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Christine Williamson is speaking about life before she had a brain aneurism. It caused her to lose some function on the left side of her body. The Dundonald woman feared she would never play a musical instrumental again, but that all changed when she joined a unique group. Christine has been part of a music research programme run by the charity Brain Injury Matters. The research, based in Northern Ireland, uses Virtual Reality (VR) to allow musicians with disabilities to play specially-designed virtual instruments. Musicians with both congenital and acquired disabilities use VR headsets to transport them to a different world where they have their choice of instruments. They use their hands to touch light and tap different virtual instruments to trigger different sounds. The virtual reality instruments can morph into all shapes and sizes. Gary Wylie sustained a brain injury after a car accident, he is also part of the virtual reality musical group. He said: "When I put the headset on, I see a harp in front of me, and I can lean forward and play it, it's class." Another member of the group is Mary-Louise McCord, who has cerebral palsy. She communicates with the help of her computer and eye-gaze technology. The virtual reality controller allows her to make upper body movements to compose her own music. "Sometime my hands don't behave how I want them to and I love the options and freedom the VR gives me to experience any instrument I want," she said. "It gives me opportunities I otherwise would not have." The project is a collaboration between Queen's University Belfast and Drake Music Northern Ireland. The musicians use specifically-designed digital instruments created by Queen's PhD researcher Damian Mills. "The musicians use spatial audio technology to immerse themselves in a different reality and they are creating some interesting results," he said. The group recently used their VR musical instruments to perform alongside the Ulster Orchestra as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival. Ulster University's (UU) new Belfast campus was the venue and they were also joined by the UU's Acoustronic group. Christine Williamson's family and friends came along to watch her perform with the world-famous orchestra. She said: "I just had to pinch myself performing with the orchestra. "Being part of the VR musician group has led me on such an amazing journey." Mary-Louise McCord also played alongside Christine and the Ulster Orchestra. She added: "Yes there are still stereotypes and stigmas surrounding different abilities within the arts. "But projects like this show that it is getting better."

"I used to play instruments all the time and then I thought that was over for me, but actually it was only beginning."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-67271867?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

His only previous public statement about the tragedy came in the days following the concert, on his social media channels.In a prepared statement, the star said he was "devastated" and vowed to give the Houston Police Department his “total support” as they investigated “the tragic loss of life".In an Instagram live, he added that he would have paused the concert if he had known how bad the situation had become in the audience."Anytime I can make out anything that’s going on, you know, I stop the show and you know, help them get the help they need. I could just never imagine the severity of the situation." Speaking to GQ, Scott confirmed that one of his recent album tracks, My Eyes, references the tragedy.As the tempo picks up towards the end of the song, he raps: “I replay them nights, and right by my side, all I see is a sea of people that ride wit’ me. /If they just knew what Scotty would do to jump off the stage and save him a child.”"The song is emotional... and that verse means a lot to me," he said.Asked what he wanted people to think when they heard the song he replied: “To know I have pain, too."I have concerns, things that I think about, and the things I see on a day-to-day basis, I think about them. And every day I want to find change in the things, to make things better, make myself better."It’s just like: I go through things like everyone else. And even recently through something like I never could imagine." In June this year, a grand jury in Texas declined to indict Scott and five other people on any criminal charges related to the concert.An investigative report into the tragedy was released by Houston police the following month.It said that festival workers had highlighted problems and warned of possible deadly consequences ahead of the show.One security guard had been so worried by the crowd that he texted an event organiser saying, “someone’s going to end up dead"."There’s panic in people eyes. This could get worse quickly,” Reece Wheeler texted Shawna Boardman, one of the festival's private security directors, minutes before Scott took to the stage.In a subsequent text Wheeler added: “I know they’ll try to fight through it but I would want it on the record that I didn’t advise this to continue.In a police interview two days after the event, Scott told investigators that although he did see one person near the stage getting medical attention, the crowd generally seemed to be enjoying the show and he did not see any signs of serious problems.The rapper - and others involved in organising the festival - still face civil lawsuits from multiple victims in Texas state courts.Both Scott and Drake have recently given depositions in relation to those cases. The details of the hearings are unknown, due to a rigid publicity order.The families of three victims have previously settled with Scott, concert promoters Live Nation and other related parties, although the terms of those agreements have not been disclosed.The first wrongful death case is currently scheduled to go to trial in May of 2024.

Rapper Travis Scott has broken his silence on the tragic deaths that occurred at his Astroworld festival in 2021.Ten people died and hundreds of others were injured at the concert in Houston, Texas, after the crowd surged towards the stage.In his first interview about the tragedy, Scott said he was "overly devastated" by the loss of life."I always think about it,"he told GQ magazine,external. "Those fans were like my family. You know, I love my fans to the utmost.”He continued: "It has its moments where it gets rough and…yeah. You just feel for those people. And their families.”Thousands were injured at the concert on 5 November 2021 when panic broke out as the over-capacity crowd pressed towards the front of the stage during Scott's headline performance.Ten people, ranging in age from nine to 27, were killed by compressive asphyxiation.Some audience members accused Scott and fellow rapper Drake of continuing to perform despite accounts of "lifeless bodies being passed through the crowd in full view of the stage". Houston's fire chief stated that Scott should have halted the show much earlier.The star previously said he was not aware of the severity of the crush until he left the stage.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd1pd66y9k6o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

It's the biggest parliamentary revolt he's suffered in his three and a half years as Labour leader, which is especially unusual because over that time he has generally tightened his grip over the party. If anything, Sir Keir was fortunate that the rebellion took place in such a wild week of political developments, rather than with Westminster's focus solely on the divisions in his ranks. Regardless, it is likely to provide political ammunition for Rishi Sunak. We got a preview of this at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, with Mr Sunak taunting Sir Keir across the despatch box: "He talks about a changed Labour Party… he can not even make his party do the right thing when it comes to standing by Israel." That was before the vote. Expect much more of it from Mr Sunak now that more than a quarter of Sir Keir's MPs have defied him. Yet there are reasons Sir Keir might draw consolation and even - some of his allies claim - optimism from the vote and the debates leading up to it. "He was very resolute throughout," one confidant of the Labour leader said. "He didn't blink at all." This, they argue, will mean attacks from the Conservatives on the issue will fall flat. Drawing attention to the internal opposition Sir Keir has faced could also draw attention to the political strength he showed in facing it down. At the heart of this dispute was Sir Keir's view that a ceasefire would "freeze" the conflict as it is and embolden Hamas to carry out more attacks. But Labour strategists also believe the politics is in their favour. While polls have suggested many voters support a ceasefire, some around the Labour leader take the view that diverging from the government on this issue could make foreign policy a more vulnerable area for Labour in the run-up to the general election campaign. It is worth stressing, too, that this was not a wider revolt against Sir Keir's leadership. It was confined to one highly-charged issue, with many of those who resigned frontbench roles eager to proclaim their continuing determination to campaign for a Labour government. Click hereif you cannot see the look-up. Data from Commons Votes Services. And while losing 10 frontbenchers is a problem, it could have been more. Double that number had expressed public unease with Sir Keir's position. Sue Gray, the Labour leader's new chief of staff, was closely involved in the efforts to win some of the frontbenchers round, I'm told. "She's got the conflict resolution skills you'd expect from decades at the top of Whitehall. She's much more emotionally intelligent than some of us steeped in the Labour Party," one shadow cabinet minister said. You'll never catch a Labour MP saying this publicly, but some of them believe that among those who resigned are people who should never have been on the front bench. Their presence, the argument goes, was testament to some in Sir Keir's team being too willing to accommodate the 'soft left' of the Labour Party. As a result of last night's vote, there are also no longer any MPs from the Socialist Campaign Group, the organising body for Labour's most left-wing MPs, on the front bench. Of the 56 MPs who defied Sir Keir, 27 are members of this group. This is one reason why Sir Keir's team have been paying such close attention to whom local parties are selecting as candidates for the general election. Almost none of those chosen in the most winnable constituencies so far are associated with the Labour left. And it's striking that of the 10 Labour MPs who have entered Parliament in by-elections since he became leader, none rebelled. So the Labour ranks could look pretty different after the next election. Of course, for many of the Labour MPs who did rebel this was not ideological, but about their own consciences and often about pressure from hundreds or even thousands of constituents. The clearest example of that is Jess Phillips, who is so far from the Labour left that in 2020 she briefly ran for leader with the support of Rachel Reeves, Pat McFadden and Wes Streeting, all on the right of the party and now leading members of Sir Keir's shadow cabinet. Those MPs who have spent recent weeks wrestling with the competing forces of party allegiance and constituency anger are, of course, dealing with a question that has faced MPs of all parties for hundreds of years: are they representatives or are they delegates? Or as one senior Labour MP put it to me just before the vote: "I have had hundreds of emails from constituents on this and I take them seriously. But I just think they are wrong."

Clearly, the Labour rebellion over a ceasefire in Gaza was embarrassing for Sir Keir Starmer.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67440096?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

Ed Newton-Rex was head of audio at the firm, which is based in the UK and US. He told the BBC he thought it was "exploitative" for any AI developer to use creative work without consent. But many of large AI firms, including Stability AI, argue that taking copyright content is "fair use". The "fair use" exemption to copyright rules means the permission of the owners of the original content is not required. The US copyright office is currently conducting a study about generative AI and policy issues. Mr Newton-Rex stressed that he was talking about all AI firms which share this view - and the majority of them do. Replying to his former member of staff in a post on X (Twitter), Stability AI founder Emad Mostaque said the firm believed fair use "supports creative development". AI tools are trained using vast amounts of data, much of which is often taken, or "scraped", from the internet without consent. Generative AI - products which are used to create content like images, audio, video and music - can then produce similar material or even directly replicate the style of an individual artist if requested. Mr Newton-Rex, who is also a choral composer, said that he "wouldn't jump" at the chance to offer his own music to AI developers for free. "I wouldn't think 'yes, I'll definitely give my compositions to a system like this'. I don't think I'd consent," he said. He added that plenty of people create content "often for literally no money, in the hope that one day that copyright will be worth something". But, ultimately, without consent their work was instead being used to create their own competitors and even potentially replace them entirely, he said. He built an AI audio creator for his former employer called Stability Audio but said he had chosen to licence the data it was used to train on and share revenue from it with rights holders. He acknowledged that this model would not work for everybody. "I don't think there's a silver bullet," he said. "I know many people on the rightsholder side who are who are excited about the potential agenda today and want to work with it, but they want to do it under the right circumstances." He said he remained optimistic about the benefits of AI and was not planning to leave the industry. "I think that ethically, morally, globally, I hope we'll all adopt this approach of saying, 'you need to get permission to do this from the people who wrote it, otherwise, that's not okay'," he said. The use of copyright material to train AI tools is controversial. Some creatives, including theUS comedian Sarah SilvermanandGame of Thrones writer George RR Martin, have initiated legal action against AI firms, arguing that they have taken their work without permission and then used it to train products which can recreate content in their style. A track featuring AI-generated voices of music artists Drake and The Weeknd wasremoved from Spotify earlier this yearafter it was discovered that it had been created without their consent. But the boss of Spotify later saidhe would not ban AI from the platform completely, Earlier this year, Stability AIfaced legal action from the Getty image archive, which claimed it had scraped 12 million of its pictures and used them in the training of its AI image generator, Stable Diffusion. Some news organisations, including the BBC and The Guardian, have blocked AI firms from lifting their material from the internet.

A senior executive at the tech firm Stability AI has resigned over the company's view that it is acceptable to use copyrighted work without permission to train its products.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67446000?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

Before Qafisha had even adjusted his eyes to the light and spotted us coming down the road towards him, the Israeli soldier had sprung to his feet, raised his rifle halfway and ordered Qafisha back inside. The falafel cook, aged 52, gestured for us to hurry. "This is how it is any time we try to open the door now," he said, as we entered. "We are not even allowed to stand at our windows." Qafisha, who was born and raised in Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, is a resident of H2, a dense and heavily fortified district that is home to 39,000 Palestinians and roughly 900 Israeli settlers considered some of the most extreme in the occupied territory. The Palestinians and Israelis of H2 are separated in some places here by just a few feet, and surrounded by cameras, cages, checkpoints, concrete blast walls and rolls of razor wire. For more than 40 days now, since the Hamas attack on Israel, 11 Palestinian neighbourhoods within H2 - comprising about 750 families - have been under one of the harshest lockdowns imposed on the area for more than 20 years. H2's population is almost entirely Palestinian, but the district is under the total control of the Israeli military, which has for the past few weeks been forcing Palestinian residents back inside their homes at gunpoint. Qafisha and his family of nine had barely left the house, he said. He did not want to take any risks. "You saw what happened when you arrived," he said. "We have a door we cannot open and windows we cannot look out from. We do not have any freedom. We are living in fear." Qafisha's house sat just off Shuhada Street, once one of the busiest Palestinian market streets in Hebron. In 1994, a massacre of 29 Muslims by a Jewish extremist at a nearby mosque led to riots, which in turn prompted a crackdown by the Israeli army. The army forcibly closed Palestinian businesses and then welded shut the front doors of the Palestinian residents, on the Shuhada Street side. Since then, the Palestinians of the area around Shuhada Street have lived through shifting restrictions on where they can go, when, and how. Flare-ups in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have often led to some form of lockdown, but several residents told the BBC that this was the harshest they had ever experienced. A few hundred feet up the road from Qafisha's house, Zleekhah Mohtaseb, a 61-year-old former tour guide and translator, was staring down from her rooftop, watching a young Israeli settler shouting to himself as he meandered slowly down Shuhada Street. Mohtaseb had had spent all her six decades within a stone's throw of where she stood now, she said. Directly across Shuhada street, no more than 20 feet away, was Hebron Cemetery, where 10 generations of her family were buried. Once upon a time, she could walk straight across the street and into the cemetery. Now it took her an hour by car. "The settlers," she said, shaking her head, as the young Israeli walked past her welded-shut front door. "They can do what they want. They are the chosen people." Mohtaseb had seen a lot in her lifetime in Hebron, but the past 40 days had been among the most tense, she said. Hours after Hamas attacked Israel, in a murderous rampage that left an estimated 1,200 Israelis dead, Palestinian residents of H2 received messages from the Israeli military telling them that they were no longer allowed to leave their homes. Israeli soldiers began forcing people off the streets at gunpoint, including Mohtaseb. "Those first two weeks were hell," she said. Two weeks after it began, the curfew in H2 relented slightly, allowing the Palestinians to leave their homes for certain hours on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Then this past Thursday, as Mohtaseb was preparing to meet us, three Palestinian militants from Hebron attacked an Israeli checkpoint dividing the West Bank from Jerusalem, killing one soldier and wounding five. Immediately, she knew that the attack would prolong and intensify the crackdown in H2. "Everyone says that Israel has the right to defend herself. Fine. We are not against it. But what about us, the Palestinians?" she said. "Many times we were attacked, many times we were killed, many times we were forced from our homes. Where was this right to defend when the Palestinians were attacked?" H2 began life in 1997 when Hebron was divided into two sectors, under an agreement between the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Israel. H1, populated entirely by Palestinians and controlled by the Palestinian Authority, accounts for roughly 80% of the city. H2, which accounts for just 20% of the city, is populated almost entirely by Palestinians but controlled by the Israeli military. Within H2, the area around Shuhada Street and the Ibrahimi Mosque is the most fortified by checkpoints and guard posts. It has seen decades of tension, violence, and terror attacks from both sides. "This is the closed place inside the closed place," said Muhammad Mohtaseb, a 30-year-old hospital security guard, sitting on the roof of his house opposite the mosque. "We are completely surrounded by checkpoints," he said. "Even on a good day, I cannot drive a car, no car can come in with Palestinian number plates. If I want to bring something to my house, I have to carry it half a kilometre from the checkpoint. When I got married, I bought all new furniture for my bedroom, but I had to take it all apart into pieces on the other side of the checkpoint to get it through the turnstiles, then rebuild it on this side." That was a good day. Since 7 October, the freedom even to move around in the street was gone. When we arrived at Mohtaseb's home, just like at the home of Fawaz Qafisha, a soldier sprang towards the door and ordered Mohtaseb back inside. Up on the roof, Mohtaseb rolled a cigarette and looked out over the empty streets. With three of his four children out of school - the H2 schools have all been closed - Mohtaseb had been at home and away from work for 40 days. Fortunately for him, his employer had been understanding and was still paying him. This was not the case for everyone. Qafisha, the falafel cook, had been unable to fulfil his work responsibilities since the lockdown began, because he could only go out three days a week, and on those three days the allotted hours did not match the hours he would need to travel for work anyway. And unlike Mohtaseb's employer, his had not been understanding. "In these jobs, if you work you eat," he said. "And if you don't work you don't eat." Qafisha had borrowed money several times from friends, to buy food for the family, but he was running out of options. "Anything that you spend you cannot replace," he said, sitting in his living room, away from the window. "So we are sinking." The following morning, there was another armed attack on Israeli soldiers by a Palestinian militant, this one in Hebron itself. This time it resulted in only the attacker's death. But a few hours later, another message was sent out via WhatsApp from the Israeli military to the Palestinian residents of Shuhada Street. "A notification for the residents of Shuhada Street," it said. "You are forbidden to be in the streets for one week." And if they left H2, it said, they would not be allowed to re-enter until the week had passed. The lockdown in H2 was a "blatant example of how Israel is implementing collective punishment in the West Bank", said Dror Sadot, a spokeswoman for the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem. "The Palestinians in Hebron are paying a price for something they didn't do," she said. "People cannot go to work, children cannot go to school, they are having trouble getting water and food. It is collective punishment, and it is illegal under international law." The Israeli military told the BBC in a statement that its forces operate in the West Bank "in accordance with the situational assessment in order to provide security to all residents of the area." "Accordingly, there are dynamic checkpoints and efforts to monitor movement in different areas in Hebron," it said. Among the Israeli settlers living in H2, in the hardline Kiryat Arba settlement, is Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir. On Thursday, Ben Gvir, who has personally overseen the distribution of thousands of new rifles to West Bank settlers since October 7th, said that Israel should take the same approach to the occupied territory that it was taking in Gaza, where more than 11,000 Palestinians have now been killed. "Containment will blow up in our faces," Ben Gvir said, of the West Bank. "Just like it did in Gaza." According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, more than 200 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since 7 October, by settlers or in clashes with the military. On Wednesday, just a few hundred metres from Ben Gvir's house, Areej Jabari had gathered a small group of women into a knitting circle in her home in H2, in defiance of the Israeli orders not to move in the streets that day. This was only the second successful gathering since the lockdown began, and there were only eight women present, down from around 50 who usually gather once a week at the mosque. The knitters had got there by sleight. "We sneak through the side roads and between the buildings," said Huda Jabari, Areej's younger cousin, with a grin. The women have learned, this long into the lockdown, to observe the Israeli soldiers and move when they are not looking. They use one another's houses to avoid checkpoints within H2, entering the front door in one sector and emerging from the back door into another. "In normal times, 50 families pass through my house to get around," said Areej's mother Sameera, whose own house sat in the shadow of Ben Gvir's. Areej took us up to her roof to show us her view, over an Israeli military base and guard post close to her house. Below us, Israeli settlers passed by along her street, which she was no longer allowed to use. Since 7 October, Areej had been coming up here to the roof with her video camera to gather footage of the soldiers and send it to B'Tselem, the human rights organisation. In return, the Israeli military arrived at her house last Saturday and forced their way in, she said. "They broke my press card and warned me not to take any more video or post anything on social media." They also forbade her to go up onto her roof, she said, or look out of her windows on Fridays or Saturdays, when the Israeli settlers use her road to walk from the settlement to the Jewish holy site near Shuhada Street. The IDF told the BBC that it was aware of the incident Areej described and was following up with the specific soldiers involved to examine what happened. "We are taking this incident very seriously," a spokesperson said. To Areej, it did not feel particularly out of the ordinary. "Any time something happens they put more restrictions on us," she said. "The goal is to divide us, to split the area into small pieces and to pressure us to leave." She was standing up against the railing around the roof of her home, looking out over H2. "I call this area the fortress of steadfastness," she said. She opened her video camera and pointed it in the direction of the Israeli guard post down the road. Muath al-Khatib contributed to this report. Photographs by Joel Gunter

Fawaz Qafisha cracked his front door open a few inches, stuck his head through the gap and squinted against the sun. The street outside was almost completely dead, save for an Israeli soldier who was sitting on a garden chair placed opposite Qafisha's house, facing the front door.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67463162?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

Conservatives argue the US is backing a close ally, standing up for the region's only democracy and sending a message that terror against civilians will not be tolerated. But there's more to it than that. Evangelical conservatives are a key part of the Republican party's coalition, and these religious voters - and politicians - have a connection to the state of Israel that runs deep. George Washington University religious scholar Christopher Rollston says: "There's a strong sense within evangelicalism that the Jewish people are God's people. "And there's a theological assumption that's pretty pervasive within certain segments of evangelicalism that the establishment of the modern state of Israel was the fulfilment of biblical prophecy." The new Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, has strong evangelical ties. The Louisiana congressman was one of a handful of politicians who addressed a crowd organisers estimated as being in the hundreds of thousands at a "March for Israel" event in Washington DC on Tuesday. Quoting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he called the conflict between Israel and Hamas "a fight between good and evil, between light and darkness, between civilisation and barbarism". He said demands for an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza were "outrageous". "It is my hope that this gathering today serves as a reminder to the entire world, but also to those within our own borders, that the United States stands proudly with Israel and the Jewish people forever," he said. Mr Johnson stood on a stage bedecked with dozens of Israeli and American flags, the US Capitol in the background. Two senior Democrats, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, joined him, along with Republican Senator Joni Ernst. They raised their hands together and led the audience in a chant of "we stand with Israel". "There are few issues in Washington that could so easily bring together leaders of both parties in both chambers," Mr Johnson said, "but the survival of the state of Israel unites us together and unites all Americans." The Democrats are divided, however. While the two congressional leaders, along with President Joe Biden, have been firm in their support for Israel following the attack, a growing number on the left are calling attention to Palestinian civilian casualties and condemning the Israeli military campaign. With the exception of a handful of Republican politicians, however, dissent on the right has been missing. When a standalone bill providing $14.3bn (£11.5bn) in US aid to Israel was introduced in the House of Representatives, only two Republicans - Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky - voted no. Their isolated opposition is a far cry from the significant and growing number of Republicans who oppose continued US support for Ukraine, the world's other current major international conflict. The influence of an evangelical leader invited to speak towards the end of the March for Israel's programme helps explain why Israel is treated differently by Republicans. John Hagee is a Texas-based Christian minister and president of Christians United for Israel, which boasts 10 million members. In 2008, he said the Holocaust was part of God's plan to return Jews to Israel. The Republican presidential candidate at the time, John McCain, declined his endorsement in part because of those comments. The organisers of Tuesday's march, the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, invited Mr Hagee to speak at their rally, however, as a part of a "voices of allies" segment. The organisers did not immediately respond to BBC requests for comment. For his part, Mr Hagee was effusive in his support for Israel. He told the crowd that a line should be drawn uniting Christians and Jews and that there was no "middle" ground in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. "We must all stand united with one voice and boldly declare over and over: Israel, you are not alone," he said. In his deep southern preacher drawl, he placed the fate of Israel squarely in a religious context. "The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob guarantees Israel's deliverance will come as proclaimed every year during Passover," he said. "Israel is the apple of God's eye. Israel is the shining city on the hill. God says of Israel, Israel is my firstborn son." For some evangelicals, however, the ties between their religion and the fate of Israel have a darker hue. And it's where Mr Hagee's more controversial views come into play. In the End Days, a certain strain of Christian theology holds, the Jewish people will either convert to Christianity or perish in flames. It is a key step towards Armageddon that is then followed by 1,000 years of peace, according to this belief. A Pew Research survey last year found 39% of Americans - including 63% of evangelicals - believe humanity is "living in the end times". And for the moment - on the stage in Washington on Tuesday and in the halls of Congress - the interests of Israel, Republicans and evangelicals are in alignment.

Republican support for Israel has been near monolithic since the 7 October attack by Hamas.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67422238?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

On TikTok, Insta and X, the company's become known for ripping into its passengers and its own reputation. Being rude and obnoxious to your customers might not seem like the best approach, but the brand's viral burns have earned it 2.1 million followers on TikTok - half a million more than EasyJet, Jet2, Tui, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Etihad combined. And while corporate LOLs might make a lack of legroom easier to swallow, is there another reason brands want us to see the funny side? One man who knows is Michael Corcoran. He was the head of Ryanair's social media until he recently announced his resignation on - where else? - X. Hundreds of people replied praising him for turning the Irish airline into an online star, and shared some of their greatest hits. Examples included talking planes roasting customers, and the company telling complaining passengers to "bring their own plane" next time they fly. And there were more than a few references to 11A - the notoriously unpopular airline seat number with its own meme. If you've seen any Ryanair TikToks, you won't be surprised to learn that the team was given a lot of freedom to post what they like. Michael tells BBC Newsbeat this aspect wasn't actually a departure for the company, which has a history of "disruptive, provocative marketing, whether people liked it or not". And lots of people didn't. In 2012, its"Red Hot Fares & Crew!"campaign was banned for objectifying women, and more recently a"Jab and Go" advertaimed at vaccinated holidaymakers attracted more than 2,000 complaints. But on social media its sarcastic clapbacks in feeds and comment sections won it a surprising number of fans. Michael says one of his team's main goals was to lower passengers' expectations of budget travel, which are "far too high". "We get you from A to B for the lowest price possible," says Michael. "Everything else is extra." And by everything, he really does mean everything. As well as extra baggage and legroom, passengers have to shell out to sit together. In August a couple went viral after the airlinecharged them £110 to print their tickets at the airport. You'll often see Ryanair accused of ripping customers off with added fees, but it leans into this online - an ongoing gag is whether passengers will eventually be charged to use the toilet. "Obviously, not everybody found it funny," says Michael. "Some people thought we were genuinely being rude and obnoxious to our customers." But when the humour landed, Michael noticed Ryanair's online fans would start defending it against complaints - basically doing some of their PR for them. "That took that corporate edge over us being 'the bad guy' off," Michael says. Does shedding your "bad guy" image also allow you to duck away from less comfortable topics? Where most brands will post proudly about their latest socially responsible schemes, Ryanair's accounts tend to steer clear of worthy posts. You won't see anything about the aviation industry's environmental impact, for example, even though Michael insists climate change is "incredibly important" to Ryanair. Michael says TikTok isn't the right place for an airline to talk about this - "because we are metal machines in the sky" - and worriesit would look like "greenwashing". He says the company's working on finding "the right channels and the right places" to better communicate this. But Dr Irene Garnelo-Gomez, from Henley Business School, thinks differently and says transparency is key. She hesitates to accuse Ryanair of greenwashing because it doesn't actually talk about its sustainability goals on its social channels. But if consumers suspect companies aren't being upfront about the impacts of their operations, her research suggests it could have a negative impact on brand perception. "I don't agree with organisations saying that social media is not the place to talk about sustainability, especially with younger generations," she says. "They care and they are aware, and they want organisations to do something about it. "And where do they see communications? On social media." Dr Irene says that using humour does build engagement with customers, but it also might make it more difficult to use social channels to respond to serious criticisms. "If at the same time they are accused of something in relation to sustainability, that humour and those posts could really backfire," she says. Listen to Newsbeatliveat 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen backhere.

If the best things in life are free, you won't find many of them on a Ryanair flight - and its social media accounts aren't shy to say so.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-67333386?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

It lists the dinner - including oysters, beef, spring lamb and mallard duck - served on the evening of 11 April 1912. More than 1,500 people died when the Titanic struck an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean on 14 April 1912, causing the boat to sink. The sale on Saturday was run by Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire. Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: "The menu is a remarkable survivor from the most famous ocean liner of all time." The menu bears an embossed White Star Line flag and would have originally shown gilt lettering depicting the initials OSNC (Ocean Steamship Navigation Company) alongside the lettering "RMS Titanic". Mr Aldridge said the menu showed signs of water immersion as the text was partially erased. "This would point to the menu having been subjected to the icy North Atlantic waters on the morning of April 15 either having left the ship with a survivor who was exposed to those cold sea waters or recovered on the person of one of those lost. "Having spoken to the leading collectors of Titanic memorabilia globally and consulted with numerous museums with Titanic collections, we can find no other surviving examples of a first-class April 11 dinner menu." Other items in the auction included a Swiss-made pocket watch, owned by second-class Titanic passenger, Sinai Kantor. It sold for £97,000. A first-class tartan-patterned deck blanket, which may have been used during the rescue of passengers also sold for £96,000. The auctioneer is well-known for selling memorabilia from the doomed passenger ship. A fur coat owned by a first-class stewardess sold by them for £150,000 in 2017. In the same year,a letter by Titanic passenger Oscar Holverson soldfor £126,000. Follow BBC West onFacebook,XandInstagram.Send your story ideas to:[email protected]

An evening dinner menu for first-class passengers onboard the RMS Titanic has sold for £84,000 at auction.

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BBC Scotland News returned to the street as its residents come to terms with the aftermath of the devastating flood. Jasmine Willox, Euan Clark and Kim Clark are among those living in temporary accommodation with questions about the future of their homes. Jasmine Willox, her partner Lauren, and baby daughter Avanna-Rose face a bleak Christmas in temporary accommodation after their home was flooded. "We've had to adapt from being in a house to a tiny little flat," she said. "The storage heating is next-level extortionate. "I'm double, if not triple, the amount of gas and electric in that flat than I am here. "We've been left in the dark, we don't know anything. We don't know when we're going to get back in." She managed to salvage a few possessions, but most were destroyed. "Everything is covered and not just mud," she said. "A lot of folks think it's mud, but that's actually sewage. "It's not just your big things like your sofa or TV that you miss, it's little things. All my little girl's arts and crafts are all ruined." Jasmine, a council tenant, initially slept on family and friends' sofas before moving into temporary accommodation in nearby Montrose. "You're not allowed to decorate," she said. "It's not homely because you can't do what you want to it. "It takes a toll on you, you start to feel a little depressed and down in the dumps and it's hard to pick yourself up when you're that low. "Some days I can't be bothered getting out of my bed, because I don't like where I live." Jasmine had stored the family's "Christmas stuff" in her garden shed. "It's all gone, it's all ruined," she said. "Christmas is a few weeks down the line and I'm not in the mood for it at all. I've got a little girl and I've got to think about how Santa is coming to see her. "We've got to start from scratch again, but we'll get there for her sake, I guess." Jasmine said the uncertainty of her situation was taking its toll. She said: "We need to know what we're doing, so we can start planning. How long will we have to live like this? It's not physically good and it's not mentally good. "It's not somewhere you want to bring a family up, that's for sure, you feel trapped." Euan Clark looks around what used to be his home in River Street. Mud and sewage cover every surface, carpets are ruined, the devastation wrought by last month's flooding is still plain to see. "I doubt I'll ever come back," he said. "Honestly I don't think these buildings will be here, I think they'll knock them down." Euan has been living in a guest house in Montrose, following a spell at his mum's and even sleeping in the back of his van. He is at the guest house until 20 November with about 10 other displaced residents, but does not know where he will be staying after that date. "I've been told to look for private housing, but people can't afford that.," he said. "You need a deposit or a first month's rent upfront. "I'm basically at the bottom of the list. I live on my own and I've got a dog, which I think goes against you." The house was previously occupied by Euan's grandmother who passed it on to Euan's dad. Euan said: "We won't be getting back into these houses any time soon, and a lot of people don't want to come back here. "It's my dad I feel sorry for. He tried to get insurance for here, but he just can't afford what they were asking for. "I can't really start rebuilding my life until I know what's happening." Euan only learned that his home had been flooded when he was woken by a call from his father at about 04:00 to tell him the street was under water. When he opened the front door the water "just wiped me clean off my feet", he said. Euan fled the house with just a pair of shorts and his dog Sasha. "I've lost everything," he said. "Will anything be done? Time will tell. "We had a meeting that revealed pretty much nothing. There was no mention of what's happening with the houses or businesses. "Everybody's just in the dark, to be honest with you. Brechin just gets forgotten about." In the days that followed the floods, First Minister Humza Yousaf pledged government support for Brechin but he did not confirm how much financial aid would be made available. Ahead of a ministerial taskforce meeting into Storm Babet on Thursday, local councillor Jill Scott toldBBC Radio's Good Morning Scotlandshe was concerned about the psychological impact of the flooding. "The trauma people have been through being displaced from their homes and their belongings ruined," she said. "The community has been amazing and continues to be." The Brechin and Edzell Independent councillor said 57 council properties were affected. She said: "Some want to go back to their properties and some don't, so the council is doing a matching exercise to get people into permanent (accommodation) if that's what they want, or temporary. "I'm hoping to hear there's going to be substantial financial aid for Angus because we're going to need it, this is just too big for a local authority to deal with financially." Kim Clark said she had been luckier than some of her neighbours, as her insurance has paid for a rental property. But it is the fourth time her River Street home has flooded in the 22 years she has lived here. The latest flood was the final straw. She said: "This is the end of my house, I'm not coming back sitting worrying if it's going to flood again. "I hope the house gets condemned because it's starting to crack the foundations and things. "It knocked everything off the walls, my furniture was floating, it was devastation. I'm trying to be strong for the family." She said the trauma had brought the community together. "We're stronger, but it's just a heartache for everybody," she added. "When you see all your belongings floating about, it's just not good at all. Kim said the whole situation had been horrific. She said: "We've been living on autopilot. I wake up in the morning and I'm like, 'I'm in temporary accommodation, I'm not at home'. "I know it's not going to be done in an instant but it just seems that we're being given no help." The Scottish government said its ministerial taskforce into Storm Babet, chaired by Deputy First Minister Shona Robison, would meet on Thursday morning. A spokesman said: "As well as the immediate task of leading and co-ordinating Scottish government's support to local partners in this storm recovery, the taskforce will also look at lessons learned from the exceptional scale of recent weather events for future responses and consider how it may impact on future decisions." For more on Scotland's climate, watchScotland's Weather - Our Changing Seasons, at 20:00 on the BBC Scotland channel. All photos are subject to copyright.

It is a month since Brechin's River Street bore the brunt of Storm Babet when the South Esk burst its banks, inundating dozens of properties.

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Gavin Plumb, of Harlow, Essex, denies charges relating to an alleged plot between 2 and 5 October involving the former presenter of This Morning. Mr Plumb was not present when his application for bail was denied at Chelmsford Crown Court. The 36-year-old was returned to custody ahead of trial in June. He is accused of planning to assemble a "kidnap and restraint kit" and encouraging a third party to travel to the UK to carry out the alleged offences. Follow East of England news onFacebook,InstagramandX. Got a story? [email protected] WhatsApp us on 0800 169 1830

A man accused of soliciting to murder and incitement to kidnap the TV presenter Holly Willoughby has been refused bail.

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In 1960, space-mania was gripping the world and would-be astronauts were dreaming of their first forays skywards. But 28-year-old Captain Don Walsh had his sights set very much downwards. He was about to descend deeper than any human had ever ventured before. The US Navy had acquired a submersible called the bathyscaphe Trieste and Don, a submarine lieutenant, volunteered to join the project. But when he signed up for the mission, the deepest he'd been in a sub was just 100m down. He was in for a bit of a shock - the US Navy wanted him to dive more than a hundred times deeper. The plan was to head to the deepest place on the planet, the very bottom of the Mariana Trench, a narrow, underwater canyon, which lies in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Guam. "My first reaction was 'What!? Why didn't they tell me before I volunteered?'" he told me in an interview in 2011. "After that, I thought: 'Well, I knew the machine well enough at that point to know that, theoretically, it could be done and we could pull it off.'" On 23 January, 1960, Don and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard, who had designed the bathyscaphe with his father Auguste Piccard, began their descent beneath the waves. They squeezed inside a thick steel-walled chamber. Don said the space was about the size of a large household refrigerator, and that the temperature inside was just about as cold too. As the pair plunged slowly into the darkness, the craft began to creak and groan as the pressure grew. The bathyscaphe had been built to withstand more than 1,000 times the pressure at sea level, but it had never been tested to its limits at these kinds of depths until now. The start of the dive went smoothly, but at around 9,000m, the bathyscaphe jolted with an alarming bang. "That was unusual - we'd never heard that before," Don later told me. It sounded like something big had broken. Don and Jacques carefully checked their instrument readings, but everything seemed OK, so they decided to go on. After five hours, slowly heading ever deeper, the depth-gauge passed 10,000m - but there was still no sign of the sea floor. They began to wonder just how far down they would have to go. But finally, the glow of the bathyscaphe's lights began to reflect back towards them. Don and Jacques had made it: at almost 11km (seven miles) down, they were at the very bottom of the Mariana Trench. "After we landed, we stirred up a lot of sediment because that bottom sediment is semi-liquid," Don said. "It was like looking at a bowl of milk - so we never got a photograph of the deepest place in the ocean." There weren't any whoops or cheers at the end of this epic, record-breaking descent. "It was just a quiet moment," Don recalled. The pair spent about 20 minutes on the seafloor. While inspecting the craft they discovered the source of the bang they'd heard earlier. An acrylic window inside the entrance hatch had cracked. Thankfully it wasn't a pressure boundary - if that had been the case it would have caused an instant implosion. They were able to make it safely back to the surface. The team had made history, receiving the Legion of Merit from US President Dwight D. Eisenhower among other medals and plaudits. For Don, the dive came to partly define him - he used to quip that he'd spent the rest of his life "dining out" on it. But deep-sea devotees - myself included - wanted to know about his visit to one of the most mysterious parts of the planet. And being generous - as well as very funny and humble too - he was always happy to tell the incredible tale. But Don wasn't stuck in the past. Far from it. His dive was just the start of a life spent advocating for the ocean, and supporting those who wanted to explore and learn about the deep. After the navy, he became a professor of ocean engineering, he also set up a marine consultancy business and was a strong advocate for safety within the industry. He forewarned of the Titan tragedy -the submersible that imploded on its way to the Titanic, killing all six people on board. Years before, he had written to the company's CEO warning that the lack of testing of the sub could have catastrophic consequences. In later life, it was the Mariana Trench that grabbed his attention once again. After Don completed his dive in 1960, he thought it would only be a couple of years before someone would return. In fact, it would be more than half a century. In 2012, Hollywood filmmaker and ocean explorer James Cameron became the first to repeat the dive. Don was there to congratulate him after he resurfaced from his solo descent. Don returned to the Pacific once again in 2019 when former American naval officer and explorer Victor Vescovo took the plunge. Victor went on to take his sub to ocean trenches around the world - and with an extra seat on board, he could carry passengers. One of these was Don's son Kelly Walsh. Don told me that Kelly's Mariana dive was the best Father's Day gift he'd ever had - and he loved that Kelly had made it 8m deeper than he had. Ocean and space exploration are frequently compared, and Don often joked that he had the "Right Stuff", just in the wrong direction. He was talking about the fabled qualities - courage, daring and dependability - that made astronauts the stuff of legend. And it's true. Don had these attributes in spades. But it's fair to say the Mariana dive never attracted the same attention as the achievements of astronauts from the same era. Today though, I'm not so sure that Don's focus on the ocean could be described as the wrong direction. Recent advances in technology mean that we're finally understanding the importance of the deepest sea. While the ocean trenches were once thought of as desolate places, of little interest apart from their depth, it turns out that they're a vital part of the Earth's systems, from the weird and wonderful creatures that live there, to the important role they play in the carbon cycle and climate change. None of this would have been possible without Don and Jacques Piccard's incredible feat so long ago. The DNA from their dive runs right through this new era of research - it took a plunge into the unknown to start shedding light on what lies beyond the abyss. Follow Rebeccaon X formerly known as Twitter.

Ocean explorer Captain Don Walsh has died at the age of 92. More than 60 years ago he made the first ever descent to the deepest place in the ocean, the Mariana Trench which lies almost 11km (seven miles) down. I was lucky enough to count him as a good friend. This is the story of an extraordinary dive by a remarkable man.

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Three people died after Erin Patterson, 49, served beef Wellington, a dish that includes mushrooms, to guests in July. While three murder charges relate to the lunch, three of five attempted murder charges are linked to separate incidents between 2021-22, police say. Ms Patterson maintains she is innocent. She has said she did not intentionally poison her guests at the family lunch at her home in the Victoria town of Leongatha on 29 July. Toxicology reports suggest the victims consumed deathcap mushrooms. Her former husband Simon Patterson had also been invited to the meal, but was unable to make it at the last minute. Along with the three murder charges, Ms Patterson has been charged with two attempted murder charges relating to the July lunch. The police have not provided details of the two attempted murder charges. However it is known that one of the guests at the meal fell critically ill but survived. Ms Patterson has also been charged with three counts of attempted murder linked to whatpolice saidwere three separate incidents where it is alleged a 48-year-old man became ill following meals between 2021 and 2022. No further details have been given. Ms Patterson was named as a suspect by police after she and her two children appeared unharmed after the lunch. She was taken into custody on Thursday and police spent hours searching her home in Leongatha, around 125km (78 miles) south-east of Melbourne. Specialist technology detector dogs, which are trained to look for items like laptops and Sim cards, were at the scene. Homicide squad Inspector Dean Thomas stressed the complexity of the case in a press conference, describing it as a tragedy that may "reverberate for years to come". "I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this level of media and public interest, not only here in Victoria, but also nationally and internationally," he added. Gail and Don Patterson - the parents of Ms Patterson's ex-husband - were guests at the lunch along with Gail Patterson's sister Heather Wilkinson and brother-in-law Ian Wilkinson. The four were taken to hospital on 30 July reporting violent illness, police say. Within days the Patterson couple, both 70, and Ms Wilkinson, 66, had died. Mr Wilkinson, 68, was taken to hospital in a critical condition but later recovered after two months of treatment. Erin Patterson has said she herself was taken to hospital after the meal due to stomach pains, and was put on a saline drip and given medication to guard against liver damage. She has said she served the beef Wellington using a mixture of button mushrooms bought from a supermarket, and dried mushrooms purchased at an Asian grocery months earlier. "I am now devastated to think that these mushrooms may have contributed to the illness suffered by my loved ones," she wrote in a statement in August. "I really want to repeat that I had absolutely no reason to hurt these people, whom I loved." Her children, who were not present at the lunch, ate some of the leftover beef Wellington the next day. However the mushrooms had been scraped off the dish as they do not like the fungi, she said. Ms Patterson has also addressed questions concerning a food dehydrator found by police at a local tip. She has admitted to having owned it, explaining that she got rid of it in a state of panic following the deaths. She has been remanded in custody and will appear at Latrobe Valley Magistrates' Court on Friday.

An Australian woman suspected of poisoning her former in-laws and others with deadly mushrooms at a lunch she served has been charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder.

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The Israeli military responded with air strikes on Gaza, and launched a ground offensive. More than 14,800 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run government. A pause in fighting to allow the exchange of hostages for Palestinian held in Israeli prisons has been extended again. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warplanes have been carrying out strikes across Gaza while its troops have been moving through the north of the territory. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel has a "clear goal of destroying Hamas's military and governing capabilities", as well as freeing the hostages. He has also declared that Israel will have "overall security responsibility" for the Gaza Strip "for an indefinite period" after the conflict, but Israel later said it has no plans to reoccupy the territory. Israel has drafted 300,000 reservists for the operation, to boost its standing force of 160,000. The IDF says it has struck thousands of targets belonging to Hamas - which Israel, the UK, US and other Western powers class as a terrorist organisation. The IDF also says it has destroyed hundreds of tunnel shafts built underneath Gaza. Hamas has claimed that its tunnel network stretches for 500km (310 miles). Israel claims to have killed thousands of Hamas fighters during the war, including many commanders. More than 390 Israeli soldiers have been killed, most of them in the 7 October attack. During the 7 October attacks,Hamas tookabout 240 hostages, which it said were hidden in "safe places and tunnels" within Gaza. Israel said more than 30 of the hostages were children, and that at least 10 were aged over 60. It also said about half of the hostages had foreign passports from 25 different countries. Under a deal brokered by Qatar, a four-day pause in the fighting began on Friday 24 November, during which Hamas agreed to release 50 Israeli women and children. In return, Israel agreed to release150 imprisoned Palestinian women and youths aged between 14 and 18. The deal also allowed more humanitarian aid to be sent to Gaza. Israel offered an additional day's pause in the fighting for every 10 Israeli hostages freed. By the evening of Wednesday 29 November, a total of 102 hostages had been freed in return for 210 prisoners. These include: Before Israel and Hamas agreed the temporary ceasefire, four Israeli hostages had been released and another wasfreed by Israeli forces. There are thought to be about 140 people still in captivity. Minutes before it was due to expire,the truce was extended again to allow international mediators to continue their negotiations. Hamas has said other armed groups in Gaza are holding hostages, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which could complicate the release process. More than 36,000 people - three quarters of them children and women - have been wounded in Gaza since the start of the war, the Hamas-run government says. However, only a small number of hospitals are still operational due to damage caused by attacks and the lack of electricity and fuel. Mr Netanyahu has admitted that Israel has been"not successful"in minimising civilian casualties, but insisted this is because Hamas uses Gaza's population as human shields. Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees,says 1.8 million Gaza residents have been displaced during the conflict, and that 1.1 million of them have been sheltering at its facilities. This includes hundreds of thousands of people who fled the fighting in the north of Gaza by moving to the south. Israel's military has warned them not to move back during the truce, because northern Gaza is still considered to be a war zone. After the 7 October attack, Israel shut its border crossings with Gaza, and blockedthe usual supplies of food, water, fuel and medicine from entering the territory. Israel obstructed all fuel deliveries to the territory until late November, arguing it could be stolen by Hamas and used for military purposes. Without electricity or fuel for generators, hospitals, water pumps and desalination plants, waste and sanitation services, and bakeries have been unable to function. The heads of major UN agencies said thatcutting off essential supplies to 2.2 million Palestinians was an "outrage", and have repeatedly called for a permanent ceasefire on humanitarian grounds. Israel allowed 1,399 lorry loads of humanitarian supplies to enter via Egypt's Rafah border crossing between 21 October and 21 November, compared with a monthly average of 10,000 before the war, according to the UN. During the truce, hundreds of lorries carrying aid and fuel have been allowed to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing - the only functioning passage in and out of Gaza. Hundreds of foreign passport holders - including some British and US citizens - and seriously wounded and sick Palestinians have also been allowed to leave, but many remain. The Rafah crossing remains tightly controlled by Egypt. On 7 October, hundreds of Hamas gunmen crossed from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, breaking through the heavily guarded perimeter fence, landing by sea, and using paragliders. It wasthe most serious cross-border attack against Israel in more than a generation. The gunmen killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in a series of raids on military posts, kibbutzim and a music festival, and took hostages back into Gaza. Earlier estimates put the death toll at more than 1,400. The attack came at a time of soaring Israeli-Palestinian tensions: 2023 has been the deadliest on record for Palestinians who live in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Hamas is a Palestinian group which has run Gaza since 2007. The name is an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, which means Islamic Resistance Movement. The group wants to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamic state. Its military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, is thought to have about 30,000 members. Hamas has fought several wars with Israel since it took power, firing thousands of rockets into Israel and carrying out other deadly attacks. In response, Israel has repeatedly attacked Hamas with air strikes, sending in troops in 2008 and 2014. Hamas - or in some cases the al-Qassam Brigades - has been designated a terrorist group by Israel, the US, the EU and the UK, as well as other powers. Iran backs the group, providing funding, weapons and training. The Gaza Strip is a 41km (25-mile) long and 10km-wide territory located between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea. Previously occupied by Egypt, Gaza was captured by Israelduring the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel withdrew its troops and around 7,000 settlers from the territory in 2005. Home to 2.2 million people, the narrow strip is one of the most densely-populated areas in the world. Just over three-quarters of Gaza's population - some 1.7 million people - are registered refugees or descendants of refugees, according to the UN. Before the latest conflict, more than 500,000 people lived in eight refugee camps located across the Strip. Israel controls the air space over Gaza and its shoreline, and strictly limits the movement of people and goods. The West Bank and Gaza are known as the Palestinian territories. Along with East Jerusalem and Israel, they formed part of a land known as Palestine from Roman times until the mid-20th Century. These were also the lands of Jewish kingdoms in the Bible and are seen by many Jews as their ancient homeland. Israel was declared a state in 1948,although the land is still referred to as Palestine by those who do not recognise the country's right to exist. The Palestinian president isMahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen. He is based in the West Bank, which is under Israeli occupation. He has been the leader of the Palestinian Authority (PA) since 2005, and represents the Fatah political party - a bitter rival of Hamas.

Hamas gunmen launched an unprecedented assault on Israel from the Gaza Strip on 7 October, killing 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages.

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Glyn Potts, from Oldham, told the BBC he feared it would take a tragedy to prompt action to stop children vaping. High levels of psychoactive cannabis oil and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) have also been found in vapes in the area. The government said it is planning new laws to prevent under-age vaping. Dame Rachel de Souza, Children's Commissioner for England, said it was "deeply shocking to hear of children collapsing from spice contained in vapes", adding that she has previously called for the ban of disposable vapes. She said: "We need to be moving faster on this issue, or we risk it spiralling out of control. "We urgently need tighter restrictions on advertising and flavours of vapes that appeal to children as well as stricter licensing for retailers selling vapes." "I pray that we don't have a fatality in these kinds of instances, but I do fear that is likely to happen if we don't address these matters," said Mr Potts, head of Saint John Henry Newman Catholic College in Oldham, a secondary school for pupils aged from 11 to 16. It is illegal to sell e-cigarettes to people aged under 18, but a recent survey found one in five teenagers in England had tried vaping, an increase of a third on the previous year. The popularity of vaping among youngsters comes amid concern about the emergence ofillegal vapescontaining excess nicotine content above the legal limit, andmetals such as lead and nickel. More recently, some vapes have been found to contain cannabinoids such as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and spice, which can be more potent than cannabis. In July, a pupil at Mr Potts' school collapsed and had to be admitted to hospital after inhaling a vape containing spice, a laboratory-made drug known for its widespread illegal use in prisons. "He took one very large inhalation of this vape pen and by the time he got off the bus on the school grounds felt very unwell. By the time he arrived at the school gates he had collapsed on the floor," said Mr Potts. The pupil has now recovered. A scientist, who later tested a number of refillable and single-use vapes taken from the school, said it was "very concerning" a child had inhaled spice, because it was known to cause "zombie-like paralysis" in users, particularly children. Mr Potts said he was confident children could not vape in school but he was worried about incidents away from the premises. "If they are collapsing in the street or in areas where they are not necessarily going to be found quickly, that gives me nightmares." He also said he had been told young people were using the tram network to obtain illicit vapes such as these from dealers in other parts of Greater Manchester. In total, there have been four incidents this year in the Oldham area involving vapes found to have contained spice or THC. A pupil at another school in the area collapsed in September after inhaling a vape containing butane hash oil with a 90% concentration of THC. The testing laboratory, theManchester Drug Analysis and Knowledge Exchange (Mandrake),said it had never seen such high-strength THC in a vape. The team was set up in 2016 to help Greater Manchester Police tackle an "epidemic" of new types of psychoactive substances being found in the city. Mandrake director Dr Oliver Sutcliffe told the BBC the discovery of 90% THC rang alarm bells for the team. "The fact that this product is present seems to imply that there may be a shift in the market. And the fact that we are starting to see this on our radar means that we need to be prepared for more of these types of products, with high purity and high potency THC becoming more commonplace." Sgt Joseph Dunne, who works in Oldham Prevention Hub for Greater Manchester Police, said the emergence of these illegal vapes was "very concerning". "What we find is that some vapes have been tampered with or are being used specifically to house THC or spice. We are finding quite a lot of these children are getting vapes from other countries, where they will have a higher percentage of nicotine which isn't authorised in the UK, and that can make these children who aren't used to smoking very ill very quickly. "Children taking these illegal vapes has become the main priority of our schools-based officers," he added. "What we have found is that these vapes are being used communally in schools. The schools will find them in lockers and on top of lockers in drawers." Greater Manchester Police, Oldham Council, and Trading Standards are working closely together, but Mr Potts says a national strategy is needed urgently to stop children vaping. "I think we've got to accept that without the strategy to tackle this, more young people will be at risk." The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it is consulting on measures to crack down on under-age vaping, banning disposable vapes and and restricting flavouring and types of packaging. Health officials say vaping remains an option for adult smokers wishing to quit their habit, but it is not a safe choice for children. However, Mr Potts believes a major, co-ordinated effort is needed to cut off the supply of vapes to youngsters. "The issues around vapes are as significant and of prime concern for us because of the ease of access and the sheer numbers of people who come into contact with these devices."

A head teacher is warning that illegal vaping could kill a child, after the collapse of a 12-year-old pupil who had used a vape containing spice - an illegal synthetic drug.

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Helen Williams constructed a wig stretching up to 351.28m (1,152ft 5in). She spent 11 days and two million naira (£2,000: $2,500) to create the hairpiece. It took 1,000 bundles of hair, 12 cans of hair spray, 35 tubes of hair glue and 6,250 hair clips. "This achievement is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I still cannot believe it," she said. Despite being a wigmaker for eight years, she said it was not an easy task as she "felt exhausted" during the process. "Friends and family encouraged me. I did not want to let them down, so I maintained my focus. The outcome is the longest hand-made wig in the world," she said. After completing the hairpiece, finding a place to lay it out and measure it accurately was difficult. She chose to lay it out on a highway connecting the cities of Lagos and Abeokuta on 7 July. Guinness World Records confirmed the record on Tuesday. Ms Williams has displayed the wig in her office so people can come and look at her record-setting efforts. Earlier this year, Hilda Baci caused a sensation in Nigeria when she broke the world record for cooking non-stop. Butshe was unseated by Irishman Alan Fisher a few weeks ago.

A Nigerian woman has set the Guinness world record for making the longest hand-made wig.

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Dale Houghton, 32, from Rotherham, was seen laughing as he held up an image of the six-year-old at a match against Sunderland - the team Bradley supported beforehe died of cancer in 2017. Houghton, who admitted a public order offence, was also banned from attending any football match for five years. His actions were branded "disgraceful". Houghton had previously pleaded guilty to one count of intentionally causing harassment, alarm or distress at Sheffield Magistrates' Court on 2 October. He was charged after pictures of him brandishing Bradley's photograph during the match at Wednesday's Hillsborough stadium on 29 September were circulated on X, formerly Twitter. Houghton later described his behaviour to police as "enjoyable banter" and said he had "found it funny". At Sheffield Magistrates' Court on Friday he was ordered to undertake 200 hours' unpaid work, as well as being given the 12-week sentence, by District Judge Marcus Waite. Mr Waite said Houghton's "reckless and foolish" actions had "inflicted more trauma on an already grieving family". Suspending the sentence for 18 months, Mr Waite said: "Your actions that day were utterly appalling, your behaviour disgraceful. "You showed callous disrespect to a brave young man who was rightly held in the highest esteem by football fans everywhere." He said while there was no element of "long-term planning" he believed Houghton had taken some time to search for the picture. "I bear in mind [that] however much time you spent doing that, at no point did you think to yourself 'what the hell am I doing?'," he told the defendant. "The offence was targeted towards Sunderland fans and I don't think you were thinking about the family - not that that makes it any better." Mr Waite, who accepted that Houghton showed "genuine remorse", also imposed a £154 victim surcharge and ordered him to pay £85 towards the cost of the prosecution. Bradley, from Blackhall Colliery, County Durham, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma - a rare type of cancer - when he was 18 months old. He went on to be Sunderland's mascot and became "best mates" with his hero, striker Jermain Defoe. In a statement read out in court, his mother Gemma Lowery said Houghton's actions had "brought on many emotions". She said his behaviour was "not just disrespectful to Bradley and us all, but caused emotional turmoil to other children" and said it had left her feeling "very upset". Constance Coombs, for Houghton, said her client "fully accepts that his behaviour was outrageous and deplorable" and that he would regret it for the rest of his life. She said he recognised he was "entirely in the wrong" and "deserves to be punished", adding that he wished to express his "deep remorse" to Bradley's family and the general public. She told the court Houghton had lost his job as a window fitter as a result of his actions and had also lost a second job at Next after his employers found out about the incident. Ms Coombs said her client's relationship with his partner had also suffered and he had chosen to stay away from his family home for "fear of reprisals". The court heard Houghton had been a Sheffield Wednesday season ticket holder for 25 years. A spokesperson for the club said there was no place for such "deplorable actions" at Hillsborough. They said: "We will not in any way tolerate this kind of behaviour and our thoughts remain with Bradley's family and friends." Sheffield Wednesday supporters have raised nearly £30,000 for the Bradley Lowery Foundation over the last few weeks, "underlining the true community values of the club", the spokesperson added. Follow BBC Yorkshire onFacebook,X (formerly Twitter)andInstagram. Send your story ideas [email protected].

A Sheffield Wednesday supporter who taunted rival fans by mocking the death of Bradley Lowery has been given a 12-week suspended prison sentence.

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The African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) was signed into law by former United States President Bill Clinton in May 2000, in a bid to improve trade and investment ties with sub-Saharan Africa on the basis that the best way to raise living standards on the continent and create badly needed jobs, was through trade, not aid. It allows eligible African countries to export some of their produce to the US without paying taxes, meaning they are cheaper for US consumers to buy, and so they should buy more. It covers more than 1,800 products - from BMW and Mercedes cars assembled in South Africa to Kenyan flowers and even jeans. Participating countries are required to meet a set of conditions to qualify to trade under the programme. They include: Of the 54 countries in Africa, 35 are currently trading under the programme which was renewed in 2015 and is set to expire on 30 September 2025. The US renews the eligibility of each country every year. South Africa was the largest exporter in the agreement in 2021. It generated about $2.7bn (£2.2bn) in revenue, mostly from the sale of vehicles, jewellery and metals. Nigeria came second with revenue of more than $1.4bn, mostly oil, while Kenya came third with about $523m, according to statistics from the US International Trade Commission (ITC) and US Department of Commerce. Other countries such as Eswatini, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi and Mauritius have also massively increased their exports to the US under Agoa. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been created across the continent, although there are no precise figures. It also reportedly supports nearly 120,000 jobs in the US. However, much of the initial growth in exports was in fuel, which has since declined. And few of the African countries that qualify for Agoa benefits have used them fully. There are a number of reasons, including a lack of infrastructure such as transport networks, energy supplies and specialist export-processing zones, as well as difficulties meeting the standards required by the US market. Some say that removing access to Agoa because of human rights concerns mean that ordinary people are punished rather than the intended target - those in government. Ethiopia, for example, lost its Agoa beneficiary status in January 2022 over what US President Joe Biden termed "gross violations of internationally recognized human rights" during the war in the northern Tigray region. The eastern Africa nation had traded under the programme since 2000, with some 200,000 people, mostly young women, directly employed in the two most successful exporting industries under the Agoa, clothes and leather. Ethiopia's exports to the US had grown from $28m in 2000 to about $300m in 2021, nearly half of it under the Agoa. However, the country's withdrawal from Agoa saw about 100,000 people lose their jobs, according to Ethiopia's former chief trade negotiator Mamo Mihretu. The majority were women working in textile factories in the southern part of the country and not connected to the conflict in the north. Ethiopia's government said that removing its access to Agoa would "reverse significant economic gains in our country and unfairly impact and harm women and children". Others, however, say the conditions are crucial to ensuring that human rights are respected on the continent, and also gives the US leverage to help prevent conflict. For example, just this week, US President Joe Biden announced that Uganda would lose access to Agoa over its tough new anti-homosexual law, as would Niger and Gabon following military coups and the Central African Republic (CAR), which has close ties to the Russian Wagner mercenary group. While the US has announced that Mauritania's access to Agoa will be restored after the country made "substantial and measurable progress on worker rights and eliminating forced labour". Some have also complained that under Agoa, African countries must remove all trade barriers to US imports, saying it is not fair that countries such as India and Brazil are not required to do likewise to enjoy duty-free access to the massive US market. In July 2018, former US President Donald Trump suspended Rwanda's right to export clothing duty-free under Agoa, after the East African nation banned the import of second-hand clothes. Rwanda's decision followed an agreement that had been adopted by the East African Community (EAC) in 2016, to ban imports used clothing imports by 2019 in order to boost the local clothes manufacturing businesses. The EAC accounted for almost 13% of global used clothing imports in 2015, worth about $274m, according to a study by the US Agency for International Development (USAid). However, a US trade organisation filed a petition with the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) in objection to the EAC's decision, saying that it would impose "significant economic hardship" on America's used-clothing industry. The Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association (SMRTA) said that the EAC's decision could cost about 40,000 US jobs and $124m in exports. As a result, the US threatened to remove four East African countries - Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda - from Agoa. Rwanda went on with the ban, hoping that it would create more than 25,000 jobs in its nascent textile industry and protect it from being suffocated by cheap, second-hand clothes. The US defended the suspension, saying that the ban on used clothing imports was a "restrictive trade measure" which went against the World Trade Organization (WTO) trade rules. Uganda has now followed suit after President Yoweri Museveni announced a ban on used clothing imports in August. He said that he was promoting the "Buy Uganda Build Uganda" national policy and that the second-hand clothes belonged to dead Westerners. This may have been another factor in Mr Biden's decision to remove Uganda from Agoa. Despite the controversy, Agoa beneficiaries are expected to call for an early extension and renewal of the trade pact by 10 years. The consensus is that an early renewal of Agoa would boost investor confidence in sub-Saharan Africa and increase trade opportunities. In September 2023, Louisiana Senator John Kennedy introduced a new bill in the US Congress, which seeks to extend the Agoa programme by 20 years - until September 2045. Mr Kennedy said the renewal of Agoa would help the US counter China's growing influence in the region. The US Congress is unlikely to renew Agoa in its current form and may require some greater level of reciprocity from Agoa's beneficiaries. For instance, South Africa's refusal to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine has raised questions about whether the US will include South Africa in Agoa's extension and renewal. In June 2023, US legislators called for the relocation of the Agoa forum in November from Johannesburg because of the controversysurrounding South Africa's alleged arms shipments to Russia. South Africa denies sending any weapons to Russia. More on US-Africa relations:

The future of what was billed as a game-changing trade agreement between Africa and the US is up for discussion in the South African city of Johannesburg over the next few days, with calls for it to be turned into a much longer-term pact, despite some criticism of the deal.

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She made the comments after a demonstration was held in north London on Saturdayclose to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer's constituency office. Ms Reeves called for "civility and decency" when discussing the conflict. Labour MPs were this week told not to vote for an SNP amendment calling for an immediate ceasefire. On Wednesday,10 Labour frontbenchers resigned from their jobsto defy Sir Keir and back the amendment. In total, 56 of the MPs voted with the SNP position. It differed from the Labour Party's, which is to call for "humanitarian pauses" in order to allow more aid into the enclave while backing Israel's right to self-defence. Ms Reeves called for the targeting of public figures by protesters to stop, telling the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme: "What I find very concerning is the huge pressure that MPs have been put [under] leading up to the vote and this week. "I support the right to protest - Suella Braverman'scomments about these being 'hate marches'are appalling. "But I don't support the intimidation of MPs and I think that's what you are seeing with some of these protests now, outside of people's offices and outside of people's homes. "MPs have got a difficult job to do - all public servants do - and this sort of intimidation, taking protests to people's homes, goes beyond the line." Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters descended on Sir Keir's north London office on Saturday, chanting "Starmer, shame on you". Shadow Welsh secretary Jo Stevenshad her Cardiff constituency office vandalisedafter abstaining on the Gaza vote, and told BBC Wales the experience was "intimidating" and "threatening". Bradford West MP Naz Shah - who quit the Labour frontbench to support a ceasefire - said she has received "Islamophobic hatred", while Conservative ministerMichael Gove needed a police escortafter he was surrounded by pro-Palestinian protesters at a London train station last weekend. Ms Reeves said she had not personally been targeted but said it had happened "to colleagues" without providing specific examples, adding: "I'm afraid that some of these protests are now crossing the line." Asked about the Labour rebellion over the ceasefire motion, Ms Reeves said she was "sorry" to see resignations. She added: "But being leader - and hopefully next year, prime minister - Keir is going to make incredibly difficult decisions, and he's going to have to do what he thinks is right, and offer that leadership, even in difficult times." Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said he had not seen examples of antisemitism on pro-Palestinian marches he has attended, but said he would challenge it if he did. He told the BBC: "It bothers me those chants, but they're so small a minority we've got the powers to deal with that." Hamas gunmen launched an unprecedented assault on Israel from the Gaza Strip on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostages. Israel responded with air strikes on Gaza and has launched a ground offensive. More than 12,300 people have been killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Some of the protests targeting MPs over the Israel-Gaza war are "crossing the line" into intimidation, the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has said.

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But amid the jubilation is also a sense of relief for organisers. The global event - once known as the Gay Olympics- has attracted controversy ever since its origins in 1980s San Francisco, when it was dreamt up by a US Olympic decathlete who wanted to share the spirit of the Games for his community. But this year, the event celebrating inclusion and diversity has faced new challenges being staged for the first time in Hong Kong - a city whose political freedoms and cosmopolitan character have been hammered by the pandemic and China's tightened rule in recent years. The global finance hub with its stunning harbour and mountains had looked very different in 2017 when it won its bid to bring the games to Asia this year- joining a previous line-up of host cities like Paris, Amsterdam and Sydney. Aftermassive pro-democracy protests rocked the city in 2019, China swept into its semi-autonomous territory with new powers; enacting an expansive law to crack down on political protest or dissent. Over two years, Hong Kong's Beijing-backed government hasused the National Security Law to stamp out any dissent- prosecuting and jailing about 200 people. During this time, Hong Kong residents also witnessed how a crackdown on LGBT activism and expression unfolded in mainland China. Shanghai's Pride March - the country's largest - has been suspended since 2021, gay university students have reported discrimination, and earlier this year Beijing's LGBT centre, established for decades, reported it would shut down for reasons beyond its control. Nini, a Chinese man in his 50s who came to Hong Kong for the Games, told the BBC he felt Hong Kong's environment - despite recent changes - was still far more diverse and inclusive. In China he had fewer and fewer opportunities to celebrate his community, he said. So he decided to participate in the Gay Games, signing up for the mahjong event. "I don't seem to have participated in any activities this year, so I want to experience the feeling of a rainbow shining," he told the BBC. Hong Kong's reputation however has kept others away. Its stringent Covid response - the city did not fully welcome back foreign tourists until September last year - also meant that the Games originally scheduled for 2022 had to be pushed back a year and another city was appointed as a contingency: Mexico's Guadalajara was chosen as a co-host. That has led to a splintering in this year's global attendance - with just over 2,300 participants - more than half of them locals - attending the Hong Kong Games, organisers told the BBC. Other participants have gone to the Games in Mexico. Among them was Team Taiwan whose officials explicitly cited the risks of Hong Kong's National Security Law. In short, they didn't want their athletes at risk of being arrested, they said. Such fears of Hong Kong's environment for gay people were further fanned by pro-China conservatives in Hong Kong's parliament arguing the Games were a "promotion of the gay movement" and could "involve national security issues involving bad ideologies" - without specifying how exactly. Some said the Games were a show in favour of same-sex marriage being legalised in the city - a right still denied to LGBT people andunderscored by a landmark ruling in the city's courts this year. But Regina Ip, one of the few lawmakers who publicly championed the event, stressed to the BBC that support for the Games was not the same as promoting the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Hong Kong. She also scotched her opponents' security arguments, noting the Games had proceeded with the full approval of Hong Kong authorities. "If the event threatened national security, it would be impossible to hold it in Hong Kong," she told the BBC. "We are the first city in Asia to host the Gay Games. This is something we are proud of. Many other cities cannot do this." But she contends while there's tacit approval from the government, there's been little public promotion. The city's tourism board and government departments related to the event - like the Equality Commission - had not done enough to promote it, Ms Ip argued. And compared to the Mexico Games, where participants took to the street this week in a colourful parade flying rainbow flags - events have been more underground in Hong Kong, where street protests have been all but eliminated since 2020. The boisterous opening ceremony - where participants entered dancing to Cher's Believe - was held indoors in the Queen Elizabeth stadium in Wan Chai, the only public arena used in the Games. Every other setting for events was in corporate or commercially-leased facilities. One participant from Australia, who competed in the dragon boat race, said she had thoroughly enjoyed herself at the Games but was surprised and disappointed by the lack of branding around. "It felt like a bit speak-easy," she told the BBC. She had seen one or two buses and trams with the logo but not much else compared to other events like food festivals the city had been promoting. On Hong Kong's official tourism site too, there was no mention of the Gay Games anywhere on its page. Another competitor, Mark Tietjen, who travelled from Sydney said he had also harboured doubts about attending given fears the event wouldn't occur or would be too small. "And I just made the rash decision one day. But it's disappointing, because you can see now that I'm here, all the effort that's gone into making it happen," Mr Tietjen said. "But obviously there's lots of people around the world who decided that Hong Kong's not going to be it. It's sad." Games organisers have been at pains to stress the event's non-political nature. "We promote diversity and inclusion through sports, arts and cultural activities. These things are completely legal and consistent with the National Security Law. No objection at all," the co-chairman of the Hong Kong Games, Lisa Lam, told the BBC before the Games' start. But as with any event involving a minority still disadvantaged in society - it's difficult to separate the politics of struggle from the celebration. Local gay rights activist Cammy Kwok told the BBC she found it disappointing that organisers had rarely mentioned the context of local gay rights - and the struggle this year for LGBT people seeking marriage and housing rights. But any event celebrating community was welcome she said, particularly as "we have fewer and fewer occasions."

There will be disco and dancing at the closing ceremony of the Gay Games in Hong Kong on Saturday, as participants and volunteers celebrate the end of the week-long sporting event that's featured dragon boat racing and even mahjong among the events,

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So says the Irishman who is the last known surviving member of the group Sir Winston Churchill famously described as "the few". Group Captain John Hemingway, now 104, was a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain. He now lives back in the city he was brought up in - Dublin - and credits "Irish luck" with helping him survive being shot down four times. He joined the RAF as a teenager before World War Two. When he was 21 he was a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain, a three-month period when air force personnel defended the skies against a large-scale assault by the German air force, the Luftwaffe. Churchill said of the pilots: "Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few." The battle in 1940 was a turning point in the conflict but Gp Capt Hemingway has never looked for accolades or fame for his part. "I don't think we ever assumed greatness of any form," he tells the BBC. "We were just fighting a war which we were trained to fight." Gp Capt Hemingway's recollections and reflections on the war are focused on his role as a professional pilot. He says: "We were doing a job we were employed to do. We just went up and did the best we could." He explains the approach airmen took during one-on-one aerial combat - known as "dogfights" - which were often over in just a few seconds. "There were two of you. One of you was going to be dead at the end. "You thought: 'Make sure that person was not you.'" "Every day, off you went. "When you took off you knew some of you would come back - and some of you wouldn't." Gp Capt Hemingway was shot down four times during the war. Two of those occasions happened in the space of eight days - during the Battle of Britain. He recorded in his logbook that on 18 August 1940 he bailed out of his Hurricane near the Thames Estuary after it was hit by a German aircraft. "If you didn't bail out you knew you would be dead," he says. He parachuted into the North Sea and was eventually rescued by a lifeboat. He says the thought of being in the ocean, and not knowing whether he would drown or live, was "dreadful". "You felt all the time you were part of something which would save you. "But if it ever came to the point where you were just alone that would have been quite horrible." He was back in a plane two days later. On 26 August he was shot down in combat off the coast of Kent and landed in Pitsea Marshes. The wreckage of his Hurricane was recovered in 2019 with the control column and the gun-button frozen in time, still set to "fire". John spent most of the war with 85 Squadron. One of his most prominent memories is of Flt Lt Richard "Dickie" Lee. "He was incredible - a wonderful pilot. "Dickie Lee could do anything - fly across an airfield, upside down, firing at a target and hitting the target." "Dickie" Lee was one of more than 500 of John's fellow pilots who were killed during the Battle of Britain. John's Squadron leader was Peter Townsend, later the fiancé of Princess Margaret. "He was a very nice person and a very good leader," says John. "He always went in first." Peter Townsend is standing with John and eight other men in uniform in front of a Hurricane in one of John's photographs. When asked what his thoughts are about the picture, he says: "They were first-class pilots. "There are lots of aces in this photograph." But he points to himself and chuckles: "That's not one of them!" Another photograph of John featured on the cover of the American magazine Life. It shows him looking up to the sky. "This was the most important photograph ever taken of me," says John. "It made me into a fighter pilot in the eyes of others. "It meant my family were able to see me at work." The image is now captured in a sculpture of John by the artist Stephen Melton at the Kent Battle of Britain Museum. John was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and mentioned in dispatches at 1941. In all he was shot down four times during the war. The last incident was in 1945 when he was flying a Spitfire behind enemy lines in Italy. Local people helped to put him in the hands of the Italian resistance and he was taken back to Allied troops. At one point a young girl, who he thinks was only about seven years old, led him by the hand past scores of German soldiers. John thinks of all those who came to his aid during the war with "huge gratitude". "They were brilliant people - they risked their lives." He modestly puts his long life down to "luck". Specifically, he tells us, "Irish luck". "It must be to do with something like that because here I am, an Irishman, talking to you. "I was shot down many times but I'm still here. "So many others were shot down first time and that was the end of them. "I was lucky. And I'm still lucky."

"I'm not a great man - I'm just a lucky man."

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It was Thursday 19 October at about 06:30, and Israel had been bombing Gaza for 12 days straight. He'd been in his third-floor, three-bedroom flat in al-Zahra, a middle-class area in the north of the Gaza Strip. Until now, it had been largely untouched by air strikes. He'd heard a rising clamour outside. People were screaming. "You need to escape," somebody in the street shouted, "because they will bomb the towers". As he left his building and crossed the road, looking for a safe place, his phone lit up. It was a call from a private number. "I'm speaking with you from Israeli intelligence," a man said down the line, according to Mahmoud. That call would last more than an hour - and it would be the most terrifying call of his life. The voice addressed Mahmoud by his full name and spoke in flawless Arabic. "He told me he wanted to bomb three towers… and ordered me to evacuate the surrounding area." Mahmoud's tower was not directly under threat - but he was suddenly responsible for evacuating hundreds of people. "I had the lives of people in my hands," he says. He gathered his thoughts and told the man, who identified himself as Abu Khaled, not to hang up the phone. As a 40-year-old dentist, Mahmoud says he has no idea why he was chosen for this task. But that day, he did everything he could to keep his community safe. Directed by the voices of strangers, who always seemed to know how to reach him even when his battery ran out, he pleaded for the bombing to stop and screamed until his throat hurt for people to run away. He led a mass evacuation of his neighbours - and then watched his neighbourhood explode in front of his eyes. During this conflict, the Israeli military has phoned Gazans sometimes to warn them ahead of air strikes - Mahmoud's account gives an insight into one such phone call in an unprecedented level of detail. The BBC contacted Mahmoud after multiple al-Zahra residents identified him as the man who received the warning call. We cannot independently verify the contents of the call, which he recounted roughly three weeks after the event. The details, however, match those on a community Facebook group from the day as well as satellite images before and after the bombing. We know that day many hundreds of people were left homeless as the Israeli army bombed at least 25 residential blocks housing hundreds of apartments, destroying an entire neighbourhood. These people were forced to flee with what few belongings they could take, and were eventually dispersed across Gaza. The IDF says it strikes military targets and these actions are subject to the "relevant provisions of international law". Mahmoud could not believe it when the man began speaking, he recalls. People around him warned that the call may be fake. Since the war had begun, messages had been circulating in the community Facebook group warning of hoax calls and offering tips on identifying real Israeli evacuation orders. Mahmoud asked the voice on the phone to fire a warning shot to prove this was real. If those still sleeping did not hear the screams from the streets then they would hear the shot, he thought. A warning shot seemingly from nowhere, but perhaps from a drone, hit one of the apartment blocks under threat, he says. "I asked him to 'shoot another warning shot before you bomb'," Mahmoud says. One more rang out. Now that Mahmoud knew it was real he tried to stall, asking the man to be patient. "I told him: 'Don't betray us and bomb while people are still evacuating.'" The man said he would give Mahmoud time - he said he did not want anyone to die, the dentist recalls. Mahmoud responded that he didn't want anyone to even be injured. He kept the call going as he rushed around the neighbourhood, urging people to evacuate. One neighbour remembers the dentist "just shouting", then others joined in. "I didn't want to know that there's someone I could have saved and I didn't," Mahmoud says. Hundreds of people poured into the streets that morning. Residents of this usually peaceful city were screaming and running, some of them wearing their pyjamas or prayer clothes. The area - just north of the Wadi Gaza river, a point that Israel has been ordering civilians to move south of since the early days of the war - was made up of modern blocks of flats as well as shops, cafes, universities, schools, and parks. It was in these parks that people began to gather. Mahmoud could not understand why his neighbourhood had become a target. "I tried my best to stop him. I asked, 'Why do you want to bomb?' "He said, 'There are some things that we see that you don't see.'" The man did not explain what he meant. "It is an order from people bigger than me and you, and we have an order to bomb," the voice added, according to Mahmoud. When the areas around the buildings were clear the man informed Mahmoud that the bombing would begin. Mahmoud panicked - what if they bombed the wrong building by mistake? "Wait a bit," the man told him, he says. An Israeli aircraft circled overhead. Mahmoud stared at the three towers that neighboured his own apartment block. Then one of them was bombed. "This is the tower that we want, stay away," the man on the phone said as the building fell, according to Mahmoud. The two other blocks were then destroyed. Images taken in al-Zahra that morning show rubble in the place of those three apartment blocks, while a video shows residents wandering around in shock and bewilderment as they view the immediate aftermath of the strikes. A post on the community Facebook group at 08:28 local time says three towers had been "wiped out completely". When the bombing stopped, Mahmoud remembers the voice telling him: "We've finished… you can go back." Mahmoud didn't understand what he had just witnessed. He had lived in this Gaza neighbourhood for 15 years, running a busy dental practice and bringing up his children there. "I told him al-Zahra is a civilian area. No one is a stranger here… I tried to make him understand. It is not a border area, we have not had previous clashes. It was always an area outside of trouble," he says. A post that morning on the community Facebook group urged neighbours to offer beds, food and water to those made homeless. People searched for shelter or places to flee to. Local authorities started clearing the debris from the roads, and putting out fires in the rubble. Those whose homes remained intact returned. Some people felt a sense of security. "We went back [home], thinking they won't bomb again," one told us. Later that day, Mahmoud had just finished his Isha, or night-time prayers, at his flat when he saw a missed call from a private number on his phone. His heart sank. "Immediately I understood there would be an evacuation and bombing, but I didn't know what the target would be. I thought it might be my home, it might be the home next to me," he says. His phone soon rang again. A different man was on the line. The voice said they had realised Mahmoud was a "wise man" after the events of that morning, which is why they were calling him again. The man introduced himself as Daoud. Mahmoud was unnerved by the level of detail the man had about his life - by the familiar way the man addressed him and referred to his son's name. According to Mahmoud's account, this man then made some attempt to explain what was happening in Gaza. "He started telling me: 'Did you see how they [Hamas] slaughtered those children with knives?'… "I told him that according to our Islamic religion, this is forbidden," Mahmoud recalls. He urged the voice against "mass punishment", but Mahmoud knew it was hopeless. Mahmoud says the man told him more buildings would be destroyed that night, and the dentist would need to order his neighbours to evacuate once again. At first, he was told the targets were two buildings next to the three that had been destroyed that morning, as well as a second block of towers. "He said to me, 'We want you to inform people to evacuate the area,' and I said, 'You need to give me time.'" He got to work. "We evacuated all the people and even evacuated a third block because it was so close to the second one," Mahmoud says. At this point al-Zahra was largely in darkness. Residents say electricity had gone and they were using phones and torches for light as they filled the streets. Some had time to grab pre-packed bags as they left their homes, with items like spare clothing, water, phones and first aid kits. Others did not. "It was absolute horror," one resident, Abdullah al-Khatib, says. "We didn't know where to go. We literally just ran out, taking nothing." "Can't see clearly. Just evacuate," another says by WhatsApp message, recalling the events of that night. "I just focus on being safe with family." Mahmoud continued trying to buy as much time as he could, talking to the man who called himself Daoud until everyone was clear of the area and had been able to get into their cars if they wanted to drive away. Three buildings were destroyed. As Mahmoud watched the destruction, the man on the phone said three more buildings would be bombed and then the residents would be allowed to return. But a change of orders came suddenly. They would bomb the full row of apartment blocks on the eastern side of the street, Mahmoud recalls being told. This was more than 20 tower blocks, and hundreds of homes. "There were people we hadn't evacuated yet because there was no warning about those buildings. I told him, 'At least give us until morning, in night time, where will the people go?' "The answer was, 'The orders have been received, and we will bomb all towers within two hours.'" Mahmoud screamed at people to clear the area, running from block to block. Residents describe chaotic scenes of adults shouting and children weeping. Some parents and children lost one another in the melee. Despite the panic, Mahmoud stayed on the phone the whole time, trying his best to delay the bombing. The voice on the other end of the phone continued, without emotion. "He even told me, 'Take your time. I won't bomb unless you give me permission.' "I said 'No, it's not my permission. I don't want you to bomb anything. If you want me to evacuate, I will evacuate for the safety of the people, but if you want to bomb, don't tell me you need my permission. "'It's not Mahmoud Shaheen who will bomb al-Zahra.'" An elderly disabled woman lived in the last block of apartment buildings. Mahmoud and those around him told locals to "drive like crazy" to reach her and get her out. He and others also worried about a local elderly care home. But the man on the phone said "he'd just destroy the residential buildings", according to Mahmoud. Mahmoud says what he and his neighbours witnessed that night "wasn't a small bombing" but the "complete destruction of buildings", as the residential blocks were levelled one by one. "It was a very hard night for all the people of al-Zahra." Photos and video footage posted by residents of the community show the aftermath of the evening bombing. A post on the Facebook group at 21:11 local time says: "Al-Zahra towers are being bombed right now. God have mercy." One resident speaking to the BBC via WhatsApp message recalled the confusion in the streets. "We didn't know where we should go - some said we must go to schools, some said we should go to Al Nuseirat [a refugee camp south of the neighbourhood]. During that [time] came cruel bombs." Mahmoud asked the man on the phone where he should take his neighbours. "He said, 'Either take them east or west'. I said, 'To take them east will be hard, because to the east of al-Zahra is Al Mughraqa - an already unsafe area. People were already scared to go there.' "He told me, 'Take them west to Palestine Street'. I suggested the University of Palestine and he said yes." Mahmoud led the crowd, which included not just residents of the tower blocks, but also other displaced people who had sought shelter in al-Zahra after fleeing their own homes elsewhere in northern Gaza. Other residents have confirmed that they went to the university, and a video posted on the Facebook group shows people walking and driving in that direction, as the person behind the camera prays. Mahmoud says people waited at the university in fear, listening to the drumming of explosions outside. Frightened dogs in the street tried to find a spot to lie down between women and children. At one point, Mahmoud says the voice on the phone asked him how much battery he had left. He had 15%. They told him to hang up to preserve it and that they would call back again. Frequent calls followed. "They would ring to tell me, 'Now we will bomb another building,' 'Now we will bomb another one.' They said, 'We will keep calling until we finish,'" Mahmoud says. At one point a neighbour's phone rang, with the voice asking for Mahmoud Shaheen. Mahmoud had been keeping his distance from his wife and five children all day - both because he was busy evacuating people and because he feared that his contact with Israeli intelligence made him a target. At the university, he checked they were OK, and then left them again. The residents of al-Zahra endured a sleepless night. The crowd looked to Mahmoud for updates and answers. "[They were] saying 'Hey doctor, did they call you so we can go back? Did they tell you where they will hit?'" Dawn broke. A post on the community Facebook group at 08:53 local time said: "The bombing is still going on up to this moment." Videos shared overnight captured flashes of orange in the night sky. Others shot in the morning show plumes of grey smoke rising with the sun over the city. Mahmoud and the man who called himself Daoud kept speaking until the streets went quiet. Then the calls abruptly stopped without any further instructions for the people of al-Zahra. "They didn't tell us to go back to our homes, or to evacuate or leave the area. So people waited until noon, and then they started to move," Mahmoud says. In the hours and days that followed, the community of al-Zahra, like many in Gaza, disbanded. "Even for the people whose homes were still standing, there are no services left… the sewage systems are damaged, there is no bakery, there is no supermarket, there is no water, no electricity," Mahmoud says. Mahmoud's block was not destroyed, although it was severely damaged. The neighbourhood where he built up his dental practice over 15 years, and became a linchpin of the community, is now gone. There is nothing left for him in al-Zahra. He has taken his family to another region of Gaza, where he is staying in a friend's house that is crowded with people. "I don't think about my clinic or my house, I just pray that I survive and stay alive," he says. "Material things are nothing, you could die at any second right now. We don't think about anything else." Israel is known to have warned Gazans by calling them, texting them and dropping leaflets before bombing. But in some cases, civilians say they have not been warned ahead of time. The IDF told the BBC that as part of its "mission to dismantle the Hamas terrorist organisation [it] has been targeting military targets across the Gaza Strip". Strikes on military targets were subject, it said, to "relevant provisions of international law, including the taking of feasible precautions to mitigate civilian casualties". "Hamas continues to attack Israel from across the entire Gaza Strip. Hamas has embedded itself in civilian infrastructure and operates across the entire Gaza Strip. The IDF is determined to end these attacks and as such we will strike Hamas wherever necessary." The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 10,000 people have been killed by Israel since the war began - more than a third of them are children. Israel's retaliatory airstrikes in Gaza followed Hamas gunmen rampaging into Israel on 7 October, killing 1,400 people, including many women and children, and taking hundreds of others hostage. Thanks to Mahmoud's efforts, it is believed that none of his neighbours died that day. But his account reveals the panic and anguish of a Palestinian community as they watched their homes and everything they love blow up around them. The BBC has spoken to multiple families who lived in al-Zahra, a neighbourhood of professionals and entrepreneurs, in which families ate falafel and pizza on the beach together, and children played football in the dawn light as the call to prayer sounded across the rooftops. In the second part of this story, we will bring you into the lives of the people who called this place home - of a prosperous and vibrant community that was eradicated overnight. Additional reporting: Muath Al Khatib and BBC News Arabic's Dima Al Babilie Visual Journalism: Mike Hills Video verification: Shayan Sardarizadeh Edited by Samuel Horti

The call to Mahmoud Shaheen came at dawn.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67327079?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

Here it is in full: Dear Prime Minister Thank you for your phone call yesterday morning in which you asked me to leave government. While disappointing, this is for the best. It has been my privilege to serve as home secretary and deliver on what the British people have sent us to Westminster to do. I want to thank all of those civil servants, police, Border Force officers and security professionals with whom I have worked and whose dedication to public safety is exemplary. I am proud of what we achieved together: delivering on our manifesto pledge to recruit 20,000 new police officers and enacting new laws such as the Public Order Act 2023 and the National Security Act 2023. I also led a programme of reform: on anti-social behaviour, police dismissals and standards, reasonable lines of enquiry, grooming gangs, knife crime, non-crime hate incidents and rape and serious sexual offences. And I am proud of the strategic changes that I was delivering to Prevent, Contest, serious organised crime and fraud. I am sure that this work will continue with the new ministerial team. As you know, I accepted your offer to serve as home secretary in October 2022 on certain conditions. Despite you having been rejected by a majority of party members during the summer leadership contest and thus having no personal mandate to be prime minister, I agreed to support you because of the firm assurances you gave me on key policy priorities. These were, among other things: This was a document with clear terms to which you agreed in October 2022 during your second leadership campaign. I trusted you. It is generally agreed that my support was a pivotal factor in winning the leadership contest and thus enabling you to become prime minister. For a year, as home secretary I have sent numerous letters to you on the key subjects contained in our agreement, made requests to discuss them with you and your team, and put forward proposals on how we might deliver these goals. I worked up the legal advice, policy detail and action to take on these issues. This was often met with equivocation, disregard and a lack of interest. You have manifestly and repeatedly failed to deliver on every single one of these key policies. Either your distinctive style of government means you are incapable of doing so. Or, as I must surely conclude now, you never had any intention of keeping your promises. These are not just pet interests of mine. They are what we promised the British people in our 2019 manifesto which led to a landslide victory. They are what people voted for in the 2016 Brexit Referendum. Our deal was no mere promise over dinner, to be discarded when convenient and denied when challenged. I was clear from day one that if you did not wish to leave the ECHR, the way to securely and swiftly deliver our Rwanda partnership would be to block off the ECHR, the HRA and any other obligations which inhibit our ability to remove those with no right to be in the UK. Our deal expressly referenced "notwithstanding clauses" to that effect. Your rejection of this path was not merely a betrayal of our agreement, but a betrayal of your promise to the nation that you would do "whatever it takes" to stop the boats. At every stage of litigation I cautioned you and your team against assuming we would win. I repeatedly urged you to take legislative measures that would better secure us against the possibility of defeat. You ignored these arguments. You opted instead for wishful thinking as a comfort blanket to avoid having to make hard choices. This irresponsibility has wasted time and left the country in an impossible position. If we lose in the Supreme Court, an outcome that I have consistently argued we must be prepared for, you will have wasted a year and an Act of Parliament, only to arrive back at square one. Worse than this, your magical thinking - believing that you can will your way through this without upsetting polite opinion - has meant you have failed to prepare any sort of credible Plan B. I wrote to you on multiple occasions setting out what a credible Plan B would entail, and making clear that unless you pursue these proposals, in the event of defeat, there is no hope of flights this side of an election. I received no reply from you. I can only surmise that this is because you have no appetite for doing what is necessary, and therefore no real intention of fulfilling your pledge to the British people. If, on the other hand, we win in the Supreme Court, because of the compromises that you insisted on in the Illegal Migration Act, the government will struggle to deliver our Rwanda partnership in the way that the public expects. The Act is far from secure against legal challenge. People will not be removed as swiftly as I originally proposed. The average claimant will be entitled to months of process, challenge, and appeal. Your insistence that Rule 39 indications are binding in international law - against the views of leading lawyers, as set out in the House of Lords - will leave us vulnerable to being thwarted yet again by the Strasbourg Court. Another cause for disappointment - and the context for my recent article in The Times - has been your failure to rise to the challenge posed by the increasingly vicious antisemitism and extremism displayed on our streets since Hamas's terrorist atrocities of 7 October. I have become hoarse urging you to consider legislation to ban the hate marches and help stem the rising tide of racism, intimidation and terrorist glorification threatening community cohesion. Britain is at a turning point in our history and faces a threat of radicalisation and extremism in a way not seen for 20 years. I regret to say that your response has been uncertain, weak, and lacking in the qualities of leadership that this country needs. Rather than fully acknowledge the severity of this threat, your team disagreed with me for weeks that the law needed changing. As on so many other issues, you sought to put off tough decisions in order to minimise political risk to yourself. In doing so, you have increased the very real risk these marches present to everyone else. In October of last year you were given an opportunity to lead our country. It is a privilege to serve and one we should not take for granted. Service requires bravery and thinking of the common good. It is not about occupying the office as an end in itself. Someone needs to be honest: your plan is not working, we have endured record election defeats, your resets have failed and we are running out of time. You need to change course urgently. I may not have always found the right words, but I have always striven to give voice to the quiet majority that supported us in 2019. I have endeavoured to be honest and true to the people who put us in these privileged positions. I will, of course, continue to support the government in pursuit of policies which align with an authentic conservative agenda. Sincerely Suella Braverman

Suella Braverman, who was sacked as home secretary by Rishi Sunak after she defied No 10 over an article accusing the Metropolitan Police of bias in the policing of protests, has sent a scathing open letter to her old boss.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67416146?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said 19-year-old Cpl Noa Marciano was discovered in a building next to the Al-Shifa Hospital. On Thursday, the IDF said theyfound the body of a 65-year-old hostage in a house near the same hospital. Troops are continuing their search in and around Gaza's biggest hospital. A spokesman for the IDF, Daniel Hagari, wrote on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that Israeli intelligence led soldiers to the exact location of her body. The IDF did not give further details on how Cpl Marciano died. Hamas's military wing claimed she was killed in an Israeli air strike on 9 November, though this could not be independently verified. Cpl Marciano was serving as a lookout at the Nahal Oz kibbutz when it was stormed by part of a wave of gunmen who had burst through the nearby Israel-Gaza border, attacking dozens of Israeli communities, several military bases and hundreds of young people attending a music festival. According to Haaretz, Cpl Marciano's mother, Adi Marciano, said in an interview that she last spoke to her daughter on the morning of the attack. "She told me she was in a protected space and that there had been an infiltration... She said that she had to end the call. I didn't hear shots or screams. Half an hour later, I sent her a message, but she didn't reply." She had appeared in a video released by Hamas on Monday. The IDF called it "psychological terrorism". So far, only four of the 240 hostages who were abducted by Hamas last month have been freed. Israeli officials say that at least 1,200 people were killed in Hamas's cross-border attack. Since Israel started its counter-attack, Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry has said 11,400 people have been killed in the territory. Al-Shifa, Gaza City's largest hospital, became the focus of fighting at the start of the week and was raided by the Israeli military on Wednesday morning. The IDF says Hamas has been using the hospital as a command centre and has spent two days searching the complex for evidence of this. Hamas denies operating there and the BBC cannot independently verify claims by either side.

Israel has confirmed that it has found the body of a second woman who was taken into Gaza by Hamas in its attack last month.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67449095?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

The marines have spoken of gaining a foothold on "several bridgeheads" on the left bank, as they try to push the Russians back in a bid to protect civilians on the opposite side of the river from constant Russian shelling. "Thank you for your strength, for moving forward," President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on social media on Friday, alongside pictures of marines arriving in small boats. The few hundred soldiers are outnumbered and surrounded in three directions, yet have managed to dig in for the best part of a month. This isn't the thousands needed to potentially liberate swathes of territory which Kyiv so desperately wants to do. The front line has barely moved for a year and Ukraine finds itself in a tricky cycle. It needs Western help to deliver battlefield progress, but it also needs battlefield progress to convince western helpers. General Valery Zaluzhny, the head of Ukraine's armed forces, has described the situation as a stalemate and says a number of innovations are needed to break it. President Zelensky has dismissed his view, and believes Ukraine can still be victorious. Their argument has fuelled political fatigue among some of Ukraine's Western allies. The southis one area where the mood is high. A year ago, the southern Kherson region was seen as the least likely place for Ukraine to mount its counter-offensive. For the Russians, there is no better defensive line than a huge body of water like the Dnipro river. It separates the third of the region liberated last year from the two-thirds still under occupation. Ukrainian armoured vehicles have advanced 4km (2.5 miles) and Kyiv is framing these inroads as the start of something bigger. "We are motivated by our families and we get decent financial support," one special forces fighter told the BBC. The reality is there are simply not enough boots on the ground yet to justify Kyiv's hopes for a breakthrough there. In the south-east, Ukrainian troops have thrown everything at trying to retake territory there, but have only liberated a handful of villages. "Fatigue is the main thing, and it kills any motivation," explains a soldier with a mortar crew in the Zaporizhzhia region. He's fighting with the 46th brigade in an area where Russian defences are at their strongest. "We've killed many Russians, but lost no fewer," says the soldier. "Anyone who complained was removed from their position." During the summer, this part of the front line was seen as the best place for Ukraine to try to break the land corridor Russia occupies in two. Now, Western officials think neither side can mount a land offensive "in the near future". As far as they're concerned, it's a stalemate. The soldier in the 46th Brigade believes next year will be difficult, but decisive: "It is impossible to fight forever. Hatred is soon replaced by apathy." It is onthe eastern axisthat Russian forces have been pushing hardest, and it is the city of Avdiivka that best reflects the state of this war. It was briefly occupied in 2014 before being liberated, and the Russians have been trying to get it back since. Ukraine has recently been repelling wave after wave of attacks, partly helped by the heavy fortifications it has built over the past nine years. Western officials say Russia is suffering 500-1,000 casualties a day there. "Our commanders and fighters have studied every hill and every road," says Ivan from Ukraine's 110 Brigade. He's been serving there since March 2022. Avdiivka's strategic value is questionable, but clearly Kyiv thinks it's inflicting a significant enough number of losses compared to its own. The mood can be described as "fatigue, rage and desire to expel evil", explains Ivan. "It's tiredness from the constant threat to your life, not from the front line not moving. In the north-east, more than 250km (155 miles) to the north, the city of Kupiansk was occupied for most of last year until Ukraine's counter-offensive last autumn. As an important railway hub, Kupiansk has strategic value and during this war both sides have used it to supply the front lines. Civilians were urged to leave in August because of constant shelling as Russia tried to take it back. Denys is at the very sharpest edge of the fighting and after months on the front line he has had enough, complaining that his commanders do not listen to advice. "They emphasise aviation and artillery, but we need the latest technologies, like drones," he says. He believes Nato, which Ukraine desperately wants to join, needs to learn lessons from this very modern war. Mines are one of the biggest challenges for Ukrainian troops across the frontline. "The Russians have machines that can mine an area of tens of kilometres per day," explains Denys. "They use anti-personnel mines, anti-tank mines, they lay three mines, one under the other." Another hurdle has been the quality of Russian defences, which Denys describes as "underground cities". From his position, as a rank-and-file soldier on the front line, Denys has seen a horrifying human cost on his own side of the incremental breakthroughs in recapturing territory. "The commander throws anyone - cooks or drivers - into the furnace. They simply die there in their hundreds." "Those commanders will have to be arrested and tried after the war," he says. These soldiers on Ukraine's front lines reflect the war of attrition this invasion has become. With its size and resources, that suits Russia. What Kyiv is also having to grapple with, is sharing the spotlight with another conflict: the Israel-Hamas war. President Zelensky has admitted it makes Ukraine's fight all the more difficult, with the risk of Western attention and aid being diluted. Additional reporting by Anastasiia Levchenko and Hanna Tsyba.

Ukrainian forces say they have secured several positions on the Russian-occupied eastern bank of the Dnipro river, and their leaders have been keen to talk up their progress.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67452832?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

The drama began on Saturday near Reims, in the heart of the Champagne region, where the lorries were reported stolen. Officers were able to locate the vehicles, which were equipped with tracking devices, and gave chase on the A4 motorway between Reims and Paris. The champagne was eventually retrieved but the thieves managed to escape. The lorries were stolen from a Reims-based company between Friday evening and Saturday morning, French media say. According to Le Parisien newspaper the consignments consisted of bottles of Moët & Chandon, one of the most renowned brands of champagne. Each load was valued at €300,000. The lorries were tracked on the A4 near Pontault-Combault, about 20km (12 miles) from central Paris, early on Saturday. Two police cars were involved in the chase. The thieves tried to shake them off by swerving abruptly. When the officers forced one of the lorries to slow down, the driver jumped off before being picked up by a saloon car that was following the convoy. The car sped away. The second lorry took the next exit and was later found without the driver. An investigation is under way. The champagne bottles were all retrieved intact and unharmed, if a little shaken.

Thieves in France stole two truckloads of champagne before police recovered the liquid loot - worth €600,000 (£525,000) - in a high-speed chase.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67398003?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

Ukrainians are being denied healthcare and free movement unless they take up Russian citizenship, evidence suggests. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), an alliance of public service media including the BBC, interviewed refugees for the investigation. They spoke of relentless pro-Russian propaganda in the occupied lands. One refugee from the occupied territories, Larysa, told the EBU's Investigative Journalism Network that one of her friends was not provided with insulin for her diabetes - a key part of treatment - until she applied for a Russian passport. Another friend had to become a Russian citizen to have her broken arm treated, Larysa said. She also spoke of other types of pressure forcing Ukrainians to assimilate as Russians. "Pensions are not provided without Russian passports, food is not provided without Russian passports, and medical services are out of the question. There are lots of checkpoints on the roads. And every time they stop you, they check your documents, and then say they will not let you through without a Russian passport next time. "So people have to obtain these papers. Because if someone, say, has cows in one village and sells milk in another, it is impossible to move between villages." Larysa's account of pressure to obtain Russian passports is corroborated by other refugees, such as Lyudmyla (not her real name) from the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region. "When you go to a hospital you need to have a Russian passport. If you do not have a Russian passport, they won't treat you. If you drive your own car and the patrol stops you, and you do not have a Russian passport, they can simply take your car away. So people are forced to obtain them. Retired people are forced to obtain Russian passports to receive pensions. It is a matter of survival." In the past, Russia handed passports to residents of the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and later used them as part of its justification for invading Georgia in 2008. But Lyudmyla and her friend Oksana (also not her real name) say the main reason why they left their homes was because their children were being forced to study the Russian school curriculum. "We were provoked into leaving by the opening of a Russian school, and we were being forced to go there. They told us that if we did not let our children go there, they would take our children away and deprive us of our parental rights. "When you send your children to the school, you must have a Russian passport. If you do not have a Russian passport your child will have problems and you will have problems. "What kind of problems? You will be stripped of your parental rights. They will take our children away and that's it - you will be left without children," Lyudmyla says. Earlier in 2023, Russia unveiled new schoolbooks which aim to justify its invasion of Ukraine. They falsely portray Ukraine as an aggressive state run by nationalist extremists and manipulated by the West, which allegedly uses the country as a "battering ram" against Russia. Oksana says she left also because she was afraid that her 20-year-old son would be drafted into the Russian army and forced to fight Ukrainians. Historian Artem Petryk was in the southern city of Kherson when it was occupied by Russians between February and November 2022. He described the Russian authorities' concerted efforts to influence the hearts and minds of the local population. "From the first days of the occupation, they seized control of television and began broadcasting Russian radio. There was a stream of fakery about Ukraine and the West. It glorified the Russian army and the Russian state. "And everywhere in the city they put up billboards with portraits of Russian tsars, commanders, and there were slogans saying that Kherson is a city with a Russian history, Russia is here forever, and so on. "They tried to impose the Russian identity through the public space. They marked days of the Russian flag, days of Russia, put up billboards and, of course, tried to establish control over school. They introduced the Russian school curriculum, crucially the history course, and tried to impose Russia's world view," Mr Petryk says. Larysa describes Russification efforts by the occupying authorities as another weapon used by Russia. "This is the same as weapons - not the ones which shoot, but moral ones. Sometimes these moral weapons hurt harder than a machine gun. Because machine guns fire once and it's done, but the moral ones oppress you every day. This is very hard," Larysa says.

The Kremlin has launched a wide-ranging campaign to force Ukrainians in occupied territories to become Russian, an investigation has found.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67427840?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 9,000 people have been killed since the war began. Because of safety concerns, there are relatively few journalists in Gaza to document the human cost of the fighting. But the BBC has been speaking to a number of families and eyewitnesses who have told us stories of loved ones who have been killed in recent days. With serious power supply issues in the Gaza Strip, Yusof and his two older siblings - sister Jury, 13, and nine-year-old brother Hamed - felt quite lucky. Their father, Mohamed Abu Musa, a radiographer at the Nasser hospital in the city of Khan Younis, had installed solar panels at their house, so the children could watch their favourite cartoons on TV. They were settling down in front of the television on 15 October when, their father says, their home was hit by an Israeli air strike. Jury and Hamed somehow survived, but Yusof was killed when the roof of their house collapsed. He was seven years old. Mohamed was working a 24-hour shift at the hospital when his wife, Rawan, entered, screaming in search for their youngest son. She had been able to find Hamed, while rescue teams helped pull Jury out of the rubble. Jury had suffered head injuries but her parents say she is "improving". A video showing Rawan asking at the hospital for her "handsome and curly-haired son" circulated widely on social media. But Mohamed would later find his son's body in the hospital morgue. "The last time I saw Yusof alive was when he ran to hug me on the doorstep of our home, just before I left for work," Mohamed recalls. "He kissed me and said goodbye after I had given him some biscuits and bananas. He wanted to be a doctor, maybe because he always saw me going to hospital for work." On the evening of 15 October, Dr Saidam needed a rest. The 47-year-old surgeon had not left the al-Shifa hospital, in Gaza City for more than week. He told his colleagues he was going home for the night. But a few hours later he was killed in a strike at his home. "This calm, funny and kind-hearted man came back to the hospital the next morning, but as a lifeless body," his colleague Dr Adnan Albursh explained. Dr Albursh, who had known the surgeon for more than 20 years, added that his late colleague had been nicknamed "the relentless surgeon" by his peers for his dedication to the job. A veteran of the operating room, Dr Saidam was also known as a great mentor to younger doctors. "If any of the doctors faced any difficulties, they knew Dr Saidam was the one who would sort it out," agreed Dr Ahmed El Mokhallalati, the head of the plastic surgery department at al-Shifa Hospital. "His death is a huge loss not only to this hospital but also to the medical profession," he added. Seventeen-year-old student Nour was killed on 11 October when an Israeli air strike hit her family home in the town of Deir al-Balah, 14km south of Gaza City, according to her uncle. Mohammed al-Kharma said his niece wanted to relocate because of the bombing and stay with relatives elsewhere. "Her father asked her to stay in her house, which was bombed the very next morning. It was her fate," he said. Nour was killed alongside her nephew Yazan. The pair had been playing in the living room. Her elder sisters, Ola, and Huda, who were preparing breakfast with their mother, Jamalat, survived. Nour was in her last year of high school and always wanted to be a doctor. Her uncle said his family pulled her school bag from under the rubble. It contained books and a diary, and in one of the pages she had written: "I want to make my family proud of me and I will get high grades by the will of Allah." In her last communication with her fiance Khaled al-Masry, Lurin said she was exhausted from moving from place to place in search of safety from the war. The 30-year-old had just arrived at the Nusairat refugee camp, in the centre of the Gaza Strip, to stay with her aunt. Lurin had survived two strikes, including one on 16 October that flattened the building where she lived with her parents in Gaza City. "She told me she was going to have a shower, pray and rest," Khaled recalls. According to her fiance, who lives and works in Cyprus, she was praying in a room when the house she was in was hit. "She was killed while she was praying," he says. Lurin and Khaled had postponed their wedding a couple of times due to the unstable situation in Gaza. They were planning finally to get married in December and move to Cyprus. A devastated Khaled said: "She is now resting forever. She used to wear a white dress, but now is wearing a white shroud." People in Gaza City's Radwan district who needed women's formal clothing would head straight to Fekriya Hassan Abdul A'al's place. "I remember when we used to have our house full of brides-to-be and bridesmaids who would come to my mother's place to have a fitting. She was exceptionally talented," Fekriya's daughter Nevine says. The 65-year-old tailor was killed along with two of her siblings, two of her children and two of her grandchildren, after the house they were sheltering in was hit by an air strike on 23 October. Nevine, who was taking cover at a friend's house, says that Fekriya was devoted to her family and would host large weekly gatherings. But Nevine says her mood had been severely affected by the escalation in the conflict: "She told me in our last phone call: 'I'm very depressed and exhausted from what seems to be an endless war'." Brothers Mazen, 17 and Ahmed, 13 were among those killed by the explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital on 17 October. Palestinian officials say the blast was caused by an Israeli air strike. But the Israeli military say it was the result of a failed rocket launch by Palestinian Islamic Jihad - an accusation the group rejected. Arafat Abu Massi, the father of Mazen and Ahmed, said the two brothers were "very close to each other" but had very different personalities. Arafat and his wife had undergone IVF therapy for eight years to have Mazen, who was at high school and wanted to become a dentist. "He was the brightest of all my children," he says. While Ahmed was described by his father as "the strongest and bravest in the family" - and the entrepreneurial one. "He used to sell toys and school supplies in a small booth near our house," Arafat said. His only remaining child now is three-year-old Faraj, who, according to Arafat, keeps crying and asking where his siblings are. "I told him that God has chosen them to stay in heaven. That is a better place for my two young smart gentlemen." Salam Mema, a 32-year-old Palestinian journalist, was killed on 10 October when her house in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, was hit by an Israeli air strike, her friend told the BBC. Her husband, their two-year-old daughter Sham, their seven-year-old son Hadi, and other members of the family, were also killed, leaving their five-year-old son Ali as the sole survivor. As of 31 October, Salam was one of 31 journalists confirmed killed on both sides, since the Israel-Hamas conflict began. The 26-year-old pharmacist was killed in an air strike in the southern city of Rafah, on 17 October. She was sleeping beside her three-month-old baby girl Elyana, and her husband. Safaa's uncle and a retired medical doctor based in the UK, Omar Hassouna, said her parents managed to survive the strike but are in shock and devastated by her death. Omar said the last time he saw his niece was in January, during his holiday in Gaza. "Safaa was polite, helpful, and loved by everyone. "I have lost a lovely niece. Her death is unfair, as all the deaths of all of the civilians in Gaza have been." "I would prefer to be in Gaza with them right now, I feel so hopeless here."

The death toll in Gaza is rising as Israel presses on with its war against Hamas, following the attacks on 7 October in which 1,400 people were killed in Israel.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67278549?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

Sixty years after From Me to You topped the charts, Sir Paul McCartney said: "It's blown my socks off!" Now and Then is also this century's fastest-selling vinyl single, according to the Official Charts Company. Its first bars were written by John Lennon in 1978, and it was finally completed last year. Sir Paul said: "It's mind boggling. It's blown my socks off. It's also a very emotional moment for me. I love it!" The Beatles last topped the charts with The Ballad of John and Yoko in 1969, and have overtaken Kate Bush's 44 years between Wuthering Heights (1978) and Running Up That Hill (2022). They are also the oldest band ever to hit number one - Sir Paul McCartney is 82 and Sir Ringo Starr is 83. They are also the second and third-oldest chart-topping artists, after Sir Captain Tom Moore, aged 99, whosecover of You'll Never Walk Alonewas number one in 2020 with Michael Ball. Now and Then debuted in the charts at number 42 after its release on 2 November, based on just 10 hours' worth of sales. Since then it has jumped 41 places up the charts and is the 18th number one single for Sir Paul, Sir Ringo Starr and the late John Lennon and George Harrison. The song has 78,200 combined UK chart units across sales and streaming, and the biggest one-week physical sales in almost a decade, with 38,000 - the most since X Factor 2014 winner Ben Haenow sold 47,000 copies of Something I Need. The Beatles are the British act with the most number one singles in UK charts history - only US singer Elvis Presley has more, with 21 chart-topping singles. Back in 1963, when From Me To You topped the charts, Harold Macmillan was the Conservative prime minister. The single knocked Gerry & The Pacemakers' How Do You Do It? from the top spot, where it stayed for seven consecutive weeks. All four Beatles feature on Now and Then, the last credited to Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr. It was issued as a double A-side single with Love Me Do - their 1962 debut. Lennon wrote Now and Then after the Beatles split up in 1970, and the song had circulated as a bootleg for years. An apologetic love song, it is addressed to an old friend (or lover), to whom Lennon declares: "Now and then, I miss you / Now and then, I want you to return to me." Sir Paul had wanted to complete the song ever since - and advancements in audio technology finally made that possible. Martin Talbot, head of the Official Charts Company, said: "The return of John, Paul, George and Ringo with the last ever Beatles single has cemented their legend by breaking a catalogue of records - and in doing so underlined the extraordinary scope of their enduring appeal, across all the generations, with huge numbers of streams, downloads and vinyl singles." Elsewhere in the charts, BTS member Jung Kook managed to get his fourth solo top 10 single with Standing Next to You, while Casso, Raye and D-Block Europe's Prada rose one place to number two. Last week's number one, Is It Over Now (Taylor's Version) by Taylor Swift, fell to number three, while Olivia Rodrigo's Can't Catch Me Now, from the soundtrack for the film The Hunger Games: The Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes, was at number 18. In the album chart, Taylor Swift's new version of 1989 (Taylor's Version) topped the charts, beating new releases from Oasis, with The Masterplan, and Golden by Jung Kook. Hackney Diamonds by The Rolling Stones was at number four, with Sir Cliff Richard at number five with Strings - My Kinda Life.

The Beatles have topped the charts with their single, Now and Then, making them the act with the longest gap between their first and last number ones.

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All five of his co-stars from hit sitcom Friends attended the service alongside Perry's family, it was reported. The funeral service at the Forest Lawn cemetery, near Warner Bros Studios, is said to have lasted two hours. Perry was found dead at his LA home last weekend at the age of 54. His cause of death has not been confirmed. A post-mortem examination was inconclusive and officials are awaiting the results of toxicology tests. The star played wise-cracking Chandler Bing on Friends from 1994 to 2004, with his death generating an outpouring of grief from fans and fellow celebrities. Forest Lawn Memorial Park is the resting place of numerous Hollywood stars including Carrie Fisher, Paul Walker and Stan Laurel. US media shared long-distance and aerial photographs from outside the service, where Perry's Friends co-stars Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer could be seen. His mother, father, and stepfather were also there. About 20 people dressed in black attended in total, according to TMZ. Perry's death came one year after the publication of memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, which chronicled his decades-long struggle with addiction to prescription painkillers and alcohol. On the same day as his funeral, anew foundation was launched in Perry's nameto help those struggling with addiction. The website for the Matthew Perry Foundation leads with a quote from Perry that says: "When I die, I don't want Friends to be the first thing that's mentioned - I want helping others to be the first thing that's mentioned." Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman said she spoke to Perry two weeks ago, telling NBC's Today programme he was "happy and chipper" and seemed "in a really good place".

Actor Matthew Perry has been laid to rest at a Los Angeles cemetery following a private funeral on Friday, according to US media reports.

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The letters were reported in Georgia, Nevada, California, Oregon and Washington, where the letter included a warning to "end elections now". Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger described the letters as "domestic terrorism" that "needs to be condemned". Fentanyl is a synthetic painkiller 50 times more powerful than heroin. It has been blamed for a rise in US drug deaths. According to the FBI and US Postal Service, fentanyl was found in four of the letters. Some of the letters were intercepted before they arrived at their final destination. "Law enforcement is working diligently to intercept any additional letters before they are delivered," the FBI and Postal Service said in a statement. In Washington, officials in Pierce County released images of a letter - postmarked in Portland, Oregon - which included the words "end elections now". A similar letter was received in Seattle's King County, which reported another fentanyl-laced letter during an August primary election. In Georgia, the letter appeared to be targeting an office in Fulton County. Authorities discovered the letter and found it contained fentanyl. "Some people like to call fentanyl a drug," Mr Raffensperger told reporters on Thursday. "It's actually poison, it will kill you, it will kill you very quickly, very easily." "My wife and I lost our son five-and-a-half years ago due to a fentanyl overdose, we know how deadly this stuff is." Brenton Raffensperger died in 2018 aged 38. In Washington, election offices in four counties - King, Pierce, Skagit and Spokane - received envelopes containing "unknown powdery substances", according to Secretary of State Steve Hobbs. The incidents took place as workers were counting ballots from the 7 November general election, said Mr Hobbs, a Democrat. "These incidents are acts of terrorism to threaten our elections," he said, echoing Mr Raffensperger. The Postal Service was able to intercept envelopes headed to Los Angeles and Sacramento, according to the Associated Press. Fulton County in Georgia has been the target of repeated unfounded claims by former President Donald Trump of widespread ballot fraud. He isnow facing charges in that same countyfor allegedly conspiring to overturn Georgia's vote results from 2020. Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty. On Wednesday, Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts - a Democrat - said that officials there had been under threat since the 2020 election. He added that there are "people out there who want to do harm to our workers and disrupt, interrupt, the flow of democracy". Mr Pitts added that officials are prepared for the 2024 election, which he said would be the "focal point" of tension and scrutiny. "This was a good trial run for us," he said.

Suspicious envelopes, some laced with fentanyl, have been sent to election offices in at least five US states.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67374213?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

At 23:00, the announcements were still coming, and it's not just David Cameron doing a less senior job than their previous role. Dame Andrea Leadsom used to be a cabinet minister as business secretary - she once ran for Conservative leader and prime minister - now she's back as a junior health minister. Damian Hinds used to be education secretary. Now he's number two in the department as minister of state. But let's take a step back. What is this reshuffle all about? From Rishi Sunak's perspective, it is about building a team more in his own image, and shaking off at least some of the folk he inherited from Liz Truss. It is also about trying to change the political dial. I'm told Rishi Sunak and David Cameron have spoken every now and again since Mr Sunak became prime minister. It was about a week ago when Lord Cameron, as he now is, was asked if he would become foreign secretary. This suggests - given the sideways move for James Cleverly from foreign secretary to home secretary - that Suella Braverman may have been done for even without thedrama of late last week. But Mrs Braverman's remarks did, it appears, shuffle forward the reshuffle. Lord Cameron's return has prompted genuine delight from some Conservatives. I've seen texts flying around talking excitedly about "DC" - his initials were often used as shorthand when he was prime minister. But others in the party see him as a Conservative from a different era: the Remain-loving author of what some see as the austerity years. For some Conservative MPs they are two things they would run a mile from. Governments will often appoint blasts from the past to senior roles, via the House of Lords, when they've either run out of better ideas or really do need to give the impression they're patching up very public differences. Think Lord Mandelson as the unlikely number two to Gordon Brown in the final years of Labour's last stint in government. As for Suella Braverman, No10 got rid of her because they were tired of her. On plenty of policy issues she and the prime minister agreed. But her language and the attention it attracted irritated them, as did that article she wrote for The Times that wasn't properly signed off by No10. A former minister, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, has published her letter of no confidence in Rishi Sunak. Some of Suella Braverman's supporters claim - without evidence - a dozen or so letters have been sent in private. Who knows. The numbers of the disillusioned MPs tempted by political insurrection don't seem big, at least not yet. But make no mistake, No10 is aware of them. Mrs Braverman hasn't yet properly had her say after her early morning sacking by phone. Some think she may wait until after the decision on Wednesday from the Supreme Court about the Rwanda migrant plan. If the government loses, Suella Braverman isn't likely to stay quiet for long. And senior folk in government think losing on Rwanda in court is more likely than winning. But a qualified loss (or indeed qualified win) is possible, where some elements of the scheme are approved and others aren't. The question is how much attention can Suella Braverman attract, how much appetite does the Tory party still have for stirring things up before an election - as opposed to making a case for its priorities afterwards? Let's see. What is noticeable - and the return of David Cameron personifies - is what seems like a tilt away from the right. The re-appointment of Esther McVey is a nod to those who might be concerned about this, charged as she is with keeping a sceptical eye on what some label political correctness or "wokery". But the broader shift looks unmistakable to some in the party, and they don't like it. Others hope it can shore up Conservative support in the south of England, where the electoral threat to the Tories by the Liberal Democrats is at its keenest. Others, not least in the Labour Party, ask whether all this amounts to a coherent strategy at all, given it is only weeks ago that Rishi Sunak was seeking to define himself against recent governments and prime ministers. And now he's appointed one as his foreign secretary. Oh and one final thought, which in the end is all that really matters with all this. Will it change how we are governed, and the popularity, or lack of it, of the government? There is a chance given its scale, and the eye-catching return of David Cameron, that people might notice it. Internal Conservative critics reckoned the prime minister's conference speech and last week's King's Speech didn't change the political dial. It is far from certain this personnel reboot will either, but it might. If you are Rishi Sunak and you are staring at what looks right now like likely general election defeat, it is worth a try.

Rishi Sunak's new cabinet meets for the first time this morning, as his new look government takes shape.

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He accused Conservative Chris Clarkson of making "a highly defamatory statement" about him on X. In his post, Mr Clarkson claimed Mr McDonald had sought "to justify the murderous actions of Hamas". But Mr McDonald, who has been suspended as a Labour MP, said his speech had "called for peace". Mr Clarkson has been approached for comment. The MP for Middlesbrough was suspended from Labour's parliamentary party earlier this week, pending an investigation, after Labour said he had allegedly made "deeply offensive" comments at a demonstration on Saturday. He is sitting as an independent while the party investigation takes place, In his speech Mr McDonald, a former shadow minister under Jeremy Corbyn, said: "We will not rest until we have justice. Until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea, can live in peaceful liberty." The phrase "between the river and the sea", which refers to the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean, features in a chant which has been heard at pro-Palestine protests. Critics of the chant, including Israel and most Jewish groups, argue it implicitly calls for the destruction of Israel. This interpretation is disputed by some pro-Palestinian activists who say that most people chanting it are calling for an end to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and blockade of Gaza, not the destruction of Israel itself. Mr McDonald has previously said his words were intended as "a heartfelt plea for an end to the killings in Israel, Gaza, and the occupied West Bank, and for all peoples in the region to live in freedom without the threat of violence". Sharing a video of the speech on X on Sunday, Mr Clarkson, the MP for Heywood and Middleton in Greater Manchester, wrote: "'Between the River and the Sea' is a deeply sinister antisemitic trope - seeing a Labour MP use it whilst seeking to justify the murderous actions of Hamas should be shocking. Sadly, it's barely surprising." Mr McDonald said the post was "highly defamatory and caused serious harm to my reputation". "I am not prepared to stand by, while an MP or others peddle the lie that I have sought to justify the actions of Hamas on 7 October 2023, including the awful murder of 1,400 people in Israel," he said in a statement. "Much of what I have said in the last few days about the recent events in Israel and Palestine has been deliberately distorted and misinterpreted." Mr McDonald said his lawyers had taken "the first steps in commencing legal proceedings against Mr Clarkson" by sending him a letter of claim for libel. Speaking to BBC Newsnight, Mr McDonald said: "I beg everybody to look at the words that I've used. Calling for Israelis and Palestinians to live in peaceful liberty together." He added: "I would condemn anyone who would call for the destruction and the eradication of the nation state of Israel or indeed a putative and viable Palestinian state - so the words I used are clear. I would never, ever make comments that would cause such hurt." The MP declined to apologise for using the phrase "from the river to the sea", saying he believed his explanation of why he used it would be enough to convince the Labour Party to restore the whip. Hamas, which is proscribed as a terrorist group by the UK and other governments, killed more than 1,400 people in an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October. Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says more than 9,000 people have been killed in the territory since then, after Israel launched a bombing campaign in response. Mr McDonald's suspension followed days of internal Labour tensions over the party's position on the Israel-Gaza war. The move provoked a backlash from some on the left of the party, who argued Mr McDonald's words were misrepresented, as well as the Labour Muslim Network. A growing number of Labour MPs and councillors are calling for the party leadership to back an immediate ceasefire in the region. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said he understands calls for a ceasefire but that this would leave Hamas's infrastructure intact, enabling them to carry out future attacks. Instead he has backed humanitarian pauses to help aid get in to Gaza and allow hostages to get out.

Andy McDonald has threatened a fellow MP with legal action, over a social media post about his speech at a pro-Palestinian rally.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67299563?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

The pair scooped up three awards each at the 24th edition of the show, which celebrate achievement in the Latin music industry. "It seems incredible to me that it changed the lives of so many others," said Karol G after winning album of the year. It was the first time the ceremony was held outside the United States, taking place in Seville, Spain. Shakira picked up song of the year and pop song of the year for Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53, with her collaboration on TQG with Karol G winning best urban/fusion performance. The Colombian popstar dedicated her awards to her children, saying: "I have promised them I will be happy." She also spoke about "tough moments", possibly referring to her split with footballer Gerard Pique and tax evasion charges in Spain. She denies evading millions of euros in tax between 2012 and 2014 and her trial is due to begin on Monday. "I also want to share this with my Spanish audience, who has been there with me through the good and bad times. "In those hard and tough moments I've experienced here in this country, I have loved so much but at no moment has stopped giving me love and support." Fellow Colombian star Karol G said she was "happy to have some of those who teamed up" with her at the show. "This is a very special album that changed my life," she added. Spanish singer-songwriter Rosalia did not win anything but opened the show with a powerful performance paying tribute to the art of flamenco. There was also a historical first with Laura Pausini being the only artist of non-Iberian heritage to receive the person of the year honour. Fans were surprised at the lack of success for Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny, who does feature on Coco Chanel by Eladio Carrion which won best rap/hip hop song. But there was wider unhappiness over the decision to hold the awards in Seville, because of a multi-million pound deal with its regional government. Some fans have criticised the ceremony for a lack of representation, saying a large number of awards have previously been wonby Spanish people. One fan wrote on social media: "Bring back the Latin Grammys to Latin America." You can find a full list of winners and nomineeshere. Listen to Newsbeatliveat 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen backhere.

Shakira and Karol G were the two big winners at the annual Latin Grammys.

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On 7 November 2022, as his empire began its dizzying, irrevocable collapse, Bankman-Fried did what he always did: he weighed the odds. Earlier that day, a rival executive had expressed concerns on social media about the finances of Bankman-Fried's crypto exchange, spooking customers into a multi-billion dollar bank run. In an online chat, Bankman-Fried consulted two of his top deputies. "To be clear you think the tweet is net bad?" he asked them. They considered their options. Was it possible that his rival would walk back the criticism? Was it probable that that would stem the bleeding? "Fairly unlikely," Bankman-Fried wrote. Bankman-Fried faces decades in prison after guilty verdict It was the kind of calculus Bankman-Fried had been making for years, the quick equations friends said he used in nearly every situation - mulling a break-up, assessing a risky trade. For a while, that approach seemed to work. As the boy-wonder of crypto, Bankman-Fried got rich faster than almost anyone in history, amassing an estimated $26bn in personal wealth, countless magazine covers and sweeping political influence. The flameout was even faster. The tweet was, as discussed, net bad. Billions gushed out of the platform in less than five days. When it was all over, more than $8bn in customer funds were missing and the company was bankrupt. Five weeks after that, prosecutors in Manhattan charged Bankman-Fried, who had already resigned, with several financial offences including wire fraud, securities fraud, commodities fraud and money laundering. Over four weeks of trial, two contradictory stories emerged. In one, the former mogul was a brilliant but hapless savant, whose mistakes as CEO allowed for massive fraud to be carried out under his nose. In the other, supported by former members of his inner circle, Bankman-Fried syphoned billions of dollars of customer money, banking on the odds he'd never be caught. Both tellings reveal how tightly the fortunes of FTX were tied to the image of its founder, whose oddball magnetism drew former presidents, celebrities, and corporate titans into his orbit and his multi-billion dollar gamble. Bankman-Fried wasn't shy about it: he wanted to get rich. But, to hear him tell it, he wanted to make all those billions just to give them away. An overachieving child born to two overachieving parents, Bankman-Fried and his younger brother were taught at an early age about utilitarianism, a doctrine holding that the most ethical choice is the one that does the most good for the most people. As a student at MIT, Bankman-Fried went to a talk by Will MacAskill, a 25-year-old doctoral student at Oxford and founder of effective altruism, a utilitarian-tinged philosophy that uses maths to figure out how individuals can maximise their philanthropic impact. To do the most good, Mr MacAskill told him, Bankman-Fried could take his considerable intellect to lucrative Wall Street, and donate most of his salary to important causes. Bankman-Fried was sold. In 2014, he took his degree straight to Jane Street, a high-frequency trading firm, and reportedly gave away about half of his income to worthy causes. Three years later, Bankman-Fried found an industry that could make him even richer than typical trading: crypto. At the age of 25, he founded Alameda Research, a crypto investment firm, after noticing that prices of Bitcoin varied considerably in different countries. The arbitrage trading earned Alameda a reported $20m in just three weeks. In 2019, he founded FTX, then a Hong Kong-based crypto exchange for international investors. Like Elizabeth Holmes - another Silicon Valley billionaire whose star came crashing down - he was able to convince big name investors to lend the company not only cash, but credibility. Within months, daily trading volume on FTX had reached $300m. By 2021, he had debuted on the Forbes 400, the magazine's annual list of the richest Americans, with a fortune of $22.5bn. Some have attributed his remarkable success to an unusually high tolerance for risk, a willingness to chance devastating consequences for a big reward. "He would be happy to flip a coin, if it came up tails and the world was destroyed," his ex-girlfriend and former CEO of Alameda Research Caroline Ellison said at trial. "As long as if it came up heads the world would be more than twice as good." According to internal accounts, life at FTX could sometimes resemble a grown-up maths camp, filled with a selection of brilliant misfits and led by the perpetually rumpled Bankman-Fried. "He was super disorganised, he was always in cargo shorts, he was always sloppy," a former FTX employee told the BBC. "He would walk around the office in bare feet." Those at the top were a tight-knit group who sometimes blindly listened to Sam, the employee said. "It could be cult-like." Natalie Tien, who handled public relations and Bankman-Fried's schedule at FTX for more than two years, said he was charismatic to the point that the company sometimes felt "toxic". "We just trusted him 100%," she told the BBC. "To a degree that we kind of worried [about] speaking up for ourselves." It wasn't only people inside the company that were enthralled. Appearing side-by-side with Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Gisele Bundchen and Katy Perry in shorts and ill-fitting T-shirts, he became an ambassador of sorts for the crypto industry as whole, just as it began to reach new heights. Part of the mystique was that Bankman-Fried seemed to eschew the level of luxury his earnings could have afforded. He didn't own a yacht, his defence attorneys said at trial. He drove a beat-up Toyota Corolla. Meanwhile, he testified before Congress arguing for more regulation of the crypto market, setting him apart from many of his peers. "In a weird way, he seemed kind of like the grown-up in the crypto world," said Zeke Faux, an investigative journalist and author of Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall. And, of course, there was his stated ultimate objective: Bankman-Fried was going to give it all away. "It was a great story, everybody loved it," said Mr Faux. "People loved it in Congress, the VCs loved it, the bankers loved it." "The problem with his story is that it was not true," he said. In September of 2022, the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital ran a breathless profile of Bankman-Fried in its magazine. At the time, FTX was valued at $32bn. In the since-deleted piece entitled FTX's SBF Has a Savior Complex, and Maybe You Should Too, author Adam Fisher described Bankman-Fried's efforts to maximise his wealth in order to maximise his impact on the world. It involved a risk, Fisher wrote. "But the math couldn't be clearer." "To do the most good for the world," he said, "SBF needed to find a path on which he'd be a coin toss away from going totally bust." A month-and-a-half later, industry news site CoinDesk published a bombshell report alleging that Alameda had over half its $15bn portfolio in FTT - the crypto token printed by FTX. The disclosure raised questions about the actual value of Alameda's holdings, and the apparent conflict of interest between Alameda and FTX - ostensibly independent companies. Then came that announcement on 6 November from industry rival, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, who said he would dump his own sizable stores of FTT. On 11 November, the implosion of FTX was complete, the story of crypto's prodigy gone with it. For some observers of the crypto boom, and Bankman-Fried's meteoric rise to power, the fall was not unexpected. As FTX rose to prominence, the actor Ben McKenzie, best known for his role on the television show the OC, emerged as one of the country's most vocal crypto sceptics. In July 2022, Bankman-Fried agreed to sit down for an interview with Mr McKenzie for a book the actor was writing, titled Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud. In a cramped Manhattan hotel room, in an encounter that Mr McKenzie described as "probably the strangest hour of my life", Bankman-Fried tried to pitch the actor on crypto - and Sam Bankman-Fried - as a force for good in the world. "I think he marketed himself to me as a version of his public persona, which at the time was the California wunderkind, billionaire philanthropist," Mr McKenzie said. It was an image that even Mr McKenzie had bought into, to an extent, he said. Until they began talking, that is. "He had trouble just giving me straight answers to basic questions, one of which was, what does crypto currency do?" the actor said. Over four weeks of trial in Manhattan, Bankman-Fried's attorneys painted their client as a math nerd who was overwhelmed by his expanding empire. On the stand, now in a suit, with his hair cut short, Bankman-Fried directed some of the blame at Ms Ellison, who had pleaded guilty to fraud, for failing to "hedge" bets to better protect Alameda from a downturn in the market, as he had instructed her to do. The prosecution, in turn, painted Bankman-Fried as someone whose boundless aspiration went hand-in-hand with a hubris that led Bankman-Fried to play the odds with his company. "The defendant was gambling with customer money," prosecutor Nicolas Roos argued. Bankman-Fried's courtroom downfall was aided by former members of his inner circle, including Ms Ellison, who acted as chief executive of Alameda, as well as college roommates Adam Yedida and Gary Wang, and Nishad Singh, a childhood friend of Bankman-Fried's younger brother. They testified that while promising to safeguard customer funds and clean up the industry, Bankman-Fried was directing them to commit fraud, opening up a back door between Alameda and FTX so he could use FTX as a personal piggybank. The money fuelled his rise, as he splashed out on property, billions in investments and some $100m in political donations - not to mention helping to cover billions in debts owed by Alameda. His physical appearance, too, was contrived, Ms Ellison testified - his messy hair and cheap car deemed "better for his image", because it made him look more authentic than a typical trader. But that down-to-earth image belied his intense ambition, she said. "He thought there was a 5% chance he would become president someday," Ms Ellison said at trial. "Of the United States." While many have watched the trial as a sort of comeuppance, former FTX employee Natalie Tien has looked to it for closure, and is one of the few former employees to attend the trial regularly. On the one hand, it was a relief to realise that her own doubts and questions about some things - like extravagant spending on celebrity sponsorships - had been justified. The last time she communicated with her former boss, in December 2022, he had just been released on bail and sent her a music video of Eminem, rapping "Without Me" to celebrate. But the 33-year-old also felt some parts of the story - especially around his schedule and his use of private jets - were being taken "out of context". "He did lie and he took the money, yes, but I don't think it's because he was greedy," she said. "Because I actually saw him every day wearing crappy old T-shirts with no shoes and driving a shitty car." "It was not an act," she said. Bankman-Fried now faces up to 110 years in prison, and an indelible reputation as one of the greatest fraudsters in US history. Lawyers working on the bankruptcy case have said they have recovered more than $7bn in missing money. "I think it says more about us than it does about him," Mr McKenzie said. "He got so far, I think, in many ways because of his lineage, because he is the son of Stanford professors, because he did go to MIT, because he worked on Wall Street. The myth of Sam Bankman-Fried grew in relation to the myth of crypto itself, right?" You can watch Panorama's The Downfall of the Crypto King on BBC iPlayer (UK only) With additional reporting from James Clayton

Sam Bankman-Fried has been convicted of stealing billions of dollars from customers of his cryptocurrency exchange FTX. It's a spectacular downfall for Silicon Valley's dishevelled wunderkind, who rubbed elbows with celebrities like Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady.

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On Friday, Sam Altman - one of the brightest stars of the booming artificial intelligence industry, a man who for many had become the go-to spokesperson for AI -was unceremoniously dumped from the company he co-founded, a firm that introduced many people directly to the concept for the first time. Yes, AI has been in our lives for ages - curating our social media feeds, recommending movies on video streaming platforms, playing a hand in calculating our insurance premiums. But until the arrival of the AI chatbot ChatGPT, most people had never actually spoken to it before - or had it talk back. Artificial intelligence is an incredibly powerful technology. It sounds like a bad movie plot but plenty of experts seriously say it could either save the world or destroy it. They are high stakes - and Mr Altman is one of relatively few people with that future in his hands. His dismissal from OpenAI, the company behind the ChatGPT bot, was as sudden as it was dramatic. It's fair to say my phone blew up when the news broke, as the tech community and journalists scrambled to make sense of it all. In a statement, his board of directors said they believed he had not been "consistently candid in communications" with them, and as a result they had "lost confidence" in his leadership. Reading between the lines, this suggests there was something he either had or had not told them - and somehow he's been caught out. The wording is so powerful, it almost sounds personal. There are swirling rumours but, so far, no further facts. It's not unknown in tech firms for a toxic working culture to lead to the boss's downfall - but there has been no grumblings about that in the case of OpenAI. In October it was set to be valued at $80bn (£64bn) - so there's no apparent cash problem. Is there a problem with the tech itself? A few days ago Mr Altman wrote about ChatGPT struggling to meet a "surge in demand" and having to pause sign-ups for its top-level subscription service. Is that enough to face the sack over though? His co-founder Greg Brockman, who was dismissed from the board a few minutes after Mr Altman, said both men were shocked by how suddenly it had happened. There were only six people on that board, including Mr Brockman and Mr Altman. If they were indeed blindsided, that means this decision was taken by just four. What happened to make this small group act so decisively and so quickly? Mr Altman, now the former CEO of OpenAI, had addressed world leaders in discussions about the risks and benefits posed by the powerful tech he was pioneering. He memorably said that AI was "a tool and not a creature" and seemed honest about his fears that it could one day become out of control. Just two weeks ago he was in the UK at the world's first AI safety summit as one of only around 100 global delegates. He gave a speech last week about the future of his company and its tech. I think it's safe to assume he genuinely had no idea what was coming. Silicon Valley's big guns have so far rallied behind Mr Altman, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who described him as a "hero of mine". Microsoft boss Satya Nadella said he had "confidence" in the firm. Well, he needs to - Microsoft has invested billions in it, and the tech which underpins ChatGPT is now embedded in Microsoft's office apps. One character who has been uncharacteristically quiet so far is Elon Musk. He and Mr Altman set up OpenAI together, along with others, but are said to have fallen out over a decision to move it away from being non-profit. There are rumours that it is this very issue which has once again divided opinion within the firm now. Mr Musk's company X, formerly Twitter, has released a new chatbot called Grok. Perhaps he's not unhappy about OpenAI being a bit distracted by a drama of its own making for a while. In the meantime it falls to chief technology officer Mira Murati to take over as interim CEO. The tech world is a small one - she previously worked at Musk's car firm Tesla. Can she now steady this suddenly lurching ship?

The tech world is in shock.

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A breakaway group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators scaled the Royal Artillery Memorial in London's Hyde Park Corner on Wednesday night. Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said their actions were "inflammatory" but did not break any laws. No 10 said it was an "affront" and that it would look at further measures so officers could take action in future. "We will look at what further measures are needed so that the police can have confidence in taking action on this," the prime minister's official spokesman said on Thursday. "We do believe there are extensive powers available to them but the public will have been shocked and I'm sure appalled by what they saw." Protesters calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict marched outside the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday night. A group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators were filmed climbing up the Hyde Park Corner monument, which was built to commemorate the thousands of soldiers from the Royal Artillery who were killed in World War One. In a statement, the Met said officers were on the scene quickly but "not quickly enough to prevent the protesters accessing the memorial". Met chief Sir Mark said his officers recognised the behaviour to be "unfortunate" and "inflammatory in certain ways", but not illegal. Speaking at an Institute for Government event on Thursday, he said it was for the government to consider whether officers should be given further powers to respond to protests. Asked about the police response to the incident, he said: "What the officer didn't do last night was make up a law that it's illegal to do something and do an arrest which would have been illegal, clearly. "The officers intervened, as officers often are doing, to try and de-escalate risk of conflict, even when there isn't explicit power to do it." Sir Mark refused to be drawn on an article inthe Times newspaper written by former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, in which she accused officers of "playing favourites" when policing protests. In her article, Mrs Braverman accused Met Police of applying a "double standard" to its policing of recent pro-Palestinian protests. She claimed aggressive right-wing protesters were "rightly met with a stern response", while "pro-Palestinian mobs" were "largely ignored". James Cleverly, who replaced Mrs Braverman as home secretary, said he would be examining whether the police needed new powers following Wednesday's protest. "These - and the police have said this - are deeply disrespectful actions," he told ITV's Good Morning Britain on Thursday. "The war memorials recognise the sacrifice people have made for our freedom, and abusing, desecrating behaviour like this is deeply, deeply offensive. "I will look at what further measures need to be taken so the police can take action on this." Other measures intended to strengthen police powers to deal with protesters arealso reportedly being considered by the government, including lowering the threshold for when police could apply for a ban to stop marches taking place. Protests have been taking place in London and across the UK to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Israel began air strikes on Gaza following Hamas's attacks on 7 October, in which 1,200 were killed and more than 200 hostages were taken. The Hamas-run health ministry says more than 11,500 people have been killed in Gaza since then.

The government is considering whether police need new powers to stop protesters climbing war memorials.

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The Watermelon Sugar singer has taken his look in a grade-one direction, but some people think his former locks were what made him beautiful. Speculation had kept fans Up All Night since Sunday when his mum confirmed the world's most famous mop top was "gone". And now, thanks toa post on Instagram, we've had our first official glimpse. Shared by his beauty brand Pleasing, the update showed Harry wearing a sweater and sporting his new streamlined look - but didn't reference his haircut. As you can probably imagine, the comments were less bothered about his new fragrance. And while Harry might want fans to treat him with kindness, it's safe to say most don't adore it. One nicknamed him "hairless styles" and another commented: "I've been waiting for confirmation and now I wish I didn't have it." But others have urged the nay-sayers to just stop their crying. "I actually love the buzz cut," one said. Harry's iconic curly waves do have a whole lot of History behind them, and have even sparked fan theories about why he paid a visit to the barber's chair. One involves his former girlfriend Taylor Swift and rumours his chop could be linked to the release of album 1989 (Taylor's Version). In Now That We Don't Talk, she sings of a lover who grew his hair long and tried lives on before saying "I miss the old ways, you didn't have to change". But, if you listen to Harry's mum, Anne Twist, the explanation could be much simpler. A TikToker called Maddieshared the story of her lifeon Sunday after bumping into Anne at a branch of Ikea on Sunday. She asked if the haircut rumours were true, and why Harry had decided to do it. According to his mum, he "just fancied a change" after going away on holiday. Listen to Newsbeatliveat 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen backhere.

Harry Styles fans have been roasting their fave after the star officially confirmed his hairstyle is no longer the same As It Was.

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On Thursday Michael Matheson admitted an £11,000 data roaming charge was caused by his sons watching football while on a family holiday in Morocco. He informed Humza Yousaf of the truth on Tuesday after initially insisting the device had been used for parliamentary work. Opposition leaders have called on Mr Matheson to resign. The bill was initially going to be picked up by the Scottish Parliament, but the health secretary has since paid the money back and said he has referred himself for further investigation. OnBBC Radio 4's Broadcasting Houseprogramme on Sunday, Mr Yousaf was asked if Mr Matheson misled him. "No, I don't believe Michael did," he said. The first minister added that his health secretary had only used the iPad himself for parliamentary purposes and only discovered his sons' use of the data on Thursday, 9 November. "There's a legitimate question that people have asked, and Michael addressed last week, around whether he at that point should have been upfront publicly around the fact that was the reason that he was choosing to repay the entire bill," Mr Yousaf said. "He was trying to protect his children. For me, Michael - who I have know for well over 15 years - is a man of integrity, honesty." He said Mr Matheson could have handled the situation better, but said he had apologised for that. Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said Mr Matheson was "hiding away" from scrutiny. The Moray MP said only his party had the numbers to bring forward a motion of no confidence in the health secretary. Appearing onBBC Scotland's Sunday Show, he commented on the fact that neither Mr Yousaf, Mr Matheson or the deputy first minister had agreed to appear on the programme. "This is affecting all levels of government in Scotland because none of them are willing to come on to speak about really important issues," Mr Ross said. "Because they can't and won't defend this health secretary, who should have resigned by now, and Humza Yousaf should have sacked him. "The man in charge of the NHS in Scotland isn't putting himself forward for scrutiny," he added. The former chairman of the committee on standards in public life, Sir Alistair Graham, said the health secretary may be subject to some disciplinary action. "It was the cover-up that was the problem," he said. "He didn't tell the truth straight away. "He didn't meet the standards that you expect from members of parliament, whether that's in Westminster or in the devolved authority." Mr Matheson - who was visibly emotional during a statement to parliament earlier this week - told MSPs he was not aware that other family members had used the device until Thursday 9 November, after the first media reports about the charges emerged. He said the iPad itself had not been used by his children but had been used as a hotspot to allow internet access for other devices. The health secretary said he did not mention this in his statement on 10 November because he wanted to protect his children. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar also appeared on the Sunday Show, repeating his call for the health secretary to resign. "I have got every sympathy for a parent with teenage children, I've got two teenage children myself," Mr Sarwar said. "This is not about the data, it's not about his family - this is about him misleading the public. That is why I think he should resign." Mr Sarwar said the health secretary and the first minister continued to tell "mistruths" days after each said they learned the truth about the bill. "That's not acceptable in public life," he said. A spokesperson for the SNP said Mr Matheson had reimbursed the parliament in full for the costs incurred and had referred himself to the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body. "Opposition parties and MSPs are free to raise all such questions in parliament, and scrutinise ministers according to Holyrood's processes of accountability," they said. It's been a week of technicalities when it comes to Michael Matheson's iPad. But as facts about gigabytes and hotspots are nailed down - the essentials come to the fore; the raw politics. Perhaps nothing is more fundamental than trust - the trust we place in our elected politicians to make decisions for us and look after our health and safety as citizens. As well as trust, we need to have confidence in those we place in positions of power. Trust and confidence are things that seem to have evaporated from a man once regarded as a safe pair of hands. On trust, Mr Matheson was not accurate when he spoke to journalists on Monday saying family members had not used the device. On confidence, do people think he's focused on the health service and its smooth running as the future of his career hangs in the balance? Mr Matheson will find it hard to escape this topic if he's, for example, on a visit to a hospital. The first minister thinks he could have handled it better but still trusts him. The opposition don't - and want him out of office. I understand the Conservatives want more answers from the health secretary before pushing for a motion of no confidence - so that looks more likely later in the week.

The first minister has said he does not believe he was misled by his health secretary over his £11,000 iPad bill.

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Schwimmer, who played Ross in the US TV sitcom, shared a pictureon Instagramof himself alongside Perry as Chandler. "Thank you for 10 incredible years of laughter and creativity," he wrote. Aniston, who played Rachel,posted a clip of her and Perryfrom the sitcom and wrote: "We loved him deeply. He was such a part of our DNA." Kudrow, who was Phoebe in the sitcom that ran on NBC from 1994 to 2004, wrote in an Instagram post: "Thank you for making me laugh so hard at something you said, that my muscles ached, and tears poured down my face EVERY DAY." Perry, 54, was found unresponsive in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home at the end of October. "Having to say goodbye to our Matty has been an insane wave of emotions that I've never experienced before," Aniston wrote on Wednesday. "He made all of us laugh. And laugh hard. In the last couple weeks, I've been poring over our texts to one another. Laughing and crying then laughing again. "Matty, I love you so much and I know you are now completely at peace and out of any pain." In his message, Schwimmer wrote: "I will never forget your impeccable comic timing and delivery. You could take a straight line of dialogue and bend it to your will, resulting in something so entirely original and unexpectedly funny it still astonishes. "And you had heart. Which you were generous with, and shared with us, so we could create a family out of six strangers." And Kudrowposted a photo of herself and Perry,thanking him "for the best 10 years a person gets to have". The comments by Schwimmer, Aniston and Kudrow come a day after fellow co-starsCourtney Cox and Matt LeBlanc also paid tribute to Perry. Cox, who played his on-screen wife Monica, said she was "so grateful for every moment they worked together". LeBlanc, who starred as flatmate Joey, shared pictures of him on set with Perry and wrote on Instagram: "The times we had together are honestly among the favourite times of my life." The cast of Friends had previously issued a joint statement saying they were "utterly devastated" by the loss of their fellow star. Perry'sfuneral took place earlier this monthwith his co-stars reportedly in attendance. Authorities arestill investigating the cause of his death. His post-mortem examination was inconclusive, while officials await the results of toxicology tests. After his death,a new foundation was set upin his name to continue his commitment to "helping others struggling with the disease of addiction" following his public battles with alcohol and drugs.

Friends actors Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow have paid tribute to their co-star Matthew Perry following his death last month.

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"I haven't been fired for saying it... I would make up the report sometimes," Charissa Thompson said on a podcast released earlier this week. Her comments triggered an angry backlash from some fans as well as others who work in sports coverage. On Friday, the host said she had chosen "the wrong words" and "never lied". "I understand how important words are and I chose the wrong words to describe the situation," she wrote in a statement posted to Instagram. "I'm sorry. I have never lied about anything or been unethical during my time as a sports broadcaster." "In the absence of a coach providing any information that could further my report I would use information that I learned and saw during the first half," she said. Sideline reporters play a key role in American football broadcasts by giving live updates from on or near the field. They often share details coaches tell them during the course of the game. Ms Thompson, 41, now works primarily as a host for both Fox Sports and Amazon. Speaking to Barstool Sports' Pardon My Take podcast on Tuesday, Ms Thompson said sometimes "the coach wouldn't come out at halftime, or it was too late and I didn't want to screw up the report. So I was like, I'm just going to make this up". She added that she would often rely on clichés in those moments. "No coach is going to get mad if I say, 'Hey, we need to stop hurting ourselves... and do a better job of getting off the field," she said. "They're not going to correct me on that." Laura Okmin, a Fox Sports colleague and the third-longest-tenured sideline reporter in league history, criticised Ms Thompson in a post on X, formerly Twitter. "The privilege of a sideline role is being the one person in the entire world who has the opportunity to ask coaches what's happening in that moment," she wrote. "I can't express the amount of time it takes to build that trust," she added. Molly McGrath, a Sports Emmy nominated ESPN college football reporter, warned young journalists such behaviour was "not normal or ethical". "Coaches and players trust us with sensitive information, and if they know that you're dishonest and don't take your role seriously, you've lost all trust and credibility," she said. Morgan Uber, of ESPN, said Ms Thompson's comments undermined other women "in a profession that is already stereotyped as just being eye candy". "Good sideline reporters do their homework, talk to players and coaches throughout the week and on game day and most definitely don't make up reports," she said. Representatives for Fox Sports and Amazon Prime did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.

An NFL broadcaster has apologised after she admitted making up reports while working as a sideline reporter early in her career.

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The former culture secretary - and staunch ally of Boris Johnson - names some members of the alleged group. Others are disguised by, presumably lawyer-approved, nicknames. There is a Thumper, a Bambi, a Miss Moneypenny and most sinister of all - Dr No. The original Dr No was an early James Bond villain, a ruthless scientist who is boiled to death when he falls into a reactor coolant. The Dr No portrayed in Ms Dorries' book is equally sinister, a man who has had a hand in undermining past prime ministers including Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. According to the book, he is paid by the Conservative Party, has a pass to Downing Street and "Rishi Sunak doesn't move without first seeking his advice". He is described as "a man with a secretive past" who "loves violence" and who once chopped up a pet rabbit after breaking up with a girlfriend. There is also a claim that he tried to set fire to a house when people were sleeping inside. Since the book's publication, Westminster has been rife with speculation about the identity of Dr No. All manner of names are being bandied about - some more likely than others. But so far Ms Dorries - who resigned as an MP in August - has kept everyone guessing. She has dropped a few hints, however. Speaking to BBC Breakfast, she said he is part of a "small group of men" who have "been involved with the party since the late 1990s - at every stage, whether Theresa May, David Cameron, Iain Duncan Smith". "Liz Truss is the only person who didn't have any of them close to her because she knew about them." She says the group has its origins in the Federation of Conservative Students, an organisation closed down in 1986 by then party chairman Norman Tebbit because of its radical views and occasionally raucous behaviour. Although Dr No is not named in the book others are. Ms Dorries says Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, ex-No 10 senior adviser Dominic Cummings and Conservative Party adviser Dougie Smith are all part of the club. Mr Smith is also the husband of Munira Mirza, a close ally of Boris Johnson,until she quit. Mr Johnson was forced to resign, after mass resignations from his own ministers. It followed scandals over Covid rule-breaking andthe appointment of Chris Pincher as deputy chief whip. Asked about the book on theNick Robinson Political Thinking podcast,Mr Gove said: "It is very flattering - she makes me sound like Severus Snape." He added that he hadn't read the book but that Ms Dorries was "a gifted writer". Mr Cummings posted his tongue-in-cheek response on social media: "She's right, there was a giant conspiracy including MI6, the CIA and, most crucially, the KGB special operations department, it's a tribute to Nadine she has figured this out, the Movement wishes her well." It is worth pointing out that Mr Cummingshas himself saidthat he started discussing the possibility of ousting his-then boss Boris Johnson as early as January 2020, less than a month after Mr Johnson won a landslide victory. The Conservative Party is not commenting on the accusations. Given, Ms Dorries claims Dr No is responsible for undermining democracy, why doesn't she name him? She said that she didn't believe Dr No would have sued her but instead would have put an injunction on the book. She insisted the book would "have passed" that process but that it would have delayed publication by six to nine months and that she wanted it out as quickly as possible. She added that it was probably "the most legalled book since Spycatcher" - the memoir of a former MI5 officer which, among other revelations, describe a plot to remove Harold Wilson as prime minister. Unless Ms Dorries does decide to name Dr No, the debate about his identity will continue to rage. Could it turn out to be the person everyone least suspects, like Keyser Söze in the film, Usual Suspects? Or maybe it is a collective term for a group of people, Murder on the Orient Express-style? Or perhaps, as some have suggested, it is purely a plot device created from the imagination of Ms Dorries, who as has been pointed out is a successful writer of novels. Age:66 Occupation:She worked as a nurse but later wrote a series of bestselling novels based on her upbringing in Liverpool. Politics:In 2001, she got a job as a special adviser to a Conservative shadow minister. In 2005, she was elected MP for Mid Bedfordshire and rose up the political ladder becoming culture secretary in 2021. Family:In 1984 she married Paul Dorries. She has three daughters.

Nadine Dorries' latest book The Plot claims that British politics is controlled, not by the voters, but by a shady faction, who have been at the heart of the Conservative Party for more than 20 years, pulling strings, pushing agendas and toppling leaders.

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Ms Coffey, the Conservative MP for Suffolk Coastal, revealed how tough she found being a minister in a BBC radio interview. The MP resigned from her job as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reshuffled his cabinet. She said: "Nearly five years ago I got so ill, I nearly, dare I say it, died." Ms Coffey, who said she was proud to have served under five Conservative leaders, resigned as environment secretary as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reshuffled his ministers. Her previous cabinet roles included two months as both secretary of state for health and social care and deputy prime minister under Liz Truss. During a frank interview, Ms Coffey told BBC Radio Suffolk: "I was in hospital for a month with some of the stresses that happen with ministerial life. "A few years ago I certainly worked myself into the ground somewhat, but I learned a lot from that incident and that's why I've always had a joy about life." Meanwhile, the founder of a group trying to clean up Suffolk's River Deben said she was "delighted" Ms Coffey was no longer environment secretary and hoped she would spend more time supporting the river campaign. Ruth Leach, from Save the Deben, said she hoped the resignation would end conflicts between her constituency and ministerial duties. Rachel Smith-Lyte, East Suffolk Council's cabinet member for the environment, a member of the Green Party, added: "I'm amazed she's been around as long as she has, both in terms of being environment minister, which is laughable, and as an MP for this area." Ms Coffey told BBC Radio Suffolk she was proud of her record as environment secretary. Follow East of England news onFacebook,InstagramandX. Got a story? [email protected] WhatsApp 0800 169 183

Former Environment Secretary Therese Coffey said she "nearly died" because of the stress of being a government minister.

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Api Ratuniyarawa, 37, appeared before Cardiff magistrates on Saturday charged with sexual assault by penetration and sexual assault by touching. The court was told he denied sexually assaulting three women at Revolution bar in the city's Castle Street between October 31 and November 1. He had been named in the Barbarians' squad prior to Saturday's game against Wales in Cardiff. The Fiji international, from West Northamptonshire, spoke only to confirm his name during the hearing. Prosecutor Michael Evans told the court: "The three incidents happened independently of each other, with the women not known to each other or to the defendant before that night." Magistrate Peter Hamley subjected the London Irish forward to "stringent bail" conditions, including an electronic curfew between the hours of 19:00 and 07:00. He is also unable to enter Wales apart from for court proceedings, not allowed to contact any witnesses in the case and not allowed to enter any licensed premises. The case is expected to go before Cardiff Crown Court on 4 December. In a statement, Barbarian FC said: "As soon as we were contacted by South Wales Police we cooperated fully, assisting them with their enquiries. "On their advice we can't comment any further as the investigation is ongoing."

A Barbarians rugby player has been charged with sexual assault.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-67319671?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

If they refuse they will lose access to their benefits for a period, the government says. But the charity Mind said the use of sanctions would worsen peoples' mental health. It is part of new plans to get people back to work, which will also see an extra £2.5bn spent on career support. Under a plan that would need parliamentary approval, those solely eligible for the standard Universal Credit allowance who refuse to engage with job centre staff or accept work offered to them after six months will have their claims closed. That means they will have to go through the application process again if they want to keep receiving benefits and lose access to extras such as free prescriptions and legal aid during that time. Meanwhile, Labour pledged to invest an extra £1.1bn to cut NHS waiting lists to help get people back to work. According to the Treasury, the number of people not seeking work has risen sharply since the pandemic, hurting the economy. It said there were 300,000 people who had been registered as unemployed for over a year in the three months to July. But Vicki Nash from mental health charity Mind said: "The increase in the use of sanctions is deeply worrying. Evidence has repeatedly shown they don't work and make people's mental health worse". She added that changes to sick notes will also make it tougher to be signed off from work and could mean people don't get the time they need to recover. "Poverty and mental health problems form a vicious cycle that need to be tackled by every part of government working together. Today's announcements look like they have come from departments working on different planets," she said. Meanwhile, the number "inactive" due to long-term sickness or disability had risen by almost half a million since the pandemic to a record 2.6 million. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said that many of these people wanted to work and that "with almost a million vacancies in the jobs market the opportunities are there". "These changes mean there's help and support for everyone [to find work] - but for those who refuse it, there are consequences too," he added. "Anyone choosing to coast on the hard work of taxpayers will lose their benefits." Under its Back to Work plan -which is part of next week's Autumn Statement- the government says it will expand and reform existing career help schemes for people with disabilities, health conditions or the long-term unemployed, as well as launch new ones. It will also put additional staff in job centres to help claimants struggling to find work. However, it said there would be stricter sanctions for "people who should be looking for work but are not". Under the current sanctions regime, such claimants only have a deduction applied to their benefits until they re-comply with their requirement to meet with a work coach and establish a personalised job-seeking plan. Ministers said the new rules would not apply to additional payments for child, housing or disability support. From late 2024 mandatory work placement trials will also be rolled out for people unemployed longer than 18 months, and benefits will be removed from those who refuse to take part. Digital tools will also be used to "track" attendance at job fairs and interviews under the tougher sanctions regime. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Mel Stride, said: "Our message is clear: if you are fit, if you refuse to work, if you are taking taxpayers for a ride - we will take your benefits away." But Liberal Democrat's Treasurer Sarah Olney said the government seemed more interested in "penalising people than helping them get back into work." Separately, Labour has unveiled its own back to work plan with a focus on cutting NHS waiting lists. Since January waiting lists have risen by 500,000 to a record 7.8 million, it says. The party has pledged: Labour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves told the BBC: "Labour have committed to getting rid of the non-dom status. If you make your home in Britain you should pay your taxes here and under Labour you will. "We will put that money into creating every year an additional two million appointments, scans and operations in our National Health Service so that we can get those waiting lists down, get people the treatment they need, and get them in many cases back into work."

Benefit claimants who fail to find work for more than 18 months will have to undertake work experience placements, under rules planned for late next year.

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Writing on the Telegram messaging app, Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko said "strong explosions were heard" in the early hours of Saturday morning. Preliminary information suggests air defence systems were able to intercept the missiles, Mr Klitschko said. Residents have been ordered to take refuge in air raid shelters. There have been no initial reports of casualties following the air attack, according to news agency Reuters. The strikes came as President Volodomyr Zelensky marked the first anniversary of the liberation of Kherson from Russia. Speaking to the city's residents, he praised them for "inspiring the world with their resistance". In Odesa, the coastal district some 275 miles (442 km) from Kyiv, there were reports of at least two missile attacks. According to the region's head of administration, Oleg Kiper, three people were injured and a 96-year-old woman was hospitalised. Her condition is understood to be stable. On Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said at least one person had been killed after aRussian missile struck a civilian shipentering Odesa. A 43-year-old harbour pilot died, while three Filipino crewmembers and a port worker were injured. At aG7 meeting in Japanthis week, foreign ministers from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and the US - as well as EU representatives, said they recognised that Russia is prepared for a long war in Ukraine. They also said the Israel-Gaza war should not distract from support for Ukraine and reiterated that they would continue to support Kyiv economically and militarily. Kyiv is increasingly concerned about "Ukraine fatigue" among Western countries eroding its ability to hold off Russian forces. Speaking exclusively to the BBC's Europe Editor, Katya Adler, French PresidentEmmanuel Macron said it was his country's "duty"to help Ukraine. He said if Russia were allowed to win its war, "you will have a new imperial power" in Europe, that could threaten other former Soviet states like Georgia and Kazakhstan, as well as the whole continent. "Because, definitely, it's imperialism and colonialism that Russia is doing [in Ukraine]," he said. However, Mr Macron did suggest there may come a time for "fair and good negotiations" with Moscow.

Ukraine's capital Kyiv has been hit by the first Russian air attack in 52 days, according to city officials.

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In a blistering letter to the prime minister, she said he had repeatedly failed on key policies and broken pledges over immigration. Mr Sunak had adopted "wishful thinking" to "avoid having to make hard choices", she wrote. Her broadside comes on the eve of a key ruling on the government's Rwanda plan. On Wednesday morning, the UK Supreme Court will deliver its verdict on the lawfulness of the postponed scheme to sendsome asylum seekers to Rwandato claim asylum there. The ruling on the flagship policy will be a key moment for Mr Sunak's government, and could reignite divisions among Tory MPs over the ECHR human rights treaty. Mrs Braverman, a leading figure on the right of the party, has previously described delivering the Rwanda plan as her "dream" and "obsession". In her letter, the former home secretary claimed she struck a secret deal to serve in Mr Sunak's cabinet in exchange for a series of commitments in key areas, after Liz Truss's premiership imploded last year. Her support, she added, had been a "pivotal factor" in allowing Mr Sunak towin the support of Tory MPsand enter No 10. She added that she had argued within government for curbs on human rights law to ensure the Rwanda policy was not derailed by legal challenges. But compromises from Mr Sunak during the passage of the Illegal Migration Act, she wrote, had left the policy "vulnerable" to legal challenges under the European Convention of Human Rights, even if the Supreme Court declares it lawful. If the ruling goes against the government, she added, he would have "wasted a year" on the flagship law to stop small boat crossings, "only to arrive back at square one". "Worse than this, your magical thinking - believing that you can will your way through this without upsetting polite opinion - has meant you have failed to prepare any sort of credible Plan B," she wrote. A No 10 spokesman thanked Mrs Braverman for her service, but added: "The prime minister was proud to appoint a strong, united team yesterday focused on delivering for the British people." He said the government had "brought forward the toughest legislation to tackle illegal migration this country has seen and has subsequently reduced the number of boat crossings by a third this year". And whatever the outcome of the Supreme Court tomorrow, the prime minister "will continue that work," he said. In her letter, the former home secretary told Mr Sunak he had "manifestly and repeatedly" failed to deliver on policy priorities. "Either your distinctive style of government means you are incapable of doing so," she wrote. "Or, as I must surely conclude now, you never had any intention of keeping your promises." She added: "Someone needs to be honest: your plan is not working, we have endured record election defeats, your resets have failed and we are running out of time. You need to change course urgently." Mrs Bravermanwas sacked from her role on Monday, after opponents accused her of stoking tensions ahead of pro-Palestinian marches in London. She lost her job days after she claimed police had applied a "double standard" to protesters, in an article for the Times newspaper. Mrs Braverman said Mr Sunak had failed "to rise to the challenge posed by the increasingly vicious antisemitism and extremism displayed on our streets". "I have become hoarse urging you to consider legislation to ban the hate marches and help stem the rising tide of racism, intimidation and terrorist glorification threatening community cohesion," she added, accusing the PM of putting off "tough decisions in order to minimise political risk to yourself". In her letter, Mrs Braverman said the conditions under which she agreed to become home secretary in October 2022 were set out in a "document with clear terms". Sources close to Mrs Braverman claim Mr Sunak read and agreed the document the letter refers to, which had been drawn up by Mrs Braverman. They say he took a copy and there were witnesses. Mrs Braverman said the agreement included "firm assurances" on cutting legal migration, inserting measures to override the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into legislation to stop small boat crossings, delivering key Brexit legislation and issuing "unequivocal" guidance to schools on protecting biological sex and safeguarding single-sex spaces. She accused Mr Sunak of "a betrayal of our agreement" and "a betrayal of your promise to the nation that you would do 'whatever it takes' to stop the boats". Labour shadow minister Lisa Nandy said the letter was "just the latest instalment in a Tory psychodrama that's been playing out over the last 13 years, holding the rest of the country to ransom while the Tories fight among themselves". Following Mrs Braverman's sacking on Monday, Conservative MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns published a letter of no confidence in Mr Sunak. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, she said the party would not win the election with Mr Sunak as prime minister and that it was time to "bite the bullet" and replace him. Former Conservative leader Lord Michael Howard said her suggestion was "some distance from reality". On Mrs Braverman's letter, he said that if the she had disagreed with the government's policies she could have resigned earlier but it was "only since she was sacked that she came out with this tirade of abuse".

Suella Braverman has launched a full-scale attack on her old boss Rishi Sunak, a day after he sacked her as home secretary.

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He was speaking at an event to mark the anniversary of the November pogroms of 1938, sometimes known as "Kristallnacht." Berlin's staunch diplomatic support for Israel is often described as a matter of historic responsibility. But, as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas, social discord is emerging in Germany. I meet a woman called Noa at a Berlin synagogue where she tells me how she has family who survived the Holocaust by hiding in Poland. Some Jewish people in today's Germany, she says, are now hiding their identity. "It's scary. Why should I live and be afraid of who I am?" Aaron doesn't feel comfortable showing items traditionally worn by Jewish men in public, either his kippah or histzitzit, the tassels of his prayer shawl. Having fled the war in Ukraine, he believes Berlin is unsafe because "a lot of people support terrorist organisations". Fears about a rise in antisemitism, since the outbreak of hostilities between Hamas and Israel, are widespread across Europe. For Germany, incidents such as two petrol bombs being thrown towards a Berlin synagogue in October spark acute anxiety due to the nation's Nazi past. Cases of antisemitism were, according to preliminary police figures, already on the rise this year before the Hamas attacks - the majority committed by the far right. Since 7 October, senior politicians have urged people, particularly from parts of the political left and Muslim backgrounds, to distance themselves from the actions of Hamas. Israel's security is a fundamental cornerstone of German foreign policy with the former chancellor, Angela Merkel, declaring it to be aStaatsräson- reason of state - in 2008. On a recent visit to Israel, Olaf Scholz said: "In such difficult times there is only one place we can be: at Israel's side." But Germany's state doctrine is being visibly challenged on the streets of cities like Berlin. "Yourstaatsräsonsucks!" read one placard at a recent pro-Palestinian demonstration. This march was permitted to take place whereas many have been banned. Nadim Jarrar, who attended the 9,000-strong demo, tells me he's frustrated by the "one-sided" narrative. Half-German, half-Palestinian - he thinks Germany must be more prepared to talk about the actions of Israel. "It's a healthy process for every nation to get criticised and to have a discussion about what's going on." Any German discomfort with that debate, he believes, cannot lead to shutting it down. Sami, who has family in the West Bank and lives in Stuttgart, says people must be able "to show we are in pain about what's happening in Gaza". "What's been done to the Palestinians since 1948... We've all seen the videos of what they're doing to our children." In a widely viewed video message, Germany's vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, said that criticism of Israel is "of course allowed" but its right to exist must not be "relativised". "Israel's security is our obligation," he said. Some demonstrations have led to violent clashes between police and protesters. The authorities are investigating reports that black and white banners, which are used by jihadist groups and feature the Islamic statement of faith, were flown at a march in the city of Essen. There was outrage when one group, subsequently disbanded by government, appeared to be celebrating the Hamas atrocities of 7 October on the streets of Berlin. Felix Klein, the government's Commissioner for Jewish life in Germany, says it has become apparent that there is a big problem in Germany's integration policy. "It is problematic when it turns into antisemitic and anti-Israel hate where people shout 'From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free' - which would deny Israel's right to exist." However, there has been criticism that the messages coming from the government have veered towards stoking anti-Muslim sentiment. Debate about the German government's foreign and domestic positioning is likely to persist for as long as the conflict between Israel and Hamas lasts. "Every time there's a war in Israel," says Noa, "it just hits us again and again that we are not a full part of the society". "We will always be different. We will always be the ones that are not fully German." There is real anguish in Germany, rooted in its past, that Jewish people don't feel safe. But there is also an anger, bubbling in some communities, about a perceived reluctance by the political classes to break a German taboo and criticise Israel.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he's "ashamed and outraged" at recent antisemitic attacks in Germany.

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The star has waded into the row over some libraries and classrooms removing books with sexual content or themes of sexuality, gender identity and race. "It's confusing, it's infuriating, it is censorship,"she said. Florida authorities say they want to restrict inappropriate and harmful material but that they don't ban books. Pink has joined forces with Pen America, a campaign group that says it defends freedom of expression for authors. It says Florida has had more books banned than any other US state, accounting for more than 40% of all documented examples. "Books have held a special joy for me from the time I was a child, and that's why I am unwilling to stand by and watch while books are banned by schools," Pink said ina statement released by the group. "It's especially hateful to see authorities take aim at books about race and racism and against LGBTQ authors and those of colour. "We have made so many strides toward equality in this country and no-one should want to see this progress reversed." Copies of four books, which Pen America says have appeared in its Index of Banned Books, will be handed out at her shows in Miami on Tuesday and nearby Sunrise on Wednesday. They are: Almost half of school districts in Florida have had "instances of book bans",according to Pen America. Across the US, school book removals were up by one third in the past year, it said. Florida's Department of Education has said it "does not ban books", while governor Ron DeSantis has called the idea of banning a "hoax". He has said he wants an education system that is "free from sexualization and harmful materials that are not age appropriate". He said earlier this year: "Exposing the 'book ban' hoax is important because it reveals that some are attempting to use our schools for indoctrination. "In Florida, pornographic and inappropriate materials that have been snuck into our classrooms and libraries to sexualize our students violate our state education standards." In March, Florida's Commissioner of EducationManny Diaz Jr tweeted: "Students should be spending their time in school learning core academic subjects, not being force-fed radical gender and sexual ideology." School districts that have removed books have cited recent state laws including one dubbed the Don't Say Gay bill, which says children should not be taught about sexual orientation or gender identity. Last year, another law was introduced saying school books should be age-appropriate, free from pornography and "suited to student needs". They must be approved by a specialist who has had training by the Department of Education, with parents given more power to request a removal. Another law introduced in 2022 does not allow the "far-left woke agenda" to "take over our schools and workplaces" when teaching issues related to race,Mr DeSantis said.

Singer Pink will give away 2,000 free copies of books that have been "banned" by some schools in Florida to fans at her concerts in Miami this week.

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League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena (moba) game that pits two teams of five against each other. Launched in 2009, its World Championships - known as Worlds - have grown into Superbowl-style arena events. This year's finals, held in South Korea, ended this weekend. Korean Team T1, led by esports superstar Lee Sang-hyeok, aka "Faker", beat Chinese rival Weibo Gaming to reclaim the championship. Fans will have to wait until next November for the team's title defence in London, which will be the game's second big event in the UK in recent years. League of Legends' global esports boss Naz Aletaha tells BBC Newsbeat she was "blown away" by the response to its three-week the mid-season invitational event at the capital's Copper Box arena in May. The game's top players tend to come from Asia, with South Korean and Chinese teams dominating this year's Worlds. But Naz says she has no worries about Western fans getting on board with its flagship event when it comes to London. "Actually, we have a very large player base in Europe," she says. "We're pretty confident that our fans are going to show up and show out." Naz admits that, like the rest of the games industry, 2023 has been a tough year for esports - which has seen high-profile team closures and bleak predictions for the future. But she feels League of Legends is "in a position of strength". "What I'm happy to see is that it seems like the economy is starting to turn a corner, we're seeing sponsors come back to teams, we're still seeing our fans engaged by the tens of millions around the world. "So we know that esports is here to stay." But esports does need to keep growing to survive, and finding new players can be hard given multiplayer gaming's reputation for toxicity, particularly for females and people of colour. She says Riot Games, the company that makes League of Legends, has launched programmes to boost access and representation across esports. Naz's own position is an interesting one - Riot recentlypaid compensation to 1,548 female staff over gender discrimination. She's worked there for almost 12 years and says she's seen "really encouraging" progress across the company and the wider industry. Much has been written about Naz herself, and the fact she's a woman of colour in a prominent gaming job. "I'm personally a big believer in that adage of, if you can see her, you can be her," she says. And Naz says she hopes new generations of players, developers and behind-the-scenes workers won't be put off joining the games industry. "My message would be that we want you to join our ranks," she says. "The industry and the output of the industry will only get better with more diverse perspectives and more diverse inputs. "I selfishly think that we stand to gain by you joining us. So I hope that they're encouraged, I hope they see it as a really viable career path." Listen to Newsbeatliveat 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen backhere.

One of the world's biggest esports will hold its 2024 grand final at the O2 Arena in London.

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The letter also urges the UK government to "use its influence" to call for a ceasefire. It was sent, earlier on Monday, by the UK-based International Centre of Justice for Palestinians. The ICJP said it was speaking "on behalf of members of the Palestinian community in the UK with families and loved ones living in Gaza". The group said it wanted a meeting "to express our concerns, similar to the meetings you have had with other British communities who have families in the region who have experienced distress similar to ours". Calls for humanitarian pauses were "inadequate", it said. And the government's failure to call for a ceasefire "is putting our loved ones in danger and is contributing to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis". "It also ignores our voices as British citizens with friends and family under attack in Gaza," the ICJP said. A spokesperson for the UK government told the BBC that it had "helped more than 150 British nationals and dependents to leave Gaza so far". "We must see humanitarian pauses that allow enough time for hostages to be released, as well as aid to go in," it said. It said the Foreign Office was in regular contact with those who remained in Gaza, "and our teams are working around the clock with the Israeli and Egyptian authorities to ensure they can leave as quickly as possible". Six British-Palestinians told a press conference dozens of their family members had been killed in Gaza. Lubaba Khalid, who stepped down from chairing the Young BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) Labour network last month, over comments made by Labour leader Keir Starmer, said she had found out on social media her relatives had been killed. "Due to the lack of electricity and networks, we have found it very difficult keep in touch with family members just to check if they're alive," she said. "As a result, I found out my great uncle's house was bombed, on the social-media platform X [formerly known as Twitter] before I could get any confirmation from my own family." Six members of her family had been killed in that bombing, she said, five of them children. Accountant Omar Mofeed accused the UK government of "double standards" in its treatment of those evacuating Gaza. Non-British family members of British nationals who have fled Gaza and are now in Cairo currently need to apply for British family visas from Egypt. And Mr Mofeed pointed to the visa schemes available to those fleeing war in Ukraine, including the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme - also known as Homes for Ukraine - and the Ukraine Family Scheme, both of which are free for those applying. The Foreign Office has previously told BBC News it is working with the Home Office to process visas for non-British family members of British nationals who have left Gaza.

A British-Palestinian group has written to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, asking for an "urgent meeting" about Gaza.

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It has now become a symbol of the juxtaposition of the war - the Israeli invasion of Gaza inflicting masses of casualties and damage, set against the crisis of urgent humanitarian need inside the hospital. The Israelis have made a very big point about saying that, as well as going after the Hamas military command, they have brought in some fuel and incubators, because there has been a very concerning claim that premature babies in Al-Shifa Hospital had to be taken out of their incubators. However, the issue isn't a lack of incubators, it's a lack of fuel. Until Wednesday, Israel hadn't allow fuel into the Gaza Strip because they argued that Hamas would steal it and use it. Some 23,000 litres (5,060 gallons) of fuel has now been allowed in, but it is only to be used to refuel UN lorries. The UN says the delivery comprises only a fraction of what's needed for humanitarian operations, and the entry of fuel to run generators at hospitals and at water and sanitation facilities remains banned. Israel says Hamas has stockpiles of its own, and that it should use that fuel for the generators supplying the hospital electrical system. So there are a lot of strands coming together in what's unfolding in Al-Shifa Hospital this morning, but that's not the whole war - it will continue once this particular operation is over. At the same time, we have seen a hardening of the international position around the Israeli offensive in the last few days with the US, the UK and France using language that is shifting the tone - perhaps summed up best by what US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last weekend: "Far too many" Palestinian civilians have been killed. The Israelis knew this shift would come because this is a repeat of the pattern we have seen many times before with Israel's military operations. They talk about different clocks running during any operation. One is military: how long do they need before they accomplish their military objectives? The other is diplomatic: how long does Israel hold legitimacy to carry out that operation before its allies say, "you've killed enough people, civilians, you need to stop now please." Israel feels that because of the absolute enormity of the numbers of casualties in the Hamas attacks on 7 October, they have more time than usual, and I think they have gone in - as we can see from the levels of casualties in Gaza - using a great deal of force. I have seen some estimates that suggest the Israel Defense Forces will continue to work in this way for a couple more weeks, but I think the forces are gathering among their allies to say you need to change the nature of your military operation. That doesn't necessarily translate to a call for this to stop - certainly we haven't yet heard a call for a ceasefire from the British or the Americans.

Al-Shifa is the main hospital in Gaza City - I've been there many times. It has big grounds, so people in Gaza went there to seek shelter and camp out as they saw it as a safe area.

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Clemence Felix Mtenga, 22, was one of two Tanzanians taken by the group on 7 October. It is unclear how he died. The country's foreign ministry said it was in touch with Israel over the other Tanzanian hostage, Joshua Mollel. More than 230 hostages were taken in the assault by Hamas, and at least 1,200 people killed. Israel says the hostages - which were taken from Israel to the Gaza Strip - come from 25 countries, including one South African who is yet to be identified. Approximately 260 Tanzanians study agriculture in Israel, and both Mr Mtenga and Mr Mollel had been in the country as part of an agricultural internship programme,Israel's foreign ministry said on X. The pair had only landed in Israel in September, and were due to study there for 11 months. Mr Mtenga had been living on Kibbutz Nir Oz and working at a dairy farm in the afternoons,a friend and fellow student told the BBC. When news of his kidnapping broke last month, his sister said hiswhole family were worried about him, but remained hopeful he would be rescued. She said: "He should be courageous where he is, know that we love him and that we pray for him day and night, hoping that he will be back soon." Tanzania's foreign ministry said Mr Mtenga's family had been informed, and that officials were liaising with the Israeli government to send his body home. Mr Mollel's situation is currently unclear. Before it was confirmed that he had been taken hostage, his father told the BBC hecould not eat or sleepbecause he was desperate to know what had happened to him. The last words he said to his son before he disappeared were: "Be on your best behaviour because you're somewhere new, and make the most of the internship you're there to do." A total offour hostages have been releasedso far, with another freed by Israeli forces. Hamas - considered a terrorist organisation by the UK, the US and some other countries - says it has hidden the hostages in "safe places and tunnels" within Gaza.

The Tanzanian government has confirmed the death of a student taken hostage in the Hamas attack on Israel.

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Hundreds of foreign citizens have escaped through the crossing into Egypt in the past few days. But on Saturday, no foreign nationals, dual nationals or injured patients were let through, Palestinian sources said. Hundreds of people with foreign passports went to the border, but the gate did not open. Sources from the crossing authorities on the Palestinian side told the BBC that movement of people with foreign passports is not being allowed until there is agreement on the safety of transferring injured patients. There has been no official statement from the authorities as yet. The UK Foreign Office confirmed that British citizens in Gaza had been unable to leave via the Rafah crossing. A spokesperson told the BBC: "We are disappointed that the Rafah crossing has been temporarily closed today. "This continues to be a complex and challenging situation and we are using all diplomatic channels to press for its reopening in coordination with our international partners." The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened on Wednesday to allow a number of civilians to leave Gaza. It was their first opportunity to do so since the war began on 7 October, when Hamas gunmen staged an unprecedented assault on southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people. Since then, the Israeli military has launched a massive bombing campaign on Gaza, placed the strip under a "complete siege" and recently launched a ground assault on the north of Gaza. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says 9,488 people have been killed. Rafah is the southernmost post of exit from Gaza and borders Egypt's Sinai peninsula. Mohammed Ghalayini, a British scientist from Manchester who had been in Gaza visiting family when the war began, accompanied his uncle to the crossing earlier this week after he was named by Gaza authorities on the list of approved evacuees. "People are really afraid of what's going on and so if they have a chance to leave, they're trying to leave," he told the BBC. "But getting to the border is a struggle as well, because fuel supplies are short," he added. "So you know, I saw people arriving on a donkey cart with their luggage at the border." The crossing, which has been open and shut frequently over the years, is now also the only crossing point for humanitarian aid. Israel has not allowed any fuel shipments to enter the Strip since the start of the war. It has also cut off electricity supplies, prompting calls from UN agencies for fuel supplies to be let into Gaza to power basic services. But on Saturday, US special envoy David Satterfield told reporters that when the fuel runs out in Gaza, there is an agreed mechanism to bring more in. On Friday, an ambulance that had been attempting to transport an injured person to the Rafah border crossing was hit outside Gaza City's biggest hospital, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. The agency says 15 people were killed in the incident. The Israeli military said a number of Hamas fighters had been killed and accused Hamas - which is designated a terrorist group by Israel, the US, UK and other powers - of transferring militants and weapons in ambulances, although it has not yet supplied evidence of this. Have you been affected by the issues raised in this story? [email protected]. Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways: If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of theBBC websiteto submit your question or comment or you can email us [email protected]. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.

The exit of foreigners from Gaza via the Rafah border crossing was halted on Saturday in an apparent dispute over evacuating injured patients.

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The family of a 17-year-old who died while working as a Deliveroo rider - despite 18 being the minimum age - say the company is "unaccountable". The Home Office is urging Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats to reform policies that let riders lend accounts to others, known as "substitution". Deliveroo says it has a "zero tolerance approach" towards ineligible riders. The BBC's investigation found substitution fuels an online trade in accounts, including potentially to children. Riders who sign up to work for the big food delivery apps have to pass background checks. They must verify their age, that they have no convictions and that they are allowed to work in the UK. But once verified, a rider is permitted to lend their account to another person to work instead of them. It is the duty of the original account holder - not the app they work for - to check that their "substitute" meets the legal criteria to work. The system appears open to abuse. Leo was just 15 when he first rented his Deliveroo account from a man in the town where he lived. Two years later Leo was killed on a borrowed motorbike - he was only 17 but still working for the app. The minimum age to work for the company is 18. "Leo wanted to be a millionaire. Whatever it took, he just wanted to earn money and hustle," says Leo's stepfather Patrick. His family have decided to speak out because they feel so strongly, but have asked to withhold their surname as they are worried about a backlash from riders in their local area who use illegal accounts. Leo's mother Preta says on the surface the work was really appealing for a teenager. "They make a lot of money and they don't want to stop. £100 or £200 a day - it's a lot of money". Patrick says: "No-one's accountable, they just take the money. It's not right." Deliveroo has not contacted the family, he says. "Well they wouldn't would they? They wouldn't even know he existed." The company told us that if a rider was found to be ineligible to work for the app "we will stop working with them with immediate effect". As part of our investigation, the BBC found social media account holders selling or renting accounts for the three main delivery apps. We set up a fake social media profile, using an image of a 16-year-old boy generated by AI, and messaged the sellers. When we told one seller offering Deliveroo accounts that he was speaking to a 16-year-old, he replied: "I want to help you, age does not matter." Another said he would rent us his Uber Eats account for £70 per week, adding: "They don't check age, it's more like you are using my account." Just Eat accounts were also available, this seller told us - "no one checks anything". The company has the largest share of the UK market followed by Uber Eats and Deliveroo. The government says it is unhappy with the situation and has called in the three big delivery apps for a round table meeting on Tuesday. The Home Office also published an open letter to the companies calling for an end to "the use of unchecked substitution". Home Office Minister Robert Jenrick told us: "This is not a victimless activity, we've seen a young person die when he was doing a job that he shouldn't have been doing." Mr Jenrick said the policy of substitution was "perpetuating and enabling illegal working in our country". And he called for it to be reformed so that any "substitute rider" would also be verified by the apps, not by the owner of the account. The Home Office has been carrying out checks on riders and says, so far this year, 381 across the UK who do not have the right to work in the country have been arrested. Deliveroo said: "We take our responsibilities extremely seriously and we continue to work in close collaboration with the relevant authorities to support their efforts in this area." Just Eat released a statement saying: "We have high standards and a robust criteria in place for couriers. "Self-employed independent couriers have the legal right to use a substitute. "Legally the courier account-holder is responsible for ensuring their substitute meets the necessary standards to deliver on our network." And Uber Eats said all couriers "must pass a criminal background check, be over the age of 18 and hold a valid right to work in the UK". It added: "We understand that there are concerns around this issue, and we are working closely with the government and want to find a solution." Sign up for our morning newsletterand get BBC News in your inbox. Are you affected by the issues raised in this story? Share your experiences by [email protected]. Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways: If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of theBBC websiteto submit your question or comment or you can email us [email protected]. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.

A black-market trade in delivery app accounts allows underage teenagers to sign up as riders, the BBC has found.

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Rishi Sunak met his new cabinet after a dramatic overhaul on Monday saw the former prime minister return to front-line politics. He replaces James Cleverly, who was moved to be home secretary to take over from Suella Braverman. Mrs Braverman was sacked following her criticism of the Metropolitan Police. Greeting his new set of ministers, the prime minister said: "A warm welcome to those for whom it's their first cabinet and also a welcome to those for whom it may not be their first time." He added that it would be "an important week" ahead with new inflation figures and the court's decision onthe government's Rwanda policyexpected on Wednesday. Lord Cameron, as he is now known as of his appointment to the House of Lords on Monday, had been out of Parliament since he stood down as prime minister in 2016. His return to politics came out of the blue, with Downing Street managing to prevent any rumours of the appointment from leaking, despite the fact the job offer was made last week. In one fell swoop, No 10 revealed not only was the former prime minister entering the House of Lords, he would also be taking up one of the most senior jobs in government. While the news was still being digested in Westminster, Lord Cameron was carrying out official duties, including holding a call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The pair "reiterated the strength and depth of the relationship between the UK and the US", the Foreign Office said, and spoke about the war in Ukraine. In a statement, the Foreign Office said: "They discussed the conflict in the Middle East, Israel's right to self defence and the need for humanitarian pauses to allow the safe passage of aid into Gaza." In a speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet in London on Monday night, Mr Sunak said he was "pleased to have appointed a new foreign secretary" and said the new cabinet is "a united team". Richard Holden, the newly-appointed Conservative Party chair, told BBC Breakfast that Lord Cameron had returned "out of a sense of duty" and would bring experience to the role. But not everyone in the Conservative Party is pleased about the return of Lord Cameron and the new-look cabinet. One backbencher, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, has already submitted a letter of no confidence in the prime minister, citing the sacking of Mrs Braverman. There would need to be 53 before his leadership is threatened. And Conservative former cabinet minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said the Tories were "in danger of losing votes to the Reform party". Reform leader Richard Tice was "as happy as can be" when he saw him earlier, he told BBC Newsnight, adding: "The champagne will be flowing in the Reform party headquarters tonight after what's been done today." Opposition parties have been quick to ask whether bringing back a prime minister who left office seven years ago is really the fresh start Mr Sunak claims to offer. Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said voters would be "wondering how David Cameron coming back into government will help them pay for their weekly shop". She added that the Conservatives were "out of ideas" and could not offer "the change our country is crying out for". Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said it "sounds like desperation". The Lib Dems are also calling for Lord Cameron's peerage to be blocked, referring to his lobbying for collapsed finance company Greensill Capital. Lord Cameron said he had resigned from the various business and charitable roles - including president of the Alzheimer's Research UK - he had held since quitting as prime minister. "I have one job - to be foreign secretary and work with the prime minister for the UK to be as secure and prosperous as possible in a difficult and dangerous world," he said. He insisted the Greensill affair was "in the past" and had been "dealt with". Opposition parties and Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoylehave raised concerns about how MPs will be able to hold Lord Cameron to account, since he will sit as a peer rather than in the Commons. Foreign Office Minister Andrew Mitchell, who will deputise for Lord Cameron in the Commons, said the new foreign secretary believed it was "essential" the department's work could be properly scrutinised. He added that Lord Cameron would appear before the House of Lords and relevant committees regularly. Lord Cameron is not the only familiar face returning to the government after Monday's reshuffle. Former Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom has taken on a junior role in the Department for Health and Social Care, while Damian Hinds has become a minister in the Department for Education, which he used to run. Former Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey returns to government as a Cabinet Office minister.

David Cameron has returned to the cabinet table for the first time in more than seven years on Tuesday after his recall to government.

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The prolific stage and screen actor, who has been in more than 100 movies and TV series, died "peacefully" and was "surrounded by family", they said. He was also described as a "beloved father" and had been married to his wife Rosemary for 51 years before she died in 2002. He appeared in films including White Mischief and 1989's Lethal Weapon 2. The family statement said: "With his distinctive voice and commanding presence, Ackland brought a unique intensity and gravitas to his role. "He will be remembered as one of Britain's most talented and beloved actors." Born in 1928 in London's Ladbroke Grove area, Ackland grew up in Kilburn, north London. He honed his skills by working for a variety of regional theatre troupes, eventually joining London's Old Vic. Ackland also played writer CS Lewis in the 1985 television movie Shadowlands. He appeared in dozens of films throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including The Mighty Ducks and Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. In a 2001 interview with the BBC he said he appeared in some "awful films" because he was a workaholic. He was awarded a CBE in 2000 for his services to acting.

British actor Joss Ackland has died at the age of 95, his family said in a statement.

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Some of the dates have been worse than others, she says, because she has a condition that most men she meets seem unable to accept - she doesn't want children. "Having babies is very tiring and I don't like babies," says Chen, who's in her late 20s and only wanted to share her last name. "But it's impossible to find a man who doesn't want children. For a man not to have children… It's like killing him." Despite the string of unsuccessful dates, the pressure to marry has not eased. It's making her nearly "explode", she says. It is not just Chen's parents who want her to marry and have children. As marriage and birth rates plummet, the Chinese Communist Party is encouraging millions of young women and men to reverse the trend. Last year,China's population fell for the first time in 60 years, and its fertility rate dropped to a record low. The number of registered marriages, too, hasn't been this low - 6.83 million - since 1986. Disheartened by a slowing economy and rising unemployment, young Chinese are also turning away from the traditional choices their parents made. The result is a headache for the Party and far from the "national rejuvenation" the country's leader Xi Jinping has called for. The concern has reached Mr Xi, who recently gave a speech on the need to "cultivate a new culture of marriage and childbearing". He also spoke of "strengthening guidance" to shape young people's view on marriage, children and family. It's not that Chinese officials have not been trying. Across the country, bureaucrats have been mobilised to incentivise young people to get married, and for couples to stay married and have children. Earlier this year, a small town in the eastern Zhejiang province announced that it would offer couples 1,000 yuan ($137; £108) as a "reward" if the bride was 25 years or younger. It stunned and then angered locals, who called the local government tone-deaf for assuming that such a small amount of money could have an impact on such a major decision. Elsewhere, officials insisted on a "30-day cooling-off period" for couples seeking separation or divorce. This led to concerns about how this would restrict personal choices, and harm women who face domestic violence. In rural areas, where more and more single men are struggling to find a bride, authorities have ordered women to stop asking for high bride prices - a sum paid by a prospective groom or his parents to the family of his wife-to-be to demonstrate his commitment. Like other "incentives", this one won't work either, says economist Li Jingkui. Even without bride prices, men are still competing for a bride, he says. "There could be other ways to compete: like houses, cars or just better looks." Experts say the overwhelmingly male Chinese leadership cannot possibly understand what's driving these choices for young people, especially women. China's highest decision-making group, the Party's seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, has only comprised men for decades. The leadership rung just below it - which has more than 20 seats - included a lone woman for the last two decades until last October. Now there are no women in it. The efforts of these men, and all the men below them, are often seen as out-of-touch and even superficial, often attracting ridicule online. "The officials in the government basically all have wives," says Mr Li. "They don't get this pain." Experts believe China's singles population is made up of two unmatchable groups - urban women and rural men. Rural men are battling economic expectations, such as high bride prices and a secure job that can support a family. And this, in turn, seems to be empowering women in rural areas to take more time in choosing a partner. "When I went home for Chinese New Year, I felt awesome being a woman in rural China's marriage market," says 28-year-old Cathy Tian who works in Shanghai. She says she was worried she would be considered "a bit old" in northern Anhui province, where women usually get married by the time they turn 22. But she found the opposite to be true. "I don't need to provide anything but the man needs to have a house, a car, an engagement ceremony as well as pay a bride price. I felt like I'm at the top of this marriage market." Urban women, on the other hand, say what troubles them is the widening gap between how they view marriage, and how the rest of society views it. "There is no anxiety inside of me," says Chen. "My anxiety comes from outside." Unlike her parents' generation, when life was a challenge and love was a luxury, people and women have more options now, she says. "Our idea now is it's okay to not have babies, and it's no longer a task we must complete." Women also note that like the world around them, the government's campaigns focus on women and overlook men's responsibilities as partners. And the unequal expectations are driving them away from the idea of becoming a parent. Chen says this is also part of the reason she doesn't want children - watching her friend be a parent. "Her second child is very naughty. I really feel that every time I go to her house, it will explode and the ceiling will be torn down." In China, "raising your kids as if your spouse has died" has become a common phrase among young mothers. It means husbands are not doing chores or sharing the job of being a parent. "All the married men I know think their responsibility in the family is just to earn money," says a 33-year-old data scientist who did not want to reveal her name. "Mothers feel guilty for not being with their children, they even think it's not alright to stay out late. But the fathers never have such guilt." But the Party has shown no indication that inequality and changing expectations are among the challenges they must counter to lift marriage or birth rates. And young Chinese are making it clear that they will not be wooed so easily by officials. When talking about the social pressures they face, they often repeat aslogan popularised during Shanghai's crippling and controversial Covid lockdown. They were words used by a young man arguing with officials against tough restrictions: "We are the last generation."

Chen has been on more than 20 blind dates, all set up by her mother.

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The sheep may have been stuck at the bottom of cliffs on Scotland's Cromarty Firth for at least two years,according to a kayaker who first saw it in 2021. A petition calling for a rescue of the sheep has gathered more than 52,000 signatures, while a hovercraft companyhas said it might be able to help. But the Scottish SPCA said, so far, there is not a safe way of reaching it. A group of kayakers encountered the sheep two years ago and again recently this year on a shoreline below steep ground and cliffs south of Brora. They believe it is the same animal, but with its fleece badly overgrown. The SSPCA said it has been aware of the stranded ewe for some time. A spokeswoman said: "The sheep is not in any immediate danger and has ample grazing and water, however, we are aware they badly require shearing. "We appreciate that there is growing concern for the sheep and we want to reassure the public that we are doing everything we can." It is not known who owns the sheep because it does not have an identification tag fitted to an ear. The SSPCA said it had considered a potential rescue with support from a local farmer. But the spokeswoman said: "The area where the sheep is stranded is very inaccessible by both land and sea, making this rescue incredibly complex, especially due to the logistics of rescuing a large animal. "We have been liaising with other agencies as to the best way to access the area but so far we have not found a suitable solution that doesn't compromise the safety of the rescue teams and the welfare of the sheep." The SSPCA said due to the time the ewe had been stranded it was now deemed to be feral, and likely to be stressed by human contact. "As this is not a domestic animal, both the coastguard and mountain rescue teams are unable to assist in this matter," the spokeswoman said. "We have also spoken with a local skipper who has advised it would be extremely difficult to land a boat in the area. "We have been given some contact information for other businesses who may be able to help and we are currently exploring these options." The spokeswoman said that even if there was a safe method of rescue, there were some additional challenges to consider. "The sheep will be very difficult to catch without gates and hurdles and is likely to be fearful and run away," she said. "If the sheep becomes too distressed, there is the possibility they may run into the sea, which will present further challenges. "As the animal's fleece is overgrown, it will also prove difficult to temporarily sedate the animal which would have assisted with the rescue." She said the SSPCA had received many kind offers of donations to support a rescue, and some people had expressed interest in rehoming the sheep. The spokeswoman added that the ewe was likely to need a specialist home, if it was ever rescued. Domestic sheep have been rescued from difficult terrain in the past. In 2016, a climbing instructor went to the aid of a sheep on crags on the north west Highlands coast. Paul Calton managed to lasso the animal before helping it to safety. He had been instructing school pupils at Sheigra near Sandwood Bay. In 2009, a ewe survived a jump of almost 25m (80ft) into a quarryin Lewis in the Western Isles.

An animal welfare charity has been looking into the challenges of rescuing a ewe dubbed Britain's loneliest sheep.

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A further 23 Thai hostages have also been freed as part of a separate deal, as well as one Filipino national. Three Russian-Israelis, two women and one man, not included in the deal have also been handed over by Hamas. Under the terms of a deal between Israel and Hamas, 180 Palestinian prisoners have also been freed from jail in Israel. An estimated 240 people were taken hostage during the 7 October attacks on Israel. Prior to the deal, four hostages were released, and another was freed by Israeli forces. Ori Megidish, an Israeli soldier,was freedduring ground operations in Gaza on 29 October. Two women, Nurit Cooper and Yocheved Lifschitz,were freed on Monday 24 October. On Friday 20 October, two US hostages - Judith Raanan and her daughter Natalie Raanan -were also freed. Hamas says it has hidden the hostages in "safe places and tunnels" within Gaza. The IDF have notified some families that their loved ones are being held hostage, while other families - whose relatives remain unaccounted for - believe they have been taken. These are the stories of hostages taken from Israel on 7 October which have been either confirmed by the BBC or credibly reported. This list is regularly updated and names may change, as some people feared kidnapped are confirmed to have been killed or released. Last updated on 30 November 2023 at 11:57 GMT Lena Trupanov, 50,appeared in a hostage videoreleased by Hamas on 30 October alongside Rimon Buchshtab Kirsht and Daniele Aloni, who have since been released. Yagev Kirsht, 34, was taken from his home in Kibbutz Nirim, alongside his wife, Rimon Buchstab Kirsht. She has now been released. Alexander Trupanov, who is Lena's son, his partnerSapir Cohen, 29, and his grandmotherIrina Tati, 73, were all abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz as they spent the Sabbath together, according to a statement by Canada's Raoul Wallenburg Center for Human Rights. Ariel Cunio,his girlfriendArbel Yahudand her brotherDolevare also thought to have been abducted in the same attack on Nir Oz. Eitan Cunio, Ariel's brother who escaped Hamas, told the Jewish Chronicle that his last message from Ariel said: "We are in a horror movie." David Cunio, 33, another of Ariel's brothers, was also kidnapped from Nir Oz, family say. David's wife Sharon Aloni Cunio and their three-year-old twin daughters Ema and Yuly were released on 27 November. Sharon's sister Daniele Aloni, and her six-year-old daughter Emilia were both released on 24 November. Shani Goren, 29, was kidnapped from her home in Nir Oz and later seen by family members in a video posted by Hamas. The granddaughter of Uruguayan nationals, she was granted citizenship after her abduction and Uruguay has told local media it is working for her release. Doron Steinbrecher, 30, a veterinary nurse, was in her apartment in Kibbutz Kfar Aza when Hamas attacked, the Times of Israel reported. At 10:30 on 7 October, the newspaper said, she sent a voice message to friends: "They've arrived, they have me." Itzhak Gelerenter, 53, was taken from the Supernova festival. His family said the IDF found his phone was located in Gaza, the Times of Israel reported. His daughter Pivko told the paper: "I'm trying to think good thoughts, I have a powerful, smart, resourceful father." Naama Levy, 19, was filmed being bundled into a jeep, her hands tied behind her back. The footage was released by Hamas and circulated widely on social media. According to her mother, the teenager had just begun her military service. Noralin Agojo, 60, was visiting Kibbutz Nirim, to celebrate the community's 70th anniversary. Her husband was murdered. Her younger brother, Exo, told the Bring Them Home website that her last words to him were: "I'm shaking; maybe I won't come home." Yousef Zyadna, a 53-year-old Bedouin dairy farmer, was abducted from Kibbutz Holit and taken to Gaza along with his daughterAisha, 16, and sonsHamza, 22, andBilal, 18. Later, Hamas posted a photo of Hamza and Bilal stripped to the waist and on a floor, next to armed men. Elad Katzir, 47, was abducted from Nir Oz with his mother Hanna. Hanna has now been released. Twin brothersGali and Ziv Berman, 26, were taken from Kfar Aza. Ziv was messaging a friend as the attack happened. Their family said the IDF has told them the brothers are being held in Gaza. Their brother Liran told CBN news the pair had "twin power" and were the centre of attention wherever they went. Michel Nisenbaum, 59, is a dual Brazilian-Israeli citizen who has lived in Israel for 45 years and works as a computer technician, his family told Brazilian media. They also say he is diabetic and has Crohn's disease. On 7 October, they say, someone claiming to be from Hamas answered his phone when they tried to call him. Daniela Gilboa, 19, sent messages saying that Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where she was staying, was under attack and asked her mother to pray for her. Her boyfriend, Roy Dadon, told the Economist 1843 magazine that he believes he saw a glimpse of her in a video showing three girls being driven away in the back of an SUV. Itay Chen, 19, a dual US-Israeli citizen and IDF solider, was on active duty with a tank unit on 7 October, according to the Times of Israel. The paper reported that his family was notified by the IDF that he is officially considered missing in action and probably being held hostage in Gaza. Yosi Sharabi, 51, was taken from Be'eri with his brother,Eli Sharabi, 55. Eli'swife and two daughters were murderedin the attack. Ofir Engel, the boyfriend of Yosi's daughter, Yuval, was also taken, but released on 29 November. Agam Berger, 19, was kidnapped from Nahal Oz. She was seen being taken away in videos released by Hamas. Dror Kaplun, 68 was identified by his niece in a Hamas video. He was being led away from Be'eri after the attack. His wife, Marcelle Frailich Kaplun, who was also in the video, was later found dead but Dror remains missing. Alon Lulu Shamriz,26, was at Kfar Aza at the time of attack, his family told Israeli media. His father said he had been informed by the IDF that Alon had been kidnapped. Edan Alexander, 19, is an Israeli-US citizen who volunteered to join the Israeli army. He was serving near the Gaza border at the time of Hamas's attack. Edan's family said they had been told by Israeli officials that he had been taken to Gaza as a hostage. Kaid Farhan Elkadi, 53, lives with his family south of Rahat and worked as a security guard, according to Israeli media. Reports said his family believes he was kidnapped and taken to Gaza, based on images shared by Hamas. Arye Zalmanovich,85, lived at Nir Oz, according to online reports. His family say they have not heard from him since 7 October. Ilana Gritzewsky30, and her partnerMatan Zanguaker, 24, were taken hostage from Nir Oz,according to Ilana's father. Ilana is a Mexican national while Matan is an Israeli citizen. Eitan Horn, 37, and his brotherYair, 45, both Argentinian citizens, were also in Nir Oz at the time of the attack. Their father Itzik said he believes they were kidnapped. Yair is a construction worker while Eitan works in education. Itai Svirsky, 38, is thought to have been abducted when his elderly parents were killed in Be'eri. He had been visiting them for the holiday of Simhat Torah. Keith Seigel, 64, and his wife Adrienne - often known as Aviva - Seigel, 62, were taken from their home in Kfar Aza, Keith's brother Lee Seigel told the BBC. Adrienne was released on 26 November. Nili Margalit, 41, a nurse, was kidnapped from her home in Nir Oz, friends and family say. They are reported to have been told by Yocheved Lifschitz, a hostage who was later released, that she had recognised Nili in captivity. Tal Haimi, a 41-year-old with Israeli-Romanian citizenship, was also part of the Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak security team but did not return with the others. His wife told Romanian TV she was clinging to hope that he had been taken hostage. Omri Miran, 46, lived in Nahal Oz with his wife and two daughters. Omri was led away by Hamas with his hands tied, his wife Lishay told the Guardian newspaper. She told him not to be a hero, urging: "Do whatever they want because I want you back." Bipin Joshi,23, a Nepalese student, is believed to have been taken from Kibbutz Alumim. Nepalese newspaper Setopati says he was one of 49 university students studying agriculture in Israel. It says 10 students were killed in the attack. Ilan Weiss, 58, went missing from Kibbutz Be'eri after he was last seen leaving the house to defend the community. On 25 November, his wife Shiri Weiss, 53, and their daughter, Noga, 18, were freed from captivity in a hostage deal. Amiram Cooper, 85, and his wife Nurit, 80, were taken from their home in Nir Oz, their daughter-in-law Noa told the BBC. The family last spoke to the couple during the Hamas attack, Noa said, when the couple were in their safe room. The family later traced Amiram's phone to Gaza. On Monday 23 October, Nurit was one of two women to be released. Oded Lifshitz, 83, and his wife Yocheved, 85 were taken hostage from Nir Oz. On Monday 23 October, Yocheved was one of two elderly women to be freed. After hearing the news of her mother's release, their daughter Sharone - a London-based artist - said: "While I cannot put into words the relief that she is now safe, I will remain focused on securing the release of my father and all those - some 200 innocent people - who remain hostages in Gaza." Nik Beizer, 19, was on duty at an IDF base at Erez Crossing, the sole land route between Israel and Gaza, when it was attacked. His mother, Ekaterina, told the Jerusalem Post she had identified him in a video posted by Hamas on an Arabic-language Telegram channel. Haim Peri,79, was taken from his home in Nir Oz,reports the Times of Israel, and freed hostageYocheved Lifshitzsaid she saw that he was alive and well. His son Lior Peri toldTalk TVthat Haim had locked his wife inside the safe room before giving himself up to kidnappers. Avraham Munder, 78, was kidnapped from Nir Oz,Israeli officials say. His wife Ruthi, daughter and grandson have since been released. Omer Neutra, a 22-year-old Israeli-American and grandson of Holocaust survivors, put off plans to go to college in the US to study in Israel, and eventually joined the IDF. He was serving as a tank commander near Gaza when Hamas attacked. Omer's parents say they were told by the Israeli embassy that he had been kidnapped. Ron Benjamin, 53, had been taking part in a group cycle ride near the Gaza border when the Hamas attack began and he decided to drive home, his family told Israeli media. Days later, his vehicle was found empty and his family believe he was kidnapped. Louis Har, 70, is believed to have been taken from Nir Yitzhak. His partner Clara Marman was released on 28 November along with her sister Gabriela Leimberg, 59, and Gabriela's daughterMia Leimberg,17. Clara and Gabriela's brotherFernando Simon Marman,60, also remains in captivity. Judith Weinstein Haggai, 70, and her husband,GadHaggai, 73, also went missing from Nir Oz after the Hamas attack. Ten days later, the Israeli military confirmed to the family they had been taken hostage, CTV News in Canada reported. Alex Danzig,75, a scholar and historian of the Holocaust, was at his home in Nir Oz, when it was attacked by Hamas. "We know for sure he was kidnapped," his son Matitold the BBC. Alex - whose older sister Edith is a Holocaust survivor - has spent the last 30 years working for Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust remembrance centre. His disappearance has triggered a campaign for his release, both in Israel and in Poland, the country of his birth. Itzhk Elgarat,68, was kidnapped at the same time as Alex Danzig, his brother Danny Elgert told Israel's Kan 11 TV station, adding that he had tracked his brother's phone to the border with Gaza. Gadi Moses, 79, was also abducted during the same attack on Nir Oz, according to relatives and the Israeli aid agency where he worked as an agricultural expert. Efrat Katz, his partner, was initially thought to have been captured as well, but she was later found dead, the Times of Israel reported. Efrat was the mother of Doron Asher, who was taken hostage and later released with her two daughters. Ravid Katz, 51, Doron Asher's brother, was originally thought to have been taken hostage from Nir Oz, but on 28 November his family confirmed that he had been killed on 7 October. Yair Yaakov, 59, is listed among the hostages. His partner Meirav Tal, 53, was released on 28 November.Yair's children Yagil, 13, and Or, 16, were released on 27 November. Nimrod Cohen, 19, had studied software engineering in high school, according to reports. After he was kidnapped, his father was invited to meet Pope Francis in Rome along with other hostages' families. Tsachi Idan,51, was last seen by his wife, Gali, as he was taken away by Hamas gunmen. Their family had been ambushed in their safe room in Nahal Oz. Their ordeal was live-streamed by Hamas. Their eldest child, Maayan - who had just turned 18 - was shot dead, Gali told the BBC. Ron Scherman, a 19-year-old Israeli soldier, was kidnapped at a border crossing, his mother Maayan told Israel's i24 news channel. She later identified him in a video posted by Hamas, she said. On 29 November, Hamas claimed that Shiri Bibas, 32, and her two young children, Ariel and Kfir,had been killed in an Israeli air strike while in captivity. Israel said it is checking the claim. They had beenabducted from Nir Ozwhere Shiri was a kindergarten teacher. She was pictured holding Ariel, three, and 10-month-old Kfir, surrounded by Hamas gunmen. Shiri's parents, Yossi and Margit Silberman, were killed during the attack. Her husband,Yarden Bibas,34, is believed to be a hostage in Gaza. Ronen Engel, 55, was taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz along with his wife, Karina Engelbert, 51, and their two daughters, Mika, 18 and Yuval, 11. Karina, Mika and Yuval were released on 27 November. Karina Ariev, a 19-year-old soldier, was serving at an army base near Gaza when she was kidnapped. Her sister Alexandra told the BBC she heard shooting as Karina called her during the attack, and later saw a video showing Karina being taken away in a vehicle. Ofer Kalderon, 53, was taken by Hamas from Nir Oz. On 27 November his two children, Erez, 12, and Sahar, 16, were released. Two other relatives, 80-year-old Carmela Dan and her granddaughter, Noya, 12, were also believed to have been taken, but Israeli authorities later announced they had been found dead. Yotam Haim, 28, is missing from Kibbutz Kfar Aza and it is believed that he is being held in Gaza. His mother, Iris, told the BBC they were messaging each other as they hid in their home shelters. Then their connection was lost. "He is young, he is strong. I want to believe that he's doing well," she said. Samer Fuad El-Talalka, 22, a Bedouin, was captured in Kibbutz Nir Oz where he was an agricultural worker in the hatchery. His father, Fuad Talalka, told Israel's Ynet news he lost touch with his son at 7am that morning. A picture of Samer being led through Gaza has been shared on Telegram. Amit Soussana, 40, a lawyer, was at home with a fever when Hamas attacked Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Her family told the Times of Israel she had messaged to say she could hear shooting and was going to hide in her safe room. She was confirmed as a hostage on 29 October. Maya Goren, 56, was setting up the kindergarten at Nir Oz on the morning of 7 October when Hamas attacked, the Times of Israel reported. Her husband Avner was killed. Maya's phone has since been traced to Gaza. Yoram Metzger, 80, was a resident of Nir Oz. He has diabetes and broke his hip six months ago, his daughter-in-law said. Yoram's wife Tamar was released on 28 November. Nadav Popplewell, 51, and his mother Channah were taken hostage by Hamas, said Channah's daughter Ayelet Svatitzky, who was speaking to them on the phone when the gunmen burst in. She said the captors sent pictures of her two relatives, who both have diabetes, with armed men in the background. Channah has now been released. Omri Miran, 46, was abducted after his family opened the door to their secure shelter to an Israeli child, who said he would be killed otherwise. Omri's wife, Lishay Lavi, said she saw him being taken away in handcuffs with three other hostages from Nahal Oz. Liri Elbag, 18, had just started military training as an Army lookout near the Gaza border when Hamas attacked, her father Eli told the Associated Press. Eli said he saw her in a video circulated later by Hamas, crowded with others on the back of a military truck which had been seized by the gunmen. Aviv Atzili, 49, went missing from his home in Nir Oz on the day of the attack with his wife Liat Beinin Atzili, 49. She was released on 29 November. Their house was burned down, but there was no sign of a struggle or blood. According to The Times of Israel, Aviv's phone was geo-located in Gaza a day later. A number of people are believed to have been abducted from theSupernova music festivalin southern Israel. Among them: Shlomi Ziv,40, was part of the security detail at the festival and was initially in contact with his sisters as the attack unfolded, according to an interview with The Times of Israel. A few weeks later the family learned he was officially considered to be a hostage, the report says. Eden Zecharya, 28, was at the festival with her boyfriend, Ofek Kimchi. He was killed and she was taken into Gaza alive, according to Israeli media reports. Almog Sarusi, 26, was kidnapped from the music festival and his partner Shahar Gindi was killed, according to Israeli media. Almog's father, Yigal, was among the relatives of hostages who met with Israel's prime minister in October. Omer Shem Tov,21, called his parents as he was running away from gunfire and managed to get into a friend's car. His parents, Shelly and Malki Shem Tov, told Israeli media they lost contact with their son and the live location on his phone showed he was beyond the border in Gaza. Guy Iluz, 26, a bass player in a Jewish band, was kidnapped escaping from the festival. His bandmates announced the news during a concert in Tel Aviv. Mia Schem, 21, who holds dual French and Israeli nationality, appeared in the first hostage video released by Hamas saying that she had been abducted from the festival. The IDF confirmed she had been taken hostage and said they were in touch with her family, who agreed images from the video could be shown. Idan Shtivi, 28, an environmental sciences student, was attending the festival to take pictures at music and yoga workshops being held by friends. He escaped the site in his car but was attacked by Hamas along the route. The bodies of two of his passengers were found, and his family told the Jerusalem Post they suspect he was kidnapped. Yosef Ohana, 24, had been at the festival with a friend, who told his mother he and Yosef had remained to help people escape the gunfire before running themselves. Yosef was last seen hiding under a car, and Israeli authorities have visited his mother to say he was kidnapped. Andrei Kozlov, 27, a Russian who moved to Israel in 2022, is missing from the Supernova festival, where he was working as a security guard. His mother told the De Taly publication the family was told by the IDF on October 26 that he was being held hostage. Elyakim Libman, 23, was working as a security guard at the festival. In a Facebook post his father Eliyahu Libman said another guard told him his son had helped rescue others before trying to escape. He was last seen trying to help two badly-injured women. Noa Argamani, a Chinese-born Israeli citizen, was also kidnapped from the festival. Video footage - verified by her father Yaakov Argamani to Israel's Channel 12 - shows the 25-year-old being taken away on the back of a motorbike screaming, "Don't kill me!" Her boyfriendAvinatan Or, 30, also appears in the video being marched away from her by Hamas, the Times of Israel reported. Eden Yerushalmi, 24, called her family during Hamas's attack on the festival, her sister May told CBS News. The family say they were subsequently informed by the IDF that Eden had been abducted. Chanan Yablonka, 42, is a father-of-two from Tel Aviv. According to reports, he attended the festival with friends and was due to celebrate his birthday a few days after the attacks. Jonathan Samerano, 21, has been missing since 07:00 on the morning of the festival. His family have been told to presume he is being held in Gaza, Israeli media reported. Elia Toledano, 27, was last seen in the early hours of the morning. He attended with his friend Mia Schem who appeared in captivity in a Hamas video. His family believes he was also taken. Ofir Tzarfati, 27, celebrated his birthday at the festival and was captured in a car while trying to escape. His family have now been told that he is dead. Guy Gilboa-Dalal, 22, attended the festival with his brother. Guy appears in a hostage video that his family say confirms he in Gaza. Uriel Baruch, 35, was injured during the attack on the festival, his wife said on Facebook. Reports in Israeli media say his mother, Naomi, has heard from the IDF that he is a hostage. Maxim Kharkinis aged 35 and a Russian speaker, his mother told Russian media. She added that he had called her at 07:00 on the morning of the attack. Moran Yanai, 40, a jewellery designer, was selling her work at the festival when the attack happened. She was later seen in a video sitting on the ground surrounded by derogatory Arabic text about Jews, her brother told the Associated Press. Elkana Bohbot, 34, had gone to the party with friends and, before losing contact, he spoke to his wife and mother telling them he was helping to evacuate the wounded, the Times of Israel reported. Hours later, his family found a video of him posted online by Hamas, which has been seen by BBC Verify. Rom Braslavski, 19, was working on security for the festival. According to an account published by Hostages and Missing Families Forum, he was trying to rescue an injured person in the attack when he was caught in a volley of fire. He has not been heard from since. Omer Wenkert, 22,a restaurant manager, sent a message to his family to say he was going to a safe shelter but then lost contact, his father Shai Wenkert told the BBC's Today Programme. Shai Wenkert said he had seen footage of his son in captivity, including a photo of him handcuffed and wearing only underwear. Evyatar David, 23, was at the festival and on the morning of the attacks, described fleeing from gunfire before losing contact with the outside world, his brother says. Later, his family say, Evyatar's sister posted on Instagram appealing for information about his whereabouts. She then received a text from an unknown number, which contained video footage of Evyatar handcuffed on the floor of a dark room. According to Israel's foreign ministry he is being held captive by Hamas in Gaza. Eitan Mor, 23, lives in Jerusalem, and was working as a security guard at the festival, the Times of Israel said. He reportedly texted his uncle after Hamas arrived and was last seen with a friend bringing others to safety. Alon Ohel, 22, a Serbian citizen, took refuge in a shelter after the festival came under attack, his family say. They have seen footage of him being dragged away after a grenade attack. Almog Meir Jan, 21, tried to flee the festival. He and a friend made it to the friend's car but only managed to drive a short distance before being forced to stop. Almog's family say they have seen a hostage video in which he appears. Inbar Heiman, a student aged 21, was seen by two young Israeli men being taken away from the festival on a motorcycle. Hamas have released a video in which she is seen very briefly. Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, from California, was seen by witnesses being loaded onto a truck, his family told the Los Angeles Times. He was badly injured and unconscious, the witnesses said, and his last-known phone location showed him on the border with Gaza. Segev Kalfon, 26, was running away from the festival, across the highway, when he was captured by Hamas, according to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. Orión Hernández Radoux, 30, from Mexico, attended the festival with his girlfriend, Shani Louk. He has not been seen since. The Sun newspaper says it has seen threatening messages written in Arabic sent from his phone. Shani, a tourist from Germany, was initially thought to be among those seized. But on 30 October, her mother Ricarda told German media that the family had been informed by Israeli military of her death following DNA identification. Romi Lesham Gonen, 23, was on the phone to her mother as she tried to escape from the Supernova festival. Merav Leshem Gonan has recounted a conversation in which her daughter begged for help after being shot. ABC News reports that Romi's phone is now in Gaza. Bar Kuperstein, 21, last spoke to his family early on the morning of 7 October, as the attack unfolded. Later the same day, his family say they identified him in a video of Israeli prisoners, posted by Hamas. Since then, they say they have had no further information. Eliya Cohen, 26, was hiding with his girlfriend Ziv from the attack, when Ziv felt him being pulled up and driven away by the gunmen, Eliya's mother has told the video initiative #BringThemHomeNow. The family then found a photo of Eliya in Gaza, the Times of Israel reported. Amit Buskila, 28, from Ashdod, was last heard of making a call to her uncle, Shimon, as Hamas overran the festival. Her family say they have now been told by the government that she is being held in Gaza. Yarden Roman-Gat, a 36-year-old German-Israeli citizen, was kidnapped with her husband and young child by Hamas from Kibbutz Be'eri. She, her husband Alon, and three-year-old Gefen escaped when the car briefly stopped, but Yarden became separated from the others, relatives told CNN, adding they fear she may have been recaptured. Carmel Gat,39, is Jordan's sister-in-law, and also was seen by her father being taken by gunmen from Kibbutz Be'eri, Haaretz newspaper reported. She has not been heard from since. Ohad Vahalomy,49, and his 12-year-old sonEthanwere abducted from their kibbutz, according to Ohad's mother, Esther. She said her daughter-in-law and two of her granddaughters managed to escape when five gunmen burst into their home, but Ohad and 12-year-old Ethan were taken. Dror Or, 48, was seen by a neighbour being dragged out of his home in Be'eri, according to their nephew Emmanuel Besorai, along with his son and daughter. On Saturday 25 November Dror's son Noam,17, and daughter Alma, 13, were released from captivity. The body of Yonat, 50 - Dror's wife and the children's mother - was identified among the 120 people murdered at the kibbutz, Yonat's brother told the Guardian newspaper. Tal Shoham, 38, was taken from Kibbutz Be'eri. His wife Adi, also 38, her mother Dr Shoshan Haran, 67, were released by Hamas on 25 November, along with the couple's children Nave, eight, and Yahel, three. Dr Haran's husband, Avshalom - an economist and dual German/Israeli citizen - was killed on 7 October. Tamir Adar, 38, who defended Nir Oz as part of the kibbutz's emergency squad, was taken to Gaza, the Times of Israel reported. Sagui Dekel-Chen, 35, an American-Israeli citizen, has been missing since Hamas's attack on Nir Oz, his father Jonathan told the BBC. He said his son was not found among the dead and the "only reasonable explanation" is that he was taken to Gaza. Joshua Mollel,21 from Tanzania, has been kidnapped, Israel's Foreign Ministry has said. He was in Israel on an agricultural internship programme. Mr Mollel's fathertold the BBChis son was studying at Nahal Oz. Thailand's ambassador to Israel says 26 of its citizens were taken hostage, 19 of whom have now been released. Among those still being held areWatchara Sriuan,32. His mother, Viewwaew, told the Thaiger news site that the family had been informed he was being held captive. Kiattisak "Top" Pateeand aMr Pongtorn (no first name given)were also named by the Thai foreign ministry as hostages. Kong Salau, 26, a Thai national, was in a worker's camp in an avocado orchard in Khirbet Mador when Hamas attacked. Pictures of him being abducted later emerged. His wife, Suntree Saelee, told the Bangkok Post he was earning money to build them a new home. Two hostages are believed to have died while in captivity. The bodies of 19-year-old soldier,Noa Marciano, and 65-year-oldYehudit Weisswere found by Israeli troops in buildings close to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Research by Jamie Ryan and Emma Pengelly Are you personally affected by the issues raised in this story? If it is safe to do so, please get in touch by [email protected]. Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways: If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of theBBC websiteto submit your question or comment or you can email us [email protected]. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.

Seventy Israeli hostages who had been held in Gaza have now been released by Hamas and are back in Israel, the Israel Defense Forces have said.

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The Nottingham Panthers player was hit in the neck by a skate during a match against the Sheffield Steelers on 28 October. The 29-year-old was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead. A post-mortem examination confirmed he died as a result of a fatal neck injury, South Yorkshire Police said. The force said detectives arrested the suspect on Tuesday, adding that he remained in custody. Det Ch Supt Becs Horsfall, from South Yorkshire Police, said: "We have been carrying out extensive inquiries to piece together the events which led to the loss of Adam in these unprecedented circumstances. "We have been speaking to highly specialised experts in their field to assist in our inquiries and continue to work closely with the health and safety department at Sheffield City Council, which is supporting our ongoing investigation. "Adam's death has sent shockwaves through many communities, from our local residents here in Sheffield to ice hockey fans across the world." She urged members of the public to refrain from "comment and speculation which could hinder" the investigation. The death of Johnson, who was from Minnesota in the US, sparked an outpouring of grief across the world. Talking to KSTP-TV, a local news station based in Minnesota, the player's aunt Kari Johnson said her nephew was planning to propose to his partner, Ryan Wolfe. "We were all really excited because we were really looking forward to their future and he didn't get a chance to ask her, and then this happened," she said. Johnson previously played in North America's National Hockey League (NHL), featuring 13 times for Pittsburgh Penguins. He made the move to the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) for the 2020-21 season, before spells with the Ontario Reign and the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in the American Hockey League. Johnson played for Augsburger Panther in Germany before switching to the Nottingham Panthers in August. Johnson's inquest was opened and adjourned earlier this month. In a prevention of future deaths report, coroner Tanyka Rawden called for compulsory use of neck guards in ice hockey. The sport's top division in the UK - the Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) - announced it would not enforce the use of neck guards but would "strongly encourage" players and officials to wear them. The English Ice Hockey Association - which oversees all levels of ice hockey in England below the Elite League - previously said neck guards would be mandatory from 2024 onwards. The incident has been described as a "freak accident" by the Panthers. Follow BBC East Midlands onFacebook, onX, or onInstagram. Send your story ideas [email protected].

A man has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter over the death of ice hockey player Adam Johnson, whose neck was cut during a match.

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The UK Foreign Office confirmed an unspecified number of UK passport holders had been able to leave via the Rafah crossing into Egypt on Wednesday. It said the route was being opened for "controlled and time-limited periods" to allow some foreign nationals and injured Palestinians to leave. About 200 British nationals are believed to be in Gaza. It emerged on Wednesday that some 500 people a day would be allowed through the crossing, which is controlled by Egyptian authorities. Thousands gathered at the border this morning hoping to leave, but it emerged that only those whose names appeared on a limited list agreed by the Egyptian and Israeli governments would be permitted to cross. The UK Foreign Office said it had handed over the names of people who wished to leave Gaza. On Wednesday evening, it confirmed some Britons were among a group of around 400 foreign nationals and injured Palestinians who had crossed, but did not say who or how many. Earlier, the BBC spoke to British-Palestinian doctor Abdelkader Hammad, who was told he was in the first group allowed to leave. But when he arrived at the crossing point, he found the route was closed and described frustration and confusion at the border. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's PM programme at around 16:00 GMT (18:00 in Gaza) from the crossing point, Dr Hammad said: "It's a little frustrating. We don't know what's going on...we don't know when the next group will go - if it will be tonight or tomorrow. "It's dark - I'm not sure it will happen tonight, we'll see what happens tomorrow." Speaking from the Rafah crossing at around 13:00 GMT, BBC News reporter Rushdi Abualouf said thousands of people were already at the border when it emerged only those on the list would be allowed through. With no passport control or electronic ID system in place, the process is slowed by the need for an official to manually check the identities of every person leaving, he reported. He also saw between 20 and 30 ambulances passing through the crossing carrying injured people into Egypt for medical treatment. Routes in and out of Gaza have been closed since Hamas - which is proscribed as a terrorist group in the UK - attacked Israel on 7 October, killing more than 1,400 people and taking at least 239 hostage. BBC News understands that 14 British nationals were among those killed. Three more are missing. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 8,700 people have been killed since Israel launched air strikes as part of a military response to the attacks. The partial opening of the Rafah crossing follows international diplomatic efforts to convince Egypt to allow people to leave and aid to be transported into the enclave.Rishi Sunak held a further call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Wednesday evening. Speaking to the BBC at theAI summit in Londonearlier on Wednesday, Mr Sunak said the government was committed to getting humanitarian supplies into Gaza, and helping UK passport holders leave. He continued: "We're playing an active role in getting aid into Gaza to help those people who need it, but also diplomatically working with everyone in the region to find ways to move our British nationals out of Gaza and hopefully bring them home." Foreign Secretary James Cleverley called the first departures from Gaza a "hugely important first step". He earlier said British officials are on the ground in Egypt "ready to assist British nationals as soon as they are able to leave". Western officials told the BBC a team had been deployed to Arish, a city some 25 miles (41km) away from Rafah, to "ensure we can provide the necessary medical, consular and administrative support needed" for British nationals. Among the British nationals in Gaza are Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf's in-laws. He welcomed the opening of the border but said his wife's parents remained trapped without clean drinking water and rapidly diminishing supplies. Both Mr Sunak and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer have called for humanitarian "pauses" in fighting to allow the movement of aid. Humanitarian pauses tend to last for shorter periods of time than formal ceasefires, sometimes just a few hours. They are typically implemented purely with the aim of providing humanitarian support, as opposed to achieving long-term political solutions,according to the United Nations.

British nationals have left Gaza for the first time since war with Israel broke out last month.

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The black-and-white garment, worn by the late singer in a Pepsi advert, had been expected to sell for between £200,000 and £400,000 at the auction. The item was among more than 200 pieces of music memorabilia sold in London on Friday, including a George Michael jacket and an Amy Winehouse hairpiece. Pieces linked to David Bowie, Oasis and The Beatles also went under the hammer. Jackson wore the jacket in 1984, in the first of a series of commercials the superstar did for the soft drink company. Those adverts are mainly remembered for an incidentowhich saw Jackson's hair catch fireduring one filming session, leaving him with serious burns. He was wearing a different jacket at the time. Wham! star Michael wore his La Rocka jacket while duetting alongside US singer Aretha Franklin in I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me). It sold for £93,750 ($115,000) - also including the buyer's premium - as part of the four-day Propstore entertainment sale. That was significantly more than the guide price, of between £30,000 and £60,000. Another high-ticket item was a beehive hairpiece worn by British singer Amy Winehouse for a 2007 music video You Know I'm No Good, from her last album Back To Black. It sold for £18,750 ($22,900), slightly above the lower end of its estimated value. Other featured items included ones linked to Elvis Presley, Queen and Johnny Marr. A Gibson guitar that belonged to AC/DC's Angus Young went unsold, as did a limited edition Yellow Submarine Beatles jukebox. Mark Hochman, director of music and posters at Propstore, explained ahead of the auction that this was the first time many of the items had been put on sale to the public. Memorabilia belonging to Jackson has previously sold for thousands, including a black fedora hat that he wore just before performing his famous moonwalk dance for the first time in 1983. That sold at an Paris auction in September for €77,640 (£67,088).

An iconic leather jacket worn by Michael Jackson in the 1980s has been bought for £250,000 ($306,000).

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The group said it was prepared to release a 77-year-old woman and a 13-year-old boy for humanitarian and medical reasons, but only if "appropriate measures" were met. Israel described the videos as an important sign of life, but declined to say whether they would be released. That would play into the captors' "psychological terror", it said. In the video, the two hostages are seen addressing the camera. The woman, Hanna Katsir, a woman in her 70s, is seen sitting in a wheelchair. She was abducted from kibbutz Nir Oz on 7 October, when Hamas attacked Israel. The second is a teenage boy from the same community. Both hostages sharply criticise Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. It is unclear whether they are reading from a script. The BBC will not be broadcasting the clip itself, which is more than three minutes long. Prisoners of war and hostages are protected under international humanitarian law, and the BBC does not broadcast material which may have been filmed under duress. Earlier, the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, dismissed reports that a deal to free some of the hostages held in Gaza might be imminent. The Israeli military says that 242 people are being held hostage in Gaza. Four hostages have been released and another was freed by Israeli forces. Hamas says it has hidden the hostages it holds in "safe places and tunnels" within Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have previously said the hostages include 20 children and between 10 and 20 over-60s. Mr Herzog said on Thursday he had not seen any substantial information on the subject of possible releases. He spoke as the Qatari prime minister hosted a meeting in Doha with the heads of the CIA and Mossad, during which they reportedly discussed the possible terms of a deal for more hostages to be freed. Meanwhile two senior Hamas officials, Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshaal, arrived in Cairo, where reports suggested they met the head of Egyptian intelligence Abbas Kamel. Qatari and Egyptian networks have both said that the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, is expected to visit Cairo tomorrow.

The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group has posted videos of two Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

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Two years ago, BBC Panorama revealed internal documents suggesting Mr Cameron made about $10m (£8.2m) jetting around the world to promote a highly controversial finance business, Greensill Capital. Greensill, whose disgraced boss Lex Greensill was given an office in Downing Street under Mr Cameron's premiership and later became both his friend and his employer, collapsed in March 2021. Billions of dollars of investors' money was missing. Criminal inquiries into alleged fraud are ongoing in Germany and Switzerland, where Lex Greensill has been named as a suspect. Lex Greensill previously denied allegations from MPs on the Commons Treasury Committee in 2021 that his collapsed finance firm was a "fraud" or a "Ponzi scheme" and blamed the firm's collapse on the withdrawal of cover from its insurers. Before Panorama's revelations, Cameron had repeatedly refused to tell Parliament how much he made promoting Greensill to investors who included customers of Swiss investment bank Credit Suisse. Greensill Capital promoted itself as a high-tech lender of supply chain finance, where small companies awaiting payment from customers can borrow money against their invoices. It made loans of more than $10bn using money from Credit Suisse customers, many of them to companies that later proved unable to repay. More than two years later, over $2bn is still to be recovered by administrators. Losses on Greensill's loans were among the factors contributing to the collapse of Credit Suisse in March this year. Greensill Capital lent around $5bn (£3.6bn) to GFG Alliance - a group of companies controlled by the steel magnate Sanjeev Gupta. Sanjeev Gupta's GFG group, and its relationship with Greensill Capital, is currently the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. The group has consistently rejected allegations of wrongdoing. At the time the investigation was announced in 2021, GFG Alliance, Mr Gupta's family conglomerate, said it would co-operate fully with the investigation. Duncan Mavin, author of Pyramid of Lies, a book exposing the scandal, said: "It's an astonishing decision for David Cameron to be appointed when all the lawsuits and criminal investigations are still underway." Before Greensill Capital collapsed in March 2021, Cameron had intensively lobbied civil servants in 2020 to allow Greensill to lend £10bn under emergency Covid loan schemes, applying pressure by making phone calls and sending dozens of texts and emails to civil servants. The British Business Bank (BBB) eventually approved Greensill to lend a more limited amount of taxpayer-guaranteed funds under the government's emergency loans scheme for medium-sized businesses, CLBILS (Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme). It later emerged that Cameron had been calling Nadhim Zahawi, then a junior business minister (later appointed chancellor of the exchequer), who according to a letter that later emerged, had been instrumental in securing the BBB's approval for Greensill to lend. Within weeks, Greensill lent the maximum possible, £400m, in eight loans to companies with links to one customer, steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta. The rules of the scheme forbade lenders from extending more than £50m to any one single company. The government has said it will not honour the guarantees made on those loans. Lex Greensill, the founder of Greensill Capital, has said Greensill's access to any government-backed schemes had "always drawn upon robust advice from leading law firms to ensure Greensill complied with relevant rules". A spokesman for David Cameron previously told the BBC he acted in good faith at all times and there was no wrongdoing in any of the actions he took. A British Business Bank spokesperson told the BBC it had accredited Greensill for the CLBILS scheme independently of government, with ministers having no input in the decision. "The National Audit Office concluded in its investigation report that the Bank demonstrated the independence of its decision-making by rejecting requests to prioritise Greensill over other lenders," it said.

In appointing David Cameron to one of the top four offices of state, Rishi Sunak has chosen to disregard his close association with one of the UK's biggest financial scandals of recent years.

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But the former prime minister - who quit as an MP in 2016 - won't be returning to the House of Commons. Instead, he has been made a peer and will re-enter Parliament via the House of Lords, as Lord Cameron. It has raised questions about how elected MPs will be able to hold him to account, including from Labour and Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle. All government departments tend to have ministers in the House of Lords, but normally not cabinet ministers. Until 2007, the lord chancellor was always in the Lords and a member of the cabinet too. But more recently, there is normally only one peer who sits in the cabinet: the Leader of the House of Lords, currently Lord True. However, it is not unheard of for other cabinet ministers to come from the upper house. Nicky Morgan stayed on as Boris Johnson's culture secretary for several months after standing down as an MP at the 2019 election, taking the ermine and becoming Baroness Morgan in the process. The now-Lord Cameron also had a peer in his own cabinet: Baroness Warsi, who served as Tory Party chairwoman via a peerage. Gordon Brown gave Peter Mandelson a peerage so he could make his sensational 2008cabinet comebackas business secretary (he had quit as an MP to become the UK's European commissioner). Mr Brown also made Lord Adonis his transport secretary in 2009 - with Lord Falconer and Baroness Amos serving in the cabinet of Sir Tony Blair. The last UK foreign secretary to sit in the House of Lords was Lord Carrington, who took up the role under Margaret Thatcher in 1979. He'd already been in the cabinet as a peer - he was defence secretary under Edward Heath. He resigned as foreign secretary in 1982 after the Falkland Islands were invaded by Argentine forces, taking responsibility for the failure to predict the invasion. Lord Cameron has confirmed he will appear before MPs on Commons select committees "as appropriate". But he won't be in the Commons chamber to take questions during the regular departmental scrutiny sessions that take place every five weeks. Instead, those questions will be fielded by the ministers below him at the Foreign Office, including Andrew Mitchell and Anne-Marie Trevelyan. He also won't answer urgent questions from MPs during emergencies. It is likely, however, he will have to respond to the equivalent version in the House of Lords - a procedure put in place for Lords Mandelson and Adonis. In it not uncommon though for these questions to also be answered by deputies anyway, if the foreign secretary is on diplomatic visits around the world. As a minister in the Lords, he will have to respond to written questions from peers, as well as letters from committees. The Labour politician that Lord Cameron would normally face in the Commons, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, has said MPswon't be able to hold him to account. Similar reservations have also been expressed by Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, who said he would "do everything" he could to ensure Lord Cameron faces scrutiny. This was especially important, he added, given the current series of crises around the world. He said he'd looked forward to hearing from the government how he would be held "properly accountable" - and had asked his parliamentary officials to draw up some ideas.

David Cameron has made a return to government, with Rishi Sunak appointing him the UK's new foreign secretary.

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DJ Calvert told BBC News NI: "I've been let down - and I'm not the only one." It was proof that Northern Ireland's health and social care system had "crashed", said the 49-year-old. His care is provided by an independent firm on behalf of the Northern Health Trust. The trust said it was committed to providing an alternative package. It added that it understood "the worry it is causing", and would "seek an alternative provider" that would "support him to continue living independently in his own home". The care provider said it was "increasingly stretched" and that more funding was needed for the sector. Although he lives alone, Mr Calvert, from Portstewart in County Londonderry, relies on a daily visit from a care worker to help him with basic hygiene and personal care. For most of his life that help was provided by his mother but since March this year she has no longer been able to do what she once did. A seven-day-a-week care package was then put in place after only one company agreed to provide it. But last week Mr Calvert was contacted by his social worker to say it would end in three weeks. "I thought somebody was winding me up," he told BBC News NI. His care is provided by Connected Health but that is due to end on 1 December, with the company telling BBC News NI that it was "increasingly stretched in ever more demanding circumstances". The company said it was "struggling" in terms of staffing, resources and funding. Eddy Kerr from Connected Health told told the BBC's Evening Extra programme: "There's a lot of unmet need out there and certainly, as a provider, we are under pressure to meet that need." Mr Kerr said the pressure is coming "from a lack of funding". "Decisions have to be made weekly, daily, hourly, with regards the care we are able to provide," he added. In a statement, Connected Health said: "We will continue to lobby hard for the necessary resources to care for the thousands of vulnerable adults waiting for a package of care in Northern Ireland today." Mr Calvert's friend Vicky has been making additional visits to help four days a week but now that looks to be the only assistance he will get. It means he could be on his own every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and whenever Vicky is not available. He said the only alternative he had been offered was to go into a care home, which he finds frightening. "I asked the social worker: 'What is the worst case scenario if I can't get help?' and she told me: 'We'll have to get you a bed in a care home,'" he said. "My anxiety is getting worse. I panic and wake up in the middle of the night because I'm dreaming about being in a care home. "The system has failed [people] who need care and help. The system has crashed. There's not enough funding." Mr Calvert described his home as his "sanctuary". He said he believed nobody wanted to join the care profession because staff are not getting the money they deserve. "I believe we should get Stormont back up and running, get the heads together and inject money into the care system and allow care workers to earn a bit more money," he said. "You could earn more working in a supermarket than you can in the care profession. Asked what he planned to do, he said: "I don't know - and that's what scares me. "I'm going to need care for the rest of my life and what frightens me is that I will have to fight and fight and fight. I want stability". Mr Calvert's mother, Heather, said she "just couldn't believe it" when she heard that her son was losing his care package. "I was under the impression that this was permanent," she said. She told Evening Extra that over the past seven months the situation surrounding DJ's care has been "a rollercoaster". "You just don't know where you are all the time and what's going to happen to him and that is a very big worry." She said "your child is always your child" and that while currently she sometimes has to fill in to provide DJ with care "that's not going to last forever". Ms Calvert said the care system in Northern Ireland was currently set up in a way whereby "they expect the family to step in".

A man born without hands or legs has been told he will soon no longer get a daily visit from a care worker to help him shower and get dressed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-67410207?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

There are framed copies of appearances on Radio Times covers (Fawlty Towers for her, a role as Winston Churchill in a TV film for him), and awards for audiobook narration of the year (the unabridged version of EF Benson's class-struggle classic Lucia's Progress did particularly well in 1993, apparently). Plus, on a shelf, a guide to Britain's canal networks, which on its own would have given an almighty clue as to who lives in a house like this. For more than 50 years, perched on the north side of London's Wandsworth Common, this has been the family home for two of the best-known names in British acting. Scales will forever be most closely identified with the domineering and long-suffering comedy creation Sybil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, best defined by one bark of "Basil". West is regarded as one of the great stage actors of his generation, having played King Lear four times in four different decades. Together, over the last decade, they have had an unlikely hit with Channel 4's Great Canal Journeys. "We didn't start out thinking it was going to be an especially exciting performance for people to watch," admits West, sitting down beside his wife on a sofa in their front room for an interview with BBC Breakfast. But for 10 series, they made canals captivating. "We were good at it," he smiles. All around their house are ever-so-slightly deflating helium balloons, a concoction of cards and flowers from well-wishers just about to go on the turn. These are remnants from their recent 60th wedding anniversary, a feat so remarkable that any couple which reaches that landmarkqualifies for a letter of congratulations from the King. Sadly, in their case none was delivered. "Well he's very new isn't he?" jokes West. "He will remember, I'm sure." (It later transpires that letters are not sent automatically, but family members can request them.) The couple had no party as such. Instead, friends and family popped in to say hello, but a big part of their celebrations was the release of a book written by West, Pru & Me: A Love Story, looking back over their six decades of marriage. A diamond anniversary is almost unheard of in showbiz circles. Nicolas Cage, Drew Barrymore and Eddie Murphy all had marriages that failed to last 60 days, let alone 60 years. Britney Spears had a marriage that did not last 60 hours. "I like writing things down when they seem important, and this did seem important," West explains. "We've realised we've had an enormous amount of enjoyment, excitement, and pleasure. And that is worth writing down." The book may mainly focus on the fun, but it does not shy away from discussing the vascular dementia Scales has had for more than 20 years - over a third of their married life. "People know about it, so you can't really ignore it," says West holding his wife's hand. "It has been something which we bear in mind all of the time, really. It's just something you have to think of. People understand and are very helpful and sympathetic about it. "Somehow we have coped with it and Pru doesn't really think about it." "What about?" interjects Scales. "Well, there you are," says West, gesturing towards his wife. "What don't I think about?" enquires Scales again. "Dementia," he explains. "Dementia?" she asks quizzically, before letting a blow of air out of her mouth, seemingly in indignation. "You are not bothered by it?" West gently asks. "Well I think elderly people get it anyway don't they?" Scales answers. "Well some do," muses West softly, before turning back, looking me in the eyes and emphatically adding: "We manage." It was as long ago as 2001 when West first noticed something was not entirely right with his wife. He had been to see her in the opening night of a play in Greenwich where everything had gone well. However, when he returned later in the run: "I thought, 'Pru's a bit strange. Not totally with it.' It wouldn't have bothered any ordinary member of the audience, but I knew that she had just not quite been on top of it." It was more than a decade later, in 2014, that a diagnosis of vascular dementia was officially made. West remembers every word of that life-changing appointment: "We went to see a specialist who said, 'Sorry this is just something which happens to you when you are older and it's not going to get any easier, but you can cope with it. Don't let it get you down.'" They both took this advice on board. Literally. That year they would embark on what would turn into 10 series of Great Canal Journeys. A huge contributing factor to the show's popularity was their honesty about Scales's health. In 2016,the Guardian's Stuart Heritage described itas "a work about a devoted couple facing something huge together". "Every episode tends to show a glimpse of what Prunella finds herself up against," he wrote. "She'll make a small mistake or forget the name of a place or get caught on camera looking slightly lost and uncertain, and West will carefully guide her back to his side." I ask them what strategies they put in place after the dementia diagnosis. "It's very important what we do together," explains West, who lists visits to the theatre and galleries as their favourite activities. "We remember and are conscious of how much we are helping each other to continue in our lives," he expands, acknowledging that while he is his wife's primary carer, he is also very reliant on her. Scales is very clear about what first made her fall in love with West, after they met in 1961 while making what they both describe as a "terrible play" for the BBC called She Died Young. "He writes lovely letters. Marvellous letters," she says. "And when we were first together that was one of the things that fascinated me about him. Funny and interesting." "We both loved writing to each other," West picks up. "Sometimes two or three times a day." "Three times a day!" I blurt out in horror at my own comparative inadequacies on the romantic postal front. Most importantly, though, what is clear is that the core of their relationship has not altered since the dementia diagnosis. "I don't think it has changed at all," says West with complete assuredness. "No. No. No," jumps in Scales to back him up. "I've got to know him better and better and better." West takes a moment to think and reflect before adding: "I know that things are going to change a little bit, but it's been a long time and we've managed pretty well really. I don't think we ever think, 'Oh no'." And without dropping a beat, Scales immediately joins in with: "No I don't. Not ever. "I've been asked to live the rest of my life with somebody I respect very much, and I quite admire and agree with about a lot of things. And argue with about a lot of things quite happily." They turn and smile at each other. At this point I may have got a speck of dust behind my contact lens. All that is left is to wish them a happy anniversary and ask them both what it feels like to be celebrating 60 years of marriage. "How does it feel to you?" asks West turning to his wife. "What am I supposed to say?" Scales asks. She takes a few seconds to think, before leaning towards her husband, pausing to say, "Thank you", and then kissing him on the cheek. "Well thank you," replies West, looking very happy. "Thank you for sticking with me for so long," continues Scales. "Well, we've done all right," concludes West. "It hasn't really been hard work, has it?" he asks. "No!" enthuses Scales. "He's a person I like, I love, I enjoy being with." There is a silence, before West sums up 60 years of marriage by acknowledging her comment with a simple: "That's about it, I think." Interview over, the cameraman goes over to Scales and asks if he can take the clip microphone off her. "Oh good," she goes, a twinkle appearing in her eye. "Now I can say…" And out of her mouth comes a four-letter word completely unsuitable for broadcast on BBC Breakfast. We all roar with laughter. This is a household that refuses to be diminished by dementia. Pru and Me: The Amazing Marriage of Prunella Scales and Timothy West, published by Penguin Michael Joseph, is out now.

Prunella Scales and Timothy West's downstairs toilet has everything you could possibly hope for from a celebrity couple.

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To better understand the risk to civilians in south Gaza, BBC Verify has identified and analysed four specific instances of strikes in that region. We also looked at some of the warnings and evacuation instructions that were issued to Gazan civilians, including some advising them to move to certain areas in the south. Some of these warnings were accompanied by maps with arrows pointing to vaguely defined areas to move towards. Three strikes we examined hit within, or close to, those areas in the days after the warnings were issued. The IDF has said that it communicates with Gaza's residents in a variety of ways, including leaflet drops, social media posts in Arabic, and warnings issued through civilian and international organisations. In this piece we have examined the IDF's instructions posted on social media. The IDF said on 10 October that overnight its fighter jets had struck more than 200 targets in Rimal in the north, and Khan Younis in the south. The BBC has examined a strike on that day in central Khan Younis to understand the location and the scale of the damage. Video footage published in the aftermath of the attack shows rubble and collapsed buildings in the city centre. We have verified its location using visual clues such as the minaret of the Grand Mosque in Khan Younis. We have also examined photos showing destroyed buildings, and people picking through what remains of cars and homes. We know the photos show the same location as that seen in the video because the same pharmacy sign can be seen in both. We also used reverse image search to check that the photos were not from an earlier incident. On the morning of 8 October, IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraehad posted a warning on X(formerly known as Twitter) in Arabic, giving instructions to residents of various areas in Gaza to leave their homes and move elsewhere for their safety. While evacuation zones have often been clearly delineated, the destinations residents have been told to head to have often been much more vague. In this instance, those living in the neighbourhoods of Abasan al-Kabira and Abasan al-Saghira, a few kilometres south-east of central Khan Younis, were told in the 8 October tweet to go to "Khan Younis city centre." The map included in the tweeted video for those living in the two neighbourhoods highlights their current residencies, and is labelled with an arrow simply pointing in the direction of Khan Younis. We cannot discount the possibility that there were then subsequent different instructions, but the BBC has not found any evidence of this. The BBC has verified that there was another strike the next day, further south near the border with Egypt. This 11 October strike hit Nejmeh Square in the centre of Rafah. The BBC looked at a video posted to social media showing destruction in the strike's aftermath. Using available images of the square before the attack, we were able to identify the shape of the buildings as that of Nejmeh square. The warning, issued on 8 Octoberby the IDF, also contained an instruction for residents of Rafah, telling them to immediately go to the shelter in Rafah city centre "for your safety". The map in the video for those living in the Rafah neighbourhoods contains an arrow directing residents towards "Rafah". The BBC analysed all of the IDF social media warning posts in Arabic it is aware of in this time period. It has not been able to find evidence of any subsequent different instructions, but that does not eliminate the possibility that others were issued. Eight days on, back in Khan Younis, there was another strike - on Gamal Abdel Nasser Street. We verified this by looking at videos of the collapsed buildings in one of the city's main thoroughfares. By matching the shape of the buildings in the video, with those in other still images of the same location, we were able to verify this was the same place. Additional footage from the aftermath shows bodies of the dead and injured being pulled out of rubble and taken to nearby Nasser hospital. TheIDF had issued a warningon 16 October for residents of Gaza City to move south to Khan Younis if "your safety and the safety of your loved ones are important to you". Again, there is a possibility that there were further instructions that were different, but we have not found any evidence of this. Further north, in central Gaza, there are four refugee camps. The BBC has verified strikes on two of them. Social media footage of the aftermath of a strike on al-Bureij camp on 17 October shows extensive rubble, flames, and bloodied bodies being carried out of the damage. We have verified the footage by matching up buildings in this footage with photos by news agencies of the aftermath. We also verified the footage location using a mosque that was visible. Another camp nearby, al-Nuseirat, was struck the next day, on 18 October. We have verified social media footage of the aftermath, which shows ambulances, detritus, people trying to douse flames and a destroyed bakery. We located it by matching the shop names that can be seen in the video with those seen in photos published before the strike took place. Despite theearlier 8 October warning instructing residentsof the eastern and southern Maghazi area to go to camps in central Gaza, there do not appear to be any camps in the location specified on the tweet's map. We have however identified three camps nearby: al-Nuseirat and al-Bureij, hit by the strikes on the 17 and 18 October, and another camp called Deir al-Balah. We cannot discount the possibility that there were then subsequent different instructions, but the BBC has not found any evidence of this. The aftermath of another strike in al-Nuseirat camp, on 25 October, was shown on the news outlet Al Jazeera. Footage posted online shows its chief Gaza correspondent Wael al-Dahdouh in tears in hospital, holding the body of his seven-year-old daughter and kneeling over the body of his teenage son. His wife was also killed. "There is no safe place in Gaza at all," he said in anEnglish translation of an interview with Al Jazeera. He said that his family had moved from the north following Israel's warning to residents to move south for their safety. The BBC provided specific locations and dates to the IDF for each of the strikes highlighted in the article. We asked if these locations had been struck by IDF forces and whether warnings had been given prior to these attacks. In its response the IDF said it "cannot provide any further information regarding these specific locations". It said that it had "called on civilians in Gaza to move south for their safety but will continue striking terrorist targets in all parts of Gaza". It added: "In accordance with international law, the IDF takes precautionary measures in order to avoid damage to the civilian population. These measures include warnings before strikes in cases where it is possible to do so." Sign up for our morning newsletterand get BBC News in your inbox.

Since the Israeli military issued the first of several instructions for civilians to evacuate north Gaza, hundreds of thousands of Gazans have moved to the south of the strip. But the south has continued to come under Israeli bombardment, leading the UN and other aid organisations to warn that nowhere in Gaza is safe for civilians.

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The pair said they reached an agreement on Friday, without disclosing details. In a joint statement with Mr Combs, Ms Ventura said that she "decided to resolve this matter amicably on terms that I have some level of control. "I want to thank my family, fans and lawyers for their unwavering support." Mr Combs wrote: "We have decided to resolve this matter amicably. I wish Cassie and her family all the best. Love." Ms Ventura filed the lawsuit on Thursday, in which she said she was trapped for a decade by Mr Combs, her-ex-boyfriend, in a cycle of abuse and violence. The rapper and record executive - who also goes by the stage name Puff Daddy - denied the allegations, and accused the singer of trying to extort him. His lawyer said the claims were "offensive and outrageous". Confirming the settlement, Ms Ventura's lawyer Douglas Wigdor said: "I am very proud of Ms Ventura for having the strength to go public with her lawsuit. She ought to be commended for doing so." Ms Ventura had alleged that the rap producer raped and beat her over 10 years starting when she was 19 and he was 37. "After years in silence and darkness, I am finally ready to tell my story," she said in a statement on Thursday. The lawsuit included multiple graphic descriptions of the violent abuse that she says began after she met the rapper in 2005. According to the complaint, Mr Combs signed her to his record label, Bad Boy, and "plied the vulnerable Ms Ventura with drugs and alcohol, causing her to fall into dangerous addictions that controlled her life". Following the settlement, Mr Combs' lawyer Benjamin Brafman said: "Just so we're clear, a decision to settle a lawsuit, especially in 2023, is in no way an admission of wrongdoing. "Mr Combs' decision to settle the lawsuit does not in any way undermine his flat-out denial of the claims. He is happy they got to a mutual settlement and wishes Ms Ventura the best." The lawsuit labelled the musician a "serial domestic abuser, who would regularly beat and kick Ms Ventura, leaving black eyes, bruises, and blood". In a statement to BBC News in response to the lawsuit and before the settlement was announced, Mr Combs' lawyer said Ms Ventura had demanded $30m (£24m) "under the threat of writing a damaging book about their relationship". Mr Brafman said the lawsuit was "riddled with baseless and outrageous lies" and the alleged demand "was unequivocally rejected as blatant blackmail". In response to Mr Brafman, Ms Ventura's lawyer - also speaking before the settlement - said Mr Combs had offered her a payment of "eight figures to silence her and prevent the filing of this lawsuit". "She rejected his efforts and decided to give a voice to all woman who suffer in silence," the lawyer, Doug Wigdor, said. Ms Ventura released several hits in the 2000s, including songs that featured Diddy. Her most famous tracks include Me & U, Long Way to Go and Official Girl, featuring Lil Wayne.

Rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs and R&B artist Casandra "Cassie" Ventura have settled a legal case one day after she accused him of rape and sex trafficking.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67460413?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

The research, byMore in CommonandPower to Change, suggests less than a quarter of people surveyed think their high street is improving. It says while support for levelling up is strong, "broken" is the word people most often associate with Britain. But the government says levelling-up funding is transforming communities. The government says it has committed £13bn to levelling up, "supporting projects to improve everyday life for people across the UK - regenerating high streets, local transport and cultural and heritage assets". The former Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to level up the country when launching the Conservative Party manifesto ahead of his landslide general election victory in 2019. In the years since, the state of local high streets has become strongly symbolic of the levelling-up agenda. But of the 2,052 people polled by More in Common and Power to Change, just 23% said their high street was improving, while 32% said it was getting worse. The research has been seen byBBC Radio 4's Westminster Hourprogramme The report says the success of the levelling up agenda "will be measured, to a large extent, by the ways in which it is able to deliver positive outcomes for high streets across the country". More in Common's UK director, Luke Tryl, thinks if high streets are not regenerated, that could lead to a sense that the pledge has not been delivered. "High streets have become, for many people, the symbol of community decline," he says. "And the problem is that since the Conservatives embraced the levelling-up agenda in 2019, people are still more likely to say that their high street is neglected and getting worse than getting better. "That poses a real challenge because people are starting to think, was this talk of levelling up and high street improvement really just another politician's promise made to be broken?" The research found seven out of 10 people had heard of levelling up, far higher than many other government policies. About two in five Britons (38%) said levelling up should be either the government's top priority or one of its top priorities, according to the survey. But levelling-up projects aimed at reducing regional inequality have been beset by delays, asa reportby the National Audit Office found this week. Mr Tryl believes that the success of the policy in cutting through to the public could come with a catch. He says the "failure to deliver on levelling up would be a sign that actually maybe the government isn't interested in my area or my community, that actually things aren't going to get better. "And trust in the whole of politics will suffer as a result." Rachel Wolf, an author of the 2019 Conservative manifesto and a founding partner at polling firm Public First, says levelling up began as a way of enacting the political change that the Conservative Party believed Brexit voters wanted. "There was a desire to demonstrate to people who'd voted Brexit partly because they felt that their area was rundown, getting a bit worse with every passing year, that things were going to change," she says. But Ms Wolf believes that definition broadened in the years that followed and in Westminster came to be a "very grand project to solve all the economic ills of the country". Four years on, Ms Wolf believes the original promise to change politics has yet to be delivered. She says: "I do feel desperately sad that a huge number of people voted for Brexit in 2016 because they fundamentally wanted change. And it's very hard to say to them that change occurred." On the high street in Stroud, the gaps left by shuttered national shops are a visible reminder of those economic ills. They are likened to "tombstones" by Tony Davey, a local business owner and chairman of the Stroud and District Chamber of Trade and Commerce. He says high inflation and flagging consumer confidence have "created a perfect storm, which has made it one of the most challenging times I've known to trade on our high streets". Mr Davey says independent businesses like his Party On Up shop are "resilient", with some new openings in Stroud. But as for levelling up, he says it is not a "silver bullet" and the government could be taking more urgent action - such as reforming business rates - to revive high streets. The British Chambers of Commerce says changing shopping habits are presenting communities with "real challenges in maintaining thriving high streets". Its policy manager, Jonny Haseldine, is urging Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to take "bold action" in next week's Autumn Statement "to boost business investment and help local economies". The report by More in Common says for people to feel that levelling up has been delivered, the government must improve public services, as well as carrying out local regeneration projects. More in Common's research found that the word people most closely associated with Britain was "broken". But when asked to describe their local area in a word, the public's responses were much more positive, featuring words such as "good" and "friendly". Mr Tryl believes that offers a potential solution to politicians. "Even people who say their area has been neglected still feel proud of that area," he says. "So use that as the building block for national renewal, rather than always thinking about everything in a very top-down way." With a general election expected next year, Labour is keen to highlight what it sees as the failures of levelling up, as the party positions itself as a government-in-waiting. Angela Rayner, Labour's deputy leader and shadow levelling up secretary, says levelling up "has been exposed as a sham and a scam". She says Labour would devolve power to communities through a law it is calling - in a nod to the Brexit slogan - the Take Back Control Act. The new law would form "the cornerstone of Labour's mission to rebuild Britain", Ms Rayner says. "It will deliver on our mission to build an economy where growth boosts living standards and good jobs in every part of the country." The government says levelling up is "a long-term programme of reform that sits at the heart of our ambition". "It is breathing life into long overlooked communities, whether it is record investment in town centres or devolving more money and power out of Westminster to the regions," a Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said. You can hear more on this story onThe Westminster Hourat 22:00 GMT on Sunday, and afterwards onBBC Sounds

The UK government's flagship levelling-up agenda is at risk of losing public confidence in its promise to improve high streets, a new report has found.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67451928?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

Image credits: BBC/Getty, iStock/Getty, SolStock

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"It wasn't like it is today where everybody's got to walk on an eggshell to tell you something," the 63-year-old told the Radio Times podcast. "I went back to dancing six weeks after having my baby. "I was told: 'I marked you third as I refuse to look at the stretch marks on your back. I find it revolting.'" She added: "I just accepted it, moved on and did what I needed to do - for me, it was character building." Ballas, who is Strictly's head judge, said her experiences as a young dancer had meant she had to learn how to be less harsh when giving criticism herself. "I had so many walls up from working in the industry for years. When we critique someone there's a frown and you're very direct." She said her son told her that wouldn't work on British TV so gave her some tips about being constructive and smiling. "'Maybe that way' rather than 'Your footwork sucks.' I think I do a pretty good job!" Ballas recently applauded professional dancer Amy Dowdenfor not wearing a wig in her first appearance on the show since starting cancer treatment. The judge said Dowden showed courage by appearing with a shaved head. "She's just an amazing young lady," she said. "I applaud her for not wearing a wig because she wanted to shine light on cancer [for] young people. "It took courage because she did have her wig there." Nicknamed the Queen of Latin, Ballas took over the Strictly role from her former teacher Len Goodman in 2017. She has spoken about online abuse since taking up the high profile position on one of the UK's most popular shows. Last month she told Channel 5 that she had taken on a PA to filter her messages so she wouldn't have to see the most offensive ones.

Strictly Come Dancing's Shirley Ballas has revealed she was told her stretch marks were "revolting" by a dance judge, six weeks after giving birth.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-67404434?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

The family had been called by the Jordanian embassy and told to go to the Rafah crossing. Tala Abu Nahleh's mother is a Jordanian citizen. Foreign passport holders were going to be allowed through. So were the wounded and the seriously sick. Tala's 15-year-old brother Yazid is disabled and suffers from seizures. He can only move from one place to another with the aid of a wheelchair. The hospitals in Gaza have run out of the medication he needs, while the bombing has exacerbated his condition. "Once the escalation started," Tala says, "he got very afraid, the seizures kept getting worse and worse. Every time I believe it's gotten to the worst, it just keeps getting worse." There are six in the family and Tala is the sole financial support. She won scholarships and studied in the US and Beirut, Lebanon. Confident and articulate as she is, it is easy to imagine her guiding her family through the challenges of life beyond Gaza's borders. "We are trying to survive. We're not sure we're going to make it, but we're trying to do everything we can to survive, because I simply don't want to die at 24." The border is a place where the word "luck" has different meanings. It means escaping bombing, hunger and lack of water. It also means having to leave behind those you love who don't have foreign passports, or who are not badly wounded enough to merit evacuation, or who are trapped under fire and cannot reach the border. The number of those who have left, or will be able to leave, is only a tiny percentage of Gaza's population of 2.2 million people. Mona - she did not wish to give her surname - is an Australian citizen through marriage. She came to the border alone and was haunted by the thought of her family trapped in Gaza. "I'm not happy at all, because I'm leaving my other part, my brothers and sisters, my whole family is still here. I wish, God willing, they would all be in a safe place. The situation is terrible there, it's very very bad," she says. Groups of men gathered in front of paper lists posted on windows on the Gaza side of the crossing. Fingers ran down lines of names seeking out those already approved for departure. Families sat on the plastic chairs of the waiting hall, a small space into which so much hope is being funnelled. Altogether, 400 foreign nationals and wounded people were able to leave Gaza on the first day of the evacuation on Wednesday. By the day's end, it was clear to Tala Abu Nahleh that her family would not be so fortunate. They went home to their apartment, dark like those of their neighbours because there is no electricity. Tala sent us a video message saying she did not know how to feel any more. She sounded and looked weary. "We came back to no electricity, no food for today, no clean water to drink or even washing water. And one more day closer to my brother running out of medications, and we're still here. And it's night. I don't know if we will make it tomorrow, but I hope so." Additional reporting by Mahmoud Bassam in Gaza, and Hanin Abdeen, Alice Doyard, Morgan Gisholt Minard, and John Landy in Jerusalem. Have you been affected by the issues raised in this story? [email protected]. Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways: If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of theBBC websiteto submit your question or comment or you can email us [email protected]. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.

This was their third time trying to cross. But there were reasons to hope. All the news reports said the border would definitely open.

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As battles there intensify, the chaotic situation - with bombardment by Israeli forces, on-the-ground fighting, communications blackouts, fuel shortages and crumbling infrastructure - makes getting accurate information on the numbers of people who have died extremely demanding. And Palestinian officials have said there are now "significant difficulties" in obtaining updated information because of the interruption of communications in the Gaza Strip. The Hamas-run health ministry is Gaza's official source for death numbers - which it updates regularly. On Monday evening, it said 11,240 people had been killed, including 4,630 children, since the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October which prompted the current war. The figures have been publicly doubted by Israel. The number of those killed in the attacks in Israel, meanwhile, was initially put at 1,400 by Israeli authorities but was later revised down to about 1,200. US President Joe Biden has said he has "no confidence" in the Gaza statistics. But international organisations, such as the UN's World Heath Organization (WHO), have said they have no reason to disbelieve them. The BBC has been looking in detail at how the casualty figures for Gaza are counted. The health ministry in Gaza reports a regular death total on social media, with an additional breakdown of the number of women, children and the elderly who have been killed. The figures do not give the cause of death, but describe the dead as victims of "Israeli aggression". The ministry also gives figures for the injured and the missing. Some of the bodies remain trapped under piles of rubble, says the Palestinian Red Crescent. Health ministry officials say the death figures are recorded by medical professionals before being passed on to them and the figures only include people recorded dead in hospital. The figures do not distinguish between military and civilian deaths. And, because they do not take into account those who died at the scene of blasts whose bodies have not been found, or buried immediately, they may be an undercount, Gazan officials say. That point was amplified by the Biden administration last week, when a senior US official said the death toll was likely to be greater than the numbers being reported. "We think they're very high, frankly," Barbara Leaf, assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, told a House Foreign Affairs Committee, "and it could be that they're even higher than are being cited." It stands in stark contrast to the view of Mr Biden himself, who, on 25 October, said he had "no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed." However, he did not provide any evidence for his scepticism. A day after Mr Biden's dismissal of the numbers, the health ministry in Gaza provided more information, publishing an extensive list of names of all those who had been killed between 7 and 26 October. The list included more than 6,000 full names with their ages, sex and ID numbers. How was it compiled? The BBC has spoken to people involved in gathering and organising the data as well as an academic who has checked for duplicates on the list of names. We have also spoken to an independent research group, Airwars, which is in the process of matching deaths it has investigated to names on the health ministry's list, and the UN - which has assessed death figures in Gaza during previous periods of conflict. Healthcare workers like Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a Médecins Sans Frontières plastic surgeon based in London who has been treating people at hospitals in Gaza City, are key to recording those figures. He says the hospital morgue records deaths after confirming the identity of the dead person with their relatives. The number of deaths registered so far, he believes, is far fewer than those that have actually occurred. "Most of the deaths happen at home," he says. "The ones we could not identify, we did not record." However, once a body is found, it "has to be taken to the hospital to be recorded", says a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent. To examine the health ministry's list, the BBC cross-referenced names included on it with the names of dead people who had appeared in our reporting. One of those deaths the BBC reported was Dr Midhat Mahmoud Saidam, who was killed in a strike on 14 October. The BBC spoke to his former colleagues. Satellite imagery analysis carried out by the BBC showed damage to the area where he lived around the date of his death. An image posted on social media shows a body bag with his name and details written on it. Similar work, but on a larger scale, is being done by Airwars. As part of its work investigating civilian deaths, it has matched names of the dead on the health ministry list with areas that have been bombed. So far, Airwars has found 72 names on the ministry's list in five of the areas it has investigated, including Dr Saidham's. Its investigation also found 23 of his family members had also died and all were recorded on the health ministry list. Scrutinising the stats The BBC also spoke to the UN and Human Rights Watch - both of which said they had no reason to disbelieve the figures released by the health ministry in Gaza. The UN relies on the health ministry as a source for casualty figures in the area. "We continue to include their data in our reporting, and it is clearly sourced," it said in a statement. "It is nearly impossible at the moment to provide any UN verification on a day-to-day basis." Others who have scrutinised the health ministry's figures include economics professor Michael Spagat, from Royal Holloway, University of London - who chairs the charity Every Casualty Counts which studies death tolls in wars. He says he and a colleague found just one duplicate entry in the health ministry dataset - that of a 14-year-old boy. However, one discrepancy remains hotly contested - that of the death toll after a blast at al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City on 17 October. The health ministry said 500 people had been killed, and that figure was later revised down to 471. An assessment by US intelligence was lower, "probably at the low end of the 100-to-300 spectrum". Israel's military cited the al-Ahli figures as the basis for a claim that the Gaza health ministry "continuously inflates the number of civilian casualties." The BBC has made repeated attempts to contact the health ministry in Gaza, but has been unable to get a response so far. Prof Spagat has also looked back at previous conflicts, and found that health ministry figures in Gaza have held up under past scrutiny. In an analysis of health ministry death figures from the Israel-Gaza conflict in 2014, in which Gaza was bombed, and a separate record of death figures from that same year collated by Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem, Prof Spagat found overall consistency in the reported figures. The ministry of health said 2,310 Gazans had been killed in 2014, while B'Tselem counted 2,185 deaths. The UN said 2,251 Palestinians were killed, including 1,462 civilians and Israel's foreign ministry said the 2014 war killed 2,125 Palestinians. Discrepancies such as these are "fairly normal" says Prof Spagat, as some people may have died in hospital for reasons subsequently shown to be unrelated to violence in conflict. Ola Awad-Shakhshir, president of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, receives regular updates of deaths from Gaza. Ms Awad-Shakhshir says that Israel's interior ministry effectively controls ID numbers for newborn babies born in Gaza and the West Bank - the same ID numbers that appear on the Hamas-run health ministry's register of recorded deaths. The Israeli Population Registry Officeholds files that match those in Gaza and the West Bank. When the BBC approached a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces about why they have cast doubt on the Gazan death figures it said the health ministry was a branch of Hamas and that any information provided by it should be "viewed with caution". But it did not provide any evidence of inconsistencies in the data released by the health ministry. We also asked the Israeli prime minister's office about how the numbers of Israelis killed on 7 October by Hamas were recorded. It did not answer that question, however in recent days Israel has revised down the number of people killed during the attack to about 1,200, from the earlier figure of 1,400. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat said the revised number was because many bodies were not immediately identified after the attack, and "now we think those belong to terrorists... not Israeli casualties". The Israeli government has not published a detailed list of the civilian casualties although some Israeli media outlets have assembled such lists with names, ages and locations of deaths. Israel's police says more than 850 bodies of civilians have been identified - work is continuing to try to identify remains using specialist forensic techniques. There is a public list of the Israeli soldiers killed so far that includes 48 who have died in the fighting inside Gaza.

In any warzone, counting the dead is a challenge. Gaza is no different.

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Hundreds of Ukrainian lorries are parked along the road in an unbroken line, caught up in a trade dispute that's putting new strain on Polish-Ukrainian relations. At Dorohusk and other key crossing points, where Ukrainian refugees once poured across to a warm welcome, Polish truck drivers now block the road with their cabs in both directions, choking the flow of traffic. Humanitarian and military aid are waved through into Ukraine, as is perishable food and livestock. Everything else gets stuck. Ukraine's ambassador to Poland has called the hauliers' protest a "stab in the back" from a country that has been a close ally ever since Russia launched its full-scale invasion. Ukrainian drivers have been sleeping in their cabs for over a week, waiting to cross, and are running out of supplies, money and patience. On Friday, they said they were advancing towards the crossing at about a kilometre a day. But Polish truckers manning the roadblock were equally frustrated and forthright. They said they were forced into this extreme step to protect their livelihoods after the EU lifted all entry restrictions on Ukrainian carriers. It did that soon after the war started. "I think the EU wanted to help Ukraine, and that's fine. But it didn't really think through the fact that Ukraine would take over our markets," the chairman of the strike committee in Dorohusk, Pawel Ozygala, told the BBC. He estimated the cost to his own firm in lost business at around €100,000 (£88,000; $109,000) since the start of the war, because Ukrainian companies were undercutting him. "We support Ukraine, but we need to support our own families too. It's a matter of 'to be or not to be' for our companies now." Behind him, a banner on the front of a cab set out the Poles' conditions. Top of the list was reintroducing a permit system to cap the number of Ukrainian trucks entering Poland. Polish firms say the vast majority of trade has been taken by Ukrainians since the passes were abolished by Brussels. They also want changes to the online queue system for trucks leaving Ukraine, saying the current set-up favours locals. Until all that happens, the protesters are letting just one Ukrainian truck an hour into Poland, and a couple the other way. The Ukrainians aren't impressed. "I'd like to thank our brotherly Poles for this suffering," Stanislav Timoshchuk told the BBC, saying he'd already waited for seven days. He added that he and his fellow drivers "probably smell like dogs". At the current rate of progress, he may cross the border to Ukraine in a fortnight. "There are air raids in my town every night, my family are there and I'm stuck here," he pointed out. "So if you don't like us being here, just let us go home!" Stanislav was returning to Ukraine with a load of paper from Berlin, after delivering wood. He argued that such work was helping support Ukraine's economy, funding the weapons and ammunition it needs to go on resisting Russia. Poland's government supported that cause from the start, though it had a big wobble ahead of last month's election. The prime minister said then that Poland would send Kyiv no more weapons, and the president likened Ukraine to a drowning man, dragging others down with it. Analysts agreed they were trying to lure voters from Confederation, the far-right Ukraine-sceptical Polish party that's now publicly backing the truckers' protest. The politicians were also looking for support from farmers, angry about cheap Ukrainian grain hitting the Polish market. The government's talk has since pivoted back to being more positive. But in the village nearest the protest, people admitted that their own sympathies had faded. "We've had enough. We helped enough," Anna told us, over her garden fence in Okropy, though she couldn't be more precise about what exactly she was tired of. "I supported the Ukrainians at first, but it's been too long." "Times are hard now in Poland, so there's obviously less sympathy," a pensioner called Zofia agreed. The lights of the truckers' picket were just visible across the fields behind her. The organisers have permission to protest until January and official negotiations have made no progress yet. But there are hints that the mood on the ground is worsening. Pawel Ozygala showed us photos of a truck he said was one of his fleet queueing in Ukraine, which had its lights smashed. On the Polish side, police cars dot the length of the queue. But Stanislav, the Ukrainian driver, is already low on fuel, food and water and the temperature outside is dropping. "Some people here are starting to lose it. Their nerves are right on edge. Thanks Poland, for this help."

The queue of trucks starts more than 20 kilometres from Poland's eastern border.

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They were handed two-year prison sentences and fined 1bn Indonesian rupiah ($63,056; £51,786). The firm, Afi Farma, was accused of producing cough syrups containing excess amounts of toxic substances. The company's lawyer said they denied negligence and the firm was considering whether to appeal. Prosecutors had been seeking a prison sentence of up to nine years for Afi Farma's chief executive, Arief Prasetya Harahap, and seven years each for the other defendants. The Public Prosecutor said that between October 2021 and February 2022 the company received two batches of propylene glycol, which is used for making cough syrup. These batches contained 96% to 99% ethylene glycol, the prosecutor said. Both substances can be used as additives to solvents. While, propylene glycol is non-toxic and widely used in medicines, cosmetics and food, ethylene glycol is toxic and used in paint, pens and brake fluid. The company did not test the ingredients used in the cough syrup and instead relied on quality and safety certificates from its supplier, prosecutors said. Afi Farma's lawyer, Samsul Hidayat, told the BBC that Indonesia's drug regulator did not require drug makers to carry out rigorous testing of ingredients. The judge in the Kediri District Court, East Java, found the four defendants guilty of intentionally producing pharmaceutical goods that did not meet safety standards. The case comes as efforts grow worldwide to tighten the oversight of drug supply chains after the poisonings. Since 2022, more than 200 Indonesian children, most of whom were under the age of five, have died of acute kidney injury linked to contaminated cough syrup. About 100 deaths have been reported in The Gambia and Uzbekistan. The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued warnings about six cough syrups made in India and Indonesia. Additional reporting by Jerome Wirawan in Jakarta, Indonesia

The boss and three other officials of an Indonesian firm whose cough syrup was linked to the deaths of over 200 children have been sentenced to jail.

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BBC Panorama can reveal that Gen Gwyn Jenkins, who is now the second most senior officer in the British armed forces, received accounts of conversations in which members of the SAS described extrajudicial killings. But instead of referring the evidence to military police, Gen Jenkins placed it in a classified dossier and locked it in a safe. The failure to refer the evidence to military police has previously been disclosed in court, but the identities of the officers involved were withheld from the public by the Ministry of Defence. Gen Jenkins - who was at the time a colonel in the senior ranks of special forces - created the classified dossier in April 2011 after first briefing his direct superior, then-head of special forces Gen Jonathan Page, on the nature of the evidence. Under British law, commanding officers are legally obliged to inform the military police if they are made aware of any evidence that a war crime may have been committed. But the dossier containing the testimony remained locked in the safe for four years, known only to a handful of officers, as Gen Jenkins rose through the ranks of the armed forces, until a separate special forces whistleblower informed the Royal Military Police of its existence. The same month that Gen Jenkins created the classified dossier, he became head of all United Kingdom Special Forces in Afghanistan. He would go on to become the director of UK Special Forces and then vice chief of the defence staff, the second most senior position in the military - a promotion that saw him jump from a two-star to a four-star general. Allegations of extrajudicial killings by British special forces in Afghanistan are currently the subject of a judge-led public inquiry at the Royal Courts of Justice, following reporting by the BBC and others into night raids conducted by the SAS. Last year, Panorama revealed that oneSAS squadron had killed 54 people in suspicious circumstancesin one six-month tour that ended in May 2011. In March 2011, Gen Jenkins was the commanding officer of the Special Boat Service (SBS), the naval equivalent of the SAS, making him one of the most senior officers in UK Special Forces. That month, an officer under his command reported a conversation in which a member of the SAS had allegedly confessed to him that units from the elite army regiment were unlawfully killing unarmed people and detainees during aggressive, fast-moving night raids. Gen Jenkins instructed the officer to write a formal statement. In it, the officer wrote that the SAS soldier had told him that SAS units were killing all fighting-age males during night raids, regardless of whether they posed a threat. Fighting-age males were defined by the special forces teams as anyone believed to be 15 years or over. "In one case it was mentioned a pillow was put over the head of an individual being killed with a pistol," the SBS officer wrote. The officer also wrote that the SAS soldier implied that weapons were planted on or near the bodies of unarmed Afghans killed in the raids and then photographed in order to justify the killings - a tactic known in the military as using "drop weapons". After reading the officer's statement, Gen Jenkins wrote directly to his superior, General Jonathan Page, then the director of UK Special Forces. Under the subject line, "ALLEGATIONS OF EJK BY [UKSF]" - in which EJK stands for "extrajudicial killings" - Gen Jenkins wrote that he had been aware "for some time" of rumours that the SAS was "conducting summary executions of supposed Taliban affiliates". "However, I have now been given more information of a nature which makes me seriously concerned for the reputation of [UK Special Forces]," he wrote. Gen Jenkins warned Gen Page that there appeared to be "an unofficial policy" among SAS squadrons to kill any fighting-age Afghan male during a raid, "regardless of the immediate threat they pose to our troops". He wrote: "In some instances this has involved the deliberate killing of individuals after they have been restrained by [the SAS] and the subsequent fabrication of evidence to suggest a lawful killing in self-defence." Gen Jenkins concluded that he felt "most strongly that thorough investigation is warranted". Two days later, Gen Page's assistant chief of staff sent Gen Page a classified memo that reiterated Gen Jenkins' concerns, writing that several whistleblowers within the SBS had reported hearing similar accounts from members of the SAS, and that Gen Jenkins thought the whistleblowers' testimony was credible. "My instinct is that this merits deeper investigation, hopefully to put minds at rest… or at worst to put a stop to criminal behaviour," the assistant chief of staff wrote. The day after he wrote to Gen Page detailing his concerns, Gen Jenkins set up what is known as a "controlled-access security compartment" - a classified file that limited access to the whistleblower testimony to a small number of officers within UK Special Forces. The compartment was labelled: "Anecdotal evidence suggesting [extrajudicial killings] have been carried out by members of [the SAS] in Afghanistan". Official UK Special Forces paperwork said the purpose of the compartment was to "provide an additional level of control over the handling and briefing of the more sensitive aspects of this matter". It continued: "This is because dissemination of the information protected by this Compartment could cause severe damage to the reputation of [UKSF], could prejudice further investigation, and could disrupt current operations". In evidence to the High Court in 2020, as part of a case brought by one of the Afghan families whose relatives were killed in a night raid, Col Robert Morris of the Royal Military Police said that the controlled access compartment created by Gen Jenkins had prevented the RMP from accessing the evidence for years. Gen Page responded to Gen Jenkins' memo by commissioning a rare formal review of the tactics used by SAS units on night raids. A special forces officer was deployed to Afghanistan to interview personnel from the SAS squadron under scrutiny. But the officer - an SAS major who had recently commanded a squadron in Afghanistan - appeared to take the squadron's version of events at face value. The BBC understands that the officer did not visit any of the sites of the raids or interview any witnesses outside of the military, and his review was conducted in less than a week. Court documents show that his report was signed off by the commanding officer of the SAS unit responsible for the suspicious killings. Following the appointment of Gen Jenkins as head of UK Special Forces in Afghanistan, in April 2011, the suspected executions of unarmed Afghan people continued. Back in London, senior special forces officers had begun to keep a tally of suspicious incidents. But at no point did anyone in special forces leadership, including Gen Jenkins and Gen Page, refer the matter to military police. Under the Armed Forces Act 2006, commanding officers are legally obliged to inform the military police if they have any reason to suspect a war crime may have been carried out by their troops and can be prosecuted for failing to make a referral. Gen Jenkins served for a year as the head of UK Special Forces in Afghanistan, before returning to the UK to join the government as military assistant to Prime Minister David Cameron, a role he held until 2014. That year, the Royal Military Police embarked on an investigation that examined dozens of suspected extrajudicial killings by the SAS squadron on tour in the first half of 2011. The investigation was later closed with no charges brought - a decision that causedconsternation among some members of the governmentand senior levels of the civil service. Military police investigators have told the BBC that they were not allowed to conduct a thorough and independent probe into the SAS killings. The investigators said they were blocked from interviewing key witnesses and collecting forensic evidence and ordered to drop official suspects. The Ministry of Defence told the BBC that it was fully committed to supporting the public inquiry it established in 2022, which is currently taking place at the Royal Courts of Justice, and that it would not be appropriate to comment on any allegations that may be within the inquiry's scope. Neither Gen Jenkins nor Gen Page responded to the BBC's requests for comment. Do you have information about this story that you want to share? Get in touch using SecureDrop, a highly anonymous and secure way of whistleblowing to the BBC which uses the TOR network. Or by using the Signal messaging app, an end-to-end encrypted message service designed to protect your data. Please note that the SecureDrop link will only work in a Tor browser. For information on keeping secure and anonymous, here's some advice onhow to use SecureDrop.

One of the UK's most senior generals was warned in writing in 2011 that SAS soldiers were claiming to have executed handcuffed detainees in Afghanistan.

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Images: Getty

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In a statement on Instagram, the pop star said her heart was "shattered", adding: "She was so incredibly beautiful and far too young." It came as temperatures reached 39C in the city, which is the latest stop on Swift's record-breaking Eras Tour. Brazil has been experiencing an unprecedented heatwave during recent days with red alerts, warning of serious danger to health, issued across the country. The star was seen handing out water bottles to fans during the concert. "I can't believe I'm writing these words but it is with a shattered heart that I say we lost a fan earlier tonight before my show," Swift wrote. "I can't even tell you how devastated I am by this." Swift said she would not be able to speak about the incident from the stage because she felt "overwhelmed by grief" whenever she tried to talk about it. "I want to say now I feel this loss deeply and my broken heart goes out to her family and friends." She added that this was "the last thing" she thought would happen when she brought the tour to Brazil. Swift said she had little other information about the death. However,according to Brazilian newspaper Fohla De Sao Paolo, the fan fainted at the stadium and later died, with the cause of death being given as cardiorespiratory arrest. In videos and pictures circulated on social media, Swift was later seen urging staff at the stadium to give water to fans during the concert. At one point, while singing All Too Well, she was seen throwing a water bottle into the crowd. Swift's Instagram story, commenting on the death of the fan, was posted after the show. Brazil's Justice Minister Flávio Dino posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) that fans must be allowed to bring in water bottles to the venues. He ordered the company organising the Eras Tour in Brazil, T4F Entertainment, to provide fans with free and easily accessible drinking water. The minister's statement came after concert-goers were banned from bringing in their own water bottles. The global pop sensation arrived in Brazil earlier this week for her record-breaking tour. Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue was illuminated to welcome her to the country. The pop star is due to play two more shows in Rio de Janeiro, before heading to Sao Paulo. Swift had to cancel previously scheduled performances in the country because of the Covid-19 pandemic. She is coming to the UK in June 2024, where she will play Edinburgh, London, Liverpool and Cardiff. The BBC has approached T4F Entertainment, for a response.

Taylor Swift has said she is "devastated" after a fan died before her concert in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Friday night.

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Muhammad Abu Salmiya said the conditions were "tragic" in Al-Shifa, where there were more than 650 patients, 500 medical staff and 5,000 displaced people. Israeli tanks were surrounding the hospital in Gaza City, he said, with drones buzzing overhead and Israeli soldiers still moving around inside, as their search of the complex lasted a second day. Israel's army said its operation against Hamas was proceeding in a "discreet, methodical and thorough manner". However a journalist trapped inside the hospital, Khader, told the BBC's Rushdi Abu Alouf by phone that Israeli troops were "everywhere, shooting in all directions". The BBC has not been able to independently verify either of the reports. Since the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched their raid on Al-Shifa early on Wednesday, they have released several photos and videos of what they say are Hamas weapons and equipment. On Thursday they said they had found an "operational tunnel shaft and a vehicle containing a large number of weapons". Mr Abu Salmiya said Israeli troops had blown up Al-Shifa's main water line. "Sniping operations continue, no-one can move from one building to another, and we have lost communication with our colleagues," he said. Earlier on Thursday, Khader told the BBC that Israeli troops had "stormed all departments", destroying the southern part of the building's wall and dozens of cars. Before Khader's phone line cut off, he also said that armoured bulldozers had been brought in. Gaza's Hamas-controlled health ministry reports that Israeli bulldozers "destroyed parts of the southern entrance" of the medical complex. Israel launched a major military campaign in the Gaza Strip to destroy Hamas in retaliation for the 7 October cross-border attack by hundreds of gunmen. Israel considers Hamas a terrorist group, as does the UK, US and European Union. At least 1,200 people were killed in Hamas's assault on Israel and about 240 others were taken hostage. Since Israel started its counter-attack, Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry has said at least 11,400 people have been killed in the territory and the UN has warned of a "humanitarian disaster". On Thursday evening, the IDF announced that the body of one of the hostages had been found near Al-Shifa. The IDF identified the victim as Yehudit Weiss, saying she had been kidnapped from her home in Be'eri - a kibbutz in southern Israel. At the same time, there have been reports of amajor phone and internet outage in Gazabelieved to have been caused by telecom companies running out of fuel supplies. The IDF said their soldiers were continuing their "complex" operation against Hamas at the hospital. "Soldiers are proceeding one building at a time, searching each floor, all while hundreds of patients and medical staff remain in the complex," an official said in an update on Thursday evening. The official reiterated the IDF's claim that there was a "well-hidden terrorist infrastructure in the complex". Hamas has repeatedly denied that its fighters have been operating inside the hospital. On Thursday, Osama Hamdan, the most senior Hamas leader in Lebanon, ridiculed the Israeli weapons claims, saying that all the arms had been brought in and planted in the hospital by Israelis. Asked by the BBC why progress on talks to release hostages had failed, he said that on three occasions they had been close to a deal but each time it had been stopped by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli government has not commented on Mr Hamdan's allegation. In a separate development, Israel has dropped dropped leaflets in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza, warning people in four towns to evacuate their homes and head to shelters. If that is an indication of an upcoming military operation around the southern city of Khan Younis, it could be a real concern to the hundreds of thousands now sheltering there. Before the war, Khan Younis was home to about 300,000 people - a number that has now grown to one million after Israel urged civilians to move south for their safety.

The director of the Gaza Strip's main hospital raided by Israeli soldiers says the facility has now run out of oxygen and water, and patients "are screaming from thirst".

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Protesters walked from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem before holding a demonstration outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence. He has been criticised for not doing more to free those held by Hamas. It comes as US President Joe Biden reiterated calls for a two-state solution. Of the estimated 240 people taken hostage by Hamas during their deadly 7 October attacks, only four have been freed so far and another, a soldier, was rescued in an Israeli operation. This week Israel's military said it had found the bodies of two hostages -65-year-old Yehudit Weissand 19-year-old soldier Noa Marciano - in the Gaza Strip. The protest calling for the hostages' release started in Tel Aviv on Tuesday before heading to Jerusalem. Near the end of their march protesters stopped briefly to release hundreds of yellow helium balloons. "We want answers," said Ari Levi, who had two family members - including his 12-year-old son - taken by Hamas from kibbutz Nir Oz on 7 October. "It's not normal to have children kidnapped for 43 days. We don't know what the government is doing, we don't have any information," Mr Levi told the AFP news agency. "I want the government to bring them home to us," said Dvora Cohen, 43, whose brother-in-law and 12-year-old nephew are both believed to be held by Hamas. In a press conference on Saturday night Mr Netanyahu said that "until now there has not been a hostage release deal", adding that "when we have something to say, we will update you". He said that the first goal of the war is to destroy Hamas, the second is to return the hostages and the third is to eliminate the threat from Gaza. On Saturday, about 400 people protested in Caesarea, north of Tel Aviv, calling on Mr Netanyahu to resign, according to local media reports. One sign read: "He who blames only the army does not deserve to command it." Last month Mr Netanyahu swiftly deleted a social media post blaming military and security chiefs for allowing the Hamas attacks to take place. He later apologised. Separately, in anarticle published in the Washington Poston Saturday, Mr Biden said the two-state solution is "the only way to ensure the long-term security of both the Israeli and Palestinian people". The president was referring to a final settlement that would see the creation of an independent state of Palestine living peacefully alongside Israel. "A two-state solution - two peoples living side-by-side with equal measures of freedom, opportunity and dignity - is where the road to peace must lead," Mr Biden wrote, adding that achieving it would require "commitments from Israelis and Palestinians". The article - which also accused Hamas of having an "ideology of destruction" - appeared to be aimed at Mr Netanyahu, who has opposed the two-state solution throughout his political career. His survival as prime minister depends in part on support from Israeli hardliners who believe the entire territory between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea was given to the Jewish people by God. Mr Netanyahu has previously said that Israel must maintain "overall military responsibility" in Gaza "for the foreseeable future". Mr Biden also said the Palestinian Authority should govern the Gaza Strip and the West Bank after the Israel-Hamas war, adding that his government is prepared to issue visa bans against "extremists" attacking civilians in the occupied West Bank.

Thousands of Israelis have joined the families of hostages held in Gaza to call on the government to prioritise securing their release.

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The cause of death is not known, but Moschino's parent company Aeffe referred to "a sudden illness" and said that he died in Milan on Friday. Renne had previously been head of women's wear at Gucci, where he worked for nearly 20 years. Aeffe's chairman said: "There are no words to describe the pain we are experiencing at this dramatic time." "Even though he was only with us for a very short time, Davide was able to immediately make himself loved and respected. Today we are left with the responsibility of carrying on what his imagination and creativity had only envisioned," said Massimo Ferretti in a statement posted on Instagram. Renne was born in Follonica, Tuscany in July 1977. He studied at both the University of Florence and Polimoda fashion school, and began his career working with Italian fashion designer and mentor Alessandro Dell'Acqua, before heading to Gucci in 2004. Renne's appointment as Moschino's creative director was announced in October, and he was due to debut his first collection for Moschino at Milan Fashion Week in February. At the time of his appointment, Renne said: "Franco Moschino had a nickname for his design studio - la sala giochi, the playroom. "This resonates deeply with me: what fashion - Italian fashion especially, and the house of Moschino most of all - can achieve with its enormous power should be accomplished with a sense of play, of joy. A sense of discovery, and experimentation." Several influential figures in the fashion industry have taken to social media to pay their respects, with many leaving comments on Renne's Instagram posts. Harris Reed, the creative director of Nina Ricci, described Renne as "a true true angel", while model and singer Karen Elson wrote: "My heart breaks. Sweet Davide rest in peace." Renne's mentor, Dell'Acqua, posted on Instagram: "Farewell Davide!! You will always be in my heart."

Italian fashion designer Davide Renne has died nine days after becoming the creative director of Moschino, aged 46.

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And it is understood that he will be getting a birthday greeting by transatlantic phone call from his younger son, Prince Harry. The King's birthday plans also saw him hosting a reception for NHS nurses and midwives. Ceremonial gun salutes have been fired, including at the Tower of London. Public service, rather than glitzy partying, has been emphasised in the King's birthday engagements, although it is expected that there will be a private dinner for close family and friends. Prince Harry will not be there, but well-placed sources say that the US-based Duke of Sussex will be putting in a birthday phone call to his father. The plans for a phone message might be seen as an olive branch, after claims that there had been no contact with Prince Harry about the birthday plans The King's birthday has also seen the official launch of his Coronation Food Project, with the King and Queen visiting a surplus-food distribution centre in Didcot in Oxfordshire. The project is designed to tackle the twin problem of the increasing numbers of people unable to afford food, while millions of tonnes of surplus food is being thrown away. Highlighting the campaign in an article in the Big Issue magazine, which supports the homeless, the King said: "Food need is as real and urgent a problem as food waste." The King told the magazine that "cost-of-living pressures" were resulting in "too many families and individuals missing out on nutritious meals". At the launch, the King paid £10 to a Big Issue seller for a copy of the magazine, which has a cover price of £4. The magazine seller, called Kelvin, said the King asked him about whether he was in accommodation and the seller joked afterwards: "He gave me cash. That does prove something - he does carry money." The Coronation Food Project aims to create distribution hubs to connect surplus food with food banks and charities providing food parcels. "There are one in five people in this country that are suffering what charities call 'food insecurity' - to me, they're 'hungry'," said Baroness Casey, who co-chairs of the project. "People are going without meals," she said. An animation promoting the Coronation Food Project will be shown on Tuesday evening on the digital advertising hoardings at Piccadilly Circus in London. There is a circularity to the King's launch of a food-sharing project on his birthday. When the then-Prince Charles was born on 14 November 1948, there was still food rationing in post-war Britain. To mark the birth of the then-Princess Elizabeth's first child, there was a scheme to provide a gift food parcel to every family who had had a child on the same day. According to National Archives records, more than 2,600 gift parcels were distributed in this era of austerity, with items including soap, butter, dried egg, honey, marmalade, bacon and beef. King Charles has shared the celebrations for his 75th birthday with other people of the same age, who were invited to a party at his house at Highgrove in Gloucestershire on Monday. He is also marking the 75th anniversary of organisations of the same vintage, including the NHS, with 400 nurses and midwives attending a reception at Buckingham Palace. It was also attended by the new Health Secretary, Victoria Atkins, following Monday's cabinet reshuffle. The King thanked the nurses for their work and was also given a birthday card on behalf of a six-year-old girl with whom he shares a birthday, and stopped to practise his Swahili with a Kenyan nurse. "We talked about Kenya," said Bernice Boore, who said she asked him about his recent state visit to the country. The King last week rebranded his charities as the King's Trust and King's Foundation, rather than Prince's Trust and Prince's Foundation, which will send another message of keeping working rather than slowing down or handing over the reins to the next generation. He will be travelling to speak at the COP28 climate change summit in Dubai at the end of this month. At the age of 75, King Charles is now the sixth-oldest British monarch in history, behind Elizabeth II, Victoria, George III, Edward VIII and George II. You can see more royal stories in the free BBC Royal Watch newsletter emailed each week -sign up here from within the UK. orhere, from outside the UK.

King Charles has celebrated his 75th birthday with a business-as-usual approach and the launch of a project to help people facing food poverty.

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It helps businesses decide when to expand and hire more people, and lets the government work out how much it can afford to tax and spend. GDP is a measure of all the activity of companies, governments and individuals in a country. In the UK, new GDP figures are produced every month, but the quarterly figures - covering three months at a time - are considered more significant. When an economy is growing, each quarterly GDP figure is slightly bigger in than the previous three-month period. Most economists, politicians and businesses like to see a steadily rising GDP because it usually means people are spending more, extra jobs are created, more tax is paid and workers get better pay rises. When GDP is falling, it means the economy is shrinking - which is bad news for businesses and workers. If GDP falls for two quarters in a row, that is known asa recession, which can lead pay freezes and lost jobs. The Covid pandemic caused the most severe recession seen in more than 300 years, which forced the government to borrow hundreds of billions of pounds to support the economy. Althoughhigher prices have squeezed consumers' budgets more recently, the UK has avoided going into recession. In 2022, the UK'sGDP was worth£2.2tn, but we tend to concentrate on how much it has grown rather than the total figure. According to the official statistics for the most recent quarter, the economy sawzero growth between July and September, although that was slightly better than predicted. The monthly figure for September suggeststhe economy grew by 0.2%following a 0.1% rise the previous month. In January 2023, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak set out a pledge to "grow the economy". This will be met if GDP is bigger in the three-month period between October and December 2023 than it was during the previous quarter (July-September). The government can use growing GDP as evidence that it is doing a good job of managing the economy. Likewise, if GDP falls, opposition politicians say the government is running it badly. But it's more than just a report card on the government's economic performance. If GDP is going up steadily, people pay more in tax because they're earning and spending more. This means more money for the government to spend on public services, such as schools, police and hospitals. Governments also like to keep an eye on how much they are borrowing in relation to the size of the economy. For example borrowing was equivalent to about 14% of GDP in the first year of the Covid pandemic, the highest proportion since World War Two. GDP can be measured in three ways: In the UK, the ONS publishes one single measure of GDP, which is calculated using all three measurements. But early estimates mainly use the output measure, using data collected from thousands of companies. The UK produces one of the quickest estimates of GDP of the major economies, about 40 days after the quarter in question. At that stage, only about 60% of the data is available, so the figure is revised as more information comes in. The ONS publishes more information about thison its website. GDPdoesn't tell the whole story: Just because GDP is increasing, it doesn't mean that an individual person's standard of living is improving. If a country's population increases, it pushes GDP up, because with more people, more money will be spent. But individuals within that country might not be getting richer. They may be getting poorer on average, even while GDP goes up. The ONS also publishes a figure for GDP per capita - or head of population - which can tell a different story. Some critics also argue that GDP doesn't take into account whether the economic growth it measures is sustainable,or the environmental damage it might do. Alternative measures have been developed which try to capture this. In 2010,the ONS started measuring well-beingalongside economic growth. This assesses health, relationships, education and skills, as well as people's personal finances and the environment. In 2019, then New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern released the country's first "well-being budget", prioritising health and life-satisfaction rather than economic growth. But despite its limitations, GDP is still the most widely-used measure for most government decisions and international comparisons.

GDP - or Gross Domestic Product - is an important tool for judging how well, or badly, an economy is doing.

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Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor were all murdered between 2014 and 2015. They were drugged with overdoses of GHB by Port, who dumped their bodies near his flat in Barking, east London. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) will examine alleged breaches of professional standards. Port, who met his victims online, is serving a whole-life prison term after being convicted in 2016 at an Old Bailey trial. After Port was jailed, the police watchdog took years to decideno officers should be disciplined. But that conclusion was upended by inquests into the deaths in 2021, which laid baremultiple Met failuresthat a jury found contributed to three of the deaths. Basic errors by a string of detectives left Port free to carry out the three murders, as well as to drug and sexually assault more than a dozen other men. The watchdog was forced to reopen its inquiry and, two years on, has announced a new stage of its investigation. The inquiry relates to equality and diversity, duties and responsibilities, authority, respect and courtesy, and honesty and integrity. Five of the eight people under investigation are serving officers. Sisters of Jack Taylor, Donna and Jenny, said in a statement: "The news today made us feel grateful that someone is finally taking this serious and that our Jack and also Anthony, Gabriel, Daniel and the living victims are now finally being treated as human beings instead of just numbers. Which should have happened from the start. "We sat through eight weeks of the trial and eight weeks of the inquest, every single day and we listened to every piece of evidence. "We know that Jack should still be here if the officers had done their jobs properly. We live this nightmare every day and we will do for the rest of our lives. "Whilst we have been told that this may have amounted to gross misconduct, this does not necessarily mean disciplinary actions will take place. "We hope this is the case and people are held accountable for letting people lose their lives." IOPC regional director Steve Noonan said: "We recognise it has taken some time to reach this stage, but these are complex matters, involving multiple officers and four investigations into unexplained deaths and then the subsequent murder investigation into Port. "Though we have found an indication that the behaviour of these eight individuals may have amounted to gross misconduct, this does not necessarily mean disciplinary proceedings will automatically follow. "Based on the evidence, at the conclusion of our investigation we will decide whether any officers should face disciplinary proceedings." Cdr Jon Savell from the Met Police reiterated the force's "heartfelt" apologies for its mistakes in the case. Families of three of Port's victims received compensation from the Met after settling civil claims. Speaking on behalf of the families of the four men, solicitor Neil Hudgell said they were "cautiously encouraged", adding that the latest development was testament to their "determination and perseverance".

Eight former and current Met Police officers are being investigated for gross misconduct regarding failings in the case of serial killer Stephen Port.

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The board said Mr Altman had not been "consistently candid with his communications", hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The 38-year-old helped launch OpenAI, which is behind the ChatGPT bot. Mr Altman had become one of the most high-profile figures in the industry. In astatementthe board said it was grateful for Mr Altman's contributions but that members believed new leadership was necessary. "The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI," the company said, citing "a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities". It is not clear what he is alleged to not have been candid about. On social media, Mr Altman wrote that he had loved his time at the company. "It was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. Most of all I loved working with such talented people," he wrote. According to OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, it all took place over hastily-organised Google Meet video conference calls. Mr Brockman - who was himself dismissed from the board a few minutes later and then resigned from the company - said both men were "shocked and saddened" by the news. He said they were "still trying to figure out exactly what happened" but claimed in aposton X, formerly known as Twitter, that the whole drama unfolded in a matter of hours. They sat on the company's relatively small board of just six executives. It is unusual for such a tight team to take such a dramatic decision so quickly, which begs the question: was it personal? OpenAI is widely seen to be a company at its peak, with lucrative investment pouring in, and ChatGPT - which was launched almost exactly one year ago - is used by millions. Mr Altman has been the face of the firm's rise. More than that, he is seen by many as the face of the industry more widely. Hetestified before a US Congress hearingto discuss the opportunities and risks created by the new technology, and also at the world's first AI Safety Summit, held in the UK at the beginning of November. The outpouring of support from Silicon Valley bosses shows that he enjoyed the support of the tech industry. On social media, former Google boss Eric Schmidt called Mr Altman "a hero of mine" and said that he had "changed our collective world forever". "I can't wait to see what he does next. I, and billions of people, will benefit from his future work- it's going to be simply incredible," he wrote. There will be a lot of interest in whatever that next move is - and many will be waiting to see if Mr Altman is angry enough to talk about being dumped by the company he helped create. He has promised he will have "more to say about what's next later". But it doesn't appear he's poised to lift the lid on his departure just yet, evenwriting on Xto advise OpenAI's remaining board members to "go after me for the full value of my shares" if he gets into a public row with them. ChatGPT can now access up to date information Mr Brockman announced he had quit his role at the company following Mr Altman's ousting. In a statement posted X, Mr Brockman said: "I'm super proud of what we've all built together since starting in my apartment eight years ago. "We've been through tough and great times together, accomplishing so much despite all the reasons it should have been impossible. But based on today's news, I quit." He said he would continue to "believe in the mission of creating safe AGI that benefits all of humanity". OpenAI started in 2015 as a non-profit. It restructured in 2019 and is now backed by Microsoft, which has invested billions. Just weeks ago, OpenAI was reportedly in talks to sell shares in the company to investors at a price that would value it at more than $80bn (£64bn). The company said its board members -who include an OpenAI chief scientist, the head of popular question and answer app Quora, and an AI researcher affiliated with Georgetown University - did not have shares in the firm and that their fundamental governance responsibility was to "advance OpenAI's mission and preserve the principles of its Charter". The company said chief technology officer, Mira Murati, would take over as interim chief, effective immediately, while the board searches for a permanent replacement. ChatGPT is known for its ability to respond to prompts from users with human-like text. Hundreds of millions of people have tried it out, and many are now regularly using it to help them do their jobs and study - to consternation in some cases, like teachers facing essays written by the bot and people worried for their jobs. The company has also faced legal action from writers who say the bot developed its abilities by harvesting their work, in violation of copyright law. Billionaire Elon Musk, who with Mr Altman was one of the founding co-chairs of OpenAI, has also criticised it for straying from its non-profit roots.

Sam Altman has been ousted as the head of artificial intelligence firm OpenAI by the company's board, which said it had lost confidence in his ability to lead the company.

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Angela Howarth was spotted with a banner by a Sky Sports television camera duringIpswich's 2-2 draw with Rotherhamat the New York stadium on Tuesday. Since her first Town game in 1975, she has followed the team to Russia, Italy and the Netherlands. She also first met her husband Simon in the away section at Millwall in 1987. In that first match, she was hooked after seeingSir Bobby Robson's side beat Feyenoord 2-0 at Portman Road in the Uefa Cup. "I would go with my dad, we'd stand in Churchman's [now theSir Alf Ramsey stand]," she said. "My first away game was one of my favourite games, and favourite grounds - Highbury in thesemi-final of the FA Cup in 1978 against West Brom. "That lives in my memory as one of the most amazing games I've ever seen in the 47 years of supporting the club." Mrs Howarth, who lives in Colchester, has battled conditions such as "knee deep mud" in Bracknell to Russian military patrols when Ipswichtravelled to Torpedo Moscow in 2001. "When we landed, there were armed Russian guards under the aircraft. There was 1,000 town fans, equally met by 1,000 armed Russian soldiers. They looked bemused as to why they have been drafted in to rally up well-behaved Town fans," she said. She has also seen Town at Inter Milan, Helsingborg and Ajax. "My favourite grounds back here are in the North East. I absolutely love Newcastle and Sunderland away. I was most disappointed when I went to Anfield. The Kop wasn't as big as I thought," she said. Mrs Howarth usually attends matches with her husband Simon Stanmore, who she met in the away section at Millwall in 1987. "A fight broke out, so I moved away and stood with what turned out to be my husband. We got chatting, saw him again the next game away at Hull. The rest is history." Ipswich Town are second in the Championship, but Mrs Haworth hopes to see further new grounds in the Premier League next season. "We've got the squad, strength,the leader[manager Kieran McKenna] and we've certainly got the support. We can do this," she said. "I haven't been to all the newly-built Premier League grounds, hopefully I can hit 100. "Factoring family, being a full-time teacher, I've fitted a lot in the last 40-odd years. I'm glad I made that banner." Find BBC News: East of England onFacebook,InstagramandX. If you have a story suggestion [email protected]

An Ipswich Town fan has reached the milestone of following her "beloved" club to 90 different grounds.

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The size of that rise varies from job to job, with travel agents getting a pay bump of 21%, while sport coaches saw their earnings fall the most. Despite the increases in pay, most workers' wages rose by less than inflation, the rate at which the cost of goods and services rise. This means that in real terms, wages fell by 1.9% for full-time workers - a sign of the continued cost of living squeeze. Use the lookup table below to see what the average pay is in your job group, how that has changed from the previous year, and whether a pay rise has topped inflation. The salary data in the table above comes from the latestAnnual Survey of Hours and Earningsrelease from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which covers the year to April 2023. These are not the most up-to-date figures on the job market, but they provide a more granular view than the monthly labour statistics published by the ONS. In this analysis, we used the gross annual pay for full-time workers for each occupation group. We're showing you the median wages, which is how much the middle-ranking employee earns. To calculate the annual change in real terms, we adjusted April 2022 earnings to what they would have been in April 2023 if workers received pay rises in line with inflation, or more precisely, the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH). The difference between the recorded April 2023 wages and the inflation-adjusted estimates is the annual change in real terms. For the job group titles, we used the latest ONS classification of occupations, which groups related jobs together. You can search for the group that fits your job best withthis tool from Warwick University.

The average full-time worker in the UK was earning nearly £35,000 a year in April, official data shows, a rise of 5.8% on the previous year.

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In a lawsuit seen by the BBC, Ms Ventura said she was trapped for a decade by Mr Combs, her-ex-boyfriend, in a cycle of abuse and violence. The rapper and record executive - who also goes by the stage name Puff Daddy - denies the allegations, accusing the singer of trying to extort him. His lawyer said the claims were "offensive and outrageous". Ms Ventura alleges that the rap producer raped and beat her over 10 years starting when she was 19 and he was 37. "After years in silence and darkness, I am finally ready to tell my story," she said in a statement on Thursday. The lawsuit includes multiple graphic descriptions of the violent abuse that she says occurred beginning after she met the rapper in 2005. According to the complaint, Mr Combs signed her to his record label, Bad Boy, and "plied the vulnerable Ms Ventura with drugs and alcohol, causing her to fall into dangerous addictions that controlled her life". The lawsuit labels the musician a "serial domestic abuser, who would regularly beat and kick Ms Ventura, leaving black eyes, bruises, and blood". In her statement, Ms Ventura said she was ready "to speak up on behalf of myself and for the benefit of other women who face violence and abuse in their relationships". In a statement to BBC News, Mr Combs' lawyer said Ms Ventura had demanded $30m (£24m) "under the threat of writing a damaging book about their relationship". His lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said the alleged demand "was unequivocally rejected as blatant blackmail". "Ms Ventura has now resorted to filing a lawsuit riddled with baseless and outrageous lies, aiming to tarnish Mr Combs' reputation, and seeking a pay day," he added. In response to Mr Brafman, Ms Ventura's lawyer, Doug Wigdor, said Mr Combs had offered her a payment of "eight figures to silence her and prevent the filing of this lawsuit". "She rejected his efforts and decided to give a voice to all woman who suffer in silence," he said. Her lawsuit also alleges that the music mogul told her he planned to "blow up" a car owned by rapperKid Cudi.Mr Combs had become jealous that Ms Ventura was in a relationship with the rapper, according to the legal action. She says he told her of his plan during Paris Fashion Week in 2012. "Mr Combs told Ms Ventura that he was going to blow up Kid Cudi's car," the complaint says, "and that he wanted to ensure that Kid Cudi was home with his friends when it happened. Around that time, Kid Cudi's car exploded in his driveway." A spokeswoman for Kid Cudi told the New York Times that Ms Ventura's account was true. But New York police said in a statement on Friday that no investigation had yet been opened into any of the allegations. Ms Ventura released several hits in the 2000s, including songs that featured Diddy. Her most famous tracks include Me & U, Long Way to Go and Official Girl, featuring Lil Wayne.

Rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs has been accused of rape and sex trafficking by R&B artist Casandra "Cassie" Ventura.

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But here, it's not just human workers trying to hear signs of machine failure above the factory fray. Sensors attached to equipment are also listening out for indications of hardware faults, having been trained to recognise sounds of weary machines that risk bringing production lines to a grinding halt. PepsiCo is deploying these sensors, created by tech firm Augury and powered by artificial intelligence (AI), across its factories following a successful US trial. The company is one of many exploring how AI can increase factory efficiency, reduce waste and get products onto shelves sooner. From early design to delivery, AI is seen as having a key role in a new wave of manufacturing. Its ability to process and analyse huge volumes of data is already helping manufacturers predict and prepare for potential disruption. A minute of factory downtime can cost companies thousands of pounds, and increased delays can mean missing out on consumer demand at critical moments like the festive period or Black Friday. So tools that can check and analyse processes in real-time, warn of problems on the horizon, and harness historical data to recommend fixes are becoming familiar sights on factory floors. The sensors used in PepsiCo factories have been trained on huge volumes of audio data, to be able to detect faults such as wearing on conveyor belts and bearings, while analysing machine vibrations. "We have today over 300 million hours of machines that we've analysed and monitored, and we can leverage all this data to create algorithms that know how to pinpoint specific patterns of different malfunctions," says Augury chief executive, Saar Yoskovitz. By also collecting information and insights into equipment health on the whole, such as identifying when a machine might fail again in future, the technology lets workers schedule maintenance in advance, and avoid having to react to machine errors as they occur. Using AI-powered sensors can also give the company a way to cut down on waste across its operations. "If the machine is working in the most optimal way you can reduce the energy consumption of that machine", says Mr Yoskovitz. Computer vision, which involves training machines to recognise objects in images and video, is another type of AI being used across some of the world's factories to detect product defects at-scale. The flurry of items moving along conveyor belts and through sorting machines in factories mean miniscule defects in products can easily be missed. This is particularly true of computer chip wafers and circuit boards that have intricate designs and components. Errors which might have previously gone unnoticed by the human eye can now be picked up by a machine's camera, and caught by algorithms trained to spot specific, surface-level anomalies. Alexandra Brintrup, professor of digital manufacturing at the University of Cambridge's Institute for Manufacturing, tells the BBC that the use of AI for improving efficiency in the industry, including in areas like predictive maintenance and quality control, can now be considered conventional applications of the technology. "I feel like the more exciting opportunities of AI in manufacturing are going to come from things that we couldn't even attempt to do before, like capacity sharing between manufacturers, improving visibility in supply chains, even sharing of trucks in a logistics chain," she says. The interwoven, complex nature of supply chain networks, and the reluctance of some stakeholders to say who supplies them, has previously kept many aspects of manufacturing shrouded in mystery. But AI can be used to analyse and predict who and where suppliers are, giving companies an insight into bottlenecks, and consumers an insight into where their products are coming from, and the materials used. Read additional stories on artificial intelligence Prof Brintrup leads the Institute for Manufacturing's Supply Chain AI Lab, which has developed its own predictive mechanism to identify where ingredients such as palm oil may have been used in a product, but disguised under a different name on its label. The lab's recent research suggested that palm oil can go by 200 different names in the US - and these might not stand out to eco-conscious consumers. "We have increasingly a society that is very much aware of the environmental and societal impact of manufacturing, so I think increased supply chain visibility and giving that information to the consumer is going to become more and more important," Prof Brintrup adds. The question of what the rising adoption of AI tools on factory floors and in the wider supply chain will mean for workers looms large over the manufacturing landscape. Some firms are exploring how AI can be used to keep production line workers safe around machinery - using machine learning and computer vision techniques to monitor factory camera feeds to identify possible threats or accidents. Meanwhile, AI-powered wearables like exoskeletons have been deployed across UK warehouses to ensure people tasked with repeatedly carrying heavy loads aren't getting strained or injured. David Schwartz, global vice president of PepsiCo Labs, says that the firm sees Augury's sensors and AI more broadly as a way to deliver more value for workers and customers, and not just to future-proof its factories. "It's helping enhance how people work, so we can bring better efficiency to meet the needs of our people, of our customers, and we can be prepared to lean into the future to meet their needs on a daily basis," he says Watch BBC Clickto see how AI is being used to get snacks to shelves smoothly and also tackle wildfires.

As Doritos, Walkers and Wotsits speed along a conveyor belt at Coventry's PepsiCo factory - where some of the UK's most popular crisps are made - the noise of whirring machinery is almost deafening.

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Panic over the pesky pests has swept across Europe over the past couple of months, following reports of soaring infestations. Although their bites can cause itchiness, bedbugs do not usually cause other physical health problems in humans. However, it is the effect on one's mental health that can be most damaging - leaving some who have had infestations with anxiety, flashbacks and insomnia. Why do some of us itch when we're just thinking and reading about bed bugs- even if we've never had an infestation? It's all to do with the mind-body connection, says Dr Heather Sequeira, a clinical psychologist who specialises in anxiety and obsessional behaviours. "Our brain has this remarkable ability to make associations between specific thoughts or mental images and physical sensations," she says. "When you think about bedbugs, your brain may activate memories or mental images associated with the discomfort of getting bitten by an insect and initiate neural patterns associated with heightened awareness, leading to increased skin sensations." Psychogenic itching - how psychologists describe an itch which has no dermatological or systemic cause - is a very common phenomenon. But, Dr Sequeira says, the more you fear or feel disgusted by bedbugs, the more likely you are to experience it. "By saying we all have psychogenic itching to some degree, we normalise it," she adds. "If we are scared, anxious, or grossed out by something, our body goes on high alert to detect that potential 'threat'. "Similarly, if we are experiencing anxiety and stress for different reasons, we are also more likely to have a stronger reaction to thinking about bedbugs". Dr Sequeira says she has had more patients telling her about their bedbug-related anxieties over the past couple of months - which she attributes in part to "heightened awareness" resulting from the increased media coverage. There have been recent reported infestations in Paris and other French cities, and alibrary in west London closed temporarily after the insects were discovered in the furnishings. Dr Angharad Rudkin, a clinical psychologist who specialises in anxiety and intrusive thoughts, says for people whose "threat alert system" is already high, reading about recent outbreaks confirms in their minds that it could soon become a reality for them too. "[They think] 'It has happened in Paris and it could happen to me'," she says. Dr Rudkin also says the experience is very normal but is worse for people who have anxiety disorders. "All of us are getting that slightly itchy feeling," she says. "Depending on your mental health, if you are feeling quite relaxed it will not be more than a passing thought, but if catches you when you are stressed or tired it can get a bit stickier." The problem can be compounded at the thought of your bedroom no longer being a place of safety. "Finding a spider in your bed is far worse than finding it in a bathroom," Dr Rudkin says. One school of thought which explains why some of us react in this way is our survival instincts, Dr Rudkin explains. "The people who were a little bit on edge and had their threat alert on high were the ones who survived," she says. "We are the descendants of worriers, so our bodies are wired to respond in this way." Dr Abigael San, who specialises in cognitive therapy, says the itching sensation is about imagery. "When the image of something is really meaningful for you, especially if it carries threatening information, your brain is doing the same thing as if it was really there," she says. "It's not just bedbugs, looking at a spider will give you that sensation of feeling like a spider is crawling on you - you know it's not there but the sensation is there. "For a lot of people who are scared of bugs, just conjuring up an image can feel really, really scary. "The part of your brain dealing with fear and threat will light up in the same way as if the physical thing was in front of you." Dr San has worked with a patient who she says was "traumatised" by her experience with bedbugs. "She was not someone who had a fear of bugs before, for her it was the trauma that it carried," she says. "The trauma was about other stuff - the pest control person, her feeling blamed. "For her, looking at an image of bedbugs will provoke feelings of anger and shame." How are bedbugs affecting your life? Share your experiences by [email protected]. Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways: If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of theBBC websiteto submit your question or comment or you can email us [email protected]. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.

Just the mere mention of bed bugs can make your your skin crawl.

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But financial experts say it is crucial to put some money aside for emergencies. And the interest being paid on some savings accounts now is better than anything seen for 15 years, so it will pay to spend some time putting your money in the correct place. The benchmarkinterest rate set by the Bank of Englandhas been rising consistently for nearly two years, and may now have peaked. The cost of living has also been going up, with prices risingat a rate still well above target. That means two things for any money we have set aside. Firstly, the returns (or interest) being offered on savings accounts has improved, although borrowing is more expensive. For example, you may find an account paying 5% a year, so £1,000 saved for a year will earn £50 in interest. Save for lots of years, and that lump sum keeps building under what is known ascompound interest. Secondly, the buying power of the money we do have saved is being diluted by rising prices. Bank of England figures show that there is £268bn in non-interest paying accounts - which are primarily current accounts. Experts say that finding a good savings account for that money will help people benefit from those higher rates, and counter some of the downsides of rising prices. Investing the moneyis another option, although that carries greater risks. High energy and food bills mean that, for many people, their money doesn't last until the end of the month. Finding anything to set aside is difficult. If you have debts that need bringing under control, then that is widely considered to be the priority, ahead of any savings decisions. However, putting some money aside regularly into an emergency savings fund can help avoid serious debt. If your car breaks down, or the children's school shoes need replacing, then it is better to have money available than to borrow it. You also might want to save throughout the year for Christmas or holidays. The general advice is to spend some time going through your finances, then set a savings goal, and to start with saving a small, manageable amount on a regular basis. The Building Societies Association, which runs UK Savings Week, hasa guide about how to get started. This is where it can get quite complicated. There area wide range of savings productsavailable, and your personal circumstances will determine which is best for you. The most basic savings product is aneasy-access account. They tend not to have the best interest rates, but you can withdraw your money whenever you like. Some accounts such asfixed-term accounts or bondspay more in interest but your money is locked in for a certain period of time. Anyone starting out might considerregular saver accounts, some of which are sold alongside current accounts. Again you might not be able to access the money for a certain period of time and, by starting small, it may take time before any meaningful interest is built up. Also, there arenotice accounts, which require you to tell the provider in advance when you plan to withdraw money. Alternatively, you can forgo interest and instead enter a prize draw, such as withPremium Bonds. If you don't have access to a bank account, thencredit unionsoffer the opportunity to save.Savings scheme incentivesprovided by the government may encourage longer-term savings. particularly for children. There are plenty more and, with such a variety, it is best to shop around. That shouldn't only be for the best interest rate but, perhaps more crucially, to find the account that best suits your needs. Anna Bowes, founder of the independent Savings Champion website, says some savers can suffer from "choice paralysis", so it might be best to set yourself a deadline when making a decision. Helpfully, every account now displays asummary boxoutlining its key features, which makes it a bit less time-consuming to compare between them. Definitely not. Banks, building societies and other savings providers often advertise eye-catching headline interest rates. Sometimes those deals are only available for a few weeks. The best interest rate may only last on a product for a year, after which it may revert to a much lower rate. So, being loyal may be more convenient, but won't necessarily pay the most. That is why it is best to review old accounts you may have set up years ago. In fact, banks have come underheavy pressure from MPs and regulatorsto ensure that rates - particularly on easy-access accounts - reflect the wider market and are not just used to make excess profits. Every basic and higher-rate taxpayer has a personal savings allowance, which means you don't pay tax on the first £1,000 of interest you earn from savings (or the first £500 if you're a higher-rate taxpayer). Individual Savings Accounts, known as Isas, allow you to save up to £20,000 a year, and the interest is tax-free. Large amounts held in savings canaffect a claim for universal credit. If a bank or building society goes bust, then the first £85,000 per person, per institutionis safe and would be refunded.

Saving money may feel like a pipe dream when bills and the cost of essentials, such as food, are rising fast.

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Bird of the Year seeks to raise awareness of the country's many native species that are considered in danger. The stakes are higher this year, with the winner to be dubbed Bird of the Century in celebration of the event organiser's founding. And now one bird has got the backing of US chat show host John Oliver. On Sunday, he launched his campaign in support of one of the competition's 75 candidates, the pūteketeke, on his late-night show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. The rules of the election mean that anyone can campaign for a candidate, not just those living in New Zealand. "They puke, they do a 'weed' dance before mating, they have great hair, and there are fewer than 1,000 of them left in New Zealand!" wrote Mr Oliver's team of the bird's unique qualities on its voting page. "The pūteketeke isn't just a bird cooler than any of us could ever hope to be — it's a bird that needs our help." Mr Oliver, who holds British and US citizenship, later turned up on fellow comedian Jimmy Fallon's chat show dressed up as a pūteketeke. The comedian has gone so far as to erect billboards in countries including New Zealand, Japan, France and the UK - dubbing the bird "Lord of the Wings" in reference to the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy being filmed in New Zealand. "This is what democracy is all about - America interfering in foreign elections," said Mr Oliver. His involvement has certainly had an effect. The head of the environmental conservation organisation running the competition, known commonly as Forest and Bird, told New Zealand media agency Newshub that there had been an additional 50,000 votes less than 24 hours after Sunday's segment aired. "Last year, the total votes for Bird of the Year was just under 52,000," said Nicola Toki, who added the surge in voting had put the team responsible for the website under a lot of pressure. Ms Toki said Mr Oliver's involvement was not a surprise, as his team had been in touch earlier in the year. The 46-year-old has ahistory of wading in on New Zealand issues,such as how to stop the country being left off world maps. However, the eligibility of the pūteketeke, also known as the Australasian crested grebe, for candidacy in the competition is now being called into question by the campaign team due to the fact it is found in both New Zealand and Australia. It has been accusedof adding extra stars to the New Zealand flag and of calling flipflops "thongs" rather than "jandals" in reference to some of the well-known differences between the two countries. Meanwhile, a conservationist who is backing another bird, the kākāriki karaka, hastold Radio New Zealandin a tongue-in-cheek interview that Mr Oliver's support for the pūteketeke reminded him of previous election meddling in the US. It is not the first time the competition has been mired in controversy. There was an outcry last year when the kākāpō, the world's fattest parrot, wasbanned from competingbecause it was the only bird to win twice in the past. That followed the shock of 2021 when the crown of Bird of the Yearwas given to... a bat. Voting in this year's competition is due to close on Sunday.

An annual vote to elect New Zealand's favourite bird has exploded into an international public relations battle that is ruffling some feathers.

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Westminster's gorged itself this week on some of its favourite pastimes: obsessing over who is slithering up or down in the game of political snakes and ladders; pondering the edges of our stretchy, unwritten constitution as the courts and government do battle; and, of course, frantically trying to predict what is next. Fully paid-up political nerds, myself included, have been glued to the spectacle of the last seven days. Bitter sackings,vitriolic public letters, the prime minister vowing to take on the courts, even talk of letters calling for his resignation going in. ("You'd just look like idiots," one senior MP tells me he told his more excitable colleagues.) But for the ultimate boss, the voter, all the drama might have fallen on confused, or even deaf, ears. The signals from government have been mixed, to put it diplomatically. In all the soap opera, has the prime minister been moving to the left or to the right? Getting rid of Suella Braverman at the start of the week, gave the impression No 10 wanted to take a softer tack. But when theSupreme Court ruled against the government's plan to send migrants to Rwanda, up popped Rishi Sunak with seemingly tough language, claiming he won't let "foreign courts", stand in his way. In fact, the ruling was based on both international and UK law, so the notion the problem has been created just by meddling courts in a faraway land is misleading. Whatever your view of the plans, the court referred to British laws that say refugees must not be put at a real risk of harm. And the PM promised "emergency" new laws - political speak for plans that need to sound bold and important. Yes, that's the party that sees itself as the bastion of law and order, saying when it doesn't like the long-predicted verdict of our highest court, it will just change the rules instead, with the prime minister vowing to do "whatever it takes" to make it happen. Whatever it takes? That's not entirely true, because No 10 does not seem willing to follow the much more drastic steps sketched out, entirely predictably, by the departing home secretary to get planes in the sky. It's worth saying whatever Downing Street comes up with (and watch this space), the chances of keeping the right of the Tory party happy appear vanishingly small. Members of the public would be absolutely entitled this weekend to be scratching their heads and wondering if the controversial plan the prime minister has committed to time and again, the "stop the boats" slogan that screeches from government lecterns, is ever really going to happen. Research carried out by the polling group, More in Common, helps explore the real world reaction. And a flavour of voters' views from focus groups about Mrs Braverman suggests there is real division - the most common words chosen to describe her include, "brave" and "outspoken", but "racist" features there too. Then a former PM was brought back into the fold. "Cameron??" to quote one of the messages that blew up on my phone when the news broke. It was job done for No 10 if they wanted to create headlines out of their reshuffle that would distract from the Suella show. There were MPs on his former wing of the much-changed Conservative Party who were delighted that someone with his experience is back in town. That was reflected by voters too, with comments in focus groups such as: "Old knowledge in a team is always good", while another said: "He's probably been brought back to give the party some sort of stability because at the moment it just seems to be a lot of just infighting." The word voters chose more than any other to describe the now Lord Cameron was "experienced". Tick! But words like "Brexit" and "past" and "idiot" feature pretty heavily too. Here are the words voters used: You wouldn't be alone if you felt a bit puzzled. That's not just because you might have to squint to imagine how the leader of the failed Remain campaign can become the architect of UK foreign policy after Brexit. As one voter said: "I'm really angry about it if I'm honest. I think he really divided the country down to families being one side of the argument or the other." But it also risks highlighting the government's dreadful polling position, as well as the experience gap between the current and former prime minister, as if the much younger Rishi Sunak has got in trouble, lost his bus fare and has had to phone his dad to come and pick him up. One senior party figure asked: "Who is the prime minister here? Sunak is the prefect and Cameron's the headmaster." That point is picked up by some voters, one remarking: "It kind of smacks of desperation a bit, because they've had to resort to that in order to get any kind of stability in the party." There's another point of confusion. Rishi Sunak'slast big swing was at the Conservative Party conference when he styled himself as the candidate of change, hammering the point by criticising what he called the 30-year consensus and the status quo. This was no small move, but a considered big strategic decision to pitch the prime minister like this, when other tacks had failed. Now, in blunt terms, how can you convincingly be the change guy, if you are bringing back the old guy? Inevitably this changing tack has been noticed by the backbenches. One senior figure says: "We have all been trying to read the tea leaves, but not able to drink the tea" because "No 10 keeps changing its mind all the time." Whether on small boats or David Cameron sauntering back into government, all the hullabaloo in Westminster this week hasn't been on the stresses and strains most relevant to most voters' lives. Research shared with us this week from More in Common, consistent with polling for months and months, shows that making ends meet is by miles at the top of the list - 71% of those asked put it as their highest concern. Worries about the NHS was the next priority, but some distance behind at 40%. Only 17% named asylum seekers crossing the channel as their biggest worry, behind climate change at 23%. It's foolish to read too much into any one snapshot, and one week of polling is, of course, just that. But as the prime minister wriggles uncomfortably over his chosen small boats priority, as the Tory party wrangles over the direction No 10 really wants to take, it is a reminder that neither of those issues are the public's most common concern. One senior Tory MP admits: "Most people just want to be able to pay their bills and get a doctor's appointment." On Wednesday, the Chancellor has a chance to help people do just that with the Autumn Statement. The pressure is on Jeremy Hunt to act on those very real concerns. Number 10 was cock-a-hoop, at least for half an hour or so, when this week's inflation numbers showed price rises slowing down, mainly due to falling energy prices. But remember, slowing inflation doesn't remove high prices, it just means costs aren't going up so fast. As that polling suggests, making ends meet is a challenge for millions of families. From the splurge of early briefings it is not clear what Jeremy Hunt will actually propose to do to help. There's also the potential political contradiction ofdangling a tax cut for a tiny number of families affected by inheritance tax,while taking much more from millions in income tax. That is not because the Chancellor has actually put income tax up, but because more and more people are getting dragged into paying higher rates. (This has one of the least attractive names in Treasury jargon, fiscal drag, but is one of the most significant and little talked about changes to how the government makes its sums add up.) It is also, at the risk of sounding prim, worth noting how unusual it is for the Treasury to be teasing quite so much around tax cuts just before a big statement like this. One former Treasury minister told me it's "extraordinary" they have been so open. Is it - as they archly note - "just to chuck red meat to the Suella brigade" after a bumpy week? The overall economic picture is not pretty. Growth has stalled. The government is spending an absolute fortune paying interest on its huge debts. Taxes and government spending are both at historic levels, a nightmare for Conservative purists who, after all, hope their party stands for leaner government and lower tax. It is a challenge to those in the Conservative Party, and, of course, the opposition, who want more resources for public services. Overall the former Treasury minister notes brutally, "we are in a really bad spot - do I see a coherent strategy? No!" The overwhelming concern for the chancellor and the prime minister to respond to is to help families and firms feel consistently better off. The drama that's consumed Westminster these last seven days isn't likely to make much difference to that. Jeremy Hunt hasa chance to change that on Wednesday. But it's just not clear that the neighbours in No 10 and 11 can make the sums, and the politics, add up. FollowLaura on X What questions would you like to ask the chancellor and the shadow chancellor? In some cases your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read ourterms & conditionsandprivacy policy. Use this form to ask your question: If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of theBBC websiteto submit your question or send them via email [email protected]. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.

Crash, bang, wallop! An adrenaline hit of headlines. A massive bust-up. A big surprise. And a clash in the courts.

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The director of celebrated films including Gladiator, Alien, Thelma & Louise and Blade Runner certainly speaks his mind. Does he seek out advice? Asking someone what they think is a "disaster", he tells me. What about his lack of a best director Oscar - despite being at the helm of some of the most memorable films of the past four decades? "I don't really care." And as for the historians who have suggested his latest movie, Napoleon, is factually inaccurate: "You really want me to answer that?... it will have a bleep in it." We meet in a plush hotel in central London. Scott had recently arrived from Paris, where the movie - which stars Joaquin Phoenix as the French soldier turned emperor, and Vanessa Kirby as his wife (and obsession) Josephine - had its world premiere. It's a visual spectacle that contrasts the intimacy of the couple's relationship with the actions of a man whose lust for power brought about the deaths of an estimated three million soldiers and civilians. "He's so fascinating. Revered, hated, loved… more famous than any man or leader or politician in history. How could you not want to go there?" The film is two hours and 38 minutes long. Scott says if a movie is longer than three hours, you get the "bum ache factor" around two hours in, which is something he constantly watches for when he's editing. "When you start to go 'oh my God' and then you say 'Christ, we can't eat for another hour', it's too long." In spite of the "bum ache" issue, it's been reported that he plans a longer, final director's cut for Apple TV+ when the movie hits the streamer, but "we're not allowed to talk about that". Napoleon has been well reviewed in many parts of the UK media.Five stars in the Guardianfor "an outrageously enjoyable cavalry charge of a movie".Four stars in The Timesfor this "spectacular historical epic" and in Empire for "Scott's entertaining and plausible interpretation of Napoleon". The French critics have been less positive. Le Figaro said the film could be renamed "Barbie and Ken under the Empire". French GQ said there was something "deeply clumsy, unnatural and unintentionally funny" in seeing French soldiers in 1793 shouting "Vive La France" with American accents. And a biographer of Napoleon, Patrice Gueniffey in Le Point magazine, attacked the film as a "very anti-French and very pro-British" rewrite of history. "The French don't even like themselves" Scott retorts. "The audience that I showed it to in Paris, they loved it." In his movie, Napoleon's empire-building land grabs are distilled into six vast battle scenes. One of the emperor's greatest victories, at Austerlitz in 1805, sees the Russian army lured onto an icy lake (shot at "an airfield just outside London") before the cannons are turned on them. "The reverse angle in the trees was where I made Gladiator… I managed to blend them digitally so you get the scale and the scope". As the cannonballs hurtle into the ice, bloodied soldiers and horses are sucked into the freezing waters, desperately trying to escape. It's dramatic. It's terrifying. It is also beautiful. "I'm blessed with a good eye, that's my strongest asset," says South Shields-born Sir Ridley, who went to art school first in Hartlepool and then London. In the 1970s he was one of the UK's most renowned commercial directors, making, he tells me, two adverts a week in his heyday. He always wanted to direct films but "I was too embarrassed to discuss it with anyone", and "I didn't know how to get in." Once he did, he rose fast. Scott's visual artistry makes him a consummate creator of worlds, whether that's outer space in Alien and The Martian, civil war Somalia in Black Hawk Down, medieval England in Robin Hood or the Roman Empire in Gladiator. An accomplished artist, he does his own storyboarding. "You could publish them as comic strips," he says. "A lot of people can't translate what's on paper to what it's going to be and that's my job." His Napoleon, Joaquin Phoenix, tells me Scott also "draws pictures, as he's coming to work, of what the scene is." He finds Scott an open and receptive director. "He's figured everything out and yet he's also able to spontaneously pivot" when new ideas are suggested, on this occasion even when there were 500 extras, a huge crew and multiple cannons. Phoenix was "excited" to work with Scott again, 23 years after he was cast as the emperor Commodus in Gladiator. "The studio did not want me for Gladiator. In fact, Ridley was given an ultimatum and he fought for me and it was just this extraordinary experience." Scott has called Phoenix "probably the most special, thoughtful actor" he has ever worked with. The leading actors had freedom to develop the relationship between Napoleon and Josephine, a woman six years older than him, who he divorced because she was unable to provide him with an heir, but whose name was on his lips when he died in exile on St Helena. "France, the Army, the Head of the Army, Josephine" were the Emperor's last words. Vanessa Kirby says of her experience being directed by Scott that "none of it was prescriptive from the start and I thought that was really freeing." But she adds that she had to adjust to the pace at which he works. "He moves really fast. You might have five big scenes in one day, which means you're on the fly." They shot Napoleon in just 61 days. "If you know anything about movies, that should have been 120," Scott tells me. In the early days, he used to operate the camera on his films as well as direct - think The Duellists, Alien, Thelma & Louise, though it wasn't allowed on Blade Runner. He says he realised where the real power lay - with the camera operator and the first AD - and didn't want to relinquish it. On Napoleon he worked with up to 11 cameras at the same time and directed them from an air conditioned trailer, saying: "It's 180 degrees outside and I'm sitting inside shouting 'faster!'." Using all those cameras shooting from different angles "frees the actor to come off-piste and improvise" because you don't need to repeat endless takes (which is "disastrous"). Immortalising Napoleon on film was something Scott's hero Stanley Kubrick tried and failed to do. "He couldn't get it going, surprisingly, because I thought he could get anything going." That was down to money, says Scott. His Napoleon watches Marie Antoinette die at the guillotine and fires a cannonball at the Sphinx. The artistic licence in this impressionistic film has put up the backs of some historians. Scott says 10,400 books have been written about Napoleon, "that's one every week since he died". His question, he tells me, to the critics who say the film isn't historically accurate is: "Were you there? Oh you weren't there. Then how do you know?" Scott announced he was making Napoleon on the day he wrapped his previous film, The Last Duel, which starred Jodie Comer. She was originally cast as his Josephine, but had to pull out after the dates were pushed back by the pandemic. With Napoleon heading into cinemas, Scott is about to restart filming Gladiator 2, with Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington, a shoot interrupted by the actors' strike. So why go back to Gladiator? "Why not, are you kidding?" He also has another movie in the pipeline which is already written and cast, but what it is, "I'm not going to tell you." And he will celebrate his 86th birthday later this month. Many might be happy to slow down, but not Scott. He will make films for the rest of his days, he tells me. "I go from here to Malta, I shoot in Malta, finish there and I've already recce'd what I'm doing next." So would he have any advice for his younger self? "No advice. I did pretty good. I got there," comes his characteristically direct reply.

Sir Ridley Scott is famously forthright.

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"I often think about how life might have been different without going to prison," says Martha, who is using a pseudonym. "I don't think purely punishing someone and re-traumatising them helps them to move on with their lives." Martha was jailed in 2016 after committing "petty and pathetic crimes" to fund her heroin use - stealing a car jack from a garage, some artificial flowers from a front garden and a purse containing £3 - close to her home in County Durham. She had previously received a few cautions for shoplifting but had no convictions for violence. She acknowledges that all crimes have a negative impact on victims. "It was awful to walk into someone's house like that, I don't want to take away from the severity of doing that," she says. But with scant focus on rehabilitation and very little support, Martha says life after prison was even more isolating and unmanageable than it had been before. "I ended up in another toxic, damaging relationship, lost hope of gainful employment and life got exponentially worse," she says. "Prison left me feeling really awful about myself. I told myself I was just a scummy junkie who didn't deserve good things." The first series of Time, starring Sean Bean and Stephen Graham, won multiple Bafta awards with its portrayal of men navigating the penal system and their consciences. In the second series, the writers wanted to focus on the experiences of women. Helen Black, who co-wrote the drama with Jimmy McGovern, says giving women short sentences for non violent crimes is "a terrible idea". "They're long enough to ruin lives and cause chaos in the prison estate but not long enough to act as a deterrent or offer up the chance of rehabilitation," she says. In the series, her sentiments are played out through a fictional single mum of three called Orla, played by Jodie Whittaker. She tampers with her electricity meter to cut costs and, because of aggravating factors in her case, is sent down for six months, losing her children, home and job as a result. Her situation reflects the fact that the majority of women sent to prison in England and Wales last year were handed sentences of six months or less, according to the Prison Reform Trust. Non-violent crimes like shoplifting were the most frequent offence. Paula Harriott, who works for the charity and has been to prison herself, says she consistently sees female prisoners ending up in Orla's situation. She says the sentences are intended only as a punishment - but they "bite deep". "Prison should be reserved for the gravest of crimes, for women who are a danger to society," she says. The charity wants to see the government put more money into helping women serve sentences in the community, rather than on plans to build 500 more cells inside women's prisons. It argues that community sentences are a better alternative because they allow women to maintain their family ties, hold on to their jobs and look after their children - all factors which, it says, reduce the risk of reoffending. Martha's background reflects the profile of many women in prison. She had been a heroin user for more than a decade by the time she went to jail, and in a violent relationship with the man who had first introduced her to the drug. Part of the reason she stole was to fund his drug habit. Like many women in prison, Martha also had a long history of mental health issues and self-harm. As of 3 November, there were 3,596 women in England and Wales doing time, compared to 84,168 men. According to data from the Prison Reform Trust and charity Women in Prison: Martha believes it would have been better if the judge had sent her to a drug rehabilitation centre, because she quickly fell back into an even worse version of her old life when she was released on probation. She did receive some basic drug counselling while serving her sentence, but there wasn't long enough to do much more than that, she says. "I went from a domestic violence, drug-using environment which was stressful and scary into another stressful and scary place, where violence would break out around me," she says. Prison put a strain on already frayed relationships with her family and she lost access to her welfare benefits, causing problems when she was released. People are given a prison discharge grant when they are released, which amounts to £82.39 - the first thing she did with that money was go and buy heroin. This was because she says she knew she wouldn't be able to last the several days it would take to get an appointment to sort out a prescription of methadone, the legal heroin substitute doctors prescribe to ease the worst of withdrawal symptoms. Things took an even darker turn when Martha missed a probation appointment and was sent back inside for a week to serve the remainder of her sentence. The government's own analysis links prison sentences of under a year with higher levels of reoffending, when compared to types of sentences served in the community. It says prison costs £47,000 per prisoner, per year. On 7 November, a change of approach to sentencing was announced in the King's Speech. It said the government would legislate for a presumption that men and women sentenced to less than a year in prison would serve sentences in the community, to address concerns over overcrowded jails and the reoffending rate. The Prison Reform Trust welcomes the change but warns that investment in probation and community support will be "vital". It would like to see more investment in women's centres across the country, to help women address the root causes behind their crimes. These centres help women find employment and housing - and also offer mental health therapy, counselling and other support to address trauma and overcome addiction. Some of them are residential and accommodate children too. But the charity points out that a lack of adequate, secure funding can deter judges from offering non-custodial sentences. Time is available to watch on BBC iPlayer now. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson told the BBC that "custody is always a last resort for women" and the number of female prisoners has fallen since 2010. "Since 2018, we have invested around £60m into organisations that support female offenders outside of prison and have a wide-ranging programme of work alongside that to help them turn their backs on crime." "In May, we awarded 40 women's centres and charities up to £15m to run services until 2025 that support women in or at risk of contact with the criminal justice system living in the community." Meanwhile, Martha has managed to slowly regain control over her life and has been in recovery from heroin for three years. "My life is peaceful in comparison to how it was, but I still struggle and support for people like me is extremely limited," she says. She volunteers at her local drug and alcohol service to offer the kind of peer support she thinks she would have benefitted from. She also works with charity Agenda Alliance on research projects about disadvantaged women. "I was a frightened, emotionally unsupported young person who took a wrong turn in life and suffered the harshest consequences."

The impact of short prison sentences on women and their families is a central theme of the latest BBC One prison drama Time. One woman - jailed for stealing in her early 30s - says the four months she spent behind bars "totally derailed" her life.

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In a social media post she arranged to be posted after her death, Casey McIntyre, 38, asked followers to consider donating to her cause. She said she planned to pay off other people's medical debt as a way of celebrating her life. She wrote on social media: "if you're reading this I have passed away." "I loved each and every one of you with my whole heart and I promise you, I knew how deeply I was loved... to celebrate my life, I've arranged to buy up others' medical debt and then destroy the debt." She added that she was lucky to have access to high-quality medical care while battling stage four ovarian cancer and wanted others to have the same. As of Saturday, McIntyre and her family had raised over $170,000 (£136,000) for her campaign with non-profit RIP Medical Debt. The organisation pays off a dollar of medical debt for every penny that is donated, meaning McIntyre's campaign has helped erase up to $17m in unpaid medical bills. The organisation says it buys medical debt "in bundled portfolios, millions of dollars at a time at a fraction of the original cost". "On average, whatever you donate has 100x the impact," it says on its website. As many as 100 million Americans struggle with medical debt, according to estimates from health research non-profit KFF. In the social media post announcing her own death, McIntyre's family included a note that they would have a memorial service and "debt jubilee" in New York City's Prospect Park in December, where they would celebrate her life by anonymously purchasing and forgiving other's medical debt. McIntyre, a book publisher, started treatment for ovarian cancer in 2019 and passed away on Sunday. She is survived by her husband and 18-month-old daughter. According to her post, she spent the last five months of her life in hospice care with friends and family in Virginia, Rhode Island and New York, moments she called "magical". In aposton X, formerly known as Twitter, her husband Andrew Rose Gregory said: "Casey. We love you, we miss you, you are gone, you are with us, we will be looking for you everywhere <3".

A New York City woman who died of ovarian cancer has raised enough money to pay off millions of dollars in other people's medical debts.

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Supermodel Heidi Klum proved again why she is the queen of Halloween, strutting her stuff as a peacock at her annual bash in New York. Meanwhile, Dwayne Johnson donned a hilarious wig to dress as David Beckham. Here are some of the best celebrity Halloween costumes: Dwayne Johnson was not so convincing as David Beckham. Zayn Malik transformed into arch-villain Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter series. Amelia Dimoldenberg donned prosthetics to transform into Mr Bean. Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne took inspiration from Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and his partner Bianca Censori, who sparked confusion with her nude-coloured outfit and pillow in Italy. Kim Kardashian and her daughter North West teamed up for a Clueless look as Cher and Dionne. Ed Sheeran looked menacing as fellow redhead Chucky, from horror film Child's Play. Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae Hague enjoyed their daughter's first Halloween. Adele brought the gothic vibes to her Las Vegas residency by dressing as Morticia Addams. Keeping up with her sister, Kourtney Kardashian held her baby bump as she dressed as her sister Kim when she appeared at the 2013 Met Gala while pregnant. Singer Chloe Bailey came with a Game Of Thrones-inspired look, appearing as Daenerys Targaryen. Lizzo honoured the late Queen of Rock and Roll, dressing as Tina Turner. Known for her long nails, rapper Saweetie took on Edward Scissorhands. And that's it until next year, but as Mariah Carey reminded us it's now officially time for Mariah season, also known as Christmas. Sign up for our morning newsletterand get BBC News in your inbox.

Halloween has come and let's face it, it wouldn't be spooky season without celebrities doing the most to serve us looks for the occasion.

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It's of his two small girls, sitting on a bed. They're singing Happy Birthday. Raz, the eldest, with long fair hair, is just four years old. Her sister Aviv, darker and more like her dad, is only two. "They made this for my birthday in July," Yoni tells me. But four months on, the 37-year-old father and husband is home alone. Along with their mother Doron, they were captured on 7 October in Hamas's unprecedented cross border attack. They are thought to be among the youngest of the 240 hostages being held in Gaza. "They had been visiting their grandma for the holidays in Nir Oz," Yoni says. The Israeli kibbutz sits only two miles from Gaza. It was one of the communities worst affected by the attack, with one in four of those who lived there believed to have been killed or kidnapped by Hamas. Yoni was not with his family that day. He'd stayed home for work, a hundred miles away. The first confirmation his family had been abducted by Hamas came in a video, posted on TikTok from inside Gaza. Yoni shows it to me. In the five-second clip, you can see his wife Doron, still in her nightwear crammed onto a motorised cart surrounded by Hamas gunmen. Raz is there in a pink summer dress. "That's Aviv's hand," Yoni says, pointing to five tiny fingers, reaching out towards her mother. That was more than three weeks ago. Yoni has not seen or heard of his family since. Their grandma, Efrat Katz, has been found dead. Her partner, Gadi Mozes, also abducted, is missing. "The only way to describe it is hell," says Yoni. "It's the definition of hell." "How can I eat when I don't know what my family are eating? How can I sleep when I don't know if they if they are cold or too hot?" "As a father, if you ever saw your children jumping on the bed, or the sofa, you worry they will fall on their head. So, imagine how I feel in this situation. Everything is frightening to me." For now, all Yoni has are memories. And inside the family home, they are everywhere. Photographs and children's artwork on the wall. Tiny handprints in red paint. "They loved to draw. Raz did this one for me," says Yoni, pointing to a cartoon-like figure on a pin board that's meant to look like him. "She told me it's a superhero." There's the familiar toy kitchen. "They always liked to pretend to cook for me." Yoni goes on. A collection of tiny shoes is lined up in the corner amid children's books. "I had to take all the batteries out of the noisy toys," he says. "They are tiny balls of energy. With three women in the house, we had enough noise for any man," Yoni tells me managing to raise a smile. I ask him how he feels about the suffering in Gaza, now under Israeli bombardment for almost a month and where the United Nations says thousands of children have been killed or injured. "Children are children, it doesn't matter which country they are from," he says. "Children need to be off limits. I can't hate not even the children of my so-called enemies. How can you hate a child?" And what about the hostage videos that have been released by Hamas? "It was not easy to watch," Yoni replies. "They're the ones who got kidnapped. They [Hamas] are taking advantage [of] them in a cynical and the lowest way possible, in order to make some kind of psychological battle." At 37 years old, Yoni has known the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians his entire life. His parents knew it before him. But for him, 7 October is obviously the worst moment. "It's one day of Holocaust," he tells me, as he pauses to choose his words. "I know it's a harsh word. But that day was the worst that was seen in the history of the Jewish people and the Israeli people." Does he think Israel can ever get over its collective trauma? "We have no other choice. It's like my own personal case. It's either fight or be dropped," he says. "We have to recover. It will be very difficult. But I believe in the long term, our nation will recover." For now though, all Yoni can do is wait, hope and tell his family's story.

In the garden of his home in central Israel, amid the palm trees dappled in the morning sun, Yoni Asher shows me a video on his phone.

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Her baby will be almost two years old before a place becomes available - and Jasmine will miss out on the first year's worth of funded childcare for which she is eligible. Experts are warning nurseries and childminder places are becoming even harder to find for parents because of the plan to expand government-funded childcare hours for working parents in England over the next two years. BBC News analysis estimates demand is likely to rise by about 15% - equivalent to more than 100,000 additional children in full-time care. Jasmine, a primary-school teacher from a village with just one nursery, hoped to return to work in September 2024 but says she now has "no other choice" but to ask her parents for help and apply for reduced hours at work. If her application for flexible working is refused, she will have to resign from her job. "When the announcement [of the increase in funded hours] happened, I thought, 'This is brilliant timing for me and will help me get back to work,'" Jasmine says. But the situation now is making her "anxious even thinking about it". Parents of three- and four-year-olds are currently entitled to 30 hours per week of funded childcare for 38 weeks of the year (during school term time). By September 2025, that offer, sometimes known as "free" hours, will be extended to all pre-school children aged nine months to two years. The Department for Education (DfE) says childminders and nurseries have "time to prepare", because the increase in funded hours is being rolled out in stages. Thousands of parents are anxiously awaiting the expansion of funded hours, so they can increase the hours they work, according to Pregnant Then Screwed founder Joeli Brearley. But she now fears what had seemed like a positive development for parents will result in "incredibly long waiting lists and even more uncertainty". A 15% increase in childcare usage in England works out at more than four million hours a week, BBC News analysis estimates, the equivalent of more than 100,000 extra children in childcare for 40 hours a week. And this is before any parents not currently working find a job - one of the main reasons the government is taking on the cost of funding childcare. Gillian Paull, from Frontier Economics, says the increase is likely to be "challenging", as providers face financial strains and difficulty recruiting staff, "but not infeasible". "Even if there is unmet demand for places, many working parents will see substantial financial benefits from lower childcare costs," she says. "And if the expansion encourages more mothers with young children to work, it would be another small step towards greater gender equality." Scotland,WalesandNorthern Irelandalso offer some government-funded hours to working parents but different schemes are available in each nation. At Eagley School House Nurseries, in Bolton, many parents who will be eligible for the additional funded hours are already putting requests in for extra days. But with a waiting list until March 2025, the nursery is having to say no to anyone asking for additional hours - even its own staff. Sophie Eckersley, 31, who works at the nursery part-time and is taking her final university exams this year, was hoping to increase her two-year-old daughter's hours in April. Having some government-funded childcare will help a lot "especially moneywise", Sophie says, but her boss, nursery owner Julie Robinson, is finding it challenging trying to fulfil parents' requests for extra hours. "We just don't have the places," Julie says. Neil Leitch, from the Early Years Alliance, says the BBC News analysis shows the expansion is set to be "wholly undeliverable in practice". Some providers will have to limit the funded places they are able to offer and others will "opt out" completely, unless there is "adequate support, and crucially, increased funding". For the sector to expand, it also needs to overcome its biggest challenge - staffing. There were 9,800 fewer people working in childcare in 2022 than in 2019,with the number of childminders down by more than a fifth. Nursery provider Busy Bees, which looks after 40,000 children, is already training 1,300 apprentices but will need more. "We need to recruit an additional 1,500 people to meet that demand in two years' time," European Chief Executive Chris McCandless says. He welcomes the investment the government is putting forward to help parents but says it "needs to cover the cost of childcare". And parents should put their names down fast, as places "will be hard to come by in the future". Earlier this year, the charity Coram found a drop in childcare availability across England,with only half of local areas having enough available spaces for children under the age of two. Councils are in charge of monitoring whether there is enough childcare provision across their borough, as well as distributing the funding to nurseries and childminders on behalf of the government. Louise Gittins, who chairs the Local Government Association's (LGA) Children and Young People Board, says provision is already insufficient , particularly "in deprived areas and in rural areas", and is concerned "there is a relatively short amount of time" to get everything ready before the rollout. "We can't control new providers coming into areas that already have sufficient provision," she says. "And then other areas not having enough provision will create a system of inequality - and parents will be disappointed." Some fear it could also put extra pressure on parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) finding suitable places, which is already difficult. "Historically, each time such a change has been made, it has led to a decrease in provision for children with SEND," Dingley's Promise chief executive Catherine McLeod says. A DfE official said the department was delivering "the single biggest investment in childcare in England's history... backed by £8bn a year once fully rolled out". The government said it was "already investing hundreds of millions of pounds to increase hourly funding rates" and would allocate £100m in capital funding for more early-years and wraparound places and spaces, with a nationwide recruitment campaign "in the new year". About the data BBC News used data from the government's Family Resources Survey to work out eligibility based on the age of the children and whether their parents were already working and earning the equivalent of at least 16 hours a week at the national minimum wage. Then, we used thegovernment's own estimates of take-upto estimate how many more hours a week parents were likely to use once funded childcare expanded. By using the survey data, we were able to estimate usage on a child-by-child basis. We calculated the increase based on hours used, rather than the number of places, because different families will use a different amount of childcare. Are you pregnant and on a waiting list? Are you unable to increase your nursery hours for your toddler? Are you having to travel long distances for childcare? Share your experiences by [email protected]. Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways: If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of theBBC websiteto submit your question or comment or you can email us [email protected]. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.

Jasmine Johnson thought she was planning ahead when she rang her local nursery at 20 weeks pregnant to arrange a place for her baby - only to be told it was full until September 2025.

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