Alec Baldwin broke down in tears as a New Mexico judge dismissed the involuntary manslaughter case against him for a fatal shooting on the set of the film Rust.

The trial collapsed three days into Baldwin’s trial in Santa Fe, at a court just miles from where Halyna Hutchins, a cinematographer, was shot with a revolver that Mr Baldwin was using in rehearsals.

It is the second time the case against the actor has been dismissed since the October 2021 shooting. He will not be tried again.

His lawyers alleged police and prosecutors hid evidence – a batch of bullets – that could have been connected to the shooting.

A key aspect of the case has been how live ammunition ended up on the set and Mr Baldwin’s lawyers have questioned the investigation and mistakes made by authorities who processed the scene.

Their motion to dismiss sparked a remarkable set of events, with one of the two special prosecutors leading the case resigning, and Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissing the jury to hear from multiple witnesses.

The bullets, Mr Baldwin’s lawyer said, could be related to Ms Hutchins’ death, but were filed in a different case with a different number.

Prosecutors argued the ammunition was not connected to the case and did not match bullets found on the Rust set.

The judge ruled, however, that they should have been shared with Mr Baldwin’s defence team regardless.

“The state’s wilful withholding of this information was intentional and deliberate,” she said from the bench. “There is no way for the court to right this wrong.”

Prosecutors will not be able to lodge the charge against Baldwin again, as the judge did not rule the case a mistrial, but instead outright dismissed it with prejudice.

“It was the nuclear option. The case is over,” Los Angeles trial attorney Joshua Ritter told the BBC.

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Mr Baldwin, best known for his role on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock and for portraying Donald Trump on sketch show Saturday Night Live, wept as the judge read from a lengthy statement detailing her reasons for the dismissal. His wife, Hilaria, covered her mouth. Other members of his family cried and smiled.

The actor hugged his lawyers then embraced his wife, who was seated behind him. They walked out hand-in-hand through a tunnel of press into a black vehicle without answering any questions or making any comments.

The evidence came to light on Thursday, when a crime-scene technician told the court that a man named Troy Teske, a retired police officer, had turned over live ammunition that could be related to the case.

Mr Teske is friends with the step-father of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film’s armourer who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter earlier this year.

He was working with Seth Kenney, who helped with props and ammunition on the film set.

• From the first day in court: Baldwin ‘played make-believe’ with gun
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After the judge sent the jury home on Friday, the court heard from a series of witnesses about the bullets, including authorities who led the case and Mr Kenney.

Towards the end of the hearing, one of the prosecutors leading the case – Kari Morrissey – took the stand to testify about the bullets and why they weren’t shared with the defence. It’s remarkably rare for a prosecutor to testify in a case they bring about their role in the investigation.

Ms Morrissey testified the ammunition had “no evidentiary value” from her perspective. While on the stand, she said that her co-prosecutor, Erlinda Ocampo Johnson, resigned on Friday as the judge weighed to dismiss the case.

She explained Ms Johnson “didn’t agree with the decision to have a public hearing” over the evidence claims.

Five people linked to one of Ecuador’s biggest criminal gangs have been jailed for the murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio last year.

Mr Villavicencio, a member of the country’s national assembly and an ex-journalist, was shot dead as he left a campaign rally in the capital, Quito, last August.

Carlos Angulo, the alleged leader of the Los Lobos gang, and Laura Castilla were sentenced to 34 years and eight months in prison for directing the hit.

Two men and a woman were handed 12-year sentences by the court in Quito for aiding a hit squad in the attack.

Prosecutors alleged that Angulo – widely known as The Invisible – ordered the hit from the Quito prison in which he is detained.

He denied the charges, claiming he was being made a “scapegoat” for the hit.

Castilla was left in charge of logistics for the hit. She allegedly supplied weapons, money and motorcycles to the men to carry out the hit.

The others – Erick Ramirez, Victor Flores and Alexandra Chimbo – were accused of helping the hit squad track Mr Villavicencio’s movements.

More than 70 people gave evidence during the trial, including a key witness who said the gang had been offered more than $200,000 (£154,000) to kill Mr Villavicencio.

A crusading anti-corruption activist, Mr Villavicencio had been one of the few candidates to allege links between organised crime and government officials in Ecuador.

In the weeks leading up to the election, the politician had received death threats and been given a security detail. But he continued to campaign and was gunned down by a group of assailants on 9 August outside a school in the north of Quito.

Prosecutors said during the trial that one of the men involved in the assassination was shot dead in a confrontation with police at the scene.

Six other men – all Colombian nationals – were later arrested in connection with the killing, but were subsequently found murdered at El Litoral prison, where they were being held in pre-trial detention.

A separate investigation into who contracted Los Lobos to carry out the hit remains ongoing, prosecutors have said.

Mr Villavicencio’s widow, Veronica Sarauz, welcomed the ruling. But she said it only marked the beginning of a long road to determine the entire story behind her husband’s death.

Ecuador has historically been a relatively safe and stable country in Latin America, but crime has shot up in recent years, fuelled by the growing presence of Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, which have infiltrated local criminal gangs.

The Los Lobos gang led by Angulo is said to have deep connections to the powerful Jalisco New Generation cartel in Mexico.

The things they see. The dead girl lowered by a rope from a ruined building. She sways slightly, then comes to rest, legs folding beneath her on the rubble.

They see people and parts of people lying out in the open where the blast or the bullet caught them. Violent death in all of its contortions.

Bodies lying in the streets, in the blasted open sitting rooms of houses, under the rubble. Sometimes covered by so much concrete the men will never reach them, and only in the future when the war is over will somebody come and give them a decent burial.

The men of the Gaza Civil Defence cannot close their eyes to any of this. There is no shutting out the smell. Every sense is on alert. Death can come from the skies in an instant.

When the fighting in places like Shejaiya in eastern Gaza City, or Tal Al-Sultan, near Rafah, in the south, is as fierce as it has been in the last few days, the ambulances of the Civil Defence dare not venture out.

“Entering areas close to the Israeli occupation is dangerous, but we try to intervene to save lives and souls,” says Muhammed Al Mughayer, a local Civil Defence official.

He and his men seize any lull in the conflict to recover the dead and the wounded. Families constantly ask about missing relatives.

“It is very difficult to identify the bodies,” explains Mr Mughayer. “Some remain unidentified due to complete decomposition.”

Stray animals also prey on the corpses, tearing off clothes and scattering papers that might be used to identify them.

The ambulance crews are short of fuel. Two days ago one broke down in Tal Al-Sultan and had to be towed out, a nerve-wracking experience for the crews. The risk of being fired on by the Israeli forces, says Mr Mughayer, means seriously injured people often cannot be rescued.

“There is currently a report of an injured person near Al-Salihin Mosque from two days ago, but we can’t reach them due to delays in coordination. It may result in their death.”

Refugees are continuing to flee from Gaza city and areas like Shejaiya. Many have been displaced multiple times.

For them it is a world without laws or rules. World leaders express concern. But nobody is coming to rescue them. Nothing is more acute for these people than the sense that they can die at any moment.

Sharif Abu Shanab stands outside the ruins of his family home in Shejaiya with an expression that is part bewilderment, part grief.

“My house had four floors, and I can’t enter it,” he says. “I can’t take anything out of it, not even a can of tuna. We have nothing, no food or drink. They bulldozed all the houses, and it is not our fault. Why do they hold us accountable for the fault of others? What did we do? We are citizens. Look at the destruction around you…

“Where do we go, and to whom? We are thrown in the streets now, we have no home or anything, where do we go? There is only one solution and that is to hit us with a nuclear bomb and relieve us of this life.”

There are occasional glimpses of reprieve. The Al-Fayoumi family, arriving close to Deir Al Balah in central Gaza, were relieved to have escaped from Gaza City. This after a warning this week to evacuate from the Israel Defense Forces sent thousands of people onto the road south.

In the boiling heat of the asphalt road, without shade, family members were reunited with others who had gone ahead of them.

The new arrivals were given water and soft drinks. A boy sucked from a carton of juice, then squeezed it with all his strength to coax out a last few drops.

Nobody in the group took their survival for granted. So to see everyone alive, all in the one place, brought smiles and cries of happiness. An aunt reached into a car to hug her young niece. At first the child smiled. Then she turned her head and sobbed.

Where will they be tomorrow, next week, next month? They have no way of knowing. It depends on where the fighting moves next, on the next Israeli evacuation order, on the mediators and whether Hamas and Israel can agree a ceasefire.

These lines could have been written at any time in the last few months. Civilians dying. Taking to the roads. Hunger. Hospitals struggling. Talks about a ceasefire.

Since February, we have been following the story of Nawara al-Najjar whose husband Abed-Alrahman was among more than 70 people killed when Israeli forces launched an operation to rescue two hostages in Rafah.

They had fled Khan Younis 9km (6 miles) to the north, and took refuge closer to Rafah when bullets and shrapnel tore through the tented camp where they slept.

Nawara was six months pregnant when she was widowed, and taking care of six children, aged from four to 13. When a BBC colleague found her again today, Nawara was nursing her newborn baby, Rahma, just one month old.

She gave birth on a night of heavy airstrikes, rushed to the hospital by her in-laws.

“I kept saying: ‘Where are you Abed-Alrahman? This is your daughter coming into the world without a father.’” Baby Rahma has red hair like her dead father.

The Israeli advance into Rafah last month sent Nawara and her children fleeing again, back to their old home in Khan Younis. She struggled to settle there again.

“My husband’s things were there, his laugh, his voice. I couldn’t open the house. I tried to be strong. Then I took my children and opened the door, and we wandered around the house, but it was hard. I cried for my husband…He was the one who cleaned the house, cooked for us, made sure I was comfortable.”

There has been fighting around Khan Younis again in the last week. An Israeli air strike close to a school killed 29 people, local hospital sources say, and wounded dozens more.

But Nawara is adamant she will not move again. Here she is close to the memory of the man she loves. She imagines her husband as a still living presence. She sends texts to his phone: “I complain to him, and I cry to him…I try to reassure myself, telling myself that I need to be patient. I imagine he’s the one telling me.”

For the last few months, Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani has been grabbing the spotlight in India.

It’s not because he has completed a major acquisition or cut a big philanthropic cheque, but it’s his son’s grandiose wedding celebrations that have entranced the entire nation and the world.

The pre-wedding parties, which began in March, have put the Ambani family firmly at the centre of many breakfast, lunch and dinner table conversations.

Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, tied the knot with his long-time girlfriend Radhika Merchant at a family-owned convention centre in Mumbai on Friday, in a culmination of six-month-long festivities that have taken place across the globe.

Indian weddings can be lavish, but the sheer scale and size of the Ambani jamboree have perhaps eclipsed the celebratory fervour displayed by erstwhile royals.

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The unerring presence of Bollywood A-listers at every party, the million-dollar performances by global pop-stars like Rihanna and Justin Bieber, and a bevy of VVIP dignitaries descending upon the celebrations have been a source of endless fodder for the paparazzi.

Consider some of the global elite who made it to the functions – Meta’s Mark Zuckerburg, Samsung CEO Han-Jong Hee, Bill Gates, former US President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, former UK prime ministers Boris Johnson and Sir Tony Blair, Fifa president Gianni Infantino and the Kardashian sisters.

And the list goes on.

“These are very busy people. They aren’t coming just to have fun,” James Crabtree, author of The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age, told the BBC.

“What this tells you is that global business leaders believe the Ambanis are strategically important and also that they see India as a very big market.”

Meet the family

The Ambanis are often described as India’s most prominent business family.

They run Reliance Industries, an oil to telecoms conglomerate that was founded by Mukesh Ambani’s father Dhirubhai Ambani – a man with a controversial legacy who attained legendary status for deftly navigating India’s controversial pre-liberalisation polity, while creating enormous wealth for his company’s shareholders.

Dhirubhai died in 2002, and the empire he founded was split between his two sons – Anil and Mukesh – after what could be described as one of India’s most acrimonious succession battles.

Since then, the brothers’ fortunes have diverged, with the younger Anil declaring bankruptcy and Mukesh pivoting more and more to consumer-facing businesses, even while retaining his pole position in Reliance’s mainstay – petrochemicals.

His oil refinery in the western town of Jamnagar is the largest in the world.

In recent years, Reliance has brought some of the world’s most celebrated luxury brands to India, from Valentino to Versace and Burberry to Bottega.

Among other things, the company now owns a team in the world’s richest cricket tournament and the iconic British toy retailer Hamleys.

In 2021, it acquired the historic country club Stoke Park in Buckinghamshire for £57m.

Earlier this year, Reliance signed a binding pact to merge its entertainment platforms with Disney, in its latest attempt to transform the company’s industrial moorings. It is a deal that makes Mukesh Ambani a formidable player in the digital streaming space, with rights to cricketing tournaments and international shows.

But the conglomerate really began its shopping spree during the Covid-19 pandemic, when it got billions of dollars in investment from more than a dozen global players, including Meta and Google. The plan with Meta has been to connect WhatsApp’s more than 400 million users in India with its online grocery platform JioMart.

The company’s aggressive pricing strategy has mounted a serious challenge to foreign entrants like Netflix and Amazon.

Privately, foreign players, who compete in the same sectors as Reliance, sometimes complain of a lack of level playing field, claiming the Ambanis are among a select few who’ve benefited from the Indian government’s policy of awarding preferential contracts to local tycoons.

“Foreign players face a difficult choice,” says Mr Crabtree. “They can either fight with Reliance or get into bed with Reliance. Zuckerburg has chosen to partner with them, while Amazon has decided to fight. But these battles are often very costly, and foreigners end up losing.”

Now, Mukesh Ambani’s next target is financial services, with Reliance entering into a joint venture with US-based BlackRock for a brokering and wealth management business.

Not surprisingly then, for the Ambanis, this is much more than just a wedding.

It is a show of strength and of the clout they command, says Harish Bijoor, a brand strategy specialist. “It’s a show of the fact that this family is a magnet that attracts people from all walks of life – business, politics and entertainment.”

The media blitzkrieg around it, he adds, is also a way for them to make a personal event “even more personal to the whole world” – such as the consumers of Reliance products and services for instance – who would never have got an invite.

If the Ambani patriarch, Dhirubhai, was credited with introducing the stock market to India’s retail investors, his son Mukesh is well recognised for creating a myriad touchpoints between his businesses and the average Indian consumer.

A bulk of what Indians consume today, from the shows they watch, to the clothes they wear and potentially even how they will transact in the future, comes from the Ambani stable.

And that is why there couldn’t have been a better occasion than a dazzling wedding for the family to market its brand to India’s burgeoning consumer class.

And sure enough, the wedding has captivated people in India and across the world.

As Joe Biden took to the stage for a rally in Detroit, Michigan, on Friday evening, one of the most raucous crowds seen in recent years at any event for the US president chanted: “Don’t you quit!”

The presumptive Democratic nominee was greeted by deafening cheers from hundreds of supporters as he vowed: “I am running! And I’m gonna win!”

As he left the stage, the strains of Tom Petty’s hit I Won’t Back Down washed over the high school gymnasium, an implicit rebuff to the growing list of elected members of his party exhorting him to step aside amid concerns about his age.

But for all the headlines dominated by the latest politician, donor or liberal actor to turn on Mr Biden, a longer list of Democrats are sticking by him.

At least 80 Democratic politicians have publicly backed the 81-year-old, and more are joining them as he insists he is going nowhere.

To many, his political record, his principles and his 2020 victory over Donald Trump mean more than the damage of a rambling performance in any debate or public appearance, or health fears during a new four-year term.

In Mr Biden’s first solo news conference of the year on Thursday, he gave detailed responses on Nato and his plans for a second term, but many headlines focused on his flub in referring to his deputy, Kamala Harris, as “Vice-President Trump”.

His allies – for now, at least – praised the embattled commander-in-chief’s performance, which was watched live by over 23 million people – a bigger audience than this year’s Oscars.

“I thought he showed a real command of foreign policy, really extraordinary,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told reporters on Friday. “I don’t think Donald Trump can talk about foreign policy coherently for one minute.”

Gavin Newsom, the California governor touted as a possible successor, told CBS he was “all in” for Mr Biden, adding that there was “no daylight” between them.

Congressman Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania said Mr Biden “showed he knows a million times more about policy” than Trump, “the convict conman”.

Experts say these politicians have a host of reasons for their support, including Mr Biden’s record in office, his 2020 victory against Trump and the gamble of putting in a new candidate so close to the November election.

“The president has made it clear he wants to continue to run, and I think people are being very respectful of that,” said Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist.

“And it’s also true that in our system, replacing a candidate for president this late is hard and is unprecedented, and so there’s enormous reticence about making a big change.”

He added that there was a “healthy debate” about who the nominee should be.

However, a range of groups have said that the candidate should be Mr Biden, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which has about 40 members, and the 60-member Congressional Black Caucus, which Mr Biden met earlier this week.

Ameshia Cross, a former Obama campaign adviser, said that the black caucus, as well as many black voters, see Mr Biden as a president committed to civil rights, unlike his rival, Trump.

“They understand what is at stake with a Donald J Trump presidency,” she said. “This is a guy who has stood against DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.”

Mr Biden has received public support from several politicians on the left, including the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who have previously criticised Mr Biden for an agenda they have said is too moderate.

Ms Cross said many recognise the risks a Trump presidency brings to civil and LGBTQ rights and climate change.

“These are things that matter to the progressive left, and the president has actually worked on those things,” she said.

To date, most of Mr Biden’s support comes from politicians running for re-election in reliably Democratic districts, rather than those who worry Mr Biden could harm their own election chances in tougher seats.

Mr Rosenberg said that the White House “needs to be respectful of their concerns and deal with them, I think, in a far more aggressive manner”.

Even as calls grow for Mr Biden to exit the race, the most recent poll seems to suggest that he has not lost much voter support.

The Biden campaign has touted a survey from the Washington Post, ABC News and Ipsos published this week, which shows him and Trump in a dead-heat, similar to survey results from before the debate. But the poll also found two-thirds of Americans want Mr Biden to step aside.

The president has also lost support from some among the Hollywood elite. Actress Ashley Judd called on Mr Biden to step down in a USA Today op-ed on Friday, saying the party needed a “robust” candidate. Her article followed an even more damning opinion piece this week by George Clooney about Mr Biden.

Longtime Democratic donor Whitney Tilson is the latest fundraiser to pull the plug, telling the BBC on Friday that he was increasingly confident Mr Biden would go. Other Democratic donors told a pro-Biden fundraising group, Future Forward, that pledges worth some $90m (£69m) were on hold until he exits, reports the New York Times.

Other top donors, however, are sticking by the president.

Shekar Narasimhan, who has been organising fundraisers for Democrats for more than two decades, said there had been no change in his plans.

“Our eyes can see what’s going on, our ears can hear what’s being talked about but we are keeping our heads down to get the work done,” said Mr Narsimhan, who is the founder of the Asian American Pacific Islander Victory Fund Super-PAC.

“It’s the president’s decision to make, whether he wants to run or not, and we will go with whatever he decides,” he said. “But it’s better to end this discussion as soon as possible.”

He said his support for Mr Biden came from the belief that he would win.

“This election will be decided by no more than a total of 50,000 votes in three states – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – and we have the ground game and infrastructure to win there,” he said.

Frank Islam, who sits on the National Finance Committee, said he had a fundraiser planned at his Maryland home later this month. “I am absolutely going ahead with it because I know he [Mr Biden] will win,” he said.

As Joe Biden attempted to calm the storm engulfing his presidential re-election campaign, he hit an early snag: referring to “Vice-President Trump” during a Thursday press conference when he meant Kamala Harris.

Within minutes, Donald Trump mocked the gaffe on his social media platform, Truth Social, with an accompanying clip. “Great job, Joe!” he wrote.

It was the kind of reaction voters have come to expect from Trump, who has spent years insulting the president, 81.

And yet, for the past two weeks, as Mr Biden was fighting for his political life, Trump remained uncharacteristically quiet, letting Democrats argue among themselves.

Republican strategists claim the relative silence is down to Trump’s new-found discipline – a change from his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.

“He’s played it brilliantly by not saying much about the Democratic crisis,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist and former senior Senate and House leadership aide. “Why take the shovel away when they’re digging their own hole?”

Trump, 78, has not gone entirely underground. Since Mr Biden’s poor debate performance in late June, Trump has given a handful of radio interviews, appeared at rallies in Virginia and Florida, and kept up a steady drumbeat of posts on Truth Social.

“The radical left Democratic party is divided in chaos,” Trump said at a Tuesday campaign rally in Miami. “They can’t decide which of their candidates is more unfit to be president, sleepy, crooked Joe Biden or laughing Kamala.”

He also challenged the president to a golf match, claimed all US airports were dirty, said that visitors to Washington DC end up “shot, mugged and raped”, claimed 45,000 people were at the Miami event when there were closer to 700, and pondered why “we don’t eat bacon anymore”.

But experts say that compared to past behaviour, the Republican has been restrained. Some have suggested Trump’s camp may even be delaying his choice for vice-president to avoid stealing attention from Mr Biden’s problems.

“If you compare this strategy and execution [in] this campaign to 2016 and 2020, it is far more strategic, far more disciplined,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican communications expert who worked on Mitt Romney’s presidential bids.

With the Democratic Party fracturing over Mr Biden’s candidacy, Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, said the approach taken by Trump since the debate had been effective.

“The Trump campaign has done an outstanding job of allowing the Biden campaign to self-destruct,” he said.

That implosion may have been what the Trump campaign was banking on from the start. The Republican plan to win over the American people has, for a while now, leaned on voters’ well-documented fears about Mr Biden’s age.

Speaking to The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta, Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita said he had planned for an “extraordinarily visual” match-up where Mr Biden was viewed as old and frail while Trump appeared strong and vigorous.

“The debate was exactly what they wanted,” Mr Madden said. “They got the perfect split-screen that was going to endure.”

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A number of recent polls put Trump consistently – if still narrowly – ahead of Mr Biden.

But there is concern within the Trump camp that anxiety over Mr Biden’s fitness has peaked too soon.

Were he to be replaced by a younger nominee, Trump would lose two main lines of attack – age and frailty. And it would be harder to directly blame a new candidate for the president’s perceived policy failures: Mr Biden scores badly with voters on the economy and the southern border crisis.

“They’re silently hoping, with their fingers crossed, that Biden is the nominee,” said strategist Ron Bonjean of Trump’s campaign. “They feel they will win the election with Biden as their opponent.”

Some of Trump’s closest surrogates have seemed to suggest they want Mr Biden to stay on. On Thursday, while Democrats parsed the impact of the president’s defiant press conference, Trump’s son Don Jr offered rare praise.

Mr Biden’s performance had been “not too bad”, he said. “He did fine enough to be able to stay in it – he doesn’t want to go.”

Last week, Trump’s daughter-in-law and co-chair of the Republican National Committee, Lara Trump, suggested it would “go against the democratic process” if Mr Biden were to be removed.

Nevertheless, Mr Bonjean and other Republican experts made clear that if it was hard for Republicans to take on a new candidate, it would be harder still for Democrats to choose one.

“Yes, it will cause the Trump campaign to scramble a little bit. But their scrambling is not nearly what it will be for the Democrats,” said Douglas Heye, a Republican strategist who served as chief of staff to former House majority leader Eric Cantor.

“They have to figure out how to nominate somebody else… they have to build a brand-new structure from scratch.”

Meanwhile, Republicans are combing through records of Ms Harris and other possible replacements, he said. “They’re not prepared, necessarily, for this, but they are preparing.”

Next week, at the Republican party convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Trump will reclaim centre stage, officially accepting his party’s nomination and making a primetime speech that will set the tone for the final months of his campaign.

Mr Heye suggested that the convention – four days of party fanfare built around a candidate who revels in the spotlight – will have made it easier to sell Trump the benefits of the strategy of remaining largely quiet.

“If you’re committed to keeping your candidate under wraps for an extended period, there has to be a pay-out later on,” he said. “His leadership can say: ‘You’ve got all of next week, it’s going to be the Donald Trump show’.”

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Hungary’s Viktor Orban has no peace plan of his own, but he has spent the past two weeks on a whistle-stop tour of Kyiv, Moscow, Azerbaijan, Beijing, Washington and even Mar-a-Lago, on a one-man mission that has infuriated leaders in the EU and US.

“Peace will not come by itself in the Russia-Ukraine war, someone has to make it,” he proclaims in videos posted daily on his Facebook page.

He has been bitterly attacked by both Brussels and Washington for breaking EU and Nato unity and cosying up to Vladimir Putin and China’s leader Xi Jinping.

Few argue with his central premise, that there can be no peace without peacemakers. But his close economic relationship with Russia’s president leaves him open to the charge of acting as Mr Putin’s puppet.

The right-wing Hungarian PM says a ceasefire tied to a specific deadline would be a start.

“I am not negotiating on behalf of anyone,” he told Hungarian radio during a brief stopover in Budapest between visits to Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv and Mr Putin in Moscow.

For the next six months, Hungary holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.

Mr Orban followed up his first visit to Kyiv since the start of the war with the first trip by an EU leader to Russia since April 2022. That visit to the Kremlin clearly angered his European partners.

Charles Michel, the head of the European Council of 27 EU governments, said the rotating presidency gave no mandate to engage with Russia on the EU’s behalf.

Mr Orban admitted that was the case, but insisted: “I’m clarifying the facts… I’m asking questions.”

In Kyiv he posed “three or four” to President Zelensky “so that we can understand his intentions, and where the red line is, the boundary up to which he can go in the interest of peace”.

He has also been generous in his praise of two other allies, Xi Jinping and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Meeting Mr Erdogan on arrival at the Nato summit in Washington, he spoke of him as “the only man who has overseen an agreement between Russia and Ukraine” so far, referring to a now defunct Black Sea grain agreement.

“China not only loves peace but has also put forward a series of constructive and important initiatives [for resolving the war],” he said of President Xi Jinping, according to Chinese state media.

The final visit on his whirlwind tour was to presidential candidate Donald Trump, another close ally who he strongly backs to win again in November and who he refers to as a man of peace.

In one interview, he declared that during Trump’s four-year term as president “he did not initiate a single war”.

This has been a remarkable trip in the international limelight for the leader of a small East European country with 9.7 million inhabitants. But who is it designed to impress, and could it have any effect?

A key target of his message is the domestic public.

Viktor Orban has had a relatively bad year so far, losing the two most prominent female politicians in his party to a scandal in February, and witnessing the emergence of his first serious challenger for more than a decade – Peter Magyar.

In June, Mr Orban’s Fidesz party won an impressive 45% in European elections, to 30% for Mr Magyar’s three-month-old Tisza party.

But he lost more than 700,000 votes (one in four) compared with the last parliamentary elections in 2022.

For the first time, he does not look invincible.

What better way to show Hungarians that their leader was still strong than to parade across the world stage, in a global tour “to make peace”?

His mission was also targeted at an international public, in the week that his new Patriots for Europe (PfE) group in the European Parliament attracted 84 MEPs from mainly far-right parties in 11 countries.

Patriots for Europe has emerged as the third largest faction in parliament, edging aside the rival Conservatives and Reformist group of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni.

Mr Orban’s visit to Moscow won him effusive praise from the Russians: “We take it very, very positively. We believe it can be very useful,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

The US was less impressed.

“We would welcome, of course, actual diplomacy with Russia to make it clear to Russia that they need to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, that they need to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity,” said US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. “But that is not at all what this visit appears to have been.”

At the same time, the US did welcome Mr Orban’s first visit to neighbouring Ukraine since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.

The Hungarian leader has given very little away about the actual content of his talks in Kyiv, Moscow or Beijing.

A leaked version of his letter to Charles Michel, sent from Azerbaijan, offers some clues.

Mr Putin was open to a ceasefire, Mr Orban told the European Council president, provided it did not provide Ukraine with a chance to reorganise its army on the front lines.

Three days earlier in Kyiv, on 2 July, the Ukrainian leader used a similar argument, telling Mr Orban that the Russians would abuse any ceasefire to regroup their invading forces.

Mr Orban was apparently “surprised” that President Zelensky still believed Ukraine could win back its lost territories.

And Vladimir Putin told Mr Orban that “time favours Russian forces”, according to the leaked letter.

Arriving in Washington days later, Mr Orban posted yet another video on Facebook, saying he would argue that Nato “should return to its original spirit: Nato should win peace, not the wars around it”.

Unlike his Nato allies, Viktor Orban views Russia’s two-and-a-half year war in Ukraine as a civil war between two Slav nations, prolonged by US support for one of them.

One thing he probably does agree on is that this autumn the conflict will become only worse.

A Trump presidential victory in November, he believes, would force the Ukrainians and Russians to the negotiating table.

Celebrities, politicians and popstars from across the globe have arrived in Mumbai for the wedding of youngest son of Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani.

Anant Ambani tied the knot with Radhika Merchant, daughter of Indian pharma tycoons Viren and Shaila Merchant, in a traditional Hindu ceremony in Mumbai city on Friday.

The wedding events began with parties and celebrations in March, before the family invited over 800 guests to join them on a cruise around Europe.

But Friday saw the arrival of some of the world’s most recognisable faces, as politics, sport and celebrity mixed on the red carpet.

Friday’s ceremony was part of a four-day extravaganza – the final stop in a string of elaborate parties the family has hosted since March, featuring performances by popstars including Rihanna and Justin Bieber.

Out with the old, in with the new.

Nothing represents the rapid, ruthless business of politics like removal vans at Downing Street.

Settling a new prime minister – staff, family, pets and paraphernalia – into the famous residence, however, is a complex feat.

With the Starmers set to move in after Labour’s landslide victory – here’s their relocation to Downing Street unpacked.

Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vacated 10 Downing Street on Friday 5 July after Labour won a landslide victory in the general election.

Shortly after, new PM Sir Keir Starmer and wife Victoria Starmer arrived on the steps of No 10.

The iconic street became their new office and home. But, the family – including the couple’s two children – didn’t unpack their bags straight away.

“We will take a bit more time with the kids. We haven’t moved in yet because I didn’t want them left on their own while the two of us were away this week, so we’ll just take a bit more time on that,” said the prime minister, who has been in Washington this week for a NATO summit.

The prime minister officially taking up residence at No 10 is a historic moment for a new government.

Yet, the Starmers are expected to live in the more spacious four-bedroomed flat at No 11.

This follows a trend first set by the Blairs in 1997, who lived at No 11, and repeated by other prime ministers including Boris Johnson and David Cameron.

The Starmer children, unlike some of former prime ministers, did not feature in the photograph of a new PM on the Downing Street steps.

That’s because the Starmers have chosen to keep their 16-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter out of the public eye.

The teenagers did, however, receive a warm welcome from some of Downing Street’s previous young residents, the children of former Conservative chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

“Jeremy Hunt’s children left notes for our children coming into the Number 11 flat,” the prime minister said.

“It was very nice. I think that was really sweet and thoughtful of them to do that because for children this is very impactful. They have been through it. They are slightly different ages but for them to be thoughtful enough to leave a note is very special. Our children were very pleased to get those notes.”

The former chancellor was pictured leaving Downing Street with his wife, three children and family dog just hours after the Conservatives lost the general election.

A permanent resident, unfussed by the rise and fall of governments, is Larry the cat who was adopted and brought to Downing Street in 2011 for his mousing skills.

He may have another pair of paws to contend with if JoJo, the Starmer’s family cat, moves in.

Plus, the new PM hinted that his family might bring a dog along too. Starmer told Times Radio his children had “been on a campaign to get a dog for a number of years” and that “German shepherd is the current favourite”.

“It’s their home and it’s quite a big home,” said Stephen Morris, managing director of the removal firm which packed the possessions of the Blairs into 2,000 boxes when they left Downing Street in 2007.

“You don’t let people know what it is you’re moving,” Morris said. “Because you hear and see things that a newspaper would like!”

Politics can move fast, and so must removals.

Morris recalls receiving a phone call in 2010 the evening Prime Minister Gordon Brown resigned, asking his team to be ready to start moving the next day.

Prime ministers can give Downing Street a fresh lick of paint, making use of an annual public grant of £30,000 to carry out renovations.

But Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie were criticised when their extensive revamp of the flat above No 11 cost more than £200,000.

Mr Johnson and his wife wanted to transform the flat from previous Prime Minister Theresa May’s “John Lewis furniture nightmare” into a “high society haven”, according to the society magazine Tatler.

The work was initially paid for by the Cabinet Office, but £52,000 was given to the Conservative Party by Tory donor Lord Brownlow to cover the bills.

The Electoral Commission fined the Tory party and found it had failed to accurately declare all of Lord Brownlow’s donations towards the renovation.

Downing Street will be where Sir Keir conducts his most important duties, such as holding cabinet meetings and welcoming foreign leaders.

But it’s also a family home, hosting birthday parties and space for relaxation.

It’s a “strange dynamic”, said Jack Brown, a former researcher in residence at No 10.

“It’s both a place of work and family… and it’s important to the prime minister’s premiership that they and their family feel comfortable there.”

The family of Harold Macmillan, Conservative prime minister from 1957 to 1963, reportedly enjoyed their time in Downing Street, although there were strict rules about children riding bikes through the corridor during cabinet meetings.

But former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson and his family found “disturbances by officials” difficult. Mary Wilson installed a doorbell in her second-floor rooms to stop civil servants from intruding.

Friday nights in the Starmer household are family-first.

“We’ve had a strategy in place – and we’ll try to keep to it – which is to carve out really protected time for the kids,” Sir Keir told Virgin Radio. “So on a Friday – I’ve been doing this for years – I will not do a work-related thing after six o’clock, pretty well come-what-may.”

What these Friday nights entail in the new home will be one of the many choices facing the Starmer household.

They’ll have a lots of boxes to unpack. And one more critical, if quieter, task for the new prime minister: turning the heart of political power into a family home.

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To get a sense of the public interest in the Vision Pro, Apple’s very high-tech, very expensive virtual reality (VR) headset – finally launched in the UK and Europe on Friday – where better to head than one of its own stores?

In the past, people camped outside Apple branches overnight, so desperate were they to get their hands on the tech giant’s latest product.

When I went to its branch in central London on Friday morning, though, there was just a small group, mainly comprised of men, waiting for the doors to open.

Partly, that’s because people these days prefer the convenience of pre-orders.

But it also perhaps tells us something about the question that continues to hang over the VR headset market: will it ever escape the realm of tech aficionados and go truly mainstream?

Apple’s plan to make its product break through is to position it as a product you use to do the stuff you already do – only better. Home videos become 3D-like, panoramic photos stretch from floor to ceiling, 360 degrees around you. Apple keeps reminding me it calls this “spatial content”. Nobody else does. Plenty suck their teeth at the Vision Pro’s price though – a whopping £3,499.

Facebook owner Meta has been watching Apple’s approach closely. It’s been in the VR game a long time. At a recent demo for the Meta Quest 3, which has been available in the UK since 2023, the team was very keen to talk to me about “multi-tasking” – having multiple screens in action at once. In a demo I had a web browser, YouTube and Messenger in a line in front of me. “We always did this, we just didn’t really talk about it,” one Meta worker told me.

And in its most recent advertisement, a man wears a Quest 3 to watch video instructions while building a crib. Not the most exciting concept, perhaps, but it shows just how Meta wants people to see its tech.

Oh – and it costs less than £500.

Apple and Meta are the two big players but VR is a crowded market – there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of different headsets already out there.

But what unites them all is none have quite hit the mainstream.

Up until now, the Vision Pro has only been on sale in the US – research firm IDC predicts it will shift fewer than 500,000 units this year.

Meta, which has been in the market longer, does not release sales data for the Quest either but it’s thought to have sold around 20 million worldwide.

VR headsets are nowhere near as ubiquitous as tablets, let alone mobile phones.

And it gets worse – George Jijiashvili, analyst at market research firm Omdia, said of those devices sold, many are abandoned.

“This is largely due to the limited in-flow of compelling content to keep up engagement,” he said.

But of course lack of content leads to reduced interest – and a reduced incentive for developers to make that content in the first place.

“It’s a chicken and egg situation,” Mr Jijiashvili told the BBC.

Alan Boyce, the founder of mixed reality studio DragonfiAR, warned that early adopters of the Vision Pro would have to “be patient” while more content arrived.

That’s where the Quest 3 wins out for him – it already has a “robust library” of games, and it can perform virtual desktop tasks just like the Vision Pro.

And IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo says we should not be too quick to write off a slow start for Apple’s new product.

“There’s always the expectation that Apple with every single product will sell in the millions straight away, there’s always the comparison with the iPhone,” he said.

But the reality is even the iPhone took time to find its feet – and a huge number of buyers.

According to Melissa Otto from S&P Global Market Intelligence, the iPhone only became mainstream when the App Store “started to explode with apps that added value to our lives”.

“When people start to feel their lives are becoming better and more convenient, that’s when they’re willing to take the leap,” she said.

There is another factor to consider here too though: the physical experience of using a headset.

Both Apple and Meta use so-called “passthrough” technology to enable what is known as mixed reality – the blending of the real and computer-generated worlds.

By utilising cameras on the outside of the headset, users are given a live, high-definition video feed of their surroundings – meaning they can wear it while doing things like walking or exercising.

But strapping something to your face weighing half a kilogram is not something that feels particularly natural. Generally headsets now are lighter than before, but I still can’t imagine wearing any of them for hours on end – though a colleague says he often does just this.

A sizeable number of people, myself included, have experienced VR sickness, which is when being in VR makes you feel queasy. This has significantly improved as the tech has advanced and is much less of a problem – but any experience that has you moving around with a controller instead of your feet will still take some getting used to.

Most VR experiences now include all sorts of settings to avoid this, such as the ability to “teleport” between locations. Sony’s VR game Horizon: Call of the Mountain solved the problem by letting you move by swinging your arms up and down – it sounds silly, but it goes some way to trick the brain and avoid nausea.

Whatever the experts say, the companies themselves appear bullish about their products, and their respective strengths

It’s no secret that the long-term ambition from the tech giants here is for mixed, or augmented, reality to become normal reality. Facebook owner Meta renamed itself after its grand plan for us all to inhabit a virtual world called the Metaverse – working, resting and playing there, and presenting ourselves as digital avatar versions of our ordinary selves. That all seems to have gone a bit quiet at the moment.

But they are all right in that one day, something will replace our phones and perhaps that thing is some form of VR headset. Eventually, I expect these things will start to look more like glasses and less like giant ski goggles… if they’re not brain implants (I’m not joking).

“The devices that look like what they look like today – I think we know that’s not a mass market device. It’s too heavy, it’s too awkward,” said Mr Jijiashvili.

That’s an area where rivals have focused their efforts, with Viture and XReal producing sunglasses with high-fidelity screens embedded in them.

Melissa Brown, head of Development Relations at Meta, told us she “absolutely” thought the Quest 3 could one day replace the smartphone. But the next day Meta’s PR team got in touch with a more measured response from Mark Zuckerberg, in which he said “the last generation of computing doesn’t go away… it’s not like when we got phones, people stopped using computers”.

Judging by what I saw in the Apple store in London’s Regent Street, the UK is not about to be flooded with people wandering around in Vision Pros or Quest 3s.

The very first customer I spoke to had actually just popped in for a charger and was a bit bemused by Apple staff applause as he walked in.

But in the couple of hours we were there, several people walked out grinning with big white Apple bags. The question remains: how many more can be persuaded to do the same.

When Banksy artwork Season’s Greetings appeared on a garage in Port Talbot in 2018 it kicked off a three-year saga that ended in it being removed from the town.

But more than five years on it has left a lasting legacy – a vibrant street art community.

“There were people doing it anyway,” said steelworker and street artist Ryan Davies.

“But there’s no two ways about it – when Banksy turned up in town, that really kicked off a scene here that had been bubbling under.”

Anyone paying a visit to the steel town could not help but notice its ever-growing collection of street art – everything from imposing murals to graffiti lettering and tagging.

“Port Talbot is renowned for it now,” said Ryan.

Ryan, a boiler man at the local steelworks for 33 years, began painting on walls over two years ago.

When he is not on shift he can be found painting alongside twin brothers Matthew and Aiden Cole. Together they are known as THEW Creative.

On a Friday afternoon they were at Margam Football Club, which had commissioned them to paint a mural on its clubhouse in the shadow of the steel plant’s blast furnaces.

With looming mass job cuts at the steelworks, Ryan said it was a welcome distraction from the day job, where people were feeling “very demoralised”.

“With me coming up to 50, I’m lucky enough to have paid off my mortgage… but there’s boys in their twenties there and they’ve just taken on mortgages, they’ve got young kids and a long way to go before retirement – so for them it’s very, very nerve-wracking,” he said.

Ryan said having colourful street art around the town was a hopeful sight during difficult times.

“It makes you think the town might actually have a chance and it’s not just about the steelworks,” he added.

“[The Banksy] made the common person realise that it’s not just anti-social, art is art,” said Aiden.

“People started realising ‘we could have art in our garden, on our children’s bedroom wall, on our football club, on our restaurant – it has really bloomed and there’s a nice scene going on in Port Talbot at the moment.”

But not everyone in Port Talbot is a fan.

“We got accused of making the place look like a third world country the other day by a random old man – fair enough,” said Aiden.

“But overwhelmingly it’s a positive reaction, I would say,” added Ryan.

“You can’t please everyone, can you,” added his friend.

It was back in December 2018 when Season’s Greetings appeared on steelworker Ian Lewis’ garage in Taibach, and following online speculation it was soon claimed by the famous anonymous street artist.

With an estimated 20,000 visitors flocking to see the artwork, wardens were drafted in to control traffic and film star Michael Sheen, who grew up in the area, helped pay for a protective plastic screen and round-the-clock security.

It was eventually bought by gallery owner John Brandler and taken to a building in the town centre so it could be viewed by the public.

But once an agreement to keep it there expired Mr Brandler moved it out of Wales in February 2022.

“It was a travesty,” recalled Ryan.

“It was taken away from us, a very rich person came in and bought it and off it went.”

When this was put to Mr Brandler he said he had bought the artwork intending to keep it in the town and create an international street art museum – but the idea had been scrapped by the local council.

A spokeswoman from Neath Port Talbot council said at the time: “Discussions were held on the potential for the work to remain in Port Talbot but the council was informed it would have to meet the costs of its removal and installation into a new venue, to continue to cover the insurance and to pay a fee in the region of £100,000 per year for the loan of the work.”

Recalling the dispute, Mr Brandler said: “I was travelling to Wales virtually every week costing me a day-and-a-half of my business time to have meetings, to be greeted by the phrase that it wasn’t going to happen because – and I quote – ‘Banksy isn’t Welsh’.”

He added he was “so, so saddened” that the artwork had not been able to remain in the town which he said was “in dire need of tourism”.

Thirty miles away in Cardiff, the Banksy effect is also being felt.

There, graffiti writer Amelia Thomas, better known as Unity, said: “People have their own feelings about Banksy, but something that can’t be disputed is one thing that Banksy has done is raise the profile of people painting on walls being acceptable.

“There’s a lot of people in Port Talbot who had already been painting for years and not getting any recognition, so it’s a bit barmy that it takes someone from outside to paint something for people to actually appreciate the local people.”

Amelia grew up in rural Llanfihangel Talyllyn in Powys, and said she had always been drawn to “making marks on walls”.

“I was getting into trouble because no-one else was doing it and it was quite obviously me,” she said.

Everything changed when she saw a graffiti magazine at her cousin’s house.

“I was like ‘Oh, my God, there’s other people doing this, that’s what I’m being drawn to.”

After moving to Cardiff in the mid 2000s she found walls where she could paint “without getting hassled”.

“It’s much easier to paint on the street without having people hassling you now, because people are used to seeing it for one. But also and there are places where you can say, ‘I’m allowed to be here, it’s nothing to do with you, leave me alone’,” she said.

Many places around the UK have open walls where artists are able to paint.

“That’s a massive step from where things were,” said Amelia.

For Amelia, expressing herself through art is a way of protecting her mental health.

“It’s about raising awareness to the public that actually, this is something that’s benefiting the person that’s painting, they’re not doing it to annoy you, they’re doing it because it’s something that they need to do, that they’re compelled to do and that helps them keep their head above the water, because that’s what it is for me,” she said.

“When you’re painting, nothing else in the world exists. It’s just you and that wall.”

Hasan Kamil grew up in Swansea with a passion for creating graffiti art.

After spending five years working as a graphic designer he now lives in Bristol, and works creating large-scale murals and bespoke lettering.

When he is outside painting murals people frequently stop to ask him about his work, so he said he has a good gauge about how the public feel about art popping up on buildings, walls and underpasses.

“The average perception [says] ‘I love the street art but hate the graffiti, hate the tagging’,” he said.

“But they don’t realise they coexist and graffiti was kind of there first, so I will always be a big advocate for graffiti.”

There’s another frequent comment.

“The B word – Banksy. ‘You’re not Banksy are you?’ You get that a lot.”

Only one US president has been at the Nato summit in Washington this week, but the shadow of another – his predecessor – has loomed over this meeting of the world’s most powerful military alliance.

While the host Joe Biden has presided over a message of unity from the group’s 32 members, the Nato-sceptic views of his rival for power, Donald Trump, have imbued conversations here with an urgency and an anxiety.

At times the smiles from world leaders in the conference hall have felt fragile. Trump “hangs over every conversation here”, said one Eastern European diplomat who asked to remain nameless.

The Republican’s election as president in November “could change everything”, the diplomat said. The fact that Mr Biden has been trying to fend off a political crisis over his frailty has only sharpened the sense that a second Trump term could bring far-reaching changes to an alliance forged in the ashes of the World War Two and still reliant on hard US military power to deter adversaries.

So does Nato need to “Trump-proof” itself – as some describe it – and if so, is it possible?

There is a lot of evidence of efforts by Nato allies to reach out already to those in Trump’s political orbit to try to manage relationships and limit what they would see as the potential damage of a second term. But others suggest something more unmanageable.

Camille Grand, a French former official who was one of Nato’s deputy leaders throughout the Trump administration, described himself as “much more worried” than colleagues who think a second term may be “Trump [term] one on steroids” but ultimately workable for the alliance.

“He doesn’t have the same sort of guardrails, he doesn’t have the same sort of adults in the room. And he has around him a team that is trying to turn his instinct into policy,” said Mr Grand, who is now a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Four members of visiting delegations, who asked to remain anonymous, told the BBC their concern was not necessarily that a Trump administration would withdraw entirely from Nato, as he has threatened before.

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Rather it is a fear that the US commitment to the alliance’s core principle of collective security – “all for one and one for all”, meaning any ally under attack can expect defence from the others – could wane.

Trump’s positions on Nato have veered erratically from outright hostility – portraying the alliance as a bunch of freeloading Europeans surviving off protection paid for by US taxpayers – to suggesting his outbursts are simply part of a cunning negotiating tactic to compel more of Nato’s members to meet its defence spending targets.

He has frequently tried to rally crowds of supporters with attacks on the organisation. As the summit began, he posted to his Truth Social network that when he started as president most Nato members were “delinquent” until they “paid up” due to his pressure.

By the end of Trump’s presidency, four more Nato countries had hit the alliance’s guidelines of spending at least 2% of national income on defence. So far during President Biden’s term, another 13 countries have reached the target.

That progress is frequently touted by the Biden administration and its backers, although in reality much of the increase was triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

At a February campaign rally in South Carolina, Trump said he would let Russia “do whatever the hell they want” to Nato countries that did not spend enough.

That sparked outrage from some quarters in Washington, but privately his threats are said to have gone further.

At a panel event in January, European Union commissioner Thierry Breton described a meeting he had attended in 2020 between Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

“Donald Trump said to Ursula: ‘You need to understand that if Europe is under attack, we will never come to help you and to support you. And by the way, Nato is dead. And we will leave, we will quit Nato.’

“It was the president of the United States of America,” recalled Mr Breton. “He may come back.”

Trump’s campaign has been approached by the BBC with a request to confirm whether the account was accurate. Evelyn Farkas, a former senior official at the Pentagon in the Obama administration, believes there remains a real concern even over Nato’s existence under Mr Trump.

“I think there is a danger with Trump that he tries to pull us out of Nato. I won’t sugarcoat that,” said Dr Farkas, now executive director at public policy think tank the McCain Institute.

“The reality is Trump is dangerous to the alliance in that America is still the strongest economic, political, military power and Nato is stronger if Nato has the United States inside the alliance.”

But one of those familiar with the thinking in Trump’s political orbit, Dan Caldwell from the right-wing think tank Defence Priorities, believes the former president’s priority is to push European nations to invest more in their own militaries.

“I don’t think he wants to withdraw from Nato, but he has said that the United States should re-evaluate its role and the purpose of Nato going forward,” he said.

“Not only the former president but more and more national security experts on the right believe the United States has really no choice but to do less in Europe. So I think that there’s some larger forces at play, that will eventually force the next president, regardless of who it is… to substantially pull back from Nato.”

The most detailed account of policy positions that might influence a second Trump term comes from an initiative being brought up by supporters and detractors of Trump alike. Overseen by the conservative Heritage Foundation, “Project 2025” is a 900-page detailed blueprint for a Republican president to usher in a sweeping overhaul of the executive branch.

The initiative says a future president should “transform Nato” so that America’s role is primarily for its nuclear deterrent, while other members should field “the great majority” of conventional forces required to deter Russia.

This is in keeping with the project’s foreign policy position, seeing the main threat to US primacy as China and therefore calling for the next president to “bring resolution to the foreign policy tensions” sparked by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Trump himself has equivocated over the war but has said he would end it in “24 hours”. He favours brokering a deal between Russia and Ukraine on terms that many Nato allies would see as surrender for Kyiv.

Trump has partially disavowed Project 2025, saying he does not know who is behind it but many of his former officials had a hand in writing it, including a former acting defense secretary.

Since Trump left office, the increase in the number of Nato members spending at least 2% of their income on defence has better insulated the alliance for the future, said Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Asked about “Trump-proofing”, he said Congress had also moved to shield America’s membership of Nato from the whims of the White House, in a law passed last year. “We clarified no president can unilaterally withdraw from Nato without a vote of approval from the Senate,” Mr Coons told the BBC.

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He also highlighted the $60bn military assistance package for Ukraine finally passed in April in a bipartisan effort following nine months of paralysis, after allies of Trump blocked passage of the bill through Congress.

“It is my hope that we will continue to be a counterweight and a counterbalance to the president should we, I think, make the tragic mistake of moving forward with a second Trump term.”

But Trump has repeatedly challenged current levels of US military provision for Ukraine, again arguing he could negotiate the war’s end with Russia.

Another possible attempt to future-proof US support for Ukraine is by moving more co-ordination for arms supply to Nato itself – taking it further out of reach of a future American president. Such a move has been pitched by Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg as a way to “shield” Ukraine’s supply of aid “against the winds of political change”, officials told The Financial Times.

At the summit the alliance agreed to launch a new program in which Nato will supplement, but not replace, a 50-nation “contact group” that co-ordinates delivery of weapons. Camille Grand, the former Nato official, thinks the summit may have “raised the cost” for a future President Trump to roll back the “messaging” from Nato, but in the end, he said, Trump-proofing was impossible.

“If the US, as the biggest shareholder in the alliance, decides to be tough on the alliance, on Ukraine, there is no nothing in the [summit agreement] and previous summits that prevent it from doing that.

“But I think it’s sending an important message to Trump and his team, which is that the Europeans have turned the corner when it comes to [increased] spending.”

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský reiterated that, telling me that any future president of the US that wanted to change things on Nato had the power to do so.

The real work of “Trump-proofing” at this summit has instead felt like Nato supporters pitching the alliance to conservative Americans to try to change their view. This found its most striking moment when President Zelensky appeared at the Reagan Institute for an on-stage conversation with Fox News host Bret Baier.

Mr Zelensky repeatedly raised the memory of the late Republican President Ronald Reagan, quoting Cold War lines on deterring enemies through working with allies.

Reagan is a favoured reference for Democrats trying to expose Republican divisions and what they see as the maverick isolationism of Trump. The subtext is: Reagan would turn in his grave at Trump’s Nato-sceptic stance. But it’s a message that may fall flat with those who Mr Zelensky thinks need to hear it.

A selection of striking news photographs taken around the world this week.

A team of imaging experts, scientists and historians set sail for the Titanic on Friday to gather the most detailed photographic record ever made of the wreck.

The BBC had exclusive access to expedition members in the US city of Providence, Rhode Island, as they made preparations to leave port.

They’ll be using state of the art technology to scan every nook and cranny of the famous liner to gain new insights into its sinking.

This is the first commercial mission to Titanic since last year’s OceanGate tragedy. Five men died while trying to visit the lost ship in a novel submersible.

A joint memorial service will be held at sea in the coming days for them and the 1,500 passengers and crew who went down with Titanic in 1912.

The new expedition is being mounted by the US company that has sole salvage rights and which to date has brought up some 5,500 objects from the wreck.

But this latest visit is purely a reconnaissance mission, says RMS Titanic Inc, based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Two robotic vehicles will dive to the ocean bottom to capture millions of high-resolution photographs and to make a 3D model of all the debris.

“We want to see the wreck with a clarity and precision that’s never before been achieved,” explained co-expedition lead David Gallo.

The logistics ship Dino Chouest is going to be the base for operations out in the North Atlantic.

Weather permitting, it should spend 20 days above the wreck, which lies in 3,800m (12,500ft) of water.

It will be a poignant few weeks for all involved.

One of the five who died on the OceanGate sub was Frenchman Paul-Henri (“PH”) Nargeolet. He was the director of research at RMS Titanic Inc and was due to lead this expedition.

A plaque will be laid on the seabed in his honour.

“It’s tough but the thing about exploration is that there’s an urge and a drive to keep going. And we’re doing that because of that passion PH had for continuous exploration,” explained friend and historian Rory Golden, who will be “chief morale officer” on Dino Chouest.

There can be few people on Earth who don’t know the story of the supposedly unsinkable Titanic and how it was holed by an iceberg, east of Canada, on the night of 15 April 1912.

There are countless books, movies and documentaries about the event.

But although the wreck site has been the target of repeated study since its discovery in 1985, there still isn’t what could be described as a definitive map.

And while the bow and stern sections of the broken ship are reasonably well understood, there are extensive areas of the surrounding debris field that have received only cursory inspection.

Two six-tonne remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) intend to put that right. One will be fitted with an array of ultra-high-definition optical cameras and a special lighting system; the other will carry a sensor package that includes a lidar (laser) scanner.

Together, they’ll track back and forth across a 1.3km-by-0.97km section of seafloor.

Evan Kovacs, who’s in charge of the imaging programme, says his camera systems should produce millimetre resolution.

“If all of the weather gods, the computer gods, the ROV gods, the camera gods – if all those gods align, we should be able to capture Titanic and the wreck site in as close to digital perfection as you can get. You would be able to quite literally count grains of sand,” he told BBC News.

There’s huge anticipation for what the magnetometer aboard the sensor ROV might produce. This is a first for Titanic.

The instrument will detect all the metals at the wreck site, even material that is buried out of sight in the sediment.

“It would be an absolute dream to determine what has happened with Titanic’s bow below the seafloor,” explained geophysics engineer Alison Proctor.

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to deduce whether or not the bow was crushed when it hit the seabed, or if it might actually extend down well into the sediment intact.”

The team wants to review the state of some well known objects in the debris field, such as the boilers that spilled out as the opulent steamliner broke in half.

There’s the desire, too, to locate items thought to have been sighted on previous visits. These include an electric candelabra, which in its day would have been a fascinating curio, as well as the possibility of a second Steinway grand piano.

The musical instrument’s wooden surround would have long since decayed away, but the cast iron plate, or frame, that held the strings should still be there, perhaps even some of the keys.

“For me, it’s the passengers’ possessions, especially their bags, that are of greatest interest,” said Tomasina Ray, who curates the collection of Titanic artefacts held by the company.

“It’s their belongings – if we are able to retrieve more in the future – that help flesh out their stories. For so many passengers, they are just names on a list, and it’s a way to keep them meaningful.”

This will be RMS Titanic Inc’s ninth visit to the wreck site. The firm has attracted controversy in recent years with its stated desire to try to bring up part of the Marconi radio equipment that transmitted the distress calls on the night of the sinking.

It won’t happen on this expedition but if and when it does occur, it would mean extracting an object from inside the disintegrating ship.

For many, Titanic is the gravesite to the 1,500 who died that night in 1912 and should not be touched, its interior especially.

“We get that and understand it,” said company researcher James Penca.

“We dive to Titanic to learn as much as we can from her; and like you should with any archaeological site, we do it with the utmost respect. But to leave her alone, to just let her passengers and crew be lost to history – that would be the biggest tragedy of all.”

Have you ever wanted to attend a huge event in person? Maybe you’d love to go to the Euros, or to see your favourite band.

But while it’s fun to imagine being part of the crowd, two teenagers from Surrey have taken that idea to the next level by playing tennis against some pros on court at Wimbledon.

Aashny and Saran were working as ball girls at the time.

In a clip posted by the official Wimbledon social accounts, the girls can be seen facing Britain’s Jamie Delgado and Juan Sebastián Cabal from Colombia.

Saran and Aashny have spoken to BBC Newsbeat about how they went from playing a supporting role to becoming part of the main event.

The girls were working as ball girls during the Gentleman’s Invitational Doubles games at the time.

The event features former professional tennis players and is less competitive than the ladies’ and men’s singles.

“They don’t take it too seriously,” says Aashny. “They like to have a joke about.”

“They just turned round to us and were like, ‘Do you wanna play?’

And of course the friends had to say yes.

The pair spent about five minutes swapping lobs with the pro players, with the crowd cheering every time they struck the ball.

The Wimbledon Championships, established in 1877, is the oldest tennis competition in the world.

Held in south-west London every summer, more than 500,000 people attend each year, according to organisers.

Aashny and Saran, both 15, went through multiple stages to become ball girls.

They told BBC Newsbeat they were made aware of the opportunity when starting at their secondary school, which is partnered with Wimbledon.

“I’ve wanted to do this since I was in Year 7,” says Aashny.

Many local schools have a connection with the tennis tournament and students can put themselves forward for the role of ball girl or ball boy.

When entering Year 10 in September 2023, they jumped at the chance.

“We started training and each week certain people would get through to the next round,” says Aashny.

Then they got picked for the Wimbledon trial, where more people were eliminated.

“It’s a long selection process,” she says.

Saran says the training is pretty tough.

“I was always really nervous to go in,” she says. “But I think the work has paid off.”

Aashny’s been a huge tennis fan her whole life and tells us she loves seeing the players close-up.

“The first time I went onto Centre Court was really special,” says Aashny.

“I get to see loads of players and be around this atmosphere for two weeks.”

But Saran’s a different story.

“I have no idea who they are,” she says.

Although she went to Wimbledon with her dad a few years ago, she has to ask Aashny any tennis-related questions when they’re working.

• Each year, there are about 250 ball boys and girls at Wimbledon
• They’re selected from about 1,000 entries each year
• The average age is 15
• Training begins in February and lasts until the middle of June, before the competition takes place in July
• Once selected, they train four times a week
• Most who get picked attend schools that are partnered with Wimbledon

Aashny said she felt lucky to be so close to the action, and if she hadn’t been selected would only have been able to attend one or two matches.

Both friends agree, though, that being ball girls has been one of the best experiences of their lives.

Catch the final of Wimbledon on the BBC on Sunday.

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

The Prince of Wales will attend the Euro 2024 final in Berlin on Sunday to watch England play Spain, Kensington Palace has confirmed.

He will be joined by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as the England men’s team aim to secure their first major trophy in 58 years.

Prince William is president of the Football Association (FA), and attended England’s victory over Switzerland in the quarter-final and the group stage match against Denmark.

After the semi-final win over the Netherlands on Wednesday, Aston Villa fan Prince William congratulated the team in a post on X, saying: “What a beauty, Ollie!”

Substitute Ollie Watkins secured victory with a last-minute strike which spared England from entering extra time.

The prince’s father the King also congratulated the Three Lions on their victory in the semi-final and sent his “best wishes” for the match on Sunday.

He added: “If I may encourage you to secure victory before the need for any last minute wonder-goals or another penalties drama, I am sure the stresses on the nation’s collective heart rate and blood pressure would be greatly alleviated!”

The Prince of Wales took his eldest son Prince George to the final of the delayed Euros in 2021 at Wembley, when England lost on penalties to Italy.

Prince William attended the Lionesses win against Germany in the Women’s Euro 2022 and awarded the players their medals.

Earlier in the tournament, the prince described the win against Slovakia as an “emotional rollercoaster” and the victory against Switzerland as “nail-biting to the very end”.

The men’s team has not won a major tournament since the World Cup in 1966 and has never won the European Championship.

Thousands of England fans are expected to be in Berlin on Sunday, with the match at the Olympiastadion kicking off at 20:00 BST.

Asked about a potential bank holiday if England win, Sir Keir said “we should certainly mark the occasion” but stopped short of confirming a day off for the country, saying he did not want to “jinx it”.

Some businesses have already said they will be making changes to their opening times on Sunday and Monday because of the match.

Sainsbury’s has said its local shops and petrol stations in England will close early at 19:30 BST, and Lidl said it will open its stores an hour later on Monday.

Before the semi-final win on Wednesday, Tesco said it would close 1,800 of its Express stores early at 19:30 BST on Sunday if England made it to the final.

A surge in beer, burger, and pizza sales is expected, and pubs and shops are competing for customers who will watch the match either at home or at a bar.

Music festival Wireless has announced it will end early at 19:00 BST on Sunday to give fans “plenty of time to travel home” to watch the game.

Daisy Edgar-Jones, who starred as Marianne in hit TV series Normal People, has said she would like to revisit the role in the future.

“I love those characters,” the British actress, 26, tells BBC News. “It would be wonderful to explore them again.”

Based on Sally Rooney’s novel, the BBC Three drama charted the on-off relationship of teenagers Marianne and Connell, played by Paul Mescal.

Released in April 2020 at the height of the pandemic, it propelled its young leads to fame. Both are now starring in major new films, Edgar-Jones in Twisters and Mescal in Gladiator II.

“Normal People was a series that was such a lockdown phenomenon,” Edgar-Jones says.

“I think it introduced Paul and I to a lot of people and film-makers,” she says, adding that she felt “really lucky” for the opportunities it opened up.

I meet Edgar-Jones in a central London hotel, where she is doing press interviews for her new film.

This round of promotion is very different from her experience during the pandemic, when she was “on Zoom for months on end”.

“I haven’t done that many in-person interviews yet,” she says. “It’s so nice.”

Since Normal People, Edgar-Jones has starred in films like Fresh and Where the Crawdads Sing, true crime mini-series Under the Banner of Heaven, and now Twisters.

For a lot of fans, she remains firmly in their minds as the smart and unafraid schoolgirl Marianne, whose relationship with Connell transfixed viewers.

A few months ago, Edgar-Jones and Mescal almost broke the internet with an Instagram post that appeared to tease a Normal People sequel.

The pair later clarified that, in fact, they were reuniting to host a marathon screening of Normal People for charity.

But Edgar-Jones indicates that she hasn’t shut the door on it yet.

“If [Rooney] is up for writing a new story, who knows,” she says.

So is she open to the idea? She laughs. “Keeping it open. Always open.”

Having shot to prominence during Covid, Edgar-Jones says fame is only now “starting to feel real”.

“I can’t believe I’m in a film of this scale,” she says of Twisters. “It’s definitely a pinch yourself moment.”

In the film, a sequel to 1996 blockbuster Twister, Edgar-Jones plays Katie Cooper, a retired storm chaser who returns to the open plains in central Oklahoma to test a new tracking system.

Edgar-Jones notes that Cooper, who is haunted by a tragic past encounter with a tornado, bears similarities to other characters she has played.

“I think my characters tend to be, and have been historically, quite introspective. Or characters who have a complex inner life, who are dealing with things that are heavy and emotional,” she says.

She relates to those roles, but adds that she has “a bit more craic” than her characters.

“I think maybe I’m more light-hearted. I’m quite silly.”

That said, this film did allow her to have some fun, including running and screaming across fields.

“I did do a lot of running. Which isn’t my strong suit,” she says.

“I’ve actually got a bit of a weird run, which I’ve been told, so I actually just tried to practice not looking like an eejit as I was running. That was the main thing.”

She also ate a lot of Oklahoma cuisine on set, possibly offsetting all the exercise she was getting.

“I had something called chicken fried steak, which I’d never had, which is steak – actual steak – which they fry in chicken batter, which was cool”.

Edgar-Jones stars opposite US actor Glen Powell as Tyler Owens, a social media superstar who shamelessly chases tornadoes for likes.

Powell, who has also starred in Top Gun: Maverick, Anyone But You and Hit Man, is seen by many as Hollywood’s latest heartthrob.

“I feel like I have a habit of starring with a lot of the men of the moment,” Edgar-Jones says.

“I’ve worked with a lot of really brilliant actors who have buzz around them too,” she says. She describes Powell as “magical”, and adds that Mescal is “one of my all time best friends”.

The Normal People co-stars were recently seen together at Glastonbury festival, in pictures posted on social media.

“We had the best time. Glastonbury is maybe one of my favourite places on Earth when the festival’s on,” Edgar-Jones says.

“It’s so much fun. I love dancing, I love being with all my friends, I love camping, I love it all. So yeah. We had such a blast.”

Twisters has received mixed reviews from critics. The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey awarded it four stars, praising it as a “comfortingly old school affair” and calling its leads “charismatic”.

Meanwhile, writing in Variety, Owen Gleiberman described it as “less awesome than the original”.

The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw gave it three stars, calling it a “fun film with some big set-piece scenes” but adding it was “weirdly coy” about mentioning climate change.

Edgar-Jones, for her part, says climate change was definitely a theme in the film.

“There’s an element of climate change and what that means for how tornado alley is expanding and how more frequently we’re getting extreme weather events,” she says.

“And I think the film really touches on that in a way that it’s encouraging you to be aware of it and think about how we can be more concerned about how we look after our planet.”

And while comparisons with the first film are inevitable, Edgar-Jones says the new version brings something different.

“Its so fun to see what the new technology will bring to this film,” she says.

Many of us also remain fascinated with films about the dark side of nature. Edgar-Jones counts herself among that camp.

“I’m fascinated by extreme weather,” she says.

“I think growing up in London I’m used to pretty average mizzle, or miserable drizzle, as I call it. So when I was filming in Oklahoma during tornado season, and I saw really extreme storms, it was incredible.

“It’s amazing how massive they are and how small they make you feel.”

Alec Baldwin broke down in tears as a New Mexico judge dismissed the involuntary manslaughter case against him for a fatal shooting on the set of the film Rust.

The trial collapsed three days into Baldwin’s trial in Santa Fe, at a court just miles from where Halyna Hutchins, a cinematographer, was shot with a revolver that Mr Baldwin was using in rehearsals.

It is the second time the case against the actor has been dismissed since the October 2021 shooting. He will not be tried again.

His lawyers alleged police and prosecutors hid evidence – a batch of bullets – that could have been connected to the shooting.

A key aspect of the case has been how live ammunition ended up on the set and Mr Baldwin’s lawyers have questioned the investigation and mistakes made by authorities who processed the scene.

Their motion to dismiss sparked a remarkable set of events, with one of the two special prosecutors leading the case resigning, and Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissing the jury to hear from multiple witnesses.

The bullets, Mr Baldwin’s lawyer said, could be related to Ms Hutchins’ death, but were filed in a different case with a different number.

Prosecutors argued the ammunition was not connected to the case and did not match bullets found on the Rust set.

The judge ruled, however, that they should have been shared with Mr Baldwin’s defence team regardless.

“The state’s wilful withholding of this information was intentional and deliberate,” she said from the bench. “There is no way for the court to right this wrong.”

Prosecutors will not be able to lodge the charge against Baldwin again, as the judge did not rule the case a mistrial, but instead outright dismissed it with prejudice.

“It was the nuclear option. The case is over,” Los Angeles trial attorney Joshua Ritter told the BBC.

• How events unfolded after fatal shooting on Alec Baldwin’s Rust film set
• What are the rules for guns on film sets?
• What are prop guns and why are they dangerous?

Mr Baldwin, best known for his role on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock and for portraying Donald Trump on sketch show Saturday Night Live, wept as the judge read from a lengthy statement detailing her reasons for the dismissal. His wife, Hilaria, covered her mouth. Other members of his family cried and smiled.

The actor hugged his lawyers then embraced his wife, who was seated behind him. They walked out hand-in-hand through a tunnel of press into a black vehicle without answering any questions or making any comments.

The evidence came to light on Thursday, when a crime-scene technician told the court that a man named Troy Teske, a retired police officer, had turned over live ammunition that could be related to the case.

Mr Teske is friends with the step-father of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film’s armourer who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter earlier this year.

He was working with Seth Kenney, who helped with props and ammunition on the film set.

• From the first day in court: Baldwin ‘played make-believe’ with gun
• Who was Halyna Hutchins?

After the judge sent the jury home on Friday, the court heard from a series of witnesses about the bullets, including authorities who led the case and Mr Kenney.

Towards the end of the hearing, one of the prosecutors leading the case – Kari Morrissey – took the stand to testify about the bullets and why they weren’t shared with the defence. It’s remarkably rare for a prosecutor to testify in a case they bring about their role in the investigation.

Ms Morrissey testified the ammunition had “no evidentiary value” from her perspective. While on the stand, she said that her co-prosecutor, Erlinda Ocampo Johnson, resigned on Friday as the judge weighed to dismiss the case.

She explained Ms Johnson “didn’t agree with the decision to have a public hearing” over the evidence claims.

After months of lavish celebrations, the wedding ceremony of the son of Asia’s richest man finally took place on Friday the Indian city of Mumbai.

Anant Ambani, son of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, tied the knot with Radhika Merchant, daughter of pharma tycoons Viren and Shaila Merchant.

Friday’s ceremony was part of a four-day extravaganza – the final stop in a string of elaborate parties the family has hosted since March, featuring performances by popstars including Rihanna and Justin Bieber.

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian, and former UK PMs Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, were among the international guests to attend the ceremony. Also spotted was US wrestler and actor John Cena, who was seen hugging and congratulating relatives of the host.

Key roads in Mumbai are being sealed off for several hours a day until the festivities end on Monday.

Social media is awash with updates on the wedding, with people sharing minute-by-minute details of Bollywood stars and celebrities arriving.

But the extraordinary opulence has also led to backlash – city dwellers have complained the road closures have worsened traffic problems caused by monsoon flooding, while others have questioned the ostentatious display of wealth at the seemingly never-ending celebrations.

• In photos: Kim Kardashian, Bieber and Rihanna at grand India wedding
• The marathon Indian wedding turning heads around the world

On Friday, the groom set off from his residence in a luxurious red car covered in strings of white flowers, as guests danced around it.

A convoy of cars, also decorated with flowers and carrying family members, followed him with music and cheers.

The grand procession, known as the baraat, culminated at the wedding venue – a convention centre owned by the Ambanis – where several Bollywood stars joined in another round of singing and dancing.

Reports say the bride and groom exchanged garlands to kick off the wedding. The pheras – the main wedding ritual of the couple walking around the sacred fire seven times – was set for 21:30 (1600GMT) on Friday.

Guests will reportedly bless the newly-weds in a formal ceremony on Saturday – followed by a grand party where unconfirmed reports say pop stars Drake, Lana Del Ray and Adele are likely to perform.

Mukesh Ambani, 66, is at present the world’s 10th richest man with a net worth of $115bn, according to Forbes. Reliance Industries, founded by his father in 1966, is a massive conglomerate that operates in sectors ranging from petroleum and retail, to financial services and telecoms.

Anant Ambani is the youngest of his three children, all of whom are on the board of Reliance Industries. The 29-year-old is involved in Reliance’s energy businesses and is on the board of Reliance Foundation.

The Ambanis have not revealed how much this wedding is costing them but wedding planners estimate they’ve already spent anywhere between 11bn and 13bn rupees [$132m-$156m]. It was rumoured Rihanna had been paid $7m (£5.5m) for her performance, while the figure suggested for Justin Bieber is $10m.

• Meet the tycoons behind the grand Indian wedding

One unnamed executive at Reliance claimed the event was a “powerful symbol of India’s growing stature on the global stage” in a note shared with reporters.

But opposition politician Thomas Isaac said it was “obscene”.

“Legally it may be their money but such ostentatious expenditure is a sin against mother earth and (the) poor,” he posted on X.

Pictures and videos of Kim Kardashian, who is in the city with her sister Khloé Kardashian, are being widely shared online.

Reports say the sisters have brought a team of stylists, including celebrity hairstylist Chris Appleton, along with a group of producers to capture every detail of their trip.

Former Indian president Ram Nath Kovind, British High Commissioner to India Lindy Cameron, and US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti are also in the city to attend the wedding.

Rajan Mehra, CEO of air charter company Club One Air, told Reuters that the family had rented three Falcon-2000 jets to ferry wedding guests to the event.

“The guests are coming from all over and each aircraft will make multiple trips across the country,” he said.

The wedding festivities began in March when the family held a three-day pre-wedding party in their home state of Gujarat.

Among the 1,200 guests to attend that celebration were Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft’s Bill Gates.

• World’s rich in India for tycoon son’s pre-wedding gala

The party started with a performance by Rihanna on the first night. Diljit Dosanjh, the first Punjabi singer to perform at Coachella, took the stage on the second night, while rapper Akon closed the show on the final day of celebrations.

In June, the Ambanis organised another pre-wedding celebration, this time, a luxury cruise from Italy to France. The Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry and Pitbull performed for the 800 guests, which included Bollywood stars and cricketers.

Money was also lavished on constructing 14 temples inside a sprawling complex in Jamnagar to showcase India’s cultural heritage and provide a backdrop for the wedding. As part of the celebrations, the Ambanis hosted a mass wedding for 50 underprivileged couples.

On Wednesday, the family hosted a bhandara – a community feast for underprivileged people.

For the last few months, Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani has been grabbing the spotlight in India.

It’s not because he has completed a major acquisition or cut a big philanthropic cheque, but it’s his son’s grandiose wedding celebrations that have entranced the entire nation and the world.

The pre-wedding parties, which began in March, have put the Ambani family firmly at the centre of many breakfast, lunch and dinner table conversations.

Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, tied the knot with his long-time girlfriend Radhika Merchant at a family-owned convention centre in Mumbai on Friday, in a culmination of six-month-long festivities that have taken place across the globe.

Indian weddings can be lavish, but the sheer scale and size of the Ambani jamboree have perhaps eclipsed the celebratory fervour displayed by erstwhile royals.

• India tycoon’s son to marry after months of festivities
• The marathon Indian wedding turning heads around the world

The unerring presence of Bollywood A-listers at every party, the million-dollar performances by global pop-stars like Rihanna and Justin Bieber, and a bevy of VVIP dignitaries descending upon the celebrations have been a source of endless fodder for the paparazzi.

Consider some of the global elite who made it to the functions – Meta’s Mark Zuckerburg, Samsung CEO Han-Jong Hee, Bill Gates, former US President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, former UK prime ministers Boris Johnson and Sir Tony Blair, Fifa president Gianni Infantino and the Kardashian sisters.

And the list goes on.

“These are very busy people. They aren’t coming just to have fun,” James Crabtree, author of The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age, told the BBC.

“What this tells you is that global business leaders believe the Ambanis are strategically important and also that they see India as a very big market.”

Meet the family

The Ambanis are often described as India’s most prominent business family.

They run Reliance Industries, an oil to telecoms conglomerate that was founded by Mukesh Ambani’s father Dhirubhai Ambani – a man with a controversial legacy who attained legendary status for deftly navigating India’s controversial pre-liberalisation polity, while creating enormous wealth for his company’s shareholders.

Dhirubhai died in 2002, and the empire he founded was split between his two sons – Anil and Mukesh – after what could be described as one of India’s most acrimonious succession battles.

Since then, the brothers’ fortunes have diverged, with the younger Anil declaring bankruptcy and Mukesh pivoting more and more to consumer-facing businesses, even while retaining his pole position in Reliance’s mainstay – petrochemicals.

His oil refinery in the western town of Jamnagar is the largest in the world.

In recent years, Reliance has brought some of the world’s most celebrated luxury brands to India, from Valentino to Versace and Burberry to Bottega.

Among other things, the company now owns a team in the world’s richest cricket tournament and the iconic British toy retailer Hamleys.

In 2021, it acquired the historic country club Stoke Park in Buckinghamshire for £57m.

Earlier this year, Reliance signed a binding pact to merge its entertainment platforms with Disney, in its latest attempt to transform the company’s industrial moorings. It is a deal that makes Mukesh Ambani a formidable player in the digital streaming space, with rights to cricketing tournaments and international shows.

But the conglomerate really began its shopping spree during the Covid-19 pandemic, when it got billions of dollars in investment from more than a dozen global players, including Meta and Google. The plan with Meta has been to connect WhatsApp’s more than 400 million users in India with its online grocery platform JioMart.

The company’s aggressive pricing strategy has mounted a serious challenge to foreign entrants like Netflix and Amazon.

Privately, foreign players, who compete in the same sectors as Reliance, sometimes complain of a lack of level playing field, claiming the Ambanis are among a select few who’ve benefited from the Indian government’s policy of awarding preferential contracts to local tycoons.

“Foreign players face a difficult choice,” says Mr Crabtree. “They can either fight with Reliance or get into bed with Reliance. Zuckerburg has chosen to partner with them, while Amazon has decided to fight. But these battles are often very costly, and foreigners end up losing.”

Now, Mukesh Ambani’s next target is financial services, with Reliance entering into a joint venture with US-based BlackRock for a brokering and wealth management business.

Not surprisingly then, for the Ambanis, this is much more than just a wedding.

It is a show of strength and of the clout they command, says Harish Bijoor, a brand strategy specialist. “It’s a show of the fact that this family is a magnet that attracts people from all walks of life – business, politics and entertainment.”

The media blitzkrieg around it, he adds, is also a way for them to make a personal event “even more personal to the whole world” – such as the consumers of Reliance products and services for instance – who would never have got an invite.

If the Ambani patriarch, Dhirubhai, was credited with introducing the stock market to India’s retail investors, his son Mukesh is well recognised for creating a myriad touchpoints between his businesses and the average Indian consumer.

A bulk of what Indians consume today, from the shows they watch, to the clothes they wear and potentially even how they will transact in the future, comes from the Ambani stable.

And that is why there couldn’t have been a better occasion than a dazzling wedding for the family to market its brand to India’s burgeoning consumer class.

And sure enough, the wedding has captivated people in India and across the world.

As Joe Biden took to the stage for a rally in Detroit, Michigan, on Friday evening, one of the most raucous crowds seen in recent years at any event for the US president chanted: “Don’t you quit!”

The presumptive Democratic nominee was greeted by deafening cheers from hundreds of supporters as he vowed: “I am running! And I’m gonna win!”

As he left the stage, the strains of Tom Petty’s hit I Won’t Back Down washed over the high school gymnasium, an implicit rebuff to the growing list of elected members of his party exhorting him to step aside amid concerns about his age.

But for all the headlines dominated by the latest politician, donor or liberal actor to turn on Mr Biden, a longer list of Democrats are sticking by him.

At least 80 Democratic politicians have publicly backed the 81-year-old, and more are joining them as he insists he is going nowhere.

To many, his political record, his principles and his 2020 victory over Donald Trump mean more than the damage of a rambling performance in any debate or public appearance, or health fears during a new four-year term.

In Mr Biden’s first solo news conference of the year on Thursday, he gave detailed responses on Nato and his plans for a second term, but many headlines focused on his flub in referring to his deputy, Kamala Harris, as “Vice-President Trump”.

His allies – for now, at least – praised the embattled commander-in-chief’s performance, which was watched live by over 23 million people – a bigger audience than this year’s Oscars.

“I thought he showed a real command of foreign policy, really extraordinary,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told reporters on Friday. “I don’t think Donald Trump can talk about foreign policy coherently for one minute.”

Gavin Newsom, the California governor touted as a possible successor, told CBS he was “all in” for Mr Biden, adding that there was “no daylight” between them.

Congressman Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania said Mr Biden “showed he knows a million times more about policy” than Trump, “the convict conman”.

Experts say these politicians have a host of reasons for their support, including Mr Biden’s record in office, his 2020 victory against Trump and the gamble of putting in a new candidate so close to the November election.

“The president has made it clear he wants to continue to run, and I think people are being very respectful of that,” said Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist.

“And it’s also true that in our system, replacing a candidate for president this late is hard and is unprecedented, and so there’s enormous reticence about making a big change.”

He added that there was a “healthy debate” about who the nominee should be.

However, a range of groups have said that the candidate should be Mr Biden, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which has about 40 members, and the 60-member Congressional Black Caucus, which Mr Biden met earlier this week.

Ameshia Cross, a former Obama campaign adviser, said that the black caucus, as well as many black voters, see Mr Biden as a president committed to civil rights, unlike his rival, Trump.

“They understand what is at stake with a Donald J Trump presidency,” she said. “This is a guy who has stood against DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.”

Mr Biden has received public support from several politicians on the left, including the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who have previously criticised Mr Biden for an agenda they have said is too moderate.

Ms Cross said many recognise the risks a Trump presidency brings to civil and LGBTQ rights and climate change.

“These are things that matter to the progressive left, and the president has actually worked on those things,” she said.

To date, most of Mr Biden’s support comes from politicians running for re-election in reliably Democratic districts, rather than those who worry Mr Biden could harm their own election chances in tougher seats.

Mr Rosenberg said that the White House “needs to be respectful of their concerns and deal with them, I think, in a far more aggressive manner”.

Even as calls grow for Mr Biden to exit the race, the most recent poll seems to suggest that he has not lost much voter support.

The Biden campaign has touted a survey from the Washington Post, ABC News and Ipsos published this week, which shows him and Trump in a dead-heat, similar to survey results from before the debate. But the poll also found two-thirds of Americans want Mr Biden to step aside.

The president has also lost support from some among the Hollywood elite. Actress Ashley Judd called on Mr Biden to step down in a USA Today op-ed on Friday, saying the party needed a “robust” candidate. Her article followed an even more damning opinion piece this week by George Clooney about Mr Biden.

Longtime Democratic donor Whitney Tilson is the latest fundraiser to pull the plug, telling the BBC on Friday that he was increasingly confident Mr Biden would go. Other Democratic donors told a pro-Biden fundraising group, Future Forward, that pledges worth some $90m (£69m) were on hold until he exits, reports the New York Times.

Other top donors, however, are sticking by the president.

Shekar Narasimhan, who has been organising fundraisers for Democrats for more than two decades, said there had been no change in his plans.

“Our eyes can see what’s going on, our ears can hear what’s being talked about but we are keeping our heads down to get the work done,” said Mr Narsimhan, who is the founder of the Asian American Pacific Islander Victory Fund Super-PAC.

“It’s the president’s decision to make, whether he wants to run or not, and we will go with whatever he decides,” he said. “But it’s better to end this discussion as soon as possible.”

He said his support for Mr Biden came from the belief that he would win.

“This election will be decided by no more than a total of 50,000 votes in three states – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – and we have the ground game and infrastructure to win there,” he said.

Frank Islam, who sits on the National Finance Committee, said he had a fundraiser planned at his Maryland home later this month. “I am absolutely going ahead with it because I know he [Mr Biden] will win,” he said.

Human remains have been found in west London by police investigating the discovery of body parts in suitcases in Bristol.

Officers believe the remains found on Friday in a flat on Scotts Road, Shepherd’s Bush and those found two days ago at the Clifton Suspension Bridge belong to the same two men.

The Metropolitan Police have named the suspect they are searching for as Yostin Andres Mosquera, a 24-year-old Colombian national, and have warned the public not to approach him.

Both victims are thought to have been known to Mr Mosquera, but have not yet been formally identified.

Police say the remains in London are being “sensitively removed”, with post-mortems planned as soon as possible.

A cordon was in place on Scotts Road on Friday afternoon.

Officers and forensic investigators were seen entering a property at the junction with Devonport Road, while helicopters circled overhead.

A 36-year-old man who was arrested in connection with the investigation on Friday in Greenwich has since been released without charge.

The Met’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Valentine said: “This is a fast-moving enquiry with detectives in London and Bristol actively pursuing a number of lines of enquiry.

“Locating Yostin Andres Mosquera, however, is the priority and I appeal to anyone with information on his whereabouts to get in touch.”

Just before midnight on Wednesday, Avon and Somerset Police received a report of a man with a suitcase acting suspiciously on the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

Officers arrived within 10 minutes, but the man had left, leaving the suitcase behind. A second suitcase was found nearby.

One witness described a cyclist pursuing the suspect as they shouted at each other.

Another witness, Giles Malone, told the BBC he had been waiting for an Uber near The Mall pub when he saw two men carrying suitcases across the road.

He said: “A man came across the street with another man, carrying a very heavy suitcase. They then did that a second time and put the suitcases down right by us, on the pavement.

“We asked them ‘Those suitcases look very heavy. What have you got in there, bodies?’ And they didn’t say anything to that.”

He said that the two men – one black and one white – were accompanied by a white woman.

Police say the named suspect had travelled to Bristol from London on Wednesday, before taking a taxi to the suspension bridge. The taxi driver’s vehicle was seized by police.

Officers released two images of the man they were searching for – now confirmed as Mr Mosquera – on Friday afternoon.

He was described as black with a beard and wearing a gold earring.

He also had a black Adidas baseball cap, black jeans, a black jacket, black trainers with thick white soles and a black backpack, police added.

Anyone with information is being asked to call the police on 101, quoting the Met Police reference CAD 306 12JUL.

How much is too much?

That’s the question many in India are asking as the months-long wedding festivities for the youngest son of Asia’s richest man enter their final phase.

The celebrations are expected to culminate this weekend when Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, ties the knot with Radhika Merchant, daughter of pharma tycoons Viren and Shaila Merchant.

There have been four months of lavish events leading up to the wedding itself. All the glamourous outfits, stunning jewellery, fairytale-like decor and rare performances by Indian and global stars have been the focus of much public attention.

“It is nothing short of a royal wedding,” says writer and columnist Shobhaa De. “Our billionaires are the new Indian maharajahs. Their shareholders expect nothing less than a mega extravaganza.”

Indians “have always loved pomp and pageantry – just like the British”, she says, adding that “the scale [of the wedding] is in keeping with the Ambani wealth”.

But the hullabaloo around the wedding has drawn as much ire as public fascination. Many have criticised the opulence and the sheer magnitude of wealth on display in a country where tens of millions live below the poverty line and where income inequality is extreme.

“[The wedding] can easily be seen as a kind of a mockery, a sort of blindness to the reality of the country at one level. At another level, however ridiculous this might be, it is still in keeping with the grossly distorted, almost grotesque bloating of Indian weddings in the last decade or so,” writer and commentator Santosh Desai tells the BBC.

“It is part of a larger shift that is taking place. A generation or two ago, wealth was spoken of in whispers. Today, wealth must speak as loudly as possible. Even then, the scale of this wedding makes it an outlier.”

With a sprawling business empire – ranging from oil, telecoms, chemicals, technology and fashion to food – the Ambanis are a ubiquitous presence in India and their lives are the subject of intense public fascination.

Mr Ambani’s personal fortune is estimated at a staggering $115bn (£90bn). Anant, 29, holds a position on the Reliance Industries board of directors.

Ambani senior, along with fellow Indian business tycoon Gautam Adani, is reported to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, with opposition parties accusing the authorities of unduly favouring the two business houses – accusations both the government and the businessmen deny.

While the Ambani family’s enormous wealth and clout are well known in India, many outside the country may not have realised the extent of their riches until now.

That changed in March, when Mr Ambani hosted a three-day pre-wedding party for his son.

The festivities were held in the family’s hometown Jamnagar in the western state of Gujarat, which is also the location of Mr Ambani’s oil refinery – the largest in the world. Some 1,200 guests attended, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft’s Bill Gates.

The party began with a dinner held inside a glasshouse especially built for the occasion. The stunning structure reportedly resembles Palm House, a crystalline Victorian-style building located in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which was a favourite of Ms Merchant when she was a college student in New York City.

The feast was followed by a performance by Rihanna and viral videos showed the Ambani family grooving with the popstar on stage. If people hadn’t been paying attention, they definitely were now.

Through it all, dozens of speciality chefs served some 2,000 dishes, carefully curated from around the world, to guests lodged in luxury tents, with personal makeup artists and stylists at their service.

There was also a 10-page manual on the dress code for the events, which included a “jungle fever” theme for a visit to a family-owned animal sanctuary, followed by a Moulin Rouge-themed “house party” held at the sprawling grounds of their palatial residence.

The bride-to-be wore a number of specially crafted outfits, including two lehngas (long bridal silk skirts) – one studded with 20,000 Swarovski crystals and another that reportedly took 5,700 hours to make – and a pink version of a Versace dress that actor Blake Lively wore to the 2022 Met Gala.

The groom mostly wore Dolce & Gabbana outfits and flaunted a Richard Mille wristwatch, worth an estimated $1.5m. A viral video of Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan gawking at the watch went viral in India.

Newspapers and websites perfectly captured the opulence of these dazzling events, attended by the glitterati from around the world. “It was almost like the time of maharajahs 100 years down the line,” the New York Times reported.

There was also backlash after India’s government overnight designated the city’s small airport into an international airport, expanded its staff and deployed military and air force personnel in service of the family.

The final night of the three-day jamboree, which ended with a shower of confetti, fireworks and a lightshow, set the tone for what was to come next.

In June, the couple and their guests took their pre-wedding celebrations overseas, literally. The party, which included top Bollywood stars, embarked on a luxury cruise along the stunning azure coastline of the Tyrrhenian Sea in Italy, to the French Mediterranean.

They stopped in Rome, Portofino, Genoa and Cannes for late-night revelry that reportedly brought complaints from local people.

This time, the celebrations had performances by 90s teen heartthrobs The Backstreet Boys, singer Katy Perry and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.

This week, yet set of wedding celebrations kicked off on the family’s home turf, Mumbai, with a performance by Justin Bieber.

A video of him singing at the edge of the stage as the bride and her friends sing along has been viewed 38 million times. It shows ecstatic women in sequined gowns and saris as they punch their fists skyward in glee. The crowd doesn’t miss a beat to Bieber’s verse: You should go and love yourself.

The scale of the celebrations show that nothing is out of reach for the family. And there is speculation that Adele could be performing at the actual wedding this weekend – the family, however, are tight-lipped.

Of course, India isn’t a stranger to the concept of big fat weddings – the country is the largest spender on marriage ceremonies after the US.

Tina Tharwani, co-founder of the Shaadi Squad, says in recent years, there’s been a noticeable trend where weddings have become larger-than-life events that veer towards excessiveness, driven by societal expectations, competitive displays of status, and a desire to create memorable moments.

So, we’ve seen expensive weddings routinely make headlines in recent years, such as this $74m wedding in 2016.

Other Ambani children have also had lavish pre-wedding festivities. Hillary Clinton and John Kerry were among attendees at Isha Ambani’s pre-wedding bash in 2018, which featured a performance by Beyoncé. A year later, Akash Ambani’s pre-wedding bash featured a performance by Coldplay.

When it comes to scale, though, this is the mother of all weddings, says Ashwini Arya, owner of an event management company that has managed weddings in 14 countries.

“It’s like the bible for the industry with the best of logistics, tech, design and grandeur.

“You’re talking about preparations of a minimum of two years, multiple recce trips, approvals and permissions from several countries, along with the logistics of arranging security and transport for some of the biggest personalities of the world,” he says.

The Ambanis have not revealed how much this wedding is costing them but Mr Arya estimates that they “have already spent anywhere between 11bn and 13bn rupees [$132m-$156m]”. It was rumoured Rihanna had been paid $7m (£5.5m) for her performance, while the figure suggested for Bieber is $10m.

Money was also lavished on constructing 14 temples inside a sprawling complex in Jamnagar to showcase India’s cultural heritage and provide a backdrop for the wedding. As part of the celebrations, the Ambanis hosted a mass wedding for 50 underprivileged couples too.

It’s being said the family pulled out all the stops because with all the Ambani children married, this would be their last wedding for the foreseeable future.

But with each event, public criticism of the celebration in India has grown – from people aghast at the massive jewels worn by Nita Ambani to exasperation and anger among Mumbai residents over traffic restrictions in a city already struggling with traffic jams and monsoon flooding.

For India’s wedding industry though, it’s still an exciting marketing opportunity.

This is an excellent chance for designers to showcase the more refined side of India’s couture, artistry and craftsmanship, says Anand Bhushan, a fashion designer. That said, the frequency, with celebrities changing five-six outfits per event can sometimes feel a “little saturating”, he admits.

Ms Tharwani says the wedding serves as “an exemplary case” of orchestrating a multi-event, multi-location celebration “that combines tradition, modernity, and unmatched hospitality standards”.

Meanwhile, in Mumbai, Varindar Chawla, one of Bollywood’s best-known paparazzi, is sifting through the photographs of the celebrations.

There are a few of celebrities posing at the entrance as they arrive to attend the various events.

Each one of these pictures – even the unflattering ones, such as of a star looking stunned as the glare of a camera-flash hits them in the face – has been fetching millions of views and shares.

“Usually it’s hard to penetrate events of this scale. But this family has gone out of the way to ensure we are there to cover every little detail,” he says.

“It’s a royal wedding and we are getting a royal treatment.”

German political figures have reacted angrily to a report that Russia had plotted to kill the head of Germany’s biggest arms company Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger.

The CNN report said US officials had told their counterparts in Berlin earlier this year and security around him was stepped up.

Germany’s interior ministry refused to comment but Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock appeared to confirm the details.

“In view of latest reports on Rheinmetall, this is what we have actually been communicating more and more clearly in recent months,” she told reporters at the Nato summit in Washington. “Russia is waging a hybrid war of aggression.”

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the allegations. “It’s all presented in the style of another fake story, so such reports cannot be taken seriously.”

Rheinmetall avoided commenting on issues of “corporate security”, but Mr Papperger is now being described as the most highly protected figure in Germany’s economy. He told the Financial Times that German authorities had imposed a “great deal of security around my person”.

The company is one of the world’s biggest producers of ammunition and has become key to supplying Ukraine with arms, armoured vehicles and other military equipment.

Rheinmetall recently opened a tank repair plant in western Ukraine. Last month, it signed an agreement with Ukraine to expand co-operation in the coming years, including a joint venture to produce artillery shells.

Mr Papperger said at the time his company wanted to hand over the first Lynx infantry fighting vehicles later this year and to start producing them in Ukraine soon.

Although Chancellor Olaf Scholz avoided commenting on the reported assassination plot directly, he said it was well known that Germany was exposed to a variety of Russian threats and was paying close attention to them.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said “we are taking very seriously the significantly heightened threat of Russian aggression”.

Earlier this week, a senior Nato official told the BBC that Russia was “engaging in aggressive covert operations across Europe – involving sabotage, arson and assassination plots – aimed at weakening public support for Ukraine”.

The German foreign minister said the Baltic states had already highlighted the various methods deployed by Russia’s Vladimir Putin in his war on Ukraine. As well as sabotage, she spoke of cyberattacks and disrupting GPS signals so that Baltic flights could no longer land in neighbouring countries.

“We have seen that there have been attacks on factories, and that again underlines that, together, we as Europeans must protect ourselves as best we can and not be naive,” Ms Baerbock told reporters.

In early May, a building complex owned by the Diehl Metall firm went up in flames in south-west Berlin. Although a technical fault was blamed for the fire, sabotage has not been ruled out. Suspicious fires have also been reported in Poland and Lithuania.

Last April, Mr Papperger’s garden house was set alight at Hermannsburg in northern Germany, although there has been no evidence of a Russian link.

The fire was quickly brought under control and a rambling, anonymous confession purportedly from leftist militants appeared on activist network Indymedia.

The reported plot against such a high-profile German CEO has prompted widespread alarm.

Leading conservative figure Roderich Kiesewetter said the chancellor should come clean with the German population about how great the threat from Russia really was. German intelligence needed to be boosted to the level of neighbouring countries, he said.

“We must take it very seriously and also prepare ourselves accordingly,” he told public broadcaster ZDF.

Michael Roth, who chairs Germany’s foreign affairs committee told Bild newspaper that Vladimir Putin was waging a “war of extermination not only against Ukraine, but against its supporters and our values”.

The head of the defence committee, Marcus Faber, added his condemnation, saying if information about Russian intelligence involvement came to light, then “the expulsion of diplomats must follow and, if necessary, international arrest warrants must be issued”.

As Joe Biden attempted to calm the storm engulfing his presidential re-election campaign, he hit an early snag: referring to “Vice-President Trump” during a Thursday press conference when he meant Kamala Harris.

Within minutes, Donald Trump mocked the gaffe on his social media platform, Truth Social, with an accompanying clip. “Great job, Joe!” he wrote.

It was the kind of reaction voters have come to expect from Trump, who has spent years insulting the president, 81.

And yet, for the past two weeks, as Mr Biden was fighting for his political life, Trump remained uncharacteristically quiet, letting Democrats argue among themselves.

Republican strategists claim the relative silence is down to Trump’s new-found discipline – a change from his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.

“He’s played it brilliantly by not saying much about the Democratic crisis,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist and former senior Senate and House leadership aide. “Why take the shovel away when they’re digging their own hole?”

Trump, 78, has not gone entirely underground. Since Mr Biden’s poor debate performance in late June, Trump has given a handful of radio interviews, appeared at rallies in Virginia and Florida, and kept up a steady drumbeat of posts on Truth Social.

“The radical left Democratic party is divided in chaos,” Trump said at a Tuesday campaign rally in Miami. “They can’t decide which of their candidates is more unfit to be president, sleepy, crooked Joe Biden or laughing Kamala.”

He also challenged the president to a golf match, claimed all US airports were dirty, said that visitors to Washington DC end up “shot, mugged and raped”, claimed 45,000 people were at the Miami event when there were closer to 700, and pondered why “we don’t eat bacon anymore”.

But experts say that compared to past behaviour, the Republican has been restrained. Some have suggested Trump’s camp may even be delaying his choice for vice-president to avoid stealing attention from Mr Biden’s problems.

“If you compare this strategy and execution [in] this campaign to 2016 and 2020, it is far more strategic, far more disciplined,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican communications expert who worked on Mitt Romney’s presidential bids.

With the Democratic Party fracturing over Mr Biden’s candidacy, Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, said the approach taken by Trump since the debate had been effective.

“The Trump campaign has done an outstanding job of allowing the Biden campaign to self-destruct,” he said.

That implosion may have been what the Trump campaign was banking on from the start. The Republican plan to win over the American people has, for a while now, leaned on voters’ well-documented fears about Mr Biden’s age.

Speaking to The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta, Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita said he had planned for an “extraordinarily visual” match-up where Mr Biden was viewed as old and frail while Trump appeared strong and vigorous.

“The debate was exactly what they wanted,” Mr Madden said. “They got the perfect split-screen that was going to endure.”

• What world leaders thought of Biden’s Nato performance
• Biden stands defiant on critical night
• Who could replace Biden as Democratic nominee?

A number of recent polls put Trump consistently – if still narrowly – ahead of Mr Biden.

But there is concern within the Trump camp that anxiety over Mr Biden’s fitness has peaked too soon.

Were he to be replaced by a younger nominee, Trump would lose two main lines of attack – age and frailty. And it would be harder to directly blame a new candidate for the president’s perceived policy failures: Mr Biden scores badly with voters on the economy and the southern border crisis.

“They’re silently hoping, with their fingers crossed, that Biden is the nominee,” said strategist Ron Bonjean of Trump’s campaign. “They feel they will win the election with Biden as their opponent.”

Some of Trump’s closest surrogates have seemed to suggest they want Mr Biden to stay on. On Thursday, while Democrats parsed the impact of the president’s defiant press conference, Trump’s son Don Jr offered rare praise.

Mr Biden’s performance had been “not too bad”, he said. “He did fine enough to be able to stay in it – he doesn’t want to go.”

Last week, Trump’s daughter-in-law and co-chair of the Republican National Committee, Lara Trump, suggested it would “go against the democratic process” if Mr Biden were to be removed.

Nevertheless, Mr Bonjean and other Republican experts made clear that if it was hard for Republicans to take on a new candidate, it would be harder still for Democrats to choose one.

“Yes, it will cause the Trump campaign to scramble a little bit. But their scrambling is not nearly what it will be for the Democrats,” said Douglas Heye, a Republican strategist who served as chief of staff to former House majority leader Eric Cantor.

“They have to figure out how to nominate somebody else… they have to build a brand-new structure from scratch.”

Meanwhile, Republicans are combing through records of Ms Harris and other possible replacements, he said. “They’re not prepared, necessarily, for this, but they are preparing.”

Next week, at the Republican party convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Trump will reclaim centre stage, officially accepting his party’s nomination and making a primetime speech that will set the tone for the final months of his campaign.

Mr Heye suggested that the convention – four days of party fanfare built around a candidate who revels in the spotlight – will have made it easier to sell Trump the benefits of the strategy of remaining largely quiet.

“If you’re committed to keeping your candidate under wraps for an extended period, there has to be a pay-out later on,” he said. “His leadership can say: ‘You’ve got all of next week, it’s going to be the Donald Trump show’.”

• Can Biden be replaced as nominee? It’s not easy
• Who will Trump pick as vice-president?
• Pressure builds on Biden as news conference fails to stop rebels

Hungary’s Viktor Orban has no peace plan of his own, but he has spent the past two weeks on a whistle-stop tour of Kyiv, Moscow, Azerbaijan, Beijing, Washington and even Mar-a-Lago, on a one-man mission that has infuriated leaders in the EU and US.

“Peace will not come by itself in the Russia-Ukraine war, someone has to make it,” he proclaims in videos posted daily on his Facebook page.

He has been bitterly attacked by both Brussels and Washington for breaking EU and Nato unity and cosying up to Vladimir Putin and China’s leader Xi Jinping.

Few argue with his central premise, that there can be no peace without peacemakers. But his close economic relationship with Russia’s president leaves him open to the charge of acting as Mr Putin’s puppet.

The right-wing Hungarian PM says a ceasefire tied to a specific deadline would be a start.

“I am not negotiating on behalf of anyone,” he told Hungarian radio during a brief stopover in Budapest between visits to Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv and Mr Putin in Moscow.

For the next six months, Hungary holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.

Mr Orban followed up his first visit to Kyiv since the start of the war with the first trip by an EU leader to Russia since April 2022. That visit to the Kremlin clearly angered his European partners.

Charles Michel, the head of the European Council of 27 EU governments, said the rotating presidency gave no mandate to engage with Russia on the EU’s behalf.

Mr Orban admitted that was the case, but insisted: “I’m clarifying the facts… I’m asking questions.”

In Kyiv he posed “three or four” to President Zelensky “so that we can understand his intentions, and where the red line is, the boundary up to which he can go in the interest of peace”.

He has also been generous in his praise of two other allies, Xi Jinping and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Meeting Mr Erdogan on arrival at the Nato summit in Washington, he spoke of him as “the only man who has overseen an agreement between Russia and Ukraine” so far, referring to a now defunct Black Sea grain agreement.

“China not only loves peace but has also put forward a series of constructive and important initiatives [for resolving the war],” he said of President Xi Jinping, according to Chinese state media.

The final visit on his whirlwind tour was to presidential candidate Donald Trump, another close ally who he strongly backs to win again in November and who he refers to as a man of peace.

In one interview, he declared that during Trump’s four-year term as president “he did not initiate a single war”.

This has been a remarkable trip in the international limelight for the leader of a small East European country with 9.7 million inhabitants. But who is it designed to impress, and could it have any effect?

A key target of his message is the domestic public.

Viktor Orban has had a relatively bad year so far, losing the two most prominent female politicians in his party to a scandal in February, and witnessing the emergence of his first serious challenger for more than a decade – Peter Magyar.

In June, Mr Orban’s Fidesz party won an impressive 45% in European elections, to 30% for Mr Magyar’s three-month-old Tisza party.

But he lost more than 700,000 votes (one in four) compared with the last parliamentary elections in 2022.

For the first time, he does not look invincible.

What better way to show Hungarians that their leader was still strong than to parade across the world stage, in a global tour “to make peace”?

His mission was also targeted at an international public, in the week that his new Patriots for Europe (PfE) group in the European Parliament attracted 84 MEPs from mainly far-right parties in 11 countries.

Patriots for Europe has emerged as the third largest faction in parliament, edging aside the rival Conservatives and Reformist group of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni.

Mr Orban’s visit to Moscow won him effusive praise from the Russians: “We take it very, very positively. We believe it can be very useful,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

The US was less impressed.

“We would welcome, of course, actual diplomacy with Russia to make it clear to Russia that they need to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, that they need to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity,” said US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. “But that is not at all what this visit appears to have been.”

At the same time, the US did welcome Mr Orban’s first visit to neighbouring Ukraine since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.

The Hungarian leader has given very little away about the actual content of his talks in Kyiv, Moscow or Beijing.

A leaked version of his letter to Charles Michel, sent from Azerbaijan, offers some clues.

Mr Putin was open to a ceasefire, Mr Orban told the European Council president, provided it did not provide Ukraine with a chance to reorganise its army on the front lines.

Three days earlier in Kyiv, on 2 July, the Ukrainian leader used a similar argument, telling Mr Orban that the Russians would abuse any ceasefire to regroup their invading forces.

Mr Orban was apparently “surprised” that President Zelensky still believed Ukraine could win back its lost territories.

And Vladimir Putin told Mr Orban that “time favours Russian forces”, according to the leaked letter.

Arriving in Washington days later, Mr Orban posted yet another video on Facebook, saying he would argue that Nato “should return to its original spirit: Nato should win peace, not the wars around it”.

Unlike his Nato allies, Viktor Orban views Russia’s two-and-a-half year war in Ukraine as a civil war between two Slav nations, prolonged by US support for one of them.

One thing he probably does agree on is that this autumn the conflict will become only worse.

A Trump presidential victory in November, he believes, would force the Ukrainians and Russians to the negotiating table.

When Banksy artwork Season’s Greetings appeared on a garage in Port Talbot in 2018 it kicked off a three-year saga that ended in it being removed from the town.

But more than five years on it has left a lasting legacy – a vibrant street art community.

“There were people doing it anyway,” said steelworker and street artist Ryan Davies.

“But there’s no two ways about it – when Banksy turned up in town, that really kicked off a scene here that had been bubbling under.”

Anyone paying a visit to the steel town could not help but notice its ever-growing collection of street art – everything from imposing murals to graffiti lettering and tagging.

“Port Talbot is renowned for it now,” said Ryan.

Ryan, a boiler man at the local steelworks for 33 years, began painting on walls over two years ago.

When he is not on shift he can be found painting alongside twin brothers Matthew and Aiden Cole. Together they are known as THEW Creative.

On a Friday afternoon they were at Margam Football Club, which had commissioned them to paint a mural on its clubhouse in the shadow of the steel plant’s blast furnaces.

With looming mass job cuts at the steelworks, Ryan said it was a welcome distraction from the day job, where people were feeling “very demoralised”.

“With me coming up to 50, I’m lucky enough to have paid off my mortgage… but there’s boys in their twenties there and they’ve just taken on mortgages, they’ve got young kids and a long way to go before retirement – so for them it’s very, very nerve-wracking,” he said.

Ryan said having colourful street art around the town was a hopeful sight during difficult times.

“It makes you think the town might actually have a chance and it’s not just about the steelworks,” he added.

“[The Banksy] made the common person realise that it’s not just anti-social, art is art,” said Aiden.

“People started realising ‘we could have art in our garden, on our children’s bedroom wall, on our football club, on our restaurant – it has really bloomed and there’s a nice scene going on in Port Talbot at the moment.”

But not everyone in Port Talbot is a fan.

“We got accused of making the place look like a third world country the other day by a random old man – fair enough,” said Aiden.

“But overwhelmingly it’s a positive reaction, I would say,” added Ryan.

“You can’t please everyone, can you,” added his friend.

It was back in December 2018 when Season’s Greetings appeared on steelworker Ian Lewis’ garage in Taibach, and following online speculation it was soon claimed by the famous anonymous street artist.

With an estimated 20,000 visitors flocking to see the artwork, wardens were drafted in to control traffic and film star Michael Sheen, who grew up in the area, helped pay for a protective plastic screen and round-the-clock security.

It was eventually bought by gallery owner John Brandler and taken to a building in the town centre so it could be viewed by the public.

But once an agreement to keep it there expired Mr Brandler moved it out of Wales in February 2022.

“It was a travesty,” recalled Ryan.

“It was taken away from us, a very rich person came in and bought it and off it went.”

When this was put to Mr Brandler he said he had bought the artwork intending to keep it in the town and create an international street art museum – but the idea had been scrapped by the local council.

A spokeswoman from Neath Port Talbot council said at the time: “Discussions were held on the potential for the work to remain in Port Talbot but the council was informed it would have to meet the costs of its removal and installation into a new venue, to continue to cover the insurance and to pay a fee in the region of £100,000 per year for the loan of the work.”

Recalling the dispute, Mr Brandler said: “I was travelling to Wales virtually every week costing me a day-and-a-half of my business time to have meetings, to be greeted by the phrase that it wasn’t going to happen because – and I quote – ‘Banksy isn’t Welsh’.”

He added he was “so, so saddened” that the artwork had not been able to remain in the town which he said was “in dire need of tourism”.

Thirty miles away in Cardiff, the Banksy effect is also being felt.

There, graffiti writer Amelia Thomas, better known as Unity, said: “People have their own feelings about Banksy, but something that can’t be disputed is one thing that Banksy has done is raise the profile of people painting on walls being acceptable.

“There’s a lot of people in Port Talbot who had already been painting for years and not getting any recognition, so it’s a bit barmy that it takes someone from outside to paint something for people to actually appreciate the local people.”

Amelia grew up in rural Llanfihangel Talyllyn in Powys, and said she had always been drawn to “making marks on walls”.

“I was getting into trouble because no-one else was doing it and it was quite obviously me,” she said.

Everything changed when she saw a graffiti magazine at her cousin’s house.

“I was like ‘Oh, my God, there’s other people doing this, that’s what I’m being drawn to.”

After moving to Cardiff in the mid 2000s she found walls where she could paint “without getting hassled”.

“It’s much easier to paint on the street without having people hassling you now, because people are used to seeing it for one. But also and there are places where you can say, ‘I’m allowed to be here, it’s nothing to do with you, leave me alone’,” she said.

Many places around the UK have open walls where artists are able to paint.

“That’s a massive step from where things were,” said Amelia.

For Amelia, expressing herself through art is a way of protecting her mental health.

“It’s about raising awareness to the public that actually, this is something that’s benefiting the person that’s painting, they’re not doing it to annoy you, they’re doing it because it’s something that they need to do, that they’re compelled to do and that helps them keep their head above the water, because that’s what it is for me,” she said.

“When you’re painting, nothing else in the world exists. It’s just you and that wall.”

Hasan Kamil grew up in Swansea with a passion for creating graffiti art.

After spending five years working as a graphic designer he now lives in Bristol, and works creating large-scale murals and bespoke lettering.

When he is outside painting murals people frequently stop to ask him about his work, so he said he has a good gauge about how the public feel about art popping up on buildings, walls and underpasses.

“The average perception [says] ‘I love the street art but hate the graffiti, hate the tagging’,” he said.

“But they don’t realise they coexist and graffiti was kind of there first, so I will always be a big advocate for graffiti.”

There’s another frequent comment.

“The B word – Banksy. ‘You’re not Banksy are you?’ You get that a lot.”