The Princess of Wales has finished her chemotherapy and is now focused on staying cancer-free, she has said.

In an emotional message, accompanied by footage of the Princess and her young family, she said her illness had given her a “new perspective on everything” and a renewed focus on the “simple yet important things in life”.

Acknowledging that the “cancer journey” had been “complex, scary and unpredictable for everyone”, she said it brought patients “face to face with your own vulnerabilities in a way you have never considered before”.

The Princess will begin her gradual return to a light programme of public engagements. But she emphasised: “Doing what I can to stay cancer-free is now my focus.”

The video, shot in Norfolk in August, shows the Wales family as they have never been seen by the public before.

The Prince and Princess are filmed kissing, her head resting on his shoulder, and enveloping Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis in hugs.

Catherine is seen walking through cornfields, driving, playing cards with her parents, Carole and Michael Middleton, and helping the children climb trees and scramble up haybales.

In one intimate shot, the family are seen lying on a Norfolk beach, embracing.

It is intended to illustrate the Princess’s message that she has renewed gratitude for the “simple yet important things in life”, “of simply loving and being loved”.

The Princess is expected to attend a handful of public engagements before the end of the year, subject to changes in her health.

They are likely to include appearing at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday and hosting her annual Westminster Abbey carol concert for children. She will also hold a “small number” of meetings, some of which will appear in the Court Circular.

In March, the Princess released a video message telling the world that, following major abdominal surgery in January, “tests after the operation found cancer had been present” and that her “medical team therefore advised that I should undergo a course of preventative chemotherapy”.

The footage in Monday’s second video message was filmed by Will Warr, who has previously produced videos of the Princess and her children visiting a baby bank, and of the family preparing for the Coronation.

It includes what appears to be self-shot footage, with Prince George saying: “Is this on?” as he fiddles with a camera, and his siblings shouting: “Hello!”

The Princess, who finishes the video by watching a butterfly land on her hands and fly away again, says: “As the summer comes to an end, I cannot tell you what a relief it is to have finally completed my chemotherapy treatment.

“The last nine months have been incredibly tough for us as a family. Life as you know it can change in an instant, and we have had to find a way to navigate the stormy waters and road unknown.

“The cancer journey is complex, scary and unpredictable for everyone, especially those closest to you. With humility, it also brings you face to face with your own vulnerabilities in a way you have never considered before, and with that, a new perspective on everything.

“This time has above all reminded William and me to reflect and be grateful for the simple yet important things in life, which so many of us often take for granted. Of simply loving and being loved.

“Doing what I can to stay cancer-free is now my focus. Although I have finished chemotherapy, my path to healing and full recovery is long, and I must continue to take each day as it comes.

“I am, however, looking forward to being back at work and undertaking a few more public engagements in the coming months when I can. Despite all that has gone before, I enter this new phase of recovery with a renewed sense of hope and appreciation of life.”

In a direct message to the public, she added: “William and I are so grateful for the support we have received, and have drawn great strength from all those who are helping us at this time. Everyone’s kindness, empathy and compassion has been truly humbling.

“To all those who are continuing their own cancer journey – I remain with you, side by side, hand in hand. Out of darkness can come light, so let that light shine bright.”

The video was released by Kensington Palace as the Wales family returned to work and school following their summer holidays. They have spent the summer out of the spotlight, enjoying time at their home in Norfolk as well as their annual trip to join the Royal family at Balmoral.

The Princess was photographed on Aug 25 on her way to church at Balmoral, being driven by Prince William and looking well. She was also spotted with her husband and three children at a family festival in Norfolk this summer, where they are said to have abseiled and played Nerf gun wars.

Kensington Palace last updated the public on the Princess’s condition in June, when it issued a written statement saying she was making “good progress” in her chemotherapy but was “not out of the woods yet”.

The Princess said she was having “good days and bad days”, and learning to be “patient” in allowing herself to heal.

The following day, on June 15, she joined Prince William, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis for Trooping the Colour, the King’s birthday parade, riding in a carriage before appearing with the full working family on the Buckingham Palace balcony.

In July, the Princess attended the men’s final at Wimbledon, where she received a standing ovation to welcome her and her daughter to their seats.

The Princess had major abdominal surgery in January, spending nearly two weeks in hospital for an undisclosed condition. In March, she released a personal video telling the world she was having treatment following the discovery of cancer.

At the time of the update, on March 22, the Palace said the Princess would return to official duties only when she was “cleared to do so by her medical team”.

James Earl Jones, the American actor, has died at the age of 93, his agent has said.

Jones, who is best known for being the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars, died early on Monday morning surrounded by his family, CBS News reported.

During his lengthy career, he appeared in dozens of films including Field of Dreams, Coming To America and Conan the Barbarian. He was also the voice of Mufasa in The Lion King.

His long list of awards included Tonys for “The Great White Hope” in 1969 and “Fences” in 1987 on Broadway and Emmys in 1991 for “Gabriel’s Fire” and “Heat Wave” on television. He also won a Grammy for best spoken word album, “Great American Documents” in 1977.

Although he never won a competitive Academy award, he was nominated for best actor for the film version of “The Great White Hope” and was given an honorary Oscar in 2011.

He began his movie career playing Lieutenant Luther Zogg in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” in 1964.

Later acclaimed movie roles included novelist Terence Mann in 1989’s “Field of Dreams” and South African Reverend Stephen Kumalo in 1995’s “Cry, the Beloved Country.”

He also starred in “Conan the Barbarian,” “Coming to America,” “The Sandlot,” “Matewan,” “The Hunt for Red October” and “Field of Dreams,” among others.

Jones also was heard in dozens of television commercials and for several years CNN used his authoritative “This is CNN” to introduce its newscasts.

Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, posted “RIP Dad” with a broken heart emoji on X, as he shared a news report of James Earl Jones’ death.

The Wire star Wendell Pierce hailed him as the “living embodiment of artistry, integrity, creativity, and dignity”.

He wrote on X: “James Earl Jones is the sole reason I became an actor. He stirred a vocation in me that gave voice to my unsung heart songs.

“By example, he led me on the exploration of my own personal humanity and the study of human behavior in others and the intangible, ever-present soul.

“He was a once in a generation talent that has left an enormous legacy in American culture.”

In his tribute on X, Star Trek star George Takei said: “A great spirit and boundless, unique voice has left us.

“James Earl Jones has passed, and he is returned to the great beyond.

“We are all the lesser for his loss, and we collectively mourn his passing and honor his great body of work.”

A judge who jailed some of those involved in violent disorder after the Southport stabbings said he and his family were threatened after the sentencing was broadcast.

Attending a National 999 Day service in Liverpool, which was dedicated to those who responded to riots in Merseyside, honorary Recorder of Liverpool Judge Andrew Menary KC told emergency workers a decision had been made to accelerate sentencing hearings for those involved not because of “political pressure” but because a quick response was needed for a “deterrent effect”.

He said: “The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. There have been some twits online who have posted all sorts of daft things about me and some pretty unpleasant threats have been made towards me and the family.

“The odd dodgy package has arrived at the court containing threats towards me. But that, I’m afraid, goes with the territory of the job.

“There have also been some quite funny posts online as well. Like Jake, from Basingstoke, who wrote on Twitter after the broadcast ‘Judge Menary should consider a side hustle in audiobook narration’.

“I don’t know whether to say this or not but it looks like for at least a weekend I became a gay icon. Gavin from Somerset wrote: ‘Who is Judge Menary? What’s his net worth and who is he dating?’”

Judge Menary said his favourite post came from a social media user in Texas who wrote: “The UK has fallen to savages. The dude with the dead squirrel on his head has just confirmed it.”

The judge said that in Liverpool there had so far been sentences for more than 50 people who were involved in violent disorder, which broke out in Southport and later spread to Liverpool and across the country after the knife attack in which three girls were killed on July 29.

Thanking those working in the emergency services, Judge Menary said: “It’s been a busy few weeks but nothing compared to the pressure that so many of you and your colleagues have experienced and regularly experience day in and day out.”

‘The good needs to be defended’

The annual National 999 Day service, at Liverpool Parish Church, was attended by leaders from the city’s faith communities and members of the emergency services.

Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the Children’s Laureate, spoke along with Deborah Moore, the manager of Spellow Hub library which was set on fire during disorder on County Road in Liverpool, and Alex McCormick, who raised more than £250,000 to repair the library.

The children’s author said the good in the city outweighed the bad, but added: “We’ve learned this summer, surely, that the good needs to be defended and it needs to be vigilant.

“Its defenders are here in this church today, its defenders are you. I wanted to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to you for defending and looking out for the good.”

Richard Kemp, the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, told emergency workers: “You are the people who, when there is a problem, run into it while the rest of us run from it.

“The supreme irony in Southport was that more than 50 police officers, many of whom earlier in the day had run into save lives, had their bodies damaged by perpetrators including opportunists and chancers.”

Dismissals for gross misconduct at HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) are at a five-year-high, data reveals.

So far this year, 179 tax office workers have been sacked for serious breaches of workplace conduct, an increase of 43pc since 2020.

This is the highest number in at least five years, according to figures obtained by The Telegraph in a freedom of information request.

A separate request sent to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) found that 190 workers were dismissed for gross misconduct in 2023-24, making up about 40pc of all terminations. This figure was down from 221 in 2022.

Gross misconduct is behaviour so serious that it can warrant instant dismissal.

Examples include bullying, theft, intoxication, damage to company property, gross negligence or other behaviours that could harm the organisation.

At HMRC, it could include the unlawful disclosure of sensitive taxpayer information or fraud undertaken using company systems.

Earlier this year, a tax office worker was jailed for two years and four months after abusing her role to defraud the taxpayer out of £300,000 in child benefit.

Tracy Ashbridge falsely claimed three of her children were disabled and also submitted false tax credit claims for another 15 children. She used details from her work computer system of members of the public to facilitate some of the frauds.

Civil servants can also be let go for gross misconduct if they access someone’s records on government databases without a valid business reason.

Louise Kelly, who had worked at DWP for 20 years, was sacked from the department in 2021 after she looked up a neighbour’s address in the “Searchlight” database, which contains financial and health information about most UK residents. She had already received an official warning after searching for her own address.

Her case was dismissed by an employment tribunal, where the judge said that temptation to abuse the Searchlight system was “bound to be strong” and therefore a “robust policy” from DWP was “essential”.

The 179 workers fired for gross misconduct in 2024 made up over half of all 321 dismissals at HMRC, which employs over 65,000 staff. But in 2020, only 28pc (125) of all dismissals (441) were for gross misconduct.

Steve Sweetlove, of accountancy firm RSM, said: “On the face of it, an uptick in dismissals for gross misconduct could be seen as a troubling trend but it may highlight that a firmer stance is being taken by HMRC in staff disciplinary matters.

“Given the vital role HMRC staff play in dealing with taxpayer data and collecting revenues for the government, cases of gross negligence can represent a really serious issue so it’s important that appropriate action is taken where necessary.

“HMRC is set to receive more funding to recruit additional staff so it will be crucial that support is in place to help staff with training new recruits so they appreciate the standards of conduct expected of them.”

Michael Newman, an employment law specialist at law firm Leigh Day, said gross misconduct was reserved for the most serious cases and was “relatively rare”.

He added: “What constitutes gross misconduct may vary according to the particular employee – for example, with HMRC anything around fraud is likely to be taken far more seriously.”

It comes as customer service at the tax office is at an “all-time low” as it struggles to cope with the rising taxpayer population.

The taxman answered only 66pc of customers’ calls last year against a target of 85pc and down from 71pc in 2022-23.

Demand for its services has surged as taxpayers have been dragged into higher rates of tax due to frozen thresholds.

At the start of this year the Public Accounts Committee, an influential group of MPs, concluded HMRC’s service levels were at an all-time low after it received an “unprecedented” number of written submissions about the tax office’s poor performance.

Levels of bullying and harassment at HMRC are at 8pc, according to the latest Civil Service People Survey, which is the average across all departments. At DWP, 10pc of workers have experienced bullying or harassment. 

However, levels of engagement among tax office workers are lower than anywhere else in the civil service at 56pc compared to a benchmark of 64pc.

A government spokesman said: “All large organisations will face occasional issues with staff behaviour, and we take all allegations seriously to ensure we work in an inclusive environment that is friendly, tolerant and respectful.

“All our employees must ensure they follow our code of conduct alongside the civil service code, with breaches looked into and if necessary investigated, potentially resulting in dismissal.”

Germany’s government has announced plans to impose tighter controls at all of the country’s land borders in what it called an attempt to tackle illegal immigration.

The controls within what is normally a wide area of free movement – the European Schengen zone – will start on September 16 and initially last for six months, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Monday.

The government has also designed a scheme enabling authorities to reject more migrants directly at German borders, the minister added.

The restrictions are part of a series of measures Germany has taken to toughen its stance on irregular migration in recent years following a surge in arrivals, in particular from the Middle East.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government is seeking to seize back the initiative from the opposition far-Right and conservatives, who have seen support rise as they tap into voter worries about stretched public services, integration and security.

“We are strengthening internal security and continuing our hard line against irregular migration,” Ms Faeser said, noting the government had notified the European Commission and neighbouring countries of the intended controls.

Recent deadly knife attacks in which the suspects were asylum seekers have stoked concerns over immigration.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a knife attack in the western city of Solingen that killed three people last month.

The AfD earlier this month became the first far-Right party since the Second World War to win a state election, in Thuringia, after campaigning heavily on the issue of migration.

Polls show it is also voters’ top concern in the state of Brandenburg, which is set to hold elections in two weeks.

Mr Scholz and Ms Faeser’s centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD) are fighting to retain control of the government there, in a vote billed as a test of strength of the SPD ahead of next year’s federal election.

“The intention of the government seems to be to show symbolically to Germans and potential migrants that the latter are no longer wanted here,” said Marcus Engler at the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research.

A backlash had been building in Germany ever since it took in more than a million people mostly fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria during the 2015-2016 migrant crisis, migration experts say.

It reached a tipping point in the country of 84 million people after it automatically granted asylum to around a million Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s 2022 invasion, even as Germany was struggling through an energy and economic crisis.

Since then, the German government has agreed to tighter deportation rules and resumed flying convicted criminals of Afghan nationality to their home country, despite suspending deportations after the Taliban took power in 2021 because of human rights concerns.

Berlin last year also announced stricter controls on its land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.

Those, and controls on the border with Austria, had allowed it to return 30,000 migrants since October 2023, it said on Monday.

Ms Faeser said a new model would enable the government to turn back many more – but it could not talk about the model before confidential negotiations with the conservatives.

The controls could test European unity if they lead to German authorities requesting other countries to take back substantial numbers of asylum seekers and migrants.

Under EU rules, countries in the Schengen area, which encompasses all of the bloc bar Cyprus and Ireland, are only allowed to introduce border checks as a last resort to avert threats to internal security or public policy.

Germany shares its more than 3,700-km-long (2,300 miles) land border with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland.

Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told Bild newspaper on Monday that his country would not take in any migrants turned away by Germany at the border.

“There’s no room for manoeuvre there,” he said.

The measures may not immediately result in many more migrants being turned away at the border, but they could result in more returns to other European countries down the line, as well as acting as a deterrent, said Susan Fratzke at the Migration Policy Institute.

The number of asylum applications in Germany already fell 21.7pc in the first eight months of the year, according to government statistics.

David Knowles, the Telegraph journalist behind the award-winning Ukraine: The Latest podcast, has died.

Mr Knowles, 32, who worked as a senior audio journalist and presenter, died while in Gibraltar on Sunday following what was believed to be a cardiac arrest.

He joined The Telegraph in 2020 as deputy head of social media and was later promoted to head of social media.

Upon the outbreak of the Ukraine war in 2022, Mr Knowles launched Ukraine: The Latest, a weekday podcast that is still running two years later.

This year, Ukraine: The Latest won the Best News Podcast at the Publisher Podcast Awards.

Mr Knowles’s father, Peter, described his eldest son as someone who “loved life and he lived it just as well as he could”.

He said: “David’s commitment to journalism was intense. He was never more proud than when he finally shrugged off a management job title and regained a title with the word ‘journalist’ in it, and he was utterly engaged with the story of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the impact on its people, making four trips to the country and always planning the next.”

Chris Evans, the editor of The Telegraph, said: “David was a talented and popular journalist who was perhaps best known for helping to make our Ukraine podcast such a success. Before that, he was an impressive leader of our social media team. We would like to offer our sympathy to his family and friends.”

Mr Knowles launched Ukraine: The Latest as a Twitter Space before it became a fully fledged podcast. Starting on the day of the Russian invasion in February 2022, it is now approaching 100 million downloads.

He anchored the podcast and became known as its “voice”, travelling across Ukraine with his audio equipment to capture stories to pull into special episodes that told how the lives of ordinary Ukrainian people were being destroyed by Putin’s war.

He and the podcast team also toured the show in America last year, where a large part of its audience is based.

More recently, Mr Knowles and the team were invited to speak at the US embassy in London, at the Chalke History Festival, and at Armed Forces Day in Scarborough about the Ukraine war.

The Ukrainian embassy in London also paid tribute. In a post on X, the embassy said: “We are deeply saddened by the tragic passing of the Telegraph journalist of Ukraine: The Latest podcast [David Knowles]. 

“His dedication to reporting the truth about the war in Ukraine and his commitment to telling the stories of those affected by it will never be forgotten. Our thoughts are with his family, friends and colleagues during this difficult time. Ukraine mourns this profound loss alongside you.”

Harrods has begun selling luxury peaches grown in Japan’s Fukushima region, which 13 years ago suffered the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

The first of the unusually sweet white peaches, which cost £80 for a box of three, went on sale on Saturday at the Knightsbridge department store.

It is the first time peaches from Fukushima, in northeast Japan, will be sold in a British shop and comes amid fears over the risk of radioactive contamination of food products from the area.

The sales campaign is being run by The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), the operator of the Fukushima plant, which is now in charge of its decommissioning. It is part of an effort to dispel negative associations and improve export sales to help the region recover.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was destroyed in March 2011 after a massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake generated powerful tsunami waves causing meltdowns in three reactors.

It forced the evacuation of more than 150,000 residents across the region, thousands of whom have never returned, despite dissipating levels of radiation.

Britain lifted the last import restrictions on food products from Fukushima, largely consisting of fish and seafood, in 2022. Such products are only imported to the UK in small quantities and sold to Japanese restaurants and specialist stores.

Tokyo, at the time, thanked the UK for making decisions “based on scientific evidence” that will help the “reconstruction” of the region.

Fukushima’s peaches were sold at the annual Japan Festival in London last October and reportedly sold out, sparking the deal with Harrods, which will also start selling Shine Muscat grapes from the region in October.

The peaches are prized for their exceptional taste, perfect form and reputation as the world’s sweetest – and most expensive – peaches, with sugar content more than double usual supermarket varieties.

“We would like to continue to convey the appeal and tastiness of Fukushima Prefecture’s produce to the world,” an official from Tepco told Japan News.

Harrods has been approached for comment.

Other promotional food events will also take place across the US, where rice and scallops from Fukushima will be promoted.

The mountainous region of Fukushima is the second biggest producer of peaches in Japan, accounting for more than a quarter of the industry, with its tasty fruits attributed to a combination of fertile soil and an amenable climate.

Known for its rich agricultural heritage in Japan, it is renowned for its cherries, pears and grapes as well as peaches, painstakingly cultivated by local farmers. Its seafood, quality white rice and nihonshu sake are also famed across Japan.

Since the 2011 nuclear disaster, however, farmers and fishermen have been hit hard due to safety concerns over radiation, despite regular testing and reassurances from the government that the food is safe.

The international peach promotion comes as a trial to remove the highly radioactive debris from the destroyed Fukushima plant is set to begin on Tuesday.

An earlier attempt to retrieve around 880 tons of extremely hazardous material stuck inside its reactors – the most daunting part of the decade-long project to decommission the plant – had failed.

A man accused of pouring boiling coffee on a baby in Brisbane, Australia, fled the country on Monday, hours before police were able to identify him.

The attack on nine-month-old Luka triggered a manhunt by international and Australian police, who suspect the assailant has knowledge of official surveillance.

The mother was having a picnic with the baby in Hanlon Park in the south-east of the city on Aug 27 when the suspect approached them and poured a flask of hot coffee over the infant.

He then fled on foot, leaving the child with serious burns to his face, arms and legs – and requiring four operations in Queensland Children’s Hospital, the Daily Mail reported.

Police were able to identify the man as a 33-year-old itinerant worker who had visited Australia on various visas since 2019, last entering the country in January 2022.

However, by the time he had been identified, police discovered the man had already fled the country.

Det Insp Paul Dalton, of Queensland Police, said: “It wasn’t until Sep 1 that we were able to put a name to the face in the CCTV.

He explained: “I was in the investigation centre when we put a name to the face and it was a very happy room, only for us to do a check in 15 minutes and find out we lost him.”

Det Insp Dalton said the man left the country from Sydney airport using his own passport the day before police confirmed his identity, having been staying in New South Wales.

‘Aware of police methods’

To protect the investigation, Det Insp Dalton declined to name the suspect or his destination, but said the man was “aware” of police methods and was using “counter-surveillance” techniques to avoid detection, making the investigation “complex”.

An arrest warrant has been issued for acts including intending to cause grievous bodily harm, which carries a possible life sentence.

“I’m continually scratching my head. We can’t find a motive,” Detective Inspector Dalton said. “A rational, normal person, you would think, wouldn’t do something like that.”

Luka’s parents, who requested anonymity, said they were “devastated” to hear the man had fled.

“It sounds like they were very, very close in catching him, and this obviously means that we’re going to have to wait who knows how long to get justice for our son,” the mother told the Australian Broadcasting Company.

A Frenchman who thought he was a “good husband” by day while allegedly enabling strangers to rape his drugged wife at night was a “Jekyll and Hyde” character, a court heard on Monday.

On the sixth day of Dominique Pélicot’s criminal trial in Avignon, the court heard details of a psychological report which said he had the “two-faced personality” of a “sex addict” and “manipulative pervert”.

It meant Mr Pelicot, 71, acted like the spit-personality character in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the Gothic horror novel by Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, the report said.

The retired electrician is facing up to 20 years in prison, along with 51 other defendants who are all accused of the aggravated rape of Gisèle Pélicot, 71.

Psychologists reported that he was “relieved to finally be arrested” in 2020, following a decade of violent abuse.

Mr Pélicot told detectives that he considered himself a “good husband” to Mrs Pélicot, who he married in 1971 and had three children with.

He said he was “respectful of his wife’s desires and refusals” but “also had fantasies about swinging” and “got pleasure” from seeing his wife undergo sexual acts that she normally refused.

A psychological report submitted to the court suggested Mr Pélicot displayed a tendency towards “paraphilia” – sexual arousal in atypical situations – and also “somnophilia” – an interest in having sex with sleeping partners.

This made him a “very caring and much-loved grandfather by day” but “a rapist at night”, psychologist Bruno Daunizeau explained in the report.

“During the day, you can be normal, and have another face at night,” said Dr Daunizeau, prior to referencing Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde creation.

Marianne Douteau, another psychologist, told the court that Mr Pélicot still felt his life could have carried on as normal, despite the crimes he has admitted to.

She agreed he had a “split personality” arguing “that he is a patriarch but he is also irresponsible and manipulative”.

“Behind closed doors he does not respect limits,” Dr Douteau added.

Mr Pélicot, who has been remanded in custody since his arrest in 2020, was considered too ill to give evidence on Monday, so will be cross-examined by prosecutors later in the week.

Detectives have listed a total of 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom have been identified and charged in France’s biggest rape trial.

Husband admits to decade of abuse 

Mr Pélicot has admitted to drugging his wife and inviting strangers to abuse her over a decade.

Fourteen of his co-accused have admitted to rape.

But 35 men – from all walks of life – deny that they forced themselves on Ms Pélicot while she was unconscious, claiming that she in some way consented to libertine sex.

Lawyers defending the accused men said on Monday they would be filing legal complaints over internet users leaking their clients’ personal information and thus endangering their families.

Fifty other men, aged between 26 and 74, are also on trial for allegedly taking part.

The court proceedings – which began last week and are running until December – are open to the public at the request of the victim.

“Personal information of the accused – their identity, surname, name, profession and sometimes even pictures taken inside the courtroom – have been shared on social media, in defiance of the basic rules of our law,” said lawyer Isabelle Crepin-Dehaene, representing all their attorneys.

“Children of defendants have been singled out at school. Wives and family members have been insulted. Defendants have received malicious phone calls, with attempts to break into their home,” she added.

“From this week, their different lawyers will file around 15 legal complaints with the relevant regional prosecutors’ offices and several more will follow in the coming weeks,” she said.

Scientists are racing to understand how a person in Missouri who had no contact with animals became infected with H5 bird flu.

The case was confirmed by the US authorities on Friday and experts have theorised that the patient might have consumed raw milk infected with H5N1, which is currently circulating among US cattle or picked it up from contact with an infected animal, unknowingly. 

The nightmare scenario – although highly unlikely – is that the virus has begun to spread between humans under the radar. 

The case marks the first time a patient in the ongoing H5N1 outbreak in the US has become sick without known exposure to infected animals. Thirteen other human cases have been reported this year, all in farm workers who interacted with sick cattle or birds.

The patient was hospitalised on August 22 and has since recovered, according to the CDC. 

The case was detected through the state’s seasonal flu surveillance system, indicating there could be more flying under the radar.

Avian influenza began spreading in US dairy cattle last December. Since, over 200 herds across 14 states have become infected, none of which have been in Missouri. The state has reported H5N1 cases in wild birds and poultry however, a possible route of infection.

The main worry among experts is that an unexplained H5 infection raises the possibility of person-to-person transmission, something which the World Health Organization (WHO) warned would be of “enormous concern” due to its potential to trigger a global pandemic. 

“This is how pandemics start,” Kruitka Kuppali, a spokesperson for the Infectious Disease Society of America and former WHO medical officer, told The Telegraph.  “We need to scale up preparedness and response efforts.”

The 2009 swine flu pandemic was first detected in a similar way when two children in California with no known contact with pigs or each other were diagnosed with an H1N1 flu infection, previously circulating in swine.

Another theory is that the person consumed raw milk infected with H5N1, which has killed several barnyard cats who are thought to have consumed the liquid off farm floors in the US this year.

Around three per cent of the US public – some 10 million people – consume raw dairy, many of which think it’s a ‘superfood’, according to the National Institutes of Health, the US government’s primary public health research body.

“The obvious question I would ask is: Have you ruled out that they’re not someone who’s got a big tub of raw milk in their fridge? Because that just seems like such an obvious route for a cryptic infection,” Thomas Peacock,  an influenza virologist at the Pirbright Institute, told Stat News.

Lisa Cox, a spokesperson for the Missouri Health Department, said that the patient had not reported consuming raw milk. However, Dr Peacock noted that people aren’t always completely reliable in epidemiological investigations, so it still can’t be completely ruled out.

“It would be important to know if they had any exposure to raw dairy and to do a full epidemiological investigation regarding potential exposures that may have occurred in the community, home, or at work,” added Dr Kupplai.

The CDC has said Missouri health officials are conducting an on-the-ground investigation to look for the source of the infection, although it is unclear when they will share the results of their findings.

Scientists hope the virus will be quickly sequenced and uploaded to GISAID, an international database that keeps track of dangerous new flu strains.

This would offer clues on whether the person was infected with the variant circulating in cattle, or if there had been any adaptations suggesting the virus has better adapted to spread between humans.

Contact tracing has found no additional cases, and the CDC still considers the risk to the general public low.

Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security

European Union governments must spend big on joint defence projects because they can no longer rely on the US for their security, a landmark report said on Monday.

The EU report said national competition within the bloc’s defence industry had weakened Europe’s ability to act as a cohesive power.

It comes as Nato allies warned that Russia was arming at an alarming rate and said Europe had as little as three years to prepare for an invasion.

There is also a shifting focus in Washington towards countering China as the main White House foreign policy goal.

Fears over Europe’s security have been further exacerbated by the prospect of a second Donald Trump presidency after his threats to let Russia attack European Nato allies not hitting spending targets.

The long-awaited report – ordered by Ursula Von der Leyen, the European Commission president – demanded a wider “industrial strategy for Europe”, involving €800 billion in annual investment to prevent the bloc from falling behind the US and China.

It is likely to set the agenda for Mrs von der Leyen’s next five years in office, which will be blighted by war and economic stagnation.

The report was authored by Mario Draghi, a former president of the European Central Bank and ex-Italian primer minister, who was largely credited with saving the euro during the financial crisis more than a decade ago.

“The safety of the US security umbrella freed up defence budgets to spend on other priorities,” he wrote. “In a world of stable geopolitics, we had no reason to be concerned about rising dependencies on countries we expected to remain our friends. But the foundations on which we build are now being shaken.”

Washington has slowly shifted its focus from the Euro-Atlantic area to the Indo-Pacific over the last two decades. The Trump White House further accelerated the transition by framing the rivalry with China as a great power competition.

Joe Biden, the US president, identified countering Beijing as his main foreign policy challenge at the start of his administration, although his efforts were made difficult by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“US strategic doctrine is shifting away from Europe and towards the Pacific Rim – for example in the format of Aukus – driven by the perceived threat of China,” wrote Mr Draghi. “As a result, a growing demand for defence capability is being met by a shrinking supply – a gap which Europe itself must fill.”

The EU collectively is the world’s second-largest spender on defence, but it only forks out a third of Washington’s outlay, according to the report. Just 10 member states, which are also part of Nato, hit the two per cent spending goal set by the Western military alliance.

Many countries have announced significant increases in defence spending in response to Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine. The European Commission has previously estimated that member states would need to invest at least €500 billion to secure the bloc over the next decade.

Mr Draghi warned that the continental rearmament would be plagued by difficulties if the EU’s defence industry was not sufficiently centralised in Brussels. His report highlighted that the EU’s 27 member states operate 12 types of battle tanks, while the US produces a single model for its armed forces.

A sudden splurge on defence could also trigger a “supply crisis”, he wrote, because individual companies have not sufficiently scaled up production lines to meet demand.

Mr Draghi argued that greater use of joint procurement in the defence sector could be used to mitigate the risks of shortages.

“This lack of co-ordination creates a vicious circle for the EU defence industry,” he said. “Without demand aggregation among member states, it is more difficult for the industry to predict longer-term needs and increase supply, in turn decreasing its overall capacity to meet demand and depriving the industry of orders and opportunities.”

He recommended that EU competition policy be overhauled sufficiently to ensure that defence spending was focused on the bloc’s companies, rather than flowing overseas to countries such as the US and UK.

He denied that his wider report, which spans some 400 pages, was “do or die”, but warned: “It’s ‘do this, or it’s a slow agony’. We have reached the point where, without action, we will have to either compromise our welfare, our environment or our freedom.”

A Labour-run council has been criticised for funding an Extinction Rebellion “climate cafe” using taxpayers’ money.

Bolton council gave the local XR group a £1,134 grant in July for a monthly climate discussion meeting.

The “climate cafe” is advertised as a “relaxed and informal” place for a “chat about all matters climate-related”.

Conservative councillors criticised the Labour administration for handing taxpayers’ money to the activists.

Cllr Martyn Cox, the leader of the council’s Tory opposition, said council tax should not be spent on protest groups.

“The Bolton Labour group through area funding budgets are using Bolton taxpayers’ money to fund the activities of Extinction Rebellion,” he said.

“While campaigning groups have a right to pursue their aims, it is not the responsibility of council taxpayers to fund their activities. We call on the Labour group to stop funding.”

The discussion group, held at the Albert Halls theatre in the town centre, has previously invited guest speakers to lecture on food waste, fast fashion and eco-friendly gardening.

The council’s grant was given out of funds earmarked for “social value” initiatives.

‘Very welcome and a good thing’

Cllr Nick Peel, the Labour leader of the council, responded to Cllr Cox by praising Bolton XR for “providing education to the public on the effects of climate change and what we can do as individuals to change behaviours”.

He went on to suggest that there was little significant difference between the group and other local initiatives that also receive council funding.

“I think it’s quite dangerous to start being too overtly critical of decisions like this,” he said.

When the funding was announced, Cllr Richard Silvester, the Labour representative of Queens Park and Central Ward, said XR’s activities in Bolton were “very welcome and a good thing”.

“I see what they are doing locally as a group as a very welcome and a good thing for our borough and I see them as a partnership group and as a critical friend to the present Labour administration,” he said.

“We both share the objective of reducing carbon emissions in the borough. I would encourage residents to go along to the climate café events that they are holding because they are informative, and they are a good group of people.”

A spokesman for Bolton council said the grant had been approved by the Labour councillors representing the ward in which the meetings are held.

“This area-based grant was awarded to part-fund the running of a monthly ‘climate café’ where residents can discuss environmental issues and share their ideas to make our borough greener,” the spokesman said.

“As well as giving visitors the chance to hear from expert speakers, the organisers also provide free refreshments and a lending library.

“Bolton council is committed to addressing the climate emergency and to working with residents, businesses and community groups to tackle this challenge locally.”

NHS progress is going backwards for the first time in 50 years, a major report commissioned by the Government has found.

The report by Lord Ara Darzi, a surgeon and former health minister, will this week highlight failures in the most basic care offered by the health service.

It will criticise the amount of time children are left waiting in A&E and how the NHS’s routine services ground to a halt during the pandemic.

Lord Darzi will say that the progress made since the 1970s on deaths from heart disease and waiting times for treatment is now in reverse for the first time.

Within hours of Labour winning the election, Health Secretary Wes Streeting had declared the NHS “broken” and pledged to “turn our health service around”. He commissioned the report a week later.

It is expected to be instrumental in shaping the Government’s 10-year plan “to radically reform the NHS”.

Lord Darzi is particularly concerned about heart care, with heart disease one of Britain’s biggest killers.

Mortality rates from heart problems are now rising, having fallen steadily from the 1970s until 2010.

Waiting times for life-saving surgery for those suffering a heart attack have risen by a quarter and waits for treatment have gone backwards across all areas of the health service.

In an interview with the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Sir Keir Starmer said Lord Darzi was “really clear that the NHS is broken but not beaten”.

“His diagnosis, and my conclusion, is that the only way out of this now is reform,” Sir Keir said.

“I think only a Labour government can reform the NHS and therefore we will use his diagnosis as the platform for the reform that we now need to carry out in relation to the NHS.”

He added: “Everybody watching this who has used the NHS, or whose relatives have, knows that it’s broken.”

Lord Darzi’s report will be published on Thursday. It found that improvements in the cardiovascular disease mortality rate for people aged under 75 stalled in 2010 and started rising again during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In its submission to the investigation, the British Heart Foundation said: “We are extremely concerned that the significant progress made on heart disease and circulatory diseases (CVD) in the last 50 years is beginning to reverse.

“The number of people dying before the age of 75 in England from CVD has risen to the highest level in 14 years.”

Deaths from heart disease have gradually fallen over the last 50 years to a low of 71 per 100,000 people in 2019, according to the British Heart Foundation. The premature mortality rate has risen since then to 79 per 100,000.

Lord Darzi’s investigation also found that there are wide variations in the standard of care patients receive from the NHS depending on where they live.

It will say: “The time for the highest risk heart attack patients to have a rapid intervention to unblock an artery has risen by 28 per cent from an average of 114 minutes in 2013-14 to 146 minutes in 2022-23.

“Patients in Surrey are likely to receive the procedure in less than 90 minutes, while those in Bedford, Luton, and Milton Keynes must wait around four hours” despite them being just 50 miles apart.”

It will also warn of widespread variations in stroke care.

A Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “It’s alarming that the progress made on heart disease and stroke is now in decline. It points to a failure to help people stay healthy, and a failure of the NHS to be there for us when we need it.

“This government is acting to cut waiting times and reform the NHS, so it catches illness earlier, which is better for patients and less expensive for our health service.”

The report will also point to evidence that where bold action has been taken, health has improved. It will say this is notably the case for smoking.

Labour brought in a ban on smoking in public places in 2007 and the Government is currently proposing to phase out legal sales of cigarettes by age.

Lord Darzi’s review was commissioned by Mr Streeting to uncover the full extent of the challenges facing the NHS to provide a full and frank assessment of the issues it has inherited.

The Government said the findings will help provide the basis for a 10-year plan for the NHS and build a health service that is fit for the future.

However, there were warnings on Sunday that Labour’s pledge to deliver 40,000 extra weekly NHS appointments to reduce waiting times will not be enough to meet targets.

In its general election manifesto, the party set a target of having 92 per cent of patients begin routine hospital treatment within 18 weeks of referral by the end of this parliament.

This would be achieved by having neighbouring hospitals share waiting lists, supplying additional capacity from the independent sector, and incentivising NHS staff to work extra evenings and weekends.

But a new report by the NHS Confederation and healthcare consultancy Carnall Farrar has found the number of appointments promised – equivalent to two million a year – would only meet 15 per cent of the target if care continues to be delivered in the same way.

The NHS would, in fact, need to provide 33.6 million outpatient appointments by 2028/29 to bring waiting lists back to meeting the 18-week level, according to the report.

Victoria Atkins, the shadow health secretary said she was concerned that the Government would use the findings of the report to justify tax rises.

She said: “This report should be about what the state of the NHS is and providing solutions and what worries me is that Labour is using this report as cover for the tax rises they plan to raise on us all at the Budget in October.”

Lord Darzi is a pioneering surgeon who won the nickname “Robo Doc” for spearheading the use of keyhole surgery and robotics in operating theatres. Under the last Labour government, he recommended the rollout of polyclinics – major sites bringing together GPs with a wider range of services from 8am until 8pm.

The peer has also said that hospitals should provide far more care seven days a week, noting: “British Airways does not leave its planes on the tarmac over the weekend.”

Currently, half of NHS hospitals close their operating theatres at weekends, with the number of elective operations, such as hip replacements, falling by 80 per cent on Saturdays and Sundays.

Taylor Swift has delivered a public show of support for Brittany Mahomes, an American football star’s wife who has been under fire for backing Donald Trump.

The 34-year-old pop singer, who endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, embraced Mrs Mahomes in the VIP seats as the pair watched the US Open men’s tennis final in New York on Sunday.

Swift – who has stayed silent about who she will be backing in November – was with her boyfriend Travis Kelce, whose Kansas City Chiefs team-mate, quarterback Patrick Mahomes, accompanied his wife at Flushing Meadows.

One of America’s most high profile NFL spouses, Ms Mahomes has been criticised on social media in recent weeks over her perceived support for Trump, the former president.

The swimsuit model, 29, first indicated her views when she liked a Trump Instagram post outlining the 2024 Republican platform on Aug 13.

Responding to criticism, she said: “I mean honestly, to be a hater as an adult you have to have some deep-rooted issues you refuse to heal from childhood. There’s no reason your brain is fully developed and you hate to see others doing well.”

On Aug 26, she wrote: “Contrary to the tone of the world today… you can disagree with someone, and still love them. You can have differing views, and still be kind.”

Trump subsequently wrote on Truth Social: “I want to thank beautiful Brittany Mahomes for so strongly defending me. It is nice to see someone who loves our country, and wants to save it from doom. What a great couple – see you both at the Super Bowl!”

Mrs Mahomes and Swift have regularly been pictured together at Chiefs games since the musician started dating Kelce last September.

On social media, some users criticised her embrace of Mrs Mahomes given the outcry over her political views.

One wrote: “I don’t expect a billionaire to lead the revolution or anything, I’m just confused as to why one would make a movie about standing up for what’s right at any cost only to literally never stand for anything again.”

Another wrote: “Taylor girl that’s not very Miss Americana of you, like how can you stand to be around someone like that.”

The number of spare prison places in male jails fell to 300 on Monday, near the lowest on record.

The surge in the number of inmates to a record high of 88,521 in England and Wales has meant the prison system is close to running out of spaces.

It would mean that without the early release of 1,750 prisoners on Tuesday, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) would likely have had to trigger additional emergency measures.

The 1,750 offenders – including some convicted of violence and some domestic abusers – are due to be freed 40 per cent of the way through their sentences rather than halfway.

The MoJ has already activated Operation Early Dawn, under which defendants are kept in police cells until prison spaces become available.

However, a slump in spaces to around 300 in male jails would be likely to require the activation of Operation Brinker, a contingency plan that has never before been used.

Under Operation Brinker, police forces would be required to hold suspects in their cells for longer than under Operation Early Dawn – potentially overnight and even beyond 24 hours – before they can be sent to court.

It is only triggered when the prison service is so close to running out of places that officials do not believe there are sufficient spaces to take all those being held in police custody.

It would mean operating a “one-in, one-out system”, where the prison service would say it only had a set number of places each day. Suspects would have to be driven around the country in secure vans to find a free cell, with officials monitoring national data on capacity to ensure every space was being used.

Police have expressed fears that if Operation Brinker is introduced it could limit their ability to arrest suspects as they contend with police cells backed up with people who should be in prison.

‘Would have completely run out of places’

Downing Street defended the early release scheme, saying it was needed to avoid “unchecked criminality”, where the police and courts were unable to lock anyone up.

“As the Prime Minister said this weekend, no prime minister should be in a position where there are not enough prison places,” a No 10 spokesman said. “That is why we took the immediate decision that we did. 

“And without doing so, prisons would have completely run out of places, and we faced unchecked criminality on our streets with police unable to make arrests.

“This is another difficult, tough, but necessary action that we’ve taken. The approach that the Government’s taken is to ensure that we have safeguards in place so that we can protect the public.

“And we also recognise how incredibly difficult this will be for victims, and most importantly, under the release plans – which must be in place for every prisoner leaving – victims will be told ahead of time. That is important.”

Criminals convicted of sexual or terrorist offences or sentenced to more than four years in jail for violence are excluded from the scheme. Offences of domestic abuse are also excluded, but not those who assaulted their partners and were not convicted of abuse.

Strictly Come Dancing’s Kristina Rihanoff and her fiancé, Ben Cohen, are in so much debt that they are “fighting not to lose everything” including their relationship, a court heard.

Mr Cohen, a former England rugby player, made the admission while appearing in court alongside the Russian dancer after she drove her £30,000 Audi Q3 without insurance in Horsemarket, Northampton, in April.

Rihanoff, who appeared in court under the name Kristina Pchenitchnykh, was convicted of the driving offence and unsuccessfully appealed on Friday, with Mr Cohen appearing as her witness.

Mr Cohen told Northampton Crown Court that the pair set up several businesses including a yoga studio which had suffered as a result of the Covid pandemic.

“I get up every day and I fight not to lose everything – to lose my cars and my house and my relationship. I’m so overdrawn,” he said.

When questioned about the strains on his and Rihanoff’s relationship, he said: “We’re still living together. We’re in it financially. We’re in business together so the problem is that we opened the business before Covid and we got the worst severities of it and in all honestly this is just another problem for me to deal with.

“I’ve got credit cards that are overdrawn. I’m overdrawn in both accounts. We have got a business debt because of Covid. It’s just another problem.”

One of the original “Strictly Curse” couples, the pair were partners on the 11th series of the BBC dancing show in 2013. Mr Cohen separated from Abbie Blayney Cohen, his then wife, a year later and the couple were divorced in 2016.

Revealing their engagement to Hello! magazine in 2022, Rihanoff said: “It was the biggest surprise of my life. Although we’d talked before about getting married one day, I hadn’t the slightest idea that Ben was planning this. I was overcome with emotion and said: ‘Yes, yes and yes’ straight away.”

The show has a long and troubled history of leading to relationship trouble among its contestants.

The first series of Strictly in 2004 was dogged by claims of an affair between newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky and Brendan Cole, her dance partner.

Kaplinksy has always insisted there was nothing between her and Cole but the gossip culminated in the collapse of both her 12-year relationship and Cole’s relationship with fellow dancer and fiancée Camilla Dallerup.

Rachel Riley split from her husband shortly after taking part in the 2013 series, during which she was partnered with dancer Pasha Kovalev. Although she claimed at the time that they were not involved, Riley and Kovalev later revealed, in 2014, that they were in a relationship.

Rihanoff sobbed throughout the hearing and had to leave the courtroom. Upon her return, she was wrapped in a white blanket holding a tissue to her eyes.

She was spared a driving ban, despite totting up 12 penalty points, due to “exceptional hardship”, the court heard.

Northampton Crown Court was told that the ex-Strictly professional needed a car to judge ballroom competitions around the country, and to take her two daughters to school. The court also heard she regularly took her stepdaughter to hospital to be treated for a heart condition.

Mr Cohen confirmed that he had been solely responsible for sourcing insurance for the couple’s cars.

The court was told that Mr Cohen had been searching for cheaper insurance online at the end of February after being quoted £7,500 by Aviva. He said he had taken out a policy with Dial Direct on Feb 22, paying monthly by direct debit.

In March he was abroad when he received a text message telling him Dial Direct was going to cancel his insurance unless he sent his no claims details.

He said he did not have a no claims bonus so he did not send any details to the company, so the policy was cancelled on March 7.

On April 14, Rihanoff was stopped driving uninsured in Northampton town centre. The court heard that when police officers phoned Mr Cohen, he immediately tried to take out another policy with the same company.

When asked if he knew, on April 14, that the policy had been cancelled, he replied: “I 100 per cent did not know that policy would be cancelled because the no claims information they’d been asking for wasn’t relevant to me.”

He added: “I didn’t know until I got that call from Kristina then I was (saying) ‘what are you on about?’”

Mr Cohen also said he had not told Rihanoff about the cancellation of the insurance. He also admitted he had not asked Rihanoff about the dates of her previous speeding offences before taking out the policy.

Recorder Louise Cox rejected her appeal, but told Rihanoff she had “every sympathy” with her.

She said: “We find you had an honest belief you were insured but don’t accept that belief was reasonable grounds to account for your lack of insurance.”

The judge said that Rihanoff should have made sure she was insured before driving.

Rihanoff, of Sywell, Northamptonshire, was ordered to pay £357 in appeal costs.

The new series of Strictly begins this Saturday amid a string of scandals over alleged bullying and abuse.

Hobby horse enthusiasts have shown off their passion for the pastime at the first-ever national championships.

Participants in the UK Hobby Horse Championship had to race around an indoor equestrian facility in Buckinghamshire with a toy horse between their legs on Sunday.

Those involved trotted, galloped and cantered on tminiature mounts and leaped over jumps during the contest at Bury Farm Equestrian Centre in Slapton, Buckinghamshire.

Some even dressed as smartly as horse riders would for equestrian competitions.

The UK Hobby Horse Association, which organised the competition, said competitors and guests were able to “witness the magic of hobby horsing, connect with fellow enthusiasts and get inspired by the dazzling displays of creativity and agility”.

James Earl Jones, the American actor, has died at the age of 93, his agent has said.

Jones, who is best known for being the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars, died early on Monday morning surrounded by his family, CBS News reported.

During his lengthy career, he appeared in dozens of films including Field of Dreams, Coming To America and Conan the Barbarian. He was also the voice of Mufasa in The Lion King.

His long list of awards included Tonys for “The Great White Hope” in 1969 and “Fences” in 1987 on Broadway and Emmys in 1991 for “Gabriel’s Fire” and “Heat Wave” on television. He also won a Grammy for best spoken word album, “Great American Documents” in 1977.

Although he never won a competitive Academy award, he was nominated for best actor for the film version of “The Great White Hope” and was given an honorary Oscar in 2011.

He began his movie career playing Lieutenant Luther Zogg in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” in 1964.

Later acclaimed movie roles included novelist Terence Mann in 1989’s “Field of Dreams” and South African Reverend Stephen Kumalo in 1995’s “Cry, the Beloved Country.”

He also starred in “Conan the Barbarian,” “Coming to America,” “The Sandlot,” “Matewan,” “The Hunt for Red October” and “Field of Dreams,” among others.

Jones also was heard in dozens of television commercials and for several years CNN used his authoritative “This is CNN” to introduce its newscasts.

Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, posted “RIP Dad” with a broken heart emoji on X, as he shared a news report of James Earl Jones’ death.

The Wire star Wendell Pierce hailed him as the “living embodiment of artistry, integrity, creativity, and dignity”.

He wrote on X: “James Earl Jones is the sole reason I became an actor. He stirred a vocation in me that gave voice to my unsung heart songs.

“By example, he led me on the exploration of my own personal humanity and the study of human behavior in others and the intangible, ever-present soul.

“He was a once in a generation talent that has left an enormous legacy in American culture.”

In his tribute on X, Star Trek star George Takei said: “A great spirit and boundless, unique voice has left us.

“James Earl Jones has passed, and he is returned to the great beyond.

“We are all the lesser for his loss, and we collectively mourn his passing and honor his great body of work.”

Germany’s government has announced plans to impose tighter controls at all of the country’s land borders in what it called an attempt to tackle illegal immigration.

The controls within what is normally a wide area of free movement – the European Schengen zone – will start on September 16 and initially last for six months, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Monday.

The government has also designed a scheme enabling authorities to reject more migrants directly at German borders, the minister added.

The restrictions are part of a series of measures Germany has taken to toughen its stance on irregular migration in recent years following a surge in arrivals, in particular from the Middle East.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government is seeking to seize back the initiative from the opposition far-Right and conservatives, who have seen support rise as they tap into voter worries about stretched public services, integration and security.

“We are strengthening internal security and continuing our hard line against irregular migration,” Ms Faeser said, noting the government had notified the European Commission and neighbouring countries of the intended controls.

Recent deadly knife attacks in which the suspects were asylum seekers have stoked concerns over immigration.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a knife attack in the western city of Solingen that killed three people last month.

The AfD earlier this month became the first far-Right party since the Second World War to win a state election, in Thuringia, after campaigning heavily on the issue of migration.

Polls show it is also voters’ top concern in the state of Brandenburg, which is set to hold elections in two weeks.

Mr Scholz and Ms Faeser’s centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD) are fighting to retain control of the government there, in a vote billed as a test of strength of the SPD ahead of next year’s federal election.

“The intention of the government seems to be to show symbolically to Germans and potential migrants that the latter are no longer wanted here,” said Marcus Engler at the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research.

A backlash had been building in Germany ever since it took in more than a million people mostly fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria during the 2015-2016 migrant crisis, migration experts say.

It reached a tipping point in the country of 84 million people after it automatically granted asylum to around a million Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s 2022 invasion, even as Germany was struggling through an energy and economic crisis.

Since then, the German government has agreed to tighter deportation rules and resumed flying convicted criminals of Afghan nationality to their home country, despite suspending deportations after the Taliban took power in 2021 because of human rights concerns.

Berlin last year also announced stricter controls on its land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.

Those, and controls on the border with Austria, had allowed it to return 30,000 migrants since October 2023, it said on Monday.

Ms Faeser said a new model would enable the government to turn back many more – but it could not talk about the model before confidential negotiations with the conservatives.

The controls could test European unity if they lead to German authorities requesting other countries to take back substantial numbers of asylum seekers and migrants.

Under EU rules, countries in the Schengen area, which encompasses all of the bloc bar Cyprus and Ireland, are only allowed to introduce border checks as a last resort to avert threats to internal security or public policy.

Germany shares its more than 3,700-km-long (2,300 miles) land border with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland.

Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told Bild newspaper on Monday that his country would not take in any migrants turned away by Germany at the border.

“There’s no room for manoeuvre there,” he said.

The measures may not immediately result in many more migrants being turned away at the border, but they could result in more returns to other European countries down the line, as well as acting as a deterrent, said Susan Fratzke at the Migration Policy Institute.

The number of asylum applications in Germany already fell 21.7pc in the first eight months of the year, according to government statistics.

A flying instructor is suing the Ministry of Defence for race discrimination over a Royal Air Force recruitment policy that gave priority to female and ethnic minority recruits over white men.

Matthew Coverley had two applications to join the RAF rejected for what he claims were “disingenuous” reasons, an employment tribunal was told.

The experienced military pilot initially thought the decision to reject him was “strange” but started to suspect he had been discriminated against when news broke of the force’s controversial recruitment policy.

The tribunal heard that in August 2022, the RAF’s head of recruitment, Group Captain Lizzy Nicholl, resigned “in protest at a recruitment policy to give priority to female and ethnic minority recruits over white men”.

It was heard she complained of “bullying” by those who tried to make her implement it.

As a result, Mr Coverley launched his tribunal against the MoD and has now been given the green light by a judge to proceed with claims of race discrimination at a full hearing.

A preliminary hearing in Watford heard he served in the British Army from 1996 until 2018, achieved the rank of Warrant Officer and became a flying instructor graduate of the Central Flying School.

Between 2014 to 2018, Mr Coverley served with the RAF as attached personnel, holding the position of Lead Army Pilot.

In 2017, it was heard he “expressed an interest” in joining the RAF, but also applied for a civilian job as a backup, for when his Army service came to an end.

He was successful with the latter and joined Ascent Flight Training, which is a company that provides military training to the RAF through civilian instructors.

‘Positive conversations’

In 2020, he then applied to join the RAF.

Mr Coverley said he had had “positive conversations about his application”, with documents seen at the hearing suggesting he had been placed in a pool of potential recruits as of July 2020.

However, in November 2020, he was “removed” and had his application rejected on the grounds that he needed “phase one training” because he was not a commissioned officer pilot.

Mr Coverley said he “never heard anything more about his application” after the initially promising conversation – not even that it had been closed.

He claims the reason for closing his application was “disingenuous” because he did not need phase one training.

In July 2022, he applied to join the RAF again, but received an email two weeks later rejecting him, which said that “aircrew were not being recruited”.

Mr Coverley told the hearing he found this a “strange response” but had to accept it – before he later found out the RAF had not stopped recruiting aircrew.

Discrimination denied

The tribunal heard that following the resignation of Group Captain Nicholl an internal investigation took place in October 2022 to find out whether there had been “positive acts of discrimination” since 2020.

In February last year, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston appeared in front of the parliamentary defence select committee, where he denied any discrimination had taken place.

The hearing was told a damning internal report by the RAF was published in June 2023, which included the following: “The Defence Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2018-2030 set the goal of increasing representation of underrepresented groups at all levels.”

The report also referred to “specific targets” having been set in terms of percentages of recruitment of women and ethnic minorities.

After its publication, Mr Coverley began to research the matter himself, the tribunal heard.

Full hearing

In July 2023, he filed a “service complaint” with the armed forces internal system.

However, he was told its complaint process “only applied to serving or former personnel in respect of complaints that arose within their service period”.

Mr Coverley therefore decided there was “no point” pursuing his complaint and instead started legal proceedings against the MoD.

Considering whether his claims could proceed, Employment Judge Samantha Moore ruled Mr Coverley had not known about the possible discrimination until June 2023 and allowed his claims to proceed.

She added: “I find it is just and equitable to extend time in respect of [Mr Coverley’s] complaints relating to both his 2020 and his 2022 applications, which means the tribunal does have jurisdiction to hear them and they will now proceed to a full hearing.”

The full hearing will take place at a later date.

A government minister has failed to rule out means testing free bus passes for pensioners.

Lord Hendy, the rail minister, was asked on Monday to promise the benefit would not be restricted to the poorest pensioners.

He played down the likelihood of a change but said given the state of the public finances he could not offer a “concrete commitment for all time”.

The comments are likely to fuel speculation that the Government could at some point decide that not all pensioners should get free bus passes.

It comes as Sir Keir Starmer faces a backlash over the decision to end winter fuel payments for all, with only those on pension credit to receive the payments of up to £300.

The policy will be put to a vote of the House of Commons on Tuesday. Dozens of Labour MPs are expected to abstain while a smaller number could vote against.

Older people in Britain are offered discounted bus fares when they reach a certain age. The amount of financial support they receive varies in different parts of the county.

In London, the Freedom Pass allows someone aged 66 to travel without charge on the bus, Underground and Overground. In other parts of the UK, anyone over 60 can get free bus travel.

‘Cavalier’ attitude to pensioners

Lord Moylan, the Conservative peer, said the Government had shown a “cavalier” attitude to pensioners during questions in the House of Lords on Monday.

He asked: “The minister is right to emphasise the importance of bus services. I would say particularly for the elderly. I speak as somebody who has reached pension age myself.

“In that light, and given the Government’s should we say cavalier attitude to pensioners that we’ve seen on display, can he give an unshakable commitment that the Government is going to maintain the national bus pass and also the statutory Freedom Pass scheme in London?

“Or is there the possibility that they too could find themselves subject to means testing?”

Lord Hendy, who was made a transport minister in July, responded: “I share the noble Lord’s enthusiasm for the Freedom Pass scheme at my age.

“He’s attempting to put me in the invidious position of a concrete commitment for all time.

“The Freedom Pass and the national scheme for free travel for pensioners has lasted a very long time and I think we would all hope that it continues into the future.

“The Government is not in a good position with the state of the public finances that it’s been left with.

“But we will bear his enthusiasm and the enthusiasm of many other people for free travel for elderly people on buses in mind as we move forward with our commitments for the bus service.

‘Picking their pockets’

Helen Whateley, the shadow transport secretary, said: “Not content with cutting pensioners’ winter fuel payments, Labour have now thrown doubt on the status of their bus passes too.

“It’s clear Labour think cost of living pressures don’t apply to older people. But pensioners with fixed incomes can be hardest hit when costs go up or help is taken away.

“With the Budget still to come, I fear Labour are just getting going on picking pensioners’ pockets.”

This is the moment a former policeman drove his car into a funeral directors office in an attempt to kill his ex-girlfriend and her mother.

William McBurnie, 57, was nearly three times the legal limit when he deliberately mounted the pavement and smashed through the glass window in the Borders town of Jedburgh.

Zoe Turnbull, 46, and her mother Beverley, 71, survived after pinning themselves against the walls as the silver Suzuki crashed into the building.

On Monday McBurnie, from Northern Ireland, pleaded guilty to attempted murder at the High Court in Livingston.

The court heard how McBurnie had struggled to come to terms with the end of his two-year relationship in June 2022 and had been drinking heavily for four months.

On the morning of the crash in December 2022, the former officer and police driving instructor had been drinking whisky since 6am while watching Peaky Blinders.

Ms Turnbull spotted McBurnie’s car speeding straight towards the glass-fronted office and shouted to her mother: “He’s coming! He’s coming! He’s coming through the window!”

McBurnie then got out of the car with a wrist injury and said: “Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Judge Lord Mulholland told McBurnie to expect a lengthy sentence for the “cowardly, selfish and at the very least wickedly reckless” act.

The court heard that Ms Turnbull had suffered a bruised leg and been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and tinnitus.

Her mother had two heart attacks after leaving the building.

Before the incident, McBurnie is said to have bombarded Ms Turnbull with unwanted phone calls and repeatedly turned up at her office.

Ms Turnbull said in a statement: “I’m glad his true self can now be revealed as a result of this conviction – I’m now determined to stay strong and take back control of my life.”

Gareth Jones, defending, said McBurnie had expressed “genuine remorse” for his actions which he acknowledged had been “entirely reckless”.

Kemi Badenoch is facing a battle to avoid dropping to third place in the Tory leadership race as MPs prepare to eliminate another of the contenders on Tuesday.

The shadow housing secretary came second in the first round of voting last week, just one vote ahead of James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary.

Her supporters now fear she could be overtaken by Mr Cleverly because of “vote lending” by other candidates to manipulate the result.

Momentum is important in any leadership race, meaning Mrs Badenoch is keen to avoid going backwards in the pecking order, but her supporters are confident she will be able to use the party conference later this month to reset her campaign and show how much support she has among members.

Mrs Badenoch regularly tops polls of Conservative Party members when they are asked who they want to succeed Rishi Sunak.

Several of the original six candidates – who will be reduced to four in the next vote – have accused rival camps of what one described as “playing games” by trying to sabotage the chances of others who pose the greatest threat.

Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, topped the first poll of Tory MPs last week with 28 votes, six clear of Mrs Badenoch. She was one vote ahead of Mr Cleverly, followed by shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat in fourth place, shadow work and pensions secretary Mel Stride in fifth, and former home secretary Dame Priti Patel, who was eliminated in last place.

Sources close to Dame Priti believe Mr Cleverly will pick up about half of her votes, while Mr Tugendhat says more than one of Dame Priti’s supporters have already switched to him, suggesting Mr Cleverly will have enough votes to overtake Mrs Badenoch.

Dame Priti’s team are convinced that some MPs were hoodwinked into backing candidates who were supposedly struggling – in order to keep them in the race – without realising it would mean Right-wing candidate Dame Priti would be knocked out.

Mr Tugendhat, who did worse than expected, told The Telegraph last week that some MPs had been “played” and now felt bitter about it.

Mrs Badenoch was the early favourite with bookies to become the next Conservative leader, and while Mr Jenrick’s victory in the first round came as a surprise to many, some rival camps calculated that he had well over 30 supporters, not just 28, meaning that several of his votes were “loaned” to other candidates, something Mr Jenrick’s team denies.

Head-to-head polling

Mr Cleverly has former home secretary and “master of the spreadsheet” Grant Shapps working for him.

Such is the level of suspicion among Conservative MPs that supporters of Mr Jenrick and Mrs Badenoch both think Michael Gove is working for the other camp, even though friends of Mr Gove – who is no longer an MP – insist he is not involved at all.

The party could face a revolt from its members if they are denied the chance to choose between the candidates they most favour when MPs whittle the field down to two in October and give the final choice to the membership.

One Conservative MP said: “If Kemi knocks their socks off at conference it makes it very difficult for the MPs not to put her into the final two.”

Polling by the Conservative Home website suggests that Mrs Badenoch will win the contest if she makes it into the final two, as she wins in head-to-head polling against every other candidate.

Moderates’ support

The back markers in the contest spent Monday scrambling for votes before and after an internal hustings event.

Mr Tugendhat’s team are concerned that he could end up being eliminated, despite coming fourth in the first round of voting, as moderates gravitate towards Mr Cleverly.

Mr Cleverly also received a boost with the publication of a new poll by Savanta that showed he is the most popular choice among the general public out of the five remaining candidates.

Mr Cleverly was rated as the preferred choice for prime minister by 23 per cent of respondents, but in a head-to-head with Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader won comfortably with 47 per cent.

Sir Keir also beat all the other Tory leadership contenders in head-to-head polling.

Accusations about vote lending and stitch-ups are fuelled in part by the belief that any contender with a genuine chance of getting to the last two wants to make sure they are not up against Mrs Badenoch in the head-to-head.

Mrs Badnoch has about a third of the shadow cabinet publicly backing her, and has also earned the backing of Andrew Snowden, who originally backed Dame Priti.

Patients with illnesses other than coronavirus felt as if they were left to die or developed “intolerable” life limiting side-effects during the pandemic, the Covid Inquiry has heard.

In evidence uncovered by the inquiry as part of its listening exercise, those with other conditions said they felt forgotten while some health workers admitted cancer patients had been neglected.

The inquiry has spoken to thousands of people about their experiences during the pandemic and published its first report of its Every Story Matters exercise as evidence began into its third investigation on healthcare systems.

In one piece of testimony featured in the report, a doctor complained how cancer patients had been neglected during lockdown.

“In the lockdown, people were still poorly. Someone was diagnosed with cancer and couldn’t get an appointment,” the doctor said.

“Don’t neglect people with other treatment needs. The chemo treatment was cancelled, the cancer progressed, and they died,” they added.

The inquiry quoted a patient who felt the “government wanted me to die” amid delays to their operation.

“As my operation was delayed by eight weeks, I spent that time in hospital, unable to have family visits as we were in lockdown; and pinned to my hospital ward as we weren’t allowed to circulate round the hospital due to Covid-19 procedures,” the patient said. “I felt many times that this government wanted me to die rather than look out for me.”

Another told how their grandmother’s dementia was not treated properly after she went to the GP unaccompanied and could not remember what she was told.

Her grand-daughter said that when she rang the surgery to find out more “I was declined on the basis of patient confidentiality and could not get any information.”

“My grandmother will now never regain any of that memory and mental capacity she lost,” she said.

“This could have been delayed if action was taken at the initial GP appointment.

“Although I understand the risks and precautions that were needed during lockdown, I feel like this was a major flaw and has cost my grandmother and our family a lot of health and relationship damage.”

Another hospital patient said they were told that “due to staff shortages, they were saying, you know, ‘we can’t operate until it’s life or death’ really” while another said they had “no hope of making a full recovery any more” and were suffering “intolerable side-effects”.

“I still wait for the postponed operation that I was going to be having in the spring of 2020,” they said.

The report also included testimony of do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (DNACPR) notices and end-of-life care including families who had been unaware an order had been put in place.

‘They were throwing away old people’

One carer of a Covid patient said the use of the notices felt like “they were throwing away old people”.

“We didn’t know he had a DNR…and my mum had power of attorney…The only reason we know is because when he was discharged, it was in his pack.

“But the fact that we weren’t involved in the decision and knowing that dad’s got Alzheimer’s. It kind of felt like they were throwing away old people. It was like they’re not a priority because they’re old.”

Frustrations over the failures were echoed during yesterday’s evidence session, where Jacqueline Carey KC, counsel to the inquiry, said that it would examine the use of do-not-resuscitate orders.

She also touched on the “immense pain and harm” felt by families unable to say goodbye to loved ones during the crisis, adding: “You may feel that the UK may need to act differently if there were to be a future pandemic, you may think it cannot be beyond the capabilities of our society to provide dignity in death, to facilitate visits at the end of life, and these may be matters that you’ll wish to consider, both in this and indeed in future modules.”

Ms Carey told Baroness Hallett, the inquiry chairman, that she would hear how the pandemic harmed the care of non-Covid patients.

This included a decline in people being admitted to hospital for heart attacks during the pandemic; delays in hip replacement surgeries; a reduction in bowel cancer diagnoses; the impact on in-patient mental health care for children and young people and maternity care.

“My lady will now see that however necessary it was to tell the public to ‘stay at home protect the NHS’, there was an undoubted impact on people who needed care for non-Covid conditions in a way that may not necessarily have been intended,” Ms Carey said.

“Indeed, there is evidence that irrespective of the condition, there was a reluctance by many to not attend hospital.”

She said that experts had told the inquiry that during the next pandemic the government should be to keep cancer treatment open and consider creating “ring-fenced” elective surgery hubs.

Other submissions yesterday included those of Adam Wagner, representing pregnancy, baby and parent organisations, who said parents were forced to make “unbearable choices”.

Mr Wagner said that in one incident a woman had to call her partner after emergency surgery to say that both their babies had died but with no signal had to make a decision about what to do with the embryos’ remains alone.

He said that failures had left many pregnant women “traumatised” and others had died in “potentially avoidable circumstances” after “inadequate” care.

The inquiry continues on Tuesday.