Joe Biden has tested positive for Covid-19 and is suffering mild symptoms, the White House has said.

Karine Jean-Pierre, his press secretary, said the US president is vaccinated and boosted. He has tested positive for Covid twice before.

Mr Biden, 81, was seen earlier on Wednesday visiting supporters in Las Vegas and speaking at an event. He has cancelled a campaign speech later in the night.

The illness comes as he faces increasing pressure to step aside because of his age.

US media reports both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Majority Leader Hakeem Jefferies – the top two Democrats in the US Congress – separately met with Mr Biden privately and expressed that there is deep concern his candidacy could negatively impact other House and Senate races.

Ms Jean-Pierre said the president planned to isolate at his home in Delaware while he carries out “all of his duties fully during that time”.

The president’s doctor, Kevin O’Connor, said Mr Biden presented with upper respiratory symptoms, including a runny nose and a cough and was given his first dose of Paxlovid.

He felt fine during his first event of the day, but later tested positive Dr O’Connor said.

Mr Biden later used X/Twitter to thank everyone for “the well wishes” and said he would “work to get the job done for the American people” while in recovery.

In another tweet his account stated: “I’m sick”, before replying back: “… of Elon Musk and his rich buddies trying to buy this election. And if you agree, pitch in here.”

The tweet pointed to a donations portal.

Reporters on the Las Vegas trip said they were rushed to the city’s airport following the announcement.

Mr Biden moved slowly and cautiously up the steps to the plane, video shows. He was not wearing a mask.

As he boarded Air Force One he was heard to say: “Good, I feel good.”

The president was forced to cancel a speech at UnidosUS, a Latino civil rights organisation.

Mr Biden’s illness comes as he faces growing calls to withdraw from the election race.

Nearly two dozen Democratic politicians have called for him to step aside in recent weeks, including Adam Schiff, a congressman from California,, who said today he had serious doubts about whether the president could beat former President Donald Trump.

He called on Mr Biden to “pass the torch”.

Mr Schiff said that Mr Biden “has been one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history”, and he could “secure his legacy of leadership” by allowing another Democrat to step forward.

Mr Schumer and Mr Jeffries – Congress’ top two Democrats – met with Mr Biden privately in recent days and expressed concerns by fellow lawmakers that him being at the top of the November election ticket could hurt their chances for controlling either chamber in Congress, according to reports from ABC News, the Washington Post and Politico.

“The President told both leaders he is the nominee of the party, he plans to win, and looks forward to working with both of them to pass his 100 days agenda to help working families,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said after the reports.

A spokesman for Mr Jeffries said, “it was a private conversation that will remain private”. Mr Schumer’s office called the reporting “idle speculation” but added the Democratic leader “conveyed the views of his caucus directly to President Biden”.

In an interview with BET, which was due to be broadcast on Wednesday evening, Mr Biden said he did not feel he could pass the mantle with the country so “divided”.

The president also said, for the first time, that he would consider dropping out of the race if any of his doctors said he had a “medical condition”.

Technology stocks around the world have slumped on fears about the global computer chip industry.

The selloff came after a report that the Biden administration could be set to further tighten restrictions on exports of semiconductor equipment to China.

Comments by former US President Donald Trump that Taiwan, the biggest producer of chips, should pay for its own defence added to the concerns.

In the US, the tech-heavy Nasdaq index closed 2.7% lower, while chip stocks have also tumbled in Europe and Asia.

In Asia, chip making giant TSMC was trading more than 3% lower in morning trade on Thursday, while semiconductor equipment maker Tokyo Electron was down by around 9.5%.

That came after Nvidia closed 6.6% lower in New York on Wednesday, while AMD lost more than 10%.

In Europe, shares in ASML, which makes chip making machines, tumbled by almost 11%.

The falls came after Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday that the US government is preparing to impose its tightest curbs yet on semiconductor making equipment to China if firms like ASML and Tokyo Electron continue to give the country access to their advanced chip technology.

ASML declined to comment when contacted by the BBC. Tokyo Electron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The BBC has also asked the US Commerce Department for a statement.

The Biden administration has previously taken steps to restrict China’s access to advanced chip technology.

In October, it restricted exports to China of advanced semiconductors used in artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

The remarks on Taiwan, by Mr Trump also hinted at possible disruption of global chip supplies.

Taiwan produces most of the world’s advanced chips.

“Regardless of the outcome of the elections… I think we will see the US increase some of the restrictions” said Bob O’Donnell, chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research.

“How far they will take it, though, is the big question.”

Hans de Borst’s hands were shaking as he flipped through the memorial service programme.

His 17-year-old daughter Elsemiek was on board flight MH17, 10 years ago to the day.

Hans was the first family member to arrive in the small amphitheatre at the heart of the MH17 national monument.

“How am I feeling?” Hans repeated my question. “A bit nervous.”

He gestured to the rows of benches where 1,300 relatives and dignitaries from around the world, including Dutch King Willem-Alexander, would soon be seated.

Two hundred and ninety eight people died on 17 July 2014 when the Malaysia Airlines passenger jet en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was hit by a Russian surface-to-air Buk missile, fired from an area of eastern Ukraine seized by Russian proxy forces.

Former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was among the guests filing past fields of sunflowers on his way to the heart of the monument.

Mr Rutte, who is Nato’s next secretary general, was asked by the BBC if he and his government had done enough to get justice for the victims.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

Two Russians and a Ukrainian national were convicted of murder in absentia by a Dutch court in 2022.

Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Leonid Kharchenko all face life sentences but the three remain at large because Russia refused to surrender them to face justice.

The Buk missile system belonged to Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, based in Kursk, and the three men were all found guilty of transporting the missile into Ukraine.

The Kremlin has always denied any responsibility for the air disaster, which has left an indelible mark on the collective memory of the Dutch nation.

Mr Rutte noted the difficulties in pursuing justice and said he’d been moved by tributes paid in the run-up to Wednesday’s 10-year anniversary.

A few relatives of those who died exchanged hugs and hushed words with the man who was prime minister at the time of the disaster and stepped down little more than two weeks ago.

“I think he did everything he could,” said Silene Frederiksz, whose son Bryce was on board MH-17.

“And I’m optimistic that Dick Schoof [the new Dutch prime mininister] will keep pushing for justice and accountability. He was involved in the MH17 investigation; he understands.”

A decade on, the families are still searching for the truth, and acknowledgement of responsibility.

“MH17 keeps coming back to haunt me” said Piet Ploeg, whose nephew, brother and sister-in-law were all killed on 17 July 2014.

Of the 298 victims, 196 were Dutch but there were victims from many other countries including 43 from Malaysia, 38 from Australia and 10 from the UK.

Eighty children were among the dead.

Australian relatives also took part in a separate memorial service at Parliament House in Canberra.

The war in eastern Ukraine, at the time a few months’ old, erupted in February 2022 into a full-blown Russian invasion.

Many of the Dutch relatives believe the current hostilities could have been averted if the international community had taken a tougher stance in response to the shooting down of flight MH17.

The passenger jet exploded at 33,000ft (10,000m) and bodies and wreckage landed in fields of sunflowers near Hrabove in eastern Ukraine.

Sunflowers have since become a symbol of the tragedy and relatives carried them past flags flying at half-mast at the Dutch monument not far from Schiphol Airport.

Robbie Oehlers was one of the few relatives who travelled to the crash site in the aftermath of the disaster, in search of his niece, Daisy, and her boyfriend Bryce.

Every now and then planes rumbled above the sombre ceremony. Bryce’s mother Silene was among those who read out some of the 298 names.

Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, representing his country at the Dutch event, said those caught up in the tragedy of MH17 had shared a pursuit of justice, truth and accountability, but no words could ease the pain.

Further legal action is under way at the European Court of Human Rights and the International Civil Aviation Organization Council to hold Russia accountable under international law for the attack.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was inevitable that everyone guilty of this and other war crimes would “hear the verdicts they deserve”.

“They will never admit it,” said Robbie Oehlers of Russia’s leaders. “Yes, I just want them to say sorry, but Putin, he never will. And now with the change in our government. Today they are thinking about MH17 again, but tomorrow they have other priorities.”

For many of the families, the MH17 national monument has become a place of solace.

There are 298 trees planted at the monument in memory of every victim. At each tree relatives congregated to place flowers, candles and photos of their loved ones who never came home.

“Love is the strongest emotion. Today reminds us, we are not alone in our sadness,” said Prime Minister Schoof.

Piet Ploeg who spoke on behalf of the families, said it was heartwarming to see everyone come together and thanked Mark Rutte for his efforts.

The crowd applauded.

“The most important thing,” said Mr Ploeg, “is that this dark day in our history isn’t forgotten.”

In 2015 Australia’s multi-billion-dollar greyhound racing industry vowed it would clean up its act.

A damning investigation at the time had exposed the preventable deaths of as many as 17,000 young dogs a year – revelations so shocking the government of the day rushed to implement an ultimately short-lived ban.

Almost a decade later, Greyhound Racing New South Wales (GRNSW) – the epicentre of the sport in the country – is back in the spotlight for alleged abuse, due to the work of one whistleblower.

In an explosive report made public by lawmakers, the organisation’s former chief veterinarian has described the industry as a hotbed of “exploitation and suffering”, claiming that dogs are being raced at “barbaric” rates, euthanised without cause, or left to rot in metal cages when they can no longer compete.

Executive heads are rolling, and an inquiry, which GRNSW says it “welcomes”, has been announced to investigate the accusations, as calls from critics to have greyhound racing outlawed grow louder.

But despite evidence of slipping public support, the state’s premier has said he won’t shut down the sport, prompting a standoff with those calling for that to happen.

“The reality is the greyhound racing industry cannot exist without systemic animal cruelty,” says NSW Animal Justice MP Emma Hurst.

“It will be shut down – it’s just a matter of when.”

Australia has been touted as the world’s largest commercial greyhound racing industry – with roughly 60 tracks in operation. New Zealand, the US, the UK and Ireland are also home to markets, but none operate at the same velocity.

Thanks to online betting, Australia’s industry has seen rising profits in recent years, turning over A$8.3bn ($5.6bn; £4.3bn) in 2023 – with 75% of the money coming from Victoria and New South Wales (NSW), according to the greyhound protection organisation GREY2K.

The spark that ignited the current outcry over the sport’s practices was a “handover” letter, from GRNSW’s Chief Veterinary Officer Alex Brittan to his incoming replacement – his final act in a job that by his own account, had nearly broken him.

The 54-page document contains a litany of accusations – including claims that GRNSW had worked with vets “unaccepting of modern medicine” who were prone to euthanising dogs without cause, and that the company’s leadership was directing staff to treat animal welfare groups “as the enemy”.

Within hours of Mr Brittan’s letter becoming public, the chief of GRNSW Rob Macaulay had resigned and the rest of the company’s board is now fighting for their survival.

NSW’s Gaming and Racing Minister David Harris has announced an inquiry into Mr Brittan’s claims which will be led by the industry’s regulator – something which GRNSW has been quick to embrace.

“We welcome the opportunity for an external examination of our processes and record,” its acting CEO Wayne Billett wrote in a statement. And a spokesperson for GRNSW told the BBC that the organisation takes concerns related to animal welfare “very seriously”.

But Mr Brittan’s account differs.

In his letter he described witnessing “cases of extreme distress” in which competing dogs had “recent pools of blood” around them after ripping off their toenails while “clawing” at their caged doors.

He also called out a flurry of “preventable” on-track deaths, due to greyhounds running into poles with “no padding on them” and questioned the figures GRNSW had put forward concerning how many retired dogs it had found homes for – a practice which gives the sport its social licence to operate.

Mr Brittan says that of the roughly 4,200 dogs entering the industry each year, only 1,600 were making it out and finding owners, with the rest living out their days in “industrial kennels”.

Further – he alleged that a company programme which had been set up to export retired greyhounds to the US, so that they could find homes there, had an alarming lack of oversight.

To prove his point, he told the story of Carey – a dog who died at Sydney airport after confusing its travelling box with a racer’s starter box and running into a fence at full speed when the door opened.

NSW’s premier Chris Minns said he would examine all the allegations put forward by Mr Brittan, but quickly ruled out a blanket ban on greyhound racing in the state.

“We’re not going to shut down the industry, but we do take this report seriously,” he told reporters last week.

And Mr Harris reiterated that the government would make sure the industry was held to “the highest standards of animal welfare and integrity” once the new investigation had concluded.

But given GRNSW has weathered multiple crises – including a government-backed inquiry in 2016 which delivered findings of “systemic animal cruelty” and mass killings – advocates are sceptical another inquiry will yield results.

“The greyhound racing industry was already given a chance to clean up its act eight years ago, and it’s monumentally failed,” Ms Hurst told the BBC.

Mr Brittan has also challenged the impartiality of the current investigation – saying it should be done by an external source, rather than the industry’s own regulator.

And he questioned why an all-out ban had been taken off the table already.

“It could be perceived as concerning that the premier and gaming minister have stated that the outcome of the inquiry is a foregone conclusion and that, irrespective of any findings, all bets are on, and the gambling will continue,” he said, according to the Guardian.

Around the world, the prominence and popularity of dog-racing for sport has been in decline.

In the US for example – which used to be one of the sport’s largest industries – betting on greyhounds has been outlawed in all but a handful of states, and only two active tracks remain, both in West Virginia.

Advocates like Ms Hurst argue that the practice endures in Australia not because of community fanfare, but gambling profits.

The last time the industry was in the spotlight in 2016, over 80% of people polled by the country’s national broadcaster said they wanted to see it shut down.

And in recent years, it has been outlawed in the Australian Capital Territory, while petitions calling for other jurisdictions to follow suit have made their way to several state parliaments.

GRNSW says it has no plans to go anywhere – and that racing, which first came to the nation’s shores in the late 1800s, can be done “sustainably”.

But Ms Hurst, and others calling for an end to the sport, say that the latest spate of allegations present a unique “opportunity” to “listen to the community and ban this cruel industry”.

Speeding along a road in the foothills of the Swiss Alps, Fariba Hashimi rises out of the saddle of her £15,000 bike and works the pedals even harder to close the gap between her and her sister, Yulduz, a few metres up ahead.

Training rides like this are the last steps on a journey that began with the two siblings from rural Afghanistan racing in disguise on borrowed bikes, before having to escape when the Taliban came to power.

Now they’re on their way to the Olympic Games in Paris. And, despite a Taliban ruling banning women from sport, they will compete under their country’s flag.

In a world where many elite athletes take up sport almost as soon as they can walk, Fariba, 21, and Yulduz, 24, came late to cycling.

They grew up in Faryab, one of the most remote and conservative provinces in Afghanistan, where it was practically unheard of to see women on bicycles.

Fariba was 14 and Yulduz 17 when they saw an advert for a local cycle race and decided to take part.

There were two problems; they didn’t have a bike and they didn’t know how to ride.

The sisters borrowed a neighbour’s bike one afternoon. After a few hours, they felt they had got the hang of it.

Their next challenge was to avoid their family finding out what they were doing because of the stigma around women taking part in sport in conservative areas of Afghanistan.

The sisters used false names and covered themselves up, wearing big baggy clothing, large headscarves and sunglasses so people didn’t recognise them.

Race day dawned, and incredibly the sisters came first and second.

“It felt amazing,” says Fariba. “I felt like a bird who could fly.”

They kept on entering races and kept on winning until their parents eventually found out when they saw pictures of them in the local media.

“They were upset at first. They asked me to stop cycling,” Fariba says. “But I didn’t give up. I secretly continued,” she smiles.

It didn’t come without dangers – people tried to hit them with cars or rickshaws as they rode or threw stones at them as they cycled past.

“People were abusive. All I wanted to do was win races,” says Yulduz.

And the situation was about to get worse.

In 2021, four years after the sisters started riding, the Taliban retook control of the country and clamped down on women’s rights, restricting their access to education and limiting how they could travel. They also banned women from taking part in sport.

Yulduz and Fariba had dreamed of one day competing in the Olympics. Now they knew if they wanted to race at all they had to leave Afghanistan.

Using contacts in the cycling community they managed to secure seats on an Italian evacuation flight, along with three teammates.

Once in Italy, the women joined a cycling team and got proper coaching for the first time.

“Back in Afghanistan, we didn’t have professional training,” says Yulduz. “All we used to do was take our bikes and ride.”

But leaving their homeland and family was not easy.

“The biggest thing for me is to be away from my mother,” says Fariba. “I never thought that because of cycling I would be separated from my brothers and sisters.”

“I’ve sacrificed a lot.”

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan also threw into doubt whether the country would even be allowed to compete at the Olympics.

National Olympic Committees are supposed to select athletes for the Games without any government interference.

As the Taliban’s ban on women playing sport breaks this rule, by preventing women being chosen for Afghanistan’s team, it led to calls for the country to be banned from the Olympics – as it had been when the militant group was last in power.

But the International Olympic Committee wanted to find a way to allow Afghan women to compete at the Games.

Behind the scenes talks took place between the heads of Afghan sporting bodies, including some now living in exile, about putting together a special team to represent the country in Paris.

As time ticked by, and Paris 2024 got ever closer, it looked as if no Afghan athletes would be at the Games.

Then, in June, International Olympic Committee announced that it had arranged for a special gender-equal team representing Afghanistan to go the Paris Olympics. It would be made up of three women and three men. And both the sisters are among them.

“This was a big surprise for both of us,” says Fariba.

“We always dreamt of taking part in the Olympic Games, this is our dream come true,” Yulduz adds.

“Despite all the rights that were taken from us we can show that we can achieve great success, we will be able to represent 20 million Afghan women.”

The IOC say no Taliban officials will be allowed to attend Paris 2024.

The sisters are preparing for the Olympic road race event while riding for a development team run and funded by the UCI and based at the World Cycling Centre, an ultra-modern facility in the Swiss town of Aigle.

The elite facilities are a world away from the dusty roads in Afghanistan where Yulduz and Fariba first taught themselves to cycle.

But their spirit remains the same.

“We are each other’s strength – I support her and she supports me,” says Yulduz.

“Our achievement belongs to Afghanistan,” adds Fariba. “This belongs to Afghanistan women. I am going to the Olympics because of them.”

A drug commonly prescribed to thin blood can be repurposed as a cheap antidote to cobra venom, a team of scientists based in Australia, Canada, Costa Rica and the UK has discovered.

Snakebites kill about 138,000 people a year, mostly in poorer rural areas in low- and middle-income countries in Africa, South and South East Asia.

More than 400,000 others develop necrosis, when the tissue around the bite dies and turns black.

Cobras account for most bites in parts of Africa and India. And Heparin can neutralise the necrosis-causing toxins in some spitting cobras’ venom.

The drug is not effective against all snake venom – but the scientists say it could be cheaper and more flexible than existing antivenoms, many of which work against only a single snake species and cannot prevent necrosis.

Having already tested the drug on mice, the next step will be human trials.

Senior study author Prof Greg Neely, from the University of Sydney, said: “Our discovery could drastically reduce the terrible injuries from necrosis caused by cobra bites – and it might also slow the venom, which could improve survival rates.

“Biological agents like venoms and toxins all require some collaboration from the host side, the human side, so our study was to identify what, in humans, interacts with the venom to create this necrosis and death.

“What we’re finding is when we take different venoms from very different species, there’s a small number of ways they interact with human cells.

“One of the cool things from a science perspective is that we think we can identify four or five different ways that venoms as a whole interact with cells – and then we can make universal antidotes that can block big groups of species.

“We hope that the new cobra antidote we found can assist in the global fight to reduce death and injury from snakebite in some of the world’s poorest communities.”

Lead author, PhD student Tian Du, also from the University of Sydney, called it a big step forward.

“Heparin is inexpensive, ubiquitous and a World Health Organization-listed essential medicine,” she said.

“After successful human trials, it could be rolled out relatively quickly to become a cheap, safe and effective drug for treating cobra bites.”

Another of the scientists, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine Centre for Snakebite Research and Interventions head Prof Nicholas Casewell, said: “Snakebites remain the deadliest of the neglected tropical diseases, with its burden landing overwhelmingly on rural communities in low- and middle-income countries.

“Our findings are exciting because current antivenoms are largely ineffective against severe local envenoming, which involves painful progressive swelling, blistering and/or tissue necrosis around the bite site.

“This can lead to loss of limb function, amputation and lifelong disability.”

Cyanide has been found in the blood of all six people who died in a luxury hotel suite in Bangkok, say doctors after examining their bodies.

Based on the initial post-mortem examination, they say there is “no other cause” that would explain their deaths “except for cyanide”.

But further tests are being carried out to determine the “intensity” of the deadly chemical and to rule out any other toxins.

Forensic investigators had earlier found traces of cyanide on the teacups used by the victims, all of whom are of Vietnamese origin including two with dual US citizenship. Police suspect that one of the dead was behind the poisoning and was driven by crushing debt – but have not said who.

The victims’ lips and nails had turned dark purple indicating a lack of oxygen, while their internal organs turned “blood red”, which is another sign of cyanide poisoning, said Professor Kornkiat Vongpaisarnsin of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Chulalongkorn University.

Doctor Chanchai Sittipunt, the dean of the Faculty of Medicine, said they still needed to find out how much cyanide was in the blood of the deceased.

“But from what we have detected – from observation, from internal organ check, from finding cyanide in the blood during the screening test – there is no other cause that would be the factor that would cause their deaths, except for cyanide,” he told reporters.

The deceased were found by housekeepers at the Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel in the Thai capital late on Tuesday.

Investigators believe they had been dead for between 12 and 24 hours by then.

The mystery around the shocking discovery made international headlines.

Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin ordered an urgent investigation into the case, stressing that the deaths were the result of a “private matter”, and there was no suggestion of public danger.

Police have since begun to piece together what might have happened.

Two of the six victims had loaned “tens of millions of Thai baht” to another of the deceased for investment purposes, authorities said. Ten million baht is worth nearly $280,000 (£215,000).

Earlier on Wednesday, Deputy Bangkok police chief Gen Noppassin Poonsawat told a press conference the group checked into the hotel separately over the weekend and were assigned five rooms – four on the seventh floor, and one on the fifth.

They had been scheduled to check out on Monday but failed to do so.

Four of the victims are Vietnamese nationals Thi Nguyen Phuong, 46, her husband Hong Pham Thanh, 49, Thi Nguyen Phuong Lan, 47, and Dinh Tran Phu, 37.

The other two are American citizens Sherine Chong, 56, and Dang Hung Van, 55.

The US state department has offered its condolences and said it is “closely monitoring” the situation. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is assisting Thai authorities in the investigation, Mr Srettha said.

The motive is not clear, but police said two of the six had loaned a substantial amount of money to another person in the group, who had not been paid back.

Police say on Monday afternoon all six victims gathered in the room on the fifth floor.

The group ordered food and tea, which was delivered to the room around 14:00 local time (08:00 BST) and received by Ms Chong – who was the only person in the room at the time.

According to the deputy police chief, a waiter offered to make tea for the guests but Ms Chong refused this. The waiter recalled that she “spoke very little and was visibly under stress”, authorities said.

The waiter later left the room.

The rest of the group then began streaming into the room at various points, between 14:03 and 14:17. No one else is believed to have entered the room apart from the six inside and police have said the door to the room was locked from within.

Police say there were no signs of a struggle, robbery or forced entry. They later found traces of cyanide in all six tea cups.

Pictures released by the police show plates of untouched food left on a table in the room, some of them still covered in cling wrap.

There was a seventh name on the group’s hotel booking, whom police identified as the younger sister of one of the victims. She had left Thailand last week for the Vietnamese coastal city of Da Nang and is not involved in the incident, police said.

Relatives interviewed by the police said Thi Nguyen Phuong and Hong Pham Thanh, a couple, owned a road construction business and had given money to Ms Chong to invest in a hospital building project in Japan.

Police suspect that Mr Tran, a make-up artist based in Da Nang, had also been “duped” into making an investment.

Mr Tran’s mother Tuý told BBC Vietnamese that he had travelled to Thailand on Friday and had called home on Sunday to say he had to extend his stay until Monday. That was the last his family had heard from him. She rang him again on Monday but he did not answer the call.

Ms Chong had hired Mr Tran as her personal make-up artist for the trip, one of his students told BBC Vietnamese. Mr Tran’s father, Phu, told Vietnamese media that his son was hired last week by a Vietnamese woman to travel to Thailand.

The six bodies were discovered one day after Thailand expanded its visa-free entry scheme to travellers from 93 countries and territories to revitalise its tourism industry.

Cyanide is a rapidly-acting, highly toxic chemical that is potentially deadly. Low levels of cyanide occur in nature and in products we eat and use. But in larger doses it is a notorious poison, and has been used as a chemical warfare agent because of its fast-acting and highly lethal properties.

It can occur as a colourless gas or liquid or in crystal form. People can be exposed to cyanide by breathing it in, absorbing it through the skin, or eating food or liquids that contain it.

When consumed in large amounts, cyanide can lead to lung injury, coma and death within seconds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Even in smaller doses, cyanide is still very harmful, causing chest pain, nausea, shortness of breath and vomiting.

Cyanide can produce a “bitter almond” smell but not everyone can detect this and it doesn’t always give off an odour.

Donald Trump’s would-be assassin was flagged as “suspicious” by the Secret Service up to an hour before he began shooting but was lost in the crowd, lawmakers have been told by law enforcement officials.

In two closed briefings to lawmakers in the House and Senate on Wednesday, law enforcement officials, including the Secret Service, shared limited new information about security and the man who opened fire at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

Wyoming Senator John Barrasso said the Secret Service told them they had spotted the attacker one hour before the attack, but then lost sight of him.

“He was identified as a character of suspicion because [he had] a rangefinder as well as a backpack. And this was over an hour before the shooting actually occurred,” he told Fox News.

“So, you would think over the course of that hour, you shouldn’t lose sight of the individual.”

It was also revealed during the briefings that the gunman had visited the site of the attack, the Butler County fairgrounds, at least once in the days before the assassination attempt and had previously searched on his phone for symptoms of a depressive disorder, an official familiar with the briefing told CBS News, the BBC’s news partner.

The attacker had also used his phone to search for images of both Trump and President Joe Biden. FBI Director Wray told lawmakers on the call that more than 200 interviews had already been conducted and 14,000 images reviewed.

Multiple Republican senators criticised the lack of transparency from investigators on their call and expressed outrage that Trump was allowed to take the stage even after a threat was identified.

“I am appalled to learn that the Secret Service knew about a threat prior to President Trump walking on stage,” tweeted Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.

A law enforcement official involved in the investigation told CBS that a sniper from a local tactical team deployed to assist the Secret Service took a picture of the gunman looking through the rangefinder, and immediately radioed to a command post to report the sighting.

According to ABC News and other US outlets, the 20-year-old gunman was spotted again on the roof of a building 20 minutes before the attack began, officials revealed.

He was killed by Secret Service snipers within 26 seconds of opening fire on Trump.

Multiple senators who participated in the call complained that investigators did not answer their questions and demanded the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle.

“The egregious security failures and lack of transparency around the assassination attempt on President Trump demand an immediate change of leadership at the Secret Service,” tweeted Utah Senator Mike Lee.

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson called the briefing to lawmakers “unbelievably uninformative” and said investigators only took four questions from lawmakers.

Other senior Republicans also called for Ms Cheatle to resign. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said after the call that “the nation deserves answers and accountability” and a change in leadership at Secret Service would be “an important step in that direction”.

House lawmakers similarly were briefed on Wednesday by law enforcement about security and what led up to the Saturday shooting.

Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson also called for Ms Cheatle to quit. He said he plans to open an investigation in the House.

“It’ll be comprised of Republicans and Democrats to get down to the bottom of this quickly, so the American people can get the answers that they deserve,” he told Fox News.

FBI Director Chris Wray, who participated in the calls, told lawmakers that no motive has yet been identified for the gunman.

Ms Cheatle, a 27-year veteran of the Secret Service, is due to testify next week to the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee and House Homeland Security Committee.

She has said the agency relied on local police to secure the building where the gunman climbed to the roof and perched his rifle.

A local officer came face-to-face with the gunman on the roof moments before the attack, Butler Township Manager Tom Knights told CBS.

The officer was searching after reports about a suspicious person. He was hoisted on to the roof by another officer and saw the suspect pointing a rifle directly at him, Mr Knights said.

The officer was in a “defenceless” position and let go, falling to the ground. He then alerted others to the gunman. Moments later, the shooting started.

The attack is being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, and President Biden said he would direct an independent review be opened.

A New York grand jury has indicted a former US Central Intelligence Agency analyst on charges of acting as a spy for the South Korean government in exchange for luxury goods, bags and fancy meals.

Sue Mi Terry, who previously worked as a senior official for the White House National Security Council, faces two counts of failing to register as a foreign agent and conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Federal officials say Ms Terry – a prominent US expert on North Korea – acted as an agent for the South Korean government for over a decade, but she did not register as a foreign agent with American officials, according to court documents made public on Tuesday in the Southern District of New York.

The Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank where Ms Terry works as a senior fellow on Asia, has placed her on unpaid leave, a spokesperson told US outlets. The organisation has also removed her biography from its website.

Ms Terry, 54, denies the charges and her attorney, Lee Wolosky, told the BBC the allegations against her were “unfounded”.

The charges “distort the work of a scholar and news analyst known for her independence and years of service to the United States”, Mr Wolosky said. “In fact, she was a harsh critic of the South Korean government during times this indictment alleges that she was acting on its behalf.”

Born in South Korea, Ms Terry moved to the US at age 12, according to her previous employer at Columbia University.

In 2001, she earned her doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, a prominent international relations school in Massachusetts. She is known to lecture in English and Korean.

Ms Terry, 54, then went on to work as a senior analyst for the CIA from 2001 to 2008, before holding a variety of posts in the federal government, including as Director for Korea, Japan, and Oceanic Affairs at the National Security Council during the George W Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

Prosecutors say Ms Terry’s work as an agent for the South Korean government began in 2013, about five years, after she stopped working for the CIA and the National Security Council.

In the 31-page indictment, officials say Ms Terry admitted to FBI agents in a voluntary interview in 2023 that she was a “source” for South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.

The indictment alleges that the South Korean government gifted Ms Terry a $2,845 (£2,100) Dolce & Gabbana coat, a $3,450 Louis Vuitton handbag and meals at upscale restaurants.

Officials say the government also gave her $37,000 and came up with a plan to hide the source of the funds, ultimately placing them in a gift fund at the think tank where she worked.

Ms Terry’s indictment comes just a day after Democratic Senator Robert Menendez was convicted of helping foreign governments in exchange for luxury items including gold bars and a Mercedes car.

Germany is planning to nearly halve military aid for Ukraine next year, from around €8bn (£6.7bn; $8.7bn) to around €4bn, according to a draft budget approved by the government.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner said Ukraine’s financing was “secure for the foreseeable future” due to a G7 group of rich nations scheme to raise $50bn from interest on frozen Russian assets.

Germany is Ukraine’s second biggest military donor, after the US. In 2024, Berlin’s budget for Kyiv is set at nearly €7.5bn.

The planned aid cut comes amid fears in Ukraine and among its European allies that US funds could be slashed or even stopped if Donald Trump wins the presidency in November’s election.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The draft budget was approved by the German government on Wednesday.

Although military aid to Ukraine is set to be reduced, the defence budget for 2025 will be raised by €1.3bn to €53.25bn.

This is still less than the €6bn for which Defence Minister Boris Pistorius had been pushing.

Overall, Germany is planning to meet the target of 2% GDP spending on defence as required by the Nato alliance.

The defence budget still needs to be approved by lawmakers.

In other developments:

• Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday carried out the latest swap of prisoners of war, with each side receiving back 95 military personnel. The United Arab Emirates facilitated the exchange
• A source in Ukraine’s military confirmed to the BBC that Ukrainian troops had withdrawn from the village of Krynky – a key foothold on the Russian-occupied eastern bank of the Dnipro river in the southern Kherson region. But the source added that Ukraine’s operations in the area continued
• Britain’s new Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will host some 45 European leaders on Thursday at a summit he hopes will begin to reset London’s relationship with the continent. The gathering of the European Political Community (EPC) will also give leaders a chance to reaffirm support for Ukraine.

The daughter of Dubai’s ruler appears to have announced her divorce on social media.

A post from the verified Instagram account of Sheikha Mahra bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said she was ending her marriage, and reads: “I hereby declare our divorce.”

The BBC has reached out to officials in the country to seek clarity on the matter.

There has been no public comment from Sheikha Mahra’s husband, Sheikh Mana bin Mohammed bin Rashid bin Mana Al Maktoum, or her father.

The post, which begins “Dear Husband”, concluded – “I divorce you, I divorce you, and I divorce you,” seemingly using the Islamic practice known as triple talaq.

The practice has been banned in many countries, but usually allows husbands to swiftly divorce their wives by saying “I divorce you” three times.

“Take care. Your ex-wife,” the post on Instagram added.

All images of Sheikha Mahra’s husband appear to have been deleted from her account. Sheikh Mana’s account likewise seems stripped of pictures of his wife.

The couple married in April 2023 in a lavish ceremony, and their first child was born two months ago.

Some comments from Instagram users have speculated that Sheikha Mahra’s account could have been hacked. There has been no official indication of this. At time of publication, the post declaring her divorce was listed as one day old.

Dubai’s government and the UAE Embassy in London did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

When Usha Vance took to the stage at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night, she told the crowd about the “most determined person I know” her husband, the newly selected vice-presidential candidate JD Vance.

“That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry, is a testament to this great country,” she told the crowd.

Mrs Vance humanized the Ohio senator and running mate of Republican White House candidate Donald Trump by describing him as a man who longed for a “tight-knit family”.

As she introduced her husband, she told thousands of onlookers more about her “meat and potatoes kind of guy” – a man who adapted to her vegetarian diet and learned how to cook Indian food for her mother.

While she does not seek out the political spotlight, Mrs Vance, 38, wields considerable influence over her husband’s career, he has said.

And it is the stellar CV of his wife that leaves Mr Vance feeling “humbled” he has said.

As he took the stage at the Republican convention, Mr Vance echoed previous praise he’s made about his wife being a “incredible lawyer and a better mom”.

In an interview on Fox News last month, she said: “I believe in JD, and I really love him, and so we’ll just sort of see what happens with our life.”

On Wednesday, she echoed that sentiment: “Neither JD nor I expected to find ourselves in this position”.

The two met as students at Yale Law School in 2013, when they joined a discussion group on “social decline in white America”, according to the New York Times.

The content influenced Mr Vance’s best-selling 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, about his childhood in the white working-class Rust Belt, which became a 2020 movie directed by Ron Howard.

Mr Vance, 39, has said he considered her his “Yale spirit guide” when they were classmates at the elite university.

Mrs Vance previously graduated with a BA in history from Yale University and was also a Gates Scholar at Cambridge University, where she came away with an MPhil in early modern history, according to her LinkedIn profile.

The couple wed in 2014 and have three children: two sons, Ewan and Vivek, and a daughter, Mirabel.

• Why Trump picked JD Vance
• Once ‘never Trump’, now he’s his running mate

Mrs Vance – née Chilukuri, the child of Indian immigrants – was born and raised in the suburbs of San Diego, California.

Her husband regularly rails about “woke” ideas he says are pushed by Democrats, but his wife was formerly a registered Democrat and is now a corporate litigator at a San Francisco law firm which proudly touts its reputation for being “radically progressive”.

Mrs Vance once clerked for Brett Kavanaugh, now a Supreme Court justice, on the District of Columbia court of appeals. Then she clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Both men are part of the highest court’s conservative majority.

“Usha definitely brings me back to Earth a little bit,” Mr Vance told the Megyn Kelly Show podcast in 2020. “And if I maybe get a little bit too cocky or a little too proud I just remind myself that she is way more accomplished than I am.”

“People don’t realise just how brilliant she is,” he added, saying she is able to digest a 1,000-page book in only a few hours.

She is the “powerful female voice on his left shoulder”, giving him guidance, he said.

As Mr Vance gears up for what is certain to be a gruelling campaign for the White House, he may need her counsel more than ever before.

Police were stationed inside the building from which gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks fired shots at Donald Trump, the director of the US Secret Service Kimberly Cheatle says.

Ms Cheatle told ABC News that local police were inside the building while Crooks was on the roof, and that local police – not the Secret Service – had been “responsible” for securing the building and its outer perimeter.

Questions have swirled about how police officers and agents tasked with securing Trump’s Pennsylvania rally allowed Crooks to get as close as he did.

He was able to access the roof of a building near the outdoor event at Butler County fairgrounds, Pennsylvania, from where he shot at Trump 130m (430ft) away.

The local police deployment inside the building comprised three snipers, who are alleged to have seen Crooks trying to get on the roof, according to sources quoted by CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

One audience member was killed and two others critically injured in the shooting. Trump was wounded in the ear.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that his agency was responsible for securing inside the perimeter of the fairgrounds, while local police secured the area outside, which included the private building used by the gunman.

The local sheriff’s department referred BBC questions to the state police, which said it was not responsible for the area containing the building.

A state police spokesman told the BBC that it provided “all resources” requested by the Secret Service, including between 30 to 40 troopers inside the perimeter.

Many observers have questioned how security plans broke down to allow the gunman unobstructed access to Trump.

Crowd members said they had spotted the suspect on the roof minutes before the shooting started, while Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe said a local security officer had also spotted him but could not stop him.

The sheriff admitted there had been “a failure” in securing the premises, but said he believed that there was no single party to blame.

After Trump arrived at the venue, officers were alerted about a suspicious man near the building but searched and did not spot him.

A local officer with the Butler Township Police Department attempted to check the roof. He was hoisted up by another officer when he “made visual contact with an individual who pointed a rifle at him”, Butler Township Manager Tom Knights told CBS.

The officer was in a “defenceless position” and couldn’t engage the suspect, Mr Knights said. The officer “let go and fell to the ground” then immediately alerted others to the armed suspect’s location.

Moments later the shooting began.

It is common for the US Secret Service to rely on local police for help when securing rallies, said Jason Russell, founder of Secure Environments Consultants who worked as an agent from 2002 to 2010, including during election campaigns.

“The Secret Service doesn’t have unlimited resources in terms of agents that they can post everywhere,” he told the BBC.

He said that agents usually scope out a campaign event’s venue days in advance to develop a security plan that is then shared with local police agencies.

During an event, he said communications were shared with every agency involved. However, he added that in “the 10 seconds that it takes” for information to flow through, that could be just enough time for a gunman to fire a few shots.

The rooftop was a known vulnerability before the event, according to NBC News, which cited two sources familiar with Secret Service operations.

Mr Russell said it was probable that Secret Service agents identified that building as a threat, and had requested local authorities to station officers nearby to prevent access.

“For whatever reason, that didn’t happen,” he said.

One witness, Thomas Gleason, who served 21 years with the US Army as paratrooper and ranger, said “there should have been greater security for a long-range threat”.

“Looking at the distance and vantage point, if someone is going to try to assassinate [Trump] that would have been the most logical shooting point,” he said.

The FBI has since taken over the role of lead investigator into the incident, and the shooting is now the subject of several other investigations by both the House and the Senate.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas called it a “failure” of security, telling CNN that “an incident like this cannot happen again”.

Ms Cheatle said on Monday that her agency is working with federal and local police to “understand what happened, how it happened, and how we can prevent an incident like this from taking place again”.

“The buck stops with me,” she said in the ABC interview, adding that she would not step down in the face of mounting calls from some lawmakers.

A briefing for Senators on 17 July left many questions unanswered, with Senator Ron Johnson describing the call as “unbelievably uninformative”, with only four questions permitted.

John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, told CBS that the senators were told Crooks was identified well before the attack and he was found carrying a range finder and a backpack.

“The Secret Service lost sight of him,” he added. “No one has taken responsibility. No one has been held responsible.”

Ms Cheatle has been subpoenaed to face the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability on 22 July.

Republicans on the committee have also called on the Secret Service to produce evidence including internal communications, audio and video recordings, messages to local law enforcement, maps, diagrams and pre-event assessments.

Additionally, House Speaker Mike Johnson has said that a bipartisan task force will be assembled to investigate the assassination attempt and concerns about how security was handled.

As Lara Trump strode on to centre stage at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night, it was a moment that symbolised a change of guard in the Trump family that has taken place since his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.

Wearing a black dress and a shimmering USA flag brooch, she used the primetime spotlight to sell voters on her father-in-law’s softer edges, focusing on his role as a grandfather to her two young children.

And the party faithful roared as she raised a fist and spoke about a gunman’s attempt on his life on Saturday, mirroring Trump’s actions on the rally stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, after a bullet narrowly missed his head.

“Maybe you got to see a side of Donald Trump on Saturday that you were not sure existed, until you saw it with your own eyes,” she told the crowd.

Ms Trump, 41 and now the co-chair of the Republican Party, was hand-picked by her father-in-law for that role as he runs for another White House term and stands atop a party apparatus firmly under his grip.

Ms Trump, her husband Eric and his older brother Don Jr have emerged as the family’s leading voices in Donald Trump’s campaign against US President Joe Biden, and they are some of the most influential figures in his political orbit.

By contrast, Ivanka Trump, Trump’s eldest daughter, and her husband Jared Kushner – a power couple who enjoyed a high profile in the White House after Trump’s 2016 win – have kept their distance from politics over the last four years.

Lara was the first family member to officially speak at this convention and her presence has ignited interest in not just her role in the family but also any further political ambitions.

“I thought she was fantastic,” said Alina Habba, Trump’s legal spokeswoman who shot to prominence defending him in his civil sexual assault case in New York.

“I think she spoke from the heart. She spoke about moms. She spoke about him being a grandfather – things that only she can speak about.”

Long-time observers expect Lara Trump’s prominence in the family to only grow.

“Her speech was her introduction to the nation in a big way because while she’s had roles in campaigns previously and while she’s been a part of Trump’s inner circle and family orbit for the last eight years, this is the first time she is positioned in a role that has real power inside the Republican Party,” said Eric Cortellessa, a reporter who recently interviewed Ms Trump for a Time magazine profile.

“And she’s in a position where she’s out to prove herself as not just an effective surrogate for Trump, but a political operator. And we’re going to see that play out in the next four months as she’s co-chairing the RNC.”

Michele Merrell, a Republican state committeewoman for Broward county in Florida, said the appointment of Ms Trump in the RNC had made a “world of difference”.

“The fundraising is going through the roof… we were not doing very well before in that. The change in leadership has been all the difference,” she said. “It’s reignited the party, it really has.”

Some see parallels between the role of Lara and Eric Trump in this presidential campaign, and that of Jared and Ivanka in 2016. However, Eric has a prominent role in the Trump Organization and would probably act as the eyes and ears for his father’s sprawling business empire if Trump was to win the White House.

Lara is positioned to continue her ascent in the Republican Party, but there’s another Trump who might also have aspirations of building a political dynasty, said Eric Cortellessa.

“Don Jr says he’s not interested in politics, but everybody else around him, including his sister-in-law and brother, think that he’s got a real itch for politics,” he said.

“In fact Lara Trump, said to me in a recent interview – ‘if there’s any Trump who is going to run for higher office, look out for Don’.”

Eric and Don Jr are a constant presence around their father, and have rallied around him since the attempt on his life. They were also reportedly some of the loudest voices when it came to picking JD Vance as Trump’s running mate.

Don Jr, a favourite of the Make America Great Again (Maga) base, appeared tearful on Monday night when Donald Trump walked into the convention hall to a hero’s welcome.

Speaking at an event on the sidelines of the convention, he spoke charismatically of his father’s softer side – and like his sister-in-law sold him as a grandfather and family man.

It’s a public messaging strategy that attempts to blunt Democratic attacks on Trump as an authoritarian threat to democracy should he return to office.

“We’re having perhaps world-changing types of conversations and he’s interrupting and talking about his grandchildren for 15 minutes,” Don Jr told the room.

But the emphasis on the unity and love of the family does not hide that some key members are a missing presence so far at the Republican National Convention.

Trump’s wife Melania rarely appears in public with her husband and has not been seen publicly by his side since the rally shooting.

Their son Barron, 18, has not yet appeared at the convention either. He has been kept out of the public eye for years but stood to receive a standing ovation at a recent Trump rally in Miami, signalling that he might have a political future too.

Linda Stoch, the vice-president of Club 47 USA, which hosted Trump for his 78th birthday in June, dismissed the idea that Melania and Barron would not appear at the convention.

“His family have always been with him, from day one,” she said.

When asked if she saw any particular Trump family member ushering in the next phase of Maga politics, Ms Stoch said we would have to wait and see.

She then paused, and added: “Maybe Barron.”

Robert F Kennedy Jr has apologised after a video was leaked of a private phone call in which Donald Trump is heard apparently trying to coax the independent presidential candidate to support him.

“I would love you to do something,” Trump can be heard saying in the clip. “And I think it’ll be so good for you and so big for you. And we’re going to win.”

Mr Kennedy then says: “Yeah.”

Trump and Mr Kennedy, a longshot third-party candidate, are political rivals who have occasionally criticised each other during the campaign.

The footage is said to have been recorded on Sunday, a day before the pair met in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the Republican convention is taking place, stoking speculation that Mr Kennedy might be about to exit the race and endorse Trump.

But Kennedy spokeswoman Stefanie Spear said on Monday that he was not dropping out.

Robert F Kennedy Jr posted on X on Tuesday: “When President Trump called me I was taping with an in-house videographer.

“I should have ordered the videographer to stop recording immediately. I am mortified that this was posted. I apologise to the president.”

It was Kennedy’s son, Robert F Kennedy III, who posted the footage online early on Tuesday.

The younger Kennedy said in the post on X, formerly Twitter, that he wanted to expose Trump’s “real opinion” on immunisations, but he swiftly deleted the clip.

Trump can also be heard in the video discussing discredited claims about the health risks of childhood vaccines, a longstanding concern for Mr Kennedy, but one which the scientific community has said is misinformation.

“I agree with you, man. Something’s wrong with that whole system, and it’s the doctors you find,” Trump can be heard saying.

Also on Tuesday, Donald Trump Jr, the former president’s son, was asked about rumours that Mr Kennedy could join forces with the Republican presidential nominee.

Speaking at an event in Milwaukee, he said “maybe there’s a great place for him somewhere in an administration”.

Mr Trump Jr said he didn’t have any “inside scoop on that, certainly not now”, but he would “love to see that happen”.

Opinion polls suggest that Mr Kennedy could draw votes equally from Trump and the Democratic President Joe Biden, including in swing states, in this November’s election.

From causing seismic activity at Harry Styles concerts to Swifties boosting the UK economy during the Eras Tour, the power of teenage female pop fans shouldn’t be underestimated.

For playwright Yve Blake, the danger of dismissing these youngsters is the inspiration behind her new comedy musical Fangirls.

Following the life of 14-year-old Edna, who is obsessed with a boy band resembling One Direction, Fangirls explores “what it means to love something without apology”.

The idea came to Blake in 2015 after she witnessed a pivotal moment in the lives of thousands of teenage girls – Zayn Malik left One Direction.

Despondent and heartbroken fans across the world were shown weeping inconsolably – but for Blake, something even more interesting caught her eye.

“People started calling these young girls crazy, hysterical and psycho,” the writer explains. “I asked myself the question – would the same words be used to describe male football fans?

“The girls screaming at the top of their lungs at Taylor Swift concerts are cringe, but men running around with their tops off and fist pumping the air because England scored a goal are just supporting their country.

“It seems like there’s definitely a double standard there.”

But the musical doesn’t just praise fangirls.

“It’s a lot more nuanced than that,” Blake explains. “We look at the dark side of worshipping celebrities as well as praising the decision for girls to make an empowered choice to love something free of judgement.

“I’d describe it as a glittery trojan horse.”

The hit musical premiered in 2019 in Blake’s home country, Australia, and has been met with critical acclaim across three runs.

Its stint at the Sydney Opera House was awarded five stars by Time Out, which said “it deals with the exquisite pain of being a teenager, of having little agency and lesser respect from the world around you”.

In a four-star review, the Guardian called it “witty and agile” and said it “balances serious social reflections with a loving twinkle in its eye”.

Blake says the show “retains its fearlessness, cheekiness and naughtiness from Australia, but the screws have really been tightened”.

She is both excited and nervous about bringing the show to the Lyric theatre in Hammersmith, west London.

“Brits are definitely a lot more repressed than Aussies, so I don’t know if they can match the energy of previous runs,” Blake says.

At one point in the show, the stage is transformed into a concert venue and audience participation is encouraged.

“Theatre is so polite normally, but Fangirls is about unleashing your feral excitement and screaming like you’re 14 again.”

In Australia, Blake had no problem getting the audience involved – she tells the BBC that an older lady in the front row accidentally flashed the actors because she “was so in the moment and excitedly dancing”.

Playing the lead role of Edna is Jasmine Elcock, who got a golden buzzer on Britain’s Got Talent in 2016.

The singer was 14 when she reached the talent show final, and this is her first major acting role.

“I’m excited for people to be able to see the world through the eyes of a young girl,” Elcock says.

As a self-proclaimed fangirl, Elcock can relate to the feelings and emotions that the play delves into.

“I am a mega fangirl and at the moment I am absolutely obsessed with Little Simz. I can spend hours in my bedroom dancing and singing along to her,” she says.

In comparison, writer Blake explains she was a “victim of my own cringe growing up”.

“I was socially embarrassed to be a fangirl so I definitely repressed it as a teenager,” she says.

“As an adult that’s what made me interested in exploring this topic – I woke up to the fact that my cringe was a symptom of internalised misogyny because it’s only the things that teenage girls like that are ever called cringeworthy.”

It seems that for Blake, this play is a way for her to tell her younger self, and all teenage girls out that, that it’s OK to let lose and embrace being a fangirl.

In a sign of the seismic political changes in South Africa, John Hlophe, a once-celebrated judge whose career ended ignominiously with his impeachment just five months ago, has been parachuted into parliament to lead the official opposition.

Dr Hlophe is expected to be in full flight on Friday, when he will open the debate in response to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s speech on Thursday, setting out his new coalition government’s plans to tackle South Africa’s myriad problems – including an unemployment rate of 32%, high levels of crime, deteriorating infrastructure, and land ownership in a nation bedevilled by racial inequality.

“Watch this pace. See him perform on Friday,” Dr Hlophe’s lawyer Barnabas Xulu told the BBC.

Dr Hlophe’s dramatic fall as a judge – and meteoric rise as a politician – can both be traced to former President Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s most polarising politician who defied the odds by making his own stunning comeback in the 29 May general election.

Less than three years after he became the first South African president to be jailed for an offence – contempt of court – Mr Zuma led his newly formed party, uMkhonto weSizwe (Spear of the Nation) into third spot in the election.

But as he was barred him from taking up his seat in parliament because of the 15-month jail sentence he had received, Mr Zuma turned to Dr Hlophe to take up the all-important post of Leader of the Opposition.

The post comes with an annual salary of just under 1.7m rand ($94,000; £73,000), which Dr Hlophe is likely to appreciate after reportedly losing his judge’s pension because of his impeachment for gross misconduct.

MK has become the official opposition because the second-biggest party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has joined President Ramaphosa’s coalition government after his African National Congress (ANC) lost its majority in the election for the first time since the end of the racist system of apartheid in 1994.

Born in 1959, Dr Hlophe, who grew up as a child labourer in a family where his mother was a domestic worker and gardener and his father a security guard and traditional healer, went on to study law locally and abroad, acquiring a PhD from the UK’s prestigious University of Cambridge.

As a lawyer in South Africa, he took part in court battles challenging the draconian laws of the apartheid regime, before forging a career as an academic, returning to Cambridge as a Roman law tutor in 1987.

Despite this, Dr Hlophe is a fierce advocate for the “Africanisation” of South Africa’s legal system, saying it was “imposed on us” by colonisers, and which “we have mastered, by the way, even better than them” – a comment he made in an address to the African Legal Professionals Association in the coastal city of Durban soon after he joined MK in June.

“African law has never been allowed to develop and take its rightful place,” he added.

Dr Hlophe returned to the theme after being sworn in as an MP, saying MK was not “apologetic in our call for the law to be Africanised”.

“By that, we mean we bring back the laws that used to govern the African people. One of those laws is this: the land in Africa can never be the subject of private ownership. The land belongs to the nation,” he said.

Some critics saw Mr Zuma’s decision to appoint him as MK’s parliamentary leader as returning a political favour.

His impeachment in February ended a long-running saga that started in 2008 when two judges of South Africa’s highest court sent shockwaves through legal and political circles by accusing him of trying to improperly influence them to rule in favour of Mr Zuma in a corruption-related case that the controversial politician was fighting at the time.

Dr Hlophe denied the charges, with Mr Xulu telling the BBC that he simply had a “casual conversation” with the two judges about “legal principles” in what was a “novel” case – something that judges often do among themselves.

Mr Xulu said that with the state no longer prepared to pay his legal bills, Dr Hlophe decided to drop the battle to clear his name in favour of a career in politics, joining MK as it was his “ideal” political home.

“He was not going to sit at home and be idle,” Mr Xulu said.

“He’ll continue the fight for justice and transformation in a different platform, the National Assembly, where he will have more freedom, more protection,” Mr Xulu added.

Dr Hlophe’s impeachment marked a sad end to his judicial career, as he was once among the cream of South Africa’s judges, or, as constitutional law expert Narnia Bohler-Muller put it in The Conversation magazine, he was “both brilliant and controversial, on and off the bench”.

At the age of 35, in 1995, just a year after the end of apartheid, he made history by becoming the first back judge in South Africa’s Western Cape province, and five years later its Judge President.

But his leadership there was turbulent, as he accused some of his colleagues of treating him as a “legal non-entity” and undermining him because he was black. He faced counter-claims of being verbally abusive and even assaulting a judge, which he dismissed as a malicious allegation based on rumour and gossip.

He was also embroiled in numerous other controversies – including allegations that he served as a non-executive director at a financial company, and was paid about $26,000 over three years in consultancy fees.

He denied any wrongdoing, saying he had declared his links with the company to the-then justice minister. The Judicial Services Commission (JSC) dismissed a case against him over the issue, saying there was a lack of evidence.

Now, he has become the first ex-judge to become not only the Leader of the Opposition, but also a member of parliament’s justice committee, and, to top it all, MK’s representative on the JSC.

Comprising both judges and cross-party MPs, the JSC is the very body that found Dr Hlophe guilty of gross misconduct, leading to parliament impeaching him.

It is also responsible for the appointment of judges, and will choose his successor as Western Cape Judge President.

His long-time adversaries have vowed to challenge his elevation to the JSC in court, with campaign group Freedom Under Law saying it was “irrational” for an impeached judge to be involved in the appointment of other judges.

Significantly, the ANC supported his appointment to the JSC, while two of its coalition partners, the DA and the Afrikaner nationalist Freedom Front Plus, opposed it.

William Gumede, an academic at Wits University’s School of Governance in Johannesburg, said the ANC’s decision did not come as a surprise.

“There are going to be big battles with MK, but this is not one that the ANC was prepared to fight because it could have set the wrong tone for the opening of parliament,” Prof Gumede told the BBC.

Furthermore, the ANC had to take into account the fact that Dr Hlophe remains popular, despite his impeachment, said Prof Gumede.

“Many black voters appear not to mind supporting people implicated in abusing public office, if these people can successfully cast themselves as victims of a conspiracy, supposedly by the ‘system’,” he added.

He said a lot now depended on how Dr Hlophe performed in parliament.

“If he provides effective opposition, MK could grow and he could potentially be its next leader,” Prof Gumede added.

This is a far cry from the 65-year-old’s childhood as a labourer for a sugar-cane farmer whom he called “filthy rich” – a man who went on to help finance his university education.

“I grew up poor, like most South Africans,” he told a podcast hosted by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), an opposition party with whom MK has formed an alliance in parliament.

“I started weeding sugar-cane fields at the age of 12. I would carry 12kg of fertiliser on my back and I would never look back. We used to work very hard, even Christmas and public holidays. There were just no holidays, considering there were no labour laws then,” Dr Hlophe added.

His comments are a poignant reminder of black people’s lives under white-minority rule – and the racial and ideological fault-lines that run through a country where black people have only been allowed to vote for 30 years.

• The ex-gangster who has become South Africa’s sports minister
• Behind the ‘Zuma tsunami’ in South Africa
• The winners and losers in South Africa’s historic new government
• Why voters fall out of love with liberation movements
• Cyril Ramaphosa – South African union leader, mine boss, president

Germany’s reputation for super-efficiency has suffered a body blow.

As football fans poured in and out of cities across the country for Euro 2024, they discovered the trains weren’t as good as they thought.

One supporters’ group even said services were better when Russia hosted the World Cup.

Fans praised “sensational” pricing deals which, for ticket holders, included discounted or even free local travel as part of a sustainability drive.

But Thomas Concannon from the Football Supporters’ Association complained: “We were in constant contact with fans who were experiencing problems.”

He believes surprise at the situation was partly borne out of a “pre-conceived reputation about Germany that the trains run on time”.

Lindsey and Darren Ramskill from Goole in East Yorkshire went to six out of England’s seven matches and experienced packed trains, stop-start services and poor communication.

“I’m not moaning about British trains anymore,” said Lindsey. “Ours are better.”

Another football supporter from the neighbouring Netherlands, who travels a lot for his work as a motivational speaker, was less shocked.

“If I can, I try to avoid Germany now because there are always problems,” said Wiebe Wakker.

After the England v Netherlands semi-final, his delayed journey out of Dortmund included an “unbearably hot” carriage with no functioning air conditioning.

“Everyone was sweating,” he said. It was so “horrible” he got off and took a taxi the rest of the way with some England supporters.

Within Germany there’s been exasperation with the Deutsche Bahn national rail operator for years.

Just 64% cent of long-distance trains ran on time in 2023. That compares with a declining level of punctuality in Great Britain of 67.8% trains arriving on schedule in the year to March 2023.

In Germany, calls for desperately needed investment are often heard as part of a wider debate about how to boost a flagging economy.

German transport lobby group Allianz pro Schiene (pro-Rail alliance) compared spending per person on railway infrastructure across 14 European countries including the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

It found Germany was 10th last year at €115 (£97) per person, while the UK was sixth and Luxembourg topped the group with €512 per head.

For Germans it is no surprise that well-used motto “Vorsprung durch Technik” (Headstart through Technology) belies a less potent, more sluggish, picture.

Europe’s largest economy has for years quite publicly struggled with how to modernise.

Analysts do not just blame a lack of investment but a failure to digitise the economy married with tedious red tape.

Rules and paperwork can suck up valuable time for both businesses and people.

One example, in Berlin, is that you are legally required to make an in-person appointment to register a new home address within two weeks.

But good luck getting one.

The local government website offers no available appointments at all on Wedneday, right through to mid-September.

Both private and public sectors have seen under-investment for years, says Professor Hubertus Bardt from the German Economic Institute (IW).

Railways have undergone a “here and there” approach to repairs, he says, which “causes delays and doesn’t really solve the problems”.

More major works are now getting going such as the five-month mega-renewal on the Frankfurt-to-Mannheim line.

But Professor Bardt believes a “huge programme” of broader spending is needed which looks well beyond the annual budgets that can cause political agony for Germany’s ruling coalition.

“We have thousands of bridges that have to be renovated or rebuilt,” he says. The problem is primarily in western Germany which is creaking under infrastructure built in the sixties and seventies, while the east saw fresh investment after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.

The overall view for Germany is worrying, as economic growth forecasts continue to put it at the bottom of the pile when compared with other G7 major economies.

It’s projected to grow by just 0.2% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Efficiency, unrivalled industry and punctuality are labels that have stubbornly stuck to Germany’s reputation abroad but have long worn thin at home.

As the war in Gaza grinds on, there are growing fears another Middle East war may erupt – with devastating consequences for the region, and beyond.

Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah (backed by Iran) have been trading fire across their shared border for the past nine months. If this conflict escalates to all-out war, it could dwarf the destruction in Gaza, draw in Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, spread embers around the Middle East and embroil the US. Iran itself could intervene directly.

The United Nations has warned of a “catastrophe beyond imagination”.

For now, a low-level war simmers in the summer heat, along a 120km (75 mile) stretch of border. One spark here could set the Middle East alight.

Over the lapping of the waves, and the thwack thwack of paddle games on the beach, a sound cuts through – a sudden deep boom.

Soon smoke billows from a hillside in the distance after an Israeli strike.

Around the pool in a resort hotel, a few sunbathers stand briefly to scan the horizon.

Others don’t move a tanned limb.

Explosions are part of the sound of summer 2024 in the ancient Lebanese city of Tyre, as Hezbollah and Israel exchange fire across the border 25 kilometres (15 miles) away.

“Another day, another bomb,” says Roland, 49, with a shrug, as he relaxes on a lilo. He lives abroad but is back home on holiday.

“We got used to it somehow over the months,” says his friend Mustafa, 39, “though children are still a little bit scared.” He nods towards his daughter Miral, 7, who is dripping wet from the pool.

“When she hears an explosion, she always asks, ‘will there be a bomb now?’” he says.

Earlier this month, there was a massive blast in his neighbourhood in Tyre, as his family of four were having a meal. Israel had assassinated a senior Hezbollah commander, Mohammed Nimah Nasser.

“We heard the noise,” Mustafa says, “and we carried on eating.”

But the sunbathers on the beach in Tyre may be on borrowed time. This city will be in the firing line in the event of all-out war, along with the rest of southern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold.

We are now at the water’s edge of a potentially devastating war which both sides say they don’t want. Iran doesn’t seem to want it either.

How did we get here?

On October 8th last year – one day after Hamas gunmen stormed out of Gaza and killed about 1,200 Israelis as well as taking 251 others hostage – Hezbollah joined in, firing at Israeli targets from Lebanon.

The Shia Islamist armed group said it was acting in support of Gaza.

Soon Israel was firing back.

Hezbollah, which is also a political party, is the most powerful force in Lebanon.

Like Hamas, it is classed as a terrorist organisation by many countries, including the UK and the US.

But unlike Hamas, Hezbollah has the firepower to seriously threaten Israel.

It is believed to have an arsenal of more than 150,000 rockets and missiles – some precision-guided – capable of inflicting heavy damage around the country.

• What is Hezbollah in Lebanon and will it go to war with Israel?

Put simply Hezbollah – its English translation, the Party of God – has more arms than many countries.

Its backer Iran – which denies Israel’s right to exist – is happy to train and fund the enemies of the Jewish state.

The conflict has been heating up, with thousands of cross-border strikes.

Some countries have already told their nationals to leave Lebanon urgently, including Germany, the Netherlands, Canada and Saudi Arabia. The UK has advised against all travel to the country and is urging Britons who are here to leave – while they still can.

So far, both sides are mainly striking military targets, close to the border – staying within familiar red lines.

But here on the Lebanese side, we have seen destruction in civilian areas with scorched fields, flattened houses and abandoned villages.

And the current tit-for-tat has already driven tens of thousands from their homes – more than 90,000 in Lebanon and about 60,000 in Israel.

Israeli officials say 33 people have been killed so far in Hezbollah attacks, mostly soldiers.

Lebanon’s losses are far higher at 466, according to the Ministry of Health here. Most of the dead were fighters.

Sally Skaiki was not.

“I never called her Sally,” says her father Hussein Abdul Hassan Skaiki. “I always called her ‘my life’ – she was everything for me.”

“She was the only girl in the house, and we spoiled her, me and her three brothers.”

Sally, 25, was a volunteer paramedic. She was killed by an Israeli strike after sunset on 14 June as she stood in the doorway of her building.

Her father wears the black of mourning, and the green scarf of the Shia Amal movement, which is allied to Hezbollah.

We meet in his village of Deir Qanoun En-Naher, 30km (18 miles) from the border. The main road is dotted with sun-bleached posters of fighters killed in battle against Israel – some in recent months, others back in 2006 when the two sides last went to war.

In that conflict, Hezbollah fought Israel to a standstill but at huge cost to Lebanon and its people. There was massive destruction, and more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians were killed – according to official figures – along with an unconfirmed number of Hezbollah fighters.

Israel’s death toll was 160, according to the government, most of them soldiers.

By Hussein’s side there is a large poster of Sally, in her headscarf and paramedic uniform. He speaks of his daughter with pride and with anguish.

“She loved to help people,” he says. “Any problem that happened, she rushed there. She was well-loved in the village. She always had a smile on her face.”

As we speak there is a loud boom which rattles the windows.

Hussein says it is a normal, daily occurrence.

“Since a long time, Israel killed our people here,” he says.

“We can’t forgive them. There is no hope of peace with them.”

This time, there is no death or destruction. Instead, Israeli warplanes are breaking the sound barrier to spread fear.

And, since October, Israel has been spreading something else in southern Lebanon – choking, searing clumps of white phosphorus, contained in munitions.

The chemical substance ignites immediately on contact with oxygen. It sticks to skin and clothing and can burn through bone, according to the World Health Organization.

Moussa al-Moussa – a farmer stooped by his 77 years – knows only too well.

He says Israel fired white phosphorous shells at his land in the village of al-Bustan every day for over a month, robbing him of breath, and his livelihood.

“I had my scarf on, and I wrapped it around my mouth and nose until I was brought to the hospital,” he tells me, gesturing to the red and white keffiyeh – the traditional Arab scarf – on his head.

“We didn’t have any masks. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see a metre in front of me. And if you touch a fragment a week later it will ignite and burn again.”

The international campaign group, Human Rights Watch, has verified the use of white phosphorus over several populated areas in southern Lebanon, including al-Bustan.

It says Israel’s use of white phosphorus is “unlawfully indiscriminate in populated areas”.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) dispute this, saying the use of white phosphorus shells to create a smokescreen “is lawful under international law”. It says these shells are not used in densely populated areas “with certain exceptions”.

Like many farmers along the border, Moussa fears Israel has poisoned his tobacco crop and his olive groves.

“White phosphorous burns the ground, it burns people and the crops and buildings,” he says.

Even if he can return home, he is afraid to bring in a harvest in case it harms his family or his buyers.

He lives in limbo – in classroom 4B of a vocational school in Tyre. About 30 families who fled the border area are sheltering in the building. Washing is strung across the school yard. A lone little boy races up and down the empty corridors on a bicycle.

When I ask Moussa how many wars he has seen, he begins to laugh.

“We spent our lives in wars,” he says. “Only God knows if another one is coming.”

As one of Hezbollah’s most senior commanders, Mohammed Nimah Nasser, was a wanted man. He fought Israel in 2006, and before, and went on to fight in Syria and Iraq. In recent months he “planned, led and supervised many military operations against the Israeli enemy”, according to Hezbollah.

Israel tracked him down in Tyre on 3 July. Death came from the sky in broad daylight, with an air strike which turned his car into a fireball.

In the Hezbollah stronghold of south Beirut, he was given a hero’s funeral, or rather a “martyr’s” one.

The event was carefully choreographed and strictly segregated – men in one area, women in another – including the press.

His coffin, draped in the yellow flag of Hezbollah, was carried by pall bearers in camouflage uniforms and red berets. Many more fighters stood to attention, lines deep. There was a brass band in spotless white uniforms, if not in perfect harmony.

It had the feel of a state funeral – in a country that lacks a functioning state.

Lebanon has no president, a caretaker government and a shattered economy. It is carved up by sect, and hollowed out by corruption, its citizens left to fend for themselves. Many Lebanese are weary. The last thing they want is another war.

But as the funeral prayers concluded, the talk among mourners was of “martyrdom” not death, and of readiness for war, if it comes.

Hassan Hamieh, a 35-year-old nurse, told us he would fight. “We are not afraid,” he said.

“In fact, we are longing for an all-out war. Martyrdom is the shortest path to God. Young or old, we will all take part in this war, if it is forced upon us.”

Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has stressed the armed group is ready, but not eager, for war. He says if there is a ceasefire agreed in Gaza, Hezbollah will cease fire too, immediately.

Will that satisfy Israel? Maybe not.

It sees Hezbollah as a permanent threat too close for comfort. At the very least, it wants its heavily armed enemy to pull back from the border.

There have been plenty of bellicose threats. Israel’s Education Minister, Yoav Kish, said Lebanon would be “annihilated”. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant chimed in, saying the country would be returned “to the stone age”.

As the attacks and counter attacks continue, families are destroyed. This month parents have been ripped from children, and children from parents.

An Israeli couple were killed in their car by Hezbollah rockets as they headed for home in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in Syria. They left behind three teenage children.

And in southern Lebanon three children were killed in an Israeli strike earlier this week. They were aged between four and eight, and their parents were Syrian farm workers.

The IDF approved “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon” a month ago.

For now, no tanks are rolling over the border. There has been no political decision to attack. Israel is still waging war in Gaza and fighting on two fronts could overstretch the military.

But without a diplomatic solution between Israel and Hezbollah – two old enemies – all-out war may be coming, if not now, then later.

In 2015 Australia’s multi-billion-dollar greyhound racing industry vowed it would clean up its act.

A damning investigation at the time had exposed the preventable deaths of as many as 17,000 young dogs a year – revelations so shocking the government of the day rushed to implement an ultimately short-lived ban.

Almost a decade later, Greyhound Racing New South Wales (GRNSW) – the epicentre of the sport in the country – is back in the spotlight for alleged abuse, due to the work of one whistleblower.

In an explosive report made public by lawmakers, the organisation’s former chief veterinarian has described the industry as a hotbed of “exploitation and suffering”, claiming that dogs are being raced at “barbaric” rates, euthanised without cause, or left to rot in metal cages when they can no longer compete.

Executive heads are rolling, and an inquiry, which GRNSW says it “welcomes”, has been announced to investigate the accusations, as calls from critics to have greyhound racing outlawed grow louder.

But despite evidence of slipping public support, the state’s premier has said he won’t shut down the sport, prompting a standoff with those calling for that to happen.

“The reality is the greyhound racing industry cannot exist without systemic animal cruelty,” says NSW Animal Justice MP Emma Hurst.

“It will be shut down – it’s just a matter of when.”

Australia has been touted as the world’s largest commercial greyhound racing industry – with roughly 60 tracks in operation. New Zealand, the US, the UK and Ireland are also home to markets, but none operate at the same velocity.

Thanks to online betting, Australia’s industry has seen rising profits in recent years, turning over A$8.3bn ($5.6bn; £4.3bn) in 2023 – with 75% of the money coming from Victoria and New South Wales (NSW), according to the greyhound protection organisation GREY2K.

The spark that ignited the current outcry over the sport’s practices was a “handover” letter, from GRNSW’s Chief Veterinary Officer Alex Brittan to his incoming replacement – his final act in a job that by his own account, had nearly broken him.

The 54-page document contains a litany of accusations – including claims that GRNSW had worked with vets “unaccepting of modern medicine” who were prone to euthanising dogs without cause, and that the company’s leadership was directing staff to treat animal welfare groups “as the enemy”.

Within hours of Mr Brittan’s letter becoming public, the chief of GRNSW Rob Macaulay had resigned and the rest of the company’s board is now fighting for their survival.

NSW’s Gaming and Racing Minister David Harris has announced an inquiry into Mr Brittan’s claims which will be led by the industry’s regulator – something which GRNSW has been quick to embrace.

“We welcome the opportunity for an external examination of our processes and record,” its acting CEO Wayne Billett wrote in a statement. And a spokesperson for GRNSW told the BBC that the organisation takes concerns related to animal welfare “very seriously”.

But Mr Brittan’s account differs.

In his letter he described witnessing “cases of extreme distress” in which competing dogs had “recent pools of blood” around them after ripping off their toenails while “clawing” at their caged doors.

He also called out a flurry of “preventable” on-track deaths, due to greyhounds running into poles with “no padding on them” and questioned the figures GRNSW had put forward concerning how many retired dogs it had found homes for – a practice which gives the sport its social licence to operate.

Mr Brittan says that of the roughly 4,200 dogs entering the industry each year, only 1,600 were making it out and finding owners, with the rest living out their days in “industrial kennels”.

Further – he alleged that a company programme which had been set up to export retired greyhounds to the US, so that they could find homes there, had an alarming lack of oversight.

To prove his point, he told the story of Carey – a dog who died at Sydney airport after confusing its travelling box with a racer’s starter box and running into a fence at full speed when the door opened.

NSW’s premier Chris Minns said he would examine all the allegations put forward by Mr Brittan, but quickly ruled out a blanket ban on greyhound racing in the state.

“We’re not going to shut down the industry, but we do take this report seriously,” he told reporters last week.

And Mr Harris reiterated that the government would make sure the industry was held to “the highest standards of animal welfare and integrity” once the new investigation had concluded.

But given GRNSW has weathered multiple crises – including a government-backed inquiry in 2016 which delivered findings of “systemic animal cruelty” and mass killings – advocates are sceptical another inquiry will yield results.

“The greyhound racing industry was already given a chance to clean up its act eight years ago, and it’s monumentally failed,” Ms Hurst told the BBC.

Mr Brittan has also challenged the impartiality of the current investigation – saying it should be done by an external source, rather than the industry’s own regulator.

And he questioned why an all-out ban had been taken off the table already.

“It could be perceived as concerning that the premier and gaming minister have stated that the outcome of the inquiry is a foregone conclusion and that, irrespective of any findings, all bets are on, and the gambling will continue,” he said, according to the Guardian.

Around the world, the prominence and popularity of dog-racing for sport has been in decline.

In the US for example – which used to be one of the sport’s largest industries – betting on greyhounds has been outlawed in all but a handful of states, and only two active tracks remain, both in West Virginia.

Advocates like Ms Hurst argue that the practice endures in Australia not because of community fanfare, but gambling profits.

The last time the industry was in the spotlight in 2016, over 80% of people polled by the country’s national broadcaster said they wanted to see it shut down.

And in recent years, it has been outlawed in the Australian Capital Territory, while petitions calling for other jurisdictions to follow suit have made their way to several state parliaments.

GRNSW says it has no plans to go anywhere – and that racing, which first came to the nation’s shores in the late 1800s, can be done “sustainably”.

But Ms Hurst, and others calling for an end to the sport, say that the latest spate of allegations present a unique “opportunity” to “listen to the community and ban this cruel industry”.

An ex-police officer who claims to save children from human traffickers has faked stories to raise money for his charity, the BBC has discovered.

Adam Whittington, founder of Project Rescue Children (PRC) says he has helped more than 700 children in countries including Uganda, Kenya and The Gambia.

But BBC File on 4 has found that some of these children have never been trafficked, and that funds raised – sometimes with the help of celebrity supporters – have not always reached children in need.

PRC has described our allegations that it does not support children as being “completely without merit, misleading and defamatory”.

Our investigation shows Mr Whittington, a British-Australian citizen, has misled donors in a variety of ways – including by raising funds for a baby supposedly rescued from people traffickers, who has actually been with her mother all along. The mother, who lives in poverty, says she and her daughter have never received any money from PRC.

Mr Whittington started working in child rescue two decades ago, after leaving the Metropolitan Police.

He set up a company retrieving children taken abroad by a parent following custody disputes, but later switched his attention to trafficked or abused children.

Both his and PRC’s social media pages have accumulated 1.5 million followers and attracted celebrity support, thanks to their shocking and sometimes disturbing content.

Sam Faiers from ITV’s The Only Way is Essex became a PRC ambassador, and last September was taken to Uganda to meet orphaned and destitute children.

While there, she appealed to her millions of fans to donate and ended up raising £137,000 ($175,000) to build a rescue centre and cover its initial running costs.

It was this fundraising drive that gave me the first real sense that something was amiss.

In the weeks after Sam Faiers’ total was announced, allegations against PRC began popping up on social media, with former ambassadors and directors alleging financial mismanagement and suggesting stories about children were being fabricated.

Less than half of the money – £58,000 ($74,000) – that donors believed would fund the construction and running costs of the proposed rescue centre, was sent to PRC’s Ugandan partner organisation, Make a Child Smile.

Its founder, Alexander Ssembatya, who has apologised to donors, told the BBC he believed the rest of the money had been “eaten by Adam Whittington and PRC”. Construction work was on hold because of a lack of funds, he added.

Sam Faiers told the BBC she was “deeply appalled” and “heartbroken” to learn that not all the funds raised had reached the children and urged Mr Whittington to “do the right thing and release the remainder of the funds immediately to where they are so desperately needed”.

PRC said the money provided was sufficient to complete construction of the rescue centre, and told the BBC it had now withdrawn from the project, accusing Mr Ssembatya of refusing to sign a contract and mismanaging funds.

It said the remaining money had been spent on other children in Uganda and the Philippines.

File on 4: The Child Rescue Con

Charity claims to save children from trafficking and abuse but File on 4 has found that unsuspecting children are being used as props and the rescue centres have no children.

Listen on BBC Sounds now, or on Radio 4 (Tuesday 16 July at 20:00 and Wednesday 17 July at 11:00)

Watch the story on BBC iPlayer, or on the BBC News channel (Saturday 20 July at 13:30)

Although efforts to establish a rescue centre in Uganda fell flat, PRC already claimed to have operations up and running in other African countries, including Kenya.

Since 2020, Mr Whittington has told detailed and distressing stories about the children he has allegedly supported at PRC’s Kenya rescue centre – including siblings who had watched their parents being butchered by traffickers.

Within weeks of launching a sponsorship programme, PRC announced that all 26 Kenyan children pictured on its website had been sponsored.

The rescue centre is in a remote location on the outskirts of the city of Kisumu, which made verifying its existence difficult.

So in April 2024, I travelled with a BBC team, escorted by a police officer, and found the property – supposedly run by a woman known as Mama Jane.

I discovered Mama Jane was an elderly lady called Jane Gori, who lived in the house with her husband. We didn’t find any children, rescued or otherwise.

But I did find out that her son, Kupa Gori, was PRC’s director in Kenya and he had brought Mr Whittington to visit her home.

Mr Whittington uses pictures of improvement work PRC has funded at Mrs Gori’s house to convince donors he is running a rescue centre. Mrs Gori said she had no idea that her name, her house and her photograph were being used by PRC.

Nearby, I met a farmer called Joseph, whose two sons and a granddaughter have featured on the PRC website, described as orphaned, homeless, or victims of trafficking or exploitation. But none of this is true.

Not long after the photographs were taken in 2020, Joseph’s son Eugene died. But his picture remained online until at least February this year. According to PRC’s website, people continued to sponsor him.

Joseph says he has never received any money from PRC, adding: “It pains my heart that someone is using the photos of my child for money we did not get personally.”

When we put our findings to PRC, it told us that it stands by its claim that Jane Gori’s home is a PRC rescue centre that cares for children. It said that all funds for work carried out there were submitted to the Australian Charity Commission – where it was registered.

It did not respond to our question about the misuse of photographs of Joseph’s family.

The next case of deception I uncovered started in 2022, when Mr Whittington claimed to have carried out a dramatic rescue mission – saving a newborn baby from the clutches of traffickers in a busy marketplace in The Gambia.

On the morning of 17 December, his team chased two men who dropped a basket as they ran, he said. Inside was a newborn baby, whom he named Mireya. Mr Whittington posted a picture of her wrapped in a gold-coloured blanket.

To give the story further credibility he told his followers he had adopted the baby and said she was being looked after at PRC’s rescue centre in The Gambia.

He told his UK director Alex Betts the same story and asked her to adopt the child with him.

Ms Betts, an online influencer, hoped to bring the baby back to the UK. An online fundraising campaign was launched, along with a sponsorship programme.

In March 2023, Ms Betts visited the girl she thought was Mireya and took photos and videos of herself playing with a beautiful baby girl. The footage went viral – seen by more than 40 million people.

After Ms Betts arrived back in the UK, Mr Whittington asked her to sign a non-disclosure agreement that would have prevented her saying anything publicly about PRC. She did not understand why and raised concerns.

Then PRC terminated her contract on the grounds, it said, that she was “exploiting children for social media gain”. Ms Betts stopped receiving photo and video updates about Mireya and Mr Whittington attacked her online, falsely branding her a drug addict and alleging, again falsely, that a warrant had been issued for her arrest in The Gambia.

Ms Betts says she was recruited to PRC to “bring social media attention to the organisation”. She rejects the claims against her and says she has always acted “with honest and pure intentions”.

When Ms Betts decided to google “Gambia newborn baby” she discovered the photograph of the baby in a gold blanket was of another child. It had been posted on a maternity unit’s social media page two years before Mireya’s “rescue”.

PRC told us a member of staff had misguidedly used this image because they didn’t want to reveal Mireya’s identity, and that the PRC board had subsequently apologised publicly for any confusion.

The BBC has found no evidence that the marketplace rescue ever happened. But Ms Betts had met a baby – so who was the child?

In May 2024, a year after Ms Betts had posted her viral video, we travelled to The Gambia. Our first stop was the location of PRC’s supposed rescue centre.

But, just as we had found in Kenya, it was not a rescue centre and no rescued children had ever lived there. The man who owned the property told us it was just a family home.

His name was David Bass, the father of Ebou Bass, who had been recruited as PRC’s director in The Gambia. He told us that PRC fixed his roof and installed a fresh water supply. Again, Mr Whittington posted images of this construction work on social media and the PRC website to support his claim to be running a rescue centre.

Mr Bass senior told us he did not know the work on his home had been funded with money raised for the renovation of a rescue centre.

We were told the baby known as Mireya lived in a nearby village. Our search took us to a small compound, where we saw a toddler we recognised immediately from Ms Betts’ videos.

The child’s arms were covered in sores caused by a bacterial skin infection, as her mother couldn’t afford the medication she needed.

She told us her baby had been born and raised in the village and that she had been approached by Ebou Bass when her daughter was three months old. He had told her there were people who wanted to sponsor her baby, she said, so she had allowed him to take the child to meet Ms Betts.

She was amazed to hear the stories being told about her daughter online. She said she had never received any money but had been given some groceries on a few occasions.

Ebou Bass, who is no longer PRC’s director in The Gambia, acknowledged that Mireya’s story was false and that the rescue centre was his family’s home. When challenged, he said it was Mr Whittington’s idea to say they had rescued a baby from traffickers but that he had gone along with it because the child they had used as a prop was very poor and he had hoped she would receive financial help.

Lamin Fatty, from a Gambian organisation called the Child Protection Alliance, is now working with the country’s authorities to investigate Mr Whittington and PRC. He says multiple laws may have been broken in this incident.

PRC insists Mireya’s story is true and told us she was rescued by PRC in collaboration with the Gambian authorities. It has invited the BBC to carry out a DNA test on the child we found. It maintains the Bass home is a PRC rescue centre and that Mireya wasn’t at the property because she was overseas visiting relatives.

Adam Whittington served in the Australian Army before joining the Metropolitan Police in 2001, where he worked for at least five years.

We have not been able to find out what has happened to all the money raised for PRC or where it is being spent – Mr Whittington has set up companies and charities in multiple countries, many of which have never filed any detailed accounts.

But we do know some donations haven’t reached their intended targets.

The BBC has found that, in 2022, the UK’s Charity Commission rejected an application to register PRC as it had not demonstrated it was exclusively charitable and had failed to respond to what the commission described as “significant issues” with its application.

Mr Whittington also has other charitable organisations registered in The Gambia, Kenya, Ukraine and the Philippines.

PRC was a registered charity in Australia until we told the Australian Charity Commission about our investigation. Its charitable status has now been revoked.

Adam Whittington is currently living in Russia. He didn’t respond to our request for an interview.

Since we started our investigation, some content has been removed from PRC’s website and Mr Whittington has been banned from Instagram. He instructed solicitors in Kenya to block our investigation from being broadcast, though they have not succeeded. He has launched an online campaign against the BBC, calling me a “rogue journalist”.

On his remaining social media I can see he is currently travelling back and forth to the Philippines – raising money for a rescue centre and claiming to rescue children. And he says he will soon be expanding PRC into South Africa.

When Usha Vance took to the stage at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night, she told the crowd about the “most determined person I know” her husband, the newly selected vice-presidential candidate JD Vance.

“That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry, is a testament to this great country,” she told the crowd.

Mrs Vance humanized the Ohio senator and running mate of Republican White House candidate Donald Trump by describing him as a man who longed for a “tight-knit family”.

As she introduced her husband, she told thousands of onlookers more about her “meat and potatoes kind of guy” – a man who adapted to her vegetarian diet and learned how to cook Indian food for her mother.

While she does not seek out the political spotlight, Mrs Vance, 38, wields considerable influence over her husband’s career, he has said.

And it is the stellar CV of his wife that leaves Mr Vance feeling “humbled” he has said.

As he took the stage at the Republican convention, Mr Vance echoed previous praise he’s made about his wife being a “incredible lawyer and a better mom”.

In an interview on Fox News last month, she said: “I believe in JD, and I really love him, and so we’ll just sort of see what happens with our life.”

On Wednesday, she echoed that sentiment: “Neither JD nor I expected to find ourselves in this position”.

The two met as students at Yale Law School in 2013, when they joined a discussion group on “social decline in white America”, according to the New York Times.

The content influenced Mr Vance’s best-selling 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, about his childhood in the white working-class Rust Belt, which became a 2020 movie directed by Ron Howard.

Mr Vance, 39, has said he considered her his “Yale spirit guide” when they were classmates at the elite university.

Mrs Vance previously graduated with a BA in history from Yale University and was also a Gates Scholar at Cambridge University, where she came away with an MPhil in early modern history, according to her LinkedIn profile.

The couple wed in 2014 and have three children: two sons, Ewan and Vivek, and a daughter, Mirabel.

• Why Trump picked JD Vance
• Once ‘never Trump’, now he’s his running mate

Mrs Vance – née Chilukuri, the child of Indian immigrants – was born and raised in the suburbs of San Diego, California.

Her husband regularly rails about “woke” ideas he says are pushed by Democrats, but his wife was formerly a registered Democrat and is now a corporate litigator at a San Francisco law firm which proudly touts its reputation for being “radically progressive”.

Mrs Vance once clerked for Brett Kavanaugh, now a Supreme Court justice, on the District of Columbia court of appeals. Then she clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Both men are part of the highest court’s conservative majority.

“Usha definitely brings me back to Earth a little bit,” Mr Vance told the Megyn Kelly Show podcast in 2020. “And if I maybe get a little bit too cocky or a little too proud I just remind myself that she is way more accomplished than I am.”

“People don’t realise just how brilliant she is,” he added, saying she is able to digest a 1,000-page book in only a few hours.

She is the “powerful female voice on his left shoulder”, giving him guidance, he said.

As Mr Vance gears up for what is certain to be a gruelling campaign for the White House, he may need her counsel more than ever before.

Despite being Hollywood’s hottest new star, Glen Powell has said he will finish studying for his degree while shooting his next movie.

The actor – who recently starred in Top Gun: Maverick, Anyone But You and Twisters – plans to complete his Spanish and early American history degree at the University of Texas.

Powell, 35, is from Austin, Texas, and has recently moved back to his home state to be closer to his family, after living in Hollywood.

Speaking to IndieWire, Powell said he plans to attend Zoom classes while he’s working on his next film, a remake of 1987 sci-fi film The Running Man, in the UK.

“So I’m going to be in London, but I am going to be going back for proctored [supervised] exams,” he said.

“They’re letting me figure it out [with] distance learning.

“And I’m obviously going to be coming in, Zooming in for classes and whatnot, but I have to be back for the proctored exams.”

He will have to return to Texas “two or three times a semester”, and said The Running Man director Edgar Wright had been understanding.

“Edgar has been very nice about letting me finish my degree in the middle of his massive movie.”

In May, Powell was the cover star on a Hollywood Reporter issue about “the new A-list”.

He told the magazine he felt he was able to return to Texas because “getting to this point in Hollywood [means] that I can now leave Hollywood”.

He added that he felt “like I’ve earned the ability to go back to my family”, and was given the advice to move by fellow Texan actor Matthew McConaughey.

Powell also told the publication it was an “emotional thing” to finish the degree, which he started before he reached this level of fame.

“I think it’s really important to my mom and it’s more of an emotional thing for me,” he said.

The actor is incredibly close to his parents, who regularly attend press events with him, and two sisters.

In the interview with IndieWire, Powell clarified that he has “nothing against Hollywood” – but he would be happier spending time in Austin between projects.

“I love being around people who love entertainment, and I love what [Hollywood] represents.

“Coming here for little chunks of time and doing all the stuff I need to do here, it’s great.

“And I have nothing against Hollywood.

“I just realised, in terms of filling up the pieces of me that need to be refuelled between projects and doing stuff like that, that’s all Austin for me.”

Adele has revealed she plans to take an extended break from music after her current run of concerts.

“My tank is quite empty at the minute,” the star told German broadcaster ZDF ahead of a 10-date residency in Munich.

“I don’t have any plans for new music at all,” she said.

“I want a big break after all this and I think I want to do other creative things just for a little while.

“You know, I don’t even sing at home at all. How strange is that?”

The star’s last album came out in 2021, and she has spent the past two years playing a weekend residency in Las Vegas, recently completing her 90th show at the 4,000-capacity Caesar’s Palace.

The show is due to conclude in November, and Adele said the experience had been emotionally draining.

“Even though it’s a very manageable size of crowd, it’s really been an emotional exchange,” she said.

“I’m sure I’ll feel even more like [that] every night after the shows in Munich. But it’s a positive thing. It’s just such an exchange of energy.”

However, not every Vegas concert has gone to plan.

In June, Adele angrily cursed an audience member who allegedly yelled “Pride sucks” during one of her shows.

“Did you come to my… show and just say that Pride sucks?” she scolded. “Don’t be so… ridiculous.

“If you have nothing nice to say, shut up, all right?”

Asked about the incident, the star admitted she was easily riled up.

“Everything makes me angry,” she told ZDF. “Absolutely everything.

“I’m 36 years old. I’m old and grumpy now.”

Her Munich shows will be on entirely different scale to the Las Vegas residency, with 74,000 fans expected to watch her every night in a specially-built “pop up” stadium.

The venue will also host an “Adele experience” featuring an English pub, a stage for a cover band and stalls selling specially designed cocktails.

Organisers are also aiming to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest outdoor screen of all time, measuring 220m in length.

Adele posted pictures of the venue to her Instagram account on Sunday, calling the set-up “bloody exciting”.

And she told ZDF that the video installation would enhance the experience for fans.

“They just want to see your face and know it’s you, so the screens are enormous.”

The first show will take place on 2 August but the residency is yet to sell out, with 5% of tickets still available, according to German press agency DPA.

Promoter Marek Lieberberg said the tickets at the upper and lower ends of the price range had the most availability. The cheapest tickets cost €79 (£66) and the most expensive €430 (£360).

But despite all the acclaim, Adele said one of the reasons she wants to take a break from music is because of a struggle with the limelight.

“I miss everything about before I was famous, I think probably being anonymous the most,” she said.

“I like that I get to make music all the time, whenever I want to, and people are receptive to it and like it. That’s pretty unimaginable. But the fame side of it, I absolutely hate.

“The fact that people are even interested in my songs and my voice is pretty wild. I don’t think it ever gets normal. So it’s worth it, the balance.”

Country singer Ingrid Andress has apologised and admitted being drunk while performing a much-derided rendition of the US national anthem, at a baseball stadium.

Andress’s erratic performance of The Star-Spangled Banner was widely shared after Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby, in Texas, on Monday.

“I was drunk last night,” wrote Andress, who has previously received four Grammy Award nominations.

“I’m checking myself into a facility today to get the help I need. That was not me last night. I apologize to MLB, all the fans, and this country I love so much for that rendition.”

She added: “I’ll let y’all know how rehab is – I hear it’s super fun.”

Andress’s a-capella version of the anthem was called “painful” and “one of the worst national-anthem renditions ever”, on social media.

The Daily Beast headline said: “America unites over new all-time worst national-anthem performance.”

Some people posted clips of Philadelphia Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm apparently smirking as Andress was singing.

But she also received sympathy and support following her apology.

“I’m so sorry you’re going through this,” singer and actress Lucy Hale wrote. Sending you a lot of my thoughts. Take care of you and you’re going to come out of this so much stronger.”

Country star Martina McBride said: “Sending lots of love and positivity. You got this.”

Singer-songwriter Julia Michaels said: “Love you, girl. I’m sorry you’re going through this. And I’m sorry the world can be so cruel. Here for you XX.”

Fellow singer-songwriter Carly Pearce said: “Being this open takes a lot. You’ve got this. Hang in there.”

And one fan posted a video of Andress on stage at a concert, to show her “true talent”.

Andress appeared as an a-cappella singer on NBC series The Sing-Off, in 2010 – and after forging a solo career, was nominated for the 2021 Grammy Award for Best New Artist.

She also co-wrote Charli XCX’s hit song Boys and Bebe Rexha’s Girl in the Mirror.

Billionaire Elon Musk has said he will move the headquarters of two of his most high-profile companies, rocket firm SpaceX and social media platform X, from California to Texas.

He said the move was due to recent laws passed by the state – in particular a new law which prevents schools from making rules requiring staff tell anyone, including parents, information about a child’s gender identity.

A spokesperson for the governor said the law keeps “children safe while protecting the critical role of parents”.

But Mr Musk called it “the last straw” in a post on his social media platform.

The billionaire previously moved Tesla’s headquarters to Texas in 2021 and he is a resident of the state – which has no income tax.

The issue of what schools should tell parents about their children’s gender identities has become a major topic of debate in the US.

LGBTQ advocates say students have a right to privacy, but others argue parents have a right to know what is happening with their children.

“It protects the child-parent relationship by preventing politicians and school staff from inappropriately intervening in family matters and attempting to control if, when, and how families have deeply personal conversations,” Brandon Richards told the Associated Press.

Mr Musk, who has a transgender daughter, has previously said he “supports trans” while expressing impatience with pronouns – calling them an “aesthetic nightmare”.

The billionaire’s daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson filed to cut ties with him in 2022.

She said she no longer wanted to “be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form” when applying to legally change her name and gender.

Last year, Mr Musk said he would lobby to criminalise transgender medical treatment.

“Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas,” he said in a post on X on Tuesday, noting that he had previously expressed his opposition to the bill.

California Governor Gavin Newsom criticised Mr Musk’s decision on social media.

“You bent the knee,” he posted, along with a screenshot of a 2022 post from Donald Trump which said Mr Musk would “drop to [his] knees and beg” if he asked.

States have historically competed aggressively to woo companies to establish headquarters, bringing with them high-paying corporate jobs.

SpaceX, which employs more than 5,000 people in California, according to state records, also already has a large base of operations in Texas.

In response to Mr Musk’s pledge, Greg Abbott, governor for Texas, said: “This cements Texas as the leader in space exploration.”

Neither SpaceX nor X responded to requests for comment about whether the decision to move headquarters would lead to job cuts in California.

The move comes after Mr Musk formally endorsed Donald Trump for president following the assassination attempt on him on Saturday.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Mr Musk would be directing $45m a month toward his campaign.

Mr Musk responded on X with a meme implying the report was false, though he later seemed to suggest there was some truth to the claim by responding positively to a post claiming he was pledging millions of dollars to help Trump get elected.

The daughter of Dubai’s ruler appears to have announced her divorce on social media.

A post from the verified Instagram account of Sheikha Mahra bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said she was ending her marriage, and reads: “I hereby declare our divorce.”

The BBC has reached out to officials in the country to seek clarity on the matter.

There has been no public comment from Sheikha Mahra’s husband, Sheikh Mana bin Mohammed bin Rashid bin Mana Al Maktoum, or her father.

The post, which begins “Dear Husband”, concluded – “I divorce you, I divorce you, and I divorce you,” seemingly using the Islamic practice known as triple talaq.

The practice has been banned in many countries, but usually allows husbands to swiftly divorce their wives by saying “I divorce you” three times.

“Take care. Your ex-wife,” the post on Instagram added.

All images of Sheikha Mahra’s husband appear to have been deleted from her account. Sheikh Mana’s account likewise seems stripped of pictures of his wife.

The couple married in April 2023 in a lavish ceremony, and their first child was born two months ago.

Some comments from Instagram users have speculated that Sheikha Mahra’s account could have been hacked. There has been no official indication of this. At time of publication, the post declaring her divorce was listed as one day old.

Dubai’s government and the UAE Embassy in London did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Joe Biden has tested positive for Covid-19 and is suffering mild symptoms, the White House has said.

Karine Jean-Pierre, his press secretary, said the US president is vaccinated and boosted. He has tested positive for Covid twice before.

Mr Biden, 81, was seen earlier on Wednesday visiting supporters in Las Vegas and speaking at an event. He has cancelled a campaign speech later in the night.

The illness comes as he faces increasing pressure to step aside because of his age.

US media reports both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Majority Leader Hakeem Jefferies – the top two Democrats in the US Congress – separately met with Mr Biden privately and expressed that there is deep concern his candidacy could negatively impact other House and Senate races.

Ms Jean-Pierre said the president planned to isolate at his home in Delaware while he carries out “all of his duties fully during that time”.

The president’s doctor, Kevin O’Connor, said Mr Biden presented with upper respiratory symptoms, including a runny nose and a cough and was given his first dose of Paxlovid.

He felt fine during his first event of the day, but later tested positive Dr O’Connor said.

Mr Biden later used X/Twitter to thank everyone for “the well wishes” and said he would “work to get the job done for the American people” while in recovery.

In another tweet his account stated: “I’m sick”, before replying back: “… of Elon Musk and his rich buddies trying to buy this election. And if you agree, pitch in here.”

The tweet pointed to a donations portal.

Reporters on the Las Vegas trip said they were rushed to the city’s airport following the announcement.

Mr Biden moved slowly and cautiously up the steps to the plane, video shows. He was not wearing a mask.

As he boarded Air Force One he was heard to say: “Good, I feel good.”

The president was forced to cancel a speech at UnidosUS, a Latino civil rights organisation.

Mr Biden’s illness comes as he faces growing calls to withdraw from the election race.

Nearly two dozen Democratic politicians have called for him to step aside in recent weeks, including Adam Schiff, a congressman from California,, who said today he had serious doubts about whether the president could beat former President Donald Trump.

He called on Mr Biden to “pass the torch”.

Mr Schiff said that Mr Biden “has been one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history”, and he could “secure his legacy of leadership” by allowing another Democrat to step forward.

Mr Schumer and Mr Jeffries – Congress’ top two Democrats – met with Mr Biden privately in recent days and expressed concerns by fellow lawmakers that him being at the top of the November election ticket could hurt their chances for controlling either chamber in Congress, according to reports from ABC News, the Washington Post and Politico.

“The President told both leaders he is the nominee of the party, he plans to win, and looks forward to working with both of them to pass his 100 days agenda to help working families,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said after the reports.

A spokesman for Mr Jeffries said, “it was a private conversation that will remain private”. Mr Schumer’s office called the reporting “idle speculation” but added the Democratic leader “conveyed the views of his caucus directly to President Biden”.

In an interview with BET, which was due to be broadcast on Wednesday evening, Mr Biden said he did not feel he could pass the mantle with the country so “divided”.

The president also said, for the first time, that he would consider dropping out of the race if any of his doctors said he had a “medical condition”.

There has been outrage in Italy after a female tourist in Florence was pictured miming a lewd act on a statue of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and excess.

In the photos – which were shared online by the social media account Welcome To Florence – the woman can also be seen kissing the life-size statue at night-time.

The Bacchus stands on a plinth on a street corner near the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge and is a modern replica of the 16th Century work by sculptor Giambologna. The original is kept in the nearby Bargello museum.

The photos sparked angry reactions from social media users, some of whom called for the woman’s arrest.

“This is the result of years of attempts at turning Florence into Disneyland,” said another.

Patrizia Asproni, the president of Confcultura, an association that promotes Italy’s cultural heritage, told Italian media that these “repeated shows of rudeness and barbarity” take place “because everyone feels entitled to do whatever they want with impunity”.

Ms Asproni called for the application of the “Singapore model” with “tight checks, sky-high fines and zero tolerance” for bad behaviour.

Antonella Rinaldi, Florence’s archaeology and fine arts superintendent, said: “Tourists are welcome here but they need to respect our artworks, be they originals or replicas.”

“Although I doubt this lady – whom I condemn – even knows the difference,” she added.

Florence is one of the world’s foremost tourist destinations.

In 2023, around 1.5 million people visited the city – which has a population of just 382,000 – between June and September.

Local residents have long struggled with the huge influx of tourists, which in the summer months turns Florence’s narrow streets into steady streams of people.

The so-called “overtourism” phenomenon has prompted several cities around the world to make changes to the way they welcome tourists.

Last month, the mayor of Barcelona pledged to eliminate short-term tourist lets in the city within five years, while several hotspots – like Venice or Japan’s Mount Fuji – have started to introduce daily charges to try to limit numbers.

Cyanide has been found in the blood of all six people who died in a luxury hotel suite in Bangkok, say doctors after examining their bodies.

Based on the initial post-mortem examination, they say there is “no other cause” that would explain their deaths “except for cyanide”.

But further tests are being carried out to determine the “intensity” of the deadly chemical and to rule out any other toxins.

Forensic investigators had earlier found traces of cyanide on the teacups used by the victims, all of whom are of Vietnamese origin including two with dual US citizenship. Police suspect that one of the dead was behind the poisoning and was driven by crushing debt – but have not said who.

The victims’ lips and nails had turned dark purple indicating a lack of oxygen, while their internal organs turned “blood red”, which is another sign of cyanide poisoning, said Professor Kornkiat Vongpaisarnsin of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Chulalongkorn University.

Doctor Chanchai Sittipunt, the dean of the Faculty of Medicine, said they still needed to find out how much cyanide was in the blood of the deceased.

“But from what we have detected – from observation, from internal organ check, from finding cyanide in the blood during the screening test – there is no other cause that would be the factor that would cause their deaths, except for cyanide,” he told reporters.

The deceased were found by housekeepers at the Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel in the Thai capital late on Tuesday.

Investigators believe they had been dead for between 12 and 24 hours by then.

The mystery around the shocking discovery made international headlines.

Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin ordered an urgent investigation into the case, stressing that the deaths were the result of a “private matter”, and there was no suggestion of public danger.

Police have since begun to piece together what might have happened.

Two of the six victims had loaned “tens of millions of Thai baht” to another of the deceased for investment purposes, authorities said. Ten million baht is worth nearly $280,000 (£215,000).

Earlier on Wednesday, Deputy Bangkok police chief Gen Noppassin Poonsawat told a press conference the group checked into the hotel separately over the weekend and were assigned five rooms – four on the seventh floor, and one on the fifth.

They had been scheduled to check out on Monday but failed to do so.

Four of the victims are Vietnamese nationals Thi Nguyen Phuong, 46, her husband Hong Pham Thanh, 49, Thi Nguyen Phuong Lan, 47, and Dinh Tran Phu, 37.

The other two are American citizens Sherine Chong, 56, and Dang Hung Van, 55.

The US state department has offered its condolences and said it is “closely monitoring” the situation. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is assisting Thai authorities in the investigation, Mr Srettha said.

The motive is not clear, but police said two of the six had loaned a substantial amount of money to another person in the group, who had not been paid back.

Police say on Monday afternoon all six victims gathered in the room on the fifth floor.

The group ordered food and tea, which was delivered to the room around 14:00 local time (08:00 BST) and received by Ms Chong – who was the only person in the room at the time.

According to the deputy police chief, a waiter offered to make tea for the guests but Ms Chong refused this. The waiter recalled that she “spoke very little and was visibly under stress”, authorities said.

The waiter later left the room.

The rest of the group then began streaming into the room at various points, between 14:03 and 14:17. No one else is believed to have entered the room apart from the six inside and police have said the door to the room was locked from within.

Police say there were no signs of a struggle, robbery or forced entry. They later found traces of cyanide in all six tea cups.

Pictures released by the police show plates of untouched food left on a table in the room, some of them still covered in cling wrap.

There was a seventh name on the group’s hotel booking, whom police identified as the younger sister of one of the victims. She had left Thailand last week for the Vietnamese coastal city of Da Nang and is not involved in the incident, police said.

Relatives interviewed by the police said Thi Nguyen Phuong and Hong Pham Thanh, a couple, owned a road construction business and had given money to Ms Chong to invest in a hospital building project in Japan.

Police suspect that Mr Tran, a make-up artist based in Da Nang, had also been “duped” into making an investment.

Mr Tran’s mother Tuý told BBC Vietnamese that he had travelled to Thailand on Friday and had called home on Sunday to say he had to extend his stay until Monday. That was the last his family had heard from him. She rang him again on Monday but he did not answer the call.

Ms Chong had hired Mr Tran as her personal make-up artist for the trip, one of his students told BBC Vietnamese. Mr Tran’s father, Phu, told Vietnamese media that his son was hired last week by a Vietnamese woman to travel to Thailand.

The six bodies were discovered one day after Thailand expanded its visa-free entry scheme to travellers from 93 countries and territories to revitalise its tourism industry.

Cyanide is a rapidly-acting, highly toxic chemical that is potentially deadly. Low levels of cyanide occur in nature and in products we eat and use. But in larger doses it is a notorious poison, and has been used as a chemical warfare agent because of its fast-acting and highly lethal properties.

It can occur as a colourless gas or liquid or in crystal form. People can be exposed to cyanide by breathing it in, absorbing it through the skin, or eating food or liquids that contain it.

When consumed in large amounts, cyanide can lead to lung injury, coma and death within seconds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Even in smaller doses, cyanide is still very harmful, causing chest pain, nausea, shortness of breath and vomiting.

Cyanide can produce a “bitter almond” smell but not everyone can detect this and it doesn’t always give off an odour.

Germany is planning to nearly halve military aid for Ukraine next year, from around €8bn (£6.7bn; $8.7bn) to around €4bn, according to a draft budget approved by the government.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner said Ukraine’s financing was “secure for the foreseeable future” due to a G7 group of rich nations scheme to raise $50bn from interest on frozen Russian assets.

Germany is Ukraine’s second biggest military donor, after the US. In 2024, Berlin’s budget for Kyiv is set at nearly €7.5bn.

The planned aid cut comes amid fears in Ukraine and among its European allies that US funds could be slashed or even stopped if Donald Trump wins the presidency in November’s election.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The draft budget was approved by the German government on Wednesday.

Although military aid to Ukraine is set to be reduced, the defence budget for 2025 will be raised by €1.3bn to €53.25bn.

This is still less than the €6bn for which Defence Minister Boris Pistorius had been pushing.

Overall, Germany is planning to meet the target of 2% GDP spending on defence as required by the Nato alliance.

The defence budget still needs to be approved by lawmakers.

In other developments:

• Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday carried out the latest swap of prisoners of war, with each side receiving back 95 military personnel. The United Arab Emirates facilitated the exchange
• A source in Ukraine’s military confirmed to the BBC that Ukrainian troops had withdrawn from the village of Krynky – a key foothold on the Russian-occupied eastern bank of the Dnipro river in the southern Kherson region. But the source added that Ukraine’s operations in the area continued
• Britain’s new Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will host some 45 European leaders on Thursday at a summit he hopes will begin to reset London’s relationship with the continent. The gathering of the European Political Community (EPC) will also give leaders a chance to reaffirm support for Ukraine.

Germany’s reputation for super-efficiency has suffered a body blow.

As football fans poured in and out of cities across the country for Euro 2024, they discovered the trains weren’t as good as they thought.

One supporters’ group even said services were better when Russia hosted the World Cup.

Fans praised “sensational” pricing deals which, for ticket holders, included discounted or even free local travel as part of a sustainability drive.

But Thomas Concannon from the Football Supporters’ Association complained: “We were in constant contact with fans who were experiencing problems.”

He believes surprise at the situation was partly borne out of a “pre-conceived reputation about Germany that the trains run on time”.

Lindsey and Darren Ramskill from Goole in East Yorkshire went to six out of England’s seven matches and experienced packed trains, stop-start services and poor communication.

“I’m not moaning about British trains anymore,” said Lindsey. “Ours are better.”

Another football supporter from the neighbouring Netherlands, who travels a lot for his work as a motivational speaker, was less shocked.

“If I can, I try to avoid Germany now because there are always problems,” said Wiebe Wakker.

After the England v Netherlands semi-final, his delayed journey out of Dortmund included an “unbearably hot” carriage with no functioning air conditioning.

“Everyone was sweating,” he said. It was so “horrible” he got off and took a taxi the rest of the way with some England supporters.

Within Germany there’s been exasperation with the Deutsche Bahn national rail operator for years.

Just 64% cent of long-distance trains ran on time in 2023. That compares with a declining level of punctuality in Great Britain of 67.8% trains arriving on schedule in the year to March 2023.

In Germany, calls for desperately needed investment are often heard as part of a wider debate about how to boost a flagging economy.

German transport lobby group Allianz pro Schiene (pro-Rail alliance) compared spending per person on railway infrastructure across 14 European countries including the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

It found Germany was 10th last year at €115 (£97) per person, while the UK was sixth and Luxembourg topped the group with €512 per head.

For Germans it is no surprise that well-used motto “Vorsprung durch Technik” (Headstart through Technology) belies a less potent, more sluggish, picture.

Europe’s largest economy has for years quite publicly struggled with how to modernise.

Analysts do not just blame a lack of investment but a failure to digitise the economy married with tedious red tape.

Rules and paperwork can suck up valuable time for both businesses and people.

One example, in Berlin, is that you are legally required to make an in-person appointment to register a new home address within two weeks.

But good luck getting one.

The local government website offers no available appointments at all on Wedneday, right through to mid-September.

Both private and public sectors have seen under-investment for years, says Professor Hubertus Bardt from the German Economic Institute (IW).

Railways have undergone a “here and there” approach to repairs, he says, which “causes delays and doesn’t really solve the problems”.

More major works are now getting going such as the five-month mega-renewal on the Frankfurt-to-Mannheim line.

But Professor Bardt believes a “huge programme” of broader spending is needed which looks well beyond the annual budgets that can cause political agony for Germany’s ruling coalition.

“We have thousands of bridges that have to be renovated or rebuilt,” he says. The problem is primarily in western Germany which is creaking under infrastructure built in the sixties and seventies, while the east saw fresh investment after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.

The overall view for Germany is worrying, as economic growth forecasts continue to put it at the bottom of the pile when compared with other G7 major economies.

It’s projected to grow by just 0.2% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Efficiency, unrivalled industry and punctuality are labels that have stubbornly stuck to Germany’s reputation abroad but have long worn thin at home.

When Usha Vance took to the stage at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night, she told the crowd about the “most determined person I know” her husband, the newly selected vice-presidential candidate JD Vance.

“That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry, is a testament to this great country,” she told the crowd.

Mrs Vance humanized the Ohio senator and running mate of Republican White House candidate Donald Trump by describing him as a man who longed for a “tight-knit family”.

As she introduced her husband, she told thousands of onlookers more about her “meat and potatoes kind of guy” – a man who adapted to her vegetarian diet and learned how to cook Indian food for her mother.

While she does not seek out the political spotlight, Mrs Vance, 38, wields considerable influence over her husband’s career, he has said.

And it is the stellar CV of his wife that leaves Mr Vance feeling “humbled” he has said.

As he took the stage at the Republican convention, Mr Vance echoed previous praise he’s made about his wife being a “incredible lawyer and a better mom”.

In an interview on Fox News last month, she said: “I believe in JD, and I really love him, and so we’ll just sort of see what happens with our life.”

On Wednesday, she echoed that sentiment: “Neither JD nor I expected to find ourselves in this position”.

The two met as students at Yale Law School in 2013, when they joined a discussion group on “social decline in white America”, according to the New York Times.

The content influenced Mr Vance’s best-selling 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, about his childhood in the white working-class Rust Belt, which became a 2020 movie directed by Ron Howard.

Mr Vance, 39, has said he considered her his “Yale spirit guide” when they were classmates at the elite university.

Mrs Vance previously graduated with a BA in history from Yale University and was also a Gates Scholar at Cambridge University, where she came away with an MPhil in early modern history, according to her LinkedIn profile.

The couple wed in 2014 and have three children: two sons, Ewan and Vivek, and a daughter, Mirabel.

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Mrs Vance – née Chilukuri, the child of Indian immigrants – was born and raised in the suburbs of San Diego, California.

Her husband regularly rails about “woke” ideas he says are pushed by Democrats, but his wife was formerly a registered Democrat and is now a corporate litigator at a San Francisco law firm which proudly touts its reputation for being “radically progressive”.

Mrs Vance once clerked for Brett Kavanaugh, now a Supreme Court justice, on the District of Columbia court of appeals. Then she clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Both men are part of the highest court’s conservative majority.

“Usha definitely brings me back to Earth a little bit,” Mr Vance told the Megyn Kelly Show podcast in 2020. “And if I maybe get a little bit too cocky or a little too proud I just remind myself that she is way more accomplished than I am.”

“People don’t realise just how brilliant she is,” he added, saying she is able to digest a 1,000-page book in only a few hours.

She is the “powerful female voice on his left shoulder”, giving him guidance, he said.

As Mr Vance gears up for what is certain to be a gruelling campaign for the White House, he may need her counsel more than ever before.