Britain and the US have raised fears that Russia has shared nuclear secrets with Iran in return for Tehran supplying Moscow with ballistic missiles to bomb Ukraine.

During their summit in Washington DC on Friday, Keir Starmer and US president Joe Biden acknowledged that the two countries were tightening military cooperation at a time when Iran is in the process of enriching enough uranium to complete its long-held goal to build a nuclear bomb.

British sources indicated that concerns were aired about Iran’s trade for nuclear technology, part of a deepening alliance between Tehran and Moscow.

On Tuesday last week, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, made a similar warning on a visit to London for a summit with his British counterpart, David Lammy, though it received little attention, as the focus then was the US announcement of Iran’s missile supply to Moscow.

“For its part, Russia is sharing technology that Iran seeks – this is a two-way street – including on nuclear issues as well as some space information,” Blinken said, accusing the two countries of engaging in destabilising activities that sow “even greater insecurity” around the world.

Britain, France and Germany jointly warned last week that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium had “continued to grow significantly, without any credible civilian justification” and that it had accumulated four “significant quantities” that each could be used to make a nuclear bomb.

But it is not clear how much technical knowhow Tehran has to build a nuclear weapon at this stage, or how quickly it could do so. Working with experienced Russian specialists or using Russian knowledge would help speed up the manufacturing process, however – though Iran denies that it is trying to make a nuclear bomb.

Iran had struck a deal in 2015 to halt making nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief with the US and other western nations – only for the agreement to be abandoned in 2018 by then US president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Iran responded by breaching agreed limits on the quantity of enriched uranium it could hold.

Western concern that Iran is close to being able to make a nuclear weapon has been circulating for months, contributing to tensions in the Middle East, already at a high pitch because of Israel’s continuing assault on Hamas and Gaza.

Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, are supporters of Hamas – and Tehran’s nuclear development is therefore viewed as a direct threat by Jerusalem.

Soon after Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Iran began supplying Shahed delta winged drones to Moscow and helped Russia build a factory to make more to bomb targets across Ukraine. In April this year, Iran launched a Russian-style missile and drone attack aimed at Israel, though it was essentially prevented and stopped with the help of the US and UK.

Russia and Iran, though not historically allies, have become increasingly united in their opposition to the west, part of a wider “axis of upheaval” that also includes to varying degrees China and North Korea, reflecting a return to an era of state competition reminiscent of the cold war.

Last week in London, Blinken said that US intelligence had concluded that the first batch of high-speed Iranian Fath-360 ballistic missiles, with a range of up to 75 miles (120km), had been delivered to Russia.

Able to strike already bombarded frontline Ukrainian cities, the missiles prompted a dramatic reassessment in western thinking as well as fresh economic sanctions.

Starmer flew to Washington late on Thursday to hold a special foreign policy summit with Biden at the White House on Friday, beginning with a short one on one in the outgoing president’s Oval Office followed by a 70-minute-long meeting with both sides’ top foreign policy teams in the residence’s Blue Room.

The leaders and their aides discussed the war in Ukraine, the crisis in the Middle East, Iran and the emerging competition with China.

Starmer brought along with him Lammy, Downing Street’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, and the UK’s national security adviser, Tim Barrow, , while Biden was accompanied by Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, among others.

Prior to the meeting, UK sources indicated that the two countries had agreed in principle to allow Ukraine to fire long-range Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles into Russia for the first time. But Biden appeared to suggest the topic was one of the reasons for the face-to-face, saying to reporters: “We’re going to discuss that now,” as the meeting began.

There was no update after the meeting, partly to keep the Kremlin guessing. Any use of the missiles is expected to be part of a wider war plan on the part of Ukraine aimed at using them to target airbases, missile launch sites and other locations used by Russia to bomb Ukraine.

Britain needs the White House’s permission to allow Ukraine to use the missiles in Russia because they use components manufactured in the US.

Protocol dictated that Biden and Starmer – the only two present without printed-out name cards – did most of the talking, while the other politicians and officials present only spoke when introduced by the president or the prime minister.

Lammy was asked by Starmer to update those present on his and Blinken’s trip to Kyiv on Thursday to meet Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Shortly after the meeting, Starmer said the two sides had had “a wide ranging discussion about strategy”.

The US state department rejected wild allegations of CIA involvement in an alleged assassination plot against Nicolás Maduro after Venezuelan officials announced the arrest of three Americans, two Spaniards and a Czech on Saturday.

The claims of a plot against Maduro – the Venezuelan president, whose recent re-election is contested – were made on state television by Diosdado Cabello, the interior minister. Cabello said the foreign citizens including a US navy member were part of a CIA-led plot to overthrow the Venezuelan government and kill several members of its leadership. In the television programme, Cabello showed images of rifles that he said were confiscated from some of the alleged plotters.

The US state department late on Saturday confirmed the detention of a US military member and said it was aware of “unconfirmed reports of two additional US citizens detained in Venezuela”.

“Any claims of US involvement in a plot to overthrow Maduro are categorically false. The United States continues to support a democratic solution to the political crisis in Venezuela.”

The claims come two days after the US treasury imposed sanctions on 16 allies of Maduro, accused by the US government of obstructing voting during the disputed 28 July Venezuelan presidential election and carrying out human rights abuses.

During the past week, Spain’s parliament recognised the opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez as the winner of the election, angering Maduro allies who called on the Venezuelan government to suspend commercial and diplomatic relations with Spain.

Tensions between Venezuela’s government and the US have increased as well following the election, whose result sparked protests within Venezuela in which hundreds of opposition activists were arrested.

Venezuela’s electoral council, which is closely aligned with the Maduro administration, said Maduro won the election with 52% of the vote but did not provide a detailed breakdown of the results.

Opposition activists surprised the government by collecting tally sheets from 80% of voting machines. They were published online and indicate that Gonzalez won with twice as many votes as Maduro.

Despite international condemnation, Venezuela’s supreme court, which has long backed Maduro, confirmed his victory in August. Venezuela’s attorney general then filed conspiracy charges against Gonzalez, who fled to Spain last week after it became clear he would be arrested.

Maduro has dismissed requests from several countries, including the leftist governments of Colombia and Brazil, to provide tally sheets that prove he won. Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, has long claimed the US is trying to overthrow him through sanctions and covert operations.

The Maduro administration has previously used Americans imprisoned in Venezuela to gain concessions. In a 2023 deal, Maduro released 10 Americans and a fugitive wanted by the US government to secure a presidential pardon for Alex Saab, a close Maduro ally who was held in Florida on money laundering charges. According to US prosecutors, Saab had also helped Maduro to avoid US treasury sanctions through a complex network of shell companies.

With the Associated Press.

President Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris spoke on Saturday at the Congressional Black Caucus’s Phoenix Awards dinner, bringing a message that its members were in a “battle for the soul of the nation”.

Biden highlighted his relationship with the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and Black voters.

“In 2020, I ran for president to redeem the soul of America, to restore decency and dignity to the office of the president,” he said. “I ran to rebuild the backbone of America, the middle class. And I ran to unite the country and remind ourselves when we’re together there’s not a damn thing we can’t do.”

The spectre of Trump, Maga Republicans and the threat Democrats say they pose to the country loomed over Biden’s remarks, and his call to action for those CBC members gathered.

“The old ghosts in new garments [are] trying to seize your power and extremists coming for your freedom making it harder for you to vote and have your vote counted, closing doors of opportunity, attacking affirmative action,” he said. “My predecessor calls the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6 ‘patriots’, but when peaceful protesters marched for justice for George Floyd, Trump wanted to send in the military, but they wouldn’t go.”

Biden continued by pointing to the juxtaposition between his and Harris’s tenure in the White House and that of their predecessor’s. On the theme of unity, Biden once again condemned Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, who, in recent weeks, has led a rallying cry of baseless, racist accusations toward Haitian-American immigrants in Ohio.

“It’s wrong. It’s got to stop,” he said. “Any president should reject hate in America and not incite it. Folks, to win this battle for the soul of the nation, we have to preserve our democracy and speak out against lies and hate.”

Towards the end of his remarks, Biden spoke about his time in Congress, during which he served with Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to run for president.

CBC attenders were jubilant when Harris, also the Democratic candidate for president, walked on to the stage to Beyoncé’s Freedom after the president introduced her as “Kamala Harris, for the people”.

Members of Harris’s sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha gleefully greeted her with their trademarked “Skee-Wee” call.

Harris began by highlighting the importance of the caucus. For a November win, she said, the support of the CBC was necessary.

“The Congressional Black Caucus has served as the conscience of the Congress and of our nation, and as a proud former CBC member, I know first-hand America relies on the leaders in this room, not only for a conscience, but for a vision,” Harris said.

Harris said the CBC’s vision for the future was under “profound threat” and went on to point out the differences between her and Trump while also reiterating her platform, including reproductive rights, building an “opportunity economy”, healthcare and “not going back”.

“We actually have a plan for healthcare, not just ‘concepts of a plan,’” she said, referencing Trump’s comments during Tuesday night’s debate.

Towards the end of her speech, Harris returned to “joy” and hard work, two of her campaign themes.

“Now the baton is in our hands,” she said. “I truly believe that America is ready to turn the page on the politics of division and hate, and to do it, our nation is counting on the leadership in this room.”

Harris called on and thanked members of the CBC for their work registering voters and mobilising people to vote. She and Biden spoke during the 53rd Annual Legislative Conference (ALC) or, “CBC week” in Washington, during which Black political and social leaders convene on public policy. The Harris campaign has been working to increase the enthusiasm of Black voters, particularly in key battleground states.

“We know what we stand for, and that’s why we know what we fight for,” Harris said. “And when the CBC fights, we win.”

The former chief executive of the American fashion brand Abercrombie & Fitch faces new allegations this weekend of exploitation and abuse at sex events held around the world.

One witness said he attended a sex event in Spain with the former fashion boss Mike Jeffries and his British partner Matthew Smith, believing it was going to be a photoshoot, the BBC reported. Young men were injected with liquid Viagra at other events, according to witnesses.

A BBC Panorama investigation last October first revealed claims that Jeffries and Smith had exploited young men for sex in cities around the world from 2009 to 2015. A middleman involved in the events denied wrongdoing and said men went to the events “with their eyes wide open”.

A US lawsuit filed against Jeffries, Smith and Abercrombie & Fitch last year alleged “international sex trafficking and abuse of prospective models”. Legal representatives for Jeffries stated in court documents that he denied all allegations and, alongside Smith, asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit. A legal document filed on behalf of Smith was reported to state that the claim “does not detail any specific, factual occurrences” of an alleged sexual offence by him. Abercrombie & Fitch said last year it hired a legal firm to conduct an independent investigation. It said the current board of directors had not been previously aware of the allegations, and it had “zero tolerance for abuse, harassment or discrimination of any kind”.

Eight more men have now come forward to the BBC, some of whom allege they were abused or were injected with drugs. The witnesses described the activities of some of Jeffries’ assistants – a group of young men in Abercrombie uniforms who travelled with him and allegedly attended some of the sex events. Some of these assistants injected the men with liquid Viagra, according to the new testimonies.

One potential model named says he was offered the chance to appear in an advert if he flew from his home in Los Angeles to Madrid to meet Jeffries and his team. The prospective model, then aged 20, says he was guided into Jeffries’ hotel suite and was forcibly kissed by the former fashion store boss. The man said: “I tried to say no repeatedly. And then I just got kind of convinced to do something. But I constantly was saying no, and I wanted to go.” He alleged Jeffries performed oral sex on him, the BBC reported.

Jeffries, now 80, was chief executive of Abercrombie & Fitch from 1992 to 2014 and is credited with transforming it from a struggling sports chain to a multibillion-dollar lifestyle brand. At its height the fashion chain had more than 1,000 stores in the US, the UK and Canada.

Following the BBC’s initial investigation, the FBI reportedly opened an investigation into the claims. The FBI and the US attorney’s office, with the eastern district of New York, were said to be interviewing witnesses, but enforcement officials declined to comment.

Abercrombie & Fitch and a legal representative of Jeffries have been approached for comment.

Keir Starmer is alleged to have broken parliamentary rules by failing to declare donations of clothing for his wife from the Labour donor Waheed Alli.

The gifts to Victoria Starmer were not initially declared in the register of MPs’ interests, the Sunday Times reported.

Starmer approached the parliamentary authorities on Tuesday to make a late declaration after being given updated advice on what needed to be registered.

The donations reportedly covered the cost of a personal shopper, clothes and alterations for Lady Starmer before and after Labour’s election win in July.

MPs are required to register gifts and donations within 28 days.

The Tories have demanded a full investigation into the Starmers’ links with Lord Alli, who has donated £500,000 to Labour since 2020.

A No 10 spokesperson said: “We sought advice from the authorities on coming to office.

“We believed we had been compliant, however, following further interrogation this month, we have declared further items.”

The guide to the Commons rules states MPs should register “any benefit given to any third party, whether or not this accompanied a benefit for him or her, if the Member is aware, or could reasonably be expected to be aware, of the benefit and that it was given because of his or her membership of the House or parliamentary or political activities”.

Last weekend it emerged that Alli had been given a Downing Street security pass temporarily without apparently having a government role.

The row was dubbed the “passes for glasses” affair because the television mogul had previously donated tens of thousands of pounds worth of clothing, accommodation and “multiple pairs” of spectacles to the Labour leader. There is no suggestion that the peer has broken any rules.

Alli, 59, was the youngest member of the House of Lords when he was ennobled in 1998.

A Conservative party spokesperson said: “It’s taken just 10 weeks for Keir Starmer to face an investigation for his conduct.

“After facing allegations of cronyism and now apparent serious breaches of parliamentary rules there must be a full investigation into the passes for glasses scandal.

“No doubt the millions of vulnerable pensioners across the country who face choosing between heating and eating would jump at the chance for free clothes just to keep warm in the face of Labour’s cruel cut.”

Keir Starmer is alleged to have broken parliamentary rules by failing to declare donations of clothing for his wife from the Labour donor Waheed Alli.

The gifts to Victoria Starmer were not initially declared in the register of MPs’ interests, the Sunday Times reported.

Starmer approached the parliamentary authorities on Tuesday to make a late declaration after being given updated advice on what needed to be registered.

The donations reportedly covered the cost of a personal shopper, clothes and alterations for Lady Starmer before and after Labour’s election win in July.

MPs are required to register gifts and donations within 28 days.

The Tories have demanded a full investigation into the Starmers’ links with Lord Alli, who has donated £500,000 to Labour since 2020.

A No 10 spokesperson said: “We sought advice from the authorities on coming to office.

“We believed we had been compliant, however, following further interrogation this month, we have declared further items.”

The guide to the Commons rules states MPs should register “any benefit given to any third party, whether or not this accompanied a benefit for him or her, if the Member is aware, or could reasonably be expected to be aware, of the benefit and that it was given because of his or her membership of the House or parliamentary or political activities”.

Last weekend it emerged that Alli had been given a Downing Street security pass temporarily without apparently having a government role.

The row was dubbed the “passes for glasses” affair because the television mogul had previously donated tens of thousands of pounds worth of clothing, accommodation and “multiple pairs” of spectacles to the Labour leader. There is no suggestion that the peer has broken any rules.

Alli, 59, was the youngest member of the House of Lords when he was ennobled in 1998.

A Conservative party spokesperson said: “It’s taken just 10 weeks for Keir Starmer to face an investigation for his conduct.

“After facing allegations of cronyism and now apparent serious breaches of parliamentary rules there must be a full investigation into the passes for glasses scandal.

“No doubt the millions of vulnerable pensioners across the country who face choosing between heating and eating would jump at the chance for free clothes just to keep warm in the face of Labour’s cruel cut.”

Two hospitals in Springfield, Ohio, were sent into lockdown after bomb threats, police said Saturday, marking the fourth such case in as many days that appears linked to false claims circulating among the far right that Haitian immigrants there are eating domestic pets and wildlife.

Saturday’s threats came even after the woman who started the rumors acknowledged to NBC News that they were unfounded and publicly apologized.

Kettering Health Springfield was one of the medical facilities targeted, with officials later saying they found nothing suspicious during a search. Another hospital, Mercy Health’s Springfield regional medical center, received a similar threat.

A spokesperson with Mercy Health said the hospital has continued to operate and thanked Springfield police as well as hospital staff “for their swift, efficient and caring response”.

The bomb threats Saturday came after others had been called in to government buildings Thursday, forcing their closure and causing local schools to be evacuated.

“We recognize that the past few days have been particularly challenging for everyone in our community,” Springfield police said in a statement. Police added “we remain fully committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of each and every person”.

On Friday, a Springfield woman, Erika Lee, apologized for rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets that resulted from a post she wrote on Facebook claiming that the friend of a neighbor’s daughter lost her cat – and then found the animal strung up outside the home of a Haitian family.

Lee now says she had no firsthand knowledge of the claim. The neighbor referenced in the post, Kimberly Newton, revealed that she also had heard the story from an acquaintance and not her daughter.

Lee said she was filled with regret and insists she never intended to put a target on the backs of the Haitian community.

“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” Lee told NBC News on Friday.

Local authorities in Springfield had already debunked the lies even before Donald Trump made the allegation that Haitian immigrants were eating pets during the debate with Kamala Harris on Tuesday. Lee told the outlet she never imagined her social media post would become fodder for conspiracy theories and hate aimed at the Haitian community in Springfield.

“I’m not a racist,” Lee said, adding that her daughter is half-Black and she herself is mixed race as well as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. “Everybody seems to be turning it into that – and that was not my intent.”

The city of Springfield believes the rumors may also have arisen from a case in Canton, Ohio, where an American with no known connection to Haiti was arrested in August for allegedly stomping a cat to death and eating the animal.

Separately, an explanation for a viral photo of a man carrying two geese in Columbus, Ohio, has been made, although it also helped set off the now-discredited rumors about pet-eating in nearby Springfield.

The Ohio state division of wildlife told TMZ that the man had been picking up the two geese that had been hit by a car. The agency also reported that there is no evidence that the man is Haitian, an immigrant or that he intended to eat the geese.

About 15,000 Haitian immigrants began trickling into Springfield – a city of 60,000 – to work in local produce packaging and machining factories in 2017. They have been in demand at Springfield’s Dole Fresh Vegetables and at automotive machining plants whose owners grappled with a labor shortage in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A sniper killed a UN worker on the roof of his home in the northern West Bank, the UN has said, as friends and family gathered in Turkey to bury a US-Turkish activist who had been killed by the Israeli military at a protest six days earlier and around 30km away.

Sufyan Jaber Abed Jawwad, a sanitation worker with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, was the first Unrwa employee killed in the West Bank in more than a decade. Shot in the early hours of Thursday morning in el Far’a camp, he left behind a wife and five children.

The war in Gaza has overshadowed spiralling conflict in the West Bank, which has seen weeks of Israeli military operations and violence has reached “unprecedented levels, placing communities at risk,” Unrwa said.

“Civilian infrastructure, including water and electricity networks, have been destroyed, with precarious access for communities to basic supplies,” the agency said in a statement about Jawwad’s death. “Unrwa has been forced to suspend services to refugees because of the unacceptable risk to staff and beneficiaries.”

The violence was thrown into the international spotlight last week when an Israeli soldier killed 26 year-old US-Turkish activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi at a protest in Beita. She was in the town with International Solidarity Movement, a group dedicated to bringing observers trained in non-violent methods to protests.

On Saturday hundreds of people gathered for her burial in the Turkish coastal town of Didim, where her coffin was carried by an honour guard from the Turkish military. Many in the crowd carried Palestinian flags, and photos of Eygi.

Eyewitness Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli protester, said she posed no threat to troops when she was killed and that the shooting came during a moment of calm, following clashes between stone-throwing protesters and Israelis firing tear gas and bullets. The Israeli military said she was shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by one of its soldiers who were targeting violent protestors.

Her family have called for an investigation and the shooting drew criticism from US officials including president Joe Biden, who said he was “outraged and deeply saddened”.

The refugee camps of the northern West Bank, including Tulkaram, Jenin, Nur Shams and el Far’a, where Unrwa employee Jawwad was killed, have been a particular focus over weeks of Israeli military operations.

The Israeli military said Jawwad was killed by a sniper during an operation in the camp. It said he was throwing “explosive devices” at its troops from his home, without providing evidence. “It was found that the terrorist was known to Israeli security forces and he had been complicit in additional terrorist activities,” spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said in a statement.

UNWRA regularly provides lists of all staff members in Gaza and the West Bank to the Israeli government, and was not informed of any concerns about Jawwad before he was killed. Staff learned about the Israeli allegation from a statement on the social media site X.

The killing came days after Israeli airstrikes on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza killed six UNWRA staff members, bringing the total number of agency employees killed in this war to at least 220. Israel’s military said three of the dead Unrwa workers were Hamas employees, without providing evidence.

An independent review of previous Israeli claims that Unrwa staff were members of terrorist organisations found that the country was yet to provide any supporting evidence. It was led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna.

More than 100 Ukrainian prisoners of war will be able to return to their families after an exchange of captured members of the Russian and Ukrainian armed forces.

The prisoner swap on Saturday, mediated by the United Arab Emirates, involved 206 military personnel from both countries.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said that of the 103 Ukrainian “warriors” who were released, 82 were soldiers and privates and 21 were officers, including police officers and border guards.

Later, he said that his forces’ incursion into Kursk had helped bring about the prisoner exchange. In his nightly video address Zelenskiy thanked his forces for their work on the prisoner exchanges, and added: “In particular, our operation in the Kursk region gave a necessary boost.”

Photographers captured the moment that the smiling and emotional Ukrainians, wrapped in their country’s flag, embraced their fellow soldiers after being swapped at an unknown location in Ukraine.

They looked pale and thin, and all of the men released had shaved heads. One kneeled on the ground, his national flag draped around his shoulders, and stared down at his homeland as he made an emotional phone call.

In return for their freedom, Ukraine has handed over 103 Russian military personnel taken prisoner in the Kursk border region when Ukrainian forces launched a surprise incursion in August.

The Russian defence ministry said in a statement that all these Russians were now in Belarus, “where they are being provided with the necessary psychological and medical assistance, as well as an opportunity to contact their relatives”.

It is the second such swap since Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region, and occurred after mediated negotiations between the two countries.

UAE officials said that the number of captives exchanged through its mediation efforts now stood at 1,994.

On Saturday, Ukraine made a new call on the west to allow it to strike deeper into Russia, after a meeting on Friday between Joe Biden and Keir Starmer failed to produce a visible shift in British and US policies on the use of long-range weapons.

Zelenskiy has been pushing for months to use British Storm Shadow missiles, which can strike targets at least 190 miles (300km) away, to bomb airbases, missile sites and other military targets inside Russia.

So far, the US has only allowed Kyiv to use American-provided weapons to strike within a limited area inside Russia’s border with Ukraine.

“Russian terror begins at weapons depots, airfields and military bases inside the Russian Federation,” the Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak said on Saturday.

“Permission to strike deep into Russia will speed up the solution.”

On Thursday, Vladimir Putin warned western leaders that allowing Ukraine to use western-made long-range missiles would amount to Nato being at war with Russia.

At Friday’s foreign policy summit with Starmer at the White House, Biden said he did not accept that and then told reporters: “I do not think much about Vladimir Putin.”

On Saturday, a senior Nato military official said Ukraine would have a good reason to strike deeper into Russia using western weapons.

Adm Rob Bauer said the law on armed conflict gave a nation the right to defend itself and that did not stop at its border.

He said: “In military terms, you do (those attacks) because you want to weaken the enemy that attacks you in order to not only fight the arrows that come your way, but also attack the archer.

“So, militarily, there is a good reason to do that; to weaken the enemy, to weaken its logistics lines, fuel, ammunition that comes to the front.”

Two passenger trains have collided in Egypt’s Nile delta, killing at least three people, two of them children, authorities have said.

The crash happened on Saturday in the city of Zagazig, the capital of Sharqiya province, the country’s railway authority said. Egypt’s health ministry said the collision injured at least 40 others.

Train derailments and crashes are common in Egypt, where an ageing railway system has also been plagued by mismanagement. In recent years, the government announced initiatives to improve its railways.

In 2018, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said 250bn Egyptian pounds, or $8.13bn, would be needed to properly overhaul the neglected rail network.

Video from the site of the crash showed a train car crumpled by the impact, surrounded by crowds. Men tried to lift the injured through the windows of a passenger car.

Last month, a train crashed into a truck crossing the train tracks in the Mediterranean province of Alexandria, killing two people.

Thousands of mourners in Uganda paid their respects on Saturday to Rebecca Cheptegei, the Olympic athlete who died last week in Kenya after her partner set her on fire. The military funeral took place in a remote town near the Kenyan border.

Military officers played a prominent role in the funeral because Cheptegei held the rank of sergeant in Uganda’s army, said military spokesperson Brig Felix Kulayigye, adding that she deserved a “gun salute that befits her rank”.

Athletes, family members and others delivered their eulogies before thousands in a sport field in the district of Bukwo.

“As a nation, we are indeed in a black and dark moment,” said Ajilong B Modestar, the Bukwo resident district commissioner. “We condemn in the strongest terms the manner in which Rebecca died … We should not continue battering women in this manner.”

Cheptegei, who was 33, was buried at her father’s homestead.

She died after her body suffered 80% burns in the attack by Dickson Ndiema, who doused her in petrol at her home in western Kenya’s Trans-Nzoia County on 3 September. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed to his injuries.

According to a report filed by the local chief, they quarrelled over a piece of land the athlete bought in Kenya.

The horrific attack shocked many and strengthened calls for the protection of female runners facing exploitation and abuse in the east African country.

Cheptegei’s body was returned to Uganda on Friday in a sombre procession after a street march by dozens of activists in the western Kenyan town of Eldoret who demanded an end to violence against female athletes.

Cheptegei is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in a worrying pattern of gender-based violence in recent years. Kenya’s high rates of violence against women have prompted several marches this year.

Ugandan officials have condemned the attack, demanding justice for Cheptegei. First lady Janet Museveni, who also serves as Uganda’s education and sports minister, described the attack as “deeply disturbing”.

Don Rukare, chairman of the National Council of Sports of Uganda, said in a statement on X that the attack was “a cowardly and senseless act that has led to the loss of a great athlete”.

Four in 10 women, or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women, have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey.

Many Ugandan athletes train across the border in Kenya, an athletics powerhouse with better facilities. Some of the region’s best runners train together at a high-altitude centre in Kenya’s west.

Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics, finishing in 44th place, less than a month before the attack. She had also represented Uganda at other competitions.