Russia’s defence ministry claimed it prevented Ukraine from advancing further on the fifth day of the unprecedented attack into the province of Kursk, though there were reports of regional power outages after an electricity substation was hit.

Fighting was said to be taking place in three villages between seven and 11 miles from the international border – Ivashkovskoye, Malaya Loknya and Olgovka – similar locations to where Ukraine is estimated to have advanced previously.

In a morning statement, the defence ministry said it had “thwarted the attempts of the enemy’s mobile groups to get to the depth of the Russian territory” and there were no other significant reports to the contrary.

Russia’s FSB domestic security agency also imposed a “counter-terrorism” regime on Kursk and two neighbouring oblasts, Bryansk and Belgorod, giving the authorities sweeping powers to lock down an area and impose controls on communications.

Ukrainian leaders and its military have refrained from commenting on its attempt to take the war directly on to Russian soil, though on Friday afternoon Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, implied the operation had been discussed at a meeting of the defence staff.

A report from Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi had, Zelenskiy said, “also covered our defensive actions in the directions from which Russia launched attacks on Ukrainian territory” – an apparent reference to the unprecedented attack launched this week.

Ukrainian regular forces burst over the border north-east of Sumy on Tuesday in a surprise attack on a lightly defended sector of the frontline and advanced about 13 miles, capturing towns and villages and destroying a Russian convoy 25 miles from the border, causing dozens of casualties.

It was the first time that Ukraine had attacked with regular forces inside Russia’s territory – a tactic that at one point might have provoked considerable anxiety among Kyiv’s western backers for fear of escalation from the Kremlin.

Overnight, however, Ukraine received a vote of confidence from the US, which announced a further $125m (£98m) package of military aid, including artillery shells, rockets and anti-aircraft Stinger missiles.

Ukraine appeared to have inflicted another surprise on the Russians when a short video emerged on Saturday of five soldiers bearing a Ukrainian and Georgian flag outside a club building in Poroz, two miles inside the border in Belgorod province – and about 45 miles south of this week’s incursion.

Though there was no immediate sign that this was any more than a stunt, it served to demonstrate the vulnerability of Russia’s border away from the combat zones inside Ukraine, where the war has been raging since Moscow’s full-scale invasion began more than two years ago.

Alexey Smirnov, the acting governor of the Kursk region, said on Friday that a fire had broken out in a transformer substation after debris from a Ukrainian drone had crashed into the facility. Power was out in some frontline areas, he added, including Kurchatov, where the Kursk nuclear power station is based.

Russian officials said there was no impact on the nuclear plant on Saturday, which was said to be operating normally, though there were reports it was being reinforced. Few believe Ukraine’s military has the capacity to get close to the nuclear plant, which is roughly 30 miles from the nearest fighting as the crow flies.

Nevertheless, Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Friday he had been monitoring the battlefield situation. “At this juncture, I would like to appeal to all sides to exercise maximum restraint in order to avoid a nuclear accident,” Grossi said.

With Kamala Harris now poised to take on Donald Trump in the 5 November US presidential election, her fellow Democrats are enjoying a resurgence of optimism that was sorely lacking for much of this year, as Joe Biden struggled through a bumpy re-election campaign that he ultimately abandoned.

Since the president’s stumbling performance in his late June debate against Trump and his shock decision to withdraw from the race weeks later, Harris has rapidly ascended to become the party’s presumptive presidential nominee. Polls have shown her drawing even with, and sometimes overtaking, Trump in the support of voters nationally, and in the handful of crucial swing states that will determine the election.

The vice-president has pressed her attack by holding energetic rallies across the country, most recently with Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor who Harris this week selected as her running mate. Democratic strategists and activists say Harris has given the party a much-needed reset after months of jitters over whether Biden’s struggling candidacy was setting the party up for a historic wipeout.

“Among the base, the enthusiasm is off the charts, probably the most excited I’ve seen people since the Obama campaign,” said Ben Tribbett, a Democratic strategist in Virginia. “And I think a lot of that has to do with a sense of relief. I think people really felt like we were in a situation that was unfixable and untenable.”

Biden resoundingly defeated Trump in the 2020 election, but in the years that followed, the former president strengthened his grip on the Republican party, while his Democratic successor struggled to maintain the support of voters as the US economy weathered its worst bout of inflation since the 1980s, and voters grew skeptical of the 81-year-old’s ability to do the job.

Trump swept the Republican primaries at the start of the year, while Biden embarked on a re-election campaign with arguments that Trump was unfit to serve, and posed a threat to democracy and reproductive freedom.

But despite the former president’s conviction in May on felony business fraud charges and three pending criminal cases against him, polls showed that Biden never gained a clear advantage over Trump, particularly in the six states – Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia – expected to decide the election.

Worse still for Democrats was the possibility that Biden’s presence on ballots nationwide would harm the party’s chances of regaining the majority in the House of Representatives, and keeping control of the Senate, particularly after he struggled to articulate his points and parry Trump’s attacks in their debate.

That nervousness has, at least for now, been alleviated by Biden’s decision to bow out and endorse Harris, a former California senator who made an unsuccessful bid for the party’s nomination in 2020, and who would be the first Black female president, as well as the first of south Asian descent, if elected.

“It’s kind of like just a big sigh of relief,” said Iva King, who co-leads a group of the progressive Indivisible movement in Athens, Georgia. “A lot of us really appreciated President Biden. I think he has done a great job. But like many people around the country, after we saw the debate, it was like, oh, this isn’t looking good.”

Public opinion surveys taken since Harris launched her campaign have shown the vice-president with a level of support that the Biden campaign did not have.

A slew of recent national polls show her with the lead over Trump nationally, though in swing states they have been less conclusive about which candidate is ahead. Nonetheless, two major forecasters, Cook Political Report and the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, this week announced new ratings that moved swing states where they previously believed Tump had a narrow lead back into their toss-up category.

While noting that Trump has stronger poll numbers than he did at this point four years ago, Cook Political Report’s editor-in-chief, Amy Walter, said: “For the first time in a long time, Democrats are united and energized, while Republicans are on their heels. Unforced errors from both Trump and his vice-presidential nominee, JD Vance, have shifted the media spotlight from Biden’s age to Trump’s liabilities. In other words, the presidential contest has moved from one that was Trump’s to lose to a much more competitive contest.”

The former US president has begun characterizing Harris as too liberal, and seized on stances against fracking she took in her 2020 campaign and her role, under Biden, in attempting to stem the flow of migrants crossing into the US from Mexico. Trump’s running mate, the Ohio senator JD Vance, questioned Walz’s military service after his selection this week.

Dan Moore, a member of Wisconsin’s Grassroots Menomonee Falls Area, which is affiliated with Indivisible, credited Harris with energizing Democratic faithful and shifting the age conversation from Biden to Trump, who is 78. But he warned of the potency of attacking the vice-president as a “California liberal”.

“I think that has the ability to get some traction, and it’s just something that I hear from people” who say, “she’s way too liberal for me”, Moore said.

Some of Trump and Vance’s arguments have backfired. Trump drew condemnation for questioning Harris’s identity as African American, while Vance is on the defensive after comments of him dismissing Democrats as “a bunch of childless cat ladies” resurfaced. On Wednesday, the prominent Republican strategist Karl Rove issued a public warning in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, which are closely read by conservatives.

“The Trump-Vance ticket needs to become much more disciplined and settle soon on an effective line of attack against Harris-Walz that wins over swing voters and then stick to it. If it can’t achieve both these goals, a race Mr Trump was on the verge of winning three weeks ago could be lost,” Rove wrote.

Plenty can change in the less than three months remaining before election day, and Republicans have further avenues of attack, including lingering discontent over inflation, Tribbett said.

But Harris will have more opportunities to reintroduce herself to the public, including her 10 September debate against Trump. More pivotally will be her address at the Democratic national convention in Chicago later this month, where she will have the chance to further enliven a Democratic base that has already been fired up by her candidacy.

“I think if she does it right, I think she will emerge from the convention with a bounce,” he said. “If she’s fully engaged the Democratic base, that bounce will put her in the lead everywhere.”

With the breaking spun, won and done in an Olympics cameo in Paris, Australia’s B-girl Rachael Gunn, aka Raygun, has bowed out on her own terms.

But Australia’s first Olympic break dancer has hit back at critics who have slammed her performance at Paris 24, after she failed to receive a point from the judges and was knocked out at the round-robin stage.

Gunn turned heads with her performance that stood out from the show put on by the other breakers, and won plenty of admirers for her presence on stage as she wore her Australia team uniform in place of typical breaking gear.

“All my moves are original,” Gunn said on the inspiration for her performance. “Creativity is really important to me. I go out there and I show my artistry.

“Sometimes it speaks to the judges, and sometimes it doesn’t. I do my thing, and it represents art. That is what it is about.”

The buzz was big around Place de la Concorde with superstar American rapper and Olympics aficionado Snoop Dogg taking to the stage to show off a few of his own moves before opening the event.

There was no doubt about the dynamic skills of the athletes, who are judged on creativity, personality, technique, variety, musicality and vocabulary, which is the variation and quantity of moves.

With two live DJs, competitors engaged in three judged battles, which involved two 60-second routines each, before the elimination round and then medals.

But with competition stretching five-and-a-half hours even Snoop, the unofficial Games mascot, had seen enough and made his departure midway through the competition.

An Olympic refugee team breaker, Manizha Talash, who was born in Afghanistan before fleeing due to the Taliban, made an early political statement by unveiling a cape during her round with the words “Free Afghan Women” and was applauded by her Dutch competitor India Sardjoe.

Gunn’s first battle was against American Logistx but the Australian was no match for her international rivals, unable to win a point in any three contests including against 16-year-old French B-girl Syssy.

A university lecturer with a PhD in cultural studies, the 36-year-old said she knew she couldn’t compete athletically with their tricks and spins and strength moves so tried to be more creative.

“What I wanted to do was come out here and do something new and different and creative – that’s my strength, my creativity,” Gunn said.

“I was never going to beat these girls on what they do best, the dynamic and the power moves, so I wanted to move differently, be artistic and creative because how many chances do you get that in a lifetime to do that on an international stage.

“I was always the underdog and wanted to make my mark in a different way.”

Gunn was asked whether breaking deserved to be an Olympic sport but responded that it filled the criteria.

“What is an Olympic sport? It’s so broad here… what are the similarities between dressage and artistic swimming and the 100m sprint and the pentathlon,” she said.

“Breaking is clearly athletic and it clearly requires a whole level of dedication across a number of different aspects so I feel like it meets that criteria. And it’s really bringing a new level of excitement.”

Japanese B-girl Ami Yuasa won gold, topping all three rounds in a gold medal battle against Nicka (Dominika Banevic) from Lithuania.

“Breaking is my expression,” Yuasa said, “(an) expression, an art, but I want to say that breaking also could be part of sports.”

While the athletes will compete for medals in Paris, the winners could become obscure trivia questions with Los Angeles not including it in the program in 2028 and Brisbane highly unlikely.

The Oceania champion said it was disappointing the American Olympic organisers had snubbed it, given the roots of breaking were in that country.

“It was disappointing that it was decided before we’d even had a chance to show it so I think that was possibly a little premature,” Gunn said.

“I wonder if they’re kicking themselves now, particularly because they’ve got some great American breakers who could totally be on the podium. But it’s not the end for breaking, the breaking culture is so strong.”

Australia’s 16-year-old B-boy Jeff Dunne, known as “J Attack”, will line up in the male competition on Saturday.

After a fortnight surrounded by a gender-row controversy, Imane ­Khelif became an Olympic gold medallist for the first time as she defeated the world champion Yang Liu of China in the women’s 66kg ­category by unanimous decision.

The greatest victory of the 25-year-old’s career was sealed in jubilant scenes at Roland Garros as the Algerian diaspora showed up in numbers, filling out Court Philippe-Chatrier and raucously supporting her for every second of the gold medal bout. Khelif is Algeria’s first Olympic gold medallist in women’s boxing and their first boxer overall to win gold since 1996.

“As for whether I qualify or not, whether I am a woman or not, I have made many statements in the media,” Khelif said after her victory. “I am fully qualified to take part in this competition. I’m a woman like any other woman. I was born a woman, I lived a woman, I competed as a woman, there’s no doubt about that. [The detractors] are enemies of success, that is what I call them. And that also gives my success a special taste because of these attacks.”

Khelif is one of two boxers – Lin Yu-ting fights in the 57kg final on Saturday – who has been subjected to a gender eligibility row following their bans from competing in the 2023 boxing world championships after both failed a gender eligibility test administered by the International Boxing Association (IBA).

Before these events, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) took the decision to strip the IBA of recognition as boxing’s governing body and expel it from the Olympics over a number of issues, including corruption, financial transparency and governance.

Three days after the Algerian ­diaspora in France had rallied around Khelif in her semi-final battle, making their support clear after a difficult two weeks, they returned late on Friday even louder. After the first three finals of the night had finished, the 15,000-strong crowd came alive at the first mention of Khelif’s name. Chants of “Imane! Imane!” echoed around the stadium.

“My honour is intact now,” Khelif said. “But the attacks that I heard in social media were extremely bad and they are meaningless and they impact the dignity of people and I think that now people’s thinking has changed.

“As for the IBA, since 2018 I have been boxing under their umbrella. They know me very well, they know what I’m capable of, they know how I’ve developed over the years but now they are not recognised any more. They hate me and I don’t know why. I send them a single message: with this gold medal, my dignity, my honour is above everything else.”

It had been a fascinating battle between two skilful boxers boasting similar styles: both tall at 5ft 10in, with excellent ranges and a preference for slowly picking off their opponents. At 32 years old, Yang is also extremely experienced.

It was Yang who tried to surprise her opponent by departing from her usual style and forcing herself on the front foot. Even as Yang landed some blows and imposed herself early on, Khelif countered Yang brilliantly. With the first round judged unanimously in her favour, Khelif grew in confidence. Even as Yang drew on her experience in the final round, Khelif kept herself out of trouble.

At the final bell, the pair hugged and shook hands with each of their opposing coaching teams. They hugged again after Khelif was ­pronounced the victor. After an elaborate celebration, a joyful Khelif leaped on to the shoulders of one of her coaches to be carried around the stadium as the crowd roared.

Khelif and the three other ­medallists emerged shortly after for the medal ceremony, with most of the crowd staying in their seats in order to scream the Algerian national anthem.

At least 80 people have been killed in Israeli missile strikes on a school compound in Gaza City, according to the territory’s civil defence service, the latest in a string of attacks on schools that the Israeli army says are targeting militants using them as bases.

The bombing of the Tabeen school compound, where about 6,000 displaced people were sheltering, was hit when many people were preparing for dawn prayers on Saturday, and reportedly caused a fire. Unverified video from the scene showed horrific loss of life, with body parts and pools of blood scattered around.

The death toll has not yet been confirmed by the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant casualties.

Fadel Naeem, the director of al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City, told the Associated Press that the facility had received 70 bodies of those killed in the strikes and the body parts of at least 10 others.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that the Palestinian claim was inflated, and at least 20 fighters were among the dead.

Israeli forces have targeted more than a dozen schools in the past few weeks – including at one point four in four days – adding to the Gaza war’s staggering death toll, which is now approaching 40,000.

Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties, saying that its fighters use civilian infrastructure as a cover, which makes buildings such as schools and hospitals valid targets. Hamas denies those claims.

Almost all of the strip’s 2.3-million population has been forced to flee their homes, often multiple times, over the past 10 months, and schools in particular have been used as shelters.

According to the civil defence, three missiles targeted a two-storey building where women were using the top floor and men and boys the ground floor, which was also used as a space for prayer.

A Hamas political officer, Izzat el Reshiq, called the strikes a horrific crime and a serious escalation, adding in a statement that the dead did not include a “single combatant”.

The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority also made a rare statement on the attack. A spokesperson for the president, Mahmoud Abbas, urged the US – Israel’s most important diplomatic ally and weapons supplier – to “put an end to the blind support that leads to the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, including children, women, and the elderly”.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, said on X: “Israel is genociding the Palestinians one neighbourhood at the time, one hospital at the time, one school at the time, one refugee camp at the time, one safe zone at the time.”

A report issued by her office in March found there were “reasonable grounds” to determine that Israel had committed several acts of genocide in its war effort in Gaza.

Jordan and Egypt also immediately condemned the attack, with Egypt’s foreign ministry saying that Israel’s “deliberate killing” of Palestinians proves a lack of political will to end the war in Gaza.

Egypt, along with the US and Qatar, called this week for Israel and Hamas to resume negotiations to finalise a ceasefire and hostage-release deal, saying there were no excuses “from any party for further delay”.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel would send a delegation to the talks beginning on 15 August. His administration has been accused of repeatedly sabotaging ceasefire talks.

There has been no response yet from Hamas, and is unclear if the latest deadly strike will affect the militant group’s position.

Olympic skateboarder Nyjah Huston appears to have gone from a bronze medalist to a kind of bronze medalist at the Paris Games.

The American won bronze on 29 July but 10 days later he posted an Instagram story showing the medal appeared to have degraded significantly, with the surface looking dull and rusted.

“Alright so these Olympic medals look great when they’re brand new, but after letting it sit on my skin with some sweat for a little bit and then letting my friends wear it over the weekend, they’re apparently not as high quality as you would think,” he said. “I mean look at that thing. It’s looking rough. Even the front. It’s starting to chip off a little. So yeah I don’t know, Olympic medals, you maybe gotta step up the quality a little bit.”

Huston added in a further post that the “medal looks like it went to war and back.”

Paris 2024 medals contain a sliver of the Eiffel Tower as a nod to the host city but the exact make up of medals vary between Olympics. Gold medals are actually mostly silver with a gold coating. Bronze medals are usually a mix of copper, zinc and tin. Bronze combines with oxygen in the air if it is unprotected, forming a dull patina which would explain the damage to Huston’s medal. How quickly bronze degrades depends on the proportion of metals in the alloy, although cheaper metals often quicken the process.

“As any regular alloy, exposure to moisture will lead to decay. But having an alloy with cheap metals will catalyse the process,” Neeraj Gupta, a sculptor, told Indian Express.

A spokesperson for Paris 2024 told Time that athletes would be given replacements for any damaged medals.

“Paris 2024 is aware of a social media report from an athlete whose medal is showing damage a few days after it was awarded,” said the spokesperson. “Paris 2024 is working closely with the Monnaie de Paris, the institution tasked with the production and quality control of the medals, and together with the National Olympic Committee of the athlete concerned, in order to appraise the medal to understand the circumstances and cause of the damage.”

Huston, one of the most decorated skateboarders of all time, does not have much experience with bronze medals: he usually wins gold. The 29-year-old is a six-time world champion in street skateboarding and has won 12 golds at the Summer X Games.

Parliament is facing a once-in-a-generation chance to hand the terminally ill a choice over ending their life, the Labour peer championing a change in the law has said.

Charlie Falconer, the former lord chancellor whose bill was introduced into the House of Lords last month, revealed he had been reassured by Downing Street that it would not stand in the way of a historic Commons vote on assisted dying should its advocates secure one.

In an interview with the Observer, he said that some of the tragic stories already expressed by politicians on the issue were “but the tip of a ­parliamentary iceberg” in terms of the strength of feeling some peers and MPs had expressed to him. He is ­proposing to allow assisted dying for terminally ill adults.

Lord Falconer said the best chance of securing a vote would be via a private member’s bill in the Commons. An attempt to secure one will be launched as soon as MPs return from their summer recess. If successful, the law could be changed before the end of next year.

He warned that history suggested any vote represented a rare window to make a change. “If we lose the vote, then it will go off the agenda for who knows how long,” he said. “Everything turns on that vote in the Commons.

“This is such an opportunity. The last time this was voted upon, there was a clear vote against it in the Commons. But of the 650 MPs who were present in 2015, 477 of them have gone. It’s a completely new House of Commons with a wholly new atmosphere, with a prime minister who is saying: ‘You must decide as a free vote – and if you decide in favour, the government will make sure that procedural stratagems don’t doom the bill.’

“In the almost decade that’s gone by, there’s been a much greater focus on the issue. Lots of the rest of the world have addressed that issue and changed their laws. But also, there’s been an ever-increasing awareness in this country of the mess that the law is. And people have become more and more interested in the quality of their lives and the quality of their deaths.”

The issue of assisted dying was thrust into the spotlight in December 2023 when the Observer revealed that the actor Diana Rigg had recorded a message shortly before her death in 2020 calling for a law that gives “human beings true agency over their own bodies at the end of life”.

After Esther Rantzen, the television presenter who has terminal cancer, joined calls for a change, Keir Starmer said he was also in favour.

Before the election, he promised Rantzen that he would ensure parliamentary time to debate the issue and allow a free vote.

Falconer said that while his bill in the Lords faced procedural challenges in reaching a Commons vote, an identical bill proposed by an MP could succeed. “No 10 has made it absolutely clear to me that they stand by what Keir has said,” he said. “There is no doubt that Keir stands by that commitment.”

The Labour peer said that personal experience had led him to apply his legal mind to the issue years ago. “I, like so very many people, have experience of a loved one dying,” he said. “And the last few weeks and the last few months are a period where there is plainly nothing but an imminent death – the person retreats more and more. And all that they’ve got to look forward to is more indignity, more pain, more struggle.

“The option, in the context of somebody who is terminally ill, to be assisted to bring the process to an end is in my view a compassionate and necessary thing that they should be able to do. Having had the personal experience and then looking at the issue more and more, I saw how unfair the law is. Esther Rantzen has really brought a focus recently on the issue with enormous effectiveness. And that’s in part a product of a 10-year period in which people have really been talking about it.”

He said that he had restricted his proposals to cover only people with a terminal illness who had six months or less to live to ensure the bill was not the “thin end of the wedge”, as some opponents fear. He also said he was against the idea of applying it to anyone living with “unbearable suffering”, as some other countries have done, because he thought it could lead to unintended cases.

“In general, I don’t think the state should be assisting people to take their own lives,” he said. “I do think the state should be giving people options in their terminal illness as to how they die. And I do think the two situations are very different.

“When the law starts as a terminal illness law, not an unbearable suffering law, that’s where it has stuck in every jurisdiction in the world. It’s not the thin end of the wedge.

“The first of these was in Oregon. It started as a terminal illness law and it has remained a terminal illness law. Sometimes people say they have great anxieties about Oregon. But there are a lot of people who were opposed to it who now say it’s obviously the right thing to do – that people should have this option.

“The consequence of having the option is that, for people who are terminally ill, it makes their last months bearable. They know it’s there.”

Parliament is facing a once-in-a-generation chance to hand the terminally ill a choice over ending their life, the Labour peer championing a change in the law has said.

Charlie Falconer, the former lord chancellor whose bill was introduced into the House of Lords last month, revealed he had been reassured by Downing Street that it would not stand in the way of a historic Commons vote on assisted dying should its advocates secure one.

In an interview with the Observer, he said that some of the tragic stories already expressed by politicians on the issue were “but the tip of a ­parliamentary iceberg” in terms of the strength of feeling some peers and MPs had expressed to him. He is ­proposing to allow assisted dying for terminally ill adults.

Lord Falconer said the best chance of securing a vote would be via a private member’s bill in the Commons. An attempt to secure one will be launched as soon as MPs return from their summer recess. If successful, the law could be changed before the end of next year.

He warned that history suggested any vote represented a rare window to make a change. “If we lose the vote, then it will go off the agenda for who knows how long,” he said. “Everything turns on that vote in the Commons.

“This is such an opportunity. The last time this was voted upon, there was a clear vote against it in the Commons. But of the 650 MPs who were present in 2015, 477 of them have gone. It’s a completely new House of Commons with a wholly new atmosphere, with a prime minister who is saying: ‘You must decide as a free vote – and if you decide in favour, the government will make sure that procedural stratagems don’t doom the bill.’

“In the almost decade that’s gone by, there’s been a much greater focus on the issue. Lots of the rest of the world have addressed that issue and changed their laws. But also, there’s been an ever-increasing awareness in this country of the mess that the law is. And people have become more and more interested in the quality of their lives and the quality of their deaths.”

The issue of assisted dying was thrust into the spotlight in December 2023 when the Observer revealed that the actor Diana Rigg had recorded a message shortly before her death in 2020 calling for a law that gives “human beings true agency over their own bodies at the end of life”.

After Esther Rantzen, the television presenter who has terminal cancer, joined calls for a change, Keir Starmer said he was also in favour.

Before the election, he promised Rantzen that he would ensure parliamentary time to debate the issue and allow a free vote.

Falconer said that while his bill in the Lords faced procedural challenges in reaching a Commons vote, an identical bill proposed by an MP could succeed. “No 10 has made it absolutely clear to me that they stand by what Keir has said,” he said. “There is no doubt that Keir stands by that commitment.”

The Labour peer said that personal experience had led him to apply his legal mind to the issue years ago. “I, like so very many people, have experience of a loved one dying,” he said. “And the last few weeks and the last few months are a period where there is plainly nothing but an imminent death – the person retreats more and more. And all that they’ve got to look forward to is more indignity, more pain, more struggle.

“The option, in the context of somebody who is terminally ill, to be assisted to bring the process to an end is in my view a compassionate and necessary thing that they should be able to do. Having had the personal experience and then looking at the issue more and more, I saw how unfair the law is. Esther Rantzen has really brought a focus recently on the issue with enormous effectiveness. And that’s in part a product of a 10-year period in which people have really been talking about it.”

He said that he had restricted his proposals to cover only people with a terminal illness who had six months or less to live to ensure the bill was not the “thin end of the wedge”, as some opponents fear. He also said he was against the idea of applying it to anyone living with “unbearable suffering”, as some other countries have done, because he thought it could lead to unintended cases.

“In general, I don’t think the state should be assisting people to take their own lives,” he said. “I do think the state should be giving people options in their terminal illness as to how they die. And I do think the two situations are very different.

“When the law starts as a terminal illness law, not an unbearable suffering law, that’s where it has stuck in every jurisdiction in the world. It’s not the thin end of the wedge.

“The first of these was in Oregon. It started as a terminal illness law and it has remained a terminal illness law. Sometimes people say they have great anxieties about Oregon. But there are a lot of people who were opposed to it who now say it’s obviously the right thing to do – that people should have this option.

“The consequence of having the option is that, for people who are terminally ill, it makes their last months bearable. They know it’s there.”

Thousands of scientists have protested to the US Congress over the “unprecedented and indefensible” decision by Nasa to cancel its Viper lunar rover mission.

In an open letter to Capitol Hill, they have denounced the move, which was revealed last month, and heavily criticised the space agency over a decision that has shocked astronomers and astrophysicists across the globe.

The car-sized rover has already been constructed at a cost of $450m and was scheduled to be sent to the moon next year, when it would have used a one-metre drill to prospect for ice below the lunar surface in soil at the moon’s south pole.

Ice is considered to be vital to plans to build a lunar colony, not just to supply astronauts with water but also to provide them with hydrogen and oxygen that could be used as fuels. As a result, prospecting for sources was rated a priority for lunar exploration, which is scheduled to be ramped up in the next few years with the aim of establishing a permanent human presence on the moon.

Construction of Viper – volatiles investigating polar exploration rover – began several years ago, and the highly complex robot vehicle was virtually complete when Nasa announced on 17 July that it had decided to kill it off. The agency said the move was needed because of past cost increases, delays to launch dates and the risks of future cost growth.

However, the claim has been dismissed by astonished and infuriated scientists who say the rover would have played a vital role in opening up the moon to human colonisation.

“Quite frankly, the agency’s decision beggars belief,” said Prof Clive Neal, a lunar scientist at the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana.

“Viper is a fundamental mission on so many fronts and its cancellation basically undermines Nasa’s entire lunar exploration programme for the next decade. It is as straightforward as that. Cancelling Viper makes no sense whatsoever.”

This view was backed by Ben Fernando of Johns Hopkins University, who was one of the organisers of the open letter to Congress. “A team of 500 people dedicated years of their careers to construct Viper and now it has been cancelled for no good reason whatsoever,” he told the Observer last week.

“Fortunately I think Congress is taking this issue very seriously and they have the power to tell Nasa that it has to go ahead with the project. Hopefully they will intervene.”

Several other water-prospecting missions to the moon have been planned for the next few years. However, most will involve monitoring the lunar surface from space or by landing a single excavator that will dig for ice at a single, fixed location.

“The crucial advantage of Viper was that it could move around and dig into the lunar soil at different promising locations,” said Ian Crawford, professor of planetary science and astrobiology at Birkbeck, University of London.

Astronomers have long suspected that ice – brought by comets and asteroids – exists in the permanently shadowed craters near the moon’s south poles, an idea that was strongly supported in 2009 when Nasa deliberately crashed a Centaur rocket into the crater Cabeus.

By studying the resulting plumes of debris, scientists concluded that ice could account for up to 5% of soil there. “China, Japan, India and Europe have all got plans to prospect for water on the moon, but now the US seems to have just given up,” added Crawford. “It is very, very puzzling.”

Scientists also point out that ice and other materials brought to the moon by comets or asteroids will have remained there in a pristine state and could provide scientists with a history of the inner solar system and the processes that shaped it for millions or even billions of years into the past. “There is an incredible scientific treasure trove there that is begging to be explored,” added Neal.

When Nasa announced its decision to abandon Viper, the space agency said it planned to disassemble and reuse its components for other moon missions – unless other space companies or agencies offered to take over the project. More than a dozen groups have since expressed an interest in taking over Viper, a Nasa spokesperson told the Observer last week. Whether these organisations are interested in Viper as a complete craft or as a source of components is not yet clear, however.

“We simply do not know how practical or serious these offers are,” said Fernando. “Nasa keeps saying it had to cancel projects because of budgetary problems, but why on earth did they pick such an important mission on which to start making those cuts?”

When Slovakia’s minister for culture fired the director of the country’s oldest and most important theatre last Tuesday, the numerous reasons she cited for her surprise move included “political activism”, an alleged preference for foreign over Slovak opera singers, and, bizarrely, an incident with a crystal chandelier.

Matej Drlička, whose dismissal from the Slovak National Theatre was followed a day later by that of the director of the Slovak National Gallery, says the real reason is something else: a concerted crackdown on freedom of artistic expression and a systematic assault on the central European republic’s state institutions under the watch of the populist prime minister Robert Fico.

“The explanations that [culture minister] Martina Šimkovičová listed are a compilation of complete lies,” Drlička told the Observer. “The only reason is that her government doesn’t want culture to be free.”

Fico returned to power for a fourth spell as prime minister last October, governing in a coalition with the nationalist SNS and the centre-left Hlas parties after his scandal-hit Smer party won parliamentary elections on the back of pledges to halt military aid to Ukraine.

The 59-year-old politician made his first public appearance last month since surviving an assassination attempt on 15 May, giving a speech in which he criticised the supposed expansion of progressive ideologies and the west’s stance towards Russia.

One of his most divisive appointees has been the SNS culture minister Šimkovičová, 52, a former TV presenter whose media career was ended over anti-refugee posts on social media and who was nominated for “homophobe of the year” by the Slovak human rights institute Inštitút ľudských práv in 2018.

One of Šimkovičová’s first actions in her post was to resume cultural links with Moscow, suspended after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

She has since dismissed the board of the Slovak Fund for the Promotion of the Arts, a body designed to allow cultural organisations to apply for funding without having to go directly to the ministry, as well as withdrawing funding for Bratislava’s brutalist House of Culture and firing the heads of the National Library and children’s museum Bibiana.

Her bill to dissolve the public service broadcaster RTVS and replace it with a new entity under full control of the government sparked mass protests in June.

“Alarm bells went off when Šimkovičová took over the culture portfolio last autumn,” said Albin Sybera, a fellow of the central European policy thinktank Visegrad Insight. “What we saw again last week is that those fears were not unfounded. We are seeing a spreading of radical rightwing positions into Slovakia’s mainstream discourse.”

Both the long-serving National Gallery director Alexandra Kusá and National Theatre director Drlička enjoyed strong international reputations, with the latter’s dismissal coming just days after he was awarded the French Order of Arts and Letters at the rank of knight by France’s culture minister Rachida Dati.

Drlička told the Observer that he saw “showing the blind spots of our history” as part of his theatre’s role, but insisted that he had not presented his political views in his role as director. “I am a manager,” he said.

In her statement to the press, Šimkovičová said Drlička had “seriously damaged the reputation” of the theatre by not punishing those responsible for a crystal chandelier that fell on to the stage during a performance on a children’s day event in June. Drlička said an employee had been disciplined for the incident, in which no one was hurt.

The Fico government’s purge of Slovakia’s cultural institutions has drawn comparisons to Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán’s systemic crackdown on diversity in media, theatre, film and publishing. “This kind of thing is not only happening in Slovakia,” Kusá told ARTnews.

But Drlička suggested the dismissals could be driven mainly by spite rather than strategy. “It’s possible that we could go down the Hungarian route and end up with a very obedient cultural field,” he told the Observer. “But if Hungary is the goal, these are not the right people in charge. They are not that smart.”

The government has yet to appoint a successor to lead the prestigious Bratislava theatre. “They haven’t proposed an alternative vision. To say that these people have a grand vision for Slovak culture would be to seriously overestimate them.”

As a successor to the ousted National Gallery director Kusá, the culture ministry has presented a business manager with no track record in the arts, Anton Bittner, describing him as a “manager and expert in stabilising organisations and their development”.

On Friday, Slovak media reported that Bittner had worked as a project manager at Penta, an investment group involved in one of the largest corruption scandals in Slovakia’s history, though there are no allegations he was involved in financial misconduct. Outside his managerial activities, the news outlet aktuality.sk wrote, the new gallery manager used to offer services in tao healing, a traditional Chinese medicine.

“The minister claims that she is restoring normalcy to Slovakia,” said Sybera. “But the figures she is introducing to the culture sector seem to tell a different story.”

The family of Bebe King, one of the three girls who died after being stabbed in Southport, have paid tribute to their “shimmering star” and said her older sister witnessed the attack and escaped.

Bebe, six, Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, were killed in the attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on 29 July.

In a statement, Bebe’s parents, Lauren and Ben King, said she “was full of joy, light, and love, and she will always remain in our hearts as the sweet, kind, and spirited girl we adore”.

They said: “The outpouring of love and support from our community and beyond has been a source of incredible comfort during this unimaginably difficult time.

“From the pink lights illuminating Sefton and Liverpool, to the pink bows, flowers, balloons, cards, and candles left in her memory, we have been overwhelmed by the kindness and compassion shown to our family.

“The response from Southport, the whole of Liverpool, and even further afield has deeply touched our hearts, and we are so grateful to everyone who has reached out to us.”

They said their older daughter, nine-year-old Genie, had witnessed the attack and managed to escape.

“She has shown such incredible strength and courage, and we are so proud of her. Her resilience is a testament to the love and bond she shared with her little sister, and we will continue to support her as we navigate this painful journey together as a family.”

They also thanked “the emergency services, who acted with such care and professionalism on that terrible day” and extended support to “Elsie and Alice’s families, who are sharing in this unimaginable loss, and we hold them close in our hearts”.

They added: “Our hearts are broken, but we find some comfort in knowing that Bebe was so deeply loved by all who knew her. She will forever be our shimmering star, and we will carry her with us in everything we do.”

On Tuesday, a vigil at a church in Southport was held for Alice. Her parents entered the service holding a pair of their daughter’s ballet shoes. People brought flowers and toys to the service, after which white balloons were released into the air.

The attack triggered disinformation-fuelled riots and unrest across the UK. The day after the attack, far-right rioters set cars alight in Southport, threw bricks at a local mosque, damaged a local convenience store and set wheelie bins on fire.

Jenni Stancombe, the mother of Elsie Dot Stancombe, wrote on Facebook last Tuesday: “This is the only thing that I will write, but please please stop the violence in Southport tonight. The police have been nothing but heroic these last 24 hours and they and we don’t need this.”

On Thursday, police said all the children injured in the attack had been discharged from hospital.

A fisher from Devon has caught a rare Lego shark 27 years after it went missing from a shipping container in the 1990s.

The toy is one of 5m pieces lost overboard in the “Great Lego Spill of 1997”, when a freak wave hit a cargo ship called the Tokio Express off the coast of Cornwall. The pieces are still washing up today.

Richard West, a 35-year-old fisher living in Plymouth, discovered the long-lost shark 20 miles south of Penzance on Tuesday. He contacted the project Lego Lost at Sea, whose founder Tracey Williams confirmed the piece to be the first-ever reported shark from the spill.

“It’s way better than any fish I’ve caught all week,” said West. “I’m so happy about it.”

West found the object lying on top of his fishing nets while sailing the Defiant FY848 in search of monkfish and sole. “I could tell straight away what it was because I had Lego sharks in the pirate ship set when I was little. I loved them,” West told the BBC. “It’s been 25 years since I’ve seen that face.”

The plastic object, which West has nicknamed Sharky, is worn from more than two decades underwater and is missing its dorsal fin. Over time the submerged lego pieces break apart into smaller and smaller fragments, eventually becoming microplastics.

Williams said the sharks featured in several Lego sets from 1997, including Shark Cage Cove, Shark Attack and Deep Sea Bounty. The official Lego inventory showed that 22,200 dark grey Lego sharks and 29,600 light grey ones were in the lost container – 51,800 sharks in total.

“Richard and I now have joint custody of the shark,” Williams added.

Many of the pieces found from the shipping container are sea-themed – they include life rafts, scuba tanks, cutlasses, flippers and seagrass.

A few months ago, a 13-year-old boy found a “holy grail” Lego octopus washed up on a beach in Marazion. The octopuses are considered the most prized finds as only 4,200 were onboard.

Williams started the Lego Lost at Sea project as a “bit of fun” during the summer holidays, but more than 80,000 Facebook and X followers later, Williams has united a global community of beachcombers monitoring where the Lego and other cargo spills are turning up. She also published a book in 2022 showcasing her work.

As well as creating an archive of our times, the project has helped raise awareness around the waste that has populated Britain’s beaches, said Williams.

“It’s encouraged people to get into beach cleaning and other environmental action,” Williams said, “and it helps explain things like ocean currents and the dangers of plastic pollution. Although so much plastic on the beach can be overwhelming, sorting through it can be strangely cathartic. It’s order from chaos.”

Williams has begun mapping the findings for a scientific paper on the spill, and she encourages anyone who has found any of the pieces to get in touch with Lego Lost at Sea.