Police investigating the deaths of two men whose remains were found in two suitcases on the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol have arrested a man.

The 34-year-old man was arrested in the Bristol area in the early hours of Saturday following a joint operation by the Metropolitan Police and Avon and Somerset Police.

Armed officers arrested him at the city’s Temple Meads railway station. He is due to be taken from Bristol to London, where he will be questioned by detectives later on Saturday.

The development comes hours after more human remains were found at a property in Shepherd’s Bush, west London. Detectives confirmed that they belonged to the same two men whose remains were found in Bristol.

The Shepherd’s Bush property was raided on Friday as officers smashed down the door and cordoned off the street while forensics officers conducted searches. A police helicopter circled overhead for much of the day.

On Saturday afternoon, investigators in blue forensic suits, wearing masks and gloves, could be seen working behind the cordon. One took photographs of the area, while other investigators worked near a set of bins outside an estate just off Scotts Road. Three police vehicles were used to block the view from beyond the cordon.

Dept Asst Commissioner Andy Valentine, of Scotland Yard, said: “This is a significant development in our investigation, and I would like to thank the public for their support.

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

Police said they were not looking for anyone else. Earlier, they had released a photograph and named a suspect they were seeking in connection with the grim discovery, which was made shortly before midnight on Wednesday.

Yostin Andres Mosquera, a 34-year-old Colombian national, was being sought as police released images thought to be of him and taken close to the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

He was believed to have travelled to Bristol from London in a vehicle in which he was not the driver. He was picked up in a taxi outside a pub in Clifton, an affluent area in the west of the city.

It is thought he then made a short journey from outside the pub to the other side of the bridge, which connects Bristol with Leigh Woods in North Somerset.

The manhunt began at 11.57pm on Wednesday, when police received reports of a man seen “acting suspiciously” near the Bristol bridge. Officers arrived within 10 minutes but the man had left the scene, leaving a suitcase behind. A second suitcase was found nearby a short time later.

Both were found to contain human remains. One post-mortem examination has been carried out, which proved “inconclusive”, police said. A second remains ongoing. The victims have not yet been formally identified, but both are believed to be adult men, detectives have said.

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

John Hunt, the BBC racing commentator, has said the trauma suffered by his family after the murders of his wife Carol and daughters Hannah and Louise “cannot be put into words”.

In a statement released on Saturday morning, Mr Hunt said he and Amy, his surviving daughter, were grateful for the support of their community, but that “the devastation that we are experiencing cannot be put into words”.

Just over four days after his 61-year-old wife and his daughters, 28 and 25, died after being attacked with a crossbow in their home in Bushey, Herts, Mr Hunt said he and Amy were going through “an extremely difficult time”. Carol, Hannah and Louise died on Tuesday evening.

The statement, released through Hertforshire Police, said: “We would like to thank people for their kind messages and for the support we have received in recent days. These have provided great comfort to us, for which we are very grateful.

“As you can imagine, this is an extremely difficult time for us and we need time and space to come to terms with what has happened and start the grieving process.”

Kyle Clifford, from Enfield, north London, was arrested on suspicion of three counts of murder after being found with a wound to his chest at a cemetery close to his home on Wednesday afternoon. Police said Clifford, a former soldier and security guard, remains in a serious condition in hospital.

On Friday evening, more than 200 mourners paid their respects to the victims at a church service.

The pews of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and St John the Evangelist Church, in Bushey High Street, were full for the vigil for Mrs Hunt and her daughters. Alex Klein, Hannah’s partner, was seen being comforted by attendees.

Father Jim McNicholas thanked friends and relatives of the Hunt family for coming to the “wonderful expression of communal love and caring”.

He said: “It is a good example to remember that no matter how dark things are, no matter how evil or bad, the light of love always displaces that darkness.”

The parish priest said that people with “goodness” in their life were “hostage to those whose lives are not”, adding: “The Hunt family have had to pay the terrible price for someone whose life and choices were not.”

Mr Klein had earlier posted a picture of himself and Hannah on Instagram, with the message: “RIP the love of my life, I will never forget you, stolen from me too soon. The brightest light in my life. My brave queen for life. Until we meet again… I love you Hansy.”

Shabbat prayers were also said for the Hunt family at Bushey Synagogue. Elchonon Feldman, the senior rabbi, said the local Jewish community was “in a state of shock and mourning at the brutal attack and murder of three innocent Bushey residents”.

He added: “It will certainly take time to comprehend that such a tragedy took place in our midst, but in the first instance we stand together in sorrow and prayer with all family and friends who are grieving at this time of immense loss.”

Flowers continued to be left at the scene of the murders in Ashlyn Close, with notes bearing messages attached to some of the bouquets.

Five-year-old Navy Joan Roberts grins as she charges out of her bedroom while proudly cradling a postcard of Joe Biden.

When she visited Washington DC last month, her mother told her she could choose anything she wanted from the White House gift shop.

But rather than picking out a board game, puzzle or soft toy of the president’s dog, Navy chose a headshot of the smiling US president to keep in a birdhouse in her bedroom.

It might seem an unusual choice, but Mr Biden, 81, is more to this little blue-eyed girl with soft blonde curls from rural Arkansas than just the head of state – he is her grandfather.

The president is a relative Navy “wholeheartedly yearns” to meet, according to her mother.

“She wants a connection with him so bad”, Lunden Roberts, 33, says from their home in Batesville, while Navy plays with her Barbies in her bedroom.

For years the Bidens refused to acknowledge Navy, who was conceived in the midst of her father Hunter Biden’s crack cocaine addiction.

It stings when Ms Roberts sees the other grandchildren gathered on Air Force One, or when they were embraced by Mr Biden during his inauguration.

“Those are things that children don’t get to do in their lifetime, and she’s of the bloodline and still doesn’t get that chance”, Ms Roberts says, looking down to fiddle with her rings.

“You’re a president that runs on a campaign that talks about embracing people for who they are… well this little girl is Biden blood and you’ve not embraced her, but you can embrace everybody else in the country, and that’s not fair.”

The daughter of Rob Roberts, a gun manufacturer who has gone hunting with Donald Trump Jr, Ms Roberts had an upbringing that could not be further from Hunter’s.

While he was the son of a then rising star of the Democrats in leafy Delaware, she grew up deep in the Republican Bible Belt shooting turkeys and alligators with a hot pink rifle.

After falling in love with the east coast on a school trip, Ms Roberts moved to Washington DC to study crime scene investigation after abandoning her basketball career.

She met Hunter in late 2016 when she and a friend were invited to an after party at his Rosemont Seneca office in the Swedish Embassy.

The former vice president’s son was smoking crack in a pair of boxers covered in parrots. The pair embarked on a yearlong entanglement during which Ms Roberts claims they both professed their love to one another, although she says now he may not have meant it.

In her memoir, Out of the Shadows, which will be released next month, Ms Roberts, 33, details everything from watching Hunter dance on a pole in the gentlemen’s club where she worked, to whisking her off to his father’s Virginia home with his sister-in-law turned girlfriend Hallie Biden – and then there was the time he scarred her by dropping a crack pipe on her chest.

Ms Roberts, who says she has been described as the Meghan Markle of the Bidens, describes her time with the first son as an “adventure” peppered with “scary” moments such as when he nearly overdosed in her arms in a suite in the Rosewood Hotel.

“When you were with him you were proud”, she said. “He didn’t come across like one of the junkies on the street … he was brilliant.”

After meeting Hunter, Ms Roberts shed her ruby red GOP sympathies and became what she describes as a “mainstream Arkansas Democrat”.

The only time she saw Joe Biden in the flesh was through a window at Beau Biden’s former Delaware home during the time of her affair with Hunter.

Hunter had taken an intoxicated Ms Roberts, who had turned up at his home after a night out, to his late brother’s home on the eve of the anniversary of the car crash that killed his mother Neilia and sister Naomi. Hunter and Beau had also been in the car but survived with multiple broken bones.

At around 10am on the day of the memorial service, Ms Roberts heard someone knocking on the door. She watched through a window as Mr Biden, dressed in a polo shirt and jeans, looked crestfallen as he spoke to his drug-addicted son.

Recalling that moment, she tells The Telegraph: “I see the look on Joe’s face and this pain and this heartbreak, you know, because he sees his son suffering from addiction, and there’s nothing he can do.”

When Ms Roberts told Hunter she was pregnant, she claims he promised to support her, but he shortly stopped returning her phone calls and cut her out of his company’s insurance.

He fiercely denied he was Navy’s father until he was forced to take a 2019 paternity test. It showed he was an even closer DNA match to Navy than her mother.

In his memoir Beautiful Things he described Ms Roberts as “hardly the dating type” and claimed he had “no recollection” of their encounter.

For years the parents were lodged in a bitter legal battle over child support, which was set at $20,000-a-month in 2020.

They reached a settlement last year to reduce the fees to $5,000-a-month on the condition Hunter start building a relationship with his daughter.

Meanwhile, the US president continued to insist he only had six grandchildren and was vilified by even the Left-wing media for failing to embrace his granddaughter.

Last year he finally acknowledged his seventh grandchild, but he has stopped short of communicating with her.

Since September, Navy has frequently spoken to her father during Zoom calls in which she picks out which of his paintings she wants (also part of the settlement) and the pair do arts and crafts together.

“I love my daddy”, she says, beaming in her floral dress.

Asked what her grandfather does, Navy becomes shy.

“He’s the president but I don’t know what he does, he just sits in the White House”, she says while climbing on top of her mother.

While the Bidens frequently talk about the importance of family, Ms Roberts has been devastated by how they have excluded their own flesh and blood.

Moments that have stung included seeing Christmas stockings hung in the White House for each grandchild – and even the dog – but not Navy.

Another blow came when Jill Biden dedicated her children’s book Joey to all her grandchildren – naming each one apart from Navy.

“It’s classless, it’s just tasteless, distasteful. It’s hard to understand the reasoning behind that, because what is the excuse?”, Ms Roberts says.

“As the matriarch of the family, what’s so hard [in] including one child?”

Ms Roberts adds that there is a passage in a book by Hunter’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhle where Mrs Biden asks everyone to get out of a photograph who isn’t “Biden blood”.

“If you’re so big on Biden blood, what’s wrong with this one?”, Ms Roberts says, shifting in her seat.

“She’s from the same lineage, and quite frankly, Jill isn’t Biden blood but she is.”

If Mr Biden is re-elected in November, Ms Roberts says she won’t push for her child to be involved in the inauguration, but added she also won’t watch it either because it would be too painful.

Security concerns

Another thing that concerns Ms Roberts about the way her daughter has been treated is her lack of security. She is the only first grandchild without secret service protection.

Ms Roberts’ new build home on a quiet cul-de-sac is decorated with cow hides, photographs of her with her daughter and canvases displaying uplifting quotes such as “find the joy in the journey”.

But among the Aztec-inspired décor, a serious arsenal has been hidden to ensure Ms Roberts is never far from a gun.

During the run up to last year’s election Ms Roberts said she had to call her father, “Rambo Pappy”, for help after she came home to find someone in her home on multiple occasions.

“I doubt every single mother is having to board their house up at night to barricade themselves in a room with 12 guns just to go to sleep”, she says.

“They don’t offer security, they don’t protect her in any way”, she says of the Bidens.

Even when we drive to a nearby pond for photographs, Ms Roberts shoves a handgun loosely in her waistband. She claims it is to shoot cottonmouth snakes in case they try to attack us.

Her armoury includes two shotguns behind the headboard, a rifle behind the door, a glock in each nightstand and a third under the mattress.

Ms Roberts says she is considering getting private security to protect her daughter, fearing she is an easy target if someone wanted to attack Mr Biden either ahead of the election or because of his stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

When we get closer to the election they will likely relocate to a “secluded location” that is inaccessible by car.

Being a mother to a first grandchild has also caused a wedge in her romantic life. She has dated two men, one of whom she has a restraining order against while the other said Navy’s father was a “piece of s—”.

Ms Roberts says she is the “black sheep of the family” when it comes to politics. She voted for Mr Biden in the 2020 election, but she’s not sure what she will do this year.

“I’m not a Trump supporter but voting for Joe at this point is also like endorsing my child’s unacknowledgement”, she says.

The next time she will come face-to-face with Hunter will be during his California tax trial, for which she has been subpoenaed.

She’s “nervous”, she says, and thinks they will ask her about the tax returns he sent as part of the child support suit.

During their trip to Washington DC in June, Navy asked to go to the White House.

“She said ‘we need to stop by and see my grandpa, can we stop by and see my grandpa?’”, Ms Roberts says, laughing but also clearly saddened by the memory.

“I was like, ‘Oh, honey, he’s not here, he’s in Atlanta.’”

A disheartened Navy replied: “Maybe next time we come he’ll be in town.”

For the sake of the little girl who disappears to her room clutching a picture of her estranged grandfather, we can only hope at some point he invites her in.

Out of the Shadows: My Life Inside the Wild World of Hunter Biden will be released on Aug 20.

Israel targeted the leader of the Hamas military in an air strike on Saturday, in what would be the most significant assassination of the war if he is confirmed to have been killed.

Mohammed Deif is considered one of the orchestrators of the Oct 7 massacre, and has been involved in the kidnapping and killing of Israeli citizens for decades.

Known as “The Guest” because of his reported habit of switching where he sleeps every night, Deif is also said to be the architect of the tunnel network stretching hundreds of kilometres underneath Gaza.

Saturday’s attack left more than 70 people dead and more than 100 injured, according to local media. Palestinian media said the strike hit a designated safe zone, known as known as al-Mawasi, in Khan Younis.

Israeli media cited military officials who said the strike targeted a building in the humanitarian zone between al-Mawasi and Khan Younis, but not in the tent camp, as Palestinian media reported. The Israeli army estimates that no hostages were in the area.

An Israeli official told The Telegraph: “Mohammed Deif was our target and so was the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, Rafa’a Salameh. We are waiting for final confirmation on the situation, but we are optimistic.”

Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, announced that he had held an operational situation assessment with the heads of the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet intelligence agency “in light of developments in Gaza”.

Deif, born in Khan Younis in 1967, joined Hamas during the first Intifada. He became the leader of the terror group’s military in 20o2 after Ahmed Jabari, his predecessor, was assassinated by Israel.

In the hours after the Oct 7 attack, Deif appeared in a recorded video message announcing the start of “Operation al-Aqsa Storm”. Urged Palestinians to take up arms, he said in the clip: “Enough is enough.”

Israel holds Deif responsible for the kidnappings and murders of two Israeli soldiers, Shahar Simani and Aryeh Frankenthal, in 1994.

Deif was also behind suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Askhelon in February 1996, in which more than 50 Israelis were killed. The attacks were seen as revenge for an Israeli assassination of Yahya Ayyash, a senior Hamas official known as “The Engineer” for his role in bombings.

He is seen as responsible for the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006, as well as strengthening Hamas’ military ties with Iran in recent years.

Rafa’a Salameh, the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, was also targeted in the strike, according to Israeli media.

Russia has lost more than 70,000 troops in the past two months, British military intelligence said on Friday.

The update by the Ministry of Defence added that the heavy losses would likely continue as Russia looked to make gains across the front lines in Ukraine.

“The average daily Russian casualties (killed and wounded) in Ukraine, throughout May and June 2024, increased to conflict highs of 1,262 and 1,163 respectively,” the MoD wrote.

“In total, Russia likely lost (killed and wounded) in excess of 70,000 personnel over the past two months.”

Russia has made grinding gains in eastern Ukraine over the past months as Kyiv’s armed forces try to overcome crippling shortages in manpower and ammunition.

Moscow launched a new front in May with a cross-border offensive into Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region.

A senior Nato official described the losses as “astronomical” during a briefing on the fringes of the alliance’s summit in Washington DC this week.

“Russia likely suffered losses of almost 1,000 people a day in May, which is quite an astronomical figure,” the source said.

Though the offensive was short-lived, it stretched Ukrainian resources, enabling Russia to make further gains on their priority target of the nearby Donetsk region. However, it stretched Russian resources also, said the MoD.

“The uptick in losses reflects Russia’s opening of the new front in the Kharkiv region, while maintaining the same rate of offensive operations along the remainder of the front,” its update said.

“Although this new approach has increased the pressure on the front line, an effective Ukrainian defence and a lack of Russian training reduces Russia’s ability to stretch and exploit any tactical successes, despite attempting to stretch the front line further.”

The update added: “Russia’s casualty rate will likely continue to average above 1,000 a day over the next two months as Russia continues to try to overcome Ukrainian positions with mass.”

Western analysts have said Russia’s use of small assault units have prevented them from making substantial gains or exploiting any breakthroughs in Ukraine’s defensive lines.

Moscow’s forces have repeatedly made probing attacks with between 10 to 15 unmounted infantry troops, to avoid the heavy losses experienced with more heavily mechanised assaults.

“These tactics can yield incremental gains, but they are poorly suited to achieving operationally significant breakthroughs. Larger assaults have proven costly to Russian forces, which cannot afford sustained equipment losses of the kind seen earlier in Avdiivka,” Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, said.

Following a recent field research trip to the country, Mr Kofman said that Ukraine faces tough months ahead despite the improving battlefield situation

He said: “Ukraine faces difficult months of fighting ahead, but the situation at the front is better than it was this spring.

“Ukraine’s manpower, fortifications, and ammunition situation is steadily improving. Russian forces are advancing in Donetsk, and likely to make further gains, but they have not been able to exploit the Kharkiv offensive into a major breakthrough.”

Half of Sir Keir Starmer’s Cabinet opposed planning proposals in their own constituencies, The Telegraph can reveal, prompting accusations of hypocrisy over Labour’s house-building policy.

Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, and David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, are among key members of Sir Keir’s top team who complained to councils over new homes.

Labour ran an election campaign centred on plans to “bulldoze” the planning system and build 1.5 million homes in five years – a pledge designed to appeal to young voters unable to get on the property ladder.

Last week, Ms Reeves used her first major speech in office to outline the return of mandatory housing targets and, asked whether she was a “Yimby” – standing for Yes in my back yard – she said: “I do support development.”

Bills to relax planning laws and allow building on the green belt are set to be a prominent part of Wednesday’s King’s Speech, which is expected to announce around 30 new laws, including legislation to scrap green rules that prevent thousands of homes from being built.

Ms Rayner is preparing to reform controversial environmental rules that prevent house-building in the countryside, despite having opposed Tory attempts to do so last year. She is planning to change so-called nutrient neutrality regulations, which make it harder to build hundreds of thousands of homes.

The Housing Secretary is among 13 out of 24 in Sir Keir’s top team to have criticised their local authority over proposed new property developments during the last two Parliaments.

As well as Ms Rayner, Ms Reeves, and Mr Lammy, Darren Jones, Hilary Benn, Jo Stevens, Lisa Nandy, Liz Kendall, Pat McFadden, Peter Kyle, Steve Reed, Wes Streeting and Yvette Cooper have all voiced objections.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “Rachel Reeves has promised to rip up planning rules so Labour can concrete over the countryside.

“But she has clearly forgotten the hypocrisy of her Cabinet colleagues, including herself. When even their own Cabinet is against their house-building plans, Labour should think twice before deploying the diggers.”

In her speech on Monday, Ms Reeves promised to “make the hard choices” to “get Britain building again”. 

But in 2019, she opposed plans to build dozens of new council houses on a former sports ground in her Leeds West and Pudsey constituency, saying she was “very disappointed” by a lack of public consultation on the proposals.

She said at the time: “We desperately need more housing in our community, especially council and affordable housing, and so a commitment to build homes is welcome. However, we also need more green spaces and sports provision for young people.”

Under the proposals, signed off twice by Leeds City council, 61 new homes would have been built on the TV Harrison fields. The council’s decision to grant planning permission was ruled unlawful in 2022.

Ms Rayner was made Housing Secretary last week, vowing to take on “vested interests” to build more homes. But in 2017 she marched with residents to protest against plans to build on green belt land in Ashton Hurst, a ward in her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency.

She said she was ready to “intervene” if a plan to build 200 homes on a school playing field did not offer enough green space. The project was approved three years later.

Ms Rayner also signalled her opposition to Greater Manchester’s wider planning regime in 2019, saying it was “right that my constituents are raising issues” around public services. She said at the time: “I have fed that through, as the local MP, to Andy Burnham [the Greater Manchester Mayor]. We have to protect our green belt.”

Ms Cooper, the Home Secretary, was among those who objected to 408 new homes being built on farmland in Wakefield, a plan recommended for approval this week.

Her objections, and a petition signed by more than 2,000 residents, have been ignored by council planning officers, with a final decision set to be made next week. A report found the proposed development was “acceptable in principle” and there were “no technical reasons” why planning permission should be withheld.

Mr Lammy used a debate in the Commons in 2020 to set out his opposition to a plan to build 196 new luxury flats in his Tottenham constituency.

The Foreign Secretary claimed the proposals, which had been signed off by Haringey council, would mean a “dramatic increase” in rent paid by businesses and nearby market traders. The company behind the development push abandoned its plans the following year.

In 2019, Mr Streeting, the Health Secretary, initially supported plans for three markets to move to fields in his Ilford North constituency, less than 10 miles away. But when the bid failed two months later, he met concerned residents to sign a “clear and unequivocal pledge” to defend green belt land in his constituency.

It is Labour policy to ramp up building on the green belt by allowing parts of it to be reclassified as “grey belt” and therefore freed up for development.

It comes as the nutrient neutrality rules, which can make it harder to build homes, are set to be reformed by Ms Rayner. The rules mean new developments must ensure that any harmful chemicals entering the watercourse must be offset by measures elsewhere, which are often so cumbersome that they prevent new developments altogether.

Ms Rayner’s plans come despite her opposing former housing secretary Michael Gove’s proposals to reform the rules last year. Mr Gove’s plans were eventually blocked by Labour in the Lords. Reforming them will be likely to require primary legislation.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “We will bring forward solutions to unlock the building of much-needed homes affected by nutrient neutrality.”

A Labour spokesman said: “As the Chancellor set out, this Labour Government will take the tough decisions to get Britain building again where the previous Tory government failed.

“We’ll take the urgent steps to reform the planning system and boost economic growth. The new Government’s plan will unleash new vital infrastructure, set up new energy projects, and boost the number of homes needed in communities across the country.”