Ukraine’s top commander has said Kyiv’s forces control 1,000 sq km of Russian territory as they press their biggest cross-border incursion in two-and-a-half years of full-scale war.

Commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said Ukraine continued to “conduct an offensive operation in the Kursk region” seven days after it began.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had brought war to others and now it was coming back to Russia.

But Russian leader Vladimir Putin described the offensive as a “major provocation” and ordered Russian forces to “to kick the enemy out of our territory”.

A growing number of people have been evacuated from the western Russian region for their safety, with a further 59,000 told to leave.

The local governor said some 28 villages in the area had fallen to Ukrainian forces, that 12 civilians had been killed and that “the situation remains difficult”.

Ukrainian troops launched their surprise attack last Tuesday, advancing up to 18 miles (30km) into Russia.

The offensive is said to have boosted morale on the Ukrainian side, but analysts say the strategy brings fresh dangers to Ukraine.

A senior British military source, who asked not to be named, told the BBC there was the risk that Moscow will be so angered by this incursion that it could redouble its own attacks on Ukraine’s civilian population and infrastructure.

In comments aired on state television, President Putin said on Monday: “One of the obvious goals of the enemy is to sow discord, strife, intimidate people, destroy the unity and cohesion of Russian society.

“The main task is, of course, for the defence ministry to dislodge the enemy from our territories,” he told a meeting of officials.

The region’s governor said 121,000 people had been evacuated from their homes. He told Mr Putin that about 2,000 Russian citizens remained in areas occupied by Ukrainian forces in the area.

“We don’t know anything about their fate,” he said.

He warned people to take shelter from missiles in rooms without windows and with solid walls.

In Belgorod, the region next to Kursk, about 11,000 people were also urged to leave, as governor Vyacheslav Gladkov told people from the Krasnaya Yaruga district they were being moved due to “enemy activity on the border”.

He issued a similar missile warning, and told people to shelter in their basements.

In his nightly address, Ukraine’s president acknowledged the offensive, saying: “Russia must be forced to make peace if Putin wants to fight so badly.”

“Russia brought war to others, now it’s coming home. Ukraine has always wanted only peace, and we will certainly ensure peace,” Mr Zelensky added.

Ukrainian officials have said thousands of troops are engaged in the operation, far more than the small incursion initially reported by Russian border guards.

An official told news agency AFP that their aim was “to inflict maximum losses and to destabilise the situation in Russia”.

Speaking to the BBC’s Newshour programme, Kurt Volker, a former US Ambassador to Nato, said Ukraine’s incursion could cost President Putin politically at home.

He said Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory had happened “because of President Putin and the way he’s conducted this war.”

“That is not going to be lost on the elites in Russia. It’s not going to be lost on the public. Putin has provoked attacks on the Russian territory itself and people are having to be evacuated. That’s quite something.”

During a meeting with Mr Zelensky in Kyiv on Monday, US Senator Lindsey Graham called the cross-border operation “brilliant” and “bold”, and urged the Biden administration to provide Ukraine with the weapons it needs.

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”.

Russian ally Belarus said it was bolstering its own troop numbers at its border after claiming Ukraine had entered its airspace with drones.

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency said late on Monday it had inspected a damaged cooling tower at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine following a fire on Sunday, but could not immediately find the cause.

Mr Zelensky has accused Russia of deliberately starting the fire in order to “blackmail” Ukraine, while Zaporizhzhia’s Kremlin-installed regional governor has said it was caused by Ukrainian shelling.

Elon Musk’s interview of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was marred by technical issues that the tech billionaire blamed on a cyber attack.

The lengthy conversation, which Mr Musk said was aimed at “open-minded independent voters”, began more than 40 minutes late as many users struggled to gain access.

Mr Musk, who owns X, formerly Twitter, said a distributed denial of services (DDoS) attack “saturated all of our data lines”.

Near the end of the two-hour conversation, he doubled down on his endorsement of Trump and called on moderate voters to back the Republican’s campaign.

“Here’s to an exciting, inspiring future that people can look forward to and be optimistic and excited about what happens next,” Mr Musk said.

The conversation got off to a less auspicious start.

More than 20 minutes into when the conversation was actually due to begin, as many users struggled to access the livestream, Mr Musk blamed “a massive DDOS attack on X” for the problems in a post.

Distributed denial of services attacks – or DDoS attacks – are attempts to overload a website to make it hard to use or inaccessible.

Once the conversation between the two men began, Mr Musk said the alleged cyber attack showed there is opposition in the US to hearing what Trump had to say.

It is not clear what caused the technical problems with the X audio conversation or who may have been behind any alleged attack.

“A DDoS attack sends a very large number of signals to an online target to disrupt it,” Anthony Lim, Director of the Centre for Strategic Cyberspace and International Studies in Singapore, told the BBC.

“It is unlikely it would affect only one single service or feature on a website.”

Mr Lim added that it is possible that a large number of people trying to listen could have temporarily crashed the service.

Mr Musk said in a subsequent post that the system was tested with “8 million concurrent listeners” before his live chat.

During the conversation, X Spaces showed about one million people listening in.

The glitchy beginning was reminiscent of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ entry into the White House race in May 2023, which was held on X and saw the livestream malfunction.

The conversation on X comes as Trump, the former president and Republican presidential nominee, is trying to reset his re-election campaign.

Opinion polls suggest that the Democratic nomination of Vice-President Kamala Harris has tightened the close race for the White House.

The Harris campaign is riding a wave of momentum after she became the Democratic standard-bearer when President Joe Biden dropped out of the race last month.

Next week, Ms Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, could get a further bump from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

The Trump campaign has been needling Ms Harris for not doing interviews and for taking few questions from reporters since accepting the nomination last month.

On Monday, Trump said “it’s nice to have a forum like this” on X, where he could speak at length.

Mr Musk, whose platform hosted the event, has become an increasingly influential voice in politics.

He has more than 190 million followers on X, where he regularly engages in political controversies.

He has also recently become involved in a new political committee supporting Trump’s campaign.

The relationship between the two men has shifted over the years and they have traded online barbs in the past.

But Monday’s conversation between the two was chummy and never adversarial.

Trump, who has been sceptical of electric vehicles and previously vowed to roll back federal subsidies, praised car-maker Tesla, which Mr Musk also owns.

He recently said he had “no choice” but to support EVs because of Mr Musk’s endorsement and called the Telsa product “great” on Monday.

Mr Musk said he would be willing to offer a Trump administration help on a proposed “government efficiency commission”.

Ahead of the high-profile conversation on the social media site, which could be accessed by European users, EU industry chief Thierry Breton told Mr Musk in a letter that he must comply with EU digital content law.

The EU suspects X of breaching its rules in areas including countering illegal content and disinformation.

In response, X chief executive Linda Yaccarino called it “an unprecedented attempt to stretch a law intended to apply in Europe to political activities in the US”.

“It also patronizes European citizens, suggesting they are incapable of listening to a conversation and drawing their own conclusions.”

Monday marked something of a return to X/Twitter for Trump, who was removed from the platform shortly after the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot.

Besides a flurry of campaign advertisements on Trump’s account on Monday, he had only posted once – his mug shot and a link to his campaign site – a year ago after Mr Musk reactivated his X account in 2022.

It’s not clear whether Trump, who frequently posts on his Truth Social site, would continue to post more frequently on X.

Monday’s interview touched on a range of issues, from the assassination attempt on Trump last month at a Pennsylvania rally, to his wanting the US to get an “Iron Dome” missile defence system like the one in Israel, and a key plank of his campaign – immigration.

Trump also mused about closing the federal Department of Education and moving that responsibility to the states as one of his first acts if he wins the election in November.

The Republican candidate also spoke of Mr Biden’s decision to exit the race after a disastrous debate performance and pressure from vulnerable Democrats lawmakers, characterising it as “a coup”.

Mr Biden, in a weekend interview with CBS, said he left because feared that the intraparty battle over his candidacy would be a “real distraction” ahead of the election.

In a statement after the event, the Harris campaign described Mr Musk and Trump as two “self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024”.

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One person has died as fierce wildfires spread in the suburbs of Athens in Greece on Monday.

The body, believed to be that of a woman, was found inside a shop in the town of Vrilissia, northern Athens, a source from the fire service told the BBC.

Thousands of people have been evacuated after firefighters warned that homes, businesses and schools were under threat, with fires expected to continue into Tuesday.

Fire service spokesman Col Vassilios Vathrakogiannis said while there was no longer a single active fire front in the north-eastern Attica region, which includes parts of Athens, there were still “many active localised blazes”, mostly around the towns of Marathon and Penteli.

In a statement released on Monday evening, he added that conditions for new fires remained dangerous not only on Tuesday, but also for further into the week.

More than 700 firefighters, 199 fire engines and 35 waterbombing aircraft have been involved in efforts to extinguish the fires, which first broke out on Sunday afternoon around 35km (22 miles) north of the Greek capital.

Col Vathrakogiannis said two firefighters had received treatment for burns while fighting the blazes.

Officials said fires broke out in 40 different locations on Monday and that some areas saw flames as high as 25m (82ft).

In unprecedented scenes, people in Athens wore facemasks to protect themselves from the smoke, which blew into the city.

Aircraft were forced to land as night set in on Monday, but ground operations continued through the night.

Greece’s National Observatory said on Monday evening satellite images showed that, by noon local time (10:00 BST), the fire had already affected around 100,000 acres (405 sq km; 156 sq miles) of land.

In Penteli, a wooded, hilly region, three hospitals had to be evacuated, and one of the sites of the National Observatory was at one stage feared to be under threat.

The blaze also engulfed a timber factory, and elsewhere in the area a number of explosions were heard, most likely from fuel tanks and residential gas cylinders.

Despite the danger, some Penteli residents chose to stay near their homes and tried to put out pockets of fire using hoses or tree branches.

“It hurts. We have grown up in the forest. We feel great sadness and anger,” 24-year-old resident Marina Kalogerakou told Reuters news agency as she poured water from a bucket onto a burning tree stump.

Pantelis Kyriazis, another resident, crashed his car as he tried to leave.

“I couldn’t see. I hit a pine tree and this is what happened,” he said, gesturing towards the car.

Further north, near the epicentre of the fire, 81-year-old Vassilis Stroubelis stood in the doorway of his damaged home.

“Thirty years I was building all this. Thirty years and bam,” he said.

European nations have announced assistance for Greece after its government activated the EU’s mutual civil protection mechanism.

Italy is providing two planes while France and Serbia are providing one helicopter each, Col Vathrakogiannis said.

Spain, the Czech Republic and Romania are sending further vehicles, personnel, and aid.

Neighbouring Turkey is also preparing to send two planes and a helicopter, Foreign Minister Öncü Keçeli said.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU would “stand with Greece as it battles devastating fires”.

Greece has just experienced its hottest June and July on record.

Climate change increases the risk of the hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires.

The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has urged Iran to “refrain” from attacking Israel during a phone call with Iran’s new president.

Sir Keir told Masoud Pezeshkian there was a “serious risk of miscalculation and now was the time for calm and careful consideration”, Downing Street said.

It is the first call between a UK prime minister and an Iranian president since March 2021 when former British leader Boris Johnson spoke to Hassan Rouhani.

News of the 30-minute discussion came as the UK issued a joint statement with the US, France, Italy and Germany – urging Iran to end its threats of an attack on Israel.

They called on Iran to “stand down its ongoing threats of a military attack against Israel and discussed the serious consequences for regional security should such an attack take place”.

The leaders, who spoke together by phone, also expressed their support for the “defence of Israel against Iranian aggression and against attacks by Iran-backed terrorist groups”.

Fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East have been growing following the recent assassination of senior Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.

On Sunday, the US confirmed it had sent a guided missile submarine to the region in response to these concerns. The submarine can carry up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are used to strike land targets.

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.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby later said that the US shared Israel’s concerns that it was “increasingly likely that there will be an attack by Iran and or its proxies and perhaps in the coming days”.

“That is why we have been continually speaking to our Israeli counterparts and other counterparts in the region,” Mr Kirby added.

Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said that the country took the threats of its enemies seriously and that Israel was at “peak preparedness for attack and defence”.

Downing Street also said on Monday that Keir Starmer had told Mr Pezeshkian he was “deeply concerned by the situation in the region and called on all parties to de-escalate and avoid further regional confrontation”.

Iran blames Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on their soil late last month and has vowed to punish it.

Israel, which is currently engaged in a war attempting to destroy the group in Gaza, has not commented but is widely believed to have been behind the killing.

Iran’s acting foreign minister said last week that the country would respond to the killing of Haniyeh at the “right time” in the “appropriate” manner.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a group of states with Muslim-majority populations, said it held Israel fully responsible for the attack, which it called “a serious infringement” of Iran’s sovereignty.

Ismail Haniyeh is not the only senior member of Hamas to be killed recently. Israel also recently announced that the group’s military chief Mohammed Deif was killed in an air strike in the Gaza Strip last month.

The Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, with which Israel is also engaged in a conflict, has also said that it would retaliate for the death of its senior commander Fuad Shukr.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday became the latest leader to urge his country’s citizens to leave Lebanon as soon as possible, warning of the risk of growing tensions.

Airlines including Lufthansa, Swiss Air and EasyJet have either cancelled or suspended flights to the Middle East.

The partner of a mother killed while saving her baby from a stabbing rampage in a busy Sydney shopping centre has spoken out for the first time, saying the day she died will “never make sense”.

Ashlee Good, 38, was among six people killed by Joel Cauchi at Westfield Bondi Junction on 13 April. Her daughter Harriet, who was nine months old at the time of the attack, was also injured.

Australian authorities say the stabbing was “mental health” related, but they believe Cauchi targeted women.

Thanking those who had sent donations, Good’s partner Dan Flanagan said “the overwhelming support, kindness and generosity” his family had received has given them “strength”.

Mass killings are rare in Australia, and the attack – at one of the country’s biggest and most popular shopping centres – stunned the world.

Horrified witnesses have described how Good fled into a nearby store, desperately seeking help for her injured baby girl.

In a post to a GoFundMe page, which raised almost A$850,000 (£439,000;$560,000), Mr Flanagan said the loss of his partner – an osteopath who friends described as “full of life and love” – was “unimaginable”.

“The day our family of three became a family of two will never make sense to me, but countless people… have shown me that while tragic things do unfortunately happen, there is more good in this world, than bad,” he wrote.

“Nothing will ever dull the pain of losing Ash, but reading your messages and seeing what an impact Ash has had on so many people has provided a lot of comfort.”

He also sent his condolences to the other families, friends and communities dealing with the trauma of the attack.

“Our lives will never be the same, and I wish every one of you your own strength and hope you’re getting the support required to navigate such incomprehensible and difficult times,” he said.

Cauchi stabbed 17 people before he was chased down and shot by a lone police officer.

Along with Good, five others died – security guard Faraz Tahir, 30; Jade Young, 47; Pikria Darchia, 55; Dawn Singleton, 25; and Yixuan Cheng, who was believed to be in her 20s.

Baby Harriet – the youngest victim targeted – underwent surgery to treat her chest and arm injuries to survive.

A special strike force was created to investigate the incident, with New South Wales Police saying it could take months to present its findings.

Cauchi’s parents said the 40-year-old had battled with mental illness and had come off his medication shortly before carrying out the attack.

Some, including the family of Jade Young, have called for an immediate boost to mental health services to prevent similar violence from occurring in the future.

Bangladesh’s new leader is clear: this was not his revolution, and this was not his dream.

But Muhammad Yunus knew the second he took the call from the student on the other end of the phone last week that he would do whatever it took to see it through.

And the students had decided that what they needed was for Prof Yunus – an 84-year-old Nobel laureate – to step into the power vacuum left by the sudden resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and lead the new interim government. He accepted immediately.

“I’m doing this because this is what the youth of the country wanted, and I wanted to help them to do it,” he explains during a private briefing for select journalists at his office in the Jamuna State House.

“It’s not my dream, it’s their dream. So I’m kind of helping them to make it come true.”

Prof Yunus was sworn in on Thursday after months of student-led protests culminated in the fall of the government, and is still trying to gauge the scale of the job in front of him.

Most pressing, he says, is the security situation. In the wake of the violence which left more than 400 dead, the South Asian country’s police had all but disappeared – the country’s police union had announced a strike, and traffic was being guided by the students, while hundreds of police stations had been gutted by fires.

“Law and order is the first one so that people can sit down or get to work,” Prof Yunus says.

Monday saw the first glimmers of progress as officers returned to the streets. It is a first step, but security is far from the only problem.

The government entirely “disappeared” after Sheikh Hasina fled the country, Prof Yunus says.

What was left behind after 15 years of increasingly authoritarian rule is “a mess, complete mess”.

“Even the government, what they did, whatever they did, just simply doesn’t make sense to me… They didn’t have any idea what administration is all about.”

And yet in the face of the chaos is “lots of hope”, Prof Yunus emphasises.

“We are here: a fresh new face for them, for the country… Because finally, this moment, the monster is gone. So this is excitement.”

Reform is key, according to Prof Yunus. It was a simple demand for reform of a quota system which reserved some public sector jobs for the relatives of war heroes, who fought for the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971, that sparked the protest movement in the first place.

But it was the brutal and deadly crackdown by security services which followed that saw it grow into demands for Sheikh Hasina to stand aside.

Reform is desperately needed, says Prof Yunus, pointing to freedom of speech – heavily restricted under Sheikh Hasina’s government, the prisons filled with people who sought to speak out against her.

He himself alleges he was a victim of the crackdown on freedom of speech. An outspoken critic of Sheikh Hasina’s government, Prof Yunus – lauded for his pioneering use of micro-loans but regarded as a public enemy by the former prime minister – was sentenced to six months in jail in what he has called a politically motivated case.

But there are other, more radical, ideas in the pipeline.

Each ministry will have a student seat in it, an acknowledgement of the role they played in bringing the previous administration to an end.

Already, Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud, students who led the anti-government protests, sit in his cabinet.

And then there is reform of the judiciary. Already, the students have put pressure on the chief justice to resign.

Prof Yunus argues the judiciary was failing to act independently – instead allegedly taking orders from “some superior authority”.

“In the technical terms, he was the chief justice,” he says. “But actually, he was just a hangman.”

There will, he acknowledges, be decisions made that not everyone agrees with, but he hopes it will be better than what has come before.

“Whatever experience I have in my work… So I’m not saying I can run a government. I’m saying that I have some experience of running some organisations. I’ll bring that as much as I can. There will be people who like it, people who dislike it. But we have to go through with it.”

Business owner Louis Ho remembers how so many of Hong Kong’s taxi drivers refused to take him and his mother – who was a wheelchair user – to hospital for routine check-ups.

“I didn’t even need the driver to carry my mum or the wheelchair. I did everything myself,” says the 64-year-old whose mother passed away in 2018.

He is one of many Hong Kongers who have a story to tell about their city’s infamous cabbies. Ask them what they like least about Hong Kong, and taxi drivers will likely be high on the list.

The most common complaints: drivers are rude, refuse to accept rides and often take longer routes so customers have to pay more.

But now the Hong Kong Taxi Council is on a mission to transform this image. They will despatch “courtesy ambassadors” armed with “best-practice” pamphlets to taxi stands.

Will that really help? That depends on who you ask.

A single campaign cannot school rude or misbehaving drivers overnight – there are about 46,000 cabbies in the city, cautions Ryan Wong, the chairman of the council.

But he is hopeful: “This is not the first time that we have done this, and the feedback from drivers has been positive.”

Hong Kongers are more sceptical. An interview clip of a taxi driver saying that passengers, rather than drivers, are the ones to be educated has gone viral in the city – many point to it as evidence that nothing will change.

Many of them are also still smarting from past experiences.

Amy Ho, in her 30s, said she stopped taking taxis a few years ago after an encounter that she found particularly unpleasant.

“I didn’t realise I had asked for a very short journey. As soon as I reached the destination, I scrambled for cash to pay,” she says.

“It was merely five seconds or so, and the driver said, ‘Can you stop dragging on, auntie? I can’t believe you need a ride for such a short distance and you can’t even afford it!’.”

IT worker Kenny Tong now only take a cab about three times a month, preferring to avoid the ordeal where he can. To hail one, he says, he often has to “bow, wait for the driver to lower the car window” and check if his destination is on the driver’s route for the day.

“Some taxi drivers grumble throughout the journey after I have boarded,” he adds.

He also finds it frustrating when drivers do not use GPS and ask him how to reach the destination – even though they have “multiple phones on the dashboard”.

Most disgruntled passengers do not file complaints because it’s time-consuming. Still, there there were about 11,500 complaints last year – a 11% increase from 2019, according to the Transport Advisory Committee. Only a tiny fraction were prosecuted.

Then there is the problem of dishonest drivers – with tourists especially vulnerable.

In early July, a visitor from the China’s eastern province of Zhejiang took to social media to complain that she was only given HK$44 ($5.6; £4.5) in change after giving a cabbie HK$1,000 for a HK$56 ride. She reported the incident to the police, but couldn’t get her money back because of insufficient evidence.

But poor behaviour is only a symptom of the deeper issues that beset the city’s taxi industry, which is struggling with high costs, increased competition and bureaucracy.

There are about 18,000 taxi licenses in the city, and this number has been largely capped since 1994, apart from 2016 when just 25 licenses were issued. Many holders see the licenses as an investment and rent them to drivers.

Leung Tat Chong – who has worked as a taxi driver for more than two decades – says the rent of the licenses has kept rising and a driver has to pay about HK$500 for a 12-hour daytime shift – which does not include fuel. On a typical day, a driver can make HK$500 to HK$800.

“We can only do more business during rush hours, and sometimes we wait for up to 25 minutes and there is not even one single passenger,” he says. “To make a living, some drivers are not as patient and they have no capacity to improve their services.”

This is not an excuse for poor behaviour, he adds, but the “reality” of the industry.

Taxis also face intense competition from Uber which has been hugely popular since its entry into the Hong Kong market in 2014. The company says half of the city’s 7.5 million population have used it at least once.

The taxi industry has called on the government to crack down on the platform, which remains officially illegal in the city, arguing that it is unfair because Uber drivers are not subjected to the same laws – including needing special licences to run.

In late May, some taxi drivers even launched a vigilante sting operation to expose Uber drivers – but that attracted backlash from the public, many of whom say they prefer the ride hailing app precisely because of the issues they have with cab drivers.

“We underestimated the impact of ride-hailing apps,” says Chau Kwok-keung, the chairman of the Hong Kong Taxi and Public Light Bus Association. “Passengers are willing to pay more for a better riding experience.”

While Mr Chau is against Uber, he concedes that there are fewer conflicts on that platform because drivers can pick the passengers and fares are agreed before the journey. He also admits that the industry has been slow to adapt to online hailing systems and digital payment. Most taxi drivers still only accept cash.

The taxi industry also struggles to attract new blood. The average age of drivers is close to 60. Mr Chau argues that the lack of prospects is an important factor, as taxi fare has only been raised four times in the past decade. In 2023, the average income of an urban taxi driver was about HK$22,000, about 10% higher than the city’s median income. Hong Kong ranks 45th in terms of taxi fare in the world, according to living-cost online database Numbeo. Mr Chau says it’s very low considering Hong Kong is an expensive city.

“Many think that only poor people become cabbies, and it’s the last resort when one meets financial difficulties,” says Mr Leung, who thinks that the government should tighten requirements and provide more training for taxi drivers to improve the profession’s image.

But big changes are afoot for the city’s taxi industry.

A demerit-point system will take effect in September, and misbehaviour could lead to a license suspension after a court conviction.

A taxi fleet system will be introduced and authorities have issued five new licenses. It will allow flexible pricing, but in return, these fleets, which include 3,500 taxis, have to provide online booking, personal rating systems and digital payment.

For now, drivers and passengers say they are waiting to see if these reforms can take hold.

“If we provide good service, the industry will grow and there will be more passengers,” says Mr Leung.

The FBI has opened an investigation into allegations from the Trump campaign that it was targeted by hackers working for the Iranian government.

“We can confirm the FBI is investigating the matter,” the agency said in a short statement on Monday without specifically naming the former president or Iran.

A Trump campaign spokesman told the BBC the documents were illegally obtained by “foreign sources hostile to the United States”.

Iranian officials have denied any connection to the hack and the US government has not formally accused Iran.

The FBI is also looking into whether Iranian hackers targeted the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris campaign, according to CBS News, the BBC’s news partner, citing people familiar with the investigation.

The Trump campaign statement came one day after Microsoft released a report indicating that Iranian hackers targeted the campaign of an unnamed US presidential candidate in June.

Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) said that the campaign was sent a spear- phishing email – a message designed to look trustworthy in order to get the target to click on a malicious link.

On Saturday, Trump said the hackers were “only able to get publicly available information”.

The FBI began the investigations in early summer after both campaigns experienced attempted phishing schemes, CBS News reported.

According to the Washington Post, three staff members of the Biden-Harris campaign were also targeted by phishing emails in the days before President Joe Biden announced that he was quitting the race.

A Harris campaign spokesperson said in a statement to the media that the campaign “vigilantly monitors and protects against cyberthreats, and we are not aware of any security breaches of our systems”.

The BBC has asked the Harris campaign for comment.

According to the Washington Post, the FBI probe into the hacking attempts was first opened in June.

Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff was among several lawmakers calling for the FBI to reveal what it knows about the hacking attempts.

He said that the US intelligence community “moved much too slow to properly identity the hacking and dumping scheme carried out by Russia” in 2016 and “should act quickly here”.

It comes after Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell said he was requesting a briefing from the Department of Homeland Security on the “alleged hack of Trump’s presidential campaign”.

“Yes, Trump is the most despicable person ever to seek office. He also sought foreign hacking in a past election… But that doesn’t mean America ever tolerates foreign interference,” he posted on X/Twitter on Saturday.

At campaign rallies in 2016, he asked Russia to hack his opponent in the race, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

US security sources had previously warned of an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump, unconnected to last month’s attempted shooting in Pennsylvania.

And on Tuesday, the US justice department charged a Pakistani man alleged to have ties to Iran with plotting to assassinate US officials, potentially including the former president.

Scientists have discovered a reservoir of liquid water on Mars – deep in the rocky outer crust of the planet.

The findings come from a new analysis of data from Nasa’s Mars Insight Lander, which touched down on the planet back in 2018.

The lander carried a seismometer, which recorded four years’ of vibrations – Mars quakes – from deep inside the Red Planet.

Analysing those quakes – and exactly how the planet moves – revealed “seismic signals” of liquid water.

While there is water frozen at the Martian poles and evidence of vapour in the atmosphere, this is the first time liquid water has been found on the planet.

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Insight’s scientific mission ended in December 2022, after the lander sat quietly listening to “the pulse of Mars” for four years.

In that time, the probe recorded more than 1,319 quakes.

By measuring how fast seismic waves travel, scientists have worked out what material they are most likely to be moving through.

“These are actually the same techniques we use to prospect for water on Earth, or to look for oil and gas,” explained Prof Michael Manga, from the University of California, Berkeley, who was involved in the research.

The analysis revealed reservoirs of water at depths of about six to 12 miles (10 to 20km) in the Martian crust.

“Understanding the Martian water cycle is critical for understanding the evolution of the climate, surface and interior,” said lead researcher Dr Vashan Wright, from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Prof Manga added that water was “the most important molecule in shaping the evolution of a planet”. This finding, he said, answers a big question of “where did all the Martian water go?”.

Studies of the surface of Mars – with its channels and ripples – show that, in ancient times, there were rivers and lakes on the planet.

But for three billion years, it has been a desert.

Some of that water was lost to space when Mars lost its atmosphere. But, said Prof Manga, here on Earth, “much of our water is underground and there’s no reason for that not to be the case on Mars too”.

The Insight probe was only able to record directly from the crust beneath its feet, but the researchers expect that there will be similar reservoirs across the planet. If that is the case, they estimate that there is enough liquid water on Mars to form a layer across the surface that would be more than half a mile deep.

However, they point out, the location of this Martian groundwater is not good news for billionaires with Mars colonisation plans who might want to tap into it.

“It’s sequestered 10-20km deep in the crust,” explained Prof Manga.

“Drilling a hole 10km deep on Mars – even for [Elon] Musk – would be difficult,” he told BBC News.

The discovery could also point to another target for the ongoing search for evidence of life on Mars.

“Without liquid water, you don’t have life,” said Prof Manga. “So if there are habitable environments on Mars, those may be now deep underground.”

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 18 Israelis, including 12 security forces personnel, have also been killed in the West Bank.

On Saturday, one Israeli was killed and another injured when Palestinian gunmen opened fire near the Israeli settlement of Mehola.

Later in the day, Hamas said it had carried out the attack in retaliation for the Israeli air strike which killed dozens of Palestinians sheltering in a school in Gaza City.

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.

Banknotes with a face value of £78,430 have raised more than 11 times that amount for charity following a series of auctions.

New £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes featuring King Charles III entered circulation in June.

A full set of the first issues were presented to the monarch, but hundreds of other low serial numbered banknotes have gone under the hammer.

One single £10 note with the serial number HB01 000002 sold for £17,000 during bidding.

During another lot, a sheet of 40 connected £50 notes – with a face value of £2,000 – sold for £26,000. That was a record for any Bank of England auction.

The four sales run by auctioneers Spink in London raised £914,127 in total.

Collectors seek banknotes which come as close to the 00001 serial number as possible, hence the large amounts raised.

When the notes entered circulation in June, the Post Office reported collectors visiting branches which had stocks of the notes during the first day. There was also an early queue outside the Bank of England in London.

Sarah John, the Bank’s chief cashier – whose signature is on the notes – said she was “thrilled” that such such a “remarkable” amount was raised.

The proceeds will be shared equally between 10 charities chosen by the Bank:

• Childhood Trust
• The Trussell Trust
• Shout
• Carers UK
• Demelza
• WWF-UK
• The Brain Tumour Charity
• London’s Air Ambulance Charity
• Child Bereavement UK
• The Samaritans

It is the first time the monarch has changed on Bank of England notes, because Queen Elizabeth II was the first to routinely appear on Bank of England banknotes from 1960. The monarch does not feature on banknotes in Scotland.

Although the use of notes and coins is declining, the number of people mainly using cash for day-to-day spending hit a four-year high during the cost of living crisis, according to banking trade body UK Finance.

Post offices also reported handling a record amount of cash in July, with transactions totalling £3.77bn.

And HSBC has promised it will not announce any new closures of its bank branches until at least 2026.

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’

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, Trump returned to Twitter/X after a year-long hiatus, hours before he and Mr Musk were due to sit down for what many expect to be a convivial chat streamed on the platform.

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) .

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• ANALYSIS: Three ways Trump will try to end Harris honeymoon
• SWING STATES: Where the election could be won and lost
• EXPLAINER: RFK Jr and others running for president
• VOTERS: US workers in debt to buy groceries

Telling hilarious or embarrassing stories from your personal life is something many stand-up comedians do night after night on stage.

But what about turning your periods into a laughing matter?

That’s what comedian Bella Humphries has done for her debut show at the Edinburgh Fringe, after being diagnosed with Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD).

Symptoms of the condition can include extreme mood swings, depression and anxiety.

But with another two weeks of the Fringe still to go, one of Bella’s jokes has already been named by the Times as among the festival’s best.

Living with suicidal thoughts every month was something Humphries had become used to.

These kinds of extreme symptoms started a week before her period when she was in what’s known as the luteal phase of her menstrual cycle and for years she had believed it was completely normal.

That is, until she was diagnosed with PMDD, which could affect up to 8% of people who have periods in the UK.

”I had a lot of thoughts of about hurting myself or not wanting to be alive anymore,” Humphries tells BBC News. “And I was, yeah, really in quite a dark place.”

The comedian says didn’t know anything about the condition until she started to look up some of her symptoms online and was eventually diagnosed by a private doctor.

Now she’s turned her experiences of living with PMDD into a stand-up routine for her show Square Peg.

The 30-year-old says sharing her experiences of it on stage has felt ”very empowering” because she’s been ”able to find the funny in some really dark times”.

“It is very personal. It’s very honest, a bit raw at times, but still very funny, I think,” she reflects. “And I have been told that by lots of other people.”

One of the jokes, which referenced having suicidal thoughts, made it into a list of the Times’ top jokes from the Fringe.

The joke was: ”There are times I feel so low I think the only way out is to get in my car and drive as fast as I can into a tree. But I’d never go through with it because I’m a feminist and I wouldn’t want that legacy for female drivers.”

Humphries says she wants to raise awareness of her condition through her comedy, which she’s hoping could lead to more people being diagnosed sooner.

”I’ve had a lot of women come to the show of varying ages, but it had such positive responses,” says the comedian.

She suggests it’s relatable for many people, even if they haven’t heard of the condition.

”And it made a lot of people feel quite emotional which is really nice to hear, because, yeah, it’s been quite emotional for me making it.”

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is an extreme form of PMS (Premenstrual syndrome).

Symptoms can include:

• headaches and joint and muscle pain
• overeating and problems sleeping
• feeling very anxious, angry, depressed or suicidal

It’s not clear what causes PMDD, but it’s been linked to being very sensitive to changes in hormones, or certain differences in the genes you inherit from your parents.

Treatments can include hormonal medicine, such as the combined contraceptive pill, cognitive behavioural therapy and antidepressants.

Farah Raja, who was diagnosed with PMDD last year, says hearing it being spoken about it in a public setting is “really important” and she hopes it will help more young people to recognise their symptoms and get an earlier diagnosis.

‘’When I first started, experiencing symptoms, I had no idea like that I was actually dealing with a severe form of PMS,” Farah tells BBC News.

“And I feel like for so long, PMS has been mocked and kind of trivialized, and people don’t really take it seriously.”

The 27-year-old, who posts TikTok videos to raise awareness of the condition, says growing up in a South Asian culture meant periods were seen as a ”very taboo topic”.

“I think that’s what made it so hard for me to get a diagnosis in the first place, because I was just constantly under the impression that it’s like nobody should know. So there’s something that I just kind of kept to myself for a really long time, or just try to suffer through.”

Claire Phipps, a doctor specialising in women’s health, says health experts need more education on how to spot the signs that someone has PMDD.

“I think it’s misdiagnosed a lot of the time because women’s health has been neglected for generations,” she explains.

Dr Phipps believes it is much more common than figures suggest because there isn’t enough awareness around the issue.

“It’s something that’s not talked about enough and women are really suffering,” she says.

“When it’s spoken about in this way, like being turned into a comedy, it’s almost like a public health warning, showing people that these symptoms aren’t normal and you don’t have to just put up with them”.

Lottie Dickens says she knew something was wrong as soon as her periods started.

For two weeks out of her menstrual cycle, she would experience extreme fatigue, depression and feelings of hopelessness, like nothing is ever going to get better.

Eventually she ended up being signed off work because the symptoms had got so severe.

After seeing multiple doctors over seven years, Lottie was ultimately diagnosed with PMDD.

“I burst into tears because it just felt so validating to have someone listen to me,” says the 29-year-old.

More education is something she’s also calling for. “It’s crazy that we don’t get taught this in schools,” Lottie says. “It would’ve been so useful to know what is and isn’t normal when it comes to your hormones and your period.”

And she praises Humphries for bringing this topic to light.

“The more people are aware of it, the more acceptance there will be that we’re dealing with something completely out our control.”

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

Mosques attacked with bricks and stones. Marchers chanting “we want our country back.” And a man’s head reportedly stamped on during a racist attack.

These scenes from the past week in England and Northern Ireland have sparked painful memories among British Asians who remember the 1970s and 80s, when racist violence was widespread and the National Front was on the rise.

Harish Patel, in his 70s, says it broke his heart.

He says teenagers will have heard from their parents and grandparents about what life could be like in this country.

“They’ll have thought it was all over. And now they are experiencing it for themselves.”

The disorder was triggered by the fatal stabbing of three young girls in Southport – followed by false speculation that the suspect was a Muslim asylum seeker.

It sent a thunderbolt of fear down Asian and minority communities.

Mungra, an elderly Asian woman who arrived from Kenya 50 years ago, was taken back to her early days in London.

She worried the escalating violence would make it too frightening to get milk from the corner shop. “That’s how we felt in those days, and I worry.”

Tens of thousands of South Asians came to work in the the UK’s factories and public services in the 1950s, as the country rebuilt its post-war economy.

By the early 1970s, the population had grown to around half a million – because of family reunions and Asians fleeing East Africa, many of whom had been expelled from Uganda.

Immigration became a politically charged issue. In 1968, Conservative MP Enoch Powell had given his explosive “rivers of blood” speech, in which he said that by permitting mass immigration, the country was “heaping up its own funeral pyre”.

The extreme right-wing National Front was at its most vocal and regularly held rallies. Asians had to contend with day-to-day harassment and police brutality.

“The climate and fear of racism was so profound that it was hard to ignore that I was of coloured skin,” Mungra says.

“It was the usual name-calling when walking on the street, the p-word.“

Mungra witnessed the riots in Southall, a predominantly Asian part of west London. They took place in 1979, three years after the racist murder of local Sikh teenager Gurdip Singh Chaggar.

Weeks before a general election, the National Front decided to hold a meeting in Southall’s town hall.

Thousands – mainly Asians, but also anti-racist allies – took to the streets in protest against the far-right and police brutality.

Forty were injured, including 21 police, 300 were arrested and a teacher was killed, probably by an officer who struck a fatal blow, according to a Met Police report.

These were brutal times which left a lasting trauma on those who lived through them. And they bring me back to my own childhood.

I was only a toddler when a lit firework was put through the letterbox of my parents’ home in Hampshire. Our neighbours didn’t like Asians living on the street.

My mum recalls grabbing my brother – a hyperactive child a few years older than me – as he ran towards the front door.

She was shaking for hours afterwards. She’ll never forget how frightened she felt in that moment.

It happened months after the p-word was scrawled on our garage door. We were living with my Gujarati sari-wearing grandmother at the time, and my parents felt incredibly vulnerable.

They felt they were being targeted for looking different when all they were doing was trying to live a happy life in 1980s Britain. We moved shortly afterwards.

It’s striking that decades later, I’ve heard Asians – including members of my own family – saying they were again scared to leave their homes.

Nervously tugging his fingers, Iqbal, a father from Bolton in his 50s, told me he was terrified and that his children had told him to not go outside.

“I thought these days of race hatred were over,” he said.

Over the seven days of riots, hotels housing asylum seekers were attacked, minority-owned businesses were looted and cars and buildings set alight. More than 400 arrests were made.

Muslims were particularly targeted – with missiles hurled at mosques, Islamophobic chants and Muslim gravestones in Burnley vandalised.

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Police patrols were ramped up, but some younger people said they didn’t trust officers to protect them.

“We don’t feel like they’ve got our back when they haven’t protected us so far. We feel vulnerable and feel like we’ve got to protect ourselves,” said Mohammad, in his 20s.

But Wednesday felt like a turning point.

As communities braced for a night of disorder, after names and addresses of immigration lawyers were spread online, the unrest largely failed to materialise.

Instead, thousands of anti-racism protesters rallied in cities and towns across England. People chanted “racism off our streets”.

In Accrington, Lancashire, Muslim anti-fascist protesters who went to protect a local mosque were embraced by pubgoers, in a “massive” moment of unity.

“There were a few shouts of ‘respect’ which was fantastic; we need to see unity to stop all this far-right violence,” said Haddi Malik, who was in the group.

The show of force has offered people a moment of hope and courage, and a sense of relief.

But the ripples of intimidation haven’t yet settled. Some have been left wondering whether they’re really accepted in this country.

“I don’t want to be made to feel like that,” says 20-year-old Muslim Hamza Moriss. “I’m a part of this country as much as they are.”

Meanwhile, Mungra feels a deep sense of unease.

“The last week has made me think that not much has really changed, that racism is still very much alive and we won’t ever actually be seen as the same… not really.”

Like his father and grandfather before him, Phool dev Shahni once made a living by diving to the bottom of 8ft-deep (2.4m), muddy ponds.

“I used to dive in 7 to 8ft of water for hours a day – coming to the surface to breathe after 8 to ten minutes,” explains Mr Shahni.

While down in those murky depths he was harvesting the seeds of a type of water lily called euryale ferox.

Known as makhanas, fox nuts or lotus seeds, they are prized for their nutritional value, being high in B vitamins, protein and fibre, with some touting them as a superfood.

Often eaten as a snack, makhanas are also used in various dishes, including the milk pudding kheer, as well as being ground into flour.

In the north-western Indian state of Bihar, where Mr Shahni lives, 90% of the world’s makhana is grown.

The leaves of the lily plant are large and circular and sit on the top of the pond. But the seeds form in pods under water and collecting them was an exhausting process.

“While we are at the bottom diving, mud enters our ears, eyes, nose and mouth. Lots of us have skin issues due to this. Also the plant is covered in thorns, which give us cuts all over our body during harvesting of the seeds,” Mr Shahni says.

But in recent years farmers have changed the cultivation process. The plants are now often grown in fields, in much shallower water.

Harvesting seeds in just a foot of water means Mr Shahni can make twice as much money in a day.

“It’s still hard work but I am proud of my tradition. I have three children and I will make sure that one of my sons continues the legacy of working in a fox nut field.”

Dr Manoj Kumar, is one of those behind the change in makhana cultivation.

About ten years ago he realised it would be difficult to expand its cultivation in deep ponds.

As head of the National Research Centre for Makhana (NRCM) he helped to develop the cultivation of lilies in fields of shallow water.

Over the last four or five years that technique has been taking off.

“With our innovations, growing fox nuts is now as easy as any crop grown on land. The only amount of water needed is a foot. The workers don’t have to work for hours in deep water,” he explains.

And after experiments with different seeds, his centre found a more resilient and productive variety, which he says has tripled the income of farmers.

Dr Kumar says that makhana cultivation has helped some farmers cope with more uncertain weather conditions and floods that have hit Bihar in recent years.

Now NRCM is working on machines that can harvest the seeds.

All that innovation has attracted more and more farmers.

In 2022, the area used for fox nut farming was 35,224 hectares (87,000 acres), an almost threefold increase over 10 years.

Dhirendra Kumar is one farmer who has made a recent switch to makhana cultivation.

Although he grew up on a farm, he didn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps.

“As farmers we always grew wheat, lentils and mustard but ended up losing a lot of money.

“Most of the time floods destroyed the crops,” he says.

While studying for a PhD, he came into contact with a scientist working on makhana cultivation and decided to experiment with the crop on his family farm.

“The results were amazing. In the first year I made a profit of £340 [US$432],” he says.

Now he grows lilies on 17 acres (6.9 hectares) of land.

“In my wildest dreams I did not think that I would get into growing fox nuts, as it was a labour-intensive job, which was mostly carried out by fishermen.”

The change in crop has also opened up job opportunities for women. Mr Kumar now employs about 200 local women who sow the seeds.

“My aim is to provide jobs to as many farmers as possible so they don’t leave farming because of uncertainty in agriculture,” he says.

It’s not just in the field that innovations have been made.

As well as being one of the leading cultivators of makhana, Madhubani Makhana, processes it for export all over the world.

Traditionally, once the makhanas have been harvested, they are washed, roasted and then hit with a mallet-like tool to make them pop.

“The method is crude, unhygienic and risky. It is laborious, time-consuming and a number of times leads to injuries and burns,” says Shambhu Prasad, the founder and chief executive of Madhubani Makhana.

In partnership with the NRCM, his company has developed a machine which roasts and pops the fox seeds.

“This has helped us increase the quality and the production of fox nuts,” says Mr Prasad.

Three of the machines have been incorporated into his manufacturing plant in Madhubani, in the north of Bihar.

While innovation in the farming and processing of makhana is increasing production, Mr Prasad does not think that will be enough to see prices fall.

“Given the rising global demand for makhana, significant increases in production will be necessary to achieve any substantial reduction in prices,” he says.

Back on his farm, Dhirendra Kumar thinks that makhana cultivation will bring far-reaching change.

“It’s the beginning of innovation in Bihar when it comes to fox nut harvesting. It will change the landscape of the state,” he says.

When the referee raised Lin Yu-ting’s hand at the Paris 2024’s women’s 57kg final, history was made. She had won Taiwan its first ever Olympic gold medal in boxing.

Calling Lin a “daughter of Taiwan,” Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te was among millions of people celebrating her victory, saying she had made Taiwan proud.

“With admirable focus and discipline, she has overcome misinformation and cyberbullying, turning adversity into victory,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Until several weeks ago, the 28-year-old’s name had been little known to people outside of Taiwan – but the Games have thrust Lin into the spotlight, after she and Algerian boxer Imane Khelif became the centre of a gender eligibility row that engulfed the 2024 Olympics.

Lin and Khelif were allowed to compete in Paris despite being disqualified from last year’s World Championships after reportedly failing unspecified gender eligibility tests. IOC judges have justified the decision to include them saying the testing conducted on them by the sport’s now-banned governing body, the International Boxing Association, was “impossibly flawed” and that Lin and Khelif were “born and raised as women”.

However, the decision to include them has proved to be divisive and controversial and the two athletes have been subject to an outpouring of online abuse and criticism.

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Some of their fellow competitors were among those criticising their participation, while high profile figures like ex-US President Donald Trump and English author JK Rowling took to social media to decry the decision to let them compete in the women’s categories.

But Taiwanese social media users have been firmly supportive of Lin throughout her Olympic campaign, celebrating her victories and vociferously coming to her defence.

President Lai has previously said that he had asked his administration to pursue legal actions over the “malicious attacks and bullying” Lin had suffered.

Online, others echoed his view, saying: “The daughter of Taiwan is protected by the people of Taiwan.”

On Saturday, hundreds of people gathered in Lin’s hometown of New Taipei City to watch the live broadcast of Lin’s final, along with her mother Liao Shiu-chen.

Speaking to the BBC, Mrs Liao said she was “grateful” for all the support given to Lin, saying: “She really held on. She did it.”

She said she wanted to tell Lin: “Mama loves you. I love my daughter.”

“We are ecstatic!”, 41-year-old Ms Yang, who watched the game with her son told the BBC.

“She has had such a hard journey. I was very angry to see her bullied by the whole world. This is a historic moment.”

Among those watching was the head of PE in Lin’s old secondary school. Ange Cha said her win would inspire young aspiring boxers.

“It gives them a goal to pursue and a role model to look up to.”

The gender eligibility row has been one of the most controversial stories from the 2024 Games, with Lin saying she had “shut herself off” from social media in a bid to avoid it.

Her cousin and previous sparring partner, Hsu Hao-xiang, earlier told the BBC that the controversy was “just a bunch of nonsense”.

“Just think about how many competitions she had participated in all these years [without problems].”

He described Lin as a “warm and thoughtful” person outside the rings, saying: “She could pick up [on] things that we boys would not notice. She would always want to do more for her mom and the family – she carries a lot by herself.”

An old resurfaced interview where Lin says she started boxing to “protect my mum”, who was a victim of domestic violence, has also had a lot of resonance in Taiwan.

“This makes me want to cry. She has worked so hard until now, only to face this embarrassing international bullying,” read a comment under the clip.

“We will protect you as you protect your mom. You are the best Taiwanese girl,” a top comment under her most recent Instagram posts reads.

Lin’s victory means she has completed a golden “grand slam” – she previously won two World Championship gold medals in 2018 and 2022 and clinched Taiwan’s first gold medal in the 2022 Asian Games.

But her path to Gold has not been straightforward. In 2016, she failed to secure a ticket to the Rio Olympics after failing at the qualification games. In 2021, she was favoured to win a gold but was defeated in the first round of the Tokyo Olympics.

These defeats pushed Lin to go further, said Mr Hsu.

“She didn’t listen to them, strode over them, and kept breaking through,” he said.

Mr Hsu added that the people’s support made Lin “fearless”, adding that it was “really moving to see so many people cheering for my cousin, and so many places live-streaming her games simultaneously”.

And although the 2024 Olympics has now ended, the conversation of gender eligibility in sports is one that is likely to continue.

IOC President Thomas Bach had left the door open to revisiting the organisation’s own eligibility rules on Friday.

“If someone is presenting us a scientifically solid system how to identify men and women, we are the first ones to do it,” he said, stating that the IOC would not organise boxing in the upcoming 2028 Games without a reliable partner.

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”.

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The Dutch singer Joost Klein, who was disqualified from the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, will not be prosecuted over the “backstage incident” that led to his dismissal, Swedish authorities have said.

Klein was banned from the grand final hours before it took place in Malmö on 11 May, after a female camera operator accused him of “threatening” behaviour.

However, on Monday, the Swedish prosecution authority said it could not prove that Klein “had any such intention”.

Senior prosecutor Fredrik Jönssom said the singer had made “a movement that hit the woman’s film camera” but that the course of events “was fast and was perceived differently by the witness of the incident”.

“Today I have closed the investigation because I cannot prove that the act was capable of causing serious fear,” he added.

The singer’s management said they were “extremely happy and relieved” that the case had been abandoned.

“The last few months have been terribly difficult,” they said in a statement.

“Finally we can say it out loud: There was never a reason for this case.”

The musician’s response was more light-hearted: He posted a compilation of happy dog videos to his Instagram story and updated his biography to read “Eurovision 2025”.

Klein had been one of the favourites to win the 2024 contest with techno anthem, Europapa.

The song was dedicated to his father, who died of cancer when Klein was 12. Before he died, Klein had promised to enter Eurovision on his behalf.

However, the singer’s plan fell apart when he was suspended during dress rehearsals the day before the grand final.

A day later, Swedish police confirmed that a man had been reported for making “unlawful threats” to a member of the camera crew, and Klein was disqualified.

Dutch broadcaster Avrotros, which is responsible for arranging the country’s Eurovision entry, called the move “disproportionate”.

It said that Klein had been filmed immediately after coming off stage “against clearly made agreements” and against his repeated indications that he did not want to be on camera.

Responding to the Swedish prosecutor’s decision to drop the case, the broadcaster said it would call a meeting with contest organisers the EBU to express its dissatisfaction.

“From the beginning, we have said that this disqualification was unnecessary and disproportionate and so it now appears to be.

“We are still deeply disappointed that the Europa adventure of Joost Klein and of the entire Netherlands was brutally ended in this way.

“The next step is to have a meeting with the EBU management about this matter at very short notice.”

However, the EBU defended its original decision to expel Klein from the contest for “inappropriate behaviour”.

“Like all responsible employers, we do not tolerate inappropriate behaviour and will always respond to any workplace issues that are reported to us,” it said in a statement.

Noting that the contest’s internal investigation was separate to the police inquiry, it added: “This new development therefore does not have any impact on our decision, which we stand by completely.”

Klein’s disqualification was not the only source of controversy at this year’s contest.

Israel’s participation was widely criticised amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza war, with several pro-Palestinian protests taking place around Malmö Arena.

Italy’s Angelina Mango and Ireland’s Bambie Thug were among contestants who complained of a “tense” and “horrible” atmosphere backstage.

Other entrants accused the Israeli delegation of filming them and posting clips online without their permission.

Avrotros said it would raise “other objections about the course of events behind the scenes” during its meeting with the EBU.

It noted that those complaints had previously been raised “in a comprehensive letter of objection, which to date has remained unanswered”.

“The ball is now in the EBU’s court,” it concluded.

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 Moore – 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.

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.

A new mural unveiled by street artist Banksy has been defaced in south-east London.

The piece, which shows a rhino mounting a Nissan Micra with a traffic cone on its bonnet, was spray painted with a tag by a man wearing a black balaclava at around 19:45 BST.

Stephanie Lester, a witness who spoke to BBC News, said the man had “walked away from a jeering crowd”.

It had earlier appeared in Charlton and was confirmed on Banksy’s Instagram account.

The now-defaced rhino was the eighth new London piece by Banksy in eight days.

Another witness, Devan Vadukul, told the BBC a “random youth” in a balaclava had “brazenly walked up and defaced the installation with a graffiti tag”.

He added: “The whole incident took place within less than 30 seconds before he disappeared with another male accomplice further down the road.”

The incident comes a day after Banksy painted swimming piranhas on to a City of London Police sentry box, which was first spotted on Sunday morning.

The translucent fish formed the seventh piece in an animal-themed art series across the capital.

On Monday, the City of London Corporation said the artwork had been removed to a “safe location”.

A spokesperson said: “We have moved the artwork to Guildhall Yard to ensure it is properly protected and open for the public to view safely.

“A permanent home for the piece will be decided in due course.”

On 5 August, a goat appeared on the side of a building near Kew Bridge, followed by an 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 animal was howling at the Moon – was installed on to a garage roof in Peckham.

But just a few hours later it was seen taken down by men and carried off down Rye lane.

The artist is neither connected to nor endorses the theft of the wolf design and they have “no knowledge as to the dish’s current whereabouts”, Banksy’s press team confirmed.

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.

Crowds booed as the piece in Cricklewood was dismantled by three men who said they had been “hired” by a “contracting company” to take down the billboard for safety reasons.

In the historic Old Bailey courts on Monday, Judge Mark Lucraft KC discharged a jury after it failed to reach a verdict in a death by careless driving trial and suggested they might enjoy the weather with a visit to the nearby Banksy instead.

Like his father and grandfather before him, Phool dev Shahni once made a living by diving to the bottom of 8ft-deep (2.4m), muddy ponds.

“I used to dive in 7 to 8ft of water for hours a day – coming to the surface to breathe after 8 to ten minutes,” explains Mr Shahni.

While down in those murky depths he was harvesting the seeds of a type of water lily called euryale ferox.

Known as makhanas, fox nuts or lotus seeds, they are prized for their nutritional value, being high in B vitamins, protein and fibre, with some touting them as a superfood.

Often eaten as a snack, makhanas are also used in various dishes, including the milk pudding kheer, as well as being ground into flour.

In the north-western Indian state of Bihar, where Mr Shahni lives, 90% of the world’s makhana is grown.

The leaves of the lily plant are large and circular and sit on the top of the pond. But the seeds form in pods under water and collecting them was an exhausting process.

“While we are at the bottom diving, mud enters our ears, eyes, nose and mouth. Lots of us have skin issues due to this. Also the plant is covered in thorns, which give us cuts all over our body during harvesting of the seeds,” Mr Shahni says.

But in recent years farmers have changed the cultivation process. The plants are now often grown in fields, in much shallower water.

Harvesting seeds in just a foot of water means Mr Shahni can make twice as much money in a day.

“It’s still hard work but I am proud of my tradition. I have three children and I will make sure that one of my sons continues the legacy of working in a fox nut field.”

Dr Manoj Kumar, is one of those behind the change in makhana cultivation.

About ten years ago he realised it would be difficult to expand its cultivation in deep ponds.

As head of the National Research Centre for Makhana (NRCM) he helped to develop the cultivation of lilies in fields of shallow water.

Over the last four or five years that technique has been taking off.

“With our innovations, growing fox nuts is now as easy as any crop grown on land. The only amount of water needed is a foot. The workers don’t have to work for hours in deep water,” he explains.

And after experiments with different seeds, his centre found a more resilient and productive variety, which he says has tripled the income of farmers.

Dr Kumar says that makhana cultivation has helped some farmers cope with more uncertain weather conditions and floods that have hit Bihar in recent years.

Now NRCM is working on machines that can harvest the seeds.

All that innovation has attracted more and more farmers.

In 2022, the area used for fox nut farming was 35,224 hectares (87,000 acres), an almost threefold increase over 10 years.

Dhirendra Kumar is one farmer who has made a recent switch to makhana cultivation.

Although he grew up on a farm, he didn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps.

“As farmers we always grew wheat, lentils and mustard but ended up losing a lot of money.

“Most of the time floods destroyed the crops,” he says.

While studying for a PhD, he came into contact with a scientist working on makhana cultivation and decided to experiment with the crop on his family farm.

“The results were amazing. In the first year I made a profit of £340 [US$432],” he says.

Now he grows lilies on 17 acres (6.9 hectares) of land.

“In my wildest dreams I did not think that I would get into growing fox nuts, as it was a labour-intensive job, which was mostly carried out by fishermen.”

The change in crop has also opened up job opportunities for women. Mr Kumar now employs about 200 local women who sow the seeds.

“My aim is to provide jobs to as many farmers as possible so they don’t leave farming because of uncertainty in agriculture,” he says.

It’s not just in the field that innovations have been made.

As well as being one of the leading cultivators of makhana, Madhubani Makhana, processes it for export all over the world.

Traditionally, once the makhanas have been harvested, they are washed, roasted and then hit with a mallet-like tool to make them pop.

“The method is crude, unhygienic and risky. It is laborious, time-consuming and a number of times leads to injuries and burns,” says Shambhu Prasad, the founder and chief executive of Madhubani Makhana.

In partnership with the NRCM, his company has developed a machine which roasts and pops the fox seeds.

“This has helped us increase the quality and the production of fox nuts,” says Mr Prasad.

Three of the machines have been incorporated into his manufacturing plant in Madhubani, in the north of Bihar.

While innovation in the farming and processing of makhana is increasing production, Mr Prasad does not think that will be enough to see prices fall.

“Given the rising global demand for makhana, significant increases in production will be necessary to achieve any substantial reduction in prices,” he says.

Back on his farm, Dhirendra Kumar thinks that makhana cultivation will bring far-reaching change.

“It’s the beginning of innovation in Bihar when it comes to fox nut harvesting. It will change the landscape of the state,” he says.

Ukraine’s top commander has said Kyiv’s forces control 1,000 sq km of Russian territory as they press their biggest cross-border incursion in two-and-a-half years of full-scale war.

Commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said Ukraine continued to “conduct an offensive operation in the Kursk region” seven days after it began.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had brought war to others and now it was coming back to Russia.

But Russian leader Vladimir Putin described the offensive as a “major provocation” and ordered Russian forces to “to kick the enemy out of our territory”.

A growing number of people have been evacuated from the western Russian region for their safety, with a further 59,000 told to leave.

The local governor said some 28 villages in the area had fallen to Ukrainian forces, that 12 civilians had been killed and that “the situation remains difficult”.

Ukrainian troops launched their surprise attack last Tuesday, advancing up to 18 miles (30km) into Russia.

The offensive is said to have boosted morale on the Ukrainian side, but analysts say the strategy brings fresh dangers to Ukraine.

A senior British military source, who asked not to be named, told the BBC there was the risk that Moscow will be so angered by this incursion that it could redouble its own attacks on Ukraine’s civilian population and infrastructure.

In comments aired on state television, President Putin said on Monday: “One of the obvious goals of the enemy is to sow discord, strife, intimidate people, destroy the unity and cohesion of Russian society.

“The main task is, of course, for the defence ministry to dislodge the enemy from our territories,” he told a meeting of officials.

The region’s governor said 121,000 people had been evacuated from their homes. He told Mr Putin that about 2,000 Russian citizens remained in areas occupied by Ukrainian forces in the area.

“We don’t know anything about their fate,” he said.

He warned people to take shelter from missiles in rooms without windows and with solid walls.

In Belgorod, the region next to Kursk, about 11,000 people were also urged to leave, as governor Vyacheslav Gladkov told people from the Krasnaya Yaruga district they were being moved due to “enemy activity on the border”.

He issued a similar missile warning, and told people to shelter in their basements.

In his nightly address, Ukraine’s president acknowledged the offensive, saying: “Russia must be forced to make peace if Putin wants to fight so badly.”

“Russia brought war to others, now it’s coming home. Ukraine has always wanted only peace, and we will certainly ensure peace,” Mr Zelensky added.

Ukrainian officials have said thousands of troops are engaged in the operation, far more than the small incursion initially reported by Russian border guards.

An official told news agency AFP that their aim was “to inflict maximum losses and to destabilise the situation in Russia”.

Speaking to the BBC’s Newshour programme, Kurt Volker, a former US Ambassador to Nato, said Ukraine’s incursion could cost President Putin politically at home.

He said Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory had happened “because of President Putin and the way he’s conducted this war.”

“That is not going to be lost on the elites in Russia. It’s not going to be lost on the public. Putin has provoked attacks on the Russian territory itself and people are having to be evacuated. That’s quite something.”

During a meeting with Mr Zelensky in Kyiv on Monday, US Senator Lindsey Graham called the cross-border operation “brilliant” and “bold”, and urged the Biden administration to provide Ukraine with the weapons it needs.

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”.

Russian ally Belarus said it was bolstering its own troop numbers at its border after claiming Ukraine had entered its airspace with drones.

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency said late on Monday it had inspected a damaged cooling tower at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine following a fire on Sunday, but could not immediately find the cause.

Mr Zelensky has accused Russia of deliberately starting the fire in order to “blackmail” Ukraine, while Zaporizhzhia’s Kremlin-installed regional governor has said it was caused by Ukrainian shelling.

Elon Musk’s interview of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was marred by technical issues that the tech billionaire blamed on a cyber attack.

The lengthy conversation, which Mr Musk said was aimed at “open-minded independent voters”, began more than 40 minutes late as many users struggled to gain access.

Mr Musk, who owns X, formerly Twitter, said a distributed denial of services (DDoS) attack “saturated all of our data lines”.

Near the end of the two-hour conversation, he doubled down on his endorsement of Trump and called on moderate voters to back the Republican’s campaign.

“Here’s to an exciting, inspiring future that people can look forward to and be optimistic and excited about what happens next,” Mr Musk said.

The conversation got off to a less auspicious start.

More than 20 minutes into when the conversation was actually due to begin, as many users struggled to access the livestream, Mr Musk blamed “a massive DDOS attack on X” for the problems in a post.

Distributed denial of services attacks – or DDoS attacks – are attempts to overload a website to make it hard to use or inaccessible.

Once the conversation between the two men began, Mr Musk said the alleged cyber attack showed there is opposition in the US to hearing what Trump had to say.

It is not clear what caused the technical problems with the X audio conversation or who may have been behind any alleged attack.

“A DDoS attack sends a very large number of signals to an online target to disrupt it,” Anthony Lim, Director of the Centre for Strategic Cyberspace and International Studies in Singapore, told the BBC.

“It is unlikely it would affect only one single service or feature on a website.”

Mr Lim added that it is possible that a large number of people trying to listen could have temporarily crashed the service.

Mr Musk said in a subsequent post that the system was tested with “8 million concurrent listeners” before his live chat.

During the conversation, X Spaces showed about one million people listening in.

The glitchy beginning was reminiscent of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ entry into the White House race in May 2023, which was held on X and saw the livestream malfunction.

The conversation on X comes as Trump, the former president and Republican presidential nominee, is trying to reset his re-election campaign.

Opinion polls suggest that the Democratic nomination of Vice-President Kamala Harris has tightened the close race for the White House.

The Harris campaign is riding a wave of momentum after she became the Democratic standard-bearer when President Joe Biden dropped out of the race last month.

Next week, Ms Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, could get a further bump from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

The Trump campaign has been needling Ms Harris for not doing interviews and for taking few questions from reporters since accepting the nomination last month.

On Monday, Trump said “it’s nice to have a forum like this” on X, where he could speak at length.

Mr Musk, whose platform hosted the event, has become an increasingly influential voice in politics.

He has more than 190 million followers on X, where he regularly engages in political controversies.

He has also recently become involved in a new political committee supporting Trump’s campaign.

The relationship between the two men has shifted over the years and they have traded online barbs in the past.

But Monday’s conversation between the two was chummy and never adversarial.

Trump, who has been sceptical of electric vehicles and previously vowed to roll back federal subsidies, praised car-maker Tesla, which Mr Musk also owns.

He recently said he had “no choice” but to support EVs because of Mr Musk’s endorsement and called the Telsa product “great” on Monday.

Mr Musk said he would be willing to offer a Trump administration help on a proposed “government efficiency commission”.

Ahead of the high-profile conversation on the social media site, which could be accessed by European users, EU industry chief Thierry Breton told Mr Musk in a letter that he must comply with EU digital content law.

The EU suspects X of breaching its rules in areas including countering illegal content and disinformation.

In response, X chief executive Linda Yaccarino called it “an unprecedented attempt to stretch a law intended to apply in Europe to political activities in the US”.

“It also patronizes European citizens, suggesting they are incapable of listening to a conversation and drawing their own conclusions.”

Monday marked something of a return to X/Twitter for Trump, who was removed from the platform shortly after the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot.

Besides a flurry of campaign advertisements on Trump’s account on Monday, he had only posted once – his mug shot and a link to his campaign site – a year ago after Mr Musk reactivated his X account in 2022.

It’s not clear whether Trump, who frequently posts on his Truth Social site, would continue to post more frequently on X.

Monday’s interview touched on a range of issues, from the assassination attempt on Trump last month at a Pennsylvania rally, to his wanting the US to get an “Iron Dome” missile defence system like the one in Israel, and a key plank of his campaign – immigration.

Trump also mused about closing the federal Department of Education and moving that responsibility to the states as one of his first acts if he wins the election in November.

The Republican candidate also spoke of Mr Biden’s decision to exit the race after a disastrous debate performance and pressure from vulnerable Democrats lawmakers, characterising it as “a coup”.

Mr Biden, in a weekend interview with CBS, said he left because feared that the intraparty battle over his candidacy would be a “real distraction” ahead of the election.

In a statement after the event, the Harris campaign described Mr Musk and Trump as two “self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024”.

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Scientists have discovered a reservoir of liquid water on Mars – deep in the rocky outer crust of the planet.

The findings come from a new analysis of data from Nasa’s Mars Insight Lander, which touched down on the planet back in 2018.

The lander carried a seismometer, which recorded four years’ of vibrations – Mars quakes – from deep inside the Red Planet.

Analysing those quakes – and exactly how the planet moves – revealed “seismic signals” of liquid water.

While there is water frozen at the Martian poles and evidence of vapour in the atmosphere, this is the first time liquid water has been found on the planet.

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Insight’s scientific mission ended in December 2022, after the lander sat quietly listening to “the pulse of Mars” for four years.

In that time, the probe recorded more than 1,319 quakes.

By measuring how fast seismic waves travel, scientists have worked out what material they are most likely to be moving through.

“These are actually the same techniques we use to prospect for water on Earth, or to look for oil and gas,” explained Prof Michael Manga, from the University of California, Berkeley, who was involved in the research.

The analysis revealed reservoirs of water at depths of about six to 12 miles (10 to 20km) in the Martian crust.

“Understanding the Martian water cycle is critical for understanding the evolution of the climate, surface and interior,” said lead researcher Dr Vashan Wright, from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Prof Manga added that water was “the most important molecule in shaping the evolution of a planet”. This finding, he said, answers a big question of “where did all the Martian water go?”.

Studies of the surface of Mars – with its channels and ripples – show that, in ancient times, there were rivers and lakes on the planet.

But for three billion years, it has been a desert.

Some of that water was lost to space when Mars lost its atmosphere. But, said Prof Manga, here on Earth, “much of our water is underground and there’s no reason for that not to be the case on Mars too”.

The Insight probe was only able to record directly from the crust beneath its feet, but the researchers expect that there will be similar reservoirs across the planet. If that is the case, they estimate that there is enough liquid water on Mars to form a layer across the surface that would be more than half a mile deep.

However, they point out, the location of this Martian groundwater is not good news for billionaires with Mars colonisation plans who might want to tap into it.

“It’s sequestered 10-20km deep in the crust,” explained Prof Manga.

“Drilling a hole 10km deep on Mars – even for [Elon] Musk – would be difficult,” he told BBC News.

The discovery could also point to another target for the ongoing search for evidence of life on Mars.

“Without liquid water, you don’t have life,” said Prof Manga. “So if there are habitable environments on Mars, those may be now deep underground.”

The partner of a mother killed while saving her baby from a stabbing rampage in a busy Sydney shopping centre has spoken out for the first time, saying the day she died will “never make sense”.

Ashlee Good, 38, was among six people killed by Joel Cauchi at Westfield Bondi Junction on 13 April. Her daughter Harriet, who was nine months old at the time of the attack, was also injured.

Australian authorities say the stabbing was “mental health” related, but they believe Cauchi targeted women.

Thanking those who had sent donations, Good’s partner Dan Flanagan said “the overwhelming support, kindness and generosity” his family had received has given them “strength”.

Mass killings are rare in Australia, and the attack – at one of the country’s biggest and most popular shopping centres – stunned the world.

Horrified witnesses have described how Good fled into a nearby store, desperately seeking help for her injured baby girl.

In a post to a GoFundMe page, which raised almost A$850,000 (£439,000;$560,000), Mr Flanagan said the loss of his partner – an osteopath who friends described as “full of life and love” – was “unimaginable”.

“The day our family of three became a family of two will never make sense to me, but countless people… have shown me that while tragic things do unfortunately happen, there is more good in this world, than bad,” he wrote.

“Nothing will ever dull the pain of losing Ash, but reading your messages and seeing what an impact Ash has had on so many people has provided a lot of comfort.”

He also sent his condolences to the other families, friends and communities dealing with the trauma of the attack.

“Our lives will never be the same, and I wish every one of you your own strength and hope you’re getting the support required to navigate such incomprehensible and difficult times,” he said.

Cauchi stabbed 17 people before he was chased down and shot by a lone police officer.

Along with Good, five others died – security guard Faraz Tahir, 30; Jade Young, 47; Pikria Darchia, 55; Dawn Singleton, 25; and Yixuan Cheng, who was believed to be in her 20s.

Baby Harriet – the youngest victim targeted – underwent surgery to treat her chest and arm injuries to survive.

A special strike force was created to investigate the incident, with New South Wales Police saying it could take months to present its findings.

Cauchi’s parents said the 40-year-old had battled with mental illness and had come off his medication shortly before carrying out the attack.

Some, including the family of Jade Young, have called for an immediate boost to mental health services to prevent similar violence from occurring in the future.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has urged Iran to “refrain” from attacking Israel during a phone call with Iran’s new president.

Sir Keir told Masoud Pezeshkian there was a “serious risk of miscalculation and now was the time for calm and careful consideration”, Downing Street said.

It is the first call between a UK prime minister and an Iranian president since March 2021 when former British leader Boris Johnson spoke to Hassan Rouhani.

News of the 30-minute discussion came as the UK issued a joint statement with the US, France, Italy and Germany – urging Iran to end its threats of an attack on Israel.

They called on Iran to “stand down its ongoing threats of a military attack against Israel and discussed the serious consequences for regional security should such an attack take place”.

The leaders, who spoke together by phone, also expressed their support for the “defence of Israel against Iranian aggression and against attacks by Iran-backed terrorist groups”.

Fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East have been growing following the recent assassination of senior Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.

On Sunday, the US confirmed it had sent a guided missile submarine to the region in response to these concerns. The submarine can carry up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are used to strike land targets.

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.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby later said that the US shared Israel’s concerns that it was “increasingly likely that there will be an attack by Iran and or its proxies and perhaps in the coming days”.

“That is why we have been continually speaking to our Israeli counterparts and other counterparts in the region,” Mr Kirby added.

Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said that the country took the threats of its enemies seriously and that Israel was at “peak preparedness for attack and defence”.

Downing Street also said on Monday that Keir Starmer had told Mr Pezeshkian he was “deeply concerned by the situation in the region and called on all parties to de-escalate and avoid further regional confrontation”.

Iran blames Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on their soil late last month and has vowed to punish it.

Israel, which is currently engaged in a war attempting to destroy the group in Gaza, has not commented but is widely believed to have been behind the killing.

Iran’s acting foreign minister said last week that the country would respond to the killing of Haniyeh at the “right time” in the “appropriate” manner.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a group of states with Muslim-majority populations, said it held Israel fully responsible for the attack, which it called “a serious infringement” of Iran’s sovereignty.

Ismail Haniyeh is not the only senior member of Hamas to be killed recently. Israel also recently announced that the group’s military chief Mohammed Deif was killed in an air strike in the Gaza Strip last month.

The Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, with which Israel is also engaged in a conflict, has also said that it would retaliate for the death of its senior commander Fuad Shukr.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday became the latest leader to urge his country’s citizens to leave Lebanon as soon as possible, warning of the risk of growing tensions.

Airlines including Lufthansa, Swiss Air and EasyJet have either cancelled or suspended flights to the Middle East.

Business owner Louis Ho remembers how so many of Hong Kong’s taxi drivers refused to take him and his mother – who was a wheelchair user – to hospital for routine check-ups.

“I didn’t even need the driver to carry my mum or the wheelchair. I did everything myself,” says the 64-year-old whose mother passed away in 2018.

He is one of many Hong Kongers who have a story to tell about their city’s infamous cabbies. Ask them what they like least about Hong Kong, and taxi drivers will likely be high on the list.

The most common complaints: drivers are rude, refuse to accept rides and often take longer routes so customers have to pay more.

But now the Hong Kong Taxi Council is on a mission to transform this image. They will despatch “courtesy ambassadors” armed with “best-practice” pamphlets to taxi stands.

Will that really help? That depends on who you ask.

A single campaign cannot school rude or misbehaving drivers overnight – there are about 46,000 cabbies in the city, cautions Ryan Wong, the chairman of the council.

But he is hopeful: “This is not the first time that we have done this, and the feedback from drivers has been positive.”

Hong Kongers are more sceptical. An interview clip of a taxi driver saying that passengers, rather than drivers, are the ones to be educated has gone viral in the city – many point to it as evidence that nothing will change.

Many of them are also still smarting from past experiences.

Amy Ho, in her 30s, said she stopped taking taxis a few years ago after an encounter that she found particularly unpleasant.

“I didn’t realise I had asked for a very short journey. As soon as I reached the destination, I scrambled for cash to pay,” she says.

“It was merely five seconds or so, and the driver said, ‘Can you stop dragging on, auntie? I can’t believe you need a ride for such a short distance and you can’t even afford it!’.”

IT worker Kenny Tong now only take a cab about three times a month, preferring to avoid the ordeal where he can. To hail one, he says, he often has to “bow, wait for the driver to lower the car window” and check if his destination is on the driver’s route for the day.

“Some taxi drivers grumble throughout the journey after I have boarded,” he adds.

He also finds it frustrating when drivers do not use GPS and ask him how to reach the destination – even though they have “multiple phones on the dashboard”.

Most disgruntled passengers do not file complaints because it’s time-consuming. Still, there there were about 11,500 complaints last year – a 11% increase from 2019, according to the Transport Advisory Committee. Only a tiny fraction were prosecuted.

Then there is the problem of dishonest drivers – with tourists especially vulnerable.

In early July, a visitor from the China’s eastern province of Zhejiang took to social media to complain that she was only given HK$44 ($5.6; £4.5) in change after giving a cabbie HK$1,000 for a HK$56 ride. She reported the incident to the police, but couldn’t get her money back because of insufficient evidence.

But poor behaviour is only a symptom of the deeper issues that beset the city’s taxi industry, which is struggling with high costs, increased competition and bureaucracy.

There are about 18,000 taxi licenses in the city, and this number has been largely capped since 1994, apart from 2016 when just 25 licenses were issued. Many holders see the licenses as an investment and rent them to drivers.

Leung Tat Chong – who has worked as a taxi driver for more than two decades – says the rent of the licenses has kept rising and a driver has to pay about HK$500 for a 12-hour daytime shift – which does not include fuel. On a typical day, a driver can make HK$500 to HK$800.

“We can only do more business during rush hours, and sometimes we wait for up to 25 minutes and there is not even one single passenger,” he says. “To make a living, some drivers are not as patient and they have no capacity to improve their services.”

This is not an excuse for poor behaviour, he adds, but the “reality” of the industry.

Taxis also face intense competition from Uber which has been hugely popular since its entry into the Hong Kong market in 2014. The company says half of the city’s 7.5 million population have used it at least once.

The taxi industry has called on the government to crack down on the platform, which remains officially illegal in the city, arguing that it is unfair because Uber drivers are not subjected to the same laws – including needing special licences to run.

In late May, some taxi drivers even launched a vigilante sting operation to expose Uber drivers – but that attracted backlash from the public, many of whom say they prefer the ride hailing app precisely because of the issues they have with cab drivers.

“We underestimated the impact of ride-hailing apps,” says Chau Kwok-keung, the chairman of the Hong Kong Taxi and Public Light Bus Association. “Passengers are willing to pay more for a better riding experience.”

While Mr Chau is against Uber, he concedes that there are fewer conflicts on that platform because drivers can pick the passengers and fares are agreed before the journey. He also admits that the industry has been slow to adapt to online hailing systems and digital payment. Most taxi drivers still only accept cash.

The taxi industry also struggles to attract new blood. The average age of drivers is close to 60. Mr Chau argues that the lack of prospects is an important factor, as taxi fare has only been raised four times in the past decade. In 2023, the average income of an urban taxi driver was about HK$22,000, about 10% higher than the city’s median income. Hong Kong ranks 45th in terms of taxi fare in the world, according to living-cost online database Numbeo. Mr Chau says it’s very low considering Hong Kong is an expensive city.

“Many think that only poor people become cabbies, and it’s the last resort when one meets financial difficulties,” says Mr Leung, who thinks that the government should tighten requirements and provide more training for taxi drivers to improve the profession’s image.

But big changes are afoot for the city’s taxi industry.

A demerit-point system will take effect in September, and misbehaviour could lead to a license suspension after a court conviction.

A taxi fleet system will be introduced and authorities have issued five new licenses. It will allow flexible pricing, but in return, these fleets, which include 3,500 taxis, have to provide online booking, personal rating systems and digital payment.

For now, drivers and passengers say they are waiting to see if these reforms can take hold.

“If we provide good service, the industry will grow and there will be more passengers,” says Mr Leung.

Banknotes with a face value of £78,430 have raised more than 11 times that amount for charity following a series of auctions.

New £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes featuring King Charles III entered circulation in June.

A full set of the first issues were presented to the monarch, but hundreds of other low serial numbered banknotes have gone under the hammer.

One single £10 note with the serial number HB01 000002 sold for £17,000 during bidding.

During another lot, a sheet of 40 connected £50 notes – with a face value of £2,000 – sold for £26,000. That was a record for any Bank of England auction.

The four sales run by auctioneers Spink in London raised £914,127 in total.

Collectors seek banknotes which come as close to the 00001 serial number as possible, hence the large amounts raised.

When the notes entered circulation in June, the Post Office reported collectors visiting branches which had stocks of the notes during the first day. There was also an early queue outside the Bank of England in London.

Sarah John, the Bank’s chief cashier – whose signature is on the notes – said she was “thrilled” that such such a “remarkable” amount was raised.

The proceeds will be shared equally between 10 charities chosen by the Bank:

• Childhood Trust
• The Trussell Trust
• Shout
• Carers UK
• Demelza
• WWF-UK
• The Brain Tumour Charity
• London’s Air Ambulance Charity
• Child Bereavement UK
• The Samaritans

It is the first time the monarch has changed on Bank of England notes, because Queen Elizabeth II was the first to routinely appear on Bank of England banknotes from 1960. The monarch does not feature on banknotes in Scotland.

Although the use of notes and coins is declining, the number of people mainly using cash for day-to-day spending hit a four-year high during the cost of living crisis, according to banking trade body UK Finance.

Post offices also reported handling a record amount of cash in July, with transactions totalling £3.77bn.

And HSBC has promised it will not announce any new closures of its bank branches until at least 2026.

A shop security guard has described how he helped 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.

One person has died as fierce wildfires spread in the suburbs of Athens in Greece on Monday.

The body, believed to be that of a woman, was found inside a shop in the town of Vrilissia, northern Athens, a source from the fire service told the BBC.

Thousands of people have been evacuated after firefighters warned that homes, businesses and schools were under threat, with fires expected to continue into Tuesday.

Fire service spokesman Col Vassilios Vathrakogiannis said while there was no longer a single active fire front in the north-eastern Attica region, which includes parts of Athens, there were still “many active localised blazes”, mostly around the towns of Marathon and Penteli.

In a statement released on Monday evening, he added that conditions for new fires remained dangerous not only on Tuesday, but also for further into the week.

More than 700 firefighters, 199 fire engines and 35 waterbombing aircraft have been involved in efforts to extinguish the fires, which first broke out on Sunday afternoon around 35km (22 miles) north of the Greek capital.

Col Vathrakogiannis said two firefighters had received treatment for burns while fighting the blazes.

Officials said fires broke out in 40 different locations on Monday and that some areas saw flames as high as 25m (82ft).

In unprecedented scenes, people in Athens wore facemasks to protect themselves from the smoke, which blew into the city.

Aircraft were forced to land as night set in on Monday, but ground operations continued through the night.

Greece’s National Observatory said on Monday evening satellite images showed that, by noon local time (10:00 BST), the fire had already affected around 100,000 acres (405 sq km; 156 sq miles) of land.

In Penteli, a wooded, hilly region, three hospitals had to be evacuated, and one of the sites of the National Observatory was at one stage feared to be under threat.

The blaze also engulfed a timber factory, and elsewhere in the area a number of explosions were heard, most likely from fuel tanks and residential gas cylinders.

Despite the danger, some Penteli residents chose to stay near their homes and tried to put out pockets of fire using hoses or tree branches.

“It hurts. We have grown up in the forest. We feel great sadness and anger,” 24-year-old resident Marina Kalogerakou told Reuters news agency as she poured water from a bucket onto a burning tree stump.

Pantelis Kyriazis, another resident, crashed his car as he tried to leave.

“I couldn’t see. I hit a pine tree and this is what happened,” he said, gesturing towards the car.

Further north, near the epicentre of the fire, 81-year-old Vassilis Stroubelis stood in the doorway of his damaged home.

“Thirty years I was building all this. Thirty years and bam,” he said.

European nations have announced assistance for Greece after its government activated the EU’s mutual civil protection mechanism.

Italy is providing two planes while France and Serbia are providing one helicopter each, Col Vathrakogiannis said.

Spain, the Czech Republic and Romania are sending further vehicles, personnel, and aid.

Neighbouring Turkey is also preparing to send two planes and a helicopter, Foreign Minister Öncü Keçeli said.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU would “stand with Greece as it battles devastating fires”.

Greece has just experienced its hottest June and July on record.

Climate change increases the risk of the hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires.

The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.