The leader of a Kenyan cult who allegedly encouraged over 400 followers to starve themselves to death has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter, in one of the worst ever cases of cult-related mass deaths.

Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie appeared in court in the coastal city of Mombasa alongside 94 other suspects on Monday.

Mr Mackenzie was arrested last April after 429 bodies, including children, were dug up from mass graves in Shakahola, a remote forest about two hours’ drive west of the town of Malindi. Most of the bodies showed signs of starvation and assault.

“There has never been a manslaughter case like this in Kenya,” prosecutor Alexander Jami Yamina told AFP.

The prosecution say over 400 witnesses will testify over the next four days.

Mr Yamina said the case was unique in Kenya, and the suspects would be prosecuted under a law relating to suicide pacts.

When the case broke last year Kenyans were shocked and horrified that people could willingly starve themselves to death. It became known as the “Shakahola Forest Massacre”.

Mr Mackenzie allegedly told his followers they would get to heaven more quickly if they stopped eating.

• Kenya starvation cult: The unbearable stench of mass graves

Mr Mackenzie is also facing two other trials: one for terrorism which started in July and another on child abuse charges, which includes subjecting children to torture, assault, cruelty to children and infringing a child’s right to education – which he denies.

Survivors say children were supposed to be the first to starve themselves, according to a macabre order drawn up by Mr Mackenzie. Then the unmarried, women, men, and last of all, church leaders.

Mr Mackenzie set up his Good News International Church in 2003, but said he closed it in 2019.

He encouraged his followers to move to Shakahola forest and prepare for the end of the world to “meet Jesus”.

Pastor Mackenzie is reported to have owned 800 acres of the remote forest, where there is no mobile network.

The forest was partitioned into different areas and given biblical place names, such as Judea, Bethlehem and Nazareth.

In March this year, the authorities released some victims’ bodies to relatives after months of identifying them through DNA tests. So far 34 bodies have been returned.

Mr Mackenzie preached that formal education was satanic and used to extort money.

In 2017 and again in 2018, he was arrested for encouraging children not to go to school as he claimed education was “not recognised in the Bible”.

He also allegedly encouraged mothers to avoid seeking medical attention during childbirth and not to vaccinate their children.

Mr Mackenzie was convicted last November of illegally operating a film studio associated with his preaching and distributing films without a valid filming licence and sentenced to a year in prison.

Kenya is a profoundly religious country with 85% of the population identifying as Christian. There have been previous cases of people being lured into dangerous, unregulated churches or cults.

• The mother who fled Shakahola forest to save her children
• What did the starvation cult leader preach?
• ‘My wife and six children followed Pastor Mackenzie’

When a white van drew up next to the office of the Palestine Customs Police in Tubas, a town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Abdel Nasser Sarhan had no reason to be suspicious.

According to Abdel Nasser’s colleagues, the van’s driver got out and greeted him in Arabic.

It was early in the morning. The 24-year-old uniformed policeman had just come on shift.

CCTV pictures show him strolling out past a guard post, his rifle slung casually at his side.

Seconds later, a man in jeans and a dark T-shirt emerges from the direction of the white van, uniformed Israeli soldiers behind him.

He raises a handgun and shoots Abdel Nasser dead.

Soon, the street is full of Israeli soldiers. They retrieve Abdel Nasser’s rifle and, as his colleagues try to retrieve his body, continue to shoot – all captured on CCTV.

When we visited Tubas the following morning, in late July, we found a makeshift memorial of stones and wilting flowers on the ground where Abdel Nasser fell.

The guard post and adjacent walls were riddled with bullet holes, each marked with a yellow tag. Fading bloodstains smeared the ground and doorway.

In a statement released on the day of the incident, the Israeli army said the shooting occurred in the course of an operation to detain two wanted men.

Abdel Nasser’s colleagues in Tubas said those arrests took place at a nearby house.

The army said that soldiers had “encountered armed terrorists” and that “a customs officer of the Palestinian Authority was killed during exchanges of fire”.

From the evidence of the CCTV footage, this last statement is demonstrably false.

An Israeli security official contacted by the BBC two weeks later said the incident was “one of hundreds, if not thousands of special activities that are planned and carried out very precisely”.

This one was being reviewed, he said, “because it didn’t go as planned”.

It seems clear that this was an operation that went badly wrong.

No-one has suggested that Abdel Nasser or the customs office were the target of the operation.

The young guard appears to have had the misfortune to stumble across an undercover Israeli operation, during which he was shot and killed.

But for Abdel Nasser’s colleagues in the customs police, this tragic episode is part of a wider pattern of behaviour that is making it harder than ever for the Palestinian Authority – theoretically responsible for security in areas not under direct Israeli military control – to do its job.

“This rings a warning bell, especially for us in the security services,” Lt Ibrahim Ayyash, spokesman for the Palestine Customs Police, told us.

“How can we enforce law and order and offer services to the people and protect them while you’re obstructing my work and killing my officers?”

Customs officers, he said, were increasingly reluctant to pull over suspicious vehicles, for fear of stumbling across Israeli soldiers operating under cover.

“It now falls on you, as a custom officer, to take a decision about stopping a vehicle or not,” he said.

“If you stop it and it has Special Forces [inside], they could kill you.”

As fans of the Israeli TV show Fauda will know, undercover operations were already a regular feature of life in the West Bank long before the war in Gaza broke out last October.

Recent evidence suggests the frequency of such operations have increased, with multiple cases of CCTV pictures showing Israeli units, dressed as civilians, and even medics, snatching wanted Palestinians from city streets and hospital beds.

But such clandestine operations are part of a much bigger picture.

With all eyes focused on Gaza, another war is raging in the West Bank, as the Israeli military cracks down on armed groups that it says are being bankrolled by Iran.

“The situation on the ground is very, very complicated,” an Israeli security official told me, on condition of anonymity.

“You might say that it’s on the verge of an explosion.”

The emergence of a new generation of local armed groups, mostly in the refugee camps of the northern West Bank, dates back to about 2021, with the first group appearing in Jenin.

But the war in Gaza has fanned the flames of rebellion in other cities, from Tulkarem to Qalqilya and, more recently, Tubas.

Israel’s security crackdown, the actions of violent groups of Jewish settlers and the belief that the Palestinian Authority is powerless to protect them have all added to an atmosphere of mounting tension.

“They’re very frustrated with Israel, they’re very frustrated with the Palestinian Authority and they’re looking for an outlet to this frustration,” the Israeli security official said.

The PA health ministry says more than 600 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since last October. As many as 10,000 have been arrested, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society.

At least 17 Israelis, including 12 security forces personnel, have also been killed in the West Bank, according to a UN tally.

Some veteran observers fear that armed clashes could erupt into a full-scale uprising, or intifada.

“If it goes into an intifada, this is a much, much bigger problem,” Gen Israel Ziv, former head of the IDF’s Operations Division, told me.

“Militarily, we handle things better or worse. But when it goes into an intifada, it’s a totally different story. And it might go there.”

With the Israeli military still focused on the war in Gaza and its simmering conflict with Hezbollah along its northern border, Gen Ziv said there’s reluctance to recognise danger much closer to home.

“It’s a huge problem that can blow up in our face in a more sensitive area, [close] to the centres of population in Israel,” he said.

Meanwhile, in the Balata refugee camp, on the edge of Nablus, Abdel Nasser’s family is still grieving.

They’ve watched the CCTV pictures from Tubas and drawn their own conclusions about the actions of the Israeli army.

“He come to kill, just to kill,” Abdel Nasser’s uncle, Ismail Mohammed Sarhan, says.

Abdel Nasser’s father, Mohannad, can barely comprehend the loss of his son.

What was he like, I asked him.

“Ambitious, kind, always smiling,” he said, unable to hold back the tears.

The US has sent a guided missile submarine to the Middle East, as tensions grow in the region.

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin also said an aircraft carrier which was already heading to the area would sail there more quickly.

The move comes in response to fears of a wider regional conflict, after the recent assassination of senior Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.

It signals the US’s determination to help defend Israel from any attack by Iran – with Mr Austin saying US would “take every possible step” to defend its ally.

Iran is being closely watched for any indication of how and when it might respond to the assassination of Hamas’s top political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on 31 July.

The Iranians blamed Israel for the assassination of Mr Haniyeh on their soil, and have vowed to punish it. Israel has not commented but is widely believed to have been behind it.

In a statement on Sunday, the Pentagon said Mr Austin had sent the the USS Georgia guided missile submarine to the region.

It had also ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, which is carrying F-35C fighter jets, to accelerate its journey there. The ship was already on its way to replace another US ship in the region.

• Iran keeps region guessing as it mulls revenge attack
• Hamas says Gaza truce talks must be based on Biden plan

It remains unclear what Iran could be planning to do.

Meanwhile, another possible attack on Israel could come from Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia and political movement in Lebanon.

The group has vowed to respond to the killing by Israel of senior commander Fuad Shukr, which happened just hours before Mr Haniyeh’s assassination, in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Professor Mehran Kamrava, from Georgetown University in Qatar, said the US publicly sending a submarine was “meant as a deterrence against Iran and Hezbollah”.

But he suggested that in private, “there might be some indication that Iran is actually up to something and is going to strike”.

Several passenger airlines have cancelled flights to airports in the region due to the perceived threat.

German airline Lufthansa said on Monday it was suspending flights to Tel Aviv in Israel, Lebanon’s capital city Beirut, the Jordanian capital Amman, Erbil in Iraq, and the Iranian capital, Tehran, until 21 August “based on its current security analysis”.

Swiss Air has also cancelled its flights scheduled to travel to Tel Aviv and Beirut over the same period.

Meanwhile, Air France extended its suspension of flights to Beirut – which began on 29 July – through to Wednesday, according to the AFP news agency.

Other airlines, including AirBaltic and EasyJet, have previously said they were suspending flights to the region.

When Iran previously launched an attack on Israel following a strike on its consulate in Syria in April, it did so using hundreds of aerial drones and missiles.

The Biden administration believes a ceasefire in Gaza that frees Israeli hostages would be the best way to calm tensions in the region, and has called for talks to resume on Thursday.

But on Sunday night, Hamas responded to US efforts to revive the ceasefire talks by saying Israel should be forced to implement the deal already on the table.

Hamas said that any resumption of ceasefire talks about the conflict in Gaza should be based on its previous position rather than holding new rounds of negotiations.

However its statement indicated an agreement in principle to participate.

Washington has previously blamed Hamas for the failure of negotiations.

But Israeli press reports say the US increasingly sees Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as partly responsible – because he is accused of appeasing far-right members of his coalition who are opposed to a deal.

Last week, for the first time the White House openly criticised one of these coalition leaders, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Mr Smotrich had urged Israel to reject the US push for ceasefire talks, saying it would be a surrender to Hamas. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Mr Smotrich was “dead wrong” and accused him of making false claims.

Meanwhile the leaders of the UK, France and Germany echoed calls for ceasefire talks to resume.

“We agree that there can be no further delay,” said the statement from UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

“We have been working with all parties to prevent escalation and will spare no effort to reduce tensions and find a path to stability.”

It certainly wasn’t love at first sight. In fact, not so long ago they didn’t like each other very much.

“I don’t hate the man,” Elon Musk tweeted in July 2022, “but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.”

The Tesla and Space X founder’s comment was prompted by a profane Donald Trump insult – put simply, calling Mr Musk a liar. Trump accused Mr Musk of lying to him about who he voted for in the last presidential election.

“Elon is not going to buy Twitter,” Trump crowed to a rally crowd in Alaska.

Mr Musk did, of course, buy Twitter several months later – and he went on to endorse Trump’s Republican arch-rival, Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor even launched his presidential campaign with a glitch-ridden chat on Twitter Spaces.

But over the last few months the relationship between Mr Musk and Trump has not just thawed – it has reached a positively warm and steady simmer.

On Monday the two are expected to sit down for what many expect to be a convivial chat. The specific time, format and length are unknown so far, but it looks highly likely that the interview will be broadcast on Mr Musk’s renamed X.

Both men will be hoping the conversation reaches an audience beyond the hyperactive paid-for users who dominate X discussion these days – and that it will be free of the technical glitches that overshadowed Mr DeSantis’s ill-fated campaign.

The relationship between the tech tycoon and the Republican nominee has been a while in the making.

Mr Musk, who became a US citizen in 2002, has said that he voted almost exclusively for Democrats for decades.

But he soured on President Biden over issues including unions – Mr Musk is opposed to efforts to organise his car workers – and over a snub. He was not invited to the 2021 White House electric vehicle summit, despite Tesla’s status as one of the world’s largest EV manufacturers.

Under the Biden administration, Mr Musk’s companies also faced a number of federal investigations over employment practices, his takeover of Twitter and claims about Tesla’s autopilot feature.

In November 2023 he told a New York Times interviewer that he would not vote for Mr Biden again, but stopped short of supporting Trump, saying: “This is definitely a difficult choice here.”

• Who is Elon Musk and what is his net worth?
• What is Elon Musk’s game plan?

Mr Musk lifted the ban on the former president’s Twitter account after buying the company.

And perhaps more importantly, his tenure has seen him go ever deeper into concerns that dovetail neatly with Trump’s campaign: government censorship and persecution, complaints about the media, opposition to immigration, and anger at “woke” ideas.

“He craves attention and is a political chameleon,” said Ryan Broderick, who writes the internet culture newsletter Garbage Day.

Mr Broderick said Mr Musk’s online posts shifted dramatically a few years ago.

“He was tweeting neoliberal, happy-go-lucky things, and pride flags and so on, until around 2018, and the change happened pretty drastically after that,” he said.

Since taking over Twitter, Mr Musk increasingly has engaged in political controversies and has spread inflammatory – and sometimes just outright fake – news stories.

During recent rioting in the UK, he engaged in a tit-for-tat with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, claiming that “civil war is inevitable” and sharing a fake post about “detainment camps” on the Falkland Islands.

He also bought into Trump’s claims – unsupported by evidence – that election fraud is endemic in the US.

Research by the Center for Countering Digital Hate – an organisation that Mr Musk attempted to sue in a case that was thrown out earlier this year – noted that so far this year Mr Musk has tweeted false or misleading voting claims 50 times.

And he regularly interacts with fringe, far-right figures and pro-Trump accounts on his own platform, amplifying their reach.

At the same time, his Silicon Valley connections link him to Trump’s inner circle. Mr Musk was a member of the so-called PayPal mafia – stakeholders who made fortunes when the payment processor was bought for $1.5 billion and who later became prolific investors and corporate founders.

PayPal founder Peter Thiel is an influential Republican who later employed JD Vance at his venture capital firm, Mithril Capital Management, then bankrolled his Ohio Senate campaign with a $10m donation.

In March, Mr Musk met Trump at his Florida resort. A couple of months later, Mr Musk hosted an “anti-Biden” dinner party, where the guests included Mr Thiel and Rupert Murdoch, according to US news reports.

Mr Musk has donated money to both Democratic and Republican politicians in the past. But although he insists he is not donating directly to any presidential campaign, he recently co-founded a pro-Trump political action committee, America PAC.

Political action committees have the leeway to spend huge sums supporting candidates and causes – although Mr Musk has said reports that he will contribute $45m a month to the PAC are overblown.

• Musk shares faked far-right ‘detainment camp’ post

Nevertheless, his support for Trump was fully ensured just minutes after last month’s assassination attempt on the former president, when he tweeted: “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery.”

Trump seems to have mended fences with Mr Musk. At a news conference on Thursday he said: “I respect Elon a lot. He respects me.”

“Elon more than almost anybody I know… he loves this country, he loves the concept of this country, but like me, he says this country is in big trouble, it’s in tremendous danger,” Trump said.

Mr Musk has become a hero to an online cohort of young, mostly male supporters who might align with Trump’s ideas but who are, according to reports, less reliable voters.

The Trump campaign appears to be making a play for that segment of the population.

For instance, the former president recently did an interview with “edgy” podcaster Adin Ross, who repeatedly was banned from the streaming site Twitch for violating the site’s conduct policies.

“Donald Trump is scrambling because he’s looking for a way to invigorate his campaign,” Mr Broderick said. “He’s a showman and he understands that Elon Musk has similar instincts.”

But he questioned whether the pair would get along face-to-face.

“I assume they will talk at and around each other, and it will probably not make much sense,” he said. “And maybe somebody will say something crazy.”

The BBC contacted X and the Trump campaign for comment.

The interview is expected to appear online at 20:00 ET on Monday (01:00 BST) .

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Donald Trump has falsely claimed a crowd which gathered to see Vice President Kamala Harris speak in Michigan last week “didn’t exist” and an image showing it was AI generated.

The picture in question shows a large crowd at the Democratic presidential nominee’s rally in Detroit.

Mr Trump, the Republican taking on the vice-president in November’s election, said on his Truth Social platform that it was a fake and there was “nobody” there waiting for her.

However, in multiple other images and videos, some taken by people present but also by TV news teams and agency photographers, you can see a large crowd of people at the event.

BBC presenter Sumi Somaskanda took the picture below at the rally and says: “People were literally packed in and the crowd stretched out onto the airfield.”

Several of other photographs taken at the event by Getty Images show a large crowd there.

Video footage taken by several independent media organisations, including NBC News and PBS, show similar scenes.

Local media outlet MLive covered the event and estimated that about 15,000 people were at the rally which was held at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

Many people who were also there posted pictures on X which showed them in a big crowd, including a Michigan state Democrat lawmaker who said there were “throngs of people”.

The first version we could find of the photo Mr Trump has highlighted was posted on X by a Harris campaign staffer, Bhavik Lathia, on 7 August.

Mr Lathia says the picture was sent to him by another campaign official.

The Harris campaign confirmed this and sent us what they say was the original photo below.

BBC Verify checked the metadata of this image, which confirmed it was taken on an iPhone 12 Pro Max device on 7 August at 18:28 local time.

“I can confirm that this was taken by Harris campaign staff and not modified by AI in any way,” a campaign official told the BBC.

The campaign also sent us several other images taken by the same person at the same spot, including the one below.

This image was taken a minute earlier from the same angle, in which the same crowd is visible but covered in shadow.

We’ve asked the Harris campaign whether the image which was questioned by Mr Trump was brightened to expose the crowds covered by shadow or changed in any other way.

There’s no evidence that the Harris campaign edited the image to make the crowd appear larger.

There have also been suggestions online that several elements of the photo show it has been manipulated using AI.

These include the absence of a crowd in a reflection on the side of the plane, and that there is no identification number on the plane’s tail.

On the first point, other photos taken by news agencies show the same view in the reflection on the side of the plane without a visible crowd.

A Getty photograph taken from the reverse angle looking towards the crowd shows a clear area on the tarmac in front of the plane as Ms Harris and her running-mate Tim Walz walk away from it.

It is possible that the reflection on the side of the plane is mainly of this area of empty tarmac.

Questions have also been raised online about why there is no identification number on the tail of Air Force Two – the vice president’s plane.

However, the number is also absent from other pictures taken at the Detroit event, and footage of the plane at other events recently also show it without a number on its tail.

Prof Hany Farid, a specialist in image analysis at UC Berkeley, has examined the photograph using software designed to detect AI-generated images and says “we found no evidence that this image is AI-generated or digitally altered”.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Miley Cyrus has become the youngest-ever star to receive Disney legend status.

The singer rose to fame playing Hannah Montana in the Disney Channel series which first aired in 2006 when she was 13.

In an emotional speech at fan convention D23 on Sunday, Miley said she was “still proud to have been Hannah Montana”.

She won her first Grammy earlier this year for Flowers, which was recognised as 2023’s record of the year and spent 10 weeks at number one in the UK.

The 31-year-old received a standing ovation from the 12,000-strong crowd when she collected her award at the Honda Centre in Anaheim, California, home of Disneyland.

She told the audience “a little bit of everything has changed” since her breakout role playing a teenager leading a double life as a pop star “but at the same time nothing has changed at all”.

Miley was brought out on stage as country singer Lainey Wilson sang one of Hannah Montana’s most popular tracks, The Best of Both Worlds.

She became emotional as she told the audience of her first performance as Hannah.

“We needed footage of her playing sold out concerts but no-one knew who she, aka Miley, was,” she said.

Tickets were given away at a shopping centre, she continued, “where I would have my first free concert”.

“In reality I was a little girl in a blonde wig at the mall with a big dream.

“But in my heart I was Hannah Montana and I was so proud to be,” she said.

“This award is dedicated to Hannah and all of her amazing, loyal fans, and to everyone who has made my dream a reality.

“To quote the legend herself, This Is The Life.”

Miley also joked that she “definitely wasn’t created in a lab”, in a nod to rumours that Disney kids are created in the Californian Disney office.

“If I was, there must have been a bug in the system which caused me to malfunction somewhere between the years of 2013 and 2016.”

Miley left behind her Disney kid image with the 2013 released of her fourth album, Bangerz.

In the same year she did a duet of We Can’t Stop with Blurred Lines singer Robin Thicke at the MTV VMAs.

The performance was so provocative that it even drew criticism from the inventor of the foam finger – a prop Miley used in memorable ways during the show.

Miley wasn’t the only star honoured at the convention – Star Wars and Indiana Jones actor Harrison Ford was also named as a Disney Legend, alongside Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis.

Harrison said he was “really delighted and a little bit embarrassed” to be honoured but also “so very grateful”.

“I have the privilege of being a storyteller, an assisted storyteller,” the 82-year-old said.

“I love the people I’ve had the opportunity to work with.”

Jamie was introduced by Mean Girls star Lindsay Lohan, who played her daughter in the 2003 version of Freaky Friday.

They’re due to reprise their roles next year in the sequel, Freakier Friday.

Jamie, who won an Oscar last year for Everything Everywhere All At Once, also became emotional during the ceremony.

“The truth is, legends aren’t formed,” the 65-year-old told the audience.

“They’re created when they’re nurtured and educated.”

It wasn’t just stars celebrated at the ceremony. In total, 14 people were recognised as Disney Legends at the event.

They include composer John Williams, costume designer Colleen Atwood and Disneyland’s first ever full-time black tour guide, Martha Blanding.

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

A pilot has died after their helicopter crashed into the roof of a hotel in Australia during an “unauthorised” early morning flight.

The aircraft hit the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel in the northern Queensland city of Cairns at around 01:50 local time on Monday (16:50 BST Sunday), sparking a fire and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of guests.

Authorities say the only occupant of the helicopter died at the scene, and two hotel guests – a man in his 80s and a woman in her 70s – were taken to hospital in a stable condition.

Some local media reports have suggested that the helicopter was stolen.

Nautilus Aviation – which owned the helicopter – said it would work closely with all authorities in Queensland as they examined the “unauthorised use of one of our helicopters in the early hours of this morning”.

Amanda Kay, who was staying in the hotel on the main esplanade in Cairns, described seeing a helicopter flying “extra low”, without lights in rainy weather.

“[It] has turned round and hit the building,” she said, adding that the aircraft “blew up”.

Another bystander said she saw the helicopter fly past the hotel twice in the moments before the collision.

“Boy that was going fast, that helicopter. Unbelievable,” a woman said, in video showing the fiery aftermath of the crash.

“It was just going out of control, that thing was.”

Two of the helicopter’s rotor blades came off on impact, landing on the esplanade and in the hotel pool, according to Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS).

“There’s been reports it sounded like a bomb, and [that after] seeing smoke and fire from that, a lot of the occupants of the hotel were very unsure about the situation,” spokeswoman Caitlin Dennings told media.

Another tourist staying at the hotel, Alastair Salmon, described it to the ABC as “a colossal ear-deafening bang”.

Mr Salmon, from London, was among about 400 people who were evacuated from the hotel.

He described seeing the helicopter’s rotor blade on the ground nearby, and mistaking it for a lamppost.

“Then we looked up there and you could see this massive hole in the window of the building,” he told the ABC.

Streets around the hotel have been cordoned off and an emergency situation was declared by police.

Queensland Police and the aviation safety watchdog, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, are continuing investigations into the circumstances of the crash.

Located in northern Queensland, the city of Cairns is a popular tourist destination due to its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef.

You can lead a horse to water and, it turns out, convince it to drink if the reward is great enough, researchers have found.

A new study has suggested horses are more intelligent than previously thought, having been observed to quickly adapt to a treat-based game with changing rules.

Researchers from Nottingham Trent University (NTU) said they were surprised by how the horses quickly grasped the game, busting previous theories that equine brains respond only to immediate stimuli and are not complex enough to strategise.

The new findings could lead to more humane horse training regimes and improvements to their welfare, researchers said.

The study involved 20 horses, who first were rewarded with a treat for touching a piece of card with their nose.

In the second stage, a “stop light” was introduced, and the rule was changed so that the reward was only given if they touched the card while the light was off.

This did not alter the behaviour of the horses, as they were observed touching the card regardless of the status of the light. That is, until the rules changed for a third time.

In the final stage, researchers introduced a penalty of a 10-second timeout for touching the card while the stop light was on.

The team observed a rapid adjustment to the horses’ behaviour now there was a cost to getting it wrong, all of them quickly learning to play by the rules to avoid the timeout, researchers said.

“We were expecting horses’ performance to improve when we introduced the time-out, but were surprised by how immediate and significant the improvement was,” lead researcher Louise Evans said.

The researchers believe the fact the horses adapted so quickly indicates they understood the rule of the stop light the entire time, but had no reason to follow the rule when there was no consequence for getting it wrong.

The study, published in the Applied Animal Behaviour Science journal shows that horses are more cognitively advanced than they are given credit for, Dr Carrie Ijichi, a senior equine researcher at NTU said.

“This teaches us that we shouldn’t make assumptions about animal intelligence or sentience based on whether they are ‘built’ just like us,” she said.

Tanzanian police have arrested prominent politician Tundu Lissu and two other opposition Chadema officials, the party has said.

It says the three were detained on Sunday in the south-western town of Mbeya, on the eve of their planned rally to mark the World Youth Day.

The reported arrests come a year after President Samia Hassan lifted a ban on opposition gatherings and promised to restore competitive politics.

On Sunday the police banned the Chadema rally saying it was intended to cause violence.

They cited the party’s rallying call for people to come together like the “youth in Kenya” – apparently referring to the weeks of deadly anti-government demonstrations in the neighbouring East African country.

On Monday morning, a Chadema official told the BBC that they did not know where the detained leaders were being held.

The police have not officially spoken about the arrests. The BBC has contacted them for comment.

Chadema spokesman John Mrema said groups of youths travelling in hired buses were arrested and forced back to their respective regions under armed escort.

About 10,000 young people were set to meet in Mbeya to celebrate youth day, with the slogan, “Take charge of your future”, according to the party’s youth wing.

But police said in a statement that no such meetings would be allowed in the city or elsewhere in the country.

Chadema officials shared pictures of a large group of about 100 party members who they said had been detained in Iringa, a town close to Mbeya. They were later released and escorted back to where they had come from.

Chadema has condemned the arrests, with party chairman Freeman Mbowe demanding in a post on X “the immediate, unconditional release of our leaders, members, and supporters arrested across the country”.

Mr Lissu, who survived an assassination attempt in 2017 after being shot 16 times, returned to Tanzania last year after two years in exile in Belgium.

He returned after President Samia lifted a ban on political rallies imposed by former President John Magufuli in 2016.

The ban had prohibited political parties from holding rallies and even engaging in internal political activities.

Ms Samia, who came to power in 2021 following Mr Magufuli’s sudden death, was praised for moving away from many of her predecessor’s policies.

But in the wake of the arrests, some opposition politicians have criticised her, saying she is not ready for political reconciliation.

Tanzania is due to hold presidential and parliamentary polls late next year.

Additional reporting by Basillioh Rukanga

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Venezuela’s opposition coalition has called for protests to be held worldwide on 17 August in support of its claim to have won the country’s presidential election.

President Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner by the government-controlled electoral commission, which handed him a third consecutive term in office.

The opposition says its candidate, Edmundo González, was the real winner, and has called for the commission to release detailed data from polling stations.

This call has been backed by the European Union and the US while a number of other Latin American nations have so far held off recognising Mr Maduro as the winner of last month’s poll.

Opposition leader María Corina Machado posted a video on social media in which she said Venezuelans should “take to the streets” worldwide on Saturday 17 August in support of her party’s claim of victory.

“Let’s shout together for the world to support our victory and recognize truth and popular sovereignty”, she said on Sunday.

The opposition published a data set online shortly after the 28 July election which it says proves Mr González won by a wide margin.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was “overwhelming evidence” that Edmundo González had won the most votes.

The Maduro government, however, insists that the result announced by the National Electoral Council (CNE), which is stacked with its allies, is the only valid one.

Mr Maduro has said he will publish the vote tallies, but has not specified when.

He accused the opposition of producing fake evidence to contest the result of the election and said the US was behind what he described as a farce and a coup attempt.

Mr González, who replaced Ms Machado as the opposition’s candidate after she was banned from running, also called for national and worldwide protests in support of “the truth”.

Both have been in hiding – Ms Machado wrote in the Wall Street Journal that she is fearing for her “life” and “freedom”.

The government has said Ms Machado should be arrested.

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in Venezuela and other Latin American countries since the official poll result was contested.

The government says more than 2,000 people have been detained, some of which it accuses of “terrorism”.

Some opposition figures have also been seized in the last few weeks.

María Oropeza, a campaign co-ordinator for opposition coalition Vente Venezuela, live-streamed her detention on Instagram.

In a video, loud bangs could be heard in the background as she told her followers that she had done nothing wrong. Officials from Venezuela’s military counter-intelligence agency then burst through her door and the video cuts to black.

Members of the security forces have seized Freddy Superlano and Roland Carreño – both of whom worked for the opposition party Popular Will – and Ricardo Estévez, a technical adviser for the same opposition movement as Ms Oropeza.

Last week, Mr González refused to appear at the country’s Supreme Court after it summoned all presidential candidates for an audit of the disputed vote.

He later said he would have risked his freedom and “the will of the Venezuelan people” by attending.

Venezuela’s Supreme Court, which is stacked with allies of President Maduro, said on Saturday that it was continuing to assess the election and that its ruling would be “final and binding”.

Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise made a dramatic appearance at Sunday night’s Paris 2024 closing ceremony, descending on a wire from the Stade de France roof.

Spectators shrieked in delight as the Mission: Impossible star, dressed in leather jacket and gloves, lowered himself into the stadium while his compatriot H.E.R. performed on guitar.

To mark the handover to Los Angeles, which will host the Olympics in 2028, Cruise was seen in a pre-recorded film travelling through Paris and onto the US.

There he journeyed to the legendary Hollywood sign and unfurled the Olympic colours. The ceremony in Paris marked a formal “au revoir” from this year’s host city.

Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, said the Paris Games had been “sensational”.

In his closing speech, he praised athletes for their “simply amazing” performances, saying they showed “what greatness we humans are capable of”.

He continued: “During all this time, you lived peacefully together under one roof in the Olympic Village. You embraced each other. You respected each other, even if your countries are divided by war and conflict. You created a culture of peace.

“This inspired all of us and billions of people around the globe. Thank you for making us dream. Thank you for making us believe in a better world for everyone.”

• ‘Sensational’ Paris Olympics come to an end
• Everything you need to know about LA 2028
• Ten viral moments from the Paris Olympics
• Paris 2024: The final medals table

Cruise’s feat during the closing ceremony was performed as musician H.E.R. jammed on an electric guitar – having moments before delivered a rocky rendition of the US national anthem.

He proceeded to take the Olympic flag from one of the stars of Paris – American gymnast Simone Biles – before the thrilled audience watched him zip away on a motorbike.

The pre-recorded clip showing his journey to LA was soundtracked by California natives Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The funk-rock hitmakers then delivered a live performance of their classic track Can’t Stop on a palm-fringed beach in Los Angeles. Other acts included Billie Eilish and Snoop Dogg, who performed with Dr Dre.

Snoop – who is from LA himself – was a regular fixture at the Games, which culminated with the US topping the medals table after a dramatic win in Sunday’s final event, the women’s basketball final.

Cruise, also known for Top Gun, is renowned for performing his own stunts.

Over the last decade or so, these have included scaling Dubai’s Burj Khalifa and dangling on the outside of a plane as it took off, both for the Mission: Impossible series.

Artistic director Thomas Jolly complemented Cruise’s feat with another cinematic-feeling segment. A hushed, darkened stadium watched as a troupe of dancers rolled five giant rings across a stage, ultimately assembling the Olympic logo.

The gloomy sci-fi aesthetic was finally punctured by an up-tempo performance from French band Phoenix, who tore into two hits. They were surrounded by athletes who climbed up on stage, to the consternation of the stadium announcer.

Cruise’s role was perhaps Paris’s worst-kept secret. Rumours had been in the press for days – even before he was photographed in the stadium itself on Sunday evening.

The 62-year-old was spotted several times in Paris during the Games fortnight, cheering on the US team in the swimming relay and watching multi-medal-winning American gymnast Simone Biles in action.

“It’s awesome,” he told Reuters news agency at the time. “Great stories, great athletes. It’s incredible what they do.”

Artistic director Jolly was also responsible for the Olympics’ ambitious curtain-raiser last month. This featured a parade of boats along the River Seine and a comeback performance from singer Céline Dion.

The top judge of the Olympic breaking competition has thrown his support behind Rachael Gunn of Team Australia, after her unorthodox routine in Paris divided the internet.

Gunn, who competes under the name Raygun, was eliminated from the B-Girls competition after scoring zero, prompting both ridicule and praise for her unique style.

“Breaking is all about originality and bringing something new to the table… and this is exactly what Raygun was doing,” Martin Gilian said in defence of the athlete, who has also been commended by Australia’s Prime Minister for “having a go”.

Breaking, which debuted at the Paris Games, is not on the programme for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

A 36-year-old university lecturer from Sydney by day, Gunn stood out in almost every way against her competitors, many of whom are in their early 20s.

Her performances during her three rounds on Friday quickly lit up the internet, with users creating a sea of memes and video spoofs, questioning everything from her outfit to her qualification.

Mr Gilian – whose stage name is MGbility – said Raygun’s score was indicative of the “competitive judging system” adopted by the sport and shouldn’t be taken as proof “she did really bad”.

As well as defending her place in the competition, by citing her success in the Oceania qualifier, Mr Gilian praised Gunn for her innovative choreography – which included the sprinkler and, arguably her most controversial move, hopping around like a kangaroo.

“She got inspired by her surroundings, which in this case, for example, was a kangaroo.”

Gunn – who has a background as a jazz, tap and ballroom dancer – has used similar language when explaining her performance.

“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 in a lifetime to do that on an international stage?”

Speaking to media on Sunday, Australia’s leader Anthony Albanese said the attacks levelled at Gunn were not in keeping with the spirit of the Games.

“The Olympics is about people participating in sport… and Raygun had a crack, good on her.”

Team officials and the Olympics breakdancing community have similarly rallied around Gunn – offering her mental health support and calling out the online backlash.

“I think that what has occurred on social media with trolls and keyboard warriors… has been really disappointing,” Australian Olympic great Anna Meares, who serves as the team’s chef de mission in Paris, said on Saturday.

“I absolutely love her courage. I love her character,” she added.

Jeff ‘J-Attack’ Dunne, who represented Australia in the men’s competition on Sunday, also praised his teammate.

“All I know is she represented hard, she has been the leading breaker in Australia for the women and I acknowledge her and respect her 100%,” Dunne said.

A hip-hop inspired dance born in the boroughs of New York in the 1970s, breaking was introduced into this year’s schedule as a way to attract a younger audience to the Games.

But some critics say it should never have been included, due to the organic nature of the genre, which doesn’t necessarily suit organised competition.

• ‘Sensational’ Paris Olympics come to an end
• Everything you need to know about LA 2028
• Ten viral moments from the Paris Olympics
• Paris 2024: The final medals table

As Ukraine’s foreign minister completes his latest tour of Africa, his country risks paying a serious diplomatic price for helping separatist rebels in northern Mali inflict a severe defeat on the Russian military operator Wagner at the end of last month.

The ambush at Tinzaouten on 27 July reportedly killed 84 Wagner fighters and 47 Malian soldiers.

It was a painful military blow for the mercenary outfit once headed by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin, but now controlled by Russia’s official defence command structure.

Just two days later Andriy Yusov, spokesman for Kyiv’s military intelligence service (GUR), said that ethnic Tuareg rebels in Mali had “received necessary information, and not just information, which enabled a successful military operation against Russian war criminals”.

Subsequent reports suggested that Ukrainian special forces had trained the separatists in the use of attack drones.

Yet for many Africans, this was yet another case of outside powers exploiting the continent as a bloody playing field for their own rivalries.

Predictably, Mali’s ruling military junta, and the allied regime in neighbouring Niger, protested by breaking off diplomatic relations with Kyiv.

But much more significant was a statement from the regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas). Despite its own diplomatic issues with the military regimes in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, it was clear in its rebuke.

It declared its “firm disapproval and firm condemnation of any outside interference in the region which could constitute a threat to peace and security in West Africa and any attempt aiming to draw the region into current geopolitical confrontations”.

The anger will have been strengthened by suggestions that some jihadist militants joined the Tuareg separatists in mounting the Tinzaouaten attack.

The Senegalese foreign ministry summoned the Ukrainian ambassador in Dakar to protest after he posted a Facebook video about Mr Yusov’s gloating comments.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was touring Malawi, Zambia and Mauritius last week. But after the harsh words from Ecowas and Senegal he may now have to engage in some serious fence-mending in West Africa.

What many sub-Saharan African governments – even those that privately mistrust Moscow – will probably view as Kyiv’s unhelpful outside military adventurism could dispel the goodwill so painstakingly cultivated over the past two years through peaceful Ukrainian diplomacy.

Of course in narrow military terms, helping to inflict the heaviest-ever African defeat on Wagner was a success for the Ukrainians.

The mercenary contractor – now officially renamed Corps Africa after being brought under Russian state control – had doubled its manpower to an estimated 2,000 in Mali over the past two years.

So news of the heavy losses in Tinzaouaten came as a shock, particularly given that the Malian army and Wagner forces had seized Kidal, the Tuareg rebel “capital”, last November.

The Tinzaouaten incident has signalled the separatists’ return to the offensive –with, it soon became clear, the support of a new partner.

Kyiv’s hints of direct involvement confirm how far it is prepared to reach in taking its fightback against Russia’s President Vladimir Putin well beyond the home battlefield.

In fact this is not the first such direct intervention against Wagner military operations in Africa.

There were strong indications that last August and September Ukrainian special forces carried out drone raids in Sudan in support of the military regime led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

For more than a year, it has been engaged in a brutal power struggle with its former allies the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as “Hemedti”, who has been assisted by Wagner.

Some Ukrainian military commentators, such as Evgeniy Dikiy, former commander of Ukraine’s Aidar battalion, depict their country’s reported African military interventions very much in terms of a battle for survival after Russian forces invaded in February 2022.

Mr Dikiy has argued that Kyiv has no Africa policy but does have scores to settle with Russia and Wagner in particular.

But the administration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky may not see things in quite such simplistic terms.

For it knows that the fightback against Moscow is not only conducted on the battlefield. Diplomacy and trade matter too.

And in the immediate aftermath of the 2022 invasion, Kyiv was painfully reminded of this truth, particularly in regards to Africa.

In the UN General Assembly on 2 March that year, only 28 of the 54 African member states voted to condemn the invasion.

While only a few close allies of Moscow actually voted in support of Russia’s action, many other African governments, including some generally perceived as firmly pro-Western, actively abstained or absented themselves from the vote.

And later, when President Putin pulled out of the deal allowing both Ukrainian and Russian grain exports – many destined for Africa – to safely transit through the Black Sea, many sub-Saharan governments chose to view this setback in neutral terms rather than blaming Moscow.

While that particular issue has faded in significance, because Ukraine has largely recovered its freedom to ship grain after striking the Russian Black Sea fleet, the foreign ministry team in Kyiv has remained convinced of the need to rebuild their political and economic networks across Africa.

Mr Kuleba has now made four African tours. And while his campaign to earn goodwill and build partnerships south of the Sahara has not always advanced without a hitch – hopes of being received by President Cyril Ramaphosa during a visit to South Africa late last year were disappointed – there have also been important successes.

Zambia, for example, attended the Ukraine Peace Summit in Switzerland in June and, unlike some other participants, did sign the final communiqué (whose terms satisfied Kyiv).

And last week Mr Kuleba visited the Zambian capital, Lusaka, where he was received by President Hakainde Hichilema.

In reaching out to African countries now, Ukraine is seeking to make up for the diplomatic ground lost during the first three decades after its independence when it was largely preoccupied with its internal affairs.

While Russia inherited the worldwide diplomatic presence of the old Soviet Union, newly independent nations such as Ukraine had to build up their networks from scratch.

With limited resources, over 30 years Kyiv managed to open only eight embassies across the entire African continent – in Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa.

But after being so uncomfortably reminded in 2022 of the need to win friends and influence people, Kyiv is pushing rapidly to expand its coverage, aiming to build a 20-embassy African network, with the first 10 extra missions already announced.

April saw Kyiv’s special envoy for the Middle East and Africa, Maksym Soubkh, in Abidjan to open the embassy in Ivory Coast.

And Kyiv is proposing more than diplomatic co-operation.

Eight sub-Saharan countries have already benefitted from its “Grain from Ukraine” food aid initiative.

It also plans to build up its development assistance, strengthen two-way trade and provide more university places for African students.

Contentious military adventures targeting Russian mercenaries look an ill-judged risk that could jeopardise all the diplomatic goodwill and economic returns that Ukraine hopes to gain from its broad-based positive sub-Saharan strategy.

• Boost for Wagner as Mali shuns UN troops, but at what cost?
• Why Wagner is winning hearts in the Central African Republic
• How the Russian mercenary group has rebranded in Africa

Zorel Morales is worried about 130,000 tonnes of toxic material.

The substance in question is partially processed copper ore, and it has been stuck at a closed copper mine in Panama since the end of last year.

“The chemical reactions that generate dangerous gases, and a rise in the material’s temperatures, pose environmental risks,” says Mr Morales, who is the head of Panama’s Chamber of Mining. He adds that it “threatens the health and safety of staff” still working at the operation.

The substance, called “copper concentrate”, is finely ground copper ore that has been treated to increase its copper content ahead of going on to be exported for smelting into refined copper.

In addition to the danger of the release of toxic sulphur dioxide gas, just being exposed to dust particles from the concentrate can damage a person’s respiratory system. And it is toxic to aquatic life.

The material has been left at the site of Cobre Panamá, a huge open pit copper mine closed since last December, when the country’s supreme court ruled that a new 20-year concession to operate the facility was unconstitutional.

After the ruling the government quickly forced the mine to shut, leaving just maintenance staff at the facility.

The order came after thousands of people took to the nation’s streets last October and November to protest against the mine, which they said was harming the environment.

The facility, one of the world’s largest copper mines, employed some 7,000 people, and accounted for 1% of the world’s copper production. It opened in 2019, and is owned by Canadian firm First Quantum Minerals.

Listen now – Panama’s troubled copper mine

Located deep in a tropical rainforest near Panama’s Caribbean Coast, First Quantum has invested $10bn (£7.8bn) in the mine, including new infrastructure like roads, buildings and machinery.

The company wants to be able to export the existing concentrate. It has filed two international arbitration claims against Panama, although it says that its preferred route is to open dialogue with the new Panamanian government that came to power in July.

The dispute over the concentrate centres on who owns it – the Canadian company or Panama.

“We look forward to continuing to work with the new government to address the situation in relation to the mine,” says First Quantum spokesperson Maru Gálvez, in a statement.

“In particular, it is important to resolve the status of the copper concentrate that remains at the mine site and which all parties have agreed is an urgent matter.”

In response, a government spokesman says they are still assessing the situation and aren’t giving interviews. The new president, José Raúl Mulino, has yet to give a clear message about how he wants to resolve the issue.

One of Panama’s former finance ministers, Dulcidio de la Guardia, says he is frustrated by the situation.

“Cobre Panamá was the most important foreign investment in the country, second to the Panama Canal,” says Mr la Guardia, who held that cabinet position from 2014 to 2019. “It accounted for 5% of the GDP, which is around $5bn in direct and indirect contributions to the economy.”

Michael Camacho is a leader of the Utramipa mining union, and one of 1,400 people still working at Cobre Panamá as part of the maintenance programme. This is costing First Quantum about $15m to $20m a month.

Mr Camacho wants to see the government approve a plan for the preservation and safe operation of the mine. “In December more than 6,000 miners were left out of work when operations stopped. I urge the new president, José Raúl Mulino, to listen to the concerns of the communities around the mine who want to go back to work.”

But, environmental activist Raisa Banfield, who was involved in the demonstrations that led to the mine’s closure, is adamant that it remaining shut is in the best interests of the country. “The future of Panama isn’t from mining. The future of Panama is its biodiversity.”

She thinks the country needs a new kind of business model. “I think we’re re-finding our identity away from big projects like the Panama Canal, and foreign companies taking our resources to satisfy their economic model.”

She and other demonstrators got support from climate activist Greta Thunberg and Hollywood actor Leonardo Di Caprio, who both shared a video calling for the “mega mine” to stop its operations.

Ms Banfield wants the new government to instead invest in infrastructure for eco-tourism so Panama can flourish like neighbouring Costa Rica.

Yet others think the mine’s closure wasn’t just about the environment. Samuel Valdés is a biologist and the owner of the Biodiversity Consultant Group, which was employed by First Quantum to do studies to help minimise the environmental impact of the vast facility.

“There’s been a lot of misinformation surrounding the mine,” he says. Mr Valdés argues that some of the opposition to the facility was an extension of suspicions about the former government.

“Many people thought the last government was corrupt, and so they started to mistrust the mine’s [perceived close] relationship with it.”

He adds that the rivers surrounding the mine are thriving due to copious rainfall and all his reports show that fish, algae and prawns flourish there and are public for anyone to see. However, he accepts that on occasion there have been isolated incidents that affected specific areas.

He thinks there are also tensions between different moral viewpoints.

“The fight against the mine was from people who live in the cities who have a fixed idea of how people who live in the countryside should be living. Having worked with local people for the last 10 years I can tell you that their lives were much better because of the mine.”

It’s estimated that about 40,000 people relied on the mine for their income, when you add firms that provided it with services. Mr Valdés had to make 60 people redundant – many of them scientists – when the facility closed.

He says the issue of leftover copper concentrate was caused by the mine having to immediately close down. “The problem here is that the mine was a bit like a busy kitchen that suddenly closed. The food was left out on the sides or in the oven. Processes had been stopped mid-cycle”.

Some argue that the mine should be opened again, but only so that it can then be closed down again in a more orderly manner. Mr Valdés, as you’d imagine, wants to see it restart production, and then remain open.

All this uncertainty isn’t helping Panama’s reputation as a country for international investment. The ratings agency Fitch stripped Panama of its investment grade credit rating because of the closure of the copper mine undermining economic growth.

It remains to be seen if Panama’s new government will both regain investors’ confidence – and permanently reopen the mine.

A lingering fragrance of bun maska (bread and butter), plates loaded with freshly cooked samosas and cups of piping hot and creamy Irani chai.

These are some of the sights you would typically find at a Persian-style cafe in India.

Popularly known as Irani cafes, these iconic restaurants – with their signature marble-topped tables, old-style clocks, chequered floors and a distinctive menu – have been a part of India’s culture for more than 100 years.

And their influence has spread beyond India: Dishoom, one of London’s most recognisable restaurant chains, was inspired by these cafes.

They came up in cities like Mumbai and Pune in the 18th and 19th centuries when there was an influx of Persian immigrants from Iran.

There’s a third lesser known pocket of the country – the southern city of Hyderabad – where these cafes have been an intrinsic part of the local culture for decades.

But despite their many charms and the rich cultural heritage, the cafes of this city – like their counterparts in Pune and Mumbai – are on the verge of dying out, with owners blaming rising prices, competition from fast-food restaurants and changing consumer tastes.

Hyderabad has the highest number of Irani cafes after Mumbai even today. That’s because the city was a centre for Iranian trade in the late 19th Century.

Persian was widely spoken under the rule of a Muslim Nizam, or prince. The Niloufer café, located in the old quarters of the city, was actually named after the Nizam’s daughter-in-law, an Ottoman princess.

This was also a period when parts of modern-day Pakistan were still in India, with Iran as its neighbour, making the country easily accessible to Persian traders.

Most of the families who moved to Hyderabad – and other Indian cities – came to escape persecution and famine back home. Some came in search of better jobs and business.

Their arrival coincided with colonial rule when the British were actively promoting a tea drinking culture in the country.

When the Iranians arrived, they brought their own style of making tea giving rise to a distinct Iranian chai culture in the cities.

In Iran, people would drink it without milk, consuming it with a sugar cube in the mouth. Indians, however, would add milk and cream to the tea for taste.

“At first, the tea was sold under the name Chai Khana and only Muslims drank it,” Hyderabad-based historian Mohammed Safiullah says. “But soon, people from all religions caught on to its distinct flavour.”

By the 20th Century, Irani cafes were present in every nook and corner of Hyderabad.

The customers would sip on the lip-smacking tea as they would spend hours chatting away at the coffee shops.

At some cafes, patrons would also be able to play their favourite songs on a jukebox for a small fee.

Historians say these cafes played a crucial role in breaking down social barriers and religious taboos and became an important part of the city’s public life.

“Irani cafes in Hyderabad have stood as symbols of secularism,” historian Paravastu Lokeshwar said. “The names didn’t have any religious connotations. People of all religions and castes patronised them.”

Now they are under threat.

From an estimated 450 cafes over two decades ago, Hyderabad now has only 125 left, said Jaleel Farooq Rooz, owner of The Grand Hotel, a famous Irani cafe.

Mr Rooz’s maternal grandfather came from Iran in 1951 and took over the hotel that was started by 12 Iranians in 1935.

“We used to sell 8,000-9,000 cups a day once. Now we sell just 4,000 cups a day,” he told the BBC.

He cites competition from fast-food chains as one of the reasons. Now one of the most rapidly developing Indian cities, Hyderabad was a quiet little town until the early 1990s. Things changed in the mid-90s, when the city joined the IT boom in India and became a powerhouse of the industry.

The transformation was accompanied by a slew of economic reforms in the country, which allowed global fast-food chains and cafes to penetrate the Indian market. Similar to Iranian cafes, these food joints also offered extended seating options, but with far better amenities and more options.

Mr Rooz said most Irani cafes operated from rented premises as they required large spaces where patrons could relax and unwind over tea.

But rising real estate prices in Hyderabad have forced many owners to move to other work.

“Inflation also took a toll. Tea powder and milk prices have risen three times compared to five years ago,” he added.

Others say the number of Iranian families entering the business has also gone down.

“The current generation is not interested in the café and restaurant business. They prefer other jobs and many migrate to other countries,” said the owner of popular Farasha Restaurant, Mahmood, who goes by only one name.

But despite the challenges, there are still a few in the business who continue to swim against the tide.

Syed Mohammed Razak manages the Red Rose Restaurant in Hyderabad. His grandfather migrated from Tehran and established the City Light Hotel in the 1970s. Later, Mr Razak’s father started the Red Rose Restaurant.

An engineer and graphic designer by profession, Mr Razak admits that “selling just chai and biscuits” is neither easy, nor profitable.

He has now introduced new dishes to the menu to attract more customers and is using his graphic designing skills to expand business and promote it online.

“I want to continue my family’s legacy,” he said.

And it’s not just the owners, there are also loyal customers – many of whom have been frequenting these cafes for generations – who say they would always come back for “another cup of Irani chai”.

“Irani tea is a part of my life, I love the taste and drink it every time I step out,” said Yanni, who goes by only one name and is a regular at the Grand Hotel.

“There is nothing like it even today.”

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz’s military record has been under scrutiny since he was announced as Kamala Harris’s running mate.

Historic accusations made by some veterans have been revived by his opposite number, Republican JD Vance, who himself served in the military.

Mr Vance says that Mr Walz intentionally avoided combat in Iraq by resigning shortly before his unit was deployed there, and that he has been dishonest about his role in the military.

We’ve looked into his record and the military service of Mr Vance.

Mr Vance claimed: “When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the army and allowed his unit to go without him.”

Several former National Guard colleagues have previously publicly voiced frustrations at Mr Walz’s decision to leave their unit before deployment to Iraq – but others have rejected assertions that he retired to avoid combat duty.

Mr Walz served for 24 years in the Army National Guard, a military force which is usually deployed within the US to respond to events such as natural disasters, but is also part of the US Army’s reserve.

In February 2005, while he was still in the National Guard, Mr Walz filed an application to run to be elected as a member of Congress from Minnesota.

The following month it was announced that there would be “a possible partial mobilisation of roughly 2,000 troops from the Minnesota National Guard” to Iraq within the next two years, according to a 2005 press release from Mr Walz’s congressional campaign.

In the statement, Mr Walz said: “I do not yet know if my artillery unit will be part of this mobilisation.”

He added: “I don’t want to speculate on what shape my campaign will take if I am deployed, but I have no plans to drop out of the race.”

Mr Walz then retired from the National Guard in May 2005, which he later said was so he could focus fully on running for Congress.

It’s unclear exactly when he submitted his resignation notice. We’ve asked both the National Guard and the Harris campaign when this was.

His National Guard unit received orders to mobilise for Iraq in July 2005, and was sent there in March 2006, according to the battalion’s history page.

Mr Vance also says Mr Walz made “dishonest” claims about serving in combat.

He referred to a video promoted by the Harris campaign of Mr Walz talking about gun control.

In the clip, from 2018, he said that he “carried weapons in war”.

On 9 August, the Harris campaign issued a statement saying that “in making the case for why weapons of war should never be on our streets or in our classrooms, the Governor misspoke”.

Mr Walz went to Italy with the National Guard in 2003 as part of support for the US war in Afghanistan – but he was never deployed to an active war zone.

The Trump campaign says Mr Walz “continues telling the lie that he retired as a Command Sergeant Major”.

His official biography on the Minnesota state website says “Command Sergeant Major Walz retired from the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion in 2005.”

He did reach the rank of command sergeant major near the end of his service, but he officially retired one rank below as a master sergeant.

A national guard spokesperson told the BBC that “his rank reverted to master sergeant on May 15th, 2005, for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the US Army Sergeants Major Academy. He retired the following day.”

Mr Vance served for four years in the US Marine Corps.

He was deployed to Iraq for about six months in 2005 as a military journalist, although he didn’t experience combat.

“I was lucky to escape any real fighting,” he said in his 2016 memoir.

He left the Marine Corps in 2007 as a corporal to attend Ohio State University.

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The government is facing calls to reverse changes which make it harder for Ukrainians to bring family to the UK. One charity supporting migrants says the “heartless” policy has “torn apart” families and left people in danger.

When Halyna Khovaiko first moved to the UK in December 2021 for work she had only been planning to stay for a few months.

After the factory she worked at in eastern Ukraine closed down she managed to get a seasonal job on a farm in the UK and left her son Ihnat, who was then 12 years old, with his grandparents in Vovchansk.

But in February 2022 Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Vovchansk – which is just 5km from the Russian border – was occupied and Halyna was suddenly unable to return.

“I have a very strong bond with my son,” she says, speaking through a translator.

“Of course I miss him. It feels like you are more dead than alive.

“Just going to work and that’s it. You exist but you don’t live.”

After the town was liberated by the Ukrainian army in the autumn of 2022 Halyna – a single mother – was able to see her son again. However, struggling to earn money to support her family she eventually decided to return to the UK for work.

Her plan was to rent a flat so she could move out of the farm caravan where she was staying and her son could join her.

In January she finally managed to find somewhere to live in Weston-super-Mare and began the process of applying for a visa for her son under the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

The scheme, launched in March 2022, allows people in the UK to host those fleeing the war in Ukraine.

However, in February – without notice – the government suddenly restricted eligibility so only British or Irish citizens or those with the right to live in the UK permanently could act as sponsors.

This meant Ukrainians living in the UK without permanent residence – including Halyna – could no longer sponsor family members to join them in the UK.

At the same time the Ukraine Family Scheme, which allowed Ukrainians to join family members who already had permanent residence in the UK, was also closed.

Back in Vovchansk Russian attacks had intensified and the town was destroyed by shelling.

Halyna’s son, now 14, was forced to flee with his grandparents to the city of Kharkiv, 70km away.

For Halyna, knowing her son is in danger is almost unbearable.

“There are explosions [where he is] every day,” she says. “You go to sleep and you don’t know if you’re going to wake up in the morning.”

Work Rights Centre, a charity supporting migrants, says it has heard from nearly 200 Ukrainians who are separated from family members and trying to bring them to the UK.

Chief executive Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol says the current policy is “heartless” and has “torn apart” families.

“We have seen parents spend months fighting for a way to bring their child to the UK,” she says.

“Others have tragically endured the death of a family member in Ukraine while they were searching for a sponsor to bring them to the UK.”

The charity is calling on the new government to reverse the changes brought in by its predecessors so Ukrainians without the right to live in the UK permanently can still act as sponsors and reunite their families.

When it was in opposition Labour said the changes sent “the wrong message to the people of Ukraine about our willingness to stand with them”.

With the party now in government, the Home Office says the schemes are kept “under continual review”.

Nadiia Yashan, an immigration advisor for Work Rights Centre who is from Ukraine herself, says the changes were a huge shock.

When they were announced, she says some of her clients were in the middle of applications or about to sign leases on a flat where they had hoped their family would be able to come and live.

Like the Ukrainians she works with, Nadiia says she was “devastated” by the news as she had hoped to bring her own mother to the UK if the situation in Ukraine worsened.

As she came to the UK on a student visa, with her right to stay extended because of the war, Nadiia does not have the right to live in the UK permanently so could no longer act as a sponsor for her mother.

“I feel guilty, because maybe I should have [applied for her to come to the UK] sooner,” she says.

“I’m very, very concerned, and I’m thinking every day, what if it gets worse, and I need her to be here immediately and I can’t do anything?”

Since the Russian invasion more than 180,000 people have come to the UK under the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

The number of applications has fallen since the outbreak of the war. But Work Rights Centre says there is still substantial demand as it is common for one parent to come to the UK first to find a job and house before bringing over the rest of their family.

The charity says many Ukrainians in the UK are now struggling to find British sponsors for visa applications, with less people willing to host Ukrainians than when the war broke out.

When the changes to the scheme were announced, the previous government said they were to ensure people had appropriate accommodation and support in the UK, as the suitability of homes are checked under the scheme.

However, the charity says the current situation has the bizarre effect that a stranger could theoretically sponsor a Ukrainian child to come to the UK but their own parent could not.

Halyna, who speaks limited English, says it has been extremely difficult to find someone British to sponsor her child and people have struggled to understand why she needs a sponsor when she already has the right to live in the UK herself.

Despite settling into the UK with a job and home, she is now considering moving to a different country where it would be easier for her son to join her.

“This is not a life because my child is there, and I’m here,” she says. “I just want to be together with my child.”

Older trees are able to accelerate their rates of absorbing planet-warming emissions, scientists at the University of Birmingham have found.

A forest of mature oak trees was exposed to elevated levels of carbon dioxide for seven years and in response, the trees increased their production of wood – locking in the greenhouse gas and preventing it from warming the planet.

The researchers hope the study, published in Nature Climate Changewill demonstrate the importance of protecting and maintaining mature forests for tackling climate change.

It is estimated that globally a football field of primary forest is lost every six seconds.

“I think it is a hopeful and positive story,” said Professor Rob MacKenzie, director of Birmingham Institute of Forest Research and one of the co-authors of the study.

“This is evidence in favour of careful management of established forests. The old forest is doing a huge amount of work for us. What we definitely should not be doing is cutting it down,” he said.

The results of this latest study come from the University of Birmingham’s giant Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (FACE) experiment, which Prof MacKenzie has headed since its inception in 2016.

FACE is located at a 52-acre forest in Staffordshire and its aim is to understand the impact of our changing climate on woodlands in real-time.

Within the site is a group of 180-year-old English oak trees, and amongst their towering 40m canopies the academics have plumbed in a network of pipes.

Every day these pipes send out a stream of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the greenhouse gas – recreating the conditions the world might see if no action is taken to reduce emissions.

After seven years of monitoring the team of international researchers working at FACE has revealed that the oak trees have increased their productivity under these elevated levels of CO2.

The trees produced nearly 10% more wood, locking in the carbon dioxide for years to come and preventing it from warming the atmosphere.

When trees take in carbon dioxide they can use it in different ways – to produce new leaves, roots or woody biomass.

New leaves and roots are seen as short term stores of carbon dioxide as they can shed or die relatively frequently re-releasing the gas back into the atmosphere. But the researchers found most of the CO2 was converted to forms that enable it to be stored for many decades.

Previous experiments have shown that younger trees are able to increase their rates of CO2 absorption, but the assumption has been that more mature forests do not have the same adaptability.

Prof MacKenzie told the BBC it was important for the team to understand how older trees behave as that is the majority of the tree cover we have globally.

Although the results are positive he warned: “This absolutely is not a silver bullet and a get out of jail free card our fossil fuel emissions.”

“There’s absolutely no way we could transform the world into enough forest to continue to let us burn fossil fuels in the way that we are doing now,” he said.

The experiment has been extended until 2031 to that the researchers can continue to monitor the oak trees to see if this behaviour is maintained.

Dr Richard Norby, research professor at the University of Tennessee, who also authored the study said: “It is essential that the FACE experiment continues for more years because we know that responses can change over time. A longer-term record will increase our confidence in the results.”

They also hope to look at the impact of elevated CO2 levels on the lifespan of the trees and the knock on impacts on other biodiversity like insects.

Whilst conducting this experiment the scientists observed an uptick in some insect species which could be as a result of the different air conditions.

Thousands of people in Serbia have protested in Belgrade against plans to mine one of Europe’s largest deposits of lithium – a crucial raw material for electric car batteries.

Activists say the mine would cause irreversible environmental destruction to Serbia’s Jadar Valley, where the deposit is located.

A licence granted to mining giant Rio Tinto was revoked in 2022 following widespread protests in the country, but the project was restarted last month following a court decision and government U-turn.

President Aleksandar Vucic has insisted that strict environmental safety protocols will be put in place.

Protesters in the capital chanted “Rio Tinto get out of Serbia” and held banners saying “We do not give Serbia away” as they marched through the city.

Serbia’s Interior Ministry estimated that between 24,000 and 27,000 people joined the protest.

Environmental activists also took over two of the city’s main railway stations – with some lying or sitting on the tracks.

Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said in a statement that organisers were “warned” by police that their actions “were not in accordance with the law”.

He vowed charges would be filed against “all perpetrators”.

Activists want legislators to permanently ban the mining of lithium and boron in Serbia, warning of possible dangers to public health and contamination of land and water.

They had given the government a deadline of Saturday to implement the ban.

Last month, Serbia restored Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto’s licence to extract the mineral in the Jadar Valley in the west of the country.

Serbia’s government said the previous decision to block the project in 2022 was “not in line with the constitution and the law”.

The EU hailed it as a “historic day for Serbia, as well as for Europe”.

Speaking about the revived Rio Tinto project, Green-Left Movement co-leader Biljana Djordjevic said that activists “fear Serbia will be sacrificed to provide lithium for electric vehicles that pretty much nobody in Serbia can afford”.

Carmakers will need ever more lithium for batteries, as the transition to zero-emission vehicles accelerates – and Rio Tinto’s $2.4bn (£1.8bn) Jadar Valley project could provide as much as nine-tenths of Europe’s current lithium needs, and turn the company into one of the world’s leading lithium producers.

The family of the late soul singer Isaac Hayes has ordered Donald Trump to stop playing the star’s song Hold On, I’m Coming at his campaign rallies.

A letter sent to Trump and his team, and shared by Hayes’ son on social media, threatens to sue the former US President if he does not comply by 16 August.

The family is also demanding $3m (£2.4m) in licensing fees for the campaign’s repeated use of the song between 2022 and 2024.

The song, which was made famous by soul duo Sam and Dave, is a regular feature of Trump’s rallies, often playing before and after his speeches.

Hayes composed the song in 1966 with Dave Porter, when he was a staff writer at Stax Records. He went on to become a Grammy and Oscar-winner in his own right, with hits like Shaft and Walk On By.

In their legal letter, Hayes’ family claimed to have “asked repeatedly” for Trump to stop using the song. They go on to cite 134 occasions on which the campaign went ahead anyway.

Their lawyer, James Walker, alleged that the Trump campaign has “wilfully and brazenly engaged in copyright infringement”.

He went on to demand that the campaign remove any videos featuring the song, and issue a full statement acknowledging that Hayes’ family have not “authorised, endorsed or permitted” the use of his music.

Walker added that the requested $3m settlement is a “heavily discounted” figure, due to the frequency with which the campaign has played Hold On, I’m Coming.

The letter also stated that if a resolution was not made and a lawsuit was issued, the Hayes family would demand damages of $150,000 per use of the song – amounting to more than $20m (£15.7m).

The Trump campaign has yet to respond to the letter or the threat of legal action.

The Hayes family previously criticised Trump for playing Hold On, I’m Coming at a National Rifle Association convention, less than a week after the Uvalde school shooting in 2022, which claimed the lives of 19 people.

“Our condolences go out to the victims and families of Uvalde and mass shooting victims everywhere,” they wrote at the time.

Porter, the song’s co-writer, also wrote: “I did not and would not approve of them using the song for any of his purposes.”

Meanwhile, Sam Porter – who sang the original hit recording – objected to Barack Obama using the song in his 2008 presidential campaign.

“I have not agreed to endorse you for the highest office in our land,” he said in a statement at the time.

“My vote is a very private matter between myself and the ballot box,” he added.

On Sunday, Hayes’ son, Isaac Hayes III, elaborated on his objections to the Trump campaign.

“Donald Trump epitomises a lack of integrity and class, not only through his continuous use of my father’s music without permission but also through his history of sexual abuse against women and his racist rhetoric,” he wrote on Instagram.

“This behaviour will no longer be tolerated, and we will take swift action to put an end to it.”

The Hayes family are the latest in a long line of musicians to complain about the Trump campaign.

The Beatles, Neil Young, Adele, Bruce Springsteen, Sinead O’Connor and Aerosmith are among the artists who have issued the politician with cease-and-desist orders.

In fact, the list of artists who have protested is so lengthy that the topic has its own Wikipedia page.

On Saturday, Celine Dion’s team also protested against the use of her track My Heart Will Go On at a rally in Montana.

“In no way is this use authorised, and Celine Dion does not endorse this or any similar use,” a statement read.

“And really, THAT song?”, it added – alluding to the fact that the track was recorded for the film Titanic, about a sinking ship.

However, musicians have only had limited success in stopping politicians from using their music.

In the US, campaigns are required to obtain a Political Entities License from the music rights body BMI, which gives them access to more than 20 million tracks for use in their rallies.

Artists and publishers can ask for their music to be withdrawn from the list, but it seems that organisers rarely check the database to ensure they have clearance.

“They don’t care as much about artists’ rights as perhaps you’d want,” said Larry Iser, a lawyer who represented Jackson Browne when he sued Republican candidate John McCain for one of his songs in a 2008 commercial. (The case was later settled).

“It’s not just the Trump campaign,” Iser told Billboard magazine. “Most political campaigns aren’t keen about just taking the song down.”

Cases rarely, if ever, head to court – with both sides typically backing down after a flurry of legal letters.

Mia le Roux has become the first deaf woman to be crowned Miss South Africa following a divisive competition which saw one finalist withdraw after being trolled over her Nigerian heritage.

In her acceptance speech, Ms Le Roux said she hoped her victory would help those who felt excluded from society to achieve their “wildest dreams, just like I am”.

She said she wanted to help those who were “financially excluded or differently abled”.

Last week 23-year-old law student Chidimma Adetshina pulled out of the competition following allegations that her mother may have stolen the identity of a South African woman.

Ms Adetshina was born in South Africa to a Nigerian father and a mother of Mozambican origin.

She had been at the centre of a social media storm for several weeks, with many people, including a cabinet minister, questioning her right to represent the country.

She said she had been the victim of “black-on-black hate”, highlighting a particular strain of xenophobia in South Africa known as “afrophobia”, which targets those from other African countries.

Ms Le Roux, 28, was diagnosed with profound hearing loss at the age of one and has a cochlear implant to help her perceive sound.

She said it had taken two years of speech therapy before she was able to say her first words.

After winning, the model and marketing manager said: “I am a proudly South African deaf woman and I know what it feels like to be excluded.

“I know now that I was put on this planet to break boundaries and I did it tonight.”

• Miss South Africa contestant pulls out amid nationality row
• Beauty contest sparks row over who counts as South African
• Tyla’s racial identity: South African singer sparks culture war
• Nigerian anger over South African xenophobia

The elusive artist Banksy has confirmed he painted swimming piranhas on to a City of London Police sentry box, which was first spotted on Sunday morning.

The glass-fronted box on Ludgate Hill – near The Old Bailey and St Paul’s Cathedral – has been transformed to look like an aquarium.

This is his seventh new artwork to be revealed in the capital in as many days, following a goat, monkeys, elephants, a wolf, pelicans and a cat.

Crowds gathered to take photos throughout the day until barriers were installed, preventing people from going inside.

This work differs from the previous works by Banksy unveiled this week in that it is a detailed painting that appears to have been created with translucent spray paint.

The City of London Police said it was aware of “criminal damage” to the police box and were liaising with City of London Corporation which owns it.

A corporation worker was earlier seen barricading it off and asking spectators not to stand in the road near it.

A spokesperson said: “We are currently working through options to preserve the artwork.”

The sentry box is among many installed in the 1990s used by police officers monitoring traffic to prevent IRA attacks.

A local resident who came to take pictures of the fish artwork said she thought it was “rather beautiful in the sun.”

“I like it, it’s got a charm to it somehow. It’s not in your face, it’s quite subtle.

Artist Daniel Lloyd-Morgan, who has painted most of Banksy’s new pieces of art this week said: “It’s really uplifting for people in London at the moment.

“There’s a buzz around his work. It’s nice to capture that as I do the people as well.

“It’s not just about the artwork, it’s about the whole environment he’s creating, it becomes a sort of work of art itself – what happens to it, people steal it or take it away.”

Mr Lloyd-Morgan added that he was due to go on holiday on Monday but has postponed it in case Banksy’s art revelations continue next week.

Banksy’s translucent fish swimming around a 1990s police sentry box form the seventh piece in a surprise animal-themed art series.

On Monday, a goat appeared on the side of a building near Kew Bridge, followed by a sweet image of two elephants touching trunks on the side of a house in Chelsea on Tuesday.

Three monkeys hanging from a bridge in Brick Lane then drew crowds on Wednesday.

On Thursday, a howling wolf on a satellite dish – which looked like the wolf was howling at the moon – was installed onto a garage roof in Peckham.

On Friday, locals in Walthamstow woke up to find two pelicans fishing above a fish shop.

And on Saturday, a stencil of a cat having a stretch appeared on an empty billboard in Cricklewood.

In total, three of these works have since been removed or defaced.

The billboard, along with the cat, was taken down by contractors citing safety reasons, hours after it was revealed.

Crowds who had gathered to look at the work booed as it was dismantled by three men.

• Video: Banksy’s howling wolf satellite dish removed by masked men

The affectionate elephants were pictured having been painted over with stripes on Friday. And earlier in the week, the satellite dish and its wolf were apparently stolen by masked men within hours of being revealed.

Each day, the artist officially announced the works on his Instagram page.

Older trees are able to accelerate their rates of absorbing planet-warming emissions, scientists at the University of Birmingham have found.

A forest of mature oak trees was exposed to elevated levels of carbon dioxide for seven years and in response, the trees increased their production of wood – locking in the greenhouse gas and preventing it from warming the planet.

The researchers hope the study, published in Nature Climate Changewill demonstrate the importance of protecting and maintaining mature forests for tackling climate change.

It is estimated that globally a football field of primary forest is lost every six seconds.

“I think it is a hopeful and positive story,” said Professor Rob MacKenzie, director of Birmingham Institute of Forest Research and one of the co-authors of the study.

“This is evidence in favour of careful management of established forests. The old forest is doing a huge amount of work for us. What we definitely should not be doing is cutting it down,” he said.

The results of this latest study come from the University of Birmingham’s giant Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (FACE) experiment, which Prof MacKenzie has headed since its inception in 2016.

FACE is located at a 52-acre forest in Staffordshire and its aim is to understand the impact of our changing climate on woodlands in real-time.

Within the site is a group of 180-year-old English oak trees, and amongst their towering 40m canopies the academics have plumbed in a network of pipes.

Every day these pipes send out a stream of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the greenhouse gas – recreating the conditions the world might see if no action is taken to reduce emissions.

After seven years of monitoring the team of international researchers working at FACE has revealed that the oak trees have increased their productivity under these elevated levels of CO2.

The trees produced nearly 10% more wood, locking in the carbon dioxide for years to come and preventing it from warming the atmosphere.

When trees take in carbon dioxide they can use it in different ways – to produce new leaves, roots or woody biomass.

New leaves and roots are seen as short term stores of carbon dioxide as they can shed or die relatively frequently re-releasing the gas back into the atmosphere. But the researchers found most of the CO2 was converted to forms that enable it to be stored for many decades.

Previous experiments have shown that younger trees are able to increase their rates of CO2 absorption, but the assumption has been that more mature forests do not have the same adaptability.

Prof MacKenzie told the BBC it was important for the team to understand how older trees behave as that is the majority of the tree cover we have globally.

Although the results are positive he warned: “This absolutely is not a silver bullet and a get out of jail free card our fossil fuel emissions.”

“There’s absolutely no way we could transform the world into enough forest to continue to let us burn fossil fuels in the way that we are doing now,” he said.

The experiment has been extended until 2031 to that the researchers can continue to monitor the oak trees to see if this behaviour is maintained.

Dr Richard Norby, research professor at the University of Tennessee, who also authored the study said: “It is essential that the FACE experiment continues for more years because we know that responses can change over time. A longer-term record will increase our confidence in the results.”

They also hope to look at the impact of elevated CO2 levels on the lifespan of the trees and the knock on impacts on other biodiversity like insects.

Whilst conducting this experiment the scientists observed an uptick in some insect species which could be as a result of the different air conditions.

Ukrainian troops have advanced up to 30km inside Russia, in what has become the deepest and most significant incursion since Moscow began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had engaged Ukrainian troops near the villages of Tolpino and Obshchy Kolodez, as the offensive in the Kursk region entered a sixth day.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused Kyiv of “intimidating the peaceful population of Russia”.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, who directly acknowledged the attack for the first time in an address last night, said 2,000 cross-border attacks had been launched by Russia from Kursk this summer.

“Artillery, mortars, drones. We also record missile strikes, and each such strike deserves a fair response,” Mr Zelensky told the country in his nightly address from Kyiv.

A senior Ukrainian official told the AFP news agency that thousands of troops were engaged in the operation, far more than the small incursion initially reported by Russian border guards.

While Ukrainian-backed sabotage groups have launched intermittent cross-border incursions, the Kursk offensive marks the biggest co-ordinated attack on Russian territory by Kyiv’s conventional forces.

“We are on the offensive. The aim is to stretch the positions of the enemy, to inflict maximum losses and to destabilise the situation in Russia as they are unable to protect their own border,” the official said.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that its forces had “foiled attempts by enemy mobile groups with armoured vehicles to break through deep into Russian territory”.

But in an apparent admission that Kyiv’s forces have now advanced deep into the Kursk border region, the defence ministry reported engaging Ukrainian troops near the villages of Tolpino and Obshchy Kolodez – which are about 25km and 30km from the Russia-Ukraine border.

Footage circulating online and verified by the BBC also appeared to show a Russian strike near the village of Levshinka, around 25km from the border.

Ukrainian troops have claimed to have captured a number of settlements in the Kursk region. In Guevo, a village about 3km inside Russia, soldiers filmed themselves removing the Russian flag from an administrative building.

Clips have also emerged of Ukrainian troops seizing administrative buildings in Sverdlikovo and Poroz, while intense fighting has been reported in Sudzha – a town of about 5,000 people.

Ukrainian troops have already filmed themselves outside Sudzha at a major gas facility involved in the transit of natural gas from Russia to the EU via Ukraine, which has continued despite the war.

In Sumy region, which borders the Kursk region, BBC reporters witnessed a steady stream of armoured personnel carriers and tanks moving towards Russia.

The armoured convoys are sporting white triangular insignias, seemingly to distinguish them from hardware used within Ukraine itself. Meanwhile, aerial photos have appeared to show Ukrainian tanks engaged in combat inside Russia.

Photos analysed by BBC Verify also appeared to show Russia constructing new defensive lines near the Kursk nuclear power plant. Ukrainian forces engaged at Obshchy Kolodez were within 50km (31 miles) of the facility.

Contrasting satellite imagery of the same location captured yesterday with imagery from a few days earlier, images show several newly constructed trench lines in the vicinity, with the nearest roughly 8km (5 miles) from the plant.

Russia says 76,000 people have been evacuated from border areas in the Kursk region, where a state of emergency has been declared by local authorities.

Acting regional governor Aleksei Smirnov also said 15 people were injured late on Saturday when the wreckage of a downed Ukrainian missile fell on a multi-storey building in Kursk’s regional capital, Kursk.

Oleksiy Goncharenko – a Ukrainian MP – hailed the operation and said it was “taking us much closer to peace than one hundred peace summits”.

“When Russia needs to fight back on their own territory, when Russian people are running, when people care, that’s the only way to show them stop this war,” he told the BBC.

The Kursk offensive comes after weeks of Russian advances in the east, where a succession of villages have been captured by the Kremlin’s forces.

Some analysts have suggested that the Kursk attack is part of an effort to force Russia to redeploy forces away from eastern Ukraine and relieve pressure on the beleaguered Ukrainian defences.

But the Ukrainian official told AFP there had been little let-up to date in Russian operations in the east.

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the offensive was a “major provocation”.

Meanwhile, emergency services in the Kyiv region said a man and his four-year-old son were killed in a missile strike near the capital overnight.

Air defences also destroyed 53 out of 57 attack drones launched by Russia during its overnight airstrikes, air force officials said. Four North Korean-manufactured missiles were also fired as part of the barrage, they said.

Russia has been forced to turn to the isolated Asian state to re-stock its munitions, with the US alleging that vast amounts of military hardware have been shipped by Pyongyang.

Elsewhere, Russian officials in the occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast said a fire broke out at the region’s nuclear power plant on Sunday.

Yevgeny Balitsky, the Kremlin-installed governor of Zaporizhzhia, claimed the fire erupted after shelling by Ukrainian forces. He said there had been no radiation spike around the plant.

Russia’s state Tass news agency reported that the main fire at the plant was extinguished in the early hours of Monday.

In a statement posted to X, the UN’s nuclear watchdog – the International Atomic Energy Agency – said its on-site inspectors had witnessed “strong dark smoke” coming from the north of the facility, but emphasised that there was “no impact reported” for nuclear safety.

President Zelensky said in a post to social media that Russian forces had started a fire on the territory of the plant.

The site has been under the control of Russian troops and officials since 2022. It has not produced power in more than two years and all six reactors have been in cold shutdown since April.

As investigations continue into the plane crash in Brazil that killed 62 people, more details have emerged about the victims.

Those who died included cancer doctors, a three-year-old child, a lawyer specialising in lawsuits against airlines and a Venezuelan family and their dog, local media have reported.

All bodies have now been recovered from the site of Friday’s plane crash in the state of São Paulo.

The twin-engine turboprop was flying from Cascavel in the southern state of Paraná to Guarulhos airport in São Paulo city when it came down on Friday in the town of Vinhedo.

Footage circulating on social media showed a plane descending vertically, spiralling as it fell.

The aircraft crashed in a residential area, but no-one on the ground was injured. Officials said only one home in a local condominium complex was damaged.

Two doctors from the Uopeccan Cancer Hospital in Cascavel, Mariana Belim and Ariane Risso, were among the passengers who died.

They were among eight doctors on their way to attend a medical conference.

Three-year-old Liz Ibba dos Santos, the youngest victim of the disaster, was travelling with her father, Rafael Fernando dos Santos. Her mother, a journalist, was not on the flight.

• All bodies recovered after 62 die in Brazil plane crash
• Plane crash in Brazil’s São Paulo state kills all 62 on board
• ‘I went to the balcony and saw the plane spinning’
• In pictures: Brazil’s deadly plane crash

Other victims included a family returning to their native Venezuela after their dreams of a new life in Brazil were frustrated.

Josgleidys Gonzalez was travelling with her mother, Maria Gladys Parra Holguin, and her young son, Joslan Perez.

According to a family friend writing on social media, the three had left economic hardship in Venezuela and moved to Cascavel, but had been unable to sort out Joslan’s documentation, as he was born in Venezuela but grew up in Brazil.

As a result, they were heading back to their homeland to deal with the documentation, and hoped to start a new life in neighbouring Colombia.

Their plan was to change planes in São Paulo and fly to northern Brazil before completing the journey by bus.

A friend of the family, Thaiza Evangelista, told AFP news agency that the family had friends in Colombia that would help them get set up.

Ms Evangelista received a message just as they were about to board the plane – the last she received from Josgleidys.

“I was desperate… the list (of victims) wasn’t coming out,” she told AFP.

The airline later confirmed Josgleidys, her mother and young son were among the dead.

Their dog, Luna, boarded the plane with them, because Joslan’s mother could not stand to see him separated from their pet, said the family friend. The family had the dog vaccinated as required by the airline.

The death toll also included a lawyer, Laiana Vasatta, who worked as a lay judge at the Court of Justice of Paraná and also represented clients in lawsuits against airlines. She posted videos on social media offering consumer guidance.

The state of São Paulo said it concluded its operation to remove the victims’ bodies from the crash site on Saturday evening.

It added that the bodies – 34 males and 28 females – were being moved to a police morgue in the city of São Paulo, where they will be identified and released to the families.

The authorities are still trying to determine what caused the plane’s dramatic plunge.

Analysis of the plane’s flight recorders has already begun and the Brazilian Air Force said a preliminary report would be issued in 30 days.

The plane crash is Brazil’s worst since 2007, when a TAM Express plane crashed and burst into flames at São Paulo’s Congonhas airport, killing 199 people.

A shop security guard has described how he tried to save an 11-year-old girl as she was being attacked by a knifeman in London’s Leicester Square.

In a statement, the Met Police said a 32-year-old man had been arrested and taken into custody after the girl and her 34-year-old mother were stabbed.

Abdullah, 29, who works at TWG tea in Leicester Square, said he intervened to stop the attacker and, with help from colleagues, gave first aid to the child.

The Met said it was “not looking for anyone else” in connection with the attack and does not believe the victims knew their attacker. It also said “at this stage” there was no suggestion the stabbing was terror-related.

The force added the girl required hospital treatment for “serious” but not life-threatening injuries, while her mother’s wounds were “more minor”.

Police officers remain at the scene, which is in one of the busiest tourist districts in the capital.

Abdullah told the BBC he had heard “a scream”, so he “jumped on the attacker… and kicked the knife away from him”.

“I heard a scream and I just went outside and saw one guy had a knife,” he explained.

“The moment I saw it I just jumped on that guy and grabbed his hand… and put him down on the floor and kicked the knife away from him.”

He said a couple of other men also came over to help and held the man down for “four to five” minutes, adding he decided to take action because “I had no time, I just didn’t think”.

“It’s horrible to be honest; I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Abdullah said.

“To do this to a kid, it’s horrible.”

He added he and his colleagues gave first aid to the child before the police took over.

“I just saw a kid getting stabbed and I just tried to save her,” he said.

“It’s my duty to just save them.”

Another eyewitness, called Jacqueline, said she “heard a loud scream” and ran straight over to find a “horrific” scene.

“I saw a young girl on the floor with her mum… and a few guys tackled the man to the floor.

“It just happened so quickly. Police arrived and then the ambulance arrived.

“I could see there was a lot of blood.”

She added: “This is where I’m based all the time, so I feel scared. Things can happen anywhere, it doesn’t matter where you are.

“Normally there’s a lot of police around this area. It’s a tourist attraction.”

Desmond, 45, who performs as Darth Vader on the square “every day” said the woman and girl had been together before the attack happened.

“It was so terrible, I’ve never seen a thing like that. I was heartbroken, I saw the woman was screaming with all her strength,” he said.

A man who works opposite the scene, and who did not want to be identified, said he had seen the suspect earlier in the day.

“He was standing, doing nothing, eating,” he said.

Soon after the attack, several police officers were still at the scene next to the Lego store on Swiss Court, just off the square itself.

Objects including a green lighter, black cap and bloodied napkins could be seen on the ground behind crime scene tape, with a small crowd of people gathered in the distance.

Medical kits could be seen inside the TWG tea shop.

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said paramedics were called at 11:36 BST to reports of a stabbing.

They said: “We sent resources to the scene, including an ambulance crew, an advanced paramedic and an incident response officer. We also dispatched members of our tactical response unit.

“We treated a child and an adult at the scene and took them to a major trauma centre.”

Det Ch Supt Christina Jessah from the Met paid tribute to the staff and members of the public “who bravely intervened in this incident”, saying: “They put themselves at risk and showed the best of London in doing so.”

She added investigators were working to establish the suspect’s motive for the attack, and urged anyone who witnessed what happened or had any information to contact police.

Donald Trump has falsely claimed a crowd which gathered to see Vice President Kamala Harris speak in Michigan last week “didn’t exist” and an image showing it was AI generated.

The picture in question shows a large crowd at the Democratic presidential nominee’s rally in Detroit.

Mr Trump, the Republican taking on the vice-president in November’s election, said on his Truth Social platform that it was a fake and there was “nobody” there waiting for her.

However, in multiple other images and videos, some taken by people present but also by TV news teams and agency photographers, you can see a large crowd of people at the event.

BBC presenter Sumi Somaskanda took the picture below at the rally and says: “People were literally packed in and the crowd stretched out onto the airfield.”

Several of other photographs taken at the event by Getty Images show a large crowd there.

Video footage taken by several independent media organisations, including NBC News and PBS, show similar scenes.

Local media outlet MLive covered the event and estimated that about 15,000 people were at the rally which was held at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

Many people who were also there posted pictures on X which showed them in a big crowd, including a Michigan state Democrat lawmaker who said there were “throngs of people”.

The first version we could find of the photo Mr Trump has highlighted was posted on X by a Harris campaign staffer, Bhavik Lathia, on 7 August.

Mr Lathia says the picture was sent to him by another campaign official.

The Harris campaign confirmed this and sent us what they say was the original photo below.

BBC Verify checked the metadata of this image, which confirmed it was taken on an iPhone 12 Pro Max device on 7 August at 18:28 local time.

“I can confirm that this was taken by Harris campaign staff and not modified by AI in any way,” a campaign official told the BBC.

The campaign also sent us several other images taken by the same person at the same spot, including the one below.

This image was taken a minute earlier from the same angle, in which the same crowd is visible but covered in shadow.

We’ve asked the Harris campaign whether the image which was questioned by Mr Trump was brightened to expose the crowds covered by shadow or changed in any other way.

There’s no evidence that the Harris campaign edited the image to make the crowd appear larger.

There have also been suggestions online that several elements of the photo show it has been manipulated using AI.

These include the absence of a crowd in a reflection on the side of the plane, and that there is no identification number on the plane’s tail.

On the first point, other photos taken by news agencies show the same view in the reflection on the side of the plane without a visible crowd.

A Getty photograph taken from the reverse angle looking towards the crowd shows a clear area on the tarmac in front of the plane as Ms Harris and her running-mate Tim Walz walk away from it.

It is possible that the reflection on the side of the plane is mainly of this area of empty tarmac.

Questions have also been raised online about why there is no identification number on the tail of Air Force Two – the vice president’s plane.

However, the number is also absent from other pictures taken at the Detroit event, and footage of the plane at other events recently also show it without a number on its tail.

Prof Hany Farid, a specialist in image analysis at UC Berkeley, has examined the photograph using software designed to detect AI-generated images and says “we found no evidence that this image is AI-generated or digitally altered”.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

The US has sent a guided missile submarine to the Middle East, as tensions grow in the region.

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin also said an aircraft carrier which was already heading to the area would sail there more quickly.

The move comes in response to fears of a wider regional conflict, after the recent assassination of senior Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.

It signals the US’s determination to help defend Israel from any attack by Iran – with Mr Austin saying US would “take every possible step” to defend its ally.

Iran is being closely watched for any indication of how and when it might respond to the assassination of Hamas’s top political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on 31 July.

The Iranians blamed Israel for the assassination of Mr Haniyeh on their soil, and have vowed to punish it. Israel has not commented but is widely believed to have been behind it.

In a statement on Sunday, the Pentagon said Mr Austin had sent the the USS Georgia guided missile submarine to the region.

It had also ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, which is carrying F-35C fighter jets, to accelerate its journey there. The ship was already on its way to replace another US ship in the region.

• Iran keeps region guessing as it mulls revenge attack
• Hamas says Gaza truce talks must be based on Biden plan

It remains unclear what Iran could be planning to do.

Meanwhile, another possible attack on Israel could come from Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia and political movement in Lebanon.

The group has vowed to respond to the killing by Israel of senior commander Fuad Shukr, which happened just hours before Mr Haniyeh’s assassination, in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Professor Mehran Kamrava, from Georgetown University in Qatar, said the US publicly sending a submarine was “meant as a deterrence against Iran and Hezbollah”.

But he suggested that in private, “there might be some indication that Iran is actually up to something and is going to strike”.

Several passenger airlines have cancelled flights to airports in the region due to the perceived threat.

German airline Lufthansa said on Monday it was suspending flights to Tel Aviv in Israel, Lebanon’s capital city Beirut, the Jordanian capital Amman, Erbil in Iraq, and the Iranian capital, Tehran, until 21 August “based on its current security analysis”.

Swiss Air has also cancelled its flights scheduled to travel to Tel Aviv and Beirut over the same period.

Meanwhile, Air France extended its suspension of flights to Beirut – which began on 29 July – through to Wednesday, according to the AFP news agency.

Other airlines, including AirBaltic and EasyJet, have previously said they were suspending flights to the region.

When Iran previously launched an attack on Israel following a strike on its consulate in Syria in April, it did so using hundreds of aerial drones and missiles.

The Biden administration believes a ceasefire in Gaza that frees Israeli hostages would be the best way to calm tensions in the region, and has called for talks to resume on Thursday.

But on Sunday night, Hamas responded to US efforts to revive the ceasefire talks by saying Israel should be forced to implement the deal already on the table.

Hamas said that any resumption of ceasefire talks about the conflict in Gaza should be based on its previous position rather than holding new rounds of negotiations.

However its statement indicated an agreement in principle to participate.

Washington has previously blamed Hamas for the failure of negotiations.

But Israeli press reports say the US increasingly sees Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as partly responsible – because he is accused of appeasing far-right members of his coalition who are opposed to a deal.

Last week, for the first time the White House openly criticised one of these coalition leaders, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Mr Smotrich had urged Israel to reject the US push for ceasefire talks, saying it would be a surrender to Hamas. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Mr Smotrich was “dead wrong” and accused him of making false claims.

Meanwhile the leaders of the UK, France and Germany echoed calls for ceasefire talks to resume.

“We agree that there can be no further delay,” said the statement from UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

“We have been working with all parties to prevent escalation and will spare no effort to reduce tensions and find a path to stability.”

Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise made a dramatic appearance at Sunday night’s Paris 2024 closing ceremony, descending on a wire from the Stade de France roof.

Spectators shrieked in delight as the Mission: Impossible star, dressed in leather jacket and gloves, lowered himself into the stadium while his compatriot H.E.R. performed on guitar.

To mark the handover to Los Angeles, which will host the Olympics in 2028, Cruise was seen in a pre-recorded film travelling through Paris and onto the US.

There he journeyed to the legendary Hollywood sign and unfurled the Olympic colours. The ceremony in Paris marked a formal “au revoir” from this year’s host city.

Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, said the Paris Games had been “sensational”.

In his closing speech, he praised athletes for their “simply amazing” performances, saying they showed “what greatness we humans are capable of”.

He continued: “During all this time, you lived peacefully together under one roof in the Olympic Village. You embraced each other. You respected each other, even if your countries are divided by war and conflict. You created a culture of peace.

“This inspired all of us and billions of people around the globe. Thank you for making us dream. Thank you for making us believe in a better world for everyone.”

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Cruise’s feat during the closing ceremony was performed as musician H.E.R. jammed on an electric guitar – having moments before delivered a rocky rendition of the US national anthem.

He proceeded to take the Olympic flag from one of the stars of Paris – American gymnast Simone Biles – before the thrilled audience watched him zip away on a motorbike.

The pre-recorded clip showing his journey to LA was soundtracked by California natives Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The funk-rock hitmakers then delivered a live performance of their classic track Can’t Stop on a palm-fringed beach in Los Angeles. Other acts included Billie Eilish and Snoop Dogg, who performed with Dr Dre.

Snoop – who is from LA himself – was a regular fixture at the Games, which culminated with the US topping the medals table after a dramatic win in Sunday’s final event, the women’s basketball final.

Cruise, also known for Top Gun, is renowned for performing his own stunts.

Over the last decade or so, these have included scaling Dubai’s Burj Khalifa and dangling on the outside of a plane as it took off, both for the Mission: Impossible series.

Artistic director Thomas Jolly complemented Cruise’s feat with another cinematic-feeling segment. A hushed, darkened stadium watched as a troupe of dancers rolled five giant rings across a stage, ultimately assembling the Olympic logo.

The gloomy sci-fi aesthetic was finally punctured by an up-tempo performance from French band Phoenix, who tore into two hits. They were surrounded by athletes who climbed up on stage, to the consternation of the stadium announcer.

Cruise’s role was perhaps Paris’s worst-kept secret. Rumours had been in the press for days – even before he was photographed in the stadium itself on Sunday evening.

The 62-year-old was spotted several times in Paris during the Games fortnight, cheering on the US team in the swimming relay and watching multi-medal-winning American gymnast Simone Biles in action.

“It’s awesome,” he told Reuters news agency at the time. “Great stories, great athletes. It’s incredible what they do.”

Artistic director Jolly was also responsible for the Olympics’ ambitious curtain-raiser last month. This featured a parade of boats along the River Seine and a comeback performance from singer Céline Dion.

Miley Cyrus has become the youngest-ever star to receive Disney legend status.

The singer rose to fame playing Hannah Montana in the Disney Channel series which first aired in 2006 when she was 13.

In an emotional speech at fan convention D23 on Sunday, Miley said she was “still proud to have been Hannah Montana”.

She won her first Grammy earlier this year for Flowers, which was recognised as 2023’s record of the year and spent 10 weeks at number one in the UK.

The 31-year-old received a standing ovation from the 12,000-strong crowd when she collected her award at the Honda Centre in Anaheim, California, home of Disneyland.

She told the audience “a little bit of everything has changed” since her breakout role playing a teenager leading a double life as a pop star “but at the same time nothing has changed at all”.

Miley was brought out on stage as country singer Lainey Wilson sang one of Hannah Montana’s most popular tracks, The Best of Both Worlds.

She became emotional as she told the audience of her first performance as Hannah.

“We needed footage of her playing sold out concerts but no-one knew who she, aka Miley, was,” she said.

Tickets were given away at a shopping centre, she continued, “where I would have my first free concert”.

“In reality I was a little girl in a blonde wig at the mall with a big dream.

“But in my heart I was Hannah Montana and I was so proud to be,” she said.

“This award is dedicated to Hannah and all of her amazing, loyal fans, and to everyone who has made my dream a reality.

“To quote the legend herself, This Is The Life.”

Miley also joked that she “definitely wasn’t created in a lab”, in a nod to rumours that Disney kids are created in the Californian Disney office.

“If I was, there must have been a bug in the system which caused me to malfunction somewhere between the years of 2013 and 2016.”

Miley left behind her Disney kid image with the 2013 released of her fourth album, Bangerz.

In the same year she did a duet of We Can’t Stop with Blurred Lines singer Robin Thicke at the MTV VMAs.

The performance was so provocative that it even drew criticism from the inventor of the foam finger – a prop Miley used in memorable ways during the show.

Miley wasn’t the only star honoured at the convention – Star Wars and Indiana Jones actor Harrison Ford was also named as a Disney Legend, alongside Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis.

Harrison said he was “really delighted and a little bit embarrassed” to be honoured but also “so very grateful”.

“I have the privilege of being a storyteller, an assisted storyteller,” the 82-year-old said.

“I love the people I’ve had the opportunity to work with.”

Jamie was introduced by Mean Girls star Lindsay Lohan, who played her daughter in the 2003 version of Freaky Friday.

They’re due to reprise their roles next year in the sequel, Freakier Friday.

Jamie, who won an Oscar last year for Everything Everywhere All At Once, also became emotional during the ceremony.

“The truth is, legends aren’t formed,” the 65-year-old told the audience.

“They’re created when they’re nurtured and educated.”

It wasn’t just stars celebrated at the ceremony. In total, 14 people were recognised as Disney Legends at the event.

They include composer John Williams, costume designer Colleen Atwood and Disneyland’s first ever full-time black tour guide, Martha Blanding.

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

Russia is evacuating residents from a second border region, as Ukraine continues its surprise week-long offensive inside the country.

Some 11,000 people in the Belgorod region have been moved, Russian state media reported, because of “enemy action” near the border.

Belgorod lies next to Kursk – where Ukrainian troops launched their surprise attack into Russian territory last Tuesday.

Ukrainian forces have since advanced up to 18 miles (30km) inside Russia – the deepest incursion into the country since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Kyiv claims thousands of troops are involved.

• Live updates on this story

On Monday morning, residents in parts of Belgorod – which lies to the south of Kursk – were told not to panic but that they must evacuate.

Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said people from Krasnaya Yaruga district were being moved due to “enemy activity on the border”.

He also said the whole region was under a missile alert, and told people to shelter in their basements.

But he added he was “sure that our servicemen will do everything to cope with the threat that has arisen”.

People were also continuing to be evacuated from Kursk on Monday – with thousands of people told to leave their homes in the Belovsky district.

Governor Alexei Smirnov also issued a missile warning – saying people needed to take shelter in rooms without windows and with solid walls.

Temporary accommodation has been prepared, he said.

• Ukrainian troops now up to 30km inside Russia, Moscow says
• Steve Rosenberg: This shows Russia’s war not going to plan

At the weekend, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine was taking the war into “the aggressor’s territory”.

He acknowledged the attack for the first time on Saturday night – saying Russia had launched 2,000 attacks from Kursk this summer and it deserved a response.

A senior Ukrainian official told the AFP news agency that thousands of troops were engaged in the operation, far more than the small incursion initially reported by Russian border guards.

The official added that there aim was to “to inflict maximum losses and to destabilise the situation in Russia”.

Video from social media and verified by Reuters showed Ukrainian soldiers raising their flag in the Russian village on Guevo, in Kursk.

It marks the biggest co-ordinated attack on Russian territory by Kyiv’s conventional forces.

Russia has so far struggled to halt the Ukrainian advance, with more than 76,000 people evacuated from the Kursk region, where a state of emergency has been declared by local authorities.

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin described the offensive as a “major provocation”.

Some in Russia have questioned how Ukraine was able to enter the Kursk region – with one pro-Russian war blogger, Yuri Podolyaka calling the situation “alarming”.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said a tough response from Russia’s armed forces “will not take long”.

Meanwhile, Russian ally Belarus said it was bolstering its own troop numbers at its border after claiming Ukraine had entered its airspace with drones.

It certainly wasn’t love at first sight. In fact, not so long ago they didn’t like each other very much.

“I don’t hate the man,” Elon Musk tweeted in July 2022, “but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.”

The Tesla and Space X founder’s comment was prompted by a profane Donald Trump insult – put simply, calling Mr Musk a liar. Trump accused Mr Musk of lying to him about who he voted for in the last presidential election.

“Elon is not going to buy Twitter,” Trump crowed to a rally crowd in Alaska.

Mr Musk did, of course, buy Twitter several months later – and he went on to endorse Trump’s Republican arch-rival, Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor even launched his presidential campaign with a glitch-ridden chat on Twitter Spaces.

But over the last few months the relationship between Mr Musk and Trump has not just thawed – it has reached a positively warm and steady simmer.

On Monday the two are expected to sit down for what many expect to be a convivial chat. The specific time, format and length are unknown so far, but it looks highly likely that the interview will be broadcast on Mr Musk’s renamed X.

Both men will be hoping the conversation reaches an audience beyond the hyperactive paid-for users who dominate X discussion these days – and that it will be free of the technical glitches that overshadowed Mr DeSantis’s ill-fated campaign.

The relationship between the tech tycoon and the Republican nominee has been a while in the making.

Mr Musk, who became a US citizen in 2002, has said that he voted almost exclusively for Democrats for decades.

But he soured on President Biden over issues including unions – Mr Musk is opposed to efforts to organise his car workers – and over a snub. He was not invited to the 2021 White House electric vehicle summit, despite Tesla’s status as one of the world’s largest EV manufacturers.

Under the Biden administration, Mr Musk’s companies also faced a number of federal investigations over employment practices, his takeover of Twitter and claims about Tesla’s autopilot feature.

In November 2023 he told a New York Times interviewer that he would not vote for Mr Biden again, but stopped short of supporting Trump, saying: “This is definitely a difficult choice here.”

• Who is Elon Musk and what is his net worth?
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Mr Musk lifted the ban on the former president’s Twitter account after buying the company.

And perhaps more importantly, his tenure has seen him go ever deeper into concerns that dovetail neatly with Trump’s campaign: government censorship and persecution, complaints about the media, opposition to immigration, and anger at “woke” ideas.

“He craves attention and is a political chameleon,” said Ryan Broderick, who writes the internet culture newsletter Garbage Day.

Mr Broderick said Mr Musk’s online posts shifted dramatically a few years ago.

“He was tweeting neoliberal, happy-go-lucky things, and pride flags and so on, until around 2018, and the change happened pretty drastically after that,” he said.

Since taking over Twitter, Mr Musk increasingly has engaged in political controversies and has spread inflammatory – and sometimes just outright fake – news stories.

During recent rioting in the UK, he engaged in a tit-for-tat with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, claiming that “civil war is inevitable” and sharing a fake post about “detainment camps” on the Falkland Islands.

He also bought into Trump’s claims – unsupported by evidence – that election fraud is endemic in the US.

Research by the Center for Countering Digital Hate – an organisation that Mr Musk attempted to sue in a case that was thrown out earlier this year – noted that so far this year Mr Musk has tweeted false or misleading voting claims 50 times.

And he regularly interacts with fringe, far-right figures and pro-Trump accounts on his own platform, amplifying their reach.

At the same time, his Silicon Valley connections link him to Trump’s inner circle. Mr Musk was a member of the so-called PayPal mafia – stakeholders who made fortunes when the payment processor was bought for $1.5 billion and who later became prolific investors and corporate founders.

PayPal founder Peter Thiel is an influential Republican who later employed JD Vance at his venture capital firm, Mithril Capital Management, then bankrolled his Ohio Senate campaign with a $10m donation.

In March, Mr Musk met Trump at his Florida resort. A couple of months later, Mr Musk hosted an “anti-Biden” dinner party, where the guests included Mr Thiel and Rupert Murdoch, according to US news reports.

Mr Musk has donated money to both Democratic and Republican politicians in the past. But although he insists he is not donating directly to any presidential campaign, he recently co-founded a pro-Trump political action committee, America PAC.

Political action committees have the leeway to spend huge sums supporting candidates and causes – although Mr Musk has said reports that he will contribute $45m a month to the PAC are overblown.

• Musk shares faked far-right ‘detainment camp’ post

Nevertheless, his support for Trump was fully ensured just minutes after last month’s assassination attempt on the former president, when he tweeted: “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery.”

Trump seems to have mended fences with Mr Musk. At a news conference on Thursday he said: “I respect Elon a lot. He respects me.”

“Elon more than almost anybody I know… he loves this country, he loves the concept of this country, but like me, he says this country is in big trouble, it’s in tremendous danger,” Trump said.

Mr Musk has become a hero to an online cohort of young, mostly male supporters who might align with Trump’s ideas but who are, according to reports, less reliable voters.

The Trump campaign appears to be making a play for that segment of the population.

For instance, the former president recently did an interview with “edgy” podcaster Adin Ross, who repeatedly was banned from the streaming site Twitch for violating the site’s conduct policies.

“Donald Trump is scrambling because he’s looking for a way to invigorate his campaign,” Mr Broderick said. “He’s a showman and he understands that Elon Musk has similar instincts.”

But he questioned whether the pair would get along face-to-face.

“I assume they will talk at and around each other, and it will probably not make much sense,” he said. “And maybe somebody will say something crazy.”

The BBC contacted X and the Trump campaign for comment.

The interview is expected to appear online at 20:00 ET on Monday (01:00 BST) .

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The top judge of the Olympic breaking competition has thrown his support behind Rachael Gunn of Team Australia, after her unorthodox routine in Paris divided the internet.

Gunn, who competes under the name Raygun, was eliminated from the B-Girls competition after scoring zero, prompting both ridicule and praise for her unique style.

“Breaking is all about originality and bringing something new to the table… and this is exactly what Raygun was doing,” Martin Gilian said in defence of the athlete, who has also been commended by Australia’s Prime Minister for “having a go”.

Breaking, which debuted at the Paris Games, is not on the programme for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

A 36-year-old university lecturer from Sydney by day, Gunn stood out in almost every way against her competitors, many of whom are in their early 20s.

Her performances during her three rounds on Friday quickly lit up the internet, with users creating a sea of memes and video spoofs, questioning everything from her outfit to her qualification.

Mr Gilian – whose stage name is MGbility – said Raygun’s score was indicative of the “competitive judging system” adopted by the sport and shouldn’t be taken as proof “she did really bad”.

As well as defending her place in the competition, by citing her success in the Oceania qualifier, Mr Gilian praised Gunn for her innovative choreography – which included the sprinkler and, arguably her most controversial move, hopping around like a kangaroo.

“She got inspired by her surroundings, which in this case, for example, was a kangaroo.”

Gunn – who has a background as a jazz, tap and ballroom dancer – has used similar language when explaining her performance.

“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 in a lifetime to do that on an international stage?”

Speaking to media on Sunday, Australia’s leader Anthony Albanese said the attacks levelled at Gunn were not in keeping with the spirit of the Games.

“The Olympics is about people participating in sport… and Raygun had a crack, good on her.”

Team officials and the Olympics breakdancing community have similarly rallied around Gunn – offering her mental health support and calling out the online backlash.

“I think that what has occurred on social media with trolls and keyboard warriors… has been really disappointing,” Australian Olympic great Anna Meares, who serves as the team’s chef de mission in Paris, said on Saturday.

“I absolutely love her courage. I love her character,” she added.

Jeff ‘J-Attack’ Dunne, who represented Australia in the men’s competition on Sunday, also praised his teammate.

“All I know is she represented hard, she has been the leading breaker in Australia for the women and I acknowledge her and respect her 100%,” Dunne said.

A hip-hop inspired dance born in the boroughs of New York in the 1970s, breaking was introduced into this year’s schedule as a way to attract a younger audience to the Games.

But some critics say it should never have been included, due to the organic nature of the genre, which doesn’t necessarily suit organised competition.

• ‘Sensational’ Paris Olympics come to an end
• Everything you need to know about LA 2028
• Ten viral moments from the Paris Olympics
• Paris 2024: The final medals table

A lingering fragrance of bun maska (bread and butter), plates loaded with freshly cooked samosas and cups of piping hot and creamy Irani chai.

These are some of the sights you would typically find at a Persian-style cafe in India.

Popularly known as Irani cafes, these iconic restaurants – with their signature marble-topped tables, old-style clocks, chequered floors and a distinctive menu – have been a part of India’s culture for more than 100 years.

And their influence has spread beyond India: Dishoom, one of London’s most recognisable restaurant chains, was inspired by these cafes.

They came up in cities like Mumbai and Pune in the 18th and 19th centuries when there was an influx of Persian immigrants from Iran.

There’s a third lesser known pocket of the country – the southern city of Hyderabad – where these cafes have been an intrinsic part of the local culture for decades.

But despite their many charms and the rich cultural heritage, the cafes of this city – like their counterparts in Pune and Mumbai – are on the verge of dying out, with owners blaming rising prices, competition from fast-food restaurants and changing consumer tastes.

Hyderabad has the highest number of Irani cafes after Mumbai even today. That’s because the city was a centre for Iranian trade in the late 19th Century.

Persian was widely spoken under the rule of a Muslim Nizam, or prince. The Niloufer café, located in the old quarters of the city, was actually named after the Nizam’s daughter-in-law, an Ottoman princess.

This was also a period when parts of modern-day Pakistan were still in India, with Iran as its neighbour, making the country easily accessible to Persian traders.

Most of the families who moved to Hyderabad – and other Indian cities – came to escape persecution and famine back home. Some came in search of better jobs and business.

Their arrival coincided with colonial rule when the British were actively promoting a tea drinking culture in the country.

When the Iranians arrived, they brought their own style of making tea giving rise to a distinct Iranian chai culture in the cities.

In Iran, people would drink it without milk, consuming it with a sugar cube in the mouth. Indians, however, would add milk and cream to the tea for taste.

“At first, the tea was sold under the name Chai Khana and only Muslims drank it,” Hyderabad-based historian Mohammed Safiullah says. “But soon, people from all religions caught on to its distinct flavour.”

By the 20th Century, Irani cafes were present in every nook and corner of Hyderabad.

The customers would sip on the lip-smacking tea as they would spend hours chatting away at the coffee shops.

At some cafes, patrons would also be able to play their favourite songs on a jukebox for a small fee.

Historians say these cafes played a crucial role in breaking down social barriers and religious taboos and became an important part of the city’s public life.

“Irani cafes in Hyderabad have stood as symbols of secularism,” historian Paravastu Lokeshwar said. “The names didn’t have any religious connotations. People of all religions and castes patronised them.”

Now they are under threat.

From an estimated 450 cafes over two decades ago, Hyderabad now has only 125 left, said Jaleel Farooq Rooz, owner of The Grand Hotel, a famous Irani cafe.

Mr Rooz’s maternal grandfather came from Iran in 1951 and took over the hotel that was started by 12 Iranians in 1935.

“We used to sell 8,000-9,000 cups a day once. Now we sell just 4,000 cups a day,” he told the BBC.

He cites competition from fast-food chains as one of the reasons. Now one of the most rapidly developing Indian cities, Hyderabad was a quiet little town until the early 1990s. Things changed in the mid-90s, when the city joined the IT boom in India and became a powerhouse of the industry.

The transformation was accompanied by a slew of economic reforms in the country, which allowed global fast-food chains and cafes to penetrate the Indian market. Similar to Iranian cafes, these food joints also offered extended seating options, but with far better amenities and more options.

Mr Rooz said most Irani cafes operated from rented premises as they required large spaces where patrons could relax and unwind over tea.

But rising real estate prices in Hyderabad have forced many owners to move to other work.

“Inflation also took a toll. Tea powder and milk prices have risen three times compared to five years ago,” he added.

Others say the number of Iranian families entering the business has also gone down.

“The current generation is not interested in the café and restaurant business. They prefer other jobs and many migrate to other countries,” said the owner of popular Farasha Restaurant, Mahmood, who goes by only one name.

But despite the challenges, there are still a few in the business who continue to swim against the tide.

Syed Mohammed Razak manages the Red Rose Restaurant in Hyderabad. His grandfather migrated from Tehran and established the City Light Hotel in the 1970s. Later, Mr Razak’s father started the Red Rose Restaurant.

An engineer and graphic designer by profession, Mr Razak admits that “selling just chai and biscuits” is neither easy, nor profitable.

He has now introduced new dishes to the menu to attract more customers and is using his graphic designing skills to expand business and promote it online.

“I want to continue my family’s legacy,” he said.

And it’s not just the owners, there are also loyal customers – many of whom have been frequenting these cafes for generations – who say they would always come back for “another cup of Irani chai”.

“Irani tea is a part of my life, I love the taste and drink it every time I step out,” said Yanni, who goes by only one name and is a regular at the Grand Hotel.

“There is nothing like it even today.”

A pilot has died after their helicopter crashed into the roof of a hotel in Australia during an “unauthorised” early morning flight.

The aircraft hit the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel in the northern Queensland city of Cairns at around 01:50 local time on Monday (16:50 BST Sunday), sparking a fire and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of guests.

Authorities say the only occupant of the helicopter died at the scene, and two hotel guests – a man in his 80s and a woman in her 70s – were taken to hospital in a stable condition.

Some local media reports have suggested that the helicopter was stolen.

Nautilus Aviation – which owned the helicopter – said it would work closely with all authorities in Queensland as they examined the “unauthorised use of one of our helicopters in the early hours of this morning”.

Amanda Kay, who was staying in the hotel on the main esplanade in Cairns, described seeing a helicopter flying “extra low”, without lights in rainy weather.

“[It] has turned round and hit the building,” she said, adding that the aircraft “blew up”.

Another bystander said she saw the helicopter fly past the hotel twice in the moments before the collision.

“Boy that was going fast, that helicopter. Unbelievable,” a woman said, in video showing the fiery aftermath of the crash.

“It was just going out of control, that thing was.”

Two of the helicopter’s rotor blades came off on impact, landing on the esplanade and in the hotel pool, according to Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS).

“There’s been reports it sounded like a bomb, and [that after] seeing smoke and fire from that, a lot of the occupants of the hotel were very unsure about the situation,” spokeswoman Caitlin Dennings told media.

Another tourist staying at the hotel, Alastair Salmon, described it to the ABC as “a colossal ear-deafening bang”.

Mr Salmon, from London, was among about 400 people who were evacuated from the hotel.

He described seeing the helicopter’s rotor blade on the ground nearby, and mistaking it for a lamppost.

“Then we looked up there and you could see this massive hole in the window of the building,” he told the ABC.

Streets around the hotel have been cordoned off and an emergency situation was declared by police.

Queensland Police and the aviation safety watchdog, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, are continuing investigations into the circumstances of the crash.

Located in northern Queensland, the city of Cairns is a popular tourist destination due to its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef.