The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says at least 90 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a designated humanitarian area.

About 300 people have been injured, according to the health ministry’s statement, in an attack which Israel says targeted senior Hamas leader Mohammed Deif and his deputy Rafa Salama.

In a news conference on Saturday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was “no certainty” that either of them had been killed.

The strike hit the al-Mawasi area near Khan Younis, which the Israeli military has designated as a humanitarian zone.

Mr Netanyahu said he gave the order for the operation to go ahead after being briefed by his general security forces.

He said he wanted to know there were no hostages nearby, the extent of the collateral damage and what kinds of weapons would be used.

Having heard the plan, he “wished them the best of luck”.

During the news conference, he promised to eradicate all of the group’s senior members.

“Either way, we will get to the whole of the leadership of Hamas,” Mr Netanyahu added.

An Israeli military official said the strike took place in an “open area” where there were “no civilians”.

He refused to say whether it was inside a designated safe zone, but said Hamas leaders had “cynically” set up in a civilian area.

BBC Verify has analysed footage of the aftermath of the strike, confirming that it took place within an area shown on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) website as a humanitarian zone.

The official also said he was unaware of any hostages taken during the 7 October attack on Israel being in the area.

He added that “accurate intelligence” was gathered before the “precision strike”.

Hamas said the claim that their leaders were targets is “false”.

“It is not the first time Israel claims to target Palestinian leaders, only to be proven false later,” the group said in a statement.

An eyewitness in al-Mawasi told the BBC that the site of the strike looked like an “earthquake” had hit.

Videos from the area show smouldering wreckage and bloodied casualties being loaded on to stretchers.

People can be seen trying desperately to pick through the rubble of a large crater with their hands.

• Who are Mohammed Deif and the other top Hamas leaders?

One of the doctors at a hospital dealing with the aftermath of the attack has told the BBC it is “one of the black days”.

Speaking to Newshour on the BBC World Service, Dr Mohammed Abu Rayya said the majority of cases coming in were dead, with others suffering from multiple shrapnel wounds.

He said it was like being in “hell”, adding that many of the casualties were civilians, notably women and children.

Footage from the nearby Kuwait field hospital showed scenes of chaos with patients being treated on the floor.

The Nasser medical complex in Khan Younis is “overwhelmed” and no longer able to function, said British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing the al-Qassam Brigades, is one of Israel’s most wanted men.

He has near-mythical status in Gaza after escaping capture and surviving several assassination attempts, including one in 2002 when he lost an eye.

He was imprisoned by Israeli authorities in 1989, after which he formed the Brigades with the aim of capturing Israeli soldiers.

Israel accuses him of planning and supervising bus bombings which killed tens of Israelis in 1996, and of involvement in the capture and killing of three Israeli soldiers in the mid-1990s.

It is thought he was one of the masterminds behind the 7 October Hamas attack, when about 1,200 Israelis and foreigners – mostly civilians – were killed and 251 others were taken back to Gaza as hostages.

It led to the major Israeli military operation in Gaza which has killed more than 38,400 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

A Hamas official, cited by Reuters, called Saturday’s attack a “grave escalation” that showed Israel was not interested in reaching a ceasefire agreement.

The ceasefire negotiations being held in Qatar and Egypt ended on Friday without success, the BBC understands.

Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defence agency said that in a separate incident, 17 people had been killed in an Israeli strike west of Gaza.

The attack is said to have targeted a prayer hall in the Shati refugee camp to the west of Gaza City. The Israeli military has not yet commented on the claim.

“This undoubtedly surprises you more than it surprises us,” Spain’s manager Luis de la Fuente told his country’s journalists.

His team had just beaten France in the European Championship semi-finals, setting up a showdown with England in Sunday’s final.

And surprise – of the pleasant kind – is perhaps the best word to describe what many Spanish fans have been feeling throughout this tournament.

Expectation was low on Spain’s sun-kissed streets as the Euros got underway, but that has quickly become national jubilation, helping to bring this much-divided country together.

Quite a difference to the trials and tribulations of Three Lions supporters.

“At first my friends and myself thought that the players selected were a very personal choice of the coach and didn’t represent the opinion of most Spaniards,” said Jorge Gallego, a Spain fan in Madrid.

“We didn’t expect to reach the final but throughout the tournament we started to realise that we could go far.”

While an estimated 11,500 Spanish fans have travelled to Berlin for the final, back home giant screens are being installed in parks, sports centres and squares on which to watch it.

Here in Madrid, local authorities have said that, if Spain wins, victory celebrations will take place around the Plaza de Cibeles in the capital’s centre.

Meanwhile, the players are being lauded, among them defender Marc Cucurella, who has become a folk hero thanks to his big hair and an online song about him which has gone viral.

The lyrics feature paella and beer – it’s a chant often heard in the stands of his league club, Chelsea.

The buoyant atmosphere surrounding the football contrasts with Spain’s rancorous and often toxic politics, where the left-wing government and right-wing opposition seldom agree on anything.

The football team provides a rare rallying point. Parties and politicians have celebrated not just the results but the emergence of players, like Lamine Yamal, who turned 17 on Saturday and has turned out to be the star.

This team also represents Spain’s multi-cultural reality. Yamal’s father is Moroccan and his mother is from Equatorial Guinea, while Nico Williams’s Ghanaian parents reached Spain after travelling across the Sahara Desert and scaling a fence that surrounds the enclave of Melilla.

Yamal has underlined his humble origins, holding his fingers up after scoring to show the postcode 304, the working-class, multi-cultural district of the Catalan town of Mataró where he grew up.

It’s a place that a member of the far-right Vox party, Manuel Gavira, once described as a “multi-cultural dung heap”.

But the overwhelming sensation is that Spaniards are embracing their team, both for its performances and what it represents.

El Periódico newspaper said “a young Spain, sassy and reinvigorated, has become the mirror for a country which has changed and is multi-racial and diverse”.

Even King Felipe joined in the plaudits, saying that the men’s team, radiated “excitement, joy and security”, while praising the “sparkle” of Yamal.

It’s easy to forget that Yamal’s selection raised eyebrows and led to accusations that De la Fuente – a relatively junior coach who had never worked with a top-flight club – did not have the experience to succeed.

On the face of it, the team was a far cry from the star-studded side that conquered two European titles and the World Cup between 2008-2012.

Now, there is a feeling that the national team has returned to the elite, restoring the self-esteem of Spanish fans in the process.

Results are an obvious reason for the renewed belief. It has six wins out of six – a first for any team in the Euros – against opponents that included not just Didier Deschamps’s France, but also hosts Germany and Euro 2020 champions Italy.

The style of those victories has also been crucial. Gone is the close-passing, possession-obsessed “tiki-taka” play which brought Spain so much success in the past. Instead, Spain is playing more directly, with two of its emerging stars, Williams and Yamal, wreaking havoc down the wings.

The result is a less controlled and more thrilling style than in the past.

Spanish fans, who abhor dull football, have bought into it.

“Spain is going to win, without a doubt,” said Luis García, a Venezuelan migrant who supports Spain.

“They’ve shown that they are the best team. It’s amazing that the team has improved so much with this younger generation of players and that our hopes rest on these kids.”

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.

“There are too many people who have supported me to thank just now,” Mr Baldwin wrote on Instagram on Saturday. “To all of you, you will never know how much I appreciate your kindness toward my family.”

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.

Meta has lifted the final restrictions on Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the run up to US presidential elections in November.

The ex-US president and convicted felon’s accounts were suspended in 2021 after he praised supporters who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January.

Trump’s accounts, which combined have over 60 million followers, were re-instated in 2023 but subject to additional monitoring, which has now been removed, the social media giant said in a blog post.

Meta said it had a responsibility to allow political expression and that Americans should be able to hear from presidential nominees on an equal basis.

• Biden is teetering. Trump’s plan? Let it happen

It added that US presidential candidates “remain subject to the same Community Standards as all Facebook and Instagram users, including those policies designed to prevent hate speech and incitement to violence.”

Since returning to Meta’s platforms, Trump’s accounts have mostly posted campaign details and memes including attacks on his presidential race rival Joe Biden.

Prior to his 2021 ban, Trump’s Facebook posts were often some of the most popular in the US, according to data at the time from CrowdTangle.

Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime and was also banned from Twitter and YouTube.

Restrictions on these accounts were also lifted last year, but despite this Trump communicates now on Truth Social, a social media platform he owns, before reposting to other networks.

Trump returned to Twitter – now called X – after the company’s CEO Elon Musk held a poll that asked users to click “yes” or “no” on whether Trump’s account should be reinstated. “Yes” won, apparently with 51.8% of the vote.

The big tech companies acted after the Capitol Hill riots which killed five people and injured more than 100 police officers. Trump was accused of inciting violence and repeatedly spreading disinformation.

Lavish wedding celebrations for the son of Asia’s richest man resumed on Saturday with a star-studded guestlist including Hollywood celebrities, global business leaders and two former British prime ministers.

Billionaire tycoon Mukesh Ambani’s youngest son Anant and fiancee Radhika Merchant, both 29, are tying the knot this weekend in Mumbai, India, following months of pre-marriage parties.

Saturday will see a blessing ceremony during which the world’s rich and famous will greet and pay their respects to the couple at a 16,000-capacity convention centre owned by the Ambani family’s conglomerate.

This will be followed by a grand party where unconfirmed reports say pop stars Drake, Lana Del Rey and Adele are likely to perform.

It follows a formal ceremony and party on Friday evening which was attended by the likes of socialite Kim Kardashian, actor John Cena and former British leaders Tony Blair and Boris Johnson.

Fifa boss Gianni Infantino, Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and Samsung chairman Jay Y Lee were also among hundreds of famous figures who made an appearance.

“Great wedding!” China’s ambassador to India Xu Feihong wrote on social media platform X along with footage of the couple from inside the venue.

“Best wishes to the new couple and double happiness!”

This weekend’s celebrations end on Sunday with a reception party.

• In photos: Kim Kardashian, Priyanka Chopra and Tony Blair at grand India wedding
• The marathon Indian wedding turning heads around the world

Wedding events earlier this year included a party at the Ambanis’ ancestral home, where a purpose-built Hindu temple was unveiled alongside private performances by singers Rihanna and Justin Bieber.

Guests included Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and former US president Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka.

In June, the couple embarked on a four-day Mediterranean cruise with 1,200 guests, while singer Katy Perry performed at a masquerade ball at a French chateau in Cannes.

The Backstreet Boys, US rapper Pitbull and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli also provided entertainment.

Rajan Mehra, chief executive of air charter company Club One Air, told Reuters that the family had rented three Falcon-2000 jets to ferry wedding guests to this week’s string of events.

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

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

Anant’s father Mukesh, 66, is chairman of Reliance Industries, a family-founded conglomerate that has grown into India’s biggest company by market capitalisation.

The patriarch is the world’s 11th richest person with a fortune of more than $123bn, according to Forbes.

The family’s lucrative interests include retail partnerships with Armani and other luxury brands, more than 40% of India’s mobile phone market and an Indian Premier League cricket team.

His 27-floor family home Antilia is one of Mumbai’s most prominent landmarks, reportedly costing more than $1bn to build, with a permanent staff of 600 servants.

Merchant is the daughter of well-known pharmaceutical moguls.

Key roads in Mumbai are being sealed off for several hours a day until the festivities end on Monday, while social media is awash with minute-by-minute updates.

But the extraordinary opulence has also led to a backlash.

People living in the city have complained that road closures have worsened traffic problems caused by monsoon flooding, while others have questioned the ostentatious display of wealth.

The Ambanis have not revealed how much this wedding is costing them, but wedding planners estimate they have already spent anywhere between 11bn and 13bn rupees [$132m-$156m].

It was rumoured Rihanna was paid $7m (£5.5m) for her performance, while the figure suggested for Justin Bieber is $10m.

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.

• Meet the tycoons behind the grand Indian wedding

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

Renowned sex therapist and talk show host Dr Ruth Westheimer, who spoke openly about sex and intimate subjects, died on Friday at 96 years old.

Her publicist confirmed her death to BBC News partner CBS News without providing a cause.

Ruth Westheimer, often referred to as Dr Ruth, became known for talking openly about sex, becoming a pop culture icon as well as a best-selling author with guides like “Sex for Dummies”.

She pushed for having open conversations about sex with a non-judgmental approach.

Dr Ruth, who spoke with a German accent, is a Holocaust survivor who was born in Frankfurt, Germany.

In the 1980s, she had her own local radio program called “Sexually Speaking” which became well recognized and placed her on the path to national fame when it was nationally syndicated in 1984.

She wrote her first book, Dr Ruth’s Guide to Good Sex, in 1983 in which she aimed to demystify sex. It was the first of more than 40 books she authored.

Dr Ruth launched a television program the following year called The Dr. Ruth Show and wrote a nationally syndicated advice column.

“I knew that there is a lot of knowledge that is around but doesn’t get to young people,” Dr Ruth told NBC Nightly News in 2019.

Dr Ruth frequently made appearances on talk shows including The Howard Stern Radio Show, the Dr. Oz Show, Nightline, the Tonight Show and Late Night with David Letterman.

Last November, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced Dr Ruth would become the state’s honorary ambassador to loneliness.

“I am deeply honoured and promised the governor that I will work day and night to help New Yorkers feel less lonely!” Dr Ruth said at the time.

Born in 1928 as Karola Ruth Siegel, at ten-years-old her parents sent her to Switzerland to escape Kristallnacht, a violent riot Nazis carried out against Jews before the Holocaust.

Dr Ruth never saw her parents after leaving for Switzerland and believed they were killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz – a Nazi death camp.

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.

A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder following the discovery of human remains in suitcases at Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol.

The 34-year-old was detained by Avon and Somerset armed officers at Temple Meads Station in Bristol in the early hours of Saturday.

The remains found in the luggage and in a flat in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, belong to two men, police have said.

Investigators, wearing blue forensic suits, masks and gloves are continuing their work at the crime scene, which is outside the property on Scott’s Road and was earlier extended by 33ft (10m).

They could be seen working near a set of bins outside an estate, just off Scott’s Road, with one taking photographs of the area.

Three police vehicles were used to block the view from beyond the cordon.

The Met’s deputy assistant commissioner Andy Valentine said the arrest is “a significant development”.

“We understand the concerns of local communities in both Bristol and London and officers will remain in the Clifton and Shepherd’s Bush areas over the coming days to reassure those affected by this tragic incident,” he added.

“Anyone with any concerns is encouraged to speak with them.”

The Met Police had previously put out a statement saying they wanted to speak to a Yostin Andres Mosquera.

Police are not looking for anyone else and the man arrested at Temple Meads Station is being taken to London for questioning.

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 cases behind. A second suitcase was found nearby.

The Metropolitan Police took over the investigation after body parts were found in the flat west London flat.

Police have said formal identification of the two victims is yet to take place.

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

In Bristol, some locals have told the BBC the incident has left the community in shock.

Gemma Osborne, the manager of Hart’s bakery, which is near to the city’s Temple Meads Station, said it feels “very close to home”.

“It’s always a concern being with our start times being so early that everyone is safe on the way to work,” she said.

“It’s made me feel quite spooked. It’s very rare so we shouldn’t let it creep us out – but it definitely makes you think.”

Twenty-two children have died and at least 132 have been injured after a school building collapsed in Nigeria’s central Plateau state, local officials say.

Saint Academy in the state capital Jos caved in while students were in class on Friday morning. Children were left trapped under the debris.

Volunteers used excavators, hammers and their bare hands to break through the piles of concrete and twisted iron rods to reach many of those trapped.

Police told reporters that at least 22 children had died in the collapse, with many more receiving treatment in local hospitals.

The school is believed to have more than 1,000 pupils.

Local resident Abel Fuandai told the BBC that his friend’s son had been killed and said “the scale of the tragedy is frightening”.

The state government said an investigation is underway and cited the school’s “weak structure and unsafe location near a riverbank”, advising other schools “with structural concerns” to close immediately.

It also advised hospitals in Jos to prioritise treating the injured, “regardless of documentation or payment”.

Residents said the collapse came after three days of heavy rains in Plateau.

Speaking from hospital, injured student Wulliya Ibrahim told AFP: “I entered the class not more than five minutes, when I heard a sound, and the next thing is I found myself here.

“We are many in the class, we are writing our exams,” he said.

Resident Chika Obioha said he had seen a number of dead bodies and that dozens of people had been rescued.

“Everyone is helping out to see if we can rescue more people,” he said.

“Devastated by the tragic loss of young lives at Saint Academy,” Unicef Nigeria representative Cristian Munduate wrote on X.

“Children full of dreams were writing exams when the school building collapsed. Deepest condolences to families affected.”

There have been several major building collapses in Nigeria in recent years, with observers blaming a mix of bad workmanship, poor quality materials and corruption.

In 2021, at least 45 people were killed when a high-rise building under construction collapsed in a wealthy Lagos neighbourhood.

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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”.

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

An astounding number of mass graves surround Thabani Dhlamini’s home in south-western Zimbabwe.

One pointed out to the BBC lies near the ablution block at a primary school in the village of Salankomo in Tsholotsho district. Teachers were killed and dumped there in the 1980s.

In another, steps away from Mr Dhlamini’s house, 22 relatives and neighbours are buried in two graves – all killed by Zimbabwe’s military under the command of then-leader Robert Mugabe.

Mr Dhlamini was just 10 at the time – but the slightly built, soft-spoken farmer is still haunted by the memories.

“We were not able [to talk about it] and we were in fear to speak about it,” the 51-year-old told the BBC.

They were all victims of ethnic killings between 1983 and 1987, when Mugabe unleashed the North Korean-trained Five Brigade in strongholds of Joshua Nkomo, his arch-rival.

Some describe what followed as a genocide. It is not known how many people died – some estimates put it at more than 20,000 people.

Nkomo was a veteran freedom fighter from the south-western province of Matabeleland who, more than two decades after his death, is still fondly known as “Father Zimbabwe”.

The two men had had a fractious relationship during the long liberation struggle against white-minority rule – Nkomo came from Zimbabwe’s Ndebele minority and Mugabe from the nation’s Shona majority.

They fell out two years after independence in 1980, when Mugabe fired Nkomo from the coalition government, accusing his party of plotting a coup.

Operation Gukurahundi was launched, which at the time the government said was a counter-insurgency mission to root out dissidents who had been attacking civilians.

“Gukurahundi” means “cleansing rain” in the Shona language.

Those targeted by the elite soldiers were mainly from the Ndebele ethnic group in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces, and the killings laid the foundation for lingering ethnic tensions.

Mugabe ruled for another three decades – only after he was deposed by his former deputy Emmerson Mnangagwa did it seem that Gukurahundi might be properly confronted, even though he has also been accused of involvement.

Mr Mnangagwa made a point of addressing the subject of reconciliation, given the criticism over how various initiatives to allow exhumations and reburials had foundered.

Even so it has taken seven years for President Mnangagwa to establish what he has called the Gukurahundi Community Engagement Programme. A series of village-level hearings, where survivors can air their grievances, is set to follow Sunday’s launch.

Mr Dhlamini said he would take part in the hearings.

“I want to free myself from what I witnessed, I need to vent out what I felt,” he said, tapping his chest.

He, along with a group of boys from his village in 1983, saw how soldiers frog-marched 22 women, including his mother, into a hut which they then set on fire.

When the women broke down the door to flee the flames, the soldiers mowed them down with their guns before they could escape.

Mr Dhlamini’s mother was the only survivor as she managed to hide along the side of a nearby grain hut.

The soldiers then ordered the older boys in the terrified group watching nearby to carry the bullet-ridden bodies of the women into the smoking hut and another alongside it.

Mr Dhlamini’s 14-year-old friend Lotshe Moyo was one of them – but because he was wearing a pin supporting Nkomo, afterwards he too was ordered inside, shot and both huts burnt to ashes.

Today their remains are still in the ruins – an overgrown area surrounded by a chain-link fence and lots of crosses. On a whitewashed brick wall, the names of the dead are inscribed.

“When we started talking about it my memory returns and it seems as if it had happened today. It makes me feel as if I can cry,” said Mr Dhlamini, who added that his mother had been so traumatised she had never been able to live in the village.

Victims and survivors’ families are divided over whether the new government initiative will bring healing and change their fortunes.

In the neighbouring village of Silonkwe, 77-year-old Julia Mlilo shuffles slowly to meet us. She can barely walk now, but remembers every detail of what happened on 24 February 1983.

At the sound of gunfire she had dropped her hoe in the field where she was working and escaped into the bush with her husband and children.

When they emerged her father and more than 20 of her husband’s relatives had been badly assaulted and burnt, many beyond recognition.

“Only the heads were identifiable,” she said.

They gathered up the remains into a tin basin that had been used for bathing and buried them in a nearby pit.

The place where they were slaughtered and the area of their burial, adjacent to a field of crops, are now marked by reflective white and red crosses.

“I haven’t forgiven them, I don’t know what would make me forgive. Whenever I see soldiers I feel the pain and I start trembling,” Ms Mlilo told the BBC.

“I don’t trust the process because it’s being done by the government, but I will take part in it,” she said.

While Gukurahundi has ended, many believe they are still being punished.

Tsholotsho, like many parts of Matabeleland, remains a desolate and forsaken area, with little to no infrastructure and very little development over the last 40 years.

And since the 1980s the findings of various commissions of inquiry into the atrocities have never been made public.

During the Mugabe era, a programme to give identity documents to children whose parents had perished or disappeared did begin and continues.

But previous public hearings and exhumation programmes have stalled.

In Bulawayo, the main city in Matabeleland, Mbuso Fuzwayo from the local pressure group Ibhetshu LikaZulu spoke to the BBC as he collected a metal plaque to commemorate those killed in Silonkwe.

Several plaques commissioned by the group have been stolen or destroyed – a sign, he believes, that Zimbabwe is still not ready to confront its past.

The country has a long history of human rights abuses and impunity dating back to the white-minority government when it was called Rhodesia.

“We have a lot of violations of the people. What happened during the liberation struggle is that there was no-one who was brought to justice,” Mr Fuzwayo sid.

“After the genocide no-one was taken to justice,” he said, referring to Gukurahundi.

“What we are saying is that once justice takes place, people will start to respect the rights of other people.”

The suspicion and misgivings about the latest process are a big hurdle for President Mnangagwa to overcome as he presents himself as an honest broker, with a genuine desire to reunite Zimbabwe and redress the past.

He was minister of state security during the massacres, which explains the wariness felt towards him in the south-west.

Some of that strong opposition comes from traditional leaders who will be conducting the hearings.

Chief Khulumani Mathema from Gwanda North feels the process is fundamentally flawed.

“It needs to be a national issue that focuses on international best practices, which is how genocides are addressed in the whole world,” he told the BBC.

Everyone in the region was touched by the atrocities and has a story to tell. As a young boy, the chief was beaten up by soldiers.

“We’ve got countries that went through genocide. We’ve got Rwanda, we’ve got Germany, but we want to create and reinvent the wheel, which I think is not feasible,” he said.

“There’s no single genocide that has ever been completely solved when the perpetrators are still in charge of the levers of power.”

Mr Fuzwayo, whose grandfather was allegedly abducted and never heard from again during the massacres, agrees.

“They must not try to say this was a Mugabe thing. It was a collective thing. The chief perpetrator might be dead, that is Mugabe – but Emerson Mnangagwa remains in the absence of Mugabe,” the 48-year-old said.

Despite the continued finger-pointing, Mr Mnangagwa has always denied accusations he played an active role in Gukurahundi and successive governments have rejected allegations that the operation amounted to genocide.

Chief Mathema said the priorities of communities would be to exhume and identify bodies from the mass graves and allow families space to mourn their relatives appropriately.

But he believes there is another piece of the puzzle that the government will need to complete – truth-telling about what happened and the whereabouts of the disappeared.

This new inquiry will test President Mnangagwa’s sincerity – will the hearings get to hear from the perpetrators? Will they open up and provide answers to the survivors? Will the findings of previous investigations now be made public?

“Up to today we don’t know why the people were killed – the motive,” said Mr Fuzwayo.

“And they don’t want to talk about it and I still believe that they have got a lot that they are hiding.”

• Emmerson Mnangagwa – Zimbabwe’s ‘crocodile’
• The bones that haunt Zimbabwe
• Robert Mugabe – from liberator to tyrant

Elon Musk’s social media site X has been accused by the European Union of breaching its online content rules, with its “verified” blue tick accounts having the potential to “deceive” users.

The bloc’s tech regulator said users could be duped into thinking the identity of those with blue tick marks was verified, when in fact anybody can pay for a blue tick. It said it had found evidence of “malicious actors” abusing the system.

The investigation began under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

It could lead to X being fined up to 6% of its global annual turnover and being forced to change how it operates in the bloc.

Mr Musk reacted angrily: “The DSA is misinformation,” he wrote on X.

The billionaire, who bought the platform for $44bn in 2022, said the DSA rules amounted to “censored speech” which he said he found unacceptable.

X chief executive Linda Yaccarino also defended the company’s practices.

“A democratised system, allowing everyone across Europe to access verification, is better than just the privileged few being verified,” she wrote on the social media site.

The findings follow a seven month investigation under the DSA.

The law, which was introduced in 2022, requires big tech firms, like X, to take action to stop illegal content and safeguard the public.

ByteDance’s TikTok, AliExpress and Meta Platforms are also being investigated under the act.

The Commission said its review of X had found a lack of transparency around advertising and that X did not provide data for research use as required under EU rules.

“In particular, X prohibits eligible researchers from independently accessing its public data, such as by scraping, as stated in its terms of service”, the Commission said.

The tech regulator also said that the way X designed and operated its interface for blue tick verified accounts did “not correspond to industry practice and deceives users”.

“Since anyone can subscribe to obtain such a ‘verified’ status, it negatively affects users’ ability to make free and informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and the content they interact with,” it said.

“There is evidence of motivated malicious actors abusing the ‘verified account’ to deceive users,” it added.

The Commission said X could defend itself against the findings or resolve the issue by committing to changes that would bring it into compliance.

Any such deal would be made public, it added, in response to Mr Musk’s claim that the commission had offered an “illegal secret deal”.

“Back in the day, BlueChecks used to mean trustworthy sources of information,” Thierry Breton, Commissioner for Internal Market, said.

“Now with X, our preliminary view is that they deceive users and infringe the DSA.”

“X has now the right of defence – but if our view is confirmed, we will impose fines and require significant changes.”

The Commission pushed back against Mr Musks’s charge of censorship, saying its rules were aimed at ensuring “a safe and fair online environment for European citizens that is respectful of their rights, in particular freedom of expression”.

Among its rules, it said, are requirements that companies inform users when their accounts are restricted and that users who are banned can contest those decisions.

The Commission said it was continuing investigations into X’s practices around dissemination of illegal content, and how well it combats the spread of fake news.

A bear rescued from the war in Ukraine and rehomed in a West Lothian zoo has died.

Staff at Five Sisters Zoo in West Calder said they were “utterly devastated” that Yampil had died following an anaesthetic procedure.

The 12-year-old Asiatic black bear had been rehomed at the zoo in January after being rescued from the village of Yampil in the Donetsk province of eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian soldiers had discovered an abandoned zoo in the village when they arrived there in July 2022, five months after the Russian invasion.

They found Yampil injured and traumatised after Russian shelling of the zoo.

Of nearly 200 animals at the zoo, he was one of seven survivors.

Rescuers initially moved him to an animal sanctuary in Belgium before he was permanently rehomed in Scotland.

Romain Pizzi, a specialist vet at Five Sisters Zoo, said Yampil had been “comfortable and happy” at the West Lothian zoo.

However, he said animals that had been rescued from such “traumatic circumstances” could have “complicated health problems such as dental problems or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).”

He said: “Yampil was anaesthetised for further treatment for his health problems which were worrying the team.

“Sadly, anaesthetising animals always carries risks, and Yampil did not recover from the procedure.”

The bear was being observed for signs of PTSD when he arrived at the zoo after being concussed by shellfire in the warzone.

The vet said staff at the zoo were all “deeply affected by the loss of our beloved Yampil”.

He added: “We appreciate this will be a truly sad day for all the incredible people who helped make his rescue possible.

“While the zoo will remain open as usual, we kindly request respect and privacy for our owners and staff during this difficult time.”

The Asiatic black bear – also known as moon bears because of crescent-shaped yellow fur on their chests – are classed as a vulnerable species by conservation groups, with estimates suggesting there are fewer than 60,000 of them left in the world.

They are medium-sized bears averaging 4.5 – 5.4ft (137-165cm) in height, and weighing 90-115kg. The males are often heavier and can weigh up to 181kg.

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.”

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

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.

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

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

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says at least 90 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a designated humanitarian area.

About 300 people have been injured, according to the health ministry’s statement, in an attack which Israel says targeted senior Hamas leader Mohammed Deif and his deputy Rafa Salama.

In a news conference on Saturday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was “no certainty” that either of them had been killed.

The strike hit the al-Mawasi area near Khan Younis, which the Israeli military has designated as a humanitarian zone.

Mr Netanyahu said he gave the order for the operation to go ahead after being briefed by his general security forces.

He said he wanted to know there were no hostages nearby, the extent of the collateral damage and what kinds of weapons would be used.

Having heard the plan, he “wished them the best of luck”.

During the news conference, he promised to eradicate all of the group’s senior members.

“Either way, we will get to the whole of the leadership of Hamas,” Mr Netanyahu added.

An Israeli military official said the strike took place in an “open area” where there were “no civilians”.

He refused to say whether it was inside a designated safe zone, but said Hamas leaders had “cynically” set up in a civilian area.

BBC Verify has analysed footage of the aftermath of the strike, confirming that it took place within an area shown on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) website as a humanitarian zone.

The official also said he was unaware of any hostages taken during the 7 October attack on Israel being in the area.

He added that “accurate intelligence” was gathered before the “precision strike”.

Hamas said the claim that their leaders were targets is “false”.

“It is not the first time Israel claims to target Palestinian leaders, only to be proven false later,” the group said in a statement.

An eyewitness in al-Mawasi told the BBC that the site of the strike looked like an “earthquake” had hit.

Videos from the area show smouldering wreckage and bloodied casualties being loaded on to stretchers.

People can be seen trying desperately to pick through the rubble of a large crater with their hands.

• Who are Mohammed Deif and the other top Hamas leaders?

One of the doctors at a hospital dealing with the aftermath of the attack has told the BBC it is “one of the black days”.

Speaking to Newshour on the BBC World Service, Dr Mohammed Abu Rayya said the majority of cases coming in were dead, with others suffering from multiple shrapnel wounds.

He said it was like being in “hell”, adding that many of the casualties were civilians, notably women and children.

Footage from the nearby Kuwait field hospital showed scenes of chaos with patients being treated on the floor.

The Nasser medical complex in Khan Younis is “overwhelmed” and no longer able to function, said British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing the al-Qassam Brigades, is one of Israel’s most wanted men.

He has near-mythical status in Gaza after escaping capture and surviving several assassination attempts, including one in 2002 when he lost an eye.

He was imprisoned by Israeli authorities in 1989, after which he formed the Brigades with the aim of capturing Israeli soldiers.

Israel accuses him of planning and supervising bus bombings which killed tens of Israelis in 1996, and of involvement in the capture and killing of three Israeli soldiers in the mid-1990s.

It is thought he was one of the masterminds behind the 7 October Hamas attack, when about 1,200 Israelis and foreigners – mostly civilians – were killed and 251 others were taken back to Gaza as hostages.

It led to the major Israeli military operation in Gaza which has killed more than 38,400 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

A Hamas official, cited by Reuters, called Saturday’s attack a “grave escalation” that showed Israel was not interested in reaching a ceasefire agreement.

The ceasefire negotiations being held in Qatar and Egypt ended on Friday without success, the BBC understands.

Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defence agency said that in a separate incident, 17 people had been killed in an Israeli strike west of Gaza.

The attack is said to have targeted a prayer hall in the Shati refugee camp to the west of Gaza City. The Israeli military has not yet commented on the claim.

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.

“There are too many people who have supported me to thank just now,” Mr Baldwin wrote on Instagram on Saturday. “To all of you, you will never know how much I appreciate your kindness toward my family.”

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.

Lavish wedding celebrations for the son of Asia’s richest man resumed on Saturday with a star-studded guestlist including Hollywood celebrities, global business leaders and two former British prime ministers.

Billionaire tycoon Mukesh Ambani’s youngest son Anant and fiancee Radhika Merchant, both 29, are tying the knot this weekend in Mumbai, India, following months of pre-marriage parties.

Saturday will see a blessing ceremony during which the world’s rich and famous will greet and pay their respects to the couple at a 16,000-capacity convention centre owned by the Ambani family’s conglomerate.

This will be followed by a grand party where unconfirmed reports say pop stars Drake, Lana Del Rey and Adele are likely to perform.

It follows a formal ceremony and party on Friday evening which was attended by the likes of socialite Kim Kardashian, actor John Cena and former British leaders Tony Blair and Boris Johnson.

Fifa boss Gianni Infantino, Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and Samsung chairman Jay Y Lee were also among hundreds of famous figures who made an appearance.

“Great wedding!” China’s ambassador to India Xu Feihong wrote on social media platform X along with footage of the couple from inside the venue.

“Best wishes to the new couple and double happiness!”

This weekend’s celebrations end on Sunday with a reception party.

• In photos: Kim Kardashian, Priyanka Chopra and Tony Blair at grand India wedding
• The marathon Indian wedding turning heads around the world

Wedding events earlier this year included a party at the Ambanis’ ancestral home, where a purpose-built Hindu temple was unveiled alongside private performances by singers Rihanna and Justin Bieber.

Guests included Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and former US president Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka.

In June, the couple embarked on a four-day Mediterranean cruise with 1,200 guests, while singer Katy Perry performed at a masquerade ball at a French chateau in Cannes.

The Backstreet Boys, US rapper Pitbull and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli also provided entertainment.

Rajan Mehra, chief executive of air charter company Club One Air, told Reuters that the family had rented three Falcon-2000 jets to ferry wedding guests to this week’s string of events.

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

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

Anant’s father Mukesh, 66, is chairman of Reliance Industries, a family-founded conglomerate that has grown into India’s biggest company by market capitalisation.

The patriarch is the world’s 11th richest person with a fortune of more than $123bn, according to Forbes.

The family’s lucrative interests include retail partnerships with Armani and other luxury brands, more than 40% of India’s mobile phone market and an Indian Premier League cricket team.

His 27-floor family home Antilia is one of Mumbai’s most prominent landmarks, reportedly costing more than $1bn to build, with a permanent staff of 600 servants.

Merchant is the daughter of well-known pharmaceutical moguls.

Key roads in Mumbai are being sealed off for several hours a day until the festivities end on Monday, while social media is awash with minute-by-minute updates.

But the extraordinary opulence has also led to a backlash.

People living in the city have complained that road closures have worsened traffic problems caused by monsoon flooding, while others have questioned the ostentatious display of wealth.

The Ambanis have not revealed how much this wedding is costing them, but wedding planners estimate they have already spent anywhere between 11bn and 13bn rupees [$132m-$156m].

It was rumoured Rihanna was paid $7m (£5.5m) for her performance, while the figure suggested for Justin Bieber is $10m.

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.

• Meet the tycoons behind the grand Indian wedding

Renowned sex therapist and talk show host Dr Ruth Westheimer, who spoke openly about sex and intimate subjects, died on Friday at 96 years old.

Her publicist confirmed her death to BBC News partner CBS News without providing a cause.

Ruth Westheimer, often referred to as Dr Ruth, became known for talking openly about sex, becoming a pop culture icon as well as a best-selling author with guides like “Sex for Dummies”.

She pushed for having open conversations about sex with a non-judgmental approach.

Dr Ruth, who spoke with a German accent, is a Holocaust survivor who was born in Frankfurt, Germany.

In the 1980s, she had her own local radio program called “Sexually Speaking” which became well recognized and placed her on the path to national fame when it was nationally syndicated in 1984.

She wrote her first book, Dr Ruth’s Guide to Good Sex, in 1983 in which she aimed to demystify sex. It was the first of more than 40 books she authored.

Dr Ruth launched a television program the following year called The Dr. Ruth Show and wrote a nationally syndicated advice column.

“I knew that there is a lot of knowledge that is around but doesn’t get to young people,” Dr Ruth told NBC Nightly News in 2019.

Dr Ruth frequently made appearances on talk shows including The Howard Stern Radio Show, the Dr. Oz Show, Nightline, the Tonight Show and Late Night with David Letterman.

Last November, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced Dr Ruth would become the state’s honorary ambassador to loneliness.

“I am deeply honoured and promised the governor that I will work day and night to help New Yorkers feel less lonely!” Dr Ruth said at the time.

Born in 1928 as Karola Ruth Siegel, at ten-years-old her parents sent her to Switzerland to escape Kristallnacht, a violent riot Nazis carried out against Jews before the Holocaust.

Dr Ruth never saw her parents after leaving for Switzerland and believed they were killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz – a Nazi death camp.

“This undoubtedly surprises you more than it surprises us,” Spain’s manager Luis de la Fuente told his country’s journalists.

His team had just beaten France in the European Championship semi-finals, setting up a showdown with England in Sunday’s final.

And surprise – of the pleasant kind – is perhaps the best word to describe what many Spanish fans have been feeling throughout this tournament.

Expectation was low on Spain’s sun-kissed streets as the Euros got underway, but that has quickly become national jubilation, helping to bring this much-divided country together.

Quite a difference to the trials and tribulations of Three Lions supporters.

“At first my friends and myself thought that the players selected were a very personal choice of the coach and didn’t represent the opinion of most Spaniards,” said Jorge Gallego, a Spain fan in Madrid.

“We didn’t expect to reach the final but throughout the tournament we started to realise that we could go far.”

While an estimated 11,500 Spanish fans have travelled to Berlin for the final, back home giant screens are being installed in parks, sports centres and squares on which to watch it.

Here in Madrid, local authorities have said that, if Spain wins, victory celebrations will take place around the Plaza de Cibeles in the capital’s centre.

Meanwhile, the players are being lauded, among them defender Marc Cucurella, who has become a folk hero thanks to his big hair and an online song about him which has gone viral.

The lyrics feature paella and beer – it’s a chant often heard in the stands of his league club, Chelsea.

The buoyant atmosphere surrounding the football contrasts with Spain’s rancorous and often toxic politics, where the left-wing government and right-wing opposition seldom agree on anything.

The football team provides a rare rallying point. Parties and politicians have celebrated not just the results but the emergence of players, like Lamine Yamal, who turned 17 on Saturday and has turned out to be the star.

This team also represents Spain’s multi-cultural reality. Yamal’s father is Moroccan and his mother is from Equatorial Guinea, while Nico Williams’s Ghanaian parents reached Spain after travelling across the Sahara Desert and scaling a fence that surrounds the enclave of Melilla.

Yamal has underlined his humble origins, holding his fingers up after scoring to show the postcode 304, the working-class, multi-cultural district of the Catalan town of Mataró where he grew up.

It’s a place that a member of the far-right Vox party, Manuel Gavira, once described as a “multi-cultural dung heap”.

But the overwhelming sensation is that Spaniards are embracing their team, both for its performances and what it represents.

El Periódico newspaper said “a young Spain, sassy and reinvigorated, has become the mirror for a country which has changed and is multi-racial and diverse”.

Even King Felipe joined in the plaudits, saying that the men’s team, radiated “excitement, joy and security”, while praising the “sparkle” of Yamal.

It’s easy to forget that Yamal’s selection raised eyebrows and led to accusations that De la Fuente – a relatively junior coach who had never worked with a top-flight club – did not have the experience to succeed.

On the face of it, the team was a far cry from the star-studded side that conquered two European titles and the World Cup between 2008-2012.

Now, there is a feeling that the national team has returned to the elite, restoring the self-esteem of Spanish fans in the process.

Results are an obvious reason for the renewed belief. It has six wins out of six – a first for any team in the Euros – against opponents that included not just Didier Deschamps’s France, but also hosts Germany and Euro 2020 champions Italy.

The style of those victories has also been crucial. Gone is the close-passing, possession-obsessed “tiki-taka” play which brought Spain so much success in the past. Instead, Spain is playing more directly, with two of its emerging stars, Williams and Yamal, wreaking havoc down the wings.

The result is a less controlled and more thrilling style than in the past.

Spanish fans, who abhor dull football, have bought into it.

“Spain is going to win, without a doubt,” said Luis García, a Venezuelan migrant who supports Spain.

“They’ve shown that they are the best team. It’s amazing that the team has improved so much with this younger generation of players and that our hopes rest on these kids.”

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”.

A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder following the discovery of human remains in suitcases at Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol.

The 34-year-old was detained by Avon and Somerset armed officers at Temple Meads Station in Bristol in the early hours of Saturday.

The remains found in the luggage and in a flat in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, belong to two men, police have said.

Investigators, wearing blue forensic suits, masks and gloves are continuing their work at the crime scene, which is outside the property on Scott’s Road and was earlier extended by 33ft (10m).

They could be seen working near a set of bins outside an estate, just off Scott’s Road, with one taking photographs of the area.

Three police vehicles were used to block the view from beyond the cordon.

The Met’s deputy assistant commissioner Andy Valentine said the arrest is “a significant development”.

“We understand the concerns of local communities in both Bristol and London and officers will remain in the Clifton and Shepherd’s Bush areas over the coming days to reassure those affected by this tragic incident,” he added.

“Anyone with any concerns is encouraged to speak with them.”

The Met Police had previously put out a statement saying they wanted to speak to a Yostin Andres Mosquera.

Police are not looking for anyone else and the man arrested at Temple Meads Station is being taken to London for questioning.

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 cases behind. A second suitcase was found nearby.

The Metropolitan Police took over the investigation after body parts were found in the flat west London flat.

Police have said formal identification of the two victims is yet to take place.

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

In Bristol, some locals have told the BBC the incident has left the community in shock.

Gemma Osborne, the manager of Hart’s bakery, which is near to the city’s Temple Meads Station, said it feels “very close to home”.

“It’s always a concern being with our start times being so early that everyone is safe on the way to work,” she said.

“It’s made me feel quite spooked. It’s very rare so we shouldn’t let it creep us out – but it definitely makes you think.”

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.

The BBC’s John Hunt and daughter Amy say their devastation “cannot be put into words” after a crossbow attack that killed three of their family members.

Carol Hunt, 61, Hannah Hunt, 28, and Louise Hunt, 25, died at their home in Bushey, Hertfordshire, on Tuesday evening.

Kyle Clifford, 26, from Enfield in north London, was arrested on Thursday evening on suspicion of three counts of murder.

Racing commentator Mr Hunt, along with his other daughter Amy, released a statement saying they would need space to come to terms with what had happened and “start the grieving process”.

“We would like to thank people for their kind messages and for the support we have received in recent days,” they added.

“These have provided great comfort to us for which we are very grateful.”

They added they would need space to come to terms with what had happened and “start the grieving process”.

“While this is happening, we would ask that our privacy and that of our wider family and relations be respected at this time. Thank you.”

In a statement read to Sky Sports Racing viewers by his colleague Matt Chapman, Mr Hunt paid tribute to his “magnificently inspirational” daughter, Amy.

He said: “Notwithstanding the horrid evil that’s swept through our lives, wrecking devastation on an unimaginable scale, the counter to that has been the breathtaking messages of support, some of which are still to be read.

“Amy, my eldest daughter, has been magnificently inspirational with her control and support for me, which I am trying, trying so hard, to replicate.

“Every message has felt so important, the same as a reassuring hug.”

Det Supt Rob Hall, from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit, previously said the investigation was moving at pace.

On Thursday police said a crossbow had been found as inquiries continued.

Tributes throughout the week have been placed around the area in memory of the victims.

A vigil was held at St James’s Church on Thursday where more than 50 people attended and paid their respects.

A minute’s silence was also held at Newmarket Racecourse in Suffolk on Thursday as jockeys wore black armbands to pay tribute.