Female pianists are to be favoured over men, according to rules for a leading piano competition.

The jury of the Leeds International Piano Competition has been instructed, in the case of a tie between a male and female contestant, to “consider advancing her first”.

The preferential treatment aims to help to “tackle male dominance”, according to the rulebook.

New rules – introduced this year – also stipulate that jurors must cancel their votes and start again if any round of the competition “significantly reduces the ratio of women to men”.

Members of the jury have been required to undergo training which is aimed at “eliminating both conscious and unconscious bias in order to promote a more equal environment for all competitors”.

The new set of rules governing the 2024 competition has produced a set of five finalists, two of which are women, including the London-based rising star Junyan Chen and Vietnamese pianist Khanh Nhi Luong.

The stipulation means Ms Chen and Ms Nhi Luong could have received preferential treatment in the qualifying rounds because of their gender, pushing them ahead in the competition ahead of male counterparts. There is no suggestion that this is the case.

The reform comes after Fiona Sinclair, the Leeds International Piano Competition CEO, raised concerns about unequal outcomes for men and women in classical music competitions.

In an opinion piece for The Guardian published in March, she set out a commitment to “modelling a more equitable stage”, and the competition has since taken steps to “tackle the long-standing issue of male dominance in the piano world”.

Ms Sinclair has written that the competition leadership “reviewed our voting processes with a lawyer”.

The voting process now ensures that in the event that a round of the competition produces an all-male selection, there will be a revote.

There will also be a re-vote if the proportion of women remaining in the competition is significantly reduced in a round of voting, and this will apply all the way through to the semi-finals.

Before the competition begins, the process of selection will be made blind, with minimal biographical details about competitors provided as a way of reducing the risk of bias.

It is hoped that the measures will help to correct the event’s disparities in outcomes for men and women.

Ms Sinclair previously wrote: “The Leeds’s own record shows that just two women have triumphed in the past 20 editions of the competition, only a third of our applications this year have come from women and only 18 per cent of the most recent top 40 international piano competitions have been won by women.”

The Leeds International Piano Competition said the reforms were “part of our broader effort to address the long-standing issue of gender inequality in the piano world and foster a more balanced, equitable and inclusive competition”.

The lengthy process has whittled down the contest to five finalists, three male and two female, including one British pianist, Julian Miles Trevelyan. Ms Chen, a student at the Royal Academy of Music, is also in the final five.

The other finalists are Kai-Min Chang, from Taiwan, Khanh Nhi Luong, from Vietnam, and Canada’s Jaeden Izik-Dzurko.

A 73-year-old Israeli was arrested on Thursday for trying to kill Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, in an Iran-backed assassination plot.

Moti Maman, from Ashkelon, southern Israel, was smuggled twice into Iran, where talks were held over paying him as a hitman, according to Israeli security officials.

Yoav Gallant, the defence minister, and Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet intelligence agency, were also allegedly discussed as targets in addition to Mr Netanyahu.

“The Israeli citizen entered Iran… smuggled through the border hidden inside a truck cabin,” an Israel Defense Forces statement read. “He met with additional Iranian intelligence agents and was asked by them to carry out activities for Iran on Israeli soil, including promoting assassination attacks.”

Mr Maman allegedly demanded an advance payment of $1 million (£756,000) before carrying out instructions.

Eyal Besserglick, his lawyer, said his client had made an “error of judgment” and was cooperating with Israel’s intelligence agencies.

“It can already be said that this is a person who has greatly assisted the security services of the State of Israel, whose children serve in the security forces,” he added.

Israel claimed Iran asked Mr Maman to carry out the assassinations as revenge for the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, on Iranian soil in July, which Tehran attributed to Jerusalem.

Mr Maman is a Jewish Israeli citizen who has spent an extended time living in Turkey.

“In April 2024, the citizen, with the assistance of [two] Turkish citizens, agreed to meet a wealthy businessman in Iran named Eddie to promote business activities,” a joint statement from Shin Bet and Israeli police said.

After being smuggled into Iran via the land border near Van, Turkey, he met Eddie as well as a man named Hajjah, an Iranian security operative, according to the statement.

During his time in Iran, the suspect was asked to carry out several missions in addition to assassinating senior Israeli officials, the statement said.

These are alleged to have included “transferring money or a gun at predetermined points, photographing various crowded places in the country and sending them to Iranian elements, threatening other Israeli citizens activated in the country by the Iranian regime who did not complete requested tasks”.

The suspect travelled to Iran a second time when he was hidden inside a truck cab and smuggled across the border, the statement continued.

Mr Maman was then alleged to have demanded one million dollars up front for the task, which the Iranian authorities refused. Instead, he received €5,000 for participating in the meetings, the statement said.

“Security assessments suggest that Iranians will continue their efforts to recruit operatives in Israel for intelligence gathering and carrying out terrorist missions in Israel, including approaching individuals with criminal backgrounds to fulfill these tasks,” said a senior Shin Bet official.

A burst of heat at the end of summer will prompt as much as a month’s worth of rainfall and thunder this weekend.

Up to 70mm of rainfall is expected within a few hours on Saturday following unseasonably warm temperatures, reaching 26C in London, on Thursday.

Alex Deakin, a Met Office meteorologist, said that “we will start to see the change” after a grey start on Friday.

“As the cloud breaks in the South, bringing some sunshine for a time, that is then likely to spark some heavy showers come the afternoon,” he said. 

“Over East Anglia initially, but then spreading over to parts of the Midlands, Wales and especially south-west England. Some heavy downpours are expected, thunderstorms and hailstones possible as well.”

The Met Office has issued two yellow weather warnings for thunderstorms for Friday and Saturday and warned of damage to buildings as a result of lightning strikes, as well as disruption to public transport and flooding.

Friday’s alert covers most of south-west England, parts of Wales, the Midlands and west London, and is in place from 12pm until 8pm.

The second warning is in place all of Saturday from 1am and covers all of Wales and south-west England, the Midlands and parts of south-east England.

It said up to 70mm of rain could fall in the worst affected areas on Saturday, compared to the average September rainfall across southern England and south Wales of around 60-90mm.

Dan Stroud, a Met Office meteorologist, said: “We are being spoiled by almost summer’s last hurrah, but there’s a bit of a change coming down the line as we move our way through towards Friday, and especially the weekend.”

A “gentle decline” in temperature is expected over the weekend, with highs of 24C forecast for East Anglia on Saturday followed by low 20s in the area on Sunday, he added.

“Successive bands of rain” and “normal conditions for autumn” are expected next week, he added.

A schoolboy has been allowed to identify as a wolf, according to reports.

The pupil claims to suffer from “species dysphoria”, a non-clinical condition in which an individual feels their body belongs to a different species.

Teachers at the secondary school in Britain are understood to be supporting the child’s decision, the Daily Mail reports.

A growing number of schoolchildren have asked to be officially recognised as animals including cats, foxes, birds and dinosaurs.

Tommy MacKay, a clinical neuropsychologist, told the Daily Mail: “There is no such condition in science as ‘species dysphoria’.

“It’s not surprising that we are seeing this in an age when many people want to identify as something other than they are.

“Now we have a council which appears to accept at face value that a child identifies as a wolf, rather than being told to snap out of it and get to grips with themselves, which would be the common-sense approach.”

‘Animal persona’

Official documents seen by the newspaper are said to recognise that the student now identifies as an animal.

The local authority, which has not been disclosed, said the pupil belonged to a group who called themselves “furries” and identified with an “animal persona”.

The council said a well-being worker offered “personal” and “specific” support for such cases including counselling and help with learning, adding: “There is very little specific guidance on species dysphoria.”

The move is in line with Scottish government guidance called Getting It Right For Every Child (Girfec), according to the council.

A “well-being wheel” is being used to support pupils. The wheel is a diagram used in Girfec guidance that emphasises the importance of helping children “overcome inequalities”.

In November last year, a school in Wales was forced to deny that it provided litter trays for children who identify as cats. Parents of around 1,000 pupils at West Monmouth School in Pontypool, South Wales, were told that the school did not provide extra facilities for pupils who might identify as “an animal of any kind”.

‘This kind of behaviour is not acceptable’

In a letter, Claire Hughes, the deputy head teacher, said: “It has come to our attention that there appears to be a number of queries and concerns raised within the community regarding the use of litter trays at West Monmouth School.

“I would like to take this opportunity to assure you that we do not and will not be planning on providing any litter trays at the school.

“Whilst we are an inclusive and welcoming school, we do not make any provision for any pupils who might identify as an animal of any kind.

“This kind of behaviour is not acceptable at school and as such, no provision is in place at school, such as litter trays.”

In 2023, a school in East Sussex reprimanded students for refusing to accept a classmate’s decision to self-identify as a cat. A teacher at Rye College was recorded telling pupils they were “despicable” for expressing their belief that there are only two genders after another pupil was believed to self-identify as a cat.

The Telegraph discovered that a pupil at a secondary school in the South West was insisting on being addressed as a dinosaur.

At another secondary school in England, a pupil insisted on identifying as a horse, while another wore a cape and wanted to be acknowledged as a moon.

Israeli jets bombarded southern Lebanon and staged a show of force over Beirut just as Hezbollah’s leader vowed to avenge the covert operation that turned his fighters into walking booby traps.

Hassan Nasrallah admitted that his movement had been dealt “a huge and severe blow” after two days of remote-controlled explosions in electronic devices killed 37 people and wounded thousands more.

Speaking for the first time since the attacks began on Tuesday, Nasrallah used a televised speech to castigate Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, accusing him of carrying out an “act of war”.

However, if Hezbollah’s supporters were hoping its leader would order full-scale retaliation by unleashing the movement’s vast rocket arsenal against their hated neighbour, they were to be disappointed.

Wary of being drawn into open conflict, Nasrallah instead threatened to respond only in the vaguest terms, promising a “moment of reckoning” at an unspecified time in the future.

“The enemy crossed all boundaries and red lines,” he said. “It will be met with a harsh punishment in ways they might expect and not expect. You will know when it happens – but its nature, its size, how and when it will happen, this we will keep to ourselves.”

As he spoke, Israel delivered a pointed message of its own as its fighter jets broke the sound barrier over Beirut, the Lebanese capital, triggering sonic booms that further unnerved its edgy residents.

Israeli forces also launched air and artillery strikes against Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon, while two Israeli soldiers were killed on its northern border.

Nasrallah sought to play down the attacks, which Israel has not yet officially acknowledged, as much as possible.

He claimed that Israel had aimed to kill 5,000 people by detonating explosives hidden in the pagers and walkie-talkie radios of his fighters. But it failed, he said, because the operation only killed a fraction of that number.

Nasrallah also sought to shrug off the impact of the attack, claiming that the movement’s communications networks had survived largely unscathed.

In Hezbollah’s strongholds in the poor suburbs of south Beirut, the scene of hundreds of small explosions this week, the group’s members and supporters tried to project similar bravado.

Yet quietly many admitted to shredded nerves and a sense that every piece of technology was now a source of suspicion and that every passerby on the street was potentially a walking bomb ready to explode.

“Yesterday I bought an alarm clock because I didn’t want to sleep near my phone,” said a woman who only identified herself as Sara. “Although I have to have it with me for work, I feel like I am carrying a bomb in my pocket. I keep touching it to make sure it is not heating up.”

She was not alone. Neighbours and friends had been disconnecting appliances, refusing to answer calls and even disposing of baby monitors for fear of what might be targeted next.

The paranoia was hardly surprising. Few in south Beirut did not feel the impact of Tuesday’s pager blasts and Wednesday’s walkie-talkie explosions.

“My friend died and seven other people I know were wounded,” said Sara, opening up her mobile phone to reveal a photograph of a man she knew who had lost a hand and been blinded in both eyes.

Nearly 3,000 people were wounded, many of them in south Beirut. Sara described the two hospitals she went to volunteer at on the first day of the attacks as “scenes of horror.”

“It felt like being in a zombie movie,” she said. “There was blood all over the floor and people were coming in without fingers or hands. Everywhere there were people looking for their relatives. It was chaos.”

Nearby, in a grim irony, funerals were taking place to lay to rest those killed in burial processions that had taken place the previous day.

Hezbollah fighters in camouflage uniforms and red berets formed a guard of honour around the coffins of Fadel Abbas Bazzi and Ahmad Ali Hassan, both of whom had died in the second wave of attacks that targeted Hezbollah’s hand-held radios.

A brass band played and young Boy Scouts in Hezbollah scarves stood to attention near the funeral biers as mourners gathered in notably fewer numbers than the previous day – another glimpse into the fear that has taken hold of much of Beirut.

Among those in attendance was a Hezbollah member who, despite suffering a wound to his side when his pager exploded, had brought his seven-year-old son to teach him that he would one day follow in his father’s footsteps.

“My son needs to be here whatever the risk,” he said. “I am teaching him a lesson. We could all die soon and if we do, the next generation need to understand what we are fighting for. Their turn will come.”

Such words are a sign that many Hezbollah fighters see their conflict with Israel in terms of decades rather than years.

“Hezbollah has 100,000 fighters,” said one of the movement’s supporters. “In the past two days maybe 5,000 of them were injured. But we still have 95,000 more who are unhurt and ready to fight with all their heart and souls. We cannot be defeated.”

While Israel revels in the unalloyed triumph of the past few days, it will take more than even this most extraordinary of attacks to defeat Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into northern Israel in a limited show of support of Hamas since the start of Israeli operations in Gaza last October.

The group is estimated to have fired a total of 8,000 rockets from its estimated arsenal of 200,000.

In his speech, Nasrallah warned Mr Netanyahu that not only would he not win but that he would fail even in his most pressing goal: finding a way to allow more than 60,000 Israelis living within range of Hezbollah’s rockets to return home.

“Let me tell the Israeli government, the Israeli army and the Israeli people: You will not manage,” he said. “I tell prime minister Netanyahu: You can do what you want, you will not manage.

“The only solution is to halt the aggression against the people of Gaza. No military escalation, no killings, no total war will return your settlers to the border area. You know it.”

Although the terms of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have been outlined for months, both sides have refused to compromise on its final details.

In a sign of a potential breakthrough, however, Israel has reportedly drawn up a new proposal to break the deadlock that would allow Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader, along with thousands of Hamas members, to leave Gaza for a third country in exchange for the release of all 101 Israeli hostages.

Gal Hirsch, Israel’s coordinator for the hostages, reportedly met with his American counterparts in the White House last week to present the “safe passage deal”, as the proposal is called, according to Israel’s KAN public broadcaster.

Meanwhile, Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, postponed a trip to Israel scheduled for next week, the news site Axios reported, citing two Israeli officials. 

Mr Austin had been due to hold talks with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant as well as with Mr Netanyahu.

The postponement came as David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, repeated calls for British nationals to leave Lebanon.

One of the most damning realities about the accusations of rape against Mohamed Fayed is that they are so unsurprising.

Fayed was a serial sexual abuser hiding in plain sight who managed to inveigle his way into the heart of the British Establishment using the trusty tools of wealth and fame.

In common with Jimmy Savile, he inserted himself into the lives of unwitting senior Royal family members, providing an invisible layer of protection against any victim who might dare to go public.

Where Savile relied on the fact that his victims were children, unlikely to have the courage to expose him and even less likely to be believed, Fayed used the sheer menace of a private security team and an army of lawyers to silence his adult prey.

In both cases, their sexual abuse was an open secret. Savile groped women on live television, while Fayed did it in his office in front of other staff.

Even before some of the victims who have now spoken to the BBC were employed by Fayed, his habitual sexual harassment of employees, including groping their breasts and bottoms in his office, had been extensively catalogued by the biographer Tom Bower.

In his 1998 book, Fayed, Bower described how the magnate would select attractive Harrods staff to be reassigned to his private office, then send them off for gynaecological examinations by private doctors before taking them to his flat in Paris where he would turn up in their bedroom and pester them for sex.

One former in-house lawyer, Francesca Armitage, told Bower that Fayed had taken her to Paris and once she was in bed came into her room in his dressing gown and sat on the bed. She dashed into the bathroom and locked herself inside until he left. Days later he summoned her to his London home in the evening for “work” reasons and sexually assaulted her on his sofa.

Fayed noisily threatened to sue Bower, but his accusations of libel never came to anything because Bower’s revelations were demonstrably true.

By the time Bower’s book came out, Fayed had very publicly courted the Royal family, using Harrods’s sponsorship of the Royal Windsor Horse Show to secure a seat next to Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip and having Prince and Princess Michael of Kent to stay at his Surrey estate. 

Raine, Countess Spencer, Princess Diana’s stepmother, was given a seat on the board of Harrods. There is no suggestion that any member of the Royal family knew of any allegations of sexual assault or harassment at the time, but Fayed was controversial because of his shady business dealings.

While Queen Elizabeth II appeared to have his number (she declined an invitation to visit the Villa Windsor, the former home of the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson near Paris which he owned, and sent her private secretary to take back objects that belonged to the Royal family), Princess Diana famously – and fatefully – accepted his hospitality, which led to a brief romance with his son Dodi and their death in one of Fayed’s chauffeured cars in 1997.

Fayed had attracted the suspicion of governments for decades. In the 1960s he was put under surveillance by the CIA after he befriended the Haitian dictator Papa Doc Duvalier: the CIA’s assessment of him was that he was “friendly and evil at the same time”.

Then in the 1990s, the Government refused Fayed’s obsessive pleas to be granted a British passport, deeming that he was “not a fit and proper person to be given citizenship” after a Department of Trade and Industry report called him out as a liar.

He knew, though, that money and a public profile were powerful buffers against the threat of exposure, and had for decades cosied up to those who could be useful in that respect.

Donald Trump was among those who accepted invitations to his country estate in Oxted. Douglas Hurd, then foreign secretary, took his family to enjoy Fayed’s lavish hospitality. Celebrity guests included Kirk Douglas, Barry Humphries, Roger Moore and Tony Curtis.

Michael Jackson was among those Fayed counted as his friends, and when the pop star died in 2009 Fayed put up a statue of him outside Fulham Football Club, which Fayed owned at the time. There is no suggestion any of these guests know about Fayed’s sexual misdeeds.

Fayed was a chancer who had built his considerable wealth by lying about how much money he had to secure backing from others. He then turned this imagined fortune into a real one by buying and selling businesses.

Prestige purchases such as Harrods, House of Fraser and the Paris Ritz were designed to buy him respectability and a seat at the top table of society, which in turn gave him all the protection he needed to abuse women at will.

As some of the rape victims who spoke to the BBC have attested, they kept their ordeals to themselves because they were terrified of the consequences of speaking out or going to the police.

In a society where fewer than one in six rape victims go to the police and less than three per cent of rape complaints lead to a conviction, it is entirely understandable that any woman faced with the wealth and power of a man like Fayed would feel it was pointless to after him.

As one woman said: “I’m petrified of someone who is no longer alive.”

Another woman did summon the courage to report to the police a sexual assault at his Park Lane apartment after a job interview. He was interviewed by the Metropolitan Police in 2013 and the case was reopened in 2015 but no charges were brought (another woman went to police in 2018 but was told that Fayed had dementia and was too frail to be prosecuted).

Fayed felt so invincible that when the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens was tasked with investigating Fayed’s allegations that Diana and Dodi were murdered, he invited the ex-policeman to meetings in Harrods to discuss the progress of the inquiry, and even tried to give him gifts of Viagra and a bull’s testicle.

Lord Stevens later described him as “a character”.

Lord Alli funded at least seven Cabinet ministers in a years-long campaign to reshape the Labour Party, The Telegraph can disclose.

The Labour peer has handed out £314,147 to members of Sir Keir Starmer’s front bench as part of a string of donations spanning almost two decades.

The donations suggest Lord Alli backed candidates running against Jeremy Corbyn during the hard-Left’s time in control of the party, before ramping up donations under Sir Keir’s premiership.

The Prime Minister and Angela Rayner, his deputy, top the list, taking £155,122 and £72,450 respectively from the peer in benefits and cash donations, records show.

Other beneficiaries include Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, who has been handed £14,600 by the media entrepreneur since 2021, as well as Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, who was given £10,000 last year.

Lord Alli has been thrust into the spotlight in a row over clothes donated to Lady Starmer, the Prime Minister’s wife.

After working in the background of politics for decades, his influence in the party has grown under Sir Keir, and he has donated eight times more to Labour HQ under his premiership than when Mr Corbyn was leader, it can be revealed.

Lord Alli made £43,404 in donations to the central party during Mr Corbyn’s leadership, compared with £352,747 so far under Sir Keir.

He also donated to other MPs and candidates running against Mr Corbyn in the 2015 and 2016 leadership contests.

They included Liz Kendall, now Work and Pensions Secretary, a standard bearer for the Labour Right who was given £15,475 and Andy Burnham, now mayor of Greater Manchester, who was given £11,000.

The figures come from public data via the Electoral Commission and the Parliamentary Register of Interests.

Sir Keir Starmer: £155,122 (2020-2024)

The entrepreneur is Sir Keir’s biggest personal donor and has donated £947,032 overall to the Labour Party and its candidates since 2004.

He has given £155,122 to Sir Keir alone since 2020, including £18,685 towards work clothes and several pairs of glasses in the past year.

Sir Keir also repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor while campaigning to enter No 10, as part of accommodation he donated with an estimated value of £20,000.

On Thursday, Baroness Harman, the former deputy Labour leader, said Sir Keir should stop trying to “justify” accepting gifts as it is “making things worse”. 

She told Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast that the row was “out of line” for the Prime Minister and that he should change his approach rather than “doubling down”. 

She said: “You can either double down on it and try and justify it or you can just say it was probably a misstep, if I had my time again I wouldn’t do it and therefore I’m going to auction for charity or something. 

“It’s not a hanging offence, but I think doubling down and trying to justify it is making things worse. 

“He’s not a sort of money-focused, greedy type person. He is a person of public service. So this is slightly out of line. And he’ll be wanting to deal with it.”

Angela Rayner: £72,450 (2020-2024)

The Deputy Prime Minister has received donations worth £72,450 from Lord Alli since 2020.

As well as paying some of her office costs, Lord Alli also gave Ms Rayner the “use of a flat as accommodation for five nights” in New York over the new year, at a cost of £1,250.

He has also donated £17,400 to her since March last year to support her in her “capacity as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party”.

David Lammy: £32,500 (2005-2024)

Lord Alli’s first donation to the Foreign Secretary was in 2005 for £10,000, when Mr Lammy was a member of the then Labour government. This was followed by another £10,000 in 2007 “towards the cost of employing a social policy research assistant”.

Mr Lammy was also given £12,500 “towards paying for additional staff for my office” in November 2023. 

Defending Sir Keir and his wife, Mr Lammy said the couple had accepted donations so they could “look their best” to represent the UK when other countries allowed lavish, taxpayer-funded budgets for clothing for their leaders.

He told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme: “The truth is that successive prime ministers, unless you’re a billionaire like the last one, do rely on donations, political donations, so they can look their best, both in the hope of representing the country, if you’re in the opposition, or indeed as prime minister.”

Bridget Phillipson: £14,000 (2023)

The Education Secretary was handed £14,000 “to host a number of events, including on behalf of the shadow education team”.

The first, on Nov 12 2023, was for £10,000 and the second was made on Dec 11 for £4,000. Ms Phillipson has yet to speak publicly about the donations or explain what the events were for.

Ed Miliband: £10,000 (2023)

The Energy Secretary received £10,000 via the Labour Party in a donation from Lord Alli to “pay the salary of a member of staff in my office” in March 2023.

Wes Streeting: £14,600 (2021-22)

The Labour peer donated £14,600 to the Health Secretary, data shows.

This includes £10,000 towards “staffing costs in my office” in August 2021 and £4,600 for “catering services for a fundraising event for me and another MP” in March 2022.

Liz Kendall: £15,475 (2015)

Lord Alli donated almost £16,000 to the now Work and Pensions Secretary around the time of the 2015 Labour leadership contest.

He handed over £6,000 in May and £2,475 in June of that year, followed by £7,000 in December.

The Labour Party has been contacted for comment.

Sir Keir Starmer has come under fire over the failure to charge Mohamed Fayed with sexual assault while he was chief prosecutor.

In 2008, Fayed, the then owner of Harrods, was interviewed by the Metropolitan Police under caution after a 15-year-old girl told detectives he had sexually assaulted her at the London department store.

In February 2009, when Sir Keir was director of public prosecutions (DPP), the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced that no charges would be brought because there was “no realistic prospect of conviction”.

Downing Street claims Sir Keir, who quit his role at the CPS in 2013, had no involvement in the decision. However, the Conservatives said it was “yet another instance of failure” of the organisation under his watch, after it also failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile.

Five women have now claimed they were raped by Fayed and a further 20 said he sexually assaulted them.

Matt Vickers, shadow minister for crime and policing, said: “Keir Starmer is always eager to take credit for other people’s work at the CPS, but whenever something went wrong under his watch it was always someone else’s fault.

“There was a chance to prosecute Fayed while Starmer was DPP but it was not taken. These latest revelations show this was yet another instance of failure.”

Sir Keir said when he was DPP that he was “personally concerned” when it came to any case that might have reputational impact for the CPS which “may be because it’s about a particularly sensitive case”.

He has in the past denied that he was informed when a CPS investigator decided to drop a case against Savile when he was DPP.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “Keir did not handle this case. It did not cross his desk.”

Fayed died last year aged 94 without ever being prosecuted, despite multiple complaints to the police by different women.

By the time the teenager went to the police in 2008 to say that Fayed had groped and kissed her against her will, Fayed had a well-established reputation for sexually assaulting his staff.

In a 1998 biography by Tom Bower, former employees described being groped by Fayed in the workplace and being pestered for sex by him in his homes in London and Paris.

The teenager, who is now in her 30s, told the BBC she had started working at Harrods as a shop assistant in 2007 when she was 14 and saw him as a father figure at first, but he started calling her on her personal mobile and hugging her in the shop.

She said in May 2008, she was asked to go up to the Harrods boardroom, where she claims she was assaulted.

She said: “He started hugging me and getting touchy and feely, rubbing himself against me and he just grabbed my face and tried to put his tongue in my mouth.

“I mentioned I was 15 and said ‘what are you doing?’ and he said I was turning into a beautiful woman and grabbed my chest.

“I pushed him off and he saw I was freaked out and scared and he just got into a rage and started screaming at me.” She reported the matter to the police the same month after telling her parents what had happened and Fayed was interviewed later that year.

The case was handled by Rene Barclay, the CPS’s then director of complex casework, whose role included handling cases deemed “high profile”. In 2009 he announced that no charges would be brought.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said on Thursday: “In May 2008, police received an allegation of sexual assault alleged to have occurred in London.

“The report was thoroughly investigated, including examination of CCTV, speaking to potential witnesses and analysis of telephone data.

“Following this, a case was referred to the CPS for consideration, who concluded that no further action should be taken.”

The alleged victim told the BBC she was informed that part of the reason no charges were brought was because she had got the day of the week wrong in her description of when the assault happened.

The CPS said the teenager’s complaint was the only time a file on Fayed was passed on to them by police.

In 2018, 2021 and 2023, after Sir Keir had left the CPS, it provided “early investigative advice” to the Met following complaints made about Fayed, but “a full file of evidence was never received in each of these instances”.

Another woman contacted the police in 2013 and again in 2015 but the CPS say they had no involvement in that case.

In the BBC documentary Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods, women who worked at the department store between the 1980s and the 2000s said assaults happened at the company’s offices, at Fayed’s Park Lane apartment and on foreign trips.

The broadcaster says Harrods not only failed to intervene but also helped cover up allegations against Fayed.

‘Utterly Appalled’

The current owners of Harrods said they were “utterly appalled” by the allegations, stressing that the company today was “very different”.

Bruce Drummond, a barrister from a legal team representing several of the women, said: “The spider’s web of corruption and abuse in this company was unbelievable and very dark.”

Commander Kevin Southworth who leads on Public Protection for the Met said: “We are aware of various allegations of sexual offences made over a number of years in relation to the late Mohammed Al-Fayed which were reported to the Met.

“Each one was investigated and, where appropriate, advice from the Crown Prosecution Service was sought. No charges resulted from these investigations.

“As with any investigation, if any further information comes to light it will be assessed and investigated accordingly.”

Angela Rayner enjoyed stunning views of Manhattan and the Empire State Building on new year’s eve from a $2.5 million flat lent by the Labour donor at the centre of the row over freebies, The Telegraph can reveal.

The Deputy Prime Minister spent five nights in the luxury Manhattan apartment, with views over New York from the 56th floor of a skyscraper.

The two-bedroom property – totalling 1,300 sq ft – was lent to Ms Rayner by Lord Alli, the Labour peer, from Dec 29 to Jan 2 last year.

According to the parliamentary register of interests, Ms Rayner was given a flat as accommodation for five nights to enjoy a “personal holiday”, which she said was worth an estimated £1,250 overall.

The entry did not disclose any further details.

The Telegraph can, however, reveal that the skyscraper where Ms Rayner stayed includes a roof deck, courtyard and three-storey fitness suite featuring a gym, jacuzzi and pool.

The building’s website describes it as being at the heart of the theatre district and says it has multiple sundecks with “incredible views” which include Manhattan, the Hudson river and New Jersey. It is also a short walk to Times Square.

Ownership records of the property are unclear, but Lord Alli, 59, is listed as its current resident and his partner has previously posted pictures on social media of the views from the 60-storey skyscraper.

A source told The Telegraph that Lord Alli has used the flat for around a decade and often lends it to family and friends.

“He does have family and friends come to stay from time to time,” he said, adding that Lord Alli himself only visits around twice a year.

He said Lord Alli’s guests “do seem important” and he does not think the peer has any other apartments in New York City.

Lord Alli’s property has views of the Empire State building and “faces downtown towards the river and Midtown… it’s a nice flat”, they said.

Other people who live in the building include “directors, Broadway, off-Broadway actors… [and] semi-important people”.

The source added that, on average, a two-bedroom flat in the high rise would rent for around $6,000 (£4,500) a month and added that Lord Alli is a “very nice, polite gentleman” who keeps to himself.

Details about the flat Ms Rayner stayed in while on holiday raise fresh questions if the appropriate value has been declared.

A property of the same specification 20 floors down is currently on sale for $2,250,000, with the Empire State Building clearly visible from its living room in promotional material.

A similar two-bedroom flat on the 24th floor is currently up for rent at $7,000 a month while a one-bedroom above 50 storeys is going for $5,000 a month.

A short-term let would be more expensive and nearby hotels for the same dates this year start at a minimum of £1,200 for five days for a three-star hotel while most with similar facilities to Lord Alli’s flat cost upwards of £3,000.

Two-bedroom listings on AirBnB in the area for the same dates this year are listed for upwards of around £2,000 for the same days that Ms Rayner stayed in New York.

Labour is facing a growing “cronyism” row over donations and gifts from Lord Alli who was previously given a pass to No 10 despite having no official government role.

The Labour peer, who is worth £200 million, has also given Sir Keir Starmer tens of thousands of pounds to spend on suits and spectacles, while Lady Starmer has also been given £5,000 worth of clothes and personal shopping.

On Thursday, The Telegraph revealed that the Prime Minister repeatedly used a luxury £18 million penthouse owned by Lord Alli during the general election campaign.

The Labour leader was at the property in the Covent Garden area of London on election night to watch the 10pm exit poll results with close aides and family.

It is understood the 5,000 sq ft home was also used for strategy meetings with Sir Keir in the run-up to the election, as well as fundraising dinners.

The disclosure raises questions about Sir Keir’s declarations of the support he received from Lord Alli, whose donations for clothing and glasses have already come under heavy scrutiny.

The Prime Minister has declared £20,400 for “accommodation” from the Labour peer during and just after the election campaign but no detail has been published about what is included.

Labour said all donations had been declared and it had no further comment when asked about Ms Rayner’s holiday.

David Lammy has been branded “highly improper” and “callous” after writing that Azerbaijan had been able to “liberate” territory in a conflict described as ethnic cleansing.

The Foreign Secretary’s recent blog post led Armenia’s ambassador to urgently seek clarification on the apparent change in the Government’s position over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

It was internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but governed by ethnic Armenians, who represent the vast majority of people there and declared it the breakaway state of Artsakh.

After Azeri forces subjected Nagorno-Karabakh to a nine-month blockade, they attacked in September 2023 in a violation of a ceasefire deal agreed after a war in 2020.

Some 100,400 ethnic Armenians, making up 99 per cent of the population, fled following threats of ethnic cleansing. After the invasion, there were allegations of war crimes, including the murder of Armenian civilians.

At the time, Mr Lammy said on social media that “Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians must be guaranteed safety and dignity” and called for human rights and international law to be respected.

But in his recent Substack newsletter, he wrote that “Azerbaijan has been able to liberate territory it lost in the early 1990s”.

Alicia Kearns, the conservative MP and former chairman of the foreign affairs committee, said: “This marks a significant shift in the UK’s language and position. It’s highly improper to change UK policy via a blog. Urgent clarity is needed as to why this comment was published.”

“Encouraging Azerbaijan and Armenia to agree a historic peace treaty is a diplomatic priority, with provisions made for displaced ethnic Armenians to resettle safely in Nagorno-Karabakh,” she wrote on social media.

Ms Kearns added: “Contradicting long-standing UK policy in a vanity blog is totally inappropriate and throws into question the Foreign Secretary’s judgement.”

Mark Movsesian, the Frederick A. Whitney Professor and director of the Mattone Center for Law and Religion at St John’s University Law School, told GB News he was shocked.

“The Foreign Secretary’s reference to Azerbaijan’s ‘liberation’ of Nagorno-Karabakh is shockingly callous and ignorant,” he said.

“In fact, exactly a year ago, Baku ethnically cleansed the region of its 120,000 Christian Armenian inhabitants in violation of an order from the International Court of Justice.”

The Telegraph understands Mr Lammy’s post does not signal a change in UK policy.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “The UK supports the territorial integrity of both Armenia and Azerbaijan and is encouraged by both sides engaging in meaningful dialogue. We will continue to support their commitment to lasting peace in the region.”

An acrimonious divorce involving Russia’s richest woman descended into a gun battle over the country’s most successful online retailer, killing two people and wounding seven.

Tatyana and Vladislav Bakalchuk, the estranged couple who founded Wildberries, known as Russia’s Amazon, blamed each other for Wednesday’s shoot-out at the company’s head office in Moscow. 

Mr Bakalchuk was arrested and charged with murder, attempted murder, assault of a law enforcement officer and vigilantism the following day. 

The fight broke out when Mr Bakalchuk, who owns 1 per cent of the company and had appealed to Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen Republic ruler, to stop his wife pushing through a controversial merger, showed up at the office.

He claimed that he was there to “negotiate” but was shot at by people inside the building.

What happened next is hotly disputed.

Footage taken by witnesses showed a brawl breaking out at the entrance to the office.

A group of men believed to include Mr Bakalchuk can be seen attempting to storm the building in one video, while a man smashes his way through a glass door.

After the man lunges through, several gunshots can be heard.

Separate videos from inside the office show one man, possibly a security guard, reaching for his handgun and firing at the invaders.

Mr Bakalchuk’s lawyers called the charges against him a “flagrant and unprecedented violation” of his rights, and said the allegations fly in the face of witness testimony and video evidence to the contrary.

In a statement describing the incident, they said: “Upon arrival, Vladislav and his representatives encountered aggressive actions from law enforcement officers and office security. As a result of this clash, a shoot-out occurred, in which the office security officers were the first to open fire.”

“Among the guards they hired were terrorists – people with a criminal past. It was they who opened fire to kill Vladislav and his representatives.”

Mrs Bakalchuk strongly denied the claims.

“Today a group of people led by Vladislav Bakalchuk […] attempted to seize Wildberries’ offices in Moscow,” she said on Telegram.

“To my deep regret, as a result of the armed attack on Wildberries, a security guard at our office was killed,” she said.

“Statements about supposed negotiations that the armed group showed up to are absurd, given no one agreed to any such negotiations.

“This is a hostile takeover. Or rather, an unsuccessful one,” she added. 

A second guard died in hospital from wounds sustained during the incident after Mrs Bakalchuk’s statement was made. 

In a tearful video posted online, she asked: “Vladislav, what are you doing? How will you look into the eyes of your parents and our children? How could you bring the situation to such absurdity?”

The incident is reminiscent of “corporate raiding” that blighted Russian businesses in the 1990s and 2000s, when rivals would seek to seize assets by showing up with armed men and taking control of a company’s office, instead of buying shares. 

Mrs Bakalchuk founded Wildberries by selling clothes from her Moscow apartment while on maternity leave in 2004. Her husband joined the company shortly afterwards.

It has since grown to become Russia’s largest online retailer and sells everything from beauty products to furniture and pet food. 

It employs tens of thousands of people and has made Mrs Bakalchuk one of only two Russian female billionaires.

In 2023, Wildberries allowed authorities to raid several of its warehouses in search of migrant workers to draft into their war against Ukraine. 

Police searched the head office in January after a mysterious fire destroyed one major warehouse in St Petersburg and $191 million worth of stock.

Last month, Russian soldiers sent to push the Ukrainians out of the Kursk region were caught on security cameras looting a local Wildberries depot.

Mrs Bakalachuk announced she was filing for divorce in July, triggering an instant quarrel about division of assets. Mr Bakalchuk said they did not sign a prenuptial agreement and believes he is entitled to half the company.

But there is another layer to the dispute.

Around the same time as the couple’s split, Wildberries announced a merger with Russ Outdoor, a billboard advertising giant controlled by two brothers called Robert and Levan Mirzoyan.

The deal, which Mrs Bakalchuk described as part of a plan to expand the brand into Central Asia and eventually rival Amazon or Ali Baba, reportedly won the blessing of Vladimir Putin.

Kremlin sources told Bloomberg in June that the tie-up was also intended to build an alternative to the SWIFT money transfer system that many Russian banks have been blocked from since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

However, Mr Bakalchuk argued that his wife was tricked into what he calls a wildly lop-sided “mistake” that would see a large chunk of the company’s wealth given away to Russ Outdoor, a much smaller firm, for no apparent benefit.

The deal involved transferring 35 per cent of the company to a joint venture with Russ Outdoor, Forbes reported.

Merger is ‘fraud’

Mr Bakalchuk appealed to Mr Kadyrov, who decried both the merger and the effect of divorce on the children in a recorded meeting. The Chechen warlord promised to “return Tatyana to the family and protect a legitimate business”. 

In July, Mr Kadyrov publicly described the merger as “fraud” and a corporate “raid” before explicitly blaming the Mirzoyan brothers.

The brothers have not directly commented on the controversy, although Robert Mirzoyan has given interviews explaining his vision for the merger.

In a joint statement, Russ Outdoor and Wildberries said: “Wildberries and Russ continue to operate in a stable mode […]. We are confident that the details of the divorce process and emotional details are of no interest to business publications.”

For now, law enforcement appears to have taken Mrs Bakalchuk’s side.

A man accused of raping a French woman while she was drugged unconscious by her husband apologised after graphic images were shown in court.

Lionel Rodriguez, 44, a former supermarket employee and father of three, said he wrongly thought he was taking part in a libertine “game” and did not think it was abuse before noticing “something was wrong”.

The defendant is among 50 men accused of participating in the mass rape of Mrs Pelicot over a decade in a trial that has rocked France.

The woman’s then-husband, Dominique Pelicot, 71, admitted to drugging her into a comatose state and inviting strangers to rape her.

Mr Rodriguez confirmed in court on Thursday that he had indeed raped Mrs Pelicot on Dec 2 2018, though he said it had not been his intention.

“Since I never obtained Mrs Pelicot’s consent, I have no choice but to accept the facts,” he said.

He told the court that as a swinger, he was in search of new partners on a libertine website when Mr Pélicot suggested he have sex with his wife.

While Mr Pelicot’s explanations were “not very clear”, Mr Rodriguez said he believed he was participating in a game.

“There was talk of medical drugs. Sometimes of her taking them and sometimes of him administering them to her,” he said.

“I didn’t ask myself too many questions,” he added.

Mr Pélicot sent him pictures of his wife naked in the couple’s garden, he said.

“I never imagined that she might not be part of this game. That was my first huge error … I’m not looking for excuses. I lost my bearings.”

When Mrs Pelicot began to move at one point, her husband asked him to leave the room.

“That’s when I realised that something was wrong,” he said.

Mrs Pélicot remained stoically silent in court when Mr Rodriguez, who spent 12 months in detention during the pre-trial investigation and is now divorced, said he “cannot imagine the nightmare she went through and is still going through”.

His own life had “also been destroyed”, he said. 

Some 27 unsettling images were shown in silence on Wednesday, reportedly displaying Ms Pelicot naked and conscious in ‘lewd’ positions.

Defence lawyers argued that showing the images, which were extracted from Mr Pélicot’s hard drive, would be “useful in revealing the truth”. 

Caroline Darian, Ms Pelicot’s daughter, left the courtroom at her mother’s request before they could be shown.

Isabelle Crépin-Dehaene, a defence attorney, argued that graphic photos showed Mrs Pelicot “awake” and “smiling”.

“Not all women would accept this type of photo. They show that there was a request from the husband that the wife was perfectly aware of.

“I deduce that the Pelicot couple played a sexual game of their own.”

She added that by sharing these photos, Mr Pélicot “may have led some people to believe that the woman was willing and game to partake in a threesome”.

Mrs Pélicot told the court she had no memory of the photos being taken. “They’re trying to trap me with these photos… to show that I baited these individuals into my home and that I was consenting,” she argued. 

Losing her cool for the first time, she said: “Since setting foot in this courtroom I have felt humiliated.”

“I’m being called an alcoholic and someone who gets intoxicated to the point of becoming Mr Pelicot’s accomplice.”

“I never, even for a single second, gave my consent to Mr Pelicot or those other men,” she said.

Lawyers gave the impression that she was “the guilty party and those 50 men victims,” she added.

Reacting to remarks by Guillaume De Palma, a  defence lawyer who told the court “there’s rape and there’s rape”, she hit back: ”No, there are no different types of rape.”

Following Mr Rodriguez, a 72-year-old retired marine firefighter – the oldest defendant – denied raping Mrs Pélicot when giving his testimony on Thursday.

Grandfather Jacques Cubeau offered his apologies to her, saying: “Madam, when I discovered what you had suffered, I was devastated.

“Having participated in all of this destroyed me. I hope that you, your family, will overcome all of this.”

However, he said he believed this was a “scenario set up by the couple” when he arrived to find Ms Pelicot asleep “with her mouth open”.

‘I thought it was a fantasy’

Mr Cubeau insisted he did not have penetrative or oral sex with Ms Pelicot as the courtroom gasped. 

“I thought it was a fantasy of theirs…I got the idea that it was a shy woman in a swinging couple.”

He then launched into a tirade about the “notion of patriarchy”.

“What could we do to prevent this from happening again? I think it’s the notion of patriarchy, my wife, this notion of property. I think that with the generations to come, this notion must disappear.”

Mrs Pélicot has become a feminist icon since demanding the trial be open to the public to raise awareness about the use of drugs to commit sexual abuse.

The trial has horrified France, notably because many of the defendants appear as “ordinary” men with no previous convictions, including a fireman, a nurse and a journalist, many of them with families.

Seventeen men remain in custody, including Mr Pelicot himself, but 32 other defendants are attending as free men.

One co-defendant, still at large, is being tried in absentia.

The trial continues.

Soaring divorce rates in China have spawned a new side business – to professionally shred wedding photos and other reminders of unhappy nuptials.

“We are a crematorium of those photos when their life cycle ends,” Liu Wei, an entrepreneur running a factory that destroys photos and documents on a mass scale, said in an interview with The Washington Post.

The self-described “love story morgue operator” started his business in Langfang, just south of Beijing, in 2022.

He is now inundated with customers who want to rid themselves of framed marriage portraits without burning them, which is considered to be bad luck.

Between 2000 and 2020, the number of divorces in China spiked from about 1.2 million to more than four million as society began to shrug off traditional stigmas about marriage breakdowns.

Alarm about the shrinking population prompted the government in 2021 to institute a mandatory 30-day-cooling-off period to prevent “impulsive” separations, bringing the divorce rate down to less than three million a year.

In August, the government – struggling to incentivise young people to marry and have children to tackle record low birth rates – proposed to revise the law again to build a “family friendly society” that would make it simpler for couples to register for marriage but tougher to file for divorce.

The number of Chinese couples who got married in the first half of 2024 fell by 498,000, from a year earlier to 3.43 million – the lowest since 2013.

Some 1.3 million Chinese couples have already divorced in the first half of this year.

But what may be bad for population growth is good for Mr Liu’s booming business.

Pre-wedding photoshoots, involving couples posing for hours in different costumes and locations, have become popular with the country’s wealthier middle class.

Photograph destruction now accounts for more than 95 percent of Mr Liu’s work.

“Just send the photos over … and we will make them disappear completely, as if they had never existed,” Mr Liu says in a promotional video on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

His team spray-paint faces and identifying features before feeding the images into heavy-duty shredders.

They use sledgehammers to smash glass and wooden frames into pieces.

He then sends his customers a video of the destruction, set to a sometimes upbeat soundtrack, before removing the debris to a waste-to-energy facility where it becomes biofuel.

“All handled with responsibility,” Mr Liu told the Post, adding that some clients find “therapeutic value” in the service.

An Australian woman has rescued a venomous snake after its head became stuck in a energy drink can.

Olivia Dykstra, from Tasmania, discovered the lowland copperhead entangled with a Rockstar-branded beverage container.

She was able to safely free the reptile without getting bitten and, after the encounter, posted a photo on social media.

“Copperheads have tiny heads and their scales only go one way so they can’t back out,” she wrote in a comment under the post.

Lowland copperheads are common in Australia, southern Victoria, Tasmania. They have a toxic bite that can cause death unless treated.

New York-based Rockstar is considered the world’s third largest energy drinks brand, behind Red Bull and Monster.

US officials now believe that a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas is unlikely before President Biden leaves office in January, according to a report.

The Wall Street Journal said top-level officials in the White House, State Department and the Pentagon are not expecting a breakthrough in talks between the two sides, who have been fighting a bitter war in Gaza since Hamas’s terror attack against Israel on October 7.

Officials have for months said that a ceasefire and deal to release Israeli hostages taken by Hamas were close.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said two weeks ago that 90 per cent of the ceasefire deal had been agreed upon.

Last month US officials briefed that a deal was “in the endgame” and seemed possible within days.

The departments cited in The Wall Street Journal report did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokesperson, told reporters on Thursday before the report was published: “I can tell you that we do not believe that deal is falling apart”.

The US and mediators Qatar and Egypt have for months tried to secure a ceasefire in the conflict that is estimated to have killed more than 41,000 Palestinians.

Two obstacles have been especially difficult: Israel’s demand to keep forces in the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt, and the specifics of an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

The US has said a Gaza ceasefire deal could lower tensions across the Middle East amid fears the conflict could widen.

Mr Biden laid out a three-phase ceasefire proposal on May 31 that he said at the time was agreed to by Israel. As the talks hit obstacles, officials have for weeks said a new proposal would soon be presented.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has displaced 2.3 million people and prompted genocide allegations at the International Criminal Court that Israel denies.

Fred and Sheila McCoy have dedicated much of their lives researching and documenting a notorious post-Civil War era feud that left many dead and terrorised a swathe of Appalachia.

So when a gunman who opened fire on motorists on a highway near their home went on the run, leaving locals terrified, it was perhaps not entirely surprising the former police officer and his wife would decide to join efforts to track him down.

Officials had also offered a reward of $35,000.

For five days the couple carried out their own search, as dozens of police officers spread out across the vast Daniel Boone National Forest, said to be larger than the cities of Los Angeles and New York City combined. As they did so, they live-streamed their efforts.

On the sixth day they found what are believed to be the remains of the suspected shooter, drawn in part by the sight of vultures hovering above, and a powerful smell. As they approached the spot, one of them kept the camera rolling.

“Oh, Lord, this is nasty. Oh, my goodness, this is gross,” says Ms McCoy, 59, as she warns her husband to watch out for snakes.

At the end of the video they discover the remains of suspected shooter, Joseph Couch, who disappeared 11 days before.

“Hey, guys, you won’t believe it, we found him, oh, my goodness gracious.”

Police said they have to carry out forensic tests to ensure the remains are those of 32-year-old Couch, who is believed to have opened fire two weeks ago on Interstate 75, near the town of London, about 140 miles from Louisville.

He had apparently texted someone that he intended to “kill a lot of people”, and had recently bought an AR-15 assault rifle and 1,000 rounds of ammunition.

While he did not kill anyone, five people were seriously hurt, and the community was left in fear.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said on Thursday that once identification was confirmed it would bring to a “close a pretty scary time in that community and the surrounding communities”.

He added: “We have every reason to believe this is Joseph Couch. But a final and determinative identification has not yet been possible. There is DNA testing going on right now.”

The McCoys live a few counties over from where the gunman opened fire and because both had undergone surgeries, they are no longer regular hikers.

“For one week we turned into bounty hunters,” Mr McCoy, 66, told the Associated Press. “The more we was watching the news and saw lockdowns and school closings, the more we were compelled to search for him.”

He added: “We were just a crippled old man and crippled old woman walking in the woods.”

He told CNN the fugitive “has been stressing this community out”. He added:

“Now everyone can rest.”

Officials confirmed that the couple will receive the reward money.

Mr McCoy said he was a descendant of a Hatfield-McCoy marriage and they run a small museum related to the history of the feud between the families.

The story has sparked books, live shows and a History Channel miniseries starring Kevin Costner.

Until recently, the McCoys ran a small museum in the city of Liberty, which they said contained the largest privately-owned collection of Hatfield and McCoy artefacts, collectibles and memorabilia. Mr McCoy reportedly has a background in law enforcement, serving with the US Marine Corps and the police in Kentucky.

The museum’s website says: “Closed until further notice.”

Domestic abusers face being banned for life from approaching their victims under a new law.

Labour will expand powers to enable police and other agencies to impose indefinite bans on abusers making contact with victims under new legally-enforced protection orders.

Abusers can also be restricted from going within a certain distance of their victims or their homes.

They will also be compelled by law to notify police of any name or address change, and face up to five years in jail for any breach of the orders.

The domestic abuse protection orders were previously limited to up to 28 days but Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, will change rules to allow them to last indefinitely if it can be shown to be proportionate and necessary.

The convicted perpetrators may be electronically tagged for up to a year to help enforce the bans.

Ms Cooper has also expanded who can apply to the courts for the orders.

It will now not only be police but also third parties, including councils, charities and social services.

Family and civil courts, as well as criminal courts, will also be able to impose the orders, which cover all domestic abuse including violence, stalking and controlling behaviour.

The orders, which are to be trialled from November, are part of a package of measures aimed at helping Labour achieve its pledge to halve violence against women and girls in the next decade.

Ms Cooper is also introducing “Raneem’s law” in memory of Raneem Oudeh, who was murdered by her ex-husband after police missed vital clues and warnings.

Raneem’s law will require forces to have specialist domestic abuse advisers in all their 999 control rooms to ensure officers spot and respond effectively to calls by victims.

Ms Cooper said: “Our mission is for the whole of Government, agencies, organisations and communities to work together to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, and today is just one step of many towards tangible and long-lasting change.”

Some 2.1 million people aged 16 and over experienced domestic abuse in the year ending March 2023, according to the Office for National Statistics’ crime survey for England and Wales.

This included 1.4 million women and 751,000 men.

Around 890,000 domestic abuse-related crimes were reported with a conviction rate of 76 per cent for domestic violence.

Repeat abuse is estimated to account for up to 60 per cent of all incidents.

It emerged on Thursday that former actor Jason Hoganson, who was freed early from jail under Sir Keir Starmer’s prisoner release scheme, was back behind bars after allegedly assaulting his former partner.

He had been released early from an 18-month sentence for assaulting the same woman.

Raneem’s law will be introduced to avoid a repeat of the murder of the 22-year-old and her mother Khaola Saleem by Oudeh’s ex-husband in 2018.

There were 13 reports made to the police about concerns for Raneem’s safety and no arrests made.

On the night she was killed, she rang 999 four times.

Specialists in domestic abuse will be embedded in 999 control rooms to advise on risk assessments and work with officers on the ground to ensure that victims get a fast response when needed, and are referred to support services as quickly as possible.

The new approach will be piloted from early 2025.

Ministers also plan to expand pilots where police have offered victims who call 999 access to video calls with trained officers.

The rapid video response scheme means victims can get immediate help rather than waiting for an officer to be sent out, by which time the perpetrator could have returned to the home.

Ms Cooper said: “Failure to understand the seriousness of domestic abuse costs lives and far too many have already been lost.

“That’s why introducing ‘Raneem’s Law’ in memory of Raneem and her mother Khaola is so vital – and has been a personal priority for me.”

Nour Norris, Oudeh’s aunt, said: “Six years ago, when I lost my niece Raneem and sister Khaola, my world fell apart. Their suffering and the way the system failed them is something I will never forget.”

“Knowing that Raneem’s name will now be a source of hope and protection for others fills me with a sense of pride I cannot put into words.

“Raneem’s memory lives on in this law, and it means the world to me to know that her story will help save lives.”

In Aurora, Colorado, according to Donald Trump, “nests of bad people” with “big rifles” are taking over “big buildings”.

It is one of two unverified claims about immigration that the former president has made on the campaign trail in recent days and his comments about Haitian migrants abducting and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio have garnered the most attention.

But it is in Aurora, a sprawling satellite city of Denver with the greatest share of foreign-born residents in Colorado, that there is at least some validity to Trump’s claims.

In July, alleged armed members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) were filmed busting into the Edge of Lowry, a dilapidated apartment block in Aurora, to demand rent.

The video went viral, triggering widespread fears that the gang – which was designated a “foreign terrorist group” by Texas authorities on Tuesday – poses a threat in the area.

City officials in Aurora acknowledge the presence of the TdA, although they say their numbers are few and they operate in isolated areas.

Six million Venezuelans have fled in four years

More than six million Venezuelans have fled the politically and economically unstable country in the last four years – the largest external displacement crisis in Latin America’s recent history – with tens of thousands granted temporary asylum in the US.

Along Aurora’s East Colefax corridor, waves of prior Latin migration – from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala – have created a virtually Spanish-speaking city, dotted with used car dealerships and taco food stands. 

Now, Venezuelans have moved in.

Few residents were willing to discuss Trump’s claims about the gang this week and those that did generally declined to be named or photographed for fear, they said, of drawing attention or inviting reprisals.

Authorities believe undocumented migrants are more vulnerable to exploitation by the TdA, which the US Treasury Department says specialises in exploiting migrant women and girls across borders for sex trafficking and debt bondage. The Texan authorities described it as engaging in extortion, homicide and drug trafficking.

At Whispering Pines, another block reportedly once targeted by the TdA, residents denied the gang was still operating in the area after Aurora police rounded up alleged members for committing acts of violence against members of the migrant community.

Earlier this month, nine alleged TdA members were arrested and charged for 14 separate criminal incidents over the past 10 months, ranging from attempted murder to felony assault and discharging weapons, including at least seven events at apartment complexes in the city.

Alleged gang leader Jhonnarty Dejesus Pacheco-Chirinos, 24, and brother Jose “Cookie” Pacheco-Chirinos, 22, were arrested and are now in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.

But other residents aren’t so sure the danger is over.

“We don’t know if they got them all,” said one who watched police swarm the apartment complex in a sweep. “They could come get us.”

A chain link fence had been erected around the property and also a local school.

Two other residents, Savvo and Kanani, said the Venezuelans migrants were the same as everyone else in the low-income neighbourhood except when they get “faded”, play their music loud “like they don’t care” and let their dogs out. 

However, hold-ups of the kind alleged by Aurora city council member Danielle Jurinsky and posted on social media, can be “a problem”. Jurkinsky has accused the city of a “huge cover-up” around the issue.

Jesus, from Miranda, Venezuela, said he’d been released at the border on a temporary asylum visa after being detained for six months.

He’d been offered “low” unemployment benefits and had worked in landscaping at a mountain resort.

Trump has threatened mass deportations and Jesus had heard his comments.

“People are scared of Donald Trump,” he said, “but I try to focus on working and not pay attention to politics”. He said he avoided the TdA, adding: “I don’t know any of those type of people.”

A quarter of a mile away, another building associated with TdA activity, Fitzsimons Place, was last month vacated and boarded up by authorities.

The building’s out-of-state landlords claimed in August that the building had been taken over by TdA members.

One man said groups from Mexico, Honduras and El Salvador kept their distance, adding that the Venezuelan neighbours lit fires in the parking lot and that their disputes led to shoot-outs.

“Mexicans don’t like the Venezuelans. They don’t show respect. They have no manners,” he said.

The influx of migrants to the US during the Biden administration, coupled with the economic disruption of the pandemic, inflation and an economic slowdown, has wreaked havoc with city budgets, all contributing to housing shortages and homelessness.

Republicans accuse Democrats of encouraging southern border immigration, including through the creation of “sanctuary cities” with policies that protect undocumented migrants. They say this is ultimately to help tilt the balance of legislative power by creating new Democrat-leaning areas. In particular, they believe the aim is to turn vital presidential election swing states firmly blue.

Aurora, which has a Republican mayor, has become a spill-over for tens of thousands of migrants bused from Texas to Denver, a Democrat-controlled “sanctuary city”.

Around 40,000 migrants have arrived in Denver since late 2022 and they now make up about 4.4 per cent of Denver’s 710,000 population, relatively more than the figure of 1.8 per cent for New York.

The city has spent, according to the Denver Gazette, $74 million on its response, including to buy 14,800 bus tickets to other cities.

Roll out the red carpet

Republican critics claim that Denver rolled out the red carpet for migrants by offering housing and benefits, partly in response to Trump’s 2016 election campaign pledge to build a border wall that Democrats considered unjust and racist. They blame Republicans for blocking immigration reform legislation.

But the immigration issue is a campaign liability for Democrats, as reproductive rights is for Republicans.

The Harris campaign has sought to downplay her vice presidential role as “border czar”, arguing that the assignment was to address the root causes of Latin migration not migration at the US-Mexico border.

Underscoring how contentious the issue is in the election campaign, US conservative media outlets jumped on comments by Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday about unemployment.

The apolitical official said: “If you’re having millions of people come into the labor force, then – and you’re creating 100,000 jobs – you’re going to see unemployment go up.”

These were interpreted as Mr Powell making reference to migrants coming into the 164 million strong US labor force. It grew by 7.9 million between 2012 and 2024, although this was a drop on the previous ten years, likely owing to baby boomers retiring.

The concerns about immigration are not just that large numbers are coming in, but who is arriving.

Tom Homan, a former director at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, says the Biden administration “unsecured the border and released millions of people into the United States with no proper vetting. We know a large percentage are criminals…So what sanctuary cities actually do is provide sanctuary for criminals.”

Hispanic Coloradans are now more likely than the general population to consider the cost of housing, crime, drug use and undocumented immigration to be major problems.

Last year, then mayor Michael Hancock of Denver, a Republican, declared a state of emergency.

Mike Coffman, Aurora’s new Republican mayor, has struck a different tone since Trump made his debate comments, calling them “grossly exaggerated”.

“It is the responsibility of the appropriate federal authorities to enforce immigration law,” Mr Coffman said in a statement. “Please understand that issues experienced at a select few properties do not apply to the city as a whole or large portions of it. TdA has not ‘taken over’ the city.”

However, Lauren Boebert, a Republican Congresswoman, whose district abuts Denver and Aurora to the south disagrees.

In a letter to Homeland secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Ms Boebert cited a law firm report that the TdA exerted a “stranglehold” on Whispering Pines, citing violent assaults, threats of murder, extortion, strongarm tactics, and child prostitution.

Earlier this month, Ms Boebert said she wanted to get the truth and information out to Coloradans “because, unfortunately, the fake news and liberal politicians with an agenda continue to downplay the violence and Venezuelan gang activity in Colorado”.

Trump clearly agrees, and he’s not the only one.

Cindy Romero, who in August shared viral footage of alleged TdA members carrying guns at an apartment complex where she then lived, said: “I’m imploring anyone to listen. Please do something. Don’t deny it, it wasn’t my imagination.”

France’s new prime minister finally submitted a new government to Emmanuel Macron Thursday with the top post of interior ministry going to the Right-wing Republicans party.

The French president’s loyalists picked up many of the remaining positions in a move that enraged the opposition Left-wing alliance that came first in July snap elections.

According to French reports, Michel Barnier – the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator and himself a Right-winger – proposed Bruno Retailleau, the Republicans senatorial chief, as interior minister.

But Laurent Wauquiez, the Republicans chief, said he had turned down the powerful post of finance minister left vacant by Bruno Le Maire who had occupied the position since Mr Macron came to power in 2017. It was unclear who would get the post on Thursday.

Fellow Republicans party members Annie Genevard and François-Noël Buffet are taking the agriculture and overseas ministries.

Macroniste outgoing Europe minister Jean-Noël Barrot was reportedly set to be promoted to foreign minister after the French president proposed his ephemeral predecessor Stéphane Séjourné to become France’s new EU commissioner.

Sébastien Lecornu, who is believed to enjoy a close relationship with Macron, is said to be staying on as defence minister.

France has been gripped by political deadlock, through the Olympic Games and beyond, since the surprise legislative ballot left it with a hung parliament. It left three main blocs in parliament on the Left, centre and nationalist Right with none in a position to command a workable majority.

Mr Macron rejected the Left-wing alliance’s proposed candidate for prime minister, Lucie Castets.

He finally ended the legislative limbo two weeks ago by appointing Mr Barnier to seek to cobble together a government after Marine Le Pen’s National Rally said it would not automatically veto his policies.

Mr Barnier’s efforts were reportedly at risk of foundering this week after outgoing prime minister Gabriel Attal said they would refuse to take part should his successor go ahead with his reported aim of raising taxes to tackle budget shortfalls.

But the 73-year-old Gaullist ex-EU Commissioner made it plain on Thursday that there would be no tax rises for the “middle classes and the working French”.

Mr Barnier told Right-wing and centrist groups at a meeting on Thursday afternoon that he was pondering a line-up of 16 main ministers including both their political families.

Gabriel Attal, his predecessor and now leader in parliament of Mr Macron’s Renaissance party, was at the meeting and told allies that the list included 10 names from their centrist alliance.

A conservative politician, wishing to remain anonymous, told AFP the French president had stressed Mr Barnier could not give two top portfolios – such as the finance and interior posts – to Right-wing figures, irritating the prime minister.

Mr Barnier has reportedly struggled to get a Left-wing name on board.

Manuel Bompard, the head of France Unbowed, the party whose figurehead is Leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, slammed the reported new government line-up as made up of “all the losers from the last elections”.

He called for demonstrations on Saturday “against the biggest scam of the Fifth Republic”.

Meanwhile, Aurélien Rousseau, an MP for the New Popular Front alliance quipped: “What would it have be like if the Right had won the elections?”

It was not immediately clear when the full list would be officially announced to the public, although early Friday appeared likely.

The list is a government “ready to act in the service of the French people”, the premier’s office said.

It said the immediate aims would be to “improve French people’s standard of living, “guarantee security and control immigration”, “enhance France’s economic attractiveness”, “rein in public finances” and “reduce the ecological debt”.

Mr Macron could seek to veto Mr Barnier’s proposals but doing so would cause major tensions with his premier at this stage.

The new government came amid reports that François Hollande, the former Socialist French president, planned to run for re-election in 2027.

On Thursday, Mr Hollande said if Mr Macron was unable to form a new government by this weekend it would be “serious for the country”.
 

He supported Jeremy Corbyn and is a vegan and animal welfare champion who once said: “You can’t take equality ‘too far’.” But, in recent years, Ricky Gervais has built up a legion of Right-wing fans for his insistence on saying “the unsayable” about woke culture. 

In a succession of stand-up comedy tours, all later broadcast by Netflix, the creator of The Office has been in equal parts lauded and denounced for jokes about cancel culture, transgender politics and Gen Z snowflakes. 

Fellow comedian Robin Ince, who this week claimed he was once bullied so badly by Gervais that it triggered a “stress rash”, has gone so far as to describe his former collaborator as a “pin-up and role model for the alt-Right”. Thanks to his “anti-trans punchlines”, Gervais has become “a useful ally in the culture war”, he said in an essay on his website in 2022. The two men have not spoken since. 

But while Gervais’s surge in popularity among the anti-woke has certainly done his bank balance no harm (his most recent Netflix film, Armageddon, is the highest-grossing comedy special of all time), it is by no means clear that he welcomes his new hero status.

This week, for example, Gervais will have been horrified to learn that an Australian man, in court for performing a Nazi salute outside a Jewish museum in Sydney, cited him as an inspiration, quoting from a routine in which Gervais joked about a schoolboy called Adolf raising his arm in Hitler-fashion when his name was called out at registration.

The Australian case neatly captures the paradox of the modern Gervais. To his supporters, Gervais – like Jimmy Carr or Dave Chappelle – is a free speech champion slaying the shibboleths of woke culture. To his detractors, including some fellow comics, the 63-year-old is a heretic whose best days passed after The Office ended and who now “punches down” against disadvantaged minorities solely because he’s an attention-seeker.

Gervais himself rejects the Right-wing label. “I’m an old-fashioned liberal-Leftie, champagne socialist type of guy. A pro-equality, opportunity-for-all, welfare state snowflake,” he wrote on Twitter in 2019. “But, if I ever defend freedom of speech on here, I’m suddenly an alt-Right Nazi. How did that happen?”

How indeed? Gervais came relatively late to stand-up, with his first UK-wide tour in 2003 (well after The Office became a hit), and his pre-existing fame probably meant he was more willing to push the limits of taste and decency than those who slogged across the circuit in their 20s. His five stints hosting the Golden Globes have gone down in Hollywood lore, with Gervais being gratuitously rude and blasting Tinseltown’s elite for their general sanctimony. “You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything,” he said in 2020. “So if you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent, and your God and f— off, OK?”

As well as jokes about political correctness, he has also targeted the disabled and the mentally ill and made gags about paedophilia. Unusually for comedy, an industry where an unspoken code holds that you don’t explicitly attack your fellow practitioners, Gervais has come under fire from the likes of Nish Kumar, James Acaster and Stewart Lee. “What he’s doing is not edgy or interesting. He seems to think that it makes him an edgy or interesting comedian, it’s not,” Kumar said in a 2018 routine. “All he is is just the same as every other rich, white dude comedian who gets too successful, runs out of ideas, and so just s—s on the latest minority group.”

Lee continued what has become a rather one-sided feud in an interview with Prospect magazine last week. “It’s disingenuous. You get people saying they can’t say anything. But a lot of them are filling stadiums, winning Grammys, and getting $60 million off Netflix,” he said. “Ricky Gervais would love to be properly ‘cancelled’, I think, but he doesn’t seem able to say anything actually controversial enough to be as controversial as he’d like to be.”

The truth is, both those who adore and loathe Gervais for what he says on stage are missing the point entirely. “I’m nobody’s champion,” he once said. “‘Get a better champion’ is what I’d say to anybody who thinks I’m their champion.”

What appears to preoccupy Gervais more than anything is the right to free speech – and to offend. “There’s nothing you shouldn’t joke about, there’s no subject you shouldn’t joke about. It depends on the actual joke and the target,” he told American talk-show host Stephen Colbert in 2019. “People get offended when they mistake the subject of a joke for the actual target and they’re not necessarily the same.”

Born in Reading to working-class parents (his father was a labourer while his mother did odd jobs and brought up four children) Gervais may reflect that whatever he has done in his career has worked. He owns mansions in Hampstead, north London, and Marlow, Buckinghamshire, and now owns the Dutch Barn Vodka brand. 

Armageddon, which debuted on Christmas Day last year, won a Golden Globe. Next week, Gervais kicks off Mortality, a new stand-up set that will also be filmed for Netflix, in London’s West End. People who love to love, or love to hate him, will have plenty to rake over.

“We’re all gonna die. May as well have a laugh about it,” he said. “Mortality looks at the absurdities of life. And death. Bring it on.”

An acrimonious divorce involving Russia’s richest woman descended into a gun battle over the country’s most successful online retailer, killing two people and wounding seven.

Tatyana and Vladislav Bakalchuk, the estranged couple who founded Wildberries, known as Russia’s Amazon, blamed each other for Wednesday’s shoot-out at the company’s head office in Moscow. 

Mr Bakalchuk was arrested and charged with murder, attempted murder, assault of a law enforcement officer and vigilantism the following day. 

The fight broke out when Mr Bakalchuk, who owns 1 per cent of the company and had appealed to Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen Republic ruler, to stop his wife pushing through a controversial merger, showed up at the office.

He claimed that he was there to “negotiate” but was shot at by people inside the building.

What happened next is hotly disputed.

Footage taken by witnesses showed a brawl breaking out at the entrance to the office.

A group of men believed to include Mr Bakalchuk can be seen attempting to storm the building in one video, while a man smashes his way through a glass door.

After the man lunges through, several gunshots can be heard.

Separate videos from inside the office show one man, possibly a security guard, reaching for his handgun and firing at the invaders.

Mr Bakalchuk’s lawyers called the charges against him a “flagrant and unprecedented violation” of his rights, and said the allegations fly in the face of witness testimony and video evidence to the contrary.

In a statement describing the incident, they said: “Upon arrival, Vladislav and his representatives encountered aggressive actions from law enforcement officers and office security. As a result of this clash, a shoot-out occurred, in which the office security officers were the first to open fire.”

“Among the guards they hired were terrorists – people with a criminal past. It was they who opened fire to kill Vladislav and his representatives.”

Mrs Bakalchuk strongly denied the claims.

“Today a group of people led by Vladislav Bakalchuk […] attempted to seize Wildberries’ offices in Moscow,” she said on Telegram.

“To my deep regret, as a result of the armed attack on Wildberries, a security guard at our office was killed,” she said.

“Statements about supposed negotiations that the armed group showed up to are absurd, given no one agreed to any such negotiations.

“This is a hostile takeover. Or rather, an unsuccessful one,” she added. 

A second guard died in hospital from wounds sustained during the incident after Mrs Bakalchuk’s statement was made. 

In a tearful video posted online, she asked: “Vladislav, what are you doing? How will you look into the eyes of your parents and our children? How could you bring the situation to such absurdity?”

The incident is reminiscent of “corporate raiding” that blighted Russian businesses in the 1990s and 2000s, when rivals would seek to seize assets by showing up with armed men and taking control of a company’s office, instead of buying shares. 

Mrs Bakalchuk founded Wildberries by selling clothes from her Moscow apartment while on maternity leave in 2004. Her husband joined the company shortly afterwards.

It has since grown to become Russia’s largest online retailer and sells everything from beauty products to furniture and pet food. 

It employs tens of thousands of people and has made Mrs Bakalchuk one of only two Russian female billionaires.

In 2023, Wildberries allowed authorities to raid several of its warehouses in search of migrant workers to draft into their war against Ukraine. 

Police searched the head office in January after a mysterious fire destroyed one major warehouse in St Petersburg and $191 million worth of stock.

Last month, Russian soldiers sent to push the Ukrainians out of the Kursk region were caught on security cameras looting a local Wildberries depot.

Mrs Bakalachuk announced she was filing for divorce in July, triggering an instant quarrel about division of assets. Mr Bakalchuk said they did not sign a prenuptial agreement and believes he is entitled to half the company.

But there is another layer to the dispute.

Around the same time as the couple’s split, Wildberries announced a merger with Russ Outdoor, a billboard advertising giant controlled by two brothers called Robert and Levan Mirzoyan.

The deal, which Mrs Bakalchuk described as part of a plan to expand the brand into Central Asia and eventually rival Amazon or Ali Baba, reportedly won the blessing of Vladimir Putin.

Kremlin sources told Bloomberg in June that the tie-up was also intended to build an alternative to the SWIFT money transfer system that many Russian banks have been blocked from since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

However, Mr Bakalchuk argued that his wife was tricked into what he calls a wildly lop-sided “mistake” that would see a large chunk of the company’s wealth given away to Russ Outdoor, a much smaller firm, for no apparent benefit.

The deal involved transferring 35 per cent of the company to a joint venture with Russ Outdoor, Forbes reported.

Merger is ‘fraud’

Mr Bakalchuk appealed to Mr Kadyrov, who decried both the merger and the effect of divorce on the children in a recorded meeting. The Chechen warlord promised to “return Tatyana to the family and protect a legitimate business”. 

In July, Mr Kadyrov publicly described the merger as “fraud” and a corporate “raid” before explicitly blaming the Mirzoyan brothers.

The brothers have not directly commented on the controversy, although Robert Mirzoyan has given interviews explaining his vision for the merger.

In a joint statement, Russ Outdoor and Wildberries said: “Wildberries and Russ continue to operate in a stable mode […]. We are confident that the details of the divorce process and emotional details are of no interest to business publications.”

For now, law enforcement appears to have taken Mrs Bakalchuk’s side.