to not follow the EU's safety regulations and take a more pro-innovation, less regulatory approach for high-tech inventions.

Eskimo's experience is one example of a broader trend reflected in export figures. The UK Trade Policy Observatory at Sussex University calculated a rapid 26% reduction in the different types of UK exports by 2023, while a new study from Aston University Business School using five years of more detailed trade data concludes a loss of 53.8% of the type of exports and 31.5% for imports.

These figures for "trade varieties" are falls in the number of products sent to different EU countries.

A decade ago, many economists argued the UK would sustain longer-term economic damage by leaving the EU and many believe that damage has come to pass.

But to make that call you have to compare what did happen with what might otherwise have happened were it not for Brexit and doing that is a matter of method and statistical judgement.

And that judgement has to account for the fact that the period since Brexit has been a time of huge global flux. The pandemic that struck in the spring of 2020, the war in Ukraine that began two years later and, more recently, the energy price shock sparked by the conflict in Iran all have to be accounted for.

So too does the question of whether a Brexit-free UK would have really kept up with the Silicon Valley tech boom in recent years to the extent Brexit Britain has.

The clear consensus of economists making the calculations say they have factored in the global turmoil when assessing Brexit's impact. Others question their methods and the extent of Brexit's impact.

Some of the most negative predictions back in 2016, including those that said the UK could experience a Great Depression‑style hit, proved unduly pessimistic. Whatever economic hit there was, it was not sudden enough to cause an instant recession.

But those who believe the UK did sustain longer-term economic damage by leaving the EU say the hit was no less profound.

"Among economists there is not much debate, but there still is among policy folks. The experts were right. It was, if anything, worse than we thought, but it's taken longer to get there," says Nick Bloom, a British Stanford University professor and author of one of the most prominent recent major studies using Bank of England data.

His work sits among dozens of academic economics papers that have analysed vast amounts of data to try to assess what effect Brexit had on the UK's economy.

UK trade with Europe

UK trade with Europe had been on an upward trend before 2016. But official figures show that compared to 2019, 2025 UK exports to the EU were 14% down and imports were down 10%.

And they've been getting worse. Last year, 2025, was the worst year for UK goods export volumes to the EU this century, apart from one year in the depths of the financial crisis.

Think tank Niesr calculates exports were 16.9% lower and imports 16.1% less than what could have been expected based on positive pre-2016 trends. The Centre for European Reform uses a different method, trying to take account of what could have happened if the UK had not been excluded from a more recent surge in intra-EU trade, leading to a goods trade hit of 16% to exports and 14% to imports. It's all in the same ballpark and there is other research from European countries that suggest similar drops in their trade with the UK. Again, these calculations rely on selecting a method and statistical judgment.

Most studies conclude similarly, but using raw trade figures, so not accounting for significant inflationary spikes, you see a 4% rise in cash terms since 2019 of UK goods exports to the EU, which some analysts have used to argue there has been minimal impact.

Services trade boom

One area that has performed more strongly since 2016 is services, which make up over 80% of total UK economic output. Services sector exports from the UK to the EU are up 57% over the last decade, driven by a category that includes accountancy, legal services and consultancy. Non-EU services exports are up 49%. Imports from the EU are up 35% in the same time, and up 60% from outside the EU.

It is also true that there has been a service boom across the advanced world and some argue Britain might have done even better without Brexit. But either way, financial services clearly remained in healthier shape than the worst projections during the referendum.

Business investment

Investment by businesses was significantly lower than what might have continued after Brexit, according to two studies. Former Bank of England independent economist Jonathan Haskel calculates a £29bn or 1.3% reduction in the size of the economy from lower investment than would have been expected since 2016.

Business investment flattened in real terms immediately after 2016, and notably underperformed various measures of UK long term-trends and comparisons with other countries. Professor Haskel's latest calculation is a shortfall of 13% against the pre referendum trend from 1997-2016.

Using different methods, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and the top US economic research body the NBER find that UK business investment is down 12-13% against where it would have been, compared to a representative basket of advanced economies.

Much of these findings predate the energy shock in 2022, and attribute the hit to uncertainty in the first years after Brexit. The latest analyses show the UK still behind most of the G7 but having overtaken Germany after the hit to its economy from the 2022 energy crisis.

The currency

The most visible sign of economic shock was the fall in the value of the pound in the minutes and then years after the referendum. This makes imports and travel more expensive, and makes UK assets worth less in the world.

Pre-referendum, the pound had reached new highs against major currencies. It then fell sharply after the referendum and has since traded lower, particularly against the dollar and the euro. It fell again further at various points of post-Brexit uncertainty and then too during the mini-budget in 2022 when Liz Truss was prime minister. Since then, sterling has broadly strengthened and taken advantage of a weaker dollar and is currently near the top of its post-Brexit range.

The impact of an overall weaker pound has raised prices for imported goods, from fresh foods to manufactured goods. But it has also helped cushion disruption for exporters by making their goods cheaper in international markets. In turn, some food prices have been helped a little by lower tariffs on international imports not produced in the UK.

The new trade deals

One potential Brexit benefit was the UK's ability to sign its own trade deals outside the EU. The UK-India deal stands out as an example of where the UK broke ground well beyond what might have happened within the EU.

The UK also signed the first "deal" to alleviate the impact of President Trump's tariffs. The Government itself calculates that the trade deals Britain has signed will only slightly boost economic growth, by fractions of a percentage point over decades.

It is worth noting that even former Prime Minister Tony Blair, an avowed Remainer who was previously a backer of a second referendum, recently suggested the UK had enjoyed some benefit from being able to have its own AI regulations and that this would have implications for any attempt to rejoin the EU or single market in the future.

But it is also the case that it is not all one way. The EU has signed a deal with South America, the Mercosur deal, which gives access to EU car exporters to Brazil, the world's sixth biggest market, at zero tariffs, versus 35% for the UK.

And while Britain also achieved the first and best deal to alleviate President Trump's tariffs, the EU has since received many of the same benefits. The rate at 10% is better for the UK than the EU at 15%, but there is no quota for EU car exports to the US, and there is one of 100,000 for the UK.

It could be that the quiet competition between London and Brussels prompted by Brexit has motivated dealmaking that might have otherwise taken years.

The overall hit

There is a place that is as central to the UK's relations with the EU as the Strait of Hormuz is to global energy markets: the Channel Tunnel. When Britain was in the EU, the tunnel was the living embodiment of frictionless goods trade.

Back in 2016, 1.64m trucks went through the tunnel. Last year, post Brexit, there were 1.16m. So there are almost half a million missing lorry journeys a year - nearly 30% of this economically critical, high-value cross-Channel traffic has been lost.

Exactly how many trucks there would have been were it not for Brexit is impossible to say, but the hit from the pandemic, for example, would have subsided by now.

An industry participant describes the pattern as "pure Brexit" with small exporters leaving, unable to afford to invest in systems and surviving business models changing from "just in time" to increased stock-holding. HMRC trade data analysed by LSE also pointed to 16,400 firms - 14% of EU exporters - stopping exporting to the EU between 2019 and 2023 altogether, and that falls in exporting were concentrated among smaller firms.

What has happened in the Channel Tunnel tallies with the academic consensus that the UK economy is smaller now than it would have been based on the trajectory it was on in 2016.

The numbers range from about 3% to 8%. "The fact that it is harder to trade with the EU is about half the hit, in line with previous forecasts," says lead author of the NBER research, Nick Bloom.

He attributes the rest to the consequences of what at times felt like near-nightly political meltdown during the Brexit negotiations. "The other half is the uncertainty from the fact the Brexit process itself was such an enormous mess… We can never get that second 4% back."

These calculations are based on modelling how a UK still within the EU could have been expected to perform economically had it still experienced the pandemic and the 2022 energy shock but not Brexit.

The most recent study by the NBER takes account of population growth, and says the UK lost 6-8% of per capita output.

Bloom says he has used a variety of approaches including accounting for distance, economic gravity, the size of the economy and selectively omitting potential outliers.

There are, however, other figures. The authors, including Bank of England economists, also used a special survey of thousands of firms, accounting for a tenth of private employment, that was created by the Bank in 2016 to track Brexit reaction. The first Brexit analysis based on this survey was only published this year and updated on Friday and it shows how prolonged Brexit uncertainty hit commercial decision-making.

This entirely different firm-level method also leads to a conclusion of an economy about 6% smaller than without Brexit. That means an economy that would have otherwise grown about two thirds of a percentage point faster every year over the past decade.

Next ten years of Brexit

The world that post-Brexit Britain entered in 2016 has changed beyond any recognition.

Back in 2016, Brexiteers talked up the prospects of a free trade deal with the US when the reality in 2026 is a US that has put up higher trade barriers and weaponised tariffs. A decade ago, the idea was floated that the EU could collapse - it hasn't, and has introduced protections for its manufacturers. And China is now increasingly assertive.

The questions the above raise about UK global economic strategy are almost entirely different questions to those posed a decade ago.

It's possible an economically independent UK is well placed to deal with this volatile world. It's also possible that the opposite is true and that UK exporters would benefit from rejoining the EU single market.

What's clear from the data is that many UK goods exporters, especially smaller ones, have not become used to Brexit and that in certain sectors it's not getting any better.

Does the UK align itself with the US and its focus on lightly-regulated tech and in particular AI? Can a closer UK-EU relationship be squared with that? The EU has responded to the new economic nationalism with "Made in Europe" legislation that may require a certain percentage of parts to be made in Europe - it's unclear if the UK is included or not. An early test will be steel next month, and then a deal to avoid UK-EU electricity car tariffs at the end of the year.

UK officials recently suggested establishing a single market for goods trade with the EU as part of the next phase of a Brexit reset, something the EU says is incompatible with current government red lines around freedom of movement.

Unions have shifted position from wanting to rejoin the customs union, to looking for a Swiss-style deal in the European Economic Area.

In recent weeks government ministers have begun to quietly say that these red lines are specifically for this Parliament and will be looked at again. What path Sir Keir Starmer's replacement as prime minister decides to go down, we don't yet know.

Next month's UK-EU summit has now been postponed. Sir Keir had wanted to seal a deal to row back many of the post-Brexit frictions on food and farm trade that have impacted the cross-Channel trade flows. Other political parties have vowed to rip up the government's EU reset or even try to row back on elements of the post-Brexit deal.

Put bluntly, the status quo will not hold. Ten years on, Brexit, and its impacts on the economy, remain very much with us, and the policy debates may be about to return.

Top picture credit: Getty Images

Graphics by Miguel Roca-Terry

The pressure on the Church of England to ditch its slavery reparations plan

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yz43n9513o, 10 days ago

The soaring, light-filled quire in Rochester Cathedral has witnessed centuries of worship. But beneath where the cathedral's singers sit, under its timeworn paving stones lies a dark financial legacy.

Hidden in an archive until just a few years ago, were share dividends from the early 18th Century showing the cathedral's dean and chapter invested directly in a company that trafficked slaves, making profits of around 400%.

"We think it paid for a huge renovation project here at that time," says the Very Reverend Philip Hesketh, Dean of Rochester, pointing out the quire paving that was relaid.

"There were some major things like seven Georgian houses in Minor Canon Row just outside the cathedral, accommodation for staff, clergy, and an organist's house," he says.

In the south aisle of the nave is also an elaborate wall monument commemorating John, 1st Lord Henniker who was buried at the cathedral in 1803. He was one of the most prominent anti-abolitionist members of parliament and had close personal links to the slave trade.

"I think it's important to identify it, acknowledge it and to tell that story," says Hesketh.

What is happening at Rochester mirrors a broader reckoning happening across churches, cathedrals and the Church of England.

In 2023, the Church announced that the predecessor to its modern endowment fund had invested heavily in the South Sea Company, a business involved in transporting enslaved Africans across the Atlantic during the 18th Century

It said it had made profits from those investments that would be the equivalent of around £1.4bn in today's money. Those profits were all integrated into the Church's modern day investment fund, which is now worth many billions of pounds.

The disclosure prompted an apology from the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who said he was "deeply sorry for the links" and promised to make amends through a £100m "social impact" fund.

But today the money remains unspent.

What began as one of the Church's biggest attempts to confront its links to slavery has become the focus of a fierce row.

Supporters of the Church's promise to make amends say it has a responsibility to address the legacy of slavery. Critics argue the historical case has been overstated and question whether the money should be spent at all.

More broadly, the dispute raises questions about the promises many institutions made after the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who was killed in Minneapolis in 2020 after a police officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.

Floyd's killing sparked protests across the United States and around the world. In Britain, institutions came under growing pressure to look at their own records on race, discrimination and historical injustice.

Six years on, will the Church's commitments still be delivered, or do shifting political winds mean there is no longer the will to do so?

The George Floyd moment

Following the reaction to George Floyd's murder by a police officer in Minneapolis on 25 May 2020, universities launched investigations into their links with the slave trade and the British Empire. Museums reassessed collections. Businesses announced diversity initiatives. Charities and churches also began looking again at their histories.

The Church of England was part of that wider moment.

The Church had already spent years engaged in a process of reflection about its own role in the slave trade. But it would take George Floyd's murder by a white police officer to spur the Church on to speed up its examination of ties to historic slavery and explore some form of repentance.

What did the Church find?

The most significant investigation was already underway, spearheaded by the Church Commissioners, the body responsible for managing the Church's multi-billion-pound investment fund.

They commissioned a forensic audit into the origins of a historic financial fund known as the Queen Anne's Bounty, originally set up to support clergy and parishes and the precursor of the modern-day fund.

Dr Helen Paul, an economic historian at the University of Southampton, was one of the experts brought in to decipher 18th Century ledgers. The audit found that many donors to the fund had connections to the transatlantic slave trade. But the most significant revelation concerned the Church's own investments.

Researchers reported that between 1723 and 1777, the Church of England put its investment monies almost entirely into the South Sea Company.

"The company was based in London and worked with the Royal African Company to go to West Africa to deal with enslavers there and force enslaved people onto their ships and sail across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and then further to Spanish held ports," Paul says.

She estimates that this single company trafficked around 34,000 enslaved Africans to the Spanish Americas in such inhumane conditions that 10-15% of people died in transit.

"When you're talking about the number of people who are trafficked, one person is one person too many," she says. "It has to be remembered that sometimes this can spiral off into discussions about numbers or profits, but actually these are human beings on ships."

When the Church Commissioners published their report in 2023, Archbishop Justin Welby expressed deep sorrow for the institution's "shameful past".

The Church Commissioners' audit said investments in the South Sea Company accounted for almost a third of the income of the Queen Anne's Bounty during the years for which records are available, huge numbers in today's money, and the precursor to the current fund.

The Church announced Project Spire, a £100m fund aimed at making amends, primarily by investing in communities affected by the legacy of slavery in the UK, Africa and the Caribbean.

For supporters, the findings provided a clear case for action.

Bishop Rosemarie Mallett, a descendant of enslaved Africans, who would later chair Project Spire's oversight committee, found the findings deeply significant.

"It absolutely felt like a watershed moment," she says.

"The forensic accountants had done their work and came out with this deep connection to African chattel enslavement. Once something is brought to the light, you can't push it back into the darkness."

As a historian who had come across the Church of England's links to slavery as a student, for many years Mallett had long been conflicted about associating with the institution.

Now as a bishop, with a Church commitment to tangibly repent for its past sins, she felt the institution was starting to better represent the Church her mother and many others had stayed loyal to.

The push back

But not everyone accepted the Church's conclusions or the need to repent.

One of the most prominent critics is Richard Dale, emeritus professor of international banking at the University of Southampton.

Dale argues that, aside from a brief period, the Church invested in "South Sea Annuities" – which he describes as government bonds – rather than directly in the trading business of the South Sea Company.

"The enormity of this mistake cannot be overstated," he argues.

"To come up with the idea that the major, almost the entire portfolio consists of slavery-related investments, when in fact they were not, is quite a big mistake."

The likes of Helen Paul vehemently stand by their findings - arguing that the South Sea Annuities cannot be decoupled from the South Sea Company's slave-trafficking activities.

The disagreement has become central to the wider debate surrounding Project Spire. But some argue the Church research should have gone much further to lay out an entanglement with slavery that goes far beyond what the audit showed.

Many vicars, bishops, and archbishops are known to have personally managed investments in plantations, and in the South Sea Company, sometimes paying for renovations to churches and cathedrals.

When slavery was finally abolished in 1833, the British government paid out such massive amounts of compensation to slave owners that the national debt was only cleared in 2015; at least 96 clergy of the Church of England were among the recipients.

The missionary wing of the Church, the Society of the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), even ran the Codrington estate, sugar plantations in Barbados with around 300 slaves.

They branded slaves with the word "society" on their chests and used the plantation profits to pay for their work spreading Anglicanism through North America.

Nevertheless Dale's critique of the Church report has provided powerful ammunition for opponents of the idea of making financial amends for any gains made by the Church for its links to slavery.

Political and cultural change

When Project Spire was announced in 2023, in the shadow of George Floyd's murder, the opposition to it was mainly murmurings behind the scenes. But that opposition has become full-throated.

Among the most influential voices leading the intellectual pushback to Project Spire now is Lord Nigel Biggar, an ordained Church of England priest and a former Christian ethics academic at Oxford University.

Last year, he published a book titled Reparations: Slavery and the Tyranny of Imaginary Guilt. Lord Biggar views the Church's response not as righteous repentance, but as a reactionary capitulation to modern politics.

"The Church's response to the killing of George Floyd and the upsurge of Black Lives Matter was exactly the same as that of many cultural institutions in the country. I'd regard it as a kind of moral panic," Lord Biggar argues.

While he acknowledges the Church's complicity, he insists it must be viewed through the moral lens of the 18th Century, rather than the 21st.

"Slave trading and slavery were institutions and practices, practised on every continent by people of every skin colour since the dawn of time," Lord Biggar says.

"It doesn't really surprise me at all that the Church was involved. There's very little that we inherit that isn't tainted by historic injustice somewhere along the line," he says.

Furthermore, Lord Biggar challenges the core premise of Project Spire and reparatory justice as a whole - that historic suffering directly dictates modern disadvantage.

"Barbadians, mostly the descendants of slaves, are considerably better off than the average Nigerian," he says, in the kind of claim that some within the Church of Caribbean ancestry say they have found deeply offensive.

Lord Biggar is deeply critical of what he sees as an obsession with historical guilt that ignores Britain's role in ending the trade. He points to evangelical Anglicans like William Wilberforce who championed abolition.

"I don't think it helps race relations to exploit white guilt in terms of a narrative of white oppression, black victimhood. I mean some whites were guilty, but some whites were liberating and emancipatory."

What happens to these promises?

Some of the backlash to the Church's £100m commitment is about its legality. On that basis, earlier this year 27 MPs and peers called in a letter for the £100m initiative to be abandoned.

Conservative MP Katie Lam was one of the lead signatories and argues that Church funds are restricted to supporting parish churches and clergy wages.

"If you give your money to a donkey sanctuary, that money cannot instead be used for a domestic violence shelter," Lam says.

"That's not a value judgement. But if that's what the person gave their money to, a donkey sanctuary, then that's where it has to be spent," she explains, saying Project Spire will put people off donating to the Church.

Critics also point to the financial pressures facing parishes across the country, with some struggling to pay staff or afford to repair churches, saying the £100m should be spent there instead.

But in 2025, the Church Commissioners announced a commitment of £1.6bn over the next three years for exactly those things, saying reparatory justice spending would sit alongside, not replace, existing work.

They have also been very clear that no donations coming into the Church would fund the work of Project Spire.

Nevertheless to address concerns the Commissioners say they will create a separate charity to fund Spire, which is where the project is stuck at the moment.

Beyond the legalities, questions from members at the meeting of the Church's national assembly, General Synod, earlier this year revealed broader opposition – even hostility towards Spire.

Lam finds the philosophical underpinning of Project Spire troubling. Because the individuals who were themselves enslaved have been dead for 200 years, she argues that allocating funds based on race is "inherently divisive".

But elsewhere, reparative justice projects are already underway.

Unlike Project Spire, which remains gridlocked, members of the current iteration of the Church missionary society that ran plantations - the United Society of the Propagation of the Gospel – are funding a separate £7m reparative justice project directly on the Codrington estate.

The ongoing work includes financial literacy courses, small business grants, infrastructure projects, and the agonising process of locating ancestral graves.

For Kevin Farmer, executive secretary of the Codrington Trust in Barbados, the argument that the Church absolved itself by eventually supporting abolition is deeply flawed.

"There would have been no need to pat yourself on the back in 1807 if you had not engaged in enslaving people from the early 16th Century. So congrats that you ended the slave trade in 1807. Let's deal with the fact that you started it," he says.

Father Andrew Mumby, Rector of St Peter's Church Walworth in south London, sees the issue through the experiences of his own congregation.

His congregation is largely made up of black Christians whose ancestors were from West Africa and the Caribbean.

"If you don't address injustices, historic or otherwise, that in itself creates and perpetuates division," he says. "In this parish, 31% of children are living in poverty. There is intergenerational poverty from families like mine who haven't had loads of money passed down," he says.

For Father Andrew, the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade is not an abstract historical debate, but a clearly visible, structural force shaping the lives of his parishioners today.

He says that as a Jamaican directly descended from enslaved people, and a Christian, he finds some of the opposition to the Church's attempts to make amends for its financial entanglement with slavery deeply disturbing.

"There is something for some people which is very threatening about this work, which provokes a certain reaction," Father Andrew says.

"And I will say, although I know that some people don't like terms like this, there is a sense of white fragility."

A Closing Window?

Today, the Church of England finds itself paralysed. The initial moment of global reckoning following 2020 has given way to legal gridlock and a polarised culture war.

The Church is caught between what some regard as Christian justice for its complicity in one of humanity's darkest chapters and the realities of modern politics.

"I don't think the terrain is as easy as it was five years ago," says Bishop Rosemarie Mallett, acknowledging the shifting political winds.

She feels that the increased divisiveness in the country has made people nervous about pushing forward. But she remains hopeful Project Spire's reparative justice will happen.

"I pray, I hope. I think the window is still there, but I think it has narrowed."

Additional reporting by Catherine Wyatt and Hayley Mortimer

Top picture credit: Getty Images

What one country's experiment says about attempts to boost birth rates

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yzdr4ygdno, 13 days ago

Sitting on a park bench in the eastern Hungarian city of Debrecen, Barbara Elek is nervously refreshing her emails. She and her husband Levi are waiting to find out if Barbara is pregnant, after their third round of IVF 10 days ago.

"If it doesn't succeed, then obviously I'll be devastated, and then the last resort will be trying to make sure that, at least financially, we don't lose everything," she tells BBC Global Women.

Like many other young Hungarian couples Barbara, 33, a social worker and Levi, 34, a chef, were eligible for tens of thousands of pounds in interest-free loans and subsidies when they promised to have two children. But they've struggled to get pregnant naturally and if they can't prove they have a child on the way by 1 November then it is possible they may have to pay back those loans with penalty interest.

The couple took out a 10 million‑forint (£25,000) loan on the promise of having two children. Under rules introduced by Hungary's previous government, they could be asked to repay penalty interest of between 1.5 and 3.5 million forint (£3,700-£8,600), something they say they can't afford. They also receive a mortgage subsidy with similar terms.

In 2010, then prime minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán embarked on some of the most ambitious pronatalist policies in the world - paying people to have, or promise to have, children. Hungary's fertility is well below the replacement level of 2.1 babies per woman needed to keep the native-born population steady - a number that accounts for those children who don't survive to adulthood. And on top of that, there have been high levels of emigration and low immigration.

It's not just a Hungarian issue. Across Europe, fertility rates have been below the level needed to keep the population stable without immigration since the 1980s. Today, the same is true in more than half of all countries, home to around two‑thirds of the world's population.

When Orbán was re‑elected in 2010, Hungary's fertility rate was among the lowest in Europe. His party, Fidesz, promised to tackle population decline. "In the West, the answer to this is immigration. You bring in as many as you're missing. Hungarians think differently. We don't need numbers, we need Hungarian children."

Orbán, who was voted out of office in April this year, rolled out extensive tax breaks, interest-free loans and mortgage subsidies to young couples who promised to have children. There are also subsidies to buy a bigger car or renovate your home. The incentives were only available to married, heterosexual couples and those in the formal job market.

At one point, it seemed all of this was pushing Hungarians to reproduce. The fertility rate rose from 1.25 in 2010 to 1.59 by 2020.

Hungary, for a time, was hailed as a great success story by some - especially US conservatives. But then the fertility rate began to drop and in 2025 it had fallen to 1.31, not much higher than when these incentives first launched.

"Judged by the aims of the policies, this is clearly a failure," says Tomas Sobotka, from the Vienna Institute of Demography.

So why did Hungary's pronatalist approach deliver an early rise in births only then to fall back? And what lessons does it offer to other countries desperate to lift fertility?

Pronatalist policies in Hungary

One view is that Hungary's statistics point to a success. With fertility falling across Europe over the past decade, they argue the country's policies may have staved off even greater decline.

Fruzsina Skrabski, of the pro-family NGO Three Princes, Three Princesses, believes without these policies "there would be hundreds of thousands of fewer children". She is "certain it led to more children being born, just not enough to reverse the trend".

Maté, 43, and Agi Gorondy, 37, who live in the suburbs of Budapest, wholeheartedly agree. They have five children all under 10 years old - and say they may have more - and they credit Hungary's family-friendly environment. The couple took advantage of generous maternity pay, interest-free baby loans and subsidies to help renovate their house and buy a bigger car. Maté, a freelance business developer, benefits from tax cuts. And as a mother of more than two children, Agi will pay no income tax at all if she returns to work.

"I think there's been a change in the past 16 years. In this neighbourhood… four- or five-child families are no longer rare," Maté says. Statistically there was an increase in families with three or more children in Hungary in the 2010s, peaking in 2020 at 146,000. By 2024 that was down to 125,000.

Timothy P Carney, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who has written several books on fertility decline, believes one of Orbán's successes was that he put family, and supporting families, at the centre of the political narrative. He points to the "Family-Friendly Hungary" messaging, emblazoned in the arrivals hall at Budapest airport.

Others say the benefits landed unevenly. Prof János Tóth, a philosopher studying demographic issues at Hungary's University of Szeged, believes the incentives worked especially well for one particular group - the lower middle class in the countryside. But in the cities, where fertility is lowest, the money just doesn't go as far. He believes the "baby-expecting loan" of 10 million forint (£25,000) did initially help many young couples to start a family, but soaring inflation has eroded its value.

"Every country has this problem of low fertility in cities," he says. In his view, Hungary has to do more to help people to have their first child, rather than focusing on persuading those who already have children to have more - "the first child is the most important".

Eva Fodor, co-director of the Democracy Institute at the Central European University, questions how much difference the policies made.

"It seems that these policies were effective for a little while, like most pronatalist policies are," she says. She believes they prompted a cohort of people to have children they would have had anyway, just a little earlier than planned. "So the fertility rate went up for a while, for a year or two, and then it started falling again."

But Hungary's rise and fall in fertility may have had little to do with its policies at all, and simply mirrored wider trends across eastern Europe. The Czech Republic, for example, did not introduce such expansive pronatalist measures yet saw a similar boost and then a similar decline.

More than finances

For many parents, the real barrier may not be finances but the basic services they depend on. Antonia Miskolczi, a 29-year-old mother in Budapest, says her concern over Hungary's healthcare system mattered far more to her decision‑making than any financial incentive.

"I was actually terrified of childbirth," Antonia says. She watched TikTok videos warning expectant mothers to bring their own toilet paper and disinfectant to the hospital and says several relatives had a terrible experience. She had her son at a private hospital.

Antonia and her husband Marton used several benefits to have their first child, but says it hasn't changed their plan to have only one more. "I don't think big promises are needed. Just fix the fundamentals and the willingness to have children will increase," she says. "Improving education and healthcare should be the very first step if people are going to feel comfortable having children."

In 2019, Eva Fodor interviewed 21 well-educated middle-class Hungarian women, who work in professional jobs in state administration, to determine if government support prompted them to have a child. She found most saw it "as a one-time payment, not as a long-term investment into raising children."

"What they really need is institutions and health care systems and childcare, which they deemed insufficient," she says. Though Hungary did expand access to childcare and invested in healthcare, Fodor says many women still felt it wasn't enough.

Hungary was far from alone in trying to reverse falling birth rates. South Korea, for example, had a fertility rate of 1.19 in 2008 - one of the lowest in the world. Since then, it has spent more than £215bn trying to get its population to have more babies. Parents get an upfront "baby bonus" of £20,000-£30,000 when their child is born, as well as generous child benefit allowances each month. They also get vouchers to help with private childcare.

But South Korea's total fertility rate continued to decline in that time, reaching 0.8 in 2025.

Fertility has fallen in most countries since the pandemic, a shift many experts believe is driven by more than economics. Demographer Tomas Sobotka argues that lockdowns, vaccination campaigns that may have prompted women to delay pregnancy and a general sense of instability all worked to put people off having children. "Fertility tends to decline because people don't have confidence in the future," he says.

The war in Ukraine and a global surge in inflation created new shocks, and Sobotka notes that the countries closest to the conflict have seen the sharpest fertility declines. Globally, Sobotka argues: "People still feel insecure, uncertain about the future because there are all these crises unfolding and the political environment is very toxic".

Shifting culture

In the 2000s, Sweden and some of its Nordic neighbours introduced a series of policies that boosted fertility - though that wasn't their explicit intention. Shared parental leave, affordable childcare and universal pre-school helped to create conditions that made it easier to combine work and family life. Over the next decade fertility rates in Sweden increased - from 1.5 to 2.0.

Many scholars thought Sweden had solved the conflict between feminism and fertility by making it easier for both parents to work and raise a family. Then in the 2010s fertility dropped again, leaving researchers perplexed.

But Sobotka thinks these policies insulated Nordic countries from the depths of fertility decline seen in East Asia. "At some level, every country needs at least the Nordic policy package and maybe better," he argues. He believes countries that make it easier for men and women to share work and care are far better protected against deep fertility decline.

Fodor says that for its part, Hungary has "strengthened this idea that women are the primary caretakers of the family".

"Gender roles have become more rigid."

And it may be that culture matters more than cash. "Part of the problem is we overestimate how much finances work," says Carney. Israel, the only country in the OECD with a fertility rate that is comfortably above replacement, doesn't have particularly high levels of government spending on family benefits. But it does have a strong cultural and ideological focus on having children - informed partly by the desire to rebuild the Jewish population after the horror of the Holocaust.

"But the government's ability to shift culture is very limited," Carney warns, "And part of the peril of the government weighing in on the culture is it could politicise it."

In some countries, that backlash is already visible. In South Korea, for example, survey research has found many young women resisting marriage and family as a protest against what they see as patriarchal ideas of a traditional family.

France, by contrast, has resisted some of Europe's fertility decline. Its rate of 1.6 is among the highest in the EU. It has comparatively high public spending and a greater focus on work-life balance than many of its neighbours.

South Korea does not have that flexibility. "For men there is this kind of traditional notion of breadwinners, so they often come from home very late at night," says Sobotka. "This is punishing for both women and men, but also for family life." Child-rearing is left to women. Women also face "anticipatory discrimination", he adds, "often women are either withdrawing from the labour market or getting into part-time or unstable jobs around the time when they have kids."

Similarly, flexibility at work is not present in Hungary. "Even state-owned companies are not flexible, they do not take into account the fact that men and women both may have responsibilities outside of the labour market," says Fodor.

The Orbán government spent around 5% of GDP on its family-friendly initiatives and they were seemingly popular enough that Hungary's new leader Peter Magyar didn't campaign on changing them.

"We are living in societies where parenthood is extremely expensive. So whatever different countries can do to support parents and support families is a good policy," says Sobotka.

Fodor takes a different view: "If that money had been spent on social institutions and… gender equality and promoting men's role in domestic work, I think a similar increase in the fertility rate could have been achieved."

Barbara and Levi's situation is not unique. The Hungarian National Bank reports that one in five couples who took the loans five years ago didn't end up having children. The new Hungarian government said it was reviewing these policies and looking at what should happen when people take out loans but don't have the children they said they intended to have.

Barbara's email finally came through. The embryo they had implanted hadn't survived.

"It's horrible, just horrible," her husband Levi said, holding his wife.

In family‑friendly Hungary, the couple are caught in a system that promised support, but now find themselves without the family they hoped for and facing the prospect of their financial stability falling apart.

On 16 June BBC World Service is launching a Hungarian-language offer, BBC News Magyarul to serve more audiences in Central Europe with trusted journalism. BBC News Magyarul will be available on the website, Facebook and Instagram.

Top picture credit: Getty Images

How the social media ban could reshape how all of us use the internet

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1jy512r19ro, 8 days ago

"Everyone's really upset mum - loads of them have got their own YouTube channels."

That was my 12-year-old son's summary of how the news about the social media ban for UK under-16s went down in his classroom.

Exactly how a bunch of 12-year olds might have ended up with their own channels in the first place when the minimum age is supposed to be 13 shows just how big a change in culture the government is trying to make.

In Preston, school pupil Isabella went viral when a BBC colleague asked her on-camera what she would do instead with the nine hours of screentime she had racked up over the previous weekend: "stare at the wall," she deadpanned.

The exact logistics of the ban have yet to be set out but it is very possible that its introduction will herald the biggest ever change in the UK in terms of how everyone, children and adults alike, accesses the internet. Millions of us might have to share some official ID which includes our date of birth, in order to access a whole range of platforms from next spring.

The ban has been broadly welcomed by campaigners, including a group of bereaved parents who say their children died as a result of a variety of harms on social media.

But for others, what the government is planning goes beyond getting the nation's kids to spend more time off screens and engaged in alternative pursuits (even if that does include staring at walls) and amounts to a profound reshaping of how it is assumed young people will accumulate fresh knowledge and also how the rest of us will move around online.

There is the potential impact on education. "YouTube is where we all go to learn," says Dr Tom Crawford, aka Tom Rocks Maths, who shares maths skills with his 250,000 subscribers on YouTube, which is included in the ban. "And that includes teenagers."

So, are we really witnessing the profound shift that some claim? And if we are, how will it reshape our relationship with the online world?

"They will find a way around it"

Much of the concerns raised so far about the proposals have been about civil liberties and government overreach. But there are other, more prosaic, unintended consequences to consider too.

"Every young person I have spoken to has told me the same thing: they will find a way around it," says Paddy Crump, campaigns director at Flippgen, a youth-led non-profit group that goes into schools to try and help young people build healthier relationships with the online world.

That is certainly what seems to have happened in Australia, where seven out of 10 children aged under 16 who had a social media account before it introduced its ban in December 2025, still have some access, according to a report by the country's e-safety commission.

Crump argues that the measures offer "false hope dressed up as protection" and will simply shift young people's online behaviour elsewhere: including to smaller digital platforms which fly beneath the radar of regulatory scrutiny.

"There are some pretty dangerous places for children and teens that make Instagram look like Disneyland," notes Ari Lightman, professor of digital media and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University.

Social media as a lifeline?

And critics of the proposals warn of other unintended side-effects. Crump fears the ban could make young people less likely to seek support for online harms if they do encounter them, as well as isolating them from communities and information.

One teenager sent me a message to say that without social media they would not still be here: the friendships they had made online had given them reasons to continue living. Some parents with SEND children say social media and watching videos is their primary way of engaging with the world.

An online e-petition is calling on the government not to ban social media for under 16s "because for many young people social media is how they communicate with their friends. Some people view social media as a lifeline". It has gained more than 100,000 signatories in the past few days.

Home education message boards are also lighting up with parents concerned about how to navigate the ban while teaching their children away from schools.

"I learned to tie a bow tie by watching a tutorial on YouTube," says Crawford. "What if you're an 11-year old that needs to wear a tie to school for the first time? What if you want to know how to apply makeup and there's no-one at home to show you? What if you're worried about your upcoming GCSE exams and want to check how to answer a question on bearings? This is what a ban on YouTube takes away - the ability to learn."

Older generations might retort that they managed to acquire all this knowledge without the help of the internet. But that ignores how fundamentally teenagers have become accustomed to using not just YouTube but also other social media platforms as a research tool. SEO expert Mehwish Malik from Link Builder says the younger end of Gen Z (aged 14-29) use TikTok as a search engine: their preferred gateway to information and to trusted brands.

So how can all this be addressed? The government says this is for the tech companies to figure out. "If YouTube wants to come up with something that's an intermediate option that allows that young person who wants to watch history documentaries to watch them but isn't then getting all of these short reels, that's a different proposition," said education secretary Bridget Phillipson on the BBC's Newscast.

Industry sources argue that technically it's not that simple to set something like this up. "Ask the government!" messaged one when I posed the question about how it might work.

Parents could of course just choose to sit down and watch something with their child using their own accounts if they have the time and willingness: YouTube claims that half of UK users watch its videos on the TV at home, with multiple sign-ins available.

"As I see it, the main issue here is that YouTube isn't social media," says Crawford. "YouTube is the 2026 version of television."

A bottomless wine glass

With the design features that aim to keep people on the platforms for as long as possible also under review for additional measures impacting 16 and 17 year olds, perhaps social media will end up withering on the vine because it just won't be interesting enough for young people to engage with even when they do reach the right age.

"If you are drinking a glass of wine and it magically keeps refilling without you noticing, you will just keep drinking. Your brain only 'wakes up' when you reach the bottom of the glass," says Aza Raskin, who invented the concept of infinite scrolling 20 years ago.

He now works at the Center for Humane Technology, which he co-founded, and accuses the tech companies of "weaponising" his idea.

He says he intended to create "a seamless user experience" before the era of social media, and regrets that his invention has ended up being used "not to help people but to keep them hooked".

The absence of young people could also change the social media experience for everybody else.

MrBeast is arguably the world's most successful YouTuber with half a billion subscribing to his mix of challenges, stunts and charity. He started out at 13 and as a child studied the algorithm. He went on to corner the market in "watch time", created a factory of content and is now a billionaire. Would he have had the same idea years later?

Professor Amy Orben is a psychologist at Cambridge University who has advised the government on screen time for children. She accepts that any ban will be "imperfect" but also agrees the government cannot do nothing; despite the evidence on social media harms itself being complex.

There are of course acute and tragic cases, but broadly, she says the evidence for large populations links social media use to only a small decrease in mental health.

In her opinion, the tech firms could help both regulators and themselves by sharing more about what they know from the billions of young people they see on their platforms day in, day out.

"Social media companies have offered exceptionally little data on their internal research," she says.

A price worth paying?

When it comes to age verification, it is expected that the tech giants will do the checking.

"The methods available to platforms are well established. Identity document scanning with a face match, email-based age checks and facial age estimation are proven to work at scale," says Andy Lulham, Chief Operating Officer at Verifymy.

That is a concern for those who worry about the reach of Big Tech into our lives - and that affects all of us, not just the young people who need to prove their age. Some see this as a major attempt by the authorities to control who can access what on the internet: this troubles privacy and rights campaigners as much as it relieves parents who are worried sick about what their children are being exposed to.

For those in favour, this is a price worth paying to protect children.

For Elon Musk, the controversial owner of X, it has a more sinister undertone: "The real goal is to enable the UK government to track everyone," he posted. It's not the first time the US trillionaire has waded into UK politics and he isn't universally welcomed when he does. Needless to say the government denies this.

Musk is not alone in his concerns: an international campaign called Stop Killing the Internet also launched this week. The group, which includes the Index on Censorship and Big Brother Watch, is concerned that various forms of surveillance, as it considers this to be, limit rights to freedom of expression for children and adults.

Silke Carlo, Director of Big brother watch said: "We want all children to be safe online, but these policies create new safety and privacy risks for young people and entire adult populations alike. Far from reigning in Big Tech in, age-gating policies gift corporations masses more of our personal information whilst letting them off the hook for their design choices".

For Carlo, those risks include the potential for sensitive children's data, such as proof of age and face scans, to be stolen and misused.

And then of course there's the potential for future mission creep.

"'Keep children safe' can end, three statutory instruments later, as a duty to scan every message or verify every face, administered by a regulator the public cannot easily call to account," warns computer scientist Professor Alan Woodward from Surrey University.

"A walled garden is only a refuge if the people inside chose the wall, can see over it, and may leave when they wish."

I suspect my own 12-year-old son and his peers will spend a lot of time looking for potential exits from the walled garden they are about to find themselves in, even if it's supposed to be for their own protection.

If the ban does come into force in 2027 as planned and they can not escape it, today's under 16s are unlikely to spend the following years staring at the wall (I hope). Child-free digital spaces will feel different for adults too: I think we might be on the cusp of a new social media era, one that is less intense. It might leave us all with more time to read books, go outdoors... or use our phones to chat with AI instead.

Additional reporting: Philippa Wain

Talk of Starmer staying on to fight is fading - fast

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjeg7p5w4y9o, 8 days ago

"We promised people we weren't going to do this."

There is exasperation in the voice of a long time Labour adviser. But as every hour passes, it is more likely the UK will soon have its seventh prime minister in 10 years.

Talk of Sir Keir Starmer fighting is fading, his exit seems more likely as the weekend goes on. The prime minister is at his country retreat, Chequers, spending time with his wife.

The man coming for his job, Andy Burnham, is spending the weekend with his family, away from home too.

The reasons for Labour to switch leader are compelling. Andy Burnham looks like a winner. He has shown he can beat Reform, who until this moment have seemed a deadly threat to Labour. He is popular in the country, compared to most politicians at least. There are swathes of MPs eager to back him and his brand, believing he's the one who can improve the party's grim position.

"He's an instinctive guy – that's his great talent," said one source.

He's been successful and highly visible as the Mayor of Greater Manchester, known just as Andy everywhere he goes, one of his backers tells me.

He's no stranger to government either, having served as health secretary, culture secretary, and as a Treasury minister years ago. And most of all, Burnham's shown in the Makerfield by-election campaign he has that valuable talent in politics – a capacity to make people feel good.

Labour in Westminster has forgotten what that's like.

There have been more than a dozen big U-turns. Resignations. The mess over Lord Mandelson's job. And after dreadful election results in 2025 and 2026, wipe-out in Wales. Starmer has seemed like a loser to many in his own party.

It is not even two years since his massive win at the general election. But the political perception that he has an appeal to voters? Brutally, that's long gone.

On Friday, the prime minister was still arguing to the cameras that he would fight if Burnham challenges him, refusing to acknowledge that is not an "if", it's a "when".

Even privately some of his backers were still adamant he would run, talking of donors who've given money to run a campaign and office spaces being found.

One source claimed his conversations with cabinet ministers in the afternoon were not about whether he had the authority to stay in office, but the arguments he'd make in a leadership race.

Several sources told me Starmer really does believe he could beat Burnham in a leadership contest, and concluded that a fortnight ago after watching him on BBC Question Time on a Thursday, then failing to explain the borrowing and spending rules in a Newsnight interview on the Friday.

A government insider said: "On Saturday he phoned his closest allies and said, 'I'm sure I could win'."

But the widespread assumption this weekend in the party is that Burnham would beat him hands down, and another government source said "it's nuts" to imagine the PM could come out on top.

An increasing number of ministers, previously loyal to Starmer, now think it's time as one cabinet source told me they "wouldn't want the prime minister to humiliate himself" in a race.

The chances of him staying to fight are diminishing. But what is still a mystery this weekend is exactly how Starmer will respond.

One of his colleague's frustrations with him has always been that he seems unknowable.

"It's very hard for people to know a person who doesn't know themselves," said another government insider.

Don't underestimate the anger towards Burnham inside Downing Street, and that's shared by some other ministers too.

Not just for what's happening now, but how they see he's chipped in unhelpfully from the sidelines since the day Starmer moved into No 10.

One Starmer ally told me: "This is not a chase, these are big decisions about who is going to run the country – it can't be rushed 20 minutes after a by-election."

Many in Labour aren't sure what Burnham would actually do in office either.

The former minister, Jess Philips, told the BBC this morning that Burnham or any other candidate must be "tested with the rigour of at least some manner of contest".

One government minister, Mike Tapp, told me bluntly he'd never met him, and "I don't know his politics".

A backer of the prime minister said that when Burnham had faced tough questions in the by-election campaign "he's fallen apart".

There's also concern about the precedent of ousting a leader off the back of a by-election, the votes from a group of only 77,000 people deciding everything for the whole country. Burnham would have no mandate from the public without a general election.

And what happens if Labour's standing didn't improve? Might those calling for a removal van for the current prime minister do the same again? What if there were another by-election when Prime Minister Burnham was in trouble?

Is it mad to imagine that other big names from the past - David Miliband or even Ed Balls - might abandon New York and the breakfast TV sofa, and fancy a comeback too?

Just as there are compelling reasons for Labour to make the switch, there are serious risks. There may yet be a contest, and another candidate aside from Wes Streeting could find the 81 names to run.

But with 100 MPs now calling for Starmer to go and support for him to stay in the cabinet fading, one senior party figure predicts "he'll realise this weekend that he can't keep the Cabinet and ministers together and will have to go".

Labour has found itself in a strange situation it promised you it would never reach – en route to removing the leader who delivered its first general election victory in 19 years. And congratulating themselves for winning a seat they already held, so they can get rid of the man whose campaigning won them all the seats they have.

But whether Starmer reaches the conclusion that he will have to go himself, or he is forced into a contest, more agree with another veteran figure, "It's done".

Starmer's success in getting Labour back to power after the crash of 2019 was remarkable. But his time in office has proved a very different story, of many frustrations and failure.

One party source told me: "My experience of working with his administration is - the fundamental part of the job of prime minister and Labour Party leader is to be a political leader and he is neither political nor a leader."

That is brutal. But many in Labour would agree it's true, even though they'd point to achievements during his time in power – progress on pushing down NHS waiting lists, immigration coming down, his handling of foreign affairs and a growing economy.

The vow not to repeat the Conservatives' habit of switching prime minister might be the last political promise Starmer breaks.

A decade on from Brexit, the new PM has big calls to make on Europe

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy9r883l87ro, 6 days ago

With its nostalgically-painted, golden-maned horses, wistful French chanson music wafting as it turns, the Carrousel de St Pierre, by the venerated Sacre Coeur Church, is a firm favourite amongst tourists to Paris. But recently, as I watched the merry-go-round rotate to those romantic French tunes, more than anything else, it reminded me of Brexit.

It's 10 years since the UK voted to leave the European Union. Almost immediately, from an EU perspective, the UK collapsed inwards, embarking on what would be years of political crisis as the country splintered, fought and went round and round in circles - not unlike the painted carousel.

And now, here we are again.

Seven UK prime ministers in this post Brexit-vote decade - after Sir Keir Starmer announced his resignation on Monday. And the fraught - seemingly circular - EU debate: to what extent the UK should edge closer to Brussels economically - is very much back on the UK domestic political agenda, launched by Starmer's Labour government.

Shocked a decade ago at the apparent social and political implosion following Britain's vote to leave (the UK parliament had traditionally been regarded as the European Union's most stable and venerated), EU partners say they've since got used to the roller-coaster that is modern-day UK politics.

Frankly, if you look at big EU players France and Germany, their domestic political scene is hardly what you'd describe as a sea of calm either.

But doesn't UK political volatility impede the new negotiations with the EU, launched by Starmer, in a declared attempt to tear down post Brexit red tape and boost Britain's ailing economy?

Brussels assumes these talks will continue under his successor, though it said on Monday it was reviewing whether to go ahead with a summit planned with the Starmer government for late July.

Michel Barnier was the EU's chief negotiator throughout the years of often bitter Brexit talks. Nowadays, he's still a big cheese in French politics - a centre-right MP who was briefly PM two years ago and is expected to throw his hat into the ring in the country's upcoming presidential election.

I met Barnier at his compact office adjacent to the French parliament. His attitude is essentially that the EU must take the outstretched hand of whomever the UK puts on the dancefloor to represent them.

"We have to deal with this situation and respect it," he told me. There will be a (new) UK prime minister and we will work with them. Look at what happened during the (Brexit) negotiations. I faced in four years four different UK negotiators. That was also a situation of instability, but we... deal with it."

During those long years of often fractious Brexit talks, Barnier was famous amongst us journalists for printing up a coffee mug emblazoned with the phrase: Keep Calm and Carry on Negotiating, a rather cheeky play on the Keep Calm and Carry On catchphrase that originated in Britain in 1939 as a government-planned World War II propaganda poster, designed to keep up public morale and determination.

Barnier was also famous for being seemingly implacable in the face of British demands for a 'special deal' from the EU.

And, not unlike that Paris carousel, similar UK arguments seem to have come round once again with the Labour government looking to get much closer to parts of the EU single market, yet without sending too much money across the Channel, or accepting the free movement of EU workers to the UK, where an immigration debate rages.

This is the "cherry-picking" Brussels said 10 years ago it wouldn't entertain. The UK couldn't leave the club and still keep its favourite perks.

The EU's threat from within

I reported for the BBC on all the twists and turns of those negotiations but the world outside has changed dramatically since.

Europe's former best friend, the United States, has become unpredictable, even aggressive towards its presumed allies under Donald Trump. Then there's Russia, conducting a kinetic war on European soil in Ukraine, and a hybrid war, in terms of disinformation, sabotage and more, across much of the rest of the continent. And who can forget China?

Europe's mainstream believes the EU faces an existential threat from within the bloc too, with eurosceptic parties performing strongly in many countries.

Would increased synergy with the UK - Europe's second-largest economy and a military power, despite its well-documented problems - not be advantageous for the EU under these new circumstances? Closer defence ties have been well under way for some time now. So what about the economy?

Speaking to me shortly before Sir Keir Starmer's resignation, Michel Barnier told me that in his view the EU "sincerely welcomed" any UK request for closer relations.

He said he still viewed the British decision to leave the single market as "lose-lose" for both parties. But he was as insistent as ever that the single market was the jewel in the EU crown. Especially in view of the challenging times Europe now found itself in, Barnier insists Brussels couldn't and shouldn't compromise its biggest asset to make special deals with the UK.

"We are in a much more dangerous, unstable, fragile world, and we need to keep our assets and keep our unity. This is the point for us. There is no aggression, no spirit of revenge with the UK, but the UK must understand that it will not be possible to unravel or to fragilise the single market... We can't take the risk."

Barnier then went on to describe what he sees as the added threat to the EU from within its own ranks, drawing parallels with the leader of the UK's Reform party, Nigel Farage, who before Brexit was a member of the European Parliament (MEP). Farage was famous for campaigning long and hard for the UK to leave the bloc.

"In many of our countries we have our Farage, like Mrs Le Pen or Mr Bardella [Rassemblement National's presidential candidate if Le Pen is unable to run because of corruption charges] in France from the far right," mused Michel Barnier. "There are many Farage's in Europe who want to destroy us. No way, no way."

Farage has often said he "hates" the EU though he loves Europe. He's denied his aim is to destroy the EU altogether.

What 2027 could bring for the EU

What Michel Barnier frets about (and he is far from a lone voice in EU circles) is that if you compromise Brussels' rules and you make attractive economic deals with non-member nations, like the UK, that strengthens eurosceptic parties calling for their countries to leave the EU or to drastically weaken common rules and regulations that bind EU countries together.

That's exactly what Fabrice Leggeri has in mind. He is an MEP for Marine Le Pen's hard right National Rally (RN) Party and very close to the party leadership. I chatted to him in the gossip-filled, overcrowded cafe at the European Parliament in Brussels. He was very upbeat.

"We are confident that 2027 is going to be a very important year, a turning point, if we win the elections in France," he told me.

Opinion polls suggest that Marine Le Pen's eurosceptic party is better positioned than ever before to win France's presidency. The French President holds huge sway over foreign policy, including EU affairs. As the EU's most high-profile nation, alongside Germany, that could have a massive impact on Brussels.

Leggeri told me the RN wants the EU to be far tougher on non-EU migration and to roll back ambitious green regulations, which he describes as "nonsense" and damaging to European industry. His party wants to reduce France's contributions to the EU budget. It has long opposed sending military aid to Ukraine.

Across Europe, 2027 is a mega election year. Leggeri and the RN hope like-minded eurosceptic parties will win majorities or significant roles in coalition governments in big EU powers Italy, Spain and Poland as well as France.

Together we have the possibility to change the EU from the inside, says Leggeri.

Even alone, France could bring the EU to its knees in many respects.

Just consider how the heavily eurosceptic former prime minister of far smaller Hungary, Viktor Orban, was able to freeze and frustrate common EU decisions in the past.

"We are preparing [for] the future," Mr Leggeri told me confidently. "I had the honor to accompany Mr Bardella to London, when he met Mr Farage, before Christmas. If Mr Farage becomes the next British prime minister, and if Rassemblement National is going to rule France next year, I can tell you that I see a lot of possible cooperation."

The EU after Brexit

Nigel Farage's political fortunes are being watched here. Much as the EU would like the UK to be closer economically, Brussels wants to know definitively what a strong majority of British people desire from the EU and will cede in return.

Only then, I'm told, will the EU consider making really significant deals with a UK prime minister. Until then, apart from those EU countries that do most trade with the UK (like Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands) and therefore suffer from Brexit red tape too, most say they are satisfied with the status quo - the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) signed by the EU and UK at the close of their post Brexit negotiations.

As for changes to the EU itself, what's fascinating is that in 2016, after the UK's Brexit vote, there was widespread prediction of a "domino effect". Italy would leave next, then Denmark or Sweden. France would go too. The EU's burgeoning eurosceptic parties called for Frexit, Swexit, Italexit and more. But that didn't happen.

Why? According to the German conservative MEP David McAllister, EU voters saw the UK dissolve into crisis after voting for Brexit; they witnessed the long and painful ensuing negotiations with the EU and decided it just wasn't worth it.

A decade after Brexit, a new survey from the Pew Research Centre suggests the vote that severely strained UK unity may have helped bring the EU closer together. Across the UK and seven EU member states, tracked consistently since 2016, 62% of respondents now have a positive view of the EU, compared with 49% a decade ago.

Armida van Rij from the Centre for European Reform points to re-invigorated efforts by a long list of European countries clamouring to join the EU's ranks - none more insistently than Ukraine.

At the same time, as we've discussed, amongst existing EU member states, nationalist eurosceptic parties are popular. While more traditional European leaders from Germany's Merz, to France's Macron and Poland's Tusk look beleaguered, even weak.

Most Europeans say they believe the EU is far from perfect but, especially after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, they've decided that in our turbulent world, there is safety in numbers. Better to stick together.

France's RN, Germany's AfD, Austria's Freedom Party and others have adjusted their slogans to appeal to as many voters as possible.

Brexit as a topic is history, Michel Barnier told me. The potential power of EU eurosceptics going forward has Brussels worried. Really worried.

Top image credit: Getty Images

Sir Keir Starmer's premiership in six charts

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8p9qellmqo, 6 days ago

After losing the confidence of his MPs and key members of his cabinet, Sir Keir Starmer appeared outside Downing Street on Monday to announce his resignation as prime minister.

BBC Verify looks at the record of his time in government in key areas from immigration to energy bills since he took office in July 2024.

Popularity plummeted

In August 2024, just a month after taking office, a YouGov poll suggested that only 36% of people thought Sir Keir was doing well as prime minister and 43% said he was doing badly, giving him a net popularity rating of minus 7.

This month 74% said he was doing badly, versus 18% who thought he was doing well, suggesting his net popularity had slipped to minus 56.

Other polling from Ipsos suggests that Sir Keir's personal ratings among voters fell below his predecessors as prime minister in modern times, including Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson and Theresa May.

Economic growth picked up

Labour's manifesto pledged "to secure the highest sustained growth in the G7", made up of the US, the UK, Japan, France, Italy, Germany and Canada.

There had been some progress.

Between the second quarter of 2024 - just before Labour came to power - and the first quarter of 2026 data from the OECD suggests that the UK economy grew by 2.3% in total, faster than the rest of the G7, apart from the US which grew by 3.7% over that same period.

And the UK economy did register the fastest growth among the G7 nations in the first quarter of 2026, when it expanded by 0.6%.

But most forecasters do not expect this performance to last, partly because of the energy shock from the US conflict with Iran.

The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) latest forecast suggests UK GDP growth over 2026 as a whole will fall to 0.8% in 2026, which would be lower than the forecast for the US (2.3%), Canada (1.5%) and France (0.9%).

The IMF also projects weaker growth for the UK than the US and Canada in 2027.

Immigration fell

On small boats, Sir Keir pledged to "smash the gangs" behind them but these Channel crossings have continued under his premiership.

Last year's total was the second highest after 2022's peak under the previous Conservative government and total crossing under his premiership have passed the milestone of 200,000 since 2018.

However, there are signs of a slowdown in the rate of arrivals.

The number of crossings detected so far in 2026 is down 40% on the same period in 2025.

Under Labour overall immigration to the UK and net migration (the difference between immigration and emigration) have both fallen significantly.

In the most recent official estimates for 2025 net migration was 171,000, down 48% over the previous year and down from a peak annual rate of 944,000 in 2023, under the Conservatives.

NHS waiting lists down

On health Sir Keir pledged that 92% of patients in England would be seen within 18 weeks by the end of the Parliament.

The latest official data for April 2026 shows 65% of patients being seen within that time, up from 58.9% in June 2024, the month before Labour took office.

The overall number of waits for treatment in England in April was 7.22 million, down from 7.62 million in June 2024, a decrease of 400,000.

Energy bills up

Labour promised to reduce average household energy bills by more than £300 over the course of the Parliament, but in reality bills have gone up.

The latest domestic energy price cap set by Ofgem, the energy regulator, for the summer of 2026 is an annual rate of £1,862 for a typical household - in part reflecting the impact of global events like the Iran war.

That's an increase of just under £300 on the £1,568 price cap that was in place in the summer of 2024, which Labour inherited.

Benefit spending increased

Sir Keir attempted to curb the rising working-age welfare bill, but was forced by his own backbenchers to retreat in June 2025.

The latest forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) show the total UK welfare bill, which includes the state pension, rising from 10.7% of UK GDP in 2024-25 to 11.1% by 2029-30.

A major driver of this increase is projected to be health and disability welfare payments to working-age adults, in particular more grants of Personal Independence Payments (PIP).

The total working-age adult health and disability benefit bill is forecast to rise from £58.2bn in 2024-25 to £78.1bn in 2029-30.

Sir Keir also legislated to remove the two-child limit on Universal Credit.

The official impact assessment suggests that this will result in 450,000 fewer children in relative poverty - after housing costs - by the end of the Parliament than there otherwise would have been.

Additional reporting by Tom Edgington, Becky Dale, Aidan McNamee, Jess Carr, Wesley Stephenson, Christine Jeavans and Daniel Wainwright

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

First Russian shadow fleet tanker enters Channel since Smyrtos boarding

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgk6d12lz6jo, 10 days ago

A Russian "shadow fleet" tanker has entered the English Channel for the first time since UK forces boarded the Smyrtos on Sunday morning, ship tracking data shows.

Forwarder, a Russian-flagged ship that left port in Primorsk last week, entered the Channel on Wednesday evening and sailed south. It is broadcasting its final destination as China's Dongying port.

The shadow fleet is used by Russia to avoid Western sanctions on oil exports imposed following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is formed of hundreds of tankers, many of which are aging and obscure who owns them.

UK-sanctioned tankers have avoided the Channel since the Smyrtos was intercepted with tracking data showing several vessels altering course to avoid the waterway.

A Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesperson told BBC Verify that they would not comment on the Forwarder or "on specific operational planning".

They cited the danger that commenting publicly could limit their "ability to successfully take action against these ships".

But ship-tracking data appeared to show a Royal Navy warship, HMS Tyne, operating in the area near the tanker's location.

Forwarder was sanctioned by the UK, the US and the EU in 2025. Since the British government accused it of smuggling oil from Russia, the vessel has changed its name twice.

Satellite imagery showed Forwarder left Primorsk on 12 June after loading oil. The refinery is the largest in the Baltic Sea and is a critical export hub for Russia's energy industry.

Shadow fleet tankers such as Forwarder have provided a critical lifeline for the Kremlin helping to fund it war in Ukraine and keep its economy afloat.

The clandestine fleet of more than 700 ageing tankers is responsible for carrying 75% of Russia's sanctioned oil, according to the MoD.

A Nato official has previously told BBC Verify that the Russian warship, Admiral Grigorovich, has been assigned to escort sanctioned oil tankers. But it is unclear whether the frigate is accompanying the Forwarder.

Admiral Grigorovich was involved in an incident on Tuesday when it fired warning shots towards a British yacht that had apparently moved towards it in the Channel.

A Nato official told BBC Verify that, as of Wednesday evening, Admiral Grigorovich had not moved far from the location of the incident.

In March, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced that British armed forces "are now able to board sanctioned vessels that are passing through our waters" which were not operating in accordance with international law. But experts told BBC Verify it was unlikely the UK or France would seek to intercept the tanker.

"Going after vessels that are falsely flagged or misusing a flag of convenience is one thing, but this would be going after Russia directly which would be a further step up in escalation," said Frederik Van Lokeren, a former Belgian naval officer and maritime analyst.

"Since this is a Russian-flagged vessel, possibly escorted by a Russian warship, I don't expect the UK, or any other Western country, to attempt to board her," Van Lokeren said.

The Smyrtos was boarded and seized by Royal Marines and officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) as it was sailing without a registered flag in breach of international law. The ship is currently being held by UK officials off the coast of Weymouth and its captain has been charged with contravening sanctions.

Mark Douglas, an analyst with Starboard Maritime Intelligence, also noted that the circumstances surrounding the Smyrtos had provided a much clearer legal basis for the UK to board the vessel.

"Give that the Cameroon registry had delisted Smyrtos before she sailed through the Channel there were definitely reasonable grounds to suspect the vessel was without nationality," he said.

"Forwarder, on the other hand, is flagged by Russia and despite the opaque ownership structure we have no information to suggest that is a false flag."

An MoD spokesperson told BBC Verify: "Any target ship will be individually considered by law enforcement, military and energy market specialists before an operation is executed."

In the aftermath of the boarding of Smyrtos, ship-tracking data showed multiple sanctioned tankers altered their course to avoid the English Channel. Many sanctioned vessels currently appear to be taking an alternate route around the west coast of Ireland.

In May, BBC Verify established that almost 200 shadow fleet vessels had passed through the English Channel in the months since Sir Keir's announcement that British forces would begin to intercept some sanctioned tankers.

In at least 94 instances, shadow fleet ships briefly crossed into UK territorial waters - a smaller zone that extends up to 12 nautical miles (14 miles; 23km) from the coast.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Weapons, money and ships: How is this Iran deal different from others?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74ynmnrwmeo, 10 days ago

President Donald Trump has formally signed a deal with Iran to end the conflict that began on 28 February when the US and Israel launched air strikes against Tehran and across the country.

The terms of the 14-point Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the US and Iran have been criticised over what is included and what is left out.

There have also been questions about how the agreement - which lays the groundwork for talks on Iran's nuclear weapons programme - will also affect economic sanctions and access to the Strait of Hormuz.

Comparisons have inevitably been made between this deal and the 2015 Obama-era nuclear accord known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which Trump scrapped in his first term.

To make sense of the current deal, BBC Verify has looked through key details of the documents to compare it with the situation during three distinct periods:

1. When the JCPOA was in force between 2016 and 2018

2. Before the war began on 28 February 2026

3. Now the MoU has been signed

Weapons

The whole point of the JCPOA - which included the UK, France, the EU, China and Russia - was to impose specific limitations on Iran's nuclear programme.

That highly technical document restricted Iran's stockpile of nuclear material to 300kg and said it could not enrich its uranium above 3.67% for 15 years. This level of enrichment is not high enough to be used in nuclear warheads but can be used in reactors to generate electricity.

The JCPOA also allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to Iran's nuclear programme to ensure it was complying with the agreement.

The IAEA said Iran had been complying until Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA in 2018, calling it "decaying and rotten".

Following the collapse of that deal Iran stepped up its nuclear programme.

At the start of the war on 28 February 2026, Iran possessed approximately 440kg of uranium enriched to 60%, according to US officials. The material can be fairly quickly enriched to the 90% threshold needed for weapons-grade uranium.

While the new MoU text, as read out by the White House to the BBC and other media organisations, states that Iran "reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons" there is little detail about the issue in the document.

There is similar language in the JCPOA, which stated "Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons".

The new MoU also says the two parties "agreed to discuss the issue of enrichment" and to "resolve the disposition of stockpiled enriched material pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon" - again, suggesting this will be included in forthcoming negotiations.

In recent weeks Trump has said that Iran's remaining nuclear material will be removed from the country.

US officials briefed that the deal "sets a minimum standard where… the enriched stockpile will be destroyed". But the MoU actually makes no mention of this happening.

It is important to bear in mind that the JCPOA was a final, detailed, agreement negotiated over two years while the MoU is framework for 60 days of talks about a nuclear agreement so the two are not directly comparable.

As well as tackling Iran's nuclear weapons programme, Trump said on 2 March, shortly after the start of the conflict, the US was "destroying Iran's missile capabilities… and their capacity to produce brand new ones".

But the MoU text makes no mention of Iran's ballistic missiles.

And Trump said on 17 June that it would be "unfair" for Iran not to have these missiles given other countries in the region have them.

In 2018, when he scrapped the JCPOA, Trump complained: "Not only does the deal fail to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions, but it also fails to address the regime's development of ballistic missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads."

Money

The 2015 JCPOA did not involve the US paying Iran new money but provided sanctions relief and restored Iran's access to some of its own assets, including those of its central bank, that had been frozen or seized abroad.

An official at the US Treasury estimated in 2015 that unfrozen Iranian central bank assets were worth between $100bn and $125bn - but did add that the total assets which Tehran could access as a result of the sanctions relief would only be around $50bn.

Economic sanctions were re-imposed on Iran after Trump scrapped the JCPOA and were progressively stepped up in the following years.

Before the war began on 28 February sanctions by the US and other countries had created extreme economic difficulties in Iran.

The state of the economy is considered to be one of the causes of country-wide protests across Iran which were violently repressed by the government in January.

The US also placed sanctions on Iranian oil which made it difficult for Tehran to sell its crude overseas - although it was able to partially get round them by using a "shadow fleet" of tankers.

The new MoU says the US will "terminate all types of sanctions" against Iran in an agreed-upon schedule.

But significantly it allows for the issuing of waivers immediately after the signing of the deal allowing "the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products and derivatives and all associated services including banking, transactions, insurances, transportation".

There are no conditions upon Iran for this and it apparently leaves it in a much better position than at the start of the war.

The memorandum also says the US along with "regional partners" will develop a plan, funded with "at least $300bn", for the "reconstruction and development" of Iran.

Ships

Before the recent conflict began ships carrying oil, natural gas and fertiliser had been able to pass freely through the Strait of Hormuz for many years.

In fact, the narrow seaway was not mentioned at all in the JCPOA.

Ship-tracking data published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows a daily average of 94 merchant ships transited the strait in 2025.

Since the conflict began on 28 February, the daily average number of transits collapsed to just six, according to this data, though a number have been crossing with their location transmitters turned off so the true figure will likely be somewhat higher.

This collapse was due to a combination of Iranian attacks on commercial shipping that began shortly after the war started and a US blockade of Iranian ports.

The MoU states that the US will "fully end" its naval blockade of Iran "within 30 days".

It also states that Iran will "make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge" through the Strait of Hormuz but adds that this will be "for 60 days only".

Thereafter it says Iran will "conduct dialogue" with Oman "to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz".

On 21 May Iran announced that it had unilaterally established a Persian Gulf Strait Authority to regulate shipping through the waterway.

And Iran's foreign ministry is reported to have said this week that, although there will not be "transit tolls" for shipping, there will be "fees" for using the strait which will be "charged in exchange for the services that are provided".

The deal, and indeed the White House's commentary around it, makes no mention of taking action to stop Iran from charging these fees in the future - which would be a boost to Iran's economic power and influence in the region relative to the situation before the war.

Three reasons ships are not going through the Strait of Hormuz yet

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4rw784nj2o, 12 days ago

When President Donald Trump announced the US deal with Iran on Sunday and declared the "opening" of the Strait of Hormuz, his Truth Social post ended with the words "Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!"

BBC Verify analysis of MarineTraffic ship-tracking data, however, shows that just seven vessels appear to have passed through the critical waterway since the deal was announced and as many as 580 ships appear to be waiting in the Gulf.

Tehran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world's oil and gas supplies are usually transported, following US and Israeli strikes on 28 February.

Experts say there are significant obstacles preventing traffic from returning to the levels seen before the conflict began - security, mines and tolls.

Ship-tracking data from MarineTraffic on Tuesday shows there are more than 250 tankers and more than 330 cargo ships inside the Gulf.

About 75% of the tankers are stationary, the data suggests. Satellite imagery shows that many are gathered near major oil export terminals in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the UAE.

The total number of vessels in the area is likely to be higher as many ships are not broadcasting their location and do not appear in MarineTraffic's data.

"The first thing we would probably see when traffic picks up through the strait is an exodus of the vessels that are trapped inside the Gulf," said Naveen Das, senior oil analyst at trade analytics firm Kpler.

But so far, that does not appear to be happening.

1. Security and safety

"It would take an extremely brave captain to transit through the Strait of Hormuz, given the current state," Martin Kelly of crisis management firm EOS Risk Group told BBC Verify.

Since Iran began effectively blocking the Strait of Hormuz in late February, it has fired on ships attempting to make the crossing without its permission.

The US imposed its own naval blockade of Iranian ports on 13 April and has since disabled nine "non-compliant vessels", including launching Hellfire missiles into the engine rooms of some ships, according to US Central Command.

Despite Trump announcing on Sunday the "immediate removal" of the US naval blockade, the president later said it would remain in place until the deal with Iran is signed.

Satellite images from 15 June show four US warships close to the American blockade line at the entrance to the Gulf of Oman.

After the deal's announcement, experts say ship captains, owners and insurers are preparing and positioning their vessels in the Gulf to make the journey out into the Arabian Sea - but few of them want to make the first move.

"What we've been seeing is still very much a wait-and-see mentality. No-one really wants to be the first to take that risk," said Das.

"Some of the owners and captains that are more happy with risk, like certain Greek companies, we may see them coming in and exiting successfully and that might build up confidence in others," he said.

Many captains will remember events from early April when Iran's foreign minister declared the strait was fully open, said Michelle Wiese Bockman, senior analyst at Windward Maritime Intelligence.

Just one day later, Iranian authorities said the strait was closed and more than 33 vessels were forced to reverse course mid-transit while several reported being fired on, Bockman said.

"We need to wait a couple of days, maybe until Friday, to see what this looks like," said Martin Kelly.

2. Mine threat

Iran threatened early in the conflict that if its coastline or islands were attacked, it would place "various types of sea mines, including floating mines that can be released from the coast" in the Gulf, according to Iran's semi-official Fars news agency.

Both the multinational Joint Maritime Information Center and Oman's Maritime Security Centre have since issued warnings about "floating" objects suspected to be mines and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a Senate committee that Iran had "mined large segments of Hormuz".

The removal of these mines is an essential first step to returning maritime traffic to pre-war levels, Arsenio Dominguez, secretary general of the International Maritime Organization, told the BBC.

Clearing the strait of mines will be a slow process which could take anywhere from 30 days to as long as six months, experts estimate.

"We simply do not know and this lack of clarity is very concerning," said Phillip Belcher from the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners.

Experts say the southern route, close to Oman, appears to be largely clear of mines and the main route through the strait will be the focus of mine-hunting efforts.

"They have to go at really slow speeds, probably two or three knots, so they can conduct a survey of the underwater environments," said Kelly.

The minesweepers will then need to clear a wide enough channel for maritime traffic to move in and out of the strait at the same time, experts say.

The UK, France and Germany have despatched naval vessels to the region in anticipation of a potential mine-clearing operation in the Strait of Hormuz

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer pledged on Tuesday that the UK will play its "full part" in getting the Strait of Hormuz reopened "as soon as possible".

The British naval support ship RFA Lyme Bay - which has been equipped with mine-hunting kit - was seen on ship-tracking yesterday off RAF Akrotiri air base in Cyprus.

3. Tolls or fees

As a natural waterway through the territorial waters of Iran and Oman, vessels have historically been free to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without payment.

While neither the US nor Iran are party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which commits countries to allow safe passage through their waters, experts say the US position is that free passage through the Strait of Hormuz is part of customary international law.

Some man-made canals such as Panama and Suez do charge tolls and fees for specific services.

During this conflict Iran has sought to assert its sovereignty over the strait, including by establishing the "Persian Gulf Strait Authority" which it said would manage "safe passage permits".

The US and its Gulf allies have repeatedly rejected Iranian attempts to assert control over the strait.

When he announced the deal with Iran on Sunday, Trump said the strait would be opening "toll free".

Iran's Fars news agency has reported that under the new deal with the US the strait would ultimately be managed by Iran in co-ordination with Oman, including possible "service fees" for ships to transit the waterway. It is unclear what services such a fee would pay for.

Any new payment system for using the strait would "add another spanner into the works" which may add a "logistical limit or a chokehold" on how many ships can pass through each day, said Das.

"Who is enforcing it? How will it be enforced? How will fees get collected? What do other Gulf countries feel about that?" Das added.

Many of these questions may be answered during the negotiation period between Iran and the US after Friday's deal is signed, but experts say it is unlikely that Tehran will allow ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz as freely as it did before the conflict began.

"The key point is that the strait may reopen quickly from a political or security perspective, but the commercial shipping system is likely to normalise gradually," said Dimitris Ampatzidis from Kpler.

Additional reporting by Shayan Sardarizadeh, Paul Brown, Alex Murray and Joshua Cheetham

Trump aims to end Iran war but nuclear issue remains unresolved

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqj1zxv1jyeo, 13 days ago

After weeks of promises from President Donald Trump, a deal to end the US-Iran war is set to be signed on Friday.

It is expected to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in return for the US lifting its blockade on Iranian shipping.

However, key questions remain about what it will say about Iran's nuclear programme, including its uranium enrichment - a key component of a nuclear weapon.

There is expected to be a period of further negotiations on nuclear issues but the deal is likely to be judged against the 2015 agreement negotiated by the Obama administration and other nations, and later abandoned by Trump.

What discussions were held before the war?

Both sides were already engaged in discussions about Iran's nuclear programme before the war started on 28 February.

Talks in Oman on 6 February were described by Iran as a "good beginning". However, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said discussions would have to go beyond the nuclear issue for "something meaningful" to be achieved.

On 17 February, following further talks in Geneva, Iran said it had reached "an understanding" with the US and Washington said "progress was made".

Two day later, however, Trump warned that Iran had to make a meaningful deal, "otherwise bad things happen".

Ahead of a further round of talks on 26 February, Iran said an agreement was "within reach". But Trump said: "They're not willing to give us what we have to have."

Talks were set to resume in Vienna, but were called off after the US-Israeli strikes.

Former UK ambassador to Iran Sir Simon Gass says the conflict "hasn't resolved the nuclear issue" and argues that Trump's agreement "takes you back not to the days of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, but actually to the position before 28 February."

"There will be very little trust going into these negotiations and both sides will have their expectations," he adds.

Trump has repeatedly said Iran needs to surrender its enriched uranium stockpiles - which he regularly calls "nuclear dust".

Iran, however, has said "zero enrichment" is a red line and a violation of its rights.

Uranium is a naturally occurring radioactive element. When it is "enriched" it can be used to fuel nuclear power plants, but also help develop nuclear weapons.

The fate of Iran's uranium stockpile was also central to the 2015 nuclear agreement - the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - which imposed strict limits on its enrichment activities.

"The number one issue that was running at that time was whether Iran was going to go for building a nuclear weapon," former JCPOA lead negotiator Baroness Ashton told BBC Verify.

When it was introduced, the Obama administration declared that Tehran had agreed to "extraordinary and robust monitoring, verification, and inspection".

In exchange, the US agreed to lift sanctions against Iran, including on oil, trade and banking.

Under the deal, Iran had to reduce its stockpile by 98% (to 300kg; 660lbs), could enrich only up to 3.67% purity and limits were placed on its centrifuges - the machines used to enrich uranium.

Low-enriched uranium - typically 3-5% purity - is enough to produce reactor fuel required for a nuclear power station, but weapons-grade uranium needs to be at least 90% enriched.

The breakdown of the 2015 deal

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, reported that Iran was complying with the agreement until the US withdrew from it in 2018.

"The deal was remarkably successful," argues Kelsey Davenport from the Arms Control Association (ACA), a national nonpartisan membership organisation.

"Any move to nuclear weapons, any deviation from the JCPOA's terms would have been detected," Davenport told BBC Verify.

In an April 2018 report, the US Department of State said Iran was "transparently, verifiably, and fully implementing the JCPOA".

However, when President Trump announced the US withdrawal from the agreement in May 2018, he called it a "horrible, one-sided deal that should never, ever have been made".

He said it failed to address Iran's ballistic missile programme, that the inspection requirements lacked mechanisms "to prevent, detect, and punish cheating" and that Israeli intelligence showed Tehran's "history of pursuing nuclear weapons".

Jacob Olidort, chief research officer at the America First Policy Institute, says Trump was right.

"All of these issues were completely pushed to the sidelines, completely deprioritised and not included in the arrangement," he told BBC Verify.

Baroness Ashton, who negotiated the deal on behalf of the UN Security Council, rejects this.

"There was plenty of opportunity afterwards to talk about other issues, ballistic missiles, drones etc. And indeed the Trump administration in its first term could have done that," she added.

"If President Trump felt that the deal was inadequate, then the answer was to build on it, not to rip it up."

Olidort says the time-limited nature of the deal meant Iran could have eventually pursued a nuclear weapon.

"It was always made explicit in the deal that the terms of the deal would expire… The sunset clauses in effect nullify their effectiveness," he argues.

Davenport says that because some limits on the uranium enrichment level and stockpile size were only set for 15 years, "by January 2031, Iran could theoretically expand its enrichment programme".

But many other features were permanent, including IAEA safeguards, she said, adding: "There was still a whole host of other provisions that would have provided assurance that any move in that direction [towards a nuclear weapon] would have been quickly detected".

Lifting sanctions

Under the JCPOA, Iran gained access to billions of dollars in previously frozen assets and benefited from the lifting of international sanctions.

Trump has repeatedly criticised this, telling NBC on 7 June: "Obama signed that stupid deal where he paid them billions, and billions of dollars. He thought he could bribe them."

Baroness Ashton says sanction relief was necessary to secure the agreement.

"If you sanction someone because they're doing some behaviour and they change the behaviour, then by definition the sanction cannot stay."

Olidort, however, argues lifting sanctions helped Iran fund its conventional weapon programmes in addition to its nuclear one.

In the years after the US withdrew from the agreement, Iran began to accelerate its uranium enrichment.

When the US and Israel attacked Iran's facilities in June 2025, the IAEA estimated Iran had obtained 440.9kg (972lbs) of ⁠uranium enriched up to 60% purity.

Nuclear negotiations

In a Truth Social post last month, Trump declared his envisaged deal would be "far better" than the JCPOA.

However, so far there is very little detail and Sir Simon is careful about drawing comparisons with the JCPOA.

"That was a very lengthy, very detailed, very precise agreement setting out obligations on both sides.

"What we appear to have here is a framework agreement, which leads into a process of negotiations for 60 days", he told the BBC.

Davenport argues Iran will expect to benefit economically from the agreement.

"Iran is not going to agree to a deal that does not include sanctions relief and assets or access to its frozen assets. Tehran has made very clear that those are key issues", she says.

Trump will likely want to show he secured concessions that Obama could not, she adds. That could include a temporary suspension of enrichment and the disposal of Iran's existing stockpile.

Olidort believes the US is negotiating from a position a strength and does not see a deal being weaker than the JCPOA.

While the details of any agreement remain unclear, Baroness Ashton argues that military pressure alone is unlikely to secure a lasting settlement.

"All I can say is in my experience, the way that negotiations work is that people have to feel that they've got enough to make it worthwhile participating in that negotiation".

Iran sends tankers loaded with oil past US military blockade

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpq37yxexd9o, 11 days ago

Three Iranian tankers loaded with crude oil have passed the US blockade line in the Gulf of Oman, ship-tracking data shows.

Two were broadcasting their locations as they crossed and a third appeared to switch on its location tracker just past the line.

Despite President Donald Trump announcing on Sunday the "immediate removal" of the blockade of Iranian ports, US naval forces later confirmed it would remain in effect until the deal with Iran was signed. This is expected to take place in Switzerland on Friday.

"This a sign that Iran is confident the blockade is over, even if the US has insisted it will be in place until Friday," Michelle Wiese Bockman, senior analyst at Windward Maritime Intelligence, told BBC Verify.

The three Iran-flagged tankers, Diona, Hero II and Sonia I, are all owned by the National Iranian Tanker Company which has been sanctioned by the US Treasury, as have the ships themselves.

Iran has been subject to long-term US sanctions in response to fears the country is developing nuclear weapons, its support for groups designated by Washington as terrorist organisations, and alleged human rights abuses.

Data from MarineTraffic shows Hero II and Sonia I left Iran's Chabahar port on Tuesday, where several other Iranian tankers are currently anchored, and sailed past the US blockade line into the Arabian Sea in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Diona began broadcasting its location just past the US blockade line, which stretches from the eastern tip of Oman to the coast of Iran, yesterday.

Maritime intelligence firm Windward says this is the first time any of these Iranian tankers have broadcast their locations since March and, if they make it to their destination, they will be Iran's first oil exports for two months, according to TankerTrackers.com.

The three ships are carrying a combined total of 3.8 million barrels of crude oil, according to TankerTrackers.com. They are currently not broadcasting their planned destinations.

The US blockade has cut Iran's crude exports to the lowest amount in six years at 260,000 barrels per day in May, less than a fifth of the 2025 average of 1.67 million barrels per day, data from maritime intelligence firm Kpler shows.

The US had said early in its blockade that enforcement could happen outside of the Gulf region and BBC Verify has previously covered American forces intercepting Iran-linked vessels in the Indian Ocean, thousands of miles from the Gulf.

Another crude oil tanker owned by NITC, Stream, stopped broadcasting its location just before the US blockade line and appears to be sailing towards Iran.

The unladen tanker has been circling off the Pakistani port of Karachi since 8 May, ship tracking data shows.

Since the announcement of the US deal with Iran, "Iranian-linked tankers and cargo ships have become noticeably more active globally," according to the campaign and monitoring group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI).

Two other crude oil tankers owned by the National Iranian Tanker Company also began broadcasting their positions in the Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia on Tuesday.

Both tankers, Dan and Sinopa, had not been seen on publicly available ship tracking platforms since early April and now appear to be sailing towards Iran.

"Iran is wasting no time getting its tankers back into circulation," said Bockman.

Additional reporting by Barbara Metzler