Take a drive through North Wales, past the craggy peak of Yr Wyddfa, then head west down the Llŷn Peninsula until you are closer to Ireland than England, and you may just stumble across the tiny village of Botwnnog.

Five miles inland, there is little to recommend it to visitors. There is a chapel, doctor’s surgery and primary school, but other than that, just a strip of houses; many of them council. The nearest shop is just under two miles away in Sarn Meyllteyrn. There isn’t even a pub. 

One distinguishing feature, however, is the strength of the Welsh language. Leaflets on the community noticeboard contain no trace of English – nor does the community website. Local businesses have Welsh names, and the lilting noise from the school playground that lifts onto the breeze is distinctly incomprehensible to a typical English ear.

Some 65 per cent of this remote region speak Welsh – the highest of any area in Wales – and the lack of tourism means there is little to dilute it.

But local passion for this mother tongue has now reached new heights with an attempt by Botwnnog Community Council to decree that new residents in the village should be Welsh speaking. Last week, the council managed to temporarily block plans for 18 new social houses to be built in the village, saying the developers could not guarantee they would go to native speakers. 

In contentious – and some say discriminatory language – documents submitted by the community council to the planning department of Gwynedd County Council stated that English incomers might pose a “danger to the Welsh language and the fabric of the community” and be a “degenerative influence”. 

In an ensuing planning meeting, one councillor, Huw Rowlands, said the proposal could cause “significant harm” to the Welsh language, adding: “If the wrong decision is made, it will have drastic consequences.” Gareth Williams, another councillor, said the occupants would “be from outside the area” and that their presence would be “detrimental to the culture”.

“Everyone in the local area feels very strongly against it,” he added.

Some, of course, may feel they have a point. Just a short drive away, where signs written in English welcome visitors to the picturesque towns of Abersoch and Llangian, locals complain about the proliferation of second homes and constant migration from England.

But for other locals, the assertion that affordable homes should go to only Welsh-speakers has strayed from protecting the language into blatant discrimination.

Speaking to The Telegraph, one said: “It’s outrageous. The Welsh language hasn’t always been promoted in this area so some older people who have lived here all their lives don’t even speak it. 

“Why should they be penalised like this or made to feel unwelcome? It’s awful.”

While another said: “Let’s be realistic. We just need people to move here whoever they are. There is nothing here, not even a shop. If we don’t have new blood, then the whole community will die and the Welsh language with it. The economy has been hammered in this area because of second home owners selling up and we just need people here.” 

Some in the property industry are equally baffled and affronted.  

Pete Mugleston, founder of Online Mortgage Advisor, says: “If it were a property in England and there was a requirement for the buyer to speak English, there would be palpable headlines and outrage.”

Back in sleepy Botwnnog, as people stroll with their dogs or pop to the surgery under a grey sky, the publicity attracted by the row has been unwelcome, with locals reluctant to discuss the matter in public – either in Welsh or English. 

But the demand seems to tie in with a growing confidence in the Welsh language and its right to be preserved. Not only have Snowdonia National Park and the Brecon Beacons been renamed with their historical Welsh titles – respectively Eryri National Park and Bannau Brycheiniog, the Welsh Government has also made huge progress on its pledge to generate 1m Welsh speakers by 2050. In 2001, there were 580,000. Some figures suggest that number could now be as high as 900,000 (although, the most recent census put the figure at 538,000). 

But alongside this growing confidence may perhaps come something more distasteful: an expanding sense of nationalism and rise in anti-English sentiment, perhaps driven by an influx of those east of Offa’s Dyke.

Data from Compare My Move showed there was a 30 per cent rise of English moving to Wales between 2020 and 2022, driven by cheaper living costs and lower house prices (on average, Welsh houses are almost £100,000 cheaper than those in England). Meanwhile, last year, a survey by American Express showed that Wales was the favoured place for people in the UK to holiday, beating Cornwall, Devon and the Lake District.

But some say this influx and increased pressure on housing stock has also brought with it increased crime in summer months, anti-social behaviour and a change to communities. It has even led to concerns over a resurgence of ‘old school nationalism’. In January this year, an Aberystwyth resident, originally from Birmingham, received a poison pen note in red ink, with a message to “go back home”. 

According to one Botwnnog resident, who would not be named, this is the real reason the council blocked the proposed development. 

“The Welsh language is a red herring. It’s not about that at all,” she says. “It’s about the type of people you get – and if we will get people from other social housing projects.

“We may get people from Liverpool or Birmingham, and we don’t want that here. We know crime can go up when this happens as it’s just riff raff. The area is now inundated with them and they drive around in their 4x4s on these narrow lanes and don’t give a monkey’s that you’re local. We currently have low crime here, but we know what can happen when we get people in from outside.”

The plan for Botwnnog’s new social housing development amounted to a series of bungalows that would have been built on farmland at the edge of the village. According to the developers, only those on the affordable housing register in Gwynedd would be able to apply for the proposed housing.

But at another social housing scheme built roughly a decade ago on the edge of Botwnnog, it was clear when The Telegraph visited that at least some of the residents are not local or Welsh speakers. 

As Richard Williams, who owns the local Ty Newydd pub in nearby Sarn Meyllteyrn, says: “There’s two sides to this. The tax on second homes means the summer economy has been badly hit. We need people here spending money. 

“But the other social housing estate has some Polish in it so why will this be any different? It won’t be locals and we worry about transfers from social housing projects in other areas.”

According to Gwynedd County Council, the plan for the development is now in a “cooling off” period before it is reviewed again. But as for the legality of who and who doesn’t have a right to live there, it is slightly murky. 

Tom Barton, planning partner at law firm Mishcon de Reya, says: “It’s well established that there can be a requirement for a local connection when social housing allocation takes place, and I think this is ultimately what the community are getting at here.

 “This is not the same as the language issue. I think people instantly feel uncomfortable about the language point, because you could say this is a community where they don’t want anyone to speak another language, which would obviously be horrific.”

And therein lies the rub, with local councillors seemingly all too aware of accusations of racism. At the recent meeting, one councillor, Gruff Williams, said: “People say we are racists when we are trying to protect our language. It makes it difficult for people to stand up against these policies.”

As for the local MP for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Liz Saville-Roberts, she is attempting to walk a very fine line as a way out of the debacle. 

She tells The Telegraph: “This area is where Welsh is spoken by the majority of the people who live there. Planning and housing policies are among the key tools to make sure that the use of Welsh in local communities continues into the future.

“I would urge anyone who is thinking of moving here to learn some Welsh. I’m born and bred English, and it’s what I did and I know from personal experience that it opens so many doors.”

Junior doctors have accepted a 22 per cent pay rise – but threatened to strike again if they do not get more money.

The British Medical Association said its members had voted to accept the pay rise of 22.3 per cent on average over two years offered by the Government. Two-thirds of junior doctors voted to accept, the BMA said.

The agreement brings an end to strikes that led to cancelled appointments as junior medics demanded a 35 per cent pay rise that would restore their pay to 2008 levels.

Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, the junior doctors’ committee co-chairmen, suggested that fresh strikes could follow if the independent pay review body did not recommend that junior doctors’ pay be bought to 2008 levels over time.

They said: “It should never have taken so long to get here – but we have shown what can be accomplished with our determination and with a government willing to simply sit down and talk realistically about a path to pay restoration. One strike was one strike too many.

“This deal marks the end of 15 years of pay erosion, with the beginning of two years of modest above-inflation pay rises.”

Their statement added: “There is still a long way to go, with doctors remaining 20.8 per cent in real terms behind where we were in 2008. Mr Streeting [Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary] has acknowledged our pay has fallen behind and has talked about a journey to pay restoration.

“He believes the independent pay review body is the right vehicle for this, and if he is right then no doctor need strike over pay in future. However, in the event the pay review body disappoints, he needs to be prepared for the consequences.

“We thank all doctors who have seen us through to this point by standing on picket lines and fighting for their worth. The campaign is not over – but we, and they, can be proud of how far we have come.”

Mr Streeting said: “We inherited a broken NHS, the most devastating dispute in the health service’s history, and negotiations hadn’t taken place with the previous ministers since March. Things should never have been allowed to get this bad. That’s why I made ending the strikes a priority – and we negotiated an end to them in just three weeks.

“I am pleased that our offer has been accepted, ending the strikes ahead of looming winter pressures on the NHS. This marks the necessary first step in our mission to cut waiting lists, reform the broken health service, and make it fit for the future.”

The deal will see junior doctors’ pay rise by between 3.71 per cent and 5.05 per cent – averaging 4.05 per cent – on top of their existing pay award for 2023/24. This will be backdated to April last year.

Each part of the pay scale will also be uplifted by 6 per cent, plus £1,000, as recommended by the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration, with an effective date of April 1 2024.

Both rises mean a doctor starting foundation training in the NHS will see base pay increase to £36,600 from about £32,400. A full-time doctor entering speciality training will have a basic pay rise to £49,900 from about £43,900.

A pensioner was forced to crawl on his hands and knees up a hill with his shopping after his bus route was axed.

Royston Pressley, 82, was found crawling up the pavement in the village of Netley in Hampshire by a fellow resident who said he told her: “That hill is going to kill me.”

The retired ship builder and yacht decorator was trying to get up a hill which residents consider “steep, even for a younger person” on his way home after his usual bus route was axed by bus company Bluestar.

Bluestar announced changes to its bus routes on Sept 1 to improve journey times in the area, but some stops serving Netley and other villages were axed as a result.

Speaking from his home, Mr Pressley said: “I’m not too happy about it. It’s a bit much taking the bus off us – that’s the only way you get to Southampton from here.

“It’s essential for going to the shops. It’s alright going down, it’s the coming back that is no joke. I’m past it.”

Mr Pressley’s nephew and niece emigrated from the UK to Australia, meaning he has no immediate family to help him, so relies on carers or friends.

On the incident when he crawled, he added: “I got picked up pretty quickly. But I could have been there all night – it happens.”

Mr Pressley has now resigned himself to gardening, which he said he has a “lot” to be getting on with.

On whether Bluestar will reverse its route change, he continued: “I thought they might do, but I doubt it. They are a big company, they’ve got a lot of people around here for buses. It’s a nice little village, but I’ve seen a few changes.”

An urgent meeting was held in the village, which is home to 6,000 people according to the latest census, to discuss the future of the bus route.

Some pensioners in attendance were in tears at the fact they may be left stranded without a bus service.

The meeting was attended by more than 50 people, including the local MP and a council leader. It heard that the stops axed by the company carried about 20 people per day.

June Bangs, 81, said of the day she found the pensioner crawling up the hill: “I went out to my garden bin and found the poor gentleman on his hands and knees trying to get home.

“I rushed as quick as I could towards him and when I got to him, he looked up at me and said: ‘That hill is going to kill me.’ This bus service is a lifeline for us.”

Rachel Foulkes, 59, a family friend who takes care of Mr Pressley, said she was like a daughter to the 82-year-old and he had asked her to represent him at the meeting.

Mrs Foulkes said: “He gave up his car two years ago and relies on the bus for everything. He goes on the bus to [the] Co-op, Hamble Square and Woolston.”

She added that he was very upset and that Bluestar had tipped his world upside down, saying: “He can get down to the bus stop on Hound Road but the hill back up on Woolston Road is steep, even for a younger person. I hope that Bluestar listens to what we have to say.”

Another attendee, Doreen Salter, 88, said: “This has floored me. This will mean we are completely cut off. It is just a tragedy for us older people.”

Angela Humphrey, 70, added: “I have thought to myself before: is this a viable service for a company to run? But it’s a vital service.”

Bluestar said the changes would improve journey times and allow the bus service to extend beyond Southampton city centre to Central Station, but the changes have come at the expense of stops in Netley and its neighbouring villages.

Mrs Foulkes said although only 20 or so residents had been using that section of the bus route, that was still 20 people who were going to be impacted.

“Netley isn’t serviced by any other buses other than the number 15,” she said. “This is what is wrong with society. Old people struggle with technology, online banking, doing e-consultations.

“Some of them are really savvy but the majority haven’t got the internet.

“Even arranging the meeting, [the bus company] put a message out on Facebook. I saw it but there are lots of people who aren’t on Facebook, which is another example of technology not working.”

Mrs Foulkes spoke of another person she provides care for who is partially blind and who also said she would not be braving the walk down to the new bus stop.

Wendy Alison, 52, said the new bus route had already been causing havoc on the road for her elderly neighbours.

The teacher said: “It’s had a huge impact already. The hill is a killer. From our point of view it’s the fact it’s such a steep hill at the bottom.

“Luckily, they have put a bench at the top so people can have a rest.”

Paul Holmes, the Hamble Valley MP, said: “I am very saddened to hear about this – nobody should have to be in such a situation.

“I am continuing to work with the local community and Bluestar to find a solution that works.”

Richard Tyldsley, the general manager at Bluestar, said: “We are continuing to operate Bluestar 15. We do appreciate the inconvenience the change of route in Butlocks Heath may have on some customers.

“Bluestar 15 still operates locally though, with existing and new bus stops being located within a short distance.

“For a small number of our customers there is a slightly longer walk, following the omission of Ingleside and Woolston Road, but we have looked very closely at this and made the decision in order to improve the overall route.”

He added: “Our review of Bluestar 15 led us to conclude that journey times were too slow, and punctuality was not as good as we expect. Also, some key connections in the city were not available.

“We strongly believe that these improvements will develop demand for the route – directly ensuring that we are able to continue operating it well into the future.”

Victoria Starmer has been pictured at a London Fashion Week show wearing a custom-made designer top and trousers amid a row over her receiving free clothes.

Lady Starmer sat in the front row of the Edeline Lee runway, wearing an outfit in the same style as those in the show.

Her appearance comes as Sir Keir Starmer is alleged to have broken parliamentary rules by failing to declare donations of clothing for his wife by Lord Alli.

Lord Alli, a Labour peer, paid for a personal shopper in addition to designer garments and alterations for Lady Starmer.

The peer is Sir Keir’s biggest personal donor and was at the heart of a cronyism row last month after it emerged he had a Downing Street security pass.

No 10 said the outfit by Edeline Lee was a loan, and that declarations would be made as required.

Sir Keir said it was “very important” to him that rules were followed and to have “transparency”, adding: “I’ve always said that. I said that before the election, I’ve reinforced it after the election.

“And that’s why, shortly after the election, my team reached out for advice on what declaration should be made, so it’s in accordance with the rules. They then sought out for further advice more recently, as a result of which they made the relevant declarations.

“But for me it’s really important that the rules are followed. That’s why I was very pleased my team reached out proactively – not once, but twice – because it is very important that we have transparency, very important that you and others can see the rules are being followed.”

It is understood Lord Alli has also given Sir Keir £18,685 of work clothes and several pairs of glasses in the past year, as well as spending £20,000 on his accommodation during the general election campaign.

When university student Alex Williams began contacting celebrities on social media, it was more in hope than expectation.

The 19-year-old, from South Wales, sent dozens of messages to famous people – but, unsurprisingly, heard nothing back.

That was until early 2018 when, after contacting Huw Edwards, the BBC newsreader and one of the best-known faces on British television, the pair began chatting.

It was the beginning of an exchange that would eventually result in Edwards’s spectacular self-destruction and leave him with a suspended prison sentence for committing a string of child sex offences.

Despite being one of the BBC’s most trusted voices, Edwards, the proudly Welsh news anchor, had been struggling with hidden demons that had wrecked his mental health and left him extremely vulnerable, Westminster magistrates’ court heard.

He was born in Bridgend in 1961, and his father Hywel Teifi Edwards was a prominent Welsh language academic and Plaid Cymru activist.

However, according to one psychiatrist who interviewed Edwards following his arrest, he endured a “psychologically challenging” upbringing.

The 63-year-old claimed that despite being “lauded outside the family”, his father had behaved “monstrously” at home and that – combined with the “puritanical” but “hypocritical” culture of the South Wales community – had left him suffering from “low self-esteem”.

He claimed this was further exacerbated when he failed to get into Oxford and went to Cardiff University instead.

Edwards said this had left him feeling like something of an “outsider” at the BBC, despite the fact he rose to become the corporation’s best-paid journalist and the man trusted to announce the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

He suggested it was this low self-esteem that had led him to take to social media and engage with people with whom he would otherwise not have had contact.

The newsreader’s presence on Instagram and WhatsApp also allowed him to renew his sexual interest in men, which he claimed he had been “managing” since 1994 – the year after he married Vicky Flind, a television producer.

It was against this backdrop that Edwards and Williams began exchanging messages with one another in the spring of 2018. Williams was one of several young people with whom Edwards was communicating on social media at the time. 

Perhaps because of their shared Welsh backgrounds – and other, more sinister, interests – their relationship quickly flourished. They shared a video call in May 2018 and even met in person on one occasion.

With Edwards increasingly beginning to explore his dormant bisexuality, the pair began to share male pornographic images. The majority of the photos and videos featured younger-looking adult males, which were lawful.

But by December 2020, with the country in lockdown, the exchanges between the pair began to take a dark and criminal turn.

Migrating to the encrypted WhatsApp platform, Williams, who had access to the dark web, began sharing indecent images of children. Edwards, in return, would send the cash-strapped student money and gifts, amounting in total to around £1,500.

A WhatsApp exchange between him and Edwards, recovered by officers, revealed a total of 377 sexual images, of which 41 were of children.

In one exchange Williams said he had “a file of vids and pics for you of someone special” and later sent three images of a child exposing themselves.

Williams later offered to send “12 videos and 42 pics” of someone he had shared images of previously. Asked “want me to send you the full file?”, Edwards replied: “Yes xxx…”.

The student then forwarded a series of images and videos featuring a child aged between 13 and 15 performing indecent acts. Included was a video considered by prosecutors to constitute Category A, the most serious level of child abuse images.

Four minutes after receiving the clip, Edwards replied “F—”, before the pair wished each one another a happy Christmas.

Later that day, Williams asked for a “Christmas gift”, telling Edwards he had further “hot” videos featuring the same child but saying the files were too large to send on WhatsApp.

The following day, Edwards asked him to send the material using the Dropbox app, which allows users to share large files.

After telling Williams he would watch the videos, Edwards then asked whether he was in direct communication with the subject.

A subsequent batch of screenshots bearing the word “adolesc” were then sent to Edwards, featuring a child aged 12 to 14 and featuring another Category A image.

Williams then requested another “Christmas gift” for “all the hot videos” and Edwards immediately responded: “What do you need?”

The student mentioned that he would like a pair of Nike Air Force 1 trainers, which cost around £100, and Edwards offered to send him twice that amount.

In early 2021, with pandemic lockdowns continuing, Edwards and Williams continued to exchange images, with one video entitled: “Boys Town Adolescents Presents 13yo Josh”.

On Feb 10 2021, a Category A video was sent to Edwards, which prosecutors said featured sexual acts featuring two children aged between seven and nine and 11 and 13.

Edwards did not respond but a week later Williams sent two more Category B and four Category C images, following up with the message “Is the stuff I’m sending too young for you?”

Three days later, Edwards replied: “Don’t send underage”.

In the following months, there were sporadic messages between the pair, and in August 2021 Williams messaged to say he had some “naughty pics and vids if you’d like?”

Edwards replied: “Go on”, and when Williams responded “yng”, he said: “Go on”.

Williams then sent a Category A video that featured a male child aged as young as seven being abused.

The pair discussed the fact the subject appeared very young-looking looking, but Edwards insisted it could be “deceptive” and asked if Williams “had any more”.

Williams replied that he did have but was not sure whether Edwards would like them as they were “illegal”, at which point the BBC newsreader replied: “Ah ok don’t”.

No further illegal images were shared between the pair, although they maintained contact throughout 2021 and early 2022.

In August 2022, Williams was arrested by South Wales Police, and his devices were seized. As a result, the exchanges with Edwards were recovered by officers in November 2023.

They passed the material to Scotland Yard and, on Nov 8 2023, Edwards was arrested and interviewed under caution for the first time.

Williams appeared in court in Merthyr Tydfil in January and pleaded guilty to seven offences. On March 15, he appeared at Cardiff Crown Court and was sentenced to 12 months in prison, suspended for two years.

Little over a month later, on April 22, Edwards announced that he was resigning from the BBC.  Three days after that, he was interviewed under caution for a second time.

Detectives from the Metropolitan Police passed a file of evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service on May 1, and Edwards was formally charged with three offences on June 26.

He pleaded guilty at Westminster magistrates’ court on July 31 and was sentenced at the same court on Monday.

Avoiding an immediate custodial sentence, Edwards received six months suspended for two years, and will also have to sign the sex offenders’ register for seven years.

He will have to complete a sex offender treatment programme and complete 25 sessions of a rehabilitation activity requirement.

Just two months after declaring the Rwanda Plan “dead and buried”, Sir Keir Starmer now says he is “interested” in Italy’s migrant deal with Albania.

The Prime Minister is in Rome for talks with his counterpart Giorgia Meloni and wants to discuss how to stop the boats after a drop in migrant numbers in Mediterranean countries.

Britain’s Rwanda flights never got off the ground – so how did Italy, which has long borne the brunt of illegal migrant arrivals in Europe, manage to strike a similar asylum agreement with Tirana? And what else can Sir Keir learn from the Italian crackdown?

The hard-Right Ms Meloni won admiration at home after striking a deal with non-EU Albania for the offshore processing of asylum seekers picked up at sea.

Under the agreement made last November, Italy is building two reception and detention camps in Albania, which will host a maximum of 3,000 migrants and be run by Rome.

It will cost Italian taxpayers about £560 million, far less than the £700 million that was earmarked for Rwanda.

It was the first time an EU country had struck such an agreement with a so-called third country and other member states have suggested copying the Italian plan. 

In contrast, the now-ditched Rwanda Plan faced criticism from EU leaders, who were unimpressed at Tory threats to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

There are significant differences between that doomed scheme and the “Rwanda-lite” pact with Tirana.

While Rwanda trampled over European human rights law, Albania stays carefully within its limits.

Under the plan first brought forward under Boris Johnson’s Conservative government, anyone entering the UK illegally could have been sent to Rwanda. Even if a migrant’s claim for refugee status was successful, they would have to stay in the African country.

Under the Albania agreement, only migrants coming from the 21 countries deemed safe by Italy can be sent for offshore processing. Children, pregnant women and vulnerable people will still be processed in Italy, Ms Meloni has promised.

Albania is legally closer to Europe than Rwanda

While it is expected the vast majority of claims will be rejected, any migrant making a successful claim from Albania will be allowed into Italy.

Albania is geographically and legally closer to Europe than Rwanda. It is a candidate country to join the EU, as well as a Nato member.

Unlike Rwanda, Albania is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, the non-EU agreement of which the UK is also a member. Those shared values and legal commitments spared Ms Meloni some of the legal difficulties the Rwanda plan faced in British courts.

In November, the UK Supreme Court said the plan broke the European Convention and that Rwanda had a poor human rights record. There was a risk that genuine refugees could be returned to their home countries from Rwanda and face torture, it said.

Later, a court in Belfast ruled the Rwanda plan could not apply in Northern Ireland because of human rights provisions in the Brexit agreements for the region.

Waiting to join the EU

Albania has been waiting to join the EU for the past 10 years but, unlike Northern Ireland, European law does not hold sway there yet.

“The preliminary assessment by our legal service is that this is not violating EU law, it’s outside EU law,” said Ylva Johansson, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, of the agreement last year.

Ms Meloni has not escaped criticism. NGOs blame her strict rules for stopping them saving migrants at sea. She has decreed that rescue ships can only pick up migrants from one boat at a time and must return to port rather than look for more boats at sea.

Despite being delayed, the Albania deal appears to be having a deterrent effect, with migrant arrivals across the Mediterranean from North Africa dropping by 64 per cent.

The drop in numbers is also thanks to EU-brokered pacts with countries such as Libya and Tunisia. Italy and the EU struck a deal in July last year in which they paid Tunisia €105 million (£88.5 million) to train its coastguard and improve border security.

Booster payment to Tunisia

Ms Meloni also paid Tunisia €100 million to boost business, renewable energy projects and education investment. Boat crossings from Tunisia to Italy have dropped by 80 per cent.

The agreements with Kais Saied, Tunisia’s autocratic president, have been criticised by human rights organisations.

Last month, human rights groups claimed migrants and asylum seekers had been expelled from the coastal city of Sfax, Tunisia’s main departure point for Italy, and taken by authorities to the governorate of Gafsa, nearer to the border with Algeria in the south of the country.

About 30 people were found “in catastrophic humanitarian condition”, according to FTDES, a Tunisian rights group.

However, the deal with Tunisia has the strong backing of the EU. Ms Meloni played a crucial role in driving forward those negotiations, working with the European Commission despite her long history of hostility towards the EU.

Sir Keir wants a migrant return deal with the EU and a security pact, including provisions against illegal migration, hence his decision to pick Ms Meloni’s brains for pointers.

Dozens of cars and coaches slow to a crawl as they cross the bridge from Poland into Germany, under the watchful eyes of armed border guards.

It is past morning rush hour on the bridge connecting Frankfurt an der Oder, east Germany, and the Polish town of Słubice, but border checks are still causing delays.

As one coach approaches, German police halt the driver for further questions, while a white van is flagged down and sent into a white gazebo.

It is the sort of scene that would have been abhorrent to Angela Merkel, the former chancellor who famously threw open Germany’s borders during the 2016 refugee crisis.

But Germany has changed: reeling from terrorist attacks carried out by Syrian and Afghan asylum seekers, its centre-Left government is stepping up border controls in a bid to slow down migration and appease the hard-Right, which is surging in the polls.

On Monday, Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, introduced passport checks at all of the country’s land crossings, as part of controls that will last for six months.

Some of the checks were already in place on Germany’s eastern frontiers, though on the German-Polish border they appeared to have intensified on Monday, with tailbacks on the Frankfurt an der Oder bridge snaking back into Poland.

Nancy Faeser, the German interior minister, says the new border controls will “protect against the acute dangers posed by Islamist terrorism and serious crime”.

But critics suspect the controls are largely a political stunt to appease the hard-Right, with the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party securing its first election victory in the state of Thuringia earlier this month. The Moscow-friendly, anti-migrant party could achieve the same result in elections in Brandenburg this weekend, where it is also set to give Mr Scholz’s SDP party a drubbing.

On Monday, German border police seemed to be stopping roughly one in every forty cars. Despite this, the need to slow down while passing the police checkpoint created a fairly long tailback across the bridge.

‘People think if there are no foreigners things will be better – but it’s not true’

The checks have caused commuter delays and anxiety for residents in Frankfurt an der Oder and Słubice, two mid-sized border towns connected by a bridge that is about 200 yards long.

Charlotte Grunberg, a 23-year-old politics student at Viadrina University, told The Telegraph: “It is problematic for us because we are a Doppelstadt [two combined border towns], and a university town with many international students. 

“It’s completely political for Scholz, he is doing this because the AfD has gone after the issue of migration. People are thinking if there are no foreigners then things will be better – but it’s not true.”

Ms Grunberg was taking part in a small demonstration by Frankfurt Bleibt Bunt [Frankfurt Stays Colourful], a campaign group holding the placards “Open hearts, open minds, open border” and “Asylum is a human right”.

Jan Augustyniak, the group’s leader, remembers all too well the physical and mental borders of his childhood in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the Communist post-war state of East Germany. Three decades on, border controls have returned to Frankfurt an der Oder, which was a major crossing point during the GDR period.

He said the checks between Germany and Poland, which were introduced last October, should be a warning to other German border communities which will now deal with the same kind of disruption for the next six months.

“There is a feeling of anxiety,” the 42-year-old said. “When the border checks started they damaged the economy of the town, and they caused traffic jams. It is supposedly about migration but it has an effect on the general freedom of inhabitants here.”

Asked what their message was for Mr Scholz, he said: “Don’t break our Doppelstadt,” referring to Frankfurt an der Oder and Słubice’s “double town” status.

Not all Germans in Frankfurt an der Oder were unhappy with the checks, however. A passing dog walker, 73, who gave his name as “NN”, said: “It’s a start. But it’s impossible to control the borders completely due to the political rules of the EU and that is the problem.”

His wife, also 73, agreed, saying: “I think it’s a good idea because the borders do need to be controlled.”

‘Every time I cross the border I have to wait’

Słubice is a two-minute walk over the bridge: on the other side, German signs for beer and Bratwurst bars give way to Polish shop windows offering Pierogi dumplings.

A town of 16,000 people, Słubice is smaller and less striking than Frankfurt an der Oder: instead of red-brick Gothic buildings, much of the town consists of old, tired concrete structures.

“I think open borders are a good thing,” said Polish shop worker Batta, 25, as she rearranged dress racks inside Moda de Lux, a fashion outlet in Słubice. “Every time I cross the border I have to wait. And it’s stopping people coming [to shop] from Germany.”

“You can see the problems it’s causing,” a Słubice watchmaker in his sixties, who declined to give his name, said. “It’s one single town – but if you live in Frankfurt and work here then you have to cross a border.”

“We don’t like this situation, it’s not good for either side,” said Walmder Kodzis, working behind the counter of a traditional Polish food shop. “No one is coming because they are afraid of being stuck at the border for a long time. We thought that being in Schengen was supposed to avoid this sort of problem.”

While the checks have clearly disrupted daily routines on the German-Polish border, their impact on the rest of the country was less clear on Monday. Traffic was reportedly flowing freely between Germany and France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Luxembourg, the five additional borders where the checks have been imposed.

However, on the Franco-German border, German police were filmed stopping and detaining a man on a tram that runs between the two countries, apparently as part of passport control.

Temporary border controls are not unique to Germany, with seven other EU member states already running the same controls: France, Italy, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Slovenia and Sweden.

But Germany’s decision to impose them nationwide, and in part for domestic political reasons, is testing European unity; some leaders claim they do not reflect the spirit of the EU’s open border Schengen zone.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister, said: “The response [to migration] cannot be unilaterally scrapping Schengen and dropping the ball to countries which sit at Europe’s external borders.”

Meanwhile Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, claimed the checks were responding to“internal political situation” and may lead to “the de facto suspension of the Schengen agreement on a large scale”.

But Germany’s new border controls have delighted the hard-Right, with Geert Wilders, the Dutch coalition member, announcing: “If Germany can do it, why can’t we?”

Marine Le Pen, from the French National Rally party, said much the same: “Now Germany is doing it. When will France follow?”

As for Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, himself a proponent of tough controls at Europe’s borders, he ironically told Mr Scholz: “Welcome to the club.”

Tito Jackson, one of the brothers who made up 1970s pop group The Jackson 5, has died at the age of 70.

“It’s with heavy hearts that we announce that our beloved father, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Tito Jackson, is no longer with us,” his sons TJ, Taj and Taryll said in a statement posted on Instagram on Sunday.

“We are shocked, saddened and heartbroken. Our father was an incredible man who cared about everyone and their well-being.”

Toriano Adaryll “Tito” Jackson was the third of nine Jackson children. His brother Michael and sister Janet each achieved huge global success as solo stars. 

The Jackson 5 was made up of Tito and his brothers Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael. Tito Jackson played guitar and sang backing vocals.

The group, inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, produced several No 1 hits in the 1970s, including ABC, I Want You Back and I’ll Be There.

Speaking to The Associated Press in December 2009, Tito Jackson said Michael Jackson’s death at the age of 50 in June that year had brought the family closer together.

“I would say definitely it brought us a step closer to each other. To recognise that the love we have for each other when one of us is not here, what a great loss,” he said, adding he would personally never “be at peace with it”.

“There’s still moments when I just can’t believe it. So I think that’s never going to go away,” he said.

In 2014, Jackson said he and his brothers still felt Michael’s absence in their shows, adding: “I don’t think we will ever get used to performing without him. He’s dearly missed.”

On Sep 11, Tito Jackson posted a message on his Facebook page from Munich, writing: “Before our show in Munich, my brothers Jackie, Marlon, and I visited the beautiful memorial dedicated to our beloved brother, Michael Jackson. 

“We’re deeply grateful for this special place that honors not only his memory but also our shared legacy. Thank you for keeping his spirit alive.”

Tito Jackson was the last of the nine siblings to release a solo project, with his debut, Tito Time, coming out in 2016. He released a song in 2017, One Way Street, and told AP in 2019 that he was working on a second album.

Jackson said he had held back from pursuing a solo career because he wanted to focus on raising his three sons, TJ, Taj and Taryll, who formed their own music group, 3T.

Kathy Coolican has spent her entire adult life in Coventry, after moving there with her husband in the early 1960s. It was where they bought their home together after “years and years and years” of saving up.

It was later where she raised her family. “It was a good city, a thriving city,” says Coolican, now in her 80s. The city centre was filled with “lots of lovely stores” and on the outskirts were friendly neighbourhoods.

But recently, Coolican and her husband have started to think they need to leave. “We’re considering moving up north to Chester, where my son lives,” Coolican says. “Now that is a beautiful city.”

Coventry has become “poor and dirty”, she says. Lots of her favourite stores have been closed. Those that are left “are all pound shops and card shops and charity shops”.

While she would be sad to leave, a move north may be inevitable. “It’s just my opinion, but Coventry isn’t the same city any more,” Coolican laments.

It is easy to see why she feels this way. In the past 10 years alone, the city has undergone dramatic changes. Where once the city centre was thriving, now large areas have been boarded up.

Crime, meanwhile, has been on the rise. Official police data shows that there were 96 cases of shoplifting in Coventry in July. Meanwhile other cities with similar-sized populations, such as Leicester and Reading, are dealing with fewer cases. In those two cities, 77 and 70 shoplifting incidents were reported respectively during July.

Across England, Wales and Northern Ireland as a whole, Coventry is ranked among the top 20 most dangerous cities.

It means the city is at the forefront of the new Labour Government’s battle to “breathe life” into Britain’s high streets, with a two-pronged plan to lure retailers back and to clamp down on city centre crime.

“The country is in crisis,” says Richard Walker, the managing director of Iceland. “These places are the backbone of our communities and are quite distinctly British.”

In Coventry, locals say the problems with decline are linked. The boarded-up shops have led to a rise in the number of rough sleepers in the area and higher levels of crime.

The number of empty shops in the city has gone from fewer than one in 10 a decade ago to almost four in 10 this year, according to JDM Retail Consulting. Coventry now takes the dubious crown of the city with the most boarded-up shops.

The council insists that its rates are artificially high as a result of a long-term redevelopment scheme in which 150 shops moved from the south side of the city to free up space for a new large housing scheme. The scheme, they say, is the single biggest regeneration project in Coventry since the city was rebuilt after the war.

Still, it is causing frustration for locals. One elderly shopper says she has seen people “defecating on empty entry ways”. “Safety is a big factor for me. As you get older, you feel more vulnerable.”

Richard Moon, director of property services and development at the council, admits the drive to overhaul the city centre has caused some upheaval, but he says it has been necessary.

“The reality is, I can’t sit here and tell retailers to come back. We’ve got to work with the best of the city centre that we’ve got.”

In Coventry, that means the high street will ultimately be getting smaller. Instead, more of the city will be given over to homes in a bid to tempt students from nearby universities to settle down.

Senior Labour MPs have in the past argued against allowing too many shops to be sold off for conversion to housing without proper checks. In 2021, then-shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds said Conservative plans to allow landlords to convert shops into homes without planning permission would be “catastrophic” for local communities.

More recently, Labour has been clear of the importance in getting more retailers back on to the high street. Rachel Reeves, speaking in April, said the party would “create the conditions to get retailers thriving again”.

The Government is starting to hand councils new powers to bring empty shops back into use after 12 months of vacancy. Under the High Street Rental Auctions scheme, which is currently being piloted, landlords will essentially be required to rent out vacant commercial properties to willing tenants, such as local businesses.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “Too many shops stand empty in our town centres, and we will take the action needed to reinvigorate our high streets and help them flourish.”

Yet the proposals have raised eyebrows in cities such as Coventry. There, officials have come to the conclusion that it is not simply a case of matching retailers with properties; council chiefs say the city centre needs a total rethink. Coventry has been working to bring in more coffee shops, pubs and bars.

The wider revamp of the centre – to swap out shops for homes – has been in the works for 14 years. It is expected to be another 15 years until the housing is fully complete, although the blocks of flats will come in phases.

All this raises questions over whether Labour will be able to move the dial in a meaningful way in many cities in its term in office.

“In and around the city centre, there are a lot of retail warehouse parks,” says Jonathan De Mello, the founder of JDM Retail Consulting. “You can’t change that now that they’re there.”

For retailers, it is easy to see why they might prefer retail parks. The spaces are regular and do not need much spending on refitting. Retail bosses argue that shoppers often prefer visiting the parks as they can avoid city centre parking fees.

Marks & Spencer has been among those making a major push into these out-of-town areas, although it argues it will never “leave city centres”. In Coventry, retailers including Next and Currys have stores in out-of-town parks but not in the city centre.

There are other geographical issues that put Coventry at a particular disadvantage. Since it was rebuilt after the Second World War, Coventry has had to compete with nearby towns and cities including Birmingham and Solihull, where councils have spent heavily to attract big stores such as John Lewis.

Andrew Goodacre, who heads up the British Independent Retailers Association, lives near to Coventry and says other cities hold bigger draws.

“It’s got that big brother of Birmingham nearby which people can easily get to on the train. They think, ‘If I’m going out, I’ll be able to go to Birmingham.’ It’s got the indoor market, it’s got a busy high street, there’s a German market at Christmas. I’d rather go there than Coventry.”

It appears a stretch for the Government to try to convince shoppers otherwise. Still, Goodacre says, “Coventry has a very rich history that it could work with and build on”.

One key point of difference could be more independent stores in the city centre. Here, policies such as changes to business rates could be useful. Goodacre says: “If you’re a new entrepreneur, you need to know the overheads are manageable before you can commit to space.”

Ultimately, Goodacre believes it is only local leaders who can revive places like Coventry rather than central government.

“What you don’t want is to end up with every high street looking the same, which is what happened in the 80s,” he says.

For locals like Coolican, anything would be better than the current situation. Today she rarely goes into town and, when she does, it is a frustrating experience.

“It’s the poor quality of shops that gets me. I’m disappointed, that’s the word.”

Chester is on the horizon. “We can’t quite afford it yet, but hopefully we will be able to soon,” Coolican says.

“Then, I expect we’ll be ready to leave.”

Dramatic flooding across Central Europe left at least half a dozen people dead as forecasters warned of more rain to come.

Poland, Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic and Romania were particularly hard hit by Storm Boris in what could be some of the worst flooding in the region for 30 years.

Romania was forced to set up displacement camps and launch volunteer rescue operations, with Klaus Iohannis, the president of Romania, offering his condolences to the victims’ bereaved families.

“We must continue to strengthen our capacity to anticipate extreme weather phenomena” he wrote. Five thousand homes were flooded in the east of the country.

Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland, confirmed there was one death by drowning in the district of Klodzko, calling on the population to follow evacuation orders and telling reporters that “the situation is dramatic in many places.”

Officials said 40 per cent of the major city of Wrocław was underwater, while the mayor of nearby Głuchołazy warned: “We are drowning.”

Rivers were continuing to break their banks on Sunday and town centres were being flooded, with homes swept away.

Some 25,000 residents have been evacuated in a valley in the Sudetes mountains near the border with the Czech Republic.

50 litres of rainfall per square metre are expected in parts of the country, more than in the historic 1997 flood which killed 100 people across central Europe.

A firefighter died in a rescue operation in a cellar in Austria as the region of Lower Austria declared a state of emergency.

“We are experiencing difficult, dramatic hours in Lower Austria,” said Johanna Mikl-Leitner, Governor of the region.

“For many Lower Austrians, these will be the hardest hours of their lives”.

“We will do everything we can to stand up to the water to protect the land and its people.” A Black Hawk helicopter was deployed to rescue two trapped motorists near Markersdorf.

The region was declared a “catasrophe zone”, while motorways and railways were cut off completely

Karl Nehammer, Austria’s Chancellor, said: “The storm situation has worsened in the last few hours…the storm situation in the federal states is very serious.”

Thousands of people have been evacuated from the eastern Czech region of Moravia, with more than a quarter of a million people without power.

Polish train operator PKP has suspended train services that enter the Czech Republic and more than 180 patients were evacuated from the Brothers of Mercy Hospital in the city of Brno.

Meteorologists have warned the situation still might get worse as waters in most rivers are rising, the flood wave made its way through the country and more heavy rains could return overnight.

Thousands of others were also evacuated in the towns of Krnov and Cesky Tesin. The Oder River that flows to Poland was expected to reach extreme levels in the city of Ostrava and later in Bohumin.

Towns and villages in the Jeseniky mountains, including the local centre of Jesenik, were inundated and isolated by raging waters that turned roads into rivers. The military sent a helicopter to help with evacuations.

Four people who were swept away by waters were missing, police said.

The Government has been accused of double standards for opening the door to a fossil fuel pipeline in Africa despite banning new licences for oil and gas production at home.

UK Export Finance (UKEF), a government department, is considering approving up to $1.15 billion (£870 million) of taxpayer investment in a major liquified natural gas pipeline in Mozambique.

Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, said it was incoherent for Labour to fund new fossil fuel projects overseas while banning new licences in the North Sea.

The Mozambique project, which is being run by French energy giant TotalEnergies, was put on hold in 2021 after conflict erupted in the region.

The company is now seeking to restart work on the $15 billion (£11 billion) pipeline, which it has been estimated could produce more than the combined annual greenhouse gas emissions of all 27 EU countries over its lifetime.

UKEF, which reports to Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, is now actively in talks about committing the funding for the project after it was initially given the green light in 2020 under Boris Johnson.

“Labour’s energy policy is nonsensical,” said Ms Coutinho. “The Government appear happy to sign off on oil and gas investments abroad, whilst waving goodbye to tax receipts and jobs at home by shutting down the North Sea.

“We will be the only major economy shutting down our own domestic oil and gas production and it will go down in history as a terrible act of economic self-harm.”

Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, has been accused of threatening the jobs of thousands of energy workers with plans to end new licences to proposed oil and gas fields that have not already been approved.

Mr Miliband will say on Tuesday that pushing through solar farms and pylons in swathes of the countryside to switch to green energy is the “national security, energy security, economic fight of our time”.

UKEF is now in the process of briefing ministers, The Telegraph understands, before a final decision is made.

A decision would normally be made by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade but could be passed up to Sir Keir Starmer.

The US and Dutch governments are also considering financing the project, which TotalEnergies hopes to restart before the end of the year.

The firm declared a force majeure on the pipeline project in 2021, suspending its contractual obligations, after thousands were killed during a violent Islamist rebellion in the region.

UKEF, which is an independent government body strategically aligned with the Department for Trade, has said its role is to ensure that “no viable UK export fails” because of a lack of private funding by extending loans, credit and insurance for overseas projects “while operating at no net cost to the taxpayer”.

However, critics say oil and gas represent a poor investment as rapid global decarbonisation drives down demand in the long term.

‘Ethical responsibility’ to withdraw

Green groups also said approving funding for the pipeline would undermine Labour’s green credentials.

Tony Bosworth, a climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “The Government has set out its intention to be a global climate leader.

“Withdrawing its defence of legal challenges to fossil fuel projects in the UK, such as the Whitehaven coal mine and North Sea oil and gas, is a very positive first step.

“But real global leadership must mean also stopping funding fossil fuels abroad, starting with the proposed gas mega-project in Mozambique.”

Daniel Ribeiro, of Friends of the Earth Mozambique, said the pipeline would “create global injustice”. 

He added: “There is no room for this project or others like it to be developed if we intend to meet climate goals and have a chance of containing the impacts of climate change. Over its lifetime it is estimated to result in up to 4.5 billion tonnes of CO2e [carbon dioxide equivalent] emissions.

“UKEF has the power and the ethical responsibility to withdraw from financing a project that will result in long-term harm across the world.”

Shortly after it was first approved, the Conservative government said UKEF would no longer provide “any new direct financial support for fossil fuel energy overseas” but that projects already given the go-ahead would go through.

Donald Trump has blamed Kamala Harris and Joe Biden’s “rhetoric” for the latest apparent assassination attempt on him, claiming their remarks were “causing me to be shot at”.  

The Republican 2024 candidate said the “highly inflammatory language” of his Democratic opponents had motivated would-be assassins after two suspected attempts on his life in as many months.

Trump was rushed off his golf course on Sunday following the discovery of a gunman lurking in the shrubbery nearby.

The suspected gunman, 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, appeared in court and was charged with federal gun crimes on Monday.

Mr Routh’s social media accounts suggest a wide variety of political affiliations. He said he voted for Trump in 2016 but appeared to support Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, who challenged Trump in the Republican primary, in 2024. 

He also appeared to have donated to a range of Democratic candidates in the past. 

Trump told Fox News in an interview on Monday that the gunman “believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it”. He cited the president and vice president’s frequent refrain that he poses a “threat to democracy”.  

“Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country – both from the inside and out,” he said.

He added: “It is called the enemy from within. They are the real threat.”

The comments are in stark contrast to Trump’s response to the first assassination attempt on him in July, when a gunman opened fire at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Trump called for the country to “stand united, and show our true character as Americans” following that incident.

He responded to Sunday’s incident with a fundraising appeal, calling on supporters to “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!!!!!”

JD Vance also blamed Democrats and Trump critics for “ridiculous and inflammatory political rhetoric” on Monday, vowing to “do (his) part” to tone it down.

He said Democrats cannot call Trump a “threat to democracy” and “a fascist” and expect that violence would not follow, because “some crazy person” decides “to take matters into their own hands”.

Speaking at the Georgia Faith and Freedom Coalition dinner on Monday, Mr Vance said that conservatives do not “always get things exactly right” in their rhetoric. 

But he argued that two apparent assassination attempts against Trump prove that Democrats are worse. 

“No one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months,” Mr Vance said.

With fewer than 50 days until voters go to the polls on Nov 5, political tensions are higher than ever in the neck-and-neck race between Trump and Ms Harris.

Both the vice president and Mr Biden have repeatedly cast Trump as a danger to democracy over his refusal to concede defeat in the 2020 election and his actions over the Jan 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

After criticising his opponents for using “highly inflammatory language”, Trump added: “I can use it too – far better than they can – but I don’t”.

Mr Biden and Ms Harris have both condemned the apparent assassination bid, saying there is “no place for political violence” in America.

At the White House earlier on Monday, Mr Biden said: “thank God the president is OK.”

The death toll from disastrous flooding in Myanmar following Typhoon Yagi has risen to 226, many more people missing after reports of deadly landslides and entire villages being swept away by raging rivers.

The United Nations has warned that as many as 630,000 people could be in need of help, while state TV reported nearly 640,000 acres of rice paddies and other crops have been destroyed, creating longer term food insecurity for the already impoverished population.

At least 287 people are also believed to have died in heavy rains and powerful winds as Typhoon Yagi swept across northern Vietnam, Laos and Thailand before reaching Myanmar.

Myanmar’s junta made a rare appeal for foreign aid at the weekend to tackle the rescue mission and aftermath of the floods that have wreaked havoc in a country already suffering the economic and humanitarian impact of three years of war.

The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup, triggering widespread violence and destroying the economy.

The chaos has made the country even more vulnerable during times of natural disaster, but the junta has previously frustrated foreign humanitarian assistance, including the suspension of travel authorisations for aid groups last year after Cyclone Mocha.

State media reported that nearly 66,000 houses had been destroyed as of Friday evening, along with 375 schools and a monastery.

However, many of the worst-affected areas remain difficult to reach after major infrastructure, including a railway bridge in Mandalay’s Pyawbwe township and the Yangon-Mandalay highway in the capital Naypyitaw was swept away or severely flooded.

Phone and internet communications have also been cut off in parts of the country, stoking fears that the damage could be more widespread and death toll much higher than currently known.

The UN’s World Food Programme on Monday said the floods were the worst in Myanmar’s recent history, without giving precise details.

Severe flooding hit the country in 2011 and 2015, with more than 100 deaths reported on both occasions, while in 2008 Cyclone Nargis left more than 138,000 people dead or missing.

The storm has mainly affected Naypyidaw, as well as the Mandalay, Magway, and Bago regions, along with eastern and southern Shan state, Mon, Kayah and Kayin states.

Local media reports suggest many of the most badly affected villages have been forced to carry out and fund their own rescue operations.

Eyewitnesses reported seeing people trapped on top of their flooded homes or in trees.

“We had no time to move our belongings as water level rose rapidly and had to climb on the roof,” a Naypyitaw resident told the Irrawaddy. “The floodwaters are very strong, and they were higher than a man.”

The news site said most of the 350-plus homes in Thabyaypin village in Mandalay Region’s Yamethin Township were swept away by a torrent of floodwater and 80 residents were missing. The township was devastated after the Paunglaung River burst its banks.

“People were killed by mudslides. In some villages, houses were buried. People are only helping each other, and no officials have come so far,” one resident said.

India has so far sent 10 tonnes of materials, including dry rations, clothing and medicine, but the UN has issued an urgent appeal for more resources.

The latest storm to hit Southeast Asia has added to concerns that extreme weather events are a side-effect of the global climate crisis as warmer air can hold more water vapour, leading to more frequent and severe flooding.

Facebook owner Meta said on Monday it was banning RT, Rossiya Segodnya and other Russian state media networks from its platforms, claiming the outlets had used deceptive tactics to carry out covert influence operations online.

“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets. Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity,” the social media company said in a written statement.

Enforcement of the ban would roll out over the coming days, it said. In addition to Facebook, Meta’s apps include Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads.

The Russian embassy did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The ban marks a sharp escalation in actions by the world’s biggest social media company against Russian state media, after it spent years taking more limited steps like blocking the outlets from running ads and reducing the reach of their posts.

It comes after the United States filed money-laundering charges earlier this month against two RT employees for what officials said was a scheme to hire an American company to produce online content to influence the 2024 election.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday that countries should treat the activities of Russian state broadcaster RT as they do covert intelligence operations.

RT has mocked the US actions and accused the United States of trying to prevent the broadcaster from operating as a journalistic organisation.

In briefing materials shared with Reuters, Meta said it had seen Russian state-controlled media try to evade detection in their online activities in the past and expected them to continue trying to engage in deceptive practices going forward.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is fighting for his political life, amid a plunge in popularity and the threat of vote of no-confidence.

In an indication of the challenges confronting the 52-year-old premier, Mr Trudeau’s Liberal Party has its back against the wall in a by-election in the federal riding of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun in Quebec.

Normally, the Liberals would have expected to win Monday’s contest, but polls showed its candidate being pressed hard by that of the Bloc Québécois.

Meanwhile, conservatives in parliament are threatening to call a vote of no confidence later this week against Mr Trudeau, who has been heading a minority administration since the 2021 election.

The Liberals have been depending on a supply-and-confidence agreement with the New Democratic Party (NDP). But last week, the NDP ended the arrangement, that had acted as a lifeline for Mr Trudeau.

Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has called on his counterpart in the NDP, Jagmeet Singh, to support the no-confidence motion and trigger an election.

“Will Jagmeet Singh sell out Canadians again?”Mr Poilievre said at a news conference in Ottawa. “It’s put up or shut up time for the NDP.”

Mr Singh responded by saying he will not be pressured.

“I’ve said on any vote we will look at the vote and we’ll make our decision,” Mr Singh said at a party meeting in Montreal. “We’ll make a determination of what is in the best interests of Canadians. Unlike Pierre Poilievre who wants to play games, we actually want to get things done for Canadians.”

Voters are angry, Trudeau admits

Mr Trudeau, who still insists he will lead the party into an election that must be held by the end of October 2025, suggested voters in Monday’s by-election would be drawn to vote by anger over elevated prices and a housing crisis.

“Canadians right now are facing difficulties with the high cost of living. They are very frustrated,” he said last week.

Mr Trudeau, in his ninth year as prime minister, has seen his approval rating plummet from 63 per cent when he was first elected in 2008, to 28 per cent in June of this year.

His popularity has sagged as voters struggle with a surge in the cost of living and a housing crisis that has been fuelled in part by an increase in arrivals of temporary residents such as foreign students and workers.

This has caused serious problems for the Liberal Party. In one recent by-election, its candidate lost a seat the party had held for 30 years.

Polls suggest that the Liberals will lose badly to the Conservatives in the the next federal election. A Leger poll last week put the Conservatives on 45 per cent, a level of broad support rarely seen in Canada, with the Liberals in second place on 25 per cent.

If the Liberals lose in LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, it is likely blame will fall once again on Mr Trudeau.

Some Liberal politicians are even are breaking ranks with a call for change at the top. Alexandra Mendes, a Liberal legislator who represents a Quebec constituency, said many of her constituents wanted Trudeau to go.

“I didn’t hear it from two, three people – I heard it from dozens and dozens of people,” she told public broadcaster Radio-Canada last week. “He’s no longer the right leader.”

Federal authorities have confirmed they are investigating Robert F Kennedy Jr for allegedly decapitating a dead whale carcass and taking it home 20 years ago.

Mr Kennedy, the former presidential candidate who has since ended his run and supported Donald Trump, told an election rally he had recently been contacted by National Marine Fisheries Services about the incident.

Speaking at an event on Saturday in Glendale, Arizona, he claimed the inquiry by the agency amounted to “the weaponisation of our government against political opponents”.

“I received a letter from the National Marine Fisheries Institute saying that they were investigating me for collecting a whale specimen 20 years ago,” Mr Kennedy, 70, told a rally at Arizona Christian University.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which overseas the fisheries services, did not immediately respond to inquiries from The Telegraph.

However CNN reported officials at the agency had confirmed that a probe was underway. “It is a long standing NOAA practice not to comment on open investigations,” the spokesperson said.

Kennedy ‘used a chainsaw’

In 2012, Mr Kennedy’s daughter, Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, told Town & Country magazine when she was a child her father used a chainsaw to cut the head off a dead whale that had washed ashore.

She said he tied it to the roof of the family car with elasticated cord and drove it home.

“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” she said.

 “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”

Since 1972, whales have been protected in the US under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

It appears reports of Mr Kennedy actions were were noted by a non-profit, the Centre for Biological Diversity Action Fund, which contacted the authorities.

“RFK Jr cutting off the head of a dead whale was both bizarre and illegal, and any serious environmental attorney would know better,” wrote Brett Hartl, the group’s national political director.

“Kennedy may think that his name and privilege mean the rules don’t apply to him, but if he had a shred of integrity left he’d surrender this whale skull and any other illegally collected wildlife parts to the authorities. If he doesn’t, NOAA law enforcement should open an investigation and potentially bring charges against him.”

Mr Kennedy said on Saturday that after learning he was under investigation he wrote a letter to NOAA accusing the group of killing wildlife with “giant offshore wind farms off the East Coast.”

Earlier this year Mr Kennedy sparked controversy when he admitted dumping the body of a dead bear in New York City’s Central Park over a decade ago in what he thought was a prank.

Scottish businesses are struggling to recruit workers and staff are demanding larger pay rises because of SNP tax raids, research has found.

More than a third of Scottish businesses said they had seen either a “fair amount” of or a “significant” impact on their operations as a result of Holyrood tax policies, under which middle and high-income workers pay significantly more of their salaries to the Treasury.

According to a survey of more than 300 firms, carried out by the Fraser of Allander Institute at the University of Strathclyde in May, companies warned that they were struggling to attract or retain talent, with Scottish taxes a “cause of employee dissatisfaction”.

Some workers were reluctant to relocate or remain in Scotland while existing staff were making “increased wage demands” to compensate for their loss of take-home earnings.

In Scotland there are six tax bands, double the amount in the rest of the UK, with workers earning £28,867 or above paying more than if they lived in England, Wales or Northern Ireland.

The research found that “a few” of the businesses were considering moving operations or investments south of the border owing to the regime.

Mairi Spowage, the director of the Fraser of Allander Institute, said: “While most firms report minimal impact from the current tax policy, a notable minority are experiencing challenges, especially in areas like staffing and investment.

“As the Scottish Budget approaches on December 4, the [Government] will need to weigh whether the current tax balance is right – or if there’s any scope for change,.”

A minority of firms (28 per cent) said that they had encountered “no impact” from devolved tax policies, while 29 per cent said they had seen “a little” impact.

Meanwhile, 17 per cent said they had seen a “fair amount” of impact and another 17 per cent said the tax increases had a “significant” effect on them.

At the weekend, Stewart McDonald, a former SNP MP who lost his Glasgow seat at the general election, blamed tax policies for a loss of support for his party among Scotland’s middle classes.

He said ministers, who often boast about their “progressive” policies, had ramped up taxes on middle earners with “an air of indifference” while condemning anyone who objected as “a regressive Thatcherite”.

Mr McDonald raised the case of Scots earning between £43,663 and £50,270, who face a marginal rate of income tax and national insurance 22 points higher than people on the same income in the rest of the UK.

Someone in Scotland on a salary of £50,000 pays £1,542 more in income tax than they would if they lived elsewhere in the UK, while a worker on £100,000 per year pays £3,346 more.

While those on the lowest incomes pay marginally less, the saving is a maximum of £23 per year.

Liz Smith, the finance spokesman for the Scottish Tories, said the SNP Government needed to “sit up and listen” to businesses which were “suffering as a result of them making Scotland the highest taxed part of the UK”.

She added: “SNP tax hikes are putting Scottish firms at a competitive disadvantage with rivals south of the border and making it harder for them to recruit and retain skilled staff.

“But this is not just a problem for private businesses – the BMA and the BDA have spoken about the difficulty of attracting, and then holding on to, Scottish NHS doctors and dentists because of this tax gap.”

A Scottish government spokesman said: “Scotland has the most progressive income tax system in the UK, protecting those who earn less and asking those who earn more to contribute more.

“This additional income of around £1.5 billion helps support a more comprehensive set of services in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK, including free prescriptions and free university tuition.”

Scientists have warned that a new variant of Covid – known as XEC – is spreading across Europe and the United States.

Reports of people catching the new variant have emerged in the UK, and other European nations such as Denmark and Germany.

Now doctors in the US are also reporting a small number of cases and predicting it appears set to spread.

It is set to be the “next challenge” for doctors, nurses and healthcare systems, experts said.

“At this juncture, the XEC variant appears to be the most likely one to get legs next,” Dr Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California, wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

He said it may take “many weeks, a couple months, before it really takes hold and starts to cause a wave”.

Experts believe the new variant is not likely to as deadly as some of the other mutations that previously presented a challenge for doctors and nurses and that it ought to respond to vaccines currently available.

The symptoms are also similar to those of other Covid variants – tiredness, headaches, a sore throat and high temperatures.

Earlier this summer, the US was dealing with the biggest surge in Covid cases since 2022. The so-called “Summer of Covid” was believed to have triggered in part by events such at the Olympic Games in Paris.

More than 80 countries saw a spike in cases, with the most common type of the virus being what is called KP.3.1.1.

“We’ve seen these summer increases every summer that Covid as been with us,” Dr Amesh Adalja, a Johns Hopkins University infectious disease physician, told the Associated Press. “What’s different about these cases this summer vs prior summers is that they don’t translate into hospitals in crisis.”

In August, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved new vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna and urged people to get vaccinated.

“We strongly encourage those who are eligible to consider receiving an updated Covid vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants,” said FDA vaccine chief Dr Peter Marks.

Now, doctors are preparing for the new XEC variant.

Dr Andrea Garcia, a vice president with the American Medical Association (AMA) recently told health industry professionals that “deaths from Covid were low compared to where they were in previous years, but they did increase in late August”.

She added: “The other thing to keep an eye on, and we know doctors and scientists are keeping an eye on this as well, is yet another subvariant, and that is XEC that could surpass KP.3.1.1 in the coming weeks.”s

She said: “It was first detected in Germany, and while it’s been detected here in the US, the prevalence is low and there’s not a lot of data on this new subvariant at this point in time.”