After decades without political violence directed at a presidential candidate from one of the major parties, the US has now experienced this twice in the space of two months – with former president Donald Trump the target on both occasions.

In mid-July, he narrowly avoided being shot in the head by a gunman at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The 20-year-old attacker was shot dead by a sniper.

Two months later, on Sunday afternoon, during a round of golf, he was the apparent target of another would-be assassin, according to the FBI, with a suspect now in custody.

Investigators said a man armed with an AK-47 style rifle was waiting in the bushes while Trump played on his West Palm Beach golf course before the alleged assailant was spotted by Secret Service agents, who opened fire.

Americans have had to adjust to “new normals” in politics – large and small – on a seemingly regular basis in the past few years. The national discourse has coarsened, partisan divisions have sharpened and become more entrenched, and the standards for candidate behaviour have eroded.

Given the national epidemic of gun violence, these kind of attacks are perhaps another, inevitable new normal. But for now, it is still shocking.

“Violence has no place in America,” Vice-President Kamala Harris – who is also Trump’s Democratic opponent this election – said in a statement after the incident in Florida.

Details of the apparent assassination attempt – the identity and motivation of the assailant in particular – will ultimately determine the impact this has on American politics. But, for the moment, it seems like – the vice-president’s comments notwithstanding – this kind of violence is increasingly part of today’s America.

Donald Trump, in his first statement following the apparent attempt on his life, promised that nothing would slow him down or make him surrender.

The response fits into a campaign that has often argued the former president has become a target of persecution and attack because he speaks out for the “forgotten” Americans. His words after his first near-assassination in July – “fight, fight, fight” – became a rallying cry for his supporters.

“They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you,” Trump likes to say. “I’m just standing in the way.”

Now the former president has another dramatic example he can use to illustrate his point.

This latest incident may not pack the emotional heft as the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, however.

That attack happened at a public rally, in full view of television cameras, with the former president bloodied and defiant. One supporter was killed and two others wounded.

This time around, the incident occurred on a golf course Trump owns, with the former president more removed from immediate danger. Without graphic images to replay for days, it may affect how much of an impact this has on the public’s conscience.

At the very least, however, the apparent assassination attempt will generate new headlines that at least temporarily break from what has been a challenging past few days for the former president’s campaign.

Trump’s defensive, uneven performance during last week’s debate against Ms Harris, criticism of his association with the conspiracy-minded Laura Loomer and Sunday morning’s social media diatribe against singer Taylor Swift will be pushed to the side.

Sunday’s drama may be shocking, but with just over seven weeks remaining in this presidential campaign, there seem certain to be more twists to come.

Former President Donald Trump was rushed to safety on Sunday after what the FBI called an apparent assassination attempt at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach.

The incident comes almost exactly two months after a shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, which left Trump wounded and one supporter dead.

Details are still emerging from the latest incident and about the suspect, named by US media as Ryan Routh. Here is what we know so far.

The incident unfolded at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, about 15 minutes from Trump’s Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago.

The gunman was first seen by Secret Service agents, who were sweeping the course ahead of the former president as he played. The agents usually go one hole ahead to perform security checks, according to police.

The muzzle of a rifle – initially described as an AK-47-style rifle by County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw – was spotted sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course. At the time Trump was about 300-500 yards (272-557m) away from the gunman, he said.

An agent “immediately engaged” with the person holding the rifle, who fled, Sheriff Bradshaw said.

“The Secret Service did exactly what should have been done.”

Agents opened fire when they spotted the gunman and fired four to five rounds of ammunition.

The suspect dropped the rifle and fled in a vehicle, abandoning the weapon along with two knapsacks, a scope used for aiming a weapon and a GoPro camera, Sheriff Bradshaw said.

A witness saw the man flee from the shrubbery to a black Nissan, the sheriff said. The witness captured a photo of the car and provided it to law enforcement.

• Follow live: Latest updates and analysis on apparent assassination attempt

The suspect was apprehended by police driving northbound on the I-95 highway after crossing into Martin County, roughly 61km (38 miles) from Trump’s golf course.

Several law enforcement sources have told the BBC’s US partner, CBS News, that the suspect’s name is Ryan Wesley Routh.

Details on the suspect’s history are slowly emerging.

Speaking to US media, Mr Routh’s son, Oran, described him as a “loving and caring father”.

“I don’t know what has happened in Florida, and I hope things have just been blown out of proportion, because from the little I’ve heard it doesn’t sound like the man I know to do anything crazy, much less violent,” Oran said in a statement to CNN.

BBC Verify has found social media profiles matching that name. They indicate that Routh called for foreign fighters to go to Ukraine to battle against Russian forces.

There are also pro-Palestinian, pro-Taiwan and anti-China messages on his profile, including allegations about Chinese “biological warfare” and references to the Covid-19 virus as an “attack”.

Mr Routh, who had no military experience, told the New York Times in 2023 he had travelled to Ukraine immediately after Russia’s invasion in 2022 to find military recruits among Afghan soldiers who had fled the Taliban.

He seems to have been involved in recruitment efforts as recently as this summer, writing on Facebook in July: “Soldiers, please do not call me. We are still trying to get Ukraine to accept Afghan soldiers and hope to have some answers in the coming months… please have patience.”

Early reporting suggests Mr Routh had a criminal record. According to CBS sources, Ryan Routh was charged and convicted of numerous felony offences in Guilford County in North Carolina between 2002 and 2010.

The offences include including carrying a concealed weapon, resisting arrest by a police officer, driving with a revoked licence, possession of stolen property and hit and run with a motor vehicle.

Trump was not injured during the incident.

Shortly after the incident was confirmed by his campaign team, the Republican issued a statement to his fundraising list, which read: “There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumours start spiralling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL”.

Trump gave his account to Fox News anchor Sean Hannity, who retold the episode on air on Sunday.

“They were on the fifth hole, they were about to go up to putt,” Mr Hannity said.

The former president heard “pop pop, pop pop”, he said. “Within seconds, the Secret Service pounced on the president [and] covered him.”

He added that a steel-reinforced vehicle soon whisked Trump away to safety.

During the same news conference with the sheriff, Jeffrey Veltri from the FBI Miami Field Office said the bureau was leading investigations alongside other law enforcement agencies.

“We’ve deployed a number of resources, including investigative teams, crisis response team members, bomb technicians and evidence response team members,” Veltri said, adding that the “full resources of the FBI” alongside the US Secret Service, the Palm Beach Sheriff’s office and Martin County Sheriff’s office were mobilised.

The White House said President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, who is the Democratic presidential candidate, had been briefed about the incident and were relieved to know that he was safe.

“I am deeply disturbed by the possible assassination attempt of former President Trump today,” Harris said in a statement.

Leaders from the bipartisan congressional task force set up to investigate the 13 July assassination attempt in Pennsylvania said they were thankful the former president was not harmed, “but remain deeply concerned about political violence and condemn it in all of its forms”.

Republican congressman Mike Kelly and Democrat Jason Crow said the task force has requested a briefing with the Secret Service to understand “what happened and how security responded”.

Secret Service’s Rafael Barros told reporters on Sunday measures had been taken since the previous assassination attempt and “the threat level is high”.

The first court appearance for Mr Routh is expected on Monday, at the Palm Beach County courthouse near Mar-a-Lago.

Former President Donald Trump is safe following an apparent assassination attempt at his Florida golf course, and a “potential suspect” is in custody, US authorities have confirmed.

Secret Service agents spotted the barrel of a rifle poking through some bushes and opened fire at him, officials said. The FBI said Trump was 300-500 yards (275 to 455m) away at the time.

An AK47-style firearm and scope, along with two backpacks and a GoPro camera, were later found at the scene.

A witness reported seeing the suspect running from some bushes and jumping into a black Nissan car after the agents had fired at him multiple times.

• Follow live: Trump targeted in apparent assassination attempt at golf course, says FBI

The witness took a picture of the vehicle and number plate and it was stopped later in Martin County, north of the club.

“We got a hold of Martin County Sheriff’s Office, alerted them, and they spotted the vehicle and pulled it over and detained the guy,” said Sheriff Ric Bradshaw of Palm Beach County.

“After that, we took the witness that witnessed the incident, flew him up there and he identified as the person that he saw running out of the bushes, that jumped into the car,” the sheriff told a news briefing.

In an email to his supporters, Trump said he was “safe and well”.

“Nothing will slow me down,” he wrote. “I will never surrender!”

The incident comes almost exactly two months after a gunman attempted to assassinate Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, striking his ear.

The Secret Service confirmed in a post on X that they were investigating a “protective incident” involving Trump that took place shortly before 14:00 EST (19:00 BST) on Sunday.

• ANALYSIS: America faces a new normal in political violence

• What we know so far about Trump assassination attempt

Later Sheriff Bradshaw said “the Secret Service agent that was on the course did a fantastic job”.

He added: “What they do is they have an agent that jumps one hole ahead of time to where the president was at and he was able to spot this rifle barrel sticking out of the fence and immediately engage that individual, at which time the individual took off.”

There is now a heavy security presence on the roads and in the waters around the former president’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida, and his nearby golf course at West Palm Beach.

US media, citing unnamed law enforcement officials, have named the suspect as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, of Hawaii.

BBC Verify has found social media profiles matching that name. They indicate that Routh called for foreign fighters to go to Ukraine to battle against Russian forces.

Routh was charged and convicted of numerous offences in Guilford County, North Carolina, between 2002 and 2010, according to a law enforcement source who spoke to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

The offences included carrying a concealed weapon, resisting arrest, hit and run motor vehicle, driving with a revoked licence and possession of stolen property.

The White House said President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris had been briefed about the golf course incident.

“I am relieved that the former president is unharmed,” Biden said in a statement.

Harris is in a tight race against Trump in the presidential election – the 5 November vote is expected to hang on the results in a few key swing states.

Harris issued a statement saying “I am deeply disturbed by the possible assassination attempt of former President Trump today.

“As we gather the facts, I will be clear: I condemn political violence. We all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence.”

She also said “I am thankful that former President Trump is safe” and praised the US Secret Service and police “for their vigilance”.

Trump was injured while addressing a crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania, on 13 July when a gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired at him with an AR-15–style rifle from the roof of a nearby building.

The shooting left one audience member dead, while Crooks, 20, was killed at the scene by a Secret Service sniper.

The Secret Service faced intense scrutiny over how the shooter from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was able to open fire on the former president.

The director of the agency, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned within two weeks of the incident.

A firefighter died during a flood rescue in Austria and one person drowned in Poland, as torrential rain caused by Storm Boris continued to wreak havoc across Central and Eastern Europe.

In Romania, five people have died, while several remain unaccounted for in the Czech Republic.

The Austrian province surrounding Vienna has been declared a disaster area, with its leaders speaking of “an unprecedented extreme situation”.

Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk declared a state of natural disaster.

• How climate change worsens heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and floods
• Follow live updates on the flooding in Central Europe

Some of the worst rainfall has been in the Czech Republic, where some areas have seen around three months’ rainfall in just three days.

Evacuations are under way and four people remain missing – three in a car which disappeared into a river in North Moravia, and one man who was swept into a flooded stream in South Moravia.

Marek Joch, a resident of Lipov in the southeast, said the town was “closed from all sides” and the “next wave” of the flood is still to come.

“Now everyone is trying to clean up as quickly as possible to prevent further large spills from the riv. Unfortunately, no one knows when the water will recede.

“We still have to survive until Tuesday, this is not the end.”

Jesenik, a town located in the Jeseniky mountains, is described as completely cut off, with roads and rail lines underwater.

Around 17,000 people in the Kłodzko area alone are without power, and internet and mobile telephone connections are down.

Several dozen police and firefighters in Prague were called to rescue a man who went swimming in the flooded Vltava at 7am on Sunday.

On Saturday, police in North Moravia were called after three men were spotted wading into the flooded River Odra on paddleboards.

The mayor of Slobozia Conachi, a village in Romania’s south-eastern Galati region, said 700 homes had been flooded.

“This is a catastrophe of epic proportions,” Emil Dragomir said.

Four people were killed in Galati on Saturday, with a fifth death confirmed on Sunday.

In Austria, governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner said a firefighter had died while pumping out a flooded cellar.

She said the whole of the Lower Austria province has been declared a catastrophe zone.

Multiple trains have been cancelled, parts of the Vienna underground have been closed, and at least one motorway has flooded.

In a post on X, Austria‘s Chancellor Karl Nehammer said the storm situation had “worsened” and was “very serious.”

In the Polish town of Stonie Slaski, a dam has been breached, releasing a torrent of water that has destroyed at least one house, the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management said.

In the same town a bridge collapsed, funnelling water through the streets.

“Soldiers supporting the local population are cut off from their land route back,” the Polish Ministry of Defence said.

“Many residents have to be evacuated from the roofs of their homes.”

In Glucholazy, in the southwest, the mayor of the town said the local river had overflowed its banks and was flooding the town.

A resident of the town, Zofia Owsiaka, said everyone was “scared” and there seemed to be “no hope of the rain stopping”.

In Krakow, Poland’s second largest city, residents have been offered sandbags for flood protection.

Speaking from the town of Klodzko, one of the worst-affected areas, Tusk said 1600 people in the district had been evacuated.

A total of 17,000 people in the area are without power, he said, and in parts Starlink satellites links are being used to maintain mobile phone signal and internet connections.

He added that a helicopter had been sent to help with rescue efforts in regional capital Wroclaw.

On Sunday, the mayor of Klodzko announced that his town had “lost the battle” against the floods, and that the situation had become “critical”.

Storm Boris has already brought extreme amounts of rain across central and eastern Europe, with more downpours forecast until at least the end of Monday.

The storm has been so devastating for two reasons.

Firstly, cold air from the north has mixed with moisture drawn up from the unusually warm waters of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

Secondly, an area of low pressure has been stuck in a blocked weather pattern, meaning it is trapped between high pressure to both the west and east.

Following extreme flooding in 2021, the World Weather Attribution Network concluded that the warming climate meant the likelihood and intensity of such events in Europe was increasing.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Yemen’s Houthis will pay a “heavy price” after a missile fired by the group landed in central Israel.

The Israeli military said the missile landed in an uninhabited area early on Sunday, but that shrapnel indicated air defence systems had failed to destroy it before it entered Israeli airspace.

It added that it was investigating how the missile was able to reach so far into Israeli territory.

The strike marks the first time a missile fired by the group has reached central Israel, which is around 2,000km (1,240 miles) from Yemen.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said there had been repeated attempts to shoot the missile down on Sunday but that it most likely fragmented in mid-air.

The Houthis claimed the operation used a new type of hypersonic missile, which may help explain the failure of efforts to intercept it.

They are an armed group that seized much of Yemen in the country’s ongoing civil war and have declared themselves part of the Iran-led “axis of resistance” against Israel, the US, and the wider West.

The Houthis said in a statement that Sunday’s attack was carried out in solidarity with the Palestinians and that Israel should expect more ahead of the first anniversary of the 7 October attacks.

Missile fragments landed at a railway station in the city of Modiin, causing some damage, and in open ground near Israel’s main international airport on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

The damage is believed to have been caused by Israel’s own interceptor missiles.

Netanyahu said the strike showed that Israel was in a “multi-front battle against Iran’s axis of evil that strives to destroy us”.

“[The Houthis] should have known by now that we exact a heavy price for any attempt to harm us,” he said.

“Anyone who attacks us will not escape from our arms.

“Hamas is already learning this in our determined action that will lead to its destruction and the release of all of our hostages.”

Israeli forces launched a campaign to destroy Hamas following the 7 October attacks, which saw around 1,200 people killed and another 251 taken to Gaza as hostages.

More than 41,206 people have been killed in Gaza since the campaign began, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

This is not the first time the Houthis have attacked Israel.

In July, one man was killed and eight people were injured after a Houthi drone landed in Tel Aviv.

Previously, almost all Houthi missiles and drones fired towards Israel had been intercepted and none were known to have reached Tel Aviv.

In response, Israeli jets attacked the city of Hodeidah in Yemen, causing a huge fire which engulfed one of the country’s most important oil storage facilities.

Three prominent columnists have resigned in protest from the Jewish Chronicle, as a row deepens over the publication of allegedly fabricated articles on Israeli operations in Gaza.

Jonathan Freedland, Hadley Freeman and David Aaronovitch announced they were quitting their columns over what Freedland described as a “great disgrace” at the London-based newspaper.

It comes after the JC said it conducted a “thorough investigation” into one of its freelance journalists, Elon Perry, “after allegations were made about aspects of his record”.

It said it was “not satisfied” with some of the claims made by the writer, and therefore had deleted his articles and ended its association with him.

Jonathan Freedland – who described the stories as fabricated – said the JC had shown only the “thinnest form of contrition”.

Hadley Freeman said recent events made it impossible for her to stay, while Aaronovitch said he, too, had left the paper.

JC editor Jake Wallis Simons said on Sunday that he understood “why some columnists have decided to step back from the paper”.

“I am grateful for their contributions and hope that, in time, some of them will feel able to return,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“I take full responsibility for the mistakes that have been made and I will take equal responsibility for the task of making sure nothing like this can happen again.”

Wallis Simons said “it’s every newspaper editor’s worst nightmare to be deceived by a journalist”.

He added: “Readers can be assured that stronger internal procedures are being implemented.”

Elon Perry told BBC News the JC “made a huge mistake with its statement”. He said he could not reveal his source to JC editors and described a “witch-hunt against me caused by jealousy”.

Perry describes himself in an online biography as having worked as a lecturer and a journalist, as well as “a commando in the Israeli army, taking part in numerous operations in pursuing terrorists in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Lebanon”.

The JC said on Friday: “While we understand he did serve in the Israel Defence Forces, we were not satisfied with some of his claims. We have therefore removed his stories from our website and ended any association with Mr Perry.”

It did not specify which claims it was referring to.

In recent months, Perry has written a series of articles for the JC.

The most contentious was a piece he wrote claiming a document showed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was planning to smuggle himself and some surviving Israeli hostages out of Gaza and to Iran, via the Philadelphi Corridor, a strip of land on the Gaza-Egypt border.

The article’s claims appeared to be similar to talking points used by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to justify the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) presence in the Philadelphi Corridor.

The story was followed up by media in Israel, and later shared by Netanyahu’s son.

According to the Times of Israel, the IDF subsequently said it had no knowledge of such a document existing.

Freedland – who has written for the JC since 1998 – said his attachment to the paper “runs very deep”, beginning with his late father who also wrote for it.

“That bond partly explains why I’ve stuck with it even as it departed from the traditions that built its reputation as the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper,” he wrote on X.

“Too often, the JC reads like a partisan, ideological instrument, its judgements political rather than journalistic.”

He also warned that there was “no real accountability” because the newspaper is owned “by a person or people who refuse to reveal themselves”.

He concluded by saying that he was breaking his connection with the paper because he no longer recognised it.

His post was shared by Aaronovitch, who wrote: “I have done the same.”

Meanwhile, Hadley Freeman said she was “immensely grateful” for all the support she has had on the paper, but said she was no longer able to remain as a columnist in light of recent developments.

BBC News has contacted the JC for further comment.

On a cold winter’s day in June 2002, an intellectually disabled teenage girl disappeared from the New South Wales Riverina without a trace.

Since then, the mystery over what happened to Amber Haigh has captivated the vast Australian farming region, due to a stunning allegation: that the 19-year-old was killed by the father of her five-month-old baby and his wife, so that they could take her child.

Two decades on, Robert and Anne Geeves – both 64 – were charged with her murder, but on Monday were found not guilty after a high-profile trial.

Justice Julia Lonergan found that prosecutors had failed to prove their alleged motive, saying: “Cases are not decided on rumour, speculation or suspicion.”

“Even if I suspect the accused probably committed the offence charged… I must acquit.”

The Geeveses are the last known people to have seen Amber alive, and have long said they dropped her at a train station 300km (186 miles) from their home in Kingsvale – where the three had been living at the time – so that she could visit her dying father on 5 June.

Despite extensive police investigations, a coronial inquiry, and a million-dollar reward for information, her body has never been found.

The Crown relied on witness testimony and documentation to support their theory – that the Geeveses had “manipulated” Amber into having Robert’s baby, and then “removed” her “from the equation” when she wouldn’t relinquish custody.

The court heard the couple had an adult son – who had previously dated Amber – but in the early 2000s still “desperately” wanted another child, having endured several miscarriages and a stillbirth.

However, the defence said the allegation they killed Amber to steal her baby was baseless, and that the investigation into the pair – who have spent two years in prison awaiting trial – was flawed from the start.

They told the court a “haze of mistrust” had clouded the local community’s view of the Geeveses due to Robert’s history – which included acquittals for the murder of an ex-partner who was found shot in the face on his property, and a string of sexual assault charges involving two schoolgirls.

That past, the Geeveses lawyers said, had created a “presumption of guilt” that persisted for decades, and ultimately “blinded” police as they tried to piece together Amber’s case.

Over nine weeks, dozens of witnesses gave evidence about the final months of the teen’s life – describing a “vulnerable” young woman who struggled to discern between “love and exploitation”.

Several recalled how Amber had shared stories of abuse with them – including instances where Robert Geeves had allegedly plied her with alcohol, tied her up, and had sex with her.

And the couple’s son Robbie told the court that his mother had referred to his ex-girlfriend as a “surrogate” and that both parents had turned up at his home in the dead of night to try and force him to accept Amber’s child as “his little brother”.

The prosecution also tendered a written agreement Amber made Robert sign, promising not to take her child, as well as a will she’d created stipulating her aunt be given custody of the baby in the event of her death.

“There was little sign, in the sea of evidence in this case, that Amber was ever shown the love she needed or deserved,” Justice Lonergan said when delivering her verdict.

But she ultimately found that there was a critical “problem” with the prosecution’s case – there was “no satisfactory evidence” that Anne and Robert still held a desire for more children when Amber became pregnant.

She criticised the accounts of prosecution witnesses, and said the investigation had focussed on “disproving the Geeveses version of events” rather than investigating the cause of Amber’s disappearance.

Looking at the couple as they sat in the dock, she ordered that they be released from custody immediately.

As Justice Lonergan delivered the verdict, one member of the public gallery stormed out of the courtroom to scream. Amber’s relatives, too, were visibly shaken, with some later quietly breaking down in tears outside court.

Disgraced BBC News presenter Huw Edwards is due back in court at a hearing where he could be sentenced for charges involving indecent images of children.

In July, the former newsreader admitted having 41 such images, which were sent to him on WhatsApp – including some showing a victim aged between seven and nine.

He will return to Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London at 10:00 BST on Monday.

He could be sentenced at the hearing, or the case could be referred to a higher court.

The possible punishments include up to three years in jail, or he could receive a community order with a condition that he undergoes a sex offender treatment programme.

Until last year, Edwards was one of the main presenters on BBC One’s News at Ten and often fronted coverage of major national events.

At his last court appearance, he pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children. Under the law, images can mean photos or video clips.

He was found to have seven category A images – the most serious classification, which show serious abuse including penetrative sexual activity.

Most of the category A images were estimated to show children aged between 13 and 15. Two clips showed a child aged about seven to nine.

He also had 12 category B pictures, which involve non-penetrative sexual activity, and 22 photographs in category C, which covers other indecent images. The category B and C pictures showed children aged between 12 to 15.

Police later revealed the man who sent the images to Edwards was a 25-year-old convicted paedophile called Alex Williams.

Edwards’ barrister Philip Evans KC told the previous hearing that the former broadcaster had not “in the traditional sense of the word created any image of any sort”.

He added that Edwards “did not keep any images, did not send any to anyone else and did not and has not sought similar images from anywhere else”.

Mr Evans also said the former broadcaster had experienced “both mental and physical” health issues.

The barrister told the court his client “was not just of good character, but of exceptional character”.

At that hearing in July, Ian Hope, prosecuting, told the court that a suspended sentence might be considered for Edwards.

Setting out the potential penalties under the law, he said that where there was the prospect of rehabilitation, a community order and sexual offender treatment programme could be considered as alternatives to a jail sentence.

Edwards was the BBC’s highest-paid journalist, receiving between £475,000-£479,999 between April 2023 and April 2024.

The BBC has asked him to return the £200,000 he earned between his arrest last November and his resignation this April.

The BBC’s director general said last week that “discussions are under way” about the possibility of clawing back the money.

“Making” indecent images can have a wide legal definition, and covers more than simply taking or filming the original picture or clip.

The Crown Prosecution Service says it can include:

• opening an email attachment containing an image
• downloading an image from a website to a screen
• storing an image on a computer
• accessing a pornographic website in which an image appears in an automatic “pop-up” window
• receiving an image via social media, even if unsolicited and even if part of a group
• or live-streaming images of children

A court must also decide whether an offence falls into the category of possession, distribution or production.

According to the Sentencing Council, which issues guidelines on sentencing that the courts must follow unless it is in the interests of justice not to do so, creating the original image counts as production – the more serious of the three categories. It adds that “making an image by simple downloading should be treated as possession for the purposes of sentencing”.

Baby Reindeer, the hugely popular but highly contentious British TV hit, has taken the Emmy Awards by storm, winning four trophies at the ceremony in Los Angeles.

The show’s creator and star, Scottish comedian Richard Gadd, won three of those – for acting in, writing and executive producing the show.

His co-star Jessica Gunning, who played stalker Martha, was named best supporting actress in a limited series.

“Oh my goodness me, blinking heckers,” she said on accepting the award.

“Thank you so much. I honestly feel like I’m going to wake up any minute now and this whole thing has been a dream.”

Gadd’s account of being stalked by a woman for several years and being sexually abused by a male TV industry figure, has been the most talked about show of the year.

However, its claim to be “a true story” has made it controversial, and the real-life woman who allegedly inspired Gunning’s character is currently suing Netflix for defamation, negligence and privacy violations.

Accepting his award for best writing writing for a limited series, Gadd told the audience: “Ten years ago, I was down and out.

“I never ever thought I’d get my life together. I never ever thought I’d be able to rectify myself for what happened to me and get myself back on my feet again.

“And then here I am, just over a decade later, picking up one of the biggest writing awards in television.

“I don’t mean that to sound arrogant. I mean it as encouragement for anyone who’s going through a difficult time right now to persevere.”

In the comedy categories, The Bear won three acting awards including best comedy actor for Jeremy Allen White, who plays Carmy, for the second year in a row.

Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Richie) and Liza Colon-Zayas (Tina) took the supporting awards, the latter appearing overwhelmed to have beaten legends like Meryl Streep and Carol Burnett.

“To all the Latinas who are looking at me, keep believing, and vote – vote for your rights,” she said in her acceptance speech.

The show, set in a highly pressured restaurant kitchen, once again raised eyebrows for being nominated in the comedy section instead of drama.

Perhaps that, combined with a lukewarm reception for its latest season, explains why The Bear lost the award for best comedy series – the night’s final category and the biggest shock.

Instead, that prize went to Hacks, which follows the love-hate relationship between a veteran comedian and her younger writer.

And Hacks star Jean Smart won best comedy actress – her third Emmy win for playing Deborah in the show and her sixth career Emmy overall – ahead of The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri (Sydney), who took the prize last year.

In the drama categories, Australia’s Elizabeth Debicki won her first Emmy, best drama actress for playing Princess Diana in the final season of Netflix’s The Crown.

“Playing this part based on this unparallelled, incredible human being has been my great privilege and it’s been a gift,” she said.

However, hers was the only victory for The Crown’s swansong, and the other drama categories were dominated by Japanese historical epic Shogun.

The show had already broken the record for the most Emmy wins in a single year after picking up 14 prizes at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys, mainly for achievements behind the scenes.

It added another four trophies at the main event, including best drama series – the first non-English language show to take that prestigious prize.

There were also lead drama acting awards for Japanese cast members Hiroyuki Sanada (Yoshii Toranaga) and Anna Sawai (Toda Mariko).

Elsewhere, Billy Crudup won best supporting drama actor for The Morning Show, while Jodie Foster won best actress in a limited series for True Detective: Night Country.

Successful British talent included TV host John Oliver, who won best scripted variety series, and Will Smith, who won best drama writing for Slow Horses.

The Traitors host Alan Cumming picked up the programme’s trophy for best reality or competition show. That came after he was named best reality or competition host at the Creative Arts Emmys, which took place a week before the main ceremony.

Eight people have died overnight while trying to cross the Channel from France to England, French police say.

Rescue services were alerted after the boat got into difficulty in waters north of Boulogne-sur-mer in the northern Pas-de-Calais region after 01:00 local time (00:00 BST).

The rubber vessel had around 60 people on board, from countries including Eritrea, Sudan, Syria and Iran.

It comes less than two weeks after 12 people, including six children and a pregnant woman, died when a boat carrying dozens of migrants sank in what was the deadliest loss of life in the Channel this year.

The French coast guard said the boat in the incident reported on Sunday was seen heading towards a beach in the town of Ambleteuse but rescue teams could not offer assistance from the sea.

After getting into difficulty, it was driven onto rocks where it came apart.

On the beach, emergency services provided care to 53 people and confirmed eight had died, the coast guard said. Six people were taken to hospital including a baby with hypothermia.

No other people were found during sea searches.

An investigation has been opened by the Boulogne-sur-mer public prosecutor’s office.

A UK government spokesperson confirmed the latest incident and said French authorities were leading the response and investigation.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said it was “awful” to hear of a “further loss of life” in the Channel.

He told the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that many people were “of course not able to make it” across the Channel, having seen the types of rubber dinghies people have been using.

He also reiterated the government’s plan to work with European partners to tackle the criminal people-smuggling gangs to deter small boat crossings.

There has been a spate of crossing attempts across the Channel in the last two days with the arrival of calmer weather.

Some 801 people crossed the Channel on Saturday – the second highest daily total so far this year, according to provisional Home Office figures. On 18 June, 882 people made the journey.

French maritime authorities said that 200 people were rescued in a 24-hour period over Friday and Saturday.

The French coast guard and other first responders rescued people onboard four separate boats – one with 61, another with 55, and two others with 48 and 36 each.

Eighteen attempted crossings were monitored by authorities over the course of the day.

Including the eight latest victims, a total of 45 people have died in the Channel this year – the highest reported number since 2021, according to the UN’s International Organisation for Migration.

More than 23,000 people have crossed the Channel this year.

Amnesty International UK said the latest incident was “yet another appalling and avoidable tragedy”.

Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, said the deaths were not “inevitable” and a comprehensive approach to reduce crossings was needed.

“Enforcement alone is not the solution,” he said, adding that there needed to be improved access to safe asylum routes.

More than 100 people have died in flooding and mudslides caused by the remnants of Typhoon Yagi in Myanmar.

Spokesman for the nation’s ruling junta, Zaw Min Tun, said in a statement on Sunday that 113 people had been confirmed dead, with a further 64 missing – though regional reports suggest the true death toll may be higher.

Meanwhile, over 320,000 people have been forced to evacuate to temporary shelters, according to the AFP news agency.

Yagi, Asia’s most powerful storm this year, has already proved devastating as it swept across Vietnam, Laos, the Chinese island of Hainan and the Philippines.

At least 287 people were thought to have died as a result of the storm before it reached Myanmar.

While the typhoon has been downgraded to a tropical depression since making landfall in northern Vietnam, it has continued to cause deadly landslides across south-east Asia.

In Myanmar, state media reports that nearly 66,000 houses had been destroyed as of Friday evening, along with 375 schools and a monastery. Several miles of road and other infrastructure have been washed away.

Also as of Friday, more than 236,000 people were being accommodated at 187 relief camps.

The impacts of heavy rainfall have centred on the Kayah, Kayin, Mandalay, Mon, and Shan states – which cover the central region of Myanmar.

Some say the number of deaths is already far higher than official estimates.

Radio Free Asia, a US-backed broadcaster, reported that at least 160 people had died in Myanmar – with social media accounts loyal to the ruling junta suggesting 230 people had died in the Mandalay region alone.

Japan’s state broadcaster, NHK, reported that more than 120 people had died as of Saturday.

In Kalaw, a hill town in the Shan state, at least 12 people had died as of Saturday, one of whom was eight years old, the privately-owned Eleven Myanmar news website reported.

One man told AFP how he had tried to rescue people with ropes, as floodwaters 4m (15 ft) high surged through the town on 10 September.

“I could see trapped families in the distance standing on the roofs of their houses,” he said.

“I heard there were 40 bodies in the hospital.”

A woman who runs a company in Kalaw claimed her staff had said 60 people had died in the town, AFP reported.

Myanmar has suffered a three-year civil war since a military junta seized power in 2021. The UN estimates that thousands have been killed and 2.6 million people have been displaced by the conflict.

The Shan state is also home to several armed insurgent groups, some of which have de facto control over some of its territory.

Myanmar’s information ministry says emergency and health workers have been deployed to areas affected by floods, and that it has provided funds for food and drinking water for evacuees.

Emergency responders have also begun repairing damaged roads and bridges, state media reports.

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

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

Yagi is expected to move away from Myanmar in the coming days. Another tropical depression is forecast to develop in the western Pacific in the coming week.

Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance has doubled down on false claims that migrants are eating household pets in an Ohio town, as city officials repeatedly debunked the rumours.

The baseless claims have led to several security threats, and on Sunday Wittenberg University in Springfield said it had to cancel events because of a threat targeting members of its Haitian community.

Appearing on Sunday talk shows, Vance defended the false stories, saying “media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes”.

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he told CNN.

“It comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents. I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it.”

Vance is a US senator who represents Ohio.

He first brought up the animal-eating claims last week, before Trump amplified them at his first presidential debate against Kamala Harris.

Since then, Springfield city officials have repeatedly debunked the claims.

Mayor Rob Rue told the BBC that the conspiracy theories – and Trump’s pledge to “mass deport” migrants from Springfield – were hurting the town.

“People’s pets are safe in Springfield, Ohio, ” Rue told the BBC’s Newshour programme. “We reached out to the JD Vance Campaign to let them know that we do not have any evidence that has happened, and I’ve made it known in multiple interviews that this is absolutely not true.”

“We need folks to understand, especially those that have a microphone that’s being listened to around the world, they need to understand the weight of their words and how it can negatively affect communities.”

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, on ABC’s This Week called the rumours “a piece of garbage that was simply not true”.

Springfield had to evacuate three schools and other city buildings last week due to threats, at least one of which made disparaging comments about Haitians.

Police at Wittenberg University said in a campus alert that an email sent on Saturday threatened a shooting the following day.

“The message targeted Haitian members of our community, ” police said. “All students, faculty and staff should exercise extreme precaution and be alert to all your surroundings.”

Springfield police have also said they received calls on Saturday about members of the Proud Boys marching in the city, after a video circulated on social media with a group of men carrying flags and wearing logos associated with the far-right group.

Vance told CBS News on Sunday that he did not “align himself” with the Proud Boys but said the real problem was Harris’s “open borders”.

Trump, like Vance, has doubled down on the baseless claims and said the town had been “destroyed” by immigration.

Campaigning Friday in California, Trump vowed there would be “large deportations” from Springfield if elected. He has promised to deport millions of undocumented migrants nationwide.

Springfield, a rust belt city in south-west Ohio, is home to about 60,000 people and has seen thousands of immigrants arrive in recent years.

Many migrants in the town are from Haiti and have legal permission to be in the US under a federal programme for Haitians.

• Don’t mention Trump – Republicans trying to sway women
• Could Trump really deport a million migrants?

Prosecutors in Italy are seeking a six-year jail term for deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini over a decision in August 2019 to stop a migrant boat from docking.

The ship, operated by the Open Arms charity, was kept at sea for almost three weeks before being allowed to dock on the island of Lampedusa following a court order.

Salvini, who was then the interior minister, denies charges of kidnap and dereliction of duty.

On Saturday, he said he had wanted to stop Italy becoming a “refugee camp for all of Europe” and declared himself “guilty of defending Italy and Italians”.

The Opens Arms ship was carrying 147 migrants who had been picked up off the Libyan coast when it was prevented from docking in Lampedusa.

The island, situated around halfway across the Mediterranean towards the Italian mainland, has over recent years been a landing point for thousands of migrants trying to enter Europe.

As interior minister, Salvini implemented a “closed ports” policy that he argued would remove incentives for people smugglers.

Crewmembers have testified during the trial that the migrants’ wellbeing and sanitary conditions on board the ship deteriorated while it was being held offshore – resulting, among other things, in a scabies outbreak.

Prosecutor Geri Ferrara told the Sicily court that there was “one key principle that is not debatable”.

“Between human rights and the protection of state sovereignty, it is human rights that must prevail in our fortunately democratic system,” he said.

In January, Salvini testified that he had understood that “the situation [on the ship] was not at risk”.

A verdict in the trial, which began in October 2021, could come next month. If convicted, Salvini could also be blocked from holding government office.

Responding to the requested sentence on X, Salvini said that “defending Italy is not a crime and I will not give up, not now, not ever”.

“Thanks to my government’s actions, landings, deaths, and disappearances in the Mediterranean Sea decreased,” he said.

“This Spanish ship was never prevented from going anywhere, except to Italy. We could no longer be the refugee camp for all of Europe.

“No government and no minister in history has ever been accused or put on trial for defending the borders of his own country.”

According to UN data, sea arrivals in Italy fell to 11,471 in 2019, significantly lower than the figures in the years before or since.

Salvini is the head of the Northern League party, which opposes illegal migration, and serves in a coalition government with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Five Star Movement.

On Saturday, Meloni offered Salvini her “full solidarity”.

“It is unbelievable that a minister of the Italian Republic risks six years in prison for doing his job of defending the nation’s borders, as required by the mandate received from the citizens,” she wrote on X.

“Turning the duty to protect Italy’s borders from illegal immigration into a crime is a very serious precedent.”

SpaceX’s Polaris Dawncrew has returned to Earth after five days in orbit, following a historic mission featuring the world’s first commercial spacewalk.

The Dragon capsule made splashdown off the coast of Florida shortly after 03:37 local time (07:37 GMT), in an event stream lived by SpaceX.

“Splashdown of Dragon confirmed! Welcome back to Earth,” SpaceX posted.

The US space agency Nasa said the mission represented “a giant leap forward” for the commercial space industry.

• Billionaire completes first private spacewalk
• Jared Isaacman, the high-school dropout behind historic spacewalk
• Astronauts reveal what life is like in orbit – and how they deal with ‘space smell’

Re-entering earth’s atmosphere, the spacecraft neared temperatures of 1,900C (3,500 degrees Fahrenheit), caused by the intense pressure and friction of pushing through the air at around 7,000mph (27,000kph).

The four-member civilian team, bankrolled and led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, travelled further into space than any humans for more than fifty years.

Scott Poteet, a retired US Air Force pilot, and SpaceX employees Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon were also on the crew.

Mr Isaacman and Ms Gillis are the first non-professional crew to perform a spacewalk, a risky manoeuvre that involves depressurising the crew compartment and exiting the spacecraft.

Only astronauts from government-funded space agencies had attempted the feat, prior to this flight.

Images broadcast live showed the two crew members emerge from the white Dragon capsule to float 435 miles (700km) above the blue Earth below.

Speaking to mission control in Hawthorne, California during the spacewalk, Isaacman said “Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here — looks like a perfect world”.

As Dragon doesn’t have an airlock, the crew were exposed to the vacuum of space during the spacewalk.

This spacewalk, higher than any previously attempted, was made possible by innovative astronaut suits fitted with new technology.

During the five days, the crew conducted more than 40 experiments, including investigations into the impact of space missions on human health and testing intersatellite laser communication between the Dragon Spacecraft and Space X’s Starlink satellite.

Gillis, who is a trained violinist, brought her instrument and performed “Rey’s Theme” from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” alongside orchestras on earth.

Her rendition was sent back to Earth using SpaceX’s Starlink as a test of the satellite network’s potential to provide in-space connectivity.

The video was created in partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which the Polaris Program were fundraising for throughout the mission.

The crew were in orbit inside the Dragon spacecraft, named Resilience, for a total of five days, launching early on Tuesday morning from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

The mission made history by reaching a maximum altitude of 1,400km (870miles), which is higher than any human has flown since the final Apollo Mission in 1972.

Polaris Dawn is the first of three planned Polaris missions, a collaboration between Mr Isaacman and SpaceX.

This includes the first manned flight of the new SpaceX rocket Starship, which is still under development.

The United States has dismissed claims made by Venezuela that the CIA plotted to assassinate President Maduro and other top officials.

Three US citizens, two Spaniards and one Czech national have been arrested on suspicion of plotting to destabilise the country, the Interior Minister said.

Calling the detainees “mercenaries”, Diosdado Cabello claimed that the CIA “is leading the operation” and that hundreds of weapons had been seized.

The US rejected the claims, which come after Washington placed 16 senior government officials under sanctions, as “categorically false”.

• Venezuela crisis in brief
• Everyone knows we won vote, says opposition leader
• Venezuelan court upholds Maduro’s disputed election victory

A spokesperson for the State Department said a US military member was being held and noted “unconfirmed reports of two additional US citizens detained in Venezuela.”

Cabello responded by saying the detainees had contacted “French mercenaries” from Eastern Europe and were involved in “an operation to try to attack” Venezuela.

He added that “more than 400 rifles were seized” and accused the detainees of plotting “terrorist acts.”

The Venezuelan government said the Spaniards detained were linked to Madrid’s National Intelligence Centre (CNI).

Spanish government sources have told local media the pair do not belong to the intelligence organisation.

“Spain denies and categorically rejects any insinuation that it is involved in a political destabilisation operation in Venezuela,” a source told AFP.

The Czech Republic has yet to react the claims.

In a news conference on Saturday Cabello said: “The CIA is leading this operation, and that does not surprise us but they, the National Intelligence Centre of Spain, have always maintained a low profile knowing that the CIA operates in this area.

“These two detainees even tell us about a group of mercenaries they are looking for to bring to Venezuela with very clear objectives to assassinate President Nicolas Maduro, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, myself, and another group of comrades who are leading our party and our revolution.”

The allegations come amid a feud between the Maduro government and both the US and Spain stemming from Maduro’s disputed victory in July’s election.

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), which is closely aligned with the government, declared Maduro the winner of the vote, but has not published detailed voting tallies.

Data published by the opposition suggests its candidate, Edmundo González, was the true winner.

On Thursday, Washington announced sanctions targeting “key officials involved in Maduro’s fraudulent and illegitimate claims of victory and his brutal crackdown on free expression following the election”.

Following the detentions, a state department official said Washington “continues to support a democratic solution to the political crisis in Venezuela”.

On Friday, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil summoned the Spanish ambassador in Caracas after Spain’s defence minister, Margarita Robles, described the Venezuelan government as a “dictatorship”.

Gil said the comments were “insolent, meddling and rude” and indicated a “deterioration of relations between the two countries”.

It came days after González arrived in Spain to claim political asylum, a step that the overall leader of the Venezuela’s opposition, María Corina Machado, said he had taken “to preserve his freedom, his integrity and his life”.

Spanish authorities have request more information about the detentions from Venezuela, and the Spanish embassy has requested access to the detainees.

For months, an unusual monument sat in an oak-lined square at the heart of Tasmania’s capital: a pair of severed bronze feet.

A statue of renowned surgeon-turned-premier William Crowther had loomed over the park in Hobart for more than a century. But one evening in May, it was chopped down at the ankles and the words “what goes around” graffitied on its sandstone base.

It was a throwback to another night more than 150 years ago, when Crowther allegedly broke into a morgue, sliced open an Aboriginal leader’s head and stole his skull – triggering a grim tussle over the remaining body parts.

Tasmania had become the centre of coloniser efforts to eradicate Aboriginal people in Australia. And the sailor on the slab – William Lanne – was touted as the last man on the island, making his remains a twisted trophy for white physicians.

Some see Crowther as an unfairly maligned man of his time, and his effigy as an important part of the state’s history, warts and all.

But for Lanne’s descendants, it represents colonial brutality, the dehumanising myth that Tasmanian Aboriginal people are extinct, and the whitewashing of the island’s past.

“You walk around the city anywhere and you’d never know Aborigines were here,” Aboriginal activist Nala Mansell says.

Now the dismembered statue has become a symbol of a city – and a nation – struggling to reckon with its darkest chapters.

Few places encapsulate the issue quite like Risdon Cove – called piyura kitina by the Palawa Aboriginal people.

Tucked beside a creek, a monument proudly marks it as the first British settlement on what was then called Van Diemen’s Land.

For Tasmanian Aboriginal people, though, this hillside on the outskirts of Hobart is “ground zero for invasion”.

“It’s the first landing and not coincidentally the first massacre [of our people],” Nunami Sculthorpe-Green tells the BBC one overcast afternoon.

Startled from their reverie, flurries of native hens – which piyura kitina is named after – scatter over the mossy grass as we arrive.

A wallaby hastily bounds towards sparse gum trees. It’s from that direction that Mumirimina men, women and children would have come down the slope on 3 May 1804, singing as they hunted kangaroos.

They were met with muskets and cannons.

The events of that day – and the death toll – are disputed. What is not contested is that this marked the start of a determined effort by British settlers to get rid of the original Tasmanians, nine nations of up to 15,000 people.

War broke out and Aboriginal people were hunted across the island, the survivors rounded up and sent to what have been described as death camps.

“If that happened anywhere in the world today, it would be referred to as ethnic cleansing,” says Greg Lehman, a Palawa professor of history.

Ripped from his homelands as a child, Lanne survived two of those camps before living out his final years as a shipmate and beloved advocate for his people.

Even before he died of disease in 1869, aged only 34, letters show that powerful men in Hobart had begun scheming.

“There’s no way that that young man was going to be allowed to lie in a grave. No way,” historian Cassandra Pybus tells the BBC.

The theft of Aboriginal remains had long been normalised, she says, but reached a fever pitch in Tasmania as the number of its original inhabitants dwindled.

Lanne’s skull was sought to prove since-discredited theories about Tasmanian Aboriginal people – that they were the missing link between humans and Neanderthals, a distinct race so primitive they didn’t even know how to make fire.

Before he was buried, his hands and feet would also be cut off and pocketed by physicians. Some historians say his grave was robbed as well, and every bone in his body taken.

Crowther always denied any involvement in stealing Lanne’s remains – his backers called the allegations a witch hunt – but the town was horrified, and he was suspended from his honorary position at the hospital.

For First Nations people, who believe their spirits can only rest once returned to their land, what happened was especially distressing.

But within two weeks, Crowther was elected to state parliament, and he’d soon rise to be Tasmania’s premier for an unremarkable six months.

By contrast, Lanne’s skull appears to have wound up on the other side of the globe at a UK university, and his people were soon declared extinct.

Except they were not.

Today’s Palawa people trace their ancestry to a dozen women who survived, while other groups – which some do not recognise as Aboriginal – also say they descend from a handful of people who managed to evade capture in the 1800s.

Yet, for the past 150 years, Tasmanian Aboriginal people say they have been fighting to be visible, in the history pages and in everyday life.

The lie that they were extinct is largely blamed on outdated views about ethnic identity. But others say it was also a strategic decision – to deny Tasmanian Aboriginal people rights, and to snuff out their culture.

The impact has been devastating. Many Palawa people speak of being persecuted for their Indigenous blood in one breath and denied their identity because of their white ancestry in the next.

Even now, many feel there are huge swathes of their history missing – or wilfully ignored.

Nala points out all she was taught about Tasmanian Aboriginal culture and history at her Hobart school was a brief lesson on boomerangs and didgeridoos – although her people used neither.

And aside from a walking track named after Truganini – Lanne’s wife and a leader in her own right – there are no sites celebrating Aboriginal people around the city.

“The way they tell stories about Aboriginal people… they want you to think that it’s somewhere really far away from where you are, and that it’s something that happened a really long time ago,” Nunami says.

Unimpressed, the 30-year-old history graduate started Black Led Tours to fill the gap.

“I realised that I was walking to work the exact same way Truganini used to walk her dogs. And I realised that my parents met at the pub where William Lanne died. I also realised that the Crowther statue was right next to my bus stop.

“And I thought: does everybody know that this is right here, where we live and where we work?”

When unveiling the effigy in 1889, the then-premier said Crowther was not “a perfect man”, but one who spent his time doing good.

His scandal overlooked, until recently he was remembered for offering free health care to the poor.

That rankles Tasmanian Aboriginal people like Nala: “It’s just a kick in the guts.”

As spokeswoman for the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, she led a renewed campaign to take down the memorial.

“To us, it would be no different to having a statue of Martin Bryant,” she says, referring to the gunman who massacred 35 people at nearby Port Arthur in 1996.

But some, like Jeff Briscoe – who lost the legal case to prevent the statue’s removal – believe the sculpture has priceless heritage value as the only memorial in the state “funded totally by the public”.

“At the time, it was a significant memorial and everyone was proud of it. In 2024, should the perceptions of a few people override all that?

“It’s not as if he was going around shooting people… he maybe had been involved in the mutilation of a body, but they all were.

“They’re bringing the bar down so low that no memorial from colonial times will be safe in Australia.”

Cassandra Pybus says there is no doubt that Crowther did mutilate Lanne, citing letters he wrote. However, she had argued, like Mr Briscoe, that taking down the statue would set a dangerous precedent, because “everybody was racist”.

She had wanted it to remain so the site could be used to educate people about how the first Tasmanians were treated.

The statue’s fate divided even Crowther’s living descendants, with some publicly supporting the calls for removal, and others distressed by them.

Hobart Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds says the council voted to remove the statue in 2022 “as a commitment to telling the truth of our city’s history, and as an act of reconciliation with the Aboriginal community” – the first decision of its kind in Australia.

They did it after a rigorous consultation and with the support of the “silent majority”, she adds.

Ultimately, she says, the statue is a sign of how desperate Crowther was to repair his reputation, not his significance to the state: “[He’s] not that important.”

But while the council worked through red tape, some grew impatient and took it down themselves.

For Lanne’s descendants, their relief at the long-awaited fall of the statue is tinged with pain. They feel Lanne has been reduced to his death.

“He had a whole life… and just as he advocated for our people’s rights, we will advocate for his story to be remembered and him to be respected for who he was,” Nunami says.

The Crowther statue is not unique. Countless similar landmarks or monuments – which joke about massacres, include racial slurs or celebrate alleged killers – are still standing across Australia.

Many, like Greg, believe removing or renaming them could be a natural starting point for the “truth-telling” the country needs, to reconcile with its First Peoples, the oldest living culture on the planet.

“You’d think that it was just a bunch of happy free settlers and not-so-happy convicts who jumped off the First Fleet… and bingo, there you’ve got modern Australia,” he says.

“For Australia to have an honest and powerful relationship with itself, it must have an honest relationship with the past.”

But after a proposal for an Indigenous political advisory body was defeated at a referendum last year, any movement towards a national truth-telling inquiry has stalled – though many states are setting up their own.

There are still many, like Jeff Briscoe, who believe a “truth-telling” process would be a divisive and unnecessary rehashing of the past – views echoed by a bloc of conservative politicians who also oppose a treaty.

“Nowadays people want Aborigines to stand in front of them and say welcome to our country. They want us to dance for them. They want us to teach them our language. They don’t mind if we put some of our paintings in the mall,” Nala says.

“But if you talk about… any type of benefit for the Aboriginal community, or taking back anything that was stolen from us, it’s a completely different ballgame.”

However she is among those who feel like the tide is slowly turning.

“The Crowther statue… is the first time I’ve ever thought, ‘Wow, white people – they’re starting to get it’,” Nala says.

The council was still deciding what should replace the sculpture when it met its unexpected end.

But many wanted the severed feet to remain in the square – as is – arguing they made a wryly “funny” and “profound” statement.

However earlier this week, the council plucked the ankles from their perch, to reunite them with the rest of the effigy, citing heritage law requirements.

But Nunami says even the now empty plinth illustrates the story of Crowther and Lanne far better than the statue ever did.

“We get to say we, as the public, learnt, we grew, and we changed the narrative of this place… Look here, we cut that down.”

Isata, a single mother in her early twenties, epitomises the horrors of the lives of sex workers in Sierra Leone.

She has been beaten, robbed, kidnapped, trafficked to another country, rescued, trafficked and rescued again.

Amidst all of this, she became hooked on a dangerous street drug, kush, that is wreaking havoc in the West African nation.

BBC Africa Eye spent four years following the lives of a group of sex workers in Makeni, about 200km (124 miles) from the capital Freetown.

The city lies in an area rich in diamonds, which fuelled Sierra Leone’s civil war – a conflict that has had devastating consequences still being felt to this day.

Isata is one of hundreds of sex workers in Makeni. Like all of the women we spoke to, she has opted to only use her first name.

“All the sacrifices I’m making, I do it for my daughter. I have been through so much pain on the streets,” she said.

“I met a man in the club. He tore my clothes. He took money from my bra. I was trying to fight my way out. He hit me on the back of the head with his gun. He wanted to kill me.”

It is a dangerous life – some of the women we meet have also contracted HIV.

Others have been killed.

But many feel there is little choice.

In a dark patch of swampland in the city, two sex workers pointed out an area with empty grain sacks spread out across the ground.

One of the young women, Mabinty, told us this was where they worked side by side – seeing up to 10 men a night.

The men pay them a dollar a time.

She is trying to make enough money to support her children. She had six, but three died.

The other three are in school.

“One child has just sat his exams. I don’t have money to pay for him to go to school, unless I sell sex. These are my sufferings,” she said.

Thousands of women are estimated to have turned to sex work across Sierra Leone.

Many of them are young women orphaned by the war, which claimed the lives of more than 50,000 people and displaced almost half the country’s population by the time it ended in 2002.

Charity groups say the number of young girls working in the sex trade has further increased as the country grapples with the economic fallout of the Ebola outbreak and the coronavirus pandemic.

Like many crises, these have disproportionately impacted women.

Prostitution is not illegal in the country, but the women are seen as outcasts and receive little support from the government or society.

Not long after we met Isata in 2020, she was kidnapped by a criminal gang and forced into sex slavery in The Gambia, Senegal and finally Mali.

She managed to get hold of a phone and described her life there.

“The way they approach us, it is like they want to kill us unless we accept,” she said.

“I am suffering so much.”

BBC Africa Eye was then able to track her down and a UN body, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), helped Isata return to Sierra Leone.

She gave up sex work but, when we saw her in 2021, she was struggling to make enough money to take care of her daughter, by cooking in a local kitchen.

The next time we got an update on Isata, in 2023, she had returned to prostitution after becoming hooked on kush – a psychoactive blend of addictive substances sold cheaply, that can contain human bones.

The drug has become such a problem in Sierra Leone, the president has declared it a national emergency.

In the grip of addiction, Isata left behind her youngest child – a son just four months old.

He was being looked after by Isata’s mother, Poseh.

“The stress of the street life led her to smoking kush. It’s the stress,” Poseh said.

Nata is also a single mother in her twenties.

She has three daughters.

We met her at home, where she was getting ready to go out and work.

“I want my children to do well in life. I hope my prayers will be answered by God,” she said.

Her daughter watched her mum apply her make-up. She told us she wanted to become a lawyer when she is older.

“To help my mum,” she said.

Across town, we met another young girl, Rugiatu, aged around 10.

Her mother Gina was also a sex worker. She was murdered in 2020 at just 19 years old.

Rugiatu now lives with her elderly grandmother.

“My mum and dad are dead now. I am only left with my grandma. If my gran dies, all I can do is go and beg in the street,” Rugiatu said.

“I don’t want them to kill me on the street too.”

When we next saw Nata, she was unrecognisable. She, too, has become hooked on kush.

“I am not happy to be like this, but I don’t want to think much,” she tells us.

“Sometimes I cry when I remember. That why I am smoking, to forget.”

Her three daughters have had to go and live with relatives.

Then, in early 2024, there was more bad news from Isata.

She had been trafficked again, as part of a group of women who were promised nanny work in Ghana but were instead taken to Mali and forced to sell sex in a gold-mining area.

“I want to be taken home. I’m begging, I regret everything,” Isata tells us over the phone.

She said she became worried when the man who promised the nannying work dodged police checkpoints and border posts at every stage of the journey.

“He handed us over to a Nigerian woman called Joy,” she said.

“We asked: ‘You told us we are going to Ghana for nanny work, is this Ghana?’”

“Joy asked us: ‘Were we not told we are coming to do sex work?’ Then I said: ‘No’.”

“She said: ‘Go and get some money’ and give it her.”

Like many trafficked women, Isata was told she must work to pay her traffickers a large sum of money to buy back her freedom.

They told her she had to pay $1,700 (£1,300).

She would have to have sex with hundreds of men to make that much money.

Her traffickers told her she had three months to pay them.

The IOM – the UN body which helps trafficked people – says thousands of Sierra Leoneans, including children, are trafficked every year.

They are either abducted or tricked into travelling out of the country with the promise of a better job.

Instead, they are sold to foreigners in countries around the continent and end up in forced labour or sexual exploitation.

Many may never see home again.

Fortunately for Isata, she has finally made it back to Makeni, and is living with her mother and two children.

• Kush: Sierra Leone’s new illegal drug
• What difference did national emergency on sexual violence make?
• World’s police in technological arms race with Nigerian mafia
• How a Malawi WhatsApp group helped save women trafficked to Oman
• How a sex abuse ring targeted Gabon’s child footballers

Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria accepted donations of clothing so they could “look their best” to represent the UK, David Lammy has said.

Asked about the donations, the foreign secretary suggested other countries had generous taxpayer-funded budgets for leaders’ clothing.

Lammy was responding to reports Sir Keir may have broken parliamentary rules in failing to declare clothes bought for his wife by Labour donor Lord Waheed Alli.

He told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “US presidents and first ladies have a huge budget, paid for by the taxpayer, so that they look their best on behalf of the US people.”

In fact, the US first lady does not have access to a specific clothing budget – and many have shared frustration at the cost of staying fashionable in the White House.

In some countries, taxpayers contribute to living expenses for their leaders – and this can include clothing.

US presidents have an expenses budget of some $50,000 (£38,000), which can be used to purchase clothing and other items, on top of an annual salary of $400,000.

But the US president’s spouse – historically, always a first lady – does not receive an annual salary or fixed expenses budget, though they have paid staff and an office.

That’s despite the US first lady’s fashion choices attracting immense scrutiny and attention.

Notable examples have included Melania Trump’s Zara jacket emblazoned with “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?”, on a visit to a migrant detention centre, and the striking scarlet Alexander McQueen dress worn by Michelle Obama while meeting former Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Some first ladies have said that, in general, they were expected to pay for their clothes themselves.

Laura Bush, the wife of George W Bush, wrote in her 2010 memoir that she was “amazed by the sheer number of designer clothes that I was expected to buy… to meet the fashion expectations for a first lady”.

“After our first year in the White House, our accountant said to George, ‘It costs a lot to be president,’ and he was referring mainly to my clothes,” Mrs Bush wrote.

Michelle Obama’s press secretary, Joanna Rosholm, told CNBC in 2014: “Mrs Obama pays for her clothing.”

US first ladies can also accept clothes as gifts, often on behalf of the government.

Some designers welcome the publicity their clothes being worn by the first lady offers them.

With the price tags of designer dresses easily running into the tens of thousands, donations are the only way comparatively less wealthy occupants of the White House can afford to wear star designers.

“For official events of public or historic significance, such as a state visit, the first lady’s clothes may be given as a gift by a designer and accepted on behalf of the U.S. government,” Mrs Rosholm said.

The Smithsonian Museum lists the dress current first lady Jill Biden wore at her husband’s 2021 inauguration as a donation of designer Alexandria O’Neil “in honour of first lady Jill Biden” – an indication the designer lent her the dress.

By contrast, it appears that her predecessor Melania Trump, whose husband’s wealth made him the richest president in history, donated her inaugural dress, designed by Hervé Pierre, herself. That may be because she paid for it.

In the UK, Sarah Brown, wife of former prime minister Gordon Brown, has spoken of the difficulties around accepting gifts – including clothing – while in Downing Street.

“As I quickly discover,” she wrote in her 2011 book Behind the Black Door, “there is no shortage of designers and retailers who will offer you free clothes.

“However, there are many rules that govern what MPs (and spouses) can do with free gifts – not to mention the moral aspect of using your position to grab freebies.

She explained the solution: “No 10 advisers and I figure out a way that works for everyone. Any clothes that I want to keep, I can buy.

“Any freely offered clothes or jewellery, I can effectively ‘rent’ for about 10 per cent of the retail value, then return.”

Spouses of world leaders elsewhere generally appear to rely on donations for their style choices.

France’s Brigitte Macron does not have a state-funded budget for clothes and is believed to be lent outfits by Parisian high fashion houses such as Louis Vuitton.

According to the 2019 book Madame La Présidente, her office keeps a record of which clothes have been donated to her and which are her own.

But her husband, President Emmanuel Macron, has been criticised for his own profligate spending. This year, a newspaper revealed that his office reserved a business class seat on a flight from Paris to Brazil solely to transport two of his suits, at a cost of nearly €4,000 (£3,380).

In Germany, ministers were criticised for spending €450,000 on hairdressers, makeup artists and photographers in the first six months of 2023, though there does not appear to be a specific fund for clothing.

Asked about Lammy’s remarks, a Foreign Office spokesman declined to comment further.

Downing Street said of Sir Keir’s declaration of clothing donations: “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.”

How much is too much for a caffeine fix?

Prices like £5 in London or $7 in New York for a cup of coffee may be unthinkable for some – but could soon be a reality thanks to a “perfect storm” of economic and environmental factors in the world’s top coffee-producing regions.

The cost of unroasted beans traded in global markets is now at a “historically high level”, says analyst Judy Ganes.

Experts blame a mix of troubled crops, market forces, depleted stockpiles – and the world’s smelliest fruit.

So how did we get here, and just how much will it impact your morning latte?

In 2021, a freak frost wiped out coffee crops in Brazil, the world’s largest producer of Arabica beans – those commonly used in barista-made coffee.

This bean shortfall meant buyers turned to countries like Vietnam, the primary producer of Robusta beans, that are typically used in instant blends.

But farmers there faced the region’s worst drought in nearly a decade.

Climate change has been affecting the development of coffee plants, according to Will Frith, a coffee consultant based in Ho Chi Minh City, in turn impacting bean yields.

And then Vietnamese farmers pivoted to a smelly, yellow fruit – the durian.

The fruit – which is banned on public transport in Thailand, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong because of its odour – is proving popular in China.

And Vietnamese farmers are replacing their coffee crops with durian to cash in on this emerging market.

Vietnam’s durian market share in China almost doubled between 2023 and 2024, and some estimate the crop is five times more lucrative than coffee.

“There’s a history of growers in Vietnam being fickle in response to market price fluctuations, overcommitting, and then flooding the market with quantities of their new crop,” Mr Frith says.

As they flooded China with durian, Robusta coffee exports were down 50% in June compared to the previous June, and stocks were now “near depleted”, according to the International Coffee Organisation.

Exporters in Colombia, Ethiopia, Peru and Uganda have stepped up, but have not produced enough to ease a tight market.

“Right at [the] time when things started to rev up for demand of Robusta, is right when the world was scrambling for more supply,” explains Ms Ganes.

This means Robusta and Arabica beans are now trading at near-record highs on commodity markets.

Is the shifting global coffee economy actually impacting the price of your coffee on a high street? The short answer: potentially.

Wholesaler Paul Armstrong believes coffee drinkers may soon face the “crazy” prospect of paying more than £5 in the UK for their caffeine fix.

“It’s a perfect storm at the minute.”

Mr Armstrong, who runs Carrara Coffee Roasters based in the East Midlands, imports beans from South America and Asia, which are then roasted and sent to cafés around the UK.

He tells the BBC he recently increased his prices, hoping it would account for the higher asking prices – but says costs have “only intensified” since.

He adds that with some of his contracts ending in the coming months, cafés he serves will soon have to decide whether to pass the higher costs on to their customers.

Mr Frith says some segments of the industry will be more exposed than others, though.

“It’s really the commercial quantity coffee that will experience the most disuption. Instant coffee, supermarket coffee, stuff at the gas station – that’s all going up.”

Industry figures caution that a high market price for coffee may not necessarily translate into higher retail prices.

Felipe Barretto Croce, CEO of FAFCoffees in Brazil, agrees that consumers are “feeling the pinch” as consumer prices have risen.

But he argues that is “mostly due to inflationary costs in general”, such as rent and labour, rather than the cost of beans. Consultancy Allegra Strategies estimates beans contribute less than 10% of the price of a cup of coffee.

“Coffee is still very cheap, as a luxury good, if you make it at home.”

He also says that the cost of lower-quality beans rising means high-quality coffee may now be seen as better value.

“If you go into a speciality coffee shop in London and get a coffee, versus a coffee in Costa Coffee, the difference [in price] between that cup and the speciality coffee is much smaller than it used to be.”

But there is hope of price relief on the horizon.

The upcoming spring crop in Brazil, which produces a third of the world’s coffee, is now “crucial”, according to Mr Croce.

“What everyone is looking at is when the rains will return,” he says.

“If they return early, the plants should be healthy enough and the flowering should be good.”

But if the rains come as late as October, he adds, yield predictions for next year’s crop will fall and market stress will continue.

In the long term, climate change poses serious challenges for the global coffee industry.

A study from 2022 concluded that even if we drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the area most highly suited for growing coffee could decline by 50% by 2050.

One measure to future-proof the industry that has the support of Mr Croce is a “green premium” – a small tax levied on coffee given to farmers to invest in regenerative agricultural practices, which help protect and sustain the viability of farmlands.

So while smelly fruit is partly responsible for price rises now – a changing climate may ultimately strain the affordability of coffee in the years to come.

In June two American astronauts left Earth expecting to spend eight days on the International Space Station (ISS).

But after fears that their Boeing Starliner spacecraft was unsafe to fly back on, Nasa delayed Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore’s return until 2025.

They are now sharing a space about the size of a six-bedroom house with nine other people.

Ms Williams calls it her “happy place” and Mr Wilmore says he is “grateful” to be there.

But how does it really feel to be 400km above Earth? How do you deal with tricky crewmates? How do you exercise and wash your clothes? What do you eat – and, importantly, what is the “space smell”?

Talking to BBC News, three former astronauts divulge the secrets to surviving in orbit.

Every five minutes of the astronauts’ day is divided up by mission control on Earth.

They wake early. At around 06:30 GMT, astronauts emerge from the phone-booth size sleeping quarter in the ISS module called Harmony.

“It has the best sleeping bag in the world,” says Nicole Stott, an American astronaut with Nasa who spent 104 days in space on two missions in 2009 and 2011.

The compartments have laptops so crew can stay in contact with family and a nook for personal belongings like photographs or books.

The astronauts might then use the bathroom, a small compartment with a suction system. Normally sweat and urine is recycled into drinking water but a fault on the ISS means the crew must currently store urine instead.

Then the astronauts get to work. Maintenance or scientific experiments take up most time on the ISS, which is about the size of Buckingham Palace – or an American football field.

“Inside it’s like many buses all bolted together. In half a day you might never see another person,” explains Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, commander on the Expedition 35 mission in 2012-13.

“People just don’t go zipping through the station. It’s big and it’s peaceful,” he says.

The ISS has six dedicated labs for experiments, and astronauts wear heart, brain or blood monitors to measure their responses to the challenging physical environment.

“We’re guinea pigs,” says Ms Stott, adding that “space puts your bones and muscles into an accelerated ageing process, and scientists can learn from that”.

If the astronauts can, they work faster than mission control predicts.

Mr Hadfield explains: “Your game is to find five free minutes. I would float to the window to watch something go by. Or write music, take photographs or write something for my children.”

A lucky few are asked to do a spacewalk, leaving the ISS for the space vacuum outside. Mr Hadfield has done two. “Those 15 hours outside, with nothing between me and the universe but my plastic visor, was as stimulating and otherworldly as any other 15 hours of my life.”

But that spacewalk can introduce something novel to the space station – the metallic “space smell”.

“On Earth we have lots of different smells, like washing machine laundry or fresh air. But in space there’s just one smell, and we get used to it quickly,” explains Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut, who spent eight days on the Soviet space station Mir in 1991.

• WATCH: ‘Space is my happy place,’ says stranded astronaut

Objects that go outside, like a suit or scientific kit, are affected by the strong radiation of space. “Radiation forms free radicals on the surface, and they react with oxygen inside the space station, creating a metallic smell,” she says.

When she returned to Earth, she valued sensory experiences much more. “There’s no weather in space – no rain on your face and or wind in your hair. I appreciate those so much more to this day now,” she says, 33 years later.

In between working, astronauts on long stays must do two hours of exercise daily. Three different machines help to counter the effect of living in zero gravity, which reduces bone density.

The Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) is good for squats, deadlifts, and rows that work all the muscle groups, says Ms Stott.

Crew use two treadmills that they must strap into to stop themselves floating away, and a cycle ergometer for endurance training.

All that work creates a lot of sweat, Ms Stott says, leading to a very important issue – washing.

“We don’t have laundry – just water that forms into blobs and some soapy stuff,” she explains.

Without gravity pulling sweat off the body, the astronauts get covered in a coating of sweat – “way more than on Earth”, she says.

“I would feel the sweat growing on my scalp – I had to swab down my head. You wouldn’t want to shake it because it just would fly everywhere.”

Those clothes become so dirty that they are thrown out in a cargo vehicle that burns up in the atmosphere.

But their daily clothes stay clean, she says.

“In zero-gravity, clothes float on the body so oils and everything else don’t affect them. I had one pair of trousers for three months,” she explains.

Instead food was the biggest hazard. “Somebody would open up a can, for example, meats and gravy,” she says.

“Everybody was on alert because little balls of grease drifted out. People floated backwards, like in the Matrix film, to dodge the balls of meat juice.”

At some point another craft might arrive, bringing a new crew or supplies of food, clothes, and equipment. Nasa sends a few supply vehicles a year. Arriving at the space station from Earth is “amazing”, says Mr Hadfield.

“It’s a life-changing moment when you catch sight of the ISS there in the eternity of the universe – seeing this little bubble of life, a microcosm of human creativity in the blackness,” he says.

After a hard day’s work, it is time for dinner. Food is mostly reconstituted in packets, separated into different compartments by nation.

“It was like camping food or military rations. Good but it could be healthier,” Ms Stott says.

“My favourite was Japanese curries, or Russian cereal and soups,” she says.

Families send their loved ones bonus food packs. “My husband and son picked little treats, like chocolate-covered ginger,” she says.

The crew share their food most of the time.

Astronauts are pre-selected for personal attributes – tolerant, laid-back, calm – and trained to work as a team. That reduces the likelihood of conflict, explains Ms Sharman.

“It’s not just about putting up with somebody’s bad behaviour, but calling it out. And we always give each other metaphorical pats-on-the back to support each other,” she says.

And finally, bed again, and time to rest after a day in a noisy environment (fans run constantly to disperse pockets of carbon dioxide so the astronauts can breathe, making it about as loud as a very noisy office).

“We can have eight hours of sleep – but most people get stuck in the window looking at Earth,” Ms Stott says.

All three astronauts talked about the psychological impact of seeing their home planet from 400km in orbit.

“I felt very insignificant in that vastness of space,” Ms Sharman says. “Seeing Earth so clearly, the swirls of clouds and the oceans, made me think about the geopolitical boundaries that we construct and how actually we are completely interconnected.”

Ms Stott says she loved living with six people from different countries “doing this work on behalf of all life on Earth, working together, figuring out how to deal with problems”.

“Why can’t that be happening down on our planetary spaceship?” she asks.

Eventually all astronauts must leave the ISS – but these three say they would return in a heartbeat.

They don’t understand why people think the Nasa astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are “stranded”.

“We dreamed, worked and trained our entire lives hoping for an extended stay in space,” says Mr Hadfield. “The greatest gift you can give a professional astronaut is to let them stay longer.”

And Ms Stott says that as she left the ISS she thought: “You’re gonna have to pull my clawing hands off the hatch. I don’t know if I’m going to get to come back.”

The Emmy Awards 2024 have taken place, with Baby Reindeer, The Bear and Shogun leading the winners.

Ahead of the ceremony in Los Angeles, nominees and other stars walked the red carpet. Here is a selection of photos.

It was the submersible that promised passengers the trip of a lifetime. A chance to descend 3,800m (12,500ft) to the Atlantic depths to visit the wreck of the Titanic.

But last year, a dive by Oceangate’s Titan sub went tragically wrong. The vessel suffered a catastrophic failure as it neared the sea floor, killing all five people onboard.

The US Coast Guard is holding a public hearing on 16 September to examine why the disaster happened, from the sub’s unconventional design to ignored safety warnings and the lack of regulation in the deep.

Titan began its descent beneath the waves on the morning of 18 June 2023.

On board were Oceangate’s CEO Stockton Rush, British explorer Hamish Harding, veteran French diver Paul Henri Nargeolet, the British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman.

Later that day, after the craft failed to resurface, the US Coast Guard was notified, sparking a vast search and rescue operation.

The world watched and waited for news of the missing sub. But on 22 June, wreckage was discovered about 500m (1,600ft) from Titanic’s bow. Titan had imploded just one hour and 45 minutes into the dive.

These are five key questions that still need to be answered.

Those on Titan could stay in contact with the support ship, the Polar Prince, with text messages sent through its onboard communications system. The log of these exchanges could reveal if there were any indications that the sub was failing.

The vessel also had an acoustic monitoring device – essentially mics fixed to the sub listening for signs it was buckling or breaking.

“Stockton Rush was convinced that if there was an imminent failure of the submersible, they would get an audio warning on that system,” explains Victor Vescovo, a leading deep sea explorer.

But he said he was highly sceptical that this would have provided enough time for the sub to return to the surface. “The issue is how quickly would that warning happen?”

If there were no apparent problems during the descent and alarms failed to sound, those on board could have been unaware of their imminent fate.

The implosion itself was instantaneous, there would have been no time for the passengers to even register what was happening.

Forensic experts have been examining Titan’s wreckage to find the root of the failure.

There were several issues with its design.

The viewport window was only rated to a depth of 1,300m (4,300ft) by its manufacturer, but Titan was diving almost three times deeper.

Titan’s hull was also an unusual shape – cylindrical, rather than spherical. Most deep-sea subs have a spherical hull, so the effect of the crushing pressure of the deep is distributed equally.

The sub’s hull was also made out of carbon fibre, an unconventional material for a deep-sea vessel.

Metals such as titanium are most commonly used as they are reliable under immense pressures.

“Carbon fibre is considered to be a material that is unpredictable [in the deep ocean],” explains Patrick Lahey, CEO of Triton Submarines, a leading manufacturer.

Every time Titan went down to the Titanic – and it had made multiple dives – the carbon fibre was compressed and damaged.

“It was getting progressively weaker because the fibres were breaking,” he said.

The junctions between different materials also gave cause for concern. The carbon fibre was attached to two rings of titanium, creating weak points.

Patrick Lahey said the commercial sub industry had a longstanding, unblemished safety record.

“The Oceangate contraption was an aberration,” he told BBC News.

Ships, aircraft and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) were scrambled to the Atlantic to try to find Titan.

A couple of days into the search, there were reports of underwater noises picked up by a search plane’s sonar, raising the possibility they were coming from the sub.

ROVs were sent to locate the source but found nothing.

It is still not clear what the sounds were – the ocean is noisy and even more so during an operation like this.

A more pertinent subsea sound was detected by the US Navy’s sonar system at the time the sub went missing – an acoustic signal consistent with an implosion. The information was only made public on the day the remains of Titan were found.

It is not known when the US Coast Guard was told of the noise – or whether the families and friends waiting on the sub’s support ship were informed.

Eventually the deep-sea robots returned to where Titan had gone missing and the wreckage was found.

Rory Golden, who was on the Oceangate expedition when contact was lost, recently told the BBC those on board the surface vessel experienced four days of fear and “false hope”.

Many were concerned about Oceangate’s sub.

Victor Vescovo says he was so worried, he had urged several passengers against diving on Titan – including his friend Hamish Harding, one of the five who died.

“I told him, in no uncertain terms, that he should not get in the submersible,” he said.

Fears about safety were also brought directly to Oceangate – including by the company’s former director of marine operations, David Lochridge, who assessed the sub while it was being developed.

US court documents from 2018 show that Lochridge had identified numerous “serious safety concerns” and the lack of testing could “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible”.

Engineers from the Marine Technology Society also said that Oceangate’s experimental approach could result in “negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic)” in a letter shared with Stockton Rush.

In an email exchange shown to BBC News last year, deep-sea specialist Rob McCallum told Rush that the sub should not be used for commercial deep dive operations and was placing passengers in a “dangerous dynamic”.

In response, Rush said he had “grown tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation” and dismissed warnings that he would kill someone as “baseless”.

With the death of Oceangate’s CEO, we will never be able to ask why he chose not to listen to these concerns. But the public hearings could reveal who else at the company knew about them – and why no action was taken.

Deep-sea submersibles can go through an extensive safety assessment carried out by independent, specialist, marine organisations such as the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) or DNV (a global accreditation organisation based in Norway).

Oceangate chose not to put Titan through this process.

The assessment would have confirmed whether the vessel – from its design through to construction, testing and operations – met certain standards.

Most operators opt to have their deep-sea subs certified – but it is not mandatory.

Rush described his sub as “experimental” and, in a blog post in 2019, he argued that certification “slowed down innovation”.

In an email exchange with Rob McCallum, he said he didn’t need a piece of paper to show Titan was safe, and that his own protocols and the “informed consent” of passengers were enough.

The passengers on Titan paid up to $250,000 (£191,135) for a place. They all had to sign a liability waiver.

Irish businessman Oisin Fanning made two dives in Titan in 2022 – the last before the sub’s fatal disaster.

He said the Oceangate team took safety seriously, with extensive briefings before each descent. But it wasn’t made clear to him that Titan had not been certified.

“I would be lying if I said I didn’t think there had been something like that done already – that it conformed with certain norms,” he said.

“We all knew that the Titan was experimental. We were very confident, because obviously there’d been a few dives before that, and it seemed to be working well.”

The public hearings will last for two weeks. The hope is the answers it provides could prevent a disaster like this from happening again.

For 40-year-old farmer Ali Ibrahim, the nightmare began in the late afternoon on 5 June, with the sound of heavy weapons.

“We had never seen such shelling since we were young,” he recalls. “The bombardment lasted for four hours, with houses destroyed, screaming children – women and the elderly were helpless to escape.”

At least 100 civilians were killed that day in the attack on the Sudanese village of Wad al-Nourah, according to estimates by volunteers of the local resistance committee.

Mr Ibrahim says the villagers were unarmed: ”We are simple farmers. We’ve never carried weapons. We have no enemies. We are just citizens trying to protect our lives.”

The BBC has heard testimonies from several survivors who accuse armed men from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – the paramilitary group fighting the Sudanese army – of opening fire and storming the village in two successive attacks, using heavy weaponry. Dozens of residents were killed or injured.

The alleged number of deaths in this incident would make it one of the deadliest incidents involving civilians since the war between the army and the RSF began in April 2023.

The BBC managed to speak to several survivors of the Wad al-Nourah attack, who are currently receiving treatment at the Al Managil government hospital where they were transferred for treatment.

Reporters were also able to analyse the videos they shared.

The hospital is located about 80km (50 miles) from the village, and many survivors arrived there hours after the attack. According to their testimonies, the RSF forces also tried to prevent them leaving the village, and looted most of their vehicles.

After enduring “hours of terror” during the bombardment, followed by frantic attempts to find a way to transport the wounded and bury those killed by the shelling, the residents were “shocked” by a second massive RSF attack on their village early the next morning, one of the survivors at the hospital told the BBC.

“They entered our house, beat me and my siblings, and asked, ‘where is the gold?’. My little sister was scared and told my mother to give them the gold.”

This account is consistent with those of other survivors, all of whom confirmed RSF forces had “attacked the village from three directions, entered homes, killed civilians, and looted valuables, including gold, cars, and stored agricultural products”.

Hamad Suleiman, a 42-year-old retail trader, said armed RSF fighters entered his brother’s house and began shooting without warning.

“I went to my brother’s house and found them there… They shot my brother and nephew dead, and another nephew was injured and is here with me in the hospital.”

He says he tried to reason with the RSF fighters and asked why they had killed his family.

“I tried to talk to them, and they told me to recite the Shahada [The Islamic profession of faith that is recited when the feeling of death is near]. They shot me in the hand and fled… they looted all the cars.

“I was wounded and couldn’t find a way out for hours.”

The BBC contacted the RSF for their response to the survivors’ testimonies, and the accusations of attacks, killings, looting and intimidation. We had received no reply by the time of this report’s publication.

RSF spokesperson Al-Fateh Qurashi issued a video statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, a day after the incident – denying their forces had targeted civilians.

He stated that the forces had engaged with elements of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Intelligence – also known as ‘Al Mustanfaron’ – a militia carrying small weapons and aligned with the SAF, who were in the village at the time of the attack.

The BBC’s fact-finding team analysed videos provided by the RSF, which they claimed depicted locations and trenches used by Al Mustanfaron in Wad al-Nourah. The analysis revealed these locations were all situated outside the village, not within it.

The analysis also showed that members of the RSF opened fire towards the village, using heavy weapons from about a mile away.

Wad al-Nourah is similar to hundreds of villages scattered across Gezira state. Most of its residents work in agriculture and trade, and it has a small weekly market where traders from neighbouring villages come to buy and sell livestock and crops.

The RSF took control of Gezira state, to the south of the capital, Khartoum, in December 2023, and has been accused of carrying out numerous abuses against civilians there – which it repeatedly denies.

Gezira state is one of the regions most affected by the war, with the fighting spreading there early on in the conflict. It also became a refuge for thousands of displaced people fleeing Khartoum and Darfur.

Since the RSF took control of the area at the end of last year, one village after another has suffered acts of violence.

The RSF continue to deny accusations of war crimes such as killing, looting, rape and burning villages – instead pointing the finger at what they call “unruly” people.

Thousands of people have died and 10 million have been forced to flee their homes since April last year, when Sudan was thrown into disarray after its army and a powerful paramilitary group began a vicious struggle for power.

The UN Resident and Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, has called for a comprehensive and transparent investigation to uncover the circumstances of the Wad al-Nourah attack.

The villagers, who lost dozens of loved ones, hope an investigation committee will be established, and that the perpetrators will be held accountable – rather than escaping punishment as has happened in the past in Sudan.

For months, an unusual monument sat in an oak-lined square at the heart of Tasmania’s capital: a pair of severed bronze feet.

A statue of renowned surgeon-turned-premier William Crowther had loomed over the park in Hobart for more than a century. But one evening in May, it was chopped down at the ankles and the words “what goes around” graffitied on its sandstone base.

It was a throwback to another night more than 150 years ago, when Crowther allegedly broke into a morgue, sliced open an Aboriginal leader’s head and stole his skull – triggering a grim tussle over the remaining body parts.

Tasmania had become the centre of coloniser efforts to eradicate Aboriginal people in Australia. And the sailor on the slab – William Lanne – was touted as the last man on the island, making his remains a twisted trophy for white physicians.

Some see Crowther as an unfairly maligned man of his time, and his effigy as an important part of the state’s history, warts and all.

But for Lanne’s descendants, it represents colonial brutality, the dehumanising myth that Tasmanian Aboriginal people are extinct, and the whitewashing of the island’s past.

“You walk around the city anywhere and you’d never know Aborigines were here,” Aboriginal activist Nala Mansell says.

Now the dismembered statue has become a symbol of a city – and a nation – struggling to reckon with its darkest chapters.

Few places encapsulate the issue quite like Risdon Cove – called piyura kitina by the Palawa Aboriginal people.

Tucked beside a creek, a monument proudly marks it as the first British settlement on what was then called Van Diemen’s Land.

For Tasmanian Aboriginal people, though, this hillside on the outskirts of Hobart is “ground zero for invasion”.

“It’s the first landing and not coincidentally the first massacre [of our people],” Nunami Sculthorpe-Green tells the BBC one overcast afternoon.

Startled from their reverie, flurries of native hens – which piyura kitina is named after – scatter over the mossy grass as we arrive.

A wallaby hastily bounds towards sparse gum trees. It’s from that direction that Mumirimina men, women and children would have come down the slope on 3 May 1804, singing as they hunted kangaroos.

They were met with muskets and cannons.

The events of that day – and the death toll – are disputed. What is not contested is that this marked the start of a determined effort by British settlers to get rid of the original Tasmanians, nine nations of up to 15,000 people.

War broke out and Aboriginal people were hunted across the island, the survivors rounded up and sent to what have been described as death camps.

“If that happened anywhere in the world today, it would be referred to as ethnic cleansing,” says Greg Lehman, a Palawa professor of history.

Ripped from his homelands as a child, Lanne survived two of those camps before living out his final years as a shipmate and beloved advocate for his people.

Even before he died of disease in 1869, aged only 34, letters show that powerful men in Hobart had begun scheming.

“There’s no way that that young man was going to be allowed to lie in a grave. No way,” historian Cassandra Pybus tells the BBC.

The theft of Aboriginal remains had long been normalised, she says, but reached a fever pitch in Tasmania as the number of its original inhabitants dwindled.

Lanne’s skull was sought to prove since-discredited theories about Tasmanian Aboriginal people – that they were the missing link between humans and Neanderthals, a distinct race so primitive they didn’t even know how to make fire.

Before he was buried, his hands and feet would also be cut off and pocketed by physicians. Some historians say his grave was robbed as well, and every bone in his body taken.

Crowther always denied any involvement in stealing Lanne’s remains – his backers called the allegations a witch hunt – but the town was horrified, and he was suspended from his honorary position at the hospital.

For First Nations people, who believe their spirits can only rest once returned to their land, what happened was especially distressing.

But within two weeks, Crowther was elected to state parliament, and he’d soon rise to be Tasmania’s premier for an unremarkable six months.

By contrast, Lanne’s skull appears to have wound up on the other side of the globe at a UK university, and his people were soon declared extinct.

Except they were not.

Today’s Palawa people trace their ancestry to a dozen women who survived, while other groups – which some do not recognise as Aboriginal – also say they descend from a handful of people who managed to evade capture in the 1800s.

Yet, for the past 150 years, Tasmanian Aboriginal people say they have been fighting to be visible, in the history pages and in everyday life.

The lie that they were extinct is largely blamed on outdated views about ethnic identity. But others say it was also a strategic decision – to deny Tasmanian Aboriginal people rights, and to snuff out their culture.

The impact has been devastating. Many Palawa people speak of being persecuted for their Indigenous blood in one breath and denied their identity because of their white ancestry in the next.

Even now, many feel there are huge swathes of their history missing – or wilfully ignored.

Nala points out all she was taught about Tasmanian Aboriginal culture and history at her Hobart school was a brief lesson on boomerangs and didgeridoos – although her people used neither.

And aside from a walking track named after Truganini – Lanne’s wife and a leader in her own right – there are no sites celebrating Aboriginal people around the city.

“The way they tell stories about Aboriginal people… they want you to think that it’s somewhere really far away from where you are, and that it’s something that happened a really long time ago,” Nunami says.

Unimpressed, the 30-year-old history graduate started Black Led Tours to fill the gap.

“I realised that I was walking to work the exact same way Truganini used to walk her dogs. And I realised that my parents met at the pub where William Lanne died. I also realised that the Crowther statue was right next to my bus stop.

“And I thought: does everybody know that this is right here, where we live and where we work?”

When unveiling the effigy in 1889, the then-premier said Crowther was not “a perfect man”, but one who spent his time doing good.

His scandal overlooked, until recently he was remembered for offering free health care to the poor.

That rankles Tasmanian Aboriginal people like Nala: “It’s just a kick in the guts.”

As spokeswoman for the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, she led a renewed campaign to take down the memorial.

“To us, it would be no different to having a statue of Martin Bryant,” she says, referring to the gunman who massacred 35 people at nearby Port Arthur in 1996.

But some, like Jeff Briscoe – who lost the legal case to prevent the statue’s removal – believe the sculpture has priceless heritage value as the only memorial in the state “funded totally by the public”.

“At the time, it was a significant memorial and everyone was proud of it. In 2024, should the perceptions of a few people override all that?

“It’s not as if he was going around shooting people… he maybe had been involved in the mutilation of a body, but they all were.

“They’re bringing the bar down so low that no memorial from colonial times will be safe in Australia.”

Cassandra Pybus says there is no doubt that Crowther did mutilate Lanne, citing letters he wrote. However, she had argued, like Mr Briscoe, that taking down the statue would set a dangerous precedent, because “everybody was racist”.

She had wanted it to remain so the site could be used to educate people about how the first Tasmanians were treated.

The statue’s fate divided even Crowther’s living descendants, with some publicly supporting the calls for removal, and others distressed by them.

Hobart Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds says the council voted to remove the statue in 2022 “as a commitment to telling the truth of our city’s history, and as an act of reconciliation with the Aboriginal community” – the first decision of its kind in Australia.

They did it after a rigorous consultation and with the support of the “silent majority”, she adds.

Ultimately, she says, the statue is a sign of how desperate Crowther was to repair his reputation, not his significance to the state: “[He’s] not that important.”

But while the council worked through red tape, some grew impatient and took it down themselves.

For Lanne’s descendants, their relief at the long-awaited fall of the statue is tinged with pain. They feel Lanne has been reduced to his death.

“He had a whole life… and just as he advocated for our people’s rights, we will advocate for his story to be remembered and him to be respected for who he was,” Nunami says.

The Crowther statue is not unique. Countless similar landmarks or monuments – which joke about massacres, include racial slurs or celebrate alleged killers – are still standing across Australia.

Many, like Greg, believe removing or renaming them could be a natural starting point for the “truth-telling” the country needs, to reconcile with its First Peoples, the oldest living culture on the planet.

“You’d think that it was just a bunch of happy free settlers and not-so-happy convicts who jumped off the First Fleet… and bingo, there you’ve got modern Australia,” he says.

“For Australia to have an honest and powerful relationship with itself, it must have an honest relationship with the past.”

But after a proposal for an Indigenous political advisory body was defeated at a referendum last year, any movement towards a national truth-telling inquiry has stalled – though many states are setting up their own.

There are still many, like Jeff Briscoe, who believe a “truth-telling” process would be a divisive and unnecessary rehashing of the past – views echoed by a bloc of conservative politicians who also oppose a treaty.

“Nowadays people want Aborigines to stand in front of them and say welcome to our country. They want us to dance for them. They want us to teach them our language. They don’t mind if we put some of our paintings in the mall,” Nala says.

“But if you talk about… any type of benefit for the Aboriginal community, or taking back anything that was stolen from us, it’s a completely different ballgame.”

However she is among those who feel like the tide is slowly turning.

“The Crowther statue… is the first time I’ve ever thought, ‘Wow, white people – they’re starting to get it’,” Nala says.

The council was still deciding what should replace the sculpture when it met its unexpected end.

But many wanted the severed feet to remain in the square – as is – arguing they made a wryly “funny” and “profound” statement.

However earlier this week, the council plucked the ankles from their perch, to reunite them with the rest of the effigy, citing heritage law requirements.

But Nunami says even the now empty plinth illustrates the story of Crowther and Lanne far better than the statue ever did.

“We get to say we, as the public, learnt, we grew, and we changed the narrative of this place… Look here, we cut that down.”

TikTok will start making its case on Monday against a law that will see it banned in the US unless its Chinese owner ByteDance sells it within nine months.

The measure – signed into law by President Biden in April – has been prompted by concerns that US users’ data is vulnerable to exploitation by China’s government.

TikTok and ByteDance have always denied links to the Chinese authorities and have described the law an “extraordinary intrusion on free speech rights.”

The social media firm, which claims to have more than 170 million American users, will make its arguments before a three-judge panel at an appeals court in Washington DC.

Company representatives will be joined by eight TikTok creators, including a Texas rancher and a Tennessee baker, who say they rely on the platform to market their products and make a living.

Lawyers from the Department of Justice (DoJ) will then proceed to lay out their case.

In addition to data concerns, DoJ officials and lawmakers have expressed alarm at the prospect of TikTok being used by the Chinese government to spread propaganda to Americans.

However, advocates of America’s powerful free speech rights, enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, say upholding the divest-or-ban law would be a gift to authoritarian regimes everywhere.

“We shouldn’t be surprised if repressive governments the world over cite this precedent to justify new restrictions on their own citizens’ right to access information, ideas, and media from abroad,” said Xiangnong Wang, a staff attorney at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute.

It has filed an amicus brief – legal documents submitted by someone not a party to the case but with an interest in it, offering information or expertise, usually with the hope of influencing the outcome.

Mr Wang also criticised lawmakers for being vague about the specific national security threats that they say TikTok poses.

“We can’t think of any previous instance in which such a broad restriction on First Amendment rights was found to be constitutional on the basis of evidence that wasn’t disclosed,” he said.

But according to James Lewis, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, the law was drafted to withstand judicial scrutiny.

“The substance of the case against TikTok is very strong,” Mr Lewis said.

“The key point is whether the court accepts that requiring divestiture does not regulate speech.”

Mr Lewis added that the courts usually defer to the president on national security matters.

Regardless of how the appeals court rules, most experts agree the case could drag on for months, if not longer.

“Nothing gets resolved next week,” said Mike Proulx, vice president and research director at analysis firm Forrester.

“This is a high stakes and very complicated conundrum that will likely go all the way to the Supreme Court.”

If the Duke of Sussex uses his 40th birthday to reflect on the past decade, he’ll have plenty to ponder.

Prince Harry will celebrate privately on Sunday, with his wife and children, in Montecito in California before heading off on a break with friends.

Messages came from the Royal Family, who haven’t publicly acknowledged Prince Harry’s birthday for two years.

First, a social media post from Buckingham Palace wishing him “a very happy 40th birthday”.

Then, just over an hour later, the same message was reposted by the accounts of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The posts didn’t come with personal messages but the fact they were there at all is interesting.

After a tumultuous ten years – the question is whether the next decade will be a smoother ride for Harry.

It’s not easy to answer. As always with the Duke and the Duchess of Sussex, views are polarised and entrenched.

I first met Prince Harry in the months before his 30th birthday. He’s now told the BBC it was a period in his life when he felt “anxious”.

Back then, we chatted about travelling by tube – something he told me he’d never done. He joked with a BBC colleague I was with. And he talked about his plans for the future away from the comfort and shelter the Army had provided.

I remember walking home thinking how restless Prince Harry had seemed.

Definitely chatty and entertaining. Enthusiastic and energised. But also restless.

I last met Prince Harry in May of this year. Now he’s a husband, father, ex-soldier, former working member of the Royal Family and resident of California. The chat about the London Underground felt like a lifetime ago.

We spent around an hour filming with him at a central London hotel where we watched him lead the games at a children’s party for one of his charities. He couldn’t resist joining in and was an impressive winner of the “who could eat a strawberry lace the fastest” competition.

In many ways we were watching the Harry of old. He was informal and fun. He mucked in and chatted to just about everyone.

In the noise of leaving royal life behind, this version of Prince Harry hasn’t been on show as often.

In recent weeks, there have been suggestions that we might see a bit more of Prince Harry in UK, that he was feeling the pull of his former home and reaching out to old friends and those he’d previously worked with about spending more time here.

But there is little evidence to back up those rumours.

One friend of Harry told me a return to the UK wasn’t on the cards. “Why would he give up everything he’s achieved there to return here? His life is now in America.”

But those close to him say he’d like to come over more regularly to work with the charities and organisations he supports.

Security is the problem. The row with the Home Office about the level of police protection he gets in the UK is ongoing.

The bottom line is Harry doesn’t feel his safety is guaranteed in the UK.

When he was here earlier in the year, he was offered a place to stay at a royal residence in London.

He turned it down believing his royal location would become public knowledge, attract media attention and make his movements around London difficult and risky.

Instead, he stayed under the radar, based with his team in a London hotel.

The physical distance between the prince and some of the organisations he works with has meant relationships have changed.

But Harry’s team from his Archewell Foundation and many of the projects I talked to said the prince was an active and engaged partner, even if he was thousands of miles away.

Later this month, he’ll be in New York working with a number of organisations including the Halo Trust, which helps clear landmines and rebuild communities in areas of conflict.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Halo Trust set up a call between Harry and some of the organisation’s staff in Donbas, eastern Ukraine.

“This wasn’t a quick how are you doing, thinking of you. It was a long conversation and it really meant a lot to them,” said Louise Vaughan from the Halo Trust.

• Listen: Prince Harry at 40 – time to reconcile?

Back in Montecito, California, Harry’s life moves between the routine of the school run to hanging out with A-list friends.

There are occasional photos published of Harry walking the dogs or Meghan having lunch with friends but with their own security team they have been able to live a relatively normal existence.

Just last weekend, Harry and his Meghan were at the opening of a new bookshop in the town.

On the surface it appeared a relatively modest affair until you looked at the guest list – Oprah Winfrey, Ellen de Generes and her wife Portia de Rossi were there too.

The Montecito circle is exclusive, discreet and rich. It’s provided a lavish refuge for Harry and Meghan and given them a degree of protection from the public spotlight.

But the Duke needs to continue making money. Maintaining their home and security detail isn’t cheap.

The multi-million dollar deal with Netflix remains in place where other lucrative contracts have ended.

In December comes “Polo” – a series looking at the “elite world of professional polo”. It is a sport loved by generations of royals. Harry is the executive producer.

And in just weeks, the paperback version of Harry’s memoir “Spare” will be published, after the hardback sold six million copies and became the fastest selling non-fiction book of all time.

Unusually for a memoir of this kind, the new paperback won’t have any updates or additional chapters. There will be no take on the Coronation which the prince attended; no insight into how difficult it has been with his father and sister-in-law unwell.

Is this an olive branch from Prince Harry? A recognition that the bombshells revealed in the first version of “Spare” caused so much damage that to say anything else, after a challenging few months for the Royal Family, would be unpalatable?

Maybe.

The state of the relationship between Prince Harry and his royal family still fascinates.

And there’s some evidence on the smallest of shifts in family relations.

News of the King’s cancer diagnosis brought Harry straight back to the UK to see his father in February.

He was here in the UK for 24 hours and only spent around half an hour with the King. It was a strangely short visit that many found hard to understand.

But the fact that Harry flew over and the King made time to see him suggested there was potential for a fix in that fractured relationship.

It is a different story, for now, with his brother.

The Prince of Wales and his younger sibling do not talk. There is anger, frustration and bitterness that shows no sign of easing.

Harry’s TV interviews, book and public criticism of the Royal Family has been too much for his older brother and several other senior royals.

“I just can’t see a fix,” said a source who’d worked with William and Harry. “It’s been a long time now and they haven’t found a peace. Their lives are now very separate. It’s sad.”

As he reaches a milestone birthday, mending his broken family relationships will be complicated and slow. Some bonds feel like they could be beyond repair.

Prince Harry has made some life-changing choices over the past decade.

He has left behind the “anxious” and restless 30-year-old restless prince and replaced him with the 40-year-old royal outsider, “excited” about his next decade.

I have breast cancer. Saying it, writing it, doesn’t get any easier. I still can’t quite believe it’s happened to me.

Last week I finished six months of chemotherapy – days before Catherine, Princess of Wales announced she had also completed similar treatment for cancer.

During 11 rounds of chemo, I’ve lost my hair, endured regular nosebleeds, and almost overcome a fear of needles.

But normal life has continued – I’ve been able to work on reduced hours, we took a family holiday and I even got to see Taylor Swift on her Eras tour.

We don’t know what kind of cancer Catherine had, or the details of her medical care. Every cancer patient receives treatment individually tailored to their disease.

All I can do is tell you how chemotherapy affected me.

Eight months ago I was a normal married mum-of-two, juggling a rewarding full-time job as a journalist with the usual parent taxi duties.

I ate home-cooked meals, enjoyed a couple of glasses of red wine at the weekend and tried to get out for a run two or three times a week.

Healthy, fit, happy. Playing by the rules.

Then at the beginning of March, just before my 45th birthday, I found a lump in my right breast.

Within days – and after a mammogram, an ultrasound and a biopsy – medics warned me there was a “strong suspicion” of cancer.

A succession of very concerned-looking nurses and doctors told me to try not to worry ahead of the formal diagnosis. Aye right, OK.

That night – alone in a hotel room in Glasgow – I was a wreck. My mind was racing, thinking about loved ones I had lost to cancer, mentally composing letters to my kids, my husband; planning my funeral.

The next few weeks are a blur of scans, tests, worry. There were some really bleak moments of despair.

You know that racing panic you feel in your chest when you wake up after an awful dream? I felt like that all the time – without the relief that comes when you realise it was a nightmare.

I didn’t know if I would live or die.

So when my oncologist used the words “curative intent” in a meeting to discuss treatment, I felt a huge weight lift off my chest.

It meant there was a good chance he could cure me, using chemotherapy to reduce the size of the cancer in my breast and lymph nodes, before surgery to remove it, and radiotherapy to stop it from returning.

It was at this point – before my treatment started – that the Princess of Wales announced her own cancer diagnosis. It was too raw. I had to avoid the news for a few days.

I received the chemotherapy through a cannula in the back of my hand alongside about half-a-dozen other patients in a ward at the local hospital in Dumfries.

Sitting in large purple chairs, we are hooked up to a drip and supplied with an apparently never-ending supply of drinks, biscuits and even offered a foot massage.

The process didn’t hurt but it wasn’t pleasant. The cold cap – used to try and save your hair – left me cold to the bone; some of the medication made me sleepy.

By the end of my treatment, a visit to the chemo clinic was almost like popping in to see friends – caring, no-nonsense friends who like to stick needles in your veins.

They remember your kids’ names, your job, your sense of humour, how you take your tea – the stuff that really matters when you’re at your lowest ebb.

I had been assured by medics before chemo that the treatment “shouldn’t be horrendous” and I remember initially comparing the side-effects of my first round to a particularly bad hangover I once had in Benidorm.

But when that goes on for days, and you haven’t the memories of a night out with friends to offset it, it quickly become wearisome.

I suffered nausea, sickness, headache and then – because of all the steroids I had to take – I couldn’t sleep at night despite being bone-tired.

My breast cancer nurses had urged me to contact them or a national cancer helpline if I had any problems. But my mind was playing tricks on me. The side-effects were grim but were they horrendous? Was the headache worth bothering them about? I was only sick once, do they really need to know? Shouldn’t I just put up with it and let the drugs do their job?

And then in the days that followed, as the sickness eased but the tiredness refused to shift, I fell into a doom spiral. I worried about my own mortality, my family, the kids; I worried about the next round of chemo.

A change to my anti-sickness medication seemed to help with the nausea and the headaches by round two. I turned to the local Macmillan Cancer Information and Support Centre for help with the low mood.

But there was little I could do about the fatigue.

I tried to get out for a walk every day – fresh air always makes me feel better – but routes that I could run round in 30 minutes just a few weeks ago left me exhausted.

Afternoon naps became the norm. I spent a lot of time lying on the sofa and watched more episodes of Married at First Sight Australia than I care to admit to.

But every day I’d do a little bit more – maybe a pile of ironing; a supermarket shop; a coffee with a friend – and by day seven of the 14-day cycle, I was well enough to go back to work. It was the distraction I needed.

• How to do a breast examination
• Watch: Strictly Amy: Cancer and Me

Then my hair started falling out. It’s always been quite short but it was still distressing to find clumps lying in the shower, on my pillow, inside my hat.

I had it shaved off but it started growing back when I moved on to a new, more manageable, lower dose chemo drug at the end of July.

I’ve decided to embrace the GI Jane look and, to be honest, I often forget about it – at least until I glimpse myself in the mirror or feel the cold air on my scalp.

On top of that, my sense of taste changed; I have a nose bleed every morning (I hope that will clear up soon); my finger nails are brittle; my eyes water in the slightest breeze; my skin looks like it’s aged about 20 years.

But I know I’m lucky – these are mild irritations. They didn’t stop me sitting sharing my daughter’s glee at finally seeing Taylor Swift in the flesh at Wembley; or my son’s joy at tumbling down huge sand dunes on our family holiday.

The chemo has worked, the cancer has shrunk. Like the Princess of Wales, however, I’ve still got a long way to go. I have more treatment ahead of me.

Catherine released an emotional video of her family to announce the end of her chemo. This time round, I found I didn’t have to avoid the news. I watched the film, read the analysis, empathised with her words.

It really does make you grateful for the simple things in life.

But it has also helped me appreciate the family and friends who have gone out of their way to help – driving me to and from hospital, popping round for a cuppa, filling my fridge with food, texting to check how I am.

Now I want to make plans – to get back to work full-time, to book some holidays, to really make the most of this second chance.

Among the more than 67 million people who tuned in to the first US presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris was Lila Rose.

The young and charismatic founder of the anti-abortion group Live Action had hoped for big things from the Republican candidate: a bold display of anti-abortion beliefs and a promise to turn those beliefs into law.

She was quickly disappointed. While Trump criticised Democrats’ “extreme” abortion policies, he refused to take a position on a national ban, saying instead that the issue should be left to the states.

And he called himself a “leader” on IVF, putting himself at odds with Ms Rose and many in her movement, who oppose the procedure because it often involves destroying embryos.

“It was painful to watch,” Ms Rose said of Trump’s performance.

Ms Rose, 36, had always had reservations about Trump’s anti-abortion bona fides, after years of shifting positions (including previously declaring himself pro-choice) and his openness to what she called “concerning compromises”. But she, like most in her movement, had been encouraged by his first term and the three Trump-appointed Supreme Court nominees who went on to overturn Roe v Wade and end the nationwide right to abortion.

Then Trump changed course, and her disillusionment with the former president swelled. Now on his third White House run, Trump seems to be working to appeal to all sides.

He hinted he would sign federal abortion legislation, before later walking it back. He called the state-wide restrictions that came into place after Roe v Wade fell “a beautiful thing”. But later, he said abortion bans early in pregnancy went too far, suggesting Republican candidates needed to be moderate enough on the issue to “win elections”.

This summer, during the Democratic National Convention, the former president posted a statement online saying his future administration would be “great for women and their reproductive rights” – language typically used by pro-choice activists.

By late August, Ms Rose had had enough, telling her more than one million followers that Trump was “making it impossible” to vote for him.

“It’s very clear that Trump is less pro-abortion than Kamala Harris,” she told the BBC on Thursday. “But our movement’s goal is not just to accept whatever the least worst candidate is and show up for them. Our goal is to help candidates who are going to be fighters for the pre-born.”

One of the most prominent leaders in the anti-abortion movement, Ms Rose’s defection signals a potential problem with Trump’s new strategy. As Trump attempts to moderate on abortion, he risks alienating some within his socially conservative base. And in an election that may be decided by a razor-thin margin, if those voters stay home in November it could cost Trump the White House.

“When a strategy like that works, you can kind of be anything to everyone,” said Mary Ziegler, a legal historian and expert on the US abortion debate. “And when it stops working you wind up being nothing to everyone.”

His campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump in 2016, and again in 2020, had held social conservatives close. He embraced anti-abortion activists and championed their movement, becoming the first sitting president to attend the March for Life, the country’s largest annual anti-abortion demonstration.

He delivered for social conservatives in a way that few Republican presidents ever had, Ms Ziegler said.

“Trump, I think, always understood with his first two races that he would be politically dead in the water without the movement,” she said. “So there was much more catering to them.”

In return, these voters turned out overwhelmingly for Trump. In 2020, the former president claimed 84% of white evangelical Christians – some of the most socially conservative voters in the country – up from the already high 77% in 2016.

But Trump was reportedly spooked by his party’s underperformance in the 2022 midterm elections – which he and many analysts attributed to the fall of Roe v Wade – and aware of the broad public support for abortion access. So, this time around, Trump has seemed to soften on the issue.

By the time the Republican primary elections began at the start of the year, he had started to criticise six-week abortion bans, promising to find a national standard that would please everyone. “Both sides are going to like me,” he said last year.

And over the summer, confronted with more questions about what his White House would do on abortion, Trump could not settle on an answer.

He indicated he wanted a national “standard” for abortion but has since backed away from any commitment. He said he believed in states’ authority over abortion policy but intervened in several state battles over abortion, often in opposition to social conservatives.

He came out against Florida’s six-week abortion ban, saying you “need more than six weeks” and appeared to signal he would vote for a November referendum that would protect abortion in the state. A day later, after intense pressure from anti-abortion activists, he said he would vote against it.

These contortions have strained relationships with key anti-abortion allies.

“It’s disconcerting for our students and for our movement,” said Kristan Hawkins, head of Students for Life, one of the largest anti-abortion organisations in the country. “And what I’ve conveyed to the campaign personally is that this strategy is not a winning strategy.”

A growing number of voices within the social conservative movement have started to say the same: that by playing to the middle on abortion, Trump may lose must-win voters, without actually attracting anyone new.

“The frustration for pro-lifers is that Trump is saying things he thinks might ultimately reach more moderate voters, which frankly is not going to work,” said Matt Staver, founder and chairman of the Florida-based anti-abortion group Liberty Counsel. “And in doing that you’re causing consternation among other voters who are otherwise with you. There’s no point for him engaging in this.”

There is no indication that Trump is facing any wide-scale exodus of social conservatives from his party, and both Mr Staver and Ms Hawkins said they would still be casting their ballots for Trump.

But in an election that could hinge on a narrow slice of voters, in just a handful of states, some experts say Trump’s abortion wavering could still cost him the election.

John Feehery, a Republican strategist, estimated that some 80% of white evangelical Christians – who make up about 14% of the American electorate – need to turn out for Trump to deliver him a win.

“I don’t think there’s a danger of white evangelicals voting for Harris, I think there’s a real danger of them not voting,” Mr Feehery said, adding that “10,000 votes” could be enough to tip the scales.

That risk could explain the reticence of most anti-abortion leaders to talk publicly about abandoning the Republican candidate.

Indeed, some in the movement have expressed frustration with Ms Rose’s position, saying that while Trump is not the ideal candidate, he is still better for their cause than any Democratic opponent.

Ms Hawkins of Students for Life has begun to focus her messaging, increasingly, on Harris, telling followers that the harm her administration could do – in the number of abortions alone – would eclipse any missteps by Trump.

“I know we’ll be able to work with his administration,” she said. “When you believe, as pro-life activists do, that babies are dying that have a right to be born, I don’t feel I can morally take a position of sitting this out.”

But Ms Rose has shrugged off any criticism that her position may inadvertently assist Harris, and her decidedly pro-choice agenda. For her, good enough is not good enough when it comes to abortion, and to Donald Trump.

“I know it’s painful for a lot of you guys to hear this, people that want to go out and vote cheerfully for Trump because Kamala Harris is such a disaster… but we have to tell the truth,” she told followers the morning after the debate.

“Abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent child,” she said. “We need to oppose it loudly.”

Former US President Donald Trump has been found liable to pay damages to London singer and songwriter Eddy Grant for using his song Electric Avenue without permission.

It has taken Mr Grant, 76, more than four years to sue the Republican candidate in this year’s presidential election in the US courts, over his 2020 campaign video that used a 40-second clip of the song.

The video was viewed 13.7 million times before Twitter, now known as X, took it down.

A federal judge in Manhattan ruled Mr Trump breached Mr Grant’s copyright for his 1983 hit, and is now liable for damages as well as paying for the singer’s legal fees.

Mr Grant’s battle with the former President began in August 2020, when he was seeking re-election to the White House. The songwriter’s counsel, Wallace E.J. Collins, issued a cease and desist letter to Donald Trump’s campaign team.

On Friday, Judge John G. Koeltl rejected arguments from Mr Trump’s lawyers that the Twitter video was shielded under copyright’s fair use doctrine, which allows for the use of protected works in certain situations.

Brian D. Caplan, Mr Grant’s attorney, told Business Insider: “As a staunch believer of artist’s rights and the ability to control their creative output, Mr. Grant believes that the decision will help others in their fight against the unauthorized use of sound recordings and musical compositions.

“Politicians are not above the law and the court reaffirmed that.”

Earlier this month a US judge has ordered the Trump campaign to stop using the song Hold On, I’m Coming at his rallies, in response to a lawsuit from the family of the song’s co-writer, Isaac Hayes.

Dozens of other artists have objected to the use of their songs at Trump rallies in recent months including Abba, Foo Fighters, Celine Dion and Johnny Marr.

Electric Avenue takes its name from the south London road in Brixton, the first market street in the capital to be lit by electricity. It still forms part of Brixton Market today.

It inspired the title of Mr Grant’s song, written as a response to the 1981 Brixton riots, which reached number two in the charts in both the UK and the US.

Mr Trump’s team has been approached for comment about the Electric Avenue court case.

Jane’s Addiction have apologised after they cancelled an upcoming show following an on-stage brawl in Boston.

On Friday night, the American band cut short their gig after frontman Perry Farrell threw a punch at guitarist David Navarro.

They were due to play in Bridgeport, Connecticut on Sunday as part of their reunion tour but this has now been pulled.

“We want to extend a heartfelt apology to our fans for the events that unfolded last night,” the band wrote on Instagram on Saturday.

“As a result we will be cancelling tomorrow night’s show in Bridgeport.”

The band insisted that fans would be reimbursed.

Footage on social media showed Farrell shouting at Navarro, 57, and punching him.

The 65-year-old rocker was then restrained by staff and taken off stage at Boston’s Leader Bank Pavilion.

Jane’s Addiction formed in Los Angeles in 1985. The band consists of Farrell, Navarro, drummer Stephen Perkins and bassist Eric Avery.

They have reunited after more than a decade, and are due to play a string of dates in the coming months throughout the US and Canada.

There has been no confirmation as to whether those shows will still go ahead.

The band released four albums together: Nothing’s Shocking (1988), Ritual De Lo Habitual (1990), Strays (2003), and The Great Escape Artist (2011).

Their hits include Been Caught Stealing, Strays and The Great Escape Artist.

The rockers were honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013.

BBC News has approached Jane’s Addiction for a comment.

Former President Donald Trump was rushed to safety on Sunday after what the FBI called an apparent assassination attempt at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach.

The incident comes almost exactly two months after a shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, which left Trump wounded and one supporter dead.

Details are still emerging from the latest incident and about the suspect, named by US media as Ryan Routh. Here is what we know so far.

The incident unfolded at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, about 15 minutes from Trump’s Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago.

The gunman was first seen by Secret Service agents, who were sweeping the course ahead of the former president as he played. The agents usually go one hole ahead to perform security checks, according to police.

The muzzle of a rifle – initially described as an AK-47-style rifle by County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw – was spotted sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course. At the time Trump was about 300-500 yards (272-557m) away from the gunman, he said.

An agent “immediately engaged” with the person holding the rifle, who fled, Sheriff Bradshaw said.

“The Secret Service did exactly what should have been done.”

Agents opened fire when they spotted the gunman and fired four to five rounds of ammunition.

The suspect dropped the rifle and fled in a vehicle, abandoning the weapon along with two knapsacks, a scope used for aiming a weapon and a GoPro camera, Sheriff Bradshaw said.

A witness saw the man flee from the shrubbery to a black Nissan, the sheriff said. The witness captured a photo of the car and provided it to law enforcement.

• Follow live: Latest updates and analysis on apparent assassination attempt

The suspect was apprehended by police driving northbound on the I-95 highway after crossing into Martin County, roughly 61km (38 miles) from Trump’s golf course.

Several law enforcement sources have told the BBC’s US partner, CBS News, that the suspect’s name is Ryan Wesley Routh.

Details on the suspect’s history are slowly emerging.

Speaking to US media, Mr Routh’s son, Oran, described him as a “loving and caring father”.

“I don’t know what has happened in Florida, and I hope things have just been blown out of proportion, because from the little I’ve heard it doesn’t sound like the man I know to do anything crazy, much less violent,” Oran said in a statement to CNN.

BBC Verify has found social media profiles matching that name. They indicate that Routh called for foreign fighters to go to Ukraine to battle against Russian forces.

There are also pro-Palestinian, pro-Taiwan and anti-China messages on his profile, including allegations about Chinese “biological warfare” and references to the Covid-19 virus as an “attack”.

Mr Routh, who had no military experience, told the New York Times in 2023 he had travelled to Ukraine immediately after Russia’s invasion in 2022 to find military recruits among Afghan soldiers who had fled the Taliban.

He seems to have been involved in recruitment efforts as recently as this summer, writing on Facebook in July: “Soldiers, please do not call me. We are still trying to get Ukraine to accept Afghan soldiers and hope to have some answers in the coming months… please have patience.”

Early reporting suggests Mr Routh had a criminal record. According to CBS sources, Ryan Routh was charged and convicted of numerous felony offences in Guilford County in North Carolina between 2002 and 2010.

The offences include including carrying a concealed weapon, resisting arrest by a police officer, driving with a revoked licence, possession of stolen property and hit and run with a motor vehicle.

Trump was not injured during the incident.

Shortly after the incident was confirmed by his campaign team, the Republican issued a statement to his fundraising list, which read: “There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumours start spiralling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL”.

Trump gave his account to Fox News anchor Sean Hannity, who retold the episode on air on Sunday.

“They were on the fifth hole, they were about to go up to putt,” Mr Hannity said.

The former president heard “pop pop, pop pop”, he said. “Within seconds, the Secret Service pounced on the president [and] covered him.”

He added that a steel-reinforced vehicle soon whisked Trump away to safety.

During the same news conference with the sheriff, Jeffrey Veltri from the FBI Miami Field Office said the bureau was leading investigations alongside other law enforcement agencies.

“We’ve deployed a number of resources, including investigative teams, crisis response team members, bomb technicians and evidence response team members,” Veltri said, adding that the “full resources of the FBI” alongside the US Secret Service, the Palm Beach Sheriff’s office and Martin County Sheriff’s office were mobilised.

The White House said President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, who is the Democratic presidential candidate, had been briefed about the incident and were relieved to know that he was safe.

“I am deeply disturbed by the possible assassination attempt of former President Trump today,” Harris said in a statement.

Leaders from the bipartisan congressional task force set up to investigate the 13 July assassination attempt in Pennsylvania said they were thankful the former president was not harmed, “but remain deeply concerned about political violence and condemn it in all of its forms”.

Republican congressman Mike Kelly and Democrat Jason Crow said the task force has requested a briefing with the Secret Service to understand “what happened and how security responded”.

Secret Service’s Rafael Barros told reporters on Sunday measures had been taken since the previous assassination attempt and “the threat level is high”.

The first court appearance for Mr Routh is expected on Monday, at the Palm Beach County courthouse near Mar-a-Lago.

Former President Donald Trump is safe following an apparent assassination attempt at his Florida golf course, and a “potential suspect” is in custody, US authorities have confirmed.

Secret Service agents spotted the barrel of a rifle poking through some bushes and opened fire at him, officials said. The FBI said Trump was 300-500 yards (275 to 455m) away at the time.

An AK47-style firearm and scope, along with two backpacks and a GoPro camera, were later found at the scene.

A witness reported seeing the suspect running from some bushes and jumping into a black Nissan car after the agents had fired at him multiple times.

• Follow live: Trump targeted in apparent assassination attempt at golf course, says FBI

The witness took a picture of the vehicle and number plate and it was stopped later in Martin County, north of the club.

“We got a hold of Martin County Sheriff’s Office, alerted them, and they spotted the vehicle and pulled it over and detained the guy,” said Sheriff Ric Bradshaw of Palm Beach County.

“After that, we took the witness that witnessed the incident, flew him up there and he identified as the person that he saw running out of the bushes, that jumped into the car,” the sheriff told a news briefing.

In an email to his supporters, Trump said he was “safe and well”.

“Nothing will slow me down,” he wrote. “I will never surrender!”

The incident comes almost exactly two months after a gunman attempted to assassinate Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, striking his ear.

The Secret Service confirmed in a post on X that they were investigating a “protective incident” involving Trump that took place shortly before 14:00 EST (19:00 BST) on Sunday.

• ANALYSIS: America faces a new normal in political violence

• What we know so far about Trump assassination attempt

Later Sheriff Bradshaw said “the Secret Service agent that was on the course did a fantastic job”.

He added: “What they do is they have an agent that jumps one hole ahead of time to where the president was at and he was able to spot this rifle barrel sticking out of the fence and immediately engage that individual, at which time the individual took off.”

There is now a heavy security presence on the roads and in the waters around the former president’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida, and his nearby golf course at West Palm Beach.

US media, citing unnamed law enforcement officials, have named the suspect as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, of Hawaii.

BBC Verify has found social media profiles matching that name. They indicate that Routh called for foreign fighters to go to Ukraine to battle against Russian forces.

Routh was charged and convicted of numerous offences in Guilford County, North Carolina, between 2002 and 2010, according to a law enforcement source who spoke to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

The offences included carrying a concealed weapon, resisting arrest, hit and run motor vehicle, driving with a revoked licence and possession of stolen property.

The White House said President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris had been briefed about the golf course incident.

“I am relieved that the former president is unharmed,” Biden said in a statement.

Harris is in a tight race against Trump in the presidential election – the 5 November vote is expected to hang on the results in a few key swing states.

Harris issued a statement saying “I am deeply disturbed by the possible assassination attempt of former President Trump today.

“As we gather the facts, I will be clear: I condemn political violence. We all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence.”

She also said “I am thankful that former President Trump is safe” and praised the US Secret Service and police “for their vigilance”.

Trump was injured while addressing a crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania, on 13 July when a gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired at him with an AR-15–style rifle from the roof of a nearby building.

The shooting left one audience member dead, while Crooks, 20, was killed at the scene by a Secret Service sniper.

The Secret Service faced intense scrutiny over how the shooter from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was able to open fire on the former president.

The director of the agency, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned within two weeks of the incident.

Baby Reindeer, the hugely popular but highly contentious British TV hit, has taken the Emmy Awards by storm, winning four trophies at the ceremony in Los Angeles.

The show’s creator and star, Scottish comedian Richard Gadd, won three of those – for acting in, writing and executive producing the show.

His co-star Jessica Gunning, who played stalker Martha, was named best supporting actress in a limited series.

“Oh my goodness me, blinking heckers,” she said on accepting the award.

“Thank you so much. I honestly feel like I’m going to wake up any minute now and this whole thing has been a dream.”

Gadd’s account of being stalked by a woman for several years and being sexually abused by a male TV industry figure, has been the most talked about show of the year.

However, its claim to be “a true story” has made it controversial, and the real-life woman who allegedly inspired Gunning’s character is currently suing Netflix for defamation, negligence and privacy violations.

Accepting his award for best writing writing for a limited series, Gadd told the audience: “Ten years ago, I was down and out.

“I never ever thought I’d get my life together. I never ever thought I’d be able to rectify myself for what happened to me and get myself back on my feet again.

“And then here I am, just over a decade later, picking up one of the biggest writing awards in television.

“I don’t mean that to sound arrogant. I mean it as encouragement for anyone who’s going through a difficult time right now to persevere.”

In the comedy categories, The Bear won three acting awards including best comedy actor for Jeremy Allen White, who plays Carmy, for the second year in a row.

Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Richie) and Liza Colon-Zayas (Tina) took the supporting awards, the latter appearing overwhelmed to have beaten legends like Meryl Streep and Carol Burnett.

“To all the Latinas who are looking at me, keep believing, and vote – vote for your rights,” she said in her acceptance speech.

The show, set in a highly pressured restaurant kitchen, once again raised eyebrows for being nominated in the comedy section instead of drama.

Perhaps that, combined with a lukewarm reception for its latest season, explains why The Bear lost the award for best comedy series – the night’s final category and the biggest shock.

Instead, that prize went to Hacks, which follows the love-hate relationship between a veteran comedian and her younger writer.

And Hacks star Jean Smart won best comedy actress – her third Emmy win for playing Deborah in the show and her sixth career Emmy overall – ahead of The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri (Sydney), who took the prize last year.

In the drama categories, Australia’s Elizabeth Debicki won her first Emmy, best drama actress for playing Princess Diana in the final season of Netflix’s The Crown.

“Playing this part based on this unparallelled, incredible human being has been my great privilege and it’s been a gift,” she said.

However, hers was the only victory for The Crown’s swansong.

The other drama categories were dominated by Japanese historical epic Shogun.

The show had already broken the record for the most Emmy wins in a single year after picking up 14 prizes at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys, mainly for achievements behind the scenes.

It added another four trophies at the main event, including best drama series – the first non-English language show to take that prestigious prize.

There were also lead drama acting awards for Japanese cast members Hiroyuki Sanada (Yoshii Toranaga) and Anna Sawai (Toda Mariko).

Elsewhere, Billy Crudup won best supporting drama actor for The Morning Show, while Jodie Foster won best actress in a limited series for True Detective: Night Country.

Successful British talent included TV host John Oliver, who won best scripted variety series, and Will Smith, who won best drama writing for Slow Horses.

The Traitors host Alan Cumming picked up the programme’s trophy for best reality or competition show. That came after he was named best reality or competition host at the Creative Arts Emmys, which took place a week before the main ceremony.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Yemen’s Houthis will pay a “heavy price” after a missile fired by the group landed in central Israel.

The Israeli military said the missile landed in an uninhabited area early on Sunday, but that shrapnel indicated air defence systems had failed to destroy it before it entered Israeli airspace.

It added that it was investigating how the missile was able to reach so far into Israeli territory.

The strike marks the first time a missile fired by the group has reached central Israel, which is around 2,000km (1,240 miles) from Yemen.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said there had been repeated attempts to shoot the missile down on Sunday but that it most likely fragmented in mid-air.

The Houthis claimed the operation used a new type of hypersonic missile, which may help explain the failure of efforts to intercept it.

They are an armed group that seized much of Yemen in the country’s ongoing civil war and have declared themselves part of the Iran-led “axis of resistance” against Israel, the US, and the wider West.

The Houthis said in a statement that Sunday’s attack was carried out in solidarity with the Palestinians and that Israel should expect more ahead of the first anniversary of the 7 October attacks.

Missile fragments landed at a railway station in the city of Modiin, causing some damage, and in open ground near Israel’s main international airport on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

The damage is believed to have been caused by Israel’s own interceptor missiles.

Netanyahu said the strike showed that Israel was in a “multi-front battle against Iran’s axis of evil that strives to destroy us”.

“[The Houthis] should have known by now that we exact a heavy price for any attempt to harm us,” he said.

“Anyone who attacks us will not escape from our arms.

“Hamas is already learning this in our determined action that will lead to its destruction and the release of all of our hostages.”

Israeli forces launched a campaign to destroy Hamas following the 7 October attacks, which saw around 1,200 people killed and another 251 taken to Gaza as hostages.

More than 41,206 people have been killed in Gaza since the campaign began, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

This is not the first time the Houthis have attacked Israel.

In July, one man was killed and eight people were injured after a Houthi drone landed in Tel Aviv.

Previously, almost all Houthi missiles and drones fired towards Israel had been intercepted and none were known to have reached Tel Aviv.

In response, Israeli jets attacked the city of Hodeidah in Yemen, causing a huge fire which engulfed one of the country’s most important oil storage facilities.

On a cold winter’s day in June 2002, an intellectually disabled teenage girl disappeared from the New South Wales Riverina without a trace.

Since then, the mystery over what happened to Amber Haigh has captivated the vast Australian farming region, due to a stunning allegation: that the 19-year-old was killed by the father of her five-month-old baby and his wife, so that they could take her child.

Two decades on, Robert and Anne Geeves – both 64 – were charged with her murder, but on Monday were found not guilty after a high-profile trial.

Justice Julia Lonergan found that prosecutors had failed to prove their alleged motive, saying: “Cases are not decided on rumour, speculation or suspicion.”

“Even if I suspect the accused probably committed the offence charged… I must acquit.”

The Geeveses are the last known people to have seen Amber alive, and have long said they dropped her at a train station 300km (186 miles) from their home in Kingsvale – where the three had been living at the time – so that she could visit her dying father on 5 June.

Despite extensive police investigations, a coronial inquiry, and a million-dollar reward for information, her body has never been found.

The Crown relied on witness testimony and documentation to support their theory – that the Geeveses had “manipulated” Amber into having Robert’s baby, and then “removed” her “from the equation” when she wouldn’t relinquish custody.

The court heard the couple had an adult son – who had previously dated Amber – but in the early 2000s still “desperately” wanted another child, having endured several miscarriages and a stillbirth.

However, the defence said the allegation they killed Amber to steal her baby was baseless, and that the investigation into the pair – who have spent two years in prison awaiting trial – was flawed from the start.

They told the court a “haze of mistrust” had clouded the local community’s view of the Geeveses due to Robert’s history – which included acquittals for the murder of an ex-partner who was found shot in the face on his property, and a string of sexual assault charges involving two schoolgirls.

That past, the Geeveses lawyers said, had created a “presumption of guilt” that persisted for decades, and ultimately “blinded” police as they tried to piece together Amber’s case.

Over nine weeks, dozens of witnesses gave evidence about the final months of the teen’s life – describing a “vulnerable” young woman who struggled to discern between “love and exploitation”.

Several recalled how Amber had shared stories of abuse with them – including instances where Robert Geeves had allegedly plied her with alcohol, tied her up, and had sex with her.

And the couple’s son Robbie told the court that his mother had referred to his ex-girlfriend as a “surrogate” and that both parents had turned up at his home in the dead of night to try and force him to accept Amber’s child as “his little brother”.

The prosecution also tendered a written agreement Amber made Robert sign, promising not to take her child, as well as a will she’d created stipulating her aunt be given custody of the baby in the event of her death.

“There was little sign, in the sea of evidence in this case, that Amber was ever shown the love she needed or deserved,” Justice Lonergan said when delivering her verdict.

But she ultimately found that there was a critical “problem” with the prosecution’s case – there was “no satisfactory evidence” that Anne and Robert still held a desire for more children when Amber became pregnant.

She criticised the accounts of prosecution witnesses, and said the investigation had focussed on “disproving the Geeveses version of events” rather than investigating the cause of Amber’s disappearance.

Looking at the couple as they sat in the dock, she ordered that they be released from custody immediately.

As Justice Lonergan delivered the verdict, one member of the public gallery stormed out of the courtroom to scream. Amber’s relatives, too, were visibly shaken, with some later quietly breaking down in tears outside court.

After decades without political violence directed at a presidential candidate from one of the major parties, the US has now experienced this twice in the space of two months – with former president Donald Trump the target on both occasions.

In mid-July, he narrowly avoided being shot in the head by a gunman at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The 20-year-old attacker was shot dead by a sniper.

Two months later, on Sunday afternoon, during a round of golf, he was the apparent target of another would-be assassin, according to the FBI, with a suspect now in custody.

Investigators said a man armed with an AK-47 style rifle was waiting in the bushes while Trump played on his West Palm Beach golf course before the alleged assailant was spotted by Secret Service agents, who opened fire.

Americans have had to adjust to “new normals” in politics – large and small – on a seemingly regular basis in the past few years. The national discourse has coarsened, partisan divisions have sharpened and become more entrenched, and the standards for candidate behaviour have eroded.

Given the national epidemic of gun violence, these kind of attacks are perhaps another, inevitable new normal. But for now, it is still shocking.

“Violence has no place in America,” Vice-President Kamala Harris – who is also Trump’s Democratic opponent this election – said in a statement after the incident in Florida.

Details of the apparent assassination attempt – the identity and motivation of the assailant in particular – will ultimately determine the impact this has on American politics. But, for the moment, it seems like – the vice-president’s comments notwithstanding – this kind of violence is increasingly part of today’s America.

Donald Trump, in his first statement following the apparent attempt on his life, promised that nothing would slow him down or make him surrender.

The response fits into a campaign that has often argued the former president has become a target of persecution and attack because he speaks out for the “forgotten” Americans. His words after his first near-assassination in July – “fight, fight, fight” – became a rallying cry for his supporters.

“They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you,” Trump likes to say. “I’m just standing in the way.”

Now the former president has another dramatic example he can use to illustrate his point.

This latest incident may not pack the emotional heft as the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, however.

That attack happened at a public rally, in full view of television cameras, with the former president bloodied and defiant. One supporter was killed and two others wounded.

This time around, the incident occurred on a golf course Trump owns, with the former president more removed from immediate danger. Without graphic images to replay for days, it may affect how much of an impact this has on the public’s conscience.

At the very least, however, the apparent assassination attempt will generate new headlines that at least temporarily break from what has been a challenging past few days for the former president’s campaign.

Trump’s defensive, uneven performance during last week’s debate against Ms Harris, criticism of his association with the conspiracy-minded Laura Loomer and Sunday morning’s social media diatribe against singer Taylor Swift will be pushed to the side.

Sunday’s drama may be shocking, but with just over seven weeks remaining in this presidential campaign, there seem certain to be more twists to come.

A firefighter died during a flood rescue in Austria and one person drowned in Poland, as torrential rain caused by Storm Boris continued to wreak havoc across Central and Eastern Europe.

In Romania, five people have died, while several remain unaccounted for in the Czech Republic.

The Austrian province surrounding Vienna has been declared a disaster area, with its leaders speaking of “an unprecedented extreme situation”.

Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk declared a state of natural disaster.

• How climate change worsens heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and floods
• Follow live updates on the flooding in Central Europe

Some of the worst rainfall has been in the Czech Republic, where some areas have seen around three months’ rainfall in just three days.

Evacuations are under way and four people remain missing – three in a car which disappeared into a river in North Moravia, and one man who was swept into a flooded stream in South Moravia.

Marek Joch, a resident of Lipov in the southeast, said the town was “closed from all sides” and the “next wave” of the flood is still to come.

“Now everyone is trying to clean up as quickly as possible to prevent further large spills from the riv. Unfortunately, no one knows when the water will recede.

“We still have to survive until Tuesday, this is not the end.”

Jesenik, a town located in the Jeseniky mountains, is described as completely cut off, with roads and rail lines underwater.

Around 17,000 people in the Kłodzko area alone are without power, and internet and mobile telephone connections are down.

Several dozen police and firefighters in Prague were called to rescue a man who went swimming in the flooded Vltava at 7am on Sunday.

On Saturday, police in North Moravia were called after three men were spotted wading into the flooded River Odra on paddleboards.

The mayor of Slobozia Conachi, a village in Romania’s south-eastern Galati region, said 700 homes had been flooded.

“This is a catastrophe of epic proportions,” Emil Dragomir said.

Four people were killed in Galati on Saturday, with a fifth death confirmed on Sunday.

In Austria, governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner said a firefighter had died while pumping out a flooded cellar.

She said the whole of the Lower Austria province has been declared a catastrophe zone.

Multiple trains have been cancelled, parts of the Vienna underground have been closed, and at least one motorway has flooded.

In a post on X, Austria‘s Chancellor Karl Nehammer said the storm situation had “worsened” and was “very serious.”

In the Polish town of Stonie Slaski, a dam has been breached, releasing a torrent of water that has destroyed at least one house, the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management said.

In the same town a bridge collapsed, funnelling water through the streets.

“Soldiers supporting the local population are cut off from their land route back,” the Polish Ministry of Defence said.

“Many residents have to be evacuated from the roofs of their homes.”

In Glucholazy, in the southwest, the mayor of the town said the local river had overflowed its banks and was flooding the town.

A resident of the town, Zofia Owsiaka, said everyone was “scared” and there seemed to be “no hope of the rain stopping”.

In Krakow, Poland’s second largest city, residents have been offered sandbags for flood protection.

Speaking from the town of Klodzko, one of the worst-affected areas, Tusk said 1600 people in the district had been evacuated.

A total of 17,000 people in the area are without power, he said, and in parts Starlink satellites links are being used to maintain mobile phone signal and internet connections.

He added that a helicopter had been sent to help with rescue efforts in regional capital Wroclaw.

On Sunday, the mayor of Klodzko announced that his town had “lost the battle” against the floods, and that the situation had become “critical”.

Storm Boris has already brought extreme amounts of rain across central and eastern Europe, with more downpours forecast until at least the end of Monday.

The storm has been so devastating for two reasons.

Firstly, cold air from the north has mixed with moisture drawn up from the unusually warm waters of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

Secondly, an area of low pressure has been stuck in a blocked weather pattern, meaning it is trapped between high pressure to both the west and east.

Following extreme flooding in 2021, the World Weather Attribution Network concluded that the warming climate meant the likelihood and intensity of such events in Europe was increasing.

How much is too much for a caffeine fix?

Prices like £5 in London or $7 in New York for a cup of coffee may be unthinkable for some – but could soon be a reality thanks to a “perfect storm” of economic and environmental factors in the world’s top coffee-producing regions.

The cost of unroasted beans traded in global markets is now at a “historically high level”, says analyst Judy Ganes.

Experts blame a mix of troubled crops, market forces, depleted stockpiles – and the world’s smelliest fruit.

So how did we get here, and just how much will it impact your morning latte?

In 2021, a freak frost wiped out coffee crops in Brazil, the world’s largest producer of Arabica beans – those commonly used in barista-made coffee.

This bean shortfall meant buyers turned to countries like Vietnam, the primary producer of Robusta beans, that are typically used in instant blends.

But farmers there faced the region’s worst drought in nearly a decade.

Climate change has been affecting the development of coffee plants, according to Will Frith, a coffee consultant based in Ho Chi Minh City, in turn impacting bean yields.

And then Vietnamese farmers pivoted to a smelly, yellow fruit – the durian.

The fruit – which is banned on public transport in Thailand, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong because of its odour – is proving popular in China.

And Vietnamese farmers are replacing their coffee crops with durian to cash in on this emerging market.

Vietnam’s durian market share in China almost doubled between 2023 and 2024, and some estimate the crop is five times more lucrative than coffee.

“There’s a history of growers in Vietnam being fickle in response to market price fluctuations, overcommitting, and then flooding the market with quantities of their new crop,” Mr Frith says.

As they flooded China with durian, Robusta coffee exports were down 50% in June compared to the previous June, and stocks were now “near depleted”, according to the International Coffee Organisation.

Exporters in Colombia, Ethiopia, Peru and Uganda have stepped up, but have not produced enough to ease a tight market.

“Right at [the] time when things started to rev up for demand of Robusta, is right when the world was scrambling for more supply,” explains Ms Ganes.

This means Robusta and Arabica beans are now trading at near-record highs on commodity markets.

Is the shifting global coffee economy actually impacting the price of your coffee on a high street? The short answer: potentially.

Wholesaler Paul Armstrong believes coffee drinkers may soon face the “crazy” prospect of paying more than £5 in the UK for their caffeine fix.

“It’s a perfect storm at the minute.”

Mr Armstrong, who runs Carrara Coffee Roasters based in the East Midlands, imports beans from South America and Asia, which are then roasted and sent to cafés around the UK.

He tells the BBC he recently increased his prices, hoping it would account for the higher asking prices – but says costs have “only intensified” since.

He adds that with some of his contracts ending in the coming months, cafés he serves will soon have to decide whether to pass the higher costs on to their customers.

Mr Frith says some segments of the industry will be more exposed than others, though.

“It’s really the commercial quantity coffee that will experience the most disuption. Instant coffee, supermarket coffee, stuff at the gas station – that’s all going up.”

Industry figures caution that a high market price for coffee may not necessarily translate into higher retail prices.

Felipe Barretto Croce, CEO of FAFCoffees in Brazil, agrees that consumers are “feeling the pinch” as consumer prices have risen.

But he argues that is “mostly due to inflationary costs in general”, such as rent and labour, rather than the cost of beans. Consultancy Allegra Strategies estimates beans contribute less than 10% of the price of a cup of coffee.

“Coffee is still very cheap, as a luxury good, if you make it at home.”

He also says that the cost of lower-quality beans rising means high-quality coffee may now be seen as better value.

“If you go into a speciality coffee shop in London and get a coffee, versus a coffee in Costa Coffee, the difference [in price] between that cup and the speciality coffee is much smaller than it used to be.”

But there is hope of price relief on the horizon.

The upcoming spring crop in Brazil, which produces a third of the world’s coffee, is now “crucial”, according to Mr Croce.

“What everyone is looking at is when the rains will return,” he says.

“If they return early, the plants should be healthy enough and the flowering should be good.”

But if the rains come as late as October, he adds, yield predictions for next year’s crop will fall and market stress will continue.

In the long term, climate change poses serious challenges for the global coffee industry.

A study from 2022 concluded that even if we drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the area most highly suited for growing coffee could decline by 50% by 2050.

One measure to future-proof the industry that has the support of Mr Croce is a “green premium” – a small tax levied on coffee given to farmers to invest in regenerative agricultural practices, which help protect and sustain the viability of farmlands.

So while smelly fruit is partly responsible for price rises now – a changing climate may ultimately strain the affordability of coffee in the years to come.

Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance has doubled down on false claims that migrants are eating household pets in an Ohio town, as city officials repeatedly debunked the rumours.

The baseless claims have led to several security threats, and on Sunday Wittenberg University in Springfield said it had to cancel events because of a threat targeting members of its Haitian community.

Appearing on Sunday talk shows, Vance defended the false stories, saying “media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes”.

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he told CNN.

“It comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents. I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it.”

Vance is a US senator who represents Ohio.

He first brought up the animal-eating claims last week, before Trump amplified them at his first presidential debate against Kamala Harris.

Since then, Springfield city officials have repeatedly debunked the claims.

Mayor Rob Rue told the BBC that the conspiracy theories – and Trump’s pledge to “mass deport” migrants from Springfield – were hurting the town.

“People’s pets are safe in Springfield, Ohio, ” Rue told the BBC’s Newshour programme. “We reached out to the JD Vance Campaign to let them know that we do not have any evidence that has happened, and I’ve made it known in multiple interviews that this is absolutely not true.”

“We need folks to understand, especially those that have a microphone that’s being listened to around the world, they need to understand the weight of their words and how it can negatively affect communities.”

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, on ABC’s This Week called the rumours “a piece of garbage that was simply not true”.

Springfield had to evacuate three schools and other city buildings last week due to threats, at least one of which made disparaging comments about Haitians.

Police at Wittenberg University said in a campus alert that an email sent on Saturday threatened a shooting the following day.

“The message targeted Haitian members of our community, ” police said. “All students, faculty and staff should exercise extreme precaution and be alert to all your surroundings.”

Springfield police have also said they received calls on Saturday about members of the Proud Boys marching in the city, after a video circulated on social media with a group of men carrying flags and wearing logos associated with the far-right group.

Vance told CBS News on Sunday that he did not “align himself” with the Proud Boys but said the real problem was Harris’s “open borders”.

Trump, like Vance, has doubled down on the baseless claims and said the town had been “destroyed” by immigration.

Campaigning Friday in California, Trump vowed there would be “large deportations” from Springfield if elected. He has promised to deport millions of undocumented migrants nationwide.

Springfield, a rust belt city in south-west Ohio, is home to about 60,000 people and has seen thousands of immigrants arrive in recent years.

Many migrants in the town are from Haiti and have legal permission to be in the US under a federal programme for Haitians.

• Don’t mention Trump – Republicans trying to sway women
• Could Trump really deport a million migrants?

Disgraced BBC News presenter Huw Edwards is due back in court at a hearing where he could be sentenced for charges involving indecent images of children.

In July, the former newsreader admitted having 41 such images, which were sent to him on WhatsApp – including some showing a victim aged between seven and nine.

He will return to Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London at 10:00 BST on Monday.

He could be sentenced at the hearing, or the case could be referred to a higher court.

The possible punishments include up to three years in jail, or he could receive a community order with a condition that he undergoes a sex offender treatment programme.

Until last year, Edwards was one of the main presenters on BBC One’s News at Ten and often fronted coverage of major national events.

At his last court appearance, he pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children. Under the law, images can mean photos or video clips.

He was found to have seven category A images – the most serious classification, which show serious abuse including penetrative sexual activity.

Most of the category A images were estimated to show children aged between 13 and 15. Two clips showed a child aged about seven to nine.

He also had 12 category B pictures, which involve non-penetrative sexual activity, and 22 photographs in category C, which covers other indecent images. The category B and C pictures showed children aged between 12 to 15.

Police later revealed the man who sent the images to Edwards was a 25-year-old convicted paedophile called Alex Williams.

Edwards’ barrister Philip Evans KC told the previous hearing that the former broadcaster had not “in the traditional sense of the word created any image of any sort”.

He added that Edwards “did not keep any images, did not send any to anyone else and did not and has not sought similar images from anywhere else”.

Mr Evans also said the former broadcaster had experienced “both mental and physical” health issues.

The barrister told the court his client “was not just of good character, but of exceptional character”.

At that hearing in July, Ian Hope, prosecuting, told the court that a suspended sentence might be considered for Edwards.

Setting out the potential penalties under the law, he said that where there was the prospect of rehabilitation, a community order and sexual offender treatment programme could be considered as alternatives to a jail sentence.

Edwards was the BBC’s highest-paid journalist, receiving between £475,000-£479,999 between April 2023 and April 2024.

The BBC has asked him to return the £200,000 he earned between his arrest last November and his resignation this April.

The BBC’s director general said last week that “discussions are under way” about the possibility of clawing back the money.

“Making” indecent images can have a wide legal definition, and covers more than simply taking or filming the original picture or clip.

The Crown Prosecution Service says it can include:

• opening an email attachment containing an image
• downloading an image from a website to a screen
• storing an image on a computer
• accessing a pornographic website in which an image appears in an automatic “pop-up” window
• receiving an image via social media, even if unsolicited and even if part of a group
• or live-streaming images of children

A court must also decide whether an offence falls into the category of possession, distribution or production.

According to the Sentencing Council, which issues guidelines on sentencing that the courts must follow unless it is in the interests of justice not to do so, creating the original image counts as production – the more serious of the three categories. It adds that “making an image by simple downloading should be treated as possession for the purposes of sentencing”.