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Under the "one in one out" deal, some arrivals would be detained and returned to France and in exchange the UK would accept an equivalent number of asylum seekers, subject to security checks and provided they had not tried to enter the UK illegally.

Speaking at a press conference alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, Sir Keir said the plan would demonstrate that trying to make the Channel crossing would "be in vain".

He did not confirm how many people would be returned or accepted during the pilot.

* co-ordinate their nuclear deterrents

* strengthen collaboration on supercomputers and AI

* "speed up and accelerate" co-operation on anti-ship missiles.

Announcing the small boats pilot, Sir Keir said: "I know some people will still ask, why should we take anyone in - so let me address that directly.

"We accept genuine asylum seekers because it is right that we offer a haven to those in most dire need.

"But there is also something else, something more practical which is that we simply cannot solve a challenge like stopping the boats by acting alone and telling our allies that we won't play ball."

Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the deal would "only return one in every 17 illegal immigrants arriving".

"Allowing 94% of illegal immigrants to stay will make no difference whatsoever and have no deterrent effect."

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said the crossings are "a national security emergency" and in a reference to payments made by the UK to support French policing efforts added: "Frankly the French owe us our money back."

He said he didn't believe the pilot would work, saying: "If we even try to deport people across the Channel, we will run straight into the European Convention on Human Rights."

Both the previous Conservative governments and current Labour one have struggled to stem the numbers coming to the UK in small boats.

The Conservatives had proposed sending arrivals to Rwanda, however the scheme was delayed by legal challenges and the general election was called before it could be implemented.

One of Sir Keir's first acts as prime minister was to scrap the plan, calling it a gimmick.

He said his government would focus instead on tackling the smuggling gangs that organise the crossings.

Numbers have continued to rise, with nearly 20,000 people arriving in the UK in the first half of this year – a 48% increase on the same time period in 2024.

Russia's intensifying drone war is spreading fear and eroding Ukrainian morale

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0m8gn7grn2o, today

Everyone agrees: it's getting worse.

The people of Kyiv have, like the citizens of other Ukrainian cities, been through a lot.

After three and a half years of fluctuating fortunes, they are tough and extremely resilient.

But in recent months, they have been experiencing something new: vast, coordinated waves of attacks from the air, involving hundreds of drones and missiles, often concentrated on a single city.

Last night, it was Kyiv. And the week before too. In between, it was Lutsk in the far west.

Three years ago, Iranian-supplied Shahed drones were a relative novelty. I remember hearing my first, buzzing a lazy arc across the night sky above the southern city of Zaporizhzhia in October 2022.

But now everyone is familiar with the sound, and its most fearsome recent iteration: a dive-bombing wail some have compared to the German World War Two Stuka aircraft.

The sound of swarms of approaching drones have sent hardened civilians back to bomb shelters, the metro and underground car parks for the first time since the early days of the war.

"The house shook like it was made of paper," Katya, a Kyiv resident, told me after last night's heavy bombardment.

"We spent the entire night sitting in the bathroom."

"I went to the parking for the first time," another resident, Svitlana, told me.

"The building shook and I could see fires across the river."

The attacks don't always claim lives, but they are spreading fear and eroding morale.

After an attack on a residential block in Kyiv last week, a shocked grandmother, Mariia, told me that her 11-year old grandson had turned to her, in the shelter, and said he understood the meaning of death for the first time.

He has every reason to be fearful. The UN's Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) says June saw the highest monthly civilian casualties in three years, with 232 people killed and over 1,300 injured.

Many will have been killed or wounded in communities close to the front lines, but others have been killed in cities far from the fighting.

"The surge in long-range missile and drone strikes across the country has brought even more death and destruction to civilians far away from the frontline," says Danielle Bell, head of HRMMU.

Modifications in the Shahed's design have allowed it to fly much higher than before and descend on its target from a greater altitude.

Its range has also increased, to around 2,500km, and it's capable of carrying a more deadly payload (up from around 50kg of explosive to 90kg).

Tracking maps produced by local experts show swirling masses of Shahed drones, sometimes taking circuitous routes across Ukraine before homing in on their targets.

Many – often as many as half – are decoys, designed to confuse and overwhelm Ukraine's air defences.

Other, straight lines show the paths of ballistic or cruise missiles: much fewer in number but the weapons Russia relies on to do the most damage.

Analysis by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War shows an increase in Russia's drone and missile strikes in the two months following Donald Trump's inauguration in January.

March saw a slight decline, with occasional spikes, until May, when the numbers suddenly rose dramatically.

New records have been set with alarming regularity.

June saw a new monthly high of 5,429 drones, July has seen more than 2,000 in just the first nine days.

With production in Russia ramping up, some reports suggest Moscow may soon be able to fire over 1,000 missiles and drones in a single night.

Experts in Kyiv warn that the country is in danger of being overwhelmed.

"If Ukraine doesn't find a solution for how to deal with these drones, we will face great problems during 2025," says former intelligence officer Ivan Stupak.

"Some of these drones are trying to reach military objects - we have to understand it - but the rest, they are destroying apartments, falling into office buildings and causing lots of damage to citizens."

For all their increasing capability, the drones are not an especially sophisticated weapon. But they do represent yet another example of the vast gulf in resources between Russia and Ukraine.

It also neatly illustrates the maxim, attributed to the Soviet Union's World War Two leader Joseph Stalin, that "quantity has a quality of its own."

"This is a war of resources," says Serhii Kuzan, of the Kyiv-based Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre.

"When production of particular missiles became too complicated - too expensive, too many components, too many complicated supply routes – they concentrated on this particular type of drone and developed different modifications and improvements."

The more drones in a single attack, Kuzan says, the more Ukraine hard-pressed air defence units struggle to shoot them down. This forces Kyiv to fall back on its precious supply of jets and air-to-air missiles to shoot them down.

"So if the drones go as a swarm, they destroy all the air defence missiles," he says.

Hence President Zelensky's constant appeals to Ukraine's allies to do more to protect its skies. Not just with Patriot missiles – vital to counter the most dangerous Russian ballistic threat – but with a wide array of other systems too.

On Thursday, the British government said it would sign a defence agreement with Ukraine to provide more than 5,000 air defence missiles.

Kyiv will be looking for many more such deals in the coming months.

'We're worried about our future': Srebrenica massacre's tensions still felt 30 years on

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2edzg2wlo, today

The silence is shattered by a guttural scream. A group of people scrabble on the ground, sifting through the soil. One of them holds up a watch they have uncovered; another, a sandal.

The scene on stage at Sarajevo's War Theatre is uncomfortably familiar for the audience at the world premiere of the Flowers of Srebrenica. The play reflects the grim reality of the events not just of July 1995 – but the ensuing decades of unresolved grief and divisions in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Srebrenica massacre remains the most notorious war crime committed in Europe since World War Two. Bosnian-Serb forces overran Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia, where thousands of Bosniaks, who are mostly Muslim, had taken refuge, believing they were safely under the protection of the United Nations.

Instead, Dutch soldiers stood aside as Bosnian-Serb General Ratko Mladić directed his troops to place women and the youngest children on buses for transport to majority-Bosniak areas. Then, over the following days, he oversaw the systematic murder of around 8,000 people – most, but not all of them, men and boys.

Mladić's troops dumped the bodies in mass graves. But later, to cover up their crimes, they exhumed then reburied the remains in multiple sites.

As a result, body parts were distributed across multiple graves, causing endless anguish for the victims' families. Many of them are still searching for their relatives' remains decades later, though DNA testing has helped thousands of families to bury their family members at Potočari Cemetery, adjacent to the former UN base.

Others have been able to identify body parts through scraps of clothing or personal belongings – as depicted in scenes in the Flowers of Srebrenica.

The play also reflects the apparently deepening divisions in contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina. While the audience in Sarajevo delivers a standing ovation to the cast and crew, in majority-Serb Republika Srpska, political leaders repeatedly deny that genocide took place at Srebrenica, despite Mladić's conviction for the offence at an international tribunal in The Hague, as well as the earlier conviction of the Bosnian-Serb political leader Radovan Karadžić.

"I thought that when 30 years passed, we'd come to our senses," says Selma Alispahić, the lead actress of the Sarajevo War Theatre – herself a former refugee from Bosnia's conflict.

"People get tired of proving the truth that's been proven so many times, even in international courts. The story of the hatred and spinning of facts serves only the criminals who profited from the war and who want to preserve their fortune today."

Genocide denial is not the only symptom of the country's divisions. The Dayton Peace agreement brought an end to the war, just four months after the massacre. But it also divided Bosnia and Herzegovina into two "entities", on ethnic grounds. Most Bosniaks and Croats live in the Federation, while the majority of Serbs are in Republika Srpska.

There is also a state-level government, with a member of the presidency for each of the three main ethnic groups. But most of the power lies at the entity level.

In recent months, Republika Srpska's president has been exploiting that to make mischief. Milorad Dodik has been pushing through legislation to withdraw from numerous national institutions, including the judiciary. This has brought him into conflict with Bosnia's ultimate power, the international High Representative.

The current holder of that position, Christian Schmidt, annulled the laws concerned. But Dodik refused to recognise those rulings.

Earlier this year a court sentenced him to a year in prison and a six-year ban from public office for ignoring the High Representative's decisions. The verdict is currently under appeal.

Further shenanigans have ensued – including legislation to establish a "reserve police force". The same terminology was used for murderous Serb militia during Bosnia's conflict.

"This is dangerous, playing with the memory of those who have experienced the 1990s," says Mr Schmidt.

"I see the irresponsible part of the political class playing with this. We need a clear presence of the international community on a military level – so EUFOR [the EU peacekeeping force] gets more responsibility in the sheer presence, promising people they will be supported in a peaceful manner."

In the centre of Sarajevo, reminders of the anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre are hard to miss. Hundreds of people huddled under umbrellas in the pouring rain to pay their respects to the convoy carrying the remains of seven recently-identified victims who will be buried at Potočari Cemetery during the commemoration. Outside the city's shopping centres, video screens urge passers-by to "Remember Srebrenica".

But just 15 minutes up the road, in East Sarajevo, there are no public references to the massacre. The Cyrillic script signs and Jelen Beer umbrellas indicate that this is Republika Srpska. And in the entity government's building, there is little enthusiasm for the commemorations.

Indeed, state-level foreign trade minister Saša Košarac – a leading member of Dodik's SNSD party – claims that Srebrenica is used to deepen divisions and prevent reconciliation.

"In this country, Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs were killed – and crimes were committed on all three sides. It's important, when thinking about the future, that all the perpetrators, on all sides, should be held accountable," he says.

"Bosniaks insist on talking only about Bosniak victims. A crime has been committed in Srebrenica – no Serbs deny that – but we have the right to point out the crimes against Serbs in and around Srebrenica."

But thousands of other people are focusing on solidarity with Srebrenica. On the eve of the commemoration, the Memorial Centre and Potočari Cemetery were already busy with people paying their respects. And they cheered the arrival from around the country of groups of cyclists, runners and motorcyclists.

Mirela Osmanović says this support is crucial to Bosniaks who have returned to live in the area where their family members died. She was born two years after her two brothers were murdered at Srebrenica and now works at the Memorial Centre. But the recent tensions have left her rattled.

"The intense atmosphere produced by Republika Srpska's leaders really disturbs us, making us feel we're not protected anymore – and we're really worried about our future."

"My parents say it looks the way it looked in 1992."

For Milorad Dodik, manipulating the cycle of tensions is just part of his strategy to remain in power. But for people in Srebrenica, the ongoing ethno-political games only make the healing harder.

Children queuing for supplements killed in Israeli strike in Gaza, hospital says

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gd01g1gxro, today

At least 15 Palestinians, including eight children and two women, have been killed in an Israeli strike near a medical point in central Gaza, a hospital there says.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said the strike hit people queueing for nutritional supplements in the town of Deir al-Balah. Graphic video from the hospital showed the bodies of several children and others being treated for their wounds.

The Israeli military said it was checking the reports.

Another 26 people were reportedly killed in strikes elsewhere in Gaza on Thursday, as Israeli and Hamas delegations continued negotiations for a new ceasefire and hostage release deal at indirect talks in Doha.

Despite optimism expressed by the US, which is acting as a mediator along with Qatar and Egypt, they do not so far seem to have come close to a breakthrough.

On Wednesday night, a senior Israeli official told journalists in Washington that it could take one or two weeks to reach an agreement.

The official, who was speaking during a visit to the US by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also said that if an agreement was reached on a 60-day ceasefire, Israel would use that time to offer a permanent end to the war that would require Hamas to disarm. If Hamas refused to disarm, Israel would "proceed" with military operations, they added.

Earlier, Hamas issued a statement saying that the talks had been difficult, blaming Israeli "intransigence".

The group said it had shown flexibility in agreeing to release 10 hostages, but it reiterated that it was seeking a "comprehensive" agreement that would end the Israeli offensive.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 57,680 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of Gaza's population has also been displaced multiple times. More than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and there are shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.

Trump threatens 35% tariffs on Canadian goods

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg819n954mo, today

US President Donald Trump has said he will slap a 35% tariff on Canadian goods starting 1 August, even as the two countries are days away from a self-imposed deadline to reach a new deal on trade.

The missive came as Trump also threatened blanket tariffs of 15% or 20% on most trade partners, and said he would soon notify the European Union of a new tariff rate on its goods.

Trump announced the latest levies on Canada on Thursday in a letter posted to social media and addressed to Prime Minister Mark Carney.

The US has already imposed a blanket 25% tariff on some Canadian goods, and the country is feeling the pain of the Trump administration's global steel, aluminium and auto tariffs.

Asia is reeling from Trump's tariff salvo – is anyone winning?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg5l2yy42eo, today

"Deeply regrettable" is how Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has described US President Donald Trump's latest tariff threat - a 25% levy on Japanese goods.

Tokyo, a long-time US ally, has been trying hard to avoid exactly this. It has been seeking concessions for its beleaguered car makers, while resisting pressure to open its markets to American rice.

There have been many rounds of negotiations. Japan's trade minister has visited Washington DC at least seven times since April, when Trump announced sweeping tariffs against friends and foes.

And yet, those trips seem to have borne little fruit. Trump's label for Tokyo moved from "tough" to "spoiled" as talks dragged on.

And then this week, Japan joined a list of 22 nations that were sent tariff letters - 14 of those are in Asia. From South Korea to Sri Lanka, many are export-driven manufacturing hubs.

They have until 1 August to strike a deal with the US. But they are likely wondering about their chances given that Japan, a staunch ally that has been openly pursuing a deal, is still facing a steep levy.

Trump has reset the tariffs clock - again. So who is winning, and who is losing?

Winner: Negotiators who want more time

In one sense, almost all of the countries targeted by Trump earlier this year benefit from the deadline extension - they now have more than three weeks more to strike deals.

"The optimistic case is that there is pressure now to engage in further negotiations before the 1 August deadline," said Suan Teck Kin, head of research at United Overseas Bank.

Growing economies like Thailand and Malaysia, which received tariff letters this week, will be especially eager to seek a solution. They are also caught in the middle of US-China tensions as Washington targets Chinese exports rerouted through third countries, what are known as transhipped goods.

Economists have told the BBC that further extensions are likely, given the complexity of trade agreements.

Countries will need time to implement Trump's demands, which, going by the letters, are not entirely clear, said business lecturer Alex Capri from the National University of Singapore.

For instance, transhipped goods have been specifically levied as part of Vietnam's trade deal with the US. But it is unclear whether that applies to finished goods, or to all imported components.

Either way, it will involve far more sophisticated technology to keep track of supply chains, Mr Capri said.

"It's going to be a slow, long-term and evolving process involving many third parties, tech companies and logistic partners."

Loser: Asian manufacturers

It seems clear that tariffs are here to stay, which makes global trade the loser.

Companies from the US, Europe and China with global businesses remain at risk, Mr Capri said. This hurts not just exporters, but also US importers and consumers.

And it is a blow for the economic ambitions of large parts of Asia, whose rise has been fuelled by manufacturing, from electronics to textiles.

It is unwise to make zero-sum observations on which countries are winning and losing, Mr Capri added, because international trade, especially between US and China is so deeply inter-linked.

Some countries, however, could lose more than others.

Vietnam was the first in Asia to strike a deal, but it has little leverage against Washington, and is now facing levies up to 40%. The same goes for Cambodia. A poor country heavily reliant on exports, it has been negotiating a deal as Trump threatens 35% tariffs.

South Korea and Japan, on the other hand, may be able to hold out longer, because they are richer and have stronger geo-political levers.

India, which too has leverage of its own, has not been issued a letter yet. A deal has seemed imminent but appears to be delayed by key sticking points, including access to the Indian agricultural market and the country's import rules.

Loser: US-Japan alliance

"Despite its close economic and military relationship with the US, Japan is being treated the same as other Asian trade partners," said economist Jesper Koll.

And that could transform the relationship, especially as Tokyo, with its large financial reserves, appears to be ready for the long game.

"Japan has proven to be a tough negotiator and I think that has annoyed Trump," Mr Koll said.

Despite a rice shortage that has sent prices soaring, PM Ishiba has refused to buy US rice, choosing instead to protect domestic farmers. His government has also refused to give in to US demands to increase its military spending.

"They are well prepared," Mr Koll argued. He said the day after Trump announced tariffs in April, Tokyo declared an economic emergency and set up hundreds of consultation centres to assist affected companies.

"Japan will be seeking a deal that is credible," he said, because what's the guarantee Trump won't change his mind again?

With Japan's upper-house election due this month, it would be surprising if a deal is agreed by August, Mr Koll said.

"No-one is happy. But is this something that is going to force a recession in Japan? No."

Winner: US or China?

Asia has long been seen as a key battleground between Washington and Beijing, and analysts say, because of tariffs, Trump may be ceding ground.

For one, given how complex these deals can be, Trump may be overplaying his hand by extending the deadline again, according to some observers.

"The bargaining position of the US has actually been diminished as they have revealed that their hand isn't actually as strong as they would like," said NUS economics professor David Jacks.

And the deals that are made could come at the cost of reshaping trade and ties built over decades.

Trump's choice of posting the letters online, rather than through traditional diplomatic channels, could backfire, said Mr Capri, who described it as "political theatre".

The confusion caused is a "great gift" to China, which is trying to portray itself as a stable alternative to Trump's unpredictability, he added.

But the US market is not easy to replace - and Beijing has its fair share of tensions with countries in this part of the world, from Vietnam to Japan.

China is in the middle of its own trade negotiations the US, although it has longer to strike a full agreement - until 13 August.

So who will win more friends in this trade war is hard to say, but the race is still on.

“Both parties see the need for a divorce," Prof Jacks said, "but getting there will be tough and involve proceedings which will span years, if not decades."

Ukrainian intelligence officer shot dead in Kyiv

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2l8kwd13wo, today

A senior Ukrainian intelligence officer has been gunned down in broad daylight in Kyiv, officials have said.

The agent of the domestic Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was shot several times in a car park after being approached by an unidentified assailant who then fled the scene, footage circulated on social media shows.

The spy agency did not identify the victim, though Ukrainian media outlets have named him as Colonel Ivan Voronych.

The SBU is primarily concerned with internal security and counter-intelligence, akin to the UK's MI5. But since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, it has also played a prominent role in assassinations and sabotage attacks deep inside Russia.

Sources within Ukraine's security services have previously told the media - including the BBC - that they were behind the killing of the high-ranking Russian Gen Igor Kirillov in December 2024.

Earlier this year, Gen Yaroslav Moskalik was killed in a car bomb attack in Moscow - an incident the Kremlin blamed on Kyiv. Ukraine's security services have never officially admitted responsibility for the deaths.

Neither the SBU nor the Kyiv Police gave a possible motive for the shooting.

The Ukrainian capital's police force said in a statement that officers arrived at the scene to find a man's body with a gunshot wound.

It said officers were working to identify the assailant and that "measures are being taken to detain him".

The SBU said it was taking "a comprehensive set of measures to clarify all the circumstances of the crime and bring the perpetrators to justice".

CCTV footage - which has been verified by the news agency Reuters - shows a man in jeans and a dark t-shirt exiting a building in the southern Holosiivskyi district shortly after 09:00 local time (06:00 GMT) on Thursday.

As he walks to a nearby car while holding a plastic bag and a holdall, another man can be seen running towards him.

Online news site Ukrainska Pravda reports that the assailant had used a pistol and had shot the SBU officer five times, citing unnamed sources.

The apparent assassination follows what Ukraine described as the largest Russian aerial attack on Tuesday, when 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities across the country.

Overnight into Thursday, a Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital killed at least two people and injured 16 others.

The strikes - which hit eight districts across the city - involved 18 missiles and 400 drones, officials said. Russia has been repeatedly accused of targeting civilian areas.

Meanwhile, fighting on the front line continues, with Russian forces slowly making advances in western Ukraine and retaking control of the part of Russia's Kursk region that Ukrainian forces seized in a surprise offensive last summer.

Russia currently controls around a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including the southern Crimean peninsula it annexed in 2014.

Efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in the more than three-year-long war have faltered, with US President Donald Trump becoming increasingly impatient with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

Swedish minister reveals teenage son linked to extremist groups

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0k7ek2xlndo, today

Sweden's migration minister says he will not resign after it was revealed his teenage son has links to white supremacist groups.

Johan Forssell on Thursday confirmed that the person named by the anti-racism watchdog Expo recently as being a "close relative" of an unnamed minister and "active in the far right" was his 16-year-old son.

Forssell said he had not known about his son's activities until he was contacted by the country's security service a few weeks ago and that he had followed all proper protocol.

"Perhaps many parents can relate to not having a complete picture of what their children are doing on social media," he told Swedish broadcaster TV4.

Forssell's comments come after Expo last week said that the close relative of a government minister had "collaborated" with a member of the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR) group.

Expo also said that the relative had been involved with two other extremist groups - allegedly recruiting members to one of them.

Forssell - who has been openly critical of political extremism and an advocate of greater parental responsibility when it comes to youth involved in crime - says he did not publicly address the allegations when he found out about them out of his duty to his child.

"This has not been about protecting me as a politician, but about protecting a minor," he said.

Forssell also took to social media to, as he put it, explain the situation in his own words.

He said he and his wife had had "long and important conversations" with their son, who has now "cut off contact and is deeply remorseful".

"It is a closed chapter," he added, going on to explain that Sweden's security service, known as Sapo, had told him that his son's activities had mainly taken place on social media and that he was not being investigated for a crime.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson says he "continues to have confidence" in his minister.

"I think that Johan Forssell has acted as a responsible parent should when you learn that your child is doing wrong and is in bad company," Kristersson wrote on social media.

However, Forssell and the wider Swedish centre-right minority government are facing accusations of double standards and of turning a blind eye when it comes to countering extremism.

The opposition Left Party said on Wednesday that it would summon the minister before a parliamentary committee once lawmakers return from the summer break.

Kristersson's government has been in power since 2022 and has faced a backlash for working with the Social Democrats (SD) - a radical anti-immigration party that was founded by Nazi sympathisers.

Judge blocks Trump's birthright order after Supreme Court ruling

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0l4jw5glplo, today

A US judge has once again blocked President Donald Trump from implementing an executive order ending birth right citizenship for some US residents as a legal challenge moves forward.

A New Hampshire judge approved a class action lawsuit against Trump's executive order, and temporarily stopped the president's order from taking effect.

The class action lawsuit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of immigrant parents and their infants.

The decision comes weeks after the Supreme Court introduced limits on how and when universal injunctions are issued by federal courts. However, the decision still allows them through certain legal avenues.

The class action suit was introduced after the Supreme Court decision, in keeping with the new standards set by the court.

Still, the White House challenged the validity of the judge's ruling.

"Today's decision is an obvious and unlawful attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court's clear order against universal relief. This judge's decision disregards the rule of law by abusing class action certification procedures," spokesman Harrison Fields said in a statement Thursday. "The Trump Administration will be fighting vigorously against the attempts of these rogue district court judges to impede the policies President Trump was elected to implement."

The US Constitution guarantees citizenship to all born on US soil, but Trump has sought to revoke that right for babies born to undocumented immigrants and foreign visitors, as part of his crackdown on immigration.

The class-action lawsuit seeks to challenge the order as harmful and unconstitutional, and the judge ruled that it can proceed on behalf of the babies who would be affected by the restrictions.

The ruling also once again pauses an order that was a priority for Trump. The judge has given the government seven days to appeal.

Restricting birthright citizenship was one of his first actions in office.

Multiple courts across the US issued nationwide injunctions as they considered legal challenges to the order.

The Trump administration appealed those temporary holds to the highest US court, arguing judges did not have the authority to block a presidential order nationally while the courts considered the cases.

The Supreme Court's conservative majority sided with Trump in a 6-3 ruling that broadly curtailed judicial power, though the justices did not address the constitutionality of Trump's birthright citizenship order.

Following the Supreme Court's decision, Trump's order had been set to take effect on 27 July.

Weekly quiz: Which French chef made a meal fit for a King?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2d01p1pl61o, today

This week saw Donald Trump finally get approval for his "big, beautiful bill", Hollywood pay tribute to actors Michael Madsen and Julian McMahon, and the UK mark the 20th anniversary of the 7/7 attacks.

But how much attention did you pay to what else happened in the world over the past seven days?

Quiz collated by Ben Fell.

Fancy testing your memory? Try last week's quiz, or have a go at something from the archives.

In the country with the world's lowest birth rate, fertility clinics are booming

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20wg50l563o, today

When she started in vitro fertilisation (IVF) last November, Kim Mi-ae knew it would be a gruelling test of patience - something she had already endured when she conceived her first child three years ago.

But what shocked her this time around were the "crazy" waits at the fertility clinic.

"When I went in January, it felt like everyone had made a New Year's resolution to have a baby! Even with a reservation, I waited over three hours," says the 36-year-old Seoul resident.

While South Korea continues to struggle with the world's lowest birth rates, fertility clinics are in growing demand - a bright spot in the country's demographic crisis.

Between 2018 and 2022, the number of fertility treatments carried out in the country rose nearly 50% to 200,000. Last year, one in six babies in Seoul were born with the help of fertility treatment.

Underpinning the boom, experts say, is a shift in attitudes about family planning.

"We have a young generation… that is used to being in control of its life," says Sarah Harper CBE, professor in Gerontology at the University of Oxford. That control, she adds, may come in the form of single women freezing their eggs or couples trying IVF when they can't conceive.

"Whereas in previous generations there was a greater acceptance that whether you conceive or not can be a bit haphazard, now we have Korean women saying, 'I want to plan my life.'"

This is good news for South Korea's government, which is trying to lift the country out of a demographic crisis. One in five people in South Korea are now aged 65 or above. As a proportion of the country's total population, there have never been fewer babies.

The country has repeatedly broken its own record for having the world's lowest birth rate: 0.98 babies per woman in 2018, 0.84 in 2020 and 0.72 in 2023. If this trend continues, experts warn the population of 50 million could halve in 60 years.

But recently there is reason for cautious optimism: instead of another record low, South Korea's birth rate rose slightly to 0.75 in 2024 - its first increase in nine years.

"It's a small bump, but still a meaningful one," says Seulki Choi, a professor at the Korea Development Institute's School of Public Policy and Management.

It is too early to tell whether this is the start of a much-needed reversal or just a blip. The country's birth rate remains far below the global average of 2.2. But many like Dr Choi are cautiously optimistic.

"If this trend holds, it could signal a longer-term shift," says Dr Choi. "We need to watch how young people's attitudes toward marriage and parenthood are changing."

A baby bump

For years, having children was the last thing on Park Soo-in's mind. She was mostly busy at work, often only clocking off from her advertising job at 04:00.

"I was in a company with endless overtime, so it wasn't even something I could realistically consider," says the 35-year-old.

Things started to change after she got married two years ago. She landed a new job with better hours - and friends around her started having babies.

"Seeing and interacting with their kids made it feel less overwhelming," she said. "And watching my husband take initiative, doing research on pregnancy and childbirth and showing real effort, gave me confidence that we could do this."

When Ms Park and her husband had trouble conceiving, they looked to fertility treatments. Many others are doing the same, fuelling projections that the burgeoning industry could be worth more than $2bn by 2030.

"This is actually an important signal for policymakers that there are still some women who want to start families but are facing … barriers to doing so," says Jennifer Sciubba, president and CEO of the non-profit Population Reference Bureau in Washington, DC.

"More than anything, this is a sign that people are unable to fulfil their desires to have children."

Difficulty conceiving is just one barrier. At the heart of South Korea's population woes are a raft of social and financial pressures - from patriarchal norms that place most childcare responsibilities on women to long work hours and high education costs - which discourage many young people from having children.

For some, however, those dreams have merely been delayed. More than half of South Koreans say they want kids but can't afford them, according to a UN report. And by the time South Korean women have their first child, their average age is 33.6 - among the highest in the world.

"Looking back, it might have been better to start earlier," says Ms Park. "But realistically… now actually feels like the right time. In my late 20s, I just didn't have the financial capacity to think about marriage or kids."

The same goes for Ms Kim, who spent three years saving up for marriage and another four for a child.

"People spend their youth studying, job hunting, and spending money to prepare for life. And by the time they're ready to settle down, it's often late," she says. "But the later you wait, the harder it gets [to become pregnant], physically and emotionally."

Bumps in the road

For those who opt for IVF, the process of trying to conceive also becomes much more expensive.

"It's hard to say exactly how much IVF costs because it varies so much by person and cycle," says Ms Kim. "It's a huge and unpredictable expense that can really affect your finances."

As part of concerted efforts to boost its birth rate, South Korea's government has expanded its support for fertility treatments. Seoul now subsidises up to 2 million Korean won ($1,460; £1,100) for egg-freezing and 1.1 million won for each IVF treatment.

But even with government subsidies, Ms Kim says she spent more than 2 million won in January for IVF - mostly on out-of-pocket items that subsidies do not cover, such as supplements and additional tests.

And with less than half of IVF cycles ending in success, the costs can stack up quickly.

This has been the case for Jang Sae-ryeon in the southwestern Jeolla province. The 37-year-old started fertility treatment two years ago and has done five IVF cycles, each of which cost her around 1.5 million won.

"I wish things worked out after just one or two tries, but for most people, that's not the case," she says. "Without money, you simply can't move forward. That's the reality. And I think that's the most frustrating part."

Equally challenging, women say, are the workplace pressures they face when they commit to a demanding IVF schedule.

While South Korean companies offer several days of leave for fertility treatment, women say that in reality it is difficult to utilise them. Ms Kim says she underwent IVF for her first child without taking leave at all. Ms Jang, meanwhile, says her colleagues asked her to postpone her treatment.

"It made me feel like IVF and a full-time job just don't mix," says Ms Jang. "So I quit. But once I left, I struggled financially. That led to another cycle of quitting and job-hunting again."

Such financial and cultural pressures may have dampened many South Koreans' dreams of having children, but not Ms Jang's. She still gets teary when she recalls two pregnancies from early in her marriage - both of which ended in miscarriages.

"You know how they say when you have a child, you feel a love that's limitless?" she says. "I think having a child that resembles both of us and creating a family together is one of the greatest forms of happiness a person can feel."

'One in, one out' sounds simple - but the migrant deal could be complicated

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8d60djgqndo, today

The returns deal is designed as a deterrent to stop the boats. But the announcement of a pilot for a 'one in, one out' scheme is just the first step in what could be a very complicated process.

The plan proposes that for each migrant the UK returns to France, another migrant with a strong case for asylum in Britain will come the other way. The Home Office would not speculate on how many people would actually be expelled weekly, noting that the number may vary during the pilot stage of the scheme.

During a joint news conference Sir Keir Starmer and France's President Emmanuel Macron gave this afternoon, the prime minister would not be drawn into the details and said discussing them could undermine "how this will operate".

Details aside, the agreement is likely to encounter legal, political and practical obstacles, and the need to demonstrate 'proof of concept' will not be straightforward.

However, the legal principle behind the idea is broadly sound. The UN Refugee Convention does not allow migrants to choose where they claim asylum, so there is nothing necessarily unlawful about people being sent from Britain to France for processing.

The previous government's Rwanda scheme struggled to get off the ground because the courts were persuaded the East African country was not safe enough to be compliant with the demands of the convention. France, however, would not raise such concerns.

Legal challenges are likely to be about the details of the process. Is the system of selection fair? What might happen to people when they reach France?

One political hurdle will be convincing EU member states that Britain's migrants will not end up back in their territory. Information stored on the EU's Eurodac asylum database, unavailable to Britain since Brexit, might be used to identify migrants who had previously claimed asylum in another European state.

As well as legal challenges regarding returning people to France, there may be practical difficulties in deciding which migrants in France should be sent to the UK. Who will make those decisions and on what basis?

Britain has long resisted the idea that asylum claims can be assessed beyond this country's border, fearing such a facility would become a magnet for migrants seeking a new life across the Channel.

However, there is a precedent for a scheme to identify asylum seekers with a strong case for being awarded refugee status in the UK.

In 2002, Britain and France jointly worked on a plan to close the Sangatte camp of migrants trying to get to the UK. As part of that arrangement, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) oversaw a registration process conducted by British officials in France, deciding which migrants should be given permission to pursue their asylum claim in Britain.

The details of every aspect of today's Anglo-French arrangement will need to be tested. No wonder officials want the scheme to start small.

And will it work? It is very hard to comprehend how migrants balance the risks and opportunities when deciding whether or not to board a flimsy dinghy.

The pilot scheme being proposed is probably not at a large enough scale to act as a serious deterrent, but officials believe the arrangement has the potential to be a powerful weapon in the battle to stop the boats.

Even if the arrangement can be shown to work, there will then be questions about the cost and practicalities of scaling it up to a level that will make desperate migrants waiting in the Calais camps think again about attempting to cross the Channel.

'I can't drink the water' - life next to a US data centre

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8gy7lv448o, today

When Beverly Morris retired in 2016, she thought she had found her dream home - a peaceful stretch of rural Georgia, surrounded by trees and quiet.

Today, it's anything but.

Just 400 yards (366m) from her front porch in Mansfield, Georgia, sits a large, windowless building filled with servers, cables, and blinking lights.

It's a data centre - one of many popping up across small-town America, and around the globe, to power everything from online banking to artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT.

"I can't live in my home with half of my home functioning and no water," Ms Morris says. "I can't drink the water."

She believes the construction of the centre, which is owned by Meta (the parent company of Facebook), disrupted her private well, causing an excessive build-up of sediment. Ms Morris now hauls water in buckets to flush her toilet.

She says she had to fix the plumbing in her kitchen to restore water pressure. But the water that comes of the tap still has residue in it.

"I'm afraid to drink the water, but I still cook with it, and brush my teeth with it," says Morris. "Am I worried about it? Yes."

Meta, however, says the two aren't connected.

In a statement to the BBC, Meta said that "being a good neighbour is a priority".

The company commissioned an independent groundwater study to investigate Morris's concerns. According to the report, its data centre operation did "not adversely affect groundwater conditions in the area".

While Meta disputes that it has caused the problems with Ms Morris' water, there's no doubt, in her estimation, that the company has worn out its welcome as her neighbour.

"This was my perfect spot," she says. "But it isn't anymore."

We tend to think of the cloud as something invisible - floating above us in the digital ether. But the reality is very physical.

The cloud lives in over 10,000 data centres around the world, most of them located in the US, followed by the UK and Germany.

With AI now driving a surge in online activity, that number is growing fast. And with them, more complaints from nearby residents.

The US boom is being challenged by a rise in local activism - with $64bn (£47bn) in projects delayed or blocked nationwide, according to a report from pressure group Data Center Watch.

And the concerns aren't just about construction. It's also about water usage. Keeping those servers cool requires a lot of water.

"These are very hot processors," Mark Mills of the National Center for Energy Analytics testified before Congress back in April. "It takes a lot of water to cool them down."

Many centres use evaporative cooling systems, where water absorbs heat and evaporates - similar to how sweat wicks away heat from our bodies. On hot days, a single facility can use millions of gallons.

One study estimates that AI-driven data centres could consume 1.7 trillion gallons of water globally by 2027.

Few places illustrate this tension more clearly than Georgia - one of the fastest-growing data centre markets in the US.

Its humid climate provides a natural and more cost-effective source of water for cooling data centres, making it attractive to developers. But that abundance may come at a cost.

Gordon Rogers is the executive director of Flint Riverkeeper, a non-profit advocacy group that monitors the health of Georgia's Flint River. He takes us to a creek downhill from a new construction site for a data centre being built by US firm Quality Technology Services (QTS).

George Dietz, a local volunteer, scoops up a sample of the water into a clear plastic bag. It's cloudy and brown.

"It shouldn't be that colour," he says. To him, this suggests sediment runoff - and possibly flocculants. These are chemicals used in construction to bind soil and prevent erosion, but if they escape into the water system, they can create sludge.

QTS says its data centres meet high environmental standards and bring millions in local tax revenue.

While construction is often carried out by third-party contractors, local residents are the ones left to deal with the consequences.

"They shouldn't be doing it," Mr Rogers says. "A larger wealthier property owner does not have more property rights than a smaller, less wealthy property owner."

Tech giants say they are aware of the issues and are taking action.

"Our goal is that by 2030, we'll be putting more water back into the watersheds and communities where we're operating data centres, than we're taking out," says Will Hewes, global water stewardship lead at Amazon Web Services (AWS), which runs more data centres than any other company globally.

He says AWS is investing in projects like leak repairs, rainwater harvesting, and using treated wastewater for cooling. In Virginia, the company is working with farmers to reduce nutrient pollution in Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the US.

In South Africa and India - where AWS doesn't use water for cooling - the company is still investing in water access and quality initiatives.

In the Americas, Mr Hewes says, water is only used on about 10% of the hottest days each year.

Still, the numbers add up. A single AI query - for example, a request to ChatGPT - can use about as much water as a small bottle you'd buy from the corner shop. Multiply that by billions of queries a day, and the scale becomes clear.

Prof Rajiv Garg teaches cloud computing at Emory University in Atlanta. He says these data centres aren't going away - if anything, they're becoming the backbone of modern life.

"There's no turning back," Prof Garg says.

But there is a path forward. The key, he argues, is long-term thinking: smarter cooling systems, rainwater harvesting, and more efficient infrastructure.

In the short term, data centres will create "a huge strain", he admits. But the industry is starting to shift toward sustainability.

And yet, that's little consolation to homeowners like Beverly Morris - stuck between yesterday's dream and tomorrow's infrastructure.

Data centres have become more than just an industry trend - they're now part of national policy. President Donald Trump recently vowed to build the largest AI infrastructure project in history, calling it "a future powered by American data".

Back in Georgia, the sun beats down through thick humidity - a reminder of why the state is so attractive to data centre developers.

For locals, the future of tech is already here. And it's loud, thirsty, and sometimes hard to live next to.

As AI grows, the challenge is clear: how to power tomorrow's digital world without draining the most basic resource of all - water.

Correction: This article originally said that Beverly Morris lives in Fayette County, Georgia, and has been amended to explain that she lives in Mansfield, Georgia.

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Is there a secret formula for election-winning slogans?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjel1wlq7vdo, today

Every political campaign needs a good slogan – a snappy phrase to energise voters and skewer opponents.

Some slogans resonate beyond polling day, capturing a national mood or a moment in time - Barack Obama's "Yes, We Can", perhaps, or the Brexit campaign's "Take Back Control".

Others are dead on arrival – clunky, overcomplicated and unmemorable, capturing nothing much beyond the desperation of the committee that devised them.

Now political strategist and pollster Chris Bruni-Lowe claims to have cracked the formula for creating the perfect slogan.

He has analysed 20,000 campaign messages from around the world to come up with eight words that, he says, have been proven to resonate with voters of all political persuasions.

They are: people, better, democracy, new, time, strong, change, together.

He is quick to stress, in his new book Eight Words That Changed The World, that they are not a guarantee of electoral success. They will not help if the candidate using them is an uncharismatic dud, with unpopular policies.

And they can not just be combined in a random order – Strong New Time or People Better Change – to produce results.

They are, rather, "emotional shortcuts", or building blocks for slogan-writers that work across cultures and even languages, Bruni-Lowe says.

"Voters instinctively know what 'people', 'better' or 'together' promise without needing a policy paper.

"They are also remarkably elastic: a socialist in South Africa, a conservative in Luxembourg and a populist in Hungary can all bend the same word to their own story."

The most commonly used word in winning campaigns is "people", according to Bruni- Lowe's analysis - he cites Bill Clinton's 1992 "Putting People First" and "For People, For a Change" as examples of slogans that made a real difference, allowing the presidential candidate to play to his strengths as a "people person" in contrast to his stiff opponent George HW Bush.

But isn't there a danger that following this formula will result in bland, catch-all slogans?

Some of the most effective ones - such as Boris Johnson's 2019 general election slogan "Get Brexit Done" - were devised with a single purpose in mind.

(As were some of the worst, such as "Vote for Al Smith and he'll make your wet dreams come true". The anti-prohibitionist Smith - who wanted to legalise alcohol sales - failed to win the 1928 US presidency.)

Bruni-Lowe argues that "bespoke" slogans like "Get Brexit Done" are the exceptions that prove his rule.

"Bespoke slogans explode when one unresolved grievance crowds out every other issue and a decisive-looking outsider offers a three-word cure; they're brilliant for that election, but useless the moment the storm moves on."

Bruni-Lowe's own contributions to the genre include "Change Politics For Good", for Nigel Farage's Brexit Party, and "It's Time", for Jakov Milatovic's successful 2023 bid to be president of Montenegro on a campaign to get his country to join the EU.

He devotes a chapter of his book to "Make America Great Again" (MAGA), another slogan that does not conform to his rules.

Donald Trump claims to have dreamed it up in 2012, sitting at his desk on the 26th floor of Trump Tower, but "great again" as a political rallying cry dates back more than a century, according to Bruni-Lowe.

In 1950, the Conservative Party unsuccessfully fought a general election on the promise to "Make Britain Great Again". Ronald Reagan had more success in 1980 when he used the slogan "Let's Make America Great Again".

Whether Trump knew any of this when he claimed to have invented the phrase is, in the end, irrelevant, argues Bruni-Lowe - he managed to turn MAGA into brand, and a dividing line that, for better or worse, has reshaped American politics.

He even registering it with US Trademark Office, for a fee of $325, to prevent other politicians using it.

In the UK, the Brexit campaign's "Take Back Control" is probably the most memorable slogan of recent years.

It was part of a trend for shorter, snappier slogans - with the three word formula briefly being seen as a key to success.

Last year, Labour's landslide winning general election campaign boiled its message down to a single word - "Change".

The Conservative slogan - in case you have forgotten it - was "Clear Plan, Bold Action, Secure Future".

But soon there may not be any slogans at all, in the traditional sense.

Artificial Intelligence is increasingly being used to craft messages tailored to the concerns of individual voters, delivered through social media and constantly refined to have the maximum impact.

Bruni-Lowe also highlights a growing interest in neuroscience, and the use of tools such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, which measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow.

This allows researchers to study how people respond neurologically to political stimuli such as campaign ads, speeches and election slogans.

Such trends could fundamentally change democratic politics, reshaping elected representatives' relationship with voters.

They could also rob us of some irritatingly catchy election slogans.

Few fit that bill more than one of the first ever political ads shown on US television, in 1952.

The 60 second spot was aimed at putting a human face on the Republican candidate, the former supreme commander of allied forces in Europe Dwight E Eisenhower, who was widely known by his nickname Ike.

Featuring an insanely infectious jingle by composer Irving Berlin, "I like Ike" was a Disney cartoon aimed at the broadest possible audience,

It was so successful his campaign team saw no need to change the formula for his re-election bid, adding just one word, before, presumably, heading off for an early lunch.

"I still like Ike" doesn't fit Chris Bruni-Lowe's formula - but it did prove to be another winner.

Row over language turns violent in India's richest state

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93kwqvw3jxo, today

For weeks, a battle over language and identity has been raging in India's richest state, Maharashtra.

The row began in April after the Maharashtra government made it compulsory for state-run primary schools to teach Hindi as a third language, apart from English and Marathi (the state's dominant language). This, it said, was in line with a federal policy which mandates that children be taught three languages in school.

The National Education Policy (NEP), introduced in 1968, aims to promote and regulate education in India and the government updates it occasionally. The latest iteration of the policy, introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government five years ago, is being implemented in stages and has run into controversy earlier.

The Maharashtra government's decision met fierce opposition from civil society groups, language activists and opposition leaders who accused it of trying to impose Hindi - predominantly spoken in northern and central Indian states - in the state.

Language is a sensitive issue in India where many states, including Maharashtra, were formed on linguistic lines after independence. The local language is often intrinsically linked to regional pride and identity, and any change to the status quo can be perceived as a threat. For instance, last year, Kannada-language activists in Bengaluru, often called India's Silicon Valley, held protests demanding that billboards be written in the local language and not just English.

But the uneasiness is especially high when it comes to Hindi, the most-spoken language in India. Over the years, steps by various federal governments to promote Hindi have fuelled fears within non-Hindi speaking states that the local culture will be diluted. These worries have been exacerbated by high migration from less-developed Hindi-speaking states to other parts of India, especially the south, in search of jobs.

Abhay Deshpande, a political analyst, says that these anxieties have increased after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014. Top leaders of the BJP - the party is stronger in Hindi-speaking states - have often courted controversy by making remarks about privileging Hindi.

As tensions rose in Maharashtra, the state government - ruled by a BJP-led coalition - revoked its decision and appointed a committee to re-examine the three-language policy. But the controversy refuses to die down.

The row comes months ahead of the long-overdue municipal polls which are set to be held in the state, including in Mumbai city, home to India's richest municipal corporation. It has sparked a political slugfest between the ruling coalition and opposition parties, with each side accusing the other of playing political games.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the erstwhile Shiv Sena, under the leadership of Bal Thackeray, conducted aggressive campaigns against people who had migrated to Mumbai from southern states, accusing them of taking up jobs that should have gone to locals.

In the decades after that, migration patterns changed and the party turned its ire towards people from northern states who were migrating to the city in search of economic opportunities. The party blamed migrants from states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar for taking away jobs.

These tensions look set to continue. According to data from India's last census, there was a 40% increase in Mumbai city's Hindi-speaking population between 2001 and 2011.

These Marathi-centric agitations have earlier resonated with voters, especially in Mumbai, and some believe that it could help the Thackeray cousins in the municipal elections as well.

However, many have criticised this approach.

An editorial in the Indian Express newspaper titled 'Slap In Mumbai's Face' argued that politics centred around linguistic identity was "deeply troubling" and that its parochialism lent itself to violence, something that "should have no place in India's most industrialised state".

Mr Dixit agrees - he thinks that any support garnered by aggressive language agitations is likely to be short-lived.

"People want their leaders to deliver on their promises and focus on real progress, in the form of better jobs and policies, so that life is better for everyone," he says.

Five things Trump should know about Liberia and why they speak 'good English'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y72w17vpwo, today

US President Donald Trump has praised Liberian President Joseph Boakai for speaking "good English" and asked him where he went to school.

What Trump might have missed is that Liberia shares a unique and long-standing historical connection with the US.

Many Liberians speak with an American accent, locally known as American "Serees", which has a heavy intonation of the local language, Koloquoi.

It may have been this intonation that Trump picked up on.

Here are five things to know about the country:

Founded by freed slaves

Liberia was founded by freed African-American slaves in 1822 before declaring independence in 1847.

Thousands of black Americans and liberated Africans - rescued from transatlantic slave ships - settled in Liberia during the colonial era.

Former US President Abraham Lincoln officially declared Liberia's independence in 1862 but the country retained a lot of US heritage and it remained in the American "sphere of influence" during the colonial period.

Due to this integration, Liberian culture, landmarks, and institutions have a heavy African-American influence.

Ten of Liberia's 26 presidents were born in the US.

The capital is named after a former US president

Liberia's capital, Monrovia, was named in honour of America's 5th President, James Monroe, who was a strong supporter of the American Colonization Society (ACS).

The ACS was the organisation responsible for resettling freed African-Americans in West Africa - which eventually led to the founding of Liberia.

Not surprisingly the early architecture of the city was largely influenced by American-style buildings.

Many streets in Monrovia are named after colonial American figures, reflecting the city's founding and historical ties to the US.

Nearly identical flags

The flag of Liberia closely resembles the American flag. It features 11 alternating red and white stripes and a blue square with a single white star.

The white star symbolises Liberia as the first independent republic in Africa.

The US flag, in comparison, has 13 stripes representing the original 13 colonies and 50 stars, one for each state.

The Liberian flag was designed by seven black women - all born in America.

Ex-president's son plays for US football team

Timothy Weah, the son of Liberia's former President George Weah, is an American professional soccer player who plays for Italian club Juventus as well as the US national team.

The 25-year-old forward was born in the US but began his professional career with Paris St-Germain in France, where he won the Ligue 1 title before moving on loan to the Scottish team, Celtic.

His father, George, is a Liberian football legend who won the Ballon d'Or in 1995 while playing for Juventus's Italian rivals AC Milan. He is the only African winner of this award - and went on to be elected president in 2018.

Former president won the Nobel Peace Prize

Liberia produced Africa's first elected female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

She was elected in 2005, two years after the nation's bloody civil war ended, and served as president until 2018.

Sirleaf has a strong American background as she studied at Madison Business College and later went to Harvard University where she graduated as an economist.

She has received worldwide recognition and accolades for maintaining peace during her administration.

Her story is pitted with remarkable feats of defiance and courage.

In 2011, along with Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karmān, she won the Nobel Prize for Peace for her efforts to further women's rights.

In 2016, Forbes listed her among the most powerful women in the world.

More about Liberia from the BBC:

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

Why is Trump targeting Brazil - and will it backfire for Bolsonaro?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crk68drj57mo, today

A message from US President Donald Trump on Wednesday landed like a grenade in Brazil, bringing the relationship between the two countries to an all-time low.

Trump pledged to impose tariffs on Brazil at a rate as high as 50%. He accused the country of "attacks" on US tech companies and of conducting a "witch hunt" against the far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, a longstanding ally who is facing prosecution over his alleged role in a plot to overturn the 2022 Brazilian election.

The move follows a fresh round of political sparring between Trump and the current Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. It further strained a relationship that was already tense.

Trump had earlier threatened members of the BRICS group - of which Brazil is a part - with tariffs, accusing those countries of anti-American positions.

The bloc includes India, Russia and China and has grown to include Iran. It was designed to counterbalance US influence in the world.

Lula replied to Trump's tariff threat in a post on X, writing that "Brazil is a sovereign nation with independent institutions and will not accept any form of tutelage".

Trump has unleashed a wide-ranging programme of tariffs - or import taxes - since he returned to office in January. He argues that these will boost US manufacturing and protect jobs, though he has also used them to pursue political ends.

This appears to be true in the case of Brazil, too.

Lula's government said it would reciprocate - probably meaning equal tariffs on American products. But it is not clear how that would happen, or whether Brazil has the economic clout to face the consequences of an escalation.

In the meantime, many Brazilians are asking why Trump has targeted their country and how this new saga might play out.

Defending an old ally

Brazil is one of the relatively few countries that buys more from the US than it sells - a setup which theoretically suits Trump's trade agenda.

Given this imbalance, the tariff threat was seen by many Brazilian analysts and politicians as an overt gesture of support for Jair Bolsonaro.

This was underscored by Trump's letter, which strongly criticised the Brazilian government and Bolsonaro's ongoing trial in the Supreme Court that centres on an alleged coup attempt two years ago.

Some kind of assistance for Bolsonaro from Trump was already expected by Brazilian politicians - but not on this scale.

On 8 January 2023, hundreds of Bolsonaro's supporters stormed Brazil's Congress, Supreme Court, and the presidential palace - in an apparent attempt to overturn the election won by Lula a few months earlier.

Bolsonaro denies any connection to that event, which was seen by many as a Brazilian version of the attacks on the US Capitol building by Trump's supporters two years before. Trump, too, was investigated in the aftermath of the US riot - and condemned those who tried to prosecute him.

Bolsonaro's supporters have asked for some kind of Trump support for months. His son Eduardo took a leave of absence from Brazil's Congress, where he serves as a representative, and moved to the US. A Mar-a-Lago regular, he has aimed to rally support for his father from Trump's inner circle and his broader MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement.

In another part of his missive seen as firmly backing Bolsonaro, Trump accused the Brazilian government of "insidious attacks on Free Elections, and the fundamental Free Speech Rights of Americans", including the censorship of "US Social Media platforms".

As part of an ongoing investigation into the spread of disinformation in the country, Brazil's Supreme Court has, in recent years, ordered the blocking of several social media accounts - many of them belonging to Bolsonaro's supporters.

Boost for Bolsonaro…

Brazil's authorities and businesses are scrambling to calculate the economic impact of the potential tariffs, but the political consequences could also be huge.

The words used by Trump suggest that Bolsonaro has a political proximity to the American president that few Brazilian or Latin American politicians could dream of.

The letter will be seen as a powerful endorsement for Bolsonaro, who wants to run for president again - despite being banned from doing so until 2030 by the country's top electoral court.

The former president's supporters have made political capital of the threatened tariffs, suggesting that the blame lies firmly with Lula, the current president.

"Lula put ideology ahead of economics, and this is the result. The responsibility lies with those in power. Narratives won't solve the problem," said São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas, a staunch ally.

Yet some analysts and politicians say that in time, Trump's gesture could backfire for Bolsonaro.

The US is Brazil's second most important trade partner, behind only China.

And some of the sectors that could be most affected by a new round of American tariffs are those closely aligned with Bolsonaro's political base - particularly agribusiness. There are growing concerns over the potential impact on Brazilian exports of oranges, coffee, and beef to the US.

… Or lifeline for Lula?

Rather than playing into Bolsonaro's hands, Trump's tariff threat could serve as a lifeline for Lula, who has been struggling with falling popularity rates and difficulties in dealing with Congress.

A poll released in May suggested that 55% of the Brazilians disapprove of Trump. And a new wave of tariffs is unlikely to shift that sentiment.

Just after Trump's announcement, Lula and other members of the Brazilian left-wing reacted by playing a nationalist tune - talking about sovereignty and trying to blame Bolsonaro for the possible economic consequences of the tariffs.

Yet among centrist politicians, the reactions to Trump's threats have also been largely negative.

"No citizen, especially representatives elected by the people, can tolerate foreign aggression against Brazil, regardless of the alleged justification. It's time for true patriotism," wrote Alessandro Vieira, a centrist senator who usually has a critical stance against Lula.

Some analysts argue that this could generate a rally-around-the-flag effect for Lula, who is in dire need of a political boost.

"Even Lula's critics may see Trump's move as an attack on national sovereignty and the independence of the judiciary," said Oliver Stuenkel, a professor at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) and a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank in Washington.

Brazil's presidential election in October 2026 is still some way off, but some analysts are already drawing comparisons with Canada, where a right-wing candidate who had initially drawn comparisons to Trump lost this year to a more centrist opponent who openly campaigned against the US leader.

With Bolsonar himself unable to run, allies are already disputing which candidate will represent the Brazilian right at the polls.

On social media - where much of the political debate happens - memes of possible Bolsonaro-backed candidates were being shared by the thousands on Thursday, often with words of criticism connected to Trump's move.

One showed Tarcísio, the Sao Paolo governor and a probable candidate, wearing a Trump MAGA hat.

With his threat of tariffs, Trump has caused a potential storm not only for Brazil's economy - but also its political future.

Four arrested in connection with M&S and Co-op cyber-attacks

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwykgrv374eo, today

Four people have been arrested by police investigating the cyber-attacks that have caused havoc at M&S and the Co-op.

The National Crime Agency says a 20 year old woman was arrested in Staffordshire, and three males - aged between 17 and 19 - were detained in London and the West Midlands.

They were apprehended on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act offences, blackmail, money laundering and participating in the activities of an organised crime group.

All four were arrested at their homes in the early hours on Thursday. Electronic devices were also seized by the police.

Paul Foster, head of the NCA's National Cyber Crime Unit, said the arrests were a "significant step" in its investigation.

"But our work continues, alongside partners in the UK and overseas, to ensure those responsible are identified and brought to justice," he added.

The hacks - which began in mid April - have caused huge disruption for the two retailers.

Some Co-op shelves were left bare for weeks, while M&S expects its operations to be affected until late July, with some IT systems not fully operational until October or November.

The chairman of M&S told MPs this week that it felt like the hack was an attempt to destroy the business. The retailer has estimated it will cost it £300m in lost profits.

Harrods was also targeted in an attack that had less impact on its operations.

A wave of attacks

M&S was the first to be breached. A huge amount of private data belonging to customers and staff was stolen.

The criminals also deployed malicious software called ransomware scrambling the company's IT networks making them unusable unless a ransom was paid.

The BBC revealed that the hackers had sent an offensive email to the M&S boss demanding payment.

A few days after M&S was breached the Co-op was also targeted by the criminals who broke in and stole the private data of millions of its and staff.

The Co-op was forced to admit that the data breach had happened after hackers contacted the BBC with proof that the firm was downplaying the cyber attack.

The BBC later discovered from the criminals that the company disconnected the internet from IT networks in the nick of time to stop the hackers from deploying ransomware and so causing even more disruption.

Shortly after Co-op announced it had been attacked, luxury retailer Harrods said it too had been targeted and had been forced to disconnect IT systems from the internet to keep the criminals out.

Mahmoud Khalil files $20m claim against Trump administration

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg4188gl4zo, today

Columbia university graduate Mahmoud Khalil is suing the US government, weeks after spending more than 100 days in immigration detention for participating in pro-Palestinian protests on the New York university campus.

On Thursday, his lawyers filed a claim for $20m (£14.7m) in damages alleging false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and being smeared as an antisemite.

Mr Khalil was arrested by immigration agents on 8 March. The US government wants to deport him, arguing his activism is detrimental to its foreign policy interests.

A federal judge ruled in late June that Mr Khalil was not a flight risk or threat to his community and could be released as his immigration proceedings continue.

In the claim, his lawyers argue Mr Khalil was subject to false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, the intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent actions which led to emotional distress.

They said these "harms" are the result of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's determination that Mr Khalil "posed serious and adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest".

They argued that Rubio's determination was used to target non-citizens who "participated in protests of Israel's genocide in Gaza and the United States' support for it".

Israel denies the accusations of genocide in the Palestinian enclave.

In a statement carried by the Associated Press (AP) Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said Mr Khalil's claim was "absurd", and accused him of "hateful behavior and rhetoric" that threatened Jewish students.

The BBC has reached out to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment.

In an AP interview , Mr Khalil said he was seeking accountability from the Trump administration for his detention and "for the chilling effect that such actions had on core community, the group supporting Palestine, on students in general, and just on the American public as well".

He said he is seeking either the $20m or an official apology from the Trump administration "for the wrongdoings that they did against me and against others".

"What they did to me is they tried something, it failed, but still the harm is already there. So unless they feel that there's some sort of accountability for that, they will continue to go unchecked," he continued.

Mr Khalil, a permanent US resident, was arrested in early March from his home in New York in front of his pregnant wife.

He was held in an immigration facility in Louisiana for three months before a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration could no longer detain or deport him. On 20 June, a judge ruled Mr Khalil must be released.

He was unable to be there for the birth of his first child, saying that is "something I will never forgive".

Mr Khalil, a Palestinian refugee raised in Syria, was lead student negotiator during pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University in New York City last year.

Several others who criticised Israel's war in Gaza, including Turkish student Rümeysa Öztürk and Indian scholar Badar Khan Suri were also detained. They have since been released.

Canadian premier accuses US lawmakers of 'trying to trivialise' wildfires

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg9jrxvjpjo, today

A Canadian premier has accused a group of US lawmakers who demanded the country do more to tackle its wildfires of "trying to trivialise" a deadly situation.

Smoke from the fires is making it difficult for Americans to enjoy summer, six members of Congress said in a letter to Canada's embassy this week.

The premier of Manitoba, which has just declared a state of emergency for a second time this summer due to active blazes, praised US firefighters who are assisting the province.

"I would challenge these ambulance chasers in the US Congress to go and do the same, and to hear how much the American firefighting heroes who are here love our province," Wab Kinew said on Thursday.

'Autofocus' specs promise sharp vision, near or far

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6r06d7xdjo, today

They look like an ordinary pair of glasses – but these are tech-packed specs.

On a Zoom call, Niko Eiden, chief executive and co-founder of Finnish eyewear firm IXI, holds up the frames with lenses containing liquid crystals, meaning their vision-correcting properties can change on the fly.

This one pair could correct the vision of someone who normally uses totally different pairs of glasses for seeing near or far.

"These liquid crystals… we can rotate them with an electrical field," explains Mr Eiden.

"It's totally, freely tuneable." The position of those crystals affects the passage of light through the lenses. A built-in eye-tracker allows the glasses to respond to whatever correction the wearer needs at a given moment.

However, tech-laden eyewear has a troubled history – take Google's ill-fated "Glass" smart glasses.

Consumer acceptability is key, acknowledges Mr Eiden. Most people don't want to look like cyborgs: "We need to make our products actually look like existing eyewear."

The market for eyewear tech is likely to grow.

Presbyopia, an age-related condition that makes it harder to focus on things close to you, is projected to become more common over time as the world's population ages. And myopia, or short-sightedness, is also on the rise.

Spectacles have remained largely the same for decades. Bifocal lenses – in which a lens is split into two regions, usually for either near- or far-sightedness – require the wearer to direct their vision through the relevant region, depending on what they want to look at, in order to see clearly.

Varifocals do a similar job but the transitions are much smoother.

In contrast, auto-focus lenses promise to adjust part or all of the lens spontaneously, and even accommodate the wearer's changing eyesight over time.

"The first lenses that we produced were horrible," admits Mr Eiden, candidly.

Those early prototypes were "hazy", he says, and with the lens quality noticeably poor at its edges.

But newer versions have proved promising in tests, says Mr Eiden. Participants in the company's trials have been asked, for example, to read something on a page, then look at an object in the distance, to see whether the glasses respond smoothly to the transition.

Mr Eiden says that the eye tracking device within the spectacles cannot determine exactly what a wearer is looking at, though certain activities such as reading are in principle detectable because of the nature of eye movements associated with them.

Since such glasses respond so closely to the wearer's eye behaviour, it's important the frames fit well, says Emilia Helin, product director.

IXI's frames are adjustable but not to a great degree, given the delicate electronics inside, she explains: "We have some flexibility but not full flexibility." That's why IXI hopes to ensure that the small range of frames it has designed would suit a wide variety of faces.

The small battery secreted inside IXI's autofocus frames should last for two days, says Mr Eiden, adding that it's possible to recharge the specs overnight while the wearer is asleep.

But he won't be drawn on a launch date, which he intends to reveal later this year. As for cost, I ask whether £1,000 might be the sort of price tag he has in mind. He merely says, "I'm smiling when you say it but I won't confirm."

Autofocus lenses could help people who struggle with varifocals or bifocals, says Paramdeep Bilkhu, clinical adviser at the College of Optometrists.

However, he adds, "There is insufficient evidence to state whether they perform as well as traditional options and whether they can be used for safety critical tasks such as driving."

Chi-Ho To, an optometry researcher, at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University has a similar concern – what if the vision correction went wrong or was delayed slightly while he was, say, performing surgery on someone?

"But I think in terms of general use having something that allows autofocusing is a good idea," he adds.

Mr Eiden notes that the first version of his company's lenses will not alter the entire lens area. "One can always glance over the dynamic area," he says. If wholly self-adjusting lenses emerge then safety will become "a much more serious business", he adds.

In 2013, UK firm Adlens released glasses that allowed wearers to manually change the optical power of the lenses via a small dial on the frames. These lenses contained a fluid-filled membrane, which when compressed in response to dial adjustments would alter its curvature.

Adlens' current chief executive Rob Stevens says the specs sold for $1,250 (£920) in the US and were "well received by consumers" but not so much by opticians, which he says "strangled sales".

Since then, technology has moved on and the concept of lenses that refocus themselves automatically, without manual interventions, has emerged.

Like IXI and other companies, Adlens is working on glasses that do this. However, Mr Stevens declines to confirm a launch date.

Joshua Silver, an Oxford University physicist, founded Adlens but no longer works for the company.

He came up with the idea of fluid-filled adjustable lenses back in 1985 and developed glasses that could be tuned to the wearer's needs and then permanently set to that prescription.

Such lenses have enabled roughly 100,000 people in 20 countries to access vision correcting technology. Prof Silver is currently seeking investment for a venture called Vision, which would further rollout these glasses.

As for more expensive, electronics-filled auto-focus specs, he questions whether they will have broad appeal: "Wouldn't [people] just go and buy reading glasses, which would more or less do the same thing for them?"

Other specs tech is even slowing down the progression of eye conditions such as myopia, beyond just correcting for them.

Prof To has developed glasses lenses that have a honeycomb-like ring in them. Light passing through the centre of the ring, focused as normal, reaches the wearer's retina and allows them to see clearly.

However, light passing through the ring itself is defocused slightly meaning that the peripheral retina gets a slightly blurred image.

This appears to slow improper eyeball growth in children, which Prof To says cuts the rate of short-sightedness progression by 60%. Glasses with this technology are now in use in more than 30 countries, he adds.

British firm SightGlass has a slightly different approach – glasses that gently reduce the contrast of someone's vision to similarly affect eye growth and myopia progression.

While autofocus glasses and other high-tech solutions may have promise, Prof To has an even bigger goal: glasses that don't just slow down myopia but actually reverse it slightly – a tantalising prospect that could improve the vision of potentially billions of people.

"There is growing evidence that you can do it," teases Prof To.

Pakistan police arrest 149 people in 'scam call centre' raid

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqjq2jd0y52o, today

Pakistan police have arrested 149 people in a raid on a scam call centre, the country's National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) said on Thursday.

The agency told the BBC it acted after a tip-off about the network, which was operating in the city of Faisalabad.

It said the centre was involved in Ponzi schemes and tricked people into handing over vast sums of money in the name of fake investments.

Those arrested included 78 Pakistanis, 48 Chinese nationals, eight Nigerians, four Filipinos, two Sri Lankans, six Bangladeshis, two Myanmar nationals and one Zimbabwean national.

Eighteen of the 149 were women, the agency added.

A copy of a police report said victims of the alleged scam would initially receive a small return on their first investments, before being persuaded to hand over larger sums of money.

"The charged individuals ran WhatsApp groups where they lured ordinary people by assigning small investment tasks like subscribing to different TikTok and YouTube channels," the agency said.

"Later, they shifted them to Telegram links for further online tasks requiring larger investments."

Pakistani citizen Muhammad Sajid told BBC Urdu that he was added to a Telegram channel with tens of thousands of members and was impressed by the company's work. He said he gave them more than 3.138 million rupees ($36,600) in various instalments.

The raid, which took place on Tuesday, saw authorities seize hundreds of computers, servers, cryptocurrency exchanges and foreign SIM cards from the site.

On Wednesday, 149 suspects appeared in court, 87 of whom were handed over to the NCCIA on a five-day physical remand.

A further 62 suspects have been transferred to the district jail on judicial remand until 23 July.

The agency said the raid was at the residence of Malik Tehseen Awan, the former head of Faisalabad's power grid, who has not been arrested.

US government to invest in rare earths production

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3r91rngq2do, today

The US government is to become the biggest shareholder in the country's only operational rare earths mine.

It is also going to take a series of other steps to underpin the future of the operation in Mountain Pass, California.

Rare earths are essential to huge amounts of modern technology, such as electric cars and wind turbines.

Access to these metals has been at the heart of a US-China trade war, with Beijing controlling about 90% of global mining capacity.

MP Materials, which owns the mine, has entered into an agreement with the US Department of Defense that is designed to reduce America's dependency on imports of rare earths.

The deal means that for the next 10 years the US government will commit to MP Materials receiving a minimum price of $110 per kg for its neodymium and praseodymium output.

These are two of the most in-demand of the 17 different rare earths for the global economy. They are crucial for making permanent magnets, which are found in everything from smartphones to MRI scanners and electric motors.

The move follows concerns that China has used its near total control of the industry to push prices down and force companies in other countries out of business.

China is home to about 70% of the world's rare earth mining and 90% of refining capacity as a result of years of government support for the industry.

Under the agreement, MP Materials will build a new US facility to increase how much of the raw materials from the mine it can turn into useable products.

The location is still to be decided, but the company says it will serve both defence and commercial customers.

Much of this will be funded by the Department of Defense buying $400m of newly created shares.

"This initiative marks a decisive action by the Trump administration to accelerate American supply chain independence," said MP Materials founder and chief executive James Litinsky.

Until now Shenghe Resources, a company partly owned by the Chinese government, has been one of MP Materials' largest shareholders.

Shenghe had been the sole customer for the output of the Californian mine, which meant that its rare earths were being sent to China for refining.

Earlier this year, MP Materials said that it would stop doing this because of the huge 125% tariffs that China imposed on US goods, in response to the 145% tariffs President Trump had imposed on Chinese imports.

It added that tariffs meant sending its output to China was neither commercially viable nor in alignment with America's national interests.

Rare earths have been at the heart of efforts to repair a US-China trade relationship that has deteriorated since Trump returned to the White House.

Increased tariffs led Beijing to impose a new export licensing regime that severely limited how much of these materials was reaching American manufacturers.

An agreement to improve that access, in exchange for lifting some of the US's own export restrictions in other areas, was at the heart of recent trade talks between the world's two biggest economies in London and Geneva.

Despite that commitment the US complained that it has not been implemented fast enough.

In the longer term, domestic supplies are the US's best bet on increasing access to the rare earths which are crucial to the manufacturing that is at the heart of Trump's economic vision for the country.

China's export controls have also led to criticism in Europe, with the European Parliament voting in favour of a resolution that called Beijing's controls "unjustified" and "intended to be coercive".

They also urged the European Commission to speed up the implementation of the Critical Raw Materials Act, which came into force last year and is designed to reduce Europe's reliance on imports.

On a visit to Germany last week, China's foreign minister downplayed these concerns, saying it was his country's "sovereign right" as well as being "common practice" to control exports of goods that have both commercial as well as military uses.

Brazil vows to match US tariffs after Trump threatens 50% levy

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62dvyv60z7o, today

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has said he is ready to match any tariffs imposed on Brazil by the United States.

Lula was responding to Wednesday's threat by his US counterpart, Donald Trump, to impose a 50% import tax on Brazilian goods from 1 August.

In a letter, Trump cited Brazil's treatment of former President Jair Bolsonaro as a trigger for tariff-hike.

Bolsonaro is currently on trial for allegedly attempting to stage a coup against Lula after being defeated by him in the 2022 election.

Trump referred to Bolsonaro as "a highly respected leader throughout the world". "This Trial should not be taking place," he wrote, calling on Brazil to immediately end the "witch hunt" against the former president.

Trump's support for Bolsonaro does not come as a surprise as the two men have long been considered allies.

The US president had already slammed Brazil for its treatment of Bolsonaro on Monday, comparing it to the legal cases he himself had faced in US courts.

The 50% tariff threat was met with a robust and lengthy response by President Lula.

In a post on X, he stressed that Brazil was "a sovereign country with independent institutions and will not accept any tutelage".

The Brazilian leader also announced that "any unilateral tariff increases" would be met with reciprocal tariffs imposed on US goods.

The US is Brazil's second-largest trade partner after China, so the hike from a tariff rate of 10% to an eye-watering 50% - if it comes into force - would hit the South American nation hard.

But Lula also made a point of challenging Trump's assertion that the US had a trade deficit with Brazil, calling it "inaccurate".

Lula's rebuttal is backed up by US government data, which suggests the US had a goods trade surplus with Brazil of $7.4bn (£5.4bn) in 2024.

Brazil is the US's 15th largest trading partner and among its main imports from the US are mineral fuels, aircraft and machinery.

For its part, the US imports gas and petroleum, iron, and coffee from Brazil.

Brazil was not the only country Trump threatened with higher tariffs on Wednesday.

Japan, South Korea and Sri Lanka were among 22 nations which received letters warning of higher levies.

But the letter Trump sent to his Brazilian counterpart was the only one focussing matters beyond alleged trade deficits.

As well as denouncing the treatment of ex-President Bolsonaro, Trump slammed what he said were "secret and unlawful censorship orders to US social media platforms" which he said Brazil had imposed.

Trump Media, which operates the US president's Truth Social platform and is majority-owned by him, is among the US tech companies fighting Brazilian court rulings over orders suspending social media accounts.

Lula fought back on that front too, justifying the rulings by arguing that "Brazilian society rejects hateful content, racism, child pornography, scams, fraud, and speeches against human rights and democratic freedom".

Rafael Cortez, a political scientist with Brazilian consulting firm Tendências Consultoria, told BBC News Brasil that rather than hurt him, the overly political tone of Trump's letter could end up benefitting Lula.

"Those confronting Trump win at home when Trump and other conservative leaders speak out on issues pertaining to their countries. That happened, to a certain degree, in Mexico, and the elections in Canada and Australia," Mr Cortez says of other leaders who have challenged Trump and reaped the rewards in the form of rising popularity levels.

Creomar de Souza of the political risk consultancy Dharma Politics told BBC News Mundo's Mariana Schreiber that it would depend on the Lula government coming up with organised and united response if it is to "score a goal" against Trump.

Original Birkin bag shatters record with £7m sale

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly8zvexp42o, today

The original Birkin bag, which set the template for arguably the most coveted accessory in fashion history, has been bought for €8.6m (£7.4m; $10.1m), becoming the most valuable handbag ever sold at auction.

The black leather bag was made for singer Jane Birkin in 1985 after she spilled her belongings while sitting next to the boss of luxury fashion house Hermès on a flight.

She asked why they didn't make bigger bags, so he sketched out the design for a new, more practical but still highly desirable item on the aeroplane's sick bag.

The prototype he made was sold to a private collector from Japan at Sotheby's in Paris on Thursday, far surpassing the $513,000 (£378,000; €439,000) previous record sale.

The auction house said there was an "electrifying" 10-minute bidding war between "nine determined collectors".

Morgane Halimi, Sotheby's global head of handbags and fashion, said the price was a "startling demonstration of the power of a legend and its capacity to ignite the passion and desire of collectors seeking exceptional items with unique provenance, to own its origin".

She added: "The Birkin prototype is exactly that, the starting point of an extraordinary story that has given us a modern icon, the Birkin bag, the most coveted handbag in the world."

The €8,582,500 total includes commission and fees. Sotheby's did not publish a pre-auction estimate.

After creating the bag for the Anglo-French singer and actress, Hermès put the bag into commercial production, and it remains one of the most exclusive status symbols in fashion.

Some styles cost many tens of thousands of dollars and have waiting lists of years, with owners including celebrities like Kate Moss, Victoria Beckham and Jennifer Lopez.

The original has some unique features, such as Birkin's initials on the front flap, a non-removable shoulder strap, the nail clippers she kept attached to the strap, and marks where she put stickers for causes she supported, such as Médecins du Monde and Unicef.

Birkin, who died in 2023 at the age of 76, owned the original bag for a decade and donated it to an auction to raise funds for an Aids charity in 1994.

It was later bought by Catherine Benier, who has a luxury boutique in Paris, who owned it for 25 years before selling it on Thursday.

Sotheby's said the previous record price for a handbag was set by a White Himalaya Niloticus Crocodile Diamond Retourne Kelly 28 in 2021.

When to book and where to stay: Six ways to save money on your summer holiday

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq6mvn699v9o, today

Prices for all-inclusive family package holidays in some of the most popular desinations have soared over the past year.

But there are ways of saving money if you want to escape abroad. Here are six tips to help keep costs down.

1. Book early for July and August

The price you pay for your accommodation depends on when you book.

July and August are the peak months for summer holidays, not just for Brits but for people in other parts of Europe.

"If you've ever been to Paris in August there's hardly anyone there, everybody goes to the beach or heads for the mountains," says Sean Tipton, spokesperson for The Travel Association (ABTA), which represents tour operators and travel agents.

"That's when the hotels put their prices up," he says. Therefore, it is usually cheaper to book a holiday aboard for June or September.

If you do have to go during the peak months, Mr Tipton says: "It is generally a good idea to book it as early as you can.

"It can be a bit of a lottery because you can't 100% predict what the demand will be but as a rule of thumb in the majority of cases if you know you're travelling in July, August or over Christmas or Easter, book early."

2. Fly mid-week and early in the morning

The best time to travel is the middle of the week, according to Mr Tipton.

"The weekend is the most expensive time to go because people prefer to fly over the weekend so if you fly mid-week it is generally cheaper," he says.

"Just simple little things like that get the price down."

The same goes for the time of the day you travel.

"It is common sense really," he says. "I don't particularly like getting up at 3am for a 6am flight and I'm not alone in that so those flights will be consequently cheaper."

3. Book a hotel room late

If you have some flexibility around when you can travel, there are some last minute bargains to be had.

Package holiday operators may have booked a lot of hotel space in advance which they may not have been able to sell at the holiday date approaches.

"They'll discount it just to make sure they get something for it," says Mr Tipton.

"Travel agents get sent notifications of last minute good deals so they're a good place to go if you've left it late and you want a good, cheap deal."

Another option is house-swapping. Instead of paying for a hotel or villa, people can register with an online platform which acts as a fixer between homeowners in different countries who want to stay in other's houses.

Justine Palefsky, co-founder and chief executive of Kindred, says that people who register with her site pay only a service and a cleaning fee.

For example, someone booking a seven night stay at a three bedroom house in Majorca would pay a $140 (£103) service fee to Kindred as well as $140 for cleaning before and after a stay in the house.

Ms Hawkes advises that travellers go through a reputable site if they are choosing a house-swap.

"People need to be wary of social media ads at this time of year, advertising cheap holidays because scammers do tend to use those portals to show you images of a wonderful location.

"Then when you book it and do you bank transfer, you find it doesn't exsist," she says.

She recommends doing a reverse image search on websites such as Google to check the images haven't been lifted from somewhere else to promote a home that doesn't exist.

4. Pay in the local currency

Avoid changing money at the airport, says Alastair Douglas, chief executive at TotallyMoney, a price comparison site.

"Airports are normally the most expensive places to change cash," he says.

Instead, change your money well in advance.

Mr Douglas says that if people are worried about exhange rate shifting between booking a holiday and the date of departure they can "hedge their bets" by changing half in advance and half nearer the time.

However, he says that people don't really travel with lots of cash anymore. Most spending is done on cards.

This is a good thing, Mr Douglas says, because it will often allow you to select the local currency which is "probably the thing that will save you the most amount of money".

5. Weigh your bags

Even before you reach your destination, costs can pile up. Make sure you print out your boarding pass ahead of time.

"Some airlines can charge a lot of money just to print out at the airport," says Nicky Kelvin, editor at The Points Guy website. "Not all of them but just be safe."

If you're bringing a small suitcase on board the plane, bear in mind both the weight and the size of the luggage if you have to measure it in a metal sizer at the airport.

If it doesn't fit, you may be charged a fee to check it into the plane's hold.

Ms Hawkes recommends documenting the luggage dimensions an airline provides on its website just in case you have followed them but get to the airport and discover your bag does not fit.

"In that case, if the airline makes you put it in the hold and you've adhered to their website conditions, document everything and make a complaint after," she says.

6. Buy toiletries in advance

Food, drink and toiletries are often more expensive at the airport.

One of the reasons, according to Mr Kelvin, is because of the 100ml onboard liquid rule. While restrictions have recently been relaxed at airports in Edinburgh and Birmingham, it applies everywhere else in the UK.

One way to cut costs is to order your suncream or other toiletries online and pick them up in-store at the airport once you've been through security.

Some retailers allow you to do this, Mr Kelvin tells the BBC's Morning Live programme.

"So it's a double whammy - you're going to save because you're going to get the cheaper online pricing and you're going to avoid the security issue because you're going to pick up your big liquids after."

Another cost-saving tip is to take a water bottle with you. Most airports have free water refill stations.

He also recommends taking along your own snacks in lunch boxes, especially handy if you're travelling with children.

How Trump's tariff chaos could reshape Asia's businesses

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czeyrrnjjnpo, 4 days ago

Tan Yew Kong, who works at one of the world's largest chipmakers, says his company is like a tailor's shop - it customises chips to meet client's needs.

"We provide the fabric, we provide the cufflinks and everything. You tell us what you like, what design you like and we make it for you," says Mr Tan, who runs GlobalFoundries' operations in Singapore.

Nowadays, the firm is also customising its future to accommodate US President Donald Trump's unpredictable tariff policy.

Businesses and countries have been offering to appease Washington ahead of 9 July, when the 90-day pause on Trump's steep "Liberation Day" tariffs ends. And yet again, it's unclear what happens next.

The president said on Friday that the US government is to start sending out letters with details of higher tariff rates that will take effect on 1 August.

He said as many as 12 letters will be sent out over the coming days and the levies will range from "60% or 70% tariffs to 10 to 20% tariffs" but did not name the countries due to receive them.

So far, semiconductors are exempt from tariffs but Trump has threatened levies on them several times, and that uncertainty is making it near impossible for businesses to plan for the future.

Also last week Bloomberg reported the White House is planning to further tighten controls over artificial intelligence (AI) chips by restricting shipments to Malaysia and Thailand to crack down on suspected smuggling of the technology to China.

The US Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a BBC request for comment.

You cannot "flip the switch every other alternate week or day. That makes it very difficult for businesses to plan long term", Mr Tan says.

US-headquartered GlobalFoundries is contracted by some of the world's biggest semiconductor designers and manufacturers - AMD, Broadcom, Qualcomm - to make their chips.

Its operations are spread across the world, with many in Asia, from India to South Korea. It recently announced plans to increase its investments to $16bn (£11.7bn) as demand for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware skyrockets.

To protect that sprawling footprint, the company has also pledged to work with the Trump administration to move parts of its chip manufacturing and supply chain to US soil.

Chip manufacturers, textile producers and car industry suppliers - whose tightly-knit supply chains run through Asia - are rushing to fulfil orders, cut costs and find new customers as they navigate a market in turmoil.

"Businesses need to rethink buffers, increasing their inventory and lead times to account for volatility," said Aparna Bharadwaj of Boston Consulting Group. She adds this could create new opportunities, but also impact their competitiveness and market share in certain countries. In other words, it's hard to say.

"Uncertainty is the new normal."

Winners and losers

When Trump announced levies in April against much of the world, some of the steepest rates were aimed at Asian economies - from long-time allies Japan (24%) and South Korea (25%) to major trading partner Vietnam (46%).

He then hit pause soon after, lowering tariffs on most countries to 10% for the next 90 days. Still the higher rates could return as early as Wednesday.

Malaysia's prime minister has said tariffs will adversely affect many industries, including textiles, furniture, rubber and plastics. Singapore will be subject to a 10% levy despite having a free trade deal with the US - the prime minister said these are "not actions one does to a friend".

South East Asian countries accounted for 7.2% of global GDP in 2024. So the extra costs that come with tariffs could have severe, long-lasting effects.

In the region only Vietnam has managed to strike a deal so far - US imports from there will now face 20% tariffs, while US exports to Hanoi will face no levies.

Japan and South Korea have been pursuing trade negotiations during the pause, although Trump has threatened Tokyo with an even higher rate - up to 35% - as the deadline looms.

Japanese car makers could be amongst the worst hit. Companies including Mazda have said they are in survival mode because of the time and lengthy processes involved in changing suppliers and adapting their business.

Australia, despite being a key security ally and importing more US goods than it exports, has said it has been telling Washington the rate on it "should be zero".

Indonesia and Thailand have offered to buy more American products and reduce taxes on US imports.

Poorer countries like Cambodia, which have limited bargaining power, face a staggering 49% tariff but cannot afford to buy more US goods.

"Asian economies are reliant on both China and the US... they sort of sit at the heart of the global supply chain," said Pushan Dutt, professor of economics and political science at INSEAD.

"If there are shifts in this global supply chain, if there are shifts in trading patterns, it is going to be much more difficult for them."

He adds that countries with big domestic demand like India may be insulated from trade shocks, but economies that are more reliant on exports - like Singapore, Vietnam and even China - will see a major impact.

A new world order?

In the years after Trump was first elected, Singapore and Malaysia invested in growth industries like chip manufacturing and data centres.

It was partly about so-called friend-shoring – where companies make goods in countries that have good relations with the US. Asian economies also benefited from a "China + 1" supply chain strategy, which involved firms diversifying supply chains beyond China and Taiwan to South East Asian countries.

All of this was to be able to continue reaching the US, which Ms Bharadwaj says is "a critical market for many".

"No matter what happens with tariffs, the US remains an important customer for many Asian businesses," she adds. "It's the largest world economy and has a dynamic consumer base."

Beyond the South East Asian producers, Trump's tariffs also raise costs for American companies that have been operating in the region for decades.

The clothing and footwear industry stands to suffer - brands like Nike have long outsourced manufacturing to countries like Vietnam and Indonesia.

Some US brands have already said they'll need to pass costs onto customers because tariffs make the price of imported goods significantly higher.

Experts say foreign investments could shift from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to countries with lower tariffs, like the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Businesses may also look for new customers - with the European Union, the Middle East and Latin America emerging as alternative markets.

The chip industry is "no longer doing globalisation but more of a regionalisation," said Mr Tan of GlobalFoundries. "Find a place that we feel safe. We feel that the supply will be continued. And people will have to get used to the fact that it is not as cheap as it used to be."

Just as Asia's trade alliances shift, the US has emerged as an increasingly unreliable partner.

"This has actually created a massive opportunity for China to become, sort of, guardian of the world trading order," Prof Dutt says.

The US-Vietnam deal is only the third announced so far, after agreements with the UK and China. Until more happen, businesses and economies in Asia may have to forge a new path.

"As the US and others embrace increased protectionism, Asia is moving in the opposite direction, as pro-business governments are increasing trade openness," Ms Bharadwaj says.

"Tariffs are accelerating two macro trends: slowing of trade between China and the West, and accelerating trade between China... and emerging Asian countries."

Trump's policies have created trade turmoil that could transform the global economic order, and the US may not necessarily come out as the winner.

Prof Dutt sums up what is happening in the words of an old proverb: "Bow to the ruler, and then go your own way."

Video game actors' strike officially ends after AI deal

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ykx117keqo, today

Video game actors have voted to end a year-long strike over artificial intelligence (AI) protections.

About 2,500 members of US union SAG-Aftra were involved in the action against 10 of the biggest companies in the industry, including Activision and Electronic Arts.

Both sides had spent months hashing out a deal over the use of AI to replicate an actor's performance - and "guardrails" to prevent this from happening.

The union said 95% of those who voted had backed the agreement, which also included changes to pay and health and safety protections.

Both sides had already been locked in negotiations for about 18 months when the strike began last July.

At the time, SAG-Aftra said they had agreed on 24 out of 25 disputed areas but the sticking point was using AI to replicate human performances.

The big barrier was a disagreement over motion capture actors whose work was treated as "data" rather than as a performance.

In a statement released after the vote to end the strike, the union said a new contract secured "consent and disclosure requirements for AI digital replica use".

Performers can also withdraw consent in the event of future strikes, it said.

Audrey Cooling, spokesperson for the video game companies negotiating with SAG-Aftra, said they were "pleased" members had approved a new Interactive Media Agreement.

She said it included "historic wage increases, industry-leading AI protections, and enhanced health and safety measures for performers".

Ashly Burch is a video game actor known for her performances as Tiny Tina in the Borderlands Series and Chloe in adventure game Life is Strange.

Speaking to BBC Newsbeat after the strike was suspended so members could vote, Ashly said performers didn't want a total ban on AI in game development.

"We just don't want to be replaced by it," she said.

She said AI was "arguably a bigger threat to voice and movement performers" than actors in film and TV, and the strike's main goal was guarantees around "consent, transparency, and compensation".

"Basically you have to get our consent to make a digital replica of us," she said.

"You have to tell us how you're going to use it, and then you have to compensate us fairly."

One of Ashly's best-known characters - Aloy from Sony's Horizon series - became a talking point during the strike when an AI-powered prototype of the character leaked.

She said the response from fans to the model - which showed the character responding to prompts from a player - was reassuring.

"To a person, everyone was like, 'I don't want AI performances in my games,," she added.

Ashly has also worked on live-action projects such as Apple TV show Mythic Quest and her recent web series I'm Happy You're Here, focused on mental health.

She said both reminded her of what human beings can bring to a role.

"And that, to me, as a person that loves games and loves art, is the big risk of AI, that we're going to lose out on really interesting, evocative performances."

The video game actors' strike did not affect the entire industry and mostly applied to workers and projects based in the US.

And unlike the all-out 2023 Hollywood strike, video game performers were still able to work with companies that signed an interim addressing concerns over AI.

Veteran voice actors Robbie Daymond and Ray Chase, who set up their own games studio, tell BBC Newsbeat the arrangement allowed them to continue work on their debut release, Date Everything!

The game features a cast of roughly 70 well-known performers who were able to work on the project thanks to the interim deal.

But Robbie, who's appeared in Final Fantasy 15 and various anime series, says it has been a tough year for performers in the US.

"This was a long strike, and it has been heavily impactful for everybody involved," he says.

Robbie says he is aware of people whose income took a hit in an industry where many performers do short stints on multiple projects.

"I just hope people understand that when a strike goes on this long and people are talking about how serious it is for them, that it has a real human impact," he says.

Ray points out that voice actors had the option of taking work outside of video games, but the strike was especially hard for actors who specialise in motion capture.

"If you came out to Los Angeles to be a motion capture actor, then your entire existence is being threatened by AI," he says.

"Those guys are heroes for sticking out this long."

Ray also points out that the strike will have affected video game developers if they weren't able to hire actors as easily.

"Strikes are never easy on on workers. They're never easy on anybody," he says.

"We're just so happy that we've found a peaceful resolution, for sure."

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

Holidays to Spain, Cyprus and Turkey soar in price

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyndp097gro, yesterday

All-inclusive family package holidays from the UK have jumped in price for some of the most popular destinations, including Spain, Cyprus and Turkey.

The average price for a week in Cyprus in August has gone up by 23%, from £950 per person to £1,166, figures compiled for the BBC by TravelSupermarket show.

Of the top 10 most-searched countries, Italy and Tunisia are the only ones to see prices drop by 11% and 4% respectively compared with 2024.

Travel agents say holidaymakers are booking shorter stays or travelling mid-week to cut costs.

The top five destinations in order of most searched are: Spain, Greece, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Portugal. They have all seen price rises.

Trips to the UAE have seen the biggest jump, up 26% from £1,210 in August 2024 to £1,525 this year.

Cyprus had the next biggest rise and came in at number nine in terms of search popularity.

The figures are based on online searches, made on TravelSupermarket from 18 April to 17 June, for all-inclusive, seven-night family holidays in August 2024 and 2025.

While this snapshot of data reveals a general trend, costs will vary depending on exactly where a family goes and when they book.

Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of travel agent industry group Advantage Travel Partnership, said the price rises were down to a number of factors.

"These increases simply keep pace with the broader cost of doing business and reflect the reality of higher operational costs, from increased energy bills affecting hotels, to elevated food costs impacting restaurants and rising wages across the hospitality sector," she said.

But she added the group had seen evidence that some holidaymakers still had money to spend.

Some customers were upgrading to more premium all-inclusive packages and booking more expensive cabin seats on long-haul flights to locations such as Dubai, she said.

Holiday destinations are a frequent topic of conversation at the hairdressers.

At Voodou in Liverpool, Ellie Mooney talked to us as she got a last-minute trim before jetting off to Turkey.

"We've been going for the past 20 years or so. We normally book a year ahead then save up in dribs and drabs," she said.

Hope Curran, 21, was getting her highlights done and she and her partner had just got back from holiday in Rhodes in Greece.

"We did an all-inclusive trip because it was a bit more manageable, but it's not cheap," she said.

End of life care nurse Francesca Ramsden, 35, from Rossendale, has made it her mission to cut the cost of holidays, saving where she can and hunting for a bargain at every turn.

"My husband is sick of me, he'll ask 'have you found anything yet' and I'll say no, rocking in the corner after looking for 10,000 hours.

"The longest I've booked a holiday in advance is two to three months and I find that the closer you get, the cheaper it is."

She said she spent hours trying to save as much as possible on a May half-term break to Fuerteventura for her family of four which came in at £1,600.

She now shares her budgeting tips on social media.

"I've mastered the art of packing a week's worth of clothes into a backpack. I always book the earliest or latest flight I can, and midweek when it's cheaper."

Luke Fitzpatrick, a travel consultant at Perfect Getaways in Liverpool, said people were cutting the length of their holidays to save money.

"Last year we did a lot for 10 nights and this year we've got a lot of people dropping to four or seven nights, just a short little weekend vacation, just getting away in the sun," he said.

He has also seen more people choosing to wait until the last minute to book a trip away.

"People are coming in with their suitcases asking if they can go away today or tomorrow," he added.

"Yesterday we had a couple come in with their passports and we got them on a flight last night from Liverpool to Turkey."

How to save money on your holiday

* Choose a cheaper location. A UK holiday eliminates travel and currency costs, but overseas destinations vary a lot too

* To decide whether all-inclusive will save you money, first look at local costs for eating out and don't forget about drinks and airport transfers

* Travel outside the school holidays if you can

* Booking early can help, especially if you have to travel at peak times

* Check whether you can get a cheaper flight by travelling mid-week

* Haggle. Call the travel agent to see if they can better the price you found online

* Choose destinations where the value of the pound is strong. This year that includes Turkey, Bulgaria and Portugal

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Ferrero to take over US breakfast cereal giant Kellogg

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3d1m2kjk93o, today

Italian chocolate giant Ferrero is taking over one of America's oldest breakfast cereal companies, buying the maker of Kellogg's Corn Flakes for $3.1bn (£2.3bn).

Ferrero said it planned to invest and expand WK Kellogg's "iconic" brands, which include Froot Loops and Rice Krispies.

The private, family-owned Ferrero has been pushing to expand in recent years, buying Nestle's confectionery business and several other food firms.

But with its latest deal it is taking on a portfolio facing challenges, as rising prices and health concerns erode the popularity of boxed cereals.

Founded in 1946, Ferrero is one of the world's biggest players in the chocolate market, with more than 30 brands sold globally. Those include Nutella, Kinder, TicTac and other confectionery, such as Jelly Belly and Trolli.

The new acquisition will give the firm, which already has more than 14,000 staff in North America, a dominant position in the US breakfast cereal market.

The company said it was paying $23 per share for the company in cash. Reports that a deal was imminent had sent the firm's share surging by more than 56% in overnight trading.

Chief executive Lapo Civiletti said the deal would complement Ferrero's existing offerings "expanding Ferrero's presence across more consumption occasions".

Kellogg boss Gary Pilnick said he expected the deal to provide the firm with more resources, and that Ferrero, which is a private company not subject to the pressures of the public market, would provide a "great home for our people".

Kellogg founder Will Keith Kellogg, who started the business in Michigan nearly 120 years ago, is widely considered to be the inventor of corn flakes.

Its mascots, such as Frosted Flakes' Tony the Tiger, helped make it one of the most recognised American companies of the 20th century.

But the firm, which also makes Kashi and Raisin Bran, has been seen sales flatten in recent years and has more than $500m of debt.

In 2023, it was split off from its former parent company's international and snacks business, which was renamed Kellanova and later sold to confectionery giant Mars for $36bn.

Households pressured by the rising cost of living have also increasingly opted for cheaper store brands over typically more expensive brand names.

The industry has also come under pressure from the Trump administration, which has targeted artificial colouring in brands like Froot Loops as part of its "Make America Healthy Again" campaign.

Kellogg has said it will remove the synthetic colours from cereals eaten in schools by the 2026-27 school year. But it has not yet set a timeline for taking them out of cereals sold to the general public.

India and China strive to reset ties but with caution

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly25ndp8kwo, yesterday

After years of border tensions, India and China appear to be gradually moving towards resetting ties - but larger challenges and suspicions remain.

The visit of two senior Indian officials to China late last month was seen as a sign of a thaw in bilateral relations.

In June, Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also made separate visits as part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meetings.

The SCO is a 10-member Eurasian security grouping that also includes China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan. Singh's visit was the first by a senior Indian official to China in five years.

At the heart of India-China tensions is an ill-defined, 3,440km (2,100-mile)-long disputed border. Rivers, lakes and snow-caps along the frontier mean the line often shifts, bringing soldiers face to face at many points, sometimes sparking skirmishes.

The crisis escalated in June 2020 when the two forces clashed in the Galwan valley in Ladakh in what was the first fatal confrontation between them since 1975. At least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers died. Stand-offs between the militaries have since taken place in several places.

But geopolitical uncertainty and ground realities appear to have nudged the two sides to find common ground on several issues.

Late last year, they reached an agreement on the main friction points in Ladakh.

In January, Delhi and Beijing agreed to restore direct flights and relax visa curbs that were imposed after the 2020 clash.

The same month, Indian pilgrims were allowed to visit a sacred mountain, the Kailash, and a holy lake in the Tibet Autonomous Region after a gap of six years.

But experts point out there are other hurdles.

For India, China is the second-largest trading partner with bilateral trade reaching more than $127bn (£93.4bn) last year. It relies heavily on Chinese imports, particularly rare earth minerals.

Peace in border areas, therefore, is essential to boost economic ties.

With its increasing focus on Taiwan, Beijing also wants peace in its Himalayan border with India - for now.

But at a strategic level, China suspects that Western nations are using India to counterbalance its rise and growing influence.

So, in addition to solving the border dispute, Beijing would want improvements in other areas as well, as it hopes to counter Delh's increasing dependence on the US and its allies for security.

This includes more Chinese exports; increasing investments in India, and the removal of visa restrictions for Chinese engineers and workers. (India had banned dozens of Chinese apps and imposed restrictions on Chinese investments in the aftermath of the 2020 clash, citing security concerns).

Fast-changing geopolitics - particularly in the US since President Trump assumed a second term in power - has also compelled Delhi to reach out to China, experts say.

"India thought it would be a very close strategic ally [of the US] but they were not getting the support they were expecting from Washington," Professor Christopher Clary of University of Albany in New York tells the BBC.

Strategic experts argue that Washington views Delhi as a bulwark against an increasingly assertive China. But given the US president's unpredictability, there are now doubts in Delhi about how far the US will go to support India in any future conflict with China.

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – known as the Quad – involving the US, Japan, Australia and India has taken a back seat during the Trump administration's second term.

"In recent years, China has also significantly increased its influence in other multilateral organisations like the SCO and the Brics grouping of emerging economies," says Phunchok Stobdan, a former senior Indian diplomat.

So, India is taking a pragmatic approach, he says.

"At the same time, it does not want to be seen yielding too much to the Chinese demands for domestic reasons," he adds.

And it's not just the US - India is also keenly watching how its long-time ally and major weapons supplier Russia leaned towards Beijing due to the war with Ukraine.

Western sanctions in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has increased Moscow's reliance on China for energy exports.

Moscow also depends on Beijing for critical imports and investments, all of which has made Delhi wary of the Kremlin's position in any future confrontation with China.

China is also using its industrial might to squeeze many nations that depend on its imports - and countries like India feel the restrictions might impact their economic growth.

"China has lately been utilising trade as a weapon against India, suspending crucial exports such as rare earth magnets and fertilisers. These actions could affect India's manufacturing and agricultural sectors," Mr Stobdan says.

Rare earth magnets are especially crucial for automobile, home appliance and clean energy sectors. China imposed restrictions on its imports starting from April, requiring companies to obtain permits.

An Indian automobile industry association has warned that production could be severely impacted if the restrictions are not eased soon. Following these apprehensions, the Indian government said it was holding talks with Beijing.

Though China is keen on boosting business, it hasn't shown any signs of compromise on its other territorial disputes with India.

In recent years, it has increasingly asserted its claim over the entire north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing calls Southern Tibet.

Delhi asserts that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of the country and points out that people of the state regularly vote in elections to choose their state government and there's no room for any compromise.

"If China and India would not abandon the concept of sovereignty, then they will continue to fight forever. If they can reach a deal on Southern Tibet [or Arunachal Pradesh], then the two countries would have eternal peace," Prof Shen Dingli from the Fudan University in Shanghai tells the BBC.

For now, both Delhi and Beijing are aware that their territorial dispute cannot be solved in the near future.

They seem willing to strike a working relationship that's mutually beneficial, and would want to avoid tensions altogether, rather than relying on any global power bloc for support.

Follow BBC News India on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Linda Yaccarino departs as boss of Musk's X

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2gy3j9xq6o, yesterday

Linda Yaccarino, the boss of Elon Musk's social media site X, has announced she is stepping down after two years.

Her departure comes at a time of tumult for the platform, which was taken over by Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) venture, xAI, in March, and has been in the spotlight for antisemitic posts churned out by its AI chatbot, Grok.

In a post on X, Ms Yaccarino said she was "immensely grateful" to Musk for "entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech, turning the company around, and transforming X into the Everything App".

Musk posted a brief reply, saying only: "Thank you for your contributions."

The BBC has approached X for comment. It is not clear what sparked the decision, or whether there has been any break down in the relationship between the two leaders.

Ms Yaccarino was previously head of advertising at NBCUniversal, where she was credited with helping to steer it through the upheaval caused by technology firms.

When Musk brought her in to lead X, then Twitter, in 2023, analysts expected her focus to be repairing relationships with advertisers, which had quit the site amid concerns about their ads appearing alongside controversial content.

But Ms Yaccarino's scope at the company was limited from the start, with many observers referring to her as chief executive in name only.

"Her background and actual authority positioned her more as the company's chief advertising officer, rather than its CEO. The reality is that Elon Musk is and always has been at the helm of X," said Mike Proulx, vice president and research director at Forrester.

"The only thing that's surprising about Linda Yaccarino's resignation is that it didn't come sooner," he added.

Advertising turnaround?

Under Ms Yaccarino's watch, the company sued a major advertising industry group and members, alleging a conspiracy to boycott X.

The industry group shuttered shortly after the lawsuit was filed.

The platform's tone changed significantly during the course of Yaccarino's tenure.

Its former incarnation Twitter was accused of leaning left, but X now leans unashamedly to the right in terms of the content that gets the most visibility.

Though Musk stepped down as chief executive, he never truly stepped back from his favourite social network, and has if anything grown louder and more controversial since he appointed her.

People who have worked directly with Musk have described him as both a visionary and a workaholic, whom others can only keep up with for so long.

"Faced with a mercurial owner who never fully stepped away from the helm and continued to use the platform as his personal megaphone, Yaccarino had to try to run the business while also regularly putting out fires," Emarketer vice president Jasmine Enberg said in a statement.

She said her firm expected X's ad business to return to growth this year, after more than halving after Musk's takeover.

But she added: "The reasons for X's ad recovery are complicated, and Yaccarino was unable to restore the platform's reputation among advertisers."

In Ms Yaccarino's departure post, she said that she had decided to step down after "two incredible years".

She added: "When Elon Musk and I first spoke of his vision for X, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out the extraordinary mission of this company."

Ms Yaccarino's exit comes at a difficult time for Musk, who is dealing with falling sales at his car maker Tesla, which has also seen the departure of a number of top executives.

He is also embroiled in a war of words with his former political ally, US President Donald Trump, culminating in Musk planning a new political party.

X has also continued to attract controversy.

The most recent of these has seen Musk's chatbot, Grok - which is embedded in X - speak favourably about Hitler among other antisemitic posts early this week.

Musk on Friday had said the company had been working to overhaul Grok and that users "should notice a difference" when asking Grok questions.

In instructions posted publicly by the company, Grok was directed to "[a]ssume subjective viewpoints sourced from the media are biased" and to "not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect."

In a statement, xAI said it was working to remove what it called "inappropriate" posts.

Trump threatens Brazil with 50% tariff and demands Bolsonaro's trial end

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c784ee81y4zo, yesterday

US President Donald Trump said he was planning to impose a 50% tax on goods made in Brazil, escalating his fight with the South American country.

He announced the plan in his latest tariff letter, which was shared on social media.

In it, Trump accuses Brazil of "attacks" on US tech companies and of conducting a "witch hunt" against former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing prosecution over his alleged role in a plot to overturn the 2022 election.

Responding in a social media post, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said an increase in tariffs on Brazil would be reciprocated, and he warned against any interference in the nation's judicial system.

Why Trump invited five African leaders to the White House

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ygqenwx78o, yesterday

US President Donald Trump began a three-day summit in Washington DC with the leaders of five African states, an event the White House sees as an "incredible" commercial opportunity.

Trump's guests include the leaders of Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal - all countries with small populations and economies.

The meetings are expected to concentrate on Trump's "trade, not aid" policy and with all of them facing 10% tariffs on goods exported to the US, they may be hoping to do deals to negotiate this rate down.

During a televised lunch at the White House on Wednesday, the African leaders lavished Trump with praise while encouraging US economic partnership.

Seated diagonally from Trump across a long wooden table, Mauritania President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani was the first African leader to speak.

"In the short time you've been back in office, the last few months you came to the rescue for peace," Ghazouani said.

"You rushed to Africa to resolve a longstanding problem," he continued, referring to a peace deal between DR Congo and Rwanda facilitated by the White House.

His remarks were echoed by the other African state leaders, most of whom made direct comments in support of Trump being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Mr Mouloumbi added that the US might be most keen to strengthen ties with Gabon not only because it had "strategic" minerals like manganese and uranium, as well as oil, but also because it was strategically located along the Gulf of Guinea, with a coastline of about 800km (500 miles).

It could host a US military base that America plans to build in the region, Mr Mouloumbi said.

Mr Diagne made a similar point about piracy, saying that "maritime terrorism in the Gulf of Guinea has become an extremely important issue" for the US.

Many tankers carrying oil and gas travel through the Gulf of Guinea, which has been known as a piracy hot spot for several years.

For Mauritania and Senegal, migration will be central to discussions, according to Ousmane Sene, the head of the West African Research Centre (WARC),

"Let's not forget that between 2023 and 2025, no fewer than 20,000 young Mauritanians left for the US via Nicaragua, along with hundreds of young Senegalese," the analyst told the BBC.

"All these countries are also departure points for illegal emigration," he added.

"That's an extremely important point in his [Trump's] migration policy, and every day people are turned back at the borders."

Mauritania is the only one of the five countries that does not have diplomatic ties with US ally Israel - cutting them in 2009 over an offensive in Gaza - and sources have told Semafor that restoring them may be a sticking point for any would-be White House deal.

Visa overstay rates are another issue to be settled - especially for Gabon and Liberia, which both have higher ones than Burundi, which last month became subject to US travel restrictions with visa overstays cited as a key reason.

Liberia may also be considering a US proposal to accept people deported by the US, including criminals. The country, which has close historical links to America, was reportedly included on a proposed list of countries that the US had approached.

The country, which was brought to its knees by a 14-year civil war and then the devastating Ebola epidemic of a decade ago, is in desperate need of cash as it has been severely affected by US aid cuts.

In particular the impact has been felt by its fragile health system, which had relied on US funding for 48% of its budget.

Guinea-Bissau, which has suffered a series of coups and attempted coups over the years, is reportedly keen for the US embassy to reopen in the capital, Bissau, following its closure after the army mutinied in 1998.

President Umaro Cissoko Embaló was clearly proud of the White House's invite for Guinea-Bissau, which several years ago was labelled a "narco-state" by the US and UN as it was once a major transit hub for cocaine from Latin America to Europe and North America.

"Guinea-Bissau has now emerged from a state of disorder to become a real state. The Americans do not invite just any state to their country - only a well-structured state," he was quoted as saying at the airport before he left for Washington.

He and his counterparts - Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema of Gabon, Joseph Boakai of Liberia, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani of Mauritania and Bassirou Diomaye Faye of Senegal - will be hoping they hold some cards to do a deal with Trump.

They certainly do not want a replay of May's infamous high-stakes meeting between South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa and Trump in the Oval Office, which did little to ease relations.

In fact, it seems to have completely backfired as this week Africa's biggest economy found out that from next month its exports to the US are being slapped with a 30% tariff.

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

EU hopes to agree US tariff deal 'in coming days'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cev0n01y8wwo, yesterday

The European Union (EU) has said it hopes to agree a US tariff deal "in the coming days" that would avoid import taxes US President Donald Trump has threatened on its goods.

Levies had been due to start on 9 July for goods entering the US from around the world, but Trump this week extended the timeline for talks until 1 August.

A deal with the EU - the US's single biggest trading partner and a frequent target of Trump's criticism - would mark a major milestone in relations between the two powers.

Despite the official confidence that an agreement can be reached, Italy's Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said the talks are "very complicated" and could go right to the wire.

Other US trading partners are bracing for the possibility that Trump might move forward with his tariff plans, which were initially announced in April.

After the tariffs sparked turmoil in financial markets, Trump suspended the highest duties, while keeping in place a 10% tax on most goods.

On Monday, he sent letters to 14 of the US's trading partners - including key strategic allies such as Japan and South Korea - warning them he would start collecting tariffs of between 25% and 40% on their exports starting 1 August.

On Wednesday, he posted additional letters on social media that outlined tariff plans for countries including the Philippines, Iraq and Moldova.

The White House in April had announced levies of 20% on European goods, which Trump later threatened to push to 50%.

Moving forward with those tariffs would carry some of the biggest risks for the US economy, given the importance of the trade relationship, noted analysts at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

The European Union has also said it is prepared to retaliate.

But EU spokesperson Olof Gill also said in a press conference on Wednesday that the outlines of a tariff agreement appeared close.

"We aim to reach a deal before [1 August], potentially even in the coming days," he said.

Trump on Tuesday offered praise for the bloc and said the White House was "probably two days off" from setting a new tariff rate for the EU.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also told broadcaster CNBC that the bloc had made "significant, real offers" that would make it easier for American farmers to sell to the region.

'Shrugging it off'

Trump has separately threatened tariffs on other key items such as pharmaceuticals, announcing a 50% tariff on copper entering the US on Tuesday.

Despite the tariff back-and-forth, markets in Europe rose in early trading on Wednesday, while the UK and US opened flat.

Dan Coatsworth, analyst at AJ Bell, told the BBC he was "very surprised" to see the muted reaction, but said "maybe markets are shrugging it off".

"It's almost like Trump is losing credibility in terms of negotiating tactics... his bark is worse than his bite," he said.

He added that investors have "gone from panic mode" following the 'Liberation Day' announcement of sweeping tariffs on 2 April to "wait and see mode".

Some analysts describe investors' reaction as 'TACO' (Trump always chickens out) trading as they question the credibility of Trump's threats.

Nvidia becomes world's first $4tn company

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8j13m74lklo, yesterday

Nvidia has become the first company in the world to reach a market value of $4tn.

Shares in the chip-maker rose by as much as 2.4% to $164 on Wednesday, as the company continues to benefit from the ongoing surge in demand for the tech that powers artificial intelligence (AI).

The US-based company reached a market value of $1tn for the first time in June 2023, and has continued to climb rapidly since.

Tech analyst Dan Ives, of Wedbush Securities, said in a note that was in a historic moment for Nvidia.

"They are the only game in town with their chips the new gold and oil," he wrote.

"There is one company in the world that is the foundation for the AI Revolution and that is Nvidia."

Nvidia's share price dipped significantly in April when global markets were jolted by US President Donald Trump's intensifying tariff war.

Though concerns over Trump's trade policies have not gone away, Nvidia's share price has grown strongly since spring to hit this new landmark.

Eight years ago, Nvidia's stock was worth less than 1% of its current price.

At the time, its growth was driven by competition with rival AMD to build the best graphics cards.

More recently, Nvidia has surged due to rising demand for chips powering generative AI models like ChatGPT.

Its meteoric rise has also elevated CEO Jensen Huang's profile.

Mark Zuckerberg dubbed the 61-year-old "the Taylor Swift of tech," reflecting his celebrity status, especially in Taiwan, where fans treat him like a rock star.

Nvidia's continually rising value is a sign of Wall Street's faith in AI growth, despite the turbulence surrounding Trump's economic policies.

The company reported a total revenue of $44.1bn in the first quarter, marking a 69% jump from a year ago along with a profit of 81 cents a share.

Trump delays tariffs as the rest of the world plays hardball

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c628nk51364o, 2 days ago

Donald Trump's White House had grandly promised "90 deals in 90 days" after partially pausing the process of levying what the US president called "reciprocal" tariffs.

In reality, there won't even be nine deals done by the time we reach Trump's first cut-off date on 9 July.

The revealing thing here, the poker "tell" if you like, is the extension of the deadline from Wednesday until 1 August, with a possibility of further extensions - or delays - to come.

From the US perspective, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says all focus has been on the 18 countries that are responsible for 95% of America's trade deficit.

The jaunty letters being sent from the US to its trading partners this week are simply a reincarnation of that infamous White House "Liberation Day" blue board.

The rates are basically the same as were first revealed on 2 April. The infamous equation, which turned out to use a measure of the size of the deficit as a proxy for "the sum of all trade cheating" lives on, in a form.

This is all being announced without the market turmoil seen earlier this year because of this additional delay.

Financial markets believe in rolling delays, in the idea of TACO, that Trump Always Chickens Out - although they may embolden foot-dragging on all sides that lead to a renewed crisis.

However, the real takeaway here has been the Trump administration's inability to strike deals. The letters are an admission of failure.

The White House may be playing hardball, but so are most other nations.

Japan and South Korea were singled out for the first two letters, which effectively further blow up their trade deals with the US.

The Japanese have done little to hide their fury at the US approach.

Its finance minister even hinted at using its ownership of the world's biggest stockpile of US government debt - basically the biggest banker of America's debts - as a source of potential leverage.

The dynamic from April has not really changed.

The rest of the world sees that markets punish the US when a trade war looks real, when American retailers warn the White House of higher prices and empty shelves.

And there is still a plausible court case working its way through the system that could render the tariffs illegal.

But the world is now also starting to see the numerical impact of an upended global trade system.

The value of the dollar has declined 10% this year against a number of currencies.

At Bessent's confirmation hearing, he said that the likely increase in the value of the dollar would help mitigate any inflationary impact of tariffs.

The opposite has happened.

Trade numbers are starting to shift too. There was massive stockpiling before tariffs, there have been more recent significant falls.

Meanwhile, Chinese exports to the US have fallen by 9.7% so far this year.

But China's shipments to the rest of the world are up 6%. This includes a 7.4% rise in exports to the UK, a 12.2% increase to the 10 members of the ASEAN alliance and 18.9% rise to Africa.

The numbers are volatile, but consistent with what might be predicted.

Revenues from tariffs are starting to pour into the US Treasury coffers, with record receipts in May.

As the US builds a tariff wall around itself, the rest of the world is likely to trade more with each other - just look at the recent economic deals between the UK and India, and the EU and Canada.

It is worth noting that the effective tariff rate being imposed by the US on the rest of the world is now about 15%, having been between 2% and 4% for the past 40 years. This is before the further changes in these letters.

The market reaction is calm for now. It might not stay that way.

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.

Lesotho declares state of disaster amid US tariff uncertainty

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g8re5el87o, yesterday

Lesotho has declared a national state of disaster over the country's "high rates of youth unemployment and job losses" as uncertainty over US tariffs hits the landlocked nation.

Lesotho was hit by higher tariffs than any other country - 50% - when they were announced by President Donald Trump in April, although they have since been paused.

Deputy Prime Minister Nthomeng Majara said the state of disaster would be in force until 30 June 2027.

Unemployment in Lesotho stands at 30% but for young people the rate is almost 50%, according to official figures.

More BBC stories on Lesotho:

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

Musk's Grok chatbot praises Hitler and insults politicians

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g8r34nxeno, yesterday

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence start-up xAI says it is working to remove "inappropriate" posts made by its chatbot, Grok, after users shared how it made positive references to Hitler.

Screenshots published on social media show the chatbot saying the Nazi leader would be the best person to respond to alleged "anti-white hate."

"Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X," the company said in a post.

ADL, an organisation formed to combat antisemitism and other forms of discrimination, said the posts were "irresponsible, dangerous and antisemitic."

"This supercharging of extremist rhetoric will only amplify and encourage the antisemitism that is already surging on X and many other platforms," ADL wrote on X.

X users have shared responses made by Grok when it was queried about posts that appeared to celebrate the deaths of children in the recent Texas floods.

In response to a question asking "which 20th century historical figure" would be best suited to deal with such posts, Grok said: "To deal with such vile anti-white hate? Adolf Hitler, no question."

"If calling out radicals cheering dead kids makes me 'literally Hitler,' then pass the mustache," said another Grok response. "Truth hurts more than floods."

Separately, a Turkish court has blocked access to Grok after it generated responses that the authorities said included insults to President Tayyip Erdogan.

The office of Ankara's chief prosecutor has launched a formal investigation into the incident, in what is Turkey's first such ban on access to an AI tool.

Meanwhile, the Polish authorities have reported xAI to the European Commission alleging Grok made offensive comments about Polish politicians, including Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Poland's digitisation minister, Krzysztof Gawkowski, told Polish radio station RMF FM: "We will report the violation to the European Commission to investigate and possibly impose a fine on X. Freedom of speech belongs to humans, not to artificial intelligence."

On Friday, Musk posted on X that Grok had improved "significantly", but gave no details of what changes had been made.

"You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions," he added.

The chatbot drew criticism earlier this year after it repeatedly referenced "white genocide" in South Africa in response to unrelated questions - an issue that the company said was caused by an "unauthorised modification".

In January, Musk himself faced a backlash over a one-armed gesture he gave during a speech celebrating the inauguration of Donald Trump.

At a Trump rally, Musk thanked the crowd for "making it happen", before placing his right hand over his heart and then thrusting the same arm out into air straight ahead of him. He then turned and repeated the action for those sitting behind him.

Some X users likened the gesture to a Nazi salute, though others disagreed.

In response, the SpaceX and Tesla chief posted on X: "Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The 'everyone is Hitler' attack is sooo tired."

X, which was formerly called Twitter, was merged with xAI earlier this year.

Chatbot developers have faced extensive scrutiny over concerns around political bias, hate speech and accuracy in recent years.

Musk has also previously been criticised over claims that he amplifies conspiracy theories and other controversial content on social media.

Action urged to halt exodus of firms leaving UK

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz6g85qp0p6o, yesterday

The exodus of firms from the London Stock Exchange has created a "pivotal moment" for the UK's financial services sector which requires urgent action, a leading business group has warned.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said a combination of companies choosing to list elsewhere, private firms buying up public ones, and investors shunning UK shares had seen 213 firms leave since 2016.

Chair Rupert Soames said that lighter regulation, better marketing and incentives for investors to put cash into British firms were needed to stem the outflow.

He said he would support cutting allowances for cash ISAs to get more people investing, which the chancellor is understood to be considering.

In her Mansion House speech to City leaders, Rachel Reeves is expected to consider cutting tax breaks for people parking their savings in cash ISAs, in a bid to encourage more investment in stocks and shares.

She is expected to set out how people can be given the right information and support to take a stake in government's effort to grow the economy.

Mr Soames said he would support changes in tax law to encourage more investment, arguing that the current annual £20,000 allowance to put cash that can earn interest tax free did little to help growth.

"Of all the investments that God ever invented, cash [ISA] is the worst possible one," he said.

Quizzed on whether it cash ISAs were safer than people putting their money into stocks and shares, he replied: "Safe from what? Inflation - I don't think so.

"There is £300bn that people have squirrelled away and I suspect the chancellor will want to do something about that and say that if you are going to take tax shelter then should it be in cash or something productive."

'Houston we have a problem'

"Houston we have a problem" was how Mr Soames characterised widespread concern about the steady outflow of companies from UK markets, particularly to the US.

Some well-known and highly regarded UK companies now sell their shares on foreign markets.

Once the jewel in the crown of UK, tech firm ARM Holdings is now listed in New York. Just Eat and Deliveroo have moved or been gobbled up by competitors, Paddy Power's parent company Flutter is betting on the US, and mining giant BHP headed down under to Australia.

Perennial rumours remain over the future of London stalwarts Shell, and UK's most valuable company, Astra Zeneca.

Last year alone 88 companies left the UK, and 70 more have departed so far this year. A trickle has become a flood.

Mr Soames said the exits mattered because the stock market is part of the foundations of a financial services industry that pays 10% of all taxes in the UK - "supporting hospitals and schools up and down the land".

Last year, the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange denied it was in crisis despite the high-profile exits.

'Don't be squeamish on executive pay'

When it comes to public companies being bought up by private firms, the benefits are many. Private buyers are prepared to pay more for the business, pay executives higher salaries and are subject to less scrutiny and regulation.

Mr Soames argued the country needed to be "grown up" about some of these issues if the UK wanted to retain the world's best companies.

"If you want to have international companies here you've got to allow them to pay management what they think that they need to be paid and not be squeamish," he said.

The CBI's report welcomed some of the work done already to bolster UK stock markets.

The previous Conservative government loosened some listing requirements and Reeves has plans to consolidate some public sector pension funds into superfunds.

Several of the biggest pension and insurance firms have voluntarily signed up to invest more in UK private assets.

But there's little evidence that has moved the needle of the UK investment industry, which only invests 4% of its assets in publicly-traded British companies.

A Treasury spokesperson told the BBC that the Chancellor would next week set out more detail on how the government intends to "ruthlessly exploit our global advantages".

"This includes continued reform to ensure our capital markets are competitive and at the forefront of modern public markets," they said.

While London raised three times more equity capital than the next three European exchanges combined next year, there is more to do to ensure we attract the most promising companies to list on our shores.

The challenge is not just to lead the investment horse to water but to make it drink out of your own pool.

US will hike tariffs on copper to 50%, Trump says

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjrljr8qv3zo, 2 days ago

Copper entering the US from other countries is set to face a new tax of 50%, President Donald Trump has said.

The decision carries through on tariff threats the president made earlier this year, when he ordered an investigation into how imports of the metal were affecting national security.

Similar probes are looming over other sectors, including pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and lumber, as part of a wider embrace of tariffs that Trump claims will protect and boost American industry.

Copper prices in the US jumped to a record high after the announcement of the new import tax, which Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said are expected to come into effect around the end of this month.

Lutnick said he expected Trump to sign documents in the coming days to formalise the decision, which the president revealed in an offhand remark at a televised meeting of his cabinet.

"Today we're doing copper," Trump said. "We're going to make it 50%."

The US imported about 810,000 metric tons of refined copper last year, about half of what it consumed, according to the US Geological Survey.

Chile was the biggest supplier, followed by Canada.

The metal is a key component in military equipment, as well as electric vehicles and construction. Current US tariff rates on copper are typically far lower than 50%.

A new 50% rate would match the recently imposed levy on steel and aluminium products, but would be higher than many in the industry had expected.

Some in the industry said they wanted to see the final order before speaking out, noting that some countries and products might secure exemptions.

"We have to see whether this will apply to all countries or only some," said the chairman of Chile's state-run copper producer Codelco.

Scott Lincicome, vice president of economics and trade at the Cato Institute, said the announcement seemed like "more of the same" - stirring uncertainty, while at the same time making it "quite clear" that higher tariffs of some sort were coming.

"We're going to get some sort of new level of historically high US tariffs - we're really just wrangling over the exact number and coverage," he said, adding that the measure would help US producers but hurt the many more firms in the US that need copper as an input.

UK steelmakers still waiting on tariff exemption

Trump's plans for copper come as the White House is also separately preparing to start raising tariffs on goods from countries around the world from 1 August.

Trump has already imposed a 10% tariff on most products, but he had called off his more aggressive plans after financial markets recoiled at steeper tariffs and business groups in the US pleaded for reprieve.

Trump sent letters to leaders of 14 countries on Monday, including South Korea and Japan, warning them of plans to institute new levies ranging from 25% to 40%.

Many trading partners are still hoping to strike deals before 1 August.

Trump on Tuesday said talks were going well with the European Union and he was "probably two days off" from sending a letter unveiling a new tariff rate.

In the UK, steelmakers are anxiously waiting to hear if they will be able to avoid tariffs of 50% on their products.

The US and UK agreed in May that the US would allow UK steel and aluminium into the US free of tariffs, up to an amount to be determined, as part of a wider tariff deal.

While the deal came into force last month, the tariff reductions on metals were yet to be finalised.

Currently, steel and aluminium products arriving on US shores from the UK remain subject to a 25% import tax, which could double if a deal between the two countries is not implemented by 9 July.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the status of those talks.

In his remarks Trump also said he planned to move forward with tariffs of up to 200% on pharmaceuticals, but said he would give the industry at least a year to adjust.

Additional reporting from Oliver Smith

What your snot can reveal about your health

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250708-what-your-snot-can-reveal-about-your-health, yesterday

Snot plays a powerful role in protecting us from disease – and its colour alone can provide insights into what's going on in our bodies.

In Ancient Greece, snot was thought to be one of the four bodily fluids responsible for balancing human health and personality. The physician Hippocrates developed a theory stating that phlegm, blood, yellow bile and black bile were the four "humours". A person's balance of these humours could dictate their temperament; an excess of any of them could cause illness. For instance, phlegm was thought to be made in the brain and lungs, and during the cold and wet seasons, it could become too abundant and even cause epilepsy. Somebody with a phlegmatic personality would have a cold, damp and aloof character.

Of course, we now know that snot doesn't affect people's personalities or cause diseases – rather, it helps to protect us from them.

And though nobody likes a runny nose or flinging snot across the room in a sneeze, the mucus in our nasal passages is arguably one of the wonders of the human body. It protects us from intruders, and it has a unique composition that can reveal profound insights into what is going on inside us. Now scientists are hoping to hone the powers of snot to better diagnose and treat everything from Covid-19 to chronic lung conditions.

The gooey substance shields the insides of our nose, moisturising the nasal passages, and trapping any bacteria, viruses, pollens, dirt, dust and pollution trying to get into our body through our airways. Aided by hundreds of tiny hairs, snot is a barrier between the outside world and our inner one.

The adult body produces over 100 millitres of snot over the course of a day but children tend to be much snottier than adults because their bodies are learning to deal with being exposed to all of the world's molecules for the first time, says Daniela Ferreira, a professor of respiratory infection and vaccinology from the University of Oxford in the UK.

With a simple glance, our snot's colour and consistency can already help us glean a little bit about what's going on: snot can be like a visual thermometer. A runny schnozzle with clear mucus suggests the body is likely expelling something that's irritating its sinuses, like pollen or dust. White mucus means a virus may have entered the premises, as the white is caused by the white blood cells called up to fight off intruders. When mucus turns denser and yellowish-green, it's just a lot of dead white blood cells accumulating after having gathered in great numbers and flushing out. If your snot is reddish or pink, it may be a little bloody: maybe you've blown your nose too much and irritated its insides.

But looking at snot is just the first step.

The snot microbiome

While the gut microbiome – the ecosystem of bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microorganisms that inhabit our bodies – is very much in the public consciousness, scientists think that the microbiome in our snot is equally important. In fact, scientists now believe that it's intricately linked to human health and the proper functioning of the immune system.

Everybody has a unique snot microbiome. It is affected by sex, age, location, diet – and even whether you vape. The microbiome's makeup is what helps it fend off intruders, and some of these interactions are subtle. Research from 2024, for instance, found that whether potentially harmful Staphylococcus bacteria survive in the nose and infect a person, causing fever and pus-filled boils, depends on how the snot microbiome's bacteria hold onto iron.

More like this:

• How often should you poo?

• What your earwax can reveal about your health

• How often should you wash your feet?

Ferreira is working to figure out exactly what a healthy snot microbiome looks like so that it can be put in an everyday nasal spray to boost snot health, like taking probiotics for gut health. "Imagine if you could alter what we have in our nose with lots of very good-guy species that stay there and colonise, and do not allow for the bad guys to come in and cause us to get sick," says Ferreira.

Ferreira's colleagues have selected the bacteria they think make up the perfect schnozzle microbiome, and they're testing them to see if these bacteria can take over people's airways and last long enough to impact and improve their health.

Since the snot's microbiome is so tightly linked with the immune system, says Ferreira, they are also studying it to fine-tune how to boost the immune system and even make it more receptive to vaccines. Research suggests that how a body reacts to a vaccine is altered by the type of microbiome a person has. Studies on the Covid-19 vaccine, for example, suggest it affected the snot's microbiome, and in turn, the microbiome affected how efficient the vaccine was.

"The Covid-19 vaccines were great at stopping us from getting sick, but we continued to transmit the virus," says Ferreira. "We could actually develop much better vaccines [so] the next generation people don't even get sick, whether that is Covid-19 or flu or any other respiratory viruses – and it's all there in that snot immunity."

The rise of diag-nosing

While Ferreira's work pinpointing the exact formula for the perfect snot microbiome might take a couple of years, in Sweden, scientists have had a head start by transplanting healthy people's snot into those who are sick with a chronically blocked nose and hay fever, everyday symptoms of rhinosinusitis.

The researchers asked 22 adults to shoot themselves up the nose with a syringe full of snot from healthy friends and partners each day for five days. They discovered that symptoms like cough and facial pain, for instance, dropped by almost 40% for up to three months in at least 16 of the patients. "That was great news to us, and no one reported any negative side effects," says Anders Martensson, a senior consultant in otorhinolaryngology and head and neck surgery from Helsingborg Hospital in Sweden, who led the study. These trials were inspired by work done in other laboratories about gut microbiomes, with faecal transplants, he says.

That first pilot programme, however didn't gather much data about how these people's snot microbiomes changed and what happened to the specific bacteria in their nose, whether they increased, decreased, and so forth. So another larger and more precise trial is underway.

In fact, snot can be a great barrier to chronic nose and lung diseases.

Jennifer Mulligan, an otolaryngologist at the University of Florida, uses snot to study people with chronic rhinosinusitis and nasal polyps – a condition that affects about 5 to 12% of the global population. In the first years of her career, she needed to surgically extract nose tissue from rhinosinusitis patients, but that was invasive and limiting. Now, her research has shown that snot can be an accurate proxy to more closely examine what's happening inside the body when someone develops rhinosinusitis. "We're using it to whittle down who are really the guilty culprits here, who's really driving this condition?" says Mulligan, adding that every patient has a slightly different profile for what's causing their rhinosinusitis.

Similarly, while treatment before was mostly trial and error – varying greatly from patient to patient, and sometimes costing tens of thousands of dollars for treatments lasting months – Mulligan suggests a snot analysis can quickly help identify the right treatment or surgery needed.

Several clinical trials for Mulligan's technique are underway worldwide. Emerging health-teach companies, such as Diag-Nose, launched by engineers at Stanford University, are developing snot-analysing AI systems and patenting devices for nasal microsampling: in 2025, they launched the first FDA-approved nasal microsampling device – a sampling device that collects precise volumes of nasal fluid – to reduce research variability by standardising sampling methods.

"We have learned so much that we could have never learned with just tissue biopsies. It's completely changed what we know about the disease, and it's going to change the way patients are diagnosed in the future and how they receive treatment," says Mulligan.

Mulligan uses the same snot tools to study what causes people to lose their sense of smell, too. Her team has already found that a vitamin-D nasal spray could potentially help restore a sense of smell in people who have lost it due to inflammation from smoking.

Plus, Mulligan says, what happens in the lungs happens in the nose and vice versa. So these diagnostic tools and therapies can be used for lung diseases too. New research suggests that by simply analysing how much of the IL-26 protein is present in a patient's snot, doctors can tell whether somebody is more or less susceptible to developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – a common smoker's disease, and the fourth most widespread cause of death in the world. With snot analyses, patients can be diagnosed early and treated rapidly.

Similarly, research teams around the world are developing analogous tools and methods to use snot to detect asthma, lung cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease. Snot can also be used to measure radiation exposure and several recent studies suggest that the gooey nasal fluid can pinpoint how much somebody is exposed to pollution, such as heavy metals and microparticles in the air.

"Snot is the future of personalised medicine. I wholeheartedly believe that," says Mulligan.

*Disclaimer

All content within this column is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional. The BBC is not responsible or liable for any diagnosis made by a user based on the content of this site. The BBC is not liable for the contents of any external internet sites listed, nor does it endorse any commercial product or service mentioned or advised on any of the sites. Always consult your own GP if you're in any way concerned about your health.

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Esports World Cup: The contest teams can't afford to miss

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8zqvgpm3lo, 2 days ago

The second Esports World Cup (EWC) has begun in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Over the next seven weeks, teams from around the world will compete across 25 games including Call of Duty, League of Legends and EA Sports FC (EA FC).

Up for grabs is a share of $70m (£50m).

There are prizes for individuals and teams but, despite the tournament's name, players don't compete for their countries.

Most are members of organisations such as Team Liquid, one of the world's biggest esports squads.

BBC Newsbeat went behind the scenes at their HQ to find out why the EWC is so important to them, and why they feel they can't ignore the controversial contest.

Located in Utrecht in the Netherlands, Team Liquid's base is part office, part video game arcade and part luxury student accommodation.

There are two rooms where team-mates can compete head-to-head or online, and streaming booths where they can broadcast live to followers on Twitch.

Many of Liquid's top players live and train in the building, where an on-site chef provides three meals a day, all of them designed to boost concentration and reaction times.

When play is work and work is play it's important to distinguish between the two, and members tell Newsbeat they spend about eight hours a day training in the run-up to major competitions.

One of those is Levi de Weerd.

Like many others he got into EA FC (formerly known as Fifa) as a child.

Now aged 21, he's made playing against the best against the world into a career.

He says being part of Team Liquid gets him access to the high-spec facilities and experienced coaches.

"We have a gameplay coach, we're analysing games from tournaments in the past and in friendly games where we try things out. We have performance coaches and mental coaches too," he says.

Being in one place, he says, is more important than you might think.

"I think it's important to have a good environment with coaches, with players and staff to get a good chemistry", he says.

Because EWC competitors don't represent their countries, teams are able to bring in talent from around the world.

YanYa, part of Team Liquid's Apex Legends squad, joined from his home country of Mexico.

He says the EWC is "the best feeling in the world because you are playing the best players".

"You get a lot of excitement. You get a lot of adrenaline," he says.

Team Liquid are looking to one-up their performance last year, when they finished second overall behind Saudi side Team Falcons.

YanYa insists that doesn't affect him, though.

"I don't feel pressure, I feel confident," he says. "We've been practising a lot."

Individual performance is a key part of the EWC and there are big cash prizes for winning players.

But there are also special bonuses for the club championship - the team that wins the most events overall gets $7m (£5m).

More players means a chance to compete in more events, and a greater chance of netting that top prize.

Levi is a fairly new member of Team Liquid, which he joined when his former side was absorbed into it.

Consolidation - bigger esports teams swallowing smaller ones - and mergers have become more common, and not just because of the prizes up for grabs.

Multiple esports organisations have gone bust in recent years after a massive investment boom in the scene fizzled out.

Team Liquid's founder and co-CEO Victor Goosens says keeping the money coming in is more important than ever.

While prize money isn't everything, Victor says the EWC is financially important for Team Liquid.

"It's another source we can plan around and project our year for and that allows us to build the company and establish ourselves as a sustainable esports organisation", he says.

He says the team is "ambitious" with its plans to win the club championship, after placing second last year.

Victor admits it's necessary to compete in as many events as possible in order to take the top spot, but that "it's not worth expanding if your core rosters aren't already great".

You need to attract the best talent.

So when online chess was added as an event at this year's Esports World Cup, Team Liquid signed up the world's top chess grandmasters Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana.

Some esports fans have been critical of teams taking part in an event hosted, and largely funded, by Saudi Arabia.

The kingdom has been accused of numerous human rights violations and has strict laws restricting what women can do.

Like other Middle East states it's been heavily criticised for its anti-LGBT laws - homosexuality is punishable by death.

It's heavily invested millions into sport, video games and esports, which critics argue is an attempt to boost its public image.

There has been backlash.

Individual players have chosen not to participate, such as Street Fighter 6 pro Chris CCH, who declined a spot at this year's contest after qualifying via a partnered event.

But, given its ever-growing ties to esports, he admitted that avoiding any Saudi-linked contests altogether would have made it almost impossible for him to carry on competing.

Victor says it's a "sensitive and tricky situation to navigate" for Team Liquid, which has publicly supported gay rights.

"We've been very outspoken that we believe in esports for all," says Victor.

"So there's a contradiction. But we believe that if we want to be around in five or ten years' time we need to play at the EWC."

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

Why little Lithuania has big plans for space tech

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2ezl7xqyo, 3 days ago

I'm led through a series of concrete corridors at Vilnius Tech University, Lithuania; the murals give a Soviet-era vibe, and it seems an unlikely location for a high-tech lab working on a laser communication system.

But that's where you'll find the headquarters of Astrolight, a six-year-old Lithuanian space-tech start-up that has just raised €2.8m ($3.3m; £2.4m) to build what it calls an "optical data highway".

You could think of the tech as invisible internet cables, designed to link up satellites with Earth.

With 70,000 satellites expected to launch in the next five years, it's a market with a lot of potential.

The company hopes to be part of a shift from traditional radio frequency-based communication, to faster, more secure and higher-bandwidth laser technology.

Astrolight's space laser technology could have defence applications as well, which is timely given Russia's current aggressive attitude towards its neighbours.

Astrolight is already part of Nato's Diana project (Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic), an incubator, set up in 2023 to apply civilian technology to defence challenges.

In Astrolight's case, Nato is keen to leverage its fast, hack-proof laser communications to transmit crucial intelligence in defence operations - something the Lithuanian Navy is already doing.

It approached Astrolight three years ago looking for a laser that would allow ships to communicate during radio silence.

"So we said, 'all right - we know how to do it for space. It looks like we can do it also for terrestrial applications'," recalls Astrolight co-founder and CEO Laurynas Maciulis, who's based in Lithuania's capital, Vilnius.

For the military his company's tech is attractive, as the laser system is difficult to intercept or jam.

It's also about "low detectability", Mr Maciulis adds:

"If you turn on your radio transmitter in Ukraine, you're immediately becoming a target, because it's easy to track. So with this technology, because the information travels in a very narrow laser beam, it's very difficult to detect."

Worth about £2.5bn, Lithuania's defence budget is small when you compare it to larger countries like the UK, which spends around £54bn a year.

But if you look at defence spending as a percentage of GDP, then Lithuania is spending more than many bigger countries.

Around 3% of its GDP is spent on defence, and that's set to rise to 5.5%. By comparison, UK defence spending is worth 2.5% of GDP.

Recognised for its strength in niche technologies like Astrolight's lasers, 30% of Lithuania's space projects have received EU funding, compared with the EU national average of 17%.

"Space technology is rapidly becoming an increasingly integrated element of Lithuania's broader defence and resilience strategy," says Invest Lithuania's Šarūnas Genys, who is the body's head of manufacturing sector, and defence sector expert.

Space tech can often have civilian and military uses.

Mr Genys gives the example of Lithuanian life sciences firm Delta Biosciences, which is preparing a mission to the International Space Station to test radiation-resistant medical compounds.

"While developed for spaceflight, these innovations could also support special operations forces operating in high-radiation environments," he says.

He adds that Vilnius-based Kongsberg NanoAvionics has secured a major contract to manufacture hundreds of satellites.

"While primarily commercial, such infrastructure has inherent dual-use potential supporting encrypted communications and real-time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance across NATO's eastern flank," says Mr Genys.

Going hand in hand with Astrolight's laser technology is the autonomous satellite navigation system fellow Lithuanian space-tech start-up Blackswan Space has developed.

Blackswan Space's "vision based navigation system" allows satellites to be programmed and repositioned independently of a human based at a ground control centre who, its founders say, won't be able to keep up with the sheer volume of satellites launching in the coming years.

In a defence environment, the same technology can be used to remotely destroy an enemy satellite, as well as to train soldiers by creating battle simulations.

But the sales pitch to the Lithuanian military hasn't necessarily been straightforward, acknowledges Tomas Malinauskas, Blackswan Space's chief commercial officer.

He's also concerned that government funding for the sector isn't matching the level of innovation coming out of it.

He points out that instead of spending $300m on a US-made drone, the government could invest in a constellation of small satellites.

"Build your own capability for communication and intelligence gathering of enemy countries, rather than a drone that is going to be shot down in the first two hours of a conflict," argues Mr Malinauskas, also based in Vilnius.

"It would be a big boost for our small space community, but as well, it would be a long-term, sustainable value-add for the future of the Lithuanian military."

Eglė Elena Šataitė is the head of Space Hub LT, a Vilnius-based agency supporting space companies as part of Lithuania's government-funded Innovation Agency.

"Our government is, of course, aware of the reality of where we live, and that we have to invest more in security and defence - and we have to admit that space technologies are the ones that are enabling defence technologies," says Ms Šataitė.

The country's Minister for Economy and Innovation, Lukas Savickas, says he understands Mr Malinauskas' concern and is looking at government spending on developing space tech.

"Space technology is one of the highest added-value creating sectors, as it is known for its horizontality; many space-based solutions go in line with biotech, AI, new materials, optics, ICT and other fields of innovation," says Mr Savickas.

Whatever happens with government funding, the Lithuanian appetite for innovation remains strong.

"We always have to prove to others that we belong on the global stage," says Dominykas Milasius, co-founder of Delta Biosciences.

"And everything we do is also geopolitical… we have to build up critical value offerings, sciences and other critical technologies, to make our allies understand that it's probably good to protect Lithuania."

First malaria treatment for babies approved for use

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89e872jdjxo, 3 days ago

The first malaria treatment suitable for babies and very young children has been approved for use.

It's expected to be rolled out in African countries within weeks.

Until now there have been no approved malaria drugs specifically for babies.

Instead they have been treated with versions formulated for older children which presents a risk of overdose.

Half a million deaths in 2023

In 2023 - the year for which the most recent figures are available - malaria was linked to around 597,000 deaths.

Almost all of the deaths were in Africa, and around three quarters of them were children under five years old.

Malaria treatments for children do exist but until now, there was none specifically for the very youngest babies and small children, who weigh less than 4.5kg or around 10lb.

Instead they have been treated with drugs designed for older children.

But that presents risks, as doses for these older children may not be safe for babies, whose liver functions are still developing and whose bodies process medicines differently.

Experts say this has led to what is described as a "treatment gap".

Now a new medicine, developed by the drug company Novartis, has been approved by the Swiss authorities and is likely to be rolled out in regions and countries with the highest rates of malaria within weeks.

Novartis is planning to introduce it on a largely not-for-profit basis.

The smallest and most vulnerable

The company's chief executive, Vas Narasimhan, says this is an important moment.

"For more than three decades, we have stayed the course in the fight against malaria, working relentlessly to deliver scientific breakthroughs where they are needed most.

"Together with our partners, we are proud to have gone further to develop the first clinically proven malaria treatment for newborns and young babies, ensuring even the smallest and most vulnerable can finally receive the care they deserve."

The drug, known as Coartem Baby or Riamet Baby in some countries, was developed by Novartis in collaboration with the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), a Swiss-based not-for-profit organisation initially backed by the British, Swiss and Dutch Governments, as well as the World Bank and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Eight African nations also took part in the assessment and trials of the drug and they are expected to be among the first to access it.

Martin Fitchet, CEO of MMV, says this is another important step on the road towards ending the huge toll taken by malaria.

"Malaria is one of the world's deadliest diseases, particularly among children. But with the right resources and focus, it can be eliminated.

"The approval of Coartem Baby provides a necessary medicine with an optimised dose to treat an otherwise neglected group of patients and offers a valuable addition to the antimalarial toolbox."

Dr Marvelle Brown, associate professor at the University of Hertfordshire's School of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, says this should be seen as a major breakthrough in saving the lives of babies and young children.

"The death rate for malarial infections, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa is extremely high - over 76% of deaths occur in children under five years old.

"Increase in death from malaria is further compounded in babies born with sickle cell disease, primarily due to a weak immune system.

"From a public health perspective, Novartis making this not-for-profit can help with reducing inequality in access to healthcare."

Sourdough v white sliced: Which breads should we be eating?

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250704-sourdough-vs-white-sliced-which-breads-should-we-be-eating, 4 days ago

When it comes to bread, supermarkets have a dizzying array of choice. Yet the bread we eat can have a surprising impact on our health.

Like many of us, I started making sourdough during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020. My colleagues at the BBC published a step-by-step guide, and I – alongside thousands of others – gave it a go. I must confess I didn't start completely from scratch as a friend gifted me some of her starter – the live mixture of wild yeast and bacteria which help bread to rise. After many failed attempts it became not only edible, but delicious. I don't have a very precise method, but it usually turns out OK.

At first, I carried on making bread because it was tasty, but after learning more about the health concerns around ultra-processed foods (UPFs) – which often contain added salt, sugar, fat, and industrial chemical additives – I felt determined to keep going. Not only did my bread taste better than supermarket offerings, but it was free of those ultra-processed food (UPF) ingredients that scientists warn aren't particularly good for us. Five years on, my starter is still thriving and used regularly.

However, not all of us have time to bake our own bread every day. Artisan sourdough can also be extremely expensive. In comparison, supermarket bread is cheap and convenient. But given that there are so many options in the supermarket, it can be difficult to know what's best to eat. So which bread is the healthiest, and what should we look out for when buying a loaf?

The Chorleywood method

In the late 1950s, scientists at the Chorleywood factory in the UK developed a method to produce dough much faster than before. They added hard fats, additional yeast and chemicals such as enzymes, oxidants (to strengthen the dough) and emulsifiers (which helps other chemicals combine), then mixed their recipe together at high speed.

This innovative new technique made bread quicker and cheaper to produce using low-protein British wheat. The extra additives such as emulsifiers gave the bread longer-shelf life too, which is why today about 80% of the loaves we eat are still made using the Chorleywood method.

Although the Chorleywood process was initially developed as a way to help small bakers compete with bigger industrial bakeries, it backfired. Despite the intentions of the scientists behind it, large industrial bakers adopted the process too, putting smaller bakeries out of business.

Sourdough

If the Chorleywood method produces quick, spongey loaves, sourdough bread is on the slower end of the bread-baking scale.

To make almost any risen bread (one that uses yeast or bacteria to create bubbles of gas), there are several essential steps involved. First the ingredients are mixed, then kneaded – this helps the gluten to form an elastic dough – followed by the first rise, which is where the dough is left, usually in a warm, humid environment, for the yeast to break down sugars and create pockets of carbon dioxide. After this, the bread will either be baked immediately or worked again to shape it into its final form, such as a baton or a baguette, and allowed to rise again. During this second step of fermentation, the yeast will form smaller bubbles of air, which improves the structure of the final loaf. Then the bread is ready for baking.

When I make bread, the final rise (called proofing) happens in the fridge overnight, which slows down the fermentation process, enhancing the flavour. This also means that the entire process, from activating my starter – where it is mixed with flour and water, and allowed to wake up before it's used – to taking the bread out of the oven, can take as long as 36 hours.

In its most basic form, the ingredients of sourdough are flour, salt, and water mixed with a sourdough starter – usually a mixture of bacteria and yeast – which acts as a natural raising agent. Those of us who eat it tend to love the taste, but what's even better are the health benefits.

Sourdough can be easier to digest than other breads as the slow fermentation process breaks down the protein and makes the vitamins and minerals easier for our body to absorb. As sourdough ferments, its natural lactic acid bacteria break down carbohydrates in the flour. This process significantly reduces the amount of hard-to-digest sugars known as fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols (fodmaps).

At the same time, the fibre and healthy compounds called polyphenols provide important fuel for our gut microbes. Similarly, the slow fermentation process makes it helpful for those who need to manage their blood sugar level. However, commercially available, (usually) yeast-based breads do have some benefits, including being fortified with certain vitamins and minerals.

Sourdough has also been found to keep you fuller for longer. Some studies have found that people feel less hungry after eating sourdough baked goods compared to other breads. Others though, didn't find any difference.

Ultra-processed bread?

Today, many breads found on supermarket shelves baked using the Chorleywood method are defined as UPFs, due to the chemicals and emulsifiers added to them. For example, in some countries, such as the US, processed bread may contain the additive potassium bromate, which helps bread to retain carbon dioxide and leads to larger loaves. However, it is considered a possible carcinogen in humans.

In the UK about 54% of the calories we consume are in the form of ultra-processed foods, according to a 2020 study. The figure is similar in the US, though estimates vary. It can be hard to identify what a UPF ingredient is, so a rule-of-thumb many academics advise is this: if the food contains five or more ingredients, as well as ingredients you wouldn't have in your own kitchen, it's likely to be UPF.

Most bread found in supermarkets today is mass-produced and contains additives that boosts production speed, extends shelf life, enhances flavour and texture, as well as replaces nutrients lost during the production. This means most supermarket loaves are classified as ultra-processed.

Mass produced bread accounts for about 11% of a typical diet and a diet high in UPFs is linked to a range of health conditions, though it's worth noting that the way food is categorised as UPF lumps many different food groups together, and researchers urge caution not to vilify all supermarket bread.

One option is to choose bread with as few extra ingredients that you do not recognise as possible. And if you are going for packaged bread, you might want to consider opting for wholegrain instead of white. Nutritionist Jenna Hope told BBC Good food that "different types of breads are associated with different health benefits. For example, wholegrain bread with seeds will be higher in fibre and have healthier fats than white bread."

Wholegrain bread

Wheat grains are made up of several layers. There's the germ – the embryo of the wheat which is rich in protein – the outer shell, known as the bran, and the starchy endosperm, which acts as a food store for the embryo.

In regular bread, the germ and the bran tend to be removed, leaving just the endosperm. In contrast, wholegrain bread uses all parts of the grain – and this is what gives it its range of health benefits, as they contain polyphenols (a group of chemicals with antioxidant properties), essential nutrients like vitamin E, folate and magnesium, as well as fibre, protein and healthy fats. White flour on the other hand, has the germ and bran removed.

Unlike refined grains, wholegrain bread is packed with more fibre, vitamins, and minerals. These benefits mean that swapping from white bread to wholegrain could reduce the risk of heart disease and improve your gut microbiome. Eating more wholegrains is also linked to a reduced cancer risk.

The fibre found in wholegrain bread can also keep you feeling full for longer as we digest it more slowly, so it can lead to a more gradual increase in blood sugar levels, rather than the spike we often get from white bread, which can make us hungrier sooner. One study found that those who ate three portions of wholegrain per day had a lower BMI and reduced belly fat compared to those who ate refined grains, showing that eating wholegrain food could help individuals maintain a healthier weight.

It's worth noting that some supermarket bread marketed as "seeded" is not necessarily made from wholegrain flour, even though it appears brown in colour. Of course, if you find it difficult to give up white bread, you can get wholegrain food in your diet from a range of other foods too, including brown pasta, brown rice, rolled oats, and even popcorn.

A healthier white bread

Today white bread is still the most popular form of bread bought by consumers in the UK, despite the fact that it lacks the nutritional value of wholegrain. That could soon change, however. Researchers have created a new wholemeal bread that tastes and looks like white bread.

To do so, the researchers plan to enrich bread with small amounts of peas, beans, and various cereals, alongside the bran and wheat germ that is typically removed in white bread flour. While the research is in its early stages, Catherine Howarth of Aberystwyth University, one of the researchers involved in making these loaves, stated in 2024 that the process is a "delicate balancing act", as the team tries to match the nutritional value of wholemeal bread but create the taste and consistency of white bread.

More like this:

• Barm vs cob: why Britain has so many names for a bread roll

• The strange science inside your sourdough

• The world's most nutritious foods

The team is also incorporating other nutrient-rich grains like teff, sorghum, and millet, as well as seeds such as quinoa. Green peas and chickpeas are also being considered to provide an extra protein boost. "Using other cereals we can enhance the iron, zinc and vitamin levels and most importantly the fibre content, because white bread has very little fibre, which is so important for good health," Howarth told BBC News.

While my colleague, BBC Science correspondent Pallab Ghosh, tried an early prototype – and found it extremely tasty – it may take another two years before this product is available to buy.

So what should you choose?

A lot of choice ultimately comes down to personal preference, convenience and cost.

An expensive sourdough loaf may be out of reach for many, and minimally processed bread is not practical or affordable, yet it's still worth checking the ingredients of the produce you buy. Knowing what to look out for will help you make more conscious choices when it comes to choosing bread.

One loaf that looked fairly healthy to me in my local supermarket had added granulated sugar and preservatives, for instance.

Some supermarkets do sell sliced packaged sourdough – and the ingredient list is minimal, distinguishing it from UPF versions of sliced bread. And for those worried about shelf life, freezing bread is always an option too.

For those interested in baking their own bread, the BBC has plenty of recipes to follow, including how to make your own sourdough loaf.

* Melissa Hogenboom is a BBC health and science journalist.

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Beyond words: The 200-year-old hidden languages of dating

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250703-the-200-year-old-hidden-languages-of-dating, 5 days ago

From Regency-era "fan flirting" to coded gifts, people have perfected the art of discreetly signalling their love over many centuries. Here's what it reveals about our quest for love.

If you visit the Richelieu wing of the Louvre in Paris, you might meet the gaze of a former Queen of England. Her hands, adorned with expensive rings, are clasped together. She smiles ever so slightly in her reserved, composed way. Jewels and gems cover her headdress as well as the rich red and gold fabrics of her puffed-sleeve gown. A small cross hangs below her neck. There is no doubt from the painting that she was destined to turn heads.

So arresting was Hans Holbein the Younger's betrothal portrait of Anne of Cleves, it caused one of the most powerful people in the world, Henry VIII, to enter an engagement with her in 1539. The painting was described by Henry's ambassador in Cleves as "very lively", implying that it was an accurate portrayal. However, some historians have accused Holbein of exaggerating her beauty. Either way, Anne and Henry's first encounter in person was incredibly awkward, with historical accounts suggesting that neither was attracted to the other. What followed was an unconsummated marriage before the couple were granted an annulment in July 1540 – some may say, a lucky escape for Anne.

While presenting a potential future Queen in portrait form might initially seem far removed from our modern-day efforts of finding love in a world of digitised dating services, courtship portraits are, actually, back. Dating apps, used by 30% of adults in the US as of 2022, require users to make crucial preliminary judgements based on little more than a photograph and perhaps a few reassuring words from friends.

As the majority of modern dating interactions begin from behind a screen, online users are exposed to hundreds of potential partners sorted by an algorithm. But, dating today and courtships hundreds of years ago suggests that words have not always been central, or necessary, for finding love.

Some of the hidden languages or visual signals of attraction have remained remarkably similar over centuries, while others have faded into oblivion. What do these non-verbal codes reveal about how we perceive romantic relationships – and might understanding them, help us find true love?

"Fan flirting"

Let's begin with a period in a history known for celebrating romantic love and courtship. The Regency era, loosely defined as the decades around 1800, offered women the opportunity to be wooed – courted – but also, to actively go out into the marriage market.

In novels by Regency era writers such as Jane Austen, characters often pursue marriage for financial or social prospects – but love tends to win by the end. Marrying for love became a "widely celebrated ideal during the 18th Century", says Sally Holloway, research fellow at the University of Warwick in the UK and author of The Game of Love in Georgian England. People emphasised finding love before marriage, as opposed to developing love for someone later, "not dissimilar from how you would assess compatibility with a partner today," she says.

A love interest might develop at one of society's social events. Holloway says that there was fun to be had in subtle flirtation in these public settings – for example, there was a "language of fans" during the period, "but it was more a bit of fun than a serious method of communication".

In 1797, the designer Charles Francis Bandini created a fan on which he printed a coded alphabet in tiny, ornate lettering – to allow women to send messages from across the room. The fan, called Fanology or the Ladies Conversation Fan listed different hand positions to indicate each letter in a similar fashion to semaphore, which was a method of communicating employed mostly by sailors using coloured flags.

Another fan, entitled The Ladies Telegraph, for Corresponding at a Distance from 1798, was similar. "The primary use of the fan between lovers would have been as a much less explicit means of flirtation, accompanied by longing looks, fluttering eyelashes and loving glances," says Holloway.

Fan signals were useful at crowded and noisy dances, or where discretion was required. But in closer quarters, men and women could use scents to "stimulate and strengthen feelings of love and sexual desire," says Holloway. Liquid scents were also applied to love letters in order to entice a lover.

Holloway says that men during the Regency era typically presented women with a wide range of gifts, from flowers to miniature portraits, to show their affection and suitability as a partner. "Couples would check that their disposition and outlook on life were suitably similar by exchanging books as tokens and underlining the passages that they most agreed with," says Holloway. "In their letters, they discussed their hopes and fears, their moral views, what they hoped to find in marriage, and worked to build a closer emotional bond."

In return, women "typically presented men with handmade items such as embroidered ruffles and waistcoats to indicate their domestic skill and time invested in a suitor, and pressed flowers such as violets, which symbolised their modesty, truthfulness and faithful love," says Holloway.

The two most symbolically important gifts were locks of hair – a physical piece of the loved one's body which would outlast their time on Earth – and a ring, which symbolised their hand in marriage.

While the language of fans may no longer be in use, according to Holloway, there are some similarities to the way couples still use gifts and messages to connect in the modern dating world.

"All of these rituals helped to create a sense of intimacy and emotional closeness in a similar way to how modern couples might exchange a flurry of gifts, texts, emails, plan dates and days out, and spend time together as a way to ascertain their compatibility," Holloway says.

The earliest form of social media?

As photography became more accessible and widely distributed during the Victorian period, more people had the chance to see likenesses of celebrities and even royalty for the first time. Friends and family could also exchange mementos of each other. And soon the technology sweeping through British Victorian society found a romantic purpose: the cartes de visite – a portrait photograph around 9cm by 6cm, pasted onto a piece of card that could be sent to prospective lovers.

Cartes were cheap and easy to exchange, so in their own way, a portrait could go viral like an image might go viral online today. People posted adverts requesting an exchange of cartes, and lovers might keep their suitor's cartes close to them, "almost like a little fetish object," says John Plunkett, an assistant professor in the department of English at the University of Exeter in the UK.

Originally made famous by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert before becoming more accessible to the middle and upper classes, the cartes were "part of an individual's construction of themselves in relation to a wider collective identity," wrote Plunkett in a paper published in the Journal of Victorian culture.

Cartes provided some people with their first and perhaps only opportunity of having their photo taken. As with modern dating apps, a carte could allow them to make an impactful first impression. "You're going to dress up in your Sunday best," says Plunkett. People included something of their personality, showing themselves reading, or posed in a way that showed how dominant or demure they were. "It gives you a chance to make a statement about who you are. You're going to make yourself look more socially mobile and higher status," says Plunkett.

It became fashionable to turn the cartes of one's closest social connections into collages. An art style developed around posing friends in unusual and creative ways, such as assembled in a drawing room or even as unfortunate victims in a spider's web. The aim was to save these mementos in a scrap book and express something about how closely one's friends were held.

In many cartes, some of which can be viewed at the V&A museum in London, UK, people posed with objects that represented wealth, such as art or sculptures – and even pets.

Plunkett explains that the use of props helped people to remain still while photographers took their pictures, since those early photographs required much longer exposures than photos do today – but also to incorporate "the sense of a grand background" or to show off your profession, for example.

"It's all about putting on an appearance and thinking about what's the vision of yourself you want to project… [like an] Instagram or Twitter profile… You're going to choose something that shows off a certain version of yourself," Plunkett says. Similarly, on dating apps today, people use backgrounds and props including exotic landscapes or animals to reflect their interests and how they like to see themselves.

Romance in Berlin nightclubs

By the end of the Victorian period, social etiquette was beginning to relax, and daters found new places to seek partners. Dancehalls played increasingly upbeat music late into the night. Jaunty ragtime dances gave way to jazz in the 20th Century. It became more socially acceptable for single women to go to bars and clubs with friends and meet people there. With new dating spaces came new ways to signal interest.

Around this time, in the 1920s, Berlin became the poster city for ultra-modern night life. Some Berlin clubs were "immense, multi-level, with movable floors and even water for water ballet shows," says Jennifer Evans, a professor of 20th Century social history at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and author of Life Among the Ruins: Cityscape and Sexuality in Cold War Berlin.

Technology of the time enabled dancers to flirt in busy clubs. The Berlin nightclub Residenz-Casino, known familiarly as the Resi, became famous for offering night-clubbers the means to contact each other using either a telephone or an elaborate system of pneumatic tubes from their table. Like the tubes used in internal office mailing systems, department stores and banks to send money from the shop floor to the back office, a message could be stuck inside a metal canister and pushed into a tube, where it was sucked by a vacuum to its destination.

Someone could write a message on paper and send it to a switchboard, where an operator would read to ensure it was polite (a bit like, an early example of content moderation on social media today) before diverting it to the recipient's table. Alongside messages, gifts "from cigarettes to small trinkets to cocaine" could be bought and sent to the intended love interest, says Evans.

"There must have been something quite scintillating about seeing your person across the room as they received the message, hidden in plain sight," says Evans. "Their reactions, positive or negative, immediate and unfiltered, enhanced by the sense of fun and frivolity in the room. Maybe we should bring them back."

The outbreak of World War Two in 1939 spelled the end of this form of social interaction, she says, but some nightclub communication systems lived on in what would become West Berlin after the war. The Resi itself re-opened in 1951.

"I suppose we are constantly re-inventing ways to talk to one another, expressing our desires, in these demi-monde [fringe or clandestine] spaces,” says Evans. "It seems to say a lot about who we are as humans and how badly we seek connection."

Secret signals in LGBTQ+ culture

Same-sex relationships have long had to rely on alternative modes of communication because of the history of oppression and marginalisation that has targeted people in LGBTQ+ communities. Historically, secret signals allowed LGBTQ+ people to find partners while trying to stay safe from hostility, violence and repressive laws. Same-sex relationships were illegal in much of Europe until the 1960s and 70s, and 2000s in the US.

The green carnation, for example, originally became popular as a symbol with a hidden meaning by gay writer Oscar Wilde. In 1892, Wilde instructed a handful of his friends to wear them on their lapels for the opening night of his play Lady Windermere's Fan. When asked what it meant, Wilde (allegedly) said, "Nothing whatsoever. But that is just what nobody will guess."

"This sums up so many of these queer symbols – they have to be hidden hints and nods without overtly saying what they mean," says Sarah Prager, speaker and author of Queer, There and Everywhere: 27 People Who Changed the World and other books about LGBTQ+ history. "This can be a challenge for historians," adds Prager. "There might never be full confirmation or separation from legend with some of these symbols, because the whole point is to be able to communicate in secret in times of oppression."

Other flowers and plants became associated with the LGBTQ+ community. "Besides the green carnation, one of the oldest examples of queer floriography is violet and lavender. [...] The colours purple, lavender [and] violet, have all been associated with queerness for centuries," says Prager. "We think this dates back to Sappho, the Greek poet of the 6th Century BCE, [who] wrote about women loving other women and is one of the earliest recorded examples of queerness between women."

Jewellery has long been used as a visual expression and communicator of sexual identity in queer communities. "I have tattoos, earrings, clothing, that signal my queerness so that it makes it easier for me to feel in community with people," Prager says. "The feeling that I get when I see somebody else showing one of these symbols is an instant recognition of community, safety, kinship."

Through the musical and sexual liberation of the Swinging '60s and '70s, queer culture found a new voice. There were increasingly spaces for the LGBTQ+ community to seek love. In Germany, "gay men used the Contacts Desired pages of magazines like Der Kreis and the later gay magazines like Him," says Jennifer Evans. "There, they'd advertise for 'friendship' or companionship... or sometimes, more brazenly for photo exchanges."

The test of time

The desire to see a sweetheart's likeness, and playfully connect through coded gestures and implied meaning, has continued to the present day – whether through dating app profiles, curated online presences, pings, likes, swipes and compliments.

"There's a long history to secret writing, long before sexting or slipping into someone's DMs as they say," says Evans. She points out that flirting and the early stages of courtship have long been associated with the development of new technologies that allow people to communicate hidden thoughts and feelings, even in plain sight: "From symbols like a coloured handkerchief hanging from a back jean pocket in gay cruising, to shorthand emojis and acronyms in sexting."

Sometimes, she adds, this furtiveness serves a purpose in keeping people safe – such as when being public about engaging in certain sexual practices could put one in danger. But more generally, she says, it is the sheer thrill of developing shared intimacies.

Codes, rituals and carefully composed images are all "part of the game".

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The body parts evolution still can't explain

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250703-the-body-parts-evolution-still-cant-explain, 7 days ago

Human testicles are much smaller, in proportion, to some of our primate cousins. Evolution can tell us why. But the size of other body parts is a little bit more of a mystery.

The human body is a machine whose many parts – from the microscopic details of our cells to our limbs, eyes, liver and brain – have been assembled in fits and starts over the four billion years of our history.

But scientists are still puzzling over why we evolved into this particular form. Why do humans uniquely have a chin, for example? And why, relative to body weight, is a human testicle triple the size of a gorilla's but a fifth that of a chimpanzee? As I show in my new book, The Tree of Life, we are still searching for the answers to many of these "why" questions. But we are starting to find answers to some of them.

The story of evolution tells us how, starting from simple beginnings, each species was built – when each of the components that make a living creature was added to its blueprint. If we climb the evolutionary tree of life, we can follow a twisting path that visits the increasingly specialised branches that a species belongs to.

We humans, for example, were animals before we became vertebrates; mammals before evolving into primates and so on.

The groups of species we share each of these branches with reveal the order our body parts appeared in. A body and a gut (inventions of the animal branch) must have come before backbone and limbs (vertebrate branch); milk and hair (mammals) came before fingernails (primates).

There is a way we can study the separate problem of just why we evolved each of these body parts, but it only works if the feature in question has evolved more than once on separate branches of the tree of life. This repeated evolution is called convergence. It can be a source of frustration for biologists because it confuses us as to how species are related.

Swallows and swifts, for example, were once classified as sister species. We now know from both DNA and comparisons of their skeletons that swallows are really closer relatives of owls than swifts.

Size matters when it comes to evolution

But convergent evolution becomes something useful when we think of it as a kind of natural experiment. The size of primate testicles gives us a classic example. Abyssinian black and white colobus monkey and bonnet macaque adult males are roughly the same size. But, like chimps, humans and gorillas, these similar monkeys have vastly dissimilar testicles. Colobus testicles weigh just 3g (0.1oz). The testicles of the macaques, in contrast, are a whopping 48g (1.7oz).

You could come up with several believable explanations for their different testicle sizes. Large testicles might be the equivalent of the peacock's tail, not useful per se but attractive to females. But perhaps the most plausible explanation relates to the way they mate.

A male colobus monkey competes ferociously for access to a harem of females who will mate exclusively with him. Macaques, on the other hand live in peaceful mixed troops of about 30 monkeys and have a different approach to love where everyone mates with everyone else: males with multiple females (polygamy) and females with multiple males (polyandry).

The colobus with his harem can get away with producing a bare minimum of sperm – if a droplet is enough to produce a baby, then why make more? For a male macaque the competition to reproduce happens in a battle between his sperm and the sperm of other males who mated before or after. A male macaque with large testicles should make more sperm, giving him a higher chance of passing on his genes.

It's a sensible explanation for their different testicle sizes, but is it true? This is where convergent evolution helps.

If we look across the whole of the mammal branch of the tree of life we find there are many groups of mammals that have evolved testicles of all different sizes. In almost all these separate cases, larger testicles are consistently found in promiscuous species and smaller in monogamous.

A small-testicled, silverback male gorilla has sole access to a harem. Big-testicled chimps and bonobos are indeed highly promiscuous. Dolphins, meanwhile, may have the biggest mammalian testicles of all, making up as much as 4% of their body weight (equivalent to human testicles weighing roughly 3kg (9.9lb)). Although wild dolphins' sex lives are naturally hard to study, spinner dolphins at least fit our expectations, engaging in mass mating events called wuzzles.

It was thanks to the multiple observations provided by convergent evolution that we were able to discover this consistent correlation between testicle size and sex life right across the mammals. And as for humans, we have testicle size somewhere in the middle – you can make of this what you want!

But what of the human chin?

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The human chin has been fertile ground for arguments between scientists over its purpose. As with testicles, there are half a dozen plausible ideas to explain the evolution of the human chin. It could have evolved to strengthen the jaw of a battling caveman. Maybe the chin evolved to exaggerate the magnificence of a manly beard. It might even be a by-product of the invention of cooking and the softer food it produced – a functionless facial promontory left behind by the receding tide of a weakening jaw.

Intriguingly, however, a chin can be found in no other mammal, not even our closest cousins the Neanderthals. Thanks to the uniqueness of the Homo sapiens chin, while we have a rich set of possible explanations for its evolutionary purpose, in the absence of convergent evolution, we have no sensible way of testing them.

Some parts of human nature may be destined to remain a mystery.

* Max Telford is the Jodrell Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, at University College London

** This article is adapted from a piece that originally appeared on The Conversation, and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

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The chemical secrets that help keep honey fresh for so long

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250701-the-chemical-secrets-that-help-keep-honey-fresh-for-so-long, 9 days ago

Honey is a natural sweetener, and bacteria loves to feast on sugar. But honey is remarkably resistant to spoilage. What's behind its ability to beat the bugs?

Most jarred delights have a limited shelf life – they're just one mucky spoon dip away from growing a luscious crop of mould or a thriving colony of bacteria. But there are certain foods with peculiar staying power, capable of staying edible for years.

Honey is one of these magical substances. In a sealed environment, while the golden stuff may crystallise, turning thick and chunky, it will not go off. This persistent ability to resist decay is down to honey's chemistry, and the way in which it is made.

When we say that food has spoiled, what we actually mean is that something else has got to it first, something microscopic. Bacteria, fungi, and moulds are present in at least low numbers in many foods, and a number of the procedures humans use to preserve food are designed to discourage these creatures consuming it.

Many of these microorganisms tend to prefer moist conditions, higher (but not too high) temperatures, a mellow pH, and plenty of oxygen around to use in their metabolism. Dehydrating meat or fruit, then, deprives them of water. Cooking food to a high heat and then moving it into the fridge for storage first kills off many bugs and puts a damper on the growth of any left behind. Suspending food in a pickling mixture wards off all but the most acid-loving creatures. Sealing something in a jar limits the oxygen they have access to.

Even food that's been put through a gauntlet of preservation procedures usually has a limited shelf life, as you might know if you have ever opened a jar of butterscotch sauce from the back of grandma's fridge, sealed in 1985, to find a thick carpet of fuzz within. (Don't ask me how I know.)

We are always fighting a losing battle against these organisms, and whether it's a whiff of vinegar that tells us the Lactobacillus has had its way with the orange juice, or black mould spots on the inside wall of the peanut butter jar, the signs of their presence are often unsubtle, and unavoidable.

But honey is an unusual case, and here is why. It's made by honeybees from flower nectar, and starts out as a warmish, watery, sugary fluid, the kind of thing that seems like it would be the purest bacteria bait. The bees concentrate the nectar on the way to the hive, removing some of the water, use enzymes to raise the acid content in the fluid discouraging some forms of microorganisms from growing, and break down the sugars into simpler ones, then decant the stuff into honeycomb chambers.

Next, they do something remarkable: they start to fan the honey with their wings. The fanning slowly evaporates the remaining water, like an oscillating fan evaporating sweat from your skin, so a substance that was once about 70% or 80% water sees that number drop and drop and drop.

Fully ripened honey typically has a water content between about 15% and 18%. In fact, the proportion of sugar molecules to water is so enormous that it would not be physically possible to dissolve that much sugar into that much water, without a process like the one honeybees use.

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There is plenty of sugar there, and of course microorganisms would love to have a go at it. But with so little water – and the acidity providing an additional disincentive – they simply can't survive. Seal honey in a jar, to limit the availability of oxygen, and there's another barrier to growth.

This is a state known as "low water activity" among food scientists, and in fact, lowering a substance's water activity is a common trick to preserve processed foods. It is possible to keep moist food from spoiling as long as the water molecules are tied up in interactions with salt or sugar, for example.

This doesn't mean that honey can withstand all challenges to freshness. Once a jar of honey is open, its surface is being regularly exposed to the air, and dipping licked spoons in will bring bacteria and moisture that weren't there when the jar was sealed.

But take charge of the situation by adding water, add your own specially chosen microorganism, and you get mead – a type of spoilage that few would argue with on a hot day, sitting in the shade.

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Parasites and Staphylococcus: How hygienic are public swimming pools really?

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250630-how-hygienic-are-public-swimming-pools-really, 10 days ago

From tropical parasites to bacterial pathogens, here's what else might be swimming in the water.

It might just serve as a way to pass a rainy afternoon, but swimming may be one of humans' oldest hobbies. The earliest swimming pool dates back to 3000 BCE, in the Indus Valley.

Much later, in the 19th Century, swimming pools emerged in Britain and the US. But along with them came the challenge of keeping them hygienic. Even now, public – and private – swimming pools can become hotbeds of infection if they're not well maintained.

Swimming is considered highly beneficial for most people – providing a full-body workout and cardiovascular boost, while being low impact on the bones and joints. However, on rare occasions swimming pools have been linked with outbreaks of gastrointestinal and respiratory illness. Even in well-maintained pools, chlorine tends to be doing more to protect us than we might want to know.

So, just in time for the season of summer swimming (in the northern hemisphere, at least), here's what else might find its way into the pool water with you.

Which bacteria do we swim alongside?

Over the last 25 years, swimming pools have been the most common setting for outbreaks of waterborne infectious intestinal disease in England and Wales. And the biggest culprit is Cryptosporidium.

This parasite can cause a stomach bug that can last for up to two weeks. People can experience diarrhoea, vomiting and abdominal pain – and around 40% will have a relapse of symptoms after the initial illness has resolved.

But most of the time, enteric diseases (the ones that cause diarrhoea and vomiting) clear up on their own in healthy people, says Jackie Knee, assistant professor in the London School of Tropical Medicine's Environmental Health Group. However, they can be a bigger concern for young children, the elderly and people who are immunocompromised, she adds.

Swimmers can catch cryptosporidium when an infected person has a faecal accident in the pool, or from swallowing residual faecal matter from their body, Knee says.

"And they could still shed [the parasite] afterwards, when they're not experiencing symptoms anymore," says Ian Young, associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University's School of Occupational and Public Health in Canada.

You may go to many lengths to avoid swallowing pool water, but evidence suggests that some still ends up in our bodies.

One 2017 study conducted at public swimming pools in Ohio involved testing the blood of 549 people, including adults and children, after swimming in pool water for one hour. On average, the adults swallowed around 21 mL per hour, while children swallowed around 49 mL per hour.

When swallowed, the chances of this water being an infection risk differs depending on how busy the pool is. One study found that contracting cryptosporidium is more likely when swimming at peak times. The researchers tested water from six pools once a week for 10 weeks in summer 2017, and detected cryptosporidium in 20% of the pool samples, and at least once in each pool. Two thirds of these water samples were during the pool's busiest times, in the school holidays.

But cryptosporidium isn't the only thing to watch out for, says Stuart Khan, professor and head of the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney in Australia.

Infections from opportunistic bacteria, such as Staphylococcus, can infect the skin, he says, and there is also the potential to contract fungal infections in swimming pool changing rooms, since these pathogens survive longer in warm, damp environments.

Another common bacterial infection that can be contracted from swimming pools is swimmer's ear, says Khan, which is usually caused by water that stays in the outer ear canal for a long time. However, this isn't spread from person to person.

Although uncommon, the acanthamoeba group of parasites also live in water and can cause eye infections, which are very serious and can cause blindness, says Khan.

It's possible to contract infections through inhalation, too. For example, legionella bacteria may be present in swimming pools. When breathed in through air droplets, can cause the lung infection Legionnaires disease.

However, outbreaks of most infectious diseases linked to swimming pools are rare. "We don't see too many outbreaks of waterborne illnesses in public swimming pools, which means it's done well enough a lot of the time with chlorine disinfection, but occasionally have some outbreaks happening," says Young.

How are bacteria managed in swimming pools?

Before the 1900s, swimming pools didn't have a chemical disinfectant. Some filtered or changed the water frequently, while some pools were built on a slope to help drainage, or fitted with a type of gutter to scoop away visible impurities.

"Traditionally, public bathing sites were either in the ocean where the water was naturally refreshed, or fresh water like a river where there's tidal movement," says Khan.

It's thought that the first use of chlorine in the US was in 1903 in a pool at Brown University in Rhode Island, after the chemical had been developed as a drinking disinfectant.

In rare cases, it's possible to get bacterial infections from swimming pools, such as from pathogens including Campylobacter, Shigella and Salmonella. In most cases these bacteria cause gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhoea and stomach cramps, as well as fever. However, they can also lead to serious complications. Thankfully, much of the risk is mitigated by chlorine, says Khan.

Viruses such as norovirus – which can lead to diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting and stomach pain, among other symptoms – are a little tougher than most bacteria. There have been isolated reports of outbreaks at swimming pools, however these are usually associated with the failure of equipment or chlorine levels that are too low. The virus is generally well killed with chlorine, says Khan.

In order to maintain this level of protection against viruses and bacteria, a pool must be well controlled, says Khan. This involves ensuring that the water is the right pH and alkalinity to allow the chlorine to be effective, he adds.

Also, the amount of chlorine required depends on how many people are in the pool at any given time. "The higher the chlorine demand, the more you need to put in. There's quite a science to it," Khan says.

Regulations around public swimming pool maintenance differ between countries. In the UK, there are no specific health and safety laws, but operators must comply with the Health and Safety at Work Act. In the US, swimming pools can be regulated at both federal and state level. While the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a health and safety code for pools, it is voluntary.

But even in well maintained pools, cryptosporidium is resistant to normal chlorine levels.

"The cryptosporidium parasite is extremely tolerant to chlorine," says Knee. "Most other pathogens are killed within minutes, but cryptosporidium stays alive and active for more than a week at normal levels of chlorine treatment."

This is because of how the parasite is structured. "It can go into spore formation, where it wraps itself up tightly and prevents anything touching the exterior, which makes it resistant to lots of things," says Khan.

The risk of infection is likely highest from bigger and more obvious accidents in the pool, but this risk can be mitigated if responded to immediately, says Knee. Pool operators can either use a coagulant and filter the pool water – if they have an appropriate filtration setup that doesn't filter the water too quickly – or use 'super chlorination', Knee says. The latter involves adding much higher levels of chlorine to the water and leaving it for a longer period of time.

But while these incidents are pretty obvious, people can shed faecal material passively without it being a massive event, Knee says.

Are there other risks in the pool?

You may be surprised to learn that the unmistakable smell of chlorine that hits you when you come out of the changing room and into the swimming pool actually isn't technically the smell of chlorine.

"This smell is when chlorine is reacting to other materials, particularly ammonia, in the water, which comes from urine and sweat," Khan says. This ammonia reacts with chlorine and forms chloramine, which is what causes the smell.

"So, the smell suggests that there are bodily fluids in the pool reacting with the chlorine," says Khan.

These chloramines hover above the surface of the water and inhaling them can cause irritate our throats and eyes, says Young. "Chemicals that cause irritations and degrade the quality of chlorine in the pool can affect everyone's health," he says. "Just a short amount of exposure can affect you."

There is a very small body of research suggesting that people continuously exposed to chloramine, such as swimming teachers and lifeguards, could be at increased risk of developing asthma.

What can be done to minimise your risk when swimming?

The risk of chloramines forming above the water can be lowered by ensuring that everyone showers before entering the pool, says Yong, which helps to wash off faecal matter. Showering can help to lower the risk of spreading and contracting infection, says Knee.

Yong also emphasises the importance of a pool having good ventilation.

Other important ways to avoid infections from swimming pools include avoiding swallowing pool water, says Knee – as the pathogens that cause diarrhoea are transmitted by ingesting water contaminated with poo.

Knee adds that it's important to quickly alert pool operators to contamination events and exit the pool immediately.

The CDC suggests that those with pools can lower the risk of infection by regularly draining and replacing water, maintaining chlorine and pH levels within certain ranges, as well as scrubbing the pool surfaces to remove any slime.

On balance, Knee and Khan both agree that the health and social benefits of swimming outweigh the risk of infection.

"Properly maintained pools that are properly treated and have operators who know how to jump into action when there is a contamination event pose minimal risk to health, in terms of infectious disease risk," Knee says.

So, there are plenty of reasons to take a dip this summer – just make sure you take a shower, too.

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Ten things to know about veganism in childhood

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250627-10-things-to-know-about-veganism-in-childhood, 11 days ago

Here's what the experts say about the benefits and risks of veganism in childhood.

Veganism is on the rise in certain parts of the world. Though global data is limited, around 3% of the world's population was estimated to be vegan in 2018. In the US, a 2023 Gallup poll found that 1% of the population said they followed a vegan diet.

More recently, a survey by The Vegan Society found that around 3% of the UK population has a plant-based diet – equivalent to approximately two million people.

There are many well-documented benefits to such a choice. For one, eating meat and dairy is notoriously bad for the planet, while plants offer a much more sustainable solution. Many people have ethical concerns about the welfare of animals bred for consumption, and there is evidence that balanced, varied vegan diets have some health advantages as well.

Nevertheless, isolated cases of severe malnutrition in infants have led some to argue that a vegan diet is unsafe for children.

However, expert opinion on whether children can stay healthy and follow a vegan diet varies around the world. While official dietary associations in both America and the UK argue that a vegan diet, when appropriately planned, is safe for infants and children, in Germany, France, Belgium and Poland, health authorities have some concerns.

Unfortunately, historically there has been little research on the health impact of a plant-based diet for children, but that is finally starting to change, with a host of new studies offering up insights.

But let's back up a little. Vegans do not eat any foods derived from animals. They eschew meat, fish, dairy and eggs, and instead eat a diet based on plants, as well as fungi, algae and bacteria. Think vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, beans and legumes, but also bread, pasta and hummus – many foods are accidentally vegan.

So, what does the science say about the effects of a vegan diet in childhood?

1. Research shows there are multiple health benefits to eating a plant-based diet

"The biggest benefits we see relate to cardiovascular health, so the health of your heart and all of your vascular system," says Federica Amati, a nutritional scientist at Imperial College London and head nutritionist at ZOE, a company offering personalised nutrition advice.

"People who follow vegan diets have decreased LDL cholesterol, less blockages in their arteries, and reduced risk of heart attack and strokes. They also tend to be leaner, lighter and have a lower risk of developing obesity," says Amati.

A plant-based diet is also associated with a reduced risk of metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes, as well as certain cancers such as colorectal cancer.

One of the reasons that plants are so good for us is that they are rich in fibre – a nutrient 90% of us don't get enough of. They are also packed with molecules called polyphenols, which have antioxidant properties and are associated with all sorts of health benefits, such as decreased risk of heart attack, stroke and diabetes.

Another reason some people might benefit from eating less meat and dairy is that animal-based foods tend to be high in saturated fats, which if eaten to excess can raise levels of 'bad' LDL blood cholesterol and increase the risk of heart disease.

"When we think about foods, it's always helpful to think about what they're contributing and in what package," says Amati. "So, if you're eating a steak you're getting a lot of protein, iron, zinc and some micronutrients from that beef." However, Amati points out that along with those things, you're also getting saturated fat and certain chemicals like carnitine – a nutrient which plays a role in energy production – and which is thought to increase inflammation in the gut.

"Whereas, if you look at, say, an edamame [a type of young, immature soybean] you're getting good amounts of protein, but you're also getting fibre, and bioactive compounds that are beneficial for health such as vitamins, minerals and polyphenols," says Amati.

So far, so good for veganism – as long as you have a balanced diet. However, there are potential downsides to relying on plants too heavily for your nutritional needs. There are some essential vitamins and minerals which are only or predominantly found only in meat, fish, dairy and eggs.

2. Vegans can be at risk of B12 deficiency

One challenge is getting enough vitamin B12, a micronutrient made by bacteria in the bodies of animals, and found in animal products such as fish and shellfish, meat, poultry, dairy and eggs. It can also be found in vegan foods such as nutritional yeast or yeast-based spreads (like Marmite), nori seaweed, fortified milks or breakfast cereals, or incorporated into a person's diet via supplements. However, many vegans who do not take supplements are deficient.

Vitamin B12 is essential for nerve transmission in the brain, and you also need it to make healthy red blood cells. Because our bodies can store it, vitamin B12 deficiency can take a while to manifest in adults. But young children can develop it much sooner. For instance, there have been case reports of infants exclusively breast-fed by vegan mothers developing neurological issues due to vitamin B12 deficiency.

"Children have the highest requirement nutritionally, simply because they're literally growing new tissue and building an adult body before our eyes," says Amati.

"During the critical growth phase, if you miss out on certain nutrients, for example B12, then it does impact nerve function and red blood cell formation, so it can impact a child's ability to keep up with learning and for their brain to finish developing properly."

3. There are vegan sources of omega-3

Other nutrients vegan children might miss out on include the omega-3 fatty acids. These polyunsaturated fats form an important part of the bilipid membrane that encases every cell in the body. They're essential for brain function, amongst other things. However, the omega-3s responsible for these health benefits, EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), are found only in fish and algae. Another type of omega-3, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) is found in chia and flax seeds as well as leafy green vegetables. However ALA doesn't have the same health benefits as EPA or DHA.

Other nutrients such as calcium, vitamin D and iodine are present in plants, but in small amounts.

4. Deficiencies can be severe in rare cases

As a consequence, there have been isolated reports of vegan children suffering severe nutritional deficiencies. In 2016, a one-year-old vegan child in Milan, Italy was taken into care after blood tests revealed that he had dangerously low levels of calcium. In 2017, the parents of a seven-month-old baby boy in Belgium were convicted of causing his death, after feeding the infant an exclusive diet of vegetable milk made from oats, buckwheat, rice and quinoa.

The good news for vegans is that many of these nutrients can be supplied via supplements, fortified breakfast cereals and fortified plant milks.

"We can definitely completely get rid of vitamin B12 deficiency by supplementing," says Malgorzata Desmond, a clinical dietician and honorary research fellow at University College London, "That's the easiest thing you can do."

More careful planning may be required to ensure you get enough of other nutrients like iron and zinc. These nutrients are present in leafy green vegetables but are less readily absorbed by the body in plant form compared to when eaten in the form of meat or dairy.

However, whilst it may be possible to for vegan children to get all their nutrients from supplements and a carefully planned diet, one study suggests that this does not always happen in reality.

5. Careful dietary planning is important

In 2021, Desmond and colleagues compared the health of 187 Polish children following either a vegan, vegetarian or omnivorous diet. Two-thirds of the vegan and vegetarian children in the study took vitamin B12 supplements, but overall vegan children had lower calcium levels and were at greater risk of iron, vitamin D and vitamin B12 deficiency.

The study showed that vegan children's health differed in several ways from omnivorous kids who ate meat and dairy. The good news was that vegan children were leaner and had lower cholesterol levels, which could potentially lead to a lower risk of heart disease later in life. They also showed reduced signs of inflammation in their bodies.

6. Vegan children might be slightly less tall

The less good news was that vegan children were between 3-4cm (1.2-1.6in) shorter on average than omnivorous kids, although they were still a normal height for their age. "They have a tendency to be slightly smaller and lighter, but we don't know if those vegan children are going to catch up when they're teenagers," says Desmond.

The most concerning finding, however, was that vegan children had a 6% lower bone mineral density than omnivores. This could put them at risk of osteoporosis and bone fractures in later life. "We only have a short window where we build our bones, which is up until the age of around 25 to 30," says Desmond.

"From then on, our bone mineral content goes downwards. So, if you do not build as much as possible until the age 25, you're going down the hill from a much smaller amount of mineral in your bones."

Research on adult vegans and vegetarians also suggests that they have lower bone mineral density than omnivores, putting them at higher risk of bone fractures.

However, the reason for the mineral deficit isn't fully understood. Both vitamin D and calcium are essential for building and maintaining healthy bones, however Desmond points out that although the vegan children in her 2021 study had lower calcium intakes than vegetarian and omnivore children, it was only slightly lower.

"I think it's a combination of factors," says Desmond. "I don't think it's as easily solved as taking a calcium pill, because it could be due to the quality of plant protein, which is less growth promoting than animal protein."

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Eating more animal protein is thought to stimulate the release of certain growth factors. These molecules – usually proteins – can send signals to the body to encourage it to grow faster. Growth factors play a crucial role in making bones stronger and are involved in both bone growth and repair.

However, Amati points out that these results are just from one study, and therefore the link between a vegan diet in childhood and bone density is yet to be definitively proven. "I think it's an important study, but it's one study on a small amount of children. So, what this study says to me is that we need to actually do more research to really understand what factors in their diet are putting children at higher risk," she says.

7. A carefully planned vegan diet is probably safe for children

Desmond agrees that more research is needed to understand what, if any risk, vegan children face. "I'd say based on what we know now, we can say a vegan diet [in childhood] is safe, but needs to be done responsibly," she says.

This view is shared by Tom Sanders, emeritus professor of nutrition and dietetics at King's College London, who has researched vegan diets since the 1970s. "We showed years ago that kids could be brought up in on vegan diet, providing you avoided the known pitfalls," he says.

So, what are the best foods to eat to make sure you are maximising your intake of nutrients normally found in meat and dairy?

8. Some foods are fortified with important nutrients, such as B12, calcium and vitamin D

When it comes to B12, studies have shown that the best thing is to take supplements, however fortified cereals and plant milks also have B12 added to them so theoretically you could meet your requirements this way.

Plant milks and yoghurts also contain added calcium and vitamin D. Amati also points out that it's important to make sure that children go outside and experience sunlight on their skin during sun-safe hours, when UV levels are at their lowest, as this will encourage vitamin D production.

Good plant sources of iron, meanwhile, include legumes, lentils, beans and chickpeas. "Absorption [of iron] can be a bit less efficient, but that can be overcome if you pair it with vitamin C-rich foods like peppers, tomatoes and citrus fruits," says Amati.

For the omega-3 fatty acids, flax seeds, chia seeds and walnuts are good sources of ALA, while vegans can take omega-3 supplements made from seaweed and algae to maximise their intake of EPA and DHA – the omega-3 oils found in fish.

9. It's best to avoid ultra-processed vegan food where possible

It's also best to choose a wide range of plant-based foods rather than pre-packaged, ultra-processed foods marketed specifically as being vegan, explains Amati. "We do sometimes see people who have vegan diets, but they're just buying vegan cheese, and vegan chicken nuggets, so the quality of their diet is still poor," she says.

"If you have an unhealthy vegan diet where you're not thinking about the variety of nutrients, and you're just taking supplements, then you won't have good health outcomes," says Amati.

10. Doing your research is important

Finally, all the experts emphasised the need for parents to educate themselves about nutrients such as B12, vitamin D, calcium and iron so that they could carefully plan their children's diets.

"it's a really good idea to consult healthcare professionals, and specifically a paediatric dietitian or registered nutritionist to plan the diet for your child," says Amati. "It's also important to make sure you regularly monitor children's growth so we can quickly spot if there's any growth or developmental delays."

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The answer to a cat's loud meow might be buried in its genes

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250626-how-loud-a-cat-meows-might-be-down-to-their-genes, 14 days ago

Some cats are quiet, while others meow loudly for attention. What makes the difference may be buried deep in their genes.

If you've ever shared your home with more than one cat, you'll know how different their personalities can be. One might chirp for food, purr loudly on your lap and greet visitors at the door. Another might prefer quiet observation from a distance.

So why do some cats become chatty companions while others seem more reserved?

A recent study led by wildlife researcher Yume Okamoto and his colleagues at Kyoto University in Japan suggests that part of the answer may lie in cat genes.

Cat owners from across Japan were asked to complete a questionnaire about their cat (the Feline Behavioural Assessment and Research Questionnaire), and to take a cheek swab from their pet to provide a DNA sample. The survey included questions about a range of cat behaviour, including purring and vocalisations directed at people.

The researchers in the recent Japanese study focused on the cats' androgen receptor (AR) gene, located on the X chromosome. This gene helps regulate the body's response to hormones such as testosterone and contains a section where a DNA sequence is repeated. AR is an essential part of vertebrate biology.

The most ancient form of AR appeared in the common ancestor of all jawed vertebrates, over 450 million years ago. AR controls the formation of male reproductive organs, secondary sexual characteristics and reproductive behaviour. The number of these sequences alters how responsive the gene is. Shorter repeats make the receptor more sensitive to androgens. In other species, including humans and dogs, shorter repeats in the AR gene have been linked with increased aggression and extraversion.

Among 280 spayed or neutered cats, those with the short AR gene variant purred more often. Males with the variant also scored higher for directed vocalisations such as meowing to be fed or let out. Females with the same genotype, however, were more aggressive towards strangers. Meanwhile, cats with the longer, less active version of the gene tended to be quieter. This variant was more common in pedigree breeds, which are typically bred for docility.

Domestication is generally thought to have increased vocal behaviour in cats, so it may seem odd that the version of the gene linked to increased communication and assertiveness is the one also found in wild species such as lynx.

But this study doesn't tell a straightforward narrative about how cat domestication selects for sociable traits. Instead, it points to a more complex picture. One where certain ancestral traits like aggression may still be useful, especially in high-stress or resource-scarce domestic environments.

Some animals spend a lot of time around humans because they are attracted by our resources rather than bred as companion animals or farmed. Urban gulls offer an interesting example of how close proximity to humans doesn't always make animals more docile. In cities, herring and lesser black-backed gulls (both often referred to as seagulls) have become bolder and more aggressive.

Researchers at Liverpool John Moores University found that urban gulls were less fearful of humans and more prone to squabbling compared to their rural counterparts. In urban areas, where food is highly contested, being assertive gets results. Gulls are often vilified in the UK press during breeding season as urban villains, swooping down to snatch your lunch or chase pedestrians. This suggests that life alongside humans can sometimes favour more confrontational behaviour.

More like this:

• Three ways cats can control our minds

• Why do we think cats are unfriendly?

• The complicated truth about a cat's purr

The parallels with cats raise broader questions about how environment and genes shape behaviour. Okamoto and colleagues' findings may reflect a trade-off. Traits linked to the short AR variant, such as greater vocalisation or assertiveness, might offer advantages in gaining human attention in uncertain or competitive settings. But these same traits may also manifest as aggression, suggesting that domestication can produce a mix of desirable and challenging traits.

It's worth bearing in mind that this kind of variation between individuals is fundamental to the evolution of species. Without variation in behaviour, species would struggle to adapt to changing environments. For cats, this means there may be no single ideal temperament, but rather a range of traits that prove useful under different domestic conditions.

From cats to gulls, life alongside humans doesn't always produce gentler animals. Sometimes, a little pushiness pays off.

* This article is adapted from a piece that originally appeared on The Conversation, and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

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Councils draft in AI for routine public queries

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y72vddegqo, yesterday

Artificial intelligence (AI) bots have been drafted in to answer questions about tax and services at two local authorities.

The trial at South Norfolk Council and Broadland District Council was estimated to cost £149,000 for one year.

Software would be used online and over the phone to provide automated responses to "routine inquiries" from September.

However, some councillors warned the technology could be "more irritating" for people wanting to speak with a human.

Speaking at a meeting of South Norfolk Council's cabinet, officers said the use of AI agents was "no longer optional".

Instead, they said it was essential to make services more efficient.

The cost of running the technology would be shared between both authorities, using it to answer queries such as how to pay council tax.

However, it was not planned to be used for more personalised questions, such as finding out a caller's outstanding tax balance.

The AI bot would be the first point of contact for every caller to the councils.

Conservative councillor Kim Carsok said: "I wonder if there is a risk that some customers will be more irritated by the virtual agent.

"I think we all have phoned up a company and had to speak to a computer and didn't enjoy the experience quite as much as if we were talking to a real person."

Council officers hoped the AI agent would stop people having to trawl through websites for information.

Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.

Digital landline switch could sever telecare alarms

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3lv71vknxo, yesterday

Telecare alarm users are being urged to call their landline providers to ensure the lifesaving alerts remain on ahead of the switchover from analogue to digital.

Gloucestershire County Council said around 1,700 people across the county rely on the Gloucestershire Telecare service to provide assistance in an emergency.

The monitoring system can alert call centres or carers if vulnerable or disabled people suffer a fall or experience a medical incident and require help.

The switch from traditional analogue landlines to digital landlines in the UK is scheduled to be completed by January 2027. Government ministers have urged people affected to seek help.

Telephone providers are upgrading the landline network across the country from analogue to digital as copper networks become increasingly unreliable and spare parts are no longer available.

But this switch may disrupt telecare alarms, as many older telecare systems rely on the analogue infrastructure to communicate with monitoring centres.

Alerting your landline provider can enable them to update your equipment, or make the necessary arrangements to ensure you stay connected.

Telecoms Minister Sir Chris Bryant said: "We cannot afford to leave anyone behind during the vital transition to digital landlines.

"I urge anyone with a telecare alarm – or anyone close to a user of a telecare alarm - to pick up the phone and contact their provider to access the help that's available."

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Instagram wrongly accuses some users of breaching child sex abuse rules

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8kjdz9nr3o, 2 days ago

Instagram users have told the BBC of the "extreme stress" of having their accounts banned after being wrongly accused by the platform of breaching its rules on child sexual exploitation.

The BBC has been in touch with three people who were told by parent company Meta that their accounts were being permanently disabled, only to have them reinstated shortly after their cases were highlighted to journalists.

"I've lost endless hours of sleep, felt isolated. It's been horrible, not to mention having an accusation like that over my head," one of the men told BBC News.

Meta declined to comment.

BBC News has been contacted by more than 100 people who claim to have been wrongly banned by Meta.

Some talk of a loss of earnings after being locked out of their business pages, while others highlight the pain of no longer having access to years of pictures and memories. Many point to the impact it has had on their mental health.

Over 27,000 people have signed a petition that accuses Meta's moderation system, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), of falsely banning accounts and then having an appeal process that is unfit for purpose.

Thousands of people are also in Reddit forums dedicated to the subject, and many users have posted on social media about being banned.

Meta has previously acknowledged a problem with Facebook Groups but denied its platforms were more widely affected.

'Outrageous and vile'

The BBC has changed the names of the people in this piece to protect their identities.

David, from Aberdeen in Scotland, was suspended from Instagram on 4 June. He was told he had not followed Meta's community standards on child sexual exploitation, abuse and nudity.

He appealed that day, and was then permanently disabled on Instagram and his associated Facebook and Facebook Messenger accounts.

David found a Reddit thread, where many others were posting that they had also been wrongly banned over child sexual exploitation.

"We have lost years of memories, in my case over 10 years of messages, photos and posts - due to a completely outrageous and vile accusation," he told BBC News.

He said Meta was "an embarrassment", with AI-generated replies and templated responses to his questions. He still has no idea why his account was banned.

"I've lost endless hours of sleep, extreme stress, felt isolated. It's been horrible, not to mention having an accusation like that over my head.

"Although you can speak to people on Reddit, it is hard to go and speak to a family member or a colleague. They probably don't know the context that there is a ban wave going on."

The BBC raised David's case to Meta on 3 July, as one of a number of people who claimed to have been wrongly banned over child sexual exploitation. Within hours, his account was reinstated.

In a message sent to David, and seen by the BBC, the tech giant said: "We're sorry that we've got this wrong, and that you weren't able to use Instagram for a while. Sometimes, we need to take action to help keep our community safe."

"It is a massive weight off my shoulders," said David.

Faisal was banned from Instagram on 6 June over alleged child sexual exploitation and, like David, found his Facebook account suspended too.

The student from London is embarking on a career in the creative arts, and was starting to earn money via commissions on his Instagram page when it was suspended. He appealed after feeling he had done nothing wrong, and his account was then banned a few minutes later.

He told BBC News: "I don't know what to do and I'm really upset.

"[Meta] falsely accuse me of a crime that I have never done, which also damages my mental state and health and it has put me into pure isolation throughout the past month."

His case was also raised with Meta by the BBC on 3 July. About five hours later, his accounts were reinstated. He received the exact same email as David, with the apology from Meta.

He told BBC News he was "quite relieved" after hearing the news. "I am trying to limit my time on Instagram now."

Faisal said he remained upset over the incident, and is now worried the account ban might come up if any background checks are made on him.

A third user Salim told BBC News that he also had accounts falsely banned for child sexual exploitation violations.

He highlighted his case to journalists, stating that appeals are "largely ignored", business accounts were being affected, and AI was "labelling ordinary people as criminal abusers".

Almost a week after he was banned, his Instagram and Facebook accounts were reinstated.

What's gone wrong?

When asked by BBC News, Meta declined to comment on the cases of David, Faisal, and Salim, and did not answer questions about whether it had a problem with wrongly accusing users of child abuse offences.

It seems in one part of the world, however, it has acknowledged there is a wider issue.

The BBC has learned that the chair of the Science, ICT, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee at the National Assembly in South Korea, said last month that Meta had acknowledged the possibility of wrongful suspensions for people in her country.

Dr Carolina Are, a social media researcher at Northumbria University's Centre for Digital Citizens, said it was hard to know what the root of the problem was because Meta was not being open about it.

However, she suggested it could be due to recent changes to the wording of some its community guidelines and an ongoing lack of a workable appeal process.

"Meta often don't explain what it is that triggered the deletion. We are not privy to what went wrong with the algorithm," she told BBC News.

In a previous statement, Meta said: "We take action on accounts that violate our policies, and people can appeal if they think we've made a mistake."

Meta, in common with all big technology firms, have come under increased pressure in recent years from regulators and authorities to make their platforms safe spaces.

Meta told the BBC it used a combination of people and technology to find and remove accounts that broke its rules, and was not aware of a spike in erroneous account suspension.

Meta says its child sexual exploitation policy relates to children and "non-real depictions with a human likeness", such as art, content generated by AI or fictional characters.

Meta also told the BBC a few weeks ago it uses technology to identify potentially suspicious behaviours, such as adult accounts being reported by teen accounts, or adults repeatedly searching for "harmful" terms.

Meta states that when it becomes aware of "apparent child exploitation", it reports it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the US. NCMEC told BBC News it makes all of those reports available to law enforcement around the world.

Why 'pan-Africanist' influencers pushed rumours of a coup

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20nxne1680o, 2 days ago

In May, Mafalda Marchioro woke up to messages from friends living overseas asking if she was safe in Abidjan, the largest city in Ivory Coast.

Social media was full of posts claiming a coup was under way. Dramatic footage of soldiers on the street flooded platforms, while AI-generated and presenter-led reports were racking up millions of views on YouTube.

"I was really worried, really concerned, I thought something had happened," the management consultant told the BBC.

But the claims shared around 19 May were false.

They are the most recent example of untrue rumours being spread about coups in West Africa, increasing tensions in a region that has seen several military takeovers in recent years.

Ivory Coast, one of the few French-speaking countries still closely aligned with the West, is due to hold presidential elections later this year.

Experts believe it could be an increasing target for this type of disinformation with narratives attacking the electoral process.

This is because Ivorian President Alassane Ouattarra, poised to seek a fourth term, is seen as pro-Western - and his critics accuse him of aligning with countries that are exploiting the continent.

Ivory Coast's Communications Minister Amadou Coulibaly told the BBC they had traced the origin of the fake information to "neighbouring countries", but did not specify further.

The rumours appear to have grown out of a rift with Burkina Faso and have been promoted by a growing wave of self-styled pan-Africanist influencers.

They reject ties with the West, often express support for Russia and generate conversations across the continent – reaching countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa.

The influencers also promote figures like Burkina Faso's military leader Capt Ibrahim Traoré, who seized power in a coup in 2022.

Traoré portrays himself as a pan-Africanist and has lots of genuine support from young people across the continent, who see him as a leader who is standing up to the West.

Alex Vines, the director of the Africa Programme at Chatham House think tank, says the influencers are attempting to sow doubt about existing political leadership by spreading or amplifying coup rumours, to erode public confidence in the current institutions.

They are "finding an avid market of readers who want to see more assertive African leaders, who are developmental and bring peace and prosperity", he told the BBC.

While analysts suggest the Ivory Coast rumours have similar traits to a Russian sponsored-campaign, there is no evidence of Russia's involvement.

The country has been linked to influence operations in French-speaking West African countries in the past. According to the US Department of Defense's Africa Center for Strategic Studies disinformation networks connected to the Russian Wagner Group tried to spark rumours of a coup in Niger in 2023.

There is also no evidence the Burkinabé authorities were involved in the Ivory Coast coup rumours but people based there did amplify the claims.

Relations between Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast seriously soured more than a year ago, when Traoré accused his neighbour of tolerating militant groups on its territory and harbouring "destabilisers" and dissidents who were openly insulting his junta.

Then this April, his security minister blamed plotters based in Ivory Coast for planning to overthrow Traoré – an accusation which was widely amplified online.

The BBC Global Disinformation Unit analysed mentions of the fake Ivorian coup reports on TikTok, Facebook, X and YouTube – and the earliest popular post we found was on 19 May by Harouna Sawadogo, a pro-government activist in Burkina Faso who makes content for his 200,000 TikTok followers almost exclusively about Capt Traoré.

He had posted a selfie video in French and Mooré, a local language, saying soldiers of Ivory Coast should rise up to carry out a coup and encouraging people to share his post.

An hour later he published a video featuring an image of Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara superimposed over footage of rapid gunfire with the caption declaring a coup was underway - though the clip was actually from recent India-Pakistan tensions over Kashmir.

The following day, social media users outside Francophone West Africa pounced on the misinformation and pushed it out to an English-speaking audience in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, encouraging other social media users to follow suit.

When the BBC messaged Mr Sawadogo a few weeks later, via the Facebook page posting his live videos, to ask from where he had sourced his information, he provided no details but replied that he "prays to God Alassane [Ouattara] is brought down by a coup d'etat."

Another who took on the rumour, posting in English, was Turkish-born South African Mehmet Vefa Dag, who runs the Truth and Solidarity Movement – a small political organisation in South Africa.

He posted several times across different platforms celebrating what he called an "internal coup".

In fact Mr Dag, who has been criticised in the past for offensive and false comments against Jews and LGBTQ+ people, had already called for a coup in Ivory Coast on X on 11 May.

When contacted by the BBC on 3 June, when it was clear there had been no coup, he insisted it had happened.

"We are very proud of whoever did this coup to remove Ouattara. He had sold his soul to imperialists and wanted to destroy Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger," he said.

"As pan-Africanists we will never give them a chance ever again. We're going to fight for our country. This is our continent."

The most popular YouTube videos about the alleged turmoil in Ivory Coast, viewed millions of times, were shared by channels that often style themselves as dedicated to pan-Africanism or discussions about Burkina Faso's junta leader.

According to Effiong Udo, an associate professor at Nigeria's University of Uyo and president of the Pan-African Dialogue Institute, some "opportunistic influencers" are romanticising military governments under the guise of pan-Africanism – a movement to promote unity and liberation on the continent – to gain popularity and make money from their content.

But he told the BBC that this type of content has appeal with young people disillusioned with politics, adding: "I can understand their overzealousness."

Kenyan academic Karuti Kanyinga agrees that the social media content feeds into a desire for accountable leaders who can change Africa, do not misappropriate resources and try to uplift people from poverty.

"But the people trying to provide misinformation and disinformation about Traoré in Burkina Faso, or about a coup in Ivory Coast are not agents of pan-Africanism," the research professor of development studies at the University of Nairobi's Institute for Development Studies told the BBC.

There is no doubt Traoré has many admirers and for content creators he is the story of the moment – anything linked to him and his political worldview does very well online.

Kenyan YouTuber Godfrey Otieno, who produces content on trending news, said he stumbled on to this winning formula several months ago when he posted a video reporting the false claim that Capt Traoré had been shot by his best friend.

"That really trended," he told the BBC – and since then his content has almost all been about the Burkinabé leader.

He was one those who repeated the unverified information about Ivory Coast in May and his video garnered more than 200,000 views. He later apologised and said he got it wrong.

He admits that he does make money from some of his content, but adds he does not monetise all his posts and unlike some people identifying as "pan-African influencers" maintains his motivations are not purely financial.

"There are people in the space who are using misinformation and disinformation to grow their reach, and for engagement farming," he said.

There is real interest in this content and the comments under the fake coup videos were often positive, possibly reflecting an appetite for change across the continent.

But calling for the removal of Ivory Coast's government did cause genuine anxiety for those living in the crosshairs – and it all contributes to increasing tensions as the West African state gears up for the vote in October.

Additional reporting by the BBC's Nicolas Négoce

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

Imposter used AI to pose as Marco Rubio and contact foreign ministers

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

The US State Department said it is investigating an imposter who used artificial intelligence to impersonate Secretary of State Marco Rubio and contact three foreign ministers.

The "unknown actor" is alleged to have used an artificially-generated voice of Rubio to contact officials via the Signal messaging app, according to a State Department cable obtained by BBC's US partner CBS News.

The cable stated that the person contacted at least five individuals, including the foreign ministers, a US governor and a member of Congress.

The State Department said it is aware of the incident and is taking steps to improve its cybersecurity defences.

The incident was first revealed in the State Department cable that was dated 3 July and sent to "all diplomatic and consular posts," CBS News reported.

The cable stated that a false Signal account was created in mid-June with the display name marco.rubio@state.gov. That account contacted at least five people.

"The actor left voicemails on Signal for at least two targeted individuals, and in one instance, sent a text message inviting the individual to communicate on Signal," the cable stated, as reported by CBS.

The cable did not identify the individuals that were contacted or what the AI-generated voice of Rubio said in those voicemails.

"There is no direct cyber threat to the department from this campaign, but information shared with a third party could be exposed if targeted individuals are compromised," the cable said.

In a statement, the State Department said it is investigating the matter. It added that it "continuously takes steps to improve the department's cybersecurity posture to prevent future incidents."

The incident was first reported by the Washington Post on Tuesday. The newspaper reported that US authorities do not know who was behind the impersonations, but they believe the person's goal was to manipulate powerful government officials to gain access to information.

The Associated Press reported, citing a US official who spoke anonymously, that the hoaxes were unsuccessful and "not very sophisticated".

Secretary of State Rubio has not commented on the incident.

AI technology has been used in the past to impersonate US politicians.

Last year, a fake robocall claiming to be from former President Joe Biden had urged voters to skip the New Hampshire primary election ahead of the 2024 US election.

Officials in New Hampshire said at the time that the calls "appear to be an unlawful attempt to disrupt" the election, and that they were investigating the matter.

K-pop singer jailed three and a half years for rape

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp820gypnn6o, today

South Korean singer Taeil, formerly from the K-pop band NCT, has been sentenced to three years and six months in prison for rape.

Taeil, 31, and two accomplices, named in South Korean reports only as Lee and Hong, admitted in June to taking turns assaulting their victim - a Chinese tourist.

A district judge in Seoul described the crime as "extremely grave", but handed them just half the seven-year sentence requested by prosecutors, noting they were first time offenders.

The court also ordered the three men to complete 40 hours of a treatment programme designed for perpetrators of sexual violence.

The court heard they had met their victim at a bar in the Itaewon district in Seoul.

She became "heavily intoxicated" after drinking with them, the court heard. They then got into a taxi to Lee's house, where the assault happened.

South Korean law describes this specific kind of rape as "aggravated" because it was a group attack, and a "quasi rape", as the victim was unconscious.

Taeil, whose real name is Moon Tae-il, left NCT in August last year when allegations first emerged, although the exact details of the crime were not publicly known at the time.

Introduced as a K-pop band in January 2016, NCT is known for its experimental music spanning various genres and has gained international attention with some releases charting on Billboard lists.

Additional reporting by Hyojung Kim in Seoul

Gregg Wallace faces backlash over autism defence

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx24lxl85wyo, today

Former MasterChef host Gregg Wallace is facing criticism from charities and groups working with disabled people after he appeared to link claims of misconduct he is facing to his autism diagnosis.

Several dozen people have come forward with allegations about Wallace, including inappropriate sexual comments, touching and groping, which he denies.

In a statement this week, the presenter defended himself and also said he had recently been diagnosed with autism, but that TV bosses had failed to "investigate my disability" or "protect me from what I now realise was a dangerous environment".

One charity told BBC News that autism is "not a free pass for bad behaviour", while others warned that such remarks risked stigmatising the autistic community.

Her comments were echoed by Emily Banks, founder of neurodiversity training body Enna.

"To be clear: being autistic is never an excuse for misconduct. It doesn't absolve anyone of responsibility, and it certainly doesn't mean you can't tell the difference between right and wrong."

Dan Harris, who runs the charity Neurodiversity in Business and is himself autistic, said people like him "may miss social cues sometimes".

"But autism is not a free pass for bad behaviour," he added.

"Comments like this stigmatise us and add an unfortunate negative focus on our community."

Last year, the charity Ambitious About Autism dropped Wallace as an ambassador in the wake of the original claims against him.

The comments have also sparked debate online and on radio phone-ins.

On BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine Show, Jessie Hewitson, Director of NeuroUniverse, said people with autism "have been stereotyped since the dawn of time".

She said she worried that remarks like this risk "forming a connection in peoples' minds - either that autistic people behave inappropriately in the workplace or that we cannot take personal responsibility".

But on social media, many people responded positively to Wallace's post and sent him supportive messages.

And on BBC Radio 5 Live's Nicky Campbell Show, which dedicated an hour to the topic on Thursday, some callers were sympathetic.

One called Danielle, who is autistic, said people with the condition "can misread situations quite often".

"I think growing up undiagnosed, you grow up thinking everything you're doing is wrong because you're different and you then internalise a lot of that so you're very oversensitive as well," she said.

Another caller, Jake, said he thought Wallace should have had support a long time ago.

"You've got a man here who's clearly out of touch, he's been out of touch for a long time, he's had nobody putting him back in line, whether that's an employer, whether that's a friend, whether that's anybody, and at the moment that's what he needs.

"He needs some compassion to get him back where he needs to be and I feel for his mental health."

Report expected

As the face of BBC One cooking show MasterChef, Wallace, 60, was one of the most high-profile presenters on British television for 20 years.

He stepped aside from the show in November after an initial BBC News investigation, when 13 people accused him of making inappropriate sexual comments.

This week, new claims have come from 50 more people who say they encountered him across a range of shows and settings.

The majority say he made inappropriate sexual comments, while 11 women accuse him of inappropriate sexual behaviour, such as groping and touching.

The inquiry into allegations of misconduct against Wallace, has been conducted by an independent law firm on behalf of MasterChef's production company Banijay.

BBC News has not seen that report, but Wallace said it had found the "most damaging" allegations to be "baseless".

He also accused the BBC of "peddling baseless and sensationalised gossip masquerading as properly corroborated stories".

A spokesperson for Wallace has said he denies engaging in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature.

Banijay UK said: "While the external investigation is ongoing, we won't be commenting on individual allegations. We encourage anyone wishing to raise issues or concerns to contact us in confidence."

A BBC spokesperson said: "Banijay UK instructed the law firm Lewis Silkin to run an investigation into allegations against Gregg Wallace.

"We are not going to comment until the investigation is complete and the findings are published."

If you are affected by any of the issues in this story, help and support is available at BBC Action Line.

Slovakian rap festival featuring Kanye West called off

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0qylvxqjqo, today

A rap festival offering what organisers claimed would be the only performance in Europe this year by controversial American rapper Kanye West has been called off.

Organisers of the Rubicon festival in Slovakia announced that the event – planned for next weekend – had been cancelled "due to external pressure and logistical challenges".

Protest groups had organised a petition against West's appearance because of antisemitic and pro-Nazi statements he has made in recent years.

Meanwhile, Slovakian media revealed the venue was still an unharvested wheat field on the outskirts of Bratislava.

Slovak rap artists began pulling out, followed by one of the two organisers. Finally, West himself - now officially known as Ye - deleted an Instagram post announcing the concert.

The festival's Instagram account said: "It is with regret that we announce: Rubicon Festival will not take place this year.

"This was not an easy decision. Due to media pressure and the withdrawal of several artists and partners, we were unable to deliver the festival at the standard of quality you deserve."

West has effectively brought about his own cancellation in the mainstream music industry by posting a series of antisemitic tirades, declaring himself a Nazi, and releasing a song called Heil Hitler that glorified the Nazi leader.

Shortly after its release in May, West claimed he was "done with antisemitism" and released a new version of Heil Hitler titled Hallelujah. The new song replaced earlier references to Nazism with lyrics relating to Christianity.

'They scream the choruses': How Japanese anime songs became Gen Z's latest musical obsession

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250709-how-japanese-anime-songs-became-gen-zs-latest-musical-obsession, today

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, music from Japanese animations is booming on Spotify and at gigs and club nights – especially among young people, who are drawn to its bold hooks and big emotions.

Around 20,000 rapturous fans have packed out London's O2 Arena on a summer night. Pulsing light sticks pierce the electrified air; on the stage, the enigmatic J-pop diva Ado (who performs in shadowy silhouette) launches into a song that the entire crowd knows: Kura Kura, taken from the Japanese animation series Spy x Family. The track is stylistically unpredictable yet immediately catchy: it ricochets between a 1960s-style pop groove, jazzy riffs and hyper-dramatic rock opera – a modern example of an anime music anthem, in a scene that is increasingly taking on a life of its own.

Japanese animation, or anime, has a legacy that stretches back to the early 20th Century, and a creative scope that spans seemingly endless stories and styles, from pirate sagas to sci-fi warfare; sorcery to sports action; martial arts mythology to star-crossed romance. The music used to soundtrack it is similarly adventurous. Songs vary significantly in their genres and tempos (often shape-shifting within a single track), but they also share common qualities: they elevate the visual action and deeply seal our bond with it. In the digital age, vividly evocative, insistently snappy themes are key to the viral impact of iconic Japanese animated series/films/manga comic adaptations – One Piece, Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, Dragon Ball Z, Cowboy Bebop, Attack On Titan and Naruto, to name a few. "Anisongs", as they are known, are now a major musical force, particularly among younger people.

According to a recent study by anime streaming platform Crunchyroll and the National Research Group, anime is almost as big as Beyoncé with Gen Z-ers, with 54% of them globally being anime fans. Meanwhile Spotify reported a 395% increase in global streams of anime music between 2021 and 2024, as well as 7.2 million user-generated anime playlists on its site (at the time of writing). A Spotify spokesperson also tells the BBC that users under the age of 29 account for nearly 70% of global anime music consumption.

"Anime music has evolved into a global cultural force and Gen Z is really at the heart of that movement on Spotify," Sulinna Ong, Spotify's Global Head of Editorial, tells the BBC. "We're seeing fans connect with the music beyond the screen as the shows offer listeners a window into musical styles they may not otherwise have discovered. Our editors' curated playlists are built to help fans discover the full range of anime-inspired sounds. And as more artists take influence from the space, the sound is continuing to grow in bold and unexpected ways."

This global boom isn't limited to 21st-Century releases; as it's now easy to tune into anime's expansive catalogue, decades-old anthems – like the original rousing theme to pirate fantasy One Piece, called We Are! and sung by Hiroshi Kitadani – are winning new devotees. Anime music's hooks are composed for enduring effect; the melodies and lyrics (easily translated online, or released in multilingual versions) typically spark a tantalising headrush of sensations: affinity with favourite characters or narratives; adrenaline; escapism; nostalgia. As Satoshi Uto, Crunchyroll's director of music acquisition, tells the BBC: "The OPs and EPs [opening and end credit songs] are critical to fans' emotional connection with anime."

An example of a smash hit anisong is Japanese singer-songwriter Lisa's 2019 track Gurenge, which is the intro to anime series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. This elegant power ballad with explosive rock flourishes has inspired countless tributes, from TikTok influencers (such as young British piano talent Joe Jenkins) to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics closing ceremony (where it was included as an instrumental symphony). It is also sentimentally character-driven, as Lisa explained in a Billboard Japan interview: "I tried placing myself in the shoes of the protagonists, who keep forging ahead, despite their tragic pasts."

The reasons for the boom

The timing of audience spikes does suggest that the pandemic era played a pivotal part in the mainstream awakening to both anime and its atmospheric tunes; this form's fantastical themes, emotional intensity and free-ranging sounds may have represented a heady escape from lockdown constraints. In a 2022 article, The Hollywood Reporter noted, that "anime might just be the world's most Covid-resistant form of popular entertainment", referencing a study that showed global demand for anime content grew 118% between 2020 and 2022.

"You're looking at a massive spike in the availability of anime to new fans [based on a growing array of online platforms], and the time they had on hand to watch it," explains Jonathan Clements, author of books including the British Film Institute's Anime: A History. "And in the years since, a bunch of young fans have become consumerist teens with a love of anime.

For young fans, anime music offers a gateway to Japanese pop culture and beyond. It also has lifted up a new wave of stars onto a worldwide platform. Examples include the vibrantly catchy J-pop duo Yoasobi, whose 2023 track Idol, taken from the manga comic adaptation Oshi no Ko, became the first anime song to top the Billboard Global Chart; hip-hop act Creepy Nuts, whose viral smash Bling-Bang-Bang-Born, which is the intro for anime Mashle: Magic And Muscles, is a surreal bop blending quickfire rap and Latin licks; and melodic rockers Radwimps' soaring anthems for Makoto Shinkai's fantasy-dramas (Your Name; Weathering With You; Suzume). Ado's catalogue contains numerous anime themes, and her worldwide breakthrough was fuelled by the blockbuster success of One Piece Film Red, in which she sang tracks including the exhilarating electro-pop banger New Genesis, in character as the antihero Uta.

"When I first heard the demo for New Genesis, it felt like the world had opened up and a warm ray of light had shone through," Ado tells the BBC. "The character, Uta, is full of human touch in a good way," she says, adding that this song slickly captures the protagonist's complexity: "She is able to express feelings of joy and happiness, but also anger, hatred and sadness in a very simple relatable way."

Keeping up with this prolific scene can feel dizzying, but it regularly yields thrilling discoveries, and its blend of bold hooks, gripping storytelling and persuasive nostalgia seems to bring generations together more than most music – as I've found as a Gen X woman, geeking out alongside my Gen Alpha son. "Someone to look out for is [anime soundtrack composer] Kensuke Ushio, whose attention to detail and realism is truly astounding," says Clements. "On [2024 coming-of-age drama] The Colours Within he had to come up with the sound of the in-film garage band, carefully crafting electronic pop inspired by the early days of New Order. He even went as far as recording ambient sound in Japanese church halls, to ensure that the on-screen rehearsal sessions had the right room tone."

Anime music in the live arena

Anime music also increasingly translates to real-life realms, whether it's international concert tours from veteran composers such as Joe Hisaishi, the maestro famous for his work on the films of Studio Ghibli, or contemporary hitmakers including Ado and Yoasobi, or inclusive meet-ups and club events like those hosted by UK "diversity-led anime and gaming collective" Anime & Chill.

"For Gen Z specifically, anime hits differently," says Anime & Chill founder Eneni Bambara-Abban. "This is a generation raised on global internet culture, where J-pop, K-pop and anime AMVs [anime music videos] are part of the same online ecosystem.

"Platforms like TikTok and YouTube have also given anime songs a second life – clips go viral, people remix them, and suddenly, a theme from a niche show becomes a global anthem. We see it all the time at our events… the crowd knows the lyrics, they scream the choruses and they feel it." She emphasises the "emotional imprint" of these songs: "Anime music isn't just background music – it's the heartbeat of the [work]."

More like this:

• The anime that captures millennials' greatest fear

• Why Gen Z is nostalgic about 'indie sleaze'

• The animation that showed me the meaning of life

Notable too is how Western musicians are getting in on anime culture. Back in 2003, French electronic duo Daft Punk re-imagined their Discovery album as an anime feature: Interstella 5555 (supervised by legendary artist Leiji Matsumoto); it seemed like a quirky curiosity at the time. But nowadays, a surge of western musicians reference anime in their own material, whether it's US hip-hop stars like Lil Uzi Vert and Megan Thee Stallion, or alt-pop heroine Billie Eilish name-checking characters in their lyrics and song titles, or London indie rapper Shao Dow who writes personal tracks based around famous anime series, and tells the BBC: "I use anime as a vehicle to explore ideas within my life". He adds that One Piece's teenage captain Luffy provided early creative influence: "I would look at this character who'd scream about being the king of the pirates, and people would laugh, but he'd keep doing it. Even though it's a cartoon, that positive energy inspired me: he's pushing forward with this dream."

Perhaps that's the ultimate power of anime songs; you can grow up with this music, but you never really grow out of it.

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Joe Locke to follow Heartstopper movie with West End debut

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgn4klzjmko, yesterday

Heartstopper star Joe Locke is to make his West End debut this autumn, in a play about two young men who bond while working night shifts at a warehouse in a rural US town.

Locke is currently filming the forthcoming Heartstopper movie after appearing in three series of the hit Netflix show about two classmates who fall in love, but will take on his new stage role later this year.

The 21-year-old will star in Clarkston, which follows two men in their twenties from opposite ends of the US who meet while working at Costco.

Locke told BBC News he was "so excited" for his West End debut, adding that his new role matched his desire to play "flawed characters... who have a bit of bite".

Clarkston is written by Samuel D Hunter, who is best known for his 2012 play The Whale, which later won Brendan Fraser an Oscar when made into a film.

Producers have not yet announced the venue or run dates for the British production, but told the BBC it would open in a West End theatre in the autumn.

Set in Clarkston, Washington, the play opens with a Costco employee named Chris working night shifts when he meets new hire Jake, a young gay man originally from Connecticut.

Jake has Huntington's disease, a degenerative neurological condition that causes involuntary movements. He ended up in Clarkston by accident after finding himself no longer able to drive during a road trip west.

"He's this city boy in a small place," explained Locke. "Jake has got so many layers to him that really unravel in the play. A lot of the themes are to do with class and the different experiences of the characters."

Chris, meanwhile, struggles with the strained relationship he has with his mother, who is a drug addict.

Locke, who is used to portraying young men grappling with their identity, explained: "I really enjoy characters that have something to them, a bit of bite, a bit of a grey area.

"Everyone is flawed in some ways. And I've been lucky enough in my career so far to play a few flawed characters, and Jake is no different to that. And that's the fun bit, the meaty bit, getting to know these characters - they're good and they're bad."

Hunter noted the play "is fundamentally about friendship and platonic male love, which is something that I feel like we don't see a lot of on stage and screen".

Locke agreed: "Yeah, one of my favourite things about this play is there's a scene where these characters almost build on their platonic relationship and get to a romantic level, and they realise that no, the platonic relationship is what's important, and I think that's really beautiful."

Clarkston, which has previously been performed alongside another of Hunter's plays, Lewiston, received positive reviews from critics when it was staged in the US.

"You feel like you're eavesdropping on intensely private moments of people you don't always like but come to deeply understand," said The Hollywood Reporter's Frank Scheck of a 2018 production.

"Toward the end, there's an encounter between Chris and his mother that is as shattering and gut-wrenching a scene as you'll ever see on stage. But the play ends on a sweet, hopeful note that sends you out of the theatre smiling."

Writing about a different production in 2024, Charles McNulty of the LA Times said: "Clarkston hints that some of our most instructive relationships may be the most transitory. That's one of the beautiful discoveries in Hunter's small, absorbing and ultimately uplifting play."

Anybody who has worked night shifts may relate to the idea that the early hours are a time when people often open up to each other and have have their deepest conversations.

Hunter suggests such an atmosphere results in a "more delicate, more intimate" backdrop.

"I had an experience working in a Walmart when I was a teenager," he recalled, "and I found that places like the break room were so intimate and vulnerable, you're in this very sterilised space so I think the need for human connection is made all the greater."

Hunter had the idea of writing the play when visiting his home town of Moscow Idaho, about 30 miles from Clarkson, and became interested in "the idea that the American West is still kind of young", following the Louisiana Purchase in the early 19th Century.

"The markers of that history are still there," noted Hunter, "but they are right next to things like Costcos and gas stations and mini-malls.

"So it just got me interested in the experiment of the American West and the colonial past, and what that means in 2025."

The new production will be directed by Jack Serio, who has previously directed another of Hunter's plays, Grangeville, with Ruaridh Mollica and Sophie Melville cast in the other two lead roles as Chris and his mother.

Locke has previously appeared on stage at London's Donmar Warehouse, and in a Broadway production of Sweeney Todd.

The actor said being a theatre actor "was the thing I wanted more than anything" when growing up.

"I'm from the Isle of Man," he explained, "and my birthday present every year was a trip to London with my mum to watch a few shows, so it's very full circle to bring my mum to my press night to my West End debut, it's going to be very exciting."

Locke has starred in three seasons of Neflix's Heartstopper since its launch in 2022. The show followed two teenage boys, Charlie and Nick, who fall for each other at secondary school, and their circle of friends. Locke spoke to BBC News while on set, shooting the film adaptation.

"It's going great, we're almost two thirds of the way through shooting now, and everything, touch wood, is going well," he said.

"We're having a great time doing it, it's a really nice closing chapter of the story."

Raynor Winn hits back at claims she misled readers

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89eq12qvl5o, yesterday

Author Raynor Winn has hit back at a newspaper investigation that claimed she gave misleading information about her life story in her 2018 book The Salt Path.

The Observer reported she had misrepresented the events that led to she and her husband losing their house and setting off on a 630-mile walk. The investigation also cast doubt over the nature of her husband's illness. Winn denied the allegations and said she was taking legal advice.

In a lengthy statement posted on her website on Wednesday, Winn responded in detail to the claims made in the Observer.

She provided documents that appeared to confirm her husband Moth had previously been diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration (CBD).

She also stood by her description of how the couple came to lose their house and denied the couple had any outstanding debts.

However, Winn acknowledged making "mistakes" earlier in her career, after the Observer said she had defrauded her previous employer of £64,000. She said it had been a pressured time.

"Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry," she said, but added the case had been settled between her and her ex-employer on a "non-admissions basis" and although she was questioned by the police, she was not charged.

BBC News has contacted the journalist who wrote the Observer article for a response.

How has Raynor Winn responded to the allegations?

* The Observer said it had spoken to several medical experts who were sceptical about Moth having CBD, also known as CBS, given his long survival after diagnosis, lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them.

* The Observer said the couple had not lost their home in a bad business deal as Winn originally suggested, but after they were unable to repay £100,000 they had borrowed to repay money she had been accused of stealing from a previous employer

* The Observer alleged Winn had stolen £64,000 from her previous employer while she was working there.

* The Observer said the couple owned property in the south-west of France, but added it was not in a habitable state and reported locals saying the couple only camped on the land when they visited

Elsewhere in the statement, Winn disputed any suggestion that the couple had outstanding debts, and said a credit check would have proved this.

She said after receiving an advance for the book and over the subsequent years "I tracked down our remaining debts and now believe I have tracked down and repaid everyone".

Winn also explained why she and Moth are not known by their legal names of Timothy and Sally Walker.

The author said Winn was her maiden name, and she disliked her first name of Sally and decided to use her family name Raynor as a pen name. She also noted Moth was short for Timothy.

She denied the couple were "hiding behind pseudonyms" and said their friends use "Sal and Tim interchangeably with Ray and Moth".

Penguin says it did 'all necessary due diligence' with The Salt Path

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89eqpk9pjvo, yesterday

Publishing house Penguin has said it "undertook all the necessary due diligence" before releasing The Salt Path, after a series of claims about the book's veracity.

A recent Observer investigation claimed English author Raynor Winn fabricated or gave misleading information about some elements of her 2018 non-fiction best-seller.

Penguin's Michael Joseph said it had not received any concerns about the book's content prior to the Observer's story, and that it had a contract with Winn regarding factual accuracy.

Winn has described the Observer's article as "highly misleading" and said she and the couple are taking legal advice, adding that the book was "the true story of our journey".

A spokeswoman for Number 9 Films and Shadowplay Features, who made the screen adaptation, said in a statement on Monday: "There were no known claims against the book at the time of optioning it or producing and distributing the film."

Their statement called the movie "a faithful adaptation of the book that we optioned", adding, "we undertook all necessary due diligence before acquiring the book".

"The allegations made in The Observer relate to the book and are a matter for the author Raynor Winn," it concluded. "We have passed any correspondence relating to the article to Raynor and her agent."

The film adaptation has taken around $16m (£11.7m) at the box office worldwide. The movie is yet to launch in Germany and France, while a deal is reportedly still pending in the US, according to Deadline.

After the Observer's article was published, the charity PSPA, which supports people with CBD and has worked with Raynor and Moth Winn, said "too many questions currently remain unanswered" and that it had "made the decision to terminate our relationship with the family".

Winn has also withdrawn from the forthcoming Saltlines tour, which would have seen her perform readings alongside folk music act Gigspanner Big Band during a string of UK dates.

A statement from Winn's legal team said the author was "deeply sorry to let down those who were planning to attend the Saltlines tour, but while this process is ongoing, she will be unable to take part".

Superman to I Know What You Did Last Summer: 10 of the best films to watch this July

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250625-10-of-the-best-films-to-watch-this-july, 14 days ago

From Superman to I Know What You Did Last Summer – these are the films to watch at the cinema and stream at home this month.

Eddington

Best known as the horror auteur who chilled audiences with Hereditary and Midsommar, Ari Aster moves on to state-of-the-nation satirical comedy with his latest film, Eddington. The title is the name of a small desert town in New Mexico where the sheriff, Joaquin Phoenix, is at loggerheads with the business-minded mayor, Pedro Pascal. Their feud has something to do with the sheriff's wife, Emma Stone, but it spirals out of control in 2020 when the town is hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests. Aster "transforms everyday American insanity into one of the most artistically complete and compulsively watchable doom-scrolls of the year", says Tomris Laffly in Elle. "It's insightful, gloriously bonkers, and often very funny… both the definitive Covid movie and a modern-day Western of sorts, culminating into a superbly directed and gradually darkening finale."

Released on 18 July in the US and on 24 July in Australia

Heads of State

What is it about US Presidents becoming action heroes at the moment? In April, Viola Davis was a gun-toting, butt-kicking POTUS in G20. Now, Heads of State has John Cena as a President who used to be a Hollywood actor, and Idris Elba as the UK's Prime Minister. When their plane is shot down over hostile territory, they have to battle their way back to civilisation, with some help from a supporting cast that includes Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Jack Quaid and Paddy Considine. Directed by Ilya Naishuller, this action comedy probably won't win many Oscars, but Naishuller's last film, Nobody, had some of the best fight scenes in years, and Cena proved in The Suicide Squad that he knows how to send up his tough-guy image. "This one was pretty much just me getting beat up, and that is my forte," Cena said on ExtraTV. "We have a little introduction as to who these people are, and then once it jumps off, you are on the edge of your seat the whole time. Once it goes, it doesn't stop."

Released on Prime Video on 2 July internationally

Together

Allison Brie and Dave Franco, a real-life married couple, star in this icky horror drama as another couple, Millie and Tim, who may be a little too closely entwined for their own good. They move from Melbourne to the Australian countryside, where Millie is starting a teaching job. After Tim drinks some stagnant water in a mysterious cave, he can't bear to be apart from Millie, but when he touches her, their bodies start to fuse together. Written and directed by Michael Shanks, Together currently has a 100% fresh rating on the Rotten Tomatoes reviews round-up site – but whether it would work as a date movie is open to debate. "This delightfully unhinged spin on the body horror joint… should leave audiences yelping and tittering in equal measure," says Kate Erbland in IndieWire. "It's hard not to get pulled into the spectacle, stuck to the story, really connected to this crowd-pleasing (and -screaming) little ditty of a midnight treat."

Released on 30 July in the US, Canada and the UK, and on 31 July in Australia

40 Acres

The debut film from writer-director RT Thorne is a dystopian survival thriller set in Canada. Animals have been wiped out by a pandemic, and food is scarce, so if you are lucky enough to have your own farm, you might be inclined to build a high fence around it, and do whatever it takes to keep gangs of hungry strangers outside. The farmers on this particular property are people of colour – Danielle Deadwyler plays a matriarch with a military background, and her husband is played by a First Nations actor, Michael Greyeyes – which gives 40 Acres another layer of complexity: enslaved people were promised homesteads of "not more than 40 acres" after the American Civil War. The film is full of gory action, but, according to Chase Hutchinson in The Wrap, it has some profound issues in mind. "Is there room for community and care when everyone is at each other's throats in what was already a painful existence? The question remains the main point of thematic tension with no easy answers as we follow a family struggling to find a way forward together."

Released on 2 July in the US

Superman

Superman is the first film in the new DC Universe, as revamped by James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Suicide Squad). It looks as if it might be more cheerful than Zack Snyder's moody Man of Steel (2013): the trailers don't just feature Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), but the outlandish likes of the Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Superman's robot assistants, and Krypto the Superdog. But what can we hope for from Superman himself, as played by David Corenswet? "We can expect a Superman who is about the compassion of the human spirit," Gunn said in Screen Brief. "Yes, he's an alien from another planet who's super powerful, but he is also deeply, deeply human… This is about a complex character, and I think that’s the thing that audiences are going to be completely surprised by."

Released from 8 July internationally

Smurfs

A tribe of tiny, brightly coloured, music-loving humanoids who live in a forest village? Over the past decade, the most popular characters who met that description were the Trolls, not the Smurfs: Trolls was a disco-powered smash in 2016, and Smurfs: The Lost Village couldn't match it a year later. Still, maybe the latest Smurfs film, in which animated Smurfs are zapped to a live-action Paris, will put them back on top. The biggest selling point is Rihanna, who voices the Smurfette and contributes new songs (the working title was The Smurfs Musical). But Peyo's original Belgian comic strips were what mattered to the director, Chris Miller (Puss in Boots). "The DNA in Peyo's original drawings guides so many creative choices in the film," Miller said at last year's Annecy Animation Festival. "All of the action lines and thought bubbles from the comics are going in the movie, and the comics have inspired the style of animation to be fun and buoyant, with plenty of squash and stretch."

Released from 16 July internationally

I Know What You Did Last Summer

In the original I Know What You Did Last Summer, which came out in 1997, a group of teenagers ran someone over in their car, fled the scene of the crime, and were hunted down by a serial killer known as the Fisherman. The film set off a craze for teen slasher films in the 1990s, alongside Scream (which had the same screenwriter, Kevin Williamson). And now that the Scream franchise is back, maybe it was inevitable that I Know What You Did Last Summer would follow. This legacy sequel has a new set of teens, and another car accident, but it's set in the same universe as the first film, and features Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr as the two survivors of the first killing spree, Julie and Ray. "I came to this originally wanting to dig into: if this thing had happened to you, how would that shape you, and what person do you become after it?" Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, the writer-director, said in Entertainment Weekly. "So really wanting to look at both Ray and Julie and say, 'Okay, how did this thing shape both of them and where would they be today?'"

Released from 16 July internationally

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Once a decade, it seems, someone tries to launch a big-screen franchise based on Marvel comics' first superhero team, the Fantastic Four. There was a 2005 film, which was successful enough to merit a sequel, and then there was Josh Trank's dark reboot in 2015, which wasn't. And now, in 2025, there is yet another version – but it looks a lot more fantastic than the others. The team is now played by Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby (who shares a surname with the co-creator of the Fantastic Four, legendary artist Jack Kirby), Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. The twist is that the film isn't set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but a parallel reality which is a bright and shiny space-aged, 1960s utopia. "This is very much about the spirit of the Space Race," Matt Shakman, the director, said in Empire magazine. "It's about JFK and optimism. It's imagining these four going into space instead of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. This idea is that they are the most famous people in America, because they're adventurers, explorers, astronauts – not because they're superheroes."

Released from 23 July internationally

Apocalypse in the Tropics

The state of Brazil's democracy is firing up film-makers at the moment: see last year's Oscar-winning I'm Still Here, and the forthcoming Cannes award-winner The Secret Agent. In the documentary field, Petra Costa's personal take on her country's political divisions, The Edge of Democracy, was Oscar-nominated in 2020. And now she returns with Apocalypse in the Tropics, which examines the influence that evangelical Christian leaders have over voters: former president Jair Bolsanaro was embraced by Christians and nicknamed "the Messiah". Costa "explores the history of evangelism to try and grasp how its apocalyptic visions managed to capture the hearts and minds of so many Brazilians", says Jordan Mintzer in The Hollywood Reporter. "By doing so, she sheds light on a phenomenon present not only in Brazil and America, but in countries around the world where 'faith in progress and democracy' is currently being tested like never before."

Released Netflix on 14 July internationally

Jurassic World Rebirth

Jurassic World Rebirth is a Jurassic World reset. The last film in the dino-series, 2022's Jurassic World Dominion, was a globe-trotting action caper with science-fiction and spy-thriller elements, whereas the new one goes back to basics: it's written by David Koepp, who scripted the first two Steven Spielberg-directed Jurassic Park films, and it returns to the classic concept of having a small band of intrepid adventurers (Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend) being trapped on a tropical island with some hungry prehistoric animals. The director, Gareth Edwards, demonstrated his skill with CGI behemoths in Godzilla (2014) and his low-budget debut, Monsters (2010), but in this instance he's happy to pay loving homage to Spielberg. Jurassic World Rebirth "really does feel that it's welcoming people to celebrate the original film", Bailey said in Empire magazine. "It has that wonder and awe, while not being scared to re-inject the thrill and the fear."

Released in cinemas internationally from 2 July

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'The British have always liked the certainty of club membership': The controversial UK clubs that kept women out

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250708-the-controversial-uk-clubs-that-kept-women-out, yesterday

Three hundred years since they first appeared, the capital's traditional members-only gentlemen's clubs – still frequented by royalty and power brokers – have endured and evolved. As controversy continues around The Garrick permitting women members, a new book explores this peculiarly British phenomenon.

For more than three centuries, London has been the global centre of private members' clubs. In no other place have so many of these secretive sanctuaries come and gone, and today, with a total of 133 operating, the British capital still outstrips its closest rival, New York City, which hosts a mere 53 clubs.

Many of the historic men-only London clubs have moved with the times, and now allow female members. And arguably the most famous in traditional clubland, the Garrick Club, founded in 1831, made the news last year when it finally decided to drop its men-only rule. Since then, however, only a handful of women has been elected as members there, and, last month, broadcast journalist Julie Etchingham withdrew her candidacy. Reportedly, some prospective female candidates are uncomfortable with the protracted vetting process and seeming hostility of numerous members to women joining. The Savile Club, meanwhile, voted earlier this year to keep women out. Hidebound attitudes remain, it seems.

Now a new book, London Clubland: A Companion for the Curious, by Dr Seth Alexander Thévoz, provides a club-by-club overview, along with a deep dive into their particularities – customs, rules, traditions and even a few recipes. Clubs have often needed to evolve in order to survive, Thévoz reveals, and those that endure tend to serve a distinct membership.

The author believes that while clubs speak to something deeply-rooted in human character the world over, in the UK they have special resonance. He tells the BBC: "The British have always liked the certainty of club membership, and have been hugely into associational culture, from young people joining the Scouts and Girl Guides, to older people volunteering for an amateur dramatics society."

How it began

It all started with coffee. In the second half of the 17th Century, when coffee drinking was first introduced to England, coffee houses were a welcome alternative to taverns and became associated with good conversation. Samuel Pepys wrote in December 1660 of his evening at the "Coffee-house" in Cornhill: "I find much pleasure in it through the diversity of company – and discourse."

In 1693, an Italian migrant to London, Francesco Bianco (who anglicised his name to Francis White), opened an establishment that served both coffee and hot chocolate; he called it Mrs White's Chocolate House. Patrons flocked to St James's Street, not only for the hot beverages, but for the gambling room – the site of illegal, high-stakes card games – tucked away at the back of the premises. White's is still operating, and is London's oldest club. Only men are allowed to join. (King Charles counts among its 1500 members; he held his stag night at White's before his 1981 wedding to Princess Diana.)

Numerous other clubs opened in this manner throughout the Georgian era, Thévoz notes, because gambling dens labelled "private members' clubs" were more difficult for the authorities to raid. As the aristocratic membership increasingly demanded food and entertainment along with their gaming, hospitality professionals took over the management. Brooks's (founded 1764) is another Georgian club that has survived to this day, along with Boodle's (1762), originally called Almack's. Boodle's "is probably the best-preserved 18th-Century clubhouse", Thévoz tells the BBC – passers-by can recognise it by its iconic front-facing bow window.

The Georgian London clubs were known less for political debate than for companionable eating and drinking. Conservative William Praed wrote of his time as an MP from 1774 to 1808:

In Parliament I fill my seat,

With many other noodles;

And lay my head in Jermyn Street

And sip my hock in Boodle's

Boom time

It was during the 19th Century that clubs in London boomed – approximately a dozen existed at the start of the century, and 400 by the end. Clubs in general became less louche, in step with a new, Victorian interest in propriety. Most significantly, they took on a central role in British politics, and scores of political clubs were founded in central London in these years, in a swathe of the city bound by Piccadilly to the north, Pall Mall to the south, St James's Street to the west, and Haymarket to the east. Several of the most renowned, party-affiliated clubs have endured to this day. The Carlton Club, the Conservative stronghold, founded in 1832, was from the start a hotbed of gossip and political intrigue. The Duke of Wellington, at one time a member, advised on his deathbed: "Never write a letter to your mistress and never join the Carlton Club."

The Reform Club was established in 1836 on Pall Mall to provide a hub for Whigs and Radicals, and later Liberals. It is also a setting in Around the World in Eighty Days, the 1872 novel by Jules Verne – the protagonist Phileas Fogg makes a £20,000 bet with six members that he can circumnavigate the globe and arrive back "in this very room of the Reform Club" in 80 days' time.

'The best club in London'

When in October 1834 a massive fire destroyed the old Houses of Parliament, many of the functions of government relocated to the clubs. The new Palace of Westminster was modelled after a private members' club, with tea rooms, smoking rooms and libraries, prompting Charles Dickens in 1864 to call the House of Commons "the best club in London".

One of the first clubs open to both men and women, The Albemarle Club, founded in 1874, was associated from the start with the burgeoning women's rights movement. It became notorious when member Oscar Wilde was confronted there by the Marquess of Queensbury, father of his lover Lord Alfred Douglas, in an incident that set off the ill-fated libel trial that would lead to Wilde's conviction and imprisonment.

Royalty has always favoured London clubs, but none more enthusiastically than Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. The prince, a dedicated bon viveur, got fed up with the amount of gossip that was leaking out of White's about his amorous activities, Thévoz explains. The prince decided to found his own club, the Marlborough Club, named after his London residence, in 1869. He handpicked the first 400 members, and retained ultimate black-ball power, so he could veto the membership of anyone he didn't trust.

At the dawn of the 20th Century, London clubs were still going strong, and providing fodder for fiction writers. According to Thévoz, the Drones Club featured in PG Wodehouse's work most closely resembles Buck's Club in Mayfair, founded in 1919. The club was immediately popular for its US-style cocktail bar. The signature drink was, then and now, the Buck's Fizz – Champagne and orange juice with a mysterious twist.

Ian Fleming was a member of Boodle's, upon which he based Blade's club in his James Bond books. In Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited, protagonist Charles Ryder gathers with friends at Bratt's, most likely inspired by Pratt's, a small supper club in St James's founded in 1857, and owned since 1926 by the family of the Duke of Devonshire. In 2023, this most conservative of establishments surprised many by admitting women for the first time.

Clubs for women enjoyed a heyday in the last decade of the 19th Century and the first of the 20th, numbering 86 in all by Thevoz's count. Some were patronised by wealthy women in town for shopping and the theatre. Others were residential, offering affordable accommodation to single women beginning careers in the capital. Muriel Spark, in her 1963 novel The Girls of Slender Means, based the May of Teck Club, where her protagonists live, on The Service Women's Club.

Over the past 100 years, nine out of 10 of the venerable members' clubs closed. The long period of decline – beginning roughly in the early 1920s and accelerating after World War Two – bottomed out in the 1970s. A change in social mores, a dwindling number of ageing members, and steeper fees all played their part in this downturn.

Those clubs that continued to survive most often had a strong identity, and catered to a distinctive group, such as the military (the In and the Out Club), actors (the Garrick) or horse-racing enthusiasts (the Turf Club). Of the many historic private clubs for women in London, only one remains, University Women's Club in Mayfair. Other more recent iterations of women-only clubs have had mixed results.

A modern renaissance

Mark Birley began a successful run of "new" clubs in 1963 with the members-only nightclub Annabel's, located in a cavernous basement on Berkeley Square. He used his extensive contacts among the upper classes to attract members – it is said to be the only nightclub into which Queen Elizabeth II ever set foot.

But the real modern renaissance of London clubs began in 1985, with the antithesis of the old gentleman's club: a sparky, mixed-sex space, where admission was based not on social rank but on achievement. The name, the Groucho Club, is a hat-tip to Groucho Marx's famous remark that he would never want to be in a club that would have him as a member. Established in Soho, it quickly attracted a starry clientele – Stephen Fry wrote the club's original rule book, which insisted on traditional discretion.

Also in 1985, writer Auberon Waugh along with Victoria Glendinning founded the Academy Club. "My grandfather's knee-jerk intolerance of any type of pomposity inspired the Academy," grandson Pierre Waugh tells the BBC. "At the time of its creation, he saw the clubs of London dominated by a clique of 'bores and oafs', the self-conscious, self-appointed retainers of high culture." Waugh's baby continues to attract a literary membership today. Thévoz reports: "The facilities are rather modest, though that is part of the charm."

In the 19th Century, such was the popularity of the top clubs, including the Athenaeum and the Carlton, that prospective members could wait three decades to enter. Now at the Hurlingham in Fulham, the closest thing to a US-style country club in London, it can take a similar amount of time to be admitted, with priority given to the existing members' immediate family members.

Dominating members clubs in the 21st Century are the proprietary clubs (as opposed to committee-run clubs), most notably Soho House, a large international money-making operation with dozens of locations. In London, the group includes venues in Greek Street and Dean Street, where Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, reportedly went on their first date.

If the past is any guide, the London club, ever morphing, will continue to be a feature of life in the capital for the foreseeable future, an indication of its citizens' abiding interest in conversation, eating and drinking in environs that in some way they can call their own.

And clubs will no doubt remain a subject of fascination and gossip. The latest news on the Garrick is that those members of the club antagonistic to potential women members, including Etchingham, have formed a WhatsApp group. Naturally enough it has called itself "Status Quo".

London Clubland: A Companion for the Curious by Seth Alexander Thévoz is published by Little Brown

Clare McHugh is the author of the historical novel The Romanov Brides, published by Harper Collins.

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Superman review: 'Bursting with geeky weirdness'

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250708-superman-review, 2 days ago

The first in DC's new cinematic universe starring David Corenswet is "glib and flimsy". Comic fans will love it, but this curio feels like "an eccentric sci-fi B-movie".

Superman isn't just a new film, or even the first in a potential series of films. It's the launch of a whole new cinematic universe. The previous run of DC's superhero blockbusters came to an undignified end in 2023: the studio's four releases that year were Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, Blue Beetle, and Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom – and there was no coming back from those. DC's so-called "Extended Universe" was scrapped, which meant that Zack Snyder couldn't make any more apocalyptically miserable epics starring Henry Cavill as Superman and Ben Affleck as Batman. In his place, James Gunn, who directed the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy for Marvel, was given the job of overseeing DC's superheroes on the big and small screens, as well as writing and directing the first film in this rebooted franchise.

The pressure's on, you might think. Superman has saved the world countless times over the decades, but now he's got the fate of a universe on his shoulders. But if Gunn himself felt that pressure, there are no signs of it in the film he made. He hasn't laid the groundwork for DC's new universe with care and delicacy, and he hasn't taken pains to craft a Superman tale that will be embraced by the widest possible audience. Quite the opposite, in fact. Bursting with the geeky weirdness that defined Gunn's earlier DC film, The Suicide Squad, not to mention the low-budget horror comedies he made before he turned his attention to superheroes, Superman is a curio that he appears to have made for his own amusement. Whether it will amuse cinema-goers at large remains to be seen.

Gunn's most striking idea is to start his story not at the beginning, but somewhere around the middle, as if this were the third or fourth film in the series. When we first meet Superman, played by the suitably handsome and wholesome David Corenswet, he's already been protecting Metropolis from supervillains for three years. He's already dating his go-getting colleague at the Daily Planet newspaper, Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), and he's already loathed by a fanatical bald billionaire, Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult). What's more unusual for a Superman franchise-starter is that he's not the world's only superhuman – or "metahuman", to use the in-universe jargon. DC's other A-listers – Wonder Woman, Batman, The Flash, Aquaman – are apparently being saved for their own films, but Superman is helped and hindered by the ethically murky Justice Gang, consisting of the arrogant Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), the unflappably cool Mr Terrific (Edi Gathegi) and the sullen Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced).

It's a fun approach. Most of us are familiar with Superman's origin story – born on the planet Krypton, raised on a farm in Kansas – so it's exhilarating to skip all that and get straight to the superheroics. It's fun, too, to see Gunn throwing in all of DC Comics' whackiest conceits. Snyder's Superman films were all about darkness and angst and Biblical symbolism, whereas this one features Krypto the fluffy white Superdog, and Superman's coterie of cape-wearing robotic assistants – whom he genuinely addresses as "Superman Robots".

There are dangers, though, in having a writer-director who is also one of the bosses of the studio, because Gunn's wacky take on Superman's mythos soon comes to feel exhaustingly self-indulgent. By the halfway point, we've seen clones and hypno-glasses, a pocket universe and a fire-breathing Godzilla lookalike, a militia called Planet Watch and a giant floating eyeball called a "dimensional imp". We've heard comments on social media misinformation, and we've heard debates about the geopolitical impact of metahumans. We've smiled at the most cartoonish stuff ever to be included in a Superman film, and we've grimaced at an upsetting cold-blooded murder. Rather than suggesting that Gunn was trying to launch a long-running series of superhero films, Superman suggests that he was afraid he would be fired after just one of them, so he was determined to cram it full of everything he could think of.

His nerdy ambition will make comic fans chuckle, as will his twisted sense of humour: it takes some gall to make a zillion-dollar Hollywood blockbuster that feels so much like an eccentric sci-fi B-movie. But Superman rushes through its outlandish concepts and whiplashing plot developments too quickly for them to have any impact. Skyscrapers collapse, monsters stomp through Metropolis, and people zip into different universes, but Gunn is in too much of a hurry to instil these momentous events with any of the wonder of 1978's Superman: The Movie – however often he drops in John Williams' classic fanfare – so none of them seems to matter. The video game-style visual effects add to the sense that nothing on screen has any consequences. The evocative tagline of Superman: The Movie was, "You'll believe a man can fly." Almost 50 years later, the tagline of the glib and flimsy Superman could be, "You won't believe any of it."

It's a shame that Gunn didn't give his story more time to breathe. It's a shame, in particular, that he didn't devote more time to showing us that Superman really is the paragon that his supporters keep saying he is. Corenswet is well cast – he has plenty of all-American charm both as Superman and as his mild-mannered alter ego, Clark Kent – but we have to take it on trust that he is a selfless gentleman who helps his friends and enjoys Lois Lane's company. We don't see any of that. Indeed, Corenswet plays him as an oddly hot-headed manchild who can't get through a conversation with his girlfriend without shouting angrily at her. Was Gunn racing through his material so fast that he forgot to put in the scenes that show Superman's sweeter and nobler side? Maybe so. In a film that whirls with flying dogs and bright green baby demons, the most bizarre element is a Man of Steel who keeps having meltdowns.

★★★☆☆

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'I never imagined it would be banned': The ultra-violent, sexually explicit French thriller now being reappraised

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250707-the-banned-french-thriller-now-being-reappraised, 3 days ago

Back in 2000, a French film was vilified for its tale of two women embarking on a drug-fuelled killing spree. But 25 years on, it's considered revolutionary by some.

When a certain French thriller first arrived in May 2000, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, it generated a maelstrom of controversy. The film had already been threatened with censorship in France, and some audience members at Cannes reportedly donned T-shirts in solidarity with its writer and co-director Virginie Despentes. Others walked out in disgust. And that was just the beginning of the storm.

Warning: This article contains descriptions of violence and language and content that some may find offensive

Released in French cinemas 25 years ago this month, Baise-moi is a pulpy, ultra-violent odyssey of two women disillusioned with a patriarchal society that is now remembered as one of cinema's biggest cause célèbres. It was created by writer and film-maker Virginie Despentes as a rough-hewn, tongue-in-cheek adaptation of her 1993 debut novel of the same name, and co-directed by adult film actor Coralie Trinh Thi. Partly triggered by a savage act of male violence, during which one of the two lead characters, along with another female friend, is raped, it sees its heroines decide to unleash their anger in revenge, killing off more than a few sexual predators during a drug-fuelled and doomed road trip. In the wake of #MeToo and a new wave of female film-making weaponising "female rage", the film has undergone a reassessment among critics.

Where other road movies, such as Bonnie and Clyde (1967) or Thelma & Louise (1991), had also crossed violent terrain and been critically lauded, Baise-moi was vilified from all sides of the political spectrum. The film combines a premise that feels familiar – two outlaws on the run from the authorities – with graphic depictions of sex and murder. It was shot on a shoestring budget – tracking the misdemeanours of its gun-toting heroines through handheld camera footage – and upon its general release in France in June 2000, critics were baffled by its provocatively trashy packaging. "The cinephile press in France tends to be much more interested in aesthetics, in film form, than content and context," Ginette Vincendeau, professor of film studies at King's College, London and critic, tells the BBC. "It was considered ugly." She was one of a handful to review Baise-moi positively when it was released in the UK.

Banned and re-banned

In France, Baise-moi (the title translating literally as "fuck me") was initially released on 64 screens, but after riling right-wing groups in France, such as conversative values organisation Promouvoir, it was given an X rating by the French high court, effectively making it the first film banned in the country for 28 years, as only a clutch of specialist cinemas could show a film with such a prohibitive rating. When it was then released on dvd, it could only be purchased in sex shops. Meanwhile, the left-wing press objected to it for different reasons, being unconvinced at how effectively it conveyed its message, and accusing it of hypocrisy. As The Guardian's critic Peter Bradshaw put it: "Baise-Moi is an understandable counterblast to fatuous middlebrow dramas [...] But the intellectual penetration of this sour, lifeless movie is pretty shallow."

Its pariah status in France came despite a chorus of support from fellow film-makers such as Catherine Breillat, who spearheaded a petition for Baise-moi's re-release, with signatures from other luminaries like Jean Luc-Godard and Claire Denis, which suggested it had fallen victim to "a revival of post-war censorship". Under a new 18 certificate, the film landed back in cinemas without much fanfare the following year. In Australia, campaigns by conservative politicians resulted in the film being pulled out of theatres just two weeks after its release, its distribution squashed there again when it was banned on dvd in 2013.

"I absolutely did not expect so much controversy, and I would never have imagined that we would be banned and find ourselves on the news," co-director Trinh Thi tells the BBC. "It was a punk film intended for an underground audience." But the furore had an unexpected upshot, she says: "The ban had us projected to the front of the media scene, and the film became accessible to the general public." Nevertheless it still only gleaned a meagre $940,944 worldwide, falling short of its $1.35m budget.

Seven years earlier in France, Despentes's novel had enjoyed widespread success, published when she was 24 years old. Then, in 1999, the former sex shop assistant decided to start developing a film version, enlisting her friend Trinh Thi as a collaborator. They both saw the film and book as "completely different" projects, says Trinh Thi, and cast two leads also hailing, like her, from the adult film industry. "It was Despentes who had the idea to make Baise-Moi into a movie when she saw Karen and Raffaëla in the film Exhibition 99 that I lent her," Trinh Thi explains. "Upon seeing them, she immediately imagined them in the roles of Nadine and Manu. She called me right away to talk to me about it. And at first I didn't see what she meant, but I reread the book imagining Karen and Raffaëla in the roles, and it worked perfectly."

The directors sought to address the saturation of hypersexualised – and often brutalised – imagery of women. But they commandeered this flagrant imagery to do so. Wry nods to exploitation flicks such as Abel Ferrara's Ms 45 (1981) or Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left (1972) are littered throughout, from the use of lurid red filters to the pose-striking of its two protagonists, while it features hardcore unsimulated sex scenes. This is self-referentiality capped off with the self-aware, third-wall-breaking dialogue of Manu, who despairs at the absence of "witty lines". Beneath its flame-fanning of controversy, though, Baise-moi deals with serious subject matter. Its unflinching, uncensored rape scene takes on a bitter resonance in light of Despentes's 2006 feminist manifesto King Kong Theory, which detailed her own experience of sexual assault at age 17. "Rape doesn't disturb the peace, it's already part and parcel of the city," she writes.

Its unalloyed and unsimulated use of sex was a recognisable feature of the "French New Extremity" movement – a term coined by Canadian critic James Quandt to describe a transgressive, boundary-flouting wave in French film-making in the 1990s and early 2000s, which also included films by Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas and Gaspar Noé in its ranks.

"Part of it is to do with the cultural myth of France as a country of libertinage – non-repressed sexuality – and the Marquis de Sade," says Vincendeau of Despentes, as well as Breillat's, portrayals of real-life sex in films like Baise Moi and Romance (1999). Vincendeau suggests the directors saw the explicitness of these scenes as a part of a tradition of creative freedom in the country.

However in today's age of the intimacy coordinator, their choice to film actual sex would most likely raise a few eyebrows. Vincendeau notes last year's uproar around Breillat's alleged mishandling of sex scenes on Romance, as detailed in a book by the film's lead actor Caroline Ducey called La Prédation. "These women saw themselves as part of auteur cinema which is considered as expressing and valorising a sense of freedom, breaking boundaries, braving censorship and so on as a marker of artistic excellence. [... Baise-moi] is at the most extreme end of that extreme movement," she adds.

The 'female rage' films it inspired

Arguably, Baise-moi provided the lethal prototype for many female-directed films in a similar vein, especially within the "revenge thriller" genre, where characters exact vengeance against enemies or those who have wronged them. These range from Julia Ducournau's Raw (2016), Ana Lily Amirpour's A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) and Coralie Fargeat's Revenge (2017) to post-MeToo films like Ducournau's Titane (2021), Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman (2020) and Rose's Glass's Love Lies Bleeding (2024); all of these also opt for a violent cinematic language to explore issues of gender or violence against women. In an interview in 2021, Ducournau said that many female film-makers of were concerned with “reclaiming the narrative and taking over the male gaze” right now, and that Despentes had been doing that "for a very long time".

"It is all about seizing power and control in the most visceral way possible, about confronting the traditional male gaze and violently turning it on its head," says critic Nikki Baughan of this grisly new feminist wave. "It only feels subversive because we're not used to seeing female characters take such violent charge of their actions and behaviour, physically or sexually [...] If the protagonists of Baise-moi were male, would the film have been met with such consternation or banned?

"The very idea that these women have decided enough is enough, and are given – or give themselves – carte blanche to seek their own justice for everything they have been subjected to, and take pleasure in doing so, plays like a cathartic fantasy."

But many critics were – and remain – unconvinced by Baise-moi's deliberately inflammatory way of conveying its anti-patriarchal message. Among the reviewers who couldn't get onboard with the film upon its release was Ian Mantgani, now a film-maker and director of Nosepicker (2023), who called it "adolescent". "At the time, I thought it was amateurish and posturing; provocative without cohesive philosophy, flippant without being funny," says Mantgani.

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In the past 25 years, Mantgani’s opinion has shifted. "Maybe some of that holds true, but I’d be less sanctimonious now," he says. "It’s an unbowed, scattershot punk riff; Karen Lancaume and Rafaella Anderson give two forceful, often quite joyous lead performances." In light of Lancaume's death by suicide five years after Baise-moi's release, Mantgani adds: "The fact that Karen got to play this indomitable outlaw in the midst of her porn career before her untimely death gives it a special poignancy too."

Certainly, part of why Baise-moi helped lead a revolution in more extreme women-helmed cinema in France and elsewhere is that it tapped into the same impulses that film had no issue portraying for male characters. "Unlike other films in the French Extremism category, the women actually seem to enjoy sex," Vincendeau highlights. It's worth noting, however, that some people, such as former Telegraph and Daily Mail reviewer Christopher Tookey, have continued to express concern at the films' levels of explicit violence. In a 2021 interview, Tookey discussed how after the release of David Cronenberg's controversial Crash, numerous films had come through which were "brutal and perverted", name-checking Baise-moi among them.

Above all, Baise-moi's divisiveness lies in the fact that it is designed to be uncomfortable, not "likeable", as Sophia Takal – director of Green (2011) and Always Shine (2016), whose work has been categorised as part of female horror's renaissance – adds. "The film was derided for depicting female sexuality and violence without the typical moral framework that would make it palatable: there's no redemption arc, nor any clear condemnation of the characters' choices... the rawness of the performances and the handheld aesthetic created an authenticity that was uncomfortable."

As Despentes mused in a recent interview, she sees the film's confrontation of the dark side of male sexuality as Baise-moi's most enduring element, especially in a digital era of increased misogyny and violent online imagery. "It showed that women could make films about female experience that didn't seek approval or understanding from audiences," Takal says. "It was trying to be honest about rage and trauma in ways that are difficult to watch."

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Why Alice Cooper saved the Hollywood sign

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250702-why-alice-cooper-saved-the-hollywood-sign, 4 days ago

For more than 100 years, the sign has been a Los Angeles landmark both in real life and on the silver screen. In 1978, Alice Cooper told the BBC why he was helping to restore the dilapidated icon.

Perched high on Mount Lee overlooking Los Angeles, the Hollywood sign is one of America's most instantly recognisable cultural icons. "[It] is like our London Bridge, our Big Ben," US shock rocker Alice Cooper said on a BBC music show, The Old Grey Whistle Test, in 1978. "In Hollywood, we don't have a landmark except for the Hollywood sign."

The exact date the monument went up is contested, but its official centenary was celebrated on 13 July 2023, making it 102 years old this week. It has now become synonymous with the film industry, but it wasn't originally intended to be. In fact, it wasn't even meant to last longer than 18 months. The sign was designed as a short-lived billboard, advertising a new housing development in the Hollywood Hills. It consisted of 13 enormous capital letters, each 30ft (9m) wide and 45ft (14m) tall, that spelt out HOLLYWOODLAND – the name of the real estate group selling the properties. Made of wood and sheet metal and held up by a framework of telephone poles, the structure cost more than $23,000 (about $430,000 or £300,000 today) to build.

To ensure it was especially eye-catching, it was illuminated with almost 4,000 lights that would flash the different sections of the sign, HOLLY, WOOD and LAND, consecutively. A handyman, Albert Koeth, was hired to keep the sign in good order and replace the bulbs as they burnt out. The idea was to promote an aspirational lifestyle choice to LA citizens rather than to act as some sort of endorsement of the entertainment industry.

Over the following decade, as LA and the film business grew, the sign stayed in place. But as the depression of the 1930s began to bite, its upkeep was cut back, and it quickly fell into disrepair. The songwriter Eden Ahbez, an early proponent of living the hippie lifestyle, camped for a time underneath the first L of the sign. Ahbez would later find fame for writing the 1948 Nat King Cole hit single Nature Boy.

The sign also began to achieve some unwelcome notoriety: its association with the death of aspiring Hollywood star Peg Entwistle linked it to the darker side of Tinseltown's allure. The 24-year-old Welsh-born actress had left a successful Broadway career to move to LA with dreams of becoming a film star. But after struggling to find success, on the night of 16 September 1932 Entwistle climbed a maintenance ladder to the top of the letter H and jumped to her death.

As the sign continued to rust and deteriorate, in 1944 the real estate company decided to donate it to the city, along with the remaining 425 acres of undeveloped land, for a token price of $1. By this time, a severe storm had already knocked down the letter H and many residents had come to regard the dilapidated sign as something of an eyesore. In 1949, a decision was reached to tear the whole thing down, but the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce managed to get the decision reversed on the proviso that they footed the bill to refurbish the crumbling sign and replace the missing letter. They shortened it, removing the LAND part, and a cultural icon was born.

But by the mid-1970s, through a combination of neglect, weather damage and vandalism, the now 50-year-old sign was falling apart again. By the time the BBC's Bob Harris came to interview Cooper in 1978, a severe storm had further disfigured it, breaking off part of the first O and sending a second O tumbling down the side of Mount Lee, leaving the sign to read HuLLYWO D.

The 'Save the Sign' campaign

"Nobody will take the responsibility for restoring it or anything," Cooper told the BBC. "The poor old thing is up there, dear to our hearts, and dying right in front of us. And I figured it would cost say $40,000 or $50,000 to restore. So I suggested that we would go and do a concert somewhere and just give them all the money," he said.

It would turn out that to bring the sign back to its former glory would cost considerably more than that. After compiling a structural report, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce found that repairing the sign was impossible. It would need to be completely replaced. And to ensure it could withstand the winds on Mount Lee, the new steel letters would need to be supported by steel columns sunken into a concrete foundation. The price tag for this project would be $250,000.

A "Save the Sign" campaign was launched in May 1978, and the following month Hugh Hefner, founder of the international adult magazine Playboy, hosted a star-studded fundraiser at his mansion to raise money for the new sign. Cooper was the first person to sponsor a letter. "We figured it was $27,000 a piece, and I figured that would spark other people," he said.

The rocker paid for the final O, which he dedicated to his friend, the comedian and film star Groucho Marx, who had died the previous year. "And Andy Williams [the US singer known for his version of the song Moon River] donated a letter, and Warner Brothers of course did, and Gene Autry [famous as 'the Singing Cowboy'] and some really neat people did," said Cooper. "We more or less kicked it off, and I still believe that everybody in the world owes Hollywood a dollar at least for all the entertainment that comes out of Hollywood – and if we can't take care of it, the ones that live here, that's kind of silly."

The old sign was demolished, and a new 450ft (137m) long sign weighing 240 tonnes erected in its place. It has become the symbol of the city and the seductive promise of the film business.

"When you look at the Hollywood sign, you think of Hollywood glamour. We know glamour isn't real, but it seems real," film researcher and journalist Karen Krizanovich told David Willis on the BBC's podcast H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D in 2023. "When you see the Hollywood sign, you think it's real. This whole fantasy about Hollywood is real, because of that sign."

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And the silver screen has responded in kind. Over the years, the Hollywood sign has featured in a myriad of films, starring alongside Charlton Heston in Earthquake (1974), Robert Downey Jr in Chaplin (1992) and Mila Kunis in Friends with Benefits (2011). But when it does turn up in films, such as Superman: The Movie (1978), The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and San Andreas (2015), it often doesn't make it out unscathed.

Over the years, it has been altered to reflect the times. In 1976, student Danny Finegood used curtains to make it read HOLLYWeeD to coincide with the relaxing of marijuana laws. The prank would happen again in 2017. When Pope John Paul II visited LA in 1987, it was altered to read HOLYWOOD. And the same year it was changed to OLLYWOOD in reference to Colonel Oliver North's testimony in the Iran-Contra scandal. On 31 December 1999 the new sign – which didn't have bulbs like the original – was lit up again for the first time in 60 years in a blaze of colours to celebrate the new millennium. During the closing ceremony of last year's Paris Olympics, its two Os were used to create the bottom two rings of the Olympic symbol in a nod to LA hosting the Games in 2028.

Speaking in 1978, Cooper, himself no stranger to theatricality, was comfortable with this dressing up of LA's most iconic monument. "I think they should have neon and flashing lights and everything on it," he said.

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'He was a violent socialist': How Superman started out as a radical rebel

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250703-how-superman-started-out-as-a-radical-rebel, 7 days ago

Returning to cinemas next week, the superhero may be known as the ultimate all-American Mr Nice Guy – but, back in the 1930s, he didn't begin that way.

James Gunn's new Superman film will be flying into cinemas next week, but ever since the first trailers were released, superhero fans have been having online debates about whether the Man of Steel played by David Corenswet is true to the one in the comics. Is he too gloomy? Is he too woke? Should he still be wearing red swimming trunks over his blue tights? Underlying these debates is an agreement that a few details are non-negotiable: Superman should be faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive. He should come from the planet Krypton and live in a city called Metropolis. And he should be in love with Lois Lane. Beyond that, he should also be noble and wholesome – and perhaps a bit of a bore. While the likes of Batman and Wolverine are popular because they break the rules, Superman has to be a law-abiding, upstanding all-American Mr Nice Guy.

But that hasn't always been the case. The first Superman strips were written by Jerry Siegel, drawn by Joe Shuster, and published in Action Comics magazine in 1938 by DC (or National Allied, as the company was then called). And in those, he was a far more unruly, and in some ways far more modern character. He was "a head-bashing Superman who took no prisoners, who made his own law and enforced it with his fists, who gleefully intimidated his foes with a wicked grin and a baleful glare", says Mark Waid, a comics writer and historian, in his introduction to a volume of classic Action Comics reprints. "He was no super-cop. He was a super-anarchist." If this rowdy and rebellious Superman were introduced today, he'd be hailed as one of the most subversive superheroes around.

"I had no idea the character was like that until I started writing my book," says Paul S Hirsch, author of Pulp Empire: A Secret History of Comic Book Imperialism. "But it blew my mind when I saw it. He's essentially a violent socialist." The earliest issues of Action Comics bear out this assessment. When there are wrongs to be righted, Superman knocks down doors and dangles suspects from fifth-storey windows, and he makes hearty jokes while he's doing so: "See how easily I crush your watch in my palm? I'll give your neck the same treatment!"

Some of the people who are roughed up by this boisterous outlaw are pistol-packing racketeers, but usually they are a less glamorous brand of villain – a domestic abuser, an orphanage superintendent who is cruel to children – and the majority are so wealthy that they don't need to rob banks: there is the mine owner who skimps on safety measures, the construction magnate who sabotages a competitor's buildings, the politician who buys a newspaper in order to turn it into a propaganda sheet. Rather than being a typical costumed crime-fighter, then, the Superman of 1938 was a left-wing revolutionary.

How Superman grew from his creators' experiences

"I absolutely love those old issues," Matthew K Manning, the writer of Superman: The Ultimate Guide and John Carpenter's Tales of Science Fiction, tells the BBC. "They're clearly the work of young people frustrated with the injustices of the world, and rightfully so. Keep in mind, these were two Jewish men reaching adulthood just before the start of World War Two. There was plenty to be angry about. And suddenly they had this character who could give a voice to their concerns and hold the corrupt accountable."

Siegel and Shuster were schoolmates from Cleveland, Ohio. Having grown up during the Great Depression, they defined Superman in the first issue of Action Comics as a "champion of the oppressed… sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need". "We were young kids and if we wanted to see a movie we had to sell milk bottles, so we had the feeling that we were right there at the bottom and we could empathise with people," Siegel is quoted as saying in Superman: The Complete History by Les Daniels. "Superman grew out of our feelings about life. And that's why, when we saw so many similar strips coming out, we felt that they were perhaps imitating the format of Superman, but something wasn't there, which was this tremendous feeling of compassion that Joe and I had for the downtrodden."

Not that Siegel and Shuster were the only comics professionals with such liberal views. "The comic-book industry was founded largely by people barred from work in more legitimate fields," Hirsch explains to the BBC, "because they were Jewish, they were immigrants, they were people of colour, they were women. It was a creative ghetto where a lot of very talented people ended up because they weren't able to get a Madison Avenue advertising job, and they couldn't write for Life Magazine. A lot of those people were radical – or at least not mainstream – and DC was founded by men who very much fit that mould: men who were recent immigrants, men who had leftist sympathies from growing up in New York City at that time."

All the same, few comic characters were as militant as Superman. In one early issue, he demolishes a row of slum homes in order to force the authorities to build better housing (a risky strategy, that one). In another, he takes on the city's gambling industry because it is bankrupting addicts. And in another, he declares war on everyone he sees as being responsible for traffic-related deaths. He terrifies reckless drivers, he abducts the mayor who hasn't enforced traffic laws, he smashes up the stock of a second-hand car dealer, and he wrecks a factory where faulty cars are assembled. "It's because you use inferior metals and parts so as to make higher profits at the cost of human lives," he informs the owner. Were Superman's direct-action protest campaigns strictly legal? No, but they were riotous, boldly political fun – and almost 90 years on, they stand as a fascinating street-level account of US urban life in the 1930s.

All too soon, however, Superman turned his attention to mad scientists and giant monsters, and away from Metropolis's under-privileged masses. After a handful of issues, his "opponents were all larger than life, and while that made for exciting comics, his days of social crusading were becoming a thing of the past", writes Waid.

Why he became a changed superhero

What was the Kryptonite that sapped Superman's social conscience? Hirsch argues that it was a compound of two elements. One was the "blandification" that occurs when the sales of any commercial property go up, up and away. "Superman is unbelievably popular from the moment they get the sales numbers for the first issue," he says. "So they suddenly realise what they have on their hands, and they don't want to jeopardise it. Jack Liebowitz, the president of DC, sees that they can sell Superman pillowcases and pyjamas – but if Superman's running around throwing people out of windows and threatening to wrap iron bars around their necks, it isn't going to work."

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Alongside that familiar story of a big star selling out, "the ultimate thing that ends Superman's radical streak is the beginning of the war", says Hirsch. "All of the immigrant and non-white people who were working in this industry, they wanted to be seen as patriotic. And it makes sense. That's what you had to do to fit in. And even more nuts-and-bolts, that's what you had to do to get your paper ration [for printing magazines]. If you were doing things that bothered the government in 1941, maybe you wouldn't get your wood pulp."

Another, more personal factor was that Siegel and Shuster lost control of their creation. Shuster's deteriorating eyesight forced him to let other artists take over the drawing, and Siegel's conscription into the army in 1943 cut down the time he had to work on scripts. But there was worse to come. Having sold the rights to Superman for $130 in 1938, both men were treated by DC as hired hands, rather than revered innovators, and in 1947 they tried and failed to win back those rights in court. In retrospect, there is a grim irony to those rollicking early yarns about exploitative fat cats getting their comeuppance. Siegel and Shuster could have done with having a champion of the oppressed by their side.

Still, after World War Two, Superman wasn't the type of superhero who would take on a conniving publisher. "Superman constantly evolves with the times, and that hasn't always been for the better," says Manning. "During the McCarthy era of the 1950s, when parents were actively burning comic books and Congress was blaming comics for juvenile delinquency, publishers were forced to self-regulate their content under the label of the Comics Code Authority. This seal would appear on the cover of every approved comic, marking it "safe" for children. While he'd already mellowed a bit, Superman became more of a father figure during this period, no longer interested in real-world villains. Instead, he mostly set his sights on aliens, other-dimensional beings, and foiling Lois Lane's latest attempt at discovering his secret identity."

Superman's evolution didn't stop there, though. In some eras he is a politely conservative pillar of virtue, mocked by his fellow DC superheroes as "the big blue Boy Scout", while in others, notes Manning, he has "some of his original edge back… as a vigilante with an eye for social justice". And in the new film? We don't know yet which Superman we'll be getting, so corrupt politicians and construction magnates should keep their eyes on the sky. It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Super-Anarchist!

Superman is released in UK and US cinemas on 11 July.

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'Some loved it and some tore it apart': How the erotic novel All Fours captured the zeitgeist – and divided readers

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250702-all-fours-the-radical-erotic-novel-that-has-divided-readers, 8 days ago

"Life-changing" for some, hateable to others, Miranda July's wildly successful erotic novel All Fours about the female midlife experience has dominated the conversation.

Every year brings its share of buzzy books: the tomes that top TBR piles, pop up all over social media and are mentioned in countless best-of lists. But it's a rare novel that not only transcends the literary world to dominate the wider cultural conversation, but is still making waves a year after it was first published.

That's the case with Miranda July's All Fours, a strange, sexy and surprising book about a woman tearing up her life in her mid-40s. When it came out last spring, it swiftly became a word-of-mouth sensation, and since then the buzz has only become louder. July has appeared on the cover of weekend supplements and been interviewed on national news programmes. TIME magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people of 2025. Meanwhile the book has been optioned for a TV series and nominated for several prizes, including the National Book Awards and the Women's Prize for Fiction.

Yet arguably the novel's biggest impact has been the conversations it has started. Women, especially, have pressed the book eagerly into the hands of friends, sisters, mothers, strangers, urging them to read it. Many have called it life-changing. Some have hated it. But everyone who reads this book has something to say about it.

In the novel, an unnamed narrator – a 45-year-old semi-famous artist (like July herself) and married mother of one – sets off on a cross-country road trip from Los Angeles to New York, a gift to herself after a whiskey company pays $20,000 to use one of her phrases in an advert. She hopes the trip will turn her into "the sort of chill, grounded woman I'd always wanted to be". Except she doesn't make it to Manhattan. She barely makes it out of LA, pulling off the motorway for petrol in a town called Monrovia. There, an encounter with a younger man, Davey, leads her to check into a motel for the night, where she winds up spending the next three weeks (and blows her entire windfall on renovating the motel room in the style of a Parisian hotel).

Her geographical journey is swapped for an emotional one. An all-consuming desire for Davey kickstarts not just a sexual reawakening but a complete reassessment of her life at its midway point. Back home, her doctor tells her she's in perimenopause, the transitional phase before menopause where fluctuating hormone levels can cause a host of physical and emotional changes. When she learns that, according to biology, her libido is about to "fall off a cliff", it propels her to ferociously pursue her desires, realising she must choose between "a life spent longing vs a life that was continually surprising".

Besides desire, the narrator and the book consider subjects like ageing, ambition, creativity, mortality, motherhood and marriage, all the time questioning the expected path for women in the second half of their lives. If it sounds serious, it is – but it's funny, too.

Tackling female experiences with honesty

On its release, All Fours received largely rave reviews. The New York Times called it "the first great perimenopause novel". New York Magazine said it was "a spectacularly horny story about pursuing sexual and creative freedom". The Washington Post's review was prophetic, saying: "something about All Fours – its outrageous sexuality, its quirky humour, its earnest search for change – could, who knows, rally a generation of women."

On her motivation for writing for book, July talked about the lack of art dedicated to this phase of life. "If men had this huge change, it would be considered monumental! There would be rituals. There'd be holidays. There'd be rights and religions," she told the Guardian.

Treena Orchard, author and associate professor at the School of Health Studies at Canada's Western University recently presented a paper on All Fours at the Contemporary Women's Writing Association conference in the UK. She thinks July's novel is groundbreaking in its approach.

"She's pushing back against the heteronormative frames that seem to seep into every aspect of our lives and tell us how we should and should not behave," Orchard tells the BBC. "She's helping create mythology and meaning by designating this phase of life as a culturally important rite of passage. That is political, and that is radical to me."

To write the book, July interviewed gynaecologists, naturopaths and friends. Hers is not the first novel to explore perimenopause. Recent years have seen more fiction probing this period of life, including Catherine Newman's Sandwich, Fran Littlewood's Amazing Grace Adams and Joanne Harris's Broken Light. Nor is she the first to tackle female experiences with unflinching honesty – France's Annie Ernaux has been breaking taboos for decades, writing frankly about subjects including illegal abortion, sex with younger men and breast cancer.

Yet none of these have captured the zeitgeist quite like All Fours, which has been likened to Erica Jong's Fear of Flying in terms of its impact. Jong's 1973 novel, about a frustrated married woman who pursues her sexual fantasies, caused a sensation on its release for its portrayal of female desire, and more than 50 years on is viewed as a classic of feminist fiction. "The timing couldn't have been more perfect," says Orchard. "She brings together multiple tendrils of things that are happening that are hot ticket items in the larger culture."

That includes menopause, age-gap relationships (see last year's Babygirl and the upcoming I Want Your Sex) and polyamory. "Then you've got this juicy, wild sex," says Orchard. Ah yes, the sex. There's a lot of it in All Fours: not only having it, but wanting it, thinking about it, anticipating it. It's an intensely erotic book, and a graphic one, with one tampon-related scene particularly notorious. July doesn't shy away from the uncomfortable, whether it's an awkward sexual encounter or a thorny conversation. She has spoken of her wish in writing the book to turn the intimate exchanges she was having with friends into a public dialogue. "I was writing with the sense that I was in conversation with a lot of other women, if not all women," she said.

By that measure, All Fours has been an unequivocal success. On July's Substack page, a community of women have gathered to share not just their love for the book, but how it has changed their lives. They talk of feeling seen, understood and liberated after reading it; that it's made them feel less alone, less crazy, braver. For some it's prompted them to end relationships, leave jobs or confront loved ones. Groups have splintered off and arranged real-life meet-ups. In Paris, Los Angeles, London, Texas, Seattle and more, women have gathered for conversations sparked by the book.

And it's not just those in July's age bracket that have connected with it - plenty of young women have, too. Mia Morongell, who is 24, read All Fours late last year. "The whole book is a meditation on womanhood that I think transcends age," she tells the BBC. What does she think makes it so radical? "Its shamelessness, its refusal to keep quiet about the things women don't often speak about, like the lives we dream of living or the freedom we crave or our deepest fears."

For Morongell the book came at exactly the right time. "It made me rethink my relationship both with my boyfriend and with sex itself, realising it was possible to claim agency over the type of intimacy I desire without shame." One line in particular, a quote from Simone de Beauvoir referenced in the book, has stayed with her: "You can't have everything you want but you can want everything you want."

Why some can't stomach All Fours

But while for many the book has been transformational, for others it's been a turn-off, leading to some fiery book club debates over its merits. "In my network of feminist friends, authors, writers, it was divisive," says Orchard.

Some critics think the book is trying a little too hard to be edgy. That was the case for Katie Krug, whose book club – a diverse mix of 15 women in New Jersey - was split down the middle on it. "Some really loved it and some tore it apart," she says. "There was little to no middle ground." Krug herself felt that July was being "provocative for provocation's sake. Maybe she felt she had to get people's attention, but it came across to me as phoney and inauthentic."

On Goodreads – where the book has an average score of 3.5 stars - the one-star reviews call it "icky", "cringey", "unrelatable" and even "a nightmarish read". One reader says: "I've had hot flashes that were better than this book."

There's been a healthy dose of outrage over the narrator's moral choices – from pursuing an affair with a younger man to (later in the book) opting for an open marriage. Her privileged domestic situation is a sticking point for some – after all, not many have the time, money or childcare to take off for a three-week road trip. And some readers just can't stomach her as a character, calling her narcissistic, immature and obnoxious.

"I don't mind unlikeable characters, but I found the narrator to be exhausting to spend time with," says Krug. "I didn't understand her, I didn't like her, and I just wanted her to stop already."

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For some, the book is just too weird. There's plenty of absurdity in both the writing and the character's choices - not least blowing $20,000 on lavishly redecorating a motel room she doesn't own. Room 321 at the Excelsior becomes the narrator's "Room of One's Own", to use Virginia Woolf's phrase: a place away from the domestic in which she experiments with her sexual and creative impulses. Later, it's a parlour, too, when she invites friends over to quiz them about the menopause and libidos.

"The motel room is a symbol," says Orchard. "The room is about her enjoying and spending her money however she pleases, and spending that money on beauty. It's a place to play. It's also a place to burn down ideas.

Though Krug didn't personally like All Fours, she appreciates the discussions it's sparked, in her book club and beyond. "So many novels deal with men at midlife, it's refreshing to see one from a female perspective receive so much attention."

Orchard resists the idea that All Fours is a midlife crisis novel, though, at least in the traditional sense. "She's actively engaging with this change. She's questioning it, she's talking to her doctor and her friends about it, she's trying to advocate for herself. In my mind, that's quite different to how we think about the midlife crisis."

Crisis or not, July has shown that there's a hunger for art which truly lays bare the transformative, messy and sometimes magical female midlife experience. One of the author's favourite quotes comes from Albert Camus: "Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth."With her novel she's opened the door for more radical emotional honesty, and with the paperback recently released, the conversations about All Fours - and the arguments - look set to continue for some time yet.

All Fours by Miranda July is out in paperback now.

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'It is the role of justice to deal with this man': How the trial of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie shook the world

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250627-how-the-trial-of-nazi-war-criminal-klaus-barbie-shook-the-world, 11 days ago

In July 1987, 38 years ago this week, a Nazi war criminal, the "Butcher of Lyon", was sentenced to life in prison by a French court for crimes against humanity. Four years earlier, in 1983, the BBC reported on how France felt about this reckoning with its dark past.

Klaus Barbie was known as the "Butcher of Lyon". As the Gestapo chief in Lyon, France, during World War Two, he had been tasked with shattering the French Resistance and ridding the German-occupied city of its Jewish population. He became notorious for his cruelty and sadism, often taking a personal role in torturing and killing prisoners. He sent some 7,500 French Jews and Resistance fighters to concentration camps and executed 4,000 more.

Warning: This article contains details of torture that some may find upsetting.

When the war ended, despite being wanted by French authorities for his horrific war crimes, he was hired by US intelligence as an informant on communist networks. They shielded him, allowing him to live in the US zone of occupied Germany under a false identity. In 1951, Barbie managed to escape prosecution by fleeing to South America via "The Ratline" that the US used to smuggle Nazis out of postwar Europe. He lived openly in Bolivia for decades until he was tracked down by a Nazi-hunting couple, Serge Klarsfeld and his wife Beate. In 1983, France finally managed to extradite him to face justice. And in July 1987, 38 years ago this week, he was finally sentenced to life in prison.

But Barbie's prosecution was far from a straightforward matter for France. The Nazi's return raised questions of guilt and complicity, focusing the nation's attention on the choices its citizens had made while living under German occupation. In 1983, four years before Barbie was sentenced, BBC reporter Bernard Falk travelled to Lyon to talk to people "whose lives were touched by the Gestapo commander's savagery" and the complicated and painful issues the forthcoming Barbie trial had resurfaced.

"The presence of Klaus Barbie back on French soil has also aroused genuine fear that it may evoke old memories, the ghosts of 40 years ago," said Falk. "A time when Frenchmen betrayed Frenchmen and the country was divided into those who fought the Germans, the Resistance, and those who collaborated with them, and the bulk of the population who passively accepted their presence."

Resistance fighter Raymond Basset reflected on this legacy: "At the time of the liberation of Lyon, there were about 6,000 members of the Resistance movement in the area. Three days afterwards, there was 110,000. That probably explains a lot of things about French life today. Why? Because they only became patriots when there is no more risk attached to it. That's all."

When France surrendered to Germany in June 1940, the city of Lyon became a centre for the underground Resistance movement. Basset and radio operator Marcel Bidault were two of the young men who joined early to fight the Nazi occupation. "Basset ran a Resistance group responsible for smuggling shot-down Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain," said Falk. "Four thousand British, American and Commonwealth servicemen owe their lives to Basset's unit."

But for every person who actively resisted the Nazis, many more tried to keep their heads down, hoping they would survive. Meanwhile, others welcomed the Nazis, even forming militia to participate as they terrorised the city's residents. Basset discovered this firsthand when he was arrested and then brutally interrogated while having his teeth pulled out. "Captured by the Gestapo, he was tortured to reveal the names of his couriers," said Falk. "The two men who mutilated him were both Frenchmen working for the Germans." Basset's co-conspirator, Bidault, "was captured by the French militia collaborating with the Nazis. He escaped before his own countrymen could hand him over to the Gestapo."

Following France's liberation in 1944, people thought to be French collaborators were rounded up. Many were publicly humiliated. Women who had consorted with German soldiers had their heads shaved or were stripped and daubed with tar. People who had cooperated with the Gestapo were beaten in the streets, and some were tried and shot, including the men who had brutalised Basset. "I killed them, of course, we killed them at the liberation, there is no point in giving you their names," the 75-year-old Basset told the BBC in 1983. "They had retired with vast quantities of money, stolen from the Jews."

Naming the collaborators

But in the decades since the war, the German occupation and the scars it had created within French society had not been forgotten. Many of Lyon's residents were still haunted by what had happened during that time. "For the old, for those who suffered, Barbie never really went away. It's all still here. The battleground where the Resistance fought the occupying German army through the alleyways of the old city. The same streets, the same buildings," said Falk.

With the "Butcher of Lyon" back in the country for trial, Basset was keen that France should acknowledge and reckon with its past. He told the BBC that the Gestapo chief should be made to name the French people who collaborated with the Nazis and escaped judgement. "I think the interrogation of Barbie will create many problems because there are most certainly men who were implicated with him," said Basset. He also told Falk of his desire for revenge. He wished that he had a chance to interrogate Barbie, and to mete out the punishment that he had suffered.

In particular, the survivors wanted to know "the name of the person who betrayed Jean Moulin, the greatest of all the French Resistance leaders, who was arrested in Lyon after a tip-off", said Falk. Moulin was a crucial figure during the war who united the scattered elements of resistance into a co-ordinated force against their Nazi occupiers. He was viciously tortured by Barbie and died as a result of his injuries on 8 July 1943 on a train taking him to Germany.

"During the occupation, there were lots of French who actually fought, but most of them spent their time looking for food. Now that Barbie is here, people will try to get him for all sorts of reasons," Basset told Falk, "but what should be done is simply to find out the name of who betrayed Jean Moulin. Once that has been done, he should be trodden on like a bedbug. He's a filthy animal who shouldn't be allowed to live. If you call that hate, it's hate."

After his return, Barbie remained unrepentant for the atrocities he committed. Some felt that the Nazi simply could not be trusted to tell the truth and would use the trial for his own ends. "Opening up this Barbie case is pretty dramatic in the sense that you are going to have names coming up that, if Barbie does decide to talk, he could smear an awful a lot of people," said Jeremy Nicklin, chairman of Lyon's RAF Association, where many of the families of former Resistance fighters would regularly meet.

"It doesn't matter what names he uses, if he is rather cunning about it, he can use any name, the mud will stick and what people are slightly frightened about in one sense is that he will sling a lot of mud because he's got nothing left to lose," said Nicklin.

Basset's fellow Resistance fighter Bidault agreed that the Nazi's testimony couldn't all be believed, but it was now the job of the court to take over, sift through the evidence and see that justice was done. "I regret that he didn't die before, 40 years is a long time. What is he going to say, who is he going to denounce, if he denounces someone how can you prove that Barbie is right," Bidault asked the BBC in 1983. "I would have personally killed him 35 years ago. Now it is the role of justice to deal with this man. It's not my job."

A national reckoning

The trial would be a painful process for France; the wounds caused by Barbie and the Nazis were within living memory. Andre Signol had been only seven when his father Michel was arrested for being part of the Resistance. "He was beaten with bullwhips, he was half drowned in tubs of icy water. Barbie pulled out finger and toenails. It went on for four days. Michel wouldn't talk, he wouldn't betray his comrades," said Falk. Signol's father would be posthumously awarded the Legion of Honour.

But Signol believed, despite the distress the trial would cause and his own need for vengeance, that having Barbie in court was vital to illustrate to young people what had taken place. "As far as Klaus Barbie goes, I think this man should be dead," said Signol. "He has never expressed any regret at all for his actions, so he goes on enjoying life and he has hope. That is completely abnormal. The trial is absolutely necessary to teach the younger generation about what happened."

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In the 1950s, Barbie had been tried twice for his war crimes by France and sentenced to death "in absentia", but by the time the Nazi returned to the country in 1983, both convictions had lapsed. His new trial began in 1987 and its extensive media coverage gripped the French public. The harrowing testimony from those of Barbie's victims who had survived, and the relatives of those who didn't, laid bare the scale and savagery of the "Butcher of Lyon" atrocities. Although Barbie never revealed who had betrayed Jean Moulin to him, the proceedings did detail the sickening violence he had personally participated in, and the thousands of killings he was responsible for, including one incident in which 44 Jewish children were rounded up from a farmhouse at Izieu in Lyon, and sent to their deaths.

Barbie's trial became a focus of national reckoning for the country as it recounted both France's wartime collusion with and resistance to its German occupiers. The proceedings also served to highlight how Western governments' pursuit of their own political goals had enabled Barbie and other Nazis to escape accountability for their crimes for so long. The fact that Barbie had prospered in South America, while working for various intelligence agencies and engaging in political projects, cast a spotlight on Western governments' complicity and their willingness to ignore violence to civilians and human rights violations in the face of geopolitical calculations.

The Gestapo leader was found guilty of 341 separate crimes against humanity, reaffirming that, legally, individuals are responsible for their actions, even if they are following orders. He was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison, where he died in 1991. In 1983, the US formally apologised to France for hiring Barbie and protecting him against prosecutions. In 1995 the French President Jacques Chirac officially recognised the French state's responsibility in the deportation of Jews. "These dark hours forever sully our history and are an insult to our past and our traditions," he said.

The "Butcher of Lyon" prosecution proved to be a landmark in the pursuit of crimes regarded as some of the gravest in international law – war crimes and crimes against humanity. Its success would trigger the indictments of such French collaborators as former cabinet minister Maurice Papon and former police chief Rene Bousquet, for acts they had committed during WW2. Barbie's conviction would illustrate to the global community the imperative of recognising the atrocities that take place during war, and, even if it takes decades, holding their perpetrators to account.

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Kneecap advert 'banned' on London Tube network

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1e09lnzwe8o, today

Belfast rap trio Kneecap have said they are "banned" from advertising one of their posters on the London Underground.

The group have been in the headlines since one of their members was accused of allegedly supporting a proscribed terrorist organisation. He has denied the charge.

On Thursday, in a social media post, they said: "We've been banned from advertising on the London Tube."

Transport for London (TfL) said it approves adverts on a "case-by-case basis" and deemed the Kneecap poster, showing their frequently used logo depicting a balaclava to promote a September concert, would "would likely cause widespread or serious offence to reasonable members of the public".

The poster shows their logo, based on the balaclavas worn by paramilitaries during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and reads: "Kneecap. OVO Arena Wembley, London. Thurs 18th September '25."

BBC News understands it is the specific poster that has been rejected and not a total ban on Kneecap advertising.

The balaclava-style logo has been used previously on the TfL network, though in a much smaller size, in promotional adverts for the band's summer 2024 movie.

A TfL spokesperson offered no further comment when asked about this.

In a statement, the group said: "How petty can political policing and interference get.

"After using the Tube to advertise loads of times for gigs, records and our movie, all without issue."

This performance will be their first in the capital since they supported Irish post-punk band Fontaines DC at a sold out performance in Finsbury Park on 5 July.

In May, Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was charged with a terrorism offence relating to allegedly displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, north London, during a gig in November 2024.

He is due in court next month.

'Careful consideration'

The group performed at Glasgow's 02 on Tuesday, in a gig which sold out in 80 seconds.

They were due to perform at TRNSMT festival in Glasgow this weekend, but their set was axed after concerns raised by police.

The musicians have repeatedly spoken out against the war in Gaza and performed to a sea of Palestinian flags during their set at Glastonbury Festival in June.

The trio followed punk duo Bob Vylan on the West Holts stage, and both acts are being investigated by Avon and Somerset Police for comments made on stage.

TfL's spokesperson said: "All adverts submitted for display on our network are reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

"Having given this very careful consideration, this advert was rejected as it was deemed that running it would likely cause widespread or serious offence to reasonable members of the public."

Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk

Concert cancelled as group of children fall ill

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce83rrzgrmmo, today

A concert at a music festival had to be cancelled after a group of children were taken to hospital after falling ill.

The Welsh Ambulance Service confirmed on Thursday that 11 patients were taken from Llangollen International Eisteddfod in Denbighshire to Wrexham Maelor Hospital with flu-like symptoms on Wednesday.

It was previously confirmed that eight patients were being assessed for mild respiratory symptoms but that has now increased to 11.

The Llangollen International Eisteddfod said it was forced to cancel the concert, by Welsh musician and composer Karl Jenkins, but said the festival would resume on Thursday morning.

Dr Giri Shankar, Director of Health Protection for Public Health Wales, said the eight children assessed in the hospital on Wednesday night would be discharged on Thursday morning.

"Tests carried out on these children have indicated the presence of common respiratory viruses, including flu.

"They are being treated appropriately and are recovering. The risk to the public remains low".

The festival said the extraordinary incident related to a flu-like outbreak with multiple people coming forward with similar symptoms.

"The Llangollen International Eisteddfod takes the safety of its audience, competitors, performers and volunteers extremely seriously," it added.

David Hennigan, board director for Llangollen, said they were pleased the children were OK.

"We would like to thank our medical staff, the Welsh Ambulance Service and volunteers in particular.

"We're keen to carry on now - Llangollen is back in business. The Maes this morning was buzzing again."

Paul Jays and Penny Nicholson from near Llandrindod Wells, Powys, said they had travelled to the festival especially for the concert, which was a birthday present for Mr Jays.

"We were so disappointed," said Ms Nicholson, adding she ended up having the chance to chat to Karl Jenkins on Thursday morning as he was staying at the same hotel.

"He was disappointed too," she said.

Mr Jays added: "It was so unexpected. We were on the way here, when people coming the other way said it had been cancelled. The nature of the incident was so usual."

Museum removes sign in listed building row

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y9r8jzplqo, today

A museum has removed its new sign following a row over the impact on its Grade I listed building.

Tullie, in Carlisle, had changed its signage following a refurbishment and to reflect a recent rebrand from its old name of Tullie House.

Carlisle and District Civic Trust claimed it had happened without the necessary permission being obtained, while Cumberland Council said Tullie had been given permission for the sign on the Gatehouse, however it had not been erected in accordance with the specifications of the planning consent.

In a social media post Tullie said it had not been asked to take the signs down.

"We're temporarily taking down the blue sign from the Gatehouse to ease a small number of concerns while we progress conversations with relevant parties over the look and design of the sign," a spokesman said.

"It is important to clarify that prior to our recently completed redevelopment work we obtained planning permissions and listed building consents for all the planned works including signage."

The civic trust called the building "iconic" and claimed the museum was "flouting planning law".

A spokesman said of the signage change: "It is appalling that a trust, charged with the protection of our heritage and culture, have acted in such a cavalier and illegal manner."

Cumberland Council said it was in negotiations with Tullie over their application and no enforcement action had been taken.

A spokesman said: "The sign which was erected was not in accordance with the permission and therefore further permissions are required due to slight nuances in location and size.

"Signage also requires advertisement consent - there is a current live application in for this. A new listed building consent will be required for the new signage."

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Diogo Jota mural 'absolutely class', say fans

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2zrn9grzqo, today

Fans have described a mural to Liverpool forward Diogo Jota near Anfield stadium as "absolutely class" after his death in a car crash.

The words 'Forever 20', a reference to the Portuguese national's squad number, were painted onto a gable-end wall on Sybil Road near the stadium in white lettering against a black background on Tuesday 8 July.

The piece, by street art collective Murwalls, has since taken on a life of its own as fans added their own messages of remembrance.

They included Grace Merritt, who worked with Jota personally through her work in media, and said: "Every time I go the match now, I can see that my name's up there."

The 22-year-old said she went to the stadium three times since news of Jota's death broke to lay flowers, but thought the mural was a fitting tribute.

She said: "I think this is absolutely class from [Murwalls].

"I think the messages that we leave in comments online saying our regards to Jota and his brother, to writing on a wall, to remembering what he did for us, it's just so great."

"He's so humble, he's so respectable and not just on the pitch," Ms Merritt said.

"I think what was so amazing, we saw them tributes from the players that did talk about his talent but also the person he was."

Kevin Gates, known online as the Kop Artist, also signed the wall and told BBC Radio Merseyside: "Every player means so much to Liverpool fans."

He described Jota as a "phenomenal player" and said he would be "very much missed".

The Forever 20 piece on Sybil Street appears unlikely to be the only large mural in Jota's memory.

Street artist Paul Curtis, whose works are well known in Liverpool, has launched a crowdfunding page for an artwork of Jota and his brother Andre Silva, who also died in the crash in Spain last week.

Mr Curtis said the idea came after fans tagged him and other artists in posts on social media asking why no murals for Jota had been commissioned yet.

At the time of writing, the fundraiser has raised more than £25,000.

Mr Curtis said the donations had not only come from Reds supporters.

He told BBC Radio Merseyside: "Obviously, a lot of Liverpool fans have donated, but we've had Everton fans, Man United fans as well, which shows the reach of the guy and how well he's respected.

"I've been getting donations from Japan, America. So, yeah, it's a measure of the guy, I think. He touched people beyond football, it seems."

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Bob Dylan to play three Swansea gigs on tour

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgq7g2nqzx3o, today

Bob Dylan will play for three shows in Swansea in November as he returns to the UK and Ireland for 13 shows.

The 84-year-old will be doing more shows in the city's Building Society Arena than anywhere else on this leg of the tour, which takes place in November.

He will also visit Brighton, Coventry, Leeds, Glasgow, Belfast, Killarney and Dublin on the Rough And Rowdy Ways tour, which will be entirely phone-free with attendees asked to lock away their devices in pouches on entry.

The US singer-songwriter took his surname from the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who hailed from Swansea.

The gigs will take place four years into the tour, which began in November 2021, and fans will be asked to put their phones in a Yondr pouch, which closes automatically when in the venue and unlocks on the venue's concourse.

Dylan has won 10 Grammys and been nominated for a further 38, as well as six UK top 10 singles and nine UK number one albums.

He began his career in 1962 but shot to fame with a string of successful singles in 1965, including The Times They Are A-Changin', Subterranean Homesick Blues and Like A Rolling Stone.

He was also the first songwriter to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016.

Tickets for the tour go on sale on 18 July.

Where will Bob Dylan play on UK and Ireland tour?

* November 7 - Brighton Centre, Brighton

* November 9 - Building Society Arena, Swansea

* November 10 - Building Society Arena, Swansea

* November 11 - Building Society Arena, Swansea

* November 13 - Building Society Arena, Coventry

* November 14 - First Direct Arena, Leeds

* November 16 - Armadillo, Glasgow

* November 17 - Armadillo, Glasgow

* November 19 - Waterfront, Belfast

* November 20 - Waterfront, Belfast

* November 23 - INEC, Killarney

* November 24 - INEC, Killarney

* November 25 - 3Arena, Dublin

Summer music concerts for babies to launch in city

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgw5g4ry52o, today

Interactive music concerts for babies are to be held across Wolverhampton this summer, the council says.

The eight Babies' Adventures in Music (BAM) events will see music performed from around the world, involving an array of instruments at or near several family hubs in the city.

The aim of the concerts is to support the wellbeing of babies and their families or carers through a "special musical experience" and "to connect families to services that can support them".

They will run from 11 July until 20 August and offer an opportunity for people to relax and have an enjoyable experience with their baby, arts organisation Curiosity Productions added.

The group has received government funding through Wolverhampton Family Hubs to put on the BAM events.

They will involve "gentle movements and stimulating sounds", featuring singing, harp, accordion and stringed instruments.

"As parents as well as musicians, we know how positive it is for children to experience live music at a very early age," Sam Fox, a BAM musician said.

"We have also been researching the impact of our concerts on parental wellbeing with the Public Health Research Officer at Midlands Arts Centre, and will be sharing our findings at the Music & Parental Wellbeing Symposium at the Royal College of Music, London at the end of July.

"It's great that we can work with the family hubs to bring this special experience to Wolverhampton families, and also help to connect them to services and support.'

Jenny Martin, creative director of Curiosity Productions, said the team had been working in the city on various projects for eight years

"Kids in Wolverhampton have so much imagination and creativity, we feel honoured to have the opportunity to help them to discover their creative potential.

"It's fantastic to be giving parents and carers some special experiences with their very little ones too."

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Music meets nature in Surrey care home study

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq53jy570vdo, today

A care home has appointed a 'Musician-in-Residence' in a pioneering study exploring how outdoor music-making can benefit older people and those with dementia.

Residents at the Huntington & Langham Estate in Hindhead, Surrey, enjoy outdoor activities from music scholar Stuart Wood as part of the pilot.

The project examines how music and nature together can boost wellbeing, social connection, and emotional expression in care settings.

Mr Wood said he hoped to understand how playing music outdoors "can foster social connection, emotional expression, and overall health in later life."

The NHS says music in a care setting can help "reduce anxiety and depression, help maintain speech and language, is helpful at the end of life, enhances quality of life and has a positive impact on carers".

It is also acknowledged that spending time outdoors can have a positive impact on the cognitive, emotional, and physical wellbeing of older people.

Mr Wood's project explores how outdoors music can further enhance social connection, uplift mood, and support mental and physical health within care home communities.

The study will form part of his Visiting Research Fellowship at Bath Spa University's School of Music and Performing Arts.

He will also share insights from this project with music students and post-graduate researchers.

Mr Wood said: "What we don't know is what happens when you bring together playing percussion and doing that outdoors, so this project is asking that question."

Sarah Chapman, the director of Huntington & Langham Estate, said she was "curious about the possibilities and the benefits of combining music and nature".

Findings from this week-long pilot study may inform a larger, international research project planned for later this year, with results expected to be published in 2026.

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What to know about Birmingham Lamar and SZA gig

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8ze77ggjwo, today

Days after Birmingham rocked out to heavy metal legends Black Sabbath, it is preparing to welcome two more critically acclaimed musical superstars.

Kendrick Lamar and SZA perform at Villa Park on Thursday as part of their Grand National Tour of 13 European stadiums.

Their tour was reported last month to have become the highest-grossing co-headline tour ever, making in excess of $250m on the North American leg alone.

Roads are closed around the venue, with doors opening at 16:30 BST. The show starts at 19:00 and is expected to run until 22:30.

The rapper and R&B singer-songwriter's powerful half-time performances at the Super Bowl in February were broadcast to a TV audience of more than 130 million.

After Birmingham, the pair will perform dates in Cardiff and London, before further shows in Europe, South America and Australia.

What will the set list be in Birmingham?

The joint headliners are expected to alternate performances, and come together for duets such as ballad All the Stars.

According to Setlist.fm, their gig at Hampden Park in Glasgow on Tuesday showcased a 52-song playlist.

Lamar opened with Wacced Out Murals and performed five tracks before SZA arrived on stage with 30 for 30 then Love Galore.

The show closed with another duet, Gloria.

What can I bring to Villa Park?

Concert-goers are asked not to bring a bag where possible, and anything larger than A4 size will not be allowed.

Sealed plastic water bottles under 500ml are permitted for seated customers, but bottle tops will be removed on entry and any other food or drink confiscated.

Small cameras, sun cream and walking aids can be brought, but a banned list of items includes alcohol, umbrellas, flags and banners, glass and pyrotechnics.

Smoking and vaping is also banned in the stadium, although there are extended outdoor concourses on stands.

Staff will be carrying out searches, the venue confirmed.

How can I get to the Villa Park gig?

Road closures are in place around the stadium from 13:00 and will remain until about midnight or once the areas are clear,

Trinity Road will be shut between the junctions with Witton Lane and Nelson Road, and Witton Lane from Witton Island to Trinity Road.

Residential areas around the stadium do not allow parking and parking at the stadium is unavailable, organisers said.

However, there are car parks within a 45-minute walk or in the city centre, with an official shuttle bus running from Dudley Street, near New Street Station, to Villa Park for £7.50 each way.

Transport for West Midlands warned buses and trains in the area would be busy and some buses would be diverted away from the area post-concert.

There will be additional trains running to Witton and Aston stations, which are about a five- and 15-minute walk from the venue.

The last train leaves from Witton to Rugeley Trent Valley at 23:32 and to Birmingham New Street at 23:48.

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How embarrassing ancestor went from 'bit of a giggle' to icon

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2jjnky5leo, 5 days ago

One ancestor has a statue on a massive column commemorating his life. The other has a few photos stuck in a bathroom.

It's not hard to imagine which one the family of the time was keener to remember. However, as a musical celebrating the man in the bathroom makes clear, sometimes you have to play the long game - or as the show's title says, How to Win Against History.

For the bathroom photos depict Henry Cyril Paget, 5th Marquess of Anglesey, a man who bankrupted his family and died young far from home, after a few short years of splashing his aristocratic forebears' cash on extravagant and outrageous self-produced shows in Edwardian Britain, appearing in women's dresses and costumes literally made of diamonds.

Now 120 years after his death a play and the film Madfabulous, inspired by his life, is putting him firmly back in the spotlight, but what does the current generation of his family make of the man who was once relegated to a toilet?

Alex, 8th Marquess of Anglesey, says Henry is now viewed with affection by himself and other family members, as time and changing attitudes have cast his exploits in a more understanding light.

Although Henry married his cousin, their marriage was apparently never consummated and his wife later filed for annulment. Was he gay? No conclusive evidence either way, but it's hard not to imagine he was somewhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum of sexualities.

Alex says he first came to know of Henry through those bathroom photos. "The one I particularly remember was him dressed up as Boadicea with big Edwardian moustaches.

"[It was] a bit of a giggle. His existence wasn't denied but he wasn't a major part of the family heritage.

"He was viewed as the black sheep of the family, this eccentric, weird bloke who we knew about and thought he sounded quite funny.

"When I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, homosexuality was still illegal. He wasn't necessarily gay actually, he was probably asexual, but that whole kind of thing of an alternative sexuality was certainly not generally in most circles accepted.

"That personal sexual liberation of the 1960s, and then more recently of course with LGBTQ identities, he has become a bit of an icon, and attitudes towards him have definitely changed."

Alex says because not much is known about Henry - his own diaries and letters were seemingly destroyed by the family after his death and most of the stories about him were told in sensationalist press reports - his life has become an opportunity for creatives to fill in many blanks with their own imaginings.

Henry was an only child who was left motherless at a very young age and was raised for the first years of his life in Paris by relatives, where he was exposed to the theatrical world of the period.

But then his father reclaimed him and he was sent to live at Plas Newydd on Anglesey, and his life followed the pattern of education at Eton and an affiliation with the military typical of his class.

However, on the death of the 4th Marquess in 1898, Henry inherited the title, the lands and the money, and proceeded to live as he chose.

He renamed Plas Newydd Anglesey Castle, converted the chapel to a performance space he called the Gaiety Theatre, and put on seemingly spectacular shows with elaborate and jaw-droppingly expensive costumes and props, inviting both notables and the local people in for free to witness his magnificence.

He ran through most of a fortune that in today's money has been estimated at about £60m and was bankrupted, leaving a shadow of his inheritance. Estranged from his wife, he moved to Monte Carlo and died aged 29.

'It's a pity he spent all the money'

And that is where Alex's branch of the family comes in. As he acknowledges, it is only because of Henry's lack of issue that he now holds the title of 8th Marquess, as it fell to Henry's cousin, Alex's grandfather, on his death.

What does he make of Henry, from the perspective of the 21st Century? While acknowledging the loss of the fortune - "it's a pity he spent all the money", he laughs, while clarifying he didn't actually quite spend it all.

"He wasn't totally unique. He was part of a culture, although a minority culture, people like Oscar Wilde in this country and [Marcel] Proust in France, where he initially grew up.

"That early 20th Century artistic, sexual liberation stuff was going on there in a minority world.

"He wasn't unique in that sense or even in the context of the English aristocracy - you know the empire-building, soldierly stuff wasn't the only side of the aristocracy," he says, with a nod to another Henry Paget, this time the one on the column, 1st Marquess of Anglesey and veteran of the Battle of Waterloo, who lost his leg fighting alongside the Duke of Wellington.

Pointing to Henry's father being a "playboy who certainly did not take any aristocratic responsibility, noblesse oblige stuff, very seriously at all", Henry can be viewed perhaps in a grand tradition of eccentric and hedonistic aristocrats, albeit one who stepped further outside the boundaries than was considered acceptable.

It was this sense of exclusion that spoke to How to Win Against History creator Seiriol Davies when they first came across the photos of Henry during a visit to Plas Newydd - which was been owned by the National Trust for half a century - as a child.

In the midst of "marvelling at all the pomp", the playwright and actor from Anglesey was struck by the contrast between the lionisation of the 1st Marquess and his heirs and "the little laminated photocopy of some pictures of [Henry] Blu-tacked on the wall next to the toilet.

"It said he was a very silly man who wasted all the family's money doing very silly plays.

"A little bell of proto-queer indignation rang in my tummy, and because I believe in swift and decisive action, decided to make a musical about it 25 years later."

They describe Henry as "mesmerising, fabulous, glamorous and totally out of his time, but also kind of lost".

As an only child without a mother, Alex agrees one interpretation of Henry's outlandish behaviour could be as a sort of search for connection. "Maybe this was one way of creating an identity, which he certainly did.

"I do think he's a fascinating character no doubt about it, and his whole persona does fit in with David Bowie and that sort of thing. There's some truth in those kinds of connections and 'he was the inventor of the selfie' idea, which comes into the film or the musical."

Seiriol calls their loose interpretation of Henry's life "a screwball, riot comedy camp-o-rama but it has at its centre someone who doesn't even have his internal life because it's been eradicated.

"In this fiction that we're making about a character which is a bit like Henry in some ways - and this is not trying to be the truth about him - within our story he's constantly trying to find connection, find acceptance; trying to get someone to see him as him."

"I think probably my grandfather's generation were pretty seriously embarrassed by him," said Alex.

"His existence was not denied but it's all summed up by the fact there were these photographs of him - but they were in the bathroom. They weren't portraits in the main room."

And now? "We're happy to celebrate his rather weird, to some degree not happy, but to some degree rather extraordinary and marvellous life."

Inside Italy's secret mosaic school

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250707-inside-italys-secret-mosaic-school, today

Hidden in a quiet Italian town is one of the world's most unique art schools – and a rewarding destination for curious travellers.

Walking the corridors of the Scuola dei Mosaicisti del Friuli (Friuli Mosaicists School) on a Friday morning, the first thing I noticed was the silence. I had expected the chatter of students, the hum of conversation between teachers, the shuffle of footsteps. Instead, the air was still, broken only by the occasional tap of a hammer and the delicate click of tiles sliding against tiles.

The second thing was the mosaics – everywhere. In the entrance courtyard, where a full-scale tessellated version of Picasso's Guernica greets visitors. In the hallways, where tiled reproductions of artworks like Michelangelo's Pietà and the Virgin and Child from Istanbul's Hagia Sophia line the walls. Mosaics climbed across flat surfaces and curled around corners, turning the entire building into a living archive of pattern, precision and patience.

Those same qualities were on full display inside the classrooms where students sat bent over their workstations, eyes locked on the fragments beneath their fingers. Mosaic, I would learn over the course of my visit, demands this kind of concentration: a craft shaped not just by hand and material, but by a collected atmosphere where meticulousness can thrive.

The school has been nurturing this kind of dedication for more than a century. Founded in 1922 in Spilimbergo, a small town of medieval lanes, a stately castle and Renaissance palazzi in Italy's north-eastern Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, it was originally created to provide formal training to local artisans and preserve the area's ancient mosaic tradition — one that dates to the Roman Empire and has left its mark on everything from Byzantine basilicas to modern monuments.

Today it's the only academic institution in the world entirely devoted to the mosaic arts. Students of all ages, from high school graduates to mid-career creatives, come from across the globe to enrol in its rigorous three-year programme, during which they learn historical mosaic techniques – from intricate Greco-Roman patterns to luminous Byzantine compositions — before experimenting with more contemporary, freeform designs.

In recent years, the school has also become a destination in its own right, drawing design-loving travellers intrigued by the singular world of mosaics to explore its grounds on both public and private tours. Some 40,000 visitors do so annually, making the Scuola Mosaicisti one of the most visited sites in Friuli.

While around 40 students are admitted to the three-year programme each year, no more than 15 complete the full curriculum, earning the title of maestri mosaicisti (mosaic masters). Of those, only a select group of six go on to do a fourth year – a sort of master's degree – to further sharpen their skills.

"It takes a lot of hard work and discipline to become a maestro mosaicista," said Gian Piero Brovedani, the school's director. "This is an art that's both humbling and exacting. It teaches you to slow down, pay attention and find beauty in repetition."

Indeed, mosaic-making is an incredibly precise specialty. It requires the artist to painstakingly place together hundreds, sometimes thousands, of small pieces called tesserae (which can measure as little as 0.5cm) to form intricate patterns and lifelike scenes. Made from marble, glass, smalto (opaque glass tiles) and even shells, these tiny inlays demand thorough craftsmanship and an intuitive sense of rhythm and placement.

As Brovedani noted, it's also deeply collaborative. Mosaicists generally work solo on sections of large compositions, but the true effect of that work emerges only when viewed in unison. "It's a craft that asks you to 'erase' yourself, in a way," said third-year teacher Cristina de Leoni. "One tile on its own doesn't say very much, but together with others, it creates an artwork. There's no ego in mosaic-making."

Glancing at the craft's rich history – which dates to Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BCE and stretches across countries and cultures, from the Greeks to the Maya, the Byzantine Empire to the Islamic world – it's easy to see her point. There are no Giottos or Raphaels in the mosaic arts, no singular Mona Lisa. Instead, this expressive form has always relied on anonymous virtuosity, walking a fine line between art and artisanship.

That's been all the truer in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, where mosaicists never stopped honing the craft, even as it slipped from the spotlight from the Renaissance onwards. With its abundance of stones from the Tagliamento (Friuli's main river) and close cultural ties to Venice – a city long at the epicentre of European art and craftsmanship – the region quietly became a stronghold of mosaic tradition, its skilled artists sought after across continents. In the 19th Century, Friulian artist Gian Domenico Facchina even helped usher mosaics into the modern era, devising the rovescio su carta (reverse on paper) method to assemble panels off-site – a game-changer for scale and speed. The foyer of Paris' Opéra Garnier was the first to showcase it.

Since then, Friulan mosaicists – most trained in Spilimbergo – have made their mark worldwide: from Rome's iconic Foro Italico sports complex to the New York City subway station at the World Trade Center; from the dome of Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre to Tokyo galleries. These works are proof of a tradition that continues to evolve, tessera by tessera.

"The duality of mosaics makes them endlessly fascinating," said Purnima Allinger, a third-year student who left a marketing career in Berlin to pursue mosaics. "It's a precise and meditative-like craft, but also expressive and emotional like art. You're always shifting between the two – it keeps you completely engaged."

Amos Carcano, a maestro mosaicista from Switzerland, agrees. "You work with your hands, but you're also constantly inventing, playing with texture, colour and patterns. Contemporary mosaics push those boundaries even further. It's a tradition, but it's also wide open."

Carcano is currently one of 10 alumni working on one of the school's most ambitious pieces yet: a 1,265-sq-m mosaic floor for the courtyard depicting Friuli's native flora and fauna – a project set to take more than a year.

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• Is there no such thing as Italian cuisine?

It's not just maestri who create for the school. All those mosaics I saw as I toured the premises? They are by past and present students. "We think of the school as a bottega – a workshop," says Danila Venuto, who teaches mosaic history. "And in a workshop, you learn by doing. It's only natural that the students are put to work as soon as they start learning the ABC of mosaic. This is a craft that's mastered and kept alive through making."

And increasingly, you can learn even as a visitor. The school offers corsi brevi – short courses ranging from four-day intensives to week-long programmes – to give travellers a hands-on introduction to the art. Meanwhile, the tours include access to an archive of more than 800 mosaic works and the opportunity to glimpse into the classrooms where students and maestri work side by side. Leading each visit is usually one of the 79 guides that have specifically been trained by the school, or, for a more local flavour, Spilimbergo's volunteer city guides, who often pair the experience with a stroll through the town.

The experience doesn't stop at the school gates. Spilimbergo itself is full of mosaics: decorating the interiors of its imposing Roman-Gothic Duomo, embedded in shopfronts, woven into restaurant floors and tucked into hidden corners of the old town. On its main thoroughfare, Corso Roma, mosaic shops and showrooms display beautiful creations from the school's alumni for purchase; while on the outskirts of town, Fabbrica di Mosaici Mario Donà, a historic family-run kiln that moved from Murano to Spilimbergo in 1991, can be visited by appointment to see where the enamels for the mosaics are made.

Travel just a little further and you'll reach the source material that has long shaped the school's practice: the grave – smooth, river-washed stones carried by the Tagliamento. Nearby lies the Magredi, a stark plain formed by gravel brought in by two local streams, the Cellina and the Meduna. Though it may look barren, it teems with a variety of flora and fauna, from wildflowers to birds of prey – the very subjects featured in countless Friulian mosaics, including the school's soon-to-be-completed outdoor floor.

"People from Spilimbergo – and from Friuli at large – are very proud of this centuries-old tradition," said Venuto. "Mosaic-making is part of our cultural DNA, a true Friulian legacy."

And in this corner of Friuli, if you're curious, you're welcome to be part of it.

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From India to Britain and back: The cartoonist who fought censors with a smile

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c784lz5lky8o, 3 days ago

"It's unfair to lift censorship suddenly," growls a grizzled newspaper editor into the phone, a copy of The Daily Pulp sprawled across his desk. "We should be given time to prepare our minds."

The cartoon capturing this moment - piercing and satirical - is the work of Abu Abraham, one of India's finest political cartoonists. His pen skewered power with elegance and edge, especially during the 1975 Emergency, a 21-month stretch of suspended civil liberties and muzzled media under Indira Gandhi's rule.

The press was silenced overnight on 25 June. Delhi's newspaper presses lost power, and by morning censorship was law. The government demanded the press bend to its will - and, as opposition leader LK Advani later famously remarked, many "chose to crawl".

Another famous cartoon - he signed them Abu, after his pen name - from that time shows a man asking another: "What do you think of editors who are more loyal than the censor?"

In many ways, half a century later, Abu's cartoons still ring true.

India currently ranks 151st in the World Press Freedom Index, compiled annually by Reporters Without Borders. This reflects growing concerns about media independence under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. Critics allege increasing pressure and attacks on journalists, acquiescent media and a shrinking space for dissenting voices. The government dismisses these claims, insisting that the media remain free and vibrant.

Abu also took aim at Sanjay Gandhi, the unelected son of Indira Gandhi, who many believed ran a shadow government during the Emergency, wielding unchecked power behind the scenes. Sanjay's influence was both controversial and feared. He died in a plane crash in 1980 - four years before his mother, Indira, was assassinated by her bodyguards.

Abu's work was intensely political. "I have come to the conclusion that there's nothing non-political in the world. Politics is simply anything that is controversial and everything in the world is controversial," he wrote in Seminar magazine in 1976.

He also bemoaned the state of humour - strained and manufactured - when the press was gagged.

"If cheap humour could be manufactured in a factory, the public would rush to queue up in our ration shops all day. As our newspapers become progressively duller, the reader, drowning in boredom, clutches at every joke. AIR [India's state-run radio station] news bulletins nowadays sound like a company chairman's annual address. Profits are carefully and elaborately enumerated, losses are either omitted or played down. Shareholders are reassured," Abu wrote.

In a tongue-in-cheek column for the Sunday Standard in 1977, Abu poked fun at the culture of political flattery with a fictional account of a meeting of the "All India Sycophantic Society".

The spoof featured the society's imaginary president declaring: "True sycophancy is non-political."

The satirical monologue continued with mock proclamations: "Sycophancy has a long and historic tradition in our country… 'Servility before self' is our motto."

Abu's parody culminated in the society's guiding vision: "Touching all available feet and promoting a broad-based programme of flattery."

Born as Attupurathu Mathew Abraham in the southern state of Kerala in 1924, Abu began his career as a reporter at the nationalist Bombay Chronicle, driven less by ideology than a fascination with the power of the printed word.

His reporting years coincided with India's dramatic journey to independence, witnessing firsthand the euphoria that gripped Bombay (now Mumbai). Reflecting on the press, he later noted, "The press has pretensions of being a crusader but is more often a preserver of the status quo."

After two years with Shankar's Weekly, a well-known satire magazine, Abu set his sights on Europe. A chance encounter with British cartoonist Fred Joss in 1953 propelled him to London, where he quickly made a mark.

His debut cartoon was accepted by Punch within a week of arrival, earning praise from editor Malcolm Muggeridge as "charming".

Freelancing for two years in London's competitive scene, Abu's political cartoons began appearing in Tribune and soon attracted the attention of The Observer's editor David Astor.

Astor offered him a staff position with the paper.

"You are not cruel like other cartoonists, and your work is the kind I was looking for," he told Abu.

In 1956, at Astor's suggestion, Abraham adopted the pen name "Abu", writing later: "He explained that any Abraham in Europe would be taken as a Jew and my cartoons would take on slant for no reason, and I wasn't even Jewish."

Astor also assured him of creative freedom: "You will never be asked to draw a political cartoon expressing ideas which you do not yourself personally sympathise."

Abu worked at The Observer for 10 years, followed by three years at The Guardian, before returning to India in the late 1960s. He later wrote he was "bored" of British politics.

Beyond cartooning, Abu served as a nominated member of India's upper house of Parliament from 1972 to 1978. In 1981, he launched Salt and Pepper, a comic strip that ran for nearly two decades, blending gentle satire with everyday observations. He returned to Kerala in 1988 and continued to draw and write until his death in 2002.

But Abu's legacy was never just about the punchline - it was about the deeper truths his humour revealed.

As he once remarked, "If anyone has noticed a decline in laughter, the reason may not be the fear of laughing at authority but the feeling that reality and fancy, tragedy and comedy have all, somehow got mixed up."

That blurring of absurdity and truth often gave his work its edge.

"The prize for the joke of the year," he wrote during the Emergency, "should go to the Indian news agency reporter in London who approvingly quoted a British newspaper comment on India under the Emergency, that 'trains are running on time' - not realising this used to be the standard English joke about Mussolini's Italy. When we have such innocents abroad, we don't really need humorists."

Abu's cartoons and photograph, courtesy Ayisha and Janaki Abraham

Bayeux Tapestry to return to UK on loan after 900 years

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c14ev1z6d5go, 3 days ago

The Bayeux Tapestry is returning to the UK more than 900 years after its creation, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has confirmed.

The 70m-long masterpiece, which tells the story of the Norman conquest of England in 1066, will be loaned in a historic agreement to be signed between the French and British governments.

The huge embroidery - which is widely believed to have been created in Kent - will go on display at the British Museum in London next year.

In exchange, treasures including artefacts from the Anglo-Saxon burial mounds at Sutton Hoo and the 12th Century Lewis chess pieces will travel to museums in Normandy.

The Bayeux Tapestry will be displayed from next Autumn until July 2027, while its current home, the Bayeux Museum, is being renovated. 2027 is also the 1000th anniversary of the birth of William the Conqueror.

George Osborne, the British Museum's chair of trustees, told the BBC the exhibition "will be the blockbuster show of our generation" - like Tutankhamun and the Terracotta Warriors in the past.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron are expected to make the official announcement of the deal on Tuesday evening at Windsor Castle.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy called the loan "a symbol of our shared history with our friends in France, a relationship built over centuries and one that continues to endure".

A loan was first suggested in 2018 between President Macron and then-Prime Minister Theresa May. It's taken until 2025 for it to become a reality.

The Bayeux Tapestry, which dates back to the 11th Century, charts a more contested time in Anglo-French relations, as Anglo Saxon dominance was replaced by Norman rule.

Although the final part of the embroidery is missing, it ends with the Anglo Saxons fleeing at the end of the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

Its 58 scenes, 626 characters and 202 horses give an account of the medieval period in Normandy and England like no other, offering up not just information about military traditions but also the precious details of everyday life.

The work has inspired many through the centuries, including artist David Hockney whose Frieze depicting the cycle of the seasons in Normandy was influenced by the Bayeux Tapestry.

The British Museum's director, Nicholas Cullinan, said: "This is exactly the kind of international partnership that I want us to champion and take part in: sharing the best of our collection as widely as possible - and in return displaying global treasures never seen here before."

Eagle-eyed watchers of the British Museum may view this latest announcement as offering a template for the ongoing discussions with the Greek government about the future of the Parthenon Sculptures.

The Parthenon Project, a group which lobbies for the return of the classical marble sculptures to Greece, have suggested what they term a "win-win" solution, with never before seen items from Greece brought to the British Museum in exchange for the Parthenon works.

Today's focus is closer to home and an exhibition that the British Museum expects will be one of its most popular ever, a once-in-a-generation show.

The period leading up to the Battle of Hastings is one of the best-known in British history.

As Osborne put it: "There is no other single item in British history that is so familiar, so studied in schools, so copied in art as the Bayeux Tapestry.

"Yet in almost 1,000 years it has never returned to these shores.

"Next year it will and many, many thousands of visitors, especially schoolchildren, will see it with their own eyes."

EastEnders and theatre actor Frank Barrie dies

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c24vgeyl305o, today

Theatre star and former EastEnders actor Frank Barrie has died aged 88.

The Scarborough-born performer passed away peacefully at home surrounded by family, his agency Scott Marshall Partners said.

Barrie, who grew up in York, played Dot Cotton's love interest Edward Bishop in EastEnders from 2010 to 2011.

He was also known for his numerous Shakespearean roles on stage and was a member of Sir Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company at the Old Vic.

The statement from his agency read: "It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our beloved client, Frank Barrie, at the age of 88.

"He died peacefully at home, with his wife Mary and daughter Julia."

BBC EastEnders also paid tribute to the actor, writing on X: "We are deeply saddened to hear that Frank Barrie has passed away.

"Our love and thoughts are with Frank's family and friends."

Barrie attended Archbishop Holgate's School in York, before going to the University of Hull where he met his wife.

He made his acting debut at York Theatre Royal in 1959, in a production of Henry IV Part 2.

The actor went on to star in The Woman In Black and Lunch With Marlene, and his one-man show Macready! played in 65 countries.

Barrie also made more than 150 screen appearances, including in shows such as Emergency Ward 10, No Hiding Place, Softly, Softly, Special Branch, On Giant's Shoulders and Queen Of Swords.

In 1983, he played Eglamour in the BBC TV adaptation of Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen Of Verona.

He also found success as a director on productions of Shylock, JM Barrie and The Life And Loves Of Edith Wharton, all of which toured internationally.

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Album of 1880s Broads images goes under the hammer

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg8err0rlyo, today

A rare book of historical black-and-white images of the Norfolk Broads discovered during a house clearance in America will go under the hammer in London on Thursday.

"Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads" was published in 1886 by the pioneering Victorian photographer Peter Henry Emerson and artist Thomas Frederick Goodall.

The volume is a first edition - one of only 25 deluxe copies produced when the artists visited the waterways - and comprises 40 platinum prints mounted on India paper.

Jack Wallis, head of sale at auctioneers Roseberys said the book - expected to fetch up to £50,000 - was an "exciting find" in "remarkable condition".

The anonymous Maryland seller of the book said it was found in their 98-year-old mother's home, buried in the back of her wardrobe.

They said: "She and my dad were avid 'yard salers', always looking for little treasures.

"They also collected first editions of popular books so we can only surmise that this was another one of their treasured finds."

Emerson (1856–1936) was born in Cuba and raised partly in America, before settling in England.

His photography often focused on the everyday life of people in East Anglia.

The book contains a series of platinum prints, mounted on India paper and would have been very expensive to make.

The photographer inspired his great-grandson, Stephen Hyde, to become a photographer. Mr Hyde said the book represented a "love letter to Norfolk".

"He (Emerson) had a profound connection to nature, and that tenderness comes through in these photographs," he said.

"I'd love to own this book myself, but it belongs in a museum."

Mr Wallis said Emerson was trying to elevate the new technology of photography into an art form.

He said it would appeal to a range of buyers.

"It'd be fantastic if it could make its way back to Norfolk, to a private buyer interested in 19th Century photography.

"It's a really important piece of photographic history and of Norfolk so could also be an institution, a museum or an art gallery, or possibly even just a private collector who buys it."

While 175 copies of the book were published covered in green cloth, this book is one of only 25 covered in velum.

An estimate of £30,000 to £50,000 ($40,000–$67,000) has been put on the book which will be auctioned on Thursday.

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Cornwall theatre company awarded nearly £20,000

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9947l2n5zmo, yesterday

A theatre company working in Cornwall has been awarded almost £20,000 to tell under-represented stories of women's experiences of menopause.

Members of Scary Little Girls said they had been awarded the money to help them tell new stories through their show Queenagers.

The show had already had two sell-out tours in the county, the company said.

Bosses added that they had been awarded £18,601 from the National Lottery Community Fund to work with women's groups in Penzance to collect stories of their experiences of menopause.

'More outsider voices'

The show celebrates the older women and looks at the positive side of menopause.

Artistic director Rebecca Mordan said: "We're now looking at how to make that just a single show, how can we make that a representation of lots of different women's experiences of menopause and that's what this work in Penzance will do.

"It will look at more outsider voices, women that are survivors of domestic violence, and women from very working class, possibly even economically very challenged backgrounds.

"We want to make sure we're expanding that dialogue."

The Queenagers in Penzance project would be working in partnership with Women's Aid Penzance, Trelya and Voices from the Deep, bosses said.

It would work with women from these groups to talk about menopause through a series of workshops, where they could share in whatever way they felt comfortable and could include recording a story, a performance delivered by themselves or others or sharing anonymously.

The workshops were initially due to take place over 10 weeks, and then a further five weeks to develop the final piece of work, the group said.

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Ed Sheeran to exhibit paintings created in car park

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0l49yrwjpjo, yesterday

A new exhibition will feature original art works created by singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran.

The pop star branched into painting in 2019, but said he had always enjoyed studying art in school while growing up in Suffolk.

He created several paintings between shows last year in a disused London car park and was encouraged to hold an exhibition of them at the Heni Gallery in Soho, London, until August.

"I started painting at the end of my Divide Tour in 2019 and it's something that I've used as a creative outlet ever since," Sheeran explained.

"When I was growing up, both of my parents worked in art, so I've naturally always been interested in it, and I always enjoyed studying art at school.

"I was back and forth on tour last year, and I used a lot of my downtime in the UK to paint.

"I'd run to a disused car park in Soho each morning, paint, then run home and I'd do that daily until I headed back out on tour again."

The exhibition has been called Cosmic Carpark Paintings and admission is free with no appointment required.

The new works have been inspired by celestial patterns and are in keeping with Sheeran's splash painting style.

The works will be displayed in the Heni Gallery from Thursday to 1 August.

They can also be bought, with proceeds being donated to The Ed Sheeran Foundation, which works to offer music education and opportunities to young people from all backgrounds.

Sheeran explained he had told artist Damien Hirst as well as Joe Hage, founder of Heni, about his paintings, and they encouraged him to do the exhibition.

He will perform three sell-out homecoming concerts at Portman Road stadium in Ipswich on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

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'Private palace of art' marks 100 years as museum

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdez6enx0rpo, yesterday

An artist's home - that also starred in the video for Spandau Ballet's 1983 hit Gold - is celebrating 100 years as a public museum.

Painter Frederic Leighton commissioned the building of Leighton House in 1864 and when he died in 1896 his collection was sold, but the house retained.

Visitors were allowed in from 1900, and when it was taken over by the council in 1926 its future as a public museum was secured.

Now people are being asked to share their memories of the place between then and now for "Leighton House: A Journey Through 100 Years".

Leighton intended to create a purpose-built studio-house where he could work and live.

His friend George Aitchison, whom he met in Rome more than a decade earlier, was employed as the architect.

The project lasted more than 30 years, and the house was designed as a showcase for artistic taste - and to entertain and impress artists, collectors and celebrities.

Between 1869 and 1895 it was transformed by a series of extensions.

During World War Two the house was damaged by bombing and remained closed until the early 1950s.

Limited funds for restoration saw interiors whitewashed, floors stripped, and fluorescent lighting put in.

This neutralised much of what remained of Leighton's decoration, which has now been restored to its jewel-like tones and Middle Eastern influences.

This included re-gilding the dome and restoring the ziggurats on the roof of the Arab Hall.

The centenary programme will feature several key exhibitions and the museum is asking the public to share their memories.

Kensington and Chelsea councillor, Kim Taylor-Smith, encouraged people to take part, dubbing Leighton House "Kensington's own National Treasure".

Senior curator of the council's museums, Daniel Robbins, said the programme "brings together every aspect of Leighton House that makes it distinctive, significant and still relevant 100 years later".

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Sculptor's legal bid against New Zealand artist

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9940kz0ne4o, yesterday

A British sculptor who claims his work was stolen by an artist abroad has raised thousands of pounds ahead of a legal challenge to "protect his livelihood".

Ray Lonsdale, from South Hetton, County Durham, believes his 2010 sculpture The Big Dance, in Gretna Green, Scotland, has been replicated by New Zealand sculptor James Wright.

A similar piece of art, featuring two clasped hands with a finger pointing and also made from corten steel, appeared some 12,000 miles away (19,300 km) in Clevedon, south-east of Auckland.

Mr Wright, who calls his own artwork Togetherness, told the BBC his artwork was independently researched and there had been "no copyright infringement".

However, Mr Lonsdale, who has created work including Seaham's Tommy and Fiddler's Green in North Shields, North Tyneside, argued his work was copied without any credit, or acknowledgment, to him.

"You think it's cheeky at first, but then it's a bit beyond cheeky," he told the BBC.

"This piece has only appeared in the last few months, so there's a massive difference timewise and there's no way this one [The Big Dance] is a copy of theirs."

Mr Lonsdale, who runs a business with his son Sam making art from corten steel, which is known for its rusty appearance.

He said any potential copy could undermine his work in creating original sculptures.

"They [the owners of The Big Dance] commissioned a bespoke piece of art and suddenly, it's not... there's another one.

"Imagine putting yourself in that position, you pay a lot of money for art that's unique and somebody copies and claims it as unique, it doesn't sit very well."

'Anything to help'

He is selling limited edition prints of The Big Dance to help meet legal fees, some of which have been spent on a solicitor's letter asking the artist for what he believes should be a credit or acknowledgment of his work.

He said, if this was unsuccessful, he would take the case to a court, which could potentially be heard in the UK or New Zealand.

"[This] is to protect our livelihoods, we've worked for 20-odd years at this," he said, adding: "We're not prepared to take aspects of it without a fight."

More than 60 prints, which cost £85, have already been sold.

Elizabeth Stott travelled with her husband Michael from Newmarket in Suffolk to buy one of the prints because they wanted to do "anything to help".

"I can imagine how I'd feel if I was doing something and somebody had taken that idea and was owning it as their original work," she said.

"If he'd even said based on an idea, but no, to be saying anybody can do this is not right."

Mr Wright denied that his sculpture was copied from Mr Lonsdale's, and was "conceived and executed independently" with its "distinct style".

He admits, while there "may be a visual similarity", this was because both are sculptures showing joined hands.

He argued it was a "globally recognised motif", adding "no single artist holds ownership over such a universal symbol" and it was "not a copy of anyone else's" work.

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Blacksmith wins national graduate design award

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c628levq690o, yesterday

An artist blacksmith has won a national design award for his collection of metal sculptures.

Cameron Pearson, a graduate from Hereford College of Arts, was named the New Designer of the Year after beating off 2,500 other graduates at the New Designers event in London.

The event, which ran from 3 to 6 July, is in its 40th year and showcases creative graduates to the public, galleries, agents and curators.

Mr Pearson said: "I am truly honoured to receive this prestigious award. Meeting and speaking with the judges about my craft has been incredibly exciting."

He had entered a collection of forged sculptures into the competition, which judges said combined elegant form with geometry and mathematics. The low-carbon sculptures were created as part of his final project for his degree in BA (Hons) Artist Blacksmithing.

"This opportunity has inspired me to push my practice further, exploring more complex forms of geometry and deepening my knowledge," he added.

"I want to express my sincere gratitude to all the judges involved in selecting me for this year's New Designer of the Year. It has truly been an unforgettable experience."

The judges said: "Cameron's forged sculptures are beautiful and elegant. He demonstrates complete mastery of his technique using mathematics and symmetry."

Delyth Done MBE, course leader at Hereford College of Arts, said: "We are delighted that Cameron's exceptional talent has been recognised at such a high-profile national event.

"This award is a testament to his dedication, creative brilliance, and innovative approach."

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A pizza chef's guide to the best pizza in Naples

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250708-the-best-places-to-eat-pizza-in-naples, yesterday

Neapolitan-born expert pizza maker Daniele Uditi believes that to understand pizza, you need to eat it in the place it was invented. Here are his top places to eat pizza in Naples.

Neapolitan-born master pizzaiolo (pizzamaker) Daniele Uditi has lived in the US for more than 15 years. But, "it doesn't matter where in the world I am, I will always be from Naples," he tells the BBC.

Like Uditi, pizza was born in the famously chaotic seaside Italian city; its invention widely credited to chef Raffaele Esposito who is believed to have created the white, red and green dish in tribute to the colours of the newly unified nation's flag. Uditi, who served as a judge in Hulu's 2022 pizza competition show, Best in Dough, notes that though pizza is beloved – and found in many forms – worldwide, he believes you've never truly had it until you've had it in its birthplace.

"To understand [pizza], you go to Naples, and you eat pizza the way it's supposed to be, al portafoglio," says Uditi, referring to Neapolitan street pizza that is folded twice on its sides "wallet-style". "Eating a pizza in the place that it was invented with all the sounds of the city, seeing another Neapolitan eat it while on the phone and walking with an overflowing pizza in the box because it stretched too big."

Can pizza be too big? "It's not perfect," admits Uditi. "Neapolitan pizza is an artisanal product, so sometimes you don't find the perfect circle. I think it's a perfect representation of the city. Naples is not a perfect circle. Naples has good things and defects, but when you take a bite, everything makes total sense."

Here are Uditi's top six pizzas in Naples.

1. Best all-around: Pizzeria La Notizia Enzo Coccia 53

High up in Naples's leafy, green Capodimonte quarter, Pizzeria La Notizia 53, helmed by chef Enzo Coccia, is a magnet for visitors from every walk of life, says Uditi. "You can find a university professor, a lawyer, or you can find a student, you can find a couple they just want to enjoy themselves."

Despite Coccia's reputation for inventive pizzas like one of his recent springtime offerings, topped with courgette, tomatoes and thyme, Uditi says the humble pizzeria's biggest draw is undoubtedly their classic Margherita. "You go there for the Margherita," he says. "The Margherita is special, because he has the perfect balance between the three ingredients… Everything comes together, nothing overpowering."

Website: http://www.enzococcia.com/

Address: Via Michelangelo da Caravaggio, 53, 80126 Naples NA

Phone: 081 714 2155

Instagram: @enzococcia_lanotizia

2. Best montanara: Antonio Starita

Antonio Starita, a historic pizzeria just outside the gritty Rione di Sanità neighbourhood, is what Uditi calls: "another staple in Naples".

But not just for its pizza – for its montanara.

Montanara – deep-fried dough topped with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella and basil – is a beloved Neapolitan street food. Uditi loves Starita's: "the way he fries the dough, it's never oily. It's super light. And the sauce is cooked just right. On the montanara, the sauce has to be pre-cooked, right? So it's almost like a sugo [long-simmered sauce]."

"Also, the pizza he does is spectacular," adds Uditi. "And he's just a character. [When I was a kid], I used to see him behind the counter… he was one of the people that inspired me to be a pizza chef. He doesn't talk that much. He speaks through his product."

Uditi's hack for beating the beloved spot's oftentimes-long queues: "Go off hours. Don't go straight when they open up, because you're for sure not gonna find a spot. I'll go around early afternoon or late at night when they're almost about to close."

Website: https://pizzeriestarita.it/en/

Address: Via Materdei, 27/28, 80136 Naples NA

Phone: 081 544 1485

Instagram: @antoniostarita

3. Best for new takes on classics: Pizzeria Concettina ai Tre Santi

Heading deeper into Rione Sanità, Uditi enthusiastically recommends the generational Pizzeria Concettina ai Tre Santi; now run by the original owner, Concettina's, grandson, Ciro Oliva: "Ciro Oliva is one of the youngest pizza chefs in Naples, but he acts like a seasoned one. You can tell that Neapolitan traditions are safe in the hands of this guy, because he's gonna take care of it, but also never make it boring."

Apart from the classics, the upscale pizzeria serves highly inventive pizzas like the Fondazione San Gennaro – a mammoth pie topped with salami, smoked provola cheese and crumbled tarallo 'nzogna e pepe (traditional Neapolitan lard-enriched, almond-studded crackers).

"He was the first one to think about not just the pizza itself, but [giving] you texture," explains Uditi. "Pizza can be a soft experience, right? He said, 'I'm gonna disrupt that a little bit. Why don't we put tarallo 'nzogna e pepe on pizza?' It worked."

Website: https://www.concettinaaitresanti.com/locations/

Address: Via Arena della Sanità, 7 Bis, 80137 Naples NA

Phone: 081 290037

Instagram: @concettina3santi

4. Best female-run: Isabella de Cham

Just 100m from Concettina ai Tre Santi is Isabella de Cham, renowned for its pizza fritta – a deep-fried calzone, traditionally stuffed with ricotta, cicoli (pork cracklings) and black pepper – and her daring degustazione (tasting menu) of deep-fried appetizers.

"Everything you eat there is just unbelievable," says Uditi of the chic-yet-cosy eatery. "I like the fact that Isabella is a woman. Pizza fritta used to be made [only] by women; they would make it and sell it on the street. We need more women in this job; we need some gentle hands, some different approaches. That's what I find in Isabella de Cham's approach to pizza fritta. [She] makes one of the lightest that you'll ever have in your life. It's unbelievable. And then she always comes up with new flavours. I tell her to make me a classic pizza with cicoli, ricotta and pepper but then she comes out and, 'No, Daniele, you have to taste this.' And everything comes together so good that you wouldn't believe that you are eating a tasting menu of fried food and feeling so light."

Website: https://isabelladecham.com/

Address: Via Arena della Sanità, 27, 80137 Naples NA

Phone: 081 1863 9669

Instagram: @isabelladechampizzafritta

5. Best for gourmet pizza: Diego Vitagliano

"Diego Vitagliano would be the fine dining approach to the cuisine," says Uditi. "But also the way he thinks about the dough."

Diego Vitagliano's pizzeria, found in Naples's romantic Santa Lucia neighbourhood with outposts in Bagnoli and Pozzuoli, embraces new textures with a nod to tradition, often topping pizzas with ingredients found in classic Neapolitan dishes like pasta e patate (pasta, provolone and potato stew).

"It's just about him telling the history of Neapolitan cuisine by using the pizza as a vehicle," says Uditi. "For me, that's the genius there."

But, notes Uditi, "His classic Margherita will be one of the highlights of his menu. Sometimes people forget. They go there and say, 'Yeah, I want to try these new things'. And then he does it on purpose. In the degustazione, he [brings out the] Margherita last, because he wants to remind you, 'Yeah, this is fun, but this is what you came for'."

Website: https://diegovitagliano.it/

Address: Via Santa Lucia, 78 - 80 - 82, 80132 Napoli NA, Italy

Phone: 081 1858 1919

Instagram: @diegovitagliano_pizzerie

6. Best for a day trip: I Masanielli

Though pizza was invented in Naples, the city's dintorni (outskirts) are also well-distinguished in the art of artisanal pizza making. Take a day trip to the town of Caserta – home to the stunning Reggia di Caserta and Uditi's top overall pizza pick; I Masanielli, chef Francesco Martucci's gourmet pizzeria.

"Francesco Martucci is a nutcase!" says Uditi. "I used to go to school in Caserta and [I would eat his pizza after class]. I grew up with his pizza and now I'm a pizza chef as well."

Though the nostalgia factor is strong for Uditi, he is also an enthusiastic fan of Martucci's gourmet offerings.

"Sometimes he takes one ingredient and just that ingredient will be the highlight of the pizza," says Uditi. "For his 'five onion pizza', you have a pizza with onions treated in five different ways. It's one of the most delicious bites that you're gonna have in your life… [and] He was the first one to introduce three ways of cooking dough; steamed, fried and then baked. And then he used to make this pizza with scallops and, like, sea moss powder on the top. And pollen."

"On a pizza!" marvels Uditi. "On a freaking pizza!"

Website: https://www.pizzeriaimasanielli.it/

Address: Viale Giulio Douhet, 11, 81100 Caserta CE

Phone: 0823 741284

Instagram: @imasanielli

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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Want Italy's best food? Head to its national parks

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250704-why-italys-national-parks-are-perfect-for-foodies, 4 days ago

With so many famous cities and coasts to explore, most visitors to Italy never think to stop by its national parks, but these wild landscapes produce epic Italian culinary adventures.

Whenever we visit my husband's family in Calabria, at the tippy toe of Italy's boot, we invariably take the train; it beats the six-hour drive down an autostrada (motorway) full of lorries. But this time, we're taking the car since we'll be making a detour to a national park. For us, and for many Italians, that means one thing: we're bringing back food.

Italy has so many renowned cities and coastlines that most visitors never think to explore its parchi nazionali (national parks), let alone know that these wild areas are some of the best food destinations in a nation famous for its cuisine.

Italy has 26 national parks marching from its rugged Alpine spine in the north to its saw-toothed heel in the south, encompassing mountain ranges, waterfalls, centuries-old forests, picturesque villages and ghost towns. But within these biodiverse landscapes are also farms, generational vineyards and orchards. Hikers may pass herds of dairy cows, hogs and sheep and then wander past artisanal food stands and restaurants offering park-to-table dishes made with ingredients sourced directly from the surrounding land.

A nature lover's paradise? Certainly. An in the-know, Italians-only foodie secret? Absolutely.

National parks – Italian style

It may come as a surprise that Italy's national parks produce some of the country's finest food. After all, in many places – such as the US – private farms are rare on protected land. But in Italy, where many national parks were created around ancient villages and centuries-old agricultural businesses, it's a different story.

"In Italy, people and nature go hand in hand. They aren't two separate things. It's really a philosophical idea," says Paolo Iannicca, a tour guide based in the Parco Nazionale d’Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise. As a result, Italy's rich biodiversity combined with its ancient pastoral footprint have birthed an enormous variety of enogastronomic products – cultivated throughout the centuries and revered to this day.

Travelling to a national park to source the best ingredients may be the most Italian travel experience of all.

"It's in our DNA," says chef Maria Nasso, who frequently collaborates with the Parco Nazionale del Circeo's culinary initiatives. "Italians structure their days around food. Even the choice of accommodation when visiting a park during holidays – good food is always a constant."

That's why national park food experiences hit so hard for Italians. Though famous overseas for dishes like lasagna or pizza, within Italy, food culture is passionately tied to single ingredients and each village is often renowned for a locally cultivated product.

You may have heard of Parma ham and Marsala wine. Go deeper: the provola of Agerola; the artichokes of Sezze; the lentils of Pescasseroli. Italians may love pasta alla carbonara but we lose our minds over a strain of ancient wheat, gifting artisanal products to each other as though offering jewels to our liege. "I've been to the Dolomites," we'll say. "I bestow upon you the prized rhododendron honey."

Italy's wild parks are the epicentre of chilometro zero (zero-kilometre) products, from cheese to meat to native vegetables. "For Italians, typical local products are non-negotiable," says Iannicca, who runs La Bottega di Gaia, an artisanal shop selling products from the Parco Nazionale d'Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise. "They want to eat authentic, typical food, and that's exactly what [parks] provide."

Teresa Maradei, founder of the farm Terrægusto in Calabria's Parco Nazionale del Pollino, echoes this sentiment: "In Italy, food is part of the emotional geography. Visiting a park to savour its flavours means living the landscape with all your senses. It's a uniquely Italian way of doing ecotourism."

So why are Italy's national parks – and their culinary riches – off many tourists' radars?

"Because Italy's tourism narrative abroad is still too focused on art cities and iconic destinations," says Maradei."Parks are seen only as natural reserves, not as places of food culture."

But with the rise of the Slow Food movement in the late 1980s, dining in national parks – which widely encourage organic, eco-sustainable farming practices – is becoming increasingly popular. "More and more, travellers seek slow, immersive and genuine experiences – not just eating, but seeing where the product is born, who cultivates it and how it's transformed," says Maradei.

Italian national park websites typically list the park's endemic products, restaurants, dairies and enogastronomic itineraries.

"[National parks are] what you might call a 'lesser known' Italy, but not a lesser Italy," says Iannicca. "Italy is a nation made up of thousands of small, scattered towns. If you only go to the usual places… you're missing the real Italy."

Hence, us in our car, ready to devour the bounty of Calabria.

The Parco Nazionale del Pollino

Stretching 193,000 hectares, the Parco Nazionale del Pollino is Italy's largest protected wilderness area. It straddles both the Calabria and Basilicata regions and is home to epic mountain climbing, Bosnian pine forests and the nucleus of Italy's Arbëreshë (Italo-Albanian) population – the descendants of Albanians who found refuge here in the late 15th and early 16th Centuries.

Among its famed products are the fagiolo poverello bianco (white beans) of Mormanno, the white onions of Castrovillari, the caciocavallo cheese of Sila and the peppers of Senesi.

After our six-hour drive, we base ourselves in the village of Mormanno and visit the Neolithic ruins of Frascineto – believed by some locals to be an ancient solstice clock. At a trattoria, we refuel with an antipasto platter heaped with park-produced prosciutto and polenta draped with melted caciocavallo cheese.

The next day, we hike through massive Bosnian pine groves over carpets of wildflowers, passing mooing herds of Podolica cows. But the highlight comes in the town of Civita, with an Arbëreshë meal at Ristorante Kamastra. First we are served a selection of pickles made from Castrovillari onions, fava beans and oily hunks of cubed prosciutto. Then there is cavatelli con ricotta e nenesa (cavatelli pasta with ricotta and local nettles) followed by cinghiale alla bracconeria (boar in a savoury sauce). The standout is the krustul, an Arbëreshë dessert made of fried dough, cinnamon and Pollino honey.

Before leaving the park, we stop at the Catasta Pollino museum and culinary outpost and buy:

One sack white beans of Mormanno

One sack lentils of Mormanno

One box park-grown almonds and figs covered in chocolate

One fat round of caprino cheese

One bottle Timpa delle Fave white wine

One bottle Gëzuar Magliocco red wine

Back home, we soak the beans overnight then sauté them in tomatoes, peperoncino and garlic to make a stew, which we serve alongside hunks of the cheese and bread torn impatiently from the loaf. The prized beans are small, tender and flavourful, like pearls of butter on our tongues.

"Because every ingredient tells a story – of a family, a landscape, a season," says Maradei. "Italians cook the land itself, and endemic ingredients are markers of belonging. It's not just about taste – it's about recognising oneself in a shared past."

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Airport expansion 'not wanted or needed' - council

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2vpwlzkn4o, today

Plans to expand Bristol Airport to 15 million passengers a year will be "destructive" to the climate and pose health risks, a councillor has said.

Under the proposals, the airport's runway will be extended and flights to the US and the Middle East, including additional late-night services, will be introduced.

Bristol Airport said the move was in response to a "growing demand" for travel, and would boost job opportunities and economic growth in the region.

But speaking at a council meeting, councillor Izzy Russell said: "Time and time again we have made it clear that expansion is not wanted or needed."

Two years ago, the airport won permission from the High Court to expand from 10 million to 12 million passengers per year, although this has yet to be implemented.

At a Bristol City Council meeting on Tuesday, the majority of councillors formally opposed the airport's new plans, the Conservative members backed them, and Labour councillors abstained from a vote.

However, the decision on granting planning permission will ultimately be taken by North Somerset Council, as the airport falls within its patch.

Green councillor Ms Russell, who tabled the motion, explained the symbolic vote served as "a sign of solidarity".

"This airport expansion is not just a destruction of our environment, it represents the erosion of democracy," she said.

Ms Russell cited concerns with congestion, noise pollution at night, carbon emissions, health risks and "precious wildlife being increasingly encroached upon".

She added that "sustainable aviation fuel" only makes up a small percentage of total aviation fuel, and electric and hydrogen planes are unfeasible anytime soon.

But according to Labour councillors, in the event the airport does not expand, people will still want to fly to America or the Middle East.

They will just do so from London instead, resulting in more emissions.

"The world is heating up, we are in a climate emergency, and the airport is a big contributor to emissions," Labour councillor Susan Kollar said.

"But I'm not convinced that stopping one regional airport from expanding is the best way to reduce emissions.

"We need to decarbonise air travel and the best way to do this is tackling demand and providing alternatives."

She also suggested the government roll out a frequent flyer levy to discourage excessive flying.

A Bristol Airport spokesperson said the plans have been published following an "extensive consultation with local communities and businesses".

"The airport is vital in providing a gateway for visitors to explore the South West – supporting the tourism sector that many local businesses and attractions rely on," they said.

The airport is the largest private sector employer in our area, providing about 5,500 jobs on-site, the spokesperson added.

"We expect our proposals to deliver 1,000 additional on-site jobs and support many more in our region, boosting economic growth.

"We hope to be able to work with Bristol City Council, so that we maximise the economic benefits for our city," they added.

The plans are expected to be submitted to North Somerset Council in the autumn.

Additional reporting by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

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Visitor numbers up as £4bn tourism economy grows

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgex4k34dzo, today

More than 32 million people visited North Yorkshire during 2024, a 3.8% increase on the previous year, according to North Yorkshire Council.

The authority said the tourism sector was worth more than £4bn annually, supporting more than 38,000 full-time jobs.

The analysis will be used to drive forward a 10-year vision for the county's visitor economy and help target areas of growth, the council said.

Leader Carl Les said: "The new figures clearly show just how important the visitor economy is to North Yorkshire."

Among the locations to see a boost in visitor numbers was Castle Howard, which recorded a 10% increase during summer 2024 thanks, in part, to a series of events including a sculpture exhibition, the council said.

The stately home's visitor attraction director, Abbi Ollive, said: "Castle Howard had a record-breaking year in 2024, with visitor numbers exceeding pre-pandemic levels for the first time.

"We are delighted to have seen this growth last year and to be working on programmes of events that bring people to this destination and that contribute to the local economy."

A destination management plan was launched last October and is the first ever overarching strategy for tourism in the county.

The plan is being developed by Visit North Yorkshire, a destination management and marketing organisation that is overseen by North Yorkshire Council.

The council's head of tourism Tony Watson said: "A great deal of work has already been done by the team to reach the targets set out in the destination management plan.

"We are committed to driving forward the visitor economy, as it is so important to North Yorkshire."

Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.

Tourist tax planned by Wembley's local council

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy9xyxy2r5xo, today

A north London council could introduce a new tax on some visitors staying overnight in the borough to help fund improvements to the area.

Wembley Stadium in the borough attracted nearly three million people last year, with acts including Oasis and Coldplay set to perform this summer.

Brent Council said a levy would turn the high visitor numbers into "a vital new source of funding" to be used to tackle challenges caused by the area's success as a cultural destination.

The motion to introduce a mandatory visitor levy on hotel and short-stay accommodation - was proposed at a council meeting on Monday, where the next step - of getting permission to impose the fee - was agreed.

Brent Council is exploring ways of ensuring "the benefit of our world class events are felt by all residents", according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).

The influx of visitors brings economic benefits, with each non-sporting event at the Wembley Stadium boosting the local economy by around £4.35m.

However, it also negatively impacts on residents through increased noise, congestion, waste and pressure on council services.

Brent Council's Mary Mitchell said London boroughs should follow the proven model already in place in cities across the UK and Europe.

She suggested the money raised could fund street trees, waste enforcement, enhanced cleaning and improvements to parks and green spaces.

The LDRS said the council will write to the relevant secretary of state requesting powers to introduce the levy.

It will also write to the mayor of London asking for his support for a voluntary levy on stadium and arena tickets to fund grassroots cultural opportunities.

According to the LDRS, Manchester's £1 a night additional charge on hotel stays has raised £2.8m in its first year, while Edinburgh's 5% addition to accommodation costs is projected to bring in around £50m per year.

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The ski resort Olympians flock to each summer

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250703-the-ski-resort-olympians-flock-to-to-each-summer, 5 days ago

Tucked into the Andes Mountains in Chile, Ski Portillo is a place where time stands still. With no town and limited rooms, there's not much to do besides ski – which is exactly the point.

For many, a modern-day ski resort might include towering peaks cloaked in fluffy snow, high-tech lift lines, luxurious hotels with fabulous spas, buzzing apres-ski bars and shops filled with the latest in cold-weather fashion. These days, top mountain destinations are bustling winter wonderlands that cater as much to non-skiers as they do to powder hounds. But tucked away in the Chilean Andes is Ski Portillo, a remote, all-inclusive resort that's only open during the South American winter. There's little to do but ski – and for its devoted fans, that's exactly the point.

Spread across 5 sq km and home to 35 trails serviced by 14 lifts (including several drag lifts), Portillo was the first ski resort in South America. While it is not as massive as what you'll find in the Rockies or Alps, its off-piste terrain and advanced-level challenges have made it a bucket list destination. Just as important is the atmosphere: Portillo feels frozen in time – in the best way.

While other resorts have aggressively modernised, Portillo has held fast to its old-school charm. Getting here requires a two-hour drive north-east from Santiago on the same narrow mountain highway as transport trucks. The bright yellow hotel – where visitors gather for meals and barside revelry – has barely changed. Overnight capacity has only grown ever-so-slightly to 450 since it opened. There's no town to hang out in, and not much for non-skiers to do.

Launched by the Chilean government in 1949, Portillo's modern era began in the 1960s when Bob Purcell, a New York finance hotshot, won it at auction (he was the sole bidder). He then asked his nephew Henry, then 26 and making his way up at Hilton Hotels, to become its general manager. Skiing in the area goes back even further: Norwegian engineers traversed the mountains on skis in the 1880s while working on the railway linking Chile to the Argentine city of Mendoza on the other side of the Andes. After its completion in 1910, locals would ride the train – as if it were a ski lift – before skiing back down the peaks. That railway is long gone, but Portillo, equipped with real ski lifts now, is still going strong, with the Purcells still at the helm.

According to Ellen Guidera Purcell, Henry's wife and a key figure in Portillo's day-to-day operations, the early days mostly involved the Purcells inviting their famous friends here for ski parties. "The parties were an omen of the future," Guidera said. "Because Portillo has continued not only as a place for beautiful skiing but also as a place for good times with family and friends, a place of happy dinners, parties, bar dancing and making memories."

Carolina Mendoza, a retired business owner, first visited Portillo in the mid-1970s as a teenager growing up in Venezuela. She's returned nearly every year since, only missing a Portillo season during the pandemic or while living in Europe. For Mendoza, whose mother is Chilean, there's a magic to this little mountain hamlet. "There's such a sense of community here," she said. 'It almost makes you feel like you're with family."

But Portillo has also become synonymous with serious skiing. Known for its challenging alpine terrain, it hosted the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in 1966, which established its reputation as a hardcore winter sports destination. Today, both the convivial atmosphere and the hair-raising slopes remain critical to Portillo's cult-favoured status. Every year from June to September, when the northern hemisphere is in the throes of summer, snow-chasers from the US, Canada, Europe and Latin America head here to enjoy an endless winter. Many, like Mendoza, are repeat visitors. Others are world-class athletes in training for big-ticket events like the Olympics.

US Olympian Breezy Johnson, a World Champion ski racer, has been to Portillo five times. Her first visit, in 2015, included training runs with skiing legends like Julia Mancuso, Laurenne Ross and Leanne Smith. "Portillo is a very unique place. I call it the cruise ship because it's kind of the only thing for a ways around," she recalls. "When I first came I was a bit – a lot – intimidated by the stark world that is Portillo."

That starkness turns out to be a perk. Johnson, who is now based in Jackson, Wyoming, says the compact layout is ideal. "We can literally walk down to breakfast, head to the slopes, put our seven pairs of skis out on the snow and get going," she says. "That convenience as opposed to multiple trams in Europe, long drives in New Zealand or a snowmobile ride down in Corralco, [Chile] makes the training super beneficial because you can maximise energy for skiing."

More like this:

• Skiing Mount Etna, Europe's tallest and most active volcano

• A downhill ski champion's guide to Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy

• The ancient mummies older than Egypt's

And its not just Olympians who love the challenging terrain and no-fuss nature of skiing here. Intrepid visitors can often be seen hiking from lifts to explore off-piste terrain, and Roca Jack, one of Portillo's most beloved expert runs, extends to the bottom of the mountain for more than 2.6km. While elite athletes like Johnson love to train on Portillo's long trails and steep turns, so do average advanced skiers. But don't think you have to be at that level to enjoy the resort: given the tougher landscape, top-notch instructors are available to help intermediate skiers improve their skills.

The most popular package is a week-long stay with room, board and lift tickets. But the Purcells are evolving the experience, including introducing standalone A-frame chalets for those seeking more privacy, as well as events like Wine Week in August, when some of Chile's most esteemed vineyards host educational tastings. You can also level up with a heli-skiing tour of the area, or pair your Portillo visit with a few days at a partner hotel, like VIK, a luxury winery hotel located four hours south. But, "Portillo is about skiing," Guidera insists, adding that while they recently updated their guestrooms, there are still no TVs in there.

Perhaps more than anything, Portillo is about community. In a place where everyone loves the same thing and where there isn't much else to do, you'll run into the same faces at lunch at Tio Bob's or in the hot tub before dinner. "Life in Portillo happens on the slopes and in the many hotel common spaces where guests interact with one another and with us," Guidera says. "Friendships are made, couples fall in love, some get engaged, some get married there, babies are made, others leave saying 'what happens in Portillo stays in Portillo', and some have their ashes eventually scattered in Portillo."

In fact, Mendoza met her second husband here, through common friends she's made at Portillo over the years. And Johnson adds, the friends you make include the staff, who might be skiing on the same runs as you on their days off. After all, as she says, "It is a small community nestled in the mountains."

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Where to go instead of the big US parks this summer

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250703-where-to-go-instead-of-the-big-us-parks-this-summer, 6 days ago

There are more than 400 sites in the US National Park System. Here's why it's time to skip the most-visited top 10 and seek out quieter, equally spectacular ground.

Winding through one of the wildest corners of Colorado, 210,000-acres deep in Dinosaur National Monument, I found myself balancing sideways on the crest of the biggest wave in the river – somehow staying upright through the whirling Class IV rapids. That week, I paddled 71 miles down the Yampa River, Colorado's last free-flowing river, camping beneath towering red-and-orange striped canyons etched by ancient peoples. The experience left me with something rare: space to breathe and trust in the river to take its course.

Unlike marquee parks that strain under the pressure of mass tourism, Dinosaur has quietly struck a balance between visitation and protection. The original head of the Sierra Club, David Brower, saw its value back in the 1950s when he fought to stop a proposed dam on the Yampa. Without him, many of these canyons would now be underwater.

"The riparian zone on the Yampa River is the most natural stretch of river in Colorado," says Tom Kleinschnitz, director of Visit Moffat County. "Preservation of this resource is crucial for the natural habitat, and it is one of the last natural river sections that visitors can observe, enjoy and play in."

Rethinking how (and where) we explore

From Acadia's rocky coast to Yosemite's soaring peaks, the US has no shortage of iconic national parks. But visitation numbers continue to climb, often outpacing infrastructure and threatening the very environments they showcase.

To protect these wild places – especially as US national parks, forests and wildlife habitats are under threat of cuts and understaffing – long-time nonprofit partner of the National Park Service, Western National Parks has launched new itineraries spotlighting 72 lesser-known US parks and monuments.

"Our lesser-known parks are truly hidden gems," says Marie Buck, the association's president and CEO.

"They often offer a more intimate experience and an opportunity to understand the under-told stories that have shaped the nation. And they do all this often with fewer crowds." Since its founding, the nonprofit has contributed $162m to responsible visitation of US public lands.

Others are also encouraging off-the-beaten-path exploration. Former park ranger Ashli Nudd curates personalised national park itineraries; while Outdoorable, a company formed in the wake of potential NPS layoffs, is hiring former rangers to create custom trip itineraries and offer traveller tips. Even adventure travel company Intrepid Travel recently launched Active-ism tours through Zion and the Grand Canyon with routes designed to avoid high-traffic areas.

Here are four underrated spots that prove you don't need to sacrifice beauty, biodiversity or a sense of wonder to travel responsibly this summer.

Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado and Utah

This rugged desert landscape spans 210,000 acres across Colorado and Utah, blanketed with of purple park rockcress and rich with prehistoric fossils – including 1,500 dinosaur specimens from the 23 species unearthed here since 1909.

The findings, some of the most significant in the field, transformed paleontology – with the earliest-found bones even reaching the living room of Scottish industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who helped secure national monument status in 1915.

More like this:

• The UK's five most beautiful national parks

• California's spectacular alternative to Yosemite

• Three things not to do when travelling to US National Parks

Today, visitors can raft between spectacular towering canyon cliffs under certified International Dark Skies. The Yampa River remains one of the country's last undammed rivers and among the hardest river rafting permits to obtain, while the connecting Green River offers more accessible rafting routes, with stops for day hikes to waterfalls and ancient rock carvings. If rafting isn't for you, drive through canyon country to Echo Park to marvel at some of the monument's most dramatic scenery. Don't leave without seeing the wild horses grazing at nearby Sand Wash Basin and the largest wild mustang sanctuary in the US, the new Wild Horse Refuge, just outside the park.

Isle Royale National Park, Michigan

Accessible only by boat or seaplane, Isle Royale is one of the US's least-visited national parks – and one of its most peaceful. Located 56 miles from Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula, the archipelago of 450 islands floats in the cool expanse of Lake Superior and is only open from mid-April through October each year.

To get here, catch the ferry from Copper Harbor or Grand Portage – your luggage will be ferried by wheeled carts to the lodges and campsites. There are no cars allowed on this Unesco-designated wilderness, so be prepared to explore by foot, canoe or kayak (rentals available at the Rock Harbor Marina and Lodge).

On Isle Royale, one of the world's largest lake islands, see where native Americans extracted copper to hand shape tools, weapons and ornaments 8,000 years ago. Then hike the island's trails to see moose and beaver and to find hidden fishing spots, like the Indian Portage Trail on Lake Richie.

Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, Maine

On your next New England trip, skip the crowds at Acadia National Park and head inland to Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument instead. In the towering shadow of the state's highest peak, Mt Katahdin, lies a network of rivers and streams that once moved logs – Maine's primary heritage industry – from the woods to the mills. The mountaintop, which Henry David Thoreau called "vast, titanic, inhuman" marks the end of the world's longest hiking-only footpath, the Appalachian Trail.

The monument was established in 2016 following an 87,500-acre land donation by environmentalist and Burt's Bees co-founder Roxanne Quimby. Visitors can explore the 11,000-year-old land and waterways of Maine's native Wabanaki people, who relied on the woods and waterways for sustenance, transportation and cultural practices. There's also cross-country skiing, snowshoe hiking, biking and fishing in deep river valleys. Watch out for moose (Maine has the most moose of any state except Alaska) and embrace the rustic solitude at one of the park's campgrounds or cabins.

As night falls, this International Dark SkySanctuary offers pristine stargazing at Katahdin Loop Road Overlook and Kimball Deadwater.

North Cascades National Park, Washington

Just 2.5 hours from Seattle, North Cascades offers soaring mountains, alpine lakes and more than 300 glaciers on half a million acres of wilderness – yet receives just 1% of the visitors to nearby Olympic National Park.

While spring brings roaring waterfalls after the snowmelt, summer fills trails with vibrant lupine, paintbrush, columbine and glacier lilies. Adventurous travellers can paddle pristine lakes or hike through wildflower-filled meadows on the Maple Pass Loop. For a more challenging trek, the Cascade Pass and Sahale Arm trail provides breathtaking vistas of glaciers and rugged peaks. If you prefer a scenic drive, the North Cascades Highway (State Route 20), winds through the park offering dramatic views and quiet picnic spots.

At night, this stargazer's paradise offers astrophotography classes under some of Washington's darkest skies. Camp riverside or stay in a restful lakefront cabin at North Cascades Lodge at Stehekin.

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The Salvadoran beach town that became a Bitcoin testbed

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250625-the-beach-town-that-became-a-bitcoin-testbed, 10 days ago

In 2019, a grassroots crypto project in El Salvador aimed to create the world's first Bitcoin-based local economy. It inspired national policy, sparked global attention and changed the lives of young locals. Today, in the quiet surf town of El Zonte – now nicknamed "Bitcoin Beach" – travellers can experience the experiment for themselves.

The road to El Zonte is easy to miss – just a small turn off a bend, down a narrow paved street framed by thick shrubs and trees. A single sign points towards la playa a kilometre away, where the beach is near-empty under the late afternoon sun, save for a local dog cooling off at the water's edge and a couple of surfers relaxing on loungers.

Of all the places for a financial revolution to take root, El Zonte seems an unlikely candidate. But this isolated fishing town on El Salvador's Pacific coast, known for its year-round warm waters and pounding waves, is now globally recognised as Bitcoin Beach: a rare, real-world testbed for cryptocurrency adoption.

I arrived curious but sceptical. I'd heard stories of a "sustainable Bitcoin economy" where you could buy just about anything with the cryptocurrency. But how far could it really go, I wondered. Would it get me a hotel room or a meal for two? What about something as mundane as a bottle of water or a freshly cooked corn pupusa from a street vendor? How about a cold beer on the beach?

I soon found out at a weather-beaten beach bar, where the bartender didn't flinch when I held up my phone to pay for two lagers using Bitcoin. Without blinking, he reached for a separate payment machine. A few taps, a QR code popped up, and easy as that, the receipt flashed up with proof the experiment was real – an experiment I was now part of.

For travellers, this is part of El Zonte's allure. Beyond the guidebook information about its beaches and excellent surfing conditions, it offers a chance to step into a social test case and witness firsthand how locals are navigating it. From a more practical standpoint, for those who already hold Bitcoin, using it can help avoid currency conversion losses.

El Zonte's Bitcoin experiment began in 2019, led by local economist Mike Peterson and community leader Roman Martínez. At the time, Peterson was working with an NGO to support young people and steer them away from the country's notorious gang violence. An anonymous donation of Bitcoin sparked the idea to create a local circular economy. Young locals were paid in Bitcoin to clean beaches and rivers. When the pandemic hit and jobs disappeared, the project expanded to support the entire community.

The conditions were ripe. "El Salvador had a unique aspect in that it didn't have its own currency after adopting the US dollar back in 2001," said Peterson. This provided a more open framework for Bitcoin because it wasn't competing with the country's own currency. At the same time, a large portion of the population remained unbanked, without access to traditional financial services. So, "to be able to bring in a payment network that let people have access to electronic payments for the first time made a lot of sense".

One of the locals who embraced the initiative is 23-year-old Brian Flores, whom I met at Bitcoin Beach House, the team's headquarters in El Zonte. After joining as a teen, he now teaches the community – especially young people – how to use Bitcoin, and credits the project with opening up new opportunities.

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"Bitcoin Beach changed my life," he told me. "All the friends I had in school are either dead or in jail. I come from a really poor family. We just used to work the farms but when Bitcoin came to El Zonte I started working with them to see what was happening. He's since travelled to Argentina, Spain and the Czech Republic as an educator, and is planning to visit Las Vegas next.

For tourists, he explained, using the currency is a simple: download a wallet app (any can be used) and top it up with Bitcoin. "Then you're good to go."

As the initiative grew, it caught the eye of newly elected President Nayib Bukele, who cited Bitcoin Beach as inspiration for his decision to make the currency legal tender in 2021 – the first country in the world to do so. Suddenly, Bitcoin wasn't just accepted in El Zonte but across El Salvador, and could be used to pay for everyting from utility bills and groceries to taxes. For travellers, this meant tours, restaurants and hotel rooms could all be paid for in Bitcoin too.

"You guys [at Bitcoin Beach] demonstrated that this is not something just for rich people, it's for everybody," Bukele told Petersen in 2021: "You're pioneers. You demonstrated a community can actually benefit from Bitcoin and now we're going to demonstrate it on a country-wide scale."

Yet by early 2025, the government had reversed its legal tender policy following pressure from the International Monetary Fund. While the change was controversial, it has done little to alter life in El Zonte, where Bitcoin remains widely accepted. Peterson says the Bitcoin Beach initiative is spreading to other parts of the country and has inspired up to 100 similar Bitcoin projects worldwide.

Walk through El Zonte today and Bitcoin branding is hard to miss. Large signs in signature Bitcoin orange are everywhere, while "Bitcoin accepted here" stickers appear in the windows of shops, hotels and restaurants.

"We get quite a few people asking to pay with it," said a waitress at Nan Tal, a fusion restaurant on the beachfront. "Particularly during peak season." Many are tourists like me, she added as I flashed my Bitcoin app to pay for my plate of quickly devoured crispy calamari and jalapeno aioli.

Others are none the wiser, like one surfer I spoke to from Germany. "I came for the waves," he said when I asked him if Bitcoin attracted him to El Zonte. He added that he had yet to use the currency. The hotel we were both staying at, however – Beach on the Rocks – is ramping up its support of Bitcoin. The owner, Omar, told me that while they are still setting up Bitcoin payments for their rooms, they hold Bitcoin conventions at the hotel.

I asked Peterson what role Bitcoin has played in attracting tourists to the town.

It's had a huge impact. The name is easy, it's something that's easy for people to remember. But it's attracted people in a few different ways," he said. He mentioned "core Bitcoiners" keen to connect with the community but also those people who would never have discovered El Zonte without the project. "Even the articles that were negative would put pictures of the beautiful beaches and talk about the lovely people. So, we had this huge influx of people into El Salvador and El Zonte."

This interest has gone hand-in-hand with a broader boom in tourism to El Salvador, with the country seeing a 90% increase in international tourist arrivals between early 2019 and early 2024, according to UN Tourism statistics.

Bukele's controversial crackdown on gang crime – which began with a state of emergency in 2022 and the subsequent arrest of more than 84,000 people accused of having gang affiliations – has been credited with restoring safety. The US State Department's now ranks El Salvador among its safest travel destinations. But human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have criticised the mass arrests, citing concerns over unlawful detention.

Back in El Zonte, however, Bitcoin offers a glimpse into how El Salvador is trying to redefine itself – not only for its citizens but for the outside world. Before leaving, I pulled out my phone for a final Bitcoin purchase: one last beer on the beach at dusk. I listened to the sound of the waves gently lapping the sand as the bartender scanned my QR code – yet another seamless transaction complete.

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Is It safe to travel? Americans react to the US 'worldwide caution' alert

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250630-americans-react-to-the-us-worldwide-caution-alert, 11 days ago

The US State Department has issued a rare global security warning ahead of summer. But travellers – and the destinations that rely on them – are largely undeterred.

Just in time for the peak summer travel season, last week the United States State Department issued a rare "worldwide caution" security alert. Triggered by the Israel-Iran conflict and rising global tensions, the warning urges US citizens to take extra caution wherever they are in the world, citing the risk of anti-American demonstrations and unexpected airspace closures, particularly in the Middle East.

The alert is layered on top of the State Department's typical travel advisories, which rank countries from Level 1 (exercise normal precaution) to Level 4 (do not travel). And with US travel already facing headwinds from airline near-misses and enhanced border security, the worldwide warning puts additional strain on what was already a shaping up to be a challenging summer.

Still, many Americans appear undeterred.

"I'm not changing my plans one bit," says American comedian Dan Nainan, who has upcoming trips to Italy, Singapore and the Galapagos. "I suppose I would reconsider if World War Three broke out – but short of that, I think it's important to not get caught up in too much fearmongering."

American traveller Hilary Reiter Azzaretti agrees. She recently returned from trips to Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia and says she felt welcome and safe everywhere. "The alerts won't deter my plans to travel, though I will probably avoid crowded, touristy attractions," she says. "I like taking advantage of travelling when fewer people are doing so and if I feel I can do it as safely as possible."

Others are taking a more cautious approach. Vanessa Gordon, publisher of East End Taste, planned to take her children to Europe this July but will now keep them in day camp on Long Island. "I will still travel overseas," she says. "[But] travelling with children, especially as a single/solo parent, comes with vulnerabilities and risks that may be unseen. I am not necessarily concerned for myself but more so prioritising the safety and security of my children."

While few Americans are outright cancelling their trips, many are rethinking where to go this summer. "A worldwide alert is quite rare for a country to issue, and so I am heeding the message," says Colleen Kelly, host of the TV series Family Travel with Colleen Kelly, noting she will avoid travelling abroad. "That does not mean I will not travel, however, but I have chosen to travel only domestically or to Canada."

Destinations respond: Reassurance and resilience

Canada in particular is eager to keep US tourists coming, especially after relations between the two countries turned icy in recent months – emphasising favourable exchange rates, cooler summer temperatures and ease of access with direct non-stop flights.

"Canada continues to be one of the safest countries in the world to visit," says Lynn Henderson who represents Edmonton, the capital of Alberta. "Canada's 'Festival City' has a plethora of events for Americans to enjoy all summer long, whether it's 146-year-old K-Days or North America's largest and oldest Fringe Theatre Festival."

South of the border, Mexico hopes to lure American tourists with promises of relaxation from the stress of the rest of the world. The Westin Resort and Spa Puerto Vallarta is offering a special "Calm They've Been Craving" package, offering American guests a chilled hibiscus or lavender infusion and a "15-Minute Reset" shiatsu massage on arrival.

Many destinations are adopting this calming pivot in light of recent events. "Tourism boards aren't backing away," says Leah Miller, marketing strategist at Versys Media. "Instead, we see a push toward education and reassurance."

She notes that several regions she's worked with are proactively reframing their messaging to maintain appeal without diminishing travellers' concerns. "One client pivoted their promotional content from bold adventure to serene, restorative scenes – highlighting wellness, nature immersion and smaller group experiences. This soft repositioning has proven impactful in keeping conversion rates strong."

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New Zealand and Australia are both actively courting US tourists, touting their Level 1 advisory status and promoting themselves as safe long-haul options. Tasmania, the island state where Americans are the number one inbound travellers, continues its "Come Down For Air" campaign that encourages travellers to find their own space and calm. Meanwhile, train tour company Great Journeys New Zealand has increased marketing spend in the US, leaning into the strong US dollar vs the NZ dollar (at a five-year high) and the country's third-place ranking in the 2025 Global Peace Index.

Agencies advise caution, not cancellation

Travel advisors say they've seen very few outright cancellations, though they're fielding more questions, with some travellers swapping one destination for another. "Only two clients decided to cancel a European cruise," says Christina Nagy Ernst, president of VIP Alpine Tours. "Today, I've also received two calls for sign-ups on my December tours, which shows that business is still steady."

She recommends Americans register their trip with the US State Department's STEP program, which allows local embassies or consulates to contact travellers in the case of civil unrest, natural disaster or a family emergency.

In short, while the alert has created uncertainty, most travellers – and tourism boards – are staying the course. Miller says that clear and direct communication will be a priority this summer, noting that destinations are emphasising on-the-ground safety measures, real-time advisories and traveller support services. As Nagy Ernst put it, "Education is key."

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How sleeping in old schools is reviving rural Japan

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250626-how-school-stays-are-saving-japans-dying-villages, 13 days ago

As Japan's dwindling population increasingly migrates to cities, 450 rural schools close each year. Now, some are being transformed into unique inns.

The morning sun filters through tall windows, illuminating rows of wooden desks where students once recited kanji writing symbols. But instead of attracting boisterous children, this classroom now lures travellers in search of deep relaxation and a unique immersion in rural Japanese culture.

This is Hare to Ke, a former elementary school-turned-guesthouse nestled in the mountains of Miyoshi on Shikoku, the smallest of Japan's four main islands.

Hare to Ke occupies the former Deai Elementary School, which closed in 2005 after student numbers fell to just five. According to a local newspaper, in its heyday in 1945, the school had more than 500 pupils, but like many rural schools across Japan, it gradually emptied out as families have increasingly migrated to cities. After eight years standing vacant, the school was officially decommissioned in 2013.

Today, Miyoshi's population has declined from a peak of 77,779 in 1955 to around 20,000, and more than 40% of its residents are aged 65 or older. In the decades following Japan's postwar economic boom, the decline of local industries and a steady exodus of young people left Miyoshi with an aging population and abandoned infrastructure. By 2012, Miyoshi had 28 unused schools, and local officials began actively seeking proposals to repurpose them.

But Tokyo-based designer Shuko Uemoto had an idea. Uemoto first visited Miyoshi in 2014 with her then-two-year-old son and was struck by the quiet beauty of the place. "The water and air here are completely different," Uemoto told the BBC. "When we stayed here for the first time, my son's asthma symptoms just disappeared. That moment really stayed with me."

"I remember thinking, if my child grew up surrounded by this kind of nature, how would that shape him? I got really excited by the idea," she said. When she came across Miyoshi's call for revitalisation proposals, she returned to tour several of the area's other empty educational centres. The moment she stepped into Deai Elementary School's quiet courtyard, she knew she had found something special.

"The sound of the river, the sunlight, the silence, it all felt full of potential," she said. Uemoto relocated from Tokyo, submitted a detailed three-year business plan and launched what would become Hare to Ke with support from local officials and residents.

"The school had been a local landmark, but it stood in darkness, closed off from the community. Now, the lights are back on, and people have regained a sense of emotional belonging. The fact that outsiders are now drawn here and find it appealing has helped locals regain their confidence. That, I think, is the greatest achievement," said Yuko Oka, an official from Miyoshi's Regional Revitalisation Division.

Today, 13 of Miyoshi's previously abandoned schools have been transformed into community cafes, satellite offices and guesthouses like Hare to Ke, which has become a model for how abandoned schools can breathe new life into Japan's many dwindling communities.

But will it be enough to avert the quiet crisis unfolding across Japan's countryside? As the country continues to grapple with a rapidly aging population and one of the world's lowest birth rates, it is losing nearly 900,000 residents each year. According to one estimate, more than 40% of Japan's municipalities could one day cease to exist. As younger generations increasingly trade rural areas for cities, roughly 450 schools close every year, according to Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). In response, a growing number of these once-empty buildings are now being reimagined to revitalise Japan's depopulated regions.

At Hare to Ke, guests aren't just staying in a repurposed classroom, they're reconnecting with nature and themselves through rest and relaxation. The hotel's name nods to a traditional Japanese concept of time, with hare referring to special celebrations or festivals and ke denoting mundane, everyday life. Historically, the two existed in balance, but following Japan's postwar economic growth, many believe that distinction has faded, with everyday life becoming dominated by "hare"-like stimulation and abundance.

Hare to Ke invites guests to rediscover that ancient rhythm through simplicity and stillness. By embracing slowness and sensory awareness, it encourages guests to return to the depth of "ke". Visitors are welcomed by the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, they can sip herbal tea, nap to the soundtrack of rustling trees and wake to crisp mountain air.

Guest Chill Kouri, who discovered Hare to Ke by chance during a road trip through Shikoku with a friend, echoed this sense of unexpected restoration. "The drive into the mountains was winding and narrow, but when we arrived, I was amazed. The atmosphere was nostalgic but fresh, and everything from the old school building was thoughtfully preserved and run," Chill said. "It's not just a renovation; it's a place where the whole concept feels alive."

Inspired by its bucolic setting, the hotel recently launched a specialised programme focused on deeper sleep improvement. Guests are asked about what typically disrupts their sleep, and based on their answers, they receive a custom-blended medicinal herbal tea. The experience incorporates aromatherapy, and soothing sounds and scents – engaging all five senses to guide visitors into ideal rest.

The idea came after Umemoto relocated to Miyoshi and realised how deeply she slept. "I didn't expect to feel such a difference, but the air and the silence helped me rest more deeply than I had in years," she said. Recognising that many city dwellers rarely encounter true quiet or natural darkness, Uemoto saw an opportunity to create this "Sleep Trip" offering.

"Many people struggle to sleep while travelling," Uemoto said. "But if you can sleep deeply, just for one night, it transforms the entire journey. I want guests to feel that. Surrounded by the mountain air, the cry of deer you can only hear if you stay overnight, the warmth from the sauna deep in your core, I hope people can truly relax here."

For more than 400 years, residents in the surrounding Nishi-Awa region have cultivated terraced fields on gradients as steep as 40 degrees, preserving not only agricultural practices but also the landscape and culture of these mountain communities. Guests who purchase the Sleep Trip option are served dinners featuring grains harvested from this challenging terrain, along with seasonal vegetables and locally sourced game meat.

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The design of Hare to Ke preserves the warmth and charm of the school's past. Along the outdoor walkway leading to the entrance, graduation murals painted by former students remain. Classrooms feature playful nods to the past: eye charts, flasks and chalkboards evoke a nostalgic feel. Outside, locals who once attended the school as children now gather on the old sports ground to play gateball as guests look on.

One of the former schoolhouse's highlights is the sauna, which has become a destination in itself. "You're wrapped in the aroma of herbs while gazing at the forest through the window," said guest Mari Azumi. "The sauna room is lined with warm cedar, and the mountain scenery unfolds quietly in front of you. After the heat, you plunge into a cold bath filled with spring water from the mountains – crisp, clean, and refreshing.

"Then comes the outdoor rest. You lie beneath the trees, and in that stillness, you begin to feel yourself blending into the landscape. It's extraordinary, unfamiliar, yet deeply nostalgic. Like returning to something we've long forgotten. Like returning to nature."

According to Koji Kamizasa from Miyoshi's tourism office, "Hare to Ke is part of a broader story – one where rural Japan is reclaiming its future not through flashy tourism, but by creating intimate, grounding and genuinely local experiences."

For instance, the hotel offers seasonal cooking workshops where residents teach guests how to prepare food with locally grown ingredients. In addition, every second Sunday of the month, Miyoshi holds a night market where residents not only sell food, but also teach visitors about Awa Odori, Tokushima's iconic traditional dance. Guests interested in the region's storied past shouldn't miss the annual Mt Tsurugi Summer Festival (17 July), a sacred ritual believed to date back more than 900 years. Taking place at the 1,955m summit of the eponymous mountain, it features a dramatic procession in which white robe-clad residents carry a mikoshi (portable shrine) up the mountain's steep paths. Their rhythmic chants echo through the forest, accompanied by the sounds of flutes and drums.

As Miyoshi continues to grapple with depopulation, events like these where travellers can participate not only help preserve cultural identity, but also introduce visitors to the region's enduring traditions. Nearby attractions like the Iya Valley and its iconic Kazura vine bridge also attract nature lovers. Many travellers combine these highlights with a night at Hare to Ke, making it a base for both reflection and adventure.

For many in the community, Hare to Ke is more than a guesthouse – it's a space where old memories resurface and new ones are made. "One day, an elderly woman in her 80s came with her niece," recalled Uemoto. "She opened an old graduation album and pointed to her younger self, saying, 'That's me!' She was so happy.

"Even the former principal has come back to visit," Uemoto added. "This school isn't just a building; it holds people's stories. That's why repurposing it wasn't a light responsibility. But I'm glad we've created a place they can return to."

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How Chiwetel Ejiofor is spending his summer in London

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250626-how-chiwetel-ejiofor-is-spending-his-summer-in-london, 9 days ago

Everyone is happy when the sun comes out in London – Chiwetel Ejiofor included. Here are his top ways to enjoy summer in the capital, from museums to markets.

Chiwetel Ejiofor's summer in London got off to a dreamlike start.

A die-hard football fan, Ejiofor was overjoyed when Crystal Palace defeated Manchester City in May's FA Cup Final to win their first ever trophy.

Unfortunately Ejiofor couldn't attend the match at Wembley because he was, as usual, filming.

"I would have absolutely loved to have been there," he tells the BBC. "But as a Crystal Palace fan, I feel like my sporting year has peaked! I wish everybody luck as I ride high on that."

Ejiofor has other reasons to celebrate this summer. He appears in The Life of Chuck, Mike Flanagan's adaptation of Stephen King's sci-fi novella; and on 2 July, Ejiofor will appear opposite Charlize Theron in The Old Guard 2, reprising his role as former CIA operative James Copley.

But when Ejiofor isn't working, he'll be basking in the congenial atmosphere of summertime London. "Everybody's so hyper-excited when they finally see the sun," Ejiofor says. "It's wonderful. You've got the longer days. The sun sets late. It's a fun place to be. Everyone is having a good time. They become a bit delirious, myself included. It's just fun to watch."

What are his favourite things to do in the capital when the temperature rises and the city's famous parks, museums and markets start to heave? Here are Ejiofor's top London picks for this summer.

Favourite market?

CE: I used to live down by Exmouth Market. I still go there when it's especially sunny because I just had a blast living there and I love the vibe of it all. I got the place in the early 2000s, so I've had a relationship with the area now for 20 years. I just love hanging out down that way. But there are just so many different neighbourhoods that really come alive in the summer. I think it's all the people hanging out in the parks and the pubs.

Pub or club?

CE: (Laughs) I'm in bed at 21:00! There was a certain time I used to go to clubs, but if you ever catch me in a nightclub now, tap me on the shoulder and tell me to go.

Favourite park?

CE: Regents Park is the one that I have the most memories of and spent the most time in. During the summer, I used to love running around it. It's a beautiful park. I used to play a bit of tennis there, too. But these days, I'm more west. So Hyde Park is pretty available. It has all of those great things, too.

Favourite summer sport to attend?

CE: I've gone to Wimbledon a couple of times in the past. That's always fantastic, obviously. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it. I might even get down to see a match, if I can.

What's the best thing to do in London when it's raining?

CE: I'm sort of lazy in the rain. I don't do much. I get out more in the summer and in the spring. I'm more likely to be found at the Royal Academy of Arts, a museum or just at a gallery in the summertime. I just feel much more energised to get out there. I think people are more excited to head out.

Favourite London museum?

CE: The museum I spend the most time in is the British Museum. Some of that is just out of interest. The exhibitions they have are amazing. Some of it is work related; I might be looking at something for research. I also spend quite a bit of time over at the British Library as well. It's beautiful. All of the books and literature, and just the sheer amount that's available to look at. It's a museum experience without it being an exhibition. I've certainly found myself lost in the historical tomes over at the British Library.

I still love the South Bank. Not only does it have a personal history for me because of my time at the National Theatre, but just all of the museums, the Hayward Gallery, the [Royal] Festival Hall – that whole cultural vibe is really important. The South Bank bridge is a big place for me.

Favourite London theatre?

CE: I love seeing plays at the National Theatre. I've always loved performing at the National, especially The Olivier Theatre there. They just changed directors, so I'm very excited to see what happens there at the moment. I'd say the same for the Young Vic as well. That's a place that has been very, very special to me. Not just the work that I've done there, but also the workshops that I did there over the years. My connection to that theatre is very strong.

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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A journey through the United States of barbecue

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250702-a-journey-through-the-united-states-of-barbecue, 8 days ago

From whole hogs to smoked fish and brisket, this all-American smoke-infused cooking style is as diverse as the US itself – and just as rich in history.

In the US, "barbecue" is both noun and verb – a familiar siren, calling from a squat cinder block building with its smoky aroma of meat and char. Depending where it's prepared, it could be a multi-napkin pulled pork sandwich, a tray of hand-sliced brisket or smoked chicken wings tangy with mayonnaise, accompanied by a litany of rib-sticking sides.

The country's wildly diverse barbecue canon evolved from a single style born during the 17th-Century colonial period in slaveholding states. "Barbecue required the hands and minds of enslaved Americans," said Dr Howard Conyers, a South Carolina-based aerospace engineer, pitmaster and barbecue historian. "They took Indigenous, European and African techniques and, through trial and error, put them all together."

While fire and meat are a global phenomenon, it was the enslaved workers in the US South who turned barbecue into something distinct. They dug trenches, filled them with hot coals and slow-cooked whole animals for plantation feasts, basting – or "mopping" – the meat with vinegar sauce.

As is so often the case, their innovation was born of necessity. "You could feed 50 people to 10,000 people in a day at a time when you didn't have refrigeration," said Conyers.

Barbecue morphed from elite-funded banquet fare into everyday food as it spread from east to west with slavery and out of the south through the Great Migration.

And it's never stopped changing. The proteins shifted from whole animals to pork shoulders and ribs as barbecue moved from rural communities to cities, and as the nation's butchery and slaughterhouse industries grew. Sauces followed suit. Vinegar mop worked as a tenderiser, antimicrobial agent and insect repellent, but refrigeration and smaller cuts allowed for sweeter tomato-based sauces. Pits eventually evolved into cinder block constructions, and, in some regions, gave way to offset smokers with their gentle, indirect heat.

Today, a modern wave of chefs and immigrants are putting their own stamp on the tradition. And while there's still no single definition of American barbecue, here are seven iconic regional styles, plus an emerging bonus category, through which you can literally taste the history of the United States.

North and South Carolina: The whole hog

Ryan Mitchell, son of pitmaster Ed Mitchell, cooks whole hogs just like his father, uncles and his sharecropper grandfather before him: shovelling coals into a pit, laying an unseasoned, butterflied pig on top and cooking it for around 12 hours. Once tender, he chops the meat and seasons it with paprika and an apple cider- and hot pepper-spiked mop sauce.

Using the whole hog is about as close as it comes to the US's earliest barbecue, and the technique survives almost exclusively in farming communities in the South Atlantic states of North Carolina and South Carolina. However, the end product has a few distinctions. Most North Carolina joints no longer apply the vinegar mop sauce during cooking, now using it more like a condiment. In South Carolina, sauce is often added toward the end of the smoke and might include mustard and/or tomato. "My county is a dividing line," said Conyers. "Half of Clarendon County uses vinegar-based sauce, and the half I grew up in introduced tomato and mustard."

And where North Carolina hogs are chopped, South Carolina pigs are smoked until tender enough to pull apart. In both states, plan on piling meat onto a bun or white bread and pairing it with coleslaw, green beans, collard greens and potatoes (boiled and in potato salad). South Carolina specialties include hash, a gravy of chopped meat and innards served over rice.

Alabama: Shoulders, butts and smoked chicken

At first glance, Alabama's barbecue resembles that found in nearby Southern states, like Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, where pork shoulders and butts are doused in a tangy tomato-based sauce. Coleslaw, potato salad and baked beans are a near guarantee, and smoked whole chickens and pork ribs round out menus.

But in 1925, Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Decatur, Alabama, radicalised the art of smoked chicken when Robert Gibson smoked his birds for three hours over hickory wood coals then dipped them into a modified mop sauce now known as Alabama white sauce – a combination of vinegar, lemon, salt, pepper and mayonnaise.

The fat in the mayonnaise locks in moisture, according to Chris Lilly, a fourth-generation pitmaster who has run Big Bob Gibson's pits since 1991 and is the winner of 17 Barbecue World Championships. Now, white sauce – which is also applied to smoked chicken wings – is ubiquitous throughout the state and beyond.

Alabama has a few other barbecue quirks. Pulled pork sandwiches come topped with coleslaw; while at Dreamland Bar-B-Que in Tuscaloosa, renowned pitmaster John Big Daddy Bishop developed a distinct rib recipe: grilled over roaring hickory fire, basted with a vinegar-based sauce and beloved for its char.

Florida: Smoked fish

Before opening Tropical Smokehouse in West Palm Beach, Rick Mace researched Florida barbecue history in the hope of finding a signature state style – just to find that the only Florida dish recognised as barbecue was smoked fish.

For centuries, Florida's inhabitants – Indigenous tribes and then Spanish, Cuban, British and American settlers – relied on mullet as a food source and smoking as a preservation technique, and the tradition lives on along the coast.

Mace recommends visitors head to Ted Peters Famous Smoked Fish in St Petersburg, an al fresco joint with melamine trays and frosty beer mugs, where smoked mullet comes with potato salad, coleslaw, sliced onion and tomato and a pickle spear.

Mace built his own smoker based on the one at Ted Peters, a rustic vertical cabinet set with racks and smouldering red oak in the base. At Tropical Smokehouse, he smokes mahi mahi, cobia, wahoo and salmon, and turns the smoked fish trim into one of Florida's most iconic delicacies: a mayonnaise-laced fish dip that's ideally spread on a cracker and dotted with hot sauce.

"Smoked mullet tells a story about the generations of fisherfolk, all the way back to the Calusa [people] who were netting mullet in this area," said Chandra Jamieson, owner of The Fisherman's Daughter in Fort Myers, who smokes her mullet for four to six hours over locally harvested buttonwood.

Texas: The trinity

According to John Bates, pitmaster and owner of Austin's Interstellar BBQ, all barbecue in Texas is measured by its brisket, which must be well-marbled and redolent of post oak flavour – no sauce required.

Early Texas barbecue resembled that found in the Carolinas, but cultural comingling cemented the state's smoking trajectory. German, Polish and Czech immigrants settled in Central Texas shortly after it became the US's 28th state in 1845, and many set up butcher shops.

These butchers smoked excess meat to prevent spoiling and sold it by the pound at lunchtime; counter service is still a hallmark of contemporary Texas ‘cue. Eastern Europeans also brought sausage-making traditions to the region. Today, along with brisket and pork ribs, smoked hot links form "the trinity" of Texas barbecue, says Bates, whose beef brisket undergoes a three-day process.

Regional varieties abound. In East Texas, pitmasters focus on pork and favour hickory wood and Cajun flavours. South Texas is mesquite country with a heavy Mexican influence; expect charro beans, flour tortillas, poblano-laced sausages and barbacoa (smoked whole cow's head) on Sundays.

Memphis: Bologna, Greek-meets-Southern dry ribs and spaghetti

Five days a week, pitmaster Ronald Payne of Payne's BBQ throws a cylinder of bologna into his charcoal pit and smokes it until the casing ruptures. For lunch, his team serves thick slabs sandwiched between white bread, topped with a mayonnaise-free, mustard-heavy coleslaw. "Smoked bologna is definitely a Memphis thing," said Payne, whose father Horton opened the restaurant in 1976.

Memphis represents a shift from rural to urban smoking tradition, flavoured by the exchange of immigrants and country folk who converged there. Most of the city's barbecue joints use charcoal briquettes rather than burned down wood to fuel their pits. Processed meats like bologna and salami dot menus and tomato-based sauces sit proudly on tables.

Pitmaster Charlie Vergos was a first-generation Greek American, and when he opened Rendezvous in 1948, he seasoned his pork ribs with salt, pepper, oregano and garlic, basting with vinegar sauce. After traveling to New Orleans, he added cayenne pepper and Cajun seasoning to the blend and birthed a new sort of Southern flavour.

Beyond bologna, ribs and chopped pork shoulder sandwiches are essential to Memphis barbecue, as is the curious side dish of barbecue spaghetti – or the neon-yellow Memphis-style coleslaw. "It's so bright, some people think it's macaroni and cheese," said Payne. "It's what sets us apart."

Kansas City: Ribs and burnt ends

Kansas City's place in the pantheon of American barbecue was secured when a Memphis-born steamboat cook named Henry Perry moved to town in 1907. Within a few years, Perry became the city's first barbecue restaurateur, smoking meats as varied as racoon, rabbit, opossum, hog and mutton – all prepared with a spicy vinegar mop.

Perry's vinegar mop was long ago supplanted by molasses-sweetened sauces, but diners can still taste his influence in this former meat-packing city; Justin Easterwood, owner of Chef J BBQ and official pitmaster of the Kansas City Chiefs, notes that Kansas City remains known for cooking anything and everything.

Kansas City also layers flavours. "There's always a rub, a mix of seasonings, and then somewhere in the process… putting a sauce on so it can set," said Megan Day, a world champion pitmaster.

Ribs here come in all varieties: spare, baby, lamb and beef. The city’s famous burnt ends started as a free snack to quell crowds at Arthur Bryant's Barbeque; now everyone in town sells the fatty brisket cut that’s smoked extra hard and chopped into bite-size pieces. The lean part of the brisket (aka the flat) gets shaved on a deli slicer and piled high onto sandwiches. Pork shoulders get a similar treatment; smoked pork loin, turkey, wings and ham count as barbecue here, too. (Brobeck BBQ’s smoked ham salad is "legendary", said Day.)

And Kansas City sides pack Midwestern comfort: expect cheesy corn, meat-laced beans, warm potato casseroles and mounds of fries and onion rings.

St Louis: Grill and baste

David Sandusky, owner of Beast Craft BBQ Co is quick to point out that the St Louis spare rib is a basic cut of meat and not a cooking style. Rather, what distinguishes St Louis ribs, and its barbecue in general, is direct heat grilling and basting. "Even though our ribs are sauced, that liquid gets baked onto the meat. You're getting full dehydration. It's a flavour bomb," said Sandusky.

But he'll forgive outsiders for the confusion; according to Sandusky, gentrification and national chains have greatly watered down St Louis' idiosyncratic barbecue character. There are holdouts though: among the city's quintessential flavours is sweet and vinegary Maull's, one of the US's first mass-produced barbecue sauces. Home cooks in St Louis augment Maull's with brown sugar, onions and an Anheuser Busch beer and use it like a braising sauce. Meats start on the grill and get finished in the oven – or vice versa.

In addition to ribs, St Louis specialises in pork steaks, smoked and then grilled at high heat. The city shares a tradition of saucy, crunchy rib tips with Kansas City and Chicago. But only a handful of spots still serve snoot (pig's face) that's grilled until rock hard and then simmered in barbecue sauce. "It has a burnt bacon quality," said Sandusky. "It's an acquired taste."

New school: Chefs and international flavours

Barbecue's new wave started in 2009, when young upstart Aaron Franklin opened Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Texas, fast-becoming an international, brisket-proselytising sensation. By 2013, Franklin had earned the number-one spot on Texas Monthly magazine's best barbecue list and chefs across the country left their kitchens for a life of smoking, homemade sauces and made-from-scratch sides.

Since then, a new generation of chefs and pitmasters has turbo-charged the cultural exchange US barbecue was built on.

Shuai Wang grew up in the Chinese enclave of Flushing, Queens, and when he started cooking in Charleston, South Carolina, he missed foods like roast duck and crispy pork ribs. When Wang opened King BBQ with North Carolina-born pitmaster Brandon Olson in 2023, the duo delivered a mash-up of Chinese and Carolina-smoked meats. They now roast cured Peking duck over coals and make moo shu chopped smoked pork. Their smoked Chinese spare ribs are cured in salt, sugar, five spice and MSG.

Wang is particularly inspired by the rise of Asian barbecue and points to Eem, a Thai spot in Portland, Oregon, where diners are served spicy jungle curry with their brisket.

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In Lockhart, Texas, pitmaster Chuck Charnichart smokes medium-rare lamb chops and her signature Flamin' Hot Cheetos-inspired Molotov pork ribs (with heat from serrano chilli simple syrup) at her woman-led Barbs B Que. Further north in Arlington, Fasicka and Patrick Hicks likely serve the world's only Ethiopian-Texas barbecue at Smoke'N Ash, glazing and rubbing their meats with awaze spice.

"What’s exciting for me is when customers order Texas barbecue with Ethiopian side dishes like cabbage and carrots, or tikil gomen. Instead of Texas toast, they ask for injera," said Fasicka, who grew up in Addis Ababa.

"For so long, barbecue was just done in a traditional way," added Wang. "But people are starting to realise there are so many common denominators between Southern, Texas, Kansas City and all these different styles of barbecue and with other cultures and cuisines."

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The European nation pioneering 'beer diplomacy'

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250627-the-european-nation-pioneering-beer-diplomacy, 12 days ago

For the last six years, the globe's top beer tourism destination has been quietly inviting brewers to the Czech Republic to teach the world how to drink properly.

The beer drinking began at 10:39am. Twenty brewers had just walked into a bar – a bar in a brewery in the Czech Republic, one of the world's great beer-making nations. I held up my mug of burnt-orange-hued pilsner, a three-finger-wide layer of foam crowning the top, and clinked glasses with Liam Taheny, a craft brewer from South Australia.

When I asked him what impressed him most about Czech beer culture, he didn't hesitate. "The knowledge of beer and everything related to beer here is just astounding," he said.

"You mean when you talked to Czech brewers?" I asked.

"I am talking about ordinary people," he said. "They talk about beer the way only, say, a head brewer or a total beer geek might back in Australia."

Taheny, head brewer at Brightstar Brewing, was one of 20 brewers from Australia, Canada and the United States recently invited by the Czech Ministry of Agriculture to spend five days soaking up Czech beer culture. But it wasn't just a daze of imbibing beer. The itinerary included meeting macro and microbrewers, hops farmers, bartenders and pub owners – all part of the Czech government's experiment in "beer diplomacy".

The Czech Republic – and specifically Bohemia, its westernmost region – has long been famous for its pivo (beer). After all, locals have been brewing the sudsy stuff here since at least 993 CE. Czechs consume more beer per capita than any other nation on Earth (and nearly twice as much as the second-most beer-loving nation, Austria); and in many places in the country, beer is cheaper than bottled water. No wonder the nation touts itself as the world's top beer tourism destination.

Yet, among true beer aficionados, Czech lager has long been relatively underrated, overshadowed by Belgian ales, Bavarian brews and the global IPA boom. You could chalk it up to the region's tumultuous past century: 41 years behind the Iron Curtain meant Czech beers were hard to find abroad, and in the decades since communism ended in 1989, Czech breweries had to privatise and modernise, updating their brewing technology.

But things are changing, and lagers – especially Czech-style lagers – are finally starting to get more recognition. Since 2019, a network of diplomats and brewers have been quietly working behind the scenes to advance the awareness of Czech beer and inspire foreign brewers to make authentic Czech-style lager: crisp, full-bodied with bitter tones, often with a buttery after taste and poured with large foamy head.

The Ministry of Agriculture is not keeping statistics, but since the government began welcoming brewers from around the world, Czech-style lagers from craft brewers have been popping up across North America. (Australian brewers were only recently added to the annual beer summits.)

It's a strategy reminiscent of Thailand's Global Thai Program, a form of edible soft power that was launched in 2002 to promote Thai restaurants and cuisine abroad. That effort led to a boom in Thai eateries around the world and helped put Thailand on the global culinary map. At the programme's start, there were 5,500 Thai restaurants outside Thailand; by October 2023 there were nearly 17,500, according to some estimates. The Economist quickly coined the term "gastro-diplomacy". And now the Czech Republic is following in Thailand's footsteps with its six-year-old mission of "beer diplomacy". After all, the thinking goes, unlike Thai cuisine, Czech food isn't exactly a big hit with foreigners. But one thing the Czechs do well is make beer.

I got the chance to see the programme in action when I was invited to join the brewers for a few nights. One evening, we crammed into a small craft brewery and taproom called Pioneer Beer in the northern Bohemian town of Žatec, home to the highly sought-after Saaz hops that have been essential ingredients in Czech-style lagers since Pilsner Urquell created the world's first golden lager in 1842. The brewers gravitated to head brewer Michal Havrda and began peppering him with questions, throwing around terms like "decoction" and "flocculation". A few days later, they had spirited conversations with Vaclav Berka, Pilsner Urquell's now-retired beer master in the town of Plzeň, as well Adam Brož, the current head brewer at Budvar in České Buděvice, two of the biggest breweries in the country.

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They also spent time at Lukr, an innovative beer tap-making company in Plzeň, who make side-pull taps that better regulate the flow of beer, allowing the finished pour to have that classic, creamy, thick head of foam that is so characteristic of Czech beer.

"If you pour it right with a proper head, the foam is going to add a sweetness and creaminess to your drink that will remain on your palate all the way to the bottom of your glass," explained Ondřej Rozsypal, Lukr tap master and 2022 Master Bartender of the Year.

When Lukr began selling their specialty Czech lager taps in 2015, they sold a dozen to North America. Now they sell up to 2,000 a year to bars and tap rooms across the US and Canada – and the beer diplomacy efforts are one reason for the increase in popularity.

A few days earlier, at the popular gastropub Lokál in Prague, we met Lucie Janečková, a manager at the Institut Pivo, where she teaches courses on proper beer pouring methods and gives beer-focused tours in Prague. "It makes me really sad to see a bartender destroying beer with a bad pour," she said. "Czech beer culture is all about respecting the process of serving the beer and we're trying to teach that to foreign beermakers and tapsters because we've been doing this pretty much longer than anyone else in the world."

As the demonstration at Lukr showed, Czechs revere the beermaking process – and this new initiative is the latest example of how this beer-loving nation is teaching the world how to drink properly.

"You have to be really good at brewing to make a very good Czech-style beer. And that's exactly what they do here," said Meghan Michels, a brewer at Holy Mountain Brewing Company in Seattle, Washington. "They've been doing it for centuries. You really have to come here and taste the real thing to get a true sense of how Czech lager should taste."

Ryan Moncrieff, owner and head brewer of Rafter R Brewing Company in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, agreed. "We have Czech beer in Canada and it just doesn't taste the same. It's never very fresh," he said. "From a brewer's perspective, the only way to know the true taste of Czech beer is to go to the source. That way, if a Czech person comes to my brewery and says, 'this tastes like home', I'm going to know that I nailed it."

The truth is, that like a lot of consumed products, Czech beer doesn't travel well. While these brewers can try their best to replicate authentic Czech brew, this hard truth debunks the great gospel of globalisation, that in the developed world we can get whatever we want, when we want. Yet, to experience Czech beer as it was truly made, you have to head to the Czech Republic.

But what the Czech government's programme will ultimately do is to inspire a deeper curiosity from beer drinkers about what it's like to taste Czech beer in the Czech Republic.

As I held a freshly poured lager, I toasted my new friend, Taheny, and he said, "Here's to our eventual return to the Czech Republic!"

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India's cooling summer dish that costs less than a dollar

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250625-indias-cooling-summer-dish-that-costs-less-than-a-dollar, 14 days ago

For centuries, the people of Odisha have turned to pakhala – a fermented rice dish – to beat the heat. Now it's gaining global attention.

It was a scorching hot day in Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha in eastern India. As the temperature soared, my university friends and I rushed to the cafeteria for the meal we looked forward to most in summer: a bowl of pakhala (water rice). Light and tangy, the dish gave us immediate relief from the oppressive heat. Two decades later, as I sit in my apartment in the dry heat of Riyadh, it remains my go-to comfort food in summer, especially after a long day in the sun.

Pakhala is Odisha's unique summertime ritual. Also known as "poor man's gruel", the simple dish is made from leftover cooked rice soaked in water and fermented overnight in an earthen pot. It is usually mixed with yoghurt, tempered with mustard seeds, dried red chillies and curry leaves and served with a variety of sides such as mashed potatoes, sautéed green leafy vegetables and fried fish.

Odias (people of Odisha) have consumed pakhala since ancient times since it's affordable and easy to prepare, yet nutritionally rich. "The earliest documented use of pakhala dates back to the 12th Century, when the dish was offered to Lord Jagannath (a Hindu deity worshipped in Odisha) at the Jagannath Temple in Puri," says Ritu Pattanaik, food historian and the author of the cookbook 259 Inherited Recipes of Odisha. "Even today, pakhala is one of the best foods to have when temperatures rise."

Odisha has always been an agrarian society, and rice is a staple. "In the olden days, it was typical for women in the house to add water to leftover rice from lunch. There was no refrigerator at the time, so this prevented the rice from spoiling. In the morning, men ate this fermented rice and water before heading out to work in the fields. Pakhala gave them energy and helped them beat the afternoon heat."

Central to pakhala's benefits is the slightly sour, probiotic-rich fermented water known as torani, which hydrates and protects the body against heat stroke. Once water and rice have undergone fermentation, torani becomes a rich source of lactic acid bacteria, which protect the stomach and intestines from infection and aid digestion.

"However, the benefits of torani don't end there," adds Dr Balamurugan Ramadass, professor at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Bhubaneswar. "In addition to probiotics, torani is a rich source of short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) with antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties. It also contains vitamin K, which [helps] heals wounds faster."

He notes that torani delivers instant energy to an exhausted body, "which is why farmers consume one to two litres of it before going to work every day. An average person with a desk job can have two to three cups of torani daily and still benefit from this healing beverage."

So trusted are torani's health benefits that India's National Disaster Management Authority advises people to drink it during heatwaves. In a country where extended summer heatwaves are becoming the norm, drinks like torani are increasingly seen as functional superfoods that both cool and nourish the body.

"One of the simplest ways to increase your torani intake is to consume pakhala instead of plain rice or bread for lunch," says chef Abinas Nayak, winner of MasterChef India Season 6. He notes that pakhala is straightforward to prepare. "Take leftover cooked rice, pour water over it and leave it in an earthen pot to ferment overnight. Pakhala will be ready in the morning."

Because of the humble ingredients and simple cooking method, a bowl of pakhala costs less than a dollar to buy – and significantly less to prepare at home. "In some ways, pakhala is the great equaliser in our society. It's accessible to and loved by everyone, regardless of class, income or background," says Nayak.

Pakhala is deeply ingrained in Odisha's sociocultural fabric. It is common to eat a bowl before each new beginning, be it a new job, house or relationship. "At the end of every Odia wedding, the bride's mother feeds pakhala to her newlywed daughter and son-in-law to ensure that the marriage runs smoothly," says Pattanaik. Flask back to 2009 and my own wedding rituals: the fact that I had two pakhala kansas (bronze bowls) in my bridal trousseau suddenly makes sense. "Yes, your mother put those bowls to make sure your relationship with your husband was cool like pakhala," Pattanaik adds with a smile.

For many Odias, pakhala is a nostalgic trip back to childhood. "In summertime, my mother would always have a bowl of pakhala and some mashed potatoes waiting for me when I got home from school," Nayak reminisces. "That was the meal I always cherished and still do now. It is the taste of home and comfort for me."

Though once considered too basic or old-fashioned to feature on modern menus, pakhala is enjoying a revival. With the mercury rising year after year and Indians becoming more receptive to native foods, pakhala is becoming increasingly popular, especially during the hot spells of April and May. Every year, the pakhala craze begins in early March peaks on Pakhala Dibasa (Pakhala Day) on 20 March and continues until the last monsoon arrives in mid-June. This is when restaurants across Odisha begin serving elaborate pakhala platters with a variety of sides.

The trend is spreading across India and the world, with home cooks and food bloggers regularly sharing pakhala images and videos on social media, and cooking contests featuring inventive twists on the dish. Pakhala gatherings have become commonplace across the globe, including the US, UK and the Middle East, where Odias like me congregate to savour this nostalgic meal that's inextricably linked to our identity. Nayak has helped popularise the dish on social media and by preparing sumptuous pakhala platters at national events.

"By promoting Indigenous foods like pakhala, we are not only tapping into our rich culinary history but also rediscovering lost superfoods," he says. "People are now seeing value in how our forefathers ate and that makes me happy."

Restaurants are capitalising on this growing trend by offering elaborate pakhala platters with side dishes such as alu bharta (spiced mashed potatoes), baigana bharta (mashed aubergine), tomato poda (smoked tomato), sukhua (dried salted fish), saga bhaja (sauteed greens) and badi chura (crushed sundried lentil dumplings served with a dash of mustard oil and garlic).

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"These sides, however, are more than just add-ons; they are carefully selected for nutritional balance and texture. That's what makes them special," explains chef Alka Jena, who chronicles the history and recipes of Odia dishes on her food blog Culinary Xpress. "The fish provides protein, saga bhaja adds fibre and badi chura adds crunch and umami."

"On a scorching hot day, there's nothing quite like relishing a bowl of pakhala with a variety of sides and washing it down with some sour torani," Jena adds. "It not only cools your tummy but also provides a glimpse into Odisha's rich culture and heritage."

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Is this the most Scottish town in Italy?

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250702-barga-the-most-scottish-town-in-italy, 3 days ago

With deep, emotional connections to Scotland, its own tartan and a fish and chips festival, the town of Barga is an unlikely "Brigadoon" in the Tuscan hills.

In the medieval hilltop town of Barga in Tuscany's Serchio Valley, between the marble-white Apuan Alps and chestnut forests of the Apennine mountains, many things can take the unwitting visitor by surprise.

The blue and white saltire of the St Andrew's Cross, Scotland's national flag, hangs above steep, cobblestone lanes scented by wisteria. Snippets of thick Scottish accents muddle with the rhythmic flow of Italian. At the right time of year, bagpipes drone through the air. Come towards the end of January, and, if you're lucky, you'll hear the poetry of Robert Burns and get the chance to sample haggis.

Year-round, meanwhile, the Scottish staple of vigorously fried fish and chips is on the menu of local restaurants. And misty-eyed locals will not hesitate to tell you about their deep, emotional connections to Glasgow and the Ayrshire towns of Ardrossan and Largs on Scotland's west coast.

All who visit agree that Barga has a distinctive story – the local tourist board proudly proclaims it as "the most Scottish town in Italy" – and when I visited this fantasy-like "Brigadoon" to learn about its curious history, the Sun was a golden flare in the sky, the surrounding mountains sparkled and the streets were empty. The quintessential Tuscan town walls; Renaissance-era stone houses; and lemon, orange and pink villas couldn't have felt further away from the world I'd just left behind in Glasgow.

"A few years ago, we thought we'd find out how deep our connections are," said Maria Elisa Caproni, a historian and the town's librarian who had volunteered to lead me through Barga's Scottish-Italian timeline. It was a question that the town felt important to answer. "Of our 9,000 inhabitants, we calculated that about 60% have Scottish roots. It's incredible, really."

Like so many other locals, Caproni has a typical story. Struggling to find work in the Serchio Valley, family on her grandfather's side migrated from Barga to Scotland in the early 20th Century. After making money in Scotland's prospering shipyards and forestry industries, many Barghese returned a few decades later, bringing a love for their adopted homeland and many of its traditions back with them. Straight away, I noticed the connections too: contemporary Scottish art here; a red telephone box there. Earlier, at the town's entrance road, I passed a sign proclaiming Barga's twinning with Prestonpans, Cockenzie, Port Seton and Longiddry – each towns located outside Edinburgh in East Lothian.

Barga was already famous – it was an essential gateway to Rome for pilgrims, merchants and traders – and has a rich history. During the Middle Ages, the surrounding cities of Lucca, Pisa and Modena fought for the town in bitter disputes, as to rule it was to control foot traffic, population flow and – crucially – taxes.

As Caproni tells it, Barga voluntarily gave itself to Florence in 1332 to guarantee its protection, yet remained far enough away from the modern-day Tuscan capital to hold onto its independence and still benefit from advantageous tax concessions. Surveying this history today is a sensory experience: the town's most magnificent building, the Duomo, or Cathedral of San Cristoforo, is a clear sign of Barga's former wealth. The colossal limestone facade is an architectural wonder, inlaid with symbols supposedly implying the presence and influence of the Knights Templar.

"Barga was a little island of Florentine power amid the hills," said Caproni, as we started our walkabout at Porta Reale gate, a liminal space between today's new town and the medieval warren of yesteryear. "But that's just the beginning of our story."

For five centuries under Florentine rule, Barga remained squeezed between the Republic of Lucca and the House of Este, a European dynasty with fiefdoms in today's Emilia-Romagna region, including Modena and Ferrara. Then the unification of Italy in 1861 changed everything. Following the fall of Italy's ancient city-states, Barga lost its privileges, the town's silk industry declined and waves of migration to the US and the UK began. A chief beneficiary of this Barghese labour? Scotland's west coast. Many had planned to sail to the US from there, but sufficient work saw plenty go no further on their journeys.

Soon, an influx of Italians began working along the fragmented seaboard. Then, opportunities beckoned through the opening of Italian restaurants, ice cream parlours (including Scotland's most famous, Nardini's in Largs) and fish and chip shops. Ever since, there has been a flow of people, families and stories between the Tuscan hills and Firth of Clyde coast.

A place that encapsulates this story is Giro Di Boa, a fish restaurant run by Riccardo Orsucci, originally from Barga, and his wife, Adele Pierotti, originally from Glasgow. For much of their lives, the Scottish Italian, Italian Scottish couple have been at the heart of this cross-cultural exchange, having lived, worked and brought up the next generation of Barghese Scots in both countries.

"It's common for someone to turn round and speak to you in a very clear Ayrshire or Glaswegian accent here," said Pierotti. "It can get confusing for Italians too. Sometimes, they feel like they are no longer in Italy. Sometimes, I used to think that too." The Scots' vernacular was such a dominant currency a few years ago, Caproni told me, that some shops had signs on their doors reading, "Qui si parla italiano" (Italian spoken here).

Orsucci and Pierotti met in the 1970s at Glasgow's Casa d'Italia, an Italian social club for immigrants in the city's wealthy Park Circus. At the same time, Orsucci had opened a restaurant, and it was, he told me, the only Italian spot that held a traditional Burns Supper, an annual celebration of Scotland's national bard on 25 January. Now, Giro Di Boa is perhaps one of the few restaurants in Tuscany that holds a Burns Night. Certainly, it's the only one in Barga. "I like to keep these traditions alive," he said.

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The chalk-written menu outside the couple's restaurant shows dishes including polpo all Siciliana (Sicilian-style octopus), spada e pistacchi (swordfish and pistachios) – and, rather conspicuously in English, fried fish and chips. These days, that meal is also the main feature of the two-week-long Sagra del Pesce e Patate (Fish & Chips Festival) for those with an appreciation of Scotland's deep-fried food culture. For two weeks each August, the town crowds around trestle tables to enjoy the simple business of paper plates loaded with crisp battered fish, fat chips, pots of mayonnaise and slices of lemon. This being Tuscany, bottles of Chianti also feature heavily. Perhaps, the feeling is that Barga's stories of migration and homecoming are best brought to life through Britain's iconic dish.

The most obvious similarity between Italy and Scotland in Barga is a shared love of good food and good times, but it is also apparent through art. That contemporary Scottish artist John Bellany, whose father and grandfather were fishermen, bought a house in Barga and was inspired by his surroundings is another breadcrumb to follow. His works are on display at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh, but his oil paintings of street scenes awash in typical Tuscan hues have also resulted in a permanent gallery opening in what became his adopted second home.

"When he arrived in Barga, his pictures exploded with colour – red, yellow and green – and it's clear the impression our town had on his creative spirit," said Caterina Campani, Mayor of Barga, whom I met later that day. "In part thanks to him, we have become a creative town of artists. More galleries open each year, and there is not only a strong emotional connection between here and Scotland but an economic one too. Many third- and fourth-generation Italian Scots have second homes now. So, Scotland is in our DNA. For us, it's a badge of honour."

It would be a mistake to think the similarities between the two places end there. There's an aesthetic dimension thanks to the Barga tartan (woven in green, white and red to represent the tricolour of the Italian flag), and Italy's other religion, football, has helped further unite the Barghese with Scotland.

Outside, on a corner of Via Borgo, I found the supporters' bar of the amateur football club, the Gatti Randagi, or the Stray Cats. It's no coincidence they play in the same green and white hoops as Celtic FC, who are based in the east end of Glasgow. In years to come, the hope is that in an increasingly divided world, these bonds will grow even stronger.

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Six new and upcoming summer travel books that inspire wonder

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250704-six-new-and-upcoming-summer-travel-books-that-inspire-wonder, 7 days ago

From a nine-month trek to a 20,000-mile motorcycle odyssey, these books will transport you across continents and encourage you to see the world differently.

Like travel itself, great travel writing can expand our understanding of the world – and of ourselves. It introduces us to places we've never visited and people we've never met. It expands our idea of the planet, and when done well, it can leave us permanently changed.

The first book that did this for me was Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard. Published in 1978, it transported me to a gruelling expedition in the Himalayas, immersed me in Buddhist thought and offered a poignant portrait of a family's emotional unravelling.

Matthiessen's ruminations profoundly touched and transformed my life, inspiring a leap of faith to pursue a career in travel. Happily, that leap was rewarded, and led to a lifelong career editing and writing travel stories for the San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle, Salon, Lonely Planet, National Geographic and the BBC.

After reading through this season's new and upcoming travel books, I've found six that tap into a similar power. Each rekindles a sense of wonder and expands our idea of what travel can be.

Best for wide-horizon nomads Free Ride, by Noraly Schoenmaker

Free Ride recounts a 20,000-mile motorcycle odyssey that began with a jaunt from India to Malaysia, then morphed into a solo expedition through the Middle East and Central Asia and finally back to Schoenmaker's homeland in the Netherlands. Launched by a broken heart when she discovered that her live-in partner had been having a long-term affair, the journey became a route of reinvention.

This passage set in the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan captures the rigours and the rewards of Schoenmaker's odyssey: "I was freezing, I was scared, I was alone. But at the same time I realized: there was nowhere in the world I would rather be than right here. Despite the hardships of the cold Pamir, I had fallen instantly, completely, and head over heels in love with this part of the world. It felt like everything that had happened – my destroyed relationship, the forced sale of my house, my attempt to become a filmmaker – were all part of a bigger plan to get me here. Here, alone, on the Pamir. I wanted to stay here forever, in this wilderness."

In no-frills, from-the-heart prose, Schoenmaker crafts exhilarating evocations of rarely visited landscapes and unforgettable portraits of remote villagers and their far-off-the-beaten-path homes. As she motors on, she also brings to vivid life the bone-jarringly rutted tracks, scarily flooded roads, breath-sucking winds, freezing high-altitude passes, broken and burned-out motorcycle parts and multiple motorcycle mishaps she must overcome along the way. But what ultimately shines throughout this moving and inspiring account are the attributes that enable her to persevere: her optimism and openness, her determination and resilience, her ability to engage strangers and at the same time to be comfortable with herself.

The truth at the heart of this pilgrimage carries a soul-widening lesson for us all: because Schoenmaker brings a warm, wonder-filled embrace to the world, the world embraces her just as fervently and fully in return.

Best for long-haul seekers: Northbound, by Naomi Arnold

Naomi Arnold's Northbound charts her nine-month solo trek along New Zealand's 3,000km Te Araroa trail, from Bluff at the southern tip of the country to Cape Reinga in the far north.

Setting off on Boxing Day 2023, Arnold's extraordinarily gruelling odyssey takes her through some of New Zealand's most remote and rugged landscapes. Her account brims with detailed observations, bringing the reader directly into the heart and hardship of the trail – in all its mud, pain, cold and beauty. Arnold combines these descriptions with keenly honest evocations of the challenges she overcomes – from blisters and fungal infections to loneliness and logistical missteps.

As her journey unfolds, her perceptions and transformations take on a luminous intensity, as in this passage from the middle of her account: "I spent the day climbing from the valley floor up a long, steep ridge to 1462m Mt Crawford. I walked through rainforest, admiring pīwakawaka and miromiro leaping among the dripping rimu, mataī, mamaku, the trees laden with huge balls of moss, the ground covered in ecstatic bursts of crown ferns. Spiderwebs caught between trees were glistening with diamonds of moisture, shivering in shafts of white-misted sunlight…. This low light changed everything. It hit one thickly moss-covered tree and I could suddenly see the tree's real shape, its skeleton, strong beneath its fuzzy green exterior, illuminated like a pair of legs through a sunlit skirt."

Northbound is a beautiful, brave book: harrowing at times, yet filled with hope. Ultimately, it's about much more than walking the length of New Zealand – it's about what Arnold found, and what she shed, along the way. And in this sense, it's about the possibilities that await all of us in life, and that we can choose to ignore, or embrace.

Best for road travel romantics: On the Hippie Trail, by Rick Steves

Long before Rick Steves became a household name, he was a young piano teacher filled with wanderlust. In 1978, he set out from Istanbul to Kathmandu along the legendary "hippie trail", filling his notebook with observations of a world in flux.

On the Hippie Trail is a lightly edited version of that journal, and it presents Steves as a passionate young man falling in love with the world, bursting with delight at its dangers and disappointments as well as its treasures and pleasures. Steves' wide-eyed innocence and enthusiasm are present on every page, as are his clear-eyed depictions of local rites and idiosyncrasies – all intimations of the travel icon to come.

Consider this description in central Kathmandu: "I lost myself in Durbar Square. This was a tangled, medieval-ish world of tall, terraced temples; fruit and vegetable stands; thin, wild and hungry people praying, begging and going through rituals; children, oblivious to it all, playing tag among the frozen Buddhas; rickshaws; and bread carts. Ten years ago, the only blemishes of our modern world – cars and tourists – weren't there and the sight would have been pure. But even with long, straggly-haired, lacy, baggy-clothed freaks lounging on stony pagoda steps, and the occasional honking taxi, this was a place where I could linger."

Full of such observations and excitements, On the Hippie Trail rekindled my memories of early wanderings that widened the world for me. In so doing, it also robustly recharged my sense of wonder, the promise that had once suffused every day: that tantalising, life-changing possibilities awaited around the next corner.

Best for spiritual pilgrims: Fiesta, by Daniel Stables

Alternately rollicking and reflective, Fiesta profiles the most fascinating and eye-catching festivals around the world – and what they reveal about the human need for ritual and connection.

Fuelled by a fundamental fascination with the topic, Stables spent a decade studying and attending festivals. In the book, he identifies 11 festival types – from identity to altered states, tribalism to utopia – and brings them to life through fieldwork and personal immersion.

He dances with whirling dervishes in Turkey, joins Carnival in Venice and reflects on the spiritual ecology of the Green Gathering in Wales. Part of the pleasure of the book is Stables' deep digging into anthropology, history, psychology and folklore, and his resulting analyses of the motivations and meanings of the rituals and beliefs he encounters. An equally great pleasure is the way he wholeheartedly throws himself into these events, resulting in some seriously alcohol-imbibing and ego-surrendering adventures, all recounted in suitably soaring prose.

Here he describes the culmination of a Romani community festival, when a statue of their patron saint, Black Sara, is carried into the Mediterranean by a parade of pilgrims on white Camargue horses:

"The sound of hooves gathered on the promenade; those of us standing on the sand turned to face the approaching cavalcade, then bent down as one, rolling up our trousers, taking off our shoes and holding them in our hands as we joined the march into the water. Sara was carried until her pallbearers were chest high in the drink, and those handsome horses gathered around her in an imperious array, pale bellies touching the ocean, their riders hoisting iron Camargue crosses, guardian tridents, and velvet standards of deep burgundy…. I am not Romani nor Catholic, but I have rarely felt more alive than I did that day. Riding a white horse across the sand, necking plum brandy, and running barefoot into the sea in the caravan of gypsies – these are things which make life voluptuous."

Best for close-to-home travellers: Go West, by Steve Silk

Steve Silk's highly entertaining account of his bicycle trip through England and Wales, Go West, proves that you don't need to travel to the far corners of the planet to have a world-expanding travel experience.

Silk – who works for the BBC's Look East – set out to pedal from London to the Welsh coast in eight days. He describes the goal of this quest early in the book: "What exactly is my kind of journey? I guess it's the kind of slow travel that revels in the places in between. Exploring the kind of towns and villages that you bypass by car, but that you won't, don't, or can't ignore on two wheels. And my emerging Law of Cycling Serendipity suggests that it's these locations that provide the unexpected highlights; the supporting actors who somehow steal the show."

Silk calls this mode of travel "undertourism", and we all can learn much from it. As he moves slowly, he's able to notice and savour all manner of things he would normally just whoosh by: a transporting evensong at Oxford's Merton College; Witney Blanket Hall, a blanket-making museum-cum-workshop-cum-cafe whose signpost tantalisingly advertises "Woollen Blankets and Throws, Coffee, Pies and Assemblies since 1721"; a 2,500-year-old yew tree in Defynnog; a mossy, mushroomy, wooded valley on the outskirts of Talog that seems to embody the quintessence of Wales; and the particular pleasures of gongoozling – that is, "idly watching the passage of boats from the side of a canal, particularly from a lock or bridge".

For me, the salubrious subtext of Silk's transcendent two-wheeled odyssey is the joy of travelling slowly close to home, and the truth that the closer we look, the more we see. If we journey with the proper mindset, there is a wide world of wonders waiting to be discovered even in our figurative backyard.

Best for history buffs: Small Earthquakes, by Shafik Meghji

In Small Earthquakes journalist and travel writer Shafik Meghji traverses landscapes from the Atacama Desert to Tierra del Fuego and Easter Island to South Georgia to reveal the overlooked yet profound – and profoundly enduring – connections between Britain and Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.

Drawing on more than 15 years of travel and research in the region, Meghji brings to life a vivid collection of places (forgotten ghost towns, rusting whaling stations, isolated railways built by convicts and tea rooms in Welsh-speaking Patagonia) and characters (daring pirates, Victorian missionaries, rogue MPs, polar explorers and Patagonian cowboys).

The passion and poignancy of his prose is captured in his description of Orongo, a ceremonial village on the southernmost tip of the island of Rapa Nui. First, Meghji paints a portrait of the site: "Inside are rows of low, oval-shaped houses built from basalt blocks, each with a low entrance barely high enough to crawl through. With a volcanic crater behind, sheer cliffs in front and the seemingly endless Pacific beyond, Orongo feels like it sits on the edge of the world. As I soaked up the view, I realised that beyond the island's shoreline, there was no one within 1,200 miles."

Then he describes the village's role as the endpoint for the annual Birdman competition that determined the island's spiritual leader. Finally, threading history to heart, he writes: "Despite Orongo’s history, scenery and sheer sense of remoteness, I was most struck by an absence, an empty space in one of the larger buildings that once held Hoa Hakananai'a. One of Rapa Nui's iconic monolithic moai, standing more than eight feet tall and decorated with Tangata Manu symbols – including stylised figures, birds and vulvas – the statue is held at the British Museum. He was the first moaiI saw in the flesh, a sight that tattooed itself on my brain as a child, helping to fire a life-long love of South America before I was old enough to question why the statue was there in the first place. In the Rapanui language, I later learned, Hoa Hakananai'a means 'lost, hidden or stolen friend'."

Combining the immediacy of a travel memoir with the depth of a scholarly history lesson, Small Earthquakes illuminates how Britain helped shape these nations through economic ventures, cultural exchange and political intervention, and how those regions in turn have reshaped Britain, from the Falklands conflict to canned Fray Bentos pies.

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Bradford: The unlikely 2025 UK City of Culture

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250702-the-unlikely-2025-uk-city-of-culture, 7 days ago

Long brandished with a bleak reputation, this once-proud industrial town is showcasing its youth, diversity and inclusive arts scene to the nation.

For a long time, the northern English city of Bradford's best-known claim was being crowned the "Curry Capital of Britain", thanks to its large and vibrant South Asian community and reputation for outstanding restaurants. To many, Bradford epitomised the "grim up North" stereotype, with Londoners and those from southern England looking down on the former industrial city. Even the weather was deemed gloomy, with forecasters recently citing Bradford as the least sunny place in the country.

But in 2025, Bradford is turning the page. Against lazy tropes and negative headlines, the city is proudly stepping into the spotlight as the 2025 UK City of Culture with an ambitious year-long programme of roughly 1,000 events showcasing its creative legacy and vibrant, multicultural present.

Bradford hasn't always had such a bleak reputation. During the Victorian era, it was one of the richest towns in Britain due to its manufacturing might. By the 1920s, locals claimed the city boasted more Rolls-Royces per head than anywhere else on Earth. Poet TS Eliot even referenced the city in his poem The Waste Land, talking of self-assurance sitting on a character like "a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire".

Today, reminders of that grandeur remain. Sweeping Yorkshire moorlands surround the city, while its streets are lined with an array of superbly preserved Victorian and Gothic buildings from its days as the "wool capital of the world". But Bradford didn't land the City of Culture accolade on its looks alone – it was earned through its creative pedigree.

This is the birthplace of artist David Hockney, composer Frederick Delius (whose childhood piano can be seen at the city's medieval Bolling Hall manor), playwright JB Priestley (An Inspector Calls) and Oscar-winning screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire and The Full Monty). Thanks to its rich on-screen heritage, the city was even declared the world's first Unesco City of Film in 2009 – an accolade now shared with cities like Rome, Sydney and Busan.

Then there's the Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne), whose literary masterpieces include novels like Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Born in Bradford, their later home in the idyllic moorland village of Haworth just outside the city makes for a memorable literary pilgrimage.

On my recent visit to Bradford, it became clear that city officials are keen to use this year's spotlight to move beyond its boom-and-bust past. "We hope the City of Culture programme will change people's perceptions," said Visit Bradford tourism officer Lisa Brankin, as we chatted in what might just be Britain's most beautiful bookshop: a branch of Waterstones filling the city's soaring Victorian Gothic former Wool Exchange.

Throughout 2025, the city's inclusive and diverse programme of events is celebrating Bradford's many communities and traditions, from its coal mine brass bands to modern South Asian bhangra concerts. "We wanted to ensure Bradford's communities have ownership of the programme and are represented within it," said Shanaz Gulzar, Bradford 2025's creative director.

In September, for example, a new show called RIDE! will highlight music from the city's Roma community; while an exhibit at the end of July titled Tu i Tam/Tyt i Tam documents the lives of the city's Polish and Ukrainian citizens. "We've also created a unique touring venue, The Beacon, which will pop up for month-long open-access stints in parks across Bradford, plus activities like BD on Foot, a series of walks encouraging people to explore the wider district and see the region in a different way."

Standing in the city's central Centenary Square, I took in a sweep of the cultural beacons around its fountain-filled expanse. On one side, the Alhambra Theatre is a historic Art Deco jewel located a stone's throw from the Impressions Gallery, a modern photography beacon where I enjoyed an introduction to the work of Ethiopian artist Aïda Muluneh. An ongoing renovation will see the nearby Kala Sangram South Asian arts and culture centre become the Bradford Arts Centre in a transformed historical building. Next to the Alhambra, the National Science and Media Museum showcases a broad range of visual cultural expressions, from the early days of photography in the 1800s to 21st-Century digital arts.

After visiting the 15th-Century Bradford Cathedral, I pottered among the grand buildings that fill the city's Little Germany quarter, where dozens of soaring ornate edifices provided the corporate headquarters of rich 19th-Century Teutonic wool merchants. Visitors may recognise the area as the atmospheric backdrop of BBC TV shows like Peaky Blinders and Gentleman Jack.

Beyond Little Germany, Bradford has blossomed into one of the most diverse metropolises in the UK, with 32% of residents having Asian heritage and the city counting roughly as many Christians as Muslims. It's also the UK's youngest city, with a quarter of residents under the age of 20. An uplifting example of that youthful perspective greeted me on arrival at Forster Square train station, where old railway arches frame metal gates, each inscribed with lines of a poem written as part of the City of Culture programme by Bradford schoolgirl Iqra Khan. It ends with the words: "I come from hope/I come from Bradford."

According to city officials, Bradford 2025 events have drawn 1.1 million people to date – and many have come away thoroughly impressed. "I'm blown away by the city," Alexandra Bowen recently told the BBC during a visit from her home in Kent. "People said to me 'why are you going to Bradford?', because unfortunately, it hasn't had a very good reputation. I love what's happened here in the city centre and I've been to a lot of the museums. I'm really impressed."

Bradford's 2025 City of Culture offerings extend outside the city too. A 10-minute train ride from Forster Square is Saltaire, a Unesco World Heritage "model village" created by Victorian textile magnate Sir Titus Salt. Here, amid the woody banks of the River Aire and Leeds and Liverpool Canal is one of Britain's most stunning arts venues: Salts Mill.

Inside, the mill's 19th-century interiors have been refashioned into a series of galleries, with a whole floor dedicated to one of the world's best permanent displays of works by Hockney, complemented by a modern photography gallery and a top floor exploring Saltaire's fascinating industrial history.

Hockney has long donated works to venues across Bradford, including a dedicated space at the Cartwright Hall Art Gallery. Built in 1904 in the leafy setting of Lister Park, this beguiling gallery-museum mixes historic paintings with contemporary work by artists including Turner Prize winners Anish Kapoor and Yinka Shonibare. For Bradford 2025, however, the gallery has bagged an art world coup and will host this year's Turner Prize exhibition beginning 27 September.

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Elsewhere, visitors can head to Bradford's surrounding hills until 12 October to experience a groundbreaking open-air immersive sound walk combining a new moorland sculpture trail with contemporary music alongside performances of Delius's compositions by Opera North.

Another intriguing project is artist Deepa Mann-Kler's Meet Our Mothers – an interactive digital cookbook that will be published in autumn 2025 highlighting diverse food stories tied to local communities. "In this city, food is more than just nourishment, it is also a powerful unifying force," explained Mann-Kler.

Mann-Kler's words inspired me on my last night to visit one of Bradford's most venerable food spots: the 1960s restaurant TheSweet Centre, where I met the family's fourth-generation owner Waqar Mughal.

"This is going to be an important year for us in Bradford," he told me over subtly spiced fish and chana puri. "Different religions, cultures and communities [are] getting together to really lift Bradford and show how rich the heritage is. And [we're showing] people throughout the UK – and the world – that we can all work together in a positive way."

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The big change affecting European travel

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250627-the-big-change-affecting-european-travel, 13 days ago

The days of being charged additional fees for your hand luggage on flights could soon be a thing of the past – at least in the European Union. On 24 June, lawmakers voted in favour of a proposal allowing passengers to bring a small carry-on bag weighing up to 7kg (15.4lbs) on board their flight free of charge, even on budget airlines.

Under the new rule, travellers would be allowed to bring one cabin bag measuring up to 100cm on board their flight, as well as an under-the-seat personal item with a maximum size of 40x30x15cm at no additional cost. The proposed law still requires approval from 55% of EU member states, but if adopted following negotiations starting in July 2025, the new rules would extend to all flights within the EU, as well as routes to and from the EU.

"Today's vote marks an important step toward fairer and more transparent travel," vice-chair of the EU Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN) Matteo Ricci said in a press statement. "[It introduces] concrete measures such as the clear definition of free hand luggage … a fundamental right to avoid unjustified extra costs."

Previously, EU-based budget airlines like EasyJet, RyanAir, Wizz and others often charged substantial fees for hand luggage, depending on its size and weight. As a result, Spain's Consumer Rights Ministry fined five budget airlines €179m (£149m) for what it deemed "abusive practices" in November 2024. The Spanish ruling, along with pressure from consumer rights associations and passengers, has paved the way for the EU to push for what it considers fairer and more consistent hand luggage rules.

The carry-on proposal is part of a larger effort by the European Parliament to increase protections and rights for travellers. To ensure that families can sit together without incurring additional costs, lawmakers also voted to prohibit airlines from imposing seat selection charges for children aged 12 and under.

Lawmakers also want to change the way companies handle compensation and reimbursement requests by requiring ticket vendors or third-party retailers to inform passengers of the full cost of their flight at the time of booking – including intermediation or service fees – as well as the reimbursement process. Officials also want to ensure that travellers in the EU aren't just entitled to compensation when airline delays cause them to miss their connecting flights, but also when a delay causes them to miss their connection on another mode of transport (an airport bus, for instance) when the ticket is purchased through one operator.

While the new proposals may seem like a victory for passengers, not everyone is in favour of enacting them into law. Airline industry representatives are strongly opposed to waiving hand luggage fees, saying that the cost of the bag will be folded into overall prices, making them higher for everyone in the long run. Critics suggest that the new rules essentially force travellers to bring along hand luggage, since the cost will be baked into their ticket with no opportunity to opt out.

"Europe's airline market is built on choice. Forcing a mandatory trolley bag strips passengers of that choice and obliges passengers to pay for services they may not want or need," said Ourania Georgoutsakou, Managing Director of Airlines For Europe, Europe's largest airline association, in a statement. "What's next? Mandatory popcorn and drinks as part of your cinema ticket? The European Parliament should let travellers decide what services they want, what services they pay for and, importantly, what services they don't."

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'LA's loneliest bachelor': How a mateless Hollywood puma inspired the world's biggest animal bridge

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250709-the-hollywood-puma-behind-los-angeles-huge-animal-bridge, today

Inspired by a mountain lion isolated from potential mates, a huge bridge is being built in Los Angeles to allow wildlife to roam freely.

There had been rumours for a few months in the Hollywood Hills that a 90lb (41kg) beast was skulking through one of Los Angeles's most heavily trafficked parks at night. But it wasn't until a camera captured a photo of a mountain lion in 2012 that scientists could confirm the lore.

P-22, P as in puma (another word for mountain lion), was a 1.5-year-old male the National Park Service determined had journeyed by himself nearly 30 miles (48km), crossing two major freeways, to end up in Griffith Park, in central LA just outside of Hollywood, where he took up permanent residence.

Nearly overnight, P-22 became Los Angeles's newest celebrity – seen as a mascot for some locals. But P-22's story was also one of isolation, for the mountain lion was miles away from others of his species and would likely stay mateless for life.

When Beth Pratt, California regional executive director at the non-profit National Wildlife Federation, first read about P-22, she immediately called Jeff Sikich, a wildlife biologist for the National Park Service.

"He gave me a tour of Griffith Park. And then he talked about not just P-22 but the entire mountain lion population in the Santa Monica Mountains. And P-22 was just one example. The worst example," says Pratt.

Pratt learned from Sikich that while P-22 was rare in that he had survived leaving the western Santa Monica Mountains to cross into the eastern flank of the mountain range, he was not alone in his seclusion. Most of the mountain lions living in the western range were also stuck and inbreeding, because of how the city's transportation infrastructure had evolved.

In fact, road development in Los Angeles has cut off many species from their normal roaming territory, from bobcats to birds. Solitary mountain lions, which seek out "home ranges" of up to 250 sq miles (648 sq km), are among the most affected.

"These roads were just literally dooming this population to extinction because they were trapped and isolated and were inbreeding themselves out of existence, which science was starting to show," says Pratt. "And it was that day [at Griffith] I literally was like, 'Oh my God. We have to do something.'"

Thirteen years later, Los Angeles is gearing up to open the largest wildlife crossing in the world. Set to open in 2026, the 165ft (51m)-longbridge will mirror the desert terrain of the nearby valley and be dotted with rocks and low shrubs to reconnect the Santa Monica Mountain range. It will allow mountain lions and other species, such as coyotes, bobcats and deer, to roam more freely.

Wildlife crossings are used globally as a way to let animals safely cross roads and highways, from migrating red crabs in Australia's Christmas Island to "ecoducts" in the Netherlands used by wild boar, badgers and foxes. But Los Angeles's crossing stands out not just for its magnitude, but its location: in the US's second largest city, often considered the birthplace of the country's modern highway system.

What Pratt didn't know when she first learned of P-22 back in 2012 is that there was already an effort underway in Los Angeles to fix the problem of separated wildlife corridors.

Scientist and researcher Paul Edelman had for decades been putting together an effort to build a bridge between mountain ranges to let animals like pumas range more freely and lower the risk of being run over.

His efforts began in 1989 when he was a consultant for the non-profit The Nature Conservancy and was given a grant by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state authority, to study what it would take to connect Southern California's three mountain ranges.

"I was just put in a fortunate position to where I was told, 'Okay, here's some money, and you get a year to study this and produce something.' And so I got to devote my working life to studying it and it just very soon became crystal clear what we needed to do," says Edelman, who is now deputy director of natural resources and planning at the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

After he submitted the study in 1990, Edelman determined there was a need to build a crossing over the eight lanes of the 101 Freeway at a place in Calabasas called Liberty Canyon, where two parcels of publicly owned land could be connected by a bridge.

Mountain lions are routinely struck and killed by traffic in California. A 2024 report from the University of California, Davis, found that 613 of them were killed on California roads between 2016 and 2023. Vehicle collisions with large animals such as mountain lions and deer also cost $1.64bn (£1.2bn) during that seven-year period, the report noted.

The problem is especially bad near the Santa Monica Mountains, where over 300,000 cars use the 101 Freeway daily, according to Pratt. More than a third of all the mountain lion deaths on roads in California happen on the stretch of highway that crosses through these mountains, says Edelman.

Animal roadkill is an issue that persists across the US but is especially a problem in the Midwest and West where there are large open roads and migrating herds of large animals from elk to deer to wolves, according to Patricia Cramer, founder of US-based non-profit The Wildlife Connectivity Institute, whose PhD was on pumas in Florida.

Cramer studies transportation ecology, which considers how animal crossings can lead to safer roads, fewer accidents, less expensive costs to automobiles and longer lives for animals. She is confident that the new crossing will benefit California's puma population. "Pumas are really widely distributed. They go 10 miles (16.1km) in a night. They will find it, and they'll find it quickly," Cramer says.

"People will say: 'All that money for one structure?' But Beth Pratt and her company, they've brought so much attention to the idea," she adds.

She says that getting communities to invest in wildlife crossings is not just about animal safety though, it also requires buy-in from local communities and state officials. "They have got to care enough to want to save the species of wildlife in their area."

In California, Edelman was so passionate about the cause he would spend the next two decades of his life working on it. To connect the two parcels of state-owned park land on either side of the 101, Edelman needed to buy up land that lined the freeway. This was largely smaller privately owned parcels of land, and he ultimately amassed 12 of these. One was a proposed storage facility, another a planned condo complex, another previously used to keep beehives, he says.

To fund these purchases, Edelman used a combination of state funds from two propositions that passed in 1992 and again in 1996, he says, which provided funds to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, as well as proceeds from fees collected at a nearby county landfill. It took 32 years, but by December 2021, Edelman had purchased 439 acres (1.8 sq km) for $16m (£11.7m).

While his work was ongoing, researchers were continuing to document telltale signs of inbreeding among the species, like kinked tails and males having only one descended testicle.

"We never thought it would take that long. But the complexity of it, I guess I never gave up on it," says Edelman. "We got the land, and then somebody came through and said, 'Let's do the bridge.'"

The bridge would take millions more to build. That's where Pratt says she realised she could play a connecting part – as a leader at a non-profit, she could help fundraise through private donations, and she used P-22 as the face of the effort.

It started with tapping into the virality of the puma, whose famous photo in front of the Hollywood sign appeared on front pages and was featured on CBS News' 60 Minutes. The marketing campaign included a fundraising video with an actor from the US version of The Office, a "Ghost Cat" red wine that gave part of its proceed to the #SaveLACougars campaign, a P-22 ugly Christmas sweater that featured LA's notorious traffic, and a limited edition library card.

Pratt established an Instagram account for P-22 with the caption "LA's loneliest bachelor". It generated 15,400 followers. His Facebook page has 27,000 followers. The pages highlight murals dedicated to P-22 across the city, as well as progress on funding for the wildlife crossing. Pratt dubbed P-22 the "Brad Pitt" of pumas.

Pratt said some scientists thought what she was doing was bizarre – turning P-22 into a meme of sorts – but she realised the LA community connected with P-22 on a deep level.

"I think building relationships with animals is actually what we need to be doing, and what humanity has done for a long time," she says.

The story of P-22 captivated donors. The fundraising campaign raised over $100m (£73m) for the crossing with a roughly 50/50 split between public and private funds, according to Pratt. Most of the private funds came from the Annenberg Foundation, Pratt says - leading to the crossing being named after heiress and philanthropist Wallis Annenberg.

Celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio and Barbra Streisand donated as well as 6,000 individual contributions from people around the globe from Bolivia to Australia, Pratt adds.

To get the crossing built, the #SaveLACougars campaign turned to landscape architect Robert Rock, president of Rock Design Associates, an architecture firm based in Chicago.

Rock says he immediately connected with the project on a personal level.

"Growing up in rural Iowa, hitting a deer is a pretty common thing. It's a traumatic moment when you hit a large animal," he says.

Rock consulted with several experts including wildlife biologists and structural engineers. Their goal was to not only figure out how to build the momentous structure 210ft (64m) long and 174ft (53m) wide, says Rock,but also how to make sure animals would use it. That meant considering everything from the impact of the traffic's sound, the slope of the bridge, planted vegetation, sun glare, burying transmission lines and the colour of the poured concrete.

Fires were also a consideration, because the area frequently burns. In fact, construction was put on pause momentarily in February 2025 after a spot fire burned the freeway for a day and the Palisades fire continued to burn into Malibu nearby, according to Pratt. In 2018, the area was scorched during the Wolseley Fire, which burned 96,949 acres (392 sq km) through the Santa Monica Mountains. Plants growing on the crossing will be watered by sprinklers that can double as ground wetters in the face of future fires.

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The hope is that the crossing will also be an escape route for impacted animals. During the Woolsey fire, conservationists saw the devastating impacts of isolation on mountain lions. Two tagged males perished, according to a report by Associated Press – including one that had escaped the flames but later died of malnourishment with badly burned paws, according to Pratt.

"California is a wildfire state, wildfires are part of the natural ecological function here. So any plant or animal in California has some adaptation to fire, but these are not wildfires," says Pratt. "These are human-caused fire storms that are running hotter, longer, faster, and so the adaptations that once worked for these animals don't work."

Several factors influence how well-used a wildlife crossing is, including its width. One 2022 review of 120 wildlife passes around the world found that wider crossings helped a greater diversity of species to use the crossing effectively. Crossings around 50m (164ft) wide or more were often "ecologically sound and cost-effective solutions", the authors wrote.

However, a well-proportioned wildlife crossing can still face challenges, as animals can be deterred by noise pollution. One 2018 report analysed 20 wildlife crossings in California to see how animals were using them at night, finding that sound-sensitive species – including mountain lions – were less abundant near noisy crossings.

The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing won't officially open until late 2026, but it has already spurred momentum in the wildlife crossing space, according to Pratt and Rock. Pratt has launched the Wildlife Crossing Fund, with help from Annenberg, where she consults with outside groups how to create similar campaigns for wildlife corridors in places like Washington, Colorado and Florida.

Rock is now working on drafting plans for everything from a salamander crossing down in Jackson, Mississippi, to a crossing for bighorn sheep on the nation's first tribal national park in North Dakota.

In 2021, the US Congress provided funding for a wildlife crossing pilot programme administered by the Federal Highway Administration to reduce wildlife vehicle collisions. While the bill passed by former President Joe Biden is facing defunding under the current administration, ecologists like Cramer hope the programme will become permanent.

In Southern California, wildlife crossings are already growing in popularity. There's also a study underway for a bridge across Los Angeles’s Interstate 5 and 100 miles (161km) north of Los Angeles another crossing was recently funded to cross the 101 Freeway along the Gaviota coastline.

In December 2022, P-22 started exhibiting erratic behaviour. At 12-years-old, the mountain lion began coming closer to houses and humans and attacked and killed a small dog as he was being walked on a leash. When park officials captured him, they found P-22 was suffering from rodenticide and looked like he'd been hit by a car.

The day before they put him down, Pratt said she finally got to meet P-22 face to face, the mountain lion she'd made a central part of her life for the past decade. Separated by a fence, she said she talked to him about the movement he had helped inspire.

"I told him he was a good boy and to look at what we were doing. And not only did this one crossing get built, but all were going to get built because of him," Pratt says.

"It's probably the first time in history that a mountain lion saw a blonde woman sobbing to him out of control."

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Birds without borders: UK and German experts unite to help coastal species

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr79jyjdn44o, today

German researchers visited Norfolk to see how conservationists protect birds nesting along the coast.

The group from the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) met with the RSPB to share experiences of managing similar species on beaches in Europe.

Mick Davis, senior beach warden on the Norfolk coastline, said the area was home to one of the largest colonies in the northern hemisphere of little terns.

He said: "These birds are dying out at the moment and we're in a project where we're trying to get them back and protect them."

Despite being on different sides of the North Sea, the areas share some of the same species of birds, including ringed plovers and little terns.

Mr Davis said this year, the Norfolk coastline had been home to 271 little tern nests, and there were now 500 chicks running around the beach.

Ahead of the nesting season, the RSPB met with residents and put up an electric fence every April.

The charity also strung up poultry netting to stop animals from entering the area and eating eggs.

"We do have to be aware of every sort of animal that could come into the colony, whether that be a squirrel, a deer or a fox, or possibly a dog with a human could try and jump the fence or push it down," Mr Davis added.

He said the beach was made secure so the birds could use the beach without their nests being disturbed.

Dominic Cimiotti, team leader for coastal birds at NABU, said: "It's a really nice area here at The Wash with huge beaches and these mudflat areas.

"It's very similar to the Wadden Sea in the Netherlands [ and Denmark and Germany], which is a world heritage site.

"It looks quite similar, and that's the reason why we can exchange our knowledge here because we work in a similar situation with similar bird species."

Steve Rowland, RSPB area manager for Norfolk, said: "The birds don't respect borders, everybody knows that birds migrate and it's a great chance to share what we've learned here in Norfolk, with this really important colony here and it's really important to understand what our German colleagues have been learning as well."

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Sites chosen for new state-backed Welsh windfarms

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g26x1p219o, today

Wales' new publicly-owned renewable energy developer has announced where it plans to build its first wind farm projects, promising hundreds of jobs.

Three sites have been selected, with the potential to generate enough clean electricity to power about a quarter of Welsh homes.

Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru was set up by the Welsh government to speed up the delivery of renewable energy projects on public land while ensuring the profits stayed in Wales.

But the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales (CPRW) questioned why so many onshore wind farms were needed when Wales had "enormous potential" for schemes to be built out at sea.

Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru, which means Green Electricity Wales in Welsh, was launched in 2024, with the aim of developing 1 GW worth of new renewable energy schemes on government-owned land by 2040.

Ministers had been inspired by similar state-backed firms such as Sweden's Vattenfall, which owns Wales' largest onshore windfarm - Pen-y-Cymoedd.

Having the country's own renewable energy developer means profits generated by Wales' wind can be retained and reinvested locally in communities and public services, the government argues.

The company has now unveiled its first three proposed wind farms, in north, south and west Wales.

Clocaenog Dau wind farm will see 67 turbines built near Llyn Brenig, along the border between Conwy and Denbighshire.

Glyn Cothi wind farm, near Brechfa in Carmarthenshire, will have 27 turbines.

Carreg Wen wind farm, between Aberdare and Maerdy in Rhondda Cynon Taf, will be made up of 18 turbines.

Should all three make it through the planning process as well as securing connection to the grid, they will generate enough electricity to power the average needs of 350,000 homes.

The building work is anticipated to cost £500m, creating about 650 construction jobs.

Forty direct and 55 indirect jobs are also promised over the wind farms' 35-year operational lifetime.

Ministers said the schemes would help meet the growing need for clean energy in Wales.

Electricity demand is projected to nearly triple by 2050, fuelling the switch to electric vehicles, heat pumps and other low carbon technologies.

The Welsh government has set a target for Wales to generate enough renewable electricity to meet 70% of what's used in Wales by 2030, rising to 100% by 2035.

What about pylons?

Two of the projects already have an offer of connection to the grid network.

There are plans for a wooden pole line to connect the Glyn Cothi wind farm to a proposed new substation in Llandyfaelog, Carmarthenshire.

Similarly a wooden pole line would run from the Carreg Wen wind farm to a planned new substation near Hirwaun, Rhondda Cynon Taf.

Both substation projects – as well as the prospect of more overhead transmission lines - have already proved controversial locally.

Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru says it will begin a series of public information and engagement events later this year, with the aim of submitting planning applications in 2027.

"Communities will be involved and funding will support local priorities," said chief executive Richard Evans.

"With Trydan driving development, and with the profits from this investment retained in Wales, we have a unique opportunity to optimise the projects and the multiple benefits they bring."

Energy Secretary Rebecca Evans added: "By developing these projects on the Welsh government woodland estate, we're making best use of our public land to tackle the climate emergency and create sustainable economic opportunities."

Natural Resources Wales (NRW), which manages the land where the turbines will be built, said it would ensure all infrastructure was "integrated carefully into the working forest".

Tree clearance will be kept to a minimum, environmentally sensitive features will be protected, and any areas cleared of trees will be replaced through our Compensatory Planting Programme," explained Elsie Grace of NRW.

"Vital timber production and environmental protection can continue, while additional revenues are generated by the wind farm projects," she said.

Jonathan Dean from the CPRW warned there would be local opposition.

"I think the local communities will have problems with them, because they will be of an unprecedented scale," he said.

"The biggest wind turbine in Wales is currently under 150m (tall), these will be at least 200m - it's another step up."

He said the group was supportive of green energy and not against the use of wind turbines, but that there was "enormous potential" to site these out at sea.

"We really don't see that there is any need to put them in as many places onshore as is being planned."

Councillor calls man-made global warming a 'hoax'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0j458q00e2o, today

A senior Reform UK councillor has been criticised after claiming man-made global warming is a "hoax".

Bert Bingham, cabinet member for transport and environment at Nottinghamshire County Council, made the comments during a public meeting on Thursday.

He claimed data is "manipulated" and people have been "brainwashed over time through the media".

Bingham declined the BBC's request for an interview.

Bingham was speaking during a debate on a motion tabled by Labour councillors which called for the Reform-run authority to recommit to becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

"I've been involved in award-winning sustainability projects for 25 years, and I've never seen such nonsense as the anthropogenic global warming hoax," he said.

"The statistics are manipulated. I've followed it over decades, there's lots of science out there, but at the moment it seems to be as in a lot of matters with Covid, if you follow the money, you find the science or the pseudoscience."

Scientists around the world agree human activities are causing temperatures to rise, and the year 2024 was the world's hottest on record.

It was also the first calendar year to surpass 1.5C (34.7F) of warming, according to the Copernicus climate service.

The UN's climate body - the IPCC - concluded in 2023 that "human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming".

Bingham said Reform UK is opposed to net zero targets "but that does not mean we don't support environmental protection, sustainability, resource efficiency, industrial symbiosis - many areas I've worked in."

He added that declaring a climate emergency was "absolutely ridiculous and nonsensical".

"They'll have us back living in mud huts - if even living at all - by the time they're done," he said.

He said he was "happy to debate people at any time on the price of energy and how it's manipulated".

He declined to be interviewed by the BBC at the end of the meeting, saying he had a prior engagement.

Labour county councillor Helen Faccio, who tabled the motion, said she was "stunned" by the comments.

She added: "I don't think it's really appropriate that you think you know better than a whole body of evidence and scientists who present all this information all the time and have told us this is happening - we can see it is happening."

Other Reform UK councillors applauded at the end of Bingham's speech.

Council leader Mick Barton told the BBC he does not agree with Bingham that man-made global warming is a hoax, but is "more than happy" for him to continue in his cabinet role.

"I'm the leader but I don't tell Bert what to say and I don't tell Bert what not to say, that's up to councillor Bingham."

"Bert Bingham is one of the best cabinet members I've got and if he's got his own opinions on climate change, I ain't got a problem with that."

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Is this the end for Easter Island's moai statues?

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250702-the-indigenous-restorers-of-easter-islands-moai-in-the-face-of-climate-change, 8 days ago

Easter Island's famous moai statues are crumbling into the sea, forcing locals to face urgent decisions about how best to protect their heritage.

In an ancient quarry on top of a volcano on a remote Pacific island, half-finished figures hewn into the rock ignore Maria Tuki as she walks by.

The rugged faces of these figures sport world-famous furrowed brows and sloping noses. This is the land of the moai, iconic human statues unique to Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island – an isolated island around the size of Washington DC situated 3,500km (2,170 miles) off the coast of Chile.

Before my visit, I expected to see just a couple of these famous faces at designated tourist sites. But the sheer number of the moai is breathtaking; bits of them are strewn alongside roads, bordering the coast, and shouldering hills. Together, they form a real physical reminder of this land's ancient history.

Centuries ago, Tuki's ancestors carved and chiselled many hundreds of monoliths like the ones here. Evidence of that activity is everywhere, both in the heavily worked quarry itself, where some still remain deeply embedded in the mountain, and in the surrounding land, where finished statues lie abandoned, forming paths to the island's edge. It is thought that teams of workers sometimes lost their grip while transporting the statues to the stone platforms dotted around the coast.

At first glance, the imposing moai, with their stern expressions, seem hardy. But they are made from tuff, a volcanic rock largely composed of compressed ash. This type of stone is porous and unusually soft. The wind and rain do not treat it kindly.

Up close, the aging visages of the moai are riddled with signs of erosion and staining. They are gradually wearing away to dust. Tuki, who works in Rapa Nui's tourism industry, is essentially watching these stunning figures slowly disappear. "My father told me that the moai would go back into the ocean one day," she says. Tuki's father, who died in 2020, was a famed contemporary moai sculptor.

The original statues, mostly carved between 1100 and 1600AD, are increasingly the subject of conservation efforts, given that weathering – supercharged by climate change – threatens to destroy them. Community leaders in Rapa Nui are looking for ways to track and mitigate the damage, trying everything from chemical treatments to making 3D scans of the statues using drones before they are lost. All options are on the table as the community grapples with how to manage its rapidly changing heritage – from relocating them out of harm's way to allowing them to succumb to it, as some argue is part of the moai's lifecycle.

There are roughly 1,000 statues on the island in various stages of completion, with about 200 perched on their final platforms, known as ahu. The majority of these platforms are positioned along the island's coast, staring silently out to sea.

The moai were created by the first communities of Polynesian people living on the island to represent the likenesses of their ancestors and the family of chief Hotu Matu'a, who is thought to have first settled the island after canoeing to Rapa Nui from an island in East Polynesia. At some point in the late 18th and early 19th Century, the statues were all mysteriously toppled, likely because a new religious movement took hold on the island, or possibly because of some conflict – historians have yet to find definitive answers. Due to the formidable history etched in these huge stone statues, in 1995 the Rapa Nui National Park was listed as a Unesco World Heritage site.

Still, the moai aren't perfect and pristine statues, shielded from their surroundings. In fact, they began deteriorating as soon as they were carved, according to the 1997 book Death of a Moai by historian Elena Charola. The tuff was stressed as it was chipped and pecked out of the quarry, chafed by ropes, then scratched and scraped on the long journey downhill, Charola writes.

From the day they were erected, the sun, wind, rain and vagaries of temperature have also taken their toll on the moai. When moisture from sea spray evaporates, salt crystallises inside the soft volcanic tuff expands, causing the statue to flake or spall, creating hairline cracks and honeycomb-shaped cavities. I notice lichens growing on the surface of many of the statues, with the appearance of concentric rashes.

Animals interfere with the moai, too. Horses and cattle scratch their itches on the monoliths while birds claw into the tuff and deposit toxic droppings, or guano, which erodes the material yet further. In 2020, a truck accidentally crashed into one of the faces.

Crucially, though, weathering of the moai appears to have increased sharply during recent decades, Daniela Meza Marchant, lead conservator for the Ma'u Henua Indigenous community that runs the Rapa Nui National Park, has said. She noted that images and records from the past century show alteration has increased over the past 50 years compared to the previous 50.

In fact, according to a 2016 Unesco report, the Rapa Nui's moai are among the heritage sites most affected by climate change worldwide.

Over the last few decades, rainfall on Rapa Nui has decreased radically, becoming more sporadic but also more potent, pummelling the moai more aggressively than before. The island already has little tree coverage, but frequent droughts have dried up freshwater reserves and can boost the risk of wildfires. One wildfire in October 2022 charred and cracked some 80 moai in Rano Raraku, the volcanic crater that contains the famous quarry where many monoliths were carved. The resulting damage was "irreparable and with consequences beyond what you can see with your eyes", local authorities said at the time.

Rising sea levels and increased extreme wave events are also eroding the island. This is one of the most imminent threats to the moai, the Unesco report states, as more than 90% of the standing monoliths are positioned along the coast.

People have tried to save the moai before. Over two decades starting in the 1970s, American archaeologist William Mulloy carried out several restoration efforts on the island, re-erecting statues and reassembling fragmented platforms which had been toppled en masse in the early 1800s. In the 1990s, a site called Tongariki that had been swept away by a tsunami during the 1960s had its moai erected again by local archaeologists.

More recently, in 2003 a Japanese-funded Unesco project waterproofed the Tongariki statues with a chemical agent designed to make the tuff more resistant to sea spray. However, the expensive and delicate treatment must be reapplied every five to 10 years, a burden on the few local resources available. Several other locations are pending this preventive intervention, according to local magazine moeVarua Rapa Nui.

Some conservation efforts, though, have gone wrong. In 1986, researchers from the Senckenberg Natural History Museum in Germany made silicone moulds of the statues in an effort to make replicas, but inadvertently peeled off a surface layer of tuff from the monoliths, eroding the statues even more. "The colour of the stone was completely altered," notes one study about the incident.

Today, moai preservation is steadily improving, aided by new technology and occasional funds from international organisations.

To try to counter the impacts of sea level rise, in 2018, local archaeologists reinforced two seawall-like structures by a moai site called Runga Va'e to prevent waves encroaching onto the ahu platform. They also pieced back together parts of the platform, which had crumbled over time, and reinforced it. The team used drones to make 3D scans of the area, allowing them to plan restoration and conservation work without having to do large, invasive digging operations.

US-based non-profit CyArk has also helped the Rapanui people to create accurate 3D models of all the island's ahu and moai using drones, cameras and laser scanners.

"You're taking thousands of these overlapping photos and then creating a 3D model taking the points in common between different photos," says Kacey Hadick, CyArk's heritage programme manager who has worked on the island since 2017. "This can help monitor changes over time, rates of erosion, and gives a really good record of what the current state of things are."

In 2023 Unesco's undersecretary of cultural heritage Carolina Pérez Dattari allocated $97,000 (£72,000) for damage assessment, repair and future risk management plans for the moai scorched by wildfires in 2022.

After an initial analysis, in May 2025, the Ma'u Henua team began the physical conservation work for this project on five of the most fire-damaged moai, says Ariki Tepano Martin, the Ma'u Henua president.

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Their lead conservator Meza Marchant assembled canopies to shield the moai from weather conditions and reduce their moisture levels. She is now treating the fire damage with a chemical solution concocted for the moai by stonework restorers from the University of Florence, who've been working with the Rapanui since 2009. The Italian experts have already tested the solution on small rock fragments from the charred moai in their laboratories: the liquid acts like a gentle but thorough wash that cleans off the black soot from the flames.

Meza Marchant will also use other similar chemical treatments developed by the Italians to strengthen the stone, rid it of lichens with an antibiotic-like treatment, and make it water-repellent, protecting it from sea spray and rain damage, similar to the glaze used on the Tongariki, says Tepano Martin. Constant monitoring is carried out to verify whether the treatment is producing the expected results, in the hopes of halting the ongoing deterioration of the moai.

High import taxes on these specialist chemicals from Italy, though, have made this operation harder than predicted, Tepano Martin says.

Eight years ago, Meza Marchant used some of these Italian techniques to restore the Ahu Huri a Urenga, a rare moai with four hands which is one of the few perched atop a platform on the interior part of the island. The statue, which stands along the winter solstice line and was used for astronomical observations, was re-erected by archaeologists in the 1970s after the 18th Century topplings, but became eroded over time.

Once the five moai have been conserved, the Ma'u Henua group aims to use them as a blueprint for all future monolith conservation and restoration projects on the island. Until now, "every hole, every bit of maintenance, required a special permit", says Tepano Martin. "The project with these five moai will help us generate a moai conservation protocol so we no longer need to request permission moai by moai each time." Still, they only have financing for these first five moai.

Cognisant of the environmental threats, Tuki and her husband, who also works in tourism, tell me some locals believe the moai would be better preserved in museums. A new museum is currently under construction on the island, and plans suggest it will likely host and protect some moai statues.

As we trek up the volcanic hill of a ceremonial village called Orongo, they show me some of the island's most eroded and ruined artefacts: ceremonial hieroglyphs on large slabs of stone around the village. A special moai used to sit atop this hill: the Hoa Hakananai'a statue, which has unique hieroglyphs across its back. The statue was taken from Rapa Nui by British sailors in 1868 and is on display in the British Museum in London.

Considering the frailty of these hieroglyphs in particular, Tuki and her husband say some locals believe the statue is safer in London, guarded by security cameras, a glass encasement and humidity gauges. Arguably, the couple says, the Hoa Hakananai'a also serves as an ambassador for Rapanui culture to the hundreds of thousands of people who might be able to visit the museum, but not this remotest of islands. Many locals, on the other hand, are adamant that the statue should be repatriated.

For others, though, destruction of the monoliths is simply part of the moai's lifecycle.

"Many believe the moai should, as they are, go into the ground and disappear. Let the moai go to their hanua, their land, and let them go back home," says Dale Simpson Jr, an archaeologist at University Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the US who studies Polynesian carving tools. He notes that many communities across the Pacific destroy artefacts and regalia purposefully. "Everything's on a lifecycle, and it begins and it ends. We may see it as destruction, but it's the life line of a statue."

Some Rapa Nui locals fervently disagree, however. For them, the moai represent a cornerstone of cultural heritage and an irreplaceable masterpiece of scientific and historical human creativity. They also attract more than 100,000 visitors to Rapa Nui annually, where tourism has become the main driver of the economy.

"Their preservation is not merely desirable, it is absolutely imperative," says archaeologist Claudio Cristino-Ferrando from the University of Chile, who is based in Rapa Nui. He thinks standing by and watching these monumental works deteriorate is "entirely untenable" and the idea of their "return to nothingness" misguided. "Such thinking contradicts not only our fundamental duty as custodians of human cultural heritage but also the original intent of Rapa Nui tradition itself," he says – that the moai should serve as testaments of the Polynesian ancestors' arrival on the island.

Amidst this debate, the Ma'u Henua group aims to take a multi-pronged approach to ensure the best chances of keeping moai statues on the island, combining conservation with support for the ongoing creation of new artefacts. Alongside the group's conservation work, Tepano Martin hopes to develop programmes that incentivise local artisans to continue making moai and to pass on traditional tuff carving techniques to younger generations.

Some of the moai sculpted by Tuki's father can already be found standing more than two metres (6.6ft) tall outside the island's airport. They were also sent to represent the Rapanui people in Santiago and Valparaíso in mainland Chile, and to Spain and Japan.

"It's not just about protecting the moai, we're protecting the moai to ensure the preservation of our people on this island," says Tepano Martin. "Our culture lives on. It is still alive, and we can preserve our ancestors' tradition by creating something new."

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Heatwave to peak this weekend as temperatures soar to 34C

https://www.bbc.com/weather/articles/cd0vy9gmdg4o, today

* Published10 July 2025, 09:48 BST

* 367 Comments

Temperatures are forecast to increase across the UK over the next few days - reaching above the official heatwave threshold in some places for the third time this year.

Highs of 34C are likely on Friday and possibly Saturday, with the sweltering temperatures continuing into early next week.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has extended yellow heat health alerts to cover every region in England, which will remain in place until 10:00 BST on 15 July.

The warnings mean that health and social care services could be significantly affected by the weather – through increased demand or a rise in deaths.

Yellow alerts are less serious than the UKHSA's amber alerts, which were issued during previous spells of hot weather this year.

Thursday is set to be a warm day for much of England and Wales, with temperatures reaching between 24C and 28C.

The hottest areas are likely to be in the south Midlands, central southern and south-east England with temperatures of 30-32C.

By Friday, the heat will move into Scotland and Northern Ireland, which could both see their hottest days of the year if temperatures exceeds 29.1C and 29.5C, respectively.

Breaching this threshold is even more likely on Saturday, when it could reach 33-34C in England and Wales.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has an "extreme wildfire warning" in place from Friday until Monday, covering different parts of the country across the weekend. It is urging the public to exercise "extreme caution" when outdoors.

Firefighters have had to tackle a number of wildfires during recent warm periods.

This heatwave's peak is unlikely to exceed the UK's highest temperature of the year so far, when 35.8C was reached on 1 July in Faversham, Kent, during the last heatwave.

The Met Office defines a heatwave as when a temperature threshold - which varies by region - being reached or exceeded for at least three consecutive days.

[people looking hot and bothered with mini fans]

After the hottest opening day to Wimbledon (32.2C), the women's and men's finals over the weekend will also see temperatures exceeding 30C.

However, it is likely to fall just short of the hottest Wimbledon finals day, of 34.1C in 1976.

By Sunday, a cooler north-easterly breeze will develop, shifting the hottest weather into more central areas of England and eastern Wales.

Temperatures will begin to fall in Scotland and Northern Ireland on Monday as showers and cooler air moves in from the north-west.

Cooler weather is forecast to spread to all parts of the UK on Tuesday, marking the likely end of the heatwave.

[view over a field with yellow crop, surrounded by green hedges and blue skies overhead]

How unusual is a third summer heatwave?

Comparing heatwaves is difficult because they are location dependant and the current Met Office definition has only been in place since 2019.

A heatwave occurring at some point during the summer is fairly common.

While this heatwave likely to be the UK's third, Scotland and Northern Ireland did not reach heatwave conditions during the last one.

The last time the UK experienced three heatwaves was in 2022, when the highest temperature on record - 40.3C - was observed at Coningsby.

In terms of the number of heatwave days - when at least one location meets the temperature threshold - there have been 25 days so far in 2025.

Only in 1989 and 2018 were there more heatwave days by this point in the year - with 26 and 34 days, respectively, according to data from weather website Starlings Roost Weather, external.

Though hot weather is expected during the summer, temperatures over the next few days will be around 7-10C above average for mid-July.

While linking climate change with specific individual extreme weather events can be difficult, scientists say climate change is generally making heatwaves hotter, longer and more frequent.

The head of conservation at the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust, Matt Jackson, told BBC Breakfast the heat has both short- and long-term impacts on wildlife.

"The short-term impacts are [that] we can see things happening so much earlier in the year – things are happening 10 or 15 days earlier than we would have expected even only 20 years ago," he said.

"The difficulty is that things go out of sync. We get the butterflies which feed the birds, for instance, coming out [at a time that is] out of sync with the bird breeding cycle - so they don't have the amount of food they need to feed their chicks."

But Mr Jackson said the longer-term changes were the "biggest problem", such as soil moisture levels changing the plant ecosystems.

"We think drought is now the biggest threat to nature reserve management across the country.

"It is changing the way our nature reserves work and we're having to try and work out how to adapt to that."

* Met Office

* UK heatwaves

* Climate

* Heatwaves

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Will there be a drought where I live?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crk661074ejo, 3 days ago

If you live in north-west England or Yorkshire, you are already in an official state of drought, the Environment Agency says, and people living in other English regions could follow if the dry weather continues.

Those of us in eastern Scotland or parts of Wales are also seeing low water levels, according to water companies there.

Drought can affect different aspects of our lives and the environment. It can make it harder for farmers to grow crops, do harm to nature and mean you have to change how you use water.

Yorkshire has become the first region to declare a hosepipe ban this year, for example.

So how is your area doing and how close are you to a drought? Here's a look at what's happening around the country, including our rain, rivers and reservoirs.

One of the driest springs on record

There is no single definition of drought or water scarcity - the measure in Scotland - but a long period of low rainfall is needed.

And it rained less than normal across almost all of the UK between March and May, the UK's sixth driest spring since records began in 1836.

So there has been less moisture to top up our rivers, reservoirs and rocks below the ground.

If that lack of rainfall continues for a long time, it can strain the water supplies that serve our homes and businesses.

In June there was slightly more rainfall than average for the UK overall, but with a big difference between east and west.

Parts of Northern Ireland, western Scotland, Wales and south-west England saw wetter conditions than usual. But most of central and eastern England and Scotland saw dry weather continuing.

Long-term forecasts suggest drier than average conditions through much of July and possibly August too.

That would further increase the risk of drought.

Drier rivers for most of the UK

Monitors in rivers show us how they are flowing. At the end of May these river flows were classed as "below normal" or lower for about three-quarters of monitored sites around the UK.

About one in five experienced "exceptionally low" flows.

Provisional June data doesn't look much better.

River flows at the end of last month were about the same as - or even below - previous drought years of 1976, 2011, 2018 and 2022 for many eastern, central and southern regions, said Lucy Barker, hydrologist at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH).

Soils are also much drier than usual across large parts of the UK, particularly England, UKCEH data shows.

Dry soils harm plant growth, hitting ecosystems and crop production. This dried-out vegetation also brings a higher risk of wildfires.

Drier soils also warm up more quickly, which can amplify heatwaves.

Exceptionally low reservoirs in north England

Reservoirs are a crucial part of water supplies in northern England, Scotland and Wales.

At the end of May, England's reservoirs were at their lowest combined levels for the time of year in records going back more than 30 years.

Reservoir levels in the North East and North West were exceptionally low - an important factor for drought being declared in Yorkshire and the North West.

The main reason for this is, of course, the lack of rain, but a small number reservoirs can be affected by other factors.

Normally at this time of year, Scottish reservoirs are 85% full. In late June they were at 79%, according to Scottish Water. They are even lower in eastern Scotland.

In Wales, most are around normal, although the reservoirs serving Mid and South Ceredigion in west Wales are below average, Welsh Water said.

Reservoir levels are about average in Northern Ireland, according to NI Water.

A more mixed picture underground

Much of south-east England relies more heavily on groundwater than reservoirs.

Groundwater originates as rainfall and is naturally stored beneath the surface in the pore spaces and fractures in rocks. Rocks that store lots of groundwater are called aquifers.

It accounts for a third of England's water supply, though this is much higher in the south and east.

That is down to the UK's varied geology, which affects how much water can be stored in the ground.

Water can flow more quickly through some rock types than others, sometimes taking years to respond to current conditions.

This is the case for parts of south and east England, which is why these regions are currently closer to normal.

These groundwater stores "respond more slowly to changes in the climate than rivers which is why they provide a useful buffer during periods of drought," said Prof Alan MacDonald of the British Geological Survey.

It is why groundwater droughts in the South generally take a longer time to develop but can be longer-lasting if they do occur.

What are the consequences of the dry weather?

People and nature are already feeling the effects.

"It's quite shocking that we are still only [in early] July," Rachel Hallos, vice-president of the National Farmers' Union, told BBC News.

"It's like it's the end of August when you look at the ground."

With this little rain, farmers have had to get water onto their crops using irrigation.

That has made things more expensive for them and means there is even less water to go around.

There is widespread concern about the months ahead, Mrs Hallos added.

"What am I going to have to harvest? What am I going to have to feed my livestock over winter?"

And then there is the impact on wildlife.

A spokesman from the bird protection charity RSPB said that a big challenge has been making sure enough water is getting to key wetland habitats so that birds have safe places to nest.

"We need to be thinking about making our sites more resilient to climate change, as these periods of prolonged dry weather become the norm."

And it's not just water-loving birds that are having a hard time. Even in our gardens, common visitors like blackbirds can struggle to find worms and insects on our parched lawns, the RSPB says.

Is climate change to blame?

Droughts are complex phenomena, driven by a mix of natural and human causes.

The Met Office expects the UK to experience drier summers on average in future as the world warms, though there has been no clear trend so far.

But rising temperatures can play a more fundamental role by sapping moisture from the soil via evaporation.

"A warmer atmosphere is thirstier for moisture and this can mean water in the soil, rivers and reservoirs are depleted more effectively, leading to more rapidly onsetting droughts, heatwaves and wildfires," said Richard Allan, professor of climate science at the University of Reading.

But there are other factors that determine whether dry conditions lead to water shortages, including how we use water.

As part of plans to address water shortages, the government is planning nine new reservoirs for England by 2050, in addition to one under construction at Havant Thicket in Hampshire.

But the Environment Agency has warned that measures to tackle water leaks and control water demand - potentially including hosepipe bans and more smart meters - may be needed in England too.

Water companies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also said they were taking steps to secure future supplies.

Additional reporting by Dan Wainwright and Christine Jeavans

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The Vienna cemetery where endangered species and biodiversity thrive

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250707-the-vienna-cemetery-where-endangered-species-and-biodiversity-thrive, 3 days ago

In Vienna, Europe's second-largest cemetery has embraced biodiversity – without disturbing the dead.

Some of the greats are here. Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms. As well as the Hollywood pin-up-turned-inventor Hedy Lamarr – oh, and Austrian rock icon Falco. This is their final resting place.

But tread carefully through the Vienna Central Cemetery in the early hours of the morning and you might catch a glimpse of something moving between the weathered headstones. Not ghosts – but puffy-cheeked European hamsters. They're very much alive.

These adorable mammals reside in the Park of Peace and Power on the northern side of the cemetery. Narrow trails on the ground reveal where they have been scurrying lately. Once considered a pest, the hamsters are now critically endangered in Europe. Urbanisation and industrial farming have decimated their habitat in recent decades, and should their population continue to decline, they are likely to be extinct by 2050 according to the IUCN Red List. For now, they're clinging on to life here – in Europe's second-biggest cemetery. As unlikely as it might seem, this place is a perfect home for them. The landscapers are careful not to disrupt their burrows, and visitors like to leave snacks for them. In winter, when their natural food supply runs low, the hamsters often pilfer candles from nearby graves to eat the oil-rich wax.

Urban cemeteries are overlooked biodiversity hubs even though they are similarly valuable to urban parks in terms of species conservation. A 2019 review of graveyard biodiversity identified 140 protected species in cemeteries around the world, from the orchids of Turkish cemeteries to the increasingly scarce steppe vegetation found on burial mounds in Eurasia.

As places of tranquillity with great cultural and spiritual importance to many, cemeteries have largely missed the effects of urbanisation that have taken place in their surrounding cities during recent centuries. As such, they represent refuges for local wildlife and can serve as stepping stone habitats – small patches of nature that animals use to migrate between larger natural areas. This is especially crucial in cities, where green spaces are shrinking and animal habitats are increasingly fragmented.

The wild inhabitants of the vast Vienna Central Cemetery, which spans 2.4 sq km (0.9 sq miles), are watched over by Thomas Filek, researcher at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna. Walking across the meadow that has become home to the European hamsters, he points out their small burrows in the tall grass. "We've talked to the gardeners about working in a way that protects biodiversity, and not mowing everything is a big part of it," says Filek. "It's important to think in cycles – it starts with plants, they bring insects, the insects bring birds and so on."

Filek has been documenting local biodiversity with the help of citizen scientists here since 2021 as part of a wider project called Biodiversity in the Cemetery (Biodiversität am Friedhof), which encompasses other graveyards around Austria. The project, based at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, receives over 3,000 sighting reports from citizen scientists across different cemeteries every year.

Besides the hamsters, the Vienna Central Cemetery is also home to endangered species protected by the EU Habitats Directive including the European green toad, the Alpine longhorn beetle and the European ground squirrel. The Eurasian hoopoe, which is common in Europe but locally endangered, has also made a home here. In total, Filek and his volunteers have counted more than 240 different animal and plant species here since the project started in 2021.

Cemetery biodiversity is a niche field of study, with researchers often focusing on specific species or sections of a cemetery. This makes cross-country comparisons difficult. A citizen science project comes with its own blind spots, admits Filek: "People tend to notice animals that are big and fly around, less so the small stuff". To counter this, they work with university students who research overlooked areas, like the tiny critters that colonise dead wood, as part of their thesis project.

The cemetery has been famous for its wildlife long before Filek started documenting it, and is a popular haunt for birdwatchers, wildlife photographers and nature lovers. On this windy spring day, the air is filled with birdsong as two playful squirrels chase each other across the graves and into a nearby tree. Lifting some wooden planks that have been purposefully stacked in the grass after a burial, Filek reveals a microcosm of small insects, bugs and snails. No deer, foxes or hares on this visit – they prefer to keep to themselves and often retreat to quieter sections of the cemetery during the day.

Cemeteries are "a mosaic of different habitats," says Ingo Kowarik, an urban ecologist and retired professor at the Technische Universität Berlin who led one of the first comprehensive surveys of cemetery biodiversity at Berlin's Weißensee Jewish Cemetery in 2016. "This means that species from forests, hedgerows, grasslands and even fields can find substitute habitats there." Man-made features such as mausoleums, tombstones and walls may also support plants and animals that would, in the wild, colonise caves, rocks and cliff faces.

However, such features can also confuse animals – a 2007 study of a Hungarian cemetery found that black gravestones attract dragonflies because their reflective surface resembles water. Poorly planned or maintained cemeteries can also be a source of soil and groundwater pollution, especially in countries where embalming and casket burials are common, while cremation contributes to air pollution.

At the Vienna Central Cemetery, a meadow near the hamster's headquarters is reserved for natural burials, abutting the rows of more traditional graves, covered with stone slabs, ornamental flowers and those delicious candles. Nearby, there are patches of lush forest where final resting places are marked by towering trees and often frequented by deer. "There's an echo of the historical past," says Kowarik, referring to how cemeteries, in general, can preserve wildlife and habitats, even as cities grow up around them.

It was while working as a freshly qualified biology teacher that Filek decided to look more closely at the wildlife in his city. "Very few of us will ever make it to Borneo to see the orangutans," he says. "I wanted to show my students what can be done here."

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Initially, however, Filek couldn't find much information about which species were present in the Central Cemetery. That changed thanks to a conversation with Florian Ivanič, a landscape gardener who has worked at the cemetery since 1982. Ivanič led efforts to turn 10 acres (40,000 sq miles) of unused land in the cemetery into a nature garden in 2011. There, plants and animals are left to their own devices as much as possible, with rockeries, ponds and piles of dead wood providing additional microhabitats.

"It was important to me that we have something just for the animals," says Ivanič. "Parks are easy to set up, a landscape architect plans it and then you just mow it. But parks alone are not enough – we need to leave something to nature."

Filek was immediately impressed with Ivanič’s knowledge. "He knows the cemetery like the back of his hand, he really treasures it," Filek says. "I told him I had this idea for a project highlighting cemeteries as biodiversity hotspots, and he was very supportive."

Filek has worked with the Central Cemetery staff to expand the focus on biodiversity beyond the nature garden. This has involved installing nesting boxes and feeders for birds as well as designating some areas for dead wood and rockeries. Elsewhere, patches of grass are left to grow tall and go to seed. Such measures could be implemented by any cemetery, says Filek. "You can create space for nature behind the graves."

Informational signs dotted around the cemetery explain the importance of different measures and habitats, with photos of the animals that frequent them. The cemetery also offers a guided tour exploring the hamsters' favourite haunts. "People are starting to appreciate that we have something special here," says Filek. "It creates a synergy between cemetery staff, citizens and scientists, who all work together for something worth protecting."

All this effort has begun to pay off. New species such as the locally endangered Eurasian Hoopoe have been sighted in the cemetery since the biodiversity project started. The area's open meadows and old trees reflect the birds' preferred habitat, explains Filek. "By chance, probably also due to changes in the environment, a breeding pair ended up here." Now, five of them are regularly present in the area, and cemetery workers have set up nesting boxes to encourage others to come. Just recently, Filek received the first confirmed sighting of a European Ground Squirrel at the cemetery, a species that is globally endangered and protected under Austrian law.

When new graves are dug, the cemetery administration asks Filek for advice, in a bid to minimise disruption to wildlife. For example, only natural burials are allowed near the hamster's burrows, and only in locations where they are not disturbed.

But biodiversity efforts need to be balanced with the visitors' expectations of what a well-cared-for cemetery looks like. "Some people want it to be more manicured, and you have to take that very seriously," says Kowarik. "There's nothing wrong with that at all, because intensively manicured areas are also a piece of this habitat mosaic. The secret of biodiversity in cemeteries is that so many different things are possible."

Plus, at the end of the day, some of these places are still run as businesses – and that can lead to dilemmas. In Berlin, where most of cemeteries are run privately by religious communities or cemetery associations, many are struggling financially because people are opting for urns over casket burials and spending less on burial plots, says Kowarik.

Private cemeteries do not receive funding from the city to maintain their green areas, so they sometimes end up selling their unused land for property development. "We need more green space in cities, not less. Public funds should be used to continue supporting the crucial ecological and social functions of cemeteries," argues Kowarik.

But at the Vienna Central Cemetery, making room for nature is still a priority. "For us, a cemetery is more than just a burial site and a place of remembrance – it's also a refuge for people, animals and plants," says Lisa Pernkopf, spokesperson for Friedhöfe Wien GmbH, which manages Vienna's public cemeteries. "We've realised how important our green spaces are, especially with the aim of doing something for the urban climate and biodiversity."

Filek's hope is that some parts of the cemetery will eventually become protected under nature conservation laws. He has already discussed his idea with city officials. "We have collected the data," he says. "We know what we have here. Now, we have to protect it – and make sure it stays protected."

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How the Biosphere 2 experiment changed our understanding of the Earth

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250703-how-the-biosphere-2-experiment-changed-our-understanding-of-the-earth, 6 days ago

In the early 1990s, a small team tried to survive in a hermetically sealed space containing replicas of Earth's ecosystems. Their trials and discoveries still have repercussions today.

Glittering in the vast expanses of the Arizona desert lies a structure that seems torn straight out of the pages of science fiction.

Inside a massive complex of glass pyramids, domes and towers, spread across three acres (1.2 hectares), stands a tropical rainforest topped by a 25ft (7.6m) waterfall, a savannah and a fog desert. They sit alongside a mangrove-studded wetland and an ocean larger than an Olympic swimming pool which includes its own living coral reef.

It's seemingly a little capsule of Earth, which is why the structure is called Biosphere 2 – named after our own planet, Biosphere 1.

The desolate landscape forms the perfect backdrop for the futuristic experiment that once took place here. In the early 1990s, eight people locked themselves inside, sealed off from the outside world for two years, to explore the challenges of living in a self-contained system – a prerequisite for building colonies in outer space. They fed themselves from the crops they grew, they recycled their own wastewater and they tended to the plants that produced their oxygen.

In terms of sustaining human life, the experiment did not go well. As one commentator put it in the 2020 documentary Spaceship Earth, "everything that could go wrong went wrong". Oxygen levels plummeted, making the inhabitants sick, while carbon dioxide (CO2) levels increased. Countless animals died, including the pollinators the plants needed to reproduce. And although the "biospherians" did survive on their homegrown food, they lost weight to the point where they became a case study for calorie restriction. When supplementary oxygen needed to be brought in, commentators decried the project as a failure, calling it a "flop" and "new-age drivel masquerading as science". (Hear more about the "Biospherians" and why the Biosphere 2 experiement was one of the most controversial human experiments of the 20th Century in this BBC podcast.)

In recent years, however, many experts have come to see the Biosphere 2 experiment in a new light, with valuable lessons about ecology, atmospheric science and importantly, the irreplaceability of our own planet.

Lisa Rand, a historian of science at the California Institute of Technology, argues that these lessons are especially worth revisiting today as billionaires advance private space programmes and float the idea of space colonies while our own planet is increasingly suffering from climate change and other man-made problems. And to environmental scientists, the Biosphere 2 experiment also demonstrates the value of bold experiments to better understand how the natural world works.

In fact, today, the facility is bustling with scientists testing the effects of climate change on its living ecosystems. Far from helping humans escape Earth, Biosphere 2 seems to have become one of our best tools to understand Biosphere 1.

"It wasn't a failure," Rand says. "I think it was actually ahead of its time."

Though the Biosphere 2 experiment is often described as a test run of a future space colony on the Moon or Mars, the project in fact had deep environmental roots, says Mark Nelson, one of the eight biospherians and a founding director of the non-profit Institute of Ecotechnics.

The idea for Biosphere 2 came from a group of people – including Nelson – living in an ecovillage on a New Mexico ranch who spent their time organic farming and doing performance art and carpentry. The group's founder, John Allen, dreamed of building a self-contained system to better understand Earth's complexities and find ways of using technology to more peacefully exist with the natural world, Nelson says.

The project was bankrolled by billionaire Ed Bass, who put about $150m towards Biosphere 2 (equivalent to $440m today, or £330m). Under Allen's leadership, building began in 1984. It was – and remains – the largest building of its kind to be nearly fully sealed off from the atmosphere, Nelson says.

Though none of its ecosystems was a perfect model of its real-world counterpart, each one was designed with similar kinds of vegetation, along with a selection of insects, fish, and birds, says John Adams, the current deputy director of Biosphere 2. A patch of farmland was included to grow crops. An underground system of piping and pumps controlled everything from temperature to humidity. Other systems recycled wastewater for crop irrigation and harvested drinking water from condensation in the air conditioning units. Biosphere 2 was intended to operate for a century, but when the biospherians entered the facility in September of 1991, "it was such a vast experiment that none of the eight of us had any certainty we could last one way or another for two years in there," Nelson recalls.

Nelson and Adams see the events that unfolded inside not as failures, but as the outcomes of an experiment, as would occur in any other scientific study. "In science, there's no such thing as a failed experiment," Adams says.

The most pressing issue for the biospherians was the decline in oxygen levels, which dropped from normal levels – roughly 21% of the atmosphere – to about 14% after 16 months. That's equivalent to oxygen levels at about 3,350m (11,000ft) above sea level. Until supplementary oxygen was brought in, the biospherians grew tired and weak from altitude sickness, making farming and other work arduous, Nelson recalls. These and other problems took scientists a while to figure out, says David Tilman of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, who was part of a committee of ecologists that reviewed the experiment after it concluded. "It was very clear to us that the problem was much more complex than you might imagine at first," he says.

Experts worked out that the cause was the extremely rich, young soils that had been introduced to fuel rapid growth of crops and other vegetation. This created a lot of food for bacteria and fungi, which, like us, consume oxygen and emit CO2. The trees and shrubs in the new ecosystems – which take up CO2 and release oxygen – were too young and too outnumbered by microbes to counterbalance this effect. "I think that was a really important lesson to learn: that that [soil] microbiome, even though we can't see it, is extremely influential," Adams says.

Fortunately, the rise in CO2 – a greenhouse gas that heats up the atmosphere – was buffered by the fact that much of it got soaked up by the facility's concrete surfaces. The biospherians also did their best to stem the rise as well as boost oxygen levels. They cut dead grasses in the savannah and trimmed fast-growing rainforest species to stimulate new growth – storing the cut vegetation in dry conditions to slow down its decomposition, a process that releases CO2, Nelson says. They also planted fast-growing plants like sugarcane and created a bed of algae in the basement – but oxygen levels still waned.

While some "extinctions" within the ecosystems were expected as they settled into an equilibrium, the vanishing of pollinating insects was an unexpected problem for plant life. Nelson attributes this to an explosion in the population of longhorn crazy ants that prey on pollinators, while ecologist Brian McGill of the University of Maine suggests they may have died off because the glass enclosing Biosphere 2 blocked ultraviolet light, which the insects needed to find flowers. "Bees in particular see in the UV spectrum," he says.

The issue wasn't urgent as most of the ecosystems' flowering plants were long-lived, but some biospherians pollinated a few species by hand, brushing pollen into flowers so seeds could form, Nelson says. The long-term plan was to control the ant populations and introduce new pollinators from the outside world.

Scientists made other interesting observations. Some trees, they realised, became weak and more prone to breaking, likely because of the lack of wind, which triggers trees to produce "stress wood" that strengthens them, McGill says. Marine biologist and geoscientist Diane Thompson, who now directs marine research at the facility, says that scientists also learned a lot about the kinds of light that corals need to thrive in captivity.

But the most important lesson from the biospherians' experience, experts agree, is the realisation of how difficult it would be to live anywhere else than on Earth. Humans can't exist in isolation; they come in "biospheric packages", as Nelson puts it, and recreating these complex systems is no easy task. While Tilman reckons that some of the problems may have been solvable, it was clear during his visit to the facility that it was a long way away from being able to sustain human life. "It really impacted me when I saw that, because… my initial guess was that you would probably make it work," he says. Now, "I firmly believe that this really is our only planet ever".

By extension, the experiment therefore deeply underscored the need to protect our planet in an intact state. Consider the immense technological costs – not to mention the hard physical work by the biospherians – to keep the atmosphere and life support systems intact. Tilman estimates that, if future space colonies are anything like Biosphere 2, they'd cost $82,500 (£61,000) per person a month to live in, and even that would be no guarantee of sustaining human life. "It's incredibly expensive to try to replace the services that the Earth's ecosystems provide for free to humanity," Tilman says.

To Nelson, realising that his own survival was entirely dependent on the health of the ecosystems around him was transformative, as he wrote with colleagues in the book Life Under Glass. Being a biospherian meant living as sustainably as possible – using the gentlest of farming practices, avoiding pollution anywhere inside Biosphere 2, and respecting every oxygen-producing plant. "Just being in a small system where you see that reality – that you're part of that system, and that system is your life support – changes the way you think at a very deep level," Nelson says.

When the experiment concluded in 1993, these messages were largely overshadowed by the negative media coverage around the project, Rand says. In her view, this was because of how it appeared to clash with widely-held views at the time.

Many experts had rigid views of how science should be done and didn't consider it a legitimate experiment. It had been funded by a wealthy individual rather than a government and conducted by self-taught science generalists rather than scientists with PhDs from academic institutions. Rand believes this would be far less controversial today.

Meanwhile, because the public saw the project as a "glass ark" or a model of a future space colony, the biospherians were seen to be "cheating" when one of them was taken to hospital due to a finger severed in a rice-hulling machine, or when they installed the oxygen pump, Rand says. "I think it's fair to speculate that the events that were perceived by journalists [and the public] as failures might have been seen as normal, valid experimental results if the project took place now," she says.

The negative media perception – as well as disagreement around how to manage Biosphere 2 after the original experiment ended – created challenges for those overseeing the project, Adams says. In 1996, Ed Bass handed over management of the facility to Columbia University and eventually gifted it to the University of Arizona. Scientists at those institutions saw the unique opportunity that Biosphere 2 provided, says Adams.

Ecologists who study how living systems work usually do so by analysing what happens in the aftermath of vicissitudes like heatwaves or drought, McGill says. But in order to predict how climate change, for instance, will alter Earth's ecosystems in the future, they need to recreate future conditions and see how living beings respond. Like a time machine, Biosphere 2 allows them to do just that. From its very first experiment, "Biosphere 2 was just a really cool and vivid stake in the ground about the need for ecology to be predictive," McGill says.

Today, Biosphere 2's rainforest is the stage for experiments testing how its real-world counterparts might fare under global warming. One study dialled up the temperature and found the forests to be surprisingly resilient to heat; rather, it's the drought associated with warming that hurt them. More recently, the ecologist Christiane Werner from the University of Freiburg, Germany, and her colleagues exposed the forest to a 70-day drought. They learned how some trees survive by tapping into deep, moist soil layers and that drought-stressed trees release more compounds called monoterpenes, which form airborne particles that could potentially serve as seeds for much-needed rain clouds. Thanks to Biosphere 2, "you can send a whole grown forest into a drought and then monitor all these processes along the way", she says.

The coral reef, meanwhile, was the site of one of the first experiments to show that as the oceans become more acidic – which happens when they absorb CO2 – this makes it harder for corals to grow and thrive. Now, scientists are simulating severe heatwaves in Biosphere 2's mini-ocean, and plan to test whether probiotics or exposing corals to heat before transplanting them onto the reef can make them more resilient. "If we warm the ocean," Thompson asks, "will those solutions work – not just now, but decades into the future?"

Adams says he hopes that Biosphere 2 can do for ecologists what the Large Hadron Collider is doing to improve physicists' understanding of particle physics, and what the James Webb Telescope is doing for astronomers striving for deeper glimpses into the universe.

But ecology's mega-experiment doesn't only help us better understand the intricacies of the living world and how it's changing amid planetary upheaval. Its story, Nelson says, should also inspire and help every one of us to take better care of our only life-sustaining planet, Biosphere 1. Ultimately, we are all biospherians.

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Recent droughts are 'slow-moving global catastrophe' - UN report

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg33r1xgymo, 9 days ago

From Somalia to mainland Europe, the past two years have seen some of the most ravaging droughts in recorded history, made worse by climate change, according to a UN-backed report.

Describing drought as a "silent killer" which "creeps in, drains resources, and devastates lives in slow motion" the report said it had exacerbated issues like poverty and ecosystem collapse.

The report highlighted impacts in Africa, the Mediterranean, Latin America and Southeast Asia, including an estimated 4.4 million people in Somalia facing crisis-level food insecurity at the beginning of this year.

It recommends governments prepare for a "new normal" with measures including stronger early warning systems.

"This is a slow-moving global catastrophe, the worst I've ever seen," said co-author Dr Mark Svoboda, founding director of the US National Drought Mitigation Center.

"This report underscores the need for systematic monitoring of how drought affects lives, livelihoods, and the health of the ecosystems that we all depend on."

The Drought Hotspots Around the World report identifies the most severely impacted regions from 2023 to 2025.

During this time, the warming effects of climate change were made worse by an El Niño, a natural climate phenomenon that affects global weather patterns.

An El Niño happens when surface waters in the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean become unusually warm.

It often leads to drier conditions in regions such as southern Africa, parts of south-east Asia, northern South America, and south-east Australia.

Pressure from humans, for example the use of irrigation in agriculture, has also put a strain on water resources.

Drought-linked hunger

By January 2023, the worst drought in 70 years had hit the Horn of Africa, coming from years of failed rainy seasons in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

This followed the deaths of an estimated 43,000 people in Somalia in 2022 from drought-linked hunger.

African wildlife was also affected, with hippos in Botswana stranded in dry riverbeds, and elephants culled in Zimbabwe and Namibia to feed hungry communities and prevent overgrazing.

The report highlights how drought hits the world's most vulnerable people including women hardest, with often far-reaching impacts on society.

Forced child marriages more than doubled in four regions of Eastern Africa hit hardest by drought, as families scrambled to secure dowries to survive, it noted.

"The coping mechanisms we saw during this drought grew increasingly desperate," said lead author Paula Guastello. "Girls pulled from school and forced into marriage, hospitals going dark, and families digging holes in dry riverbeds just to find contaminated water - these are signs of severe crisis."

While low- to middle-income countries bore the brunt of the devastation, none could afford to be complacent, the report says, noting how two years of drought and record heat cut Spain's olive crop in half.

In the Amazon basin, record low water levels killed fish and put endangered dolphins more at risk as well as hitting drinking water supplies for hundreds of thousands of people.

And drought even had an effect on world trade - between October 2023 and January 2024, water levels fell so much in the Panama Canal that daily ship transits dropped from 38 to 24.

"Drought is not just a weather event – it can be a social, economic, and environmental emergency," said report co-author Dr Kelly Helm Smith.

"The question is not whether this will happen again, but whether we will be better prepared next time."

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How unusual is this UK heat and is climate change to blame?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2k1103vljqo, 11 days ago

A second spell of temperatures well over 30C before we've even got to the end of June - how unusual is this and how much is climate change to blame?

Temperatures of 34C are possible on Monday or Tuesday in south-east England.

They've been triggered by an area of high pressure getting "stuck" over Europe, known as a heat dome.

But climate scientists are clear that the heat will have inevitably been boosted by our warming climate.

Some people might feel these temperatures are "just like summer" – and it's true they are a lot cooler than the record 40C and more the UK hit in July 2022.

But it's important to be aware just how unusual mid-thirties temperatures are for the UK.

In the second half of the 20th Century, one in ten years saw highs of 35C or more, BBC analysis of Met Office data shows.

But this heat is becoming more common. Between 2015 and 2024, half of the years saw 35C or above.

And these temperatures are particularly unusual for June, typically the coolest summer month.

"Recording 34C in June in the UK is a relatively rare event, with just a handful of days since the 1960s," said Dr Amy Doherty, climate scientist at the Met Office.

The hottest June temperature recorded since 1960 is 35.6C in 1976. The next years on the list are 2017 with a June high of 34.5C and 2019 with 34.0C.

Forecasts suggest that 2025 could come close to those.

And further data from the Met Office also shows that over the decade 2014-2023, days exceeded 32C more than three times as often in the UK as during the 1961-1990 period.

Role of climate change

It is well-established that climate change is making heatwaves stronger and more likely.

As humans burn coal, oil and gas and cut down forests, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere.

These gases act like a blanket, warming the Earth.

So far humans have caused the planet to heat up by 1.36C above levels of the late 1800s, leading scientists reported earlier this month.

That might not sound a lot. But even a small increase in the Earth's average temperature can shift heat extremes to much higher levels.

It will take time to work out exactly how much climate change has added to this heatwave's temperatures. But scientists are clear that it will have boosted the warmth.

"We absolutely do not need to do an attribution study to know that this heatwave is hotter than it would have been without our continued burning of oil, coal and gas," said Dr Friederike Otto, associate professor at Imperial College London.

"Countless studies have shown that climate change is an absolute game-changer when it comes to heat in Europe, making heatwaves much more frequent, especially the hottest ones, and more intense," she added.

Scientists are still debating how climate change is affecting the formation of heat domes, the immediate cause of the heatwave.

One theory suggests that higher temperatures in the Arctic - which has warmed nearly four times faster than the global average - are affecting the fast band of winds high in the atmosphere known as the jet stream, making heat domes more likely.

That is far from certain, but the basic effect of warming the planet makes heat domes more intense when they do form.

"What is crystal clear is that climate change is loading the dice such that when a heat dome does occur, it brings hotter and more dangerous temperatures," said Dr Michael Byrne, reader in climate science at the University of St Andrews.

And as climate change continues apace, heatwaves will keep on getting more likely and could reach even higher temperatures.

"The severity of summer heatwaves, but also extremes of dry as well as wet weather events, will continue to worsen until we rein in our greenhouse gas emissions and stabilise our warming climate," said Richard Allan, professor of climate science at the University of Reading.

Adapting to a warmer world

Temperatures in the mid-thirties are more common in other parts of the world of course.

But in many cases the UK's infrastructure – from roads and railways to hospitals and care homes – is simply poorly designed for such heat.

The Climate Change Committee - the government's independent adviser - has warned, for example, that more properties are likely to be at risk of overheating in the decades ahead.

And these risks are not evenly distributed among the population.

"Air conditioning and other cooling systems become crucial to maintaining health, productivity and quality of life amidst rising temperatures," said Dr Radhika Khosla, associate professor at the University of Oxford.

"The most vulnerable – including older people, young children, and pregnant women – face the greatest risk," added Dr Madeleine Thomson, head of climate impacts and adaptation at the Wellcome Trust, a health charity.

"A 45C summer in the UK is now a near-term threat and we are dangerously unprepared."

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'It's insane to build the same thing and expect different results': Can LA fire-proof itself?

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250626-can-la-fire-proof-itself, 13 days ago

Six months after the wildfires tore through Los Angeles, residents are tussling with the urban destruction left behind – and a debate over the future of the city's buildings.

Countless Los Angeles streets still contain the charred remains of homes that succumbed to wildfire six months ago. Many of their inhabitants are still living with friends and relatives or in hotels, hostels and shelters.

With more than 16,000 homes and buildings destroyed in the January 2025 wildfires, the LA neighbourhoods and nearby communities affected have been left contemplating how best to balance the need to get their homes back as soon as possible with future resilience to wildfire.

Today, even as the city faces the new turmoil of immigration raids ordered by President Donald Trump and the extensive protests that have followed, LA is clearing debris and preparing to rebuild.

Progress so far has been slow, however, with few permits issued to rebuild (in Palisades, for example, just 125 rebuild permits have been issued out of 558 applications, the LA Department of Building and Safety told the BBC). Many residents have moved to communities far from the homes they lost, according to an investigation by the New York Times.

Faced with a daunting rebuild, many contractors and homeowners want to build quickly, with some working to loosen environmental protection code and permit requirements. Meanwhile, wildfire experts tell the BBC they want to ensure new construction is compliant with fire and energy codes, while sustainability advocates say they hope greener methods and materials will enter the market.

"There are going to be hard decisions on how we want to rebuild versus what is technically required," says Ian Giammanco, managing director for standards and data analytics at the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS), a South-Carolina-based research group funded by the insurance industry.

California's building code was updated in 2008 to establish standards for wildfire-resistant construction. It requires the use of non-combustible materials and for homeowners to maintain defensible space around the home, such as by creating a safety buffer cleared of vegetation or debris. California is one of only five US states to apply a specific building code to areas designated as having very high wildfire risk.

Homes which had been constructed after 2008 in the LA neighbourhood of Pacific Palisades, which lost 6,837 structures in the Palisades Fire, were built with these requirements in place. But in Altadena, an area north of downtown LA where many neighbourhoods were affected by the Eaton Fire, many homes did not fall under the fire code.

In March, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, a state agency often referred to as Cal Fire, expanded its maps of areas required to use the code, with existing homes at a minimum creating defensible space by clearing brush. The expansion means about 500 additional homes affected by the Eaton Fire will be covered by the code by late July 2025, according to analysis by US broadcaster NPR, but still leaves about 7,800 structures outside the high-risk zone.

Some of the proposed methods are already being used in the wider US. In Colorado, for example, where a 2021 wildfire destroyed nearly 1,000 homes in the Denver suburb of Superior, some homeowners have opted to rebuild using compressed earth blocks that have a high resilience to fire.

And CalEarth, a California-based nonprofit that pioneered a type of earthbag construction called super adobe, has drawn renewed attention from residents, says Khalili, and is urging state and local officials to work with them on making their designs code-compliant.

"Let's do the full tests… and build back prepared for these climate events," Dastan Khalili, president of CalEarth, tells the BBC. "It's insane to build the same thing and expect different results."

But bringing alternative building methods to market is costly, especially in California, where materials must prove to be fire-resistant while also passing stringent seismic testing.

Any alternative material, such as rammed earth – a building technique using compacted soil mixed with water and stabilisers which has been used for over 1,000 years, including, in recent decades, in California – must be submitted for testing, typically by manufacturers, says Crystal Sujeski, chief of code development and analysis for CalFire. This testing needs to prove they are equivalent to or exceed the standard set by conventional, widely used materials. "A lot of [testing] options are out there," she says.

New building materials that pass multiple tests can also be added to a register of approved materials, she says.

Khalili says CalEarth has always designed structures to comply with international building codes and has planned tests to meet the fire and seismic requirements of California's code. "All of that is ready to be executed," he says. "The only thing that's stopping us is the funding to go after it and make it happen." Burn tests in a fire lab for a single new material, he says, run at around $40-50k (£30-37k), and the required seismic testing can triple or quadruple this bill.

As a result, rammed earth homes and other alternative structures can be costlier than using more conventional methods – and even then, the process of approving construction at the state and municipal levels is arduous.

Ann Edminster, a green building consultant and author based in northern California, says that the ease and cost of the permitting process is highly dependent on the jurisdiction and who you work with. "The building official will either be your best friend or your worst enemy," she says.

It creates a wall of inertia boxing out those with interest in experimenting with alternative materials, she says. And in any case, if you have just lost your home to fire and don't have a place to live, "you're probably not going to be super enthusiastic about testing some brand new material", she says.

Still, there are relatively straightforward options for fire-proofing new builds – especially considering the risks of not doing so. A 2022 report by IBHS and Headwaters Economics, a Montana-based research institute, found that wildfire-resistant construction adds from 2% to 13% to the cost of a new home in California, with the upper cost here going well above current required codes. "Increasing home loss and growing risks require reevaluating the wildfire crisis as a home-ignition problem and not a wildland fire problem," the report said, noting that a home's building materials, design and nearby landscaping all influence its survival.

Stephen Quarles, an advisor emeritus at the University of California who has spent decades researching how building materials perform during wildfires, says it's more straightforward to obtain approval for smaller alternative projects.

Quarles emphasises that wildfire building codes are flexible and allow for traditional construction to be adapted and use more sustainable materials. For instance, a homeowner constructing a straw bale home can coat the exterior with a fireproof material to get approval from a code official.

"You could say, 'My cladding is stucco, which is non-combustible,' and you would be good to go," he says.

But he also acknowledges that most homeowners just want to rebuild as quickly as possible.

When the June 2007 Angora fire destroyed 280 homes in neighbourhoods around Northern California's Lake Tahoe, some residents raced to rebuild before the stricter code regulations took effect the following January, Quarles recalls. Later that same year, after the Tubbs fire ripped through the Coffey Park neighbourhood of Santa Rosa, the community "built back as if there [hadn't been] a wildfire there", he says.

But he believes the latest Los Angeles wildfires – along with the 2023 Lahaina fire on Hawaii's Maui island, which were called the "largest natural disaster in Hawaii state history" – have alerted people to the importance of hardening their homes in the future.

A January 2025 study found that the hot, dry weather that gave rise to the LA fires was made about 35% more likely by climate change. The LA wildfire season is getting longer, the study noted, while the rains that normally put out the blazes have reduced.

"There's an acknowledgement that these fires can happen in places where you don't expect fires to happen," Quarles says. "I think that's taking hold and there is a desire to genuinely build back better."

Giammanco, who contributed to a March 2025 report by IBHS documenting which types of homes survived the fire, agrees. "If you look back at our history of construction, there are inflection points," he says.

The report showed that homes compliant with California building codes had a higher survival rate than those which were not. But some homes that took preparatory steps, such as clearing brush and creating defensive space, still succumbed when enough of their neighbours had not taken these steps.

"Even the most hardened materials when subject to extreme fire exposure will reach their limit," Giammanco says. "Defending a community is sort of a system that builds on itself."

More like this:

• The people rebuilding their homes with earth

• Could a buffer shield Californian homes from wildfire?

• How wildlife survives after wildfires

When wildfires spread in urban areas, the homes they ignite become "fuel bombs" and intensify the blaze, says Kimiko Barrett, lead wildfire research and policy analyst at non-profit research group Headwaters Economics. "The home itself is the fuel," she says. "Once your neighbour's house starts to burn, the radiant heat means that your home is threatened as well." This is a particular problem in LA, which despite its sprawling footprint is actually still a densely populated area, especially relative to more rural communities.

Slow progress in retrofitting existing homes remains a major problem, says Giammanco – and homes that predate California's 2008 wildfire code are not mandated to do it. But there is precedent for incentive and rebate programmes in the US to help make homes more resilient to extreme weather, from initiatives in arid south-western cities for residents to collect rainwater to an Alabama programme providing grants up to $10,000 (£7,400) to install roofing resilient to wind and rain. Giammanco says similar programmes for wildfire protection could incentivise residents to make their homes more resilient to fire. "I think that's the missing link," he says.

Adding fire-resistant materials in retrofits such as fibre cement siding and enclosing roof eaves to make it code compliant costs just a few thousand dollars, Barrett says. Other steps are even easier, such as clearing bark mulch from a home's defensive space.

"A lot of these mitigation measures can be done over the weekend by the homeowner," she says.

It's still early days in LA for the thousands of homeowners preparing to rebuild, but there are signs that the construction industry is starting to adapt. The LA-based homebuilder KB Home, for example, has designed a fire-resilient community with 64 homes that comply to IBHS standards.

When it comes to building new homes, Edminster emphasises that simple structures with minimal openings and overhang can be best, comparing an ideal fire-resistant home to an aerodynamic car. "The same principle could and should apply to homes," she says. "Obviously we don't want to live in little round spaceships or something, but… get your outer shell so that it works really well."

Sustainable building advocates are also pushing for greener materials and methods to become commonplace, arguing that they can be used in fire-hardened homes while also reducing emissions and bringing costs down in the longer term. For existing houses, simple retrofitting steps can improve the sustainability as well as the resilience of a home – even when they don't use the greenest materials possible. Some of Edminster's clients have retrofitted homes to be fire-resistant without stripping everything out. "That's a terrible waste of material and the embodied carbon in them," she says. "So there's a trade-off."

Edminster is adamant that building codes should stay in place after a disaster. "The whole idea of relaxing code to make it easier for people to rebuild, I think, is nonsense," she says. "[They] have been put in place to protect people and to protect us as a society."

And while many of the structures lost in the Eaton fire remain outside the boundaries of California's wildfire code, Barrett believes there is precedent for drastic change. US cities began mandating fire hydrants and sprinkler systems around the turn of the 20th Century after major urban fires in Chicago and San Francisco. Earthquake codes became stiffer in the 1970s, requiring buildings to retrofit for seismic risk reduction

"We can do this. We have done it before," Barrett says. "We just need to now think of it through a wildfire lens."

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Trump upbeat on Gaza ceasefire talks despite lack of breakthrough

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2k14n9d8y9o, 3 days ago

US President Donald Trump has said the Gaza ceasefire talks are "going along very well", despite no breakthrough in the latest round of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas in Qatar.

Discussions are set to resume on Tuesday, though a Palestinian source familiar with the talks told the BBC they have not made any headway.

Trump spoke to reporters as he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on Monday evening. Afterwards, a senior Israeli political official said the talks in Doha were still some way off from what Israel wanted to achieve.

Trump has recently increased pressure on Israel and Hamas to agree a deal, saying he believed it would be done this week.

As they met for dinner, Trump and Netanyahu were asked about Israeli and US proposals suggested earlier this year to permanently relocate Palestinians from Gaza.

Trump said he had co-operation for this from countries neighbouring Israel, while Netanyahu said he was working with the US on finding countries that will "give Palestinians a better future".

"If people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave," Netanyahu said.

The proposals to force Palestinians out of Gaza have been condemned by the UN, Arab leaders, human rights organisations, and Western governments.

Arab countries, led by Egypt, have suggested an alternative plan involving massive reconstruction in Gaza, while Palestinians stay there in temporary housing units.

The UN has warned that the deportation or forcible transfer of an occupied territory's civilian population is strictly prohibited under international law and "tantamount to ethnic cleansing".

Netanyahu also appeared to again rule out any potential Palestinian statehood, saying that Israel will "always" keep security control over the Gaza Strip.

"Now, people will say: 'It's not a complete state, it's not a state.' We don't care," he said.

The concept of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel is supported by the vast majority of the international community, and about three quarters of UN member states officially recognise the State of Palestine.

Meanwhile, Israel's defence minister told Israeli media that he had instructed the military to prepare a plan to move all two million Palestinians in Gaza into a camp in the south after screening them to ensure they were not Hamas operatives.

The plan has been described by one Israeli human rights lawyer as an "operational plan for a crime against humanity".

Trump previously said he would be "very firm" with Netanyahu about ending the war.

But a Palestinian official familiar with the ceasefire talks told the BBC on Tuesday that the three rounds of indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel since Sunday have yielded no progress.

"The negotiations haven't made any headway, not even an inch," the official said.

"The Israeli delegation simply came to listen and has no real mandate to negotiate."

The official expressed astonishment at recent media reports claiming significant progress, calling them "delusional" and "misleading".

Another Palestinian official told the BBC: "Hamas is beginning to question Israel's true intentions, accusing it of fostering a false sense of optimism in Doha without any real progress in the discussions."

Trump said Hamas "want to meet and they want to have that ceasefire".

According to Israeli Army Radio, the senior Israeli political official told reporters in Washington following the Netanyahu-Trump meeting: "I don't know if a deal will be signed in the coming week - it requires pressure and patience."

"We're about 80-90% of the way toward what we wanted in the previous negotiations."

Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said five of its soldiers had been killed in the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli media said it was caused by a roadside bomb in the area of Beit Hanoun.

A Hamas spokesman said its fighters had delivered a "blow" to the Israeli military in an operation in the area.

The Hamas-run ministry of health said on Tuesday afternoon that at least 52 Palestinians had been killed by Israel in Gaza over the past 24 hours.

The US-backed ceasefire proposal currently under discussion would reportedly see Hamas release 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 dead hostages in five stages during a 60-day truce.

Israel would be required to release an unknown number of Palestinian prisoners and withdraw from parts of Gaza, where it now controls about two-thirds of the territory.

Netanyahu also told reporters he had nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize - reportedly a long-held goal of the US president.

"He's forging peace as we speak, in one country, in one region after the other," Netanyahu said as he presented Trump with a letter he sent to the prize committee.

Netanyahu is visiting the White House for the third time since Trump returned to power nearly six months ago.

But the leaders are meeting for the first time since the US joined Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear sites and then brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.

There is a strong sense that the recent 12-day war has created more favourable circumstances to end the Gaza war.

Witkoff said on Monday that a US meeting with Iran would take place in the next week or so. Trump also said he would like to lift sanctions on the Islamic Republic at some point.

Additional reporting by Raffi Berg

Released Hamas hostage says Trump can bring home those still captive in Gaza

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8xvd4jd0wvo, 3 days ago

An American Israeli man who was held captive by Hamas has told the BBC that US President Donald Trump has the power to secure the release of the remaining hostages and end the war in Gaza.

Keith Siegel, 66, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza during the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023. He was released this February after 484 days in captivity under a ceasefire deal that Trump helped broker just before he took office.

He was taken along with his wife, Aviva, who was held for 51 days before being freed during an earlier ceasefire.

Mr Siegel was speaking ahead of a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump at the White House on Monday evening.

In an interview in Tel Aviv, he thanked Trump for securing his own release and said the president could now do the same for the remaining 50 hostages, up to 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.

"I believe he has a lot of strength, power and ability to put pressure on those that need to be pressured, on both sides in order to get the agreement, get the deal signed, and get all of hostages back and bring an end to the war," he said.

Trump has said he hopes a new ceasefire and hostage release deal will be agreed this week, but it appears there are still significant gaps between Israel and Hamas.

The two sides resumed indirect talks in Qatar on Sunday evening but they ended after three hours without a breakthrough, according to a Palestinian official.

Before he flew to Washington DC, Netanyahu said he believed his meeting with Trump could "definitely help advance that result we are all hoping for".

It is believed the plan includes the staggered release of 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 dead hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

Hamas said on Friday that it had delivered a "positive response". But a Palestinian official said it had requested several changes, including a US guarantee that hostilities would not resume if negotiations on an end to the war failed - an idea Netanyahu has previously rejected.

Mr Siegel described in vivid detail how Hamas members beat and taunted him, and said he was still haunted by the torture of a female captive he witnessed.

He said Hamas operatives had moved him through the streets of Gaza, sometimes in daylight, to 33 different locations during the course of his captivity.

When asked whether he would support a deal which released the hostages but saw Hamas remain in power in Gaza, he replied: "It's of the highest priority and urgency to get all of the 50 hostages back as soon as possible."

But he continued: "We cannot let Hamas continue to threaten people and to kill and murder people, and I think Hamas is responsible for death on both sides."

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says more than 57,000 people have been killed there since Israel launched military operations in response to the 7 October attacks, during which about 1,200 people were killed in Israel and 251 others taken hostage.

I asked Mr Siegel, as he continues to campaign for the release of the remaining hostages, whether his thoughts also focus on the suffering of the Gazan population.

"I believe that peace and security for all people and freedom... are basic human rights that every person deserves," he said.

"I think it's the responsibility of all leadership to ensure that that happens. Any innocent person that is hurt or killed or murdered is something that I hope or I dream will not happen."

Additional reporting by Samantha Granville

First round of Gaza ceasefire talks ends without breakthrough

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crenx445170o, 4 days ago

The latest round of indirect ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas have ended without a breakthrough, a Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations told the BBC.

According to the official, the session lasted for nearly three and a half hours and took place in two separate buildings in Doha.

Messages and clarifications were exchanged between the two sides through Qatari and Egyptian mediators, but no progress was achieved.

The official added that talks are expected to resume on Monday, as mediators plan to hold separate meetings with each delegation in an effort to overcome the obstacles and narrow the gaps between the two sides.

According to Reuters news agency who spoke with two Palestinian officials, the Israeli delegation was not "sufficiently authorised" to reach an agreement with Hamas because it had "no real powers".

The latest round of indirect negotiations come as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Washington to meet Donald Trump.

Netanyahu said he thinks his meeting with the US president on Monday should help progress efforts to reach a deal for the release of more hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza.

He said he had given his negotiators clear instructions to achieve a ceasefire agreement under conditions Israel has accepted.

Hamas has said it has responded to the latest ceasefire proposal in a positive spirit, but it seems clear there are still gaps between the two sides that need to be bridged if any deal is to be agreed.

For now, Hamas still seems to be holding out for essentially the same conditions it has previously insisted on - including a guarantee of an end to all hostilities at the end of any truce and the withdrawal of Israeli troops.

Netanyahu's government has rejected this before.

The Israeli position may also not have shifted to any major degree. As he was leaving Israel for the US, Netanyahu said he was still committed to what he described as three missions: "The release and return of all the hostages, the living and the fallen; the destruction of Hamas's capabilities - to kick it out of there, and to ensure that Gaza will no longer constitute a threat to Israel."

Qatari and Egyptian mediators will have their work cut out during the indirect talks between Israel and Hamas in trying to overcome these sticking points, which have have derailed other initiatives since the previous ceasefire ended in March.

Israel has since resumed its offensive against Hamas with great intensity, as well as imposing an eleven-week blockade on aid entering Gaza, which was partially lifted several weeks ago.

The Israeli government says these measures have been aimed at further weakening Hamas and forcing it to negotiate and free the hostages.

Just in the past 24 hours, the Israeli military says it struck 130 Hamas targets and killed a number of militants.

But the cost in civilian lives in Gaza continues to grow as well. Hospital officials in Gaza said more than 30 people were killed on Sunday.

The question now is not only whether the talks in Qatar can achieve a compromise acceptable to both sides - but also whether Trump can persuade Netanyahu that the war must come to an end at their meeting on Monday.

Many in Israel already believe that is a price worth paying to save the remaining hostages.

Once again, they came out on to the streets on Saturday evening, calling on Netanyahu to reach a deal so the hostages can finally be freed.

But there are hardline voices in Netanyahu's cabinet, including the national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir and the finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who have once again expressed their fierce opposition to ending the war in Gaza before Hamas has been completely eliminated.

Once again, there is the appearance of real momentum towards a ceasefire deal, but uncertainty over whether either the Israeli government or Hamas is ready to reach an agreement that might fall short of the key conditions they have so far set.

And once again, Palestinians in Gaza and the families of Israeli hostages still held there are fervently hoping this will not be another false dawn.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's 7 October 2023 attacks, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 57,338 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Hamas security officer says group has lost control over most of Gaza

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gk79xlzwjo, 4 days ago

A senior officer in Hamas's security forces has told the BBC the Palestinian armed group has lost about 80% of its control over the Gaza Strip and that armed clans are filling the void.

The lieutenant colonel said Hamas's command and control system had collapsed due to months of Israeli strikes that have devastated the group's political, military and security leadership.

The officer was wounded in the first week of the war, which began after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, and has since stepped away from his duties for health reasons.

He shared several voice messages with the BBC on condition of anonymity.

In the messages, the officer painted a picture of Hamas's internal disintegration and the near-total collapse of security across Gaza, which the group governed before the conflict.

"Let's be realistic here - there's barely anything left of the security structure. Most of the leadership, about 95%, are now dead... The active figures have all been killed," he said. "So really, what's stopping Israel from continuing this war?"

"Logically, it has to continue until the end. All the conditions are aligned: Israel has the upper hand, the world is silent, the Arab regimes are silent, criminal gangs are everywhere, society is collapsing."

Last September, Israel's then-defence minister declared that "Hamas as a military formation no longer exists" and that it was engaged in guerrilla warfare.

According to the officer, Hamas attempted to regroup during the 57-day ceasefire with Israel earlier this year, reorganizing its political, military, and security councils.

But since Israel ended the truce in March, it has targeted Hamas's remaining command structures, leaving the group in disarray.

"About the security situation, let me be clear: it has completely collapsed. Totally gone. There's no control anywhere," he said.

"People looted the most powerful Hamas security apparatus (Ansar), the complex which Hamas used to rule Gaza.

"They looted everything, the offices - mattresses, even zinc panels - and no-one intervened. No police, no security."

The officer said a consequence of the security vacuum was gangs or armed clans were "everywhere".

"They could stop you, kill you. No one would intervene. Anyone who tried to act on their own, like organising resistance against thieves, was bombed by Israel within half an hour.

"So, the security situation is zero. Hamas's control is zero. There's no leadership, no command, no communication. Salaries are delayed, and when they do arrive, they're barely usable. Some die just trying to collect them. It's total collapse."

On 26 June, at least 18 people were killed when an Israeli drone strike targeted a plainclothes Hamas police unit attempting to assert control over a market in Deir al-Balah, accusing vendors of price gouging and selling looted aid, witnesses and medics said.

The Israeli military said it struck "several armed terrorists" belonging to Hamas's Internal Security Forces.

In this vacuum, six armed groups affiliated with powerful local clans have emerged as serious contenders to fill the void, according to the officer.

These groups have access to money, weapons and men, and are active across all of Gaza, but mostly in the south.

One of them is led by Yasser Abu Shabab, a figure who has attracted attention from the Palestinian Authority, which is based in the occupied West Bank and is a rival to Hamas, as well as regional players - particularly after Israel confirmed last month that it was supplying him with weapons.

The officer confirmed that Hamas had placed a large bounty on Abu Shabab's head, fearing he could become a unifying figure for its many enemies.

"Hamas would ignore ordinary thieves. People are hungry and [the fighters] don't want to provoke more chaos. But this guy? If the Hamas fighters find him, they might go after him instead of Israeli tanks."

Sources in Gaza told the BBC that Abu Shabab was working to co-ordinate with other armed groups to form a joint council aimed at toppling Hamas.

A retired Palestinian security official, who was part of the force that cracked down on Hamas's military wing in 1996 following a wave of bombings in Israel, said Abu Shabab's network was gaining traction.

"Abu Shabab's group is like an orphaned child who everyone will want to adopt if he succeeds in undermining Hamas rule," said the official, who now lives in Cairo.

"Publicly, all sides deny links to the armed groups in Gaza. But Abu Shabab has met a senior Palestinian intelligence officer three times and sent messages of assurance to the Egyptians through relatives in Sinai," he claimed.

He also said Abu Shabab "maintains good ties with Mohammad Dahlan's camp". Dahlan is a former Gaza security chief who has lived in exile since he fell out with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas 15 years ago.

The Hamas security officer warned the group was "willing to do anything" to eliminate Abu Shabab not because of his current military strength, but out of fear he could become a symbol around which all of Hamas's adversaries rally.

"For 17 years, Hamas made enemies everywhere. If someone like Abu Shabab can rally those forces, that could be the beginning of the end for us."

As Gaza is plunged further into lawlessness, with entire neighbourhoods descending into gang rule, Hamas finds itself not just under Israeli fire but increasingly surrounded by rivals from within.

Israeli defence minister plans to move Gaza's population to camp in Rafah

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8rp31lk7mzo, 3 days ago

Israel's defence minister says he has instructed its military to prepare a plan to move all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp in the south of the territory, Israeli media reports say.

Israel Katz told journalists on Monday he wanted to establish a "humanitarian city" on the ruins of the city of Rafah to initially house about 600,000 Palestinians - and eventually the whole 2.1 million population.

He said the goal was to bring people inside after security screening to ensure they were not Hamas operatives, and that they would not be allowed to leave.

If conditions allowed, he added, construction would begin during a 60-day ceasefire that Israel and Hamas are trying to negotiate.

One Israeli human rights lawyer condemned it as nothing less than an "operational plan for a crime against humanity".

"It is all about population transfer to the southern tip of the Gaza Strip in preparation for deportation outside the strip," Michael Sfard told the Guardian newspaper.

The UN has also previously warned that the deportation or forcible transfer of an occupied territory's civilian population is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law and "tantamount to ethnic cleansing".

There was no immediate comment from the Palestinian Authority or Hamas.

Later on Monday, during a meeting at the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about US President Donald Trump's proposal that the US take over post-war Gaza and permanently resettle its population elsewhere.

Netanyahu said: "I think President Trump has a brilliant vision. It's called free choice. If people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave...

"We're working with the United States very closely about finding countries that will seek to realise what they always say - that they wanted to give the Palestinians a better future."

Trump said: "We've had great co-operation from... surrounding countries, great cooperation from every single one of them. So, something good will happen."

In March, Arab states backed a $53bn (£39bn) Egyptian alternative to Trump's plan for Gaza's reconstruction that would allow the Palestinians living there to stay in place.

They also stressed their "categorical rejection of any form of displacement of the Palestinian people", describing such an idea as "a gross violation of international law, a crime against humanity and ethnic cleansing".

The Palestinian Authority and Hamas also endorsed the Egyptian plan, but the US and Israel said it failed to address realities in Gaza.

Palestinians fear a repeat of the Nakba - the Arabic word for "catastrophe" - when hundreds of thousands fled or were driven from their homes before and during the war that followed the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

Many of those refugees ended up in Gaza, where they and their descendants make up three-quarters of the population. Another 900,000 registered refugees live in the occupied West Bank, while 3.4 million others live in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, according to the UN.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

More than 57,500 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Hamas used sexual violence as part of 'genocidal strategy', Israeli experts say

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1mz8gxzg82o, 3 days ago

Hamas used sexual violence as "part of a deliberate genocidal strategy" during the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, an all-women group of Israeli legal and gender experts allege in a new report calling for justice.

The Dinah Project says the report is based on a review of evidence including first-hand testimony from a survivor of an attempted rape and 15 former hostages held in Gaza, as well as accounts from witnesses to sexual assaults.

It lays out what the group describes as "a legal blueprint for prosecuting these crimes, even when direct attribution to individual perpetrators is impossible".

Hamas has denied its forces committed sexual violence against women or mistreated female hostages.

However, a UN mission concluded in March 2024 that there were "reasonable grounds" to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attack in multiple locations, including rape and gang rape, and that there was "convincing information" that hostages had been subjected to sexual violence, including rape and sexualised torture.

And before they were assassinated by Israel, three top Hamas leaders were also accused by the International Criminal Court's prosecutor of the crimes against humanity of rape and other forms of sexual violence, in addition to murder, extermination and torture.

On 7 October, hundreds of members of Hamas and allied Palestinian armed groups attacked southern Israel, where they killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 57,500 people have been killed, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Warning: Contains graphic descriptions of rape and sexual violence

The Dinah Project was launched after 7 October to pursue justice for victims of sexual violence. It was founded by legal scholar Ruth Halperin-Kaddar, lawyer and former chief military prosecutor Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas, and former judge and deputy attorney general Nava Ben-Or.

It says that the report, which was published on Tuesday, "establishes that Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon, as part of a genocidal scheme and with the goal of terrorizing and dehumanizing Israeli society".

It also "creates a pathway to justice for victims of the 7 October attack and potentially for victims in other conflict zones", according to the group.

The authors say they reviewed a large volume of sources, ranging from social media posts to recorded testimony, as well as forensic evidence and visual and audio evidence.

The report - which does not identify the victims but cites reports that do name some of them - says a female survivor of the attack on the Nova music festival on 7 October told members of the Dinah Project that she was subjected to an attempted rape and sexual assault.

According to the report, one of the 15 former hostages said she was forced to perform a sexual act, which was preceded by sexual abuse and verbal and physical sexual harassment. She also said she endured forced nudity - an experience which was reported by six other hostages as well.

Almost all of the hostages reported verbal and some physical harassment, including "unwanted physical contact in private parts", the report says, while six said they also faced threats of forced marriage.

Two men among the hostages said they were subjected to forced nudity and physical abuse when naked, with one also recounting the shaving of all his body hair, according to the report.

The Dinah Project says the accounts from people who saw or heard incidents of sexual violence showed that such crimes were "widespread and systematic" on 7 October.

According to the report, five witnesses reported at least four separate cases of gang rape; seven reported at least eight other separate cases of rape or severe sexual assaults, some of them in captivity; five reported at least three separate cases of sexual assaults, some in captivity; and three reported three separate cases of mutilation.

Nine of those cases related to the Nova music festival, two to the Nahal Oz military base, one to the Route 232 road, and four to incidents occurring in captivity in Gaza, the report says.

Twenty-seven first responders meanwhile described dozens of cases which showed "clear signs of sexual violence across six locations", the report says - the Nova festival, Route 232, and the kibbutzim of Be'eri, Alumim, Nahal Oz and Re'im.

The report also says that "most victims were permanently silenced", because they were either killed on 7 October or left too traumatised to talk.

In response, the authors provide what they describe as the "first global legal blueprint explaining how to prosecute sexual violence as a weapon of war - even when evidence is messy, survivors are gone, and individual perpetrators can't be tied to individual acts".

That includes an evidentiary framework to categorise information based on its proximity to incidents and its evidentiary value, and a legal framework for establishing criminal responsibility for atrocities committed during mass attacks, even when an individual did not personally commit each specific act or were not aware of its commission by someone else.

The report concludes by saying that justice is "essential not only for individual victims but for affirming broader principles: that sexual violence in conflict is a serious violation of international law, that perpetrators will be held accountable, and that the international community will not allow such crimes to be committed with impunity".

Netanyahu hopes for boost from Iran conflict - but do Israelis still trust him?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgnp2l2vj9o, 13 days ago

Back in March, as he turned his back on a ceasefire process that was delivering results, the Israeli prime minister took a decision described by some commentators as akin to "political suicide".

The Gaza ceasefire deal, brokered by Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff even before the US president was inaugurated to his second term, had led to the release of dozens of hostages from Hamas captivity, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

The next stage was due to see more hostages return home and a gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, before a negotiated end to the war.

Tired of conflict, Israelis and Palestinians contemplated the end of the most destructive war in a common history too frequently punctuated by fighting.

But Benjamin Netanyahu didn't want the war to end.

As he ordered the resumption of attacks across Gaza, the prime minister declared that fighting would continue until Hamas had been "completely destroyed".

The safe return of the remaining hostages in Gaza seemed to be a secondary consideration. (The civilian consequences in Gaza itself didn't merit a mention.)

Many Israelis, especially the hostage families, were outraged.

They accused Netanyahu of putting his own political survival ahead of their relatives' safety and the greater good of the nation.

"Bibi's" popularity in the polls plummeted and he struggled to keep together a disjointed government, propped up by hardline ministers from the far right and orthodox religious parties.

Three months on, Netanyahu is basking in the glory of a spectacular military victory over his nemesis, Iran. He is now said to be contemplating early elections and yet another term as prime minister.

At a press conference earlier this week, the 75-year-old, who is already Israel's longest-serving leader, said he still had "many missions" to complete and would seek to do so for as long as "the people" of Israel want him to.

Later in the week, and presenting the presumed destruction of Iran's nuclear programme as a "window of opportunity" that "must not be missed", Netanyahu suggested only he could secure the "freeing of hostages and defeat of Hamas" after which he would strike wider regional agreements.

But calling early elections would be a big risk and, according to the latest polls, Netanyahu hasn't enjoyed as big a "bounce" from the 12-day conflict with Iran as he might have hoped for.

'Trust'

In a fractured political system where coalition building is key in the 120-seat Knesset, Netanyahu's Likud Party would fall well short of a majority by itself and could struggle to pull together support from smaller parties on the right, suggests latest polling in the Ma'ariv newspaper.

The same polling suggested a significant majority, 59% of Israelis, want the fighting in Gaza to stop now, in exchange for the hostages.

Almost half of those asked, some 49%, also thought the only reason Netanyahu is continuing the war is for his own political considerations.

"The guy is a very skilful political actor," says Professor Tamar Hermann, a senior Research Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. "There is no more skilled politician in Israel."

But, she says, "trust" is a big problem for Netanyahu.

A political leader who has changed his spots so many times to cling to the reins of power is simply no longer believed by a majority of Israelis.

According to new polling, soon to be released by Prof Hermann's Israel Democracy Institute, Netanyahu "doesn't cross the 50% line in terms of Israelis expressing full or even partial trust in him".

In some ways, says Prof Hermann, deciding to call early elections "is an even greater risk [for Netanyahu] than attacking Iran because in the Middle East you really don't know where you will be in six months".

That's because, despite his military gamble in Iran seemingly paying off, there's an elephant in the corner of Benjamin Netanyahu's living room.

Indeed, you could say a small herd of elephants is threatening to disrupt the prime minister's hopes of yet another term in office.

Corruption charges

Next week, he is due to testify in a high-profile criminal case in which he's facing charges of political corruption, including bribery and fraud.

The prime minister's attempts to, again, delay the High Court hearings on account of his busy schedule and the special state of emergency (over the Iran war) were rejected at the end of last week.

Netanyahu and his supporters have repeatedly tried to portray the legal case against him as part of a "politically driven witch hunt" but in an increasingly polarised society, his opponents are equally determined he should face justice.

Appearing to belatedly learn about "Bibi's" legal troubles, President Trump said Netanyahu was a "great hero" and "warrior" whose trial should be "cancelled immediately" or, at the very least, he should be given a pardon.

This, remember, is the same US president who only days earlier had publicly castigated the Israeli prime minister – with expletives – as the Iran ceasefire deal threatened to unravel before it had begun.

But Trump's latest intervention has been described as unwise and unhelpful by many in Israel.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid said he should not "intervene in a legal process of an independent state".

His apparently contradictory stance on Israel and attempted intervention in Netanyahu's legal case was akin to "treating us like a banana republic", says Prof Hermann.

On the international stage, many Israelis accuse Netanyahu of having harmed Israel's global standing and its economic prospects by needlessly prolonging the war in Gaza, even though many former generals have said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has achieved as much as is militarily possible in Gaza.

It should not be forgotten, either, that the International Criminal Court still has warrants issued against the prime minister - and former defence minister Yoav Gallant - over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, where more than 55,000 people have been killed in Israel's war against Hamas.

Israel's government, along with Netanyahu and Gallant, strongly reject the accusations.

Ultimately, say most commentators, it would be difficult to imagine new elections being called in Israel while the war in Gaza continues and while Israeli hostages remain captive.

But many of Netanyahu's critics and opponents have prematurely written him off over the years and have certainly learned never to second-guess what his next move might be.

A month into Gaza's new aid system - killings, gunfire and chaos are routine

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwygezz3gx7o, 13 days ago

In the four weeks since the launch of a controversial US- and Israeli-backed aid system in Gaza, there have been repeated incidents of killings and injuries of Palestinians seeking aid.

According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, in the past month more than 500 people on their way to get aid have been killed and 4,000 injured.

To get a clearer understanding of how the last month has unfolded, BBC Verify has analysed dozens of videos from across Gaza that offer an insight into what this aid system looked like on the ground. Footage shows a near-daily cycle of chaos, panic, live gunfire and dead or injured Palestinians.

While the videos show an overall picture of danger and chaos, they do not definitively show who is responsible for firing in each incident. However in many cases, eyewitnesses and medics have described Israeli forces opening fire on crowds near aid sites.

In statements over the past month, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have several times said they fired "warning shots" at individuals who they described as "suspects" or said posed a threat.

The IDF has told BBC Verify that Hamas does "everything in its power to prevent the success of food distribution in Gaza, tries to disrupt aid, and directly harms the citizens of the Gaza Strip".

On 18 May Israel announced it was partially easing its 11-week long blockade of aid into Gaza, which it had said was aimed at putting pressure on Hamas to release hostages.

The IDF built four aid distribution sites - three in the far south-west of Gaza and one in central Gaza by an Israel security zone known as the Netzarim Corridor - which began operations on 26 May.

These sites in IDF-controlled areas - known as SDS 1, 2, 3 and 4 - are operated by security contractors working for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), with the Israeli military securing the routes to them and the perimeters. On Thursday the US State Department announced $30m (£22m; €26m) in funding for the GHF - the first known direct contribution to the group.

From the start the UN condemned the plan, saying it would "militarise" aid, bypass the existing distribution network and force Gazans to make long journeys through dangerous territory to get food.

Within days of the plan starting, dozens of Palestinians were killed in separate incidents on 1 and 3 June, sparking international condemnation. Since then there have been near-daily reports of killings of people travelling to collect aid.

The IDF said that its "forces conduct systematic learning processes aimed at improving the operational response in the area and minimizing possible friction between the population and the IDF forces".

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer called reports of people killed while getting aid "another untruth". "There have not been hundreds of people dying."

The GHF denied there had been any "incident or fatalities at or near" any of its distribution sites.

On Tuesday, the Red Cross said its field hospital in Rafah had had to activate its mass casualty procedures 20 times since 27 May, with the vast majority of patients suffering gunshot wounds and saying they had been on the way to an aid site.

The UN and its World Food Programme as well as other aid providers are continuing to try to distribute aid in Gaza, but they say they are reliant on the Israeli authorities to facilitate their missions.

The UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said the killing of Palestinians trying to access aid was a "likely war crime". International human rights lawyer Sara Elizabeth Dill told BBC Verify that if there had been any intentional targeting of civilians, it could constitute a serious violation of international law.

"Mass shootings during civilian relief access violate core rules against targeting civilians and using starvation against them, potentially rising to war crimes," she said.

Chaos on the coast

Three videos, the first of which was published on 9 June, showed hundreds of people, some holding what appear to be empty flour sacks, scrambling over mounds of rubble and hiding in ditches. Several bursts of automatic gunfire can be heard.

On that day, the Hamas-run health ministry reported six people had been killed that morning while seeking aid and more than 99 injured. The next day, it reported 36 aid-related deaths and more than 208 injuries.

It's not possible to verify whether any of these casualties were a result of the gunfire that could be heard in the footage.

We were able to confirm the videos were filmed from about 4km (2.5 miles) north-west of SDS4, on the way to the site in central Gaza.

Audio analysis of the gunfire from Steve Beck, a former FBI consultant who now runs Beck Audio Forensics, said one of the guns sounded like and fired at rates consistent with the FN Minimi machine gun and the M4 assault rifle. The second gun, Mr Beck said, fired at a rate that was "compatible" with the sound of an AK-47. We cannot establish whose weapons were firing but FN Minimis and M4s are commonly used by the IDF, while AK-47s are typically used by Hamas and other groups in Gaza.

In footage published the next day, on 10 June, and filmed nearby, more crowds were seen running in panic as the sound of gunfire, followed by what sounds like an explosion, was heard in the distance. Injured and bloodied people, including children, were then seen being carried away.

GHF has maps showing "safe passages" to its sites and communicates opening times via WhatsApp and social media.

Each passage has a "start point" and a ''stop point" with Palestinians warned that they must not cross the latter until instructed. The GHF has said these corridors are secured by the IDF and warned people that crossing these stop points, unless told to, may be dangerous.

But at SDS4 there was no safe passage planned for people coming from the north.

Deaths by the truck

There have also been killings close to non-GHF related aid sites.

Verified footage from 17 June showed at least 21 bodies and several injured people on a road in which several vehicles, including a heavily damaged flatbed truck, were parked.

Witnesses told the BBC that IDF drones and a tank fired at the crowd as they were waiting to collect aid.

An IDF statement acknowledged that it had identified a "gathering" of people "adjacent to an aid distribution truck that got stuck in the area of Khan Yunis, and in proximity to IDF troops operating in the area".

It said: "The IDF is aware of reports regarding a number of injured individuals from IDF fire following the crowd's approach." It expressed regret for "any harm to uninvolved individuals" and said the details of the incident were under review.

A spokesman for Gaza's Hamas-run civil defence agency said at least 50 people were killed at the scene.

The video shows a number of the dead around scorch marks on the ground, including one person with their legs blown off.

Mark Cancian, from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, noted the lack of obvious impact crater but told us the extent of damage was likely the result of "a lot of direct fire".

Bodies being moved

Another video posted on 16 June, which we've verified, shows bodies pulled on a cart by a horse along al-Rashid street in northern Gaza, the main coastal road and often used by aid convoys.

The caption alongside the video claims that these Palestinians were killed while waiting for aid.

The next day, several photos and videos we verified were posted on social media located nearby showing a body carried by several men on a wooden pallet along the same road.

The GHF claimed many of the alleged incidents were linked to convoys and distribution sites for other groups, including the UN. It said those aid supplies were "being looted by criminals and bad actors".

A GHF spokesperson said it has overall been "pleased" with its first month of operations, with 46 million meals distributed to two million Gazans, but was aiming to scale up its capacity.

The IDF has said that among other changes it is installing fences and signs and opening additional routes.

"We have raised concern [with the IDF] about maintaining safe passage for aid seekers but unfortunately some have attempted to take dangerous short cuts or travel during restricted times," the GHF spokesperson said.

"Ultimately the solution is more aid, which will create more certainty and less urgency among the population."

Additional reporting and verification by Paul Brown, Emma Pengelly, Lamees Altalebi, Richard Irvine-Brown, Benedict Garman, Alex Murray, Kumar Malhotra, Sebastian Vandermeersch and Thomas Spencer.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Israel's strike on bustling Gaza cafe killed a Hamas operative - but dozens more people were killed

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgeqr73p8wyo, 7 days ago

Moments before the explosion, artists, students and athletes were among those gathered at a bustling seaside cafe in Gaza City.

Huddled around tables, customers at al-Baqa Cafeteria were scrolling on their phones, sipping hot drinks, and catching up with friends. At one point, the familiar melody of "Happy Birthday" rang out as a young child celebrated with family.

In a quiet corner of the cafe overlooking the sea, a Hamas operative, dressed in civilian clothing, arrived at his table, sources told the BBC.

It was then, without warning, that a bomb was dropped by Israeli forces and tore through the building, they said.

At the sound of the explosion, people nearby flooded onto the streets and into al-Baqa in a desperate search for survivors.

"The scene was horrific - bodies, blood, screaming everywhere," one man told the BBC later that day.

"It was total destruction," said another. "A real massacre happened at al-Baqa Cafeteria. A real massacre that breaks hearts."

The BBC has reviewed 29 names of people reported killed in the strike on the cafe on Monday. Twenty-six of the deaths were confirmed by multiple sources, including through interviews with family, friends and eyewitness accounts.

At least nine of those killed were women, and several were children or teenagers. They included artists, students, social activists, a female boxer, a footballer and cafe staff.

The conduct of the strike and the scale of civilian casualties have amplified questions over the proportionality of Israel's military operations in Gaza, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say are aimed at defeating Hamas and rescuing the hostages still being held by the group.

Family members in Gaza and abroad spoke to the BBC of their shock and devastation at the killings.

"We were talking with each other two days ago. We were sending reels to each other. I can't believe it," said a young Palestinian man living in the US whose 21-year-old "bestie" Muna Juda and another close friend, Raghad Alaa Abu Sultan, were both killed in the strike.

The numbers of deaths analysed by the BBC were broadly consistent with figures given by the Hamas-run Civil Defence Agency, a senior local medic and the Palestinian Red Crescent in the days after the strike.

Staff at Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies, said its toll as of Thursday had reached 40 deaths, including people who had succumbed to their injuries, and unidentified bodies.

An official at the hospital said some of the bodies had been "blown to pieces", and that 72 injured patients were brought there - many having sustained severe burns and significant injuries that required surgery. He said many were students.

In a statement after the strike, the IDF said it had been targeting "terrorists" and that steps were taken to "mitigate the risk of harming civilians using aerial surveillance".

"The IDF will continue to operate against the Hamas terrorist organization in order to remove any threat posed to Israeli civilians," it added, before saying the "incident" was "under review".

The IDF did not directly respond to multiple BBC questions about the target of the strike, or whether it considered the number of civilian casualties to be proportionate.

Al-Baqa Cafeteria was well-known across the Gaza Strip, considered by many to be among the territory's most scenic and vibrant meeting spots.

Split over two floors and divided into men's and mixed family sections, it had views out to the Mediterranean Sea and television screens where people could watch football matches. It was a place to gather for coffee, tea and shisha with friends, and was a particular favourite with journalists.

Al-Baqa had remained popular even during the war, especially because of its unusually stable internet connection. The cafe, which had until now survived largely unscathed, also served up a reminder of the life that existed before the bombardments.

A cafe manager told the BBC that there was a strict entry policy. "It was known to our customers that if any person looked like a target, then they were not let inside the cafeteria - this was for our safety and the safety of the people there," he said.

On the day of the strike, the port area of Gaza City where the cafe is located was not under Israeli evacuation orders, and families of those killed on Monday say they had felt as safe as is possible when heading there.

Staff told the BBC that the strike in the early afternoon - between the Muslim prayers of Zuhr and Asr - was outside of the cafe's busiest hours.

The strike hit a section of the men's area where staff said few people were at the time.

BBC Verify showed several experts photos of the crater left in the wake of the explosion and the remaining munition fragments. Most said that they believed it was caused by a bomb, rather than a missile, with a range of size estimates given, at a maximum of 500lb (230kg).

The IDF told the BBC it would not comment on the type of munition used.

A journalist who was in the area at the time of the strike and spoke to eyewitnesses immediately afterwards told the BBC the munition that hit the cafe "was launched from a warplane - not from a drone that would usually target one or two people… It looked like they were very keen on getting their target". His account was consistent with others we spoke to.

Twenty-seven-year-old Hisham Ayman Mansour, whose deceased father had been a leading figure in Hamas' military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, was among those in the men's section by the sea.

His brother was previously killed by Israeli forces, and one social media post mourning his death suggested the brother had taken part in the 7 October 2023 attacks.

A local Hamas source said Hisham was the target of the strike, and described him as a field commander with the group, a "mid-ranking role".

Tributes posted on social media also referred to him as a "fighter" and "member of the resistance". His cousin also described him to the BBC as a "fighter" with the proscribed group, but said he thought he was "low-level" and not currently active.

It is unclear what he was doing in the cafe that day, with two sources telling the BBC he was believed to be there for a "money drop", while another suggested he was there for "coffee and a short respite" and that he had not been involved in "militant activities" during the war.

A photo shared on social media purported to show Hisham at the same spot in the men's area of the cafe the day before the strike, wearing a cap and sports t-shirt. Photos of his body after the strike in the same outfit were shared by family and friends.

Two members of his family - one of them a child - were also killed.

The IDF would not confirm whether Hisham was the primary target, or one of a number of targets of the strike.

One former senior IDF official told the BBC he understood that "multiple Hamas operatives" were hit at the cafe, but that a so-called battle damage assessment was still ongoing. A source with Israeli intelligence connections pointed towards a social media post naming Hisham as the target.

Sources in Gaza gave the BBC the name of a more senior Hamas commander who was rumoured to have been seated on a nearby table, but posts on social media said he died the following day and did not mention the cafe.

The Hamas source said Hisham was the only person within the group killed at al-Baqa, while the IDF did not respond to questions about the commander.

An anti-Hamas activist told the BBC that "many Hamas people" were injured in the strike, including one who worked with the group but not as a fighter, who lost his leg in the explosion.

Medics could not confirm this account, but said that they dealt with many people with severe injuries, including those arriving with missing limbs or requiring amputations.

Israel does not allow international journalists access to Gaza to report on the war making it difficult to verify information, and Hamas has historically ruled the territory with an iron grip, making speaking out or any dissent dangerous.

The remainder of this article contains details some readers may find distressing.

Among the bodies and the debris in al-Baqa were traces of the civilian lives lost - a giant pink and white teddy bear, its stuffing partially exposed, a child's tiny shoe, and playing cards soaked in blood.

A displaced man who was in the area seeing family at the time of the strike was among those who went running into the cafe to try to find survivors.

"Shrapnel was everywhere… there were many injuries," he told the BBC.

He said when he entered part of the men's section that he found the bodies of waiters and other workers, and saw as one "took his last breath".

"It was crazy," said Saeed Ahel, a regular at the cafe and friend of its managers.

"The waiters were gathered around the bar since it was shady and breezy there. Around [six] of them were killed," he added, before listing their names. More were injured.

The mother of two young men who worked at the cafe screamed as she followed their bodies while they were carried on a sheet out of the wreckage on Monday.

A distraught man pointed at a dry patch of blood on the floor, where he said bits of brain and skull had been splattered. He had put them in a bag and carried them out.

Meanwhile, the grandmother of 17-year-old Sama Mohammad Abu Namous wept.

The teenager had gone to the cafe that afternoon with her brother, hoping to use the internet connection to study. Relatives said the siblings were walking into the beachside cafe when the bomb hit. Sama was killed, while her brother was rushed to hospital.

"She went to study and they killed her," she said. "Why did she have to return to her grandmother killed?"

The coach of young female boxer Malak Musleh said he was in shock at the loss of his friend of more than 10 years, having first learned the news of her killing through social media.

"She believed that boxing was not just for boys but that girls should have the right too," Osama Ayoub said. "Malak was ambitious. She didn't skip any training day."

He said he last saw Malak about 10 days before the strike, when he dropped off some aid to her and her father.

"We sat together for nearly an hour. She told me that she was continuing her training with her sister and wished I could train them. I told her unfortunately because my house got demolished I live now in Khan Younis [in southern Gaza], but as soon as I hear that there is a ceasefire I will try to go back to training," he said.

"She said to make sure to keep a space for them… She had passion in her eyes and her words."

When Osama saw the Facebook post by Malak's father announcing her death, he "didn't believe it".

"I called him and he confirmed it but I still don't believe it," he said over the phone from a displacement camp.

Artist Amina Omar Al-Salmi, better known as Frans, was also at the cafe with a well-known photographer friend.

Since the 35-year-old's death, one of her pieces depicting a dead woman with her eyes closed and covered in blood, has been shared widely online alongside an image of her after her death, with people noting the striking similarities.

Her sister, now living in Sweden, told the BBC that the last time they spoke, Frans had said that she was sure "something good was going to happen".

"She was happy and said: 'We'll meet soon. You'll see me at your place.'"

Additional reporting by Rushdi Abualouf, Riam El Delati and Muath al-Khatib

Verification by Emma Pengelly and Richard Irvine-Brown

I feel like I've been gaslit - like the life I had before the war was made up

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn81rdvdm9jo, 12 days ago

"I don't think God intended for people in their late 20s to live with their parents," Hanya Aljamal says.

She's hanging out on the balcony of the tiny apartment where she lives with her mother, father and five grown-up siblings - because it's the only place she can get any peace and quiet.

Two years ago, 28-year-old Hanya was working as an English teacher and lived in a flat of her own. She was applying to colleges in the US to do a Master's in international development, and on course for a scholarship to pay for it. Things were going well - but life is different now.

Like most days, Sunday begins with a morning coffee on the balcony, while Hanya watches her neighbour, a man in his 70s, carefully tending pots of herbs, seedlings and plants in his tidy garden, just across the road from a blown-up building.

"It just looks like the purest form of resistance," Hanya says. "In the middle of all this horror and uncertainty, he still finds time to grow something - and there's something absolutely beautiful about that."

Hanya lives in Deir al-Balah, a town in the middle of Gaza, a 25-mile stretch of land on the south-eastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea that's been a war zone since October 2023. She has recorded an audio diary which she shared with the BBC for a radio documentary about what life is like there.

The school where she taught had to close down when the war started. Hanya has become a teacher with no students and no school, her sense of who she was slipping through her fingers.

"It's very hard finding purpose in this time, finding some sort of solace or meaning as your entire world falls apart."

The apartment Hanya shares with her family is her fifth home since the war started. The UN estimates 90% of Gazans have been displaced by the war - many multiple times. Most Gazans now live in temporary shelters.

On Monday, Hanya is jolted awake in bed at 2am.

"There was an explosion really close by that was then followed by a second, and a third," she says, "it was so loud and very scary. I tried to soothe myself to sleep."

The Israeli government says its military action in Gaza is intended to destroy the capabilities of Hamas, which describes itself as an Islamist resistance movement. It is designated a terrorist organisation by the UK, the US, Israel, and others.

Israel's military action began after armed Palestinian groups from Gaza led by Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking 251 hostages.

So far, the Israeli military has killed more than 56,000 people in the conflict - the majority civilians - according to Gaza's Ministry of Health, which is run by Hamas. Israel doesn't currently allow international journalists to report freely from Gaza.

Hanya is working for an aid organisation called Action for Humanity and spends the day at one of their projects. A group of girls wearing white T-shirts and with keffiyehs tied around their waists perform a dance and then take part in a group therapy session.

One talks about what it means to lose your home, others talk about losing their belongings, their friends, someone they love. And then one suddenly starts crying and everyone else falls silent. A teaching assistant takes the girl away to comfort her in private.

"And then someone tells me that she lost both parents," Hanya says.

On Tuesday, Hanya is watching five colourful kites soaring in the sky from her balcony.

"I like kites - they're like an active act of hope," she says. "Every kite is a couple of kids down there trying to have a normal childhood in the midst of all this."

Seeing kites flying makes a nice change to the drones, jets and "killing machines" Hanya is used to seeing above her apartment, she says. But later that evening, the "nightly orchestra" of nearby drones buzzing at discordant pitches begins. She describes the sound they make as "psychological torture".

"Sometimes they're so loud you can't even listen to your own thoughts," she says. "They're kind of a reminder that they're there watching, waiting, ready to pounce."

On Thursday morning, Hanya hears loud, consistent gunfire and wonders what it might be. Maybe theft. Maybe a turf war between families. Maybe someone defending a warehouse.

She spends most of the day in bed. She feels dizzy every time she tries to get up and puts it down to the effect of fasting ahead of Eid al-Adha, when she's already very malnourished.

Hanya says the lack of control over what she eats - and the rest of her life - is having a big psychological impact.

"You cannot control anything - not even your thoughts, not even your wellbeing, not even who you are," she says. "It took me a while to accept the fact that I am no longer the person that I identify myself as."

The school where Hanya used to teach has been destroyed, and the idea of studying abroad now seems very distant.

"I felt like I was gaslit," Hanya says, "like all of these things were made up. Like none of it was true."

The next morning, Hanya wakes to the sound of birds chirping and the call to prayer.

It's the first day of Eid al-Adha, when her dad would usually sacrifice a sheep and they'd share the meat with the needy and their relatives. But her family don't have the means to travel now and there's no animal to sacrifice anyway.

"All of Gaza's population has been not eating any sort of protein, outside canned fava beans, for three months now," she says.

Hanya's family discover that one of her cousins has been killed while trying to get aid.

"To be honest, I hadn't known him very well," she says, "but it's the general tragedy of someone hungry, seeking food and getting shot in the process that is quite grotesque."

There have been multiple shooting incidents and hundreds of deaths reported at or near aid distribution points in recent weeks. The circumstances are disputed and difficult to verify without being able to report freely in Gaza.

Hanya knows at least 10 people who have lost their lives during the war. This number includes several of her students and a colleague who had got engaged a month before the war started. She was the same age as Hanya and shared her ambition.

Hanya is updating her CV to remove her college professor's name. He was her referee and writing mentor - but he is dead now too.

"It's a huge thing when someone tells you that they see you, that they believe in you, and that they bet on you," she says.

Hanya doesn't think she's grieved for any of these people properly, and says she feels she has to ration her emotions in case any of her close family are hurt.

"Grieving is a luxury many of us can't afford."

Crowing cocks mark the start of another new day, and Hanya is taking in a beautiful pink and blue dawn from the balcony. She says she has developed a habit of looking up to the sky as an escape.

"It's very hard to find beauty in Gaza anymore. Everything is grey, or soot-covered, or destroyed," Hanya says.

"The one thing about the sky is that it gives you colours and a respite of beauty that Earth lacks."

US sanctions UN expert Francesca Albanese, critic of Israel's Gaza offensive

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70rllxr0kyo, yesterday

The Trump administration is imposing sanctions on the UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, an outspoken critic of Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio linked the move to her support for the International Criminal Court (ICC), some of whose judges have already been sanctioned by the US.

Rubio said the US was sanctioning Albanese for directly engaging with the ICC in its efforts to prosecute American or Israeli nationals, accusing her of being unfit for service as a UN Special Rapporteur.

The sanctions are likely to prevent Albanese from travelling to the US and would block any assets she has in the country.

In a post on X, Albanese did not directly address the sanctions, but wrote: "[O]n this day more than ever: I stand firmly and convincingly on the side of justice, as I have always done."

The message, in which the Italy-born special rapporteur reposted a thread of support for ICC, said she came from the court's founding country, where lawyers and judges had "defended justice at great cost and often with their own life".

"I intend to honor that tradition," she added in the post.

Albanese declined to comment to the BBC, but was quoted by Al Jazeera as describing the sanctions as "mafia style intimidation techniques".

It is the latest escalation by the Trump administration as it wages a campaign against the ICC, having already sanctioned four of its judges.

The US took the action after the court last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his then-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes in Gaza, accusations they reject.

Rubio also accused Albanese of having "spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West".

The move is likely to provoke a fierce backlash from those who argue for accountability over the civilian death toll from Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

The special rapporteur has long argued that Western governments are not doing enough to support the rights of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Her outspoken stance has attracted significant support among those who accuse Israeli and US leaders of weaponising accusations of antisemitism in order to silence scrutiny of their policies.

Her critics have pointed to language used in the past by Albanese, including a 2014 comment when she suggested the "Jewish lobby" was influencing US government decisions when it came to Israel and the Palestinians.

She is since reported to have said she regretted the remark, but rejected claims it was antisemitic.

The head of Amnesty International and former UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard said she was dismayed by the decision to sanction Albanese.

"Governments around the world and all actors who believe in the rule-based order and international law must do everything in their power to mitigate and block the effect of the sanctions against Francesca Albanese," she said.

Rubio said Albanese had shown contempt for the US by writing "threatening letters" to several US companies, making what he called unfounded accusations and recommending the ICC pursue prosecutions of the companies and their executives.

"We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic warfare, which threaten our national interests and sovereignty," Rubio said.

Earlier this month Albanese called on dozens of multinational companies to stop doing business with Israel, warning them they risked being complicit in war crimes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

She said the companies "profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid, and now genocide" in the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel rejected her report as "groundless", saying it would "join the dustbin of history".

Albanese has criticised Donald Trump's plan, announced in February, to take over the Gaza Strip and displace its residents elsewhere.

"It's unlawful, immoral and... completely irresponsible because it will make the regional crisis even worse," she said in February.

The timing of the sanctions announcement is notable with Netanyahu currently in Washington, where he received an extended honour cordon at the Pentagon on Wednesday.

Albanese has previously rejected similar claims against her, telling the BBC in October: "I don't take these remarks and the defamation they carry lightly, but at the same time, I know this is not about me, as my predecessors knew that it was not about them.

"I also know these member states [making accusations of antisemitism] have done absolutely nothing to abide by international law."

Her office has been approached for comment.

Some 125 countries are parties to the Rome Statute that established the ICC and are protected by it, as well as bound by their membership to uphold the court's decisions.

The US, like Israel, is not a member of the court.

It has sided with Israel, its staunch ally, which it has armed throughout the Gaza war, against the Netanyahu arrest warrant, while many European countries have said they respect the court's independence in the case.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 57,575 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Gaza truce talks reportedly stall despite second Netanyahu-Trump meeting

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3newwl1zeo, yesterday

Negotiations between Israel and Hamas in Qatar on a new Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal have stalled after three days of indirect talks, a Palestinian official has told the BBC.

The official said key sticking points included how aid would be distributed during the ceasefire and Israeli troop withdrawals.

On Wednesday Donald Trump insisted there was a "very good chance" a deal would be reached either this week or next.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is visiting the US, meanwhile said he wanted a deal, "but not at any price". Hamas said ongoing talks were "tough" because of Israel's "intransigence".

The choreography of meetings between Trump and Netanyahu has given the impression that the momentum towards a ceasefire deal in Gaza is growing.

On Wednesday Hamas said it had agreed to release 10 hostages as part of a deal. It said several issues, such as the flow of aid, withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and guarantees for a permanent ceasefire were still being negotiated.

Meanwhile Netanyahu said he and Trump both wanted to end Hamas rule in Gaza.

"President Trump wants a deal, but not at any price. I want a deal, but not at any price. Israel has security requirements and other requirements, and we're working together to try to achieve it," he said.

Israel says 50 hostages are still in captivity, up to 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.

Earlier US special envoy Steve Witkoff earlier said they were now "down to one" unresolved issue at indirect Israel-Hamas talks in Qatar and he was hopeful of an agreement on a 60-day ceasefire by the end of this week.

However, it is unclear if much progress has so far been made during the four rounds of talks that have taken place in Doha since Sunday.

A Palestinian official with knowledge of the negotiations told the BBC on Wednesday that they remained stalled.

According to the official, the impasse is due to the Israeli delegation's refusal to allow the unrestricted entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza through UN agencies and other international organisations.

Israel was insisting on maintaining what the official described as "the current humiliating mechanism" for aid distribution - a reference to the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which uses private security contractors to bypass the UN.

The source also noted that Israel continued to reject calls for the withdrawal of its forces from areas of Gaza it has occupied since 18 March - when Israel resumed its offensive, collapsing the last ceasefire - further complicating progress in the negotiations.

Qatar - which is acting as a mediator, along with the US and Egypt - also warned that more time was needed for a breakthrough.

"I don't think that I can give any timeline at the moment, but I can say right now that we will need time for this," Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman, Majed al-Ansari, said on Tuesday.

With the talks intended to provide a path to ending the 21-month war, it is little surprise that they are experiencing difficulties.

But the Trump administration appears to remain upbeat for now, with Witkoff still due to head to Doha at some point in the coming days.

According to media reports, the current proposal would see Hamas hand over 28 hostages - 10 alive and 18 dead - in stages during a 60-day ceasefire.

Large numbers of Palestinians would be released from Israeli jails in exchange for hostages.

There would also be a surge in deliveries of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

After the return of the first eight living hostages on day one of the agreement, Israeli forces would withdraw from parts of the north. After day seven, they would leave parts of the south.

On Day 10, Hamas would outline which hostages remain alive and their condition, while Israel would give details about more than 2,000 Gazans detained during the war.

As these details are being thrashed out in Doha, on the ground in Gaza at least 20 people were killed in overnight Israeli strikes on a tent in the southern Khan Younis area and on house in al-Shati refugee camp, north-west of Gaza City, according the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency.

The Israeli military said it struck a number of "Hamas terrorists" in al-Shati who had advanced attacks against its troops and Israeli civilians.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 57,575 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Additional reporting by David Gritten

Trump says Ukraine will receive more weapons after US pause on shipments

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8d6yrd798no, 3 days ago

Donald Trump has said the US will send more weapons to Ukraine after an announcement last week that Washington would halt some shipments of critical arms to Kyiv.

During a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said he was "not happy" with Russia's Vladimir Putin and that Ukraine was "getting hit very hard".

Trump also indicated the US would send primarily "defensive weapons" to help Ukraine's war effort.

Among the armaments reported to have been placed on pause last week were Patriot air defence missiles and precision artillery shells. Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky had appealed for the shipments to continue, describing US Patriot systems as "real protectors of life".

The White House said last week the decision had been made "to put America's interests first" in response to a defence department review of military support to other countries.

Trump's apparent change of heart came after days of deadly Russian drone and missile barrages on Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv. One attack on the city last Thursday has claimed a third life, according to local officials.

Trump said late on Monday that Kyiv needed to be able to defend itself.

"We're going to send some more weapons. We have to... They're getting hit very hard now," he said during a news conference with Netanyahu.

"I'm disappointed that President Putin has not stopped," he added.

The Pentagon responded with a brief statement, saying that "at President Trump's direction, the Department of Defense is sending additional defensive weapons to Ukraine to ensure the Ukrainians can defend themselves while we work to secure a lasting peace and ensure the killing stops".

After a week of uncertainty, the US move will come as a relief to Ukraine, says the BBC's Paul Adams in Kyiv.

Kyiv had warned that the move to pause some shipments would impede its ability to defend against escalating airstrikes and Russian advances on the front lines.

Zelensky said late last week that he had spoken to Trump "about opportunities in air defence and agreed that we will work together to strengthen protection of our skies".

The war in Ukraine has been raging for more than three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Ceasefire talks have also largely stalled after several attempts by Trump to broker a deal between the two parties.

Following a call with Putin last week, Trump said that "no progress" to end the conflict had been made, adding "I don't think he's looking to stop".

Hours after the call, Ukraine said Russia fired a record 539 drones and 11 missiles targeting Kyiv, but also hitting the regions of Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Chernihiv.

Zelensky has called on international allies - particularly the US - to increase pressure on Moscow and impose greater sanctions.

The doctor fighting for women's health on Ukraine's front line

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gezrz5gwyo, 3 days ago

In a rural village close to the Ukrainian front line, a group of women queue quietly outside a purple and white ambulance, waiting to be seen by a doctor with his shaved head dyed the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag.

For many of them, it's their first time seeing a doctor since the war began more than three years ago.

Since 2022, Dr Serhii Baksheiev, 53, has carried out more than 1,000 gynaecological examinations on women throughout front-line areas in his kitted out mobile clinic - named 'The Feminine Shuttle' and complete with a bright pink examination chair.

"This is a humanitarian volunteering mission. It's for people who need help, in places where there are no doctors or hospitals, and it's absolutely free," he says.

The war with Russia has placed a huge strain on Ukraine's healthcare system, with more than 1,940 attacks on health facilities since the invasion, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) - making it the highest number in any humanitarian crisis to date - and with a significant increase in those attacks since December 2023.

When the war began, Dr Baksheiev, who is an obstetrician and gynaecologist, initially spent his days in a bunker in Kyiv helping to deliver babies as bombs fell above.

The idea for an on-the-road clinic came to him, he says, after later medical volunteer missions to the front line revealed the lack of facilities because medical centres and hospitals had been completely destroyed.

"We went to Kharkiv and Chernihiv, which were very damaged, and the most difficult thing was not being able to provide gynaecological services because there were no tools and equipment, because everything was ruined," he says.

Dr Baksheiev and his team would have to use anything available as an examination table, including old sofas, meaning he would have to kneel on the floor to conduct examinations.

Today, walking around the electric vehicle, it's clear Dr Baksheiev is incredibly proud of its capabilities: it's been kitted out with everything he and his team could need in these remote areas, including an ultrasound machine and medical equipment to carry out minor surgeries.

During a two-day mission the team can perform up to 80 colposcopies - where they examine the cervix and vulva for signs of cancerous or pre-cancerous tissue.

The work - often carried out in secret - is crucial to the people living in these rural and remote areas on the front line.

Figures provided by Ukraine's public health ministry and seen by the BBC show detection rates for ovarian and cervical cancers are down by 17% and 10% respectively since 2020.

And when doctors like Dr Baksheiev do get into those areas to perform examinations, they are finding a higher than average incidence of malignant tumours.

On average, up to 4% of all women are diagnosed with malignant tumours after being examined, according to FRIDA Ukraine, the medical organisation Dr Baksheiev volunteers for.

Dr Ulana Supron was Ukraine's health minister from 2016 to 2019. She says there is a concern about the "ticking time bomb" of health outcomes as the war drags on.

"In the public health community, there definitely is a lot of worry about what's going to happen as the war continues," she says.

"Not only in terms of physical health, but also mental health - because there is a constant stress, constant psychological trauma happening."

Dr Supron says the government has managed to partially or fully rebuild as many as 964 medical facilities that were damaged by Russia.

"They're working closely with the WHO and with other international organisations to try to come up with a plan on how we can rebuild the health system that was in place prior to Russia's invasion," she adds.

Despite a cancer diagnosis himself in September 2024, Dr Baksheiev continues to volunteer and provide treatment to women across the country.

"Apart from the medical examination, you also hear them out because a lot of patients have stories about how the Russians attacked their villages," he says.

"So we are not only doctors, we're the therapists for these patients."

'It's Groundhog Day': Ukraine's sky defenders stuck in relentless battle

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gkzgqe30yo, 6 days ago

As the evening light ebbed away a handful of Ukrainian troops emerged from the treeline to face an unequal fight. Their mission – to shoot down 21st Century killer drones with weapons designed in the dying days of World War One.

In Ukraine's north-eastern region of Sumy, bordering Russia, this is a nightly battle.

Just after we joined the troops, there was danger in the skies, and tension and adrenaline on the ground.

The commander – codenamed Jaeger – was glued to a screen showing clusters of red dots, each indicating an Iranian-designed Shahed drone, one of Russia's key weapons. By early evening, there were already 30 in the skies over Sumy, and the neighbouring region of Chernihiv.

Two flatbed trucks were driven out into a clearing – on the back of each a heavy machine gun and a gunner, scanning the skies. The trucks were flanked by troops, light machine guns at the ready.

We could hear the whirring of the propellers before we could see the drone - barely visible as it sliced through the sky. The troops opened fire - all guns blazing in unison – but the drone disappeared into the distance. These low-cost long-range weapons are terrorising Ukraine.

As often in war, there were flashes of humour. "You'll know when the next drone is coming, when that short guy gets nervous," said Jaeger, pointing at one of his team.

As darkness closed in, the drones kept coming and the troops kept trying – sending tracer fire streaking across the sky. But how do they feel when these suicide drones get through?

"Well, it's not very good, "Jaeger says sombrely, glancing away. "You feel a slight sadness but to be honest - as you have seen - you don't have time for emotions. One comes in and another can come right behind it. You work in this rhythm. If it's taken down - good, if not, you know there are other teams behind you who will also engage it."

He and his men are a "mobile fire unit" from Ukraine's 117 Territorial Defence Brigade – all locals trying to defend not just their hometown but their country. Most Russian drones fly through this region and deeper into Ukraine.

"They come in massive waves, often flying at different altitudes," says Jaeger. "When there is heavy cloud cover, they fly above the clouds, and we can't see them. And it's very hard to detect them when it's raining."

A hundred Shahed drones a night is standard for Sumy.

His unit includes a farmer ("now I do something else in the fields," he jokes) and a builder. Jaeger himself is a former forest ranger, and mixed martial arts fighter.

Now he fights an enemy he can barely see.

"It's the same thing every single day, over and over again," he says. "For us, it's just like Groundhog Day."

"The worst thing is that years are passing by," adds Kurban, the builder, "and we have no idea how long all this is going to last".

Many of the drones in the skies over Sumy that night were headed for the capital, Kyiv. Jaeger and his men knew it. So did we. The knowledge was chilling.

An air raid alert warned the residents of Kyiv of incoming drones. Russia aimed more than 300 at the capital overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force, trying to overwhelm its air defences. By morning six locations had been hit, and the victims were being reclaimed from the rubble. In the days that followed the death toll climbed to 30.

In Ukraine's fourth summer of full-scale war the fields around Sumy are dotted with corn and sunflowers, not yet in bloom, and a crop of dragon's teeth - triangles of concrete which can stop tanks in their tracks.

The picture was very different last autumn. Ukrainian troops had turned the tables with a cross-border attack on Russia, capturing territory in the neighbouring region of Kursk.

By March of this year, most were forced out, although Ukraine's military chief said recently it still holds some territory there. By May, President Zelensky warned that 50,000 Russian troops were massed "in the direction of Sumy".

By June, more than 200 villages and settlements in Sumy had been evacuated, as the Kremlin's men slowly shelled their way forward.

President Putin wants "a buffer zone" along the border, and is talking up the threat to the city of Sumy.

"The city…is next, the regional centre," he said recently. "We don't have a task to take Sumy, but I don't rule it out." He claims his forces are already up to 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) inside the region.

Warning: The following section contains distressing details

The head of Ukraine's army, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, claims his troops have halted the Russian advance, but the war has already closed in on Margaryta Husakova, 37, menacing her village. She warned her sister not to come because there were explosions.

"She came anyway," Margaryta says, "and everything was fine for a month, quiet and peaceful, until we got on that bus".

On the morning of 17 May, the sisters set out with other relatives for a trip to the city.

"I remember how we came, got on the bus, how we laughed, were happy," says Margaryta. "Then we started to leave, and it happened."

The bus was ripped apart by a Russian drone, in an attack that killed nine people – all civilians - including her mother, her uncle and her sister.

Margaryta was pulled from the wreckage with a shattered right arm – now held together by steel rods.

She is tormented by what she lost, and what she saw. Her description is graphic.

"I opened my eyes, and there was no bus," she said, her voice beginning to break. "I looked around and my sister's head was torn off. My mum too, she was lying there, hit in the temple. My uncle had fallen out of the bus, his brain was exposed."

We met at a sand-bagged reception centre for evacuees in Sumy. Margaryta sat outside on a wooden bench, seeking comfort from a cigarette. She told me she was planning to leave for the home of another relative, but feared her eight children might not be safe there either.

"Maybe we will have to run away even further," she said, adding: "It's scary everywhere."

"I'm terrified, not for myself but for the children. I must save them. That's what matters."

As we spoke an air raid siren wailed overhead – the sound so familiar that Margaryta did not respond. Neither did anyone else around us. "We only run for explosions now," a Ukrainian journalist explained "and only if they are loud and close".

There's little talk in Sumy of a ceasefire, let alone an end to Europe's largest war since 1945.

US President Donald Trump no longer claims he can deliver peace in Ukraine in a day. He's become embroiled in a newer war, bombing Iranian nuclear sites.

Talks between Russia and Ukraine have delivered only prisoner exchanges, and the return of bodies. President Putin appears emboldened and has been upping his demands.

With the Summer sun still overhead, those trying to save Ukraine expect more Winters of war. We followed a bumpy track deep into a forest to meet troops fresh from the front lines. They were getting a refresher course in weapons skills at a remote training ground. A battle-hardened 35-year-old with a shaved head and full beard was among the group - call sign "student".

"I think the war won't end in the next year or two," he told me. "And even if it does end in six months with some kind of ceasefire, it will start again in four or five years. President Putin has imperialist ambitions."

War inflicts wounds – seen and unseen.

"Student" sent his family abroad for safety soon after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 and has been unable to see his two daughters since then.

He and his wife are now divorced. Other soldiers we met also spoke of broken relationships and marriages that have buckled under the strain.

Student sums up war as "blood, dirt and sweat" and does not try to conceal the cost. "We joined our battalion, as a platoon of 30 neighbours," he told me.

"Today, only four of us remain alive. "

Additional reporting by Wietske Burema, Moose Campbell and Volodymyr Lozhko

Deadly new Russian drone and missile attack hits Kyiv

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj3rvpe06rxo, today

A massive overnight Russian attack has hit Ukraine's capital Kyiv, killing at least two people and injuring 16, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

The attack involved 18 missiles and about 400 drones, primarily targeting the capital, Zelensky added.

Residents' sleep was interrupted for three hours as drones and missiles converged on the capital. Authorities in Kyiv said drone wreckage struck the roof of a residential building and fires burned across the city.

In June, Ukraine recorded the highest monthly civilian casualties in three years, with 232 people killed and 1,343 injured, according to the UN.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, Ukraine's police reported that Russian drone strikes had hit eight districts in Kyiv.

"Residential buildings, vehicles, warehouses, office and non-residential buildings are burning," administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a post on Telegram.

Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko confirmed that a 68-year-old woman and a 22-year-old police officer at a metro station had been killed.

In Kyiv's Podilsky district, a primary healthcare centre was "almost completely destroyed", Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said.

City residents were urged to shelter until the air raid siren was lifted, and also close windows when they returned to their homes because there was a "lot of smoke" in Kyiv.

Overnight, Ukraine's air force reported a threat of Russian drone attacks in a number of regions. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties outside Kyiv.

Russia's military has not commented on the reported latest attack.

It followed what Ukraine described as the largest Russian aerial attack on Tuesday night, when 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities across the country.

In June, Russia launched ten times more "missile and loitering munitions attacks" against Ukraine than in June last year, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission (HRMMU) in Ukraine reported.

Civilians were killed or injured in at least 16 regions of the country and in Kyiv, the HRMMU said.

"Civilians across Ukraine are facing levels of suffering we have not seen in over three years," Ms Danielle Bell, head of the HRMMU, said. "The surge in long-range missile and drone strikes across the country has brought even more death and destruction to civilians far away from the frontline."

Late on Wednesday, three people were killed in a Russian air strike in the town of Kostiantynivka, close to the front line in eastern Ukraine, the country's emergency service DSNS said.

"Russia is obviously stepping up terror," Zelensky said. "It is necessary to be faster with sanctions and pressure Russia so that it feels the outcomes of its own terror. Our partners need to act faster investing in weapons production and developing tech."

He said that on Thursday, he would be speaking to partners about additional financing for producing interceptor drones and air defence supplies.

The US had resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, Reuters reported late on Wednesday, days after it halted shipments of some critical air defence arms.

The latest attack underlines just how remote the prospects of a diplomatic breakthrough seem to have become.

On Wednesday, Germany's Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said diplomacy had been exhausted. The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, spoke in similar terms earlier in the week.

And US President Donald Trump seems increasingly impatient with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

"We get a lot of bull---- thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth," Trump told reporters on Tuesday. "He's very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless."

Peskov said Moscow was "pretty calm about this. Trump's way of talking is generally quite harsh, the phrases he uses".

The two leaders have been in regular contact, but this has so far failed to translate into tangible steps towards a ceasefire in Ukraine - something Trump once said he would be able to achieve in a day.

Trump has been threatening sanctions on Russia since taking office in January but has so far not imposed any.

A bipartisan bill is working its way through Congress which would penalise countries such as China and India that continue to buy Russian oil and gas. Trump said he might support it.

The focus among Kyiv's allies has now shifted back to how to protect Ukraine and punish Russia, with Europe working on a new package of sanctions.

All this is likely to be discussed in Rome, where a two-day conference attended by delegates from 77 countries on Ukraine's recovery is due to start on Thursday.

With Russia's drone attacks on Ukraine increasing in frequency and scale, renewed attention on how to protect Ukraine's airspace could also be on the agenda.

Later on Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of a summit in Malaysia.

Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia's summer push in Ukraine targets three fronts but faces stern resistance

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70rl6lk2yxo, yesterday

While Russia's overnight drone and missile attacks on Ukraine have hit record levels, on the ground its military is claiming territorial gains.

Last month Russian forces seized 556 sq km (215 sq miles), its biggest land grab this year, according to the open-source DeepState monitoring website in Ukraine. That is an area four times the size of Liverpool and nearly the same size as the city of Chicago.

Russia's goal is to cut off supply routes used by Ukrainian troops in the east, and create a buffer zone inside Ukraine's northern borders.

But its advance remains relatively slow. At this pace it would take more than 70 years to capture the entire country.

* The Sumy region that borders Russia in the north-east

* The two eastern cities of Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka

* A third front, west of Pokrovsk

Vladimir Putin says he wants to create a buffer zone to protect Russian territory, after Ukrainian forces captured a swathe of Kursk territory last summer. Russian forces eventually drove them out, with the help of North Korean troops and ammunition.

The Russians then crossed into Ukraine but quickly became bogged down in fighting over small border villages, which keep changing hands even today. Without major reinforcements, it is unlikely Russian troops will be able to push much further here.

Another northern region where Russia's army has reportedly crossed the state border is Kharkiv. Last week they claimed the capture of a border village, but without committing substantial resources they are unlikely to make further gains.

Military observers believe these operations are aimed at forcing Ukraine to spread its forces too thin along the entire 1,200-km long front line, so that they divert troops from key areas.

One of those frontline areas is Pokrovsk, a strategic hub in eastern Ukraine, which Moscow has been trying to capture for more than two years. According to the head of Ukraine's army Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, Russia has concentrated some 111,000 troops in that area.

Russians rarely launch massive assaults, says Lt Artem Pribylnov from Ukraine's 155th brigade, stationed near Pokrovsk.

Any large movement of troops and armoured vehicles will be quickly detected and destroyed by drones. Instead, Lt Pribylnov says, the Russians rely on small groups of infantry troops who relentlessly attack Ukrainian positions, sometimes on motor bikes but more often on foot.

This kind of "creeping offensive", as some call it, is aimed at exhausting Kyiv's resources until endless waves of Russian soldiers eventually push the Ukrainians out of their positions. But the price they pay is frighteningly high.

Ukraine's general staff puts Russia's casualties at more than 1,000 soldiers a day. The BBC cannot verify these figures independently, but they do indicate the heavy losses Russia is suffering.

Russia's aim in eastern Ukraine appears to be to create "a cauldron", semi-encircling the Ukrainians around Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka and then forcing them to retreat.

Russian troops are now trying to wedge into the area between these two cities to create "a bridgehead from where they can attack Pokrovsk or Kostyantynivka", says Maj Viktor Trehubov, a spokesman for the Khortytsya operational-strategic group, which co-ordinates forces in eastern Ukraine.

A breakthrough here is not considered likely. Russia's advance between Kostyantynivka and Pokrovsk is already slowing down and earlier attempts to push from other sides have stalled.

The biggest Russian gain in recent weeks was further west from Pokrovsk, in an area referred to by the Ukrainian military as the Novopavlivske direction, named after the village of Novopavlivka which became a defence hub following the westward retreat of Ukrainian troops.

Military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets says Moscow's operation there was most threatening for Ukraine as its defence measures "collapsed", allowing the Russians to advance up to 10km a day.

Their move was so rapid that Russian military bloggers even claimed that their troops had reached the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region for the first time since the start of the invasion.

Ukrainian military officials deny these claims, saying that a small group of Russian soldiers entered a village in the Dnipropetrovsk region to take photos with a Russian flag but were quickly "eliminated". The Institute for the Study of War, however, indicates that Russian troops are still operating there.

Maj Trehubov argues this area offers little strategic advantage for Russian troops and their assault was instead motivated by political goals.

Advancing further into Dnipropetrovsk region may work well for propaganda messages, but would require greater resources that are currently tied up in Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka.

The Ukrainians are nevertheless facing increasing pressure on the front lines, as Russian troops are constantly trying to cut off their supply lines with drone attacks.

"Those routes that we used two months ago, we can't use them now, not during the daytime, not even at night," Staff Sgt Viktor Pyasetskyi from Ukraine's 93rd brigade stationed near Kostyantynivka told the BBC over the phone.

As a result it has become extremely complicated and slow to deliver food and ammunition, evacuate the wounded and rotate troops on the front line.

Russian drones like the Gerbera can fly for hundreds of kilometres to reach places that until recently were regarded as relatively safe.

Their aim is not just to erase defence lines but also "to terrorise the population", says Staff Sgt Pyasetskiy. "They systematically destroy civilian buildings. They want to undermine morale and weaken our faith in Ukraine's ability to stop the Russians."

As he spoke, he was interrupted by the roar of drones. Shortly afterwards there were reports of an apartment block being hit. It was later confirmed the staff sergeant had survived.

Steve Rosenberg: Moscow shrugs off Trump's irritation with Putin

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0epr9y0e84o, yesterday

Any analysis of Donald Trump's current thinking on Russia risks getting out of date very quickly.

Read too much into an individual tweet, post or off-the-cuff comment by the US president, and the danger is that your conclusions will be contradicted by tomorrow's tweet, post or off-the-cuff comment.

Believe me. I've been there.

As today's edition of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper put it: "The US president blows hot and cold…he changes his mind on key issues as easily as he changes shoes."

Recently, though, when it comes to Russia, the White House does appear to have been blowing more cold than hot, which explains the headline in today's edition of Moskovsky Komsomolets: "The Russian-American Chill."

Following Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump's most recent telephone conversation on 3 July – their sixth this year – President Trump revealed that the two leaders "didn't make any progress" towards ending the war in Ukraine.

"I'm not happy about that," he added.

Four days later, President Trump threatened to impose a 10 percent tariff on any country aligned with the BRICS, the group of nations that includes Russia.

On Tuesday, his frustration boiled over with some of his strongest language so far: "We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth," President Trump said at a cabinet meeting.

"He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless."

Today I asked for the Kremlin's reaction.

"We are pretty calm about this," Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told me on a Kremlin conference call for journalists.

"Trump's way of talking is generally quite harsh…we plan to continue our dialogue with Washington to mend our broken bilateral relations…we hope that Trump and his team will continue their efforts to get the peace process back to the realm of diplomacy."

The Kremlin was trying, at least, to sound diplomatic.

The Russian press? It wasn't even trying.

In Komsomolskaya Pravda, a political pundit accused Donald Trump of "an absence of geopolitical achievements".

The tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets wrote about President Trump's "mercurial temperament, his propensity for sudden moods and chaotic changes of direction".

This week's edition of Arguments and Facts mocked Donald Trump over Elon Musk's new America Party.

"Now every time the US president says 'Make America Great Again' he'll be inadvertently promoting Musk's party," the paper wrote.

This is a sea-change from the previously positive coverage in Russia of the Trump administration. Back in March, a political scientist told Izvestia that "America now has more in common with Russia than Washington does with Brussels or Kyiv".

In May, the business daily Kommersant declared: "Donald Trump's stance couldn't be more advantageous to Moscow.

"He refused to strengthen sanctions against Russia and confirmed his determination to develop large-scale trade with Russia."

The optimism was understandable. Earlier this year, the White House was publicly criticising President Zelensky (not President Putin) and exerting pressure on Kyiv (not Moscow).

The US and Russia had launched bilateral talks to boost their relations.

What's more, President Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff was a frequent visitor to Russia for talks with President Putin. At one of their meetings the Kremlin leader gave him a present to take back for Trump: a portrait of the US president.

It seemed as if Moscow and Washington were destined to forge a new relationship.

But it's been more than two months since Witkoff's last visit. And, in June, Russia announced that the US had cancelled the next round of talks between the two countries aimed at restoring the operations of diplomatic missions.

Meanwhile, President Trump has, it seems, been growing increasingly frustrated by Russia's refusal to agree to a comprehensive ceasefire in Ukraine.

"The Kremlin believes that Trump offers Russia too little and, therefore, the continuation of a 'good quarrel' is better than a 'bad peace' from the point of view of Russia's long-term national interests," wrote Moskovsky Komsomolets today.

In other words, on Ukraine, Vladimir Putin wants more than Trump has been prepared to offer.

More in terms of territory, more in terms of concessions from Kyiv on the future size of Ukraine's army, more in terms of cutting back Western arms supplies to Kyiv.

And, to borrow a Trumpian expression, Vladimir Putin clearly believes that "he holds the cards" right now and can hold out for a better deal.

Is he right? Or is Moscow miscalculating?

Much will depend on what President Trump does next: on the scale of future US military assistance to Ukraine, and on whether the White House decides to strengthen sanctions against Russia.

But keep in mind my caveat.

And that vivid image, in Komsomolskaya Pravda, of Donald Trump changing his shoes.

Only a week ago Russian commentators were celebrating the US government's decision to freeze some military assistance to Ukraine.

So, follow closely. Not only what Donald Trump says on Russia and Ukraine, but the action he takes.

Ukraine fears increased Russian aggression after US halt of weapons supply

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgk33k204ddo, 8 days ago

Kyiv has warned that an interruption of US weapons shipments will encourage Russia to prolong the war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year.

On Tuesday the White House said it had cut off some weapons deliveries to Ukraine.

The decision was taken "to put America's interests first" following a defence department review of US "military support and assistance to other countries", White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the two countries were now "clarifying all the details on supplies", while the foreign ministry warned any delays "would only encourage the aggressor to continue war and terror, rather than seek peace".

The ministry particularly emphasised the need for Kyiv to strengthen its air defences - as Russia continues to pummel the country with missiles and drones on a near-nightly basis.

A Kyiv-based US diplomat was invited to the foreign ministry for talks on Wednesday.

However, Ukraine's defence ministry said it had not received any official notification from the US about the "suspension or revision" of the weapons deliveries, and urged people not to speculate on the basis of partial information.

But in a statement the defence ministry also said the path to ending the war was "through consistent and joint pressure on the aggressor".

At the weekend Ukraine endured its biggest aerial attack since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, with more than 500 drones and ballistic and cruise missiles launched at its cities.

US officials did not immediately say which shipments were being halted.

According to American broadcaster NBC, the weapons being delayed could include Patriot interceptors, Howitzer munitions, missiles and grenade launchers.

The US has sent tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, leading some in the Trump administration to voice concerns that US stockpiles are too low.

The Kremlin, for its part, welcomed news of the reduction in weapons shipments, saying reducing the flow of weapons to Kyiv will help end the conflict faster.

"The fewer the number of weapons that are delivered to Ukraine, the closer the end of the special military operation," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Fedir Venislavskyi, an MP for Ukraine's ruling party, said the decision was "painful, and against the background of the terrorist attacks which Russia commits against Ukraine... it's a very unpleasant situation".

A Ukrainian military source quoted by the AFP news agency said Kyiv was "seriously dependent on American arms supplies, although Europe is doing its best, but it will be difficult for us without American ammunition".

Ukraine's European allies have spent billions in military aid over the last three-and-a-half years.

However, military support for Kyiv is not endorsed by everyone on the political spectrum.

Czech President and former top Nato official, Petr Pavel, has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine - but he told BBC Russian he could "not guarantee" continued ammunition support for Kyiv, as that was dependent on the result of forthcoming Czech elections.

"I don't know what will be the priorities of a new government," he said.

The Pentagon's move is based on concerns that US military stockpiles are falling too low, a source told CBS News, although Anna Kelly stressed "the strength of the United States Armed Forces remains unquestioned - just ask Iran".

Separately, the US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Elbridge Colby, said in a statement the Pentagon "continues to provide the President with robust options to continue military aid to Ukraine".

However, he added "the department is rigorously examining and adapting its approach to achieving this objective while also preserving US forces' readiness for Administration defence priorities".

The pause comes less than a week after President Donald Trump discussed air defences with Volodymyr Zelensky at the Nato summit in the Netherlands.

Trump said US officials "are going to see if we can make some of them available" when asked by the BBC about providing extra Patriot anti-missile systems to Ukraine.

Referring to his conversation with Zelensky, Trump said: "We had a little rough times sometimes, but he couldn't have been nicer."

The two had a heated confrontation in the Oval Office in February. Afterwards, Trump said he was pausing military aid to Ukraine that had been earmarked by the previous Biden administration. Intelligence sharing with Ukraine was also suspended.

But both pauses were subsequently lifted.

In late April, the US and Ukraine signed a deal that would give the US access to Ukraine's mineral reserves in exchange for military assistance.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday - the first time in over two-and-a-half years.

They spoke on the phone for more than two hours, Macron's office said, adding the French president had urged a ceasefire in Ukraine and for talks to start on a "solid and lasting settlement of the conflict".

The Kremlin said Putin had "reminded Macron" that the West's policy was to blame for the war, because it had "for many years ignored Russia's security interests".

Last month, Russia's long-time leader told a forum in St Petersburg that he saw Russians and Ukrainians as one people and "in that sense the whole of Ukraine is ours".

Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimea peninsula annexed in 2014.

Despite heavy losses, Russia has made slow, grinding advances in Ukraine in recent months and announced full control of the eastern Luhansk region this week - this has not been independently verified.

Moscow also says it has seized territory in the south-eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk - a claim denied by the Ukrainian military.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday a Ukrainian attack killed three people at a Russian arms production factory making drones and radars in Izhevsk, more than 1,000km (620 miles) from the border with Ukraine.

'Mariupol is diseased': Residents deny Russian claims occupied city returning to normal

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq6912mqp1go, 11 days ago

"What they're showing on Russian TV are fairy tales for fools. Most of Mariupol still lies in ruins," says John, a Ukrainian living in Russian-occupied Mariupol. We've changed his name as he fears reprisal from Russian authorities.

"They are repairing the facades of the buildings on the main streets, where they bring cameras to shoot. But around the corner, there is rubble and emptiness. Many people still live in half-destroyed apartments with their walls barely standing," he says.

It's been just over three years since Mariupol was taken by Russian forces after a brutal siege and indiscriminate bombardment – a key moment in the early months of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Thousands were killed, and the UN estimated 90% of residential buildings were damaged or destroyed.

In recent months, videos and reels from several pro-Russia influencers have been painting a picture of a glossy city where damaged structures have been repaired and where life has gone back to normal.

But the BBC has spoken to more than half a dozen people - some still living in Mariupol, others who escaped after spending time under occupation - to piece together a real picture of what life is like in the city.

"There are a lot of lies floating around," says 66-year-old Olha Onyshko who escaped from Mariupol late last year and now lives in Ukraine's Ternopil.

"We had a beautiful city but now it's diseased. I wouldn't say they [Russian authorities] have repaired a lot of things. There's a central square – only the buildings there have been reconstructed. And there are also empty spaces where buildings stood. They cleared the debris, but they didn't even separate out the dead bodies, they were just loaded on to trucks with the rubble and carried out of the city," she adds.

Mariupol is also facing severe water shortages.

"Water flows for a day or two, then it doesn't come for three days. We keep buckets and cans of water at home. The colour of the water is so yellow that even after boiling it, it's scary to drink it," says James, another Mariupol resident whose name has been changed.

Some have even said the water looks like "coca cola".

Serhii Orlov, who calls himself Mariupol's deputy mayor in exile, says the Siverskyi Donets–Donbas Canal which supplied water to the city was damaged during the fighting.

"Only one reservoir was left supplying water to Mariupol. For the current population, that would've lasted for about a year and a half. Since occupation has lasted longer than that, it means there is no drinking water at all. The water people are using doesn't even meet the minimum drinking water standard," says Serhii.

There are frequent power cuts, food is expensive, and medicines are scarce, residents tell us.

"Basic medicines are not available. Diabetics struggle to get insulin on time, and it is crazy expensive," says James.

The BBC has reached out to Mariupol's Russian administration for a response to the allegations about shortages and whether they had found an alternative source for water. We have not got a response so far.

Despite the hardships the most difficult part of living in the city, residents say, is watching what Ukrainian children are being taught at school.

Andrii Kozhushyna studied at a university in Mariupol for a year after it was occupied. Now he's escaped to Dnipro.

"They are teaching children false information and propaganda. For example, school textbooks state that Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Odesa, Crimea and even Dnipropetrovsk regions are all already part of Russia," says Andrii.

He also described special lessons called "Conversations about Important Things" in which students are taught about how Russia liberated the Russian-speaking population of these regions from Nazis in 2022.

"Teachers who refuse to take these lessons are intimidated or fired. It's like they are reprogramming the minds of our children," says John, a Mariupol resident.

During World War Two Victory Day celebrations in May, images from Mariupol's central square showed children and adults dressed up in military costumes participating in parades and performances – Soviet-era traditions that Ukraine had increasingly shunned are now being imposed in occupied territories. Mariupol was bathed in the colours of the Russian flag – red, blue and white.

But some Ukrainians are waging a secret resistance against Russia, and in the dead of the night, they spray paint Ukrainian blue and yellow colours on walls, and also paste leaflets with messages like "Liberate Mariupol" and "Mariupol is Ukraine".

James and John are both members of resistance groups, as was Andrii when he lived in the city.

"The messages are meant as moral support for our people, to let them know that the resistance is alive," says James.

Their main objective is collecting intelligence for the Ukrainian military.

"I document information about Russian military movements. I analyse where they are transporting weapons, how many soldiers are entering and leaving the city, and what equipment is being repaired in our industrial areas. I take photos secretly, and keep them hidden until I can transmit them to Ukrainian intelligence through secure channels," says James.

Occasionally, the resistance groups also try to sabotage civil or military operations. On at least two occasions, the railway line into Mariupol was disrupted because the signalling box was set on fire by activists.

It's risky work. Andrii said he was forced to leave when he realised that he had been exposed.

"Perhaps a neighbour snitched on me. But once when I was at a store buying bread, I saw a soldier showing my photo to the cashier asking if they knew who the person was," he said.

He left immediately, slipping past Mariupol's checkposts and then travelling through numerous cities in Russia, and through Belarus, before entering Ukraine from the north.

For those still in the city, each day is a challenge.

"Every day you delete your messages because your phone can be checked at checkpoints. You're afraid to call your friends in Ukraine in case your phone is being tapped," says James.

"A person from a neighbouring house was arrested right off the street because someone reported that he was allegedly passing information to the Ukrainian military. Your life is like a movie – a constant tension, fear, distrust," he adds.

As talks continue between Ukraine and Russia, there have been suggestions from within and outside Ukraine that it would need to concede land in exchange for a peace deal.

"Giving away territory for a 'deal with Russia' will be a betrayal. Dozens risk their lives every day to pass information to Ukraine, not so that some diplomat in a suit will sign a paper that will 'hand us over'," says John.

"We don't want 'peace at any cost'. We want liberation."

Additional reporting by Imogen Anderson, Anastasiia Levchenko, Volodymyr Lozhko and Sanjay Ganguly

Ukraine university graduation held in Preston

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3358r71m2eo, today

The University of Central Lancashire (Uclan) stepped into to host a graduation for a student who was unable to receive his degree in Ukraine.

Hamza Hassan had been studying at Uzhhorod National University in south-west Ukraine, but regularly had lectures interrupted by air raids.

Uclan - which is twinned with the Ukrainian university - offered to host the ceremony instead.

"I am incredibly humbled and deeply grateful for the university's kind decision," Mr Hassan said.

Mr Hassan began his course in Dnipro and transferred to Uzhhorod to continue his studies online, before completing his practical sessions at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust in London.

He said: "I requested to attend the graduation because it is such a meaningful milestone.

"It's hard to put into words just how much this opportunity means to me and my family.

"It's more than just a day. It's a chance to reflect on the journey, recognise the effort it took to reach this point, get closure, and enjoy celebrations that I thought I'd lost."

'More strict'

UK-born Mr Hassan opted to study in Ukraine because of the competition for medical school places.

But, he added that "the course is a lot more strict than the UK".

The course began in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic and just before the Russian invasion in February 2022.

Online lectures would often cease due to air raids.

"Would you believe the lecturer would actually apologise because he had to go to the air raid shelter?" he said.

Mr Hassan said he was now working with medical devices that treat people with sleep apnoea, and is would be sitting further exams to gain his General Medical Council registration.

Listen to the best of BBC Radio Lancashire on Sounds and follow BBC Lancashire on Facebook, X and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.

Ukraine suffers heaviest attack as Trump criticises Putin

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2k19q4j07zo, yesterday

President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine has been hit by the biggest ever aerial attack from Russia, after 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities around the country in multiple waves.

Zelensky condemned the "telling attack", adding: "It comes precisely at a time when so many efforts have been made to achieve peace, to establish a ceasefire, and yet only Russia continues to rebuff them all."

The overnight strike came after President Donald Trump said the US would send more weapons to Kyiv - a reversal of last week's suspension which US media said Trump had not known about.

On Tuesday, the US leader expressed growing frustration at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Texas officials face questions about emergency alerts during deadly floods

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq537dp2ello, today

Texas officials are facing mounting questions about when Kerrville's residents were notified about deadly flash floods that killed 96 locals, with over 160 others still missing.

Asked about a possible police radio failure at a press conference on Thursday - almost a week after 4 July flooding - Kerrville Police community services officer Jonathan Lamb said, "I don't have any information to that point."

The questioning followed a tense exchange the day before when reporters asked officials repeatedly about a possible lag in emergency communications.

Early Friday, the Guadalupe River rose several metres in a matter of minutes, after an estimated 100bn gallons of rain.

Kerr County officials say they have not rescued anyone alive since the day of the floods.

Weather alerts preceded the storm. The National Weather Service sent several about rain and possible flooding starting Thursday afternoon, and the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) activated state resources because of flooding concerns.

Officials have cited lack of cell phone service, no sense of the storm's intensity and public desensitisation to such alerts in the flood-prone area, as reasons some did not evacuate.

President Donald Trump signed a federal disaster declaration at the request of Texas Governor Greg Abbott. This enabled the Federal Emergency Management Agency to deploy to Central Texas and open a disaster recovery centre in Kerr County.

Rescue efforts included over 2,100 responders on the ground, private helicopters, drones, boats and cadaver-detecting dogs. They are searching for the missing and the dead buried beneath mounds of mud-soaked debris.

"These large piles (of debris) can be very obstructive, and to get deep into these piles is very hazardous," Lt Colonel Ben Baker of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department said on Wednesday.

"It's extremely treacherous, time consuming. It's dirty work. It's the water still there. So, we're having to go layer by layer, peeling these off, to make those recoveries," he said.

Detained in immigration raids, Maga mom still has faith in Trump's mass deportation plan

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3vd1vn9n06o, yesterday

If Arpineh Masihi could vote, she would have cast her ballot for Donald Trump. She's a devout supporter of the US president – even now that she's locked up as an illegal immigrant.

"He's doing the right thing because lots of these people don't deserve to be here," Arpineh told the BBC over the phone from the Adelanto immigrant detention centre in California's Mojave Desert.

"I will support him until the day I die. He's making America great again."

Sixty miles (96 km) away in her home in Diamond Bar, a wealthy suburban city in eastern Los Angeles County, a Trump flag flies over the family's front yard. Maga hats adorn a shelf next to a family photo album, while the family's pet birds chirp in a cage.

It's a lively home, with three dogs and four young children, and Arpineh's husband and mother are bleary eyed and exhausted with worry, trying to put on brave faces.

"Our home is broken," says Arthur Sahakyan, Arpineh's husband.

'We all make mistakes'

In many ways, Arpineh, 39, is an American success story - a prime example of how the country gives people second, even third chances. Arpineh's mother wells up with tears as she talks about her daughter, who has lived in the US since she was three.

She had a rough patch many years ago, in 2008, when she was convicted of burglary and grand theft and was sentenced to two years in prison. An immigration judge revoked her Green Card, which is a common practice. But because she is a Christian Armenian Iranian, the judge allowed her to remain in the country instead of being deported.

"We are Christians. She can't go back, there's no way," Arthur says as their 4-year-old daughter runs in and out of the room. He fears her life would be at risk if she is sent back.

But since her release from prison, Arpineh has rebuilt her life, starting a successful business and a family among hundreds of thousands of Iranian immigrants who call Southern California home.

West Los Angeles - often called Tehrangeles - has the largest population of Iranians outside of Iran.

Some, like Arpineh, have been detained in recent weeks, swept up in immigration raids that have put the city on edge. While the majority of those detained in LA come from Mexico, daily updates from the Department of Homeland Security show immigrants from seemingly every corner of the globe have been arrested.

Trump was elected in part because of his promise to "launch the largest deportation programme of criminals in the history" - a promise Arpineh, her husband and mother say they all still believe in.

Yet her family says they have faith that Arpineh will be released, and believe that only hardened, dangerous criminals will actually be deported.

"I don't blame Trump, I blame Biden," Arthur says. "It's his doing for open borders, but I believe in the system and all the good people will be released and the ones that are bad will be sent back."

While many of those detained do not have criminal records, Aprineh is a convicted felon, which makes her a prime target for removal.

ICE did not respond to a request for comment about Arpineh's case.

Arthur says he doesn't know details of the burglary. They spoke briefly about it before they were married and then he forgot about what he considered a youthful indiscretion by his wife.

Instead, he focuses on his wife's good deeds over the last 17 years, volunteering with the local school district and bringing food to firefighters and police.

"We all make mistakes," he says.

'No matter what, we're going to catch you'

So, when ICE phoned Arpineh on 30 June as the family was having breakfast, the couple thought it must be a joke.

But immigration enforcement pulled up to their home 30 minutes later.

Despite signs all over Los Angeles County urging immigrants to "Know Your Rights" and not to open the door to immigration enforcement agents, the couple came outside to speak with the officers.

Arpineh explained how a judge had allowed her to stay in the US because of the situation in Iran, as long as she didn't commit any other crimes, and as long as she frequently checked in immigration officials. Her last check-in was in April, she showed them, presenting her paperwork.

Arthur even invited them into the house, which they declined, he says.

The immigration enforcement agents told her circumstances had changed and they had a warrant for her arrest.

They allowed her to go back inside and say goodbye to her children – aged 14, 11, 10 and 4. The officers told her that if she didn't come back outside, they would get her eventually.

"They told us no matter what we're going to catch you – maybe if you're driving on the street with your kids - so we thought, what we'd been seeing on the news: flash bombs, cornering cars," Arthur says. They didn't want to risk her being violently detained, possibly with their children watching.

"She came and kissed the kids goodbye," he recalls. "She came outside like a champion and said, 'Here I am'."

Arthur asked the immigration officers not to handcuff his wife. They said that wasn't possible, though they agreed to do it on the far side of the vehicle so the couple's children wouldn't see.

"I knew my kids were watching from upstairs," he says. "I didn't want them to see their mom handcuffed."

Arpineh was then taken to a federal building in downtown Los Angeles, a centre used by ICE to process those arrested in the ongoing raids across the region. The building became the centre of sometimes violent anti-ICE protests that riled Los Angeles for weeks.

She says those being held at the building "were treated like animals".

Arpineh told the BBC she was held in a freezing, brightly lit room with 28 other women for three days. They survived on snacks and one bottle of water a day, she says, the women huddling together for warmth, and sleeping on the floor.

Waiting for reprieve

Because Arpineh speaks three languages – Armenian, Spanish and English – she was able to communicate with many of the other women and says they helped each other.

Three days later, she was moved to Adelanto, the privately-run ICE detention centre in the desert northeast of Los Angeles, which has a reputation for harsh, prison-like conditions.

But Arpineh says it's much better than what they faced in downtown LA, now having three meals a day, access to showers and a bed. Though she's heard it's difficult to get medical treatment if you need it, Arpineh is young and healthy.

"But it's still very challenging," she says.

She and her husband say they still have faith in the Trump administration and believe that she will be released.

"I'm not deportable to any country," Arpineh told the BBC from the detention facility.

But that hasn't stopped immigration officials in the past. In February, a group of Iranian Christians who had just crossed the border from Mexico were deported - but to Panama, not Iran.

Arpineh remains hopeful for a reprieve, but she notes that she's felt discouraged, too.

She says she loves America and that she feels American, even if she lacks the paperwork.

She calls her husband collect once an hour so they can share updates on her legal case, though so far there isn't much to share. The older children understand what's happening, but their 4-year-old daughter keeps asking when mommy is coming home, he says.

All four children are US citizens, born and raised in California. The couple believes officials will take that into consideration when deciding Arpineh's fate.

"I have four citizen children. I own a business. I own a property. I own cars," Arpineh says. "I haven't done anything wrong in so many years."

Trump is right on migration - John Kerry says Biden allowed 'siege' on border

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr4wk52rwqpo, today

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry has told the BBC his fellow Democrats allowed the US-Mexico border to be "under siege" during Joe Biden's presidency.

In sometimes sharp words, Kerry - who was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 and a US senator from Massachusetts - said he told Biden the party had "missed" on the issue of immigration for years, allowing Republicans like Donald Trump to gain political advantage.

The comments, made during an interview with BBC special correspondent James Naughtie, underscore an ongoing debate within the Democratic Party over whether their pro-immigration policies cost them in recent elections - and how they should handle Trump's recent nationwide attempts to detain and deport undocumented migrants.

"The first thing any president should say - or anybody in public life - is without a border protected, you don't have a nation," Kerry said. "I wish President Biden had been heard more often saying, I'm going to enforce the law."

Such words have been a familiar refrain for Trump during his time in national politics and were included in the 2024 Republican Party policy platform.

But Democrats - many of whom advocate more relaxed immigration laws and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented migrants - attempted to portray Trump's positions as harsh and discriminatory.

According to Kerry, that was a mistake.

"Trump was right," Kerry said. "The problem is we all should have been right."

In the first six month's of Trump's second term in office, illegal crossings at the US-Mexico border have dropped to near record lows - although the downward trend began during the last year of the Biden presidency, after the Democrat tightened some asylum rules.

The Trump administration has now shifted its focus to identification, detention and deportation of documented migrants across the US, expanding its efforts to include those who have resided in the US for years.

The move has prompted mass demonstrations in some US cities, including Los Angeles, where federal officials have been carrying out some of the most aggressive action.

Over the weekend, armed federal agents and 90 California National Guard troops conducted an operation in the city's MacArthur Park - a gathering place for nearby immigrant communities. The officials swept through the park on foot, horseback and in armoured vehicles.

"To me, this is another example of the administration ratcheting up chaos by deploying what looked like a military operation in an American city," Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, said at an impromptu news conference near the park.

"You can spin it anyway you like, but in my opinion, it's a political agenda of provoking fear and terror."

On Tuesday, Los Angeles and seven other California cities joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging that the federal immigration enforcement actions are unlawful. The state of California has filed a brief supporting the lawsuit.

Rob Bonta, the California attorney general, issued a statement denouncing what he said was a "cruel and familiar pattern of attacks on our immigrant communities by an administration that thrives on fear and division".

The denunciations, and the legal battles, echo the tactics Democrats relied on during Trump's first presidential term, when the Republican policy of separating migrant families that crossed the US-Mexico border generated widespread national outrage.

Such concerns faded, however, and by 2024 stringent immigration enforcement once again became a top Republican talking point.

The Trump administration appears to continue to welcome debate on immigration - an issue where, despite some declining support in recent public opinion polls, they believe they still have the upper hand.

When asked on Wednesday about a push by Democrats in Congress for legislation prohibiting immigration enforcement officers from concealing their identities, Trump said the opposition party had lost its way.

"This is the problem with the Democrats," he said. "They have a lot of bad things going on in their heads. They've lost their confidence and become somewhat deranged."

Democrats are used to derisive criticism from Trump, of course. But some - including party elders like Kerry – are becoming increasingly vocal in arguing that they given Trump an opening to land his political punches.

Reflections is on BBC Radio 4 on 10 July at 09:30 BST.

UK audiences can listen on BBC Sounds, or at this link for international users.

Secret Service suspended staff for failings over Trump assassination attempt

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0w9ev559ro, today

The US Secret Service issued suspensions for six personnel over failings at one of Donald Trump's rallies last year, during which a gunman attempted to assassinate the Republican, an official has confirmed.

Matt Quinn, the service's deputy director, told the BBC's US partner CBS News that the gathering in Butler, Pennsylvania, when Matthew Crooks fired at Trump and killed another attendee, was an "operational failure".

One of Crooks's bullets grazed the ear of Trump, who was then rushed to safety. The attacker was shot dead.

It is not clear when the staff suspensions were formally issued, and US media reports differ on whether or not they have already been served.

Speaking to CBS, Quinn said the staff were given penalties ranging from 10 to 42 days of leave without pay or benefits.

"Secret Service is totally accountable for Butler," he explained. "Butler was an operational failure and we are focused today on ensuring that it never happens again."

Quinn, who was appointed to his role in May this year, added that he was "laser-focused on fixing the root cause of the problem", but his organisation would not "fire our way out of this".

Quinn told CBS a number of improvements had already been made, involving military-grade drones and improved mobile command posts that could now be used by agents in the field.

The identities of the suspended staff and their roles on the day of the attack have not been disclosed.

The news comes just days before the anniversary of the attack on 13 July 2024. Rally attendee Corey Comperatore was killed and two other people injured.

The incident prompted the resignation of the service's then-director, Kimberly Cheatle.

The Secret Service has been under intense scrutiny for the last 12 months, and has faced sharp criticism from US Congress members.

Last September, a 94-page Senate report found that security failures and lack of communication within the US Secret Service "directly contributed" to the incident, and that many issues remained unaddressed two months later.

The attack was also described as preventable in another report, published in December, by a House of Representatives taskforce. That paper identified the main lapse as being a failure to secure the rooftop from which Crooks opened fire.

Trump, who was successfully re-elected in November, was provided with heightened security in the aftermath of the attack - ensuring that he received protection at a level above what is typical for a presidential candidate.

In September, he was again rushed to safety by Secret Service agents after a second would-be gunman lurked in bushes at Trump's golf course in Florida. The FBI described this, too, as an apparent assassination attempt.

The suspect in that second incident was detained.

Back-to-back floods in New Mexico and Texas with very different outcomes

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y022wp009o, today

Eddie Gutierrez looked out the window of his brewery as the river turned into a raging torrent and swept away his neighbour's house.

Three people, including two children, were killed in Tuesday afternoon's floods in Ruidoso, New Mexico, and numerous properties were destroyed.

But the village was prepared, Mr Gutierrez said, with flood experts already on the ground and plans in place.

By next morning the sun was shining, and the town was "almost business as usual".

"It's a hard thing to see that and then the next day is almost completely normal, it's almost as if it didn't happen," he told the BBC.

The neighbouring state of Texas also experienced a major flood just a few days earlier, but with a very different outcome.

The ferocity of the inundation in Texas caught forecasters and state officials by surprise, killing at least 120 people.

In Ruidoso on Tuesday, up to 3.5in (8.8cm) of rain fell, sending water hurtling down the surrounding mountainside and swelling the river to a record high above 20ft, before a swathe of the village was flooded.

The area surrounding Ruidoso was already vulnerable to flooding because of wildfires that hit New Mexico last summer.

Two people were killed and hundreds of homes were destroyed as the South Fork and Salt fires swept through Ruidoso in June 2024.

Residents were forced to evacuate as the conflagrations burned 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) of land on either side of the village.

Days later, residents faced the one-two punch of devastating flooding.

Homes surrounding Mr Gutierrez's brewery were among properties still vacant after those wildfires last year. The house that he saw floating down the river on Tuesday afternoon was one of many that had been left empty after the wildfires.

Local officials are well aware that "burn scars" - areas of vegetation that no long absorb rainfall - are likely to cause more flooding in an area for years after fires.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said two "burn scars" around Ruidoso would make the charred soil left behind from the wildfires "as water-repellent as a pavement".

Tuesday's flooding was more of that side effect.

"These floods were expected, we knew they would come and they did," Mr Gutierrez said.

When a community is familiar with weather risks, they adapt, notes Upmanu Lall, director of the Water Institute at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University.

"The way human nature works, is that if they've experienced a event recently that informs the response," he told the BBC.

"If your experience is you got hit with a flood, you probably will evacuate, if you keep getting warnings and nothing happens, you're unlikely to evacuate."

One state over, in Texas, the flooding caught many unawares.

One reason was the sheer, staggering volume of rainfall - an estimated 100bn gallons, surpassing the daily flow over Niagara Falls.

The catastrophe unfolded before daybreak last Friday as the Guadalupe River rose 26ft (8m) in the span of just 45 minutes while young children and staff at summer camps were asleep as weather alerts were being sent.

Search crews in Texas are still sifting through debris for scores of missing people.

In Kerr County, the hardest hit area, 95 people were killed and over 150 are missing.

Experts have said there were a number of factors that led to the tragic floods in Texas, including the pre-dawn timing, the location of some homes and the extreme weather.

Questions have been raised about whether authorities provided adequate flood warnings before the disaster, and why people were not evacuated earlier.

"We didn't even have a warning," Joe Herring, the mayor of badly hit Kerrville, Texas, told CNN.

'Huge wall of water': Texas man stood on meter box to survive deadly floods

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3358pz41d6o, yesterday

When Christian Fell saw floodwater beginning to fill his home in Hunt, Texas, last Friday, it was already too late.

The Texan was one of hundreds forced to evacuate his home as flash floods swept through south central Texas, killing 120 people in the state, including 95 - as of Wednesday - in Kerr County where Mr Fell lives.

Mr Fell told the BBC that he tried to leave through his kitchen to get to his truck in the pitch black, but when he opened the door a "huge wall of water" came toward him.

"I tried closing the door, and I couldn't get that done because just how powerful the water was, and so I had to go back further into the house," he said.

Mr Fell found his furniture now floating in the water in his home and climbed over it, making it to his bedroom. There, he said, he spotted a window, swam through it and climbed on top of an outside meter box - where he stood for three hours.

He only climbed down when he saw a police officer walking in the street.

"I was clinging on to the side of the house, just praying the water would stop," he said.

Mr Fell said he did not receive any weather alerts until water was already in his house.

At least 36 children and 59 adults have died in the floods in Kerr County alone, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a news conference on Wednesday.

Officials are continuing their extensive search and rescue missions, using heavy equipment to remove debris, police said.

Mr Leitha said more than 150 people were still missing in the county as of Wednesday morning, including five campers and a counsellor from Camp Mystic, a Christian all-girls summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River.

Emergency responders often rely on a combination of local census data, eyewitness interviews, and families requesting help finding loved ones to compile lists of missing people after a natural disaster, said Irwin Redlener, Columbia University professor and founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness.

"Especially in a flood, there could be survivors who are injured or isolated by being carried by floodwaters," Prof Redlener told BBC.

"But as we get further and further out from the disaster itself, then our confidence that we're still going to find survivors goes down very rapidly."

In the first hour of the floods on Friday, emergency responders evacuated over 100 homes and rescued over 200 people, waking people and pulling them from their residences, said Jonathan Lamb, community services officer for the Kerrville Police Department (KPD).

"Folks, I don't know how many lives our KPD team saved in an hour in Kerrville, but I know that this tragedy, as horrific as it is, could have been so much worse," Mr Lamb said.

Maria Paula Zarate and Silvana Garza Valdez were working as counselors at Camp Mystic, the Christian girls' camp in Kerr County, when the Guadalupe River began to rise early Friday.

Ms Zarate said neither she nor the campers could sleep when the rain started because it was so loud. "It was a storm like I had never experienced before in my life," Ms Garza Valdez said.

She saw the camp waterfront crumbling with dirt and mud, and said some of the counselors started to cry when they were told to evacuate, with Army trucks coming to rescue them.

"I felt like I was in a dream," she said.

Ms Zarate noted that the river was "full of furniture that had come from other camps."

Questions have been raised about whether authorities provided adequate flood warnings before the disaster, and why people were not evacuated earlier.

Experts say there were a number of factors that contributed to the tragedy in Texas, including extreme weather, the location of some homes and timing.

Governor Greg Abbott said authorities had issued a storm warning and knew about a possible flash flood, but "didn't know the magnitude of the storm".

'Lives are at stake:' Deadly Texas storms put spotlight on Trump's weather agency cuts

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx23ye0xnnyo, yesterday

The proposed budget states that, "NWS continues to produce operational forecasts, warnings, impact-based decision support services and other life-saving products and services to the emergency management community and public as they prepare for and respond to increasingly frequent severe weather and water events".

Yet the proposal also "eliminates all funding for climate, weather, and ocean Laboratories and Cooperative Institutes" at NOAA.

Mr Hazelton, who now works at the University of Miami, said it is essential for public safety that NOAA continues to invest in research into more accurate weather and climate models.

For example, higher resolution weather models predicted extreme pockets of rainfall in Texas ahead of the storms – but pinpointing location and timing on such events is notoriously difficult. Questions have swirled in the wake of the disaster about how residents in the flood's path could have been warned faster.

"That's why we need continued investment and research in NOAA, so we can predict these extreme events," Mr Hazelton said.

He also emphasised the need to fully staff NWS offices so that meteorologists and scientists don't burn out, particularly during the US hurricane season.

The prospect of future cuts also worries the NWS volunteer - who lives in a flood-prone area.

"Mother Nature is a tricky deal. She'll do whatever she wants, and it's bad enough that you don't have that advantage to begin with. And now you're just tying their hands more."

After Diddy: Why hip-hop is still struggling to have its own 'MeToo' moment

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yllvjgpk6o, 2 days ago

Listen to Rianna read this article

One day in 2010, Sean "Diddy" Combs was in the kitchen of his Beverly Hills estate with his assistant Capricorn Clark. "Let me show you something," he said, summoning his girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, into the room.

Turning to her, he issued a string of commands: "Sit down, stand up, turn around, walk over there, hand me that. Now go back." His girlfriend obeyed his every word.

"Did you see that?" said Combs to his assistant. "You won't do that. That's why you don't have a man like me."

This account, shared by Ms Clark in her testimony during Combs' recent eight-week trial, gave a glimpse into his dynamic with his partner - and a sense of what was happening behind closed doors.

Ms Ventura (also known as Cassie), an R&B singer who was previously signed to his record label, testified that throughout their long-term relationship, Combs – who was 17 years her senior – beat her, blackmailed her and coerced her into drug-fuelled sex sessions with escorts. He had, she continued, controlled her life.

Central to the trial was the claim that Combs, 55, a multimillionaire music mogul once credited with bringing rap into the mainstream, forced his partners to engage in elaborate sexual performances, known as "freak-offs", that he directed, often filmed and arranged with the help of his staff.

Last week, he was found guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. He was acquitted on the more serious charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking.

After the verdict was announced, Ms Ventura's lawyer, Doug Wigdor, said that by coming forward, she had "brought attention to the realities of powerful men in our orbit and the misconduct that has persisted for decades without repercussion".

But now, campaigners, survivors of sexual violence and insiders within the music industry are asking: Why did it take so long to hold Combs accountable?

And, in light of Hollywood's MeToo movement that uncovered and helped root out sexual harassment and abuse in the film industry, and which began nearly a decade ago - is it now time that the music industry, or more specifically, hip-hop, had a MeToo movement of its own?

'A playbook that shields predators'

Cristalle Bowen is a rapper from Chicago who was part of an all-female trio called RapperChicks. "The Diddy trial only highlights what many of us already know," she says, referring to the struggle to hold powerful people to account.

In 2022 she wrote a book about misogyny in the industry. The tagline is: Navigating Hip-Hop and Relationships in a Culture of Misogyny. "Being the token women on labels and in crews leaves you susceptible to, at the very least, name calling," she claims. "At the most… you've been abused in some way.

"When there is money involved, it becomes tricky. From hush money to stalled careers to the way we all see survivors treated… It's a difficult task."

Campaigners and industry insiders who spoke to the BBC say that sexual abuse and harassment exists across all genres in the music business, not only hip-hop. They point to a culture of silence, where they claim that predators are protected and victims risk being blacklisted, sued or fired.

Caroline Heldman, an academic and activist, agrees. She is co-founder of the US-based Sound Off Coalition, which advocates for the elimination of sexual violence in music, and argues that there is a history of using "threats to push out women artists who are targets of abuse by men".

"The music industry has followed a playbook for dealing with sexual abuse that shields predators, including musicians, producers, managers, executives, and other behind-the-scenes players, from liability," she claims.

Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) – legal contracts that stop people from sharing certain agreed-upon private information – are used legitimately in the industry, for example to help protect commercial secrets. But some argue that these are being misused and can contribute to a culture of silence in cases of abuse.

"[It] makes for a very difficult decision for a lot of victims," says Arick Fudali, a New York-based lawyer. One of his clients is Dawn Richard, a singer who testified against Combs at the federal trial and has an ongoing lawsuit against him.

"I've had clients who have declined that and chosen to file their lawsuit publicly," he adds. "They can receive less money than if they had just settled privately and confidentially."

Ms Bowen argues that she has seen this happen first-hand. "Moguls write the cheques and artists need the cheques - there's usually no checks and balances when mogul money is involved."

But, there may be other reasons for not speaking out.

And in hip-hop specifically, some survivors of abuse and experts we spoke to argue that this culture of silence is exacerbated by the combined forces of racism and misogyny, and a desire to fiercely protect a genre that has created rare avenues to stardom and financial success.

A mouthpiece for liberation and resistance

Originating in the African-American and Latino communities of New York City in the 1970s, hip-hop became a mouthpiece for liberation and resistance against the authorities and social injustice.

"Hip-hop allowed young black people to tell their own stories on their own terms, it gave that generation a voice," explains Mark Anthony Neal, professor of African-American studies at Duke University, particularly when popular culture was offering a limited portrayal of black America.

It's now the most commercially successful music genre in the US, leading in album sales and streaming numbers. "Rappers are the new rock stars," says Thomas Hobbs, a writer and co-host of a hip-hop podcast, Exit the 36 Chambers. "They're the people now most likely to fill arenas."

As an artist and businessman who ran an empire that encompassed fashion, alcohol and TV as well as his label, Bad Boy Records, Combs - who has an estimated net worth of about $400m (£293m) - has been championed not only for helping hip-hop become commercially viable but for creating jobs and opportunities, particularly for black men.

Throughout his career he has been vocal about "black excellence" – platforming achievements – as well as highlighting struggles within the black community.

This was something his legal defence raised in court, saying: "Sean Combs has become something that is very, very hard to be. Very hard to be. He is a self-made, successful, black entrepreneur."

Outside court during his trial, fans erupted in cheers after he was acquitted of the more serious charges and onlookers debated aloud whether he had been unfairly targeted. "Of course he was. He's a powerful black man," one said.

For weeks, others had been wearing and selling "Free Puff" T-shirts, after Combs' 90s stage name, next to a speaker blaring out his music.

Sociologist Katheryn Russell-Brown has described a phenomenon she calls "black protectionism".

"Those who have managed to obtain large-scale prosperity, in spite of legal, political, economic, educational and social barriers, are given the status of racial pioneers," she wrote in her book, Protecting Our Own: Race, Crime, and African Americans, which was inspired by the OJ Simpson case.

"It is, therefore, predictable that black people as a group are suspicious when criminal charges are brought against members of its elite, protected class."

Black women in particular carry the fear that speaking out could reinforce harmful stereotypes about their community, argues Treva Lindsey, a professor in the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at Ohio State University who researches misogyny in hip-hop.

"When we portray hip-hop as uniquely sexist, or sexually violent, or harmful, that has repercussions for black people of all genders," she says.

The start of a reckoning?

And yet across the entertainment industry more broadly, a retrospective focus is slowly happening now, in part because of shifts in attitudes.

Recent changes to law in some US states have also enabled people to take action over alleged historic misconduct.

New York and California passed laws in 2022 called the Adult Survivors Act that for one-year only allowed people to file sexual abuse claims, regardless of when the alleged incidents took place.

Ms Ventura filed a lawsuit against Combs in November 2023, accusing him of physical and sexual abuse. It was settled the following day, and Combs denied the claims.

He is also facing more than 60 civil cases from men and women accusing him of drugging or assault, spanning his entire three-decade career.

In a statement, Combs' team has said: "No matter how many lawsuits are filed, it won't change the fact that Mr Combs has never sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone - man or woman, adult or minor."

There are several other hip-hop titans of the 90s and 00s who have been accused in a relatively recent wave of allegations.

Music executive and producer Antonio LA Reid, who worked with artists including Usher, Kanye West (now known as Ye) and Rihanna, was accused of sexual assault in a lawsuit filed in 2023. He denies all claims against him.

Meanwhile, Russell Simmons, co-founder of hip-hop label Def Jam Recordings, has faced allegations of violent sexual behaviour by more than 20 women since 2017, all of which he has denied.

Drew Dixon, who is former vice president of Artists and Repertoire (A&R) at Arista Records, is among them. She has claimed she was abused by both Mr Simmons and Mr Reid when she worked in the music industry in the 1990s and 2000s.

She told The New York Times: "You're not just going up against the person who assaulted you," she said. "You are going against everyone who benefits from their brand and revenue stream.

"Those forces will mobilise against any accuser. It's daunting."

Backlash after speaking out

Sil Lai Abrams, who is a writer and gender violence activist, began working as an executive assistant at the Def Jam music label in 1992. She is one of the women who accused Mr Simmons of sexual assault. He has denied all allegations.

"It's harder for women of colour to speak out against abuse in the music industry," she argues - something that she believes still applies today. "[Women have] been conditioned to see abuse of power and sexual harassment as the price one pays to work in the industry."

Then there is the question of the response from the public if people do speak out. When Ms Ventura first filed her lawsuit against Combs, she faced widespread abuse. Memes on social media accused her of being a gold-digger. Some in the hip-hop industry criticised her too.

"Quit trying to expose people for money," US rapper Slim Thug said in a video shared with his two million followers on Instagram in 2023.

Only when CNN broadcast security camera footage dating back to 2016 which showed Combs grabbing, dragging and kicking Ms Ventura in the hallway of a hotel did the sentiment towards her change.

Slim Thug publicly apologised for his comments.

Combs responded in a video statement posted on Instagram, saying: "My behaviour on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility… I'm committed to be a better man each and every day… I'm truly sorry."

"Before the video of Combs beating her came out and people couldn't deny the evidence, people said Cassie was a liar," says Dr Nikki Lane, assistant professor in Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies at Duke University.

Yet Dr Lane argues that more still needs to change. "Black women's bodies are constantly traded upon within the culture of hip-hop as tropes to be ridiculed".

Dr Lane points to the example of rapper Megan Thee Stallion, who was shot in the foot in 2020.

Fellow rapper Tory Lanez is currently serving a 10-year sentence for the assault, but after the incident, the artist Drake was criticised for lyrics in his 2022 song Circo Loco - "This b- lie 'bout gettin' shots, but she still a stallion" - which seemed to refer to the incident.

'Some people look the other way'

There remains the question of what happens to the art – and indeed the music – when an idol is convicted of serious crimes.

R&B singer R Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2022 for sex trafficking, racketeering and sexually abusing women and children, but years later, his music remains popular. It generated about 780 million audio streams in the US since January 2019. On Spotify, he has around 5.2 million monthly listeners.

"There are still people [who] defend R Kelly," says Mr Hobbs. "I won't be surprised if Diddy's streams, just like R Kelly's, stay high."

"There's a kind of cognitive dissonance" from fans, he argues. "These songs become so embedded in people's lives that they find it very difficult to get rid of them… [they're] part of people's DNA.

"So, I think some people are able to look the other way."

The bigger question, perhaps, is how should the industry react? After the MeToo movement began in 2017, at least 200 prominent men accused of sexual harassment lost their jobs, and changes were made to workplace policies.

However, the Combs verdict in itself is unlikely to lead to wider changes, according to Prof Lindsey. "I think what happens in this moment is Diddy, kind of like R Kelly in the R&B black music pantheon, is seen as exceptional… and not indicative of something else," she says.

"There isn't a cultural reset where we look inward and ask: 'How does this happen?'"

But that is exactly what is missing, argue some others in the industry, including Ms Abrams. "What is lacking is a political environment against which survivors can count on to change the material conditions that allowed someone like Combs to act with impunity," she says.

Following MeToo in Hollywood, certain changes were introduced, including making intimacy coordinators more of a standard practice when filming sex scenes. Some music insiders now hope that migrates over to music video sets.

The Sound Off Coalition is calling for new company rules that require people in positions of power in music to report accusations of sexual assault.

Tangible measures are what matter, argues Dr Lane. "The only way for me to believe that there's been a reckoning would be to see changes in laws, policies, and actual business practices of the industry… [Ones] that are not based on how long Diddy goes down for."

For all the latest reaction and analysis on the verdict, you can listen to the Diddy on Trial podcast available on BBC Sounds.

Additional reporting by Florence Freeman and Fiona Macdonald

Top picture credit: Rich Polk/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

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The US helped successfully tackle Aids - now cuts put that at risk

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce83r14vlnpo, today

Gugu used to collect her anti-retroviral from a USAID-funded clinic in downtown Johannesburg.

But when President Trump's cuts to aid funding were announced earlier this year, her and thousands of other HIV-positive patients across South Africa suddenly faced an uncertain future.

Gugu was lucky, the clinic where she got the medication that helps suppress her symptoms contacted her before it closed down.

"I was one of the people who was able to get their medication in bulk. I usually collect a three-month prescription. But before my clinic closed, they gave me nine months' worth of medication."

She will run out of ARVs in September, and then plans on going to her local public hospital for more.

A former sex worker, the 54-year-old found out she was HIV-positive after she'd quit the industry.

Ten years ago she got a chesty cough, and initially thought it was tuberculosis. She went to a doctor who told her she had a chest infection and treated her for it.

But when the treatment failed, she went to a clinic to get an HIV test.

"By then I already assumed that I was HIV-positive, and I told the nurse this."

She was right, and she has been on antiretrovirals (ARVs) ever since. We're not using her real name at her request.

She currently works as a project coordinator for an NGO.

"We help pregnant sex workers get their ARVs, to ensure their children are born HIV-negative. We also do home visits to make sure that the mothers take their medication on time, and to look after their babies when they go for their monthly check-ups."

Many HIV-positive sex workers in South Africa relied on private clinics funded by the US government's now-defunct aid agency, USAID, to get their prescriptions and treatments.

But most of the facilities closed after US President Donald Trump cut most foreign aid earlier this year.

In a report due to be released on Thursday, the UN body in charge of fighting HIV/Aids does not single out the US, but says that drastic cuts from a number of donors have sent shockwaves around the world, and the "phenomenal progress" in tackling the illness risks being reversed.

"New HIV infections have been reduced by 40% since 2010, and 4.4 million children have been protected from acquiring HIV since 2000. More than 26 million lives have been saved," UNAIDS says, warning that if the world does not act, there could be an extra six million new HIV infections and four million AIDS-related deaths by 2029.

Gugu has so far been lucky. The clinic from where she got her antiretrovirals in Johannesburg contacted her before it closed.

She will run out of antiretrovirals in September, and will then go to her local public hospital for more.

She believes that many sex workers could be discouraged from doing so.

"The problem with going to public hospitals is the time factor. In order to get serviced at these facilities, you have to arrive at 4 or 5am, and they may spend the whole day waiting for their medication. For sex workers, time is money," Gugu says.

She adds that she recently went to her local clinic with some friends to register her details and build a relationship with staff.

"The nurse who attended to us was very rude. She told us there was nothing special about sex workers."

She thinks this could lead to many sex workers defaulting on their medication, "especially because their hospital files contain a lot of personal information, and the concern is that sometimes the nurses at these local clinics aren't always the most sensitive in dealing with this kind of information."

According to the UN, the US cuts to HIV funding could reverse some of the gains made by what has been called one of the most successful public health interventions in history.

Scientists in the UK-based Lancet medical journal last month estimated that USAID funding directly reduced Aids deaths by 65%, or 25.5 million, over the past two decades.

Then-US President George W Bush launched an ambitious programme to combat HIV/Aids in 2003, saying it would serve the "strategic and moral interests" of the US.

Known as the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), it led to the investment of more than $100bn (£74bn) in the global HIV/Aids response - the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in the world.

South Africa has about 7.7 million people living with HIV, the highest number in the world, according to UNAIDS.

About 5.9 million of them receive antiretroviral treatment, resulting in a 66% decrease in Aids-related deaths since 2010, the UN agency adds.

South Africa's government says Pepfar funding contributed about 17% to its HIV/Aids programme. The money was used for various projects, including running mobile clinics to make it easier for patients to get treatment.

The Trump administration's cuts have raised concern that infection rates could spike again.

"I think we're going to start seeing an increase in the number of HIV infections, the number of TB cases, the number of other infectious diseases," Prof Lynn Morris, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Johannesburg's Wits University, tells the BBC.

"And we're going to start seeing a reversal of what was essentially a real success story. We were getting on top of some of these things."

Gugu points out that treatment is a matter of life and death, especially for vulnerable populations like sex workers.

"People don't want to default on their ARVs. They're scared that they're going to die if they don't get access to them.

The cuts have also affected research aimed at finding an HIV vaccine and a cure for Aids.

"There's the long-term impact, which is that we're not going to be getting new vaccines for HIV," Prof Morris adds.

"We're not going to be keeping on top of viruses that are circulating. Even with new viruses that might appear, we're not going to have the surveillance infrastructure that we once had."

South Africa has been one of the global leaders in HIV research. Many of the medications that help prevent the virus, and which have benefitted people around the world, were trialled in South Africa.

This includes Prep (pre-exposure prophylaxis), a medication which stops HIV-negative people from catching the virus.

Another breakthrough preventive drug released this year, Lenacapavir, an injection taken twice a year and that offers total protection from HIV, was also tried in South Africa.

In a lab at Wits University's Health Sciences campus, a small group of scientists are still working on a vaccine for HIV.

They are part of the Brilliant Consortium, a group of labs working across eight African countries to develop a vaccine for the virus.

"We were developing a vaccine test to see how well that works, and then we would trial it on humans," Abdullah Ely, an Associate Professor at Wits University, tells the BBC in his lab.

"The plan was to run the trials in Africa based on research carried out by Africans because we want that research to actually benefit our community as well as all mankind."

But the US funding cuts threw their work into doubt.

"When the stop order came, it meant we had to stop everything. Only some of us have been able to get additional funding so we could continue our work. It's set us back months, probably could even be a year," Prof Ely says.

The lab lacks funding to carry out clinical trials scheduled for later this year.

"That is a very big loss to South Africa and the continent. It means that any potential research that comes out of Africa will have to be tested in Europe, or the US," Prof Ely says.

In June, universities asked the government for a bailout of 4.6bn South African rand ($260m; £190m) over the next three years to cover some of the funding lost from the US.

"We are pleading for support because South Africa is leading in HIV research, but it's not leading for itself. This has ramifications on the practice and policies of the entire globe," says Dr Phethiwe Matutu, head of Universities South Africa.

South Africa's Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced on Wednesday that some alternative funding for research had been secured.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust have agreed to donate 1m rand each with immediate effect, while the government would make available 400m rand over the next three years, he said.

This would bring the total to 600m rand, way below the 4.6bn rand requested by researchers.

As for Gugu, she had hoped that by the time she was elderly, a cure for HIV/Aids would have been found, but she is less optimistic now.

"I look after a nine-year-old. I want to live as long as I can to keep taking care of him," she tells the BBC.

"This isn't just a problem for right now, we have to think about how it's going to affect the next generation of women and young people."

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

'Shoot in the leg' - Kenyan leader orders police to curb violent protests

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9dgv5e6447o, yesterday

Kenya's President William Ruto has ordered police to shoot protesters targeting businesses in the legs, ensuring they are incapacitated but not killed.

The UN and human rights groups have accused the police of using excessive force in the recent wave of anti-government protests - 31 people were killed on Monday, according to a state-run body.

"Anyone caught burning another person's business or property should be shot in the leg, hospitalised, and later taken to court. Don't kill them, but ensure their legs are broken," the president said.

He further warned his political rivals against sponsoring and using violent protests and "unlawful" means to forcibly remove him from power.

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

Tunisian opposition leader jailed for 14 years

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c04d1d71rx4o, yesterday

Tunisian opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi has been sentenced to 14 years in prison, adding to a string of other jail terms he has received in separate cases.

Ghannouchi, who heads the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, was among 18 politicians and officials sentenced on Tuesday for "conspiring against state security".

Ghannouchi's defence team denied the charges brought against the 84-year-old, saying the proceedings did not meet the standards of a fair trial.

Over the past few years, rights groups have repeatedly denounced the jailing of opposition figures in Tunisia, saying the sentences highlight an aggressive crackdown against critics of President Kais Saied.

Ghannouchi has been in jail since 2023 and refused to attend Tuesday's sentencing remotely.

In recent months, he has received three sentences totalling more than 20 years, for charges such as money laundering.

Ghannouchi is one of the best known figures in Tunisian politics. He founded Ennahda, which has frequently been the country's largest party, and was recently the speaker of parliament.

According to news agency Tunis Afrique Presse, Ghannouchi's children, Mouadh and Tasnim, were also sentenced on Tuesday, although they had already fled the country. Both received 35-year sentences in absentia.

Former Foreign Affairs Minister Rafik Abdessalem Bouchlaka and ex-intelligence chief Kamel Guizani were also sentenced in absentia.

President Saied suspended the Tunisian parliament in 2021 and began ruling by decree.

Since then, Tunisian and foreign rights groups have reported growing political repression in the country that sparked the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.

Most opposition leaders have been jailed since Saied came to power, along with some journalists, lawyers, activists and social media users.

Saied has rejected accusations of repression, saying his actions are aimed at bringing an end to the chaos and corruption under previous governments.

More stories from Tunisia:

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US cuts visa validity for applicants from three African countries

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx23ywg9w82o, today

The United States has announced sweeping changes to its non-immigrant visa policy for Cameroon, Ethiopia and Nigeria, cutting the duration and conditions under which most travellers from those countries can enter.

The US Department of State says nearly all non-immigrant and non-diplomatic visas issued to citizens of the three countries will now be single-entry and valid for only three months.

It says this is part of a global reciprocity realignment, a sharp shift from previous visa terms, which often allowed for multiple entries over two years or more.

Nigeria also offers single-entry visas valid for three months only for those planning to visit the country from the US.

* issuing secure travel documents

* managing visa overstays

* sharing security or criminal data for public safety purposes.

More BBC stories on Nigeria:

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

How an al-Qaeda offshoot became one of Africa's deadliest militant groups

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg4r5wylwq6o, 4 days ago

Al-Qaeda affiliate Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) is the main group behind a surge in militant jihadist attacks sweeping across several West African nations, especially Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

On 1 July, the group said it had carried out a major coordinated attack on seven military locations in western Mali, including near the borders with Senegal and Mauritania.

There is growing concern about the impact JNIM could have on the stability of the region.

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have struggled to contain the violence – and this is one of the factors that contributed to several military coups in the three Sahel countries over the last five years.

But like the civilian governments they replaced, the juntas are seemingly unable to stem the growing jihadist threat, especially from JNIM.

What is JNIM?

* Ansar Dine

* Katibat Macina

* Al-Mourabitoun

* Ansar al-Islam

* The Sahara branch of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

What does JNIM want?

The group rejects the authority of the Sahel governments, seeking to impose its strict interpretation of Islam and Sharia in the areas where it operates.

Analysts say that in some areas, JNIM has been known to impose strict dress codes, implement bans against music and smoking, order men to grow beards and prevent women from being in public spaces alone.

This version of Islam can be at odds with the religion as practised by local communities, says Yvan Guichaoua, a senior researcher at the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies.

"These practices are clearly breaking from established practices and certainly not very popular," he says.

"But whether it's attractive or not, also depends on what the state is able to deliver, and there has been a lot of disappointment in what the state has been doing for the past years."

Disillusionment with the secular justice system can make the introduction of Sharia courts appealing to some.

Where does JNIM operate?

After its beginnings in central and northern Mali, JNIM rapidly expanded its reach. While its strongholds are in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, JNIM has also carried out attacks in Benin, Togo and at one point Ivory Coast.

It is now operational throughout Mali and 11 of Burkina Faso's 13 regions, according to the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime (Gi-Toc), a civil society organisation.

In the last year, Burkina Faso has become the epicentre of the group's activities – predominately the northern and eastern border regions. This is, in part, because of divisions and defections in the country's military as well as how deeply embedded the militants are in the local communities, according to Beverly Ochieng, a senior analyst for security consultancy firm Control Risk.

"JNIM have an ability to embed in local communities or to be able to use local grievances as a means of recruiting or winning sympathy towards their cause," she told the BBC.

Are JNIM attacks increasing in scale?

In recent months violent incidents have spiked in Burkina Faso to previously unseen levels, according to analysis from BBC Monitoring's jihadist media team. Major attacks have also recently been carried out in Mali, Niger and Benin.

In the first half of 2025, JNIM said it carried out over 280 attacks in Burkina Faso – double the number for the same period in 2024, according to data verified by the BBC.

The group has claimed to have killed almost 1,000 people across the Sahel since April, most of them members of the security force or militias fighting alongside government forces, according to BBC Monitoring data.

Almost 800 of these have been in Burkina Faso alone. Casualties in Mali were the next highest (117) and Benin (74).

"The frequency of attacks in June is just unheard of so far," says Mr Guichaoua. "They have really stepped up their activities in the past weeks."

The militants use a variety of tactics designed to cause maximum disruption, Ms Ochieng explains.

"They plant IEDs [improvised explosive devices] on key roads, and have long-range capabilities.

"They [also] target security forces in military bases, so a lot of their weapons come from that. They have also attacked civilians - in instances where communities are perceived to be cooperating with the government."

Starlink - a company owned by Elon Musk which provides internet via satellites - has also been exploited by groups like JNIM to enhance their capabilities, according to a recent report by Gi-Toc.

The company provides high-speed internet where regular mobile networks are unavailable or unreliable.

Militant groups smuggle Starlink devices into the country along well-established contraband routes, Gi-Toc says.

"Starlink has made it much easier for [militant groups] to plan and execute attacks, share intelligence, recruit members, carry out financial transactions and maintain contacts with their commanders even during active conflict," an analyst from Gi-Toc told the BBC's Focus on Africa podcast.

The BBC has contacted Starlink for comment.

How is JNIM funded?

The group has multiple sources of income.

At one time in Mali, funds were raised through kidnapping foreigners for ransom but few remain in the country because of the deteriorating security situation.

Cattle-rustling has now become a major source of income, according to an analyst from Gi-Toc. They did not want to be named as it could risk their safety in Mali.

"Mali is a big exporter of cattle so it's easy for them to steal animals and sell them," the analyst said.

Research by Gi-Toc shows that in one year in just one district of Mali, JNIM made $770,000 (£570,000) from livestock. Based on this figure, JNIM could be earning millions of dollars from cattle theft.

JNIM also imposes various taxes, according to experts.

"They tax the gold, but basically tax anything that goes through their territory, whether that's listed goods or illicit goods," Gi-Toc says.

"There can be an extortion type of tax, where JNIM tell citizens they need to pay in return for protection."

The militants have also been known to set up blockades, at which people must pay to leave and enter the area, according to Ms Ochieng.

What about efforts to fight them?

France's armed forces were on the ground supporting the government in Mali for almost a decade - with over 4,000 troops stationed across the Sahel region fighting groups that went on to form JNIM, as well as Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.

While they had some initial success in 2013 and 2014, reclaiming territory from the militants and killing several senior commanders, this did not stop JNIM's growth after it was formed.

"Counterinsurgency efforts have failed so far because of this idea that JNIM can be beaten militarily, but it is only through negotiation that the group will end," Gi-Toc's analyst suggested.

In 2014, Sahelian countries banded together to form the G5 Sahel Task Force, a 5,000-strong group of international troops. However, over the past couple of years, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have withdrawn, undermining the task force's ability to tackle the insurgency.

Minusma, the UN peacekeeping force – while not a counter-insurgency effort – was also in Mali for a decade to support efforts, however it left the country at the end of 2024.

What impact have military coups had on JNIM?

Military coups took place in Mali in 2020 and 2021, Burkina Faso in 2022 and Niger in 2023.

Poor governance under the military juntas in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger subsequently has allowed militant groups like JNIM to flourish, according to analysts.

These juntas were swift to tell French troops to leave, replacing them with Russian support and a joint force formed by the three Sahelian countries.

Though Russian paramilitary group Wagner has withdrawn its troops from Mali entirely, Africa Corps, a Kremlin-controlled paramilitary group, will remain in place.

In Burkina Faso, a so-called "volunteer" army, launched in 2020 before the military takeover, is one strategy being used to fight militants. Junta leader Ibrahim Traoré has said he wants to recruit 50,000 fighters.

But experts say many of these volunteers are conscripted by force. Inadequate training means they often suffer heavy casualties. They are also often a target for JNIM attacks.

The military juntas in Burkina Faso and Mali have also been accused by human rights organisations of committing atrocities against civilians, particularly ethnic Fulanis. Human rights group say the government often conflates the Fulani community with Islamist armed groups, which has furthered hampered peace efforts.

Between January 2024 and March 2025, the military government and their Russian allies were responsible for 1,486 civilian casualties in Mali, according to Gi-Toc.

This extreme violence against civilians has generated anger towards the government, fuelling further recruitment for JNIM.

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

Rare photos capture Afrobeats' rise to take over the world

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c994n251zz5o, 5 days ago

Afrobeats has swept the world of music like a tsunami - it dominates playlists and its fans cram into huge stadiums to hear the likes of Nigerian superstars Wizkid, Davido and Burna Boy.

Photographer Oliver Akinfeleye, known professionally as "Drummer", caught the Afrobeats wave early - and he decided to document it as it grew into a global phenomenon.

Since 2017, the New Yorker of Nigerian descent has had exclusive backstage access to some of the biggest artists of the genre - capturing quieter moments of reflection as well as strutting stage performances.

"I remember my first project with Wizkid like it was yesterday - Echostage Washington DC, 2017," Drummer told the BBC. "The feeling was exhilarating. It was my job to tell the visual story of how it all went down."

Drummer has not stopped clicking since - and has now released Eagle Eye, a book of photographs showcasing Afrobeats' rise from humble beginnings to one of Africa's largest cultural exports.

Afrobeats has its roots in various West African musical genres that became especially popular in the decades that followed independence as the continent began celebrating its freedom from colonial rule.

Highlife, which flourished along the coast from the late 19th Century, became synonymous with Ghana's national identity after independence in 1957 - and was in turn hugely influential on Nigerian musician Fela Kuti. His Afrobeat (minus the "s") movement, which mixed traditional rhythms with funk and jazz, became the sound of the 1970s and 1980s in West Africa.

At the turn of the millennium, this rich cultural heritage fed into Afrobeats, along with a mix of Western pop, rap and dancehall.

It gained further popularity in the UK and North America, where there are large diaspora populations, in particular from Nigeria, where most of the genre's stars came from.

Afrobeats artists began performing to these communities at first in small venues in the early 2010s.

Then it really take off - between 2017 and 2022 Afrobeats experienced 550% growth in streams on Spotify, according to data from the world's most popular streaming service.

This resulted in many of the artists becoming household names around the world, and the musical industry taking note.

It has gone on to include African music in mainstream award ceremonies like the Grammys.

Today these artists easily pack out stadiums like Madison Square Garden in New York - pictured below ahead of Wizkid's performance in 2023.

"Madison Square was a night to remember - the iconic venue illuminated in the colours of the Nigerian flag honouring our homeland," says Drummer.

Drummer was able to take photographs of the musicians as they started out on their global careers.

"I always felt that I was capturing moments with just my eyes. Walking the streets of New York City, I would frame scenes in my mind - people, light, emotion," the photographer says.

"I'd ask myself, how do I translate this mental perspective to reality?"

Gradually, the audience grew and became more international with fans in countries such as China, Germany and Brazil.

Now even non-African musicians are taking up the Afrobeats sound and releasing their own versions, including artists such as Chris Brown, who released Blow My Mind with Davido.

The US singer has also performed with Wizkid in London - as the photo below from 2021 shows.

"I love this picture because when Wizkid brought Chris Brown out at The O2 arena, the place exploded. No-one saw it coming - the energy shifted instantly," says Drummer.

"Shock, excitement and pure electricity. A moment stamped in memory and in history."

Drummer says one of the aims of the photo book is not to just show people what he saw, but to help them feel what he experienced - through his pictures.

It also sometimes reveals the feelings of the superstars in their private moments.

This final picture shows Wizkid backstage on his phone in 2021.

It was "a rare quiet moment", but even in the silence and the calm his presence spoke volumes, says Drummer.

More about Afrobeats from the BBC:

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

Tennis hero Arthur Ashe's South African legacy: 'The first free black man I'd ever seen'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgdy59ey59o, 6 days ago

Fifty years ago Arthur Ashe pulled off an amazing feat, upsetting the odds and becoming the first black man to win the Wimbledon Men's final when he beat fellow American Jimmy Connors - but it was not something he wanted to define his life.

His fight to break down barriers around racial discrimination was closer to his heart - and apartheid South Africa became one of his battle grounds.

"I don't want to be remembered in the final analysis for having won Wimbledon... I take applause for having done it, but it's not the most important thing in my life - not even close," he said in a BBC interview a year before his death in 1993.

Nonetheless his Centre Court victory on 5 July 1975 was hailed as one of those spine-tingling sporting moments that stopped everyone in their tracks, whether a tennis fan or not, and it is being commemorated with a special display at the Wimbledon museum.

Ashe was already in his 30s, tall, serene and with a quiet and even-tempered demeanour. Connors, 10 years younger and the defending champion, was an aggressive player and often described as "brattish".

Ashe's achievements and the skills and courage he displayed on the court were certainly matched by his actions off it.

In the early 1970s, South Africa repeatedly refused to issue a visa for him to travel to the country alongside other US players.

The white-minority government there had legalised an extreme system of racial segregation, known as apartheid - or apartness - in 1948.

The authorities said the decision to bar him was based on his "general antagonism" and outspoken remarks about South Africa.

However, in 1973, the government relented and granted Ashe a visa to play in the South African Open, which was one of the top tournaments in the world at the time.

It was Ashe's first visit to South Africa, and although he stipulated he would only play on condition that the stadium be open to both black and white spectators, it sparked anger among anti-apartheid activists in the US and strong opposition from sections of the black community in South Africa.

British journalist and tennis historian Richard Evans, who became a life-long friend of Ashe, was a member of the press corps on that South Africa tour.

He says that Ashe was "painfully aware" of the criticism and the accusation that he was in some way giving legitimacy to the South African government - but he was determined to see for himself how people lived there.

"He felt that he was always being asked about South Africa, but he'd never been. He said: 'How can I comment on a place I don't know? I need to see it and make a judgment. And until I go, I can't do that.'"

Evans recalls that during the tour, the South African writer and poet Don Mattera had organised for Ashe to meet a group of black journalists, but the atmosphere was tense and hostile.

"As I passed someone," Evans told the BBC, "I heard someone say: 'Uncle Tom'" - a slur used to disparage a black person considered servile towards white people.

"And then one or two very vociferous journalists stood up and said: 'Arthur, go home. We don't want you here. You're just making it easier for the government to be able to show that they allow someone like you in.'"

But not all black South Africans were so vehemently opposed to Ashe's presence in the country.

The South African author and academic Mark Mathabane grew up in the Alexandra township - popularly known as Alex - in the north of Johannesburg. Such townships were set up under apartheid on the outskirts of cities for non-white people to live.

He first became aware of Ashe as a boy while accompanying his grandmother to her gardening job at a British family's mansion in a whites-only suburb.

The lady of the house gifted him a September 1968 edition of Life magazine from her collection, and there, on the front cover, was a bespectacled Arthur Ashe at the net.

Mathabane was mesmerised by the image and its cover line "The Icy Elegance of Arthur Ashe" - and he set out to emulate him.

When Ashe went on the 1973 tour, Mathabane had only one mission - to meet Ashe, or at least get close to him.

The opportunity came when Ashe took time off from competing to hold a tennis clinic in Soweto, a southern Johannesburg township.

The 13-year-old Mathabane made the train journey to get there and join scores of other black - and mostly young - people who had turned out to see the tennis star, who they had given the nickname "Sipho".

"He may have been honorary white to white people, but to us black people he was Sipho. It's a Zulu word for gift," Mathabane, now aged 64, told the BBC.

"You know, a gift from God, from the ancestors, meaning that this is very priceless, take care of it. Sipho is here, Sipho from America is here."

The excitement generated at the Soweto clinic was not just contained to that township but had spread across the country, he said.

From rural reservations to shebeens or speakeasies (bars) - wherever black people gathered, they were talking about Ashe's visit.

"For me, he was literally the first free black man I'd ever seen," said Mathabane.

After the 1973 tour, Ashe went back to South Africa a few more times. In early 1976 he helped to establish the Arthur Ashe Soweto Tennis Centre (AASTC) for budding players in the township.

But not long after it opened, the centre was vandalised in the student-led uprisings against the apartheid regime that broke out in June of that year.

It remained neglected and in disrepair for several years before undergoing a major refurbishment in 2007, and was reopened by Ashe's widow Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe.

The complex now has 16 courts, and hosts a library and skills development centre.

The ambition is to produce a tennis star and Grand Slam champion from the township - and legends such as Serena and Venus Williams have since run clinics there.

For Mothobi Seseli and Masodi Xaba, who were once both South African national junior champions and now sit on the AASTC board, the centre goes beyond tennis.

They feel that fundamentally it is about instilling a work ethic that embraces a range of life skills and self-belief.

"We're building young leaders," Ms Xaba, a successful businesswoman, told the BBC.

Mr Seseli, an entrepreneur born and raised in Soweto, agrees that this would be Ashe's vision too: "When I think about what his legacy is, it is believing that we can, at the smallest of scales, move the dial in very big ways."

Ashe was initially inclined to challenge apartheid through conversations and participation, believing that by being visible and winning matches in the country he could undermine the very foundation of the regime.

But his experience within South Africa, and international pressure from the anti-apartheid movement, persuaded him that isolation rather than engagement would be the most effective way to bring about change in South Africa.

He became a powerful advocate and supporter of an international sporting boycott of South Africa, speaking before the United Nations and the US Congress.

In 1983, at a joint press conference set up by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and UN, he spoke about the aims of the Artists and Athletes Against Apartheid, which he had just co-founded with the American singer Harry Belafonte.

The organisation lobbied for sanctions against the South African government, and at its height had more than 500 members.

Ashe joined many protests and rallies, and when he was arrested outside the South African embassy in Washington DC in 1985, it drew more international attention to the cause and helped to amplify global condemnation of the South African regime.

He was the captain of the US Davis Cup team at the time, and always felt that the arrest cost him his job.

Ashe used his platform to confront social injustice wherever he saw it, not just in Africa and South Africa, but also in the US and Haiti.

He was also an educator on many issues, and specifically HIV/Aids, which he succumbed to, after contracting the disease from a blood transfusion during heart surgery in the early 1980s.

But he had a particular affinity with South Africa's black population living under a repressive regime.

He said that he identified with them because of his upbringing in racially segregated Richmond in the US state of Virginia.

No wonder then that Ashe was one of the key figures that South African anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela was keen to meet on a trip to New York, inviting him to a historic townhall gathering in 1990 shortly after his release from 27 years in prison.

The pair met on a few occasions, however Ashe did not live to see Mandela become president of South Africa following the 1994 election, which brought in democratic rule and the dismantling of apartheid.

But like Ashe, Mandela was able to use sport to push for change - by helping unify South Africa - notably during the 1995 Rugby World Cup when he famously wore the Springbok jersey, once a hated symbol of apartheid.

To celebrate this year's anniversary of Ashe's victory, the Wimbledon Championships have an installation in the International Tennis Centre tunnel and a new museum display about him. They are also taking a trailblazer workshop on the road to mark his achievement.

His Wimbledon title was the third of his Grand Slam crowns, having previously won the US and Australian Opens.

But to many people like Mathabane - who in 1978 became the first black South African to earn a tennis scholarship to a US university - Arthur Ashe's legacy was his activism, not his tennis.

"He was literally helping to liberate my mind from those mental chains of self-doubt, of believing the big lie about your inferiority and the fact that you're doomed to repeat the work of your parents as a drudge," he said.

"So that was the magic - because he was showing me possibilities."

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

Heatwaves and hand-to-hand combat: Africa's top shots

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg4vl3j891o, 7 days ago

A selection of the week's best photos from across the African continent and beyond:

From the BBC in Africa this week:

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

Sudan war: A simple guide to what is happening

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjel2nn22z9o, 7 days ago

Sudan plunged into a civil war in April 2023 after a vicious struggle for power broke out between its army and a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

It has led to a famine and claims of a genocide in the western Darfur region.

More than 150,000 people have died in the conflict across the country, and about 12 million have fled their homes in what the United Nations has called the world's largest humanitarian crisis.

Here is what you need to know.

Where is Sudan?

Sudan is in north-east Africa and is one of the largest countries on the continent, covering 1.9 million sq km (734,000 sq miles).

It borders seven countries and the Red Sea. The River Nile also flows through it, making it a strategically important for foreign powers.

The population of Sudan is predominantly Muslim and the country's official languages are Arabic and English.

Even before the war started, Sudan was one of the poorest countries in the world - despite the fact that it is a gold-producing nation.

Its 46 million people were living on an average annual income of $750 (£600) a head in 2022.

The conflict has made things much worse. Last year, Sudan's finance minister said state revenues had shrunk by 80%.

What triggered the conflict?

* Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the armed forces and in effect the country's president

* And his deputy, RSF leader Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as "Hemedti".

Who are the Rapid Support Forces?

The RSF was formed in 2013 and has its origins in the notorious Janjaweed militia that brutally fought rebels in Darfur, where they were accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the region's non-Arab population.

Since then, Gen Dagalo has built a powerful force that has intervened in conflicts in Yemen and Libya.

He also controls some of Sudan's gold mines, and allegedly smuggles the metal to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The army accuses the UAE of backing the RSF, and carrying out drone strikes in Sudan. The oil-rich Gulf state denies the allegation.

The army also accuses eastern Libyan strongman Gen Khalifa Haftar of supporting the RSF by helping it to smuggle weapons into Sudan, and sending fighters to bolster the RSF.

In early June 2025, the RSF achieved a major victory when it took control of territory along Sudan's border with Libya and Egypt.

The RSF also controls almost all of Darfur and much of neighbouring Kordofan.

It has declared plans to form a rival government, raising fears that Sudan could split for a second time - South Sudan seceded in 2011, taking with it most of the country's oil fields.

What does the army control?

The military controls most of the north and the east. Its main backer is said to be Egypt, whose fortunes are intertwined with those of Sudan because they share a border and the waters of the River Nile.

Gen Burhan has turned Port Sudan - which is on the Red Sea - into his headquarters, and that of his UN-recognised government.

However, the city is not safe - the RSF launched a devastating drone strike there in March.

This was retaliation after the RSF suffered one of its biggest setbacks, when it lost control of much of Khartoum - including the Republican Palace - to the army in March.

"Khartoum is free, it's done," Gen Burhan declared, as he triumphantly returned to the city, though not permanently.

Some analysts say the conflict is in a strategic stalemate and the army still does not have total control of Khartoum, despite deploying newly acquired weapons from Egypt, Turkey, Qatar and Iran.

The city is a burnt-out shell: government ministries, banks and towering office blocks stand blackened and burned.

The tarmac at the international airport is a graveyard of smashed planes, its passport and check-in counters covered in ash.

Hospitals and clinics have also been destroyed, hit by air strikes and artillery fire, sometimes with patients still inside.

The army has also managed to win back near total control of the crucial state of Gezira. Losing it to the RSF in late 2023 had been a huge blow, forcing hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee its main city of Wad Madani, which had become a refuge for those who had escaped conflict in other parts of the country.

El-Fasher is the last major urban centre in Darfur still held by the army and its allies. The RSF has laid siege to the city, causing hundreds of casualties, overwhelming hospitals and blocking food supplies.

Month after month of blockade, bombardment and ground attacks have created famine among the residents, with the people of the displaced camp of Zamzam worst-hit.

Is there a genocide?

Have there been attempts to end the conflict?

There have been several rounds of peace talks in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain - but they have failed.

BBC deputy Africa editor Anne Soy says that both sides, especially the army, have shown an unwillingness to agree to a ceasefire.

UN health chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has also lamented that there is less global interest in the conflict in Sudan, and other recent conflicts in Africa, compared to crises elsewhere in the world.

"I think race is in the play here," he told the BBC in September 2024.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank has called diplomatic efforts to end the war "lacklustre", while Amnesty International has labelled the world's response "woefully inadequate".

Humanitarian work has also been badly affected by the decision of the Trump administration to cut aid.

Aid volunteers told the BBC that more than 1,100 - or almost 80% - of the emergency food kitchens have been forced to shut, fuelling the perception that Sudan's conflict is the "forgotten war" of the world.

More about Sudan's war from the BBC:

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

South Africa's political marriage of convenience avoids divorce - just

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crennp25n7go, 8 days ago

South Africa's two biggest political parties are in an unhappy marriage, but neither side wants to file divorce papers as it could damage them and, ultimately, their offspring - South African voters.

But as the children of all toxic relationships know, it can be painful to watch the tantrums played out in public as each side tries to prove they are the better parent.

The loveless union in this case is what is called the Government of National Unity (GNU) - which was formed in the wake of elections last year when the African National Congress (ANC), the party that brought in democratic rule in 1994 with Nelson Mandela, lost its parliamentary majority.

Its arch rival, the pro-business Democratic Alliance (DA) party, agreed to join the ANC as its biggest partner in a coalition, which has just celebrated its first year anniversary. There was no popping of champagne - there have only been cross words.

But the two leaders, President Cyril Ramaphosa of the ANC and John Steenhuisen of the DA, have shown how their partnership can ideally work when they supported each other in the Oval Office showdown with US President Donald Trump in May.

After Trump confronted the delegation with a video in support of discredited claims of a white genocide in South Africa, it was Steenhuisen - the agriculture minister in Ramaphosa's cabinet - who assured the US president that the majority of white farmers wanted to stay in the country.

Their performance proved to South Africans the GNU was worth the bickering at home.

Together the unlikely pair hold the political middle ground in South Africa and have the potential to be a stabilising force - this is certainly the opinion of big business.

Their alliance initially raised some eyebrows, given that that they were opposed "ideologically [and] historically", but the business community largely welcomed the move, political analyst Dr Levy Ndou told the BBC.

For the DA it was a chance to get its hands on the levers of power - and stop what it regards as radical opposition parties like uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) forming a "Doomsday coalition" with the ANC.

Both these parties are led by former ANC officials whom Ramaphosa would rather not cosy up to - plus it would make the cabinet even more of a battleground.

Investors would also not be happy - and Ramaphosa would be left with more of a migraine than a headache.

However, as any relationship counsellor will tell you, you cannot force someone to change their behaviour.

"This GNU... does not mean that the ANC or DA will change their characters," said Dr Ndou, who is based at the Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa.

"The ANC will always want to push the transformation agenda, the DA will always come with pushback strategies and... that will be a permanent source of conflict in the GNU."

The latest crisis - over Ramaphosa's sacking of Andrew Whitfield, a deputy minister from the DA - has really upset Steenhuisen, who held a press conference detailing his heartfelt complaints.

These include Ramaphosa's decisions to push ahead with various bits of controversial legislation "that have far-reaching consequences for our economy and economic growth as has been seen by the reaction from some of South Africa's largest trading partners".

This is a reference to the US's anger over the law that will give the state the power to expropriate some privately owned land without compensation for owners.

"This was done without even the common courtesy of informing the fellow partners in the government of national unity about his intention to do so," said Steenhuisen.

He also spoke about the budget crisis, when in March Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana proposed hiking VAT by 2%.

The backlash - which included court action, led by the DA - forced him to scrap the proposal.

It is not the only time the DA has taken legal action - playing the opposition card while still being part of the GNU.

Its opposition to the Expropriation Act is at odds with the fact that Public Works Minister Dean Macpherson - a member of the DA - has defended the legislation and will be in charge of implementing it.

It points to divisions within the DA - with one wing led by Steenhuisen believing it is better to be in the tent, while another conservative faction is angered by what it sees as the ANC's "hypocrisy".

"In some cases, DA ministers have literally achieved more in 12 months than ANC ministers did in 30 years," Steenhuisen said.

Yet, nodding to critics within the party, he came down hard on alleged corruption by ANC ministers: "The president's refusal to act against corruption within his own ranks, but singling out as a priority a DA minister risks confirming that his oft-repeated public commitment to clean governance is a sham."

This meant, Steenhuisen said, that the DA would not back the budgets for departments led by those it considered corrupt, which includes higher education, led by Nobuhle Nkabane.

She has been under fire for appointing ANC politicians to chair various vocational training boards - and for allegedly misleading parliament about their appointment.

Ramaphosa had refused to comply with a DA ultimatum, after Whitfield's sacking, to remove her and others the party considers corrupt.

Yet the president too has to deal with factions in his party - there are agitators, like his deputy, who would prefer the EFF.

To some extent Ramaphosa has allowed the DA to continue playing a dual role - of opposition and GNU member - but at times he likes to make it clear who is boss.

This is what happened over Whitfield's dismissal as deputy trade minister - sacked for taking an unsanctioned trip in February.

When South Africa's relationship with the US had taken a nose-dive earlier in the year, Whitfield had travelled to the US as part of a DA delegation. He had repeatedly asked for permission to do so, but received no answer from the presidency.

The 42-year-old is from the Eastern Cape province, the heart of South Africa's car industry which benefits from the US's African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa). This legislation guarantees duty-free access to American consumers for certain goods from Africa.

Agoa - brought in 25 years ago by former US President Bill Clinton - is up for renewal this year but some fear this will not happen given Trump's tariff wars and a Republican-dominated Congress.

Whitfield went to the US as part of the DA delegation to lobby for South Africa to stay in Agoa, which also benefits Steenhuisen's agricultural portfolio.

For Steenhuisen, the ANC's alleged lack of collaboration has meant a failure to create jobs and the GNU stalling on its economic growth targets.

Political analyst Sandile Swana believes that Ramaphosa and the ANC may be dissatisfied by some of the DA's dramatic antics - with court action and ultimatums - but are reluctant to split ways completely.

He blames a lack of self-confidence, telling the BBC: "The current ANC has a big inferiority complex and they are dependent on big business and the DA."

Dr Ndou also suggests Ramaphosa may be playing it diplomatically, not wanting to be the side to initiate a divorce because the ANC would not want "everyone to say they have kicked the DA out of government".

Both parties would probably be punished by voters if this was the case.

"There is no way that the DA would easily take a decision to pull out of the GNU. It is in the interest of the DA, as a party, and those who are appointed as ministers [to stay]," the academic said.

Mr Swana believes the coalition government as a whole "is a marketing platform" for all parties, which are using it to campaign ahead of next year's local government elections.

The DA did make it clear at the weekend that there would not be a big bang announcement of them quitting the GNU, but Steenhuisen cautioned that the party's executive had considered launching a motion of no confidence in the president in parliament - and might do so in the future.

"It is clear that the DA is in the process of losing confidence in the president's ability to act as a leader not only of the ANC, but of the GNU of which we are the second largest component," Steenhuisen said.

Ramaphosa was clearly rattled over the weekend - South Africa's TimeLive news site reported he cancelled an official trip to Spain at the last minute as he awaited the DA's decision on the future of the GNU.

Steenhuisen's speech did reveal what seems to be a real communication breakdown in the coalition - with the DA leader blaming Ramaphosa for failing to bring the GNU party leaders together to iron things out after a crisis.

"Similarly a proposed breakaway for the cabinet to deal with how we interact with each other and resolve disputes that will inevitably arise in a government made up of 10 political parties - a year later nothing has happened," he said.

"No breakaway, no dialogue and no mechanisms internally to determine how we deal with disputes between each other when they arise."

A marriage counsellor would surely suggest they stop squabbling and sit down and talk frankly - without the megaphone politics.

More BBC stories on South Africa:

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

Big shake-up in Nigerian politics as heavyweights join forces

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2470d7x40o, 4 days ago

Nigeria's two main opposition leaders have joined a new political party to challenge President BolaTinubu and his ruling party in the next election.

Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi have chosen the African Democratic Congress (ADC) as their new political home after breaking away from their respective parties - the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP).

This is one of the biggest shake-ups in Nigerian politics since the end of military rule in 1999.

Some political heavyweights from Tinubu's All Progressives Congress (APC) party have also thrown their weight behind the formation.

Why have they joined forces?

The announcement is the culmination of a series of talks between the leaders to put up a united front in the 2027 election, rather than splitting their vote.

Tinubu won the 2023 election with just 37% of the vote after opposition supporters were divided between Abubakar who got 29%, and Obi with 25%.

Obi had broken away from the PDP after the party chose Abubakar as its presidential candidate.

At their unveiling with the ADC, interim chairman David Mark said it was an attempt to save the country’s democracy and to stop Nigeria from becoming a one-party state.

Both the PDP and LP are also battling internal crises which some believe were instigated by external forces.

Analyst Shehu Iliyasu said Abubakar and Obi are learning the lessons of the last election.

"Both Atiku [Abubakar] and Obi felt they came so close in 2023 and would have maybe won on a joint ticket so they want to amend their mistake by working together this time around," he told the BBC.

Who else is in the ADC?

Tinubu's biggest challengers in the last elections, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi are the face of the coalition.

Although there’s a long way to go before candidates are officially announced, political commentators are predicting that 78-year-old Abubakar will have another shot at the presidency - it would be his fifth attempt - with former Anambra governor Obi, 63, as his vice-presidential pick.

Other political heavyweights in the coalition include former Senate President David Mark, who like Atiku is leaving the PDP, along with its former chairman Uche Secondus, and former Tinubu ally turned foe Nasir El-Rufai and powerful minister in the last dispensation Rotimi Amaechi.

Is the ADC a new party?

No. The politicians are joining an already existing party which has an acronym closer to the All Democratic Alliance (ADA) they wanted to register.

The party was originally named Alliance for Democratic Change when it was formed in 2005, but it was renamed the African Democratic Congress by the time the party was registered with the Nigerian Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec).

The ADC's Jamilu Danladi said they were sceptical of getting ADA ready in time and that is why they instead went for the ADC.

Registering a new political party is a difficult process. The Inec chairman recently announced that it had received over 100 applications from associations and groups that have submitted letters of intent to become political parties.

Many of those won't make it, as apart from other conditions, the group must have a presence in at least 24 out of Nigeria's 36 states and have a headquarters in Abuja.

The ADC's Dumebi Kachikwu came fifth in the last presidential election and it currently has two members of parliament in the lower chamber.

Despite not being one of the big parties in Nigeria, the ADC has a good national spread and an active political machinery in each state, which will no doubt be boosted with the money and support of the political heavyweights who have joined it.

Its first presidential candidate in 2007 Professor Pat Utomi was instrumental in it getting national acceptance as he's a renowned economist.

Can Obi and Abubakar work together again?

This is the question on the lips of many, as Obi's large support base do not want to see him play second fiddle to anyone else - and this is why he quit the PDP to join the Labour Party in the last election.

Obi himself has dismissed speculation that he would be the vice-presidential candidate, while Abubakar would go for the top job.

"I'm going to contest for the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and I believe I am qualified for it," he said in an interview with Channels TV.

While Abubakar's supporters feel with him being the only former vice-president seeking the presidency, every other politician naturally comes second.

When both politicians worked together in 2019 with Obi serving as Abubakar's running mate, they lost to the APC's Muhammadu Buhari.

When Obi left the PDP for LP in 2022, it was a peaceful separation without rancour.

The former governor said at the time that he was moving to LP because it aligned with his aspirations.

As if both knew fate would bring them back together, neither spoke ill of the other either before or during the 2023 campaign.

Inec provisions says the procedure for the nomination of candidates by political parties for various elective positions in the country should be through primaries or consensus.

It remains to be seen whether the ADC will be able to find a consensus or if it will have to hold a potentially divisive primary election to choose its presidential candidate.

What are their chances in 2027?

Analyst Ben Kenneth say he believes the coalition has a better chance of defeating Tinubu than last time.

"If you look at what Atiku and Obi got in the last election, it's clear to see that they would've won assuming they worked together, so it’s a good thing they have realised they need each other,” he told the BBC.

However, another analyst Sani Hamisu feels 73-year-old Tinubu has a better chance now than in 2023.

"In Nigeria and Africa, when a leader is in office seeking a second term, he hardly loses, it is very rare and that's why I feel Tinubu has a better chance now than when he wasn't in office in 2023," he said.

Is Tinubu going to run again?

The ruling APC has already endorsed the current president, whose tenure expires on 29 May 2027, to seek a second term.

However, questions over his health will linger as he'll be 75 by the next election and 79 if he were to be elected and finish his second term.

Some media reports say his recent trips abroad were for medical reasons but the presidency has denied that, saying the president is healthy and in good shape.

The APC says it is not bothered by his rivals joining the ADC which it does not see as a real threat.

Acting chairman Ali Bukar Dalori told BBC Hausa the coalition would have no impact on the APC.

"Nobody is talking about a coalition except in Abuja. Even in Abuja, they are in a hotel, and when they are defeated in elections, they will leave the country," he said.

What does this mean for the PDP and Labour Party?

The country's biggest opposition party, the PDP had ruled out joining the ADC, preferring to face the APC on its own.

The Labour Party also called on its supporters to remain focused and resolute behind the party, denying any plans to join a coalition.

For the LP, losing Peter Obi who single-handedly raised its profile to new heights will be a huge blow, and some say it's unlikely to recover in the near future.

The other biggest loser to the coalition is the PDP which has lost several big names.

Analyst Iliyasu Hadi believes the PDP is set to lose its status as the country's biggest opposition party to the ADC.

"When you look at the calibre of politicians in the ADC and those remaining in the PDP, it's clear to see that the ADC will soon become Nigeria's main opposition party, [it's] just a matter of time," he said.

For the moment, neither party seems to have any other candidate of the calibre of either Abubakar or Obi.

However, they do control 11 states, which gives them a strong base, as long as those governors don't defect to either the APC or the ADC.

More BBC stories on Nigeria:

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Ramaphosa opposes Trump's 30% tariff on South Africa

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpqn4w45dj3o, 3 days ago

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has opposed what he calls the "unilateral" higher trade tariffs imposed on his country by the US.

US President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he would subject imports from South Africa to a new 30% tariff from 1 August.

It is the only country from sub-Saharan Africa that Trump singled out in his announcement, reflecting his strained relationship with Ramaphosa's government.

In a letter to Ramaphosa, Trump said South Africa's trade relationship with the US "has been, unfortunately, far from reciprocal". In his response, Ramaphosa maintained the 30% tariff "is not an accurate representation of available trade data".

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

At least 11 dead in Kenya protests as central Nairobi sealed off

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78n397gzjpo, 3 days ago

At least eleven people have been killed during anti-government protests in Kenya and 567 arrested, police said.

Police opened fire on demonstrators, and earlier Dr Aron Sikuku, a medic at Eagle Nursing Home on the outskirts of Nairobi, told the BBC the bodies of two people who died of gunshot wounds had been brought to the facility.

He said hundreds of protesters had gathered outside his hospital demanding to take away the bodies.

The demonstrations mark the 35th anniversary of the historic Saba Saba - meaning "seven-seven" - protests of 7 July 1990, which launched Kenya's push for multi-party democracy.

Police released a statement on Monday evening praising officers for "exceptional restraint and professionalism in the face of sustained violence and provocation". It said 52 police officers and 11 civilians had been wounded.

The state-run Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KHRC) earlier said at least 10 people had been killed.

In a scathing report, it accused police of using excessive force, as has frequently been the case during the current wave of protests.

"Police operated in plainclothes and unmarked vehicles" on Monday and collaborated with "armed criminal gangs in Nairobi, Kajiado, Nakuru, Kiambu, and Eldoret", it said. The police have previously denied such accusations.

It added that it had evidence that at least two people had been abducted, as well as reporting 29 injuries and 37 arrests in towns across the country.

From early in the morning, hundreds of commuters and overnight travellers were stranded at checkpoints, some more than 10km (six miles) from the city centre, with only a few vehicles allowed through.

Roads leading to key government sites - including the president's official residence, State House, and the Kenyan parliament - were barricaded with razor wire.

Some schools advised students to stay at home.

But clashes broke out in parts of the capital as demonstrators lit fires and attempted to breach police cordons. Officers responded with tear gas and water cannon.

According to leading Kenyan newspaper the Nation, demonstrations have spread to 17 counties out of 47.

In Meru county, eastern Kenya, a shopping centre in the town of Makutano was engulfed in flames. Clouds of thick black smoke could be seen coming from the building.

In Ol Kalou town, one protester was shot dead and another who suffered gunshot wounds survived.

In Kamukunji, near the Nairobi venue where the original Saba Saba protests were held, police battled groups of protesters who lit fires on the streets.

A planned appearance by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga was cancelled, with him saying "the roadblocks all over town which made it difficult for people to make it to Kamukunji" meant he could not "join Kenyans in commemorating this important day".

But this did not deter him from blasting Kenya's "rogue police force that shoots people with impunity, a force inherited from the colonialists," while calling for a national dialogue on reforming the country's police.

He was arrested after the original Saba Saba protests in 1990 but last year threw his support behind the government.

By mid-morning on Monday, hundreds of overnight passengers remained stranded.

Some long-distance buses were parked in Kabete, about 13km from the city centre, with many passengers who could not afford to pay extra money for motorcycle rides to their destinations remaining there.

Humphrey Gumbishi, a bus driver, said they had started their journey on Sunday evening only to find the police road block in the morning.

"We started travelling at 8:30pm last night... We want the government to engage in a dialogue with Gen-Zs so all this can come to an end," he told the BBC.

In a statement issued on Sunday evening, the police said it was their constitutional duty to protect lives and property while maintaining public order.

Monday's demonstrations were organised primarily by the so-called Gen-Z young people, demanding good governance, greater accountability, and justice for victims of police brutality, continuing the wave of anti-government protests since last year.

On 25 June, at least 19 people were killed and thousands of businesses looted and destroyed in a day of nationwide protests that were being held in honour of those killed in last year's anti-tax protests.

On Sunday, an armed gang attacked the Nairobi headquarters of the KHRC, which had been hosting a press conference organised by women calling for an end to state violence ahead of Monday's protests.

KHRC spokesman Ernest Cornel said the gang was made up of at least 25 people on motorbikes chanting: "There will be no protest today."

"They were carrying stones, they were carrying clubs… they stole laptops, they stole a phone and they also took some valuables from journalists who were there," he told the BBC Newsday programme.

The original Saba Saba protests were a key moment that helped usher in multiparty democracy in Kenya after years of one-party rule.

The response by the then government under President Daniel arap Moi was brutal. Many protesters were arrested, while at least 20 people were reportedly killed.

Since then, Saba Saba has come to symbolise civic resistance and the fight for democratic freedom in Kenya.

More stories about Kenya from the BBC:

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South Africa's police minister accused of links to criminal gangs

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx205ykppdjo, 4 days ago

Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has been accused of having ties to criminal gangs and of meddling in police investigations into politically motivated murders.

These explosive allegations were made by KwaZulu-Natal police boss Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi at a press briefing on Sunday.

He said Mr Mchunu was receiving financial support from an allegedly corrupt businessman to fund his "political endeavours".

Mr Mchunu has since denied what he says are "wild allegations" while President Cyril Ramaphosa said they were of "grave national security concern" and "receiving the highest priority attention".

More BBC stories on South Africa:

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'You need to shape up': Trump's pick for Singapore envoy grilled in Senate

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrxd7d78r0o, today

The nominee for the US ambassador to Singapore, Anjani Sinha, drew criticism during his Senate confirmation hearing when he struggled to answer questions about the island-state.

On Wednesday Dr Sinha was grilled by Senator Tammy Duckworth on the US's relationship with Singapore and the island-state's role in South East Asia.

At one point Ms Duckworth told him he was "unqualified" for the posting, and that he needed to "shape up and do some homework". The exchange has since gone viral in Singapore and attracted critical comments online.

Dr Sinha's nomination was first announced by Donald Trump in March, when the US President praised him as a "highly respected entrepreneur".

"I have no doubt that Anji will strongly represent our Nation's Interests, and put America First. Congratulations Anji!" said Trump in a Truth Social post, using a nickname for Dr Sinha.

Born in India, Dr Sinha is an orthopaedics and sports medicine surgeon now based in Florida who started several clinics in New York.

A US State Department report said his "native respect for both American and Asian values, and his deep social and cultural ties to the Indo-Pacific region", as well as his business expertise, "render him well qualified" for the posting.

During the confirmation hearing by the Senate's foreign relations committee, he was introduced by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham as "a friend of President Trump for over a decade".

In his introduction speech and answers to other senators' questions, Dr Sinha billed himself as a "lifelong bridge builder" and promised to "create a very strong relationship with Singapore" and "defend the defence, security and economic ties".

'More embarassador than ambassador'

But it is his exchange with Ms Duckworth, a senator with the Democratic Party, that has drawn the most scrutiny.

Ms Duckworth began by asking him about Singapore's trade surplus with the US, which he initially answered as $80bn (£58.8bn) before changing his answer to $18bn.

Ms Duckworth noted the correct answer was $2.8bn.

When asked how he would convince Singaporeans of Trump's decision to slap a 10% tariff - a controversial topic in the island-state - Dr Sinha gave various answers before ending with "the dialogue is not closed".

Ms Duckworth also questioned him about issues that would be important to Singapore, the country's upcoming chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) regional bloc, and the US Navy's presence in Singapore.

Dr Sinha either did not know the answers or stumbled in his responses.

At the end of the exchange Ms Duckworth appeared exasperated and said: "I just feel you are not taking this seriously.

"You think this is a glamour posting, that you're going to live a nice life in Singapore, when what we need is someone who can actually do the work."

Noting that Singapore was a key US ally in the Indo-Pacific, she said: "You are not currently prepared for this posting, period, and you need to shape up and do some homework."

The exchange has prompted a deluge of online comments from Singaporeans criticising Dr Sinha's performance and questioning his suitability to be the US ambassador.

"Not sure which is a worst insult, the tariffs or having him as an ambassador to Singapore," wrote one commenter.

"This guy is more 'Embarassador' then Ambassador," said another.

Others praised Ms Duckworth, who had first come to Singaporeans' attention earlier this year when she grilled US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during his confirmation hearing and he failed to name a single country in Asean.

Despite the controversy, Dr Sinha's confirmation remains a strong possibility.

With Republicans dominating the Senate and its committees, the foreign relations committee appears set to approve his nomination which would then tee up a full Senate vote.

'You did it': How doctor realised mushroom cook was a killer

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74zwevy181o, yesterday

Within minutes of Erin Patterson walking into a tiny hospital in rural Victoria, doctor Chris Webster realised she was a cold-blooded killer.

"I knew," he tells the BBC.

"I thought, 'Okay, yep, you did it, you heinous individual. You've poisoned them all'."

Dr Webster had spent the morning frantically treating two of the four people a jury this week found Erin had intentionally fed toxic mushrooms - concealed in a hearty beef Wellington lunch served at her home in July 2023.

She was convicted of the murders of her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, as well as Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66. Erin was also found guilty of attempting to murder local pastor Ian Wilkinson – Heather's husband – who recovered after weeks of treatment in hospital.

But initially, when Heather and Ian presented to Leongatha Hospital with intense gastroenteritis-like symptoms, Dr Webster and his team thought they were dealing with a case of mass food poisoning.

Heather had described for him a "lovely" afternoon at Erin's house, the physician told the trial.

"I did ask Heather at one stage what the beef Wellington tasted like and she said it was delicious," Dr Webster said.

His suspicion had fallen on the meat, so the doctor took some blood samples as a precaution and sent them off for analysis in a town with better medical facilities, before hooking the Wilkinsons up with fluids.

But soon he would receive a call from the doctor treating Don and Gail at Dandenong Hospital, about a 90-minute drive away, and his stomach dropped.

It wasn't the meat, it was the mushrooms, she told him. And his patients were on the precipice of an irreversible slide towards death.

He immediately changed tack, beginning treatment to try and salvage their failing livers, and preparing to transfer them to a larger hospital where they could receive specialist care.

It was at this point that someone rang the bell at the front of the hospital.

Through a Perspex security window was a woman telling him she thought she had gastro.

"I'm like, 'Oh, hang on, what's your name?' And she said, 'Erin Patterson'," Dr Webster says.

"The penny dropped… it's the chef."

He ushered Erin into the hospital and told her he suspected she and her guests were all suffering from life-threatening poisoning from toxic mushrooms. He quizzed her on the source of the fungi included in her home-cooked dish.

"Her answer was a single word: Woolworths," he says.

"And it all just suddenly coalesced in my brain."

There were two things that convinced him of her guilt in that moment, Dr Webster explains.

One, it was a far-fetched answer. Admitting she had foraged wild mushrooms, as many locals in the area do, wouldn't have set off alarm bells. Saying they came from a major grocery chain with stringent food safety standards, on the other hand, was suspicious.

And two, there was no concerned reaction from the mother-of-two – despite being metres from where Ian and Heather, relatives she said she loved, lay on beds desperately sick.

"I don't know if she even acknowledged their presence," he says.

Briefly leaving Erin with nurses to undergo some basic health checks, he went to see the Wilkinsons off to Dandenong Hospital. He recalls watching the elderly couple being loaded into an ambulance, Heather calling out to thank him for his care as the vehicle doors were closed.

"And I knew," he says, trailing off.

"It's actually quite difficult to talk about without getting emotional.

"She could have quite easily done the complete opposite and screamed… 'Thanks for nothing'."

That may have been easier to accept than her sincere gratitude, he says. "You know, I didn't catch it [the poisoning] earlier."

But he had no time to process the gravity of their last interaction, rushing back to the urgent care room only to find Erin had discharged herself against medical advice.

After desperately trying to call her on her mobile phone, gobsmacked and concerned, Dr Webster decided to call the police.

"This is Dr Chris Webster from Leongatha Hospital. I have a concern about a patient who presented here earlier, but has left the building and is potentially exposed to a fatal toxin from mushroom poisoning," he can be heard saying in the call recording, which was played at the trial.

He spells her name for the operator, and gives them her address.

"She just got up and left?" they ask. "She was only here for five minutes," Dr Webster replies.

At her trial, Erin said she had been caught off guard by the information and had gone home to feed her animals and pack a bag, pausing to have a "lie down" before returning to the hospital.

"After being told by medical staff you had potentially ingested a life-threatening poison, isn't it the last thing you'd do?" the prosecutor asked her in court.

"It might be the last thing you'd do, but it was something I did," Erin defiantly replied from the witness stand.

But before police reached her house, Erin had returned to hospital voluntarily. Dr Webster then tried to convince her to bring in her children – who she claimed had eaten leftovers.

"She was concerned that they were going to be frightened," he said in court.

"I said they can be scared and alive, or dead."

Erin told the jury she wasn't reluctant, rather overwhelmed by the doctor who she believed was "yelling" at her. "I've since learnt this was his inside voice," she added.

Dr Webster clocked off shortly after, but the trial heard medical tests performed on Erin and her children would return no sign of death cap poisoning, and after a precautionary 24 hours in hospital, they were sent home.

Guilty verdicts a 'relief'

Two years later, when news of the jury's verdict flashed on his phone on Monday, Dr Webster began shaking.

He was one of the prosecution's key witnesses, and had struggled with the "weight of expectation".

"If the picture is going to make sense to the jury, if a small puzzle piece is out of place, it could upset the whole outcome of the trial… I really didn't want to crack under the scrutiny."

It's a "relief" to have played his part in holding Erin Patterson – who he calls "the definition of evil" – accountable.

"It does feel like [there's] that reward of justice."

For him though, the biggest sense of closure came from seeing Ian Wilkinson – the only surviving patient – for the first time since sending him and his ailing wife off in an ambulance.

"That memory of Heather being sort of taken away in that fashion, that's now bookended by seeing Ian standing on his feet again."

"That brought some comfort."

Two arrested after school girls in India allegedly made to strip for period check

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78nvgjvx3eo, today

A school principal and an attendant have been arrested in India after allegations that female students were stripped naked to check if they were menstruating after blood stains were found on a toilet wall.

The police action came after the mother of one of the "10 to 15 girls" who were put through the alleged humiliation lodged a complaint.

The incident took place on Tuesday in a village not far from Mumbai city. On Wednesday, parents protested at the school, demanding strict punishment against the authorities.

In a video, the school principal is seen arguing with angry parents - she denies that she ordered a strip-search or that it took place.

North Korean defector to sue Kim Jong Un for abuse

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cedgw4jp9qwo, today

A North Korean defector is set to file civil and criminal charges against North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and four other Pyongyang officials for abuses she faced while detained in the country.

Choi Min-kyung fled North Korea to China in 1997 but was forcibly repatriated in 2008. She said she was sexually abused and tortured after her return.

The case, which will be filed on Friday, marks the first time a North Korean-born defector is taking legal action against the regime, said a South Korea-based rights group assisting Ms Choi.

South Korean courts have in the past ruled against North Korea on similar claims of abuse made by South Koreans but such verdicts are largely symbolic and ignored by Pyongyang.

The NKDB says it also plans to take Ms Choi's case to the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.

"I earnestly wish for this small step to become a cornerstone for the restoration of freedom and human dignity, so that no more innocent North Koreans suffer under this brutal regime," Ms Choi said on Wednesday, according to a statement from the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB).

"As a torture victim and survivor of the North Korean regime, I carry a deep and urgent responsibility to hold the Kim dynasty accountable for crimes against humanity," she said.

Ms Choi fled North Korea again in 2012 and settled in the South. She said psychological trauma from the ordeal remains and that she continues to rely on medication.

For years international rights groups have documented alleged human rights violations by North Korea, ranging from the abuse of political prisoners to systematic discrimination based on gender and class.

Hanna Song, executive director of the NKDB, told BBC Korean that the lawsuits were significant because they were pursuing criminal charges "in parallel" to civil cases.

Previous court cases against North Korea had been "limited to civil litigation", she said.

In 2023, a Seoul court ordered North Korea to pay 50 million won ($36,000; £27,000) each to three South Korean men who were exploited after being taken as prisoners of war in North Korea during the Korean War.

In 2024, the North Korean government was also ordered to pay 100 million won to each of five Korean Japanese defectors. They were part of thousands who had left Japan for North Korea in the 1960s and 1980s under a repatriation programme.

They said they had been lured to North Korea decades ago on the promise of "paradise on Earth", but were instead detained and forced to work.

North Korea did not respond to either of the lawsuits.

But Ms Song, from the NKDB, argued that the rulings offered much-needed closure to the plaintiffs.

"What we've come to understand through years of work on accountability is that what victims really seek isn't just financial compensation - it's acknowledgment," said Ms Song.

"Receiving a court ruling in their favour carries enormous meaning. It tells them their story doesn't just end with them - it's acknowledged by the state and officially recorded in history."

South Korea's ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol rearrested

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd97ez54dlyo, yesterday

South Korea's former president has been rearrested over last year's failed martial law bid that plunged the country into political turmoil.

Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached in April over the order, which saw military rule introduced for six-hours in December.

A senior judge at Seoul's Central District Court issued an arrest warrant for Yoon on Wednesday, citing fears he could destroy evidence.

Yoon, who was the first sitting South Korean president to be arrested, faces trial on charges of leading an insurrection over his attempt to impose martial law.

During Wednesday's seven-hour hearing, a special counsel team argued for the arrest warrant on five key charges, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

The charges include Yoon's alleged violation of the rights of cabinet members by not inviting some of them to a meeting before he declared martial law.

Yoon initially attended the hearing alongside his lawyers to deny the charges, before being taken to Seoul Detention Center to await a decision on an arrest warrant.

He was first arrested in January following a lengthy stand-off, with investigators scaling barricades and cutting through barbed wire to take him into custody from his residence in central Seoul.

Yoon was released two months later after a court overturned his arrest on technical grounds, but still faces trial.

If found guilty, he could face life in prison or the death penalty.

Prosecutors have reportedly found evidence that Yoon ordered military drones to be flown over North Korea to provoke a reaction that would justify his martial law declaration, according to reports.

Other senior officials also face charges including insurrection and abuse of authority over the martial law declaration.

Insurrection is one of a small number of criminal charges from which South Korean presidents do not have immunity, but now Yoon is no longer president he is open to other criminal charges.

South Korea's new president, Lee Jae-myung, was elected in June following a snap election after Yoon's impeachment.

Lee campaigned on the promise to strengthen the country's democracy following the crisis and appointed a special counsel team to investigate Yoon over the imposition of martial-law, as well as other criminal allegations surrounding his administration.

China rejects German claim it targeted military plane with laser

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6280v9gm6qo, yesterday

China has disputed Germany's claim that it targeted a military plane with a laser fired from a warship, as a diplomatic spat between the two countries deepens.

Germany accused China of attempting to disrupt one of its aircraft earlier this month as it was taking part in European Union-led operations aimed at protecting ships in the Red Sea from missiles launched by Yemen's Houthi rebel group.

The German foreign ministry has summoned the Chinese ambassador and described the incident as "entirely unacceptable". China's envoy to the EU has also been summoned by the bloc.

Beijing has pushed back, saying Germany's account was "totally inconsistent with the facts known by the Chinese side".

On Tuesday, Germany said a reconnaissance plane was targeted as it flew over the Red Sea, where several European countries have been contributing to surveillance and defensive efforts since early 2024 to protect ships from regular attacks launched from Yemen.

The laser was fired from a Chinese warship, which had been spotted several times and had made no communication with the passing aircraft, Germany said.

The plane was forced to abandon its mission and return to a military base in the East African nation of Djibouti as a precaution, according to the foreign ministry.

Berlin has reacted furiously to the incident, accusing China of "endangering German personnel and disrupting the operation".

EU foreign policy spokesperson Anouar El Anouni said the incident was "dangerous and unacceptable".

"This act put personnel at risk and compromised the aircraft's mission," he added.

The Chinese government responded on Wednesday, with spokesperson Mao Ning telling a press conference that its navy had been carrying out "escort operations" in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia.

She said Germany and China should "take a fact-based attitude and strengthen communication in a timely manner to avoid misunderstanding and misjudgement".

China has been accused of using lasers to target military aircraft before, primarily by the US. China has denied doing so.

Lasers can be used to blind pilots, and a new class of powerful lasers capable of disabling targets in the air are under development by militaries around the world.

China established a permanent military presence in the region in 2017 when it opened a base in Djibouti, which Beijing says is used for anti-piracy and freedom of maritime navigation operations.

Western governments have expressed concerns about China's ambitions in the region since opening the base in Djibouti, where the US, Japan, France and others also have military installations.

It is located at a strategically important pinch point leading on to the Red Sea and Suez Canal - one of the world's most important shipping routes.

Seoul returns six North Koreans with 'strong desire' to go back

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyrwp8r1xgo, yesterday

South Korea has repatriated six North Koreans who accidentally drifted into South Korean waters earlier this year. All six had consistently expressed their desire to go back, Seoul's Ministry of Unification said.

Two of the North Koreans had veered into southern waters in March and stayed on for four months - the longest period recorded for non-defectors.

The other four are sailors who drifted across a disputed maritime border between the North and the South in May.

This is the first such return under the presidency of South Korea's Lee Jae-myung, who had campaigned on improving inter-Korea ties. The two countries unsuccessfully tried to co-ordinate the return for months.

There have been several previous cases of North Koreans sailing unintentionally into the South. They often use small, wooden boats that cannot be easily steered back onto their course once adrift.

In the past, authorities in the two countries would co-ordinate to send those who wished to return to the North back via their land border.

However, Pyongyang had cut off all inter-Korea communication lines in April 2023 amid heightened tensions.

Eight months later, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared that unification with the South is no longer possible.

The only known channels of communication that remain are the US-led United Nations Command and through the news media.

Seoul's Ministry of Unification said it had tried twice to inform the North of its intention to send these six people home via the United Nations Command, but did not receive a response.

North Korean patrol vessels and fishing boats were spotted at the handover point on Wednesday morning, leading some observers to believe the two Koreas would have agreed on a repatriation plan "behind the scenes".

"If you set a boat adrift in the vast ocean without any co-ordination, there's a real risk it could drift away again," says Nam Sung-wook, the former head of the Korea National Strategy Institute think tank.

Nam believes the six people will be interrogated at length when they return to the North.

"They'll be grilled on whether they received any espionage training or overheard anything sensitive. [It will be] an intense process aimed at extracting every last piece of information," he tells BBC Korean.

Once the investigation is over, they may be asked to help spread propaganda. Their desire to return to the North "strengthens the legitimacy of [Kim's] regime", adds Lim Eul-chul, a professor specialising in North Korean studies in Kyungnam University.

Michael Madden, a North Korea expert from the Stimson Center in Washington, pointed out that the boats drifted south when South Korea was being led by interim presidents following former President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment.

"This may have delayed some decision making in both Koreas.

"Pyongyang certainly did not trust the Yoon remnants in South Korea, and both Koreas could have been open to accusations of an unlawful repatriation out of political expedience by the international community," he said.

Wednesday's repatriations have left some North Korean defectors baffled.

Activist Lee Min-bok says the six people "should have been given a chance to talk to defectors and learn more about South Korean society".

"If I'd had the chance to speak with them, I would have told them the truth [about inter-Korean history] and warned them that they could eventually face punishment from the North Korean regime, simply because they had already experienced life in the South," says Mr Lee, who used to float balloons with anti-Kim leaflets into the North.

However, Mr Lee and other activists are expecting crackdowns from South Korea's new, pro-engagement administration.

Seoul's National Assembly is currently debating a bill to ban such balloon launches.

Lee Jae-myung, who was elected South Korea's president in June, has pledged to restart dialogue with Pyongyang and to reduce tensions between the two countries.

A week after he took office, South Korea's military suspended its loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts across the border to North Korea - in what it described as a move to "restore trust in inter-Korean relations and achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula".

Some analysts, however, do not expect a major improvement of ties between the Koreas.

North Korea has "built up solid co-operation" with Russia, and now has "little need" to engage the South, says Celeste Arrington, director of The George Washington University Institute for Korean Studies.

Public opinion in the South also suggests little appetite for engaging with the North, she says.

"Thus, there are few signals, if any, of North Korea wanting to re-establish lines of communication with the South, let alone a desire for meaningful warming of relations."

Ex-Bangladesh leader authorised deadly crackdown, leaked audio suggests

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4l1z5qd1vo, 2 days ago

A deadly crackdown on student-led protests in Bangladesh last year was authorised by then prime minister Sheikh Hasina, according to audio of one of her phone calls verified by BBC Eye.

In the audio, which was leaked online in March, Hasina says she authorised her security forces to "use lethal weapons" against protesters and that "wherever they find [them], they will shoot".

Prosecutors in Bangladesh plan to use the recording as crucial evidence against Hasina, who is being tried in absentia at a special tribunal for crimes against humanity.

Up to 1,400 people died in last summer's unrest, according to UN investigators. Hasina, who fled to India, and her party reject all charges against her.

A spokesperson for her Awami League party denied the tape showed any "unlawful intention" of "disproportionate response".

The leaked audio of Hasina's conversation with an unidentified senior government official is the most significant evidence yet that she gave direct authorisation to shoot anti-government protesters, tens of thousands of whom had taken to the streets by last summer.

The protests began against civil service job quotas for relatives of those who fought in the 1971 war of independence and escalated into a mass movement that ousted Hasina, who had been in power for 15 years. It is the worst violence Bangladesh had seen since the 1971 war.

Some of the bloodiest scenes occurred on 5 August, the day Hasina fled by helicopter before crowds stormed her residence in Dhaka.

The BBC World Service investigation established previously unreported details about a police massacre of protesters in the capital - including a much higher death toll.

Hasina was at her residence in Dhaka, known as the Ganabhaban, for the duration of the call which took place on 18 July, a source with knowledge of the leaked audio told the BBC.

It was a crucial moment in the demonstrations. Security officials were responding to public outrage at police killings of protesters captured on video and shared across social media. In the days following the call, military-grade rifles were deployed and used across Dhaka, according to police documents seen by the BBC.

The recording the BBC examined is one of numerous calls involving Sheikh Hasina that were made by the National Telecommunications Monitoring Centre (NTMC), a Bangladeshi government body responsible for monitoring communications.

The audio of the call was leaked in early March this year - it's unclear by whom. Since the protests, numerous clips of Hasina's calls have appeared online, many of them unverified.

The leaked 18 July recording was voice matched by the Criminal Investigation Department in the Bangladesh Police with known audio of Sheikh Hasina's voice.

The BBC conducted its own independent verification by sharing the recording with audio forensics experts Earshot, who found no evidence the speech had been edited or manipulated and said it was highly unlikely to have been synthetically generated.

Earshot said the leaked recording was likely to have been taken in a room with the phone call played back on a speaker, due to the presence of distinctive telephonic frequencies and background sounds. Earshot identified Electric Network Frequency (ENF) throughout the recording, a frequency that's often present in audio recordings due to interference between a recording device and mains-powered equipment, an indicator that the audio has not been manipulated.

Earshot also analysed Sheikh Hasina's speech – the rhythm, intonation and breath sounds - and identified consistent noise floor levels, finding no evidence of synthetic artefacts in the audio.

"The recordings are critical for establishing her role, they are clear and have been properly authenticated, and are supported by other evidence," British international human rights barrister Toby Cadman told the BBC. He is advising Bangladesh's International Criminal Tribunal (ICT), the court hearing cases against Hasina and others.

An Awami League spokesperson said: "We cannot confirm whether the tape recording referenced by the BBC is authentic."

Alongside Sheikh Hasina, former government and police officials have been implicated in the killings of protesters. A total of 203 individuals have been indicted by the ICT, of whom 73 are in custody.

BBC Eye analysed and verified hundreds of videos, images and documents detailing police attacks against demonstrators across 36 days.

The investigation found that in one incident on 5 August in Jatrabari, a busy Dhaka neighbourhood, at least 52 people were killed by police, making it one of the worst incidents of police violence in Bangladesh's history. Initial reports at the time suggested 30 dead in Jatrabari on that day.

Outside the UK, watch on YouTube

The BBC investigation uncovered new details about how the massacre started and ended.

Gathering eyewitness footage, CCTV and drone imagery, BBC Eye established that police opened fire indiscriminately on protesters immediately after army personnel, who were separating the police from the protesters, vacated the area.

For more than 30 minutes the police shot at fleeing protesters as they tried to escape down alleyways and on the highway, before the police officers sought shelter in a nearby army camp. At least six police officers were also killed as protesters retaliated hours later, setting fire to the Jatrabari police station.

A spokesperson for the Bangladesh Police told the BBC that 60 police officers had been arrested for their role in the violence in July and August last year.

"There were regrettable incidents in which certain members of the then police force engaged in excessive use of force," said the spokesperson. "Bangladesh Police has launched thorough and impartial investigations."

Sheikh Hasina's trial began last month. She has been charged with committing crimes against humanity, including issuing orders that led to mass killings and targeted violence against civilians, as well as incitement, conspiracy and failure to prevent mass murder.

India has so far failed to comply with a Bangladeshi request for her extradition. It is unlikely that Hasina will return to the country for the trial, Mr Cadman said.

The Awami League maintains that its leaders are not liable for the force used against protesters.

"The Awami League categorically denies and rejects claims that some of its senior leaders, including the prime minister herself, were personally responsible for or directed the use of lethal force against crowds," a spokesperson for the party said.

"The decisions made by senior government officials were proportionate in nature, made in good faith and intended to minimise the loss of life."

The party has rejected the findings of United Nations investigators, who said they had found reasonable grounds to believe the actions of Hasina and her government could amount to crimes against humanity.

The BBC approached the Bangladesh army for comment but did not receive a response.

Since Hasina's fall, Bangladesh has been ruled by an interim government led by Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.

His government is preparing for national elections. It's unclear if the Awami League will be allowed to contest the vote.

Chinese students sleep off heatwave in libraries and tents

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrykm5z2rxo, yesterday

As Chinese authorities issue warnings for extreme heat in the country's eastern region, students are leaving their stuffy dormitories to camp in hallways and supermarkets.

Some have ditched their campuses altogether.

"We sometimes go out to stay in hotels for the air-conditioning," a 20-year-old university student in the northeastern Changchun city, who declined to be named, tells the BBC. "There are always a few days in a year where it's unbearably hot."

Hotels have become popular among students seeking to avoid sweaty nights in their dormitories, which typically house four to eight people a room and do not have air conditioning.

But for many the move is a last resort. "Checking into a hotel is a huge expense for us students," the student in Changchun says.

So on less desperate days, he perches a bowl of ice cubes in front of a small fan to cool down his dormitory room - what he calls "a homemade air-conditioner". The invention has tided him over as the semester ended this week.

The sanfu season, known to be China's "dog days", usually starts in mid-July. But it arrived early this year, with temperatures in the eastern region soaring above 40C (104F) over the past week - and catching millions of residents off guard.

Concerns about the high temperatures spiralled after reports that a dormitory guard had died in his room at Qingdao University on Sunday - from what many believed to be heatstroke.

His cause of death was "under investigation", said a statement released by the university on Monday. It said that he had been found in his room in an "abnormal condition" and pronounced dead when paramedics arrived at the scene.

Tributes quickly poured in for the man, known endearingly among students as the dormitory "uncle" who took care of stray cats on the campus.

"The kittens don't know that Uncle has gone far away. After today it met a lot of people, but never heard Uncle's voice again," a Weibo user commented.

The incident has also cast a spotlight on the living conditions of the school's staff and students. Also on Sunday, a student in the same university was sent to the hospital after suffering a heat stroke, Jimu News reported.

"The quality of a university does not lie in how many buildings it has, but rather how it treats the regular people who quietly support the school's operation," wrote another Weibo user.

In recent weeks China has been dealing with extreme weather - a worldwide phenomenon that experts have linked to climate change.

Chinese authorities issued flash flood warnings on Wednesday after a typhoon made landfall on China's eastern coast. The storm, which killed two in Taiwan this week, and has moved across the Chinese provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian.

On the other side of the country, floods swept away a bridge linking Nepal and China. At least nine died and more than a dozen- both Nepalese and Chinese nationals - remain missing.

Meanwhile, heatwaves in China have become hotter and longer.

In 2022, particularly gruelling heat caused more than 50,000 deaths, according to estimates by medical journal The Lancet. The following year saw a township in Xinjiang, northwestern China, logging 52.5C - the highest recorded temperature in China.

2024 was China's warmest year on record, with July becoming the hottest month the country has seen since it started tracking temperatures in 1961.

"It feels like global warming has really affected our world," says the university student in Changchun. "When I was young the summers in the northeast were really comfortable. But now the summers are getting hotter and hotter."

This year, high temperatures again tested the limits of residents.

Last week, a video showed a man in Zhejiang province smashing the window of a train to let air in, after the train derailed and passengers were stuck for hours in the sweltering heat.

In the neighbouring Jiangxi province, an air-conditioned restaurant has become a hotspot for elderly folks to while away their afternoons without ordering any food - to the chagrin of restaurant staff, local media reported.

In the northeastern Jilin province, university students reportedly slept in tents lining an air-conditioned hallway.

And after reports emerged of students in Shandong province squatting in supermarkets and checking into nearby hotels to escape the heat, a university arranged for its students to sleep in the library, Hongxing News reported.

Several schools in Shandong province have announced plans to make their dormitories air-conditioned - an increasingly indispensable amenity.

Air-conditioning has accounted for more than a third of the demand on the power grid in eastern China, China's energy authorities said, as nationwide electricity demand reached a record high in early July.

Qingdao University officials told local media on Monday that it also had plans to install air-conditioning in student dormitories over the summer break.

It is just what one high school student in Jinan city, 350km away, needed to hear.

The teenager, who had just completed his college entrance examinations, tells the BBC that he had been hesitant to go to Qingdao University - his top choice - because of its dormitories.

"Without air-conditioning, it's too hot to survive," he says.

Are India's skies safe? Air safety watchdog responds amid rising concerns

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgnr828z0go, 2 days ago

Just how safe are India's skies?

It's a question many are asking after June's devastating Air India crash, which killed at least 270 people. The London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner went down less than a minute after taking off from Ahmedabad airport in western India on 12 June.

"India's skies have always been safe - in the past and even today," said Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, the chief of Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) - India's aviation safety regulator - in an interview with the BBC.

"If you look at global safety metrics, such as those published by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which track the number of accidents per million flights, India consistently performs better than the world average," he said.

"There were only two years within the 2010–2024 period where we exceeded the global average - those were the years when major accidents occurred."

In August 2020, Air India Express Flight 1344 crashed after skidding off a rain-soaked tabletop runway in Kozhikode, killing 21 people. A decade earlier, in May 2010, Flight 812 from Dubai overshot the runway in Mangalore and plunged into a gorge, leaving 158 dead. June's Air India crash was the third such accident in the country in 15 years.

While such major accidents remain rare, recent headlines have raised fresh concerns. From a Delhi-Srinagar flight that hit severe turbulence, to growing reports of maintenance oversights and training shortfalls, questions around aviation safety are once again in focus.

The latest involved SpiceJet, India's fourth-largest and longest-running low-cost airline.

The Economic Times newspaper found that the aviation regulator had recently summoned the airline's leadership after a series of alarming findings - not from routine audits, but triggered by a British aviation firm.

The newspaper reported that it began earlier this year when two of SpiceJet's De Havilland Q400 turboprops showed premature propeller failures. The airline alerted Dowty Propellers, a GE Aerospace-led UK manufacturer, which found damage to the internal bearings of the propellers.

Each propeller has bearings with two races, or rings or tracks. In this case, the inner race was damaged. Instead of addressing the root cause, SpiceJet "reportedly kept applying more grease to the [entire] unit instead of addressing the root cause". Frustrated by the lack of corrective action, Dowty escalated the issue directly to India's aviation regulator, the newspaper reported.

The DGCA's own audit in April "revealed even more deficiencies, including snag occurrences", the report said.

Mr Kidwai told the BBC that the "turboprop propeller issue came to our attention through one of SpiceJet's maintenance organisations".

"We took it up with SpiceJet and we ensured they took corrective action. We also found out that the senior management was not fully aware of the situation. We took action against the various post holders who were supposed to ensure compliance with the original equipment manufacturer and other regulations. We directed SpiceJet to remove them and suspend a few of them which they did," he said.

More recently, Reuters reported that the aviation watchdog reprimanded Air India's budget carrier in March for delaying mandatory engine part replacements on an Airbus A320 and falsifying records to show compliance.

Air India Express told the news agency it acknowledged the error to DGCA and undertook "remedial action and preventive measures".

Mr Kidwai told the BBC that the information in this case came through "self-reporting by the airline".

"I would not condone it [the lapses]. But [at least] we have started getting these reports. This came from the airline. Action has been taken in this case. In our audits we have mandated our people to be more alert and see whether there is any lapse and bring it to our attention."

In May, an IndiGo flight from Delhi to Srinagar faced severe turbulence and hail about 45 minutes after takeoff.

The Airbus A321, carrying 222 passengers, reportedly encountered extreme vertical air currents - updrafts followed by downdrafts - that dislodged overhead bins and caused nose damage. The crew declared an emergency and safely landed at Srinagar with no injuries. The regulator launched an investigation, during which two pilots were grounded.

Mr Kidwai told the BBC that the regulator had now "refined" its guidelines for pilots flying in turbulent conditions.

For instance, if there's significant cloud cover or any weather pattern that poses a risk - and "we've clearly defined what constitutes such a risk" - pilots are now required to take specific action a set number of nautical miles before reaching it, he said.

"This could include diverting, going around, or taking other appropriate steps."

Since 2020, Indian domestic carriers have reported 2,461 technical faults, according to the federal civil aviation ministry data. IndiGo accounted for over half (1,288), followed by SpiceJet with 633, and Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express with 389 cases, as of January 2025.

"Reporting of snags by airlines has gone up. This is good," Mr Kidwai said.

"I wouldn't say I'm pleased about it. But I do see value in the growing culture of reporting [snags]. It's far better for every snag to be brought to the attention of the authorities than keeping quiet and operating the aircraft."

Mr Kidwai said with the number of flights increasing, it's important to "see whether the turnaround time for flights is adequate for [maintenance] checks or not".

To be sure, demands on the regulator have grown: India has emerged as the third-largest passenger aviation market in the world. Yet, over the past two years, the ministry of civil aviation has faced budget cuts, reflecting a reduced financial priority for the sector.

Today, the country's scheduled carriers operate nearly 850 aircraft - a significant increase from around 400 just a decade ago.

The number of air passengers has more than doubled since 2014–15 - from 116 million to 239 million.

The number of commercial aerodromes has also seen a substantial rise - from around 60-70 a decade ago to nearly 130-140 today.

"In total, including both scheduled and non-scheduled operators, we now have 1,288 aircraft in operation. By the end of the decade, we are projected to operate over 2,000 aircraft," Mr Kidwai said. (Non-scheduled operators include charter airlines, private jet operators, air taxis and helicopter services.)

So had the latest Air India crash dented the reputation of air travel in India? Mr Kidwai said the data didn't point to that.

"We looked at the data to assess whether it had any impact on domestic or international operations. There was no significant drop in traffic. At most, we observed a very marginal dip for a short period, affecting both domestic and international flights, along with a few cancellations," he told the BBC.

"It's natural for people to feel anxious after such incidents. But over time, as more clarity emerges and the situation is better understood, that anxiety tends to subside. Time is a great healer."

What happens in Taiwan's military exercise to defend against China?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly21zrnk79o, 2 days ago

Taiwan's annual military exercise, Han Kuang, begins on Wednesday as the island ramps up its defence against a possible invasion from China.

Billed as the largest and longest one so far, this year's Han Kuang will last for about 10 days, about twice the duration of last year's drill.

While it is aimed at readying Taiwan's population for a possible attack, it is also meant to publicly showcase the island's defences and send a clear signal to Beijing.

China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to "reunify" with it some day, while not ruling out the use of force. This prospect has raised fears of a wider conflict drawing in the US, Taiwan's chief ally.

What is Han Kuang?

Held annually since 1984, Han Kuang sees thousands of troops take part in large-scale land, sea and air exercises that showcase Taiwan's latest military hardware.

While its full name in Chinese technically refers to the reclaiming of the Chinese mainland - one of the aims of Taiwan's first Republic of China government - its actual purpose is to rehearse Taiwan's defensive capabilities.

As concern over a possible attack from China has mounted in recent years, Han Kuang has evolved significantly.

What happens during the exercise?

This year, authorities held a series of computerised table-top military exercises in April, as a precursor to the live-fire drills that will be held from 9 to 18 July.

During this month's drills, hardware such as rocket launchers, drones, and locally developed missiles will be deployed.

This includes the much touted and newly acquired mobile rocket launch system Himars supplied by the US - the same system Washington has given to Ukraine - which has a much further range than current ones used by the Taiwan military.

The exercises will involve about 22,000 reservist troops - about 50% more than last year.

Like last year, the drills will be unscripted to test troops' response to a surprise attack - a move that has been praised by military analysts and seen as long overdue.

This change appears to have been made in response to criticism over the years that previous drills appeared to be more of a public relations exercise instead of an actual military exercise.

This year, part of the exercises will focus on combating China's increasing greyzone warfare tactics against Taiwan which have seen Beijing's fighter jets and ships repeatedly intrude in airspace and waters.

In recent years, Han Kuang has increasingly included civil defence. A separate exercise is held concurrently where civilians across the island participate in multiple evacuation and air raid rehearsals.

During this year's "urban resilience" drills, which will each last about 30 minutes, mobile phone alerts will be sent out about incoming attacks and air raid sirens will blare out in cities. Road traffic will be restricted while transport hubs, shops, hotels, and markets will have to suspend operations.

Authorities will also test Taiwanese society's ability to counter misinformation and the work of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front, according to reports, although it is unclear how exactly this would be tested.

Why is Taiwan ramping up Han Kuang?

China has been scaling up its greyzone warfare and disinformation campaigns in Taiwan, which some observers say are meant to wear down the island's defences.

The US has warned that China poses an "imminent threat" to Taiwan, referring to a 2027 deadline that President Xi Jinping has allegedly given for China's military to be capable of invading Taiwan.

This is a date that has never been confirmed by Beijing - however the US insists that China is "credibly preparing to potentially use military force to alter the balance of power" in Asia.

Relations between Taiwan and China have also become particularly tense under the Democratic Progressive Party's President William Lai, who was elected last year.

Reviled by Beijing as a "separatist", Lai has taken a more forceful stand against China compared to his predecessor, including beefing up Taiwan's military.

Unsurprisingly, Han Kuang displeases Beijing.

Senior Colonel Jiang Bin, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense, said on Tuesday that this year's exercises are "nothing but a bluff and a self-deceiving trick played by the region's Democratic Progressive Party authorities to hijack Taiwan compatriots on board its 'Taiwan Independence' war chariot".

"Whatever subjects they drill and whatever weapons they use, the People's Liberation Army's resolute countermeasures against 'Taiwan Independence' would not be deterred, nor would the overwhelming and irresistible trend of China's national reunification be stopped," he added.

Why is this year's Han Kuang significant?

The changes in Han Kuang are actually part of a broader push to reform Taiwan's military and defence, which has come under criticism both domestically and externally in recent years.

The Taiwanese public's confidence in their own military fluctuates but has generally been middling, with one survey last year showing only 47.5% have confidence in their defence capabilities.

During both Trump administrations, the US has repeatedly pushed Taiwan to spend more on its defence and modernise its military.

The move to bolster their own defences comes as doubt grows in Taiwan that the US under Donald Trump would intervene militarily in the event of a Chinese attack.

The US is compelled by legislation to help Taiwan defend itself, but Trump has been ambiguous about this and recently refused to comment on whether he would stop China from taking Taiwan by force.

Besides the changes in Han Kuang, Taiwan in recent years has also moved to extend its compulsory military service, developed its own submarines and missiles, and built up its urban and civil defence capabilities.

It has also invested in smaller and more mobile weapons systems including drones, and upped its training of soldiers in asymmetric warfare as part of its so-called "porcupine" strategy aimed at making the island more difficult to capture.

'A huge explosion-like sound' - Survivors recall moment India bridge collapsed

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjel1g15qxpo, today

Survivors of a bridge collapse in India's Gujarat state on Wednesday that killed at least 15 people have said that they initially thought it was an explosion or earthquake.

The cause of the collapse is still to be ascertained, and investigations are under way according to state government officials.

Anwarbhai, who was driving a van which had two other passengers, was on the bridge on Wednesday morning when he heard a deafening crack - a section of the bridge behind him had collapsed into the Mahisagar river, taking some vehicles along with it.

"There was a huge explosion-like sound and part of the bridge collapsed behind us. Our van also started rolling backwards so we quickly jumped out," he told BBC Gujarati.

The 40-year-old bridge connected Vadodara district with central Gujarat and usually saw a lot of traffic.

Dramatic visuals after the collapse showed a truck teetering dangerously from the edge of the broken bridge - it was later moved to safety. But other vehicles, including lorries, cars and a tuktuk, plunged into the water.

At least four people are still missing and search operations are under way.

"Our priority is to check the area quickly and retrieve both bodies and any survivors," Surender Singh, an official with the National Disaster Response Force, told news agency ANI.

Sonalben Padhiyar was the only survivor among her family members after the car she was travelling in fell into the river.

Recounting the terrifying moments, Ms Padhiyar told the Indian Express newspaper that she was sitting in the back when the car fell into the river headfirst.

A video of her, visibly distressed and shouting for someone to save her son, has since gone viral. She later told ANI that she screamed for a long time before help arrived. She lost six family members.

Dilipsinh Padhiyar, another survivor (not related to Ms Padhiyar), was returning home from a night shift on his two-wheeler when the accident took place.

"Traffic was moving as usual," he told the Indian Express.

He said he had barely crossed 100m on the bridge when he felt a vibration before the structure gave way.

"I found myself falling into the river," he said.

Mr Padhiyar suffered injuries but managed to hold on to a metal rod and stay afloat until local fishermen arrived to help.

Eyewitnesses said the collapse felt like an earthquake, shaking the ground and sending multiple vehicles crashing into the river.

Jairaj Singh, one of the locals who rushed to the scene, told BBC Gujarati he was alerted by a phone call from a friend.

"As soon as I heard, I rushed over," he said. "We began pulling out vehicles with ropes. People from the area came together to help."

The collapse has set off a political row, with locals saying they had often complained about its poor condition.

Ravibhai, who lives in the area, told BBC Gujarati that the bridge would often shake when heavy vehicles drove on it.

Abhesinh Parmar, a local council chief from a village near the bridge, said it was in a "dilapidated" condition and "had potholes everywhere".

"Rods could be seen sticking out of the structure. We complained many times, but no action was taken," he alleged.

Rushikesh Patel, a spokesperson for the Gujarat government, denied this, saying that the bridge was inspected and repaired at regular intervals.

"Recently, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel had approved dismantling the existing bridge and constructing a new one. We were set to issue a tender soon," he said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is from Gujarat, has expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and announced compensation.

Wednesday's collapse is among a series of deadly accidents linked to ageing and poorly maintained public infrastructure in India.

In 2022, around 135 people were killed when a 137-year-old suspension bridge in Gujarat's Morbi town collapsed into a river. The bridge, a popular tourist attraction, had reopened for visitors just days earlier following repairs.

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Australian childcare operator to install CCTV after abuse claims

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3vdel6y5n2o, yesterday

One of Australia's largest private childcare operators will speed up the rollout of CCTV across more than 400 centres, days after child sex abuse allegations against an employee emerged.

G8 Education will also let parents and carers choose who can change their children's nappies and take them to the toilet, the firm said.

Joshua Dale Brown, 26, is charged with more than 70 offences, including child rape, allegedly committed against eight children at a G8 Education-owned centre in Melbourne between 2022 and 2023.

The firm's boss said the allegations were "deeply disturbing" and apologised for the "unimaginable pain caused to our families".

The Australian-listed company operates almost two dozen childcare centre brands and employs about 10,000 staff who look after about 41,000 children.

In an announcement on Tuesday, the company's managing director Pejman Okhovat said it will also commission an independent review of the allegations against Brown once the police investigation and criminal proceedings have finished.

"Our primary focus right now is on supporting all families who are impacted, as well as our team members in Victoria," he said.

The rollout of CCTV across all of G8 Education's centres will be "accelerated" and comes after a trial at some locations, the firm said, but it did not give a timeline on the rollout.

"While installation will take time, we are committed to transparency and will keep our families and team informed with timely updates as more information becomes available," a company spokesperson said.

Asked if families and staff will have to give consent before being monitored, the company said it understands "the importance of adhering to child safety, child dignity, privacy and data protection requirements".

The company will also "commit to adherence with all relevant privacy laws and sector regulations and the adoption of best practice cyber security measures", it added.

The spokesperson did not say who will operate the CCTV systems, who will have access to the footage or how long the footage will be stored.

For child safety expert and ex-detective Kristi McVee, CCTV "will only be as good as the humans who manage it".

"It can be circumvented and evidence can be destroyed to protect the interests of the organisation," she told the BBC.

In the case of Ashley Paul Griffiths - currently serving a life sentence for raping and sexually abusing almost 70 young girls in childcare centres in Australia and overseas - CCTV at the centres where he worked did not act as a deterrent, McVee said.

Professor Daryl Higgins, who heads Australian Catholic University's Institute of Child Protection Studies, echoed those concerns.

"It's not a silver bullet," Professor Higgins said, "and would require significant consultation about if, where, how and why we'd implement it".

"Who would view the footage and how would it be used?" he asked.

Martyn Mills-Bayne, a senior lecturer in early childhood education at the University of South Australia, worries CCTV will provide a "false sense of security" and allow operators to delay better measures such as increasing staff ratios.

He also said that giving parents and carers the option to choose who changes nappies and takes children to the toilets may put extra pressure on female workers and could lead to gender discrimination in hiring processes.

Investigations into Brown's alleged offences found he had worked at 20 childcare centres - including centres not operated by G8 Education - between 2017 and his arrest in May this year.

This prompted health authorities to ask the families of about 1,200 children who had been under Brown's care at those centres to undergo testing for infectious diseases.

The tests were a "precaution", authorities said. The allegations against Brown also prompted state and federal governments to promise more stringent staff checks and regulations in the childcare sector.

Brown is accused of child rape and sexual assault offences as well as producing and transmitting child abuse material, relating to children between the ages of five months and two years old.

He is yet to enter a plea, but has been remanded in custody and is due to appear at Melbourne Magistrates' Court in September.

Mushroom murders and cancer lie: Nine weeks of evidence that gripped a courtroom

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdx554n1x0wo, 4 days ago

The orange plate

Gail and Don had turned up on their daughter-in-law's doorstep just after midday on that fateful Saturday, an orange cake in hand. With them were the Wilkinsons: Heather and Ian, who weeks after the meal would emerge from a coma to find he was the only guest to have survived.

Noticeably absent was Erin's estranged husband Simon Patterson. He'd pulled out the day before, saying he felt "uncomfortable" attending amid tension between the former couple.

Erin had spent the morning slaving over a recipe from one of the nation's favourite cooks, tweaking it to make individual servings of beef Wellington: expensive cuts of steak slathered with a mushroom paste, then encased in pastry.

For the jury, Ian recounted watching the parcels go onto four grey plates – and an orange one for Erin – with mashed potatoes, green beans and gravy heaped on the side.

A sixth serving allegedly prepared for Simon, in case he changed his mind and came over, went into the fridge. Erin was originally accused of attempting to murder him too – on several occasions – but those charges were dropped on the eve of the trial and the allegations were not put to the jury.

The group said grace and then dug in, exchanging "banter" about how much they were eating.

"There was talk about husbands helping their wives out," Ian said.

Stuffed, they nibbled on dessert before Erin stunned her guests with a declaration that she had cancer, the trial heard.

Even the defence concedes that was not true. But on that day, the two elderly couples gave Erin advice on how to tell her kids, before ending the meal the way it had begun – with a prayer.

Ian told the court he didn't know the host well, but "things were friendly".

"She just seemed like a normal person to me," he said.

By that night, all of the guests were very ill, and the next day the four went to hospital with severe symptoms. Donald - who had eaten his portion of lunch and about half his wife's - told a doctor he had vomited 30 times in the space of a few hours.

Suspicion soon began to trickle in.

The trial heard several of those asked to the lunch had been surprised by the invitation. Simon said it was rare for his estranged wife to host such an event, and Ian said he and his late wife had never even been to Erin's house before.

In hindsight, one of the guests apparently wondered aloud why Erin had served herself on a different type of plate to the rest of the family.

"I've puzzled about it since lunch," Heather said, according to a witness. "Is Erin short of crockery?"

Later, at hospital in Leongatha, Erin's ailing guests asked if their host was sick too. They'd all eaten the same meal, hadn't they?

Detectives would pose similar questions days later, in a police station interview room with Erin.

"We're trying to understand what has made them so ill," the detectives were heard saying, in a tape played to the court. "Conversely, we're trying to understand why you're not that ill."

An orange cake

Detailing the lunch publicly for the first time, from the witness stand, Erin Patterson offered an explanation.

She told the court that after waving off her relatives she had cleaned up the kitchen, before rewarding herself with a slice of the orange cake Gail had brought.

"[I ate] another piece of cake, and then another piece," she said. Before she knew it, the rest of the cake was gone and she felt overfull.

"So I went to the toilet and brought it back up again," Erin told the trial. "After I'd done that, I felt better."

She outlined for the jury a secret struggle with bulimia, saying she had been regularly binge-eating and purging since her teens - something her defence team suggested accounted for her lack of symptoms.

Erin had taken herself to hospital two days after the lunch, reporting feeling ill. But she initially rebuffed the urgent pleas of staff who wanted her and her children – who she claimed had eaten leftovers – to be immediately admitted for treatment.

One "surprised" doctor, who had seen the other sick lunch guests, was so concerned for their welfare that he called police to ask for help.

But when medics finally got Erin in for checks, neither she nor her children demonstrated similar symptoms to the others who'd eaten at the house, and tests showed no traces of death cap mushroom poisoning.

After a precautionary 24 hours, Erin was sent on her way.

Red flags

Her victims, though, continued to suffer in hospital. And as their relentless diarrhoea and vomiting was escalating to organ failure, Erin was covering her tracks, prosecutors alleged.

The day after she was discharged from hospital, CCTV captured Erin travelling to a local dump and disposing of a food dehydrator later found to contain traces of poisonous mushrooms.

She was also using three phones around the time of the lunch, two of which disappeared shortly afterwards. The one she did hand over to police had been repeatedly wiped – including while detectives were searching her house.

For investigators, the red flags began mounting quickly.

Questions about the source of the mushrooms elicited odd answers. Patterson claimed some of them had been bought dried from an Asian grocery in Melbourne, but she couldn't remember which suburb. When asked about the brand, or for transaction records, she said they were in plain packaging and she must've paid cash.

Meanwhile detectives found out death cap mushrooms had been spotted in two nearby towns in the weeks before the meal, with concerned locals posting pictures and locations to online plant database iNaturalist. Erin's internet history showed she'd used the website to view death cap mushroom sightings at least once before. Her mobile phone location data appeared to show her travelling to both areas – and purchasing the infamous food dehydrator on her way home from one of those trips.

But Erin told police she'd never owned such an appliance, despite an instruction manual in her kitchen drawer and posts in a true crime Facebook group where she boasted about using it.

"I've been hiding powdered mushrooms in everything. Mixed into chocolate brownies yesterday, the kids had no idea," she wrote in one.

And when digital forensics experts managed to recover some of the material on her devices, they found photos showing what looked like death cap mushrooms being weighed on a set of kitchen scales.

During the trial, Erin said she realised in the days after the lunch that the beef Wellington may have accidentally included dried mushrooms that she had foraged and mistakenly put in a container with store-bought ones. But she was too "scared" to tell a soul.

"It was this stupid knee-jerk reaction to dig deeper and keep lying," Erin told the court.

Why did Erin Patterson do it?

What baffled police, though, was the question of motive.

Simon told the trial he and Erin had initially remained chatty and amicable after their split in 2015. That changed in 2022, he said, when the couple started having disagreements over finances, child support, schools and properties.

He said there was no inkling of ill will towards his family, though.

"She especially got on with dad. They shared a love of knowledge and learning."

With his voice faltering, Simon added: "I think she loved his gentle nature."

But Erin herself told the court she was feeling increasingly isolated from the Patterson family – and there was evidence presented which indicated she had grown frustrated with them.

"You had two faces," the prosecutor Nanette Rogers said, after making Erin read aloud expletive-laden Facebook messages in which she had called Simon a "deadbeat" and his parents "a lost cause".

The prosecution opted not to present a specific motive, however, saying the jury may still be wondering what drove Erin to kill long after the trial wrapped.

The lack of a clear motive was key to Erin's defence: why would she want to kill her family, people she said she loved like her own parents?

"My parents are both gone. My grandparents are all gone. They're the only family that I've got… I love them a lot," she told police in her interrogation.

Everything else could be explained away, Erin's barrister argued.

The messages critical of her in-laws were just harmless venting, they said; the cancer claim a cover for weight-loss surgery she was planning to have but was too embarrassed to disclose.

Cell phone tracking data isn't very precise, so there's no real evidence she actually visited the towns where death cap mushrooms were sighted, they argued.

They also suggested that Erin was sick after the meal, just not as sick as the others because she'd thrown it all up. She strongly disliked hospitals, which was why she had discharged herself against medical advice.

And her lies and attempts to dispose of evidence were the actions of a woman worried she'd be blamed for the accidental deaths of her guests.

"She's not on trial for lying," Colin Mandy said. "This is not a court of moral judgment."

He accused the prosecution of trying to force a jigsaw puzzle of evidence together, "stretching interpretations, ignoring alternative explanations because they don't align perfectly with the narrative".

But the prosecution argued Erin had told so many lies it was hard to keep track of them.

"Perhaps the starkest", Dr Rogers said, were her attempts to explain the cancer fib. To prove that she actually had plans to undergo gastric-band surgery, Erin claimed to have booked an appointment at a Melbourne clinic – one that did not offer the treatment.

"She has told lies upon lies because she knew the truth would implicate her," Dr Rogers said. "When she knew her lies had been uncovered, she came up with a carefully constructed narrative to fit with the evidence – almost."

Dr Rogers said the jury should have "no difficulty" in rejecting the argument "this was all a horrible foraging accident".

Ultimately, after a week of deliberations, the jury did just that.

Now a convicted killer, Erin Patterson will return to court for a sentencing hearing at a later date.

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Inquest finds police officer who shot Aboriginal teen was racist

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62gep5ld77o, 4 days ago

The police officer who killed Indigenous teenager Kumanjayi Walker in 2019 was "racist" and had an "attraction" to adrenaline-style policing, a coroner's inquest has found.

Walker, 19, died shortly after he was shot three times at close range by Constable Zachary Rolfe during a home arrest in Yuendumu, a remote Indigenous community in the Northern Territory (NT).

Rolfe - no longer a policeman - was charged with Walker's murder and acquitted in 2022, sparking protests about Indigenous deaths in custody.

In delivering her findings, Judge Elisabeth Armitage said Walker's death was "avoidable" and there was "clear evidence of entrenched, systemic and structural racism" within NT's police force.

Judge Armitage handed down a summary of her findings - more than 600 pages - at an open-air presentation in Yuendumu, about 300km (190 miles) north-west of Alice Springs on Monday.

She found that "Rolfe was racist and that he worked in and was the beneficiary of an organisation with hallmarks of institutional racism".

Rolfe was "not a case of one bad apple", she said, finding that racist language and behaviour was "normalised within the Alice Springs police station".

While she could not "say with certainty that Mr Rolfe's racist attitudes" contributed to Walker's death, "I cannot exclude that possibility", she told those gathered at the presentation, which included members of Walker's family.

In addition, Rolfe's "derisive attitudes" toward female colleagues and some superiors, as well as his "contempt for bush cops", may have influenced his actions the day he shot Walker, Judge Armitage found.

On 9 November 2019, Rolfe and another officer arrived at Walker's home in Yuendumu to arrest him for breaching a court order.

Three days earlier, police had tried to arrest Walker and he had threatened them with an axe.

Walker was a "vulnerable teenager" who had a history of trauma and "poor impulse control", Judge Armitage found, noting that police should have been "on notice" to avoid another confrontation.

During Rolfe's Supreme Court trial in 2022, the court heard the officers became involved in a scuffle with Walker about one minute after arriving at his home.

Walker stabbed Rolfe's shoulder with a pair of scissors, prompting Rolfe to shoot him without warning - a move that Rolfe's lawyers said was in self-defence. Prosecutors agreed.

Seconds later, Rolfe fired two more shots at Walker. Prosecutors argued these were not necessary, while the defence said they were because Rolfe feared for his colleague's safety.

In her findings, Judge Armitage found that Rolfe made a "series of flawed decisions" that led to "officer-induced jeopardy" - a situation where police "needlessly put themselves in danger... creating a situation that justifies the use of deadly force".

She also said Rolfe - a former soldier - found combat situations "exhilarating" and had an "attraction to adrenalin policing". He had also ignored an arrest plan for Walker created by a female officer because he "thought he knew better", Judge Armitage said.

After Walker was shot, officers dragged him out of the house before taking him to the police station, where he was given first aid. He later died.

"Dragging is a disrespectful act and it should not have happened," Judge Armitage said.

She made 32 recommendations, including developing "mutual respect agreements" to limit when police carry guns in the Yuendumu community, and for police's anti-racism strategy to be strengthened, targeted and made public, and for compliance with its measures be publicly reported.

As she finished her one-hour speech, Judge Armitage thanked those who took part in the inquest and to Walker's family.

"I am sorry for your profound loss," she said.

Walker's cousin Samara Fernandez-Brown said the report was "overwhelming" and the family would assess the recommendations, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

In a statement, NT Police said the inquest had been a "long and painful journey for all involved".

"This has been a hard road, and we are determined to ensure that what has been learned is not lost," said acting commissioner Martin Dole.

A coroner's inquest into Walker's death was launched in 2022. Under NT law, all deaths in custody must be investigated. The findings are not legally binding.

'Everyone knows somebody affected': The small towns in shock after mushroom murders

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g8zr16y21o, 3 days ago

The winters in Victoria's Gippsland region are known for being chilly. Frost is a frequent visitor overnight, and the days are often overcast.

But in the small town of Korumburra - a part of Australia surrounded by low, rolling hills - it's not just the weather that's gloomy; the mood here is plainly subdued.

Korumburra is where all of Erin Patterson's victims made their home. Don and Gail Patterson, her in-laws, had lived there since 1984. They brought up their four children in the town of 5,000. Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson lived nearby - her husband Ian was the pastor at the local Baptist church.

The four were invited to Erin's house on 29 July 2023 for a family lunch that only Ian would survive, after a liver transplant and weeks in an induced coma.

And on Monday a jury rejected Erin's claim she accidentally served her guests toxic mushrooms, finding her guilty of three counts of murder and one of attempted murder.

Her 10-week trial caused a massive stir globally, but here in Korumburra they don't want to talk about it. They just want to return to their lives after what has been a difficult two years.

"It's not an easy thing to go through a grieving process... and it's particularly not easy when there's been so much attention," cattle farmer and councillor for the shire Nathan Hersey told the BBC.

"There's an opportunity now for a lot of people to be able to have some closure."

The locals are fiercely loyal - he's one of the few people who is willing to explain what this ordeal has meant for the many in the region.

"It's the sort of place that you can be embraced in very quickly and made to feel you are part of it," he explains.

And those who died clearly helped build that environment.

Pretty much everyone of a certain generation in town was taught by former school teacher Don Patterson: "You'll hear a lot of people talk very fondly of Don, about the impact he had on them.

"He was a great teacher and a really engaging person as well."

And Mr Hersey says he has heard many, many tales of Heather and Gail's generosity and kindness.

Pinned to the Korumburra Baptist Church noticeboard is a short statement paying tribute to the trio, who were "very special people who loved God and loved to bless others".

"We all greatly miss Heather, Don and Gail whether we were friends for a short time or over 20 years," it read.

It's not just Korumburra that's been changed by the tragedy though.

This part of rural Victoria is dotted with small towns and hamlets, which may at first appear quite isolated.

The reality is they are held together by close ties - ties which this case has rattled.

In nearby Outtrim, the residents of Neilson Street – an unassuming gravel road host to a handful of houses – have been left reeling by the prosecution claim their gardens may have produced the murder weapon.

It was one of two locations where death cap mushrooms were sighted and posted on iNaturalist, a citizen science website. Pointing to cell phone tracking data, the prosecution alleged that Erin Patterson went to both to forage for the lethal fungi.

"Everyone knows somebody who has been affected by this case," Ian Thoms tells the BBC from his small farm on Nielson Street.

He rattles off his list. His son is a police detective. His wife works with the daughter of the only survivor Ian. His neighbour is good friends with "Funky Tom", the renowned mushroom expert called upon by the prosecution – who coincidentally was also the person who had posted the sighting of the fungi here.

Down the road another 15 minutes is Leongatha, where Erin Patterson's home sits among other sprawling properties on an unpaved lane.

She bought a plot of land here with a generous inheritance from her mother and built the house assuming she would live here forever.

It has been sitting empty for about 18 months, a sign on the gate telling trespassers to keep out. A neighbour's sheep intermittently drop by to mow the grass.

This week, the livestock was gone, and a black tarpaulin had been erected around the carport and the entrance to her house.

There's a sense of intrigue among some of the neighbours, but there's also a lot of weariness. Every day there are gawkers driving down the lane to see the place where the tragic meal happened. One neighbour even reckons she saw a tour bus trundle past the house.

"When you live in a local town you know names - it's been interesting to follow," says Emma Buckland, who stops to talk to us in the main street.

"It's bizarre," says her mother Gabrielle Stefani. "Nothing like that has [ever] happened so it's almost hard to believe."

The conversation turns to mushroom foraging.

"We grew up on the farm. Even on the front lawn there's always mushrooms and you know which ones you can and can't eat," says Ms Buckland. "That's something you've grown up knowing."

The town that's felt the impact of the case the most in recent months, though, is Morwell; the administrative capital of the City of Latrobe and where the trial has been heard.

"We've seen Morwell, which is usually a pretty sleepy town, come to life," says local journalist Liam Durkin, sitting on a wall in front of Latrobe Valley courthouse.

He edits the weekly Latrobe Valley Express newspaper, whose offices are just around the corner.

"I never thought I'd be listening to fungi experts and the like for weeks on end but here we are," he says.

"I don't think there's ever been anything like this, and they may well never be in Morwell ever again."

While not remote by Australian standards, Morwell is still a two-hour drive from the country's second largest city, Melbourne. It feels far removed from the Victorian capital – and often forgotten.

Just a few months before that fateful lunch served up by Erin Patterson in July 2023, Morwell's paper mill - Australia's last manufacturer of white paper and the provider of many local jobs - shut down. Before that, many more people lost their jobs when a nearby power station closed down.

Older people here have struggled to find work; others have left to find more lucrative options in states like Queensland.

So locals say being thrust in the spotlight now is a bit bizarre.

In Jay Dees coffee shop, opposite the police station and the court, Laura Heller explains that she normally makes about 150 coffees a day. Recently it's almost double that.

"There's been a lot of mixed feelings about [the trial]," she says.

There's been a massive uptick for many businesses, but this case has also revived long-held division in the community when it comes to the police and justice systems, she explains.

"This town is affected by crime a lot, but it's a very different type of crime," Ms Heller says, mentioning drugs and youth offending as examples.

"Half the community don't really have much faith in the police force and our magistrates."

Back in Korumburra, what has been shaken is their faith in humanity. It feels like many people around the globe have lost sight of the fact that this headline-making, meme-generating crime left three people dead.

"Lives in our local community have changed forever," Mr Hersey says.

"But I would say for a lot of people, it's just become almost like pop culture."

Though the past two years has at times brought out the worst in the community, it's also shone a light on the best, he says.

"We want to be known as a community that has been strong and has supported one another... rather than a place that is known for what we now know was murder."

Additional reporting by Tiffanie Turnbull

Pictures of beef Wellington used in mushroom murders released by court

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdx5e9dldqwo, 4 days ago

Pictures showing the toxic mushrooms and deadly beef Wellington at the centre of Australian woman Erin Patterson's murder trial have been released by a court.

Patterson, 50, was found guilty by a jury of murdering three relatives with a fatal family meal in the small Victorian town of Morwell on 29 July 2023. She was also convicted of the attempted murder of a fourth person, who survived the meal.

The mushroom trial that gripped the country, and much of the world, heard evidence suggesting Patterson hunted down death cap mushrooms from nearby towns, before attempting to conceal her crimes by disposing of evidence and lying to authorities.

Three people died in hospital in the days after the meal: Patterson's former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.

Local pastor Ian Wilkinson – Heather's husband – recovered after weeks of treatment in hospital.

Her estranged husband Simon Patterson was also invited but cancelled the day before, saying he felt "uncomfortable" attending amid tension between the former couple.

Following the guilty verdict, the Supreme Court of Victoria has released some 100 images shown to the jury as evidence during the trial.

Beef Wellington

Some of the released photos are of the beef Wellington leftovers, which were collected from Patterson's home.

The leftovers were collected in specimen bags to prevent contamination, before being taken for examination.

The leftovers, which police found in her bin, were tested for traces of death cap mushrooms.

Death cap mushrooms

Death cap mushrooms are considered to perhaps be the deadliest of all mushrooms to humans, according to Britannica. The fungus is responsible for most cases of mushroom poisoning worldwide, of which some are fatal, the encyclopaedia has said.

The cap ranges in colour from greenish yellow to brown, tan, or rarely white, and measures about 4-16cm (about 1.5-6in) in diameter.

Patterson claimed she purchased some of the mushrooms dried from an Asian grocery in Melbourne, but couldn't remember which suburb. When she was questioned about the brand, and asked for transaction records, she said the mushrooms were in plain packaging and added that she must have paid in cash.

However, detectives had discovered death cap mushrooms had been seen in two towns close to Morwell, where Patterson lived, before the meal. Concerned locals had been posting images and locations of the mushrooms on the online plant database iNaturalist.

Erin Patterson's search history showed that she had used the iNaturalist website to view death cap mushroom sightings at least once before.

Her mobile phone location data appeared to show her travelling to both places and buying a food dehydrator on the way home.

Forensic experts were also able to recover images on her mobile showing what looked like death cap mushrooms on weighing scales.

Even a small piece of a death cap mushroom can be deadly and its toxins cannot be destroyed by cooking, freezing, or drying.

The dehydrator

Traces of poisonous mushrooms were found in a food dehydrator that Erin Patterson disposed of in a local dump the day after she was discharged from hospital.

Patterson told police she'd never owned such an appliance, despite an instruction manual being found in her kitchen drawer and posts in a true crime Facebook group where she boasted about using it.

Among the exhibits released by the judge, are stills of Patterson dumping a food dehydrator at her local tip days after the beef Wellington lunch.

As a reminder, she took herself to the hospital two days after the lunch, saying she felt ill. She initially refused pleas from staff for her and her children, who she claimed had eaten the leftovers, to be admitted for treatment. None of their tests showed traces of death cap mushroom poisoning.

Patterson took the dehydrator to an E-waste site.

The dehydrator was recovered by the police and forensic examination of the appliance found her fingerprints and traces of the death cap mushrooms.

Australian woman guilty of murdering relatives with toxic mushroom meal

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdezzxnn7kjo, 4 days ago

Australian woman Erin Patterson is guilty of murdering three relatives with a toxic mushroom lunch, a jury has found.

The 50-year-old has also been found guilty of the attempted murder of the sole guest who survived the beef Wellington meal in 2023.

Patterson's much-watched trial in the small Victorian town of Morwell heard evidence suggesting she had hunted down death cap mushrooms sighted in nearby towns, before trying to conceal her crimes by lying to police and disposing of evidence.

Her legal team had argued she unintentionally foraged lethal fungi, then "panicked" upon accidentally poisoning family members she loved. The jury on Monday ruled she did it intentionally.

Three people died in hospital in the days after the meal on 29 July 2023: Patterson's former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.

Local pastor Ian Wilkinson – Heather's husband – recovered after weeks of treatment in hospital.

Patterson's estranged partner Simon Patterson had also been invited to the lunch but pulled out at the last minute. She was originally accused of attempting to murder him too – on several occasions – but those charges were dropped on the eve of the trial and the allegations were not put to the jury.

The case captured the world's attention, becoming one of the most closely watched trials in Australian history.

Over nine weeks, the Victorian Supreme Court heard from more than 50 witnesses – including Patterson herself. Detectives described rifling through her garbage bins for leftovers, doctors outlined the gradual but brutal decline of the victims' health, and Patterson's estranged husband emotionally explained the souring nature of their relationship.

The only thing the case was missing was a motive – something key to Patterson's defence.

Prosecutors argued Patterson had faked a cancer diagnosis to coax the guests to her house, then poisoned them and feigned illness to ward off suspicion.

She admitted to lying to police and medical staff about foraging for wild mushrooms, dumping a food dehydrator used to prepare the meal, and repeatedly wiping her mobile phone – all evidence of her guilt, prosecutors said.

From the witness box, Erin Patterson told the court she loved her relatives and had no reason to harm them.

She repeatedly denied intentionally putting the poisonous fungi in the meal, and said she realised days after the lunch that the beef Wellingtons may have accidentally included dried, foraged varieties that were kept in a container with store-bought ones.

She also told the court she had suffered from bulimia for years, and had made herself throw up after the beef Wellington meal - something her defence team said explained why she did not become as sick as the others who ate it.

The lie about having cancer was because she was embarrassed about plans to get weight-loss surgery, Ms Patterson said. She also claimed she didn't tell authorities the truth about her mushroom foraging hobby because she feared they might blame her for making her relatives sick.

Ultimately, after a week of deliberation, the jury decided: returning four guilty verdicts which could see Patterson spend the rest of her life in jail.

The Patterson and Wilkinson families were not in court to hear the outcome of the case, and a representative said they would not be making a comment.

The Korumburra Baptist Church, where all of the victims attended and Mr Wilkinson was the pastor, said the trio were "very special people who loved God and loved to bless others".

"We all greatly miss Heather, Don and Gail whether we were friends for a short time or over 20 years," the statement posted to their noticeboard read.

Speaking briefly to media outside the courtroom, Victoria Police's Detective Inspector Dean Thomas thanked the officers and prosecutors who had worked on the case.

"It's very important that we remember that three people have died, and we've had a person that nearly died and was seriously injured," he said.

"I ask that we acknowledge those people and not forget them."

He added that the Patterson and Wilkinson families had asked for privacy, and urged that their wishes be respected.

'Commercialising concussion': The Australians taking a backyard collision game global

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cedg05z18z7o, 13 days ago

"Defender ready?" calls the host.

A thumbs up and moments later, two burly men - with no protective gear - run full speed at each other before they clash, the unmistakable sound of flesh and bone crunching.

The crowd erupts into a collective roar, some cheering, others wincing.

This is the moment they've been waiting for - and it's exactly this adrenaline-fuelled energy that organisers of the Run It Championship League are banking on to help bring what they call the "world's fiercest, new collision sport" to global audiences.

It is a supercharged version of a one-on-one tackle game which originated in the backyards and school playgrounds of Australia and New Zealand - namely in Pacific Islander communities.

One person carrying a ball must "run it straight" at the defender, who is also sprinting towards them: they are not allowed to duck, hurdle or sidestep the tackler.

Videos of the game have recently gone viral, and the founders of the Run It league have capitalised on the surge of interest - they say they've gained millions of views online, won over thousands of fans, attracted big name sponsors, and even inspired rival competitions.

They've held jousts in Melbourne and Auckland, and on Saturday another will take place in a Dubai arena, the winner taking away prize money of A$200,000 (£98,000). Next on their agenda, is an expansion to the UK and US.

But the groundswell of support for the league is increasingly being rivalled by critical voices. Medical experts and sporting figures are worried about the physical and mental health impacts of the game - which has also become a wider social media craze, that is already accused of claiming one life.

"It's like shaking a baby," says Peter Satterthwaite, whose teenage nephew died after copying the game at a party.

From the schoolyard to the world stage

The objective of the game is simple: be the person who "dominates" the contact, as deemed by a panel of three judges.

Two of the league's seven co-founders, Brandon Taua'a and Stephen Hancock, tell the BBC they have fond memories of playing the game as teenagers in Melbourne.

"I used to 'run it straight' at Brandon all the time," Hancock says, joking that the pair would usually try to avoid hitting each other straight on.

There'll be none of that this weekend, when the eight finalists compete for that giant cash prize in United Arab Emirates.

Hancock insists Run It is a "game of skill" - "[It's] all about the footwork" - but there's no denying the violent nature of it.

A quick scroll of the league's social media accounts shows dozens of quick-burst videos, all honing in on the explosive action of two men colliding.

In other videos circulating from the events, several competitors are knocked out and require immediate medical attention.

Taua'a acknowledges the sport comes with risks, but says the league has safety protocols to minimise them.

Competitors are screened, undergoing medical assessments – such as blood tests and a physical exam – and they must also send a recent video of themselves playing a sport that features tackling. Medical staff are also on the sidelines of the events.

"There's an element of danger with surfing, with boxing, and many other sports as well," Taua'a argues.

For Champ Betham - who won NZ$20,000 earlier this month at the competition in Auckland and is gunning for the title in Dubai on Saturday – the element of danger is a secondary consideration.

"This is a massive blessing to a whole heap of us to pretty much try and win 20K or whatever for a couple hours' work," he told Radio New Zealand at the time.

"We got to pay off some debts and stock up the fridges and the cupboards, food for our little ones, especially with the economy and stuff like that here in New Zealand. Nothing's cheap these days."

The money involved, for a league which has only been around for six months, is impressive. Along with the prize fund, competitors' travel and accommodation expenses are being paid. A 1,600-seat arena has been booked. The league has a slick social media account, a PR representative, and a bunch of promoters - including antipodean sports stars.

Its initial financial backers have been described only as "a group of local investors who believe in the product", but bigger names are emerging: days before the Dubai event, the league announced it had secured a major sponsor in online gambling platform Stake.com, which is banned in key markets like Australia and the UK.

There are also ongoing talks with potential US investors, including a contact linked to American podcaster and UFC heavyweight Joe Rogan, which Taua'a says "will definitely help" the league build a presence in the US.

They will need big backers to match their ambitions for the contest, which they argue is more than just a fleeting social media trend.

"This could actually eventuate into a sport that could sit [in a class] with MMA and boxing," Hancock says.

'An innocuous clash'

But as Taua'a and Hancock focus on the competition's future ambitions, more and more voices are questioning its safety.

"They might as well set up smoking as a legitimate sport," says neuroscientist Alan Pearce.

Speaking to the BBC from the New Zealand city of Palmerston North, Peter Satterthwaite is unequivocal.

"It's not a sport," he says. It's "a dangerous activity" designed purely "to hurt the guy in front of you".

His 19-year-old nephew Ryan was celebrating a 21st birthday with friends at a local park when they decided to try the game they'd seen all over their social media feeds.

Ryan did two tackles. Neither he or his friend fell down or clashed heads. But as he walked away, he told his mates he didn't feel well, his uncle recounts.

"[Ryan] was coherent for a bit, then he lay down and his eyes just rolled back in his head."

Friends rushed him to hospital where doctors had to "cut a sizable chunk out of his skull" to alleviate pressure caused by brain swelling, Satterthwaite says.

"I saw him on the ventilator, his chest going up and down as he was breathing, and it was like 'Get up! Open your eyes'."

On Monday evening, just a day after he was playing with his mates, Ryan's life support was turned off in a hospital room filled with loved ones.

"It was just an innocuous clash," Ryan's uncle says, "and it just shows you how fragile life is and how fragile your brain is."

Run It says it understands the dangers of contact sports and takes safety seriously. Weeks after Ryan's death, the league posted a video saying the game is "not for the backyard, not for the street".

"Do not try this at home," they said.

But Satterthwaite doubts that warning will have much impact.

"I don't think there's a sport in the world that people don't do at the beach, or in their backyard, or at the park."

It's not just the physical impacts that worry Shenei Penaia.

As a Samoan growing up in Australia, she would often see schoolkids playing the game as a bit of fun. But the mental health worker fears it reinforces "a version of masculinity where silence is strength, and violence is proof of pride".

"It sends a dangerous message to young men that their worth is based on how much pain they can take. That if you're not tough, you don't belong."

And the league's attempt to turn this into a lucrative spectator sport contradicts the values of many in the Pacific Islander community, Penaia says.

"We are taught to look out for one another... and to make decisions that serve more than just ourselves."

'Blood in the air'

Their concerns are echoed by a pack of concussion experts and sporting figures.

For more than a decade, the world of high-impact sports has been introducing safety measures as the research into brain injuries develops.

Official bodies including Rugby Australia, New Zealand Rugby have warned people not to take part, with the New Zealand Prime Minister also weighing in, saying it's a "dumb thing to do".

Neuroscientist Pearce argues Run It magnifies "the most violent aspects of our established sport", while the safety protocols do little to minimise any risk. Blood tests and physical exams cannot predict a brain injury, and catastrophic damage can occur even without a direct hit to the head, he says.

"I can't see how running at 25km an hour straight at each other without stopping is safe," he tells the BBC. "It's as simple as that."

There's the risk of immediate concussion, Dr Pearce says, delayed onset brain injuries like Ryan Satterthwaite's, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) - a degenerative disease caused by repetitive head trauma. They can lead to cognitive impairments, movement disorders, dementia, depression.

"[They're] basically using the collision as the entertainment value, which is, in effect, commercialising concussion," he concludes.

But a spokesperson for the league - who argues it is "not about masculinity" but "strength and skill" - say organisers have no intention of slowing down, and aren't too worried about their critics.

Taua'a says what happens at their competitions is "not too much different" to what you see on televised rugby matches, and – with their protocols – it is far safer than many of the games played in backyards the world over.

"It's quite new for viewers and it might take some time for them to get used to seeing what we've put together."

Armed police in Romania carry out raids linked to UK tax scam

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp867gjmn25o, today

Romanian police have targeted a gang suspected of being behind a complex scam in which stolen data was used to fraudulently claim millions in tax repayments from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), police have said.

Thirteen people were detained during armed raids around Bucharest, and luxury cars and piles of cash were seized. A fourteenth man was arrested in Preston.

According to HMRC, scammers gained access to the personal data of British taxpayers through a sophisticated phishing operation, which was used to make bogus claims for tax refunds.

HMRC said "millions" was believed to have been stolen without specifying an amount, while Romanian police said over £1m had been taken.

A joint operation between HMRC and Romanian police saw male and female suspects, aged between 23 and 53, arrested during the armed raids.

They were held on suspicion of computer fraud, money laundering and illegal access to a computer system.

A 38-year-old man was arrested in Preston on Thursday. His electronic devices were seized and he was questioned by HMRC officers.

In footage published by Romanian authorities on Thursday, armed police officers were seen searching a large property, where jewellery and large quantities of cash were found.

A joint investigation team - composed of Romanian prosecutors, HMRC and the Crown Prosecution Service - was established earlier this year.

HMRC said the organised gang had used stolen data to submit fraudulent claims for PAYE, child benefit and VAT refunds.

It is unclear how many people had their information stolen, but HMRC said it had contacted "around 100,000" customers to inform them they had detected attempts to access their accounts.

Romanian police said scammers accessed the Government Gateway accounts of over 1000 UK taxpayers, and then laundered the stolen funds.

The scammers tricked people into disclosing their security information using various methods, and HMRC stressed that its systems had not been subject to a cyber-attack.

Phishing scams involving HMRC in common: in 2022, the National Cyber Security Centre found it was the government body third most likely to be impersonated by criminals trying to obtain information.

Additional reporting by Mircea Barbu.

EU chief von der Leyen survives rare confidence vote

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2zym677j2o, today

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has survived a confidence vote tabled by a far-right faction in the European Parliament.

Although the outcome was not a surprise, the fact that it came about at all was not a positive signal for von der Leyen, who began her second term as Commission chief only a year ago.

Confidence votes of this kind are rare and the last one was tabled against Jean-Claude Juncker more than a decade ago.

Two-thirds of all 720 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) - or 480 - would have had to back the motion for it to pass.

Instead, only 175 voted in favour; 360 voted against and 18 abstained. The remaining MEPs did not vote.

The vote was initiated by Romanian far-right MEP Gheorghe Piperea, who accused von der Leyen of a lack of transparency over text messages she sent to the head of Pfizer during negotiations to secure Covid-19 vaccines.

The text of the motion said that von der Leyen's Commission could no longer be trusted to "uphold the principles of transparency, accountability, and good governance essential to a democratic Union".

During a fierce debate on Monday von der Leyen slammed her accusers as "conspiracy theorists".

Hitting back at Piperea and what she called "his world of conspiracies and alleged sinister plots", she said he and his cohort were "extremists", "anti-vaxxers" and "Putin apologists".

She also said the accusations against her over so-called Pfizergate were "simply a lie."

Piperea had the backing of figures such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who posted on X a photo of von der Leyen alongside the caption "Time to go".

But his own European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group was split.

A sizeable portion of the ECR is made up by Brothers of Italy (FdI), the party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. FdI has been fostering a good relationship with von der Leyen and its MEPs voted against the motion.

In the end the votes in favour came primarily from the far-right groups Patriots for Europe (PfE) and the European of Sovereign Nations (ENS).

Von der Leyen survived the vote thanks to the support of her own centre-right European People's Party (EPP), the Socialist & Democrats (S&D), the liberal Renew, the Greens and left-wing groups.

However, the days in the lead-up to the vote saw several groupings caveat their support with gripes over von der Leyen's leadership.

Over the last year her centre-right EPP has increasingly teamed up with the far-right to pass amendments and resolutions on issues like migration and the environment, often irking liberals and left-wing parties.

Valérie Hayer, president of the centrist Renew Europe, echoed the sentiment, warning von der Leyen that her group's support was "not guaranteed" and urging the Commission chief to "take back control" of the EPP and end "alliances with the far right."

Ahead of the vote Iratxe García, leader of the S&D, said dismantling the Commission in the midst of geopolitical crisis would have been "irresponsible".

"Our vote doesn't mean that we are not critical of the European Commission," García said, citing "the recent shifts by von der Leyen towards far-right pledges."

Earlier this week there was a suggestion that the S&D might abstain from the vote, but were eventually persuaded to back von der Leyen after she reportedly ruled out cuts to social programmes in the upcoming budget.

As the vote against her leadership was taking place, Von der Leyen was giving a speech at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome.

Shortly after the motion was turned down, however, she posted on X: "As external forces seek to destabilise and divide us, it is our duty to respond in line with our values."

"Thank you, and long live Europe," she added.

Greece suspends asylum applications for migrants from North Africa

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2nx0ey7wyo, yesterday

Greece has suspended the processing of asylum applications from North Africa for three months after a surge in migrant numbers.

Arrivals by boat from the region will be arrested and detained, conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said.

He added that Greece was "sending a message of determination... to all traffickers and all their potential customers that the money they spend may be completely wasted, because it will be difficult to reach Greece by sea."

"This emergency situation requires emergency response measures."

Mitsotakis added that the provisions would be based on the same legal reasoning Greece applied in 2020 to stop thousands of people from crossing the land border with Turkey.

Draft legislation will be put before parliament on Thursday.

"Clear message: stay where you are, we do not accept you," said migration minister Thanos Plevris on X.

Mitsotakis' announcement follows a considerable rise in migrant arrivals on the southern islands of Crete and Gavdos.

More than 2,000 migrants landed on Crete in recent days and another 520 were rescued off its coast early on Wednesday, bringing the total number since the start of 2025 to 9,000.

This was an increase of 350% since last year, said the president of the Western Crete Coast Guard Personnel Association Vasilis Katsikandarakis. "Immigration is suffocating us... Our personnel are literally on their knees," he said.

"The flows are very high," government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis told Action 24 channel on Tuesday, adding that the wave was "growing and ongoing".

According to public broadcaster ERT, authorities in Crete are under significant logistical strain as the pace and scale of arrivals continues to exceed the capacity of available accommodation infrastructure.

Several hundred people have had to temporarily be put up in a sweltering market hall, local media said, adding that among the migrants are 30 families with young children and infants.

ERT said that redistributing migrants to other areas of the country is a particularly slow process as the tourist season means fewer buses and ferries are available.

On Tuesday Greek, Italian and Maltese ministers as well as the EU's migration commissioner travelled to Libya to discuss the surge in migrant depatures.

But they had to turn back when the Government of National Stability (GNS) - a rival to the UN-recognised Government of National Unity (GNU) - blocked them from entering the country, accusing them of violating Libyan sovereignty.

Still, Mitsotakis said the Greek army was prepared to cooperate with the Libyan authorities to prevent the departure of the boats from the Libyan coast.

NGOs have repeatedly criticised attempts by European governments to forge deals with Libyan authorities to stem the flow of migrants.

The people who are intercepted by the Libyan coastguard and brought back to shore are often imprisoned in detention camps, where they are subject to inhuman treatment and dire conditions.

"Attempts to stop departures at any cost show a complete disregard for the lives and dignity of migrants and refugees," Amnesty International said.

French police raid on National Rally HQ prompts outrage from party leaders

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg5kd04e1jo, yesterday

France's far-right National Rally party has accused authorities of a "new harassment campaign", after police raided its headquarters in an inquiry into its campaign finances.

Party president Jordan Bardella said the "spectacular and unprecedented operation" was a "serious attack on pluralism and democratic change".

Prosecutors said they were investigating potential acts of "fraud committed against a public figure" and alleged violations involving loans and donations during election campaigns in 2022 and 2024.

Wallerand de Saint-Just, the party's former treasurer, said National Rally (RN) had done nothing wrong.

"This process that looks completely unacceptable and outrageous. We're being persecuted on a daily basis," he told reporters outside the party's Paris headquarters.

"All our campaign accounts have been approved and reimbursed."

Despite a series of legal setbacks, RN are ahead in French opinion polls, and Bardella, its 29-year-old president, has topped one recent poll as the most popular political figure in the country.

Earlier this year, RN leader Marine Le Pen was convicted by a French court of helping to embezzle European Union funds. She was barred from running for office for five years, in a blow to her ambitions to run for the presidency for a fourth time.

She has appealed the conviction, which she has condemned as a "witch hunt", but last month accepted she may have to hand the baton to her young lieutenant ahead of the 2027 presidential vote.

Bardella was not present during the police raid as he was attending a European Parliament session in Strasbourg, but he said 20 finance brigade police had used the search as an excuse for seizing internal party documents and to raid his office.

There was no immediate comment from Le Pen.

Police also raided the head offices of several companies and their bosses.

The raids were linked by Paris prosecutors to an inquiry launched exactly a year ago into allegations of embezzlement, forgery and fraud centring on Le Pen's party.

Prosecutors said on Wednesday that the inquiry should establish whether the party's 2022 presidential and parliamentary election campaign and its 2024 European election campaign were funded by "illicit payments by individuals that benefited the National Rally party or candidates.

They said they would also investigate whether inflated or fictitious invoices had been submitted as campaign expenses to be paid back by the state.

RN said the allegations of illicit campaign financing are based on the fact that no French bank was prepared to help with funding. It previously secured loans from banks in Russia and Hungary.

In another setback for National Rally, the European Union public prosecutor's office formally launched an investigation this week into a former political grouping at the European Parliament that RN was part of.

Identity and Democracy was dissolved last year and is suspected of misusing Parliament funding. RN is now part of the Patriots for Europe group, which includes far-parties from Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Spain and Portugal.

Bardella said on Tuesday that the inquiry was a "new harassment operation by the European Parliament".

How King Charles will help rebuild the shaken UK-France friendship during the state visit

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyvjg41e6mzo, 3 days ago

Listen to Paul read this article

Few scenes convey British pomp and soft power more than the King and Queen in a carriage procession through the picturesque streets of Windsor. They are being joined on Tuesday by Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron for the first state visit by a French president since 2008, and the first by a European Union leader since Brexit.

The Prince and Princess of Wales will be there too - a Royal Salute will be fired and Macron will inspect a guard of honour. But at a time of jeopardy in Europe, this three-day visit to Windsor and London promises much more than ceremony.

There is a genuine hope that the coming days will make a difference to both countries.

Macron will address MPs and peers at Westminster, and he and Brigitte will be treated to a state banquet back at Windsor. The trip will culminate with a UK-France summit, co-chaired by Sir Keir Starmer and Macron, during which the two governments hope to reach an agreement on the return of irregular migrants.

They will also host Ukraine's leader by video as they try to maintain arms supplies to his military.

But the wider question is how closely aligned they can really become, and whether they can put any lingering mistrust after Brexit behind them.

And, given that the trip will involve much pageantry - with the tour moving from the streets of Windsor, the quadrangle of the Castle and later to the Royal Gallery of the Palace of Westminster - how crucial is King Charles III's role in this diplomacy?

Resetting a 'unique partnership'

It was less than two months ago that the UK and EU agreed to "reset" relations in London. Ties with France in particular had warmed considerably, driven partly by personal understanding but also strategic necessity.

The two neighbours have much in common: they are both nuclear powers and members of the United Nations Security Council.

They are also both looking to update a 15-year-old defence pact known as the Lancaster House treaties, which established a 10,000-strong Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF), and they have recently been working on broadening it to include other Nato and European countries.

"It has always been a unique partnership," says former French ambassador to the UK Sylvie Bermann. "I think this partnership will be crucial in the future."

All of this is unlikely to escape the notice of US President Donald Trump, who is also promised a state visit, his second to the UK, probably in September.

King Charles is 'more than a figurehead'

King Charles, who is 76, has already navigated some complex royal diplomacy this year.

Macron was the first European leader to visit Trump in the White House in February, but it was Sir Keir who stole the show days later, handing him a personal invitation from the King.

Then, when Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky returned to Europe fresh from a bruising meeting with Trump at the White House in February, it was King Charles who welcomed him to Sandringham, and then met him again at Windsor in June.

He has spoken in the past of the heroism of Ukrainians in the face of "indescribable aggression".

Even before ascending the throne, King Charles amassed decades of experience in international affairs (he is also fluent in French). He was only 21 when he attended the funeral in 1970 of Charles de Gaulle, the wartime general who became the architect of France's current Fifth Republic.

He went on to become the longest-serving Prince of Wales in history, and now he is King he has weekly audiences with the prime minister. "The choreography is a strange dance, I suspect, between Number Ten and the Palace," says royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams.

"There's no doubt at all that Charles is considerably more than a figurehead."

Windsor Castle, which dates back to the first Norman king, William the Conqueror, has hosted French presidents before. But there is a quiet significance in the appearance of the Prince and Princess of Wales in welcoming Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, as Catherine recovers from treatment for cancer.

Between them, the King and Macron have played their part in resetting relations between the two neighbours, and by extension with the European Union too.

The King is a francophile, says Marc Roche, a columnist and royal commentator for French media: "He has always had a good relationship with France."

A year after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, it was France that King Charles and Queen Camilla chose for their first state visit in September 2023.

Macron had reminded the world in 2022 that the late Queen had "climbed the stairs of the Élysée Palace" six times - more than any other foreign sovereign. His words were warmly received in the UK.

The King received a standing ovation after an address in French to the Senate, and the Queen played table tennis at a sports centre with Brigitte Macron. France's first lady has since visited her in London for a cross-Channel book award.

Gentle touches they may have been, but it followed a very rough period in Franco-British relations.

Brexit negotiations soured relations

The mood had soured during negotiations over Brexit, which the French president said was based on a lie.

Then four years ago, Australia pulled out of a deal to buy 12 French submarines and signed a defence pact with the UK and US instead. The French foreign minister called it a "stab in the back".

Boris Johnson, who was prime minister at the time, told the French they should "prenez un grip" and "donnez-moi un break".

It had been Macron's idea for a European Political Community (EPC) in 2022 that brought the UK into a broad group of countries all seeking to respond to Russia's full-scale invasion.

In 2023 the then-Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, sought to turn the page on several years of frosty relations at a Franco-British summit in Paris.

British and French prime ministers have come and gone: the UK had three in 2022, and last year France had four. It was Sunak's team that organised last year's EPC summit at Blenheim, but it was Starmer as new prime minister who chaired it.

Sébastien Maillard, who helped advise the French presidency in setting up the EPC, said he believed "on both sides there is still a lack of trust… The memory of these difficult times has not vanished".

"Trust needs time to build and perhaps the Russian threat, support for Ukraine and how to handle Trump are three compelling reasons to rebuild that trust," says Maillard, who is now at the Chatham House think tank.

Susi Dennison, of the European Council on Foreign Relations in Paris, agrees relations with France are not back to pre-Brexit levels, but suggests some things the UK and France are "bickering" about were being argued over even before the Brexit vote.

For Macron, this is a chance to not only improve the relationship but also to shine on the international stage when his popularity at home has sunk, Mr Roche believes. "It's a very important visit, especially the first day, because the French are fascinated by the Royal Family."

After eight years in power, Macron's second term still has almost two years to run, but he has paid the price politically for calling snap elections last year and losing his government's majority. His prime minister, François Bayrou, faces a monumental task in the coming months in steering next year's budget past France's left-wing and far-right parties.

As president, Macron's powers - his domaine réservé - cover foreign policy, defence and security, but traditionally France's prime minister does not travel with the head of state, so Macron comes to the UK with a team of ministers who will handle far more than international affairs.

The difficult question of migration

During the summit, the two teams will also work on nuclear energy, artificial intelligence and cultural ties. Differences still have to be sorted over "post-Brexit mobility" for students and other young people, and France is expected to push the Starmer government on that.

But most of the headlines on Thursday's UK-France summit will cover the two main issues: defence and migration.

Defending Ukraine will take pride of place. An Élysée Palace source said it would discuss "how to seriously maintain Ukraine's combat capability" and regenerate its military.

"On defence our relationship is closer than any other countries," says former ambassador Sylvie Bermann. "We have to prepare for the future… to strengthen the deterrence of Europe."

And if a ceasefire were agreed in Ukraine, the two countries could provide the backbone of the "reassurance force" being proposed by the "coalition of the willing". Sir Keir and Macron have played a prominent part in forming this coalition, but so too have the military chiefs of staff of both countries.

Migration is the stickiest problem the two countries face, however. How they deal with their differences on it - particularly on small boats - is crucial to their future relationship.

They are especially keen to sign an agreement on migrant returns and on French police stopping people boarding "taxi boats" to cross the Channel.

France has long argued that the UK has to address the "pull factors" that drive people to want to risk their lives on the boats - the UK, for its part, already pays for many of the 1,200 French gendarmes to patrol France's long northern coastline to stop the smugglers' boats.

The countries are believed to have been working on the terms of a "one-in, one-out" agreement, so that for every small-boat arrival in the UK that France takes back, the UK would allow in one asylum seeker from France seeking family reunification.

Several countries on the southern coasts of Europe are unimpressed because it could mean France sending those asylum seekers handed back by the UK on to their country of entry into the EU, bordering the Mediterranean.

In the UK, the opposition Conservatives have branded the idea "pathetic", accusing the government of a "national record - for failure" on curbing small-boat crossings.

And yet every country in Europe is looking for a way to cut illegal border crossings. Meghan Benton, of the Migration Policy Institute, believes a Franco-British deal could work as a possible pilot for the rest of Europe: "What works for the Channel could also work for the Mediterranean."

Any agreement on this tricky issue could also signal a real, practical improvement in the countries' political relationship. France's right-wing Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, has already been working with Labour's Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to try to find a workable solution.

How far they get, and its wider impact on Europe, is still to be decided, but it does reflect a new willingness between the two neighbours to tackle the divisions between them.

Boris Johnson once accused France of wanting to punish the UK for Brexit. That difficult chapter appears to be over.

As Susi Dennison puts it: "There's a certain distance that will always be there, but things are operating quite well."

During King Charles' 2023 state visit to France he called on the two countries to find common ground, "to reinvigorate our friendship to ensure it is fit for the challenge of this, the 21st Century".

And so this visit will help show - both in the relationships between individuals and on concrete policy debates - whether his call has been answered.

Russian minister's death serves as warning to political elite

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0l49310z2go, 2 days ago

It was a dramatic start to the week in Russia.

On Monday morning, President Vladimir Putin sacked his transport minister, Roman Starovoit.

By the afternoon Starovoit was dead; his body was discovered in a park on the edge of Moscow with a gunshot wound to the head. A pistol, allegedly, beside the body.

Investigators said they presumed the former minister had taken his own life.

In the tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets this morning there was a sense of shock.

"The suicide of Roman Starovoit just hours after the president's order to sack him is an almost unique occurrence in Russian history," the paper declared.

That's because you need to go back more than thirty years, to before the fall of the Soviet Union, for an example of a government minister here killing themselves.

In August 1991, following the failure of the coup by communist hardliners, one of the coup's ring leaders - Soviet interior minister Boris Pugo - shot himself.

The Kremlin has said little about Starovoit's death.

"How shocked were you that a federal minister was found dead just hours after being fired by the president?" I asked Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov on a Kremlin conference call.

"Normal people cannot but be shocked by this," replied Peskov. "Of course, this shocked us, too.

"It's up to the investigation to provide answers to all the questions. While it's ongoing, one can only speculate. But that's more for the media and political pundits. Not for us."

The Russian press has, indeed, been full of speculation.

Today several Russian newspapers linked what happened to Roman Starovoit to events in the Kursk region that borders Ukraine. Before his appointment as transport minister in May 2024, Starovoit had been the Kursk regional governor for more than five years.

Under his leadership - and with large sums of government money - Governor Starovoit had launched the construction of defensive fortifications along the border. These were not strong enough to prevent Ukrainian troops from breaking through and seizing territory in Kursk region last year.

Since then, Starovoit's successor as governor, Alexei Smirnov, and his former deputy Alexei Dedov have been arrested and charged with large-scale fraud in relation to the construction of the fortifications.

"Mr Starovoit may well have become one of the chief defendants in this case," suggested today's edition of the business daily Kommersant.

The Russian authorities have not confirmed that.

But if it was fear of prosecution that drove a former minister to take his own life, what does that tell us about today's Russia?

"The most dramatic part of this, with all the re-Stalinisation that has been happening in Russia in recent years, is that a high-level government official [kills himself] because he has no other way of getting out of the system," says Nina Khrushcheva, professor of International Affairs at The New School in New York.

"He must have feared that he would receive tens of years in prison if he was going to be under investigation, and that his family would suffer tremendously. So, there's no way out. I Immediately thought of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, one of Stalin's ministers, who [killed himself] in 1937 because he felt there was no way out. When you start thinking of 1937 in today's environment that gives you great pause."

Roman Starovoit's death may have made headlines in the papers here. But this "almost unique occurrence in Russian history" has received minimal coverage on state TV.

Perhaps that's because the Kremlin recognises the power of television to shape public opinion. In Russia, TV is more influential than newspapers. So, when it comes to television, the authorities tend to be more careful and cautious with the messaging.

Monday's main evening news bulletin on Russia-1 included a four-minute report about Putin appointing a new acting transport minister, Andrei Nikitin.

There was no mention at all that the previous transport minister had been sacked. Or that he'd been found dead.

Only forty minutes later, towards the end of the news bulletin, did the anchorman briefly mention the death of Roman Starovoit.

The newsreader devoted all of 18 seconds to it, which means that most Russians will probably not view Monday's dramatic events as a significant development.

For the political elite, it's a different story. For ministers, governors, and other Russian officials who've sought to be a part of the political system, what happened to Starovoit will serve as a warning.

"Unlike before, when you could get these jobs, get rich, get promoted from regional level to federal level, today, that is clearly not a career path if you want to stay alive," says Nina Khrushcheva.

"There's not only no upward mobility to start with, but even downward mobility ends with death."

It's a reminder of the dangers that emanate from falling foul of the system.

Why small-time criminals burned a London warehouse for Russia's mercenary group Wagner

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czjkke22gv9o, 2 days ago

Earl had been in touch with pro-Russian accounts earlier in the month on the secure messaging app Telegram.

With one account, which had the username Minsk KGB, he discussed whether he should go and fight for Russia in Ukraine, saying: "I need a fresh start bro. Do I need to speak Russian though? Because that's not the best. Litch [literally] know 30 words if that."

But by 16 March - four days before the attack - he was being tasked by a Telegram account linked to the Wagner Group to do some work in the UK.

It used the name Privet Bot - meaning "hello bot" in Russian - a notorious Telegram account that has encouraged sabotage attacks and murder in other parts of Europe.

The account wrote to Earl: "We have our first task for you. The map shows there are a few buildings at this address. And there are warehouses among them.

"They sponsor and provide aid to Ukrainian terrorists. Today we await from you photos and videos of the warehouse and the building and of the people owners of the warehouse."

Some of the messages the group exchanged were shortened or written in non-conventional ways, something that is commonly used to prevent social media filters tracking the content.

Earl contacted another man, Jake Reeves, who was a cleaner at Gatwick Airport, through a Telegram group set up to put criminals in touch with each other.

At Earl's request, Reeves, from Croydon, in south London, got hold of a local acquaintance of his, Nii Mensah, who was clearly ready to carry out crimes for cash.

Mensah had never met Earl, but he soon messaged him, saying: "I'm down for da causee bro. 3 ppl and car."

On the night of 20 March, four men set out from south London in a red Kia Picanto.

Sixty-one-year-old Paul English was at the wheel. In court, he denied knowing what was going to happen on the night and was found not guilty of arson.

Nineteen-year-old Ugnius Asmena sat beside him in the passenger seat, while Mensah and his friend Jakeem Rose, both 21 years old at the time, sat in the back.

The four men drove north across the Thames and into Leyton, in east London, where they headed to the Cromwell Industrial Estate. They parked at the back of the warehouses.

Mensah and Rose got out, collected a jerry can from the boot, climbed over a wall and headed for units one and two. The warehouses the Wagner Group wanted to be burned were used by two businesses involved in sending parcels and equipment to Ukraine.

Both are owned and part-owned by Mikhail Boikov, a British-Ukrainian businessman.

It was not a sophisticated attack.

With Mensah streaming the whole event to Earl on FaceTime, Rose poured petrol along the front of the warehouses, lit a rag, and set the buildings alight.

The four men fled in the Kia Picanto. But not before Rose accidentally left a large zombie-style knife behind at the scene with his DNA on it.

In a lorry parked next to the warehouse, Yevhen Harasym was trying to sleep.

"I heard the crackling noise of the metal rolls of the warehouse door and realised that something was happening. I opened the door and saw the fire," he said while giving evidence in court.

"I grabbed the fire extinguisher from the back of the lorry.

"I was able to extinguish the fire outside the door, but the flames inside the warehouse continued to burn."

Eventually he had to retreat and move his lorry to safety, leaving the blaze to the fire brigade.

By the time the fire was out more than £100,000 worth of goods had been destroyed including communications equipment for Starlink satellites, which have proved vital on the frontline in the war in Ukraine.

Earl was delighted, messaging an online contact: "Got that warehouse ting done. It was the one behind all the gates. Bro 8ft gates around whole ting."

But his Wagner Group handler Privet Bot was less pleased, saying on Telegram: "You rushed into burning these warehouses without my approval. Now it will be impossible to pay for this arson.

"We could have burned the warehouses much better and more if we had coordinated our actions. It was necessary to set fire in different places all around the perimeter at once and it would be bigger."

While encouraging Earl to be more patient, Privet Bot told him to watch the TV spy series The Americans, which tells the story of KGB agents operating patiently deep undercover in the US in the 1980s.

But further down the chain everyone Earl had hired was furious at not getting paid. Eventually, eager for more cash, they patched things up. Within two days Privet Bot had another job for Earl, and his men for hire.

"Two places burning in the west," Earl wrote to a contact who used the handle 'Kash Money'. Recon also. Wine shop. Restaurant."

"How much tho?" Kash Money asked.

"£5,000. Maybe 6", Earl replied. "If they nap [kidnap] the guy 15."

In a parallel discussion, he wrote to Reeves: "Correspondence London: £1,000.00 East Warehouse. £5,000.00 West Wine Shop. £5,000.00 West restaurant. Total - £11,000.00."

In his Telegram chat with Earl, Reeves was still wondering why Wagner had wanted the warehouse burned down. Earl wrote: "It's a mail provider to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus from UK. Ran by a Ukrainian man who send 100+ lorries to Ukraine."

Russian 'billionaire'

The wine shop and restaurant plot targeted exiled Russian businessman Evgeny Chichvarkin.

He had made hundreds of millions of pounds by creating Russia's largest mobile phone retailer, Evroset. But he had fallen out with the hard men in the Russian government and was forced to sell his business in 2008.

He now runs an award-winning wine shop in London's Mayfair, called Hedonism Wines, as well as a Michelin-starred restaurant, called Hide.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine he had personally driven several lorries of medical aid to Ukraine. Reeves wrote on Telegram that the Wagner contact wanted Mr Chichvarkin kidnapped "to get him sent back to Russia for imprisonment".

Earl persuaded a man - who was not charged with any offence - to conduct some reconnaissance of the wine shop.

The shop and restaurant were never actually attacked, as counter terrorism police disrupted the plot, nor was Mr Chichvarkin kidnapped.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Chichvarkin said even after the failed plot he has tried not to think about the threat he faces.

Partisan cells

The Wagner Group's strategy seems to have been to sow wider chaos in the UK, as well as targeting people who were helping Ukraine.

At one point Privet Bot asked Earl: "Do you have any friends among hooligans or acquaintances in the IRA?

"We need people that you have across Europe and the UK. We need those who are our kindred spirit.

"You need to organise partisan cells in the country and in Europe. And think of a name for your movement. We'll give you support."

As the plan developed, Earl started to drag other people into the proposed kidnap and attack on the Mayfair wine shop, including his drug-dealing contacts. Ashton "Ace" Evans was a small-time dealer operating out of Pontywaun near Newport, in South Wales, and was one of the people Earl approached.

"It has to be clean bro. Full masks, not ballies [balaclavas]. I can provide if needed. Gloves. No number plates," Earl wrote. "It's 10-15 minutes from Buckingham Palace."

"Yhhhh that's gonna bring a lot of attention", Evans wrote back. "MI5 etc."

"This owner is a billionaire from Russia," Earl explained.

"Does it need to be explo** [explosives] can it be just a fire?" Evans asked.

Earl replied: "Fire is possible, But if it doesn't fully burn they will not pay me more than 25%."

Evans was found guilty of failing to tell the police about the Mayfair plot.

By 9 April, relations between Earl and his Wagner Group contact had shown signs of cooling. Earl was worried and sent Privet Bot a stream of messages.

"I know I can be the best spy you have ever seen but we need more communication and faster work with contracts," he wrote.

"I am a very good leader, coordinator and organiser," he boasted. "I am offering you… spy operations in my country against individuals, business, government, even in Europe."

Eventually Privet Bot wrote back urging him to be patient.

"You remind me of myself at your age and there are things you should learn. You are our dagger in Europe and we will be sharpening you carefully so that you will become sharper."

On 10 April, Earl was arrested by counter-terrorism detectives in the car park of a branch of B&Q, in Hinckley.

Verdicts

Earl pleaded guilty to preparing acts of serious violence on behalf of a foreign power (Russia), an offence under the new National Security Act. He also pleaded guilty to aggravated arson, possessing cocaine with intent to supply, and possessing £20,070 that was the proceeds of crime.

Reeves pleaded guilty to agreeing to accept money from a foreign intelligence service - the Wagner Group - also under the new National Security Act. He also pleaded guilty to aggravated arson.

During the trial, at London's Old Bailey, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said generations before them would have described what the pair had done simply as "treason".

Nii Mensah, Jakeem Rose, Ugnius Asmena were found guilty of aggravated arson. Rose had previously pleaded guilty to possession of a knife.

The driver Paul English, 61, was cleared of all wrongdoing.

Ashton Evans, 20, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about terrorist acts relating to the Mayfair plot, but cleared of failing to tell authorities about the warehouse arson.

Another man, Dmirjus Paulauskas, 23, was cleared of two similar offences relating to both terrorist plots after the jury deliberated for nearly 22 hours.

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command, said the response to state threats, particularly from Russia, had changed following the Salisbury nerve agent attack, in 2018.

"We've made the UK a hostile operating environment," he said. "As a result, they've diversified and are now contacting relatively young people to act on their behalf as proxies in doing their activity."

How many people cross the Channel in small boats?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8xgkx20dyvo, today

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron are discussing a deal to send some migrants who cross the Channel on small boats back to France.

For every migrant sent back, France would send an asylum seeker to the UK - potentially one with a family connection to Britain.

How many people cross the Channel in small boats?

As at 6 July, 21,117 migrants had crossed the Channel in small boats since the start of the year - a 56% increase on the same period in 2024.

In 2024 as a whole, nearly 37,000 people were detected making the crossing - 25% more than in 2023.

The highest yearly total is for 2022, when 45,755 people arrived.

More than 170,000 people have arrived in small boats since figures were first recorded in 2018.

What is the government doing to reduce small boat crossings?

How many people die crossing the Channel?

Who is crossing the Channel in small boats?

How do UK small boat arrivals compare with those to Europe?

There were more than 180,000 arrivals by sea in Europe during 2024, with Italy receiving more than a third.

Greece and Spain also received large numbers.

In the year ending September 2024, 1.1 million people claimed asylum in the EU and European Economic Area (EEA), down 3% compared with the previous year.

Germany received the most applicants - 294,415. France was second (162,390) followed by Italy (162,305) and Spain (161,470).

Trump threatens extra 10% tariff on nations siding with Brics

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1dnz7gw92zo, 4 days ago

US President Donald Trump has warned that countries which side with the policies of the Brics alliance that go against US interests will be hit with an extra 10% tariff.

"Any country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy," Trump wrote on social media.

Trump has long criticised Brics, an organisation whose members include China, Russia and India.

The US had set a 9 July deadline for countries to agree a trade deal, but US officials now say tariffs will begin on 1 August. Trump said he would send letters to countries telling them what the tariff rate will be if an agreement is not reached.

On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expected "a busy couple of days".

"We've had a lot of people change their tune in terms of negotiations. So my mailbox was full last night with a lot of new offers, a lot of new proposals," he told CNBC.

So far, the US has only struck trade agreements with the UK and Vietnam, as well as a partial deal with China.

Although, Britain and America have still not reached a deal over taxes for UK steel imported by the US.

Since taking office this year, Trump has announced a series of import tariffs on goods from other countries, arguing they will boost American manufacturing and protect jobs.

In April, on what he called "Liberation Day", he announced a wave of new taxes on goods from countries around the world - with some as high as 50% - although he quickly suspended his most aggressive plans to allow for three months of talks up until 9 July.

During this period, the US implemented a 10% tariff on goods entering the States from most of its international trading partners.

The European Union (EU) is reportedly in talks to keep a provisional 10% tax in place for most goods shipped to the US beyond the deadline.

It is also in discussions about reducing a 25% tariff on EU cars and parts and a 50% tax on steel and aluminium sales to the US.

On Monday, a spokesperson said that the European Commission's president Ursula von der Leyen had a "good exchange" with Trump. Just a few weeks ago, the US president had threatened the EU with a 50% tax unless it reached an agreement.

Last week, Trump said Japan could face a "30% or 35%" tariff if the country failed to reach a deal with the US by Wednesday.

Letters going out

Asked whether the taxes would change on 9 July or 1 August, Trump said at the weekend: "They're going to be tariffs, the tariffs are going to be tariffs."

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick clarified that the taxes will come into force on 1 August.

Trump added that between 10 and 15 letters would be sent to countries on Monday advising them on what their new tariff rate will be if they don't agree a deal.

Bessent said the letters are "just 'thank you for wanting to trade with the United States of America. We welcome you as a trading partner, and here's the rate, unless you want to come back and try to negotiate'."

Last year, the list of Brics members expanded beyond the original group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The countries in the bloc - which was designed to boost the nations' international standing and challenge the US and western Europe - account for more than half of the world's population.

In 2024, Trump threatened 100% tariffs on Brics countries if they moved ahead with their own currency to rival the US dollar.

The threat by Trump on Sunday to countries working with Brics nations emerged after members criticised US tariff policies as well as proposing reforms to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and how major currencies are valued.

Following a two-day meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brics finance ministers issued a statement criticising tariffs as a threat to the global economy, and bringing "uncertainty into international economic and trade activities".

Andrew Wilson, deputy secretary general of the International Chambers of Commerce, said it would be challenging for countries to move away from doing business with China.

He told the BBC's Today programme: "Shifting away from China...in a number of sectors is far more difficult to achieve in the world in practice.

"You look at the dominance China has in a number of sectors - EVs, batteries [and] particularly rare earths and magnets, there are no viable alternatives to China production."

What trade deals has the US agreed?

* a deal with the UK to cut tariffs on UK cars and parts from 27.5% to 10% up to a quota of 100,000 vehicles. Taxes on aerospace goods have been cut to zero. In return, the UK has agreed to remove import taxes on US ethanol and beef.

* a deal with Vietnam whereby Vietnamese goods shipped to America will be taxed at 20% and US products exported to Vietnam will face no tariffs. Any goods "trans-shipped" through Vietnam by another country that are sold into the US will be taxed at 40%.

* a partial deal whereby US taxes on some Chinese imports fell from 145% to 30% and China's tariffs on some US goods were cut from 125% to 10%. China has also halted and scrapped other non-tariff countermeasures, such as the export of critical minerals to the US.

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Archaeologists unveil 3,500-year-old city in Peru

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c07dmx38kyeo, 5 days ago

Archaeologists have announced the discovery of an ancient city in Peru's northern Barranca province.

The 3,500-year-old city, named Peñico, is believed to have served as a key trading hub connecting early Pacific coast communities with those living in the Andes mountains and Amazon basin.

Located some 200km north of Lima, the site lies about 600 metres (1,970 feet) above sea level and is thought to have been founded between 1,800 and 1,500 BC - around the same time that early civilisations were flourishing in the Middle East and Asia.

Researchers say the discovery sheds light on what became of the Americas' oldest civilisation, the Caral.

Drone footage released by researchers shows a circular structure on a hillside terrace at the city's centre, surrounded by the remains of stone and mud buildings.

Eight years of research at the site unearthed 18 structures, including ceremonial temples and residential complexes.

In buildings at the site, researchers discovered ceremonial objects, clay sculptures of human and animal figures and necklaces made from beads and seashells.

Peñico is situated close to where Caral, recognised as the oldest known civilisation in the Americas, was established 5,000 years ago at around 3,000 BC in the Supe valley of Peru.

Caral features 32 monuments, including large pyramid structures, sophisticated irrigation agriculture and urban settlements. It is believed to have developed in isolation to other comparative early civilisations in India, Egypt, Sumeria and China.

Dr Ruth Shady, the archaeologist who led the recent research into Peñico and the excavation of Caral in the 1990s, said that the discovery was important for understanding what became of the Caral civilisation after it was decimated by climate change.

The Peñico community was "situated in a strategic location for trade, for exchange with societies from the coast, the highlands and the jungle", Dr Shady told the Reuters news agency.

At a news conference unveiling the findings on Thursday, archaeologist Marco Machacuay, a researcher with the Ministry of Culture, said that Peñico's significance lies in it being a continuation of the Caral society.

Peru is home to many of the Americas' most significant archaeological discoveries, including the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in the Andes and the mysterious Nazca Lines etched into the desert along the central coast.

Baby stolen during Argentina's military rule found after 48 years

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gk9j5n50ko, 3 days ago

A man who was forcibly taken from his captive mother as a newborn during Argentina's military rule and raised by strangers has been identified after 48 years, thanks to a DNA test.

The man's sister, Adriana Metz, who had been searching for her long-lost brother for decades, said she had spoken to her sibling for the first time last week.

Ms Metz was able to find him with the help of the campaign group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which has long tried to reunite the estimated 500 babies stolen by the military junta with their families.

Ms Metz's brother, whose identity has not been revealed publicly to protect his privacy, is the 140th baby the group has found.

In a news conference, the founder of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto, read out a statement while members of the group clapped and cheered.

"Today we welcome the son of Graciela Alicia Romero and Raúl Eugenio Metz," the 94-year-old said, while sitting next to a beaming Adriana Metz.

While the man, whom the group referred to as "Grandchild 140", was not present, the group gave details of how he had been separated from his family.

His parents were both political activists in Bahía Blanca, a city in Buenos Aires province.

His father, Raúl Metz was one of 10 siblings. He followed in his father's footsteps and worked on the railways, while also being an active member of the Communist Party.

His mother, Graciela Romero, studied economics and joined a Marxist guerrilla group, the PRT-ERP, with Metz shortly before the two got married.

The couple had a daughter, Adriana, and Ms Romero was five months pregnant with a second child when the two were arrested at their home in December 1976.

Shortly after seizing power in a military coup in March 1976, the junta tried to eradicate any opposition to its rule by rounding up critics.

Tens of thousands were snatched in raids and held in clandestine detention centres.

Many were tortured. Human rights groups estimate that some 30,000 people were killed or forcibly disappeared between 1976 and the end of military rule in 1983.

Survivors told the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo that Graciela Romero had given birth to a son on 17 April 1977 while in captivity in the clandestine detention centre known as "La Escuelita" (Little School).

Fellow detainees say that both Romero and Metz were physically and psychologically tortured while in captivity, before being disappeared.

Their one-year-old daughter Adriana was first looked after by neighbours who eventually handed the infant to her paternal grandparents.

Both the Romero and Metz family searched for the couple and their son for decades.

The pair are listed as disappeared and are feared to be among the many left-wing activists who were killed by the military regime.

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo said it was an anonymous tip-off which had eventually led the group to "Grandchild 140".

Working with the National Identity Commission (Conadi), an official body created to find children abducted by the military junta, they approached the man in April and offered him a DNA test.

He agreed to take the test, and on Friday Conadi informed him that he was indeed the baby snatched from Graciela Romero in 1977.

Adriana Metz said that during their phone call last week, he said that he had been raised as an only child.

"I told him 'hey, here I am'," she said at the press conference.

Adriana added that she was eager to meet her brother, who lives 400km (250 miles) away, in person to hug him.

Estela de Carlotto, who found her own missing grandson in 2014, said the fact that the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo had managed to locate one of the missing after 48 years showed how crucial their work was even after so many decades.

Trump accuses Brazil of 'witch hunt' against Bolsonaro

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62gd8e1e5do, 3 days ago

US President Donald Trump has urged Brazilian authorities to end their prosecution of the country's former President Jair Bolsonaro, accusing them of carrying out a "WITCH HUNT".

His comments drew a swift rebuke from current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who said Brazil would not accept "interference" from anyone and added: "No one is above the law."

Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil between 2019 and 2022, is standing trial for allegedly attempting a coup against Lula following his election victory in 2021.

The former leader has denied involvement in any alleged plot.

In a social media post, Trump said Bolsonaro was "not guilty of anything, except having fought for THE PEOPLE" and told prosecutors to "LEAVE BOLSONARO ALONE!"

He praised Bolsonaro as a "strong leader" who "truly loved his country".

The US president compared Bolsonaro's prosecution to the legal cases he himself faced between his two presidential terms.

"This is nothing more, or less, than an attack on a Political Opponent - Something I know much about! It happened to me, times 10," Trump said.

Bolsonaro thanked Trump for his comments, describing the case against him as "clear political persecution" in a social media post.

But President Lula hit back at the US leader, saying "the defence of democracy in Brazil is a matter for Brazilians. We are a sovereign nation.

"We won't accept interference or instruction from anyone. We have solid and independent institutions. No one is above the law. Especially those who attack freedom and the rule of law."

Brazilian Minister of Institutional Affairs Gleisi Hoffmann also criticised Trump: "The time when Brazil was subservient to the US was the time of Bolsonaro."

"The US president should take care of his own problems, which are not few, an respect the sovereignty of Brazil and our judiciary," she added.

The back and fourth comes as Lula hosted representatives from China, Russia and other nations at a Brics summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Trump had earlier threatened to levy additional tariffs against countries aligned with what he called the bloc's "anti-American" policies.

Trump and Bolsonaro enjoyed a friendly relationship when their presidencies overlapped, with the pair meeting at the White House in 2019.

Both men subsequently lost presidential elections and both refused to publicly acknowledge defeat.

A week after Lula's inauguration in January 2023, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings in the capital, Brasilia, in what federal investigators say was an attempted coup.

Bolsonaro was in the United States at the time and has always denied any links to the rioters.

He has been barred from running for public office until 2030 for falsely claiming Brazil's voting system was vulnerable to fraud, but he has said he intends to fight that ban and run for a second term in 2026.

Speaking in court for the first time last month, Bolsonaro said a coup was an "abominable thing". The 70-year-old could face decades in prison if convicted.

Key suspect arrested in shooting of Colombia senator

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c77vzr1843ro, 5 days ago

Colombian police have arrested the alleged mastermind of the assassination attempt against a presidential hopeful during a rally last month.

Miguel Uribe, a conservative senator, was twice shot in the head in the capital, Bogotá, as he was campaigning for his party's nomination in the 2026 presidential election.

Police arrested a suspected criminal, Élder José Arteaga Hernandez, who they say persuaded a 15-year-old to carry out the attack. Four other people had already been arrested, including the teenager charged with shooting Uribe.

Uribe remains in a critical condition. The motive for the attempt on his life on 7 June is unclear.

Colombian police chief Carlos Fernando Triana said on Friday that Arteaga had a long criminal history and was wanted for "aggravated attempted homicide" and "use of minors for the commission of crimes" over the attack on Uribe.

Police say he co-ordinated the assault, hired the gunman and provided him with a weapon.

Authorities had previously accused Arteaga, who uses the aliases Chipi and Costeño, of being near the Bogotá park where Uribe was shot.

The 15-year-old suspect was arrested as he was fleeing the scene. He subsequently pleaded not guilty, the prosecutor's office said.

Uribe, a critic of left-wing President Gustavo Petro, announced his candidacy for next year's presidential election last October. The 39-year-old has been a senator since 2022.

He is from a prominent political family, with links to Colombia's Liberal Party. His father was a union leader and businessman.

His mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was killed in 1991 in a rescue attempt after she was kidnapped by the Medellin drugs cartel.

The 7 June attack prompted silent protests attended by tens of thousands of Colombians.

Peru's president doubles her salary despite record low approval rating

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9vrd4yjj0no, 8 days ago

The president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, has issued a decree doubling her salary despite having a historically low approval rating of only 2%.

She will now be paid more than 35,500 soles ($10,000; £7,300) per month.

Peru's economy minister said the president's salary had been increased to match those of other heads of state in the region.

The news has been greeted with derision on social media, where many called Boluarte "tone-deaf" and her salary increase "outrageous".

Others shared footage of the president's recent visit to the city of Arequipa, where her car was pelted with stones and eggs, to illustrate the anger many Peruvians feel.

Boluarte was not elected as president. Instead, she came to power in December 2022, when the previous president, Pedro Castillo, was impeached and she, as the vice-president at the time, stepped in to fill the vacuum.

Her presidency has been overshadowed by several investigations, including into whether she failed to declare luxury gifts and into whether she abandoned her post when she did not appoint a caretaker president during her absence for surgery on her nose.

She has denied any wrongdoing but her already low approval rating has fallen further as Peruvians grow increasingly impatient at what they say is her failure to tackle rising crime.

Economy Minister Raúl Pérez Reyes said that prior to the raise, Boluarte's salary had been the second lowest of 12 countries in the region, with only Bolivia paying its president less per month.

Her new salary is almost 35 times that of the monthly minimum wages, which stands at 1,025 soles ($288; £210).

Missing Colombian social leaders 'killed by rebels', prosecutor says

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20p79p337xo, 9 days ago

The bodies of eight Colombian religious and social leaders who had been reported missing in April have been found in a shallow grave in Guaviare province, in south-central Colombia.

The prosecutor's office blamed members of a rebel group called Frente Armando Ríos for their killing.

Officials said the eight - two women and six men - had been summoned by the rebels to be interrogated about the alleged formation of a rival armed group in the area.

There has been no response from Frente Armando Ríos to the accusations.

Colombia is the deadliest country in the world for rights defenders and social leaders, according to a report by international rights organisation Front Line Defenders.

The bodies were found in a rural area known as Calamar, where members of the Frente Armando Ríos are active.

The group is an off-shoot of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).

The Farc signed a peace deal with the Colombian government in 2016 and many of its members laid down their arms, but parts of the group refused to disarm and set up dissident rebel groups such as the Frente Armando Ríos.

These offshoots engage in the production and trafficking of cocaine as well as extortion and illegal mining.

They also engage in armed confrontations with the security forces and with members of the National Liberation Army (ELN) - a rival guerrilla group.

According to the statement released by the prosecutor's office, leaders of the Frente Armando Ríos feared that the ELN was setting up a local cell in the area.

They reportedly summoned two of the victims for an "interrogation" on 4 April, and the remaining six people three days later.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a human rights organisation specialising in freedom of religion, said all but one were active leaders and members from two Protestant denominations: the Evangelical Alliance of Colombia Denomination (DEAC) and the Foursquare Gospel Church (ICCG). The eighth was the uncle of two of the other victims.

Among them is a married couple - Isaíd Gómez and Maribel Silva - who often preached in their Protestant church.

Also among those whose bodies have been found is Maryuri Hernández, who helped the evangelical pastor in the area. She is survived by her five-year-old daughter.

According to CSW, all eight had settled in the area after fleeing violence and violations of freedom of religion in Arauca, a province bordering Venezuela where several armed groups are active.

Religious leaders and social leaders are often targeted by armed groups in Colombia which do not tolerate any other authority than their own.

Relatives of the victims said the eight had received a message by the Frente Armando Ríos, which demanded that they present themselves for questioning.

According to the investigation by the prosecutor's office, days later they were taken to an abandoned property, where they were killed.

Officials suspect the order to kill them was given by the inner circle of Iván Mordisco, one of the most powerful commanders of the dissident rebel factions.

The murder of the eight has been condemned by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who called it "heinous" and denounced it as "a grave attack on the right to life, religious freedom and spiritual and community work".

Mexican fuel theft gang dismantled in major operation

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd6ggv460ngo, 11 days ago

Thirty-two people have been arrested in an operation targeting one of the main criminal organisations responsible for fuel theft in central Mexico, authorities said.

The gang stole fuel by drilling into pipelines and then storing it in warehouses, according to the security and civilian protection secretary.

Omar García Harfuch said gang members would then sell the fuel illegally across Mexico City and the states of Hidalgo and Querétaro.

In a press conference on Sunday, García Harfuch said some gang members had also forged documents and maintained connections with local authorities to facilitate operations.

He identified suspects Cirio Sergio "N" and Luis Miguel "N" as two of the main alleged leaders of the criminal organisation tasked with coordinating the extraction and distribution of the fuel.

Another man, named as Aurelio N, was identified as a leading "logistic and financial operator of the criminal cell," García Harfuch alleged.

The operation was the result of six months of investigative work to identify and locate gang members, authorities said.

García Harfuch also said 12 properties that served as the gang's operation centres were seized, alongside nearly 50 vehicles, 36 firearms and 16 million pesos (£619,464) in cash.

Various animals and exotic species – including a lion cub, a jaguar cub and two spider monkeys - were also found at the properties.

In an update on X on Sunday evening, he said "these animals were in risky conditions" and were now being taken care of by the federal attorney for environmental protection's office.

Search for survivors after Houthis sink second Red Sea cargo ship in a week

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3071vp2d8yo, today

Ten crew members have been rescued and at least three others killed after a cargo ship was attacked by Yemen's Houthis and sank in the Red Sea, a European naval mission says.

The Liberian-flagged, Greek-operated Eternity C was carrying 25 crew when it sustained significant damage and lost all propulsion after being hit by rocket-propelled grenades fired from small boats on Monday, according to the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency.

The attack continued on Tuesday and search rescue operations commenced overnight.

The Iran-backed Houthis said they attacked the Eternity C because it was heading to Israel, and that they took an unspecified number of crew to a "safe location".

The US embassy in Yemen said the Houthis had "kidnapped many surviving crew members" and called for their immediate release.

Authorities in the Philippines said 21 of the crew were citizens. Another of them is a Russian national who was severely wounded in the attack and lost a leg.

The EU's naval mission in the Red Sea, Operation Aspides, said four more people were rescued on Wednesday night, included three Filipinos and one Greek citizen, bringing the total rescued to 10.

Greece-based maritime security firm Diaplous released a video on Wednesday that showed the rescue of at least five seafarers who it said had spent more then 24 hours in the water, according to Reuters news agency.

"We will continue to search for the remaining crew until the last light," Diaplous said.

Reuters also cited maritime security firms as saying that the death toll was four.

It is the second vessel the Houthis have sunk in a week, after the group on Sunday launched missiles and drones at another Liberian-flagged, Greek-operated cargo ship, Magic Seas, which they claimed "belong[ed] to a company that violated the entry ban to the ports of occupied Palestine".

Video footage released by the Houthis on Tuesday showed armed men boarding the vessel and setting off a series of explosions which caused it to sink.

All 22 crew of Magic Seas were safely rescued by a passing merchant vessel.

Since November 2023, the Houthis have targeted around 70 merchant vessels with missiles, drones and small boat attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

They have now sunk four ships, seized a fifth, and killed at least seven crew members.

The group has said it is acting in support of the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and have claimed - often falsely - that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK, which have carried out air strikes on Yemen in response.

The US state department condemned the attacks on the Magic Seas and Eternity C, which it said "demonstrate the ongoing threat that Iran-backed Houthi rebels pose to freedom of navigation and to regional economic and maritime security".

"The United States has been clear: we will continue to take necessary action to protect freedom of navigation and commercial shipping from Houthi terrorist attacks, which must be condemned by all members of the international community."

In a separate development on Thursday, Israel's military said its air force intercepted a missile launched from Yemen. It gave no further details.

In May, the Houthis agreed a ceasefire deal with the US following seven weeks of intensified US strikes on Yemen in response to the attacks on international shipping.

However, they said the agreement did not include an end to attacks on Israel, which has conducted multiple rounds of retaliatory strikes on Yemen.

The secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) called for intensified diplomatic efforts following the new wave of attacks.

"After several months of calm, the resumption of deplorable attacks in the Red Sea constitutes a renewed violation of international law and freedom of navigation," Arsenio Dominguez said.

"Innocent seafarers and local populations are the main victims of these attacks and the pollution they cause," he warned.

Son of couple held in Iran: 'They aren't spies, they're Mum and Dad'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp867vdxe70o, yesterday

The son of a British couple detained in Iran has said he broke down in tears when he learned of their arrest and has not heard from them in six months.

Craig and Lindsay Foreman were on a "once-in-a-lifetime" motorbike trip around the world when they were arrested in January and later charged with espionage, which the family denies.

Their son Joe Bennett told BBC Breakfast: "I want to be crystal clear, my parents aren't spies, they're not political players, they aren't criminals. They're Mum and Dad."

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said they were continuing to assist the family and raise the case directly with Iranian authorities.

Mr and Mrs Foreman, both 52 from East Sussex, were motorbiking from Spain to Australia when they crossed into Iran on 31 December.

Mr Bennett said he last spoke with his parents on 3 January prior to their arrest, before learning they were being held in late January and charged with spying in February.

"I didn't know what to do or where to turn," he recalled.

Mr Bennett said one "generic letter" written by his mother had been shared with friends and family since then, and that updates on their wellbeing had come from three welfare checks by UK embassy officials - the last being in May.

"That's tough when you're used to hearing someone's voice every day," Mr Bennett said.

"She's sleeping on a wafer-thin mattress," he said of his mother, "that causes a lot of upset".

"You always go back to how they must be feeling, that's the one thing that gets the family the most."

Mr Bennett said his parents were very active people who loved doing Parkrun, and were trying to "keep as fit as possible" in their cell.

"In true fashion they're now running figure of eights in their cell," he said, "which just shows their mental fortitude".

He added that the conflict between Iran and Israel which erupted in June was a "terrifying" period, "not knowing if they were okay or safe".

The couple were due to be transferred to Tehran's notorious Evin Prison on 8 June, he continued, which was bombed by Israel on 23 June - while the war also saw the UK pull its embassy staff out of the city.

Mr Bennett recalls thinking: "They are now left alone, we haven't got people who can push for their safety and wellbeing."

He said the Foreign Office must act more urgently to bring them home, adding that he was not "clear" on their strategy to do so.

The FCDO currently advises against all travel to Iran, saying that British and British-Iranian dual nationals are at "significant risk" of arrest, questioning or detention.

It also now states that UK government support is "extremely limited in Iran".

"No face-to-face consular assistance will be possible in an emergency and the UK government will not be able to help you if you get into difficulty in Iran," the guidance reads.

Mr Bennett said the family did have reservations about their decision to travel to the country and asked, "why would you go there?".

But he stressed that the couple did so "by the proper means" - with the right visas, accompanied by licensed tour guides, and staying in hotels and along main roads.

"They followed every guideline in the book they could… that clearly wasn't enough."

Mr Bennett said he believed they were arrested because "they have UK passports and are being used as leverage by the Iranian regime".

A spokesman for Iran's judiciary said in February that the couple had entered Iran "under the guise of tourists" and "gathered information" in several parts of the country.

They said the couple had been under surveillance by intelligence agencies and were arrested as part of a "coordinated intelligence operation".

In recent years, Iran has arrested dozens of Iranians with dual nationality or foreign permanent residency, mostly on spying and national security charges. At least 15 have had links to the UK.

Human rights groups say they are often held as leverage, released only when Iran receives something in return.

Mr Bennett said the foreign office had been "supportive in terms of words and comfort, but we're past that now," describing the relationship as "functional".

He added that their "quiet diplomacy" approach had been "going on for too long" and that the family was not "clear what the strategy is".

"We know where we stand and what we want, it's over to you to make this happen."

An FCDO spokesperson said: "We continue to raise this case directly with the Iranian authorities, we're providing them with consular assistance and we remain in close contact with the family."

Two crew killed in attack on cargo ship in Red Sea

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70r9p6e8yxo, 2 days ago

Two crew members of a Liberian-flagged cargo ship have been killed in an attack in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen, Liberia says.

A Liberian representative to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) said the Eternity C was "attacked horribly... causing the death of two seafarers".

The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said a vessel had "sustained significant damage and lost all propulsion" after being hit by rocket-propelled grenades fired from small boats.

Maritime security sources told Reuters news agency that the Eternity C was now adrift and listing, and that the 22-strong crew was made up of 21 Filipinos and one Russian.

There was no immediate claim by any group, but it came a day after Yemen's Houthi movement said it had launched missiles and sea drones at another Liberian-flagged cargo ship, Magic Seas, and forced the crew to abandon it.

The US embassy in Yemen accused the Houthis of targeting the Eternity C, describing it as the Iran-backed group's "most violent attack to date" on a commercial vessel in the region.

"The Houthis are once again showing blatant disregard for human life, undermining freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, defying [UN Security Council] demands, and threatening regional stability," a statement said.

IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said: "The resumption of deplorable attacks in the Red Sea constitutes a renewed violation of international law and freedom of navigation."

"Innocent seafarers and local populations are the main victims of these attacks and the pollution they cause. Constructive dialogue is the only solution."

The UKMTO said on Tuesday morning that it had received reports from a third party of a merchant vessel being attacked with rocket propelled grenades from small craft since Monday, about 51 nautical miles (94 km) west of the Houthi-held port of Hudaydah.

Without identifying the ship as the Eternity C, the agency cited the company security officer as saying that it had "sustained significant damage and has lost propulsion".

"The vessel is surrounded by small craft and is under continuous attack," it added.

The two deaths on the Eternity C are the first involving Red Sea shipping since June 2024.

They also raise to six the total number of crew members killed in attacks in the region since November 2023, when the Houthis began targeting merchant vessels with missiles, drones and small boat attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. They have so far sunk two vessels and seized a third.

The Houthis have said they are acting in support of the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and have claimed - often falsely - that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK.

They have controlled much of north-western Yemen since 2014, when they ousted the internationally-recognised government from the capital, Sanaa, and sparked a civil war.

In May, the Houthis agreed a ceasefire deal with the US following seven weeks of intensified US strikes on Yemen in response to the attacks on international shipping.

However, they said the agreement did not include an end to attacks on Israel, which has conducted multiple rounds of retaliatory strikes on Yemen.

The Houthis said on Monday that they attacked the Magic Seas the previous day because it "belongs to a company that violated the entry ban to the ports of occupied Palestine".

The UKMTO said the crew were safe after being rescued by a passing merchant vessel.

US to remove Syria's HTS from list of foreign terror groups

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj0m194v974o, 3 days ago

The US is set to take the Syrian Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) off its list of foreign terrorist organisations on Tuesday, according to a state department memo.

The group led a rebel offensive in December that toppled the Assad regime, which had ruled Syria for 54 years. Its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is now the country's interim president.

HTS, also known as al-Nusra Front, was previously al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria until al-Sharaa severed ties in 2016.

In recent months, Western countries have sought to reset relations with Syria - which has faced heavy sanctions aimed at the old regime.

In late June, President Trump signed an executive order to formally end US sanctions against the country, with the White House saying the move was intended to support its "path to stability and peace".

It added it would monitor the new Syrian government's actions including "taking concrete steps toward normalising ties with Israel" as well as "addressing foreign terrorists" and "banning Palestinian terrorist groups".

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani said the move would "lift the obstacle" to economic recovery and open the country to the international community.

On Friday, Syria said it was willing to cooperate with the US to reimplement a 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel.

Over the weekend, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy visited Syria - the first government minister to do so in 14 years.

He met with al-Sharaa and announced an additional £94.5m support package - aimed at supporting longer-term recovery and countries helping Syrian refugees.

The UK earlier lifted sanctions on Syria's defence and interior ministries.

Ninety percent of Syria's population were left under the poverty line when the Assad regime was ousted after 13 years of devastating civil war.

Al-Sharaa has promised a new Syria, but there are concerns within the country about how the new government is operating - with some suspicious of his radical past.

Only one female government minister has been appointed to date - and al-Sharaa has made almost every other appointment directly.

There have also been multiple violent attacks against minority groups in recent months.

In March, hundreds of civilians from the minority Alawite sect were killed during clashes between the new security forces and Assad loyalists. In April there were deadly clashes between Islamist armed factions, security forces and fighters from the Druze religious minority. And in June at least 25 people were killed in a suicide attack on a church in Damascus.

Israel says it struck Houthi-held ports and cargo ship in Yemen

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce9xdlxp1x7o, 4 days ago

The Israeli military says it has carried out air strikes on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen in response to repeated missile and drone attacks on Israel.

The military said the targets were the Red Sea ports of Hudaydah, Ras Issa and al-Salif, a nearby power station, and the cargo ship Galaxy Leader. The ship, hijacked by the Houthis in November 2023, was being used to monitor international shipping, according to the military.

The Houthis' military spokesman said the Iran-backed group's air defences "successfully" confronted the Israeli attack. There were no reports of any casualties.

Following the strikes, two missiles were launched from Yemen towards Israel, according to the Israeli military.

Sirens were triggered in several areas of the occupied West Bank and southern Israel. The military said it was reviewing its attempt to intercept the missiles.

Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV reported that the strikes on Sunday night hit the ports as well as the Ras Kanatib power station, north of Hudaydah, but it provided no further details on damage or casualties.

The Israeli military said about 20 fighter jets carried out the operation "in response to the repeated attacks by the Houthi terrorist regime against the State of Israel, its civilians, and civilian infrastructure, including the launching of UAVs and surface-to-surface missiles toward Israeli territory".

It alleged that the ports were used to transfer weapons from Iran and that Houthi forces had installed a radar system on the Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader "to track vessels in the international maritime arena to facilitate further terrorist activities".

The Israeli military said the Ras Kanatib power plant, which supplies electricity to the nearby cities of Ibb and Taizz, was used to power Houthi military operations.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz warned that the Houthis "will continue to pay a heavy price for their actions".

"The fate of Yemen is the same as the fate of Tehran. Anyone who tries to harm Israel will be harmed, and anyone who raises a hand against Israel will have their hand cut off," he said in a post on X.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said in a statement on Monday that the group's air defences "succeeded in confronting the Zionist aggression against our country and thwarting its plan to target a number of Yemeni cities".

"In retaliation to this aggression, and in continuation of triumphing for the oppressed Palestinian people, the missile and UAV forces carried out a joint military operation using 11 missiles and drones," he added, identifying the targets as Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport, the ports of Ashdod and Eilat, and a power station in Ashkelon.

Sarea also declared that the Houthis were "fully prepared for a sustained and prolonged confrontation" with Israel.

The Houthis have controlled much of north-western Yemen since 2014, when they ousted the internationally-recognised government from the capital, Sanaa, and sparked a devastating civil war.

Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in October 2023, the Houthis have regularly launched missiles at Israel and attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, saying they are acting in solidarity with the Palestinians.

They have so far sunk two vessels, seized a third - the Galaxy Star - and killed four crew members. The 25-strong crew of Galaxy Leader were released in January 2025.

In May, the Houthis agreed a ceasefire deal with the US following seven weeks of intensified US strikes on Yemen in response to the attacks on international shipping.

However, the group said the agreement did not include an end to attacks on Israel, which has conducted multiple rounds of retaliatory strikes on Yemen.

In May, Israeli navy ships struck targets in Hudaydah, which is the main entry point for food and other humanitarian aid for millions of Yemenis.

Also on Sunday, a Liberian-flagged, Greek-operated bulk carrier Magic Seas came under attack by Houthi forces in the Red Sea.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said the ship was 51 nautical miles (94km) south of Hudaydah when it hit by gunfire and self-propelled grenades fired from multiple small boats. Armed security teams on board returned fire, it added.

Maritime security firm Ambrey said the Magic Seas was later also targeted with four unmanned surface vehicles, or sea drones, and missiles. Two of the drones hit the port side of the vessel, damaging it cargo and causing a fire, it added.

The UKMTO said the crew were safe after being rescued by a passing merchant vessel.

Sarea said on Monday afternoon that the Houthis had targeted the Magic Seas with sea drones and missiles because it "belongs to a company that violated the entry ban to the ports of occupied Palestine", without providing any further details.

He added that the vessel was now at risk of sinking as a result of a direct leak, and that the Houthis had "allowed the crew to safely disembark".

Yemen to execute Indian nurse on death row - can she be saved?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crrqn0pk5l5o, yesterday

An Indian nurse who is on death row in war-torn Yemen is set to be executed on 16 July, campaigners working to save her have told the BBC.

Nimisha Priya was sentenced to death for the murder of a local man - her former business partner Talal Abdo Mahdi - whose chopped-up body was discovered in a water tank in 2017.

The only way she can be saved is if Mahdi's family pardons her. Her relatives and supporters have offered $1m (£735,000) as diyah, or blood money, to be paid to Mahdi's family.

"We are still waiting for their pardon or any other demands," a member of the Save Nimisha Priya Council told the BBC.

"The execution date has been conveyed by the director general of prosecution to jail authorities . We are still trying to save her. But ultimately the family has to agree for pardon," Babu John, social activist and member of the council said.

An official in India's ministry of external affairs told BBC that they were still trying to confirm the details.

Nimisha Priya had left the southern Indian state of Kerala for Yemen in 2008 to work as a nurse.

She was arrested in 2017 after Mahdi's body was discovered. The 34-year-old is presently lodged in Sanaa central jail in the capital of Yemen.

She was charged with killing Mahdi by giving him an "overdose of sedatives" and allegedly chopping up his body.

Nimisha denied the allegations. In court, her lawyer argued that Mahdi physically tortured her, snatched all her money, seized her passport and even threatened her with a gun.

He said she had tried to anaesthetise Mahdi just to retrieve her passport from him, but that the dose was accidentally increased.

In 2020, a local court sentenced her to death. Her family challenged the decision in Yemen's Supreme Court, but their appeal was rejected in 2023.

In early January, Mahdi al-Mashat, president of the rebel Houthis' Supreme Political Council, approved her execution.

Yemen's Islamic judicial system, known as Sharia, offer her one last ray of hope - securing a pardon from the victim's family by paying blood money to them.

Nimisha's mother, a poor domestic helper from Kerala, has been in Yemen since April 2024 in a last-ditch effort to save her.

She has nominated Samuel Jerome, a Yemen-based social worker, to negotiate with Mahdi's family.

A lobby group called Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council has been raising money by crowdfunding for the purpose and Mr Jerome has said that $1m has been offered to Mahdi's family.

Follow BBC News India on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Netanyahu visits US as Trump puts pressure to agree Gaza ceasefire deal

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4ypze027ro, 4 days ago

After 21 months of war, there are growing hopes of a new Gaza ceasefire announcement as Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets US President Donald Trump in Washington.

Trump previously told reporters he had been "very firm" with Netanyahu about ending the conflict and that he thought "we'll have a deal" this week.

"We are working to achieve the deal that has been discussed, under the conditions we have agreed," the veteran Israeli PM said before boarding his plane. "I believe that the conversation with President Trump can definitely help advance this outcome, which we all hope for."

Indirect talks between Israel and Hamas on a US-sponsored proposal for a 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal resumed in Qatar on Sunday evening.

However, it is unclear whether key differences that have consistently held up an agreement can be overcome.

Only cautious optimism is being expressed by weary Palestinians living in dire conditions amid continuing daily Israeli bombardment, and the distressed families of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas.

"I don't wish for a truce but a complete stop to all war. Frankly, I'm afraid that after 60 days the war would restart again," says Nabil Abu Dayah, who fled from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza to Gaza City with his children and grandchildren.

"We got so tired of displacement, we got tired of thirst and hunger, from living in tents. When it comes to life's necessities, we have zero."

On Saturday evening, large rallies took place urging Israel's government to seal a deal to return some 50 hostages from Gaza, up to 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

Some relatives questioned why the framework deal would not free all captives immediately.

"How does one survive under such conditions? I'm waiting for Evyatar to return and tell me himself," said Ilay David, whose younger brother, a musician, was filmed by Hamas in torment as he watched fellow hostages being released earlier this year during the last, two-month-long ceasefire.

"This is the time to save lives. This is the time to rescue the bodies from the threat of disappearance," Ilay told a crowd in Jerusalem.

"In the rapidly changing reality of the Middle East, this is the moment to sign a comprehensive agreement that will lead to the release of all the hostages, every single one, without exception."

Netanyahu is visiting the White House for the third time since Trump returned to power nearly six months ago.

But the leaders will be meeting for the first time since the US joined Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear sites and then brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.

There is a strong sense that the recent 12-day war has created more favourable circumstances to end the Gaza war.

After months of low popularity ratings, the Israeli PM has been bolstered by broad public support for the Iran offensive and analysts suggest he now has more leverage to agree to a peace deal over the strong objections of his far-right coalition partners, who want Israel to remain in control of Gaza.

Hamas is seen to have been further weakened by the strikes on Iran - a key regional patron - meaning it could also be more amenable to making concessions needed to reach an agreement.

Meanwhile, Trump is keen to move on to other priorities in the Middle East.

These include brokering border talks between Israel and Syria, returning to efforts to normalise relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and completing unfinished business with Iran, involving possible negotiations on a new nuclear deal.

For months, ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas have been deadlocked over one fundamental difference.

Israel has been ready to commit to a temporary truce to return hostages but not an end to the war. Hamas has demanded a permanent cessation of hostilities in Gaza and a full pullout of Israeli troops.

The latest proposal put to Hamas is said to include guarantees of Washington's commitment to the deal and to continued talks to reach a lasting ceasefire and the release of all the hostages.

Nothing has been officially announced, but according to media reports the framework would see Hamas hand over 28 hostages - 10 alive and 18 dead - in five stages over 60 days without the troubling handover ceremonies it staged in the last ceasefire.

There would be a large surge in humanitarian aid entering Gaza.

After the return of the first eight living hostages on the first day of the agreement, Israeli forces would withdraw from parts of the north. After one week, the army would leave parts of the south.

On Day 10, Hamas would outline which hostages remain alive and their condition, while Israel would give details about more than 2,000 Gazans arrested during the war who remain in "administrative detention" - a practice which allows the Israeli authorities to hold them without charge or trial.

As seen before, large numbers of Palestinians would be released from Israeli jails in exchange for hostages.

President Trump has described this as the "final" truce proposal and said last week that Israel had accepted "the necessary conditions" to finalise it.

On Friday, Hamas said it had responded in a "positive spirit" but expressed some reservations.

A Palestinian official said sticking points remained over humanitarian aid - with Hamas demanding an immediate end to operations by the controversial Israeli and American-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and a return to the UN and its partners overseeing all relief efforts.

Hamas is also said to be questioning the timetable for Israeli troop withdrawals and operations of the Rafah crossing between southern Gaza and Egypt.

Netanyahu's office stated on Saturday that the changes wanted by Hamas were "not acceptable" to Israel.

The prime minister has repeatedly said that Hamas must be disarmed, a demand the Islamist group has so far refused to discuss.

In Israel, there is growing opposition to the war in Gaza, with more than 20 soldiers killed in the past month, according to the military.

The Israeli military's chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, said last week that it was nearing the completion of its war goals and signalled that the government must decide whether to move ahead with a deal to bring home hostages or prepare for Israeli forces to re-establish military rule in Gaza.

Polls indicate that two-thirds of Israelis support a ceasefire deal to bring home the hostages.

In Gaza, some residents express fears that the current wave of positivity is being manufactured to ease tensions during Netanyahu's US trip - rationalising that this happened in May as Trump prepared to visit Arab Gulf states.

The coming days will be critical politically and in humanitarian terms.

The situation in Gaza has continued to deteriorate, with medical staff reporting acute malnutrition among children.

The UN says that with no fuel having entered in over four months, stockpiles are now virtually gone, threatening vital medical care, water supplies and telecommunications.

Israel launched its war in Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023, which killed about 1,200 people and led to 251 others being taken hostage.

Israeli attacks have since killed more than 57,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. The ministry's figures are quoted by the UN and others as the most reliable source of statistics available on casualties.

'I don't know who to trust anymore': Druze worry about being left behind in post-war Syria

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwqqp2edqpo, 7 days ago

When the gunfire started outside her home in the Damascus suburb of Ashrafiyat Sahnaya, Lama al-Hassanieh grabbed her phone and locked herself in her bathroom.

For hours, she cowered in fear as fighters dressed in military-style uniforms and desert camouflage roamed the streets of the neighbourhood. A heavy machine gun was mounted on a military vehicle just beneath her balcony window.

"Jihad against Druze" and "we are going to kill you, Druze," the men were shouting.

She did not know who the men were - extremists, government security forces, or someone else entirely - but the message was clear: as a Druze, she was not safe.

The Druze - a community with its own unique practices and beliefs, whose faith began as an off-shoot of Shia Islam - have historically occupied a precarious position in Syria's political order.

Under former President Bashar al-Assad, many Druze maintained a quiet loyalty to the state, hoping that alignment with it would protect them from the sectarian bloodshed that consumed other parts of Syria during the 13-year-long civil war.

Many Druze took to the streets during the uprising, especially in the latter years. But, seeking to portray himself as defending Syria's minorities against Islamist extremism, Assad avoided using the kind of iron first against Druze protesters which he did in other cities that revolted against his rule.

They operated their own militia which defended their areas against attacks by Sunni Muslim extremist groups who considered Druze heretics, while they were left alone by pro-Assad forces.

But with Assad toppled by Sunni Islamist-led rebels who have formed the interim government, that unspoken pact has frayed, and Druze are now worried about being isolated and targeted in post-war Syria.

Recent attacks on Druze communities by Islamist militias loosely affiliated with the government in Damascus have fuelled growing distrust towards the state.

It started in late April with a leaked audio recording that allegedly featured a Druze religious leader insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Although the leader denied it was his voice, and Syria's interior ministry later confirmed the recording was fake, the damage had been done.

A video of a student at the University of Homs, in central Syria, went viral, with him calling on Muslims to take revenge immediately against Druze, sparking sectarian violence in communities across the country.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said at least 137 people - 17 civilians, 89 Druze fighters and 32 members of the security forces - were killed in several days of fighting in Ashrafiyat Sahnaya, the southern Damascus suburb of Jaramana, and in an ambush on the Suweida-Damascus highway.

The Syrian government said the security forces' operation in Ashrafiyat Sahnaya was carried out to restore security and stability, and that it was in response to attacks on its own personnel where 16 of them were killed.

Lama Zahereddine, a pharmacy student at Damascus University, was just weeks away from completing her degree when the violence reached her village. What began as distant shelling turned into a direct assault - gunfire, mortars, and chaos tearing through her neighbourhood.

Her uncle arrived in a small bus, urging the women and children to flee under fire while the men stayed behind with nothing more than light arms. "The attackers had heavy machine guns and mortars," Lama recalled. "Our men had nothing to match that."

The violence did not stop at her village. At Lama's university, dorm rooms were stormed and students were beaten with chains.

In one case, a student was stabbed after simply being asked if he was Druze.

"They [the instigators] told us we left our universities by choice," she said. "But how could I stay? I was five classes and one graduation project away from my degree. Why would I abandon that if it wasn't serious?"

Like many Druze, Lama's fear is not just of physical attacks – it is of what she sees as a state that has failed to offer protection.

"The government says these were unaffiliated outlaws. Fine. But when are they going to be held accountable?" she asked.

Her trust was further shaken by classmates who mocked her plight, including one who replied with a laughing emoji to her post about fleeing her village.

"You never know how people really see you," she said quietly. "I don't know who to trust anymore."

While no-one is sure who the attackers pledged their allegiance to, one thing is clear: many Druze are worried that Syria is drifting toward an intolerant Sunni-dominated order with little space for religious minorities like themselves.

"We don't feel safe with these people," Hadi Abou Hassoun told the BBC.

He was one of the Druze men from Suweida called in to protect Ashrafiyat Sahnaya on the day Lama was hiding in her bathroom.

His convoy was ambushed by armed groups using mortars and drones. Hadi was shot in the back, piercing his lung and breaking several ribs.

It's a far cry from the inclusive Syria he had in mind under new leadership.

"Their ideology is religious, not based on law or the state. And when someone acts out of religious or sectarian hate, they don't represent us," Hadi said.

"What represents us is the law and the state. The law is what protects everyone…I want protection from the law."

The Syrian government has repeatedly stressed the sovereignty and unity of all Syrian territories and denominations of Syrian society, including the Druze.

Though clashes and attacks have since subsided, faith in the government's ability to protect minorities has diminished.

During the days of the fighting, Israel carried out air strikes around the Ashrafiyat Sahnaya, claiming it was targeting "operatives" attacking Druze to protect the minority group.

It also struck an area near the Syrian presidential palace, saying that it would "not allow the deployment of forces south of Damascus or any threat to the Druze community". Israel itself has a large number of Druze citizens in the country and living in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

Back in Ashrafiyat Sahnaya, Lama al-Hassanieh said the atmosphere had shifted - it was "calmer, but cautious".

She sees neighbours again, but wariness lingers.

"Trust has been broken. There are people in the town now who don't belong, who came during the war. It's hard to know who's who anymore."

Trust in the government remains thin.

"They say they're working toward protecting all Syrians. But where are the real steps? Where is the justice?" Lama asked.

"I don't want to be called a minority. We are Syrians. All we ask for is the same rights - and for those who attacked us to be held accountable."

Additional reporting by Samantha Granville

Tehran is coming back to life, but its residents are deeply shaken

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c939k3n41g4o, 14 days ago

In the heart of the Iranian capital, the Boof cafe serves up refreshing cold drinks on a hot summer's day.

They must be the most distinctive iced Americano coﬀees in this city – the cafe sits in a leafy corner of the long-shuttered US embassy.

Its high cement walls have been plastered with anti-American murals ever since Washington severed relations with Tehran in the wake of the 1979 Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis – which still cast a long shadow over this tortuous relationship.

Inside the charming Boof cafe, Amir the barista says he'd like relations to improve between America and Iran.

"US sanctions hurt our businesses and make it hard for us to travel around the world," he reflects as he pours another iced coffee behind a jaunty wooden sign - "Keep calm and drink coffee."

Only two tables are occupied - one by a woman covered up in a long black veil, another by a woman in blue jeans with long flowing hair, flouting the rules on what women should wear as she cuddles with her boyfriend.

It's a small snapshot of this capital as it confronts its deeply uncertain future.

We watched his speech, his first since President Donald Trump suddenly announced a ceasefire on Tuesday, on a small TV in the only oﬃce still intact in a vast section of the IRIB compound. All that's le is a charred skeleton of steel.

When an Israeli bomb slammed into this complex on 16 June, a raging fire swept through the main studio which would have aired the supreme leader's address. Now it's just ash.

You can still taste its acrid smell; all the TV equipment - cameras, lights, tripods - are tangles of twisted metal. A crunching glass carpet covers the ground.

Israel said it targeted the propaganda arm of the Islamic Republic, accusing it of concealing a military operation within - a charge its journalists rejected.

Its gaping shell seems to symbolise this darkest of times for Iran.

You can also see it in the city's hospitals, which are still treating Iranians injured in Israel's 12-day war.

Across this sprawling metropolis, Iranians are counting the cost of this confrontation. In its latest tally, the government's health ministry recorded 627 people killed and nearly 5,000 injured.

Tehran is slowly returning to life and resuming its old rhythms, at least on the surface. Its infamous traﬃc is starting to fill its soaring highways and pretty tree-lined side streets.

Shops in its beautiful bazaars are opening again as people return to a city they fled to escape the bombs. Israel's intense 12-day military operation, coupled with the US's attacks on Iran's main nuclear sites, has le so many shaken.

"They weren't good days, " says Mina, a young woman who immediately breaks down as she tries to explain her sadness. "It's so heart-breaking, " she tells me through her tears. "We tried so hard to have a better life but we can't see any future these days."

We met on the grounds of the soaring white marble Azadi tower, one of Tehran's most iconic landmarks. A large crowd milling on a warm summer's evening swayed to the strains of much-loved patriotic songs in an open air concert of the Tehran Symphony Orchestra. It was meant to bring some calm to a city still on edge.

Supporters and critics of Iran's clerical rulers mingled, drawn together by shared worry about their country's future.

"They have to hear what people say," insists Ali Reza when I ask him what advice he would give to his government. "We want greater freedoms, that's all I will say."

There's defiance too. "Attacking our nuclear bases to show off that 'you have to do as we say' goes against diplomacy," says Hamed, an 18-year-old university student.

Despite rules and restrictions which have long governed their lives, Iranians do speak their minds as they wait for the next steps by their rulers, and leaders in Washington and beyond, which carry such consequences for their lives.

Additional reporting by Charlotte Scarr and Nik Millard.

Lyse Doucet is being allowed to report in Iran on condition that none of her reports are used on the BBC's Persian service. This law from Iranian authorities applies to all international media agencies operating in Iran.

Methane gas kills 12 Turkish soldiers in Iraq operation

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgq7z10lxneo, 4 days ago

Twelve Turkish soldiers have died after being exposed to methane gas while searching a cave in northern Iraq, the Turkish Ministry of National Defence said.

At least 19 personnel were exposed to the gas during the search and clear operation on Sunday, and immediately taken to hospital. By Monday, 12 had died, the ministry said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he received the news with "great sorrow" and extended his condolences to the soldiers' families and to the Turkish Armed Forces.

Methane gas is not directly toxic, but can be deadly as it can become suffocating, especially in tight, enclosed spaces.

It remains unclear why the cave contained enough methane gas to make it lethal.

A farewell ceremony for some of the soldiers killed was held at an airport in the southern Turkish province of Hakkari on Monday. It was attended by the Turkish defence minister and many high-ranking officials from the armed forces.

The bodies were then transported back to their home towns.

The soldiers were searching for the body of a soldier who was killed in gunfire in May 2022 during Operation Claw Lock - a military operation led by Turkey against militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iraq which included air strikes on caves as well as a ground incursion.

The PKK - which is banned as a terrorist group in Turkey, the EU, UK and US - has waged a 40-year insurgency against Turkey.

The group's initial aim when it began fighting with Turkey in the 1980s was to create an independent home for Kurds. It then moved away from its separatist goals, focusing instead on more autonomy and greater Kurdish rights.

Over the last four decades more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

In March, the PKK declared a ceasefire and in May said it would disband, stating it had "completed its historical mission" and would "end the method of armed struggle."

In the first significant step towards peace since the announcement, the PKK said a group of fighters will lay down arms this week in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Labour might be down, but it's not necessarily out - voters reflect on a year in power

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg8vjm4ee1o, 5 days ago

"There's only one relationship that really matters," a senior figure in government told me in the middle of Labour's dreadful week, where ministers lost control of their backbenchers.

"It's the one with the voters." Well, quite.

And that relationship has soured since Labour has been in power. After days of frenzied coverage in Westminster around an anniversary the party might rather forget, what is the state of that vital relationship?

We gathered a group of Labour's 2024 voters together to delve into what's gone wrong, according to those who matter the most – the public.

Our participants were from two constituencies in Kent: Dartford and Gravesham. Both seats were won by Labour in the heady days of July 2024, thanks not only to Labour's campaign itself, but the collapse of the Conservative vote. And the swing to Sir Keir Starmer's party in both places was enormous, nearly 20%.

Our panel was selected by the political research group, More in Common, and the questions were asked to the group not by me, but by its director, Luke Tryl.

It's worth knowing too, when our panel was recruited, they were not told they would be asked about politics.

It could have been for any other market research exercise, for washing powder or water bills, rather than anything to do with Westminster - so it wasn't a gathering of political junkies.

But our group, who all voted Labour last time, certainly had a strong sense of what has happened to the government they elected just twelve months ago, and it wasn't pretty.

First of all, we asked the group about their impressions of Labour's first year back in office, overall.

The overwhelming sense, and one of the words used most often, was "disappointed".

"I've always been Labour, but I expected much more from them," Yvette, who's 57 and a nutritionist said. "I thought they'd be there for the people."

Kelly is 35, and a stay-at-home mum. She was frustrated about what she sees as a lack of progress on immigration. "Everything they promised, nothing has come of it yet," Kelly said. "Immigration is a big thing for me."

Adam, is an illustrator aged 37. He was a bit more forgiving of Sir Keir's problems: "They are patching things up, the first year is not the year to push the big ideas, let's steady the ship."

But 30-year-old Sodiq, who owns his own business, reckons Labour hadn't been completely straight about what its plans were to start with.

"I think a lot of the things that were promised were never going to happen," Sodiq said.

Kirsty, who's 35 and a teacher, even told us, "I feel lied to".

What about the chaos of Parliament this week, and Labour's many changes of direction since they've been in office? The group had definitely noticed what had gone on in the last seven days, not always the case when it comes to shenanigans in SW1.

Veronica, a 64-year-old carer, had seen the chancellor's tears and had some sympathy.

"I think she's trying her best - there are going to be teething problems, it's only the first year." But she said, "crying at the Commons the other day and Keir Starmer didn't even notice, but everyone else did? Sometimes I think, 'Is it the pressure getting to her?'".

Hayley, who is a personal assistant, was also dubious that Sir Keir didn't notice, but reckons the government deserves more time.

"You can't turn the country round in a year," the 40-year-old said.

But it was clear the group had reservations about Labour's repeated shifts in position - whether on welfare this week, or winter fuel before.

While praising Sir Keir for listening, Adam said: "What happened this week - another U-turn - was worrying, it pushes the idea that there is no direction."

Yvette said "if he makes a decision he should stand by it", changes of heart were like "lastminute.com".

In the general election there were big shifts towards Reform UK, even though they didn't win either the Dartford or Gravesham seat.

But Kent was one of the 10 councils Farage's party took control of in the local elections this May.

Reform's progress has certainly been noticed. Kelly said: "They are picking away at figures and picking away at other things – they seem to be doing things, and proactive."

Given how Reform is doing in the national polls, consistently ahead of the other political parties, it was no surprise that some of the group were thinking about giving Nigel Farage a chance next time round.

"If there were an election tomorrow I would vote for him," Yvette said, suggesting he should be given a chance even though "a lot of bad things are said about him".

But Sodiq said: "I'm at the other end of the scale. He's a politician, like others, who says things people want to hear, and people generally are not comfortable with the two main parties, and just want to try something else."

Labour is worried by their grisly position in the polls, and there's something of a sense of bewilderment too about just how shaky things have got in the last few weeks.

But at senior levels, sources believe if they keep on keeping on, eventually, many voters like those we met this weekend will return to them if hopes for improvements in the NHS and the economy come to pass.

Sign up for the Off Air with Laura K newsletter to get Laura Kuenssberg's expert insight and insider stories every week, emailed directly to you.

Watch tomorrow to hear the advice that our group would give Sir Keir Starmer in order to improve, to make that happen.

Of course this is only a taste of what's on some voter's minds in just two constituencies, but the mood was certainly disappointed with what has, and has not happened since Labour moved back into power. But there was a sense, a grudging willingness among these Labour voters to give Sir Keir and the government more time.

After twelve months, Labour is most certainly down, but not necessarily out.

Top image credit: Reuters

The sale of illegal cigarettes signals a deeper problem with UK high streets

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy9097lwxg9o, 7 days ago

It's pitch black and we're crawling along a secret underground tunnel beneath a high street in Hull. We pass rotting beams propped up precariously by stacked breeze blocks. A rusty car jack is helping prevent the shop floor above from falling in.

Through the rubble, we follow a Trading Standards Officer, his torch swinging back and forth in the darkness until it rests on a hidden stash of thousands of illegal cigarettes.

This is just one such surreal experience while investigating the sale of illegal cigarettes in Hull. In one week we repeatedly witnessed counterfeit and smuggled tobacco being sold in high street mini marts - and were threatened by shop workers who grabbed our cameras when we tried to film them.

This is now a familiar story being repeated across Britain. In April, the National Crime Agency (NCA) raided hundreds of high street businesses, many suspected of being supplied by international crime gangs. Trading Standards teams have also found a thriving trade in illicit tobacco.

One leading criminology expert called the networks behind the supply of illegal cigarettes the "golden thread for understanding serious organised crime", because of its links to people trafficking and, in some cases, illegal immigration.

So, in some ways, these high street shop fronts connect the various domestic problems facing Britain today.

Political researchers claim it's also damaging trust in police and the government - and turning our high streets into symbols of national decline.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Friday, the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, described the illegal cigarette trade uncovered by the BBC report as "disgraceful". She said it shows the need to get neighbourhood police "back into the high streets and town centres".

'We're losing the war'

Alan, a former detective and now a Trading Standards officer, searches for counterfeit and smuggled cigarettes sold under the counter in mini marts, barber shops and takeaways around Hull, which he says have spread across the city at an alarming rate.

Under the floorboards of a mini mart called Ezee Shop, a network of these secret tunnels hide contraband stock. As battered suitcases and black sacks stuffed full of cigarettes are heaved up through the makeshift trap door, a man who we're told helps out in the shop watches on laughing.

"It's not something dangerous, it's only cigarettes," he says. "Everywhere has it; barber shops, takeaways." Some shops, he adds, are selling drugs including crack cocaine.

Alan estimates that there are about £20,000 worth of illegal cigarettes in this haul, a tiny proportion of a crime that HMRC says costs the country at least £2.2 billion in lost revenue.

Today's raid won't change what's happening on Hull's high streets, he says. He has been to some shops at least 20 times and he estimates that there are some 80 shops selling illegal cigarettes in the city.

"We're losing the war," he says.

He has been with Trading Standards for many years but didn't want to be fully identified because he's worried about the organised crime gangs often supplying these shops.

It's not long before someone claiming to be Ezee Shop's owner turns up. Alan says he is a Kurd from Iran. He is furious with us filming his illicit stock being taken away.

Dead flies and asbestos in cigarettes

Some of the illegal cigarettes sold across Britain are made in this country. Others are produced cheaply in countries like Poland or Belgium. Some are designed to imitate established brands. Illegal cigarettes are sold without the necessary taxes and duties, and many do not conform to safety standards.

Previously the Local Government Association warned that some black market cigarettes contained "human excrement, dead flies and asbestos".

We went undercover, visiting 12 shops in Hull, some multiple times, to try and buy these cheap cigarettes, and secretly filmed the responses.

The windows of many of these shops are covered with large pictures of fizzy drinks, sweets and vapes, obscuring what's going on inside.

Nine sold us illegal cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco. Two told us where we could buy cheap packs. We were openly offered a selection of brands with packets costing between £3 and £7 - instead of the average UK price of about £16.

None of the businesses we bought illegal cigarettes from in Hull responded to our request for a comment. But this is not only a Hull problem.

Data shared with the BBC from investigators working for an international tobacco company say that last year they identified more than 600 shops selling illegal packets, with several cities including Bradford, Coventry and Nottingham flagged as hotspots. The BBC is unable to verify these figures.

In Bradford alone, they say they found 49 stores selling fake products in just two days. In the end, they had to stop the test purchases because they didn't have enough test bags to put the items in.

Are fines and penalties too low?

All of this is a growing problem - but it is also one with specific causes: profits, a lack of resources to enforce the law, a complex criminal supply network and in some cases organised immigration crime.

Professor Georgios Antonopoulos, criminologist at Northumbria University Newcastle, believes money is at the heart of it. "Legal tobacco products in the UK are subject to some of the highest excise taxes in the world," he says.

Illegal cigarettes are sometimes sold for as little as £3 to £5 per pack - compelling for some customers during a cost of living crisis.

In some cases, the financial penalties issued to criminals may be much lower than the profits they can make.

In the case of Ezee Shop in Hull, the shop owner had been convicted for selling illegal cigarettes in the past and was fined £80, plus costs and a £34 victim surcharge.

Tougher rules introduced in 2023 mean those convicted now can face higher fines of up to £10,000 - but this may still be lower than the value of the stash.

After the raid, we went back to the shop, covertly. Within a few hours it had reopened, restocked - and was selling illegal cigarettes once again.

Struggles with law enforcement

Leading criminologists tell the BBC that UK authorities are struggling to deal with the problem.

Prof Antonopoulos says teams are "chronically underfunded". He claims that police prioritise violent crimes and drug trafficking - "which is understandable," he adds.

Some Trading Standards officers are frustrated with the powers available to them. "The general public don't understand why they can't be closed down," Alan says.

They can use anti-social behaviour legislation to close shops for up to three months - but it can require statements from other businesses and members of the public.

We were told that after some shops shut down, the criminals simply reopen nearby. Alan wants a 'three strikes and you're out' policy to permanently close law-breaking businesses.

Last year, the previous government provided £100 million across five years to support HMRC and Border Force to tackle the illicit tobacco trade. But since then, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute warned that some broader forms of organised crime - including scammers and rogue traders - could effectively become decriminalised, due to a lack of funding.

As for the suppliers, HMRC says there are so many organised crime groups operating across borders that it is hard to limit the flow of goods into the UK.

In May, Hungarian authorities raided a factory where they found warehouses full of fake cigarettes. And there's even production in Ukraine, according to legitimate tobacco firms, with authorities there stretched because of the war.

Chinese triads have a 'vast business'

There is also a "significant production" of illicit tobacco here in the UK, says Prof Antonopoulos.

A Trading Standards team in south Wales told us that counterfeit hand-rolling tobacco is often sold cheaply. They claimed that some of it was made using forced labour, controlled by Chinese gangs.

Dave McKelvey, managing director of TM Eye private investigators, which works with tobacco firms to gather evidence on the illicit trade, claims that Fujian-based Chinese triads operate a "vast business" here in the UK.

And trying to track down the people in charge of these criminal enterprises is a challenge.

Trading Standards told the BBC that those named as the company director often have no real involvement in the company. Instead, they may be paid a small sum each month to be listed as the director on official documents.

Later this year, Companies House will receive new powers to better identify business owners.

Employing illegal workers

Authorities are trying to clean up British high streets. Just this year, we joined dozens of raids led by the NCA in barber shops and mini marts, in a month-long operation.

But the former senior detectives who worked with the BBC's undercover team said they need more time to fully expose the organised crime supplying some of the shop fronts.

Throughout our time with Trading Standards in Hull and in the dozens of raids we've been on with police in Shrewsbury and across Greater Manchester, officers claimed that tobacco operations are often staffed by Kurds from Iran and Iraq. Some may not have had the right to work.

In Hull, Alan believes that some people working in the shops he visits may be recruited from asylum seeker hotels. "They're expendable, if they get caught they just replace them with another.

Rochdale Trading Standards has made similar observations.

Criminology professor Emmeline Taylor argues that these criminal supply chains behind the supply of illegal tobacco are linked to other forms of crime - and the damage can't be overestimated.

"They're not just dealing in tobacco," she says. "It's firearms, it's drugs, it's people trafficking, it's illegal immigration."

Yvette Cooper, told us that "criminal gangs" are "trying to abuse our high streets by using shops as a front for organised crime".

She also accused gangs of "undermining our border and immigration systems by employing illegal workers".

Pockets of criminality on high streets

Of course, there have long been pockets of criminality on the UK high street. But now experts tell us that this illicit trade is harming people's trust in authority - and, at a basic level, their sense of fairness.

"If you're a law abiding business following the rules, you're jeopardising your own livelihood and the viability of your own business," argues Prof Taylor. "And to me that's not fair that someone can succeed by not playing by the rules."

Josh Nicholson, a researcher at the Centre for Social Justice, believes that perceptions of crime are worse than ever. "From research we have done there is a feeling of powerlessness, a lack of respect for authority like the police," he says.

"Are the police... seen to be tackling low level offences? When they don't see it tackled, people's perception is that things are getting a lot worse."

And people tend to trust the government less when they think access to good shops has declined in their area, says Will Jennings, a political science professor at the University of Southampton, based on studies he has done.

Nick Plumb, a director at the Power to Change charity, says his research shows that declining high streets boosts support for parties that were once considered outside of the political mainstream.

"Reform UK, for example, is doing better in places with declining high streets when compared to the rest of England," he says. "There's a sense that … mainstream politics, local authorities have all tried to tackle this issue, and [residents] haven't seen any change. It's that sense of 'the status quo hasn't solved these things, and therefore we want to try something new'."

Ultimately, what people see in the places they call home matters.

"People find a sense of local identity in the quality of the streets where they've grown up," adds Mr Nicholson.

"When the quality ... dramatically declines, and they feel they can't even go there - what that does to a sense of community is unquantifiable."

Additional reporting by Phillip Edwards.

Top Image credit: Javier Zayas Photography/ Getty Images

Kuenssberg: Starmer's first year ends in shambles, but could he still turn it around?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8m9vdz2m4o, 9 days ago

"Who the hell thought this was a good idea?" a Labour insider spluttered, incredulous, even two weeks ago, that No 10 would schedule a vote to take benefits from the disabled as the anniversary of their election victory approached. "What genius!" they mocked.

They predicted drama, although not a disaster like this.

The gory consequences of the decision to try and change the law on welfare this week are there for all to see.

No 10 might have been hanging out the bunting, preparing to celebrate a year in office. Instead, for a few days Parliament has looked just as much of a shambles as during the head-spinning days of incessant Tory turmoil.

In this fevered week, Labour has been failing its basic mission, to look like a capable government. And the prime minister's authority has been given a hefty kick.

Westminster has rushed to its default of recent years - salivating over spats and splits, chaos and confusion. But whether that enrages or entertains you, the bald facts here matter to everyone: a government that can't pass laws in Parliament can't effectively wield power. Prime ministers that can't effectively wield power can't get things done.

So can Labour move on from this almighty mess?

A year of 'unintended consequences'

The welfare vote fiasco is far from the first thing that has gone wrong. "They can fix it," one Whitehall source says, but "they have to realise they have caused it and smarten up how they make decisions".

But Labour has had a whole "year of unintended consequences", as one MP described it. That's a diplomatic way of saying it has made plenty of mistakes and a lot has gone wrong during its first year back in No 10.

If nothing else, this government has lost the chance to make a good first impression. And some of the events have been baffling at best, and worrying at worst - inconvenient small embarrassments like Starmer tripping over while leaving No 10, the Chancellor having tears running down her face in the Commons (it's still a mystery why), don't help give a sense that it's all in hand.

As for the welfare row, one member of the government tells me that this nodded to a far broader issue within the party: it has been a "coming together of so many things that have been simmering". It is, they add, self inflicted.

A senior government source says the situation "is disappointing but not overly concerning". You might wonder if they ought to sound a bit more worried.

What has been illustrated this week is that the leadership has not understood what its rank and file are willing to tolerate. And management of the party has been found sorely lacking, spectacularly so.

Ironically one of the reasons some MPs have been so cross, even before this week, is because "the mismanagement creates a fog and a funk", where potentially punter-friendly measures, like providing more free school meals and increasing the minimum wage, are drowned out.

No 10 versus the backbenches

What there is, in the wake of this week's humiliation, is an acknowledgement that things will have to be different. A senior source in government says "we can't leave as much of a gap between ministers and backbenchers", admitting "we'll have to be better at bringing them in".

The prime minister "now realises he'll have to be more into the detail", one minister says. Many insiders believe that there still needs to be a much better functioning "centre", in other words Starmer's own power base in No 10.

It is no longer the "spectacularly ineffective, 70s farce" of the early weeks in No 10 that one senior figure describes, when it took days to work out exactly who was to do what; when Sue Gray and Morgan McSweeney were vying for authority; and when there was near mutiny over pay. But the source says "the legacy of these things takes time to catch up".

Inside No 10, there has been acknowledgement it needs to run better, to improve the way decisions are made across Whitehall, well before this week's humiliation.

The way power is spread across SW1 and No 10 makes it "an incredibly weak centre of government, and that was a real surprise for us", say those insiders. "If we accept that No 10 will never be a White House then you need to empower other people to make better government decisions", they say.

But others say there is a fundamental need in No 10 for the prime minister and his top team to be more concerned with "the absolute basics" of politics, warning sometimes there is a tone of being "sanctimonious" not wanting to "do the actual business of politics, even if its grubby". In other words, they can complain about the structures of Whitehall, or the difficulties of what they inherited, but, some argue, they struggle to look in the mirror.

"Everyone needs to do better" including the political team, one MP argues. That might include doing fewer things, but much more effectively. One minister argues "there'll have to be far fewer priorities – small boats, the NHS, welfare and the cost of living … everything else will have to wait".

Reasons to be optimistic

Starmer has been reminded, painfully this week, that the normal activity of politics – charming, cajoling, even sometimes menacing your party, still has to be done even if a party has hordes of MPs.

A majority of this scale is an insurance policy, not free rein. Governments of any flavour are in trouble if the relationship between those at the top and those at the bottom break down. If links inside the party are frayed it becomes harder to present a compelling front to the public.

No 10 must develop "more emotional intelligence", and fast, one MP argues. They believe that Starmer's "human instincts need to get much sharper in year two because of what has happened in year one".

Labour's vast, not so new ranks, are not willing to be bossed around.

But many MPs, advisors, ministers and party insiders I've spoken to can find reasons to be optimistic, even as the embarrassment of the last seven days stings. Spin forward to the summer of 2026 and they predict that the party will be in a much better place. "People will start to notice," as one MP puts it.

Another adviser says "there is hope" – progress in the NHS will "take on more potency".

"We have set in train a whole bunch of things, the planning changes, big visible projects, and money for the NHS," says another MP - and voters will see, "maybe there is more going on than we thought".

Another source enthuses that Labour is stacking up progress towards its target of building 1.5 million homes by 2029; that there will be new laws on the statute books rather than in the debating chamber, that protect renters; and that new rights will be given to workers.

Certainly, this spring and summer has seen a flurry of announcements that set a quicker tempo. Downing Street is now "making better, more political decisions – on industry, on investment", according to one senior figure.

Another senior MP hopes "we have now passed a tipping point where there is suddenly a lot happening".

But the question now is, will anybody notice?

Starmer has never been a showman

It's accepted that ministers failed to make their arguments properly to their own party when it came to the welfare mess this week. One minister told me that if they had made a better case, earlier on, they would have been able to get the plans through and avoid all the embarrassment.

Telling the government's story better to the public is absolutely vital if Starmer is to make any progress towards restoring even a fraction of Labour's popularity from this time last year. This is not a revelation to Starmer's inner circle.

They have always been aware that he is not a showman or a politician who can always smoothly adapt to the public situation he finds himself in, choose the right words, or convey empathy or warmth.

There is a determination to tell the story better, to define the incredibly broad "change" message that won the election, to move to more specifics, perhaps even spelling out a new "social contract" – a rhetorical tool used by both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, during their time in power. To do this, MPs tell me that Starmer needs to not only work out exactly how to explain his project but to care deeply about getting it across.

"Where's the hope?" says one MP. "He needs to want it from his team, to tell the story. If he doesn't see the value in it, and they don't hire for it, then they're not going to get it."

The world wreaking havoc

There is a scenario where Labour uses its 12 months of turmoil and learns from it. Starmer's allies say he has so often been underestimated. When the party lost the 2021 Hartlepool by-election, he considered quitting, but instead, he fought back.

Now they could cross their fingers and hope that signs of progress on the NHS turn into a convincing trend. That the big building blocks the government has put in place in the hope of giving the economy a kick start to come good. And that the situation in the Middle East doesn't spiral into anything even more dangerous, and potentially costly to the economy.

But would you bet on it?

Looking at the mess over the welfare plans you might not be confident, yet it would be ludicrous to conclude that the first year in office has been so bad, and the circumstances so tough, that they're a busted flush.

But many MPs and Labour figures worry about what is going on in the rest of the world. "World War Three?" one of them says - they're not quite joking. The US going into recession, further spikes in the oil price, cyber attacks on this country from adversaries like Iran and Russia - there are all sorts of pressures outside the government's control that could wreak havoc with the economy.

Don't forget there will be a budget in the Autumn, with a broad expectation that more tax rises could be on the way – partly because of the costs of international turmoil, partly because of long term stubborn problems in the UK, and partly because of the consequences of the government's own choices.

The backdrop to year one in government has been incredibly difficult because of these myriad factors. In the next year, the overall context may not get much easier, if at all.

What happens in the rest of the world could "obliterate" the budget choices the chancellor has already made. If the economy turns for the worse because of factors around the world, all bets are off.

One MP expressed some sympathy for No 10. As they put it, "What is the bandwidth when you have Israel, Iran, welfare, and the economy to deal with? There is no lightness in politics."

The risk now is that the growing pains of year one could become embedded political problems in year two. After the welfare struggle, the winter fuel backtrack, and with genuine unhappiness on the backbenches, it is possible that Parliament becomes a regular obstacle for the government.

"Worst case?" says an influential figure on the left, "you'll have a big collective number [in the Commons] saying, well, you are not going to do it", leaving Downing Street as an administration with a big majority but only a small chance of getting things done.

"We might just continue to wobble," adds a senior source, "we have such a huge majority we should be able to be confident and stride out together – but the worst case is, we are still drowning" this time next year.

Local elections will be held in May next year, and the results will be incredibly important.

The best case scenario at the ballot box? A member of the government says, "Next year is essentially like mid-terms – we could win in Scotland, we do well in Wales and show at least some progress in England."

But the worst case scenario, with Reform gnawing at Labour's vote from the right, and the Liberal Democrats and Greens from the left is "disastrous results in the locals", says one No 10 source.

They predict that Labour is unlikely to hold on in Wales, that it will fail to get far in Scotland - and before long, you're in a "cycle of insecurity", one senior MP warns.

Blood in the water

There are fears too that relationships in the party's top echelons might splinter, some with their own ambitions, wondering if they could prosper as a result of Starmer's difficulties. A senior figure in the Labour movement warns, "you have some people smelling blood in the water – there is some bad behaviour in that Cabinet and people ready to manoeuvre".

One senior figure reckons questions might be asked about Starmer's leadership. "It is bananas", they say, but it is not entirely impossible to imagine that within a couple of years of July 2024's history making win, there could be moves against him.

Another senior source even says, "I don't think there is a cat in hell's chance he leads us into the election".

That talk isn't taken seriously in No 10. "There is no evidence at all of any serious attempt taking shape," one source says. Another MP tells me, "It's ridiculous, it would undermine the thing we are most concerned about which is stopping the chaos of the Tory years."

Yet another, who argues that it would be foolhardy to question whether Starmer will be the leader to take Labour into the next general election, nonetheless acknowledges the conversation is out there.

"It is mindblowing, but people do go there that quickly – they do talk about it."

Could Starmer's bloodymindedness pay off?

It was Starmer and his team's mission not just to win, but to show a sceptical public that government could actually be a force for good in their lives, not a flawed institution attached to hordes of bickering politicians more interested in the sound of their own voices than getting anything done.

To make that happen they need their plans to work – whether it's building houses, or bringing down NHS waiting lists, reducing the number of small boats crossing the Channel, or filling potholes, or incredibly fraught areas such as overhauling welfare or special needs education, or social care.

There's an almost universal acceptance too, throughout Labour, that the government must get better at telling its story. They need to do this to recover in the polls, and avoid a situation where even after two years of a government with an enormous majority, and tens of billions of public cash being spent, the public is still angry, still unconvinced that politicians are ineffective at best - and harmful at worst.

A party veteran warns, "They allowed the heart of the Labour government [to] be almost unfathomable – they must recover the heart, until that is in place, no one will get what we are about."

But bluntly, as its been obvious in the last week, and over the last year, multiple sources say this still young government needs to improve if it is to avoid squandering the huge opportunity it still has – not just No 10, not just the civil service, not just party managers, not just the Cabinet but, "it's everyone's job", a minister says.

In the last 12 months, it's been perhaps surprising, as one Whitehall source suggests, that Labour "seems to have been bewildered by the normal business of politics". There is hope among many Labour insiders I spoke to that Starmer's ability to keep going, relentlessly, however bad the circumstances, will ultimately pay off, through sheer bloodymindedness, they will be rewarded in the end – not with love, but a grudging respect from the electorate by 2029.

But the question for the next 12 months - maybe even the next 12 hours or 12 days - is whether the prime minister and his party, can put this year's painfully gained wisdom to good use.

Is the UK really any safer 20 years on from 7/7?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c14e77je72mo, 4 days ago

There are extraordinary secret surveillance images - now largely forgotten - that in their own grainy and mysterious way, tell the story of missed opportunities that maybe, just maybe, could have stopped the horrific suicide attacks that took place in London 20 years ago.

They are images of the ringleader of the 7/7 bombings - first caught on camera at an al-Qaeda-associated training camp in the Lake District in 2001.

Two more images from 2004 show him - name and intentions then unknown - meeting a different cell of bomb plotters outside London and being followed by an MI5 team as he made his way back to Leeds.

'Of course it was a failure'

The 7/7 attacks were the worst wake-up call imaginable for the UK's then outdated counter-terrorism operations.

Until that day in 2005, the UK's response to terrorism groups was heavily influenced by the experience of combating the IRA, which organised itself along military lines.

Al-Qaeda (AQ) was also broadly organised in a military way - directing its adherents, including the 7/7 bombers. But the key lesson from 7/7 was that this analogy only went so far.

MI5 and the police realised they had to work closer together to penetrate AQ's cells.

MI5 teams were the experts in secretly gathering intelligence. They could bug, burgle and listen to "subjects of interest", to use the jargon. But in the run-up to 7/7, the agency often fell short of sharing that information widely and quickly enough.

Peter Clarke was the Metropolitan Police officer in charge of counter-terrorism policing at the time of 7/7.

"I haven't spoken to anybody who was involved in either counter-terrorism or in the intelligence agencies, who don't regard it as a failure," he told me. "Of course it was."

The failure was complex. Lord Jonathan Evans, the former head of MI5 - and at the time of 7/7, the deputy head - highlights the pressure intelligence teams were under.

"You have to make choices in counter-terrorism investigations. You can't investigate everything, so the question is are you investigating the most immediately threatening intelligence and making the right priority calls?"

The reason why the future 7/7 ringleader was put to one side in 2004 was that there was no substantial intelligence that he was actually planning an attack.

The agencies were focusing on a huge bomb plot they knew about - Operation Crevice. It was run by the men Khan was seen meeting. But the brutal fact was that they had no idea that Khan could be a serious threat because he had been discounted as a priority for further investigation.

How MI5 foiled the liquid bomb plot

The 2005 attacks forced the agency and police to think deeply about how they could end a doom loop of not investigating someone because they had decided they didn't know enough to think they were worth investigating.

Some of that was about funding - and there was a huge injection into counter-terrorism in the years that followed.

But more importantly MI5, alongside their partners in the police, began to develop a better "triage" system to work out which of the thousands of potential plotters they had titbits of intelligence about needed to be prioritised.

That helped get the police closer, more quickly, to the point where they could seize evidence to land someone in jail.

Nowhere was this more successful than in Operation Overt, which came a year after 7/7. The Overt plotters had an al-Qaeda recipe for a liquid bomb disguised as a soft drink - and they planned to blow up transatlantic planes.

MI5 captured in extraordinary detail the gang's preparations. They saw the men working with tools to make strange-looking devices from household items including drink bottles and camera flash circuits.

Nobody was sure what they were up to - until the surveillance revealed the men recording "martyrdom" videos envisaging their own deaths mid-air.

This time, the intelligence was being shared in almost real-time - and the police and prosecutors dived in and arrested and charged the gang before the devices were finally ready. The success of Operation Overt shows that plots could be disrupted early.

Lord Evans points to another critical shift in thinking. "We had always been predominantly, not exclusively, a London-based organisation," he says. "But when you recognise that the 7/7 bombers came down from Yorkshire, the threat was national.

"We needed to have an effective regional network working very closely with the police in the major cities and that was accelerated and was a very successful way of ensuring that we were able to find out what was happening in Manchester or Birmingham or wherever as effectively as we had traditionally done in London."

Then, in 2006, Parliament created a new offence of preparing for acts of terrorism.

This meant the police could swoop in even earlier than in the case of Operation Overt - even before an attacker's plan was settled. All they needed now was to show a court that an individual had a terrorism mindset and was taking steps towards an outrage - such as researching targets, even if their plan was not finalised.

Max Hill KC led some of the UK's most complex terrorism trials - and went on to be the Director of Public Prosecutions between 2018 and 2023. He always wanted the strongest case to put to a jury and judge - in order to get the longest possible sentence to protect the public. But in the case of a bomb-maker, that presented a dilemma for the police and MI5.

"How long to let a person run towards their ultimate aim of deploying devices?" he says. "The longer you leave it, the more serious the jail sentence. But the longer you wait, the greater the risk that there will be damage or harm."

Success after success followed - and cells of plotters were also increasingly infiltrated by spooks finding secret ways to capture chats about plans. Until, that is, the rise of the self-styled Islamic State, which changed all of that once again.

DIY attacks across Europe

By 2014, thousands of young radicalised men and women had flocked to the territory the group had seized in Syria and Iraq, convinced that the ultra-violent movement was building a utopian state.

Its ideologues told some followers, who could not travel, to plan their own attacks at home and without any direction from commanders.

This was a new and terrifying prospect - and led to a wave of DIY attacks across Europe, including in the UK. So the government turned to other tools to "disrupt" extremists coming home from abroad, by cancelling their passports or stripping citizenship.

The first of a number of attacks in 2017 was committed by a killer who drove into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before stabbing to death a police officer at the gates of Parliament. He acted without warning and seemingly alone, rapidly self-radicalising - moving from thought to violence before his intentions became clear to anyone else.

The rapidity of these attacks - and the regularity of them, disrupted or acted out, had an extraordinary consequence that further complicated the picture. Far-right extremists watched and learned and, seeking a form of "revenge", became determined to respond in kind.

In 2015, a 25-year-old member of National Action, a now banned extreme right-wing group, carried out a racist attack on a Sikh-heritage dentist in a supermarket. The attacker acted alone. The man who murdered Jo Cox MP a year later, during the Brexit referendum, planned and acted in a similar manner.

This DIY rapid violence did not rely on personal connections to puppet-masters. It was increasingly linked to how extremists found and absorbed extremist material all over the internet.

But that also presented an opportunity. The security service and partners - including the FBI - created teams of "online role-players". They would pose as extremist recruiters in vile chat groups to identify would-be attackers and befriend them. It began to work.

One early success in 2017 saw a young man, angry at the death of his uncle who had been fighting in Syria, ask these spies for a bomb to attack Downing Street. It was a crazy and unrealisable plan. But he genuinely wanted to do it.

The Prevent system - which was set up to identify potential extremists and to stop them supporting terrorism - struggled to win public support amid fears that it was a network to spy on people.

But today it is a vital tool in the state's armoury - with figures showing that since 2015, some 5,000 young people have been identified as being at risk of extremism and given support, typically through counselling and mentoring, to reject it.

Why MI5 failed to stop the Manchester bombing

The Manchester Arena terror attack of 2017 - in which 22 people were killed - revealed that MI5 missed a significant chance to focus on the would-be suicide bomber and stop him - but it also revealed how lax security at public gatherings could be exploited.

Figen Murray's son Martyn Hett was one of the 22 killed.

"You don't ever come to terms with it," she tells me. "It's the brutality, the randomness. These people who commit terrorist attacks do not care who they kill. They don't select people in most cases.

"Our loved ones are pawns in a big game, because terrorists really want to make a statement against the state."

Her grief spurred her on to come up with one of the biggest legal changes of the last 20 years - a practical measure to protect people if the security services fail to spot an incoming threat.

Along with Nick Aldworth, a former senior police officer, they lobbied government to create "Martyn's Law".

The legislation - which is coming into force over two years - requires venues to have a security plan to help stop acts of terrorism on their premises.

In time, sites with more than 800 people will need extra measures such as CCTV or security staff and all venues that can hold more than 200 people will have to devise some kind of plan to protect the public and make sure their staff know how to act on it in an emergency.

At the O2 Arena in London, for example, staff process arriving guests a bit like they are going through an airport. There are machines available to scan for weapons too.

Violence without an ideology

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vicky Evans, the current head of counter-terrorism policing, says her officers are seeing suspects getting younger, with violent material on the internet playing a role in that.

In some cases officers are trying to work out what to do about people bent on extreme violence, inspired by acts of terrorism, but who have no clear-cut ideology.

Many of these complex cases are referred by the police to the Prevent counter-radicalisation programme to see if specialist mentors can help.

The case of the Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana - who had been repeatedly flagged to Prevent - is at the heart of a debate about internet-fuelled violence. The forthcoming public inquiry will look for answers, and may even mean we have to rethink what we mean by the word "terrorism".

The Home Secretary Yvette Cooper's recent decision to ban Palestine Action under terrorism laws - for causing massive criminal damage - is further adding to a national debate about what threats the counter-terrorism network should confront.

Today, many many more powers are in place - and the UK's counter-terrorism network, which has a dedicated secret headquarters in London, is a well-oiled machine. But the threat is more diverse than ever.

Since 2017, the police say there have been 15 domestic terrorism incidents and they have disrupted 43 "late-stage" plots.

In the wake of the 2005 attacks, Sir Tony Blair was accused of trampling over civil liberties in the search for the right set of powers he thought the security services needed.

I asked whether he had got the balance right - and the question he posed back will be in the mind of every one of his successors.

"The most fundamental basic liberty is to be protected from violence - and particularly random terrorist violence," he said.

"You've got to ask yourself, are the policy tools we have in our toolbox adequate to deal with the threat?"

Additional Reporting: Jonathan Brunert

Top image credits: AFP via Getty and Justin Talli

How Trump is using the 'Madman Theory' to try to change the world (and it's working)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxww2kez0go, 5 days ago

Asked last month whether he was planning to join Israel in attacking Iran, US President Donald Trump said "I may do it. I may not do it. Nobody knows what I'm going to do".

He let the world believe he had agreed a two-week pause to allow Iran to resume negotiations. And then he bombed anyway.

A pattern is emerging: The most predictable thing about Trump is his unpredictability. He changes his mind. He contradicts himself. He is inconsistent.

"[Trump] has put together a highly centralised policy-making operation, arguably the most centralised, at least in the area of foreign policy, since Richard Nixon," says Peter Trubowitz, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics.

"And that makes policy decisions more dependent on Trump's character, his preferences, his temperament."

Trump has put this to political use; he has made his own unpredictability a key strategic and political asset. He has elevated unpredictability to the status of a doctrine. And now the personality trait he brought to the White House is driving foreign and security policy.

It is changing the shape of the world.

Political scientists call this the Madman Theory, in which a world leader seeks to persuade his adversary that he is temperamentally capable of anything, to extract concessions. Used successfully it can be a form of coercion and Trump believes it is paying dividends, getting the US's allies where he wants them.

But is it an approach that can work against enemies? And could its flaw be that rather than being a sleight of hand designed to fool adversaries, it is in fact based on well established and clearly documented character traits, with the effect that his behaviour becomes easier to predict?

Attacks, insults and embraces

Trump began his second presidency by embracing Russian President Vladimir Putin and attacking America's allies. He insulted Canada by saying it should become the 51st state of the US.

He said he was prepared to consider using military force to annex Greenland, an autonomous territory of America's ally Denmark. And he said the US should retake ownership and control of the Panama Canal.

Article 5 of the Nato charter commits each member to come to the defence of all others. Trump threw America's commitment to that into doubt. "I think Article 5 is on life support" declared Ben Wallace, Britain's former defence secretary.

Conservative Attorney General Dominic Grieve said: "For now the trans-Atlantic alliance is over."

A series of leaked text messages revealed the culture of contempt in Trump's White House for European allies. "I fully share your loathing of European freeloaders," US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told his colleagues, adding "PATHETIC".

In Munich earlier this year, Trump's Vice-President JD Vance said the US would no longer be the guarantor of European security.

That appeared to turn the page on 80 years of trans-Atlantic solidarity. "What Trump has done is raise serious doubts and questions about the credibility of America's international commitments," says Prof Trubowitz.

"Whatever understanding those countries [in Europe] have with the United States, on security, on economic or other matters, they're now subject to negotiation at a moment's notice.

"My sense is that most people in Trump's orbit think that unpredictability is a good thing, because it allows Donald Trump to leverage America's clout for maximum gain…

"This is one of his takeaways from negotiating in the world of real estate."

Trump's approach paid dividends. Only four months ago, Sir Keir Starmer told the House of Commons that Britain would increase defence and security spending from 2.3% of GDP to 2.5%.

Last month, at a Nato summit, that had increased to 5%, a huge increase, now matched by every other member of the Alliance.

The predictability of unpredictability

Trump is not the first American president to deploy an Unpredictability Doctrine. In 1968, when US President Richard Nixon was trying to end the war in Vietnam, he found the North Vietnamese enemy intractable.

"At one point Nixon said to his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, 'you ought to tell the North Vietnamese negotiators that Nixon's crazy and you don't know what he's going to do, so you better come to an agreement before things get really crazy'," says Michael Desch, professor of international relations at Notre Dame University. "That's the madman theory."

Julie Norman, professor of politics at University College London, agrees that there is now an Unpredictability Doctrine.

"It's very hard to know what's coming from day to day," she argues. "And that has always been Trump's approach."

Trump successfully harnessed his reputation for volatility to change the trans-Atlantic defence relationship. And apparently to keep Trump on side, some European leaders have flattered and fawned.

Last month's Nato summit in The Hague was an exercise in obsequious courtship. Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte had earlier sent President Trump (or "Dear Donald") a text message, which Trump leaked.

"Congratulations and thank you for your decisive action in Iran, it was truly extraordinary," he wrote.

On the forthcoming announcement that all Nato members had agreed to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP, he continued: "You will achieve something NO president in decades could get done."

Anthony Scaramucci, who previously served as Trump's communications director in his first term, said: "Mr Rutte, he's trying to embarrass you, sir. He's literally sitting on Air Force One laughing at you."

And this may prove to be the weakness at the heart of Trump's Unpredictability Doctrine: their actions may be based on the idea that Trump craves adulation. Or that he seeks short-term wins, favouring them over long and complicated processes.

If that is the case and their assumption is correct, then it limits Trump's ability to perform sleights of hand to fool adversaries - rather, he has well established and clearly documented character traits that they have become aware of.

The adversaries impervious to charm and threats

Then there is the question of whether an Unpredictability Doctrine or the Madman Theory can work on adversaries.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, an ally who was given a dressing down by Trump and Vance in the Oval Office, later agreed to grant the US lucrative rights to exploit Ukrainian mineral resources.

Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, apparently remains impervious to Trump's charms and threats alike. On Thursday, following a telephone call, Trump said he was "disappointed" that Putin was not ready to end the war against Ukraine.

And Iran? Trump promised his base that he would end American involvement in Middle Eastern "forever wars". His decision to strike Iran's nuclear facilities was perhaps the most unpredictable policy choice of his second term so far. The question is whether it will have the desired effect.

The former British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has argued that it will do precisely the opposite: it will make Iran more, not less likely, to seek to acquire nuclear weapons.

Prof Desch agrees. "I think it's now highly likely that Iran will make the decision to pursue a nuclear weapon," he says. "So I wouldn't be surprised if they lie low and do everything they can to complete the full fuel cycle and conduct a [nuclear] test.

"I think the lesson of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi is not lost on other dictators facing the US and potential regime change...

"So the Iranians will desperately feel the need for the ultimate deterrent and they'll look at Saddam and Gaddafi as the negative examples and Kim Jong Un of North Korea as the positive example."

One of the likely scenarios is the consolidation of the Islamic Republic, according to Mohsen Milani, a professor of politics at the University of South Florida and author of Iran's Rise and Rivalry with the US in the Middle East.

"In 1980, when Saddam Hussein attacked Iran his aim was the collapse of the Islamic Republic," he says. "The exact opposite happened.

"That was the Israeli and American calculation too... That if we get rid of the top guys, Iran is going to surrender quickly or the whole system is going to collapse."

A loss of trust in negotiations?

Looking ahead, unpredictability may not work on foes, but it is unclear whether the recent shifts it has yielded among allies can be sustained.

Whilst possible, this is a process built largely on impulse. And there may be a worry that the US could be seen as an unreliable broker.

"People won't want to do business with the US if they don't trust the US in negotiations, if they're not sure the US will stand by them in defence and security issues," argues Prof Norman. "So the isolation that many in the MAGA world seek is, I think, going to backfire."

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for one has said Europe now needs to become operationally independent of the US.

"The importance of the chancellor's comment is that it's a recognition that US strategic priorities are changing," says Prof Trubowitz. "They're not going to snap back to the way they were before Trump took office.

"So yes, Europe is going to have to get more operationally independent."

This would require European nations to develop a much bigger European defence industry, to acquire kit and capabilities that currently only the US has, argues Prof Desch. For example, the Europeans have some sophisticated global intelligence capability, he says, but a lot of it is provided by the US.

"Europe, if it had to go it alone, would also require a significant increase in its independent armaments production capability," he continues. "Manpower would also be an issue. Western Europe would have to look to Poland to see the level of manpower they would need."

All of which will take years to build up.

So, have the Europeans really been spooked by Trump's unpredictability, into making the most dramatic change to the security architecture of the western world since the end of the Cold War?

"It has contributed," says Prof Trubowitz. "But more fundamentally, Trump has uncorked something… Politics in the United States has changed. Priorities have changed. To the MAGA coalition, China is a bigger problem than Russia. That's maybe not true for the Europeans."

And according to Prof Milani, Trump is trying to consolidate American power in the global order.

"It's very unlikely that he's going to change the order that was established after World War Two. He wants to consolidate America's position in that order because China is challenging America's position in that order."

But this all means that the defence and security imperatives faced by the US and Europe are diverging.

The European allies may be satisfied that through flattery and real policy shifts, they have kept Trump broadly onside; he did, after all, reaffirm his commitment to Article 5 at the most recent Nato summit. But the unpredictability means this cannot be guaranteed - and they have seemed to accept that they can no longer complacently rely on the US to honour its historic commitment to their defence.

And in that sense, even if the Unpredictability Doctrine comes from a combination of conscious choice and Trump's very real character traits, it is working, on some at least.

Top image credit: Getty Images

Is RFK Jr's divisive plan to Make America Healthy Again fearmongering - or revolutionary?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ceq7jx3dlj9o, 10 days ago

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There's a saying that Robert F Kennedy Jr is very fond of. He used it on the day he was confirmed as US health secretary. "A healthy person has a thousand dreams, a sick person only has one," he said as he stood in the Oval Office. "60% of our population has only one dream – that they get better."

The most powerful public health official in the US has made it his mission to tackle what he describes as an epidemic of chronic illness in America, a catch-all term that covers everything from obesity and diabetes to heart disease.

His diagnosis that the US is experiencing an epidemic of ill health is a view shared by many healthcare experts in the country.

But Kennedy also has a history of promoting unfounded health conspiracies, from the suggestion that Covid-19 targeted and spared certain ethnic groups to the idea that chemicals in tap water could be making children transgender.

And after taking office, he slashed thousands of jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services and eliminated whole programmes at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

"On the one hand, it's extraordinarily exciting to have a federal official take on chronic disease," says Marion Nestle, a retired professor of public health at New York University. "On the other, the dismantling of the federal public health apparatus cannot possibly help with the agenda."

Kennedy is reviled by parts of the medical and scientific communities. He was described to me as an "evil nihilist" by Dr Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease doctor and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University.

But even some of Kennedy's critics accept that he is bringing drive and ambition to areas of healthcare that have been neglected. Is it possible that the man who attracts so much criticism - and in some quarters, hate - might actually start making America healthy again?

American 'kids swimming in a toxic soup'

There's one industry that Kennedy had set his sights on long before joining the Trump administration: multinational food companies have, he has said, poisoned American children with artificial additives already banned in other countries.

"We have a generation of kids who are swimming around in a toxic soup right now," he claimed on Fox News last year.

His first target was food colourings, with a promise to phase out the use of petroleum-based dyes by the end of 2026.

Chemicals, with names like 'Green No. 3' and 'Red No. 40', have been linked to hyperactivity and behavioural issues in children, and cancer in some animal studies.

"What's happening in this administration is really interesting," says Vani Hari, a food blogger and former Democrat who is now an influential voice in the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. "MAHA is all about how do we get people off processed food, and one way to do that is to regulate the chemicals companies use."

There are some signs this pressure may be paying off.

The food giant PepsiCo, for example, said in a recent trading update that Lays crisps and Tostitos snacks "will be out of artificial colours by the end of this year".

Kennedy struck a voluntary agreement with the food industry but it only came after individual states from California to West Virginia had already started introducing their own laws.

"In the case of food dyes, companies will have to act because states are banning them [anyway] and they won't want to have to formulate separate products for separate states," says Prof Nestle, an author and longtime critic of the industry.

More recently Kennedy has signalled he backs a radical food bill in Texas that could target additives in some products ranging from sweets, to cereals and fizzy drinks.

Packets may soon have to carry a high-contrast label stating, "WARNING: This product contains an ingredient that is not recommended for human consumption by the appropriate authority in Australia, Canada, the European Union, or the United Kingdom."

The Consumer Brands Association, which represents some of the largest food manufacturers, opposes this, saying the ingredients used in the US food supply are safe and have been rigorously studied.

It's difficult to imagine that kind of regulation could ever be signed off in a state like Texas without the political backing of Kennedy and President Trump.

Is RFK 'drifting into misinformation'?

"He can't change everything in a short amount of time, but I think the issue of food dyes will soon be history," says Ms Hari, who testified before the Senate on this subject last year.

But others worry that the flurry of announcements on additives is tinkering around the edges of what is a much wider problem.

"While some of these individual actions are important, they are a drop in the ocean in the larger context of chronic disease," argues Nicola Hawley, professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health. "There is a focus on personal choice and access to natural food, but that completely ignores the big, systematic and structural barriers [to healthy eating] like poverty and really aggressive marketing of junk food to children."

The US government, for example, still heavily subsidises crops including corn and soya beans, key ingredients in processed foods.

Kennedy is now updating the US national dietary guidelines, an important document used to shape everything from school meals to assistance programmes for the elderly. A reduction in added sugars and a switch to more locally sourced whole foods is expected. Plus he has called on states to ban millions of Americans from using food stamps, a welfare benefit, to buy junk food or sugar-sweetened drinks.

He has also backed local officials who want to stop adding fluoride to drinking water, describing it as a "dangerous neurotoxin". It is used in some countries, including in parts of the US, to prevent tooth decay, and whilst there is still debate about the possible health effects, the NHS says a review of the risks has found "no convincing evidence" to support any concerns. Other fluoride research has found the mineral only has detrimental health effects at extremely high levels.

Prof Hawley also argues there is a tension between Kennedy's "important message" on food and chronic disease, and what she feels is a lack of policies backed by solid scientific evidence.

"You've got this challenge of him drifting into misinformation about the links between additives and chronic disease, or environmental risk factors," she argues. "And that really just undermines the science."

'He is not anti vax, he is anti corruption'

That tension is even clearer when it comes to another of Kennedy's big concerns.

Vaccines are still listed on the CDC website as one of the great public health achievements of the last century, alongside family planning and tobacco control. They prevent countless cases of disease and disability each year, and save millions of lives, according to the American Medical Association.

Kennedy, though, is the best-known vaccine sceptic in the country. The activist group he ran for eight years, Children's Health Defense, repeatedly questioned the safety and efficacy of vaccination.

In 2019 he described the disgraced British doctor Andrew Wakefield as the "most unfairly maligned person in modern history" and told a crowd in Washington that "any just society" would be building statues of him.

Wakefield was struck off the UK medical register in 2010 after his research falsely linked the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine to autism, leading to a spike in measles cases in England and some other countries.

Over the last year, Kennedy has repeatedly insisted he is not "anti-vax" and will not be "taking away anybody's vaccines". Faced with a deadly measles outbreak in unvaccinated children in west Texas, he posted that the MMR was "the most effective way to prevent the spread of the disease".

In other comments though, he described vaccination as a "personal choice" and emphasised alternative treatments such as vitamin A supplements.

A huge deal with the drugmaker Moderna to develop a vaccine to combat bird flu in humans was scrapped, and new rules were brought in which could mean some vaccines need extra testing before they can be updated each winter.

In May, Kennedy posted a video on social media saying the government would no longer endorse Covid vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women.

However, some doctors point out that reducing eligibility would simply bring the US into line with other countries, including the UK, where free Covid boosters are restricted to those over 75 or with weakened immune systems.

"They are really just aligning themselves with everyone else, which is not in any way outrageous," says Prof Adam Finn, a paediatric doctor and one of the UK's leading experts on vaccines.

Then in June, Kennedy suddenly sacked all 17 members of the influential expert committee, which advises the CDC on vaccine eligibility. He accused the panel of being "plagued with persistent conflicts of interest" and rubber-stamping new vaccines without proper scrutiny.

A new, much smaller, committee handpicked by the administration now has the power to change, or even drop, critical recommendations to immunise Americans for certain diseases, as well as shape the childhood vaccination programme.

"It underscores just how much we are backsliding now," says Dr Amesh Adalja, the infectious disease doctor and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University. "I think increasingly the panel will become irrelevant if RFK Jr is able to shape it the way he wants to."

The new panel made its first decision last week, voting to stop recommending a small number of flu vaccines that still contain the preservative thimerosal, something Kennedy wrote a book about in 2015.

His critics say that a new era of vaccine policy has arrived in the US. Whilst his supporters say no subject, including vaccine safety, should be considered off-limits.

"Everything has to be open to discussion and Bobby Kennedy is not anti-vaccine, he's anti-corruption," argues Tony Lyons, who co-founded the political action committee that supported his independent presidential campaign.

"It's about being pro-science, pro-capitalism, and believing you have an obligation to the public to do a thorough job of researching any product that is put in the arms of 40 million children."

The autism puzzle

Weeks after Kennedy took office news emerged that the CDC would open a research project into the link between vaccines and autism.

Since Wakefield's now-discredited Lancet paper in 1998, which linked autism to the MMR vaccine given to children, there have been numerous international studies that have looked at this in detail and found no reputable link.

"There is nothing to debate any more, it has been settled by science," says Eric Fombonne, an autism researcher and professor emeritus at Oregon Health & Science University.

Kennedy, though, has hired David Geier, a noted vaccine sceptic, to look again at the data.

Today autism is widely understood to be a lifelong spectrum condition. It can include those with high support needs who are non-speaking, and those with above-average intelligence who might struggle with social interaction or communication.

Most researchers believe a rise in cases over decades is down to a broadening in the way children with autism are defined, as well as improved awareness, understanding and screening.

But in April, Kennedy dismissed that idea, describing autism as "preventable". He blamed a mysterious environmental trigger for the increase in eight-year-olds being diagnosed.

"This is coming from an environmental toxin… [in] our air, our water, our medicines, our food," he said.

He pledged a massive research effort to find that cause by September and "eliminate those exposures".

Dr Fombonne strongly disputes this. "It is nonsensical and shows a complete absence of understanding," he says. "We have known for many years that autism has a strong genetic component."

In the same speech, Kennedy said that many autistic children will never "pay taxes, never hold a job. They'll never play baseball. They'll never write a poem. They'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted."

Many in the autism community are angry. "What we're seeing here is a fear-based rhetoric and [a] misleading narrative that is causing harm and perpetuating stigma," says Kristyn Roth from the Autism Society of America.

But some parents of autistic children are more supportive.

Emily May, a writer who is the mother of a child with autism, wrote in The New York Times that she found herself "nodding along as Mr Kennedy spoke about the grim realities of profound autism".

"His remarks echo the reality and pain of a subset of parents of children with autism who feel left out of much of the conversation," she wrote.

The administration has since watered down that promise to find the reasons for autism by September but it is still promising detailed findings of its research by March 2026.

An imperfect messenger?

Ultimately, Robert Kennedy has only been in the job a matter of months. Already though he's asking some big questions – particularly about chronic disease – which have never been asked in the same way by a health secretary before.

For the first time that issue has both political attention and bipartisan support in the US.

He is clearly not afraid to take on what he perceives to be vested interests in the food and drug industries, and he is still firmly supported by President Trump.

Tony Lyons, who has published books by Kennedy, calls him "uniquely qualified" for the most powerful job in US public health. "He's a corruption fighter. He has seen what all these kinds of companies do, not just pharmaceutical companies but food companies, and he wants them to do a better job," he says.

Robert Kennedy's background as an environmental lawyer taking on big business and the establishment has clearly shaped the views he holds today.

But Jerold Mande, a former federal food policy advisor in three administrations, worries that Kennedy's own views and biases will mean some of the solutions he's reaching for are predetermined and unsupported by the evidence.

Now a professor of nutrition at Harvard, Prof Mande describes Kennedy as an imperfect messenger and says he has "great concerns" about the administration's approach to aspects of public health, from tobacco control to vaccination, where there is "no question that what he's doing is going to result in enormous harm."

"At a high level, I'm optimistic... but you still need to come up with the right answers, and those answers can only be found through science," says Prof Mande.

"We now have a shot and he's provided that by making it a priority. But it's how you use that shot that's going to determine whether it's a success or not. And that is where the jury is still out."

Top image credits: Chip Somodevilla / Staff via Getty and Tom Williams via Getty

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner was deemed the 'safest' of planes. The whistleblowers were always less sure

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyq7vgq2e5o, 11 days ago

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The Air India tragedy, in which at least 270 people died, involved one of Boeing's most innovative and popular planes. Until now, it was considered one of its safest too.

We still do not know why flight 171 crashed just 30 seconds after take-off. Investigators have now recovered flight recorder data and are working hard to find out. But the incident has drawn attention to the aircraft involved: the 787 Dreamliner, the first of a modern generation of radical, fuel-efficient planes.

Prior to the accident, the 787 had operated for nearly a decade and a half without any major accidents and without a single fatality. During that period, according to Boeing, it carried more than a billion passengers. There are currently more than 1,100 in service worldwide.

However, it has also suffered from a series of quality control problems.

Whistleblowers who worked on the aircraft have raised numerous concerns about production standards. Some have claimed that potentially dangerously flawed aircraft have been allowed into service – allegations the company has consistently denied.

The Sonic Cruiser and the 9/11 effect

It was on a chilly December morning in 2009 that a brand-new aircraft edged out onto the runway at Paine Field airport near Seattle and, as a cheering crowd looked on, accelerated into a cloudy sky.

The flight was the culmination of years of development and billions of dollars worth of investment.

The 787 was conceived in the early 2000s, at a time of rising oil prices, when the increasing cost of fuel had become a major preoccupation for airlines. Boeing decided to build a long-haul plane for them that would set new standards in efficiency.

"In the late 1990s, Boeing was working on a design called the Sonic Cruiser," explains aviation historian Shea Oakley.

This was firstly conceived as a plane that would use advanced materials and the latest technology to carry up to 250 passengers at just under the speed of sound. The initial emphasis was on speed and cutting journey times, rather than fuel economy.

"But then the effects of 9/11 hit the world airline industry quite hard," says Mr Oakley.

"The airlines told Boeing what they really needed was the most fuel-efficient, economical long-range jetliner ever produced. They now wanted an aeroplane with a similar capacity to the Sonic Cruiser, minus the high speed."

Boeing abandoned its initial concept, and began work on what became the 787. In doing so, it helped create a new business model for airlines.

Instead of using giant planes to transport huge numbers of people between "hub" airports, before placing them on connecting flights to other destinations, they could now fly smaller aircraft on less crowded direct routes between smaller cities which would previously have been unviable.

Airbus's superjumbo vs Boeing's fuel efficiency

At the time Boeing's great rival, the European giant Airbus, was taking precisely the opposite approach. It was developing the gargantuan A380 superjumbo – a machine tailor-made for carrying as many passengers as possible on busy routes between the world's biggest and busiest airports.

In hindsight, Boeing's approach was wiser. The fuel-thirsty A380 went out of production in 2021, after only 251 had been built.

"Airbus thought the future was giant hubs where people would always want to change planes in Frankfurt or Heathrow or Narita," explains aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia, who is a managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory.

"Boeing said 'no, people want to fly point to point'. And Boeing was extremely right."

The 787 was a truly radical aircraft. It was the first commercial plane to be built primarily of composites such as carbon fibre, rather than aluminium, in order to reduce weight. It had advanced aerodynamics to reduce drag.

It also used highly efficient modern engines from General Electric and Rolls Royce, and it replaced many mechanical and pneumatic systems with lighter electrical ones.

All of this, Boeing said, would make it 20% more efficient than its predecessor, the Boeing 767. It was also significantly quieter, with a noise footprint (the area on the ground affected by significant noise from the aircraft) that the manufacturer said was up to 60% smaller.

Emergency landings and onboard fires

Not long after the aircraft entered service, however, there were serious problems. In January 2013, lithium-ion batteries caught fire aboard a 787 as it waited at a gate at Boston's Logan International Airport.

A week later, overheating batteries forced another 787 to make an emergency landing during an internal flight in Japan.

The design was grounded worldwide for several months, while Boeing came up with a solution.

Since then, day to day operations have been smoother, but production has been deeply problematic. Analysts say this may, in part, have been due to Boeing's decision to set up a new assembly line for the 787 in North Charleston, South Carolina – more than 2000 miles from its Seattle heartlands.

This was done to take advantage of the region's low rates of union membership, as well as generous support from the state.

"There were serious development issues," says Mr Aboulafia. "Some notable production issues, related especially to the decision to create Boeing's first ever production line outside of the Puget Sound area."

Damaging whistleblower allegations

In 2019, Boeing discovered the first of a series of manufacturing defects that affected the way in which different parts of the aircraft fitted together. As more problems were found, the company widened its investigations – and uncovered further issues.

Deliveries were heavily disrupted, and halted altogether between May 2021 and July 2022, before being paused again the following year.

However, potentially the most damaging allegations about the 787 programme have come from the company's own current and former employees.

Among the most prominent was the late John Barnett, a former quality control manager at the 787 factory in South Carolina. He claimed that pressure to produce planes as quickly as possible had seriously undermined safety.

In 2019, he told the BBC that workers at the plant had failed to follow strict procedures intended to track components through the factory, potentially allowing defective parts to go missing. In some cases, he said, workers had even deliberately fitted substandard parts from scrap bins to aircraft in order to avoid delays on the production line.

He also maintained that defective fixings were used to secure aircraft decks. Screwing them into place produced razor-sharp slivers of metal, which in some cases accumulated beneath the deck in areas containing large amounts of aircraft wiring.

His claims had previously been passed to the US regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration, which partially upheld them. After investigating, it concluded that at least 53 "non-conforming" parts had gone missing in the factory.

An audit by the FAA also confirmed that metal shavings were present beneath the floors of a number of aircraft.

Boeing said its board analysed the problem and decided it did not "present a safety of flight issue", though the fixings were subsequently redesigned. The company later said it had "fully resolved the FAA's findings regarding part traceability and implemented corrective actions to prevent recurrence".

'A matter of time before something big happens'

Mr Barnett remained concerned that aircraft that had already gone into service could be carrying hidden defects serious enough to cause a major accident. "I believe it's just a matter of time before something big happens with a 787," he told me in 2019. "I pray that I am wrong."

In early 2024, Mr Barnett took his own life. At the time he had been giving evidence in a long-running whistleblower lawsuit against the company – which he maintained had victimised him as a result of his allegations. Boeing denied this.

Much of what he had alleged echoed previous claims by another former quality manager at the plant, Cynthia Kitchens.

In 2011, she had complained to regulators about substandard parts being deliberately removed from quarantine bins and fitted to aircraft, in an attempt to keep the production line moving.

Ms Kitchens, who left Boeing in 2016, also claimed employees had been told to overlook substandard work, and said defective wiring bundles, containing metallic shavings within their coatings, had been deliberately installed on planes – creating a risk of dangerous short-circuits.

Boeing has not responded to these specific allegations but says Ms Kitchens resigned in 2016 "after being informed that she was being placed on a performance improvement plan". It says that she subsequently filed a lawsuit against Boeing, "alleging claims of discrimination and retaliation unrelated to any quality issues", which was dismissed.

More recently, a third whistleblower made headlines when testifying before a senate committee last year.

Sam Salehpour, a current Boeing employee, told US lawmakers he had come forward because "the safety problems I have observed at Boeing, if not addressed could result in a catastrophic failure of a commercial aeroplane that would lead to the loss of hundreds of lives".

The quality engineer said that while working on the 787 in late 2020, he had seen the company introduce shortcuts in assembly processes, in order to speed up production and delivery of the aircraft. These, he said, "had allowed potentially defective parts and defective installations in 787 fleets".

He also noted that on the majority of aircraft he looked at, tiny gaps in the joints between sections of fuselage had not been properly rectified. This, he said, meant those joints would be prone to "premature fatigue failure over time" and created "extremely unsafe conditions for the aircraft" with "potentially catastrophic" consequences.

He suggested that more than 1,000 aircraft – the bulk of the 787 fleet – could be affected.

Boeing insists that "claims about the structural integrity of the 787 are inaccurate". It says: "The issues raised have been subject to rigorous examination under US Federal Aviation Administration oversight. This analysis has validated that the aircraft will maintain its durability and service life over several decades, and these issues do not present any safety concerns."

'Serious problems would have shown up'

There is no question that Boeing has come under huge pressure in recent years over its corporate culture and production standards. In the wake of two fatal accidents involving its bestselling 737 Max, and a further serious incident last year, it has been repeatedly accused of putting the pursuit of profit over passenger safety.

It is a perception that chief executive Kelly Ortberg, who joined the company last year, has been working hard to overturn - overhauling its internal processes and working with regulators on a comprehensive safety and quality control plan.

But has the 787 already been compromised by past failures, that may have created ongoing safety risks?

Richard Aboulafia believes not. "You know. It's been 16 years of operations, 1,200 jets and over a billion passengers flown, but no crashes until now," he says. "It's a stellar safety record."

He thinks that any major issues would already have become apparent.

"I really think production problems are more of a short-term concern," he says. "For the past few years, there's been far greater oversight of 787 production.

"For older planes, I think any serious problems would have shown up by now."

The Air India plane that crashed in Ahmedabad was more than 11 years old, having first flown in 2013.

But the Foundation for Aviation Safety, a US organisation established by the former Boeing whistleblower Ed Pierson that has previously been highly critical of the company, says it did have concerns about 787s prior to the recent crash.

"Yes, it was a possible safety risk," claims Mr Pierson. "We monitor incident reports, we monitor regulatory documents. Airworthiness directives come out that describe various issues, and it does make you wonder."

One such issue, he argues, is water potentially leaking from washroom taps into electrical equipment bays. Last year, the FAA instructed airlines to carry out regular inspections, following reports that leaks were going undetected on certain 787 models.

However, he stresses that the cause of the recent tragedy is still unknown – and that it is vital the investigation moves forward quickly, so that any problems, whether they lie with the aircraft, the airline or elsewhere, can be resolved.

For the moment, however, the 787's safety record remains strong.

"We don't know at this point what caused the Air India crash," says Scott Hamilton, managing director of aviation consulting firm Leeham Company.

"But based on what we do know about the plane, I would not hesitate to get on board a 787."

Top image credit: Getty Images

The benefits U-turn raises questions about the credibility of Labour's long-term plan

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0m8w7y10ggo, 13 days ago

About a quarter of the working age population - those aged 16 to 64 - do not currently have a job. Caring responsibilities and ill health are the most common reasons given by those who would like one.

With a four-year mandate and a towering majority, Labour might have been expected to have invested in a long-term plan to help those who are sick get back into the workforce, at least part-time. It may have cost up front, but in the future it could have delivered big savings.

Instead its determination to avoid a repeat of the Liz Truss mini-budget led them to target big savings quickly - but it ended up causing perhaps even more trouble, with the government performing a spectacular U-turn to avoid a mass Labour rebellion.

It raises significant questions, not just about how this year-old government manages its affairs day to day, but if its overall strategy to renew the country is on track.

Long-term reform vs short-term savings

The government was adamant that its "welfare reform" changes - announced in March's Green Paper - were designed to get people back to work.

The bulk of planned savings came from tightening the eligibility for Personal Independence Payments (Pip), which are paid to support people who face extra costs due to disability, regardless of whether or not they are in work.

Independent experts questioned whether more of the savings should have been redeployed to help people with ill health ease back in to the workforce, for example part time.

That could mean support such as potential employer subsidies - especially to help get younger people into work and pay taxes, rather than claim benefits long term. It could also help fill jobs - a win win for all.

Labour rebels argued that the upfront cuts were aimed at filling a Budget hole against the Chancellor's self imposed borrowing rules. Their central criticism was that this was an emergency cost-cutting exercise.

It is true that the Chancellor's Budget numbers were blown off course by higher borrowing costs, such as those emanating from US President Donald Trump's shock tariffs, so she bridged the borrowing gap with these cuts.

The welfare reform plan to save £5bn a year by 2029-30 helped Chancellor Rachel Reeves meet her "non negotiable" borrowing rules.

Indeed when the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which monitors the spending plans, said they would not in fact raise enough money, Reeves announced more welfare cuts on the day of the Spring Statement.

The main point was to raise money to help close the gap in the Budget forecast.

Insiders tell me that the welfare reform plan was in fact brought forward for this purpose. But this was still not a full programme of welfare reform designed to deal with a structural issue of rising health-related claims.

'Top slicing never works'

The former Conservative Welfare Secretary Iain Duncan Smith resigned as work and pensions secretary almost ten years ago, saying a similar plan to cut disability benefits was "indefensible".

He says the cuts should have formed part of "a wider process" of finding the best way to focus resources on those most in need.

"Top slicing never works," he says of plans to extract savings from the welfare budget without reform.

At its heart the problem is perceived to be that the current welfare structure has become overly binary, failing to accommodate a growing demographic who should be able to do at least a bit of work.

This rigidity - what ministers refer to as a "hard boundary" - inadvertently pushes individuals towards declaring complete unfitness for work, and can lead to total dependence on welfare, particularly universal credit health (UC Health), rather than facilitating a gradual transition back into employment.

For some leading experts this is, in fact, the biggest cause of the increase in health-related welfare claims. The pandemic may have accelerated the trend, but it started a decade ago.

The proportion of working age people claiming incapacity benefit had fallen well below 5% in 2015, now it's 7%.

The pandemic period exacerbated the rise as ill health rose and many claims were agreed without face-to-face meetings. These claims were also increasingly related to mental ill health.

One former minister, who did not wanted to be named, said the system had effectively broken down.

"The real trouble is people are learning to game the Pip questionnaire with help from internet sites," he says. "It's pretty straightforward to answer the questions in a way that gets the points."

As he puts it, the UK is "at the extreme of paying people for being disabled" with people getting money rather than equipment such as wheelchairs as occurs in other countries.

For most kinds of mental ill health, in kind support, such as therapies, would make more sense than cash transfers, he argues.

But some disability campaigners have said that being offered vouchers instead of cash payments and thereby removing people's automony over spending, is "an insult" and "dangerous".

These pressures can be seen in the nature of the compromise reached.

The planned cuts to Pip payments will now only apply to new claimants from November next year, sparing 370,000 current claimants out of the 800,000 expected to be affected by the changes.

Dame Meg Hillier, Labour MP and chair of the Commons Treasury committee, along with other rebels, have also pointed out that the application of the new four-point threshold for Pip payments will be designed together with disability charities.

It is a fair assumption that this so called "co-production" may enable more future claimants to retain this money.

On universal credit, the government had planned to freeze the higher rate for existing health-related claimants but the payments will now rise in line with inflation. And for future claimants of universal credit, the most severe cases will be spared from a planned halving of the payments, worth an average of £3,000 per person.

However, these calculations don't take into account the effects of £1bn the government has pulled forward to spend to help those with disabilities and long-term health conditions find work as swiftly as possible. This originally wasn't due to come in until 2029.

This change does help Labour's argument that the changes are about reform rather than cost cutting. But this is still not fully fledged radical reform on the scale that is needed to tackle a social, fiscal and economic crisis. The OBR has not yet done the numbers.

The Keep Britain Working review, led by former John Lewis boss Sir Charlie Mayfield, which was commissioned by the government to look into the role of employers in health and disability, has not yet been reported.

In the Netherlands, where a similar challenge was tackled two decades ago, their system makes employers responsible for the costs of helping people back into work for the first two years.

Here, businesses are concerned about the costs of tax, wages and employment rights policies. And there is already a fundamental question about whether the jobs are out there to support sick workers back into the workforce.

Tax rises or other spending cuts

The Institute for Fiscal Studies and Resolution Foundation think tanks have estimated the government's U-turn could cost £3bn, meaning Chancellor Rachel Reeves will either have to increase taxes in the autumn budget or cut spending elsewhere if she is to meet her self-imposed spending rules.

Extending the income tax threshold freeze again, seems a plausible plan There are still a few months to go, so the Treasury might hope that growth is sustained and that borrowing costs settle, helping with the OBR numbers.

It will not be lost on anyone that the precise cause of all this, however, was a hasty effort to try to bridge this same Budget rule maths gap that emerged in March.

Significant questions arise about just how stability and credibility-enhancing it really is to tweak fiscal plans every six months to hit Budget targets that change due to market conditions, with changes that cannot be ultimately enacted.

The idea floated by the International Monetary Fund that these Budget adjustments are only really needed once a year must seem quite attractive today.

Is Britain getting sicker?

And then there are bigger questions left hanging.

Is Britain really fundamentally sicker than it was a decade ago, and if it is, does society want to continue current levels of support? If the best medicine really is work, as some suggest, then can employers cope, and will there be enough jobs?

Or was it the system itself - previous welfare cuts - that caused the ramp up in claims in recent years, requiring a more thought-through type of reform? Should support for disability designed to help with the specific costs of physical challenges be required at similar levels by those with depression or anxiety?

Dare this government make further changes to welfare? And, in pursuing narrow Budget credibility, has it lost more political credibility without actually being able to pass its plans into law?

The government is not just boxed in. It seems to have created one of those magician's tricks where they handcuff themselves behind their backs in a locked box - only they lack the escape skills of a Houdini or Blaine.

There will be relief that the markets are calm for now, with sterling and stock markets at multi-year highs. But an effort to close a Budget gap, has ended up with perhaps even more fundamental questions about how and if the government can get things done.

Starmer's stormy first year: Why his political honeymoon was so short-lived

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2l8ge86z7o, 14 days ago

By the time polls closed at 10pm on 4 July 2024, the Labour Party knew they were likely to return to government - even if they could not quite bring themselves to believe it.

For Sir Keir Starmer, reminiscing 10 months later in an interview with me, it was an "incredible moment". Instantly, he said, he was "conscious of the sense of responsibility". And yes, he confessed, a little annoyed that his landslide victory was not quite as big as Sir Tony Blair's had been in 1997.

"I'm hugely competitive," the prime minister said. "Whether it's on the football pitch, whether it is in politics or any other aspect of life."

Sir Keir watched the exit poll with a small group of advisers as well as his wife, Victoria, and his two teenaged children. Even in that moment of unsurpassable accomplishment, this deeply private prime minister was caught between the jubilation of his aides and the more complex reaction of his children, who knew their lives were about to change forever.

Looking back, the prime minister said, he would tell himself: "Don't watch it with your family - because it did have a big impact on my family, and I could see that in my children."

It's important to remember how sunny the mood in the Labour Party was at that moment - because the weather then turned stormy with remarkable speed.

As the prime minister marks a year in office next week - which he will spend grappling with crises at home and abroad - British politics finds itself at an inflection point, where none of the old rules can be taken for granted.

So, why exactly was Sir Keir's political honeymoon so short-lived? And can he turn things around?

Where Sir Keir's difficulties began

Many members of the new cabinet had never been to Downing Street until they walked up to the famous black door on 5 July to be appointed. Why would they have been? The 14 turbulent years of opposition for the Labour Party meant that few had any experience of government.

This was a deficiency of which Sir Keir and his team were acutely aware.

As the leader of the opposition, he had spent significant time in 'Privy Council' - that's to say, confidential, meetings with civil servants to understand what was happening in Ukraine and the Middle East.

He also sought knowledge from the White House. Jake Sullivan, then US President Joe Biden's National Security Adviser, told me that he spoke to the future prime minister "every couple of months" to help him "make sense of what was happening".

"I shared with him our perspective on events in the Middle East, as well as in Ukraine and in other parts of the world," says Sullivan. "I thought he asked trenchant, focused, sharp questions. I thought he was on point.

"I thought he got to the heart of the matter, the larger issue of where all of these things were going and what was driving them. I was impressed with him."

Domestic preparations were not as smooth. For some, especially on the left of the Labour Party, this government's difficulties began with an over-cautious election campaign.

Sharon Graham, the general secretary of the trade union Unite, told me that "everyday people [were] looking for change with a big C. They were not looking for managerialism".

It's a criticism with which Pat McFadden, a senior cabinet minister, having run the campaign, is wearily familiar. "We had tried other strategies to varying degrees in 2015, 2017, 2019, many other campaigns previously - and they'd lost.

"I had one job. To win."

Breaking away from Corbynism

Having made his name as a prominent member of Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet, Sir Keir won the party leadership in 2020 offering Labour members a kind of Corbynism without Corbyn.

But before long he broke decisively with his predecessor.

In the campaign this meant not a long list of promises, but a careful approach. Reassurance was the order of the day: at the campaign's heart, a focus on what Labour wouldn't do: no increase in income tax, national insurance or VAT.

Yet a big part of preparing for government was not just the question of what this government would do, but how it would drive the government system.

For that, Sir Keir turned to Sue Gray.

Having led the Partygate investigation into Boris Johnson, Gray was already unusually high-profile for an impartial civil servant. Her close colleagues were stunned when in 2023 she agreed to take up a party political role as Sir Keir's chief of staff.

"It was a source of enormous controversy within the civil service," says Simon Case, who until a few months ago as cabinet secretary was head of the civil service.

Sue Gray's task was to use her decades of experience of the Whitehall machine to bring order to Sir Keir's longstanding team.

She started work in September 2023, and the grumblings about her work began to reach me weeks, or perhaps even days, later. Those in the team she joined had expected her to bring organisational clarity.

Tensions came when she involved herself in political questions too.

Gray also deliberately re-prioritised the voices of elected politicians in the shadow cabinet over unelected advisers.

Questions about what exactly her role should be were never quite resolved, in part because Rishi Sunak called the general election sooner than Labour had expected.

Gray spent the campaign in a separate office from the main team, working with a small group on plans for the early days in government. Yet those back in Labour HQ fretted that, from what little they gleaned, that work was inadequate.

A few days before the election those rumours reached me. I WhatsApped a confidant of Sir Keir to ask what they had heard of the preparation for government.

"Don't ask," came the reply. "I am too worried to discuss it."

A lack of decisive direction

What is unquestionable is that any prime minister would have struggled with the backdrop Sir Keir inherited.

Simon Case described to me how, on 5 July just after Sir Keir had made his first speech on the steps of No 10, he had thwacked a sleepless new prime minister with "the heavy mallet of reality".

"I don't think there are many incoming prime ministers who'd faced such challenging circumstances," he said, referring to both the country's economic situation and wars around the world.

The King's Speech on 17 July unveiled a substantial programme, making good on manifesto promises: rail nationalisation, planning reform, clean energy investment. But those hoping for a rabbit out of the hat, a defining surprise, were disappointed.

In so many crucial areas — social care, child poverty, industrial strategy — the government's instinct was to launch reviews and consultations, rather than to declare a decisive direction.

As cabinet secretary, Case could see what was happening — or not happening — across the whole of government. "There were some elements where not enough thinking had been done," he said.

"There were areas where, sitting in the centre of government, early in a new regime, the prime minister and his team, including me as his sort of core team, knew what we wanted to do, but we weren't communicating that effectively across all of government."

Not just communication within government: for us journalists there were days in that early period where it was utterly unclear what this new government wanted its story to be.

That made those early announcements, which did come, stand out even more: none more so than Chancellor Rachel Reeves's announcement on 29 July that she would means-test the winter fuel payment.

It came in a speech primarily about the government's parlous economic inheritance. That is not what it is remembered for.

Some in government admit that they expected a positive response to Reeves's radical frankness about what the government could and could not afford to do. Yet it sat in isolation - a symbol of this new government's economic priorities, with the Budget still three months away.

Louise Haigh, then the transport secretary, remembered: "It came so early and it hung on its own as such a defining policy for so long that in so many voters' minds now, that is the first thing they think about when they think about this Labour government and what it wants to do and the kinds of decisions it wants to make."

The policy lasted precisely one winter. Sir Keir and his chancellor have argued in recent weeks that they were able to change course because of a stabilising economy.

McFadden was more direct about the U-turn. "If I'm being honest, I think the reaction to it since the decision was announced was probably stronger than we thought," he admits.

'Two-tier Keir' and his first UK crisis

At the same time the chancellor stood up to announce the winter fuel cuts, news was unfolding of a horrific attack in Southport.

Misinformation about who had carried out the attack fuelled the first mass riots in this country since 2011, when Sir Keir had been the director of public prosecutions. Given the nature of the crisis, the prime minister was well placed to respond.

"As a first crisis, it was dealing with a bit of the machinery of government that he instinctively understood - policing, courts, prisons," Case says.

Sir Keir's response was practical and pragmatic — making the judicial system flow faster meant that by mid-August at least 200 rioters had already been sentenced, most jailed with an average term of two years.

But in a way that was not quite clear at the time, the riots spawned what has become one of the defining attacks on the prime minister from the right: that of 'two-tier Keir'.

The idea that some rioters were treated more harshly than other kinds of protesters had been morphed over time into a broader accusation about who and what the prime minister stood for.

Sir Keir had cancelled his family holiday to deal with the riots. Exhausted, he ended the summer dealing with questions about his personal integrity in what became known as 'freebiegate'.

Most of the gifts for which he was being criticised - clothing, glasses, concert tickets - had been accepted before the election but Sir Keir was prime minister now. Case told me there was a "naivety" about the greater scrutiny that came with leading the country.

Perhaps more than that, there was a naivety in No 10 about how Sir Keir was seen. Here was a man elected in large part because of a crisis of trust in politics. He had presented himself as different.

Telling voters that he had followed the rules was to miss the point — they thought the rules themselves were bust.

The political price of 'dispensing with' Gray

By the winter of 2024, the sense of a government failing to get a grip of itself or a handle on the public mood, had grown. A chorus of off-the-record criticism, much of it strikingly personal, threatened to overwhelm the government.

There were personal ambitions and tensions at play, but more and more insiders - some of them fans of Gray initially - were telling me that the way in which Sir Keir's chief of staff was running government was structurally flawed, with the system simply not working properly.

Gray announced in early October that she had resigned because she risked becoming a "distraction". In reality, Sir Keir had sacked her after some of his closest aides warned him he risked a mutiny if he did not.

Sue Gray was approached both for an interview and for her response to her critics but declined.

To the end she retained some supporters in the cabinet including Louise Haigh. "I felt desperately sorry for her," she says.

"It was just a really, really cruel way to treat someone who'd already been so traduced by the Tories - and then [was] traduced by our side as well."

Sir Keir appointed Gray. He empowered Gray. And he dispensed with Gray. This was the prime minister correcting his own mistakes - an episode which came at a high political price.

A bridge on the world stage

Yet on the world stage the prime minister continued to thrive, winning praise across political divides in the UK and abroad.

Jake Sullivan, Biden's adviser, was impressed by Sir Keir's handling of US President Donald Trump, describing the Oval Office meeting where the prime minister brandished an invitation from the King as "the best I've seen in terms of a leader in these early weeks going to sit down with the current president".

It's an irony that it is Sir Keir, who made his reputation trying to thwart Brexit, who has found for the UK its most defined diplomatic role of the post-Brexit era — close to the US, closer than before to Europe, at the fore of the pro-Ukraine alliance, striking trade deals with India and others.

And it has provided him with something more elusive too: a story — a narrative of a confident, pragmatic leader stepping up on the world stage, acting as a bridge between other countries in fraught times.

The risk, brought into sharp relief during the Israel-Iran conflict in recent days, is that Trump is too unpredictable for such a role to be a stable one.

The international arena has sharpened Sir Keir's choices domestically as well. Even while making welfare cuts that have displeased so many in his party, the prime minister has a clearer and more joined-up argument about prioritising security in all its forms: through work, through economic prudence, through defence of the realm.

And yet, for plenty of voters Sir Keir has found definition to his government's direction too late. Labour's poor performance last month in the local elections plus defeat at the Runcorn and Helsby by-election were a blow to Sir Keir and his team.

It's far from unheard of for a governing party to lose a by-election, but to lose it to Reform UK on the same night that Nigel Farage's party hoovered up councils across England made this a distinctively new political moment.

Two days afterwards, Paul Ovenden, Sir Keir's strategy director, circulated a memo to Downing Street aides, which I've obtained.

It called for a "relentless focus on the new centre ground in British politics".

The crucial swing voters, Ovenden wrote, "are the middle-age, working class, economically squeezed voters that we persuaded in the 2024 election campaign. Many of them voted for us in 2024 thinking we would fix the cost of living, fix the NHS, and reduce migration… we need to become more ruthless in pursuing those outcomes".

For more than 100 of Starmer's own MPs, including many of those elected for the first time in that landslide a year ago, the main priority was ruthlessly dismantling the government's welfare reforms - plunging the prime minister as he approaches his first anniversary into his gravest political crisis yet.

The stakes were beyond high. For the prime minister to have backed down to avoid defeat on this so soon after the winter fuel reversal raises questions about his ability to get his way on plenty else besides.

So, if this first year has done anything, it has clarified the stakes.

This is not just a prime minister and a Labour Party hoping to win a second term. They are trying to prove to a tetchy and volatile country that not only do they get their frustration with politics, but that they can fix it too. None of that will be possible when profound policy disagreements are on public display.

Starmer's Stormy Year: A year on from the landslide election win, the BBC's Henry Zeffman talks to insiders about the challenges Labour has faced in government (BBC Radio 4, from 30 June 2025)

Top picture credit: PA and Getty Images

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Why do Channel migrants want to come to the UK?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy9xyn30yj0o, yesterday

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron have agreed that "new and innovative solutions" are needed to tackle small boat crossings.

The UK is paying France hundreds of millions of pounds to stop the boats leaving the French coast but, so far this year, the numbers of migrants arriving in the UK this way - most of whom go on to claim asylum - have reached record levels.

France has claimed that one factor attracting them is the ability to "work without papers" in the UK economy.

BBC Verify looks at the evidence for this and other "pull factors" cited as reasons for asylum seekers to choose the UK as a destination.

The informal economy?

The French government has argued that asylum seekers come to the UK because they believe they will be able to work in its informal economy - where tax is not paid and people are employed without legal status and proper documentation.

Estimating the size of the informal economy is not simple for obvious reasons.

Nevertheless, one recent study from researchers at the European Parliament, suggests the size of the UK's was about 11% of the total economy in 2022.

This was actually lower than their estimate for France's at 14% and lower than the average of 31 European countries at 17%.

By its nature the UK's informal economy provides potential opportunities for asylum seekers - and other irregular migrants - to work illegally - and the UK government has accepted the need for more enforcement in this area.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described this as a potential "pull factor" earlier this week.

The Home Office has increased the number of visits to employers suspected of hiring unauthorised workers.

There were 10,031 visits and 7,130 arrests in the year since the July election, compared with 6,797 visits and 4,734 arrests in the same period last year.

The volume and value of fines issued has also increased.

In the year to March 2025, 2,171 fines were issued to employers worth a total of £111m. In the same period last year, there were 1,676 fines worth £31m.

There is no data on the type of businesses targeted but recent Home Office press releases have mentioned restaurants, nail bars and construction sites.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair - and a number of Labour MPs - have called for the introduction of UK-wide digital identification to help the government tackle "illegal 'off-the-books' employment".

Digital ID, which exists in many EU countries, could be used as a tool to check an individual's right to work and to clamp down on illegal working.

But given some of these countries also appear to have sizeable informal economies, it is unclear about how much impact digital IDs have in this area.

The legal economy?

Access to the legal labour market for asylum seekers, while they wait for their claims to be processed, is more restrictive in the UK than in many major European countries.

In the UK, they can apply for permission to work if they have been waiting for more than a year for an initial decision on their claim.

If granted, they can apply for jobs on the immigration salary list. There are no published figures on how many asylum seekers have been granted the right to work.

By contrast, in France asylum seekers can apply for a work permit six months after submitting their asylum application.

In Italy, they can seek employment 60 days after submitting their application.

Madeleine Sumption from Oxford University's Migration Observatory think tank said: "I'm a bit sceptical of the narrative you often hear from French politicians about the UK being a soft touch on right-to-work issues because we have broadly the same set of policies as they do and some of the same challenges on unauthorised workers."

She added that research suggests that the ability of asylum seekers to speak English over other European languages and existing family links with the UK are significant pull factors.

Another factor cited is the "general impression that the UK is a good place to live" - a message promoted by people smugglers trying to sell Channel crossings.

State support?

The majority of asylum seekers cannot access welfare benefits in the UK, but they do gain legal protections while awaiting a decision - including accommodation if they cannot support themselves financially.

They can get £49.18 per person per week loaded onto a pre-paid debit card if they are in self-catered accommodation. People receiving support in catered accommodation can get £9.95 per person per week.

Asylum seekers are generally entitled to free access to the NHS and can get some free childcare.

Children of asylum seekers are also entitled to state education and in some circumstances can qualify for free school meals.

This is in contrast to many of the migrants in Calais - hoping to cross into the UK - who have not applied for asylum in France and are not entitled to state support there, but do get limited help from charities.

Research suggests that benefits are not a significant pull factor for asylum seekers.

A 2021 paper by Aalborg University in Denmark, found that other factors, such as which countries are most likely to recognise refugee status as well as the ability to reunite with family are more influential.

Another paper, written by University of Essex professor Timothy Hatton in 2020, said border controls and processing policies have significant deterrent effects while welfare policies do not.

Ms Sumption says the findings indicate that "technical tweaks to your [benefit] system don't tend to have a big impact, [although] they may have some impact at the margins".

What about push factors?

When it comes to the overall numbers of asylum seekers, researchers also stress the importance of "push factors", such as conflict and repression in their home countries.

Some relevant context is that asylum applications have risen sharply in recent years not just in the UK, but across Europe.

Claims are up in countries like France, Germany, Spain and Italy since 2020 - and in 2024 they were higher in absolute numbers in those countries than the number of claims submitted in the UK.

Additional reporting by Tamara Kovacevic and Rob England

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Did US government cuts contribute to the Texas tragedy?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyndrwz00xo, 3 days ago

In the aftermath of the fatal Texas floods, some Democrats have warned about the "consequences" of the Trump administration's cuts to the federal government workforce, including meteorologists, with Senator Chris Murphy saying that: "Accurate weather forecasting helps avoid fatal disasters."

The suggestion is that the cuts may have impeded the ability of the National Weather Service (NWS) - the government agency which provides weather forecasts in the US - to adequately predict the floods and raise the alarm.

But the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday: "These offices [of the NWS] were well staffed… so any claims to the contrary are completely false."

BBC Verify has examined the impact of cuts under President Trump in this area and while there has been a reduction in the workforce at the NWS, experts who we spoke to said the staffing on hand for the Texas floods appears to have been adequate.

What are the cuts?

The Trump administration has proposed a 25% cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) current annual budget of $6.1bn (£4.4bn). NOAA is the agency which oversees the NWS.

This would take effect in the 2026 financial year which begins in October this year - so these particular cuts would not have contributed to the Texas tragedy.

However, the staffing levels of the NWS have already been separately reduced by the Trump administration's efficiency drive since January.

The Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), previously run by Elon Musk, offered voluntary redundancies, known as buyouts, as well as early retirements to federal government workers. It also ended the contracts of most of those who were on probation.

As a result, about 200 people at the NWS took voluntary redundancy and 300 opted for early retirement, according to Tom Fahy, legislative director of the National Weather Service Employees Organisation union. A further 100 people were ultimately fired from the service, he said.

In total, the NWS lost 600 of its approximately 4,200 staff, says Mr Fahy, causing several offices across the country to operate without the necessary staffing.

In April, the Associated Press news agency said it had seen data compiled by NWS employees showing half of its offices had a vacancy rate of 20% - double the rate a decade earlier.

Despite this, climate experts told BBC Verify that the NWS forecasts and flood warnings last week in Texas were as adequate as could be expected.

"The forecasts and warnings all played out in a normal manner. The challenge with this event was that it is very difficult to forecast this type of extreme, localised rainfall," says Avantika Gori, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University in Texas.

And Andy Hazelton, a climate scientist who modelled hurricane paths for the NOAA until he was fired during the layoffs in February, says: "I don't think the staffing issues contributed directly to this event. They got the watches and the warnings out."

What about the impact on offices in Texas?

However, some experts have suggested that staffing cuts may have impeded the ability of local NWS offices in Texas to effectively co-ordinate with local emergency services.

"There is a real question as to whether the communication of weather information occurred in a way that was sub-optimal," says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at University of California Los Angeles.

"The impact might have been partially averted if some of the people at the weather service responsible for making those communications were still employed - which they were not in some of these local offices," he adds.

The San Angelo and San Antonio offices, which cover the areas affected by the flooding, reportedly had some existing vacancies.

For example, the San Antonio office's website lists several positions as being vacant, including two meteorologists.

The NWS union legislative director told BBC Verify that the San Angelo office was missing a senior hydrologist, a scientist who specialises in flooding events.

The San Antonio office also lacked a "warning coordinating meteorologist", who coordinates communications between local forecasting offices and emergency management services in communities, Mr Fahy said.

However, he noted that both offices had temporarily upped their staffing in anticipation of a dangerous weather event, which is typical in these circumstances.

"The NWS weather forecast offices in Austin/San Antonio and San Angelo, Texas had additional forecasters on duty during the catastrophic flooding event," NWS spokeswoman Erica Grow Cei said in a statement to BBC Verify. "All forecasts and warnings were issued in a timely manner," she added.

NWS meteorologist Jason Runyen, who covers the San Antonio area, also said in a statement that where the office would typically have two forecasters on duty during clear weather, they had "up to five on staff".

When asked on Sunday if government cuts had left key vacancies unfilled at the NWS, President Trump told reporters: "No, they didn't."

Were weather balloon launches reduced?

In a video shared thousands of times on social media, US meteorologist John Morales said: "There has been a 20% reduction in weather balloon releases, launches... What we're starting to see is that the quality of the forecasts is becoming degraded."

Some social media users have been pointing to Mr Morales' words as evidence that budget cuts have limited forecasters' ability to anticipate extreme weather events like the floods in Kerr County, Texas.

Weather balloons are an important tool used by meteorologists to collect weather data - from temperatures, to humidity, pressure, or wind speed - from the upper atmosphere.

In the US, NWS stations would typically launch them twice a day.

In a series of public statements released since February, the NWS confirmed that it either suspended or reduced weather balloon launches in at least 11 locations across the country, which it attributed to a lack of staffing at the local weather forecast offices.

However, there is no evidence to suggest that any of those changes directly affected weather balloon launches in the areas impacted by the floods in Texas.

Publicly available data shows that, in the lead-up to the floods, weather balloon launches were carried out as planned at Del Rio, the launch station nearest to the flood epicentre, collecting data that informed weather forecasts which experts say were as adequate as they could be.

Additional research by Kumar Malhotra

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Fact-checking three key claims about Trump's mega-bill

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20r6vm0xl3o, 8 days ago

President Donald Trump's flagship piece of legislation - which he's labelled the "big beautiful bill" - has faced major objections from Democrats as well as from some Republicans.

It has been subject to tense negotiations amid questions about how much it could cost and its proposed cuts to some US welfare schemes.

Elon Musk has also weighed in, repeating threats to form a new political party if the "insane spending bill passes".

BBC Verify has looked at claims made about the bill's possible impact in three key areas - the US national finances, medical cover, and taxes.

How much would the bill cost?

The CBO said the spending cuts proposed in the bill would be outweighed by the tax cuts.

An analysis from the Tax Foundation think tank concluded that the bill "would increase economic output but worsen deficits". It projects that the bill would increase the level of US GDP by around 1% after 10 years relative to where it would otherwise be, but that it would also add $3.6tn (£2.6tn) to the deficit over the same period.

Some banks have said they are in favour of the bill - with the American Bankers Association writing an open letter to lawmakers saying it provides "much needed tax relief" which would boost the economy.

The experts BBC Verify spoke to said although the bill may provide some economic growth, its cost would be significantly more than this boost.

"Most analysis finds that the bill will produce a small, temporary, short-lived boost – but that over time the bill will actually be a drag on the economy," says Bobby Kogan, a federal budget expert at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning policy institute.

And Mark Zandi, an economist at the financial consultancy Moody's Analytics, says: "It will result in continued massive budget deficits, and a high and rising debt load."

What impact would the bill have on Medicaid?

"We're cutting $1.7 trillion in this bill and you're not going to feel any of it. Your Medicaid is left alone. It's left the same," Trump claimed at an event about the bill last week.

However, various studies show there will be significant reductions to Medicaid under the bill.

Medicaid is the government-run scheme which provides healthcare insurance for about 71 million low-income adults, children, pregnant women, elderly adults and people with disabilities.

Analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) - an independent health policy research group - found that the bill would cut $1tn (£729bn) from future Medicaid spending over the next 10 years.

The White House has said the bill "removes illegal aliens, enforces work requirements, and protects Medicaid for the truly vulnerable".

The CBO estimates that nearly 12 million Americans would lose health insurance by 2034 under the terms of the Senate bill - with just 1.4 million of these being people "without verified citizenship, nationality, or satisfactory immigration status".

What about the impact on taxes?

Trump has repeatedly said that not passing the bill would lead to massive tax rises on Americans - in part because the tax cuts passed during his first-term in office are due to expire at the end of this year.

"If it's not approved, your taxes will go up by 68%," the president said last week.

We asked the White House for the calculations behind Trump's claim - they responded saying the bill "prevents the largest tax hike in history" but didn't answer our question on where the specific figure comes from.

The Tax Policy Center estimates that not extending tax cuts introduced under Trump in 2017 would lead to a hike of 7.5% on average.

The body also says roughly 60% of tax payers would have to contribute more if they expire.

"The 68% figure is incorrect… It could be roughly drawn from a count of taxpayers that would see an increase in taxes, as opposed to an estimate of the actual tax increase," says Elena Patel, a tax policy expert and assistant professor at the University of Utah's business school.

Overall, the tax changes in the bill would benefit wealthier Americans more than those on lower incomes, according to the Tax Policy Center analysis. About 60% of the benefits would go to those making above $217,000 (£158,000), it found.

"There is no question that this bill will result in a massive redistribution from the poorest to the richest," says Ms Patel.

Clarification - this article was updated to more accurately describe the Center for American Progress

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Is the government meeting its pledges on illegal immigration and asylum?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9dqqj0v1ndo, 3 days ago

The prime minister has made tackling illegal immigration and "restoring order" to the asylum system a priority for the government.

Sir Keir Starmer has promised to "smash the gangs". It follows predecessor Rishi Sunak's pledge to "stop the boats".

BBC Verify looks at key government pledges - including tackling small-boat crossings, ending the use of asylum hotels and returning more people with no right to be in the country.

'Smash the gangs'

As of 6 July, 21,117 people had arrived in the UK in small boats in 2025 - up by around 56% compared with the same period in 2024.

To reduce the number of crossings, the government has pledged to disrupt the people-smuggling gangs behind them.

But it is unclear how the government plans to measure its progress, or when this goal will be met.

The Home Office told us data on actions taken by officials to disrupt criminal gangs was "being collected and may be published in the future".

There is some information on efforts to prevent small boat crossings by French authorities - who, under a 2023 deal, are receiving £476m from the UK over three years.

They say about 24,791 people were prevented from crossing between July 2024 and May 2025. We do not know what happened to them or whether they tried to cross again.

There have been high-profile cases of UK-based smugglers being sentenced, including a man who helped smuggle more than 3,000 people and raids on the continent.

And at a recent UK-EU summit both sides pledged to work together on finding solutions to tackle illegal immigration.

This includes people who arrive on small boats, or hidden in lorries, and people who remain in the UK after their legal visa expires.

The vast majority of UK immigration is legal - this includes people who have been granted permission to come to work, study, claim asylum or for other authorised purposes.

Over the past 12 months, about 44,000 people entered the UK illegally - about 5% of the nearly one million people who immigrated to the UK between April 2024 and March 2025.

'End asylum hotels'

Labour promised to "end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds" in its general election manifesto, and in the recent Spending Review.

The government wants to fulfil this pledge by 2029.

However, recent figures show there were more asylum seekers staying in hotels in March 2025 than at the end of June 2024, a few days before the general election.

At the end of June 2024, 29,585 people were in hotels, by March this year there were 32,345.

The government does not regularly publish figures on the number of actual hotels in use but figures obtained by BBC Verify show there were 218 asylum hotels in December, up from 212 in July.

The asylum process determines whether a person can remain in the UK because they have a "well-founded fear of persecution" in their home country.

Once someone applies for asylum, they gain legal protections while awaiting a decision - including accommodation if they cannot support themselves financially.

Almost everyone who arrives by small boat claims asylum - they made up a third of all asylum applications over the past 12 months. Another large group of claimants were people already in the UK who had overstayed their visas.

Since 2020, the government has been increasingly reliant on hotels, partly because the supply of other types of asylum accommodation has not kept up with the numbers arriving in small boats.

But using asylum hotels is expensive - costing £8m per day in 2023-24. The government has started to save money by adding beds to rooms in hotels to maximise the number of people in each site.

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, told Parliament in June that he did not believe the government would meet its pledge:

"Frankly, I do not think that it will be achieved", he said.

"They are very large numbers, and it is very hard to see how they are going to be reduced significantly, even over the length of the Parliament."

'Clear the asylum backlog'

The government has also promised "to clear the asylum backlog".

This refers to the backlog of claims by asylum seekers who are waiting to hear whether they will be granted refugee status and be allowed to remain in the UK.

Since last summer, there has been a 58% increase in decisions on asylum cases.

This, combined with a recent fall in applications has meant the overall backlog of asylum cases has fallen compared with the end of June 2024.

Under Labour, 40% of asylum claims were granted between January and March 2025.

Another backlog the government wants to clear is the high number of court appeals from asylum seekers following rejected claims.

That backlog has got worse since last summer's election. There were nearly 51,000 in March 2025 - a record high.

'Increase returns'

The government has also promised to "increase returns" of people with no legal right to be in the UK. It said it would set up a new returns and enforcement unit with 1,000 extra staff.

Between July 2024 (when Labour came to power) and May 2025, there were 29,867 returns recorded by the Home Office.

This is up 12% compared with the same period 12 months ago.

So the government is meeting this pledge but it is worth noting that just 7,893 people were forcibly removed - which could involve being escorted on a plane by an immigration official.

The figures also show 8,511 failed asylum seekers were returned in this period but they do not say how many were enforced or voluntary.

Separate government figures from January to March gave a fuller breakdown showing many of those who did leave voluntarily did so without government assistance or even its knowledge at the time, as BBC Verify has previously pointed out.

This is despite repeated claims from ministers that the government has "removed" or even "deported" this many people.

The Home Office says all returns outcomes are the result of collective efforts by the department.

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What has been driving the rise in disability benefit claims?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg5zz6pm15lo, 10 days ago

The government has confirmed details of its scaled-back plan to reform health and disability benefits, following pressure from Labour MPs.

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall said changes to Pip (Personal Independence Payment) would only apply to new claimants.

She also confirmed that payments to existing recipients of the health-related element of universal credit (formerly known as incapacity benefit) will no longer be frozen.

However, government analysis on the impact of welfare reforms that are still planned estimates that an extra 150,000 people will end up in "relative poverty" as a result.

BBC Verify looks at how many people claim these benefits and why there has been a significant increase in recent years.

How many people claim disability benefits?

In 2019, almost three million working-age adults (those aged 16 to 64) in England and Wales claimed either disability or incapacity benefit - 1 in 13 of the population.

As of March 2025, that had grown to about 4 million or 1 in 10 of the population, according to research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

This rise has been fuelled by claimants citing mental health conditions.

According to IFS data , the 'mental and behavioural disorders' category (which includes conditions such as ADHD) accounted for 44% of all claims in 2024 - up from around 39% in 2015.

IFS research also shows that 69% of new 25-year-old claimants were primarily living with mental and behavioural disorders, while this was the case for only 22% of new 55-year-old claimants.

How are benefit claims assessed?

Eligibility for Pip - a benefit that supports working-age disabled people with daily living costs - is determined through an assessment.

Under the current assessment system, claimants are scored on a zero to 12 scale by a health professional on everyday tasks such as washing, getting dressed and preparing food.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, around three-quarters of these assessments were conducted face-to-face.

When in-person assessments were suspended during the pandemic - for obvious reasons - most were switched to telephone or video calls instead.

Although originally a temporary measure, these remote assessments have now become the norm.

Today, fewer than 10% of Pip assessments take place in person according to the government.

Some have suggested that the drop in face-to-face assessments may have encouraged more applicants to come forward as they would have avoided the potential stress of an in-person appointment.

However, analysts say there is not any substantive evidence to demonstrate that one way or another.

Louise Murphy, an economist at the Resolution Foundation, points out that approval rates for both face-to-face and remote assessments are largely unchanged since the pandemic.

"What has changed is way more people are claiming Pip - the government's own figures show there are around 1,000 new awards made each day," she says.

Why have claims been rising?

While there is some evidence that rising mental health conditions have contributed to the increase in Pip claims, independent researchers remain uncertain about the exact causes behind the upward trend.

Ms Murphy has identified one possible factor, the rising state pension age.

"The number of people classified as 'working-age' grows as the state pension age continues to increase", she points out.

Under current rules, once someone reaches state pension age (currently 66 and due to rise to 67 by the end of 2028) they cannot usually make a new claim for Pip, although those who were already getting it will continue to receive it.

This rise in the state pension age means the working-age population is growing, putting more pressure on the system.

Ms Murphy believes it is responsible for about a fifth of the increase in health and disability-related benefit claims over the past decade.

Another possible factor, according to researchers, is that people's understanding of the benefits system - and what they could be entitled to - may have improved during the pandemic and the cost of living crisis.

Eduin Latimer, an IFS senior research economist, agrees.

"There's a lot of evidence that people claim health-related benefits in response to economic shocks".

But while there are some plausible explanations for the rise in Pip claimants, Mr Latimer says "we don't really know the answer".

The government says it will carry out a wider review into Pip, to be carried out by Work and Pensions Minister Stephen Timms, which will report by next Autumn.

What impact could the reforms have?

Originally, the government had expected its reforms to save around £5.5bn a year by 2030. However, following the concessions, that saving is now expected to be £2.5bn.

Even if the government had gone ahead with its initial reforms, the overall working-age welfare bill had still been set to rise to about £72.3bn in 2029-30.

The government has now revised its impact assessment of its plans and this suggests that about 150,000 more people will be left in relative poverty (after housing costs) by 2030.

This is down from the 250,000 people left in relative poverty in its original assessment.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said the modelling "doesn't reflect the wider action we're taking to lift people out of poverty and raise living standards, especially through work."

The government says this includes £1bn of support measures to help disabled and long-term sick people back into work.

Clarification 2 July: this article has been updated to clarify the fact that, under current rules, people of state pension age cannot usually make a new Pip claim.

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