A day of mourning is being observed in Ukraine after one of the worst waves of Russian missile strikes in months, with at least 41 people killed and 166 injured.

The main children’s hospital in the capital Kyiv was among buildings hit in cities across the country on Monday.

Two people died when a missile flattened part of the Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital – Ukraine’s biggest paediatrics facility – and a search for survivors beneath the rubble continued into the early hours of Tuesday.

Russia denied targeting the hospital, saying it had been hit by fragments of a Ukrainian air defence missile, while Ukraine said it had found remnants of a Russian cruise missile.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack “brutal” and described his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as a “bloody criminal”.

Nato is preoparing to hold a summit later on Tuesday in Washington, where the military bloc’s response to the invasion of Ukraine will be high on the agenda.

World leaders allied to Ukraine have condemned the attack, including the new British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer.

He said “attacking innocent children” was “the most depraved of actions” and promised continued support for Kyiv after the change of government in the UK.

Calling the strikes a “horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality”, US President Joe Biden said additional support for Ukraine’s air defence systems would soon be announced.

Mr Zelensky said that Russia had launched more than 40 missiles on Monday, damaging almost 100 buildings in Kyiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

Pictures from the scene of the blast at the Kyiv hospital – which specialises in cancer treatment and organ transplants – showed children hooked up to IV drips sitting outside the damaged facility awaiting evacuation.

Rescue workers and medics dug through the rubble to look for survivors, though it was unclear how many were still trapped.

On Monday afternoon, Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 16 people, including seven children, had been injured in the hospital strike.

He said the attacks across the city were among the worst Kyiv had faced since the beginning of the war, as he ordered flags to be flown at half-mast on Tuesday and cancelled entertainment events.

Following the strike, Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina wore a black ribbon as a mark of respect when she played in the round of 16 at Wimbledon on Monday afternoon.

She fought back tears during her post-match interview, saying: “It wasn’t easy to focus today on the match.

“Since the morning it was difficult to read the news. To go on the court is extremely tough.”

The UN’s human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine has said civilian casualties have been mounting in recent months, as Russia renewed its air campaign.

A recent report said May was the deadliest month for civilian deaths in almost a year.

On Tuesday morning, the governor of the Rostov region in southern Russia said a fire had broken out at a powerplant after Ukraine launched “tens” of drones.

The White House has pushed back on questions about Joe Biden’s mental fitness, with the US president daring doubters in the party to either challenge him or unite behind his candidacy.

Mr Biden, 81, took the highly unusual step of calling in to a cable news show, saying: “I am not going anywhere.”

In a tense news conference later, the president’s spokeswoman rejected suggestions that he might be suffering from an undisclosed illness.

Questions about his mental acuity have intensified since a poor debate performance against Donald Trump on 27 June.

The scrutiny is unlikely to fade this week as he hosts a summit in Washington for leaders of Nato countries.

In Monday afternoon’s daily press conference, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre rejected speculation that Mr Biden was being treated for Parkinson’s disease, which can cause stiff movement and slurred speech.

“Has the president been treated for Parkinson’s?” she said. “No. Is he being treated for Parkinson’s? No.”

She was responding to a question about a report in the New York Times that an expert on Parkinson’s disease had visited the White House eight times since last year.

A letter released on Monday night from Mr Biden’s doctor said the specialist in question, Dr Kevin Cannard, had been neurology consultant to the White House since 2012 and helps “thousands of active-duty members assigned in support of White House operations”.

Physician to the President Dr Kevin O’Connor also said Mr Biden had not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physical, in which he is checked by specialists from a range of medical fields.

He noted that Mr Biden’s last physical, in February, was “extremely detailed” and contained “no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder”.

On Monday morning, the president called in to MSNBC’s Morning Joe programme, laying down the gauntlet to critics to “challenge me at the convention” next month, or rally behind him against Trump.

It came as he sent an open letter to congressional Democrats, saying he “wouldn’t be running again if I did not absolutely believe” that he could beat the Republican challenger in November’s election.

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Mr Biden’s letter said Democratic voters in the primaries have “spoken clearly and decisively” that he should be the party’s nominee.

“Do we now just say this process didn’t matter?” the letter said. “That the voters don’t have a say… I decline to do that. How can we stand for democracy in our nation if we ignore it in our own party? I cannot do that. I will not do that.”

Mr Biden also phoned Democratic donors on Monday. One source familiar with the call told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that the president said his strategy for the second debate against Trump in September will be “attack, attack, attack”.

Several congressional Democrats have called for Mr Biden to drop out, but late on Monday, several others rallied round the embattled president.

Left-wing New York lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters: “The matter is closed. Joe Biden is our nominee.

“He is not leaving this race. He is in this race and I support him.”

Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Maxine Waters of California, and Frank Pallone of New Jersey echoed that support for Mr Biden.

Earlier in the day, Adam Smith of Washington state became the sixth member of Congress to publicly urge Mr Biden to quit.

“We need a stronger messenger,” he told the BBC, as he panned Mr Biden’s debate performance.

“The president was completely incapable of doing something that any sort of relatively novice debater should have been able to do, and it hasn’t gotten better since then,” he added.

On Sunday, the Democratic minority leader in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, held a group call in which several congressmen were explicit in urging Mr Biden to step aside, according to US news outlets.

They reportedly included Jerry Nadler of New York, Mark Takano of California, Joe Morelle of New York and Jim Himes of Connecticut.

Last week, Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first Democrat in Congress to urge Mr Biden to step aside.

Trump, 78, has ridiculed Mr Biden over the debate, last week labelling his rival “broken-down”. Biden allies have expressed exasperation about the media criticism he is facing, while his Republican challenger was recently convicted in a New York hush-money case.

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Amid mounting speculation over Mr Biden’s candidacy in November, the thoughts of some Democrats have turned to who could replace him.

Some party members have rallied around Vice-President Kamala Harris, who is Mr Biden’s running mate in November.

Trump has suggested the vice-president would be “better” than Mr Biden, but still “pathetic”.

During a pair of interviews last week, Mr Biden acknowledged that he had “screwed up” the debate, but later vowed that only the “Lord Almighty” could convince him to end his bid to win the White House again.

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Justin Bieber has become the latest in a string of international stars to perform for the son of India’s richest man and his wife-to-be as they celebrate their upcoming wedding.

The Canadian singer flew in to perform for Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant – along with their guests – in Mumbai at the weekend.

He had a lot to live up to. The couple’s first pre-wedding party featured Rihanna, while the second – a cruise around the Mediterranean – had performances from 90s teen heartthrobs The Backstreet Boys, singer Katy Perry and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.

So it is with bated breath that Ambani wedding-watchers – of whom there are now legions around the globe – await news of who will perform at the actual wedding itself this weekend.

Rumours swirling on the internet suggest it could be Adele, but the family are remaining tight-lipped.

No expense is being spared on the wedding of Mukesh Ambani’s youngest son, putting it in a different league from even the most extravagant of Indian weddings. It outshines even his daughter’s nuptials, which featured a headline-grabbing performance by Beyoncé.

Last weekend Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant celebrated their sangeet ceremony – a night of music and dance ahead of the wedding ceremony. In typical style, the Ambanis went above and beyond what would usually be expected by guests.

It saw Mukesh Ambani, the head of Reliance Industries, with an estimated net worth of $115bn, according to Forbes, and the rest of the family take to the stage in their own choreographed dance to Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan’s hit song, Deewangi Deewangi.

It was also another chance for wedding-watchers to pore over the outfits worn by the guests – which included some of India’s most glamorous stars wearing dresses by the country’s top fashion designers.

It seems as much as the pre-wedding events have been concerts, they have also become catwalks, with stars sharing professional shots on their social media accounts ahead of the parties.

The cost of the three parties to date is not known. It was rumoured Rihanna had been paid $7m (£5.5m) for her performance, while the figure suggested for Justin Bieber is said to be $10m.

Exactly what the weekend’s three-day event holds remains to be seen. For some in India, it will come as a relief that the wedding and its extravagance is over, while those in Mumbai will be hoping it does not make the city’s famously bad traffic any worse.

Radhika was keeping her cards close to her chest when she told Vogue US last month that planning was “going great”, adding: “I’m very excited to be married.”

Logan LaFarniere woke up one October morning in 2022 to an empty driveway.

His brand new Ram Rebel truck, which he’d bought a year and a half ago, was missing. His security camera captured two hooded men breaking into the pickup in the dead of night outside of his Milton, Ontario home, and driving it away with ease.

A few months later, that very same truck appeared on a website of vehicles for sale in Ghana, an ocean and some 8,500km away.

“The dead giveaway was the laptop holder that we had installed in the back of the driver’s seat for my son, and in it was garbage that he had put in there,” Mr LaFerniere told the BBC.

That same clutter was visible in photos of the car listing, he said.

“There was no doubt in my mind that it was my vehicle.”

Mr LaFarniere’s story is hardly unique. In 2022, more than 105,000 cars were stolen in Canada – about five cars per minute. Among the victims was Canada’s very own federal justice minister, whose government-issued Toyota Highlander XLE was taken twice by thieves.

Early this summer, Interpol listed Canada among the top 10 worst countries for car thefts out of 137 in its database – a “remarkable” feat, said a spokesperson, considering the country only began integrating their data with the international police organisation in February.

Authorities say once these cars are stolen, they are either used to carry out other violent crimes, sold domestically to other unsuspecting Canadians, or shipped overseas to be resold.

Interpol says it has detected more than 1,500 cars around the world that have been stolen from Canada since February, and around 200 more continue to be identified each week, usually at ports in other countries.

Car theft is such an epidemic that it was declared a “national crisis” by the Insurance Bureau of Canada, which says insurers have had to pay out more than C$1.5bn ($1bn; £860m) in vehicle theft claims last year.

The problem has forced police jurisdictions across the country to issue public bulletins on how to protect vehicles from theft.

Meanwhile, some Canadians have taken matters into their own hands, doing everything from installing trackers on their cars to hiring private neighbourhood security.

Some who can afford it have even installed retractable bollards in their driveways – similar to those seen at banks and embassies – to try and deter thieves.

Nauman Khan, who lives in Mississauga, a city just outside Toronto, started a bollard-installation business after he and his brother were both victims of car thefts.

In one attempt, Mr Khan said the thieves broke into his home while his wife and young children were sleeping. They were looking for the keys to his Mercedes GLE parked out front, he said, but ran after he confronted them.

After that “traumatic” experience, they sold their cars except for two “humble” family vehicles.

Through his business, Mr Khan said he now hears similar stories from people throughout the region of Toronto.

“It’s been very busy,” he said. “We had one client whose street had so many home invasions that he’d hired a security guard every night outside his house because he just didn’t feel safe.”

The pervasiveness of car thefts in Canada is surprising given how small the country’s population is compared to the US and the UK – other countries with high rates of such crime, says Alexis Piquero, Director of the US Bureau of Justice Statistics.

“(Canada) also doesn’t have as many port cities as the US does,” said Mr Piquero.

While the US, Canada and the UK have all experienced a spike in car thefts since the Covid-19 pandemic, Canada’s rate of thefts (262.5 per 100,000 people) is higher than that of England and Wales (220 per 100,000 people), according to the latest available data from each country.

It is also fairly close to that of the US, which sits at around 300 vehicle thefts per 100,000 people, based on 2022 data.

The rise in recent years is partly due to a pandemic-driven global car shortage that has increased demand for both used and new vehicles.

There is also a growing market for certain car models internationally, making auto theft a top revenue generator for organised crime groups, said Elliott Silverstein, director of government relations at the Canadian Automobile Association.

But Mr Silverstein said the way that Canada’s ports operate make them more vulnerable to this type of theft than other countries.

“In the port system, there’s a greater focus on what is coming into the country than what is exiting the country,” he said, adding that once the vehicles are packed up in shipping containers at a port it becomes harder to get to them.

Police have managed to recover some stolen cars.

In October, the Toronto Police Service announced an 11-month investigation that recovered 1,080 vehicles worth around C$60m. More than 550 charges were laid as a result.

And between mid-December and the end of March, border and police officers found nearly 600 stolen vehicles at the Port of Montreal after inspecting 400 shipping containers.

These types of operations, however, can be difficult to carry out given the volume of merchandise that moves through that port, experts have said. Around 1.7 million containers moved through the Port of Montreal in 2023 alone.

Port staff also do not have the authority to inspect containers in most cases, and in customs-controlled areas only border officers can open a container without a warrant.

At the same time, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has been grappling with chronic understaffing, according to a report submitted by its union to the government in April.

Outdated technology is also an issue.

Patrick Brown, the mayor of Brampton – another Ontario city hard-hit by car thefts – recently paid a visit to the Port Newark Container Terminal in New Jersey to compare inspection tactics between the US and Canada.

He told the National Post newspaper that US authorities have “got scanners. They measure density. They work closely with local law enforcement”.

“These are things that we don’t do in Canada,” he said.

In May, the Canadian government said it would invest millions to bolster the CBSA’s ability to search shipping containers. Police will also get additional money to combat auto theft in their communities.

But Mr Silverstein said he believes a missing puzzle piece is auto manufacturers themselves.

“Everyone is talking about trying to recover vehicles, and a lot of my focus has been on why we are not making the vehicles tougher to steal in the first place,” he said.

In the meantime, car owners like Mr LaFarniere are still grappling with what to do to keep their vehicles safe.

After his Ram Rebel truck was stolen, he replaced it with a Toyota Tundra – a vehicle that Mr LaFarniere described as his “dream truck”.

This time, he installed an engine immobiliser on it to prevent thieves from being able to easily start the car. He also equipped it with a tag tracker in case it did get stolen, and added a club on the steering wheel for good measure.

Thieves were undeterred. A pair came to Mr LaFarniere’s driveway, this time to steal the Tundra. They had a harder time, however, and resorted to shattering the back window to get inside.

The commotion woke Mr LaFarniere and he called 911. But the thieves managed to run away in the four minutes it took for police to arrive.

He paid to repair his brand new truck and then sold it.

The whole ordeal, he said, was nothing short of “disheartening”.

China’s biggest electric car maker BYD has agreed a $1bn (£780m) deal to build a manufacturing plant in Turkey, as it continues to expand outside its home country.

The new plant will be capable of making up to 150,000 vehicles a year, according to Turkish state news agency Anadolu.

The facility is expected to start production by the end of 2026 and create around 5,000 jobs.

The deal was signed at an event in Istanbul attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and BYD’s chief executive Wang Chuanfu.

BYD did not immediately respond to a BBC request for further details on the deal.

The announcement comes as Chinese EV makers face increasing pressure in the European Union and the US.

Last week, the EU took action to protect the bloc’s motor industry by raising tariffs on Chinese EVs.

The decision saw BYD hit with an extra tariff of 17.4% on the vehicles it ships from China to the EU, which was on top of a 10% import duty.

Turkey is part of the EU’s Customs Union, which means vehicles made in the country and exported to the bloc can avoid the additional tariff.

The Turkish government has also taken action to support the country’s car makers by putting an extra 40% tariff on imports of Chinese vehicles.

In May, US President Joe Biden ramped up tariffs on Chinese-made electric cars, solar panels, steel and other goods.

The White House said the measures, which include a 100% border tax on electric cars from China, were a response to unfair policies and intended to protect US jobs.

BYD, which is backed by veteran US investor Warren Buffett, is the world’s second-largest EV company after Elon Musk’s Tesla.

The company has been rapidly expanding its production facilities outside China.

At the end of last year, BYD announced that it would build a manufacturing plant in EU member state Hungary.

It will be the firm’s first passenger car factory in Europe and is expected to create thousands of jobs.

On Thursday, BYD opened an EV plant in Thailand – its first factory in South East Asia.

BYD said the plant will have an annual capacity of 150,000 vehicles and is projected to generate 10,000 jobs.

The company has also said it is planning to build a manufacturing plant in Mexico.

Over a year after protests against sexual harassment allegations shook Indian wrestling, female athletes are gearing up for major events, including the 2024 Paris Olympics. The BBC spoke to young wrestlers about their journey.

Reetika Hooda almost didn’t make it.

The 23-year-old is among the five Indian women wrestlers to qualify for the Olympics this year.

It’s a hard-won opportunity, following a year of setbacks that shook her confidence. She knew she needed more training and competitions to improve her game.

A year ago, all wrestling came to a halt in India after its federation chief Brij Bhushan Singh was accused of sexual misconduct. He denies the allegations.

India’s sports ministry did not sack Singh but it disbanded the federation after finding several lapses, including the non-compliance of sexual harassment laws, and set up a temporary team to run things.

It was an unprecedented time. Hooda remembers watching the country’s most accomplished wrestlers, including her inspiration Sakshi Malik – the only Indian woman to win an Olympic medal in wrestling – camp on the roads of Delhi, demanding Singh’s resignation.

The protest made headlines globally, especially after the police detained the wrestlers when they tried to march to India’s new parliament building. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) condemned the way the wrestlers were treated and called for an impartial inquiry into their complaints.

“It was sad – not only because of what was happening but also what wasn’t,” Hooda told me.

Each year, the International Olympic Committee designates certain tournaments as qualification events for the games. To compete, wrestlers must earn ranking points in trials, win national competitions, and secure the Wrestling Federation of India’s (WFI) approval.

But instead of competing, Hooda stared at an empty sporting calendar for weeks.

“We trained but there were no trials, which meant we could not compete and know our shortcomings. There was a constant fear that we won’t be prepared [for the Olympics],” she said.

For a country that’s won only 24 medals at individual events in Olympics, with over a quarter in wrestling, this was worrying.

Fresh elections to the WFI were finally held in December 2023, nearly a year after the protests began.

The wrestlers had asked India’s sports minister to prevent people associated with Singh from participating in the election.

Singh did not contest as he had already served the maximum of three terms. But his close aide Sanjay Singh was elected the chief after a landslide victory.

This sparked outrage among women wrestlers. On the same day, Olympic medallist Malik quit the sport in protest.

“Even now I get emotional when I think of that moment,” Malik said. “Wrestling took me to such heights, got me love and respect, and I had to give it up.”

Young wrestlers were stunned by Malik’s decision – but soon, they were back on the mat.

“Sakshi Malik was the reason I took up wrestling,” said Tanu Malik, a 20-year-old wrestler in Haryana state.

“So when I saw her crying, I thought to myself, she fought for us, we can’t give up now.”

From that day, Tanu Malik decided to work harder.

Her training at the state’s all-women Yudhvir Wrestling Academy starts at 04:30.

The day starts with a rigorous five-hour fitness session, lifting large truck tyres and practicing wrestling techniques. After a break for food and rest, the women resume training for another five hours in the afternoon.

Girls as young as 12 years sweat it out on the mat. In their free time, they talk about diets and share recipes that would help them stay fit.

None of them want to talk about the alleged sexual harassment at academies or the accusations against the former wrestling chief. However, they are determined not to give up.

Seema Kharab, a coach, says that contrary to expectations, the number of girls at the academy has not dropped since the protests.

“The protests have assured young wrestlers that it is possible to raise their voice, that positive action may be taken and they can get support within the system,” she says.

In June, the police charged Brij Bhushan Singh with stalking, harassment, intimidation, and making “sexually coloured remarks”, but a court granted him bail

Meanwhile, the new federation chief, Sanjay Singh, has taken on the mantle.

He acknowledged his 30-year relationship with the former chief but dismissed allegations of Brij Bhushan Singh’s interference, claiming wrestlers had accepted him as the new head.

He said this was evident from the “massive turnout” at national wrestling competitions this year.

“No-one will be favoured or discriminated against and each wrestler is dear to me. I am also the father of two daughters and I understand what daughters need,” he added.

However, for young women like Tanu Malik, fear has become an inescapable part of being in the profession.

“It’s not easy – my parents are constantly worried about sending me to training alone,” she says. “But they have to trust us, otherwise how would things work? It’s like accepting defeat without even fighting.”

Others feel deflated and say the protests have come at a huge personal cost for them.

Shiksha Kharab, a gold medallist at the Asian Championship, says it caused disruptions in training because of which young wrestlers have lost a crucial year.

But Sakshi Malik has no regrets.

“The most important thing is to fight,” she said. “I don’t think anybody in any sporting federation would dare to do anything, they now know that harassment can have repercussions.”

Hooda says she’s nervous about competing with some of the world’s biggest wrestling giants at the Games, but also looking forward to it.

“Sakshi Malik used to say victory and loss are not important – just trust your hard work. That’s what I will do,” she adds.

As she gets ready for training, a picture of Sakshi posing with her Olympic medal, beams down at her.

“My only focus now is to win a medal” she says. “Who knows, maybe one day I will have my picture next to hers.”

When Luca was born in a Perth hospital two years ago, it flipped his parents’ world in ways they never expected.

With the joy came a shocking diagnosis: Luca had cystic fibrosis. Then Australia – Laura Currie and her husband Dante’s home for eight years – said they couldn’t stay permanently. Luca, his parents were told, could be a financial burden on the country.

“I think I cried for like a week – I just feel really, really sorry for Luca,” Ms Currie says. “He’s just a defenceless two-and-a-half-year-old and doesn’t deserve to be discriminated against in that way.”

With a third of its population born abroad, Australia has long seen itself as a “migration nation” – a multicultural home for immigrants that promises them a fair go and a fresh start. The idea is baked into its identity. But the reality is often different, especially for those who have a disability or a serious medical condition.

It is one of few countries that routinely rejects immigrants’ visas on the basis of their medical needs – specifically if the cost of care exceeds A$86,000 ($57,000; £45,000) over a maximum of 10 years. New Zealand has a similar policy but Australia’s is much stricter.

The government defends the law as necessary to curb government spending and protect citizens’ access to healthcare. It says these visas aren’t technically rejected. But neither are they granted. Some can apply for a waiver, although not all visas allow it. They could also appeal the decision but the process is lengthy and expensive.

Campaigners see this as discriminatory and out of step with modern attitudes towards disability. And after years of fighting for it, they are hoping for change in the coming weeks, with an official review of the health requirements under way.

Laura Currie and Dante Vendittelli had moved from Scotland for jobs that Australia desperately needs. She is a nursery teacher and he is a painter-decorator. They had started their application for permanent residency before Luca was born. But now they feel like the life they built here and the taxes they paid meant little.

“It’s like, we’re here for you [Australia] when you need us, but when the roles are reversed and we need you, it’s like, nope, sorry, you cost too much money, you go back to your own country.”

Australia has form when it comes to its strict immigration policies. It had its own version of “stop the boats”, which sent people arriving by boat to offshore detention centres in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Island of Nauru and made controversial headlines in recent years. It was only in the 1970s that it entirely rid itself of the “White Australia” policy that started in 1901 with the Immigration Restriction Act, which limited the number of non-white immigrants.

The disability and health discriminations, which also date back to 1901, are still in place, says Jan Gothard, an immigration lawyer: “We still treat people with disability in the same way as we did in 1901 and we think they’re not people who are welcome in Australia.”

She is part of Welcoming Disability, an umbrella group that’s been pressuring the government to overhaul the law. Surprisingly, Australia’s Migration Act is exempt from its own Disability Discrimination Act.

Put simply, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve lived in Australia, if you were born in Australia, if you have private health insurance or even if you can pay for the support yourself – if you are deemed too much of a financial burden, you will fail the health requirement.

The government says that 99% of visa applicants meet the health requirement – 1,779 of them did not meet the bar between 2021 and 2022, according to official figures.

Immigration minister Andrew Giles, who declined to be interviewed, recently said that “any child born in Australia and adversely affected by the migration health rules can apply for ministerial intervention”, and that he himself had “positively intervened” in cases.

But families say that the process is gruelling at an already difficult time.

“There’s so much in your life going on when a child is sick, so much struggle and you’re struggling and begging and asking for petitions, asking people to help you,” says Mehwish Qasim, who knows the challenge first-hand. She and her husband Qasim fought to stay in Australia in a case that drew global attention.

Their son Shaffan was born in 2014 with a rare genetic condition and a damaged spinal cord. He needs around-the-clock care. The couple, originally from Pakistan, intended to return eventually, but Shaffan’s birth changed everything. Now, getting on a plane would risk his life.

Finally, in 2022 they were told they could stay. For those eight years, Qasim, a trained accountant, was unable to work in his chosen profession. Instead, he found jobs in cafes, in supermarkets and taxi apps to make ends meet.

“They should realise that’s a very difficult situation – you shouldn’t put people in the limelight,” Ms Qasim says.

Ms Currie and her husband aren’t giving up either – Australia is home now for Luca and they are filling jobs that the country needs. They’re hoping that is enough to win them their appeal. If they lose, they will have 28 days to leave the country.

For Luca, the sticking point is a pricey drug, Trikafta. He is not on it and may not even be compatible with it. But it’s the basis of Australian estimates of his treatment – around A$1.8m That puts his medical costs over the permissible limit – A$86,000 over 10 years, also known as the Significant Cost Threshold.

While campaigners have welcomed the recent rise of the threshold – from A$51,000 to A$86,000 – they still don’t think it reflects average costs.

The government’s own data shows it spends at least $17,610 per year on the average citizen – the most recent figures from 2021-2022 showing $9,365 per head on health goods and services and a further A$8,245 per person on welfare costs. Over a 10-year period – the maximum period assessed for a visa – that would amount to more than A$170,000. So campaigners have questioned how the government comes up with the threshold, which is half of that amount.

They also want the cost of educational support to be removed from the calculations. This impacts families whose children have been diagnosed with conditions such as Down Syndrome, ADHD and autism.

It’s a snag that has hit Claire Day’s plans for her and her family to follow her brother, who moved to Australia a few years ago.

Her younger daughter Darcy, who is nearly 10, has Down Syndrome. She’s been told by migration experts that because of that, she has little chance of being granted a visa.

On an overcast afternoon in Kent, she talks wistfully of the life she is looking forward to Down Under. Sunshine is no small attraction, but also “the lifestyle – [I want] a better environment for the children to grow up in,” she says.

An officer with London’s Metropolitan Police force for 21 years, she wants to take advantage of a major recruitment drive by Australian police forces. Their social media feeds are full of promotional videos fronted by former British police officers, showing them living the Australian dream, patrolling the beach in sand buggies and relaxing in the surf. They make up just some of the 30,000 British people who moved to Australia last year, according to government statistics.

Ms Day has not one, but two job offers – from Queensland’s police force and from South Australia. As part of the job, she’s also entitled to a permanent visa. Now, she is not so sure.

“I had hoped that it wouldn’t be an issue because Darcy doesn’t have any medical problems. She’s fit and she’s healthy, she goes to school and she participates in clubs and all of that sort of stuff.”

Stories like this have convinced campaigners that, at its heart, the policy is ableist.

“If we say to people with disability, ‘you’re not welcome here, we’re saying directly to people living with disability in this country, ‘you’re not welcome here either,” Dr Gothard says.

“[We’re saying] you know, given the opportunity, we would rather not have you.”

Social worker Shizleen Aishath says she was “gobsmacked” to find out about the health requirement – and she discovered it the hard way.

A former UN employee, she came to Australia for a further degree with every intention of returning to the Maldives. But she had an emergency C-section when her son Kayban was born in 2016. Forceps were used during the delivery. Kayban had undiagnosed haemophilia and suffered a serious brain bleed. He now needs round-the-clock care and the family chose to stay in Australia.

But Kayban was refused a temporary visa because he was deemed too much of a burden – although the family have private health insurance and don’t use state resources. The rest of the family were granted their visas.

“Disability is the only thing that stops you from migrating, there is nothing else,” Ms Aishath says.

After a lengthy appeal, Kayban was allowed to remain. His family is now preparing for their next fight – to stay in Australia indefinitely.

On Saturday afternoon, US Vice-President Kamala Harris sat on stage at a black cultural festival in New Orleans, talking about her life story and what she felt she had achieved in the White House.

It was the kind of event that the first female, black and South Asian American vice-president has regularly attended throughout her three-and-a-half years as Joe Biden’s deputy, usually trailed by a small press pack dwarfed by that which follows the president himself.

But as panicked Democrats a thousand miles away in Washington weighed replacing 81-year-old Joe Biden as the party’s candidate for November’s election following his woeful and sometimes incomprehensible debate performance against Donald Trump, the number of reporters trailing Ms Harris had swelled to dozens.

On stage and through her travels this weekend, the vice-president did not address swirling questions about Mr Biden’s fitness for office and whether he should withdraw and hand the baton to her.

But in discussing ambition and how to forge your own path with her audience in New Orleans, she encouraged the crowd not to listen to naysayers.

“People in your life will tell you, though, it’s not your time. It’s not your turn. Nobody like you has done it before,” she said. “Don’t you ever listen to that.”

Since the disastrous CNN debate on 27 June, she has repeatedly defended her boss, arguing that his record as president shouldn’t be outweighed by 90 minutes on a debate stage. Mr Biden himself has struck a defiant tone and fiercely insisted that he will remain the nominee.

Yet as calls grow louder for the president to step aside, some high-profile Democrats are unifying behind 59-year-old Ms Harris as the natural candidate to replace him.

On Sunday, congressman Adam Schiff of California told NBC’s Meet The Press that either Mr Biden had to be able to “win overwhelmingly or he has to pass the torch to someone who can”. Kamala Harris, he added, could “very well win overwhelmingly” against Trump.

That’s a proposition that has raised eyebrows among some Democrats, including Biden allies, who see in Ms Harris a vice-president who failed in her bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination before the first ballot was even cast and who has struggled with an uneven record and low approval ratings throughout her time in the White House.

Against that, senior Democratic lawmakers like Mr Schiff and South Carolina congressman Jim Clyburn have been floating Ms Harris as the obvious successor should Mr Biden ultimately bow to party pressure.

Supporters point to a handful of polls that suggest she would perform better than the president in a hypothetical match-up against Donald Trump, and they argue she has the national profile, campaign infrastructure and appeal to younger voters that could make the transition seamless four months before election day.

An elevation to the top of the ticket would be a remarkable turnaround for a woman not long ago seen as a political weakness by senior figures in the Biden White House. Even Mr Biden himself reportedly described her as a “work in progress” during their first months in office.

But Jamal Simmons, a longtime Democratic strategist and Harris’s former communications director, said she had long been underestimated.

“Whether she’s a partner to the president or she has to lead the ticket, she is somebody who Republicans and the Trump campaign need to take seriously,” Mr Simmons told the BBC.

Since the debate and its fall-out, Ms Harris has altered her schedule to stick close to the president. She appeared at a heavily-scrutinised meeting last Wednesday where Mr Biden sought to reassure powerful Democratic governors about his fitness for office.

And a day later, on the Fourth of July – America’s Independence Day – she abandoned her usual tradition of grilling hotdogs for firefighters and Secret Service agents at her Los Angeles home to be by Mr Biden’s side at the White House celebrations.

The former top prosecutor has focused on criticising Trump in public appearances since the debate, pressing the case as to why voters should believe he is a threat to democracy and women’s rights. At the same time, she has offered nothing but steadfast support for Mr Biden.

Vice-presidents always need to strike a delicate balancing act between ambition and loyalty, but Ms Harris knows that this is not a moment where she can show any daylight between her and the president.

Kamala Harris is, however, far from the only alternative to Mr Biden being discussed. The list of potential Biden replacements ranges from a cadre of popular governors – Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gavin Newsom of California, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro and Illinois’ JB Pritzker – to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and California congressman Ro Khanna.

Ms Harris and her staff have refused to engage in public speculation. But her team is keenly aware of the behind-the-scenes conversations taking place as some party members coalesce behind her.

A memo circulated online, purportedly written by Democratic operatives, laid out a detailed argument to promote Ms Harris despite her “real political weaknesses”.

Trying to choose anyone other than her would thrown the campaign into disarray and keep “Democratic bickering” in the media spotlight for months, it argues.

If Mr Biden were to give up the nomination, the idea of the Democrats passing over Ms Harris in favour of another candidate appalls many on the left of the party and in its powerful black caucus.

In that situation, “this party should not in any way do anything to work around Ms Harris”, Mr Clyburn, one of the most prominent black lawmakers in Congress, told MSNBC last week.

Republicans, too, have acknowledged Ms Harris would be the frontrunner to replace Mr Biden.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina warned on Sunday that Republicans must be ready for a “dramatically different race” should Ms Harris – whom he described as a “vigorous” candidate – become the nominee.

Mr Graham emphasised her progressive California brand, suggesting she was closer in policy terms to left-wing firebrand Bernie Sanders than Joe Biden, in what appeared to be a glimpse of a Republican attack line should she become the candidate.

For his part, Donald Trump has called her “pathetic” in the days since the debate.

But ultimately the only question that matters for many Democrats – including deep-pocketed donors – is if she has a better chance of beating Trump than Joe Biden does. And that is deeply uncertain.

Harris backers point to a recent CNN poll suggesting she would fare better than the president against Trump in November. In a head-to-head contest, Ms Harris trailed the Republican by only two points, while Mr Biden lagged six points behind him. The poll also suggested Ms Harris performed better than Mr Biden with independent voters and women.

But many polling experts dismiss such hypothetical surveys, noting voter sentiment would change if Mr Biden actually decided to step aside and the Democrats entertained other potential candidates.

One Democratic pollster close to the Biden campaign acknowledged that Ms Harris may have more potential to expand the party’s voter base than the president, but was sceptical about how much of a difference she would make. Surveys pitting her against Trump at this stage “don’t mean anything”, said the person, who requested anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Ms Harris, the child of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, performs better in surveys than Mr Biden with black, Latino and young voters – critical constituencies that allies say she could energise as the nominee.

But whether she would actually boost turnout among younger voters of colour is another uncertain question. “This is just a wait and see moment,” the pollster said.

Some in the party are also asking whether Ms Harris’ progressive reputation risks losing the union and blue-collar voters in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that Mr Biden narrowly won in 2020 and which both parties need to secure a win in November.

Should she take over the ticket, some Democrats have suggested that Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania or Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina could be picked as running mate to capture centrist voters in Midwestern states.

Given the ages of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, voters are paying far more attention to the VP candidate of both parties in this election cycle, said Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster who worked for the 2020 Biden campaign.

On the Republican side, Trump has yet to announce his running mate, although many speculate he’ll pick North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum or Ohio Senator JD Vance.

Deep concerns among some Democrats about Harris’s strength as a presidential candidate date back to her unsuccesful 2020 bid for the party’s nomination, in which she landed blows on Mr Biden in an early debate but then crashed out before the first caucuses in Iowa.

Critics said she struggled to define herself as a candidate, a sentiment that has lingered throughout her tenure as vice-president. She had a shaky start in the White House, marked by high-profile interview slip-ups, low approval ratings and staff turnover.

She was also tasked with overseeing the administration’s strategy to reduce migration over the US southern border, which increased to record levels over the last three years and remains a major vulnerability for the campaign.

Those early stumbles led Ms Harris to be more cautious about her public appearances but many voters perceive her as ineffective and absent. “People need to know more about her, what economic issues she is strong on and they need to be reminded of the role she’s played,” Ms Lake said.

Over the last year, Ms Harris has found stable footing as the administration’s leading voice on abortion rights, an issue that proved successful for Democrats during the 2022 midterm elections and one the party hopes will win back more voters in November.

As a former prosecutor who handled sexual violence cases, she has invoked personal stories of working with women who miscarried in the bathroom or were turned away at hospitals as she’s tried to mobilise voters around the issue.

On the campaign trail, she has also sought to capitalise on other issues that resonate with young voters, including student debt forgiveness, climate change and gun violence. The White House, too, has made a concerted effort to promote her more forcefully.

Still, she faces an uphill battle to change longstanding voter scepticism – her approval ratings hover around 37% in polling averages compiled by FiveThirtyEight – a level similar to both Mr Biden and Trump.

And unless Mr Biden himself caves to the mounting party pressure to step down, grassroots Democratic supporters themselves seem resigned to supporting the current ticket.

At the Essence festival in New Orleans, Iam Christian Tucker, a 41-year-old small business owner from New Orleans, said she didn’t care, ultimately, who the nominee was.

She said she liked Kamala Harris, but she wasn’t sure if a black female president could win election.

“I’m voting against Donald Trump more than anything,” she told the BBC.

Greg Hovel, 67, who attended a rally for President Biden in Madison, Wisconsin, last week, said he supported Ms Harris in the 2020 primary and “has always been a fan,” though he cautioned there is “a lot of anti-woman sentiment in this country.”

“I think she would make an excellent president,” Mr Hovel said. “But I still think Biden can win.”

A Russian playwright and a theatre director have been found guilty of “justifying terrorism” by a military court in Moscow.

Director Yevgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petrichuk were sentenced to six years each for the production of their play The Brave Falcon Finist.

Loosely based on true events, the play tells the story of Russian women who travelled to Syria during the country’s civil war to marry members of the Islamic State group.

The two women’s defence lawyer vowed to appeal against the verdict.

Held partly behind closed doors, the trial heightened alarm about freedom of expression in Russia among members of the country’s artistic community.

In addition to being jailed, both women will be banned from “administering websites” for three years after their release.

In custody since May 2023, they will now be sent to a penal colony to serve their sentences, according to Russian news agency RBC.

The prosecution said the women had formed a positive opinion of IS and prosecutor Yekaterina Denisova argued the play contained “signs of justification of terrorism”, according to RBC.

At the beginning of the trial in late May, Berkovich, 39, and Petrichuk, 44, said they had staged the play because they opposed terrorism.

Berkovich said the performance had been put on to “prevent terrorism”, adding she had “nothing but condemnation and disgust” for terrorists.

“I have absolutely no idea what this selection of words has to do with me… I have never shared any forms of Islam, radical or otherwise,” RBC quoted Berkovich as saying.

Both she and Petriychuk maintained their innocence throughout the trial.

Speaking after the women had been sentenced, defence lawyer Ksenia Karpinskaya described the hearing as “absolutely illegal” and “unfair” and pledged to appeal against it thoughthere was “little hope”.

“I want you to know that these girls are absolutely innocent,” the lawyer added.

Supporters of Berkovich have suggested her prosecution was linked to a series of poems she wrote criticising Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine.

Russia’s artistic community has come under increasing pressure from the Kremlin since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Several high-profile Russian artists, writers and journalists have come out in support of the women, including newspaper editor Dmitry Muratov and actress Yulia Peresild.

The play, which remiered in 2020, won two Golden Mask Theatre Awards for best playwright and best costumes.

In recent months, Russia has been subjected to deadly attacks by Islamist militants in both Moscow and Dagestan. The Kremlin has made unsubstantiated suggestions that Ukraine was involved in both incidents.

A court in Kenya has awarded 10m shillings ($78,000; £61,000) in compensation to the widow of a prominent Pakistani journalist who was shot dead by police at a roadblock nearly two years ago.

Arshad Sharif was a TV anchor known for his robust criticism of Pakistan’s powerful military leaders and corruption in politics.

The father-of-five received death threats that he flagged to Pakistan’s top judge, before fleeing his home country to seek safety abroad.

Sharif’s killing two months later at the hands of police in the Kenyan town of Kajiado caused outrage, and the slow response by officials prompted UN experts to criticise both Kenya and Pakistan.

Kenya’s police had argued it was a case of mistaken identity but Sharif’s widow, Javeria Siddique, said it was a contract killing carried out on behalf of an unnamed individual in Pakistan.

On Monday, the Kajiado High Court rejected ruled that the Kenyan authorities had acted unlawfully and violated Sharif’s right to life. It duly awarded Ms Siddique compensation plus interest until payment in full.

“Loss of life cannot be compensated in monetary terms nor is the pain and suffering the family must have gone through. But there’s consensus that compensation is appropriate remedy for redress in violation of fundamental rights,” said Justice Stella Mutuku as she delivered the verdict.

The judge also ruled that Kenya’s director of public prosecutions and the independent policing oversight authority had violated Sharif’s rights by failing to prosecute the two police officers involved. The court has ordered both bodies to conclude investigations and charge the officers.

Reacting to the ruling, the lawyer representing Sharif’s widow, Ochiel Dudley, said “this is a win for the family and a win for Kenyans in their quest for police accountability”.

Sharif’s widow, Ms Siddique, expressed her gratitude to the Kenyan judiciary but added that her work was far from done.

“This ruling has come as a relief to me and my family, but I will not relent in getting maximum justice for my husband,” she said.

The BBC has asked the Kenyan authorities for their response to the ruling.

The police had given conflicting police accounts of Sharif’s death.

One account claimed the 49-year-old was travelling in a Toyota Land Cruiser which officers mistook for a similar vehicle that had been reported stolen.

In another version of events, police claimed that one of the car passengers had opened fire and then officers responded by shooting back.

Like her late husband, Ms Siddique is a journalist, and filed the lawsuit alongside the Kenya Union of Journalists and Kenya Correspondents Association last October.

She and her co-petitioners were seeking transparency, an apology, and accountability from the Kenyan authorities for what they called Sharif’s “targeted assassination”.

She told the BBC she was still unable to get justice for her husband in Pakistan, but would continue to campaign for the protection of journalists and would seek the help of the UN and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

• Why two Indians disappeared on a July night in Kenya
• Inside the world of Kenya’s ‘killer cop’
• ‘I was shot by rebels’ – the dangers of reporting

More than 130 wild animals, including at least six rare rhinos, have died in flooding at a national park in north-eastern India, officials say.

The Kaziranga National Park in Assam is experiencing its worst deluge in recent years.

The dead animals – many of whom died by drowning – include 117 hog deer, two sambar deer, a rhesus macaque and an otter.

In 2017, more than 350 animals died due to floods in the park and vehicle collisions during migration through animal corridors to the highlands.

Officials say they have rescued 97 animals from flood waters – 25 of them are receiving medical care while 52 others have been released after treatment.

Kaziranga is home to the world’s largest population of one-horned rhinos, which were nearly extinct at the turn of the century. It’s a Unesco World Heritage site, with over 2,400 one-horned rhinos.

The park is also a tiger reserve and home to elephants, wild water buffalo and numerous bird species. The endangered South Asian dolphins are also found in the rivers that criss-cross the park.

Last week, an 18-month-old rhino calf took shelter at a house in a village near the park and was rescued by the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation, the Press Trust of India reported.

Assam has been devastated by floods due to torrential rains, with major rivers in the state flowing above the danger level.

This year’s rains have inundated large parts of the park and submerged thousands of villages. More than 60 people have been killed and over two million people displaced in the deluge.

There has been extensive damage to roads and other infrastructure, as well as loss of crops and livestock.

Officials have warned of even more rain with water levels in the Brahmaputra river, which runs through the state, expected to increase in the coming days.

Across Assam, hundreds of relief camps have been set up to shelter the displaced.

Flooding and landslides are a common occurrence during the monsoon in north-eastern India and neighbouring countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron has asked his prime minister, Gabriel Attal, to remain in post “for the time being to ensure the country’s stability”, after election results left no party with an outright majority.

Mr Attal, who led the president’s Ensemble alliance’s election campaign, handed his resignation to Mr Macron on Monday, only for the president to refuse.

Although Ensemble lost many of its seats in Sunday’s parliament election, it came second, behind a left-wing alliance but ahead of the far right which had been expected to win.

The unexpected result leaves French politics in deadlock, with no party able to form a government by itself.

The New Popular Front, a left-wing alliance cobbled together after Mr Macron called the elections, argues that as the leading group in the next National Assembly it has earned the right to choose a prime minister.

They were due to meet on Monday to consider who to propose for the job, but there is no obvious candidate who would satisfy the radical France Unbowed (LFI) party as well as the more moderate Socialists, Greens and Communists.

Mr Attal had announced he would resign on Sunday night, but left open the possibility of remaining in the job as long as duty required him to do so.

It had been widely expected that his resignation would be rejected when he visited the Élysée Palace on Monday morning.

President Macron is due to fly to the US on Tuesday for a Nato summit and Paris is hosting the Olympic Games from 26 July.

While it is not yet clear how long he needs Mr Attal to stay in office, the president made it clear that France now needed a period of calm.

Outgoing Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire warned on Monday that the country was facing an immediate risk of financial crisis and economic decline.

Since the results came out, Mr Macron has sought to steer clear of the political fray. A statement on Sunday night said that while he would respect the “choice of the French people”, he was waiting for the full picture to emerge in parliament before taking the next, necessary decisions.

The National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella had been widely expected to win the election, after taking a strong lead in Sunday’s first round.

But even though their vote held up, with more than 10 million people backing RN and a group of conservative allies, they failed to come anywhere near the number of seats suggested by opinion polls,

They ended up with 143 seats, when they had set themselves the ambition of reaching an absolute majority of 289 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly.

The party’s two leaders had bitterly accused the left and centrist blocs of stitching up the vote, with more than 200 candidates dropping out to give a rival candidate a chance of defeating RN.

But by Monday, Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella were trying to look ahead.

“In just two years, progress has been incredible and makes victory for us inevitable in the short term,” said Ms Le Pen, thanking the 10 million voters who backed RN and its allies. “The number one party for numbers of votes and MPs.”

Mr Bardella was determined to focus on his future role in the European Parliament.

He is now going to lead a new grouping the European Parliament called Patriots for Europe, formed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Hungary has taken over the presidency of the EU this month, and already Mr Orban has angered several of his European counterparts by becoming the first EU leader to visit Russia’s Vladimir Putin in more than two years.

President Macron had called France’s snap parliamentary vote in response to RN’s victory in EU elections only a month ago.

The leader of France’s far-right National Rally (RN), Jordan Bardella, will head a new right-wing grouping in the European Parliament, Patriots for Europe.

The announcement came the day after Mr Bardella’s party lost the second round of France’s snap legislative election.

In a post-election speech on Sunday night, Mr Bardella announced that the RN’s members of the European Parliament (MEPs) would join a “large group” that would influence the “balance of power in Europe, rejecting the flood of migrants, punitive ecology, and the seizing of our sovereignty”.

On Monday Mr Bardella said Patriots for Europe represented “hope for the tens of millions of citizens in the European nations who value their identity, their sovereignty and their freedom”.

He also vowed to “work together in order to retake our institutions and reorient policies to serve our nations and peoples”.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Herbert Kickl of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and Andrej Babis, the leader of the populist Czech ANO, announced the launch of the Patriots for Europe alliance last month.

Mr Orban said they had signed a “patriotic manifesto”, promising “peace, security and development” instead of the “war, migration and stagnation” brought by the “Brussels elite”.

Within a week, parties from the right wing and far-right in 12 European countries said they would join the grouping, including the Portuguese Chega, Spain’s Vox, the Dutch PVV of Geert Wilders, the Danish Peoples Party, and Vlaams Belang from Belgium.

On Monday morning, the RN and Italy’s right-wing populist League party joined too, bringing the group’s total members to 84.

Most of these parties used to belong to the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, which will now likely cease to exist.

With 30 MEPs, Mr Bardella’s RN contingent will be the largest in the Patriots grouping.

The alliance is now the third-largest in the European Parliament, after the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the centre-left Socialists & Democrats (S&D).

Notably absent from the Patriots for Europe grouping are Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, which belongs to the European Conservatives and Reformists alliance, and the German Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD), which has been politically homeless following a string of scandals earlier this year.

Belgium’s far-right Vlaams Belang party chairman Tom Van Grieken said the “right-wing, patriotic and nationalist parties” that make up the Patriots alliance have “more in common than what divides us”.

However, the parties do differ in some key areas – notably on their stance on Nato and on the EU’s support for Ukraine.

European elections were held on 9 June and resulted in gains for far-right and nationalist parties, although the centre-right also performed well, holding its position as the largest grouping and managing to gain seats.

The RN was one of success stories of the night. It won more than 30% of the vote, double that of French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party.

This spurred Mr Macron to call snap parliamentary elections. While the RN came out on top in the first round on 30 June, it lost to a left-wing coalition and to Mr Macron’s own Ensemble alliance in the second round, which took place on 7 July.

A left-wing coalition that was formed less than a month ago has won a shock victory at the second round of France’s snap parliamentary election.

The New Popular Front (NPF) is a broad church of centre-left and left-wing parties ranging from the Socialists to the Greens, the Communists and the radical left France Unbowed (LFI).

Although these parties have criticised one another in the past and have some key differences in their ideology and approach, they decided to form a bloc to keep the far right out of government when President Emmanuel Macron called an election on 9 June.

The tactic worked. Against every expectation, on Sunday the New Popular Front (NFP) won a total of 182 seats, ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble alliance.

The far-right National Rally, which had come out top in round one a week ago, fell to third place.

The NFP managed such a remarkable comeback thanks to a concerted effort by left wing and centrist parties, which saw candidates withdraw from three-way races in order to concentrate the anti-RN vote. This occurred in around 200 constituencies and changed the outcome of the election.

The NFP only arose out of genuine fear by leftist parties that the RN was about to seize power.

Now that scenario has been avoided, the members of the NFP need to find ways to work together in the National Assembly – and rallying together to stop the far right from winning a majority may turn out to have been the easy part.

Cracks began to show shortly after the exit polls were published on Sunday night.

Although NFP party leaders acknowledged the outcome was the result of a joint effort, they each celebrated the result on their own, and some crucial differences in how to approach the post-election phase are already starting to emerge.

Because the NFP did not win an outright majority, some on the left are saying their bloc will have to find support from other parties, like President Macron’s Ensemble alliance.

Raphaël Glucksmann, a centre-left politician who is a rising star within the Socialist Party, has already said opponents will have to come together and make deals, as they do elsewhere in Europe.

Francois Hollande, the former Socialist president of France who has now been elected as an MP, has said the NFP would have to “try, if possible” to form alliances with other groups – although he acknowledged this would be very difficult.

But Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the radical left firebrand leader of France Unbowed (LFI), has ruled out working with President Macron’s camp and has instead called for the NFP to be given the chance to name its own prime minister and to govern on its own.

Shortly after they formed a coalition, the NFP put out a programme that included a promise to scrap the pension and immigration reforms passed by the current government, to set up a rescue agency for undocumented migrants and to facilitate visa applications.

The NFP also promised caps on basic goods to combat the cost of living crisis, boost housing subsidies and raise the monthly minimum wage to €1,600 (£1,350).

The alliance said it would finance its increase in social spending through a reform of the tax system, the restoration of the wealth tax and a windfall tax on corporations.

The total cost of the NFP’s economic programme has been estimated at €150bn (£126bn) a year.

Some economists have warned the programme is much too expensive given the current state of France’s finances. It could also set it on a collision course with Brussels. Only last month, the European Commission opened an excessive deficit procedure against France.

Nobody expected this. High drama, for sure, but this was a shock.

When the graphics flashed up on all the big French channels, it was not the far right of Marine Le Pen and her young prime minister-in-waiting Jordan Bardella who were on course for victory.

It was the left who had clinched it, and Emmanuel Macron’s centrists – the Ensemble alliance – had staged an unexpected comeback, pushing the far-right National Rally (RN) into third.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the veteran left-wing firebrand seen by his critics as an extremist, wasted no time in proclaiming victory.

“The president must call on the New Popular Front to govern,” he told supporters in Stalingrad square, insisting Mr Macron had to recognise that he and his coalition had lost.

His alliance, drawn up in a hurry for President Macron’s surprise election, includes his own radical France Unbowed, along with Greens, Socialists and Communists and even Trotskyists. But their victory is nowhere big enough to govern.

France is going to have a hung parliament. None of the three blocs can form an outright majority by themselves of 289 seats in the 577-seat parliament.

• Live: France faces hung parliament deadlock after left alliance wins most seats

As soon as he had spoken, Mr Mélenchon went off to a much bigger square, Place de la République, to celebrate his success with a crowd of 8,000 people, according to police numbers.

For National Rally’s supporters the champagne was fast turning flat at their celebration-gone-wrong in the Bois de Vincennes forest to the south-east of Paris.

Only a week ago all the talk had been of a possible absolute majority, and Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella were still talking up their chances a couple of days before the vote.

Marine Le Pen put a brave face on it. “Two years ago we had just seven MPs. Tonight RN is the first party in France in terms of MP numbers.”

In the last parliament they had 88 MPs and now more than 140, so she was right. And no other party has more than 100 MPs, because the Macronists and the Popular Front are both coalitions.

Jordan Bardella complained that his party had been foiled by unnatural “alliances of dishonour”, forged by a “single party” made up of the Macron camp and the left. He wasn’t wrong about the unnatural alliance, but it is only a temporary one of convenience.

More than 200 candidates who saw themselves as part of a “republican front”, pulled out of the second round so that a better-placed rival could stop RN winning.

Not even Marine Le Pen’s younger sister, Marie-Caroline, was able to offer a glimmer of good news from her own election battle around Le Mans.

Her bid to get into parliament failed by just 225 votes, defeated by Mr Mélenchon’s candidate, Elise Leboucher, after the Macron candidate dropped out.

Turnout, at 66.63%, was the highest in a parliamentary second round since 1997. Even if RN’s vote held up, this time it was having to contend with non-RN votes often being used tactically to create a “barrage” or block against them.

All over France, RN was losing run-offs it needed to win.

Some of their candidates were less than appealing.

There was the woman who promised to stop making racist jokes if she was elected in Puy-de-Dôme; and then there was the ill-equipped young man in Haute-Savoie in the south-east who took part in a TV debate with his centrist rival and made barely any sense on anything.

They both lost, but they reflected RN’s big advance in rural areas.

RN scored 32% of the vote – 37% with their right-wing allies – and for more than 10 million voters a taboo has been broken.

In Meaux, east of Paris, RN won but not by much.

After casting her vote, Claudine said people she knew tended not to admit to voting RN, unless they were with close friends.

Before the projected result at 8pm, there was fevered speculation about whether President Macron would come out and speak. Word spread that he had gone into a meeting 90 minutes earlier.

Gabriel Attal, his beleaguered prime minister, eventually appeared to give the government’s response.

Four weeks ago, he had sat stony-faced and arms folded opposite the president as Mr Macron revealed his election plan.

Now he announced he would be handing his boss his resignation in the morning, but he would stay on as long as duty called.

Mr Attal is supposed to fly off on Tuesday evening to a Nato meeting in Washington. It’s hard to imagine him being replaced just yet.

France has entered a period of political instability with no obvious way out. There had been talk of unrest on the streets, but only a handful of incidents were reported in Paris and cities including Nantes and Lyon,

All eyes are now on the president, who will have to navigate a way out of this deadlock.

The new National Assembly is due to convene in 10 days’ time, but the Paris Olympics starts on 26 July and France could do with a period of calm.

Left-leaning newspaper Libération summed up the whole night with the headline .

A relief for them that voters brought RN’s bid for power to a halt. But it also means in colloquial French: “It’s crazy.”

The champagne was on ice, the jazz was on low: the scene was set at the pavilion in Paris’s Bois de Vincennes forest where the National Rally (RN) was staging what it hoped would be its victory rally.

Hundreds of journalists had come from across the world, the sniffer dogs in place to protect a party that was, we all thought, at the gates of power; the first time the far right would enter government in France since World War Two.

But as time ticked towards the exit poll at 8pm, the mood began to turn. Party apparatchiks talked in hushed tones of indications they had fallen short. Nervous glances were exchanged, the glasses looked more half-empty than half-full.

And then the screens told the story: of the National Rally beaten into third place by the left and by President Macron’s centrists. There was stunned silence – and then a smattering of applause by party supporters to try to keep spirits up.

“We are sad, disappointed, struck down by this result,” said Rosa Gave, as she clutched a French flag.

“We are victims of a dishonest alliance led by Macron to block us from power.”

That “alliance” was more of a pact, struck in the last week by opponents of the National Rally – that in many of the three-way races where the RN was in the lead, the third candidate would withdraw, urging voters to rally behind the figure best-placed to stop the far-right. And it worked. It’s a common electoral tactic here – but has still drawn the ire of the RN.

As Jordan Bardella, the party’s 28-year-old president – and the man who had hoped to become France’s prime minister – arrived, there were cheers from the dwindling crowd inside.

“Depriving millions of French people of the possibility of seeing their ideas brought to power will never be a viable destiny for France”, he said.

He denounced President Emmanuel Macron for, in his words, pushing France towards instability – and into the arms of what he called the “extreme left”: a reference to France Unbowed, the party leading the victorious left-wing coalition.

And then came Marine Le Pen, the National Rally’s leader, whose dream of national power has once again been thwarted at the eleventh hour. She was thronged by journalists, as her supporters chanted “Marine, Présidente!” A couple of reporters were pushed over in the melee.

“The tide is rising – our victory has only been delayed,” she said, calling President Macron’s position “untenable”.

• Live: France faces hung parliament deadlock after left alliance wins most seats

The president who came to power promising to revive the centre ground, to bridge right and left, has done anything but – pushing the French to the extremes. And while many in the National Rally will feel bitterly disappointed that their victory in the first round of this election did not lead them to power after the second, they will be cheering a significant increase in the number of their MPs since the last parliamentary election, confident that one day their time will come.

“France has chosen the coalition of the worst,” said Matteo Giammaresi, a National Rally supporter, holding his champagne glass on a rapidly emptying dancefloor.

“What we say now is giving France hope for the future.”

The party will now wait this government out, believing that division and disunity will play into Marine Le Pen’s hands. And then, at the 2027 presidential election, she would be able to say – this is what happens when we are blocked from power.

What government now emerges is still deeply unclear.

A hung parliament awaits – and potential paralysis. France has been plunged into the political unknown – just not in the way pollsters predicted.

The drama and vitriol of France’s sudden summer election is over. Now comes the drama and vitriol of stage two – and what could be a much longer and equally agitated struggle to build a functional coalition out of the inconclusive results of Saturday’s vote.

“A lot of things are unclear. We know who lost but we don’t know who won. Can we learn the art of compromise which is so unusual for us? Nobody knows – the signs are not necessarily good,” Sylvie Kauffmann, a newspaper columnist for Le Monde, told me.

The risks of deadlock – for France itself, for its constitutional order, for European stability, and even for Ukraine’s war against Russian aggression – are serious.

But it’s worth remembering that this country is no stranger to coping with political upheavals. Revolutions aside, there was the chaos and revolts that followed World War Two and eventually upended France’s constitutional order, leading to the current system of government, known as the Fifth Republic.

And more recently there were the challenges of “cohabitation”, when presidents and prime ministers from rival parties were obliged to share power.

As politicians now sidle away for their summer holidays, or refocus their attention on the imminent Paris Olympics, it seems more than likely that the political temperature in France will subside by a degree or two, at least briefly.

But the cohabitation battles of the 1980s and 1990s look like gentlemanly squabbles over a wine menu compared with the furious, guillotines-at-dawn brawls that many observers expect to preoccupy France’s National Assembly for weeks, or even months, to come.

Some wonder if the French electorate – by saddling parliament with three minority blocks of almost equal size – has rendered the country “ungovernable,” or whether it is simply faced with the sort of deal-making challenge that so many other European nations wrestle with almost as a matter of course.

Having emerged, to almost universal surprise, with the most seats at this parliamentary election, France’s left-wing coalition, the New Popular Front (NPF) has now earned the right to pick – or try to pick – the next prime minister and to implement its agenda.

But with no working majority, any viable candidate will need to win support from other, more centrist parties. Who could possibly fit that bill?

The NPF was quick to unite around a common platform ahead of the elections. But it contains deep political rifts – stretching as it does from anti-capitalists and communists to mainstream social democrats. The coalition is also home to some divisive figures, like the far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, who could quickly trigger the coalition’s collapse over the factionalism that has often marked the left of French politics.

Some wonder if the Green Party leader, Marine Tondelier, might be a good fit. Her relatively low profile could be an asset in a political landscape scarred by years of deeply personal, and sometimes vitriolic, feuding.

In the midst of this, President Emmanuel Macron remains on his throne, scarred by self-inflicted political wounds, but arguably a little stronger than he was a few days ago.

His centrist grouping lost almost a third of its seats in the National Assembly as a result of his entirely unnecessary electoral gamble to dissolve parliament and call elections. But a disciplined frenzy of deal-making with the NPF helped it cling onto many more seats in the second round than the pollsters predicted.

Could deadlock in parliament enable Mr Macron to float above the chaos and strengthen his position? Even his allies seem sceptical, convinced he is now trapped in a “stranglehold” between the extremes he once promised to banish from French political life.

“Today, the President of the Republic will maintain a small margin of manoeuvre to act. But he will no longer be the political programmatic driving force in the country. From this point of view, after seven years, Macronism is dead,” Gilles Legendre, a disillusioned former MP who used to lead Macron’s party in the Assembly, told the BBC.

As for the far-right National Rally (RN), it will no doubt recover quickly from the shock of Sunday night’s results, which prompted sombre silence at the party’s headquarters – a jarring contrast with the euphoric street celebrations by left-wing voters which swept through parts of Paris that same evening.

The RN has already sought to reframe its third-place disappointment as the result of cynical deal-making by a “dishonest alliance” of its rivals, rather than evidence of its own shallow pool of credible candidates and its failure to convince enough French voters of the sincerity of its move away from the extreme right.

The RN will surely try to promote its own agenda – including a clampdown on immigration and reforms of schools and policing. Its commitment to supporting Ukraine remains unclear, given the party’s recent support for the Kremlin and its occupation of Crimea. The RN must now be hoping that the Assembly is either deadlocked or dominated by an economically profligate far-left agenda that could further threaten France’s already strained budget.

Months, or even years, of turmoil could then give the party a chance to portray itself as a stable and modernising force, thwarted by left-wing extremists and old elites.

That in turn could, potentially, give the RN a good chance of increasing its vote share in any subsequent snap parliamentary election, or – and this is the real prize – sweeping its leader Marine Le Pen into the Presidency in 2027.

“Victory was stolen from them using dirty tricks,” Corrine said as her children played in a playground in Eysines, a suburb of Bordeaux in France.

She couldn’t hide her disappointment that the party she backs, the far right Rassemblement National, came just third in Sunday’s parliamentary elections.

“We were hoping for change and an RN government,” her friend Sylvie added. “Now we will have to put up with whatever comes next.”

Until Sunday, this constituency was held by the RN’s Grégoire de Fournas. He became one of the previous parliament’s most infamous members after shouting “they should go back to Africa” as a black colleague talked about a migrant rescue boat in 2022.

But Mr de Fournas was narrowly defeated by Pascale Got, a candidate of the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP), as part of a shock wave of successes for the alliance.

An emotional Mrs Got responded to the results by saying that the new parliament needed to “listen to what the French people want” and offer “progress and social justice”.

Though the RN made gains nationally, it came in third behind the NFP and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble alliance, largely because of tactical withdrawals to concentrate the anti-far right vote.

RN president Jordan Bardella, who had hoped to be prime minister if his party won the election, claimed that the far right only lost because almost every other party in French politics, ranging from Marxists to right-wing economic liberals, united against it.

Shortly after polls closed, he condemned what he called an “alliance of dishonour” between the NFP and Ensemble, which both withdrew candidates in some contests to defeat the far right.

“An unnatural alliance prevented the French people from freely choosing a different type of politics,” he added.

Luna Aimé, an RN activist, said: “Nine parties had to join together to beat one, which still increased its number of MPs.”

The sense that the RN was prevented from winning by trickery resonated among its voters.

“I had a feeling that the RN would be blocked from winning. But I didn’t expect this many losses,” Sylvie said.

Corrine said the party had suffered a “huge defeat,” even though it increased its number of MPs from 89 to 143, its best result in history. It is now only slightly smaller than the other two blocs.

Her statement reflected the high expectations – played up by the RN before the vote – that it would be in a position to appoint a prime minister and govern France for the first time in the party’s history.

With the results nonetheless showing a big advance for the RN across France, party leader Marine Le Pen said victory for her party had been “merely deferred”.

Mr de Fournas thanked the 49% of voters in his constituency who had backed him and said: “Fixing the country will take a little longer than expected but it is certain that we will come to power one day.”

But many in the constituency were relieved that Mr de Fournas and the RN more broadly had been held off, at least for the time being.

Outside a cafe, Soufiane said France had always been and should remain a country where cultures mixed together.

He said: “De Fournas is a racist. When you tell a person of colour to go back to Africa, that says everything.

“I’m very happy that he lost.”

BBC Africa Eye investigates a shocking spate of elderly people accused of witchcraft then murdered along Kenya’s Kilifi coast, and discovers the true motives behind the killings.

Seventy-four-year-old Tambala Jefwa stares vacantly out of his one remaining eye as his wife, Sidi, gently removes his shirt.

“They stabbed him with a knife like this and pulled,” she says pointing to the long scar stretching down from his collar bone.

She takes his head in her hands showing what happened in another attack. “They had to pull the scalp back and sew it together.”

Mr Jefwa was accused of being a witch and has been attacked twice in his home, 80km (50 miles) inland from the coastal town of Malindi. The first left him without an eye. The second nearly killed him.

The couple own more than 30 acres of land where they grow maize and raise a few chickens. There has been a dispute with family members over boundaries. They believe this was the real reason Mr Jefwa was almost killed, not that people genuinely believed he was a witch.

“I was left for dead. I lost so much blood. I don’t know why they attacked me, but it can only be the land,” says Mr Jefwa.

Belief in witchcraft and superstition is common in many countries.

But in parts of Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa, it can be used to justify killing elderly people to take their land.

A report called, The Aged, on Edge, by Kenyan human rights organisation Haki Yetu says one elderly person is murdered along the Kilifi coast every week in the name of witchcraft. Its programme officer, Julius Wanyama, says many families believe it is one of their own who orders the killing.

“They use the word witchcraft as a justification because they will get public sympathy. And people will say: ‘If he was a witch, it is good you have killed him.’”

Few people in this region have title deeds for their land. Without a will, they rely on passing it down customarily through the family. Mr Wanyama says seven out of 10 of the killings are elderly men because land ownership and inheritance lie with them.

“Historically people here in Kilifi do not have [land] documentation. The only document they have is the narrative from these elderly people. That is why mostly men are being killed, because once you kill them, then you have removed the obstacle,” says Mr Wanyama.

About an hour’s drive from the Jefwa family land is a rescue centre for the elderly run by the charity, Malindi District Association.

It is home to around 30 elderly people who have been attacked and are unable to go back to their own land.

Sixty-three-year-old Katana Chara, who looks much older than his years, has been here for around 12 months.

He had to move to the centre after he was attacked with a machete in his bedroom in April 2023. One hand was cut off at the wrist, the other just above the elbow. He can no longer work and needs help for the most basic tasks, from feeding and washing to dressing himself.

“I know the person who cut my hands, but we have never met face to face since,” he says.

Mr Chara was accused of being a witch over the death of another man’s child, but believes the real reason he was attacked was because of his six acres of land.

“I don’t have anything to do with witchcraft. I have one piece of land and it is at the seafront. It is a big piece of land.”

Many of Mr Chara’s family members were questioned over the attack but no-one was ever prosecuted. Activist Mr Wanyama has been trying to get justice for him.

“Very few people have been charged on the allegations of killings of elderly. And that’s why I think even the key people who are involved in killing, they feel they are free.”

After months of investigating, BBC Africa Eye managed to track down an ex-hitman who claims to have killed around 20 people. He says the minimum he got paid for each murder was 50,000 Kenyan shillings – around $400 (£310).

“If someone kills an old person, know that their family paid for it. It must be their family,” he tells BBC Africa Eye.

Pushed on how and why he thought it was his right to take someone’s life, he responds: “I may have done something bad because I was given the job and it is me that killed, but according to laws, according to God, the person who sent me is the guilty one.”

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights presented a document to the United Nations in February 2023 stating: “Witch burning, killings, and physical attacks are rife in regions such as Kisii in western Kenya and Kilifi county in coastal Kenya.”

It went on to say that younger family members seeking to acquire family land is a key motivating factor behind the killings. It said the attacks and killings increased during periods of drought and famine when sources of income become scarce.

Mr Wanyama says killings which use accusations of witchcraft to justify land grabs have become a “national disaster”

“It started as a regional issue, but now it has escalated… If we don’t address it, then we are losing our archives of the elderly. Those are the only live archives we can believe.”

In traditional African culture, the elderly are revered for their wisdom and knowledge.

In Kilifi, it is the reverse. Old people are so fearful of becoming a target, many dye their hair in an attempt to look younger.

It is rare for someone in this region to survive after being accused of witchcraft.

While Mr Chara is safe now he lives at the rescue centre for the elderly, for men like Mr Jefwa there is real fear that whoever tried to murder him will come back.

Watch the documentary Cry Witch: Take My Land, Take My Life on the BBC Africa YouTube channel or listen to the podcast on Assignment on the BBC World Service

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Rishi Sunak has pledged to remain Conservative Party leader until arrangements are in place for selecting his successor, following the party’s worst election defeat in its parliamentary history.

So far none of the party’s 121 surviving MPs have confirmed whether they plan to run in the eventual contest to replace the former PM.

Two-time former leadership hopeful Jeremy Hunt has reportedly ruled himself out of a run for the job, telling GB News “the time has passed”.

Here we look at some of those who might decide to throw their hat into the ring when the party’s leadership election gets going.

The ex-business secretary is seen as a frontrunner among the right of her party and has consistently attracted high approval ratings among party members in surveys conducted by Conservative Home, a popular website among activists.

Speaking at her count on election night, the North West Essex MP said the Conservatives had lost the public’s trust and the party had to ask “some uncomfortable questions” to address.

The 44-year-old Brexiteer previously ran for Conservative leader following the resignation of Boris Johnson and came fourth despite starting the race with a relatively low-profile.

It is arguably through her other former role – as minister for women and equalities – that she has emerged as a darling of the modern Conservative right for her stance on trans rights.

The 44-year-old MP has not ruled out a leadership run, but told GB News reflecting on what caused the Tory election defeat was a more urgent task than electing a new leader.

Ms Braverman had a spectacular exit from government in late 2023, when she was sacked as home secretary after accusing the police of political bias over pro-Palestinian marches.

She continued to hit the headlines over the demonstrations, describing them as “hate marches” and claiming that Islamists and extremists were “in charge now”.

It was the second time she had left that role, following her resignation in October 2022 after sending an official document from her personal email.

After leaving office she fired semi-regular broadsides at Mr Sunak’s record on migration, and rebelled over his blueprint to implement the now-failed Rwanda deportation scheme, a programme she once described as her “dream” to deliver.

She stood in the 2022 leadership contest to replace Mr Johnson, but was eliminated in the second round of voting among Tory MPs.

At her count on election night, she said “sorry” on behalf of her party for “not listening” to the public, saying the Tories “did not keep our promises”.

The MP for Braintree has yet to declare his intentions. “What might happen in the future I’ll leave that for the near future,” he told Sky News.

James Cleverly has been an MP since 2015 and served in the cabinets of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Sunak, becoming the first black foreign secretary.

The 54-year-old succeeded Suella Braverman as home secretary during Rishi Sunak’s cabinet reshuffle in November 2023.

He has attracted criticism for some gaffes, including telling LGBT footballs fans to be respectful at the Qatar World Cup, denied making derogatory comments about Stockton-on-Tees in the Commons and apologised for joking about spiking his wife’s drink at a Downing Street reception.

Former Home Secretary Dame Priti Patel, 52, has said the Tories need to take a “pause and stocktake” following their election loss.

She became MP in 2010 and served as international development secretary under Theresa May, but quit amid controversy over unauthorised meetings with Israeli officials.

As home secretary under Boris Johnson, she launched the points-based immigration system, sealed a returns deal with Albania and Serbia and signed the controversial deal with Rwanda to send asylum seekers to the country.

Her time in office was also met with criticism, including getting involved in a row with England footballers over taking the knee, and an inquiry finding her to have broken rules on minsters’ behaviour – she strongly denied bullying allegations.

She resigned as as home secretary after Liz Truss became Tory leader.

The outgoing security minister Tom Tugendhat has repeatedly refused to rule himself out of bidding to become party leader during the election campaign.

The Tonbridge MP, 51, previously lost the leadership race against Liz Truss, during which he pitched himself as offering a “fresh start” and “bridge the Brexit divide”.

The former Army officer is seen as being on the centrist wing of the party, which could prove a problem with more right-leaning party members.

Mr Tugendhat voted remain during the Brexit referendum. He was highly critical of the Nato withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

Victoria Atkins has not ruled out standing in the leadership race but said it was not yet time for contenders to launch their campaigns.

She told BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: “This weekend is not about leadership.”

Having spent little more than six months in cabinet as health secretary, she is being discussed as a potential contender from the moderate wing of the party.

The 48-year-old became MP for Louth and Horncastle in Lincolnshire in 2015 and retained her seat in the general election, despite her majority significantly dropping.

Robert Jenrick, 42, has said the Tories suffered a “devastating” general election defeat because the party failed to deliver on its promises to the public.

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, he refused to talk about his leadership ambitions. “The first step for the party is to have a proper honest diagnosis about what’s gone wrong,” he said.

Last year he resigned his role as immigration minister, saying the government’s emergency Rwanda legislation did not go far enough.

He claimed “stronger protections” were needed to stop legal challenges that were “paralysing” the scheme.

That year he also made headlines for instructing painting over murals of cartoon characters at a reception centre to welcome child asylum seekers in Dover.

He became an MP in 2014 and also served as housing minister under Boris Johnson.

• LIVE: Follow all the latest general election results news
• Who’s in Keir Starmer’s new cabinet?
• What went wrong for the Conservatives?
• Who is my MP now? The election in maps and charts
• General election 2024: All BBC stories and analysis

Over a year after protests against sexual harassment allegations shook Indian wrestling, female athletes are gearing up for major events, including the 2024 Paris Olympics. The BBC spoke to young wrestlers about their journey.

Reetika Hooda almost didn’t make it.

The 23-year-old is among the five Indian women wrestlers to qualify for the Olympics this year.

It’s a hard-won opportunity, following a year of setbacks that shook her confidence. She knew she needed more training and competitions to improve her game.

A year ago, all wrestling came to a halt in India after its federation chief Brij Bhushan Singh was accused of sexual misconduct. He denies the allegations.

India’s sports ministry did not sack Singh but it disbanded the federation after finding several lapses, including the non-compliance of sexual harassment laws, and set up a temporary team to run things.

It was an unprecedented time. Hooda remembers watching the country’s most accomplished wrestlers, including her inspiration Sakshi Malik – the only Indian woman to win an Olympic medal in wrestling – camp on the roads of Delhi, demanding Singh’s resignation.

The protest made headlines globally, especially after the police detained the wrestlers when they tried to march to India’s new parliament building. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) condemned the way the wrestlers were treated and called for an impartial inquiry into their complaints.

“It was sad – not only because of what was happening but also what wasn’t,” Hooda told me.

Each year, the International Olympic Committee designates certain tournaments as qualification events for the games. To compete, wrestlers must earn ranking points in trials, win national competitions, and secure the Wrestling Federation of India’s (WFI) approval.

But instead of competing, Hooda stared at an empty sporting calendar for weeks.

“We trained but there were no trials, which meant we could not compete and know our shortcomings. There was a constant fear that we won’t be prepared [for the Olympics],” she said.

For a country that’s won only 24 medals at individual events in Olympics, with over a quarter in wrestling, this was worrying.

Fresh elections to the WFI were finally held in December 2023, nearly a year after the protests began.

The wrestlers had asked India’s sports minister to prevent people associated with Singh from participating in the election.

Singh did not contest as he had already served the maximum of three terms. But his close aide Sanjay Singh was elected the chief after a landslide victory.

This sparked outrage among women wrestlers. On the same day, Olympic medallist Malik quit the sport in protest.

“Even now I get emotional when I think of that moment,” Malik said. “Wrestling took me to such heights, got me love and respect, and I had to give it up.”

Young wrestlers were stunned by Malik’s decision – but soon, they were back on the mat.

“Sakshi Malik was the reason I took up wrestling,” said Tanu Malik, a 20-year-old wrestler in Haryana state.

“So when I saw her crying, I thought to myself, she fought for us, we can’t give up now.”

From that day, Tanu Malik decided to work harder.

Her training at the state’s all-women Yudhvir Wrestling Academy starts at 04:30.

The day starts with a rigorous five-hour fitness session, lifting large truck tyres and practicing wrestling techniques. After a break for food and rest, the women resume training for another five hours in the afternoon.

Girls as young as 12 years sweat it out on the mat. In their free time, they talk about diets and share recipes that would help them stay fit.

None of them want to talk about the alleged sexual harassment at academies or the accusations against the former wrestling chief. However, they are determined not to give up.

Seema Kharab, a coach, says that contrary to expectations, the number of girls at the academy has not dropped since the protests.

“The protests have assured young wrestlers that it is possible to raise their voice, that positive action may be taken and they can get support within the system,” she says.

In June, the police charged Brij Bhushan Singh with stalking, harassment, intimidation, and making “sexually coloured remarks”, but a court granted him bail

Meanwhile, the new federation chief, Sanjay Singh, has taken on the mantle.

He acknowledged his 30-year relationship with the former chief but dismissed allegations of Brij Bhushan Singh’s interference, claiming wrestlers had accepted him as the new head.

He said this was evident from the “massive turnout” at national wrestling competitions this year.

“No-one will be favoured or discriminated against and each wrestler is dear to me. I am also the father of two daughters and I understand what daughters need,” he added.

However, for young women like Tanu Malik, fear has become an inescapable part of being in the profession.

“It’s not easy – my parents are constantly worried about sending me to training alone,” she says. “But they have to trust us, otherwise how would things work? It’s like accepting defeat without even fighting.”

Others feel deflated and say the protests have come at a huge personal cost for them.

Shiksha Kharab, a gold medallist at the Asian Championship, says it caused disruptions in training because of which young wrestlers have lost a crucial year.

But Sakshi Malik has no regrets.

“The most important thing is to fight,” she said. “I don’t think anybody in any sporting federation would dare to do anything, they now know that harassment can have repercussions.”

Hooda says she’s nervous about competing with some of the world’s biggest wrestling giants at the Games, but also looking forward to it.

“Sakshi Malik used to say victory and loss are not important – just trust your hard work. That’s what I will do,” she adds.

As she gets ready for training, a picture of Sakshi posing with her Olympic medal, beams down at her.

“My only focus now is to win a medal” she says. “Who knows, maybe one day I will have my picture next to hers.”

Wildcard candidate Masoud Pezeshkian will become Iran’s first reformist president in almost two decades, after he defeated hardliner Saeed Jalili in a run-off election on Friday.

The 69-year-old former heart surgeon and health minister campaigned on promises to moderate Iran’s conservative outlook and improve relations with the West. He criticised the country’s notorious morality police and called for negotiations over a renewal of the faltering 2015 nuclear deal.

But analysts remain sceptical about his ability to enact meaningful change within an establishment dominated by ultraconservatives.

When Mr Pezeshkian’s name was confirmed on the ballot four weeks ago, following the death of hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, even his most loyal supporters were shocked that he had made it past the Guardian Council.

The powerful body of clerics and jurists which vets candidates’ religious and revolutionary credentials had barred many prominent reformists and moderates from standing in recent elections, including Mr Pezeshkian himself for the last presidential poll in 2021.

But once his candidacy was approved this time, Mr Pezeshkian carefully balanced promises of change with declarations of loyalty to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds ultimate authority in the country.

In a celebratory speech, he praised the “guidance” of Ayatollah Khamenei, saying he would not have been able to succeed without him.

With Iran facing a struggling economy, a shadow-war with Israel that burst into the open earlier this year, and continuing discontent over the violent crackdown on the women-led protests that erupted in 2022, the fact that Mr Pezeshkian was even allowed to stand could be a sign that the Supreme Leader wishes to soften the government’s stance on certain issues.

Masoud Pezeshkian was born in 1954 in the city of Mahabad, in the north-western province of West Azerbaijan.

He is of mixed Azeri-Kurdish ancestry and grew up speaking both languages, giving him broad appeal among the ethnic minority groups which make up more than a third of Iran’s population of 89 million.

He studied medicine in the years before the 1979 Islamic revolution – and as a fresh-faced doctor he organised medical assistance for wounded soldiers during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. He specialized in cardiac surgery after the conflict.

In 1994, Mr Pezeshkian faced personal tragedy when his wife and son were killed in a car crash. He chose not to remarry, raising his daughter and two remaining sons alone – a story he told along the campaign trail, promising supporters: “As I was loyal to my family, I will be loyal to you.”

He rose up the political ranks in the early 2000s, serving as health minister during the second term of reformist President Mohammad Khatami’s government between 2001 and 2005.

He has represented the north-western city of Tabriz in parliament since 2008 and was a deputy speaker from 2016 to 2020.

After a crackdown on the unrest that followed the disputed 2009 presidential election, Mr Pezeshkian drew attention for his criticism of the government’s treatment of protesters, which spurred a backlash from Iran’s hard-line politicians.

Mr Pezeshkian’s candidacy in this year’s presidential election was backed by major reformist groups and endorsed by Mr Khatami, as well as the moderate former president Hassan Rouhani.

He finished narrowly ahead of Saeed Jalili in the election’s first round, for which turnout was a record low of 40% amid calls for a boycott from opponents of the clerical establishment.

Turnout was almost 10 percentage points higher for the run-off, in which Mr Pezeshkian received 53.7% of the votes cast.

In a post on X following his victory, Mr Pezeshkian told Iranians that it marked the beginning of a “partnership”.

“The difficult path ahead cannot be smoothed without your co-operation, sympathy and trust. I extend my hand to you and swear by my honour I will not leave you alone in this course. Do not leave me alone,” he wrote.

Although Mr Pezeshkian is considered to be a reformist, he often emphasises his devotion to the Supreme Leader.

He has described himself as a “reformist principlist” and said: “I am a principlist, and it is for these principles that we seek reform.”

In the context of Iranian politics, “principlist” refers to conservative supporters of the Supreme Leader who advocate for protecting the ideological principles of the 1979 revolution’s early days.

Observers believe that it will be Mr Pezeshkian’s ability to straddle reformist and principlist agendas that will be crucial to his success.

Boeing is one of the largest and most important companies in the United States. Arguably, it is too big to fail. But is it also too big to be held to account?

The company is one of the world’s two main manufacturers of large commercial jets. It ranks among the top five US defence contractors.

It employs more than 170,000 people globally, including 150,000 in the US, and generated revenues of nearly $78bn (£60bn) last year. It makes a vital contribution to the US economy.

But its commitment to safety has repeatedly been called into question, most recently following an incident earlier this year in which a disused door fell off a Boeing 737 Max minutes after takeoff.

Whistleblowers have since made a series of claims about alleged unsafe practices in Boeing’s factories, as well as in those of its main supplier, Spirit Aerosystems.

Critics say the company has not taken its problems seriously – and that regulators, cowed by the firm’s importance, are not taking the steps necessary to force Boeing to fix its problems.

A new deal for the firm has amplified those claims.

This week, the firm agreed to plead guilty to an existing criminal fraud charge, which was brought after two near-identical crashes involving Boeing’s brand new 737 Max, that occurred more than five years ago, killing 346 people.

Family members of many of those killed have said the agreement, which will be submitted to a judge for approval, is far too lenient.

“The plea deal with Boeing unfairly makes concessions to Boeing that other criminal defendants would never receive and fails to hold Boeing accountable for the deaths of 346 persons,” their lawyer Paul Cassell wrote in a written objection to the deal.

The deal stems from an investigation that started in 2019, after the second crash.

Investigators later concluded that Boeing had cut corners during the design of its 737 Max, and deceived regulators.

Boeing was accused of putting profits ahead of passenger safety.

In 2021, Boeing agreed to pay a $2.5bn settlement, but avoided prosecution on a criminal fraud conspiracy charge.

But in May the Department of Justice (DoJ) found Boeing broke the terms of that settlement by not implementing and enforcing a suitable compliance and ethics programme.

As part of its guilty plea, Boeing agreed to pay a $243.6m penalty and submit to independent monitoring for three years.

It also agreed that its board of directors would meet with victims’ families and pledged to invest some $455m in safety improvements.

Erin Applebaum, a lawyer who represents 34 families who lost loved ones on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, said the deal was “nothing more than a slap on the wrist and will do nothing to effectuate meaningful change within the company”.

The DoJ said the agreement did not preclude action against any individual executives or against the company for conduct that occurred after the 2018 and 2019 crashes.

But officials left some key questions – such as how the guilty plea would affect Boeing’s ability to bid for government work – unanswered.

In Washington, the agreement was greeted by some calls from lawmakers for further action.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who has led hearings focused on Boeing’s retaliation against whistleblowers said, individuals, not just the company, should face consequences “for past illegalities as well as continuing retaliation against whistleblowers & other wrongdoing”.

“This plea deal cannot be the end of Boeing’s accountability,” he wrote on social media. “The need for ongoing aggressive investigative efforts and other action is obvious.”

“Regardless of the DOJ’s efforts, Congress must not let up on its own oversight of both Boeing and the FAA, and that is something I plan to continue to pursue,” Senator Tammy Duckworth added.

Before the deal was announced, others had expressed concerns that Boeing was too important to be held fully accountable.

“I’ll go back to the reality of the fact that we all want Boeing to succeed,” Republican Senator Ron Johnson said at a hearing in April.

“We don’t want to think that there are conditions in these planes that should really force regulators to ground these planes – what that would do to our economy, what that would do to people’s lives.”

Analysts said there was little doubt Boeing’s status as a major contractor to the US military would have been a key factor in deciding what action to take against the company.

In 2022 alone, it racked up more than $14bn worth of contracts with the Department of Defense.

“That may matter the most regarding not the direct terms of the plea, but rather the negotiations over possible debarment or suspension from contracting,” said Prof Brandon Garrett of Duke University School of Law, who tracks corporate prosecutions.

There is also Boeing’s position in the commercial aviation market to consider.

The crises have already taken a heavy toll on the company, which has lost money every year since 2019, a sum totalling more than $30bn.

But the market currently needs Boeing if airlines are to obtain the planes they need.

The aerospace giant currently has orders for more than 6,000 jets, representing years of production. Its great rival Airbus has an even larger backlog, and has been struggling to produce enough planes to meet demand.

In the future the company will also have to be in good shape if it is to see off the threat from an emerging rival.

“Boeing’s too big to fail, but it’s not too big to be mediocre,” says Ronald Epstein, a managing director at Bank of America, who follows the firm.

Chinese state-backed manufacturer Comac is now producing the C919 passenger jet, a potential rival to the 737 Max and Airbus A320 neo. It began commercial flights in May.

Its order book is tiny compared to those of Airbus and Boeing but in the longer term it could profit from any weakness at the American giant.

There is also potential for Brazil’s Embraer, a successful manufacturer for smaller regional airlines, to move into the space occupied by Boeing and Airbus.

All of this may explain why the DoJ has not imposed steeper penalties on Boeing. Nevertheless, the company has admitted to a serious crime.

That in itself is a major development. The question now is whether the DoJ has done enough to deter future wrongdoing.

A 74-year-old steam locomotive has been returned to working order following more than two decades of restoration.

The Ivatt Class 2 2-6-0 engine – No. 46464 – was one of five built in Crewe, Cheshire, in 1950.

It spent most of its working life based at Dundee Tay Bridge Steam Shed 62B, operating on services in Angus and Fife.

For the last 24 years a small team of volunteers has been working on getting it running again.

Last month, at Aviemore in the Highlands, it puffed down a railway line for the first time in 44 years.

Iain Smith, one of those involved in its restoration, said: “It was very emotional to see it up and running again.”

During its working life, the locomotive was known as Carmyllie Pilot, and named after a village in Angus.

It was used for passenger and freight services and had stints in Aberdeenshire, including on Fraserburgh’s St Combs line, making visits to Peterhead and Maud.

Carmyllie Pilot was withdrawn from service in August 1966.

It was bought by former LNER railway engineer Ian Fraser, whose family ran an engineering company in Arbroath in Angus, after he became friends with former Carmyllie Pilot driver Sandy Whyte.

Mr Fraser was a keen steam enthusiast and even won a planning wrangle to build a house with an area big enough to house a traction engine.

Carmyllie Pilot had spells on loan to Dundee City Museums and then from 1978 at Aviemore’s Strathspey Railway, where it operated on a heritage railway until a problem put it out of action.

The engine was returned to Mr Fraser’s ownership in 1989.

The volunteer-run Carmyllie Pilot Company Ltd was set up in 2000 to restore it to working order.

Mr Fraser died in 1992, but his family continued to take an interest in and also supported the restoration.

Much of the restoration was done at Bridge of Dun, near Montrose, with many replacement parts being made from scratch – including new cab sides, running plates and smokebox.

Mr Smith said: “It was like a giant Meccano kit at our site at one time.”

Strathspey Railway Company and the Association has helped with the restoration over the last four years.

Carmyllie Pilot was rebuilt and repainted in its original livery at Aviemore where it is now based.

Mr Smith said: “We’ve accomplished what we set out to do 24 years ago.”

A record-breaking heatwave that has already caused large wildfires in western US states is set to continue next week.

Around 130m people were under some form of heat warning or advisory on Saturday. Nearly 57m people remain under heat alerts, as at least one child has already died in heat-related circumstances in Arizona.

Meteorologists are warning that warm nights will lead to people suffering heat stress. Temperatures could reach 128F (53C) in Death Valley on Monday.

While it is hard to link individual heatwaves to climate change, scientists say they are becoming more common and intense because of it.

Papua New Guinea’s influential Petroleum Minister Jimmy Maladina has been charged with assault following an alleged “domestic dispute” in Australia, according to court documents.

Police said a 31-year-old woman was allegedly attacked in Sydney by a 58-year-old man who was known to her on Saturday morning local time.

Mr Maladina was granted conditional bail ahead of a court appearance on 11 July.

In a statement, he said he was “aware of the recent media reports” and was “cooperating with the authorities to address this matter”.

“I understand the gravity of this situation and the concerns it raises,” said Mr Maladina.

“As a public servant, I hold myself to high standards of conduct, both personally and professionally.

“I want to make it clear that violence in any form is unacceptable, and I am committed to handling this situation with integrity and transparency.”

Police said the woman who was allegedly attacked had suffered facial injuries.

Mr Maladina became Papua New Guinea’s petroleum minister earlier this year and is a key adviser to Prime Minister James Marape.

He is heavily involved in the country’s lucrative project to commercialise its natural gas resources.

A court in Kenya has awarded 10m shillings ($78,000; £61,000) in compensation to the widow of a prominent Pakistani journalist who was shot dead by police at a roadblock nearly two years ago.

Arshad Sharif was a TV anchor known for his robust criticism of Pakistan’s powerful military leaders and corruption in politics.

The father-of-five received death threats that he flagged to Pakistan’s top judge, before fleeing his home country to seek safety abroad.

Sharif’s killing two months later at the hands of police in the Kenyan town of Kajiado caused outrage, and the slow response by officials prompted UN experts to criticise both Kenya and Pakistan.

Kenya’s police had argued it was a case of mistaken identity but Sharif’s widow, Javeria Siddique, said it was a contract killing carried out on behalf of an unnamed individual in Pakistan.

On Monday, the Kajiado High Court rejected ruled that the Kenyan authorities had acted unlawfully and violated Sharif’s right to life. It duly awarded Ms Siddique compensation plus interest until payment in full.

“Loss of life cannot be compensated in monetary terms nor is the pain and suffering the family must have gone through. But there’s consensus that compensation is appropriate remedy for redress in violation of fundamental rights,” said Justice Stella Mutuku as she delivered the verdict.

The judge also ruled that Kenya’s director of public prosecutions and the independent policing oversight authority had violated Sharif’s rights by failing to prosecute the two police officers involved. The court has ordered both bodies to conclude investigations and charge the officers.

Reacting to the ruling, the lawyer representing Sharif’s widow, Ochiel Dudley, said “this is a win for the family and a win for Kenyans in their quest for police accountability”.

Sharif’s widow, Ms Siddique, expressed her gratitude to the Kenyan judiciary but added that her work was far from done.

“This ruling has come as a relief to me and my family, but I will not relent in getting maximum justice for my husband,” she said.

The BBC has asked the Kenyan authorities for their response to the ruling.

The police had given conflicting police accounts of Sharif’s death.

One account claimed the 49-year-old was travelling in a Toyota Land Cruiser which officers mistook for a similar vehicle that had been reported stolen.

In another version of events, police claimed that one of the car passengers had opened fire and then officers responded by shooting back.

Like her late husband, Ms Siddique is a journalist, and filed the lawsuit alongside the Kenya Union of Journalists and Kenya Correspondents Association last October.

She and her co-petitioners were seeking transparency, an apology, and accountability from the Kenyan authorities for what they called Sharif’s “targeted assassination”.

She told the BBC she was still unable to get justice for her husband in Pakistan, but would continue to campaign for the protection of journalists and would seek the help of the UN and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

• Why two Indians disappeared on a July night in Kenya
• Inside the world of Kenya’s ‘killer cop’
• ‘I was shot by rebels’ – the dangers of reporting

Jon Landau – the Oscar-winning producer of some of the world’s highest-grossing movies of all time, including Titanic and Avatar – has died aged 63.

Landau, who was the long-time producing partner of filmmaker James Cameron, reportedly died on Friday after living with cancer for more than a year.

His sister Tina confirmed his death on social media, calling him “the best brother a girl could ever dream of”.

“My heart is broken but also bursting with pride & gratitude for his most extraordinary life, and the love and gifts he gave me – and all who knew him or his films,” she wrote.

Landau was the son of Hollywood producers Ely and Edie Landau and for a time was an executive at the film production company 20th Century Fox, overseeing films including The Last Of The Mohicans and Die Hard 2.

Alongside Cameron, he helped to create the 1997 hit Titanic, which was the first film to make it past the $1bn mark at the global box office.

Later films Avatar and its sequel Avatar: The Way of Water, which were released in 2009 and 2022 respectively, went on to break Titanic’s record.

Landau also co-produced other hit films including Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Dick Tracy, and held a management position in Cameron’s production company Lightstorm Entertainment.

Following news of Landau’s death, Cameron told The Hollywood Reporter that “a great producer and a great human being has left us”.

“Jon Landau believed in the dream of cinema. He believed that film is the ultimate human art form, and to make films you have to first be human yourself,” he said.

“He will be remembered as much for his vast generosity of spirit as for the movies themselves.”

Director Sir Peter Jackson and his screenwriter wife Fran Walsh, whose visual effects company was used for the Avatar films, said in a statement that they were “devastated by the loss of Jon Landau”.

“Jon brought unparalleled passion to the projects he worked on and his influence will continue to inspire for years to come.”

The actor Zoe Saldaña, who starred in the Avatar films, wrote a message to Landau on Instagram, saying that his death was “hitting really hard”.

“Your wisdom and support shaped so many of us in ways we will always be grateful for.”

Two pistols owned by the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, with which he once intended to kill himself, have been sold at auction for €1.69m (£1.4m).

The weapons, which were created by the Paris gunmaker Louis-Marin Gosset, had been expected to fetch between €1.2m and €1.5m.

They were sold at the Osenat auction house on Sunday – next to the Fontainebleau palace where Napoleon tried to take his own life following his abdication in 1814.

The pistols’ sale comes after France’s culture ministry recently classified them as national treasures and banned their export.

This means the French government now has 30 months to make a purchase offer to the new owner, who has not been named. It also means the pistols can only leave France temporarily.

The guns are inlaid with gold and silver, and feature an engraved image of Napoleon himself in profile.

He was said to have wanted to use them to kill himself on the night of 12 April, 1814 after the defeat of his army by foreign forces meant he had to give up power.

However, his grand squire Armand de Caulaincourt removed the powder from the guns and Napoleon instead took poison but survived.

He later gave the pistols to Caulaincourt, who in turn passed them to his descendants.

Also included in the sale were the pistols’ original box and various accessories including a powder horn and various powder tamping rods.

Auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat said that the “image of Napoleon at his lowest point” was being sold alongside the objects.

Napoleon memorabilia is highly sought after. One of the tricorne hats that became a part of his brand sold for €1.9m in November.

The historic leader returned to power in 1815 following his exile to the Mediterranean island of Elba but went on to be defeated at the Battle of Waterloo.

He died in 1821 after his second banishment – this time to the island of St Helena in the South Atlantic.

A day of mourning is being observed in Ukraine after one of the worst waves of Russian missile strikes in months, with at least 41 people killed and 166 injured.

The main children’s hospital in the capital Kyiv was among buildings hit in cities across the country on Monday.

Two people died when a missile flattened part of the Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital – Ukraine’s biggest paediatrics facility – and a search for survivors beneath the rubble continued into the early hours of Tuesday.

Russia denied targeting the hospital, saying it had been hit by fragments of a Ukrainian air defence missile, while Ukraine said it had found remnants of a Russian cruise missile.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack “brutal” and described his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as a “bloody criminal”.

Nato is preoparing to hold a summit later on Tuesday in Washington, where the military bloc’s response to the invasion of Ukraine will be high on the agenda.

World leaders allied to Ukraine have condemned the attack, including the new British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer.

He said “attacking innocent children” was “the most depraved of actions” and promised continued support for Kyiv after the change of government in the UK.

Calling the strikes a “horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality”, US President Joe Biden said additional support for Ukraine’s air defence systems would soon be announced.

Mr Zelensky said that Russia had launched more than 40 missiles on Monday, damaging almost 100 buildings in Kyiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

Pictures from the scene of the blast at the Kyiv hospital – which specialises in cancer treatment and organ transplants – showed children hooked up to IV drips sitting outside the damaged facility awaiting evacuation.

Rescue workers and medics dug through the rubble to look for survivors, though it was unclear how many were still trapped.

On Monday afternoon, Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 16 people, including seven children, had been injured in the hospital strike.

He said the attacks across the city were among the worst Kyiv had faced since the beginning of the war, as he ordered flags to be flown at half-mast on Tuesday and cancelled entertainment events.

Following the strike, Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina wore a black ribbon as a mark of respect when she played in the round of 16 at Wimbledon on Monday afternoon.

She fought back tears during her post-match interview, saying: “It wasn’t easy to focus today on the match.

“Since the morning it was difficult to read the news. To go on the court is extremely tough.”

The UN’s human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine has said civilian casualties have been mounting in recent months, as Russia renewed its air campaign.

A recent report said May was the deadliest month for civilian deaths in almost a year.

On Tuesday morning, the governor of the Rostov region in southern Russia said a fire had broken out at a powerplant after Ukraine launched “tens” of drones.

Justin Bieber has become the latest in a string of international stars to perform for the son of India’s richest man and his wife-to-be as they celebrate their upcoming wedding.

The Canadian singer flew in to perform for Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant – along with their guests – in Mumbai at the weekend.

He had a lot to live up to. The couple’s first pre-wedding party featured Rihanna, while the second – a cruise around the Mediterranean – had performances from 90s teen heartthrobs The Backstreet Boys, singer Katy Perry and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.

So it is with bated breath that Ambani wedding-watchers – of whom there are now legions around the globe – await news of who will perform at the actual wedding itself this weekend.

Rumours swirling on the internet suggest it could be Adele, but the family are remaining tight-lipped.

No expense is being spared on the wedding of Mukesh Ambani’s youngest son, putting it in a different league from even the most extravagant of Indian weddings. It outshines even his daughter’s nuptials, which featured a headline-grabbing performance by Beyoncé.

Last weekend Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant celebrated their sangeet ceremony – a night of music and dance ahead of the wedding ceremony. In typical style, the Ambanis went above and beyond what would usually be expected by guests.

It saw Mukesh Ambani, the head of Reliance Industries, with an estimated net worth of $115bn, according to Forbes, and the rest of the family take to the stage in their own choreographed dance to Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan’s hit song, Deewangi Deewangi.

It was also another chance for wedding-watchers to pore over the outfits worn by the guests – which included some of India’s most glamorous stars wearing dresses by the country’s top fashion designers.

It seems as much as the pre-wedding events have been concerts, they have also become catwalks, with stars sharing professional shots on their social media accounts ahead of the parties.

The cost of the three parties to date is not known. It was rumoured Rihanna had been paid $7m (£5.5m) for her performance, while the figure suggested for Justin Bieber is said to be $10m.

Exactly what the weekend’s three-day event holds remains to be seen. For some in India, it will come as a relief that the wedding and its extravagance is over, while those in Mumbai will be hoping it does not make the city’s famously bad traffic any worse.

Radhika was keeping her cards close to her chest when she told Vogue US last month that planning was “going great”, adding: “I’m very excited to be married.”

On Saturday afternoon, US Vice-President Kamala Harris sat on stage at a black cultural festival in New Orleans, talking about her life story and what she felt she had achieved in the White House.

It was the kind of event that the first female, black and South Asian American vice-president has regularly attended throughout her three-and-a-half years as Joe Biden’s deputy, usually trailed by a small press pack dwarfed by that which follows the president himself.

But as panicked Democrats a thousand miles away in Washington weighed replacing 81-year-old Joe Biden as the party’s candidate for November’s election following his woeful and sometimes incomprehensible debate performance against Donald Trump, the number of reporters trailing Ms Harris had swelled to dozens.

On stage and through her travels this weekend, the vice-president did not address swirling questions about Mr Biden’s fitness for office and whether he should withdraw and hand the baton to her.

But in discussing ambition and how to forge your own path with her audience in New Orleans, she encouraged the crowd not to listen to naysayers.

“People in your life will tell you, though, it’s not your time. It’s not your turn. Nobody like you has done it before,” she said. “Don’t you ever listen to that.”

Since the disastrous CNN debate on 27 June, she has repeatedly defended her boss, arguing that his record as president shouldn’t be outweighed by 90 minutes on a debate stage. Mr Biden himself has struck a defiant tone and fiercely insisted that he will remain the nominee.

Yet as calls grow louder for the president to step aside, some high-profile Democrats are unifying behind 59-year-old Ms Harris as the natural candidate to replace him.

On Sunday, congressman Adam Schiff of California told NBC’s Meet The Press that either Mr Biden had to be able to “win overwhelmingly or he has to pass the torch to someone who can”. Kamala Harris, he added, could “very well win overwhelmingly” against Trump.

That’s a proposition that has raised eyebrows among some Democrats, including Biden allies, who see in Ms Harris a vice-president who failed in her bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination before the first ballot was even cast and who has struggled with an uneven record and low approval ratings throughout her time in the White House.

Against that, senior Democratic lawmakers like Mr Schiff and South Carolina congressman Jim Clyburn have been floating Ms Harris as the obvious successor should Mr Biden ultimately bow to party pressure.

Supporters point to a handful of polls that suggest she would perform better than the president in a hypothetical match-up against Donald Trump, and they argue she has the national profile, campaign infrastructure and appeal to younger voters that could make the transition seamless four months before election day.

An elevation to the top of the ticket would be a remarkable turnaround for a woman not long ago seen as a political weakness by senior figures in the Biden White House. Even Mr Biden himself reportedly described her as a “work in progress” during their first months in office.

But Jamal Simmons, a longtime Democratic strategist and Harris’s former communications director, said she had long been underestimated.

“Whether she’s a partner to the president or she has to lead the ticket, she is somebody who Republicans and the Trump campaign need to take seriously,” Mr Simmons told the BBC.

Since the debate and its fall-out, Ms Harris has altered her schedule to stick close to the president. She appeared at a heavily-scrutinised meeting last Wednesday where Mr Biden sought to reassure powerful Democratic governors about his fitness for office.

And a day later, on the Fourth of July – America’s Independence Day – she abandoned her usual tradition of grilling hotdogs for firefighters and Secret Service agents at her Los Angeles home to be by Mr Biden’s side at the White House celebrations.

The former top prosecutor has focused on criticising Trump in public appearances since the debate, pressing the case as to why voters should believe he is a threat to democracy and women’s rights. At the same time, she has offered nothing but steadfast support for Mr Biden.

Vice-presidents always need to strike a delicate balancing act between ambition and loyalty, but Ms Harris knows that this is not a moment where she can show any daylight between her and the president.

Kamala Harris is, however, far from the only alternative to Mr Biden being discussed. The list of potential Biden replacements ranges from a cadre of popular governors – Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gavin Newsom of California, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro and Illinois’ JB Pritzker – to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and California congressman Ro Khanna.

Ms Harris and her staff have refused to engage in public speculation. But her team is keenly aware of the behind-the-scenes conversations taking place as some party members coalesce behind her.

A memo circulated online, purportedly written by Democratic operatives, laid out a detailed argument to promote Ms Harris despite her “real political weaknesses”.

Trying to choose anyone other than her would thrown the campaign into disarray and keep “Democratic bickering” in the media spotlight for months, it argues.

If Mr Biden were to give up the nomination, the idea of the Democrats passing over Ms Harris in favour of another candidate appalls many on the left of the party and in its powerful black caucus.

In that situation, “this party should not in any way do anything to work around Ms Harris”, Mr Clyburn, one of the most prominent black lawmakers in Congress, told MSNBC last week.

Republicans, too, have acknowledged Ms Harris would be the frontrunner to replace Mr Biden.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina warned on Sunday that Republicans must be ready for a “dramatically different race” should Ms Harris – whom he described as a “vigorous” candidate – become the nominee.

Mr Graham emphasised her progressive California brand, suggesting she was closer in policy terms to left-wing firebrand Bernie Sanders than Joe Biden, in what appeared to be a glimpse of a Republican attack line should she become the candidate.

For his part, Donald Trump has called her “pathetic” in the days since the debate.

But ultimately the only question that matters for many Democrats – including deep-pocketed donors – is if she has a better chance of beating Trump than Joe Biden does. And that is deeply uncertain.

Harris backers point to a recent CNN poll suggesting she would fare better than the president against Trump in November. In a head-to-head contest, Ms Harris trailed the Republican by only two points, while Mr Biden lagged six points behind him. The poll also suggested Ms Harris performed better than Mr Biden with independent voters and women.

But many polling experts dismiss such hypothetical surveys, noting voter sentiment would change if Mr Biden actually decided to step aside and the Democrats entertained other potential candidates.

One Democratic pollster close to the Biden campaign acknowledged that Ms Harris may have more potential to expand the party’s voter base than the president, but was sceptical about how much of a difference she would make. Surveys pitting her against Trump at this stage “don’t mean anything”, said the person, who requested anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Ms Harris, the child of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, performs better in surveys than Mr Biden with black, Latino and young voters – critical constituencies that allies say she could energise as the nominee.

But whether she would actually boost turnout among younger voters of colour is another uncertain question. “This is just a wait and see moment,” the pollster said.

Some in the party are also asking whether Ms Harris’ progressive reputation risks losing the union and blue-collar voters in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that Mr Biden narrowly won in 2020 and which both parties need to secure a win in November.

Should she take over the ticket, some Democrats have suggested that Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania or Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina could be picked as running mate to capture centrist voters in Midwestern states.

Given the ages of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, voters are paying far more attention to the VP candidate of both parties in this election cycle, said Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster who worked for the 2020 Biden campaign.

On the Republican side, Trump has yet to announce his running mate, although many speculate he’ll pick North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum or Ohio Senator JD Vance.

Deep concerns among some Democrats about Harris’s strength as a presidential candidate date back to her unsuccesful 2020 bid for the party’s nomination, in which she landed blows on Mr Biden in an early debate but then crashed out before the first caucuses in Iowa.

Critics said she struggled to define herself as a candidate, a sentiment that has lingered throughout her tenure as vice-president. She had a shaky start in the White House, marked by high-profile interview slip-ups, low approval ratings and staff turnover.

She was also tasked with overseeing the administration’s strategy to reduce migration over the US southern border, which increased to record levels over the last three years and remains a major vulnerability for the campaign.

Those early stumbles led Ms Harris to be more cautious about her public appearances but many voters perceive her as ineffective and absent. “People need to know more about her, what economic issues she is strong on and they need to be reminded of the role she’s played,” Ms Lake said.

Over the last year, Ms Harris has found stable footing as the administration’s leading voice on abortion rights, an issue that proved successful for Democrats during the 2022 midterm elections and one the party hopes will win back more voters in November.

As a former prosecutor who handled sexual violence cases, she has invoked personal stories of working with women who miscarried in the bathroom or were turned away at hospitals as she’s tried to mobilise voters around the issue.

On the campaign trail, she has also sought to capitalise on other issues that resonate with young voters, including student debt forgiveness, climate change and gun violence. The White House, too, has made a concerted effort to promote her more forcefully.

Still, she faces an uphill battle to change longstanding voter scepticism – her approval ratings hover around 37% in polling averages compiled by FiveThirtyEight – a level similar to both Mr Biden and Trump.

And unless Mr Biden himself caves to the mounting party pressure to step down, grassroots Democratic supporters themselves seem resigned to supporting the current ticket.

At the Essence festival in New Orleans, Iam Christian Tucker, a 41-year-old small business owner from New Orleans, said she didn’t care, ultimately, who the nominee was.

She said she liked Kamala Harris, but she wasn’t sure if a black female president could win election.

“I’m voting against Donald Trump more than anything,” she told the BBC.

Greg Hovel, 67, who attended a rally for President Biden in Madison, Wisconsin, last week, said he supported Ms Harris in the 2020 primary and “has always been a fan,” though he cautioned there is “a lot of anti-woman sentiment in this country.”

“I think she would make an excellent president,” Mr Hovel said. “But I still think Biden can win.”

When Luca was born in a Perth hospital two years ago, it flipped his parents’ world in ways they never expected.

With the joy came a shocking diagnosis: Luca had cystic fibrosis. Then Australia – Laura Currie and her husband Dante’s home for eight years – said they couldn’t stay permanently. Luca, his parents were told, could be a financial burden on the country.

“I think I cried for like a week – I just feel really, really sorry for Luca,” Ms Currie says. “He’s just a defenceless two-and-a-half-year-old and doesn’t deserve to be discriminated against in that way.”

With a third of its population born abroad, Australia has long seen itself as a “migration nation” – a multicultural home for immigrants that promises them a fair go and a fresh start. The idea is baked into its identity. But the reality is often different, especially for those who have a disability or a serious medical condition.

It is one of few countries that routinely rejects immigrants’ visas on the basis of their medical needs – specifically if the cost of care exceeds A$86,000 ($57,000; £45,000) over a maximum of 10 years. New Zealand has a similar policy but Australia’s is much stricter.

The government defends the law as necessary to curb government spending and protect citizens’ access to healthcare. It says these visas aren’t technically rejected. But neither are they granted. Some can apply for a waiver, although not all visas allow it. They could also appeal the decision but the process is lengthy and expensive.

Campaigners see this as discriminatory and out of step with modern attitudes towards disability. And after years of fighting for it, they are hoping for change in the coming weeks, with an official review of the health requirements under way.

Laura Currie and Dante Vendittelli had moved from Scotland for jobs that Australia desperately needs. She is a nursery teacher and he is a painter-decorator. They had started their application for permanent residency before Luca was born. But now they feel like the life they built here and the taxes they paid meant little.

“It’s like, we’re here for you [Australia] when you need us, but when the roles are reversed and we need you, it’s like, nope, sorry, you cost too much money, you go back to your own country.”

Australia has form when it comes to its strict immigration policies. It had its own version of “stop the boats”, which sent people arriving by boat to offshore detention centres in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Island of Nauru and made controversial headlines in recent years. It was only in the 1970s that it entirely rid itself of the “White Australia” policy that started in 1901 with the Immigration Restriction Act, which limited the number of non-white immigrants.

The disability and health discriminations, which also date back to 1901, are still in place, says Jan Gothard, an immigration lawyer: “We still treat people with disability in the same way as we did in 1901 and we think they’re not people who are welcome in Australia.”

She is part of Welcoming Disability, an umbrella group that’s been pressuring the government to overhaul the law. Surprisingly, Australia’s Migration Act is exempt from its own Disability Discrimination Act.

Put simply, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve lived in Australia, if you were born in Australia, if you have private health insurance or even if you can pay for the support yourself – if you are deemed too much of a financial burden, you will fail the health requirement.

The government says that 99% of visa applicants meet the health requirement – 1,779 of them did not meet the bar between 2021 and 2022, according to official figures.

Immigration minister Andrew Giles, who declined to be interviewed, recently said that “any child born in Australia and adversely affected by the migration health rules can apply for ministerial intervention”, and that he himself had “positively intervened” in cases.

But families say that the process is gruelling at an already difficult time.

“There’s so much in your life going on when a child is sick, so much struggle and you’re struggling and begging and asking for petitions, asking people to help you,” says Mehwish Qasim, who knows the challenge first-hand. She and her husband Qasim fought to stay in Australia in a case that drew global attention.

Their son Shaffan was born in 2014 with a rare genetic condition and a damaged spinal cord. He needs around-the-clock care. The couple, originally from Pakistan, intended to return eventually, but Shaffan’s birth changed everything. Now, getting on a plane would risk his life.

Finally, in 2022 they were told they could stay. For those eight years, Qasim, a trained accountant, was unable to work in his chosen profession. Instead, he found jobs in cafes, in supermarkets and taxi apps to make ends meet.

“They should realise that’s a very difficult situation – you shouldn’t put people in the limelight,” Ms Qasim says.

Ms Currie and her husband aren’t giving up either – Australia is home now for Luca and they are filling jobs that the country needs. They’re hoping that is enough to win them their appeal. If they lose, they will have 28 days to leave the country.

For Luca, the sticking point is a pricey drug, Trikafta. He is not on it and may not even be compatible with it. But it’s the basis of Australian estimates of his treatment – around A$1.8m That puts his medical costs over the permissible limit – A$86,000 over 10 years, also known as the Significant Cost Threshold.

While campaigners have welcomed the recent rise of the threshold – from A$51,000 to A$86,000 – they still don’t think it reflects average costs.

The government’s own data shows it spends at least $17,610 per year on the average citizen – the most recent figures from 2021-2022 showing $9,365 per head on health goods and services and a further A$8,245 per person on welfare costs. Over a 10-year period – the maximum period assessed for a visa – that would amount to more than A$170,000. So campaigners have questioned how the government comes up with the threshold, which is half of that amount.

They also want the cost of educational support to be removed from the calculations. This impacts families whose children have been diagnosed with conditions such as Down Syndrome, ADHD and autism.

It’s a snag that has hit Claire Day’s plans for her and her family to follow her brother, who moved to Australia a few years ago.

Her younger daughter Darcy, who is nearly 10, has Down Syndrome. She’s been told by migration experts that because of that, she has little chance of being granted a visa.

On an overcast afternoon in Kent, she talks wistfully of the life she is looking forward to Down Under. Sunshine is no small attraction, but also “the lifestyle – [I want] a better environment for the children to grow up in,” she says.

An officer with London’s Metropolitan Police force for 21 years, she wants to take advantage of a major recruitment drive by Australian police forces. Their social media feeds are full of promotional videos fronted by former British police officers, showing them living the Australian dream, patrolling the beach in sand buggies and relaxing in the surf. They make up just some of the 30,000 British people who moved to Australia last year, according to government statistics.

Ms Day has not one, but two job offers – from Queensland’s police force and from South Australia. As part of the job, she’s also entitled to a permanent visa. Now, she is not so sure.

“I had hoped that it wouldn’t be an issue because Darcy doesn’t have any medical problems. She’s fit and she’s healthy, she goes to school and she participates in clubs and all of that sort of stuff.”

Stories like this have convinced campaigners that, at its heart, the policy is ableist.

“If we say to people with disability, ‘you’re not welcome here, we’re saying directly to people living with disability in this country, ‘you’re not welcome here either,” Dr Gothard says.

“[We’re saying] you know, given the opportunity, we would rather not have you.”

Social worker Shizleen Aishath says she was “gobsmacked” to find out about the health requirement – and she discovered it the hard way.

A former UN employee, she came to Australia for a further degree with every intention of returning to the Maldives. But she had an emergency C-section when her son Kayban was born in 2016. Forceps were used during the delivery. Kayban had undiagnosed haemophilia and suffered a serious brain bleed. He now needs round-the-clock care and the family chose to stay in Australia.

But Kayban was refused a temporary visa because he was deemed too much of a burden – although the family have private health insurance and don’t use state resources. The rest of the family were granted their visas.

“Disability is the only thing that stops you from migrating, there is nothing else,” Ms Aishath says.

After a lengthy appeal, Kayban was allowed to remain. His family is now preparing for their next fight – to stay in Australia indefinitely.

Logan LaFarniere woke up one October morning in 2022 to an empty driveway.

His brand new Ram Rebel truck, which he’d bought a year and a half ago, was missing. His security camera captured two hooded men breaking into the pickup in the dead of night outside of his Milton, Ontario home, and driving it away with ease.

A few months later, that very same truck appeared on a website of vehicles for sale in Ghana, an ocean and some 8,500km away.

“The dead giveaway was the laptop holder that we had installed in the back of the driver’s seat for my son, and in it was garbage that he had put in there,” Mr LaFerniere told the BBC.

That same clutter was visible in photos of the car listing, he said.

“There was no doubt in my mind that it was my vehicle.”

Mr LaFarniere’s story is hardly unique. In 2022, more than 105,000 cars were stolen in Canada – about five cars per minute. Among the victims was Canada’s very own federal justice minister, whose government-issued Toyota Highlander XLE was taken twice by thieves.

Early this summer, Interpol listed Canada among the top 10 worst countries for car thefts out of 137 in its database – a “remarkable” feat, said a spokesperson, considering the country only began integrating their data with the international police organisation in February.

Authorities say once these cars are stolen, they are either used to carry out other violent crimes, sold domestically to other unsuspecting Canadians, or shipped overseas to be resold.

Interpol says it has detected more than 1,500 cars around the world that have been stolen from Canada since February, and around 200 more continue to be identified each week, usually at ports in other countries.

Car theft is such an epidemic that it was declared a “national crisis” by the Insurance Bureau of Canada, which says insurers have had to pay out more than C$1.5bn ($1bn; £860m) in vehicle theft claims last year.

The problem has forced police jurisdictions across the country to issue public bulletins on how to protect vehicles from theft.

Meanwhile, some Canadians have taken matters into their own hands, doing everything from installing trackers on their cars to hiring private neighbourhood security.

Some who can afford it have even installed retractable bollards in their driveways – similar to those seen at banks and embassies – to try and deter thieves.

Nauman Khan, who lives in Mississauga, a city just outside Toronto, started a bollard-installation business after he and his brother were both victims of car thefts.

In one attempt, Mr Khan said the thieves broke into his home while his wife and young children were sleeping. They were looking for the keys to his Mercedes GLE parked out front, he said, but ran after he confronted them.

After that “traumatic” experience, they sold their cars except for two “humble” family vehicles.

Through his business, Mr Khan said he now hears similar stories from people throughout the region of Toronto.

“It’s been very busy,” he said. “We had one client whose street had so many home invasions that he’d hired a security guard every night outside his house because he just didn’t feel safe.”

The pervasiveness of car thefts in Canada is surprising given how small the country’s population is compared to the US and the UK – other countries with high rates of such crime, says Alexis Piquero, Director of the US Bureau of Justice Statistics.

“(Canada) also doesn’t have as many port cities as the US does,” said Mr Piquero.

While the US, Canada and the UK have all experienced a spike in car thefts since the Covid-19 pandemic, Canada’s rate of thefts (262.5 per 100,000 people) is higher than that of England and Wales (220 per 100,000 people), according to the latest available data from each country.

It is also fairly close to that of the US, which sits at around 300 vehicle thefts per 100,000 people, based on 2022 data.

The rise in recent years is partly due to a pandemic-driven global car shortage that has increased demand for both used and new vehicles.

There is also a growing market for certain car models internationally, making auto theft a top revenue generator for organised crime groups, said Elliott Silverstein, director of government relations at the Canadian Automobile Association.

But Mr Silverstein said the way that Canada’s ports operate make them more vulnerable to this type of theft than other countries.

“In the port system, there’s a greater focus on what is coming into the country than what is exiting the country,” he said, adding that once the vehicles are packed up in shipping containers at a port it becomes harder to get to them.

Police have managed to recover some stolen cars.

In October, the Toronto Police Service announced an 11-month investigation that recovered 1,080 vehicles worth around C$60m. More than 550 charges were laid as a result.

And between mid-December and the end of March, border and police officers found nearly 600 stolen vehicles at the Port of Montreal after inspecting 400 shipping containers.

These types of operations, however, can be difficult to carry out given the volume of merchandise that moves through that port, experts have said. Around 1.7 million containers moved through the Port of Montreal in 2023 alone.

Port staff also do not have the authority to inspect containers in most cases, and in customs-controlled areas only border officers can open a container without a warrant.

At the same time, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has been grappling with chronic understaffing, according to a report submitted by its union to the government in April.

Outdated technology is also an issue.

Patrick Brown, the mayor of Brampton – another Ontario city hard-hit by car thefts – recently paid a visit to the Port Newark Container Terminal in New Jersey to compare inspection tactics between the US and Canada.

He told the National Post newspaper that US authorities have “got scanners. They measure density. They work closely with local law enforcement”.

“These are things that we don’t do in Canada,” he said.

In May, the Canadian government said it would invest millions to bolster the CBSA’s ability to search shipping containers. Police will also get additional money to combat auto theft in their communities.

But Mr Silverstein said he believes a missing puzzle piece is auto manufacturers themselves.

“Everyone is talking about trying to recover vehicles, and a lot of my focus has been on why we are not making the vehicles tougher to steal in the first place,” he said.

In the meantime, car owners like Mr LaFarniere are still grappling with what to do to keep their vehicles safe.

After his Ram Rebel truck was stolen, he replaced it with a Toyota Tundra – a vehicle that Mr LaFarniere described as his “dream truck”.

This time, he installed an engine immobiliser on it to prevent thieves from being able to easily start the car. He also equipped it with a tag tracker in case it did get stolen, and added a club on the steering wheel for good measure.

Thieves were undeterred. A pair came to Mr LaFarniere’s driveway, this time to steal the Tundra. They had a harder time, however, and resorted to shattering the back window to get inside.

The commotion woke Mr LaFarniere and he called 911. But the thieves managed to run away in the four minutes it took for police to arrive.

He paid to repair his brand new truck and then sold it.

The whole ordeal, he said, was nothing short of “disheartening”.

The White House has pushed back on questions about Joe Biden’s mental fitness, with the US president daring doubters in the party to either challenge him or unite behind his candidacy.

Mr Biden, 81, took the highly unusual step of calling in to a cable news show, saying: “I am not going anywhere.”

In a tense news conference later, the president’s spokeswoman rejected suggestions that he might be suffering from an undisclosed illness.

Questions about his mental acuity have intensified since a poor debate performance against Donald Trump on 27 June.

The scrutiny is unlikely to fade this week as he hosts a summit in Washington for leaders of Nato countries.

In Monday afternoon’s daily press conference, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre rejected speculation that Mr Biden was being treated for Parkinson’s disease, which can cause stiff movement and slurred speech.

“Has the president been treated for Parkinson’s?” she said. “No. Is he being treated for Parkinson’s? No.”

She was responding to a question about a report in the New York Times that an expert on Parkinson’s disease had visited the White House eight times since last year.

A letter released on Monday night from Mr Biden’s doctor said the specialist in question, Dr Kevin Cannard, had been neurology consultant to the White House since 2012 and helps “thousands of active-duty members assigned in support of White House operations”.

Physician to the President Dr Kevin O’Connor also said Mr Biden had not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physical, in which he is checked by specialists from a range of medical fields.

He noted that Mr Biden’s last physical, in February, was “extremely detailed” and contained “no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder”.

On Monday morning, the president called in to MSNBC’s Morning Joe programme, laying down the gauntlet to critics to “challenge me at the convention” next month, or rally behind him against Trump.

It came as he sent an open letter to congressional Democrats, saying he “wouldn’t be running again if I did not absolutely believe” that he could beat the Republican challenger in November’s election.

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Mr Biden’s letter said Democratic voters in the primaries have “spoken clearly and decisively” that he should be the party’s nominee.

“Do we now just say this process didn’t matter?” the letter said. “That the voters don’t have a say… I decline to do that. How can we stand for democracy in our nation if we ignore it in our own party? I cannot do that. I will not do that.”

Mr Biden also phoned Democratic donors on Monday. One source familiar with the call told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that the president said his strategy for the second debate against Trump in September will be “attack, attack, attack”.

Several congressional Democrats have called for Mr Biden to drop out, but late on Monday, several others rallied round the embattled president.

Left-wing New York lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters: “The matter is closed. Joe Biden is our nominee.

“He is not leaving this race. He is in this race and I support him.”

Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Maxine Waters of California, and Frank Pallone of New Jersey echoed that support for Mr Biden.

Earlier in the day, Adam Smith of Washington state became the sixth member of Congress to publicly urge Mr Biden to quit.

“We need a stronger messenger,” he told the BBC, as he panned Mr Biden’s debate performance.

“The president was completely incapable of doing something that any sort of relatively novice debater should have been able to do, and it hasn’t gotten better since then,” he added.

On Sunday, the Democratic minority leader in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, held a group call in which several congressmen were explicit in urging Mr Biden to step aside, according to US news outlets.

They reportedly included Jerry Nadler of New York, Mark Takano of California, Joe Morelle of New York and Jim Himes of Connecticut.

Last week, Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first Democrat in Congress to urge Mr Biden to step aside.

Trump, 78, has ridiculed Mr Biden over the debate, last week labelling his rival “broken-down”. Biden allies have expressed exasperation about the media criticism he is facing, while his Republican challenger was recently convicted in a New York hush-money case.

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Some party members have rallied around Vice-President Kamala Harris, who is Mr Biden’s running mate in November.

Trump has suggested the vice-president would be “better” than Mr Biden, but still “pathetic”.

During a pair of interviews last week, Mr Biden acknowledged that he had “screwed up” the debate, but later vowed that only the “Lord Almighty” could convince him to end his bid to win the White House again.

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Rishi Sunak has confirmed his interim shadow cabinet, after 12 members of his top team lost their seats in the general election.

Ex-Prime Minister Lord Cameron, who had made a surprise return to cabinet in November, has resigned and been replaced by his former deputy Andrew Mitchell as shadow foreign secretary.

Richard Holden has also resigned as party chairman, after what he described as a “very tough set of results”, and is replaced by former Economic Secretary to the Treasury Richard Fuller as interim chairman.

Many of the key briefs remain unchanged, with Jeremy Hunt named as shadow chancellor and James Cleverly as shadow home secretary, mirroring the portfolios they held in government.

However, James Cartlidge has been appointed shadow defence secretary and Ed Argar shadow justice secretary, after Grant Shapps and Alex Chalk lost their seats.

The Conservatives now have only 121 MPs – the lowest number in the party’s history – after losing 251 seats in a Labour landslide.

Writing on social media, Lord Cameron said: “It’s been a huge honour to serve as foreign secretary, but clearly the Conservative Party in opposition will need to shadow the new foreign secretary from the Commons.”

He added: “As a committed Conservative I will continue to support the party and help where I can as we rebuild from the very disappointing election result.”

As a peer, Lord Cameron did not face his opposite number in the Commons.

In other changes:

• Former Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch moves to shadow secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, after Michael Gove stood down as an MP
• Kevin Hollinrake, previously postal affairs minister, takes her place as shadow business secretary
• Andrew Griffith, previously a minister in the department, becomes shadow secretary of state for science, innovation and technology
• Former schools minister Damian Hinds becomes shadow education secretary, after Gillian Keegan lost her seat
• Former Home Office minister Chris Philp is named shadow leader of the House of Commons, after Penny Mordaunt was ousted in Portsmouth North
• Helen Whately, a former health minister, becomes shadow transport secretary
• Julia Lopez is appointed shadow secretary of state for culture, media and sport, after Lucy Frazer lost her seat

Among those who will continue to shadow their former posts are Oliver Dowden, as deputy leader of the opposition, Victoria Atkins as shadow health secretary and Claire Coutinho as shadow secretary of state for energy security and net zero.

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Interim party chairman Richard Fuller said: “The Conservative Party has had a difficult election and it is important that we regroup and reflect on these results.

“We should also challenge ourselves candidly and deeply on the strengths of the Conservative Party across the country and outline where improvements can be made.”

In his resignation letter Mr Holden, who held the previously safe Conservative seat of Basildon and Billericay by just 20 votes, said it had been “the greatest honour of my life” to be party chairman.

He said there needed to be a “thorough review” of the election campaign, adding: “While I will obviously feed into that, this would best take place with a new set of eyes to help provide the clearest view.”

Mr Sunak has said he will stay on as party leader until arrangements for selecting his successor are in place.

The timetable for this remains unclear and no Tories have confirmed they will run to replace him yet.

Among the figures tipped to stand are former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, shadow health secretary Ms Atkins and new shadow levelling up secretary Ms Badenoch.

The other positions confirmed are:

• Mel Stride, shadow work and pensions secretary
• Steve Barclay, shadow secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs
• Jeremy Wright, shadow attorney general
• Alex Burghart, shadow secretary of state for Northern Ireland
• John Lamont, shadow secretary of state for Scotland
• Lord Davies of Gower, shadow secretary of state for Wales
• Stuart Andrew, opposition chief whip
• Laura Trott, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury
• John Glen, shadow paymaster general
• Tom Tugendhat, shadow security minister
• Andrew Bowie, shadow veterans minister
• Mims Davies, shadow women and equalities
• Lord True, shadow leader of the House of Lords

A Russian playwright and a theatre director have been found guilty of “justifying terrorism” by a military court in Moscow.

Director Yevgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petrichuk were sentenced to six years each for the production of their play The Brave Falcon Finist.

Loosely based on true events, the play tells the story of Russian women who travelled to Syria during the country’s civil war to marry members of the Islamic State group.

The two women’s defence lawyer vowed to appeal against the verdict.

Held partly behind closed doors, the trial heightened alarm about freedom of expression in Russia among members of the country’s artistic community.

In addition to being jailed, both women will be banned from “administering websites” for three years after their release.

In custody since May 2023, they will now be sent to a penal colony to serve their sentences, according to Russian news agency RBC.

The prosecution said the women had formed a positive opinion of IS and prosecutor Yekaterina Denisova argued the play contained “signs of justification of terrorism”, according to RBC.

At the beginning of the trial in late May, Berkovich, 39, and Petrichuk, 44, said they had staged the play because they opposed terrorism.

Berkovich said the performance had been put on to “prevent terrorism”, adding she had “nothing but condemnation and disgust” for terrorists.

“I have absolutely no idea what this selection of words has to do with me… I have never shared any forms of Islam, radical or otherwise,” RBC quoted Berkovich as saying.

Both she and Petriychuk maintained their innocence throughout the trial.

Speaking after the women had been sentenced, defence lawyer Ksenia Karpinskaya described the hearing as “absolutely illegal” and “unfair” and pledged to appeal against it thoughthere was “little hope”.

“I want you to know that these girls are absolutely innocent,” the lawyer added.

Supporters of Berkovich have suggested her prosecution was linked to a series of poems she wrote criticising Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine.

Russia’s artistic community has come under increasing pressure from the Kremlin since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Several high-profile Russian artists, writers and journalists have come out in support of the women, including newspaper editor Dmitry Muratov and actress Yulia Peresild.

The play, which remiered in 2020, won two Golden Mask Theatre Awards for best playwright and best costumes.

In recent months, Russia has been subjected to deadly attacks by Islamist militants in both Moscow and Dagestan. The Kremlin has made unsubstantiated suggestions that Ukraine was involved in both incidents.

Over a year after protests against sexual harassment allegations shook Indian wrestling, female athletes are gearing up for major events, including the 2024 Paris Olympics. The BBC spoke to young wrestlers about their journey.

Reetika Hooda almost didn’t make it.

The 23-year-old is among the five Indian women wrestlers to qualify for the Olympics this year.

It’s a hard-won opportunity, following a year of setbacks that shook her confidence. She knew she needed more training and competitions to improve her game.

A year ago, all wrestling came to a halt in India after its federation chief Brij Bhushan Singh was accused of sexual misconduct. He denies the allegations.

India’s sports ministry did not sack Singh but it disbanded the federation after finding several lapses, including the non-compliance of sexual harassment laws, and set up a temporary team to run things.

It was an unprecedented time. Hooda remembers watching the country’s most accomplished wrestlers, including her inspiration Sakshi Malik – the only Indian woman to win an Olympic medal in wrestling – camp on the roads of Delhi, demanding Singh’s resignation.

The protest made headlines globally, especially after the police detained the wrestlers when they tried to march to India’s new parliament building. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) condemned the way the wrestlers were treated and called for an impartial inquiry into their complaints.

“It was sad – not only because of what was happening but also what wasn’t,” Hooda told me.

Each year, the International Olympic Committee designates certain tournaments as qualification events for the games. To compete, wrestlers must earn ranking points in trials, win national competitions, and secure the Wrestling Federation of India’s (WFI) approval.

But instead of competing, Hooda stared at an empty sporting calendar for weeks.

“We trained but there were no trials, which meant we could not compete and know our shortcomings. There was a constant fear that we won’t be prepared [for the Olympics],” she said.

For a country that’s won only 24 medals at individual events in Olympics, with over a quarter in wrestling, this was worrying.

Fresh elections to the WFI were finally held in December 2023, nearly a year after the protests began.

The wrestlers had asked India’s sports minister to prevent people associated with Singh from participating in the election.

Singh did not contest as he had already served the maximum of three terms. But his close aide Sanjay Singh was elected the chief after a landslide victory.

This sparked outrage among women wrestlers. On the same day, Olympic medallist Malik quit the sport in protest.

“Even now I get emotional when I think of that moment,” Malik said. “Wrestling took me to such heights, got me love and respect, and I had to give it up.”

Young wrestlers were stunned by Malik’s decision – but soon, they were back on the mat.

“Sakshi Malik was the reason I took up wrestling,” said Tanu Malik, a 20-year-old wrestler in Haryana state.

“So when I saw her crying, I thought to myself, she fought for us, we can’t give up now.”

From that day, Tanu Malik decided to work harder.

Her training at the state’s all-women Yudhvir Wrestling Academy starts at 04:30.

The day starts with a rigorous five-hour fitness session, lifting large truck tyres and practicing wrestling techniques. After a break for food and rest, the women resume training for another five hours in the afternoon.

Girls as young as 12 years sweat it out on the mat. In their free time, they talk about diets and share recipes that would help them stay fit.

None of them want to talk about the alleged sexual harassment at academies or the accusations against the former wrestling chief. However, they are determined not to give up.

Seema Kharab, a coach, says that contrary to expectations, the number of girls at the academy has not dropped since the protests.

“The protests have assured young wrestlers that it is possible to raise their voice, that positive action may be taken and they can get support within the system,” she says.

In June, the police charged Brij Bhushan Singh with stalking, harassment, intimidation, and making “sexually coloured remarks”, but a court granted him bail

Meanwhile, the new federation chief, Sanjay Singh, has taken on the mantle.

He acknowledged his 30-year relationship with the former chief but dismissed allegations of Brij Bhushan Singh’s interference, claiming wrestlers had accepted him as the new head.

He said this was evident from the “massive turnout” at national wrestling competitions this year.

“No-one will be favoured or discriminated against and each wrestler is dear to me. I am also the father of two daughters and I understand what daughters need,” he added.

However, for young women like Tanu Malik, fear has become an inescapable part of being in the profession.

“It’s not easy – my parents are constantly worried about sending me to training alone,” she says. “But they have to trust us, otherwise how would things work? It’s like accepting defeat without even fighting.”

Others feel deflated and say the protests have come at a huge personal cost for them.

Shiksha Kharab, a gold medallist at the Asian Championship, says it caused disruptions in training because of which young wrestlers have lost a crucial year.

But Sakshi Malik has no regrets.

“The most important thing is to fight,” she said. “I don’t think anybody in any sporting federation would dare to do anything, they now know that harassment can have repercussions.”

Hooda says she’s nervous about competing with some of the world’s biggest wrestling giants at the Games, but also looking forward to it.

“Sakshi Malik used to say victory and loss are not important – just trust your hard work. That’s what I will do,” she adds.

As she gets ready for training, a picture of Sakshi posing with her Olympic medal, beams down at her.

“My only focus now is to win a medal” she says. “Who knows, maybe one day I will have my picture next to hers.”

The drama and vitriol of France’s sudden summer election is over. Now comes the drama and vitriol of stage two – and what could be a much longer and equally agitated struggle to build a functional coalition out of the inconclusive results of Saturday’s vote.

“A lot of things are unclear. We know who lost but we don’t know who won. Can we learn the art of compromise which is so unusual for us? Nobody knows – the signs are not necessarily good,” Sylvie Kauffmann, a newspaper columnist for Le Monde, told me.

The risks of deadlock – for France itself, for its constitutional order, for European stability, and even for Ukraine’s war against Russian aggression – are serious.

But it’s worth remembering that this country is no stranger to coping with political upheavals. Revolutions aside, there was the chaos and revolts that followed World War Two and eventually upended France’s constitutional order, leading to the current system of government, known as the Fifth Republic.

And more recently there were the challenges of “cohabitation”, when presidents and prime ministers from rival parties were obliged to share power.

As politicians now sidle away for their summer holidays, or refocus their attention on the imminent Paris Olympics, it seems more than likely that the political temperature in France will subside by a degree or two, at least briefly.

But the cohabitation battles of the 1980s and 1990s look like gentlemanly squabbles over a wine menu compared with the furious, guillotines-at-dawn brawls that many observers expect to preoccupy France’s National Assembly for weeks, or even months, to come.

Some wonder if the French electorate – by saddling parliament with three minority blocks of almost equal size – has rendered the country “ungovernable,” or whether it is simply faced with the sort of deal-making challenge that so many other European nations wrestle with almost as a matter of course.

Having emerged, to almost universal surprise, with the most seats at this parliamentary election, France’s left-wing coalition, the New Popular Front (NPF) has now earned the right to pick – or try to pick – the next prime minister and to implement its agenda.

But with no working majority, any viable candidate will need to win support from other, more centrist parties. Who could possibly fit that bill?

The NPF was quick to unite around a common platform ahead of the elections. But it contains deep political rifts – stretching as it does from anti-capitalists and communists to mainstream social democrats. The coalition is also home to some divisive figures, like the far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon, who could quickly trigger the coalition’s collapse over the factionalism that has often marked the left of French politics.

Some wonder if the Green Party leader, Marine Tondelier, might be a good fit. Her relatively low profile could be an asset in a political landscape scarred by years of deeply personal, and sometimes vitriolic, feuding.

In the midst of this, President Emmanuel Macron remains on his throne, scarred by self-inflicted political wounds, but arguably a little stronger than he was a few days ago.

His centrist grouping lost almost a third of its seats in the National Assembly as a result of his entirely unnecessary electoral gamble to dissolve parliament and call elections. But a disciplined frenzy of deal-making with the NPF helped it cling onto many more seats in the second round than the pollsters predicted.

Could deadlock in parliament enable Mr Macron to float above the chaos and strengthen his position? Even his allies seem sceptical, convinced he is now trapped in a “stranglehold” between the extremes he once promised to banish from French political life.

“Today, the President of the Republic will maintain a small margin of manoeuvre to act. But he will no longer be the political programmatic driving force in the country. From this point of view, after seven years, Macronism is dead,” Gilles Legendre, a disillusioned former MP who used to lead Macron’s party in the Assembly, told the BBC.

As for the far-right National Rally (RN), it will no doubt recover quickly from the shock of Sunday night’s results, which prompted sombre silence at the party’s headquarters – a jarring contrast with the euphoric street celebrations by left-wing voters which swept through parts of Paris that same evening.

The RN has already sought to reframe its third-place disappointment as the result of cynical deal-making by a “dishonest alliance” of its rivals, rather than evidence of its own shallow pool of credible candidates and its failure to convince enough French voters of the sincerity of its move away from the extreme right.

The RN will surely try to promote its own agenda – including a clampdown on immigration and reforms of schools and policing. Its commitment to supporting Ukraine remains unclear, given the party’s recent support for the Kremlin and its occupation of Crimea. The RN must now be hoping that the Assembly is either deadlocked or dominated by an economically profligate far-left agenda that could further threaten France’s already strained budget.

Months, or even years, of turmoil could then give the party a chance to portray itself as a stable and modernising force, thwarted by left-wing extremists and old elites.

That in turn could, potentially, give the RN a good chance of increasing its vote share in any subsequent snap parliamentary election, or – and this is the real prize – sweeping its leader Marine Le Pen into the Presidency in 2027.