A 14-year-old boy and his father have faced court for the first time charged over the murder of four people in a gun attack at a Georgia high school.

Colt Gray, was arrested shortly after the shooting on Wednesday at his school, Apalachee High in Winder, near Atlanta. He faced court in person on Friday, his hands and ankles shackled, to face four counts of first degree murder.

The judge clarified that he would not face execution, after first stating the maximum penalty was death.

His father Colin Gray, 54, is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and child cruelty – the most severe charges against a parent over a US school shooting.

Those killed were identified as Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. Another teacher and eight pupils were wounded.

The court appearances, held separately, were the first for the Grays. Families of victims were seated in the first row of the court, according to reporters. One woman held a stuffed animal of a Disney character in her arms.

Wearing a green T-shirt, the 14-year-old suspect spoke little other than to acknowledge that he understood the charges he faces.

The judge acknowledged heightened public interest in the case. Because of this, news cameras were allowed to record and livestream the hearings.

He initially told Colt Gray that the maximum penalty for his charges was death or life in prison, but later called the accused back to clarify that under-18s can not be executed.

Colin Gray, the father, appeared distressed at some points during his hearing. Wearing a striped shirt, he was seen rocking back and forth after the judge finished speaking.

The judge told him he faced a total of 180 years in prison for his charges.

Officials have accused the father of allowing his son to possess an AR-15 style rifle which they allege was used in the attack.

Both of the accused were told that they had the right to a “speedy and public trial by judge or jury”. Neither requested a bond and no pleas were entered.

They will both remain in custody and are next due in court on 4 December.

Israeli forces have withdrawn from Jenin city and its refugee camp in the occupied West Bank after a major nine-day operation there.

The area – a stronghold of militants and with a civilian population of about 60,000 – was targeted in one of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) biggest actions in the West Bank for years. The IDF said it was acting against terrorism.

At least 36 Palestinians were killed – 21 from Jenin governorate – the Palestinian health ministry says.

Most of the dead have been claimed by armed groups as members, but the ministry says children are also among those killed.

An Israeli soldier was also killed during fighting in Jenin.

The city of Tubas and al-Faraa refugee camp were also raided during the operation across the northern West Bank – the deadliest of its kind since the start of the war in Gaza last October triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel.

Hundreds of troops from several branches of the security forces were involved, with civilians confined to their homes and utilities cut as the Israeli military battled with militants on the ground and with air strikes.

Residents of Jenin camp in the west of the city are emerging into the streets for the first time since the IDF began its assault on 27 August.

Many, stunned and exhausted, slowly assessed the damage – the new layers of destruction mapping this operation onto the camp.

Khalid abu Sabeer lives in a basement apartment next to the mosque. The entire floor of his home, he said, was blown out by a powerful explosion.

The Israeli army was interested in a cave beneath the building, he said, that had been there for decades, empty.

The IDF asked him to leave before blowing it up – and his home along with it.

Another resident of the camp, Mustafa Antir, described intense attacks from Israel.

“It was impossible to tell where it was coming from: explosions, drones, shooting. Here and here and here, and from the sky. You can’t imagine how heavy it was.”

Years of violent confrontation between the Israeli army and Palestinian armed groups have been etched into Jenin’s narrow pathways – bullet-holes scattered across walls, piles of rubble left by military bulldozers, graffiti in the shape of M16 rifles, along with the name “Hamas”.

Among the destruction is a hole in the middle of the city centre – the main road broken and impassable.

Construction vehicles dig whole tree trunks out of the shattered road and cart them away. Shop owners and photojournalists clamber over the rubble to inspect the damage.

On either side, a crowd has paused to watch the rebuilding: residents on foot, on scooters, on bicycles, out on the streets for the first time in more than nine days.

The head of Jenin’s government hospital, Dr Wissam Bakr, who is also there, says the first four days of the Israeli operation were the hardest for the hospital, with power and water supplies cut.

They were relying on generators and water tanks, he said, with two new-borns and two elderly patients on ventilators.

Further down the same road, the sounds of the city have returned: stallholders are back at the edge of the marketplace, hawking carts full of fresh fruit and vegetables; the cafes around packed with generations of men and boys.

On Friday morning, gunfire erupted again in the refugee camp, signalling the start of many funerals taking place. The BBC understands at least eight of the dead are civilians, including a 16-year-old girl.

At the funeral of Mohammed Zubeidi, one of five militants killed in an Israeli air strike on a car in Tubas on Thursday, a Palestinian fighter spoke defiantly.

“When you see the Israelis kill your brother, kill this or that person, how do you – in your heart – stay sitting and looking at all of this?” he said to the BBC.

“People are afraid that they’re coming to destroy their homes, or arrest them, but so what? Let them arrest everyone – my brother has been arrested for two years. So what?”

The IDF said Zubeidi was “a significant terrorist from the Jenin area”.

He was also the son of Zakaria Zubeidi, the imprisoned former commander in Jenin of the Fatah movement’s armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.

In a statement, the Israeli military said that in the Jenin area “14 terrorists [had] been eliminated, over 30 suspects [had] been apprehended, [and] approximately 30 explosives planted under roads were dismantled” during the operation.

It said it had also dismantled what it called “numerous terror infrastructure sites… including an underground weapons storage facility located beneath a mosque, and a lab used to manufacture explosives” and had removed “large quantities of weapons”.

The Palestinian health ministry says three Palestinians have also been killed in the southern governorate of Hebron over the past nine days.

The Israeli military said one of them carried out a shooting attack that killed three Israeli police officers near Tarqumiyah on Sunday.

There has been a spike in violence in the West Bank since Hamas’s attack and the ensuing war in Gaza.

More than 600 Palestinians have been killed as Israeli forces have intensified their raids, the Palestinian health ministry says. Israel says it is trying to stem deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and Israel.

A popular tourist island south of mainland China has been hit by the most powerful typhoon in a decade, leaving the area facing potentially catastrophic winds and torrential rain.

Super typhoon Yagi slammed into Wenchang city in the north-east of Hainan island with winds of 223 km/h (138 mph) at 16:00 local time (09:00 BST) on Friday, according to state media.

Yagi is the strongest to hit Hainan since Rammasun in 2014, which left 46 people dead. China’s weather agency said it is the strongest typhoon to make landfall in the autumn.

Some 400,000 people in Hainan island were evacuated to safe ground ahead of Yagi’s arrival. Trains, boats and flights were suspended, while schools were shut.

Yagi – which has doubled in strength after wreaking havoc in northern Philippines early this week – is the second strongest typhoon so far this year.

Meteorologists say Yagi may cause “catastrophic” damage in Hainan and neighbouring Guangdong, which is also China’s most populous province.

Yagi is an “extremely dangerous and powerful” super typhoon which could make a “potentially catastrophic” landfall, the Indo-Pacific Tropical Cyclone Warning Center warned in an advisory on Thursday.

A super typhoon is equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane.

All tourist attractions have been shut since Wednesday by order of authorities. who warned of “massive and destructive winds”.

With white sand beaches, luxury hotels and duty free shops, Hainan has been dubbed “China’s Hawaii”.

The world’s longest sea crossing, the main bridge linking Hong Kong with Macau and Zhuhai in Guangdong, was also closed.

Parts of the region have been experiencing heavy rainfall and strong gales since Thursday. China’s weather authority expects rainfall to reach up to 500mm.

Hainan, which boasts sandy beaches and clear waters, is no stranger to typhoons. But just nine of the106 typhoons which have landed in Hainan since 1949 were classified as super typhoons, news agency Reuters reported.

Chinese authorities believe Yagi will be the strongest typhoon to hit its southern coast in a decade.

Yagi is not just due to hit China, but is also expected to make landfall in northern Vietnam late on Saturday in a weakened state.

Tens of thousands in the provinces of Hai Phong and Thai Binh will be evacuated to safer ground by the end of Friday, AFP news agency reported, citing local authorities.

The military has mobilised some 460,000 officers to help manage the storm’s impact, Vietnamese media reported.

Vietnam’s deputy agriculture minister has warned that it could hit regions “crucial to the socio-economic development” of the region.

“Carelessness could result in catastrophic damage,” Nguyen Hoang Hiep said.

Four airports in the country’s north, including Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport, will be shut on Saturday in anticipation of the storm, Vietnam’s civil aviation authority said.

Earlier this week, floods and landslides brought by Yagi killed at least 13 people in northern Philippines, with thousands of people forced to evacuate to safer ground.

Scientists say typhoons and hurricanes are becoming stronger and more frequent with climate change. Warmer ocean waters mean storms pick up more energy, which leads to higher wind speeds.

A warmer atmosphere also holds more moisture, which can lead to more intense rainfall.

Yagi comes a week after typhoon Shanshan hit Japan, killing at least six people and injuring hundreds.

The Japanese owner of convenience store chain 7-Eleven has rejected a $38bn (£29.2bn) takeover bid from Canadian rival Alimentation Couche-Tard.

In a letter addressed to the prospective buyer, Seven & i Holdings said the Circle K owner’s offer “grossly” undervalued the company and was fraught with regulatory risk.

The 7-Eleven owner added, however, that it remains open to negotiations and ready to consider a better proposal.

If successful the buyout would create a 100,000-strong global convenience store giant.

Stephen Dacus, the chair of the Seven & i board considering the deal, said in a letter that the proposal was “opportunistically timed”.

The proposal, Mr Dacus added, “grossly undervalues” the Japanese retail giant and its potential to generate more value for shareholders.

Alimentation Couche-Tard (ACT), which is based in Quebec, runs around 17,000 shops across North America, Europe and Asia under the Circle K and Couche-Tard brands.

The initial offer by the prospective buyer valued Seven & i at $14.86 per share. That’s more than 20% above its share price before the offer was announced.

The offer came when the Japanese yen is significantly weaker than the US dollar, making Seven & i more affordable to foreign buyers.

In rejecting the offer, Seven & i also flagged up “multiple and significant challenges” a deal would face from US competition regulators.

7-Eleven is the world’s biggest convenience store chain, with 85,000 outlets across 20 countries and territories.

ACT’s footprint in the US and Canada would more than double to about 20,000 sites were a deal to go ahead.

A Japanese company of this size has never been bought by a foreign firm.

Historically, companies from Japan were more likely to buy overseas businesses.

“Japan needs to protect its national assets… and Seven & i is a major asset, so expect this to be a long drawn-out process of negotiation,” said the head of strategy at Astris Advisory Japan, Neil Newman.

“If it succeeds… then it would show that Japan is open for business and welcomes foreign investment.”

Last year, the Japanese government issued new guidelines on mergers and acquisitions calling on companies not to reject credible takeover offers without sincere consideration.

ACT did not immediately respond to a BBC News request for comment.

A 26-year-old American woman has been shot dead in the occupied West Bank during a protest on Friday.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who is also a Turkish citizen, is reported to have been taking part in a protest against Jewish settlement expansion in the town of Beita near Nablus.

Ms Ezgi Eygi was allegedly shot by Israeli troops, according to local media reports. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say they “responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them” in the Beita area.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, who confirmed Ms Ezgi Eygi’s identity, said Washington is “urgently gathering more information about the circumstances of her death and will have more to say as we learn more”.

Mr Miller also offered his “deepest condolences” to Ms Ezgi Eygi’s family and loved ones.

His comments were echoed by US ambassador to Israel Jack Lew who said Washington has “no higher priority than the safety and security of American citizens”.

Ms Ezgi Eygi, who was both American and Turkish, was born in Antalya, as reported by Turkish media.

The Turkish foreign ministry described her death as “murder”, adding that Ms Ezgi Eygi was “killed by Israeli occupation soldiers in the city of Nablus”.

The activist was rushed to a hospital in Nablus with a gunshot to the head and was later pronounced dead, AFP news agency reported.

Dr Fouad Naffa, head of the hospital to which Ms Ezgi Eygi was admitted, confirmed that a US citizen in her mid-20s died from a “gunshot in the head”.

In a statement, the IDF said it was “looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired in the area”.

“The details of the incident and the circumstances in which she was hit are under review,” the Israeli military added.

According to reports by Palestinian media, the 26-year-old had been involved in a campaign to protect farmers from Israeli settler violence.

It comes after Israeli forces withdrew from Jenin city and its refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, following a major nine-day operation there.

During the operation, at least 36 Palestinians were killed – 21 from Jenin governorate – the Palestinian health ministry says. Most of the dead have been claimed by armed groups as members, but the ministry says children are also among those killed.

In the past 50 years, Israel has built settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where more than 700,000 Jews now live.

Settlements are held to be illegal under international law – that is the position of the UN Security Council and the UK government, among others – although Israel rejects this.

Donald Trump appeared in a New York City courtroom on Friday to attend the appeal against the case that found him liable for sexually assaulting and defaming writer E Jean Carroll.

Trump and his lawyers sought to appeal against the verdict and erase the lofty $5m (£3.8m) fine that was delivered by a jury in May 2023.

The case is one of two in which he was accused by Ms Carroll of sexual assault and defamation – two juries unanimously found him liable in both civil cases.

The hearing in front of a federal appeals court on Friday resurfaced damaging allegations against Trump as he nears the final stretch of his US presidential campaign.

The former president denied that he had ever met Ms Carroll and repeated several claims about the case that had resulted in his previous defamation charges during a press conference at Trump Tower in New York shortly after Friday’s hearing.

“It’s an appeal of a ridiculous verdict of a woman I’ve never met,” he said.

“[The case] is so false. It’s a made up fabricated story by someone looking to promote a book,” Trump said, referring to a memoir Ms Carroll published, which included her allegations against the former president.

On Friday, Trump’s lawyers sought to appeal the judgement in the first case, arguing before the court that the allegations were “implausible” and that the evidence was “inflammatory” and “inadmissible”.

John Sauer, who is representing Trump, said that Ms Carroll’s team had presented no physical evidence or eye witnesses to support her accusations. He called the trial a “quintessential ‘he said she said’ case”.

Mr Sauer also sought to disqualify the testimony of two witnesses who claimed they were similarly assaulted by Trump.

Ms Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, opened her argument by drawing attention back to the heart of the case.

“Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in 1996 in a dressing room in Bergdorf Goodman and then defamed her in 2022 by claiming that she was crazy and made the whole thing up,” she said.

Ms Kaplan also defended the testimony of the two witnesses and said they were key to establishing a pattern of behaviour that supported Ms Carroll’s allegations.

Trump blamed his lawyers for the jury’s verdict in this case, as they had advised him to avoid appearing in court. He has regularly attended court cases involving him since.

He attended and briefly testified at the second trial, which resulted in an additional $83m judgement against him.

The hearing is just one of multiple legal hurdles that Trump faces, and he complained about several of them during his press conference at Friday.

He awaits sentencing in a Manhattan criminal trial after he was convicted of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to an adult film star.

The judge in that case, Juan Merchan, is expected to make his decision on Friday whether to delay the sentencing until after the election.

US rock band Linkin Park have announced a new singer, Emily Armstrong, will join them for their new album and tour.

The group’s former lead singer, Chester Bennington, took his own life in 2017.

Armstrong will join returning members Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Phoenix and Joe Hahn for the band’s forthcoming projects.

Armstrong will share vocals with Shinoda, while Colin Brittain will also join as the group’s new drummer.

The band announced their new line-up ahead of the launch of their forthcoming album From Zero and a new world tour.

Armstrong grew up in Los Angeles and is best known as the singer in alt-rock band Dead Sara, which she co-founded with guitarist Siouxsie Medley in 2005.

In an interview with Billboard, Amstrong recalled the impact Linkin Park’s 2000 album Hybrid Theory had on her.

“I was in a band when it came out,” she recalled. “One Step Closer was the song for me, and I was just like, ‘that’s what I want to do. As a singer, I want to be able to scream’.

“That album was everything – I’ve listened to it a trillion times. I would skate to it. I would mosh to it.”

In an era dominated by solo artists, Linkin Park are one of the most successful bands of the streaming age.

They are the only band to feature in Spotify’s top 10 most-streamed albums of all time, with their greatest hits collection Papercuts attracting more than 9m streams per day.

Linkin Park are not the first band to appoint a new lead singer following the death of a frontman – Alice in Chains and Sublime have previously done the same.

Most notably, Queen have regularly toured with singer Adam Lambert in recent years, following Freddie Mercury’s death in 1991.

Meanwhile, Brittain will replace the band’s previous drummer, Rob Bourdon.

Speaking to Billboard, Shinoda explained: “Rob had said to us at a point, I guess it was a few years ago now, that he wanted to put some distance between himself and the band.

“And we understood that – it was already apparent. He was starting to just show up less, be in less contact, and I know the fans noticed it too.

“So for me, as a friend, that was sad, but at the same time, I want him to do whatever makes him happy, and obviously everybody wishes him the best.”

Brittain has previously worked with rock bands Papa Roach and All Time Low.

The band’s new world tour will visit Los Angeles, New York, Hamburg, Seoul and London this month, and Bogotá in November.

The tour will be their first run of live performance since Bennington’s death in 2017, aged 41.

Their new album will be preceded by a single, titled The Emptiness Machine, the group’s first new music since Bennington’s death.

The band performed the song as part of an hour-long concert, broadcast on the band’s social platforms on Thursday, to officially launch their new line-up.

A sports venue in Paris will be named after Ugandan Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei, who died after her ex-boyfriend allegedly set her on fire, the French capital’s mayor has announced.

The 33-year-old mother died on Thursday with severe burns after her former partner allegedly doused her in petrol and set her on fire outside her home in north-western Kenya on Sunday.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said dedicating a sports venue after Cheptegei would help “her memory and her story remain among us”.

Cheptegei competed in the Olympic marathon in Paris, coming 44th in a time of two hours 32 minutes and 14 seconds.

Ms Hidalgo told reporters the runner “dazzled us” at the Olympic Games in the French capital, adding that “Paris will not forget her”.

“We saw her. Her beauty, her strength, her freedom, and it was in all likelihood her beauty, strength and freedom which were intolerable for the person who committed this murder,” she said.

“We’ll dedicate a sports venue to her so that her memory and her story remains among us and helps carry the message of equality, which is a message carried by the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

Joan Chelimo, a fellow athlete of Cheptegei’s, said women need to “come together” following the incident.

“I knew Rebecca as a person: we were together at the Paris Olympics. She was a mum, she had been hard working to be at the Olympics,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.

“She was the breadwinner of her family and you can imagine other girls were looking up to her.”

Ms Chelimo added: “We are still hoping, and trying to hope, that the perpetrators will be held accountable for their wrongdoings.”

At 19 years old, Cheptegei first represented Uganda in an under-20 race at the 2010 World Cross Country Championships and later transitioned to longer road races, making her marathon debut in 2021.

She recorded a personal best of two hours 22 minutes and 47 seconds the following year, making her the second-fastest Ugandan woman of all time.

Cheptegei was able to support her family with her earnings from running.

Ms Chelimo said she thinks some men feel “intimidated” by female athletes who are “going beyond the traditional norms of men providing everything”.

“They are becoming more financially stable, they are becoming more independent, and I think their ex-partners don’t like the fact we are becoming independent, we are raising our voices more.”

A report filed by a local administrator alleged the athlete and her ex-partner had been wrangling over a piece of land. Police say an investigation is under way.

Attacks on women have become a major concern in Kenya. In 2022 at least 34% of women said they had experienced physical violence, according to a national survey.

“More needs to be done,” Ms Chelimo said. “We are really hoping that now it’s another wake up call and for us to come together.”

Senior Filipino officials have sparked outrage for posing for photos with a former smalltown mayor accused of spying for China, as they escorted her home from Indonesia.

Alice Guo is seen flashing a wide smile and the peace sign with the smiling interior minister and chief of the Philippine National Police. The photo was allegedly taken before they boarded a Manila-bound private jet in Jakarta late on Thursday.

Ms Guo’s story which has involved illegal scam centres, questions over her citizenship and a dubious account of her childhood, has gripped the Philippines for months.

She was arrested just outside Jakarta on Wednesday, after a weeks-long chase.

Authorities accuse Ms Guo of protecting scam centres and human trafficking syndicates that had used online casinos or Pogos (Philippine Online Gaming Operations) for cover while she was the mayor of Bamban.

Her case has exposed how online casinos with mainland Chinese clients have long been used as a front for organised crime.

Lawmakers have also accused Ms Guo of forging her Filipino citizenship and being a Chinese national, allowing her to run for public office and win on her first try, despite being a political novice.

Her case has gripped the public imagination at a time when Manila continues to spar with Beijing over reefs and outcrops in the South China Sea.

Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos, who fetched Ms Guo from Jakarta, said he had the photo taken with her for “documentation”.

Mr Abalos said he was unaware that Ms Guo had posed with a wide smile and flashed the peace sign.

“She requested to speak with me and the [national police] chief because she had been receiving death threats. I told her she had nothing to fear because the police will protect her,” he said in a press conference in Manila.

“We wanted to document it so that everything is clear. I couldn’t see what she was doing because I was looking at the camera,” he said.

Ms Guo, who was in the same press conference, was asked about the photo. She said she had indeed told Mr Abalos and the PNP chief, Gen. Rommel Marbil, about the threats to her life.

“I asked for their help. I was also happy that I saw them. I feel safe,” Ms Guo said.

By that time, Ms Guo had changed into an orange police detainee shirt. At the airport in Jakarta, she was casually dressed in a white striped t-shirt and jeans. She was also not in handcuffs.

Another handout photo from the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation showed Ms Guo smiling with the authorities in the backseat of a vehicle.

The criticism on social media was swift.

“We want answers, NOT a photoshoot. Alice Guo, the fake Filipino, has a lot of explaining to do,” said Sen Risa Hontioveros, who is leading an inquiry in parliament on Ms Guo’s case.

“The Philippine justice system is a circus,” one X user said.

“Probably one of the most disturbing clips in the news right now. How can Alice Guo manage to still smile and wink like a movie star?” another X user said.

Another X user said the interior secretary and the police chief had posed for a photo with someone that is “symbolic of their own failure”.

Michel Barnier has met President Emmanuel Macron and begun the task of forming a government, a day after he took over as French prime minister.

He said discussions were going very well and were “full of energy”, after talks with the leaders of the right-wing Republicans and the president’s centrist Ensemble group.

President Macron chose Mr Barnier 60 days after parliamentary elections left France in political deadlock, with three powerful blocs and none able to form a majority in the National Assembly.

Mr Barnier’s survival may depend on the votes of the far-right National Rally, although they have made clear they will not join his government. The left plans nationwide protests on Saturday.

The parties of the left are angry that their candidate for prime minister, Lucie Castets, was rejected by Mr Macron because she had no chance of surviving a vote of confidence in the National Assembly.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a veteran firebrand from the radical France Unbowed party, has called for marches across France and for the “most powerful mobilisation possible”. Some unions and youth groups have said they will take part.

“We have a prime minister completely dependent on National Rally,” said Ms Castets who complained that she, like millions of French voters, felt betrayed and that the president had in effect ended up governing with the far right.

Hours after his meeting with President Macron, Mr Barnier, 73, was due to appear on the main news bulletin on private channel TF1.

French reports said that his interview formed part of the discussion with the president, along with forming a government and preparing the 2025 budget, which has to be put before parliament by 1 October.

Entering the prime minister’s residence on Friday evening, Mr Barnier promised to address “the challenges, the anger, the suffering, the feeling of abandonment, of injustice running through many of our cities, suburbs and rural areas”.

Ex-prime minister Gabriel Attal, whose centrist bloc came second in the election, said after talks with Mr Barnier that Ensemble was prepared to join a broad front with the republican right and republican left, with “no desire to block or offer unconditional support”.

Mr Barnier himself comes from the Republicans, and party leader Laurent Wauquiez said his decision depended on the prime minister’s plans: “For the moment, nothing has been decided.”

Some on the left said it was their own fault they ended up with Mr Barnier as prime minister.

Socialist Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo pointed out that the president had considered former Socialist prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, for the job but that he had been turned down by his own party.

Another Socialist mayor, Karim Bouamrane, blamed intransigence from other parts of the left alliance: “The path they chose was 100% or nothing – and here we are with nothing.”

National Rally leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella have already stressed they will not join the Barnier government, but will wait and see what policies he brings to parliament before they decide on a vote of confidence.

The left are threatening a vote of confidence but, without the backing of the far right, will not be able to bring Mr Barnier down.

“He’s a man who has never gone too far when he’s spoken about National Rally; he’s never cast us out – he’s a man for discussion,” said Marine Le Pen, indicating they could allow him to continue in office.

Without her party’s backing, Mr Barnier would not be able to muster the 289 votes in the 577-seat Assembly, simply by relying on the support of the centrists and the Republicans.

There’s chaos in HMP Pentonville.

A piercing alarm alerts us to what prison officers describe as an “incident”. There’s a cacophony of slamming metal doors, keys jangling, and shouts and screams from inmates as officers race to see what’s happened. We run behind as they head to where the trouble is.

Cell doors and chipped painted white bars are just about the only scenery as we move through this chaotic and nerve-jangling environment.

A muffled walkie-talkie tells us it’s a case of self-harm. An inmate who’s been locked up for most of the day has carved “mum and dad” into his arm with a sharp object. A quick glance into the cell and the sight of blood. A prison officer crouches down, stemming the flow.

• Prison population reaches record high in England and Wales
• Ministers eye novel fixes to the prisons crisis
• Prisoners will be released early. Can that really fix overcrowded jails?
• Rat-infested jail needs urgent measures – report

The BBC has been given rare access to HMP Pentonville men’s prison in north London at a time of major crisis for jails in England and Wales.

Next week, with prisons across the country running out of cells for new inmates, the government will release some offenders early in a controversial scheme aimed at easing the overwhelming pressure on a system on the brink of collapse.

Over the course of two days inside Pentonville this week, we were confronted with the stark reality of this crisis.

The pressure on staff is immense. In just half a day, we hear six alarms. The day before there were more than 30. Prison officers don’t know what they’re running towards behind those locked and bolted doors. Blood, violence or even death are all possibilities.

Shay Dhury has been a prison officer here for almost five years and says she’s never seen it this bad. Recently, both her wrists were broken as she tried to separate two gang members during a fight. She believes gang-related crime is one of the main reasons there are so many people in prisons, especially Pentonville.

“They go for each other – and when two people go, other people go,” she says. “It ends up us just trying to stop the fight. It gets really messy sometimes – stressful, yeah.”

HMP Pentonville was built in 1842 and is largely unchanged structurally in 180 years. Originally designed to hold 520 people in single cells, it now has an operational capacity of 1,205, with two prisoners packed into each cell.

The jail is dangerously close to capacity – with just nine beds remaining when we are there. And humans are not the only inmates here: mice and cockroaches are rife.

The government says Pentonville epitomises the challenges facing ageing, inner-city prisons with transient populations who have varied and complex needs.

More than 80% of Pentonville inmates are on remand, which means they are awaiting trial. The rest have been convicted of serious crimes including murder, rape, and drug offences.

Remand is at a 50-year high across England and Wales – and that’s partly down to a backlog in the criminal courts. Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures show the Crown Court system has a backlog of more than 60,000 cases. The Magistrates Court has a backlog of more than 300,000 cases.

• It costs £48,949 to keep a prisoner in Pentonville for a year, £52.4m for the whole population
• 57% of inmates live in crowded accommodation
• Those not in training or education spend just one hour a day out of their cell
• 104 incidents of self harm were recorded in March 2024 – the most in a single month since records began
• There were seven suicides in the prison between 2019 and 2023

Source

Tom – not his real name – is on remand. His cell is tiny. It’s around seven feet by six feet (2m x 1.8m) and has a pungent smell of urine, faeces, and rotten food. A bunk bed takes up most of the space. The toilet, in the corner beside the sink, is leaking and there are wet splashes on the floor.

“I’ve been telling them about that for three weeks,” Tom says. “I could fix it – I’m actually a plumber – but it had no washers in there.”

Overcrowding impacts all areas of life inside. With fewer officers to inmates, prisoners’ needs can’t always be met, which means some, like Tom, are living in cells that aren’t properly operational for several weeks when repairs are needed.

Michael Lewis is inside for drug offences. He’s 38 and has been in and out of jail for several years, but hopes this will be his last stint.

“It’s hard to rehabilitate yourself in a place where you’ve got gang violence, postcode wars, drug violence, money wars,” he says, highlighting how overstretched staff are.

“They’re trying to do this, this, this and this – but now you want help as well? So it’s hard.”

He tells me about the night he woke to find his former cellmate trying to hang himself.

“I could tell he wasn’t dead because he was still breathing, he’s still warm,” Lewis says, describing the wait for a prison officer to come to help.

“He can’t open the door on his own at night – keys and everything, security risk,” Lewis explains. “Waited for another staff member – and as soon as he came in he saw to him.

“He survived.”

I’ve been to several prisons and the situation at Pentonville is the worst I have seen.

The staff seem to be doing what they can in very difficult circumstances, fighting problems, crises, and violence – but they are often struggling to cope.

Sixteen people will be released from here next week when the government releases thousands of offenders early. The prison’s governor, Simon Drysdale, says that will alleviate some of the pressure and mean more people who’ve been sent to Pentonville – a reception prison serving all London courts – can be transferred on to other jails because they too will have more available cells.

“Our total focus is on making sure that we’ve got space and capacity,” Mr Drysdale says. “That takes up a large proportion of our thinking space and a lot of the staff’s time, and because of that we don’t get as much time as we would like to think about things like getting men into more meaningful work.”

But some Pentonville inmates are doubtful that 16 inmates being released from here will make a difference. One, who didn’t want to be filmed, speaks to us while crouched on the floor with his back against the wall.

“Nothing will ever change,” he says, sobbing.

“They don’t care about us. I would rather die.”

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Scientists have studied more than 2,000 samples of poo from babies in the UK to get a clearer idea of which types of bacteria first colonise a newborn’s gut.

Researchers say they were surprised to find baby poo fell into three distinct microbiological profiles, with different “pioneer bacteria” being abundant in each.

One in particular, called , could help babies make the most of nutrients in breast milk and ward off bugs, preliminary tests suggest.

Another type could be harmful and put babies at greater risk of infection, the early work, published in Nature Microbiology, shows.

There is growing evidence that a person’s microbiome – the ecosystem of millions of different microbes living in our guts – has a wide-ranging influence on our health.

But there are few studies on the make-up of a baby’s microbiome as it develops in the first few days of life.

Scientists from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, University College London and the University of Birmingham studied stool samples from 1,288 healthy infants who were all born in UK hospitals and were under one month old.

They found most samples fell into three broad categories with different bacteria being dominant.

and bacteria groups were thought to be beneficial.

Their genetic profiles suggest they can help babies utilise the nutrients in breast milk.

However, could at times put babies at greater risk of infection, preliminary tests show.

Most babies in the study were fully or partially breastfed in the first few weeks of life.

But whether the baby had breast milk or formula milk did not seem to influence the type of pioneer bacteria in their gut, researchers say.

Meanwhile, babies of mothers who were given antibiotics in labour were more likely to have present.

It is not yet clear if this has any long-term health impacts.

And other factors such as the mother’s age, ethnicity and how many times someone has given birth, also play a role in the developing microbiome.

More work is being done to determine the exact impact of these microbes have on children’s long-term health.

Dr Yan Shao, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: “By analysing the high-resolution genomic information from over 1,200 babies, we have identified three pioneer bacteria that drive the development of the gut microbiota, allowing us to group them into infant microbiome profiles.

“Being able to see the make-up of these ecosystems and how they differ is the first step in developing effective personalised therapy to help support a healthy microbiome.”

Meanwhile, Dr Ruairi Robertson, Queen Mary University of London lecturer in microbiome science and who was not involved in the research, said: “This study significantly expands on existing knowledge about how the gut microbiome assembles in the first month of life.

“We have gained a lot of knowledge in recent years about the influence of birth mode and breastfeeding on gut microbiome assembly and the implications for common childhood disorders such as asthma and allergies.

“However, this has not yet translated into effective microbiome-targeted therapies.”

Prof Louise Kenny, from the University of Liverpool, said decisions around childbirth and breastfeeding were “complex and personal” and there was no “one-size-fits-all approach” when it came to the best options.

“We still have an incomplete understanding of how the role of mode of birth and different methods of infant feeding influence microbiome development and how this impacts later health,” she said.

“That’s why this research is vital,” she added.

This research is part of the ongoing UK Baby Biome study and is funded by Wellcome and the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

One of the authors, Dr Trevor Lawley, is a the co-founder of a company working on adult probiotics as well as a researcher at the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

Imagine binge-watching The Bear, Succession, Deadpool and reality show Bigg Boss all on one platform – an entertainment bonanza could be just around the corner for Indians if a blockbuster streaming merger goes through as expected.

The deal, which brings together the media assets of India’s largest conglomerate Reliance Industries and entertainment giant Walt Disney, has sparked both excitement and concerns over potential monopolistic dominance in the Indian entertainment and advertising industries.

The $8.5bn (£6.5bn) merger aims to create India’s largest entertainment company, potentially capturing 40% of the TV market, reaching 750 million viewers across 120 channels, and dominating the advertising sector.

This gives Disney a stronger foothold in the challenging Indian market while supporting Reliance’s expansion efforts. It also pits the new entertainment behemoth against popular rivals such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Sony and 50-odd other streaming platforms.

Consider the reach of this new entertainment giant: Disney’s Star India operates more than 70 TV channels in eight languages, while Reliance’s Viacom18 runs 38 channels in eight languages. Both own major streaming platforms – Jio Cinema and Hotstar – and film studios.

• India approves $8.5bn Reliance-Disney entertainment mega-merger

Their influence is further amplified by owning the broadcasting rights to a significant number of India’s sports events, including the hugely popular Indian Premier League cricket tournament.

In a cricket-obsessed nation, this is a prime business position. The merged entity is estimated to control 75-80% of the Indian sports streaming market across both linear TV and digital platforms, according to Elara Capital, a global investment and advisory firm.

Their dominance in this sector, especially cricket, means that Reliance and Disney will command a substantial share of the overall advertisement market. It showcases “strong growth in an industry where sports is a key driver of viewership on both TV and digital platforms”, says Karan Taurani, an analyst at Elara Capital, who calls it a “large media juggernaut”.

Though the merger promises to offer consumers diverse content, critics wonder if it puts too much power in the hands of one player.

“The emergence of a giant in the market… with the next competitor struggling with market share in a single digit, would make any competition agency sit up and take notice,” says KK Sharma, who formerly headed the merger control division of the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

This is why, analysts say, India’s competition watchdog scrutinised the agreement before approving the deal with a caveat that makes it “subject to the compliance of voluntary modifications”.

The companies have not made these “voluntary modifications” public yet, but reports say that the two companies have pledged to not raise advertising rates excessively while streaming cricket matches.

The deal hinges on these assurances, Mr Sharma adds, because the CCI “retains its authority to even divide the enterprise – if the dominant enterprise becomes a threat to competition in the market”.

In an increasingly competitive but expanding Indian streaming market, both Disney and Reliance have a lot to gain from the deal, which allows them a chance to consolidate their pole position.

But experts warn that it may also mean a potential drop in the business earnings of smaller players.

“The Indian market values bundling and is price-sensitive. [Subscribing to] this combined entity can offer a comprehensive package including [access to] web series, movies, sports, original content, and a global catalogue,” says Mr Taurani.

And if the combined company can also leverage the large telecom subscriber base of Reliance Jio, other streaming companies may find it hard to raise prices, he adds.

The Reliance Group has a tried-and-tested business strategy that has allowed it to thrive in the price-sensitive Indian market: it offered cheap mobile data when it launched Jio in 2016, and its JioCinema streaming subscription is available for as little as 29 rupees ($0.35; $0.26) a month.

From this deal too, Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani has promised “unparalleled content at affordable prices”.

• Netflix: How did the streaming service turn its fortunes around?

“Other streaming platforms will be worried about the cost of content and the cost of programming. Will they be forced to drop prices?” says media and entertainment industry specialist Vanita Kohli-Khandekar. She says that the Reliance strategy of offering things at throwaway prices usually “destroys value” for competitors.

Streaming competitors might be easier to handle but the new company will also face stiff challenge from other rivals with deep pockets, such as Google, Meta and Amazon, who have been trying to expand in India.

These global tech giants have “played a pivotal role in expanding India’s video market, now estimated to be worth $8.8bn in revenue for content owners”, according to a report by research firm Media Partners Asia. In 2022-23, Google’s YouTube alone had an 88% share in India’s premium video-on-demand (VOD) market.

So the new Reliance-Disney behemoth will hope to dominate not just news, movies and sports, but also redirect digital advertising revenues from these big firms to its own coffers.

“Now, it’s an even fight,” says Ms Kohli-Khandekar. “Some 80% of digital revenues go to Google and Meta, so you have to have scale, and finally, you have a company that can take on some of the large global majors operating in India.”

But she warns that while the new entity might have scale and heft, it will also need to deliver quality with quantity – if, for instance, the streaming market becomes more dependent on views rather than subscriptions, “programming quality will be good only on one or two apps”, she says.

“That is something I would watch out for.”

Surfing was first introduced to Australia more than a century ago.

Since then the sport has blossomed into a cultural phenomenon and a commercial juggernaut.

Research from the Australian National University (ANU) estimates surfing injects at least A$3bn ($2bn; £1.5bn) into the national economy each year.

The study, however, comes with a stark warning that surf breaks – areas where the waves start to collapse or plunge – should not be taken for granted and need more legal protection.

“Unfortunately because of climate change, coastal erosion and competition for coastal spaces, the elements that make these high quality waves possible are on many occasions in danger,” explained Dr Ana Manero, an expert in water economics and governance at the ANU’s Crawford School of Public Policy.

“I don’t think the lack of protection right now is deliberate. It is just surf breaks currently they just fall in a blind spot for policy makers.”

Global warming and poor water quality are surfers’ main concerns, according to the report published in the journal, Marine Policy.

About a dozen surf breaks in the state of New South Wales and Bells Beach in Victoria have formal protection but researchers want much more.

“What I am more worried about is those waves that may not feature on a world-class map but they do provide value for people like you and I,” Dr Manero told the BBC from her office in Perth, Western Australia.

“Those waves that do not attract global attention… are the waves we need to focus our attention on.”

A previous ANU study found waves off the town of Mundaka in northern Spain vanished because of changes to a sand bar after dredging in a nearby river.

Research also found that expansion to a marina in Perth caused the disappearance of three surf breaks in 2022 and an artificial reef has now been proposed.

Some answers for Australia might be found far away in South America or much closer to home.

“In Peru they established what they call La Ley de Rompientes, which means the law of surf breaks, that protects these assets,” added Dr Manero.

In New Zealand, safeguards are provided by an existing act of parliament and a separate, complementary policy that recognises the importance of national, regional and local surf spots. The level of protection they receive is commensurate to their level of significance to surfers.

Using data from the Australian Sports Commission, a government agency, the ANU study estimates there are more than 720,000 active adult surfers in the country. On average they spend about A$3,700 each year.

It is, though, likely to be a conservative figure because it does not consider children, overseas tourists or money generated through professional surfing.

“It is like this cool economy; cafes, restaurants, surf shops, accommodation. Yeah, it’s good. Love it,” said Matt Grainger, who runs the Manly Surf School in Sydney.

“I’ve had the business for 30 years. Just looking forward, I pretty much see it [with] just a slow growth. So, we try not to grow too fast here like with the surf school because you don’t want to crowd out the actual ocean with too many surfers.”

“Once you’ve got your board, it’s free and it’s always different; the tide, the wind, the swell,” he told the BBC.

On a bright and breezy winter’s morning on Australia’s Pacific coast, Mika Flower, an instructor, is preparing to take charge of another lesson.

The work to conquer, or attempt to master, a wave begins with repetitive drills on the sand.

“I have surfed my whole life. It’s super fun,” Ms Flower explains.

“I thought I would love to be able to teach people and share the joy of surfing, and it is nice to not be working in an office. It is nice to be working at the beach getting sunshine and being in the water every day. Australia is, sort of, seen as the country to surf. Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon.”

For those chasing the perfect wave, surfing is about embracing the power of nature. For them, it’s a gift that should be protected.

Hunter Biden is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to tax charges.

On Thursday he admitted that he intentionally avoided paying $1.4m (£1m) in income tax from 2016 to 2019.

It is his second conviction in months. In June, Biden was found guilty at trial of being an illegal drug user in possession of a gun – becoming the first child of a sitting president to be a convicted of a crime.

Could he go to prison?

Biden faces up to 17 years in prison when he is sentenced on 16 December for the tax offences.

Following any federal criminal conviction, the convict is interviewed by a US federal probation officer who will file an independent, confidential pre-sentencing report to the judge.

Donald Trump went through the same interview process in June after he was convicted of falsifying business records in New York.

Judges have wide discretion when it comes to issuing sentences.

Federal guidelines exist to help steer judge’s determinations, but they are strictly advisory, meaning the judge can ultimately do whatever they want.

Manny Medrano, a former federal prosecutor who now works as a criminal defence attorney in Los Angeles, says that he expects Biden will be jailed.

He comes to that view because the tax flouting scheme was over three or four years and it amounted to $1.4m in taxes that he avoided paying.

Ever since late disgraced financier Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison in 2009 for one of the biggest frauds in US financial history, white collar criminals have been seeing their sentences grow longer, he says.

“So in the vast majority of white-collar cases now, federal prison time results for a defendant,” says Mr Medrano, who has both prosecuted and defended clients in similar cases of tax avoidance.

Mr Medrano estimates that, based on similar cases, the judge will sentence Biden to two to four years.

In June, Biden was found guilty by a jury in Delaware of three federal gun charges for lying about his drug use on a background check form to purchase a handgun.

He is due to be sentenced on those charges on 13 November, and faces up to 25 years in prison.

Sarah Krissoff, a former federal prosecutor, says the sentencing timeline will be a major determining factor in how the judges decide what punishment he will receive.

Biden has no previous criminal record, which the judge will consider in his first sentencing hearing. The lack of any prior “rap sheet” means the judge will be more likely to show him leniency.

But at the second sentencing in December, the judge will have to consider Biden’s prior criminal conviction on gun charges in June.

Sentencing guidelines indicate that harsher sentences are normally given to convicts who have committed other crimes in the past.

Harsher sentences are also given to convicts following criminal trials that go to jury. Those that plead guilty are normally shown more leniency during sentencing, says Mr Medrano.

Hunter Biden’s father, US President Joe Biden, has the power to pardon him for his two federal convictions.

However, Mr Biden has repeatedly pledged not to interfere during the final days of his presidency.

A spokeswoman for the White House on Thursday repeated Mr Biden’s pledge not to pardon his son.

But Ms Krissoff thinks it could be hard to resist.

“We see this all the time. Presidents get to the end of the term and they say: ‘You know, oh heck forget it’,” she says.

The only repercussion that the president would face would be political, which is less relevant given that Mr Biden is now no longer running for a second term.

“I mean he’s 81. Like, what’s he got to lose?” she says. “At the end of the day, you take care of your kid.”

Kim’s Convenience, a heart-warming comedy-drama play about a Korean immigrant family running a corner shop in Toronto, inspired a hit sitcom and is now on stage in London.

“This is a love letter to my parents and all first-generation immigrants who have made the country they have settled in their home,” says the show’s creator, Ins Choi.

He wrote the play, which revolves around the everyday life of a family-run Korean store, and starred as the son when it was first staged in Toronto in 2011.

He then co-wrote the TV series, which became a hit in Canada from 2016 and found a worldwide audience after being picked up by Netflix two years later.

Choi is now back on stage – this time in the lead role of Appa (Dad in Korean).

In the play, the family’s proud, hard-working patriarch grapples with the changing neighbourhood and the growing divide between his first-generation immigrant values and those of his children.

For instance, Appa tries to convince daughter Janet (Jennifer Kim) to take over the shop, instead of pursuing her dream of becoming a photographer.

He also warns that her “expiration date is over”, as she shows no intention to marry as a 30-year-old single woman.

• Listen on BBC Sounds: Kim’s Convenience cast talks about ‘immigrant life’

While this all-Asian lead cast gives an opportunity to look into one East Asian family’s life, it also resonates with different cultures and ages, says Choi.

“In the end, it’s a comedy. It’s a story about a family.

“Regardless of your background, I think everyone can relate to parents who they feel they disappointed. Or if you’re a parent, kids who don’t appreciate you.

“So it’s both sides of that dynamic.”

When it was first on stage, a show with an all-Asian lead cast was rare.

“When I played [son] Jung 14 years ago, there weren’t many Asian actors,” Choi says.

“But now, when we do a casting call, there are many Janets that we can choose from. I was so pleasantly surprised that we now have options.”

In fact, the genesis of Kim’s Convenience stems from the lack of opportunities Choi had as a young actor.

After graduating from drama school, he auditioned for many roles but kept getting rejected. Eventually, he decided to write his own story, which became his debut play – and later a Netflix hit.

While he understands that directors today are looking for new Asian voices, he feels some theatre companies have quite a “white programme”, which still makes plays like Kim’s Convenience stand out.

“I think it’s still kind of a rare thing in an English-speaking city to have an Asian-led play on stage,” he says. “So that’s unfortunately always been one reason for interest because it’s still the unique thing to watch.

“It’s a little different, not a white family’s living room. How often do you get that?”

Throughout the play, Appa and Umma (Mum, played by Namju Go) speak in a fairly strong Korean accent. This was also the case with the TV series, and some have argued that heavy accents perpetuate stereotypes.

Choi vehemently disagrees. “Maybe producers don’t want people speaking accents because they don’t want to be seen as offensive. But then they’re just dismissing and erasing [it], which, in my opinion, is more offensive.”

He has put both charaters centre stage, celebrating their three-dimensional personalities.

“Whether people want to admit it or not, there’s a whole part of society that is unrepresented in media. For fear of backlash, they are not seen and heard,” adds Choi.

He says he is doing his best job imitating his own parents and what he grew up hearing. And he says he is, in fact, pulling back from the accent, so a “Western ear” can understand him better.

“When my kids watched the play, they couldn’t stop laughing. They loved it. They said I was just like Halabeoji [Grandad]. And I was like, ‘Thank you.'”

The play’s UK staging precedes a triumphant homecoming to Toronto’s acclaimed Soulpepper Theatre in January 2025. That will be 14 years since it won the Patron’s Pick award at the Toronto Fringe Festival, where it premiered.

Choi originally played estranged son Jung, but it has now been so long since the original run that he has been playing Appa since last year.

“Going back to Soulpepper Theatre will feel almost like a physical, geographic full circle, in terms of the son becoming the parent,” he says.

He acknowledges that it was a “strange but normal feeling” when he first played Appa, adding that he has been “rehearsing for the last 10 years” to play the father, as his real-life children have grown up and he has grown into the role.

“I love the sound of Appa – it’s so warm and conjures great feelings,” he says.

“So now, when I get called Appa by Janet and Jung, I already respond to that name.”

So what does he hope the audience will take from the play, other than laughter and tears?

“This is me being idealistic but I hope a play like this brings communities together, where it’s like, ‘Yeah, my family’s just like your family, guys. My dad is just like your dad.’

“It can actually build bridges and people realise we’re all dysfunctional. Yeah, I think it has that power – art, in general.”

And having helped out at his uncle’s corner shop as a child, he has one more wish.

“I hope that when people come and see the show, they meet this family who owns this store.

“And that the next time they walk into an off-licence, they have an inkling of the person having a whole life behind the counter. And hopefully treat them with more understanding or compassion.”

On the side of a dirt road in Adré, a key crossing on the Sudan-Chad border, 38-year-old Buthaina sits on the ground, surrounded by other women. Each of them has their children by their side. None seems to have any belongings.

Buthaina and her six children fled el-Fasher, a besieged city in the Darfur region of Sudan, more than 480km (300 miles) away, when food and drink ran out.

“We left with nothing, we just ran for our lives,” Buthaina tells the BBC. “We didn’t want to leave – my children were top of their class at school and we had a good life at home.”

Sudan’s civil war began in April last year when the army (SAF) and the their former paramilitary allies, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), began a vicious struggle for power, in part over proposals to move towards civilian rule.

The war, which shows no signs of ending, has claimed thousands of lives, displaced millions of people and plunged parts of the country into famine.

And aid agencies warn Sudan could soon experience the worst famine of anywhere in the world unless significantly more help arrives.

The BBC saw the desperation of Sudanese people first-hand when we visited camps in Adré, on the country’s western border, and Port Sudan, which is the country’s main aid hub, 1,600km away on the east coast.

Adré has become a potent symbol of the political failure and humanitarian disaster produced by the current conflict.

Until last month, the crossing had been closed since January with only a few aid lorries making it into the country.

It has since reopened but aid agencies fear the deliveries now getting in could be too little, too late.

Every day, dozens of Sudanese refugees cross the border into Chad – many of them women carrying their hungry and thirsty children on their backs.

The moment they arrive, they rush to a water tank set up by the World Food Programme (WFP), one of many UN agencies that have been trying to raise the alarm over the scale of the conflict’s humanitarian impact.

After reaching Adré, we make our way to a makeshift camp near the border that has been assembled by refugees, with bits of wood, cloth and plastic.

Rain begins to fall.

As we leave, it turns torrential and I ask whether the precarious shelters survive the downpours. “They don’t,” says our guide Ying Hu, associate reporting officer from the UNHCR, another UN agency – for refugees.

“With rainfall comes a whole set of diseases,” she adds, “and the worst part is it also means at times it can take days before we can return here by car, because of the flooding, and that means aid can’t reach here either.”

Famine has been declared in one area – in Zamzam camp in Darfur – but this is because it is one of the few places in war-torn Sudan the UN has reliable information on.

The WFP says it delivered more than 200,000 tonnes of food between April 2023 and July 2024 – far less than needed – but both sides are accused of blocking deliveries into areas under rival control.

The RSF and other militias have been accused of stealing and damaging deliveries, while the SAF has been accused of blocking deliveries into areas under RSF control, including most of Darfur.

The BBC approached the RSF and the SAF about the accusations but has not had a response. Both factions have previously denied impeding the delivery of humanitarian relief.

A single convoy of aid trucks can wait six weeks or more in Port Sudan before being cleared by the SAF for onward travel.

On 15 August, the SAF agreed to allow aid agencies to resume shipments via Adré, which should provide much-needed help to the population in Darfur.

In May, Human Rights Watch said ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity have been committed against ethnic Massalit and non-Arab communities in part of Darfur by the RSF and its Arab allies. The RSF rejects this and says it is not involved in what it calls a “tribal conflict” in the region.

During our tour of Port Sudan we visit a camp for people who have been displaced within Sudan.

Walking from tent to tent, we hear one story after another of loss and horror.

In one, a group of women sit in a circle, some holding their babies tightly. All of them share stories of abuse, rape and torture in RSF prisons.

One of the women, who the BBC is not naming, says she was captured with her two-year-old son as she was fleeing Omdurman, near the capital, Khartoum.

“Every day they would take my son to a room down the hallway, and I would hear him cry as they raped me,” she told me.

“It happened so frequently that I would try to focus on his cry as they did it.”

Also at the camp I meet Safaa, a mother of six who fled Omdurman too.

Asked where her husband is, she says he stayed behind because the RSF targets any man who attempts to escape.

“Every day my children ask me, ‘Where is Baba? When will he come?’ But I have not heard from him since January, when we left, and I don’t know if he is still alive,” she says.

Asked about what future she envisages for her and her children, she says: “What future? Our future is over – there is nothing left. My children are traumatised.

“Every day, my 10-year-old son cries wanting to go home. We went from living in a house, going to school and now we live in a tent.”

The BBC approached the RSF for comment about rapes and other attacks but has not had a response. It has previously said reports that its fighters were responsible for widespread abuses were false but where a small number of isolated incidents had occurred their troops had been held accountable.

An employee for Unicef – the UN children’s agency – showing us around the camp says those who have arrived here are the “lucky ones”.

“They managed to escape the fighting and come here… they have shelter and aid,” he says.

The BBC was visiting Adré and Port Sudan with UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohamed and her team of executives, who visited government officials and Sudan’s de-facto president, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, to urge them to keep the Adré crossing open.

Her aim is to put Sudan back on the agenda for the international community at a time when the world’s attention is focused on conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.

“There is fatigue because there are so many different crises around the world, but that’s just not good enough,” she says.

“You come here and you meet these mothers and their children and you realise they aren’t just numbers.

“If the international community doesn’t step up, people will die.”

• A photographer’s 11-day trek to flee war-torn Sudan
• Famine looms as civil war survivors tell of killings and rapes
• Sudan war: A simple guide to what is happening
• Will more stars boycott Dubai after rapper cancels gig over Sudan war

China has announced that it is ending the practice of allowing children to be adopted overseas, bringing uncertainty to families currently going through the process.

A spokeswoman said that the rule change was in line with the spirit of international agreements.

At least 150,000 Chinese children have been adopted abroad in the last three decades.

More than 82,000 have gone to the US, more than anywhere else in the world.

At a daily briefing Thursday, foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in the future Beijing would only allow foreign nationals who are relatives to adopt Chinese children.

She did not explain the reason for the decision, other than saying it was in line with international agreements.

Ms Mao thanked families “for their desire and love in adopting children from China”.

The ban on foreign adoptions has created uncertainty for hundreds of families in the US currently going through the process of adopting children from China.

In a phone call with US diplomats in China, Beijing said it would “not continue to process cases at any stage” other than those adoption cases covered by an exception clause. This position was confirmed by spokeswoman Ms Mao.

Washington is seeking clarification from China’s civic ministry.

China’s controversial one-child policy, introduced in 1979 when the country was worried about a surging population, forced many families to abandon their children.

Families that violated the rules were fined and, in some cases, lost jobs. In a culture that historically favours boys over girls, it often meant that female babies were given up.

International adoption was formalised in the 1990s, and since then tens of thousands of children have been adopted, with about half going to parents in the US – including celebrities like Meg Ryan and Woody Allen.

However, the international adoption programme has at various times come under criticism. In 2013, Chinese police rescued 92 abducted children and arrested suspected members of a trafficking network.

Critics at the time pointed to China’s one-child policy and adoption laws, which they said had created a thriving underground market for buying children.

A number of countries have expressed concerns about international adoptions.

Denmark has closed its only overseas adoption agency, over concerns about fabricated documents. The Netherlands has also said it will no longer allow its citizens to adopt children from abroad.

But Beijing has also altered the way it views children. In stark contrast to the position taken by officials at end of the 1970s, the country’s leaders now worry there are not enough babies being born to sustain the population.

In 2016 China scrapped the one-child policy and in 2021 Beijing formally revised its laws to allow married couples to have up to three children.

In recent years, the Chinese government also offered tax breaks and better maternal healthcare, among other incentives, in an attempt to reverse, or at least slow, the falling birth rate.

But these polices have not lead to a sustained increase in births, and in 2023 the country’s total population fell for the first time in 60 years.

The killing of Ugandan Olympian and long-distance runner Rebecca Cheptegei has devastated her friends and family – and has left the East African athletics community reeling.

The 33-year-old mother-of-two died on Thursday morning after suffering severe burns – her ex-boyfriend doused her in petrol and set her on fire on Sunday outside her house in north-western Kenya.

Her mother, Agnes Cheptegei, speaking to reporters outside the hospital where the athlete had died, was so distraught that she only managed a brief tribute, describing her daughter as kind-hearted and a “good child”.

Her sister, Violet, broke down as she said: “I’m in pain but we leave it to God.”

Cheptegei had just returned from church when she was attacked by her former partner, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, police say. Her young daughters are reported to have witnessed the incident and tried to intervene.

• Olympian dies after being set alight by ex-boyfriend

For all those paying tribute, they say it was Cheptegei’s generosity that most defined her.

James Kirwa – who was Cheptegei’s occasional training partner – spoke to the BBC hours after her death, remembering her as an experienced athlete who was kind to team-mates on the running circuit.

“She was a very affable person and was always very helpful and helped us all, even financially. She brought me training shoes when she came back from the [Paris] Olympics,” the Ugandan athlete said.

Cheptegei had been in the French capital competing in the Olympic marathon, coming 44th in a time of two hours 32 minutes and 14 seconds.

In comparison to other runners in the region she achieved modest success.

But you do not have to win medals to earn money – and she was still able to help support her family with her earnings from participating in races.

At 19, she first represented Uganda in an under-20 race at the 2010 World Cross Country Championships.

Over time she transitioned to longer road races, achieving success later in her career.

Her most notable victory came in the up-and-downhill mountain race at the 2022 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

She made her marathon debut in 2021 and recorded a personal best of two hours 22 minutes and 47 seconds the following year, making her the second-fastest Ugandan woman of all time.

For much of her running career she was also a member of the Ugandan army, achieving the rank of corporal.

Athletes in East Africa often join their country’s army for the financial backing it allows them – and they get to train on the track instead of serving in the field.

Not much is known about the circumstances of how Cheptegei joined the Uganda People’s Defence Forces, but she was a member of its athletics club and represented her country on the track at the World Military Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2011.

Because of her 14 years of international competition, Kirwa said he looked up to her as an older sister – someone he turned to for support.

“When I first started, I almost gave up because it was very difficult, but she told me you must soldier on,” he said.

Cheptegai had moved to Kenya to be near the country’s renowned athletics training centres, located in a region that borders her home area in Uganda.

Ugandan athlete Immaculate Chemutai, who had been visiting Cheptegai at the hospital with others like Kirwa, said she had hoped her friend might survive as she had improved by Wednesday evening “and the breathing was somehow settled”.

“In the morning I received the phone call and the doctor told us that we’ve lost her. It’s really sad. Rebecca, she has been so good to us. She is very lovely… a good person,” she told the BBC.

“She likes her family so much, especially the girls. And she sometimes supports us if we need some loan or something like that – we can request it and she can give.”

Her father Joseph Cheptegei reiterated this when he said: “We have lost our breadwinner.”

He added that he was now worried about the two girls’ education without their mother to support them.

The impact of her death is being felt beyond her immediate family and friends.

For some it fits into a wider pattern of violence against women in the region where top athletes are not protected by their status.

“I can say we are still in shock, and we are in pain, especially as athletes, and this thing happening in Kenya, this is [another] time an athlete is being attacked… so we are not happy,” Kenyan runner Milcah Chemos Cheywa said.

In 2021, world-record holder Agnes Tirop was stabbed to death and six months later Damaris Mutua was strangled. Their partners were identified as the main suspects in both cases by the authorities.

“We urge the public, sports bodies, and the government to unite in taking meaningful steps to protect women and girls, ensuring that not more lives are lost,” said Tirop’s Angels, a group set up in the wake of Tirop’s killing.

Sebastian Coe, the president of athletics’ world governing body, said his organisation would work with groups on the ground to see how female athletes could be better protected “from abuse of all kinds”.

He mourned an athlete who he said “still had lots to give”.

For Kirwa, Cheptegei’s death represents a profound personal loss and he said he had cancelled his participation in Sunday’s Nairobi City Marathon as he was so upset and “not in a good place mentally”.

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Four people who died when the Bayesian superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily last month suffocated after oxygen depleted in a pocket of air they were trapped in, the Italian news agency Ansa has reported.

Banking executive Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy Bloomer, lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo were among the seven people who lost their lives when the vessel went down during a violent storm.

Post-mortem examinations revealed that none of them had water in their lungs, suggesting they did not drown, according to reports.

British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah Lynch and the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas, also died in the incident.

The group was travelling on the yacht following Mr Lynch’s acquittal of fraud charges in the United States earlier this year.

Investigators believe the cabin the four were found in filled with carbon dioxide as the oxygen supply diminished, leading to their deaths.

According to Italian media, divers involved in recovering the bodies found the victims on the left side of the cabins, an indication that they had been trying to reach the last remaining air pockets as the vessel tilted to the right during the sinking.

There were also no signs of external injuries on the four victims.

The remaining post-mortems for Mr Lynch, his daughter Hannah, and Mr Thomas are expected to take place over the next few days.

Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, survived the incident along with 14 others on board.

The superyacht will be raised from the seabed as the investigation continues.

Italian prosecutors have opened an inquiry into suspected manslaughter, placing the boat’s captain, James Cutfield, and two British crew members, Tim Parker Eaton and Matthew Griffiths, under investigation.

Being investigated does not equate to being charged and is a procedural step.

Allegations of whether negligence may have contributed to the yacht’s sinking, such as leaving external doors open, will form part of the investigation.

Tributes have poured in for US rapper Rich Homie Quan, after his death was confirmed by authorities on Thursday.

The artist, who was in his early 30s, passed away in Atlanta, Georgia, Fulton County Medical Examiner said.

The cause of his death is not known, with local medical authorities saying an autopsy is scheduled for Friday.

Rich Homie Quan, whose legal name was Dequantes Devontay Lamar, was one of Atlanta’s best known modern rappers.

He became a huge name in the rap scene in the mid 2010s, finding mainstream success with the 2013 hit Type of Way, which he followed up with the popular Flex (Ooh, Ooh, Ooh) in 2015.

He was nominated for multiple BET and BET Hip Hop Awards, such as best new artist and the people’s champ award.

He also collaborated with several big names in the industry, including 2 Chainz, Young Thug, Gucci Mane and Trinidad James.

Born in October 1989, Rich Homie Quan was the oldest of three siblings, and was raised in a single-parent home, according to Atlanta gig venue, Masquerade. He originally dreamt of becoming a baseball player, but eventually turned to music.

He spoke frankly about his early life in various interviews, and spent 15 months in jail in 2011 for his involvement in a series of burglaries.

Once out of jail, he threw himself into his music and went on to become a huge name in the rap scene in the mid 2010s.

Since his death was announced, tributes have poured in for the artist from across the rap world.

Singer Jacquees was one of the first to pay his respects. “Rest in Peace my brother Rich Homie Quan”, he said on X. “I love you for Life,” he added, calling the rapper a “legend” in a subsequent post.

2 Chainz posted a tribute on Instagram, saying: “Dam lil brother, we just spoke about shooting a video, special prayer for you and your family, and pray for any and everybody that’s dealing with something my condolences bru”.

Rapper Quavo also posted on Instagram, writing above an image of himself, Rich Homie Quan, and several other artists: “May God be with us, never saw this being apart of our journey”.

Engineer Alex Tumay, who worked Rich Homie Quan over the years, said the artist was “[o]ne of the nicest people I ever worked with and a true artist. Absolutely crushing news. RIP”.

Two brothers from Nigeria who targeted a 17-year-old in a sextortion scam have been sentenced to 17 years and six months in jail in the US.

The Ogoshi brothers, from Lagos, lured Jordan DeMay into sending them explicit images by pretending to be a girl his age – then blackmailed him.

He killed himself less than six hours after they started talking on Instagram.

It is the first successful prosecution of Nigerians for sextortion in the US, where it is a rapidly growing cyber-crime, often linked to Nigeria.

Jordan’s mother, Jenn Buta, held pictures of her son in court and wept as she read a victim impact statement. “I am shattered to my core,” she said.

She welcomed the ending of the trial, but said there was no good outcome from the tragic case.

Jordan DeMay was a popular schoolboy from Michigan.

Samuel Ogoshi, 24, and Samson Ogoshi, 21, sent him a friend request on Instagram pretending to be a pretty girl his age and then flirted with him.

Once they received explicit images from the teenager, they blackmailed him for hundreds of dollars, threatening to share the pictures online with his friends if he did not comply.

Jordan sent as much money as he could and warned the scammers that he would kill himself if they spread the images.

The criminals replied: “Good… Do that fast – or I’ll make you do it.”

John DeMay told Marquette federal court in Michigan he still has nightmares after finding his son dead in his bedroom. He said his family was forced to move home to escape the memory.

The brothers pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to sexually exploit teenage boys in Michigan and across the US.

Thirty-eight other US victims were also identified as being targeted by the men. 13 of them were minors.

The brothers sat in court in orange jumpsuits with handcuffs.

Their defence attorneys said the brothers’ crimes were fuelled by drug abuse and the sextortion scam culture in Nigeria.

The judge said the crimes showed a “callous disregard for life”, especially given they continued targeting other victims after learning that Jordan has died.

Both brothers apologised to Jordan’s family.

“I’m sorry to the family. We made a bad decision to make money and I wish I could change that,” Samson Ogoshi said.

In the first case of its kind, US police tracked the criminals to Lagos last summer and successfully extradited them for trial.

Another Nigerian man linked to Jordan’s death and other cases is fighting extradition.

Speaking to the BBC in May from Jordan’s family home in the city of Marquette, Jordan’s mother praised the police for their work tracking the sextortionists down.

But she said she had mixed feelings about the Ogoshis being behind bars.

“It’s a relief that someone is being held accountable, but there’s no good that’s coming out of this situation for my family or for the individuals responsible’s family,” she said.

“I miss my son more than I can describe to you, but the mother of those men is probably missing her two sons as well now. She too is really just an innocent bystander of sextortion crime,” said Jenn Buta.

Researchers and law enforcement agencies point to Nigeria as a hotspot for this type of crime.

In April, two Nigerian men were arrested after a schoolboy from Australia killed himself. Two other men are on trial in Lagos after the suicides of a 15-year-old boy in the US and a 14-year-old in Canada.

Nigerian authorities are also working with police in Scotland to investigate the case of 16-year-old Murray Dowey, who killed himself in December.

In January, US cyber-company Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) highlighted a web of Nigerian TikTok, YouTube and Scribd accounts sharing tips and scripts for sextortion. Many of the discussions and videos are in Nigerian Pidgin dialect.

Nigeria cyber-security professor Adedeji Oyenuga from Lagos State University says he hopes the news of Nigerians being sentenced will filter through to criminals and put them off.

“The Ogoshis case has already sent a bad signal. I am hearing from street level that it is having an effect and it might not stop criminals turning to these crimes, but it will likely reduce the numbers,” he said.

There had been an increase in the number of local victims too and Professor Oyenuga says Nigerian police have had some success in tackling the criminals.

It is not the first time that some of Nigeria’s young, tech-savvy population has embraced a new wave of cyber-crime.

The term “Yahoo Boys” is used to describe a portion of the population that use cyber-crime to earn a living. It comes from the early 2000s wave of Nigerian Prince scam emails which spread through the Yahoo email service.

Dr Tombari Sibe, from cyber-security firm Digital Footprints Nigeria, says cyber-fraud such as sextortion has become normalised among young people in the country, but he hopes that news of the Ogoshis’ sentencing spreads fast.

“They see cybercrime as a bloodless crime, with potentially lucrative financial rewards. This case needs to be given sufficient coverage to show these young people that sextortion can lead to loss of life and long prison sentences,” he said.

A 14-year-old boy and his father have faced court for the first time charged over the murder of four people in a gun attack at a Georgia high school.

Colt Gray, was arrested shortly after the shooting on Wednesday at his school, Apalachee High in Winder, near Atlanta. He faced court in person on Friday, his hands and ankles shackled, to face four counts of first degree murder.

The judge clarified that he would not face execution, after first stating the maximum penalty was death.

His father Colin Gray, 54, is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and child cruelty – the most severe charges against a parent over a US school shooting.

Those killed were identified as Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. Another teacher and eight pupils were wounded.

The court appearances, held separately, were the first for the Grays. Families of victims were seated in the first row of the court, according to reporters. One woman held a stuffed animal of a Disney character in her arms.

Wearing a green T-shirt, the 14-year-old suspect spoke little other than to acknowledge that he understood the charges he faces.

The judge acknowledged heightened public interest in the case. Because of this, news cameras were allowed to record and livestream the hearings.

He initially told Colt Gray that the maximum penalty for his charges was death or life in prison, but later called the accused back to clarify that under-18s can not be executed.

Colin Gray, the father, appeared distressed at some points during his hearing. Wearing a striped shirt, he was seen rocking back and forth after the judge finished speaking.

The judge told him he faced a total of 180 years in prison for his charges.

Officials have accused the father of allowing his son to possess an AR-15 style rifle which they allege was used in the attack.

Both of the accused were told that they had the right to a “speedy and public trial by judge or jury”. Neither requested a bond and no pleas were entered.

They will both remain in custody and are next due in court on 4 December.

A Belfast man has pleaded guilty to trying to blackmail 16 women into sending him sexual videos and images.

Christopher Morrow, 27, of Rochester Road in east Belfast, appeared at Belfast Crown Court on Thursday to be re-arraigned on 17 charges.

Morrow entered guilty pleas to all 16 counts of blackmail.

The defendant admitted making unwarranted demands with menaces for sexual videos and images from 16 individual women.

The charges span a four-month period between 14 January and 10 April 2023.

He also pleaded guilty to possessing an extreme pornographic image on 10 April, 2023.

A prosecution lawyer told the court the pleas were acceptable to the Crown and that a separate charge of harassment was to be “left on the books”.

Morrow, who was granted continuing bail, is due to be sentenced on 24 October.

Senior Filipino officials have sparked outrage for posing for photos with a former smalltown mayor accused of spying for China, as they escorted her home from Indonesia.

Alice Guo is seen flashing a wide smile and the peace sign with the smiling interior minister and chief of the Philippine National Police. The photo was allegedly taken before they boarded a Manila-bound private jet in Jakarta late on Thursday.

Ms Guo’s story which has involved illegal scam centres, questions over her citizenship and a dubious account of her childhood, has gripped the Philippines for months.

She was arrested just outside Jakarta on Wednesday, after a weeks-long chase.

Authorities accuse Ms Guo of protecting scam centres and human trafficking syndicates that had used online casinos or Pogos (Philippine Online Gaming Operations) for cover while she was the mayor of Bamban.

Her case has exposed how online casinos with mainland Chinese clients have long been used as a front for organised crime.

Lawmakers have also accused Ms Guo of forging her Filipino citizenship and being a Chinese national, allowing her to run for public office and win on her first try, despite being a political novice.

Her case has gripped the public imagination at a time when Manila continues to spar with Beijing over reefs and outcrops in the South China Sea.

Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos, who fetched Ms Guo from Jakarta, said he had the photo taken with her for “documentation”.

Mr Abalos said he was unaware that Ms Guo had posed with a wide smile and flashed the peace sign.

“She requested to speak with me and the [national police] chief because she had been receiving death threats. I told her she had nothing to fear because the police will protect her,” he said in a press conference in Manila.

“We wanted to document it so that everything is clear. I couldn’t see what she was doing because I was looking at the camera,” he said.

Ms Guo, who was in the same press conference, was asked about the photo. She said she had indeed told Mr Abalos and the PNP chief, Gen. Rommel Marbil, about the threats to her life.

“I asked for their help. I was also happy that I saw them. I feel safe,” Ms Guo said.

By that time, Ms Guo had changed into an orange police detainee shirt. At the airport in Jakarta, she was casually dressed in a white striped t-shirt and jeans. She was also not in handcuffs.

Another handout photo from the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation showed Ms Guo smiling with the authorities in the backseat of a vehicle.

The criticism on social media was swift.

“We want answers, NOT a photoshoot. Alice Guo, the fake Filipino, has a lot of explaining to do,” said Sen Risa Hontioveros, who is leading an inquiry in parliament on Ms Guo’s case.

“The Philippine justice system is a circus,” one X user said.

“Probably one of the most disturbing clips in the news right now. How can Alice Guo manage to still smile and wink like a movie star?” another X user said.

Another X user said the interior secretary and the police chief had posed for a photo with someone that is “symbolic of their own failure”.

A 26-year-old American woman has been shot dead in the occupied West Bank during a protest on Friday.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who is also a Turkish citizen, is reported to have been taking part in a protest against Jewish settlement expansion in the town of Beita near Nablus.

Ms Ezgi Eygi was allegedly shot by Israeli troops, according to local media reports. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say they “responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them” in the Beita area.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, who confirmed Ms Ezgi Eygi’s identity, said Washington is “urgently gathering more information about the circumstances of her death and will have more to say as we learn more”.

Mr Miller also offered his “deepest condolences” to Ms Ezgi Eygi’s family and loved ones.

His comments were echoed by US ambassador to Israel Jack Lew who said Washington has “no higher priority than the safety and security of American citizens”.

Ms Ezgi Eygi, who was both American and Turkish, was born in Antalya, as reported by Turkish media.

The Turkish foreign ministry described her death as “murder”, adding that Ms Ezgi Eygi was “killed by Israeli occupation soldiers in the city of Nablus”.

The activist was rushed to a hospital in Nablus with a gunshot to the head and was later pronounced dead, AFP news agency reported.

Dr Fouad Naffa, head of the hospital to which Ms Ezgi Eygi was admitted, confirmed that a US citizen in her mid-20s died from a “gunshot in the head”.

In a statement, the IDF said it was “looking into reports that a foreign national was killed as a result of shots fired in the area”.

“The details of the incident and the circumstances in which she was hit are under review,” the Israeli military added.

According to reports by Palestinian media, the 26-year-old had been involved in a campaign to protect farmers from Israeli settler violence.

It comes after Israeli forces withdrew from Jenin city and its refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, following a major nine-day operation there.

During the operation, at least 36 Palestinians were killed – 21 from Jenin governorate – the Palestinian health ministry says. Most of the dead have been claimed by armed groups as members, but the ministry says children are also among those killed.

In the past 50 years, Israel has built settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where more than 700,000 Jews now live.

Settlements are held to be illegal under international law – that is the position of the UN Security Council and the UK government, among others – although Israel rejects this.

The Japanese owner of convenience store chain 7-Eleven has rejected a $38bn (£29.2bn) takeover bid from Canadian rival Alimentation Couche-Tard.

In a letter addressed to the prospective buyer, Seven & i Holdings said the Circle K owner’s offer “grossly” undervalued the company and was fraught with regulatory risk.

The 7-Eleven owner added, however, that it remains open to negotiations and ready to consider a better proposal.

If successful the buyout would create a 100,000-strong global convenience store giant.

Stephen Dacus, the chair of the Seven & i board considering the deal, said in a letter that the proposal was “opportunistically timed”.

The proposal, Mr Dacus added, “grossly undervalues” the Japanese retail giant and its potential to generate more value for shareholders.

Alimentation Couche-Tard (ACT), which is based in Quebec, runs around 17,000 shops across North America, Europe and Asia under the Circle K and Couche-Tard brands.

The initial offer by the prospective buyer valued Seven & i at $14.86 per share. That’s more than 20% above its share price before the offer was announced.

The offer came when the Japanese yen is significantly weaker than the US dollar, making Seven & i more affordable to foreign buyers.

In rejecting the offer, Seven & i also flagged up “multiple and significant challenges” a deal would face from US competition regulators.

7-Eleven is the world’s biggest convenience store chain, with 85,000 outlets across 20 countries and territories.

ACT’s footprint in the US and Canada would more than double to about 20,000 sites were a deal to go ahead.

A Japanese company of this size has never been bought by a foreign firm.

Historically, companies from Japan were more likely to buy overseas businesses.

“Japan needs to protect its national assets… and Seven & i is a major asset, so expect this to be a long drawn-out process of negotiation,” said the head of strategy at Astris Advisory Japan, Neil Newman.

“If it succeeds… then it would show that Japan is open for business and welcomes foreign investment.”

Last year, the Japanese government issued new guidelines on mergers and acquisitions calling on companies not to reject credible takeover offers without sincere consideration.

ACT did not immediately respond to a BBC News request for comment.

A popular tourist island south of mainland China has been hit by the most powerful typhoon in a decade, leaving the area facing potentially catastrophic winds and torrential rain.

Super typhoon Yagi slammed into Wenchang city in the north-east of Hainan island with winds of 223 km/h (138 mph) at 16:00 local time (09:00 BST) on Friday, according to state media.

Yagi is the strongest to hit Hainan since Rammasun in 2014, which left 46 people dead. China’s weather agency said it is the strongest typhoon to make landfall in the autumn.

Some 400,000 people in Hainan island were evacuated to safe ground ahead of Yagi’s arrival. Trains, boats and flights were suspended, while schools were shut.

Yagi – which has doubled in strength after wreaking havoc in northern Philippines early this week – is the second strongest typhoon so far this year.

Meteorologists say Yagi may cause “catastrophic” damage in Hainan and neighbouring Guangdong, which is also China’s most populous province.

Yagi is an “extremely dangerous and powerful” super typhoon which could make a “potentially catastrophic” landfall, the Indo-Pacific Tropical Cyclone Warning Center warned in an advisory on Thursday.

A super typhoon is equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane.

All tourist attractions have been shut since Wednesday by order of authorities. who warned of “massive and destructive winds”.

With white sand beaches, luxury hotels and duty free shops, Hainan has been dubbed “China’s Hawaii”.

The world’s longest sea crossing, the main bridge linking Hong Kong with Macau and Zhuhai in Guangdong, was also closed.

Parts of the region have been experiencing heavy rainfall and strong gales since Thursday. China’s weather authority expects rainfall to reach up to 500mm.

Hainan, which boasts sandy beaches and clear waters, is no stranger to typhoons. But just nine of the106 typhoons which have landed in Hainan since 1949 were classified as super typhoons, news agency Reuters reported.

Chinese authorities believe Yagi will be the strongest typhoon to hit its southern coast in a decade.

Yagi is not just due to hit China, but is also expected to make landfall in northern Vietnam late on Saturday in a weakened state.

Tens of thousands in the provinces of Hai Phong and Thai Binh will be evacuated to safer ground by the end of Friday, AFP news agency reported, citing local authorities.

The military has mobilised some 460,000 officers to help manage the storm’s impact, Vietnamese media reported.

Vietnam’s deputy agriculture minister has warned that it could hit regions “crucial to the socio-economic development” of the region.

“Carelessness could result in catastrophic damage,” Nguyen Hoang Hiep said.

Four airports in the country’s north, including Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport, will be shut on Saturday in anticipation of the storm, Vietnam’s civil aviation authority said.

Earlier this week, floods and landslides brought by Yagi killed at least 13 people in northern Philippines, with thousands of people forced to evacuate to safer ground.

Scientists say typhoons and hurricanes are becoming stronger and more frequent with climate change. Warmer ocean waters mean storms pick up more energy, which leads to higher wind speeds.

A warmer atmosphere also holds more moisture, which can lead to more intense rainfall.

Yagi comes a week after typhoon Shanshan hit Japan, killing at least six people and injuring hundreds.

Israeli forces have withdrawn from Jenin city and its refugee camp in the occupied West Bank after a major nine-day operation there.

The area – a stronghold of militants and with a civilian population of about 60,000 – was targeted in one of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) biggest actions in the West Bank for years. The IDF said it was acting against terrorism.

At least 36 Palestinians were killed – 21 from Jenin governorate – the Palestinian health ministry says.

Most of the dead have been claimed by armed groups as members, but the ministry says children are also among those killed.

An Israeli soldier was also killed during fighting in Jenin.

The city of Tubas and al-Faraa refugee camp were also raided during the operation across the northern West Bank – the deadliest of its kind since the start of the war in Gaza last October triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel.

Hundreds of troops from several branches of the security forces were involved, with civilians confined to their homes and utilities cut as the Israeli military battled with militants on the ground and with air strikes.

Residents of Jenin camp in the west of the city are emerging into the streets for the first time since the IDF began its assault on 27 August.

Many, stunned and exhausted, slowly assessed the damage – the new layers of destruction mapping this operation onto the camp.

Khalid abu Sabeer lives in a basement apartment next to the mosque. The entire floor of his home, he said, was blown out by a powerful explosion.

The Israeli army was interested in a cave beneath the building, he said, that had been there for decades, empty.

The IDF asked him to leave before blowing it up – and his home along with it.

Another resident of the camp, Mustafa Antir, described intense attacks from Israel.

“It was impossible to tell where it was coming from: explosions, drones, shooting. Here and here and here, and from the sky. You can’t imagine how heavy it was.”

Years of violent confrontation between the Israeli army and Palestinian armed groups have been etched into Jenin’s narrow pathways – bullet-holes scattered across walls, piles of rubble left by military bulldozers, graffiti in the shape of M16 rifles, along with the name “Hamas”.

Among the destruction is a hole in the middle of the city centre – the main road broken and impassable.

Construction vehicles dig whole tree trunks out of the shattered road and cart them away. Shop owners and photojournalists clamber over the rubble to inspect the damage.

On either side, a crowd has paused to watch the rebuilding: residents on foot, on scooters, on bicycles, out on the streets for the first time in more than nine days.

The head of Jenin’s government hospital, Dr Wissam Bakr, who is also there, says the first four days of the Israeli operation were the hardest for the hospital, with power and water supplies cut.

They were relying on generators and water tanks, he said, with two new-borns and two elderly patients on ventilators.

Further down the same road, the sounds of the city have returned: stallholders are back at the edge of the marketplace, hawking carts full of fresh fruit and vegetables; the cafes around packed with generations of men and boys.

On Friday morning, gunfire erupted again in the refugee camp, signalling the start of many funerals taking place. The BBC understands at least eight of the dead are civilians, including a 16-year-old girl.

At the funeral of Mohammed Zubeidi, one of five militants killed in an Israeli air strike on a car in Tubas on Thursday, a Palestinian fighter spoke defiantly.

“When you see the Israelis kill your brother, kill this or that person, how do you – in your heart – stay sitting and looking at all of this?” he said to the BBC.

“People are afraid that they’re coming to destroy their homes, or arrest them, but so what? Let them arrest everyone – my brother has been arrested for two years. So what?”

The IDF said Zubeidi was “a significant terrorist from the Jenin area”.

He was also the son of Zakaria Zubeidi, the imprisoned former commander in Jenin of the Fatah movement’s armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.

In a statement, the Israeli military said that in the Jenin area “14 terrorists [had] been eliminated, over 30 suspects [had] been apprehended, [and] approximately 30 explosives planted under roads were dismantled” during the operation.

It said it had also dismantled what it called “numerous terror infrastructure sites… including an underground weapons storage facility located beneath a mosque, and a lab used to manufacture explosives” and had removed “large quantities of weapons”.

The Palestinian health ministry says three Palestinians have also been killed in the southern governorate of Hebron over the past nine days.

The Israeli military said one of them carried out a shooting attack that killed three Israeli police officers near Tarqumiyah on Sunday.

There has been a spike in violence in the West Bank since Hamas’s attack and the ensuing war in Gaza.

More than 600 Palestinians have been killed as Israeli forces have intensified their raids, the Palestinian health ministry says. Israel says it is trying to stem deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and Israel.

US rock band Linkin Park have announced a new singer, Emily Armstrong, will join them for their new album and tour.

The group’s former lead singer, Chester Bennington, took his own life in 2017.

Armstrong will join returning members Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Phoenix and Joe Hahn for the band’s forthcoming projects.

Armstrong will share vocals with Shinoda, while Colin Brittain will also join as the group’s new drummer.

The band announced their new line-up ahead of the launch of their forthcoming album From Zero and a new world tour.

Armstrong grew up in Los Angeles and is best known as the singer in alt-rock band Dead Sara, which she co-founded with guitarist Siouxsie Medley in 2005.

In an interview with Billboard, Amstrong recalled the impact Linkin Park’s 2000 album Hybrid Theory had on her.

“I was in a band when it came out,” she recalled. “One Step Closer was the song for me, and I was just like, ‘that’s what I want to do. As a singer, I want to be able to scream’.

“That album was everything – I’ve listened to it a trillion times. I would skate to it. I would mosh to it.”

In an era dominated by solo artists, Linkin Park are one of the most successful bands of the streaming age.

They are the only band to feature in Spotify’s top 10 most-streamed albums of all time, with their greatest hits collection Papercuts attracting more than 9m streams per day.

Linkin Park are not the first band to appoint a new lead singer following the death of a frontman – Alice in Chains and Sublime have previously done the same.

Most notably, Queen have regularly toured with singer Adam Lambert in recent years, following Freddie Mercury’s death in 1991.

Meanwhile, Brittain will replace the band’s previous drummer, Rob Bourdon.

Speaking to Billboard, Shinoda explained: “Rob had said to us at a point, I guess it was a few years ago now, that he wanted to put some distance between himself and the band.

“And we understood that – it was already apparent. He was starting to just show up less, be in less contact, and I know the fans noticed it too.

“So for me, as a friend, that was sad, but at the same time, I want him to do whatever makes him happy, and obviously everybody wishes him the best.”

Brittain has previously worked with rock bands Papa Roach and All Time Low.

The band’s new world tour will visit Los Angeles, New York, Hamburg, Seoul and London this month, and Bogotá in November.

The tour will be their first run of live performance since Bennington’s death in 2017, aged 41.

Their new album will be preceded by a single, titled The Emptiness Machine, the group’s first new music since Bennington’s death.

The band performed the song as part of an hour-long concert, broadcast on the band’s social platforms on Thursday, to officially launch their new line-up.

Under the scorching sun on Italy’s Adriatic coast, a group of friends from Bangladesh are practising their cricket skills on a small patch of concrete.

They are playing on the outskirts of Monfalcone, close to Trieste airport, because they have in effect been banned by the mayor from playing in the town itself.

They say those who try can face fines of up to €100 (£84).

“If we were playing inside Monfalcone, the police would have already got here to stop us,” says team captain Miah Bappy.

He points to a group of Bengali teenagers who got “caught” playing their national sport at the local park. Unaware they were being filmed by security cameras, their game was broken up by a police patrol who gave them a fine.

“They say cricket is not for Italy. But I’ll tell you the truth: it’s because we are foreigners,” Miah says.

The ban on cricket has come to symbolise the deep-seated tensions that are flaring up in Monfalcone.

The town has an ethnic make-up unique in Italy: of a population of just over 30,000, nearly a third are foreigners. Most of them are Bangladeshi Muslims who began to arrive in the late 1990s to build giant cruise-ships.

As a consequence the cultural essence of Monfalcone is in danger, according to mayor Anna Maria Cisint, who belongs to the far-right League party.

She swept to power on the back of anti-immigration sentiment – and has gone on a mission to “protect” her town and defend Christian values.

“Our history is being erased,” she tells me. “It’s like it doesn’t matter anymore. Everything is changing for the worse.”

In Monfalcone, Italians in Western clothes mingle with Bangladeshis wearing shalwar kameez and hijabs. There are Bangladeshi restaurants and halal shops, and a network of cycle paths mostly used by the South Asian community.

In her two terms in office, Ms Cisint has removed the benches in the town square where Bangladeshis used to sit and railed against what Muslim women wear at the beach.

“There’s a very strong process of Islamic fundamentalism here,” she says. “A culture where women are treated very badly and oppressed by men.”

When it comes to her ban on cricket, the mayor claims there is no space or money to build a new pitch and says cricket balls pose a danger.

She told the BBC she refuses to grant the Bangladeshis the privilege to play their national sport – and claims they offer “nothing in return”.

“They’ve given nothing to this city, to our community. Zero,” she says. “They are free to go and play cricket anywhere else… outside of Monfalcone.”

The mayor has received death threats because of her views on Muslims – and that’s why she’s now under 24-hour police protection.

Miah Bappy and his fellow cricketers have moved to Italy to build ships at the Fincantieri shipyard – the biggest in Europe, and one of the largest in the world.

The mayor accuses the company of “wage dumping” – the practice of paying wages below the market level, often to foreign workers – arguing that its salaries are so low no Italian would want to do the work for the same money.

But the director of the shipyard Cristiano Bazzara is adamant that salaries paid by the company and its contractors are aligned with Italian law.

• Listen: The Italian town where praying is a political issue

“We are not able to find trained workers. In Europe it’s very difficult to find young people who want to work in a shipyard,” he tells me.

Italy has among the lowest birth rates in Europe. Last year only 379,000 babies were born in Italy with an average of 1.2 children per woman.

Italy is also facing labour shortages and researchers estimate Italy will require 280,000 foreign workers a year until 2050 to make up for a shrinking work force.

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who leads the far-right Brothers of Italy, has increased the number of permits for non-EU workers despite previously saying she wanted to reduce immigration.

But Anna Maria Cisint firmly believes that the way of life of the Bangladeshi Muslim community is “incompatible” with the life of native-born Italians.

In Monfalcone, the tensions came to a head when the mayor in effect banned collective prayer at the two Islamic centres in the town.

“People from the town started sending me shocking photos and videos which showed a huge number of people praying in the two Islamic centres: as many as 1,900 in just one building,” the mayor says.

“There are so many bikes left on the pavement, and loud prayers five times a day – even at night.”

Mayor Cisint says this was unfair to local residents – and argues her ban on collective prayer comes down to an issue of urban planning regulations. The Islamic centres are not designated for religious worship, and she says it’s not her job to provide them.

Islam is not among the 13 religions that have official status under Italian law, which complicates efforts to build places of worship.

Bangladeshis in Monfalcone say the mayor’s decision has had an enormous impact on the Muslim community.

“The mayor thinks that Bengalis are trying to Islamify Italy – but we are just minding our own business,” says 19-year-old Meheli. She’s originally from Dhaka in Bangladesh but grew up in Italy, wears Western clothes and speaks fluent Italian.

She says she has been sworn at and harassed in the street because of her Bengali heritage.

Miah Bappy is expecting to receive his Italian passport this year, but he’s not sure he will continue to live in Monfalcone.

“We don’t cause any trouble. We pay taxes,” says the shipyard worker. “But they don’t want us here.”

The mayor believes the way of life of the Bangladeshi community is “incompatible” with the life of native born Italians.

But Miah Bappy points out that if they all returned to their homeland tomorrow, “it would take the shipyard five years to build a single ship”.

Over the summer a regional court ruled in favour of the two Islamic centres and annulled the town council’s order banning collective prayer.

But Monfalcone’s mayor has vowed to continue her campaign against what she calls “the Islamisation of Europe” beyond Italy.

She has now been elected to the European Parliament and will soon have a chance to take her message to Brussels.

The father of a 14-year-old boy accused of killing four people at a high school in the US state of Georgia has been arrested and charged with murder.

Colin Gray, 54, is facing four charges of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight of cruelty to children.

Officials said on Thursday evening the charges were directly connected to his son’s actions and “allowing him to possess a weapon”.

The son, Colt Gray, is accused of killing two teachers and two students in Wednesday’s shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, near Atlanta.

He is due in court on Friday charged – as an adult – with four counts of murder.

In Georgia, state law allows prosecutors to charge minors from age 13 as an adult in certain crimes.

This means they face potentially more severe sentences if convicted.

Authorities are investigating whether Colin Gray bought the AR-style weapon as a gift for his son in December 2023, law enforcement sources told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

The charges against the father are thought to be the most severe levelled against the parent in this kind of case.

In May 2023, the FBI alerted local police to online threats about a school shooting, associated with an email address linked to the suspect.

A sheriff’s deputy went to interview the boy, who was 13 at the time.

His father told police he had guns in the house, but his son did not have unsupervised access to them, the FBI said in a statement on Wednesday.

Officials say the threats were made on Discord, a social media platform popular with video gamers, and contained images of guns.

The account’s profile name was in Russian and translated to the surname of the attacker who killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.

A police incident report describing last year’s interview with the boy and his father was released on Thursday.

In the report, a deputy described the boy as “reserved” and “calm” and said he “assured me he never made any threats to shoot up any school”.

They said he claimed to have deleted his Discord account because it was repeatedly hacked.

Colin Gray also told police his son was getting picked on at school and had been struggling with his parents’ separation.

Police records reveal that the boy’s mother and father were in the process of divorcing, and he was staying with his father during the split.

The teen often hunted with his father, who told police he had photographed his son with a deer’s blood on his cheeks.

The boy’s maternal grandfather told the New York Times he partly blames the tumultuous home life after Mr Gray’s split from his daughter.

“I understand my grandson did a horrendous thing – there’s no question about it, and he’s going to pay the price for it,” Charlie Polhamus told the newspaper.

“My grandson did what he did because of the environment that he lived in,” he added.

During the news conference on Thursday, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said all nine of those injured were expected to make a full recovery.

Several victims had already left hospital, he said.

Students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, died in the attack.

Witnesses said the suspect left an algebra lesson on Wednesday morning only to return later and try to re-enter the classroom.

Some students went to open the locked door, but apparently saw the weapon and backed away.

Witnesses said they then heard a barrage of 10-15 gunshots. Two school police officers quickly challenged the boy and he immediately surrendered.

These are not the first charges against the parents of a suspect in a school shooting.

In April, the parents of a Michigan teenager who killed four students with a gun they bought for him just days before the shooting were sentenced for their role in the attack.

James and Jennifer Crumbley were both found guilty of manslaughter and each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison.

The case was widely reported to be the first time the parents of a child who had carried out a mass shooting were held criminally liable.