The amount of crime committed by migrants in Britain is being covered up, Robert Jenrick has said.

Mr Jenrick, a former immigration minister and Tory leadership contender, said the public “deserved to know the truth” as he pledged that if he became prime minister he would publish data identifying the migrant nationalities with the highest crime rates.

His proposal follows thwarted attempts by MPs and migration campaigners to obtain the information through parliamentary questions and freedom of information requests.

The Home Office, Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Office for National Statistics (ONS) say they do not publish such data, although they could by linking information from Government and police databases.

Mr Jenrick told The Telegraph: “Under lax immigration controls we are importing serious and violent crime. The data from Denmark shows certain nationalities are more likely to commit crimes.

“We urgently need this data so we can carry out stronger checks at our border. The institutional cover-up of this data is a scandal. The public deserves to know the truth.”

The former Home Office and communities minister has proposed legislation that would require the Government each year to present a report to Parliament detailing the nationality, visa, and asylum status of every offender convicted in English and Welsh courts in the previous 12 months.

It would mirror an approach by some US states and Denmark, where league tables compiled from government data show the crime rates of the top four nations – Kuwait, Tunisia, Lebanon and Somalia – are eight times those of Danish nationals.

It follows an investigation by The Telegraph at the weekend which revealed how hundreds of Albanians who crossed the Channel on small boats have helped their drug gangs secure a stranglehold on the domestic cannabis market. More than 700 have set up a secret channel on Telegram to discuss tactics and methods.

Mr Jenrick believes the publication of data on migrants’ offences would enable the Home Office to toughen up visa and deportation policies for nationalities linked to higher rates of crime in the UK.

Tom Tugendhat, the shadow security minister and Tory leadership contender, is understood to be supportive of the plan to enable ministers to make decisions about immigration rules, movement deals and working with other governments to deport criminals.

A source said: “The Home Office should be providing clear and transparent data to do this.”

‘Disproportionate cost’ to extract nationality data

Neil O’Brien, a former minister, has sought to extract nationality data from the Home Office, MoJ and ONS but has been told his requests could only be answered at “disproportionate cost”.

He said the Home Office collected significant amounts of data on arrests by ethnicity but not by nationality. Nor would it answer questions on the immigration status of foreign nationals held in prison.

The MoJ publishes the nationality of foreign prisoners – of which there are 10,000 in UK jails – but will not provide further analysis, such as the number who are prolific offenders, because it would require them to link up their data with that of the Home Office. “It could only be provided at disproportionate cost,” said the MoJ.

Mr O’Brien said even the most basic data was missing as the ONS had told him it had discontinued giving a breakdown of the UK population by nationality.

He said: “Number 10 and the Home Office should grip this and start a cross-Whitehall push to improve migration data and start joining it up.”

Mr O’Brien said that he and Mr Jenrick, when ministers, had initiated a joint project to obtain more accurate estimates of migrants’ use of the NHS, which led to an increase in the health surcharge imposed on migrants.

He said: “We just can’t have a sensible conversation about migration if we keep deleting the data.”

James Cleverly and Kemi Badenoch, the other two Tory leadership hopefuls, have been contacted for their views.

More people now prefer Rishi Sunak’s government to Sir Keir Starmer’s administration, a poll has found.

A survey by think tank More in Common shows the Labour Government is already less liked than the previous Tory one, despite taking power less than three months ago.

The poll of 2,080 adults showed that 31 per cent preferred Mr Sunak’s government, while 29 per cent preferred the current one.

It comes after a rocky start to Sir Keir’s time in Downing Street amid a series of rows over clothing donations by Lord Alli, a millionaire Labour peer, and cuts to winter fuel payments.

The Prime Minister’s net approval rating with More in Common has now fallen to minus 27 per cent, down 38 points from when Labour took office.

It is a stark contrast to the reception that Sir Tony Blair received at a similar point following his own landslide in 1997, when it was reported his net score was as high as 93 per cent.

About one in five voters (22 per cent) now think Labour will win the next general election, despite the party picking up 411 out of 650 seats in the Commons in July.

Slightly more (23 per cent) believe that the Conservatives will win the next national poll, which would require a historic swing following the party’s worst election defeat in modern history.

When asked whether they regretted their vote, 33 per cent of Labour voters said they did, while 5 per cent of Conservative voters said that they regretted backing the Tories.

Luke Tryl, the UK director of More in Common, said: “Three months ago it looked as though the Conservatives were headed for a multi-parliament spell in opposition.

“But the Starmer Government’s early missteps and growing voter volatility mean the path to power could be quicker than assumed.

“The challenge for the Conservatives is how best to take advantage. Our research suggests that a pure ‘unite the Right’ strategy will leave the Conservatives far short of a majority.

“The party instead needs to focus first on winning over loyal Conservative voters who stayed at home in July, second to squeeze Labour and Lib Dem voters who are having second thoughts, and third to appeal to wavering Reform voters when the race becomes a straight Labour-Conservative choice.”

The research found that out of the million-plus Britons who opted to stay at home having voted Tory in 2019, it was the first time that three quarters (77 per cent) had not voted Tory.

Seventy-four per cent of Reform voters believe that Labour is doing a “very bad job”, significantly higher than the 52 per cent of 2024 Conservatives who hold the same view.

Despite the success of Nigel Farage’s party largely coming at the expense of the Tories, Reform voters are eight times more likely to have preferred Mr Sunak’s government to its Labour successor.

Mr Tryl added: “If the next leader can execute a three-phase strategy, the Tories’ time in opposition could well be limited.

“However, the flip side of a more volatile electorate is that if the next leader gets their pitch wrong, the party could well find itself falling further, and potentially replaced by the Liberal Democrats or Reform UK as the main opposition party.”

A children’s hospital employed a physician associate to do the job of a safeguarding paediatrician and examine abuse victims, The Telegraph can reveal.

Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool allowed a physician associate (a PA) to perform child protection medical assessments in place of experienced doctors until March this year.

The assessments are used to identify signs of abuse and neglect, and can serve as court evidence to convict child abusers.

The PA was removed from the safeguarding team over concerns that their findings would not stand up in court.

Because PAs are not classed as “professional witnesses”, it could potentially jeopardise criminal cases and allow abusers to walk free.

Doctors have also warned of “serious miscarriages of justice” if PAs are mistaken for doctors in abuse cases.

Prof Phil Banfield, the BMA council chairman, told The Telegraph on Monday: “What is truly appalling in this instance, is that a physician associate has allegedly been expected to work interchangeably with doctors to medically examine abused children – some of the most vulnerable patients a doctor could expect to see.”

The Telegraph has previously reported that more than 30 hospitals had replaced doctors with PAs – despite associates only getting two years’ training – and that some had even “illegally” prescribed opioid painkillers.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) states that child protection medicals should be conducted by a senior paediatrician – a doctor who has completed a five-year medical degree plus six years’ specialist training in paediatrics.

Between April 2019 and March of this year, The Telegraph estimates that the PA may have conducted over 1,000 “child protection medical assessments”.

Range of cases

This analysis is based on a “day in my life” blog written by the associate, which was previously published by the NHS. The PA indicated in the blog that they performed at least 10 exams per week.

The associate described seeing cases ranging from “neglect and physical assault to child sexual assault” and assisting with “STI testing and forensic swabs to abusive head trauma”. They also described working in the safeguarding team’s “first on-call” rota like a senior doctor.

But the real concerns came when the associate gave evidence to court about the abuse she had documented during these exams.

An entry from March in the “risk register” of Alder Hey Children’s Hospital shows the trust worried that – because the PA was not a doctor – their evidence would not be “recognised” in court, potentially causing cases against alleged abusers to fall apart.

It recorded a “risk” that: “Child protection (CP) medical examinations completed by physician associates (PAs) may not result in successful prosecution due to PAs not being recognised as ‘professional witnesses’.”

Potential ‘miscarriages of justice’

In January, forensic and legal consultants wrote to the presidents of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and RCPCH to raise concerns about the PA’s evidence in two child abuse cases and warn of potential “miscarriages of justice”.

While Alder Hey feared that the PA’s evidence could collapse cases, these doctors claimed if the court mistook the PA for a doctor, the convictions secured could be unsafe.

The letter alleged: “At present there appears to be a real risk of serious miscarriages of justice if both defence and prosecution teams (and others) are misled into believing that the physician associate is a senior doctor.”

The consultants claimed that the Alder Hey PA had referred to herself in a statement submitted to the court in a child abuse case as a “member of the Royal College of Physicians” (RCP) – a title that can only be held by a doctor.

They alleged that this self-description “appears to have misled defence solicitors (and possibly the Crown Prosecution Service) into believing she was a ‘member of [the] Royal College of Physicians’ and thus that she was a doctor”.

The letter also claimed that, in a second case, the PA falsely claimed that a child victim had been independently examined by her supervising consultant.

One of its signatories wrote: “On this occasion the PA states in their child protection statement for the court that the child was also examined by the supervising consultant (from whom I had requested via the police a [section] 9 statement) but who apparently says they did not examine the child.”

Doctors said: “We have no idea whether these are isolated events, nor, in the absence of a structured regulatory system, how such concerns can properly be raised.”

Hospital acted promptly

It is understood that Alder Hey Children’s Hospital acted promptly to move the PA off the safeguarding team as soon as it became aware of concerns.

An Alder Hey spokesman said: “In early 2024 we became aware that the Crown Prosecution Service and police, in relation to hearings in the family court, did not feel able to rely upon examination reports prepared by a physician associate. This was not because of any specific concern with those reports or the individual preparing them.”

They said the trust’s decision to remove the PA from the safeguarding team in March 2024 was taken “in the interests of supporting the police, the CPS and the Justice system in its important safeguarding role, and was not any reflection on the individual physician associate, whose work was always deemed by internal and external colleagues to be of a high standard”.

They continued: “The trust is proud of the work they delivered and the support they provided to children and young people in the most difficult circumstances.”

Prior to this move, the spokesman said that the PA had performed “child protection medicals undertaken for children and young people where it is known or suspected that they have experienced physical abuse and/or neglect”.

They added: “Close supervision was provided by senior medical consultants in the department and all reports were quality assured by the supervising consultant.”

The spokesman also added that the PA had stopped assisting in the forensic medical examiner’s “joint holistic welfare examination” of children at the paediatric sexual assault referral centre in late 2023.

This holistic assessment considers broader health issues and is distinct from the consultant’s specialist examination.

A disgraced human rights lawyer who previously pursued British soldiers over fake war crimes in Iraq has pleaded guilty to fraud.

Philip Shiner, 67, admitted three counts of fraud linked to claims made against Iraq war veterans.

Shiner, who was the principal solicitor of Public Interest Lawyers, the defunct law firm, was struck off by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in 2017 for peddling false torture and murder allegations against British troops.

On Monday, Shiner appeared at Southwark Crown Court where he admitted fraudulently breaking rules to apply for legal aid for his firm to conduct cases.

In 2007, he made an application to the Legal Services Commission in which he sought up to £200,000 of legal aid funding for his firm to represent clients including Khuder al-Sweady, who claimed Hamid al-Sweady, his 19-year-old nephew, was unlawfully killed while in the custody of British troops.

According to the National Crime Agency (NCA), he received about £3 million in the value of the contract.

After the High Court case, the al-Sweady inquiry was set up by the Government, to examine claims that British troops had massacred Iraqi detainees after the Battle of Danny Boy in May 2004.

The inquiry, which cost £24 million, concluded in 2014 that allegations of torture and murder were “wholly without foundation and entirely the product of deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility”.

On Monday, Brian Wood, 43, a former colour sergeant who commanded troops during the Battle of Danny Boy and was relentlessly pursued over the false claims of torture, told The Telegraph: “It’s a bit of a cliche, but karma will always come and get those who don’t tell the truth.

“It’s taken forever to get him found guilty, but it’s happened. I’ve moved on with my life and tried to take a positive stance on what the future holds and not let what he did define what I have in front of me.”

Mr Wood, who wrote a book called Double Crossed about his ordeal, added: “Shiner now needs to deal with the consequences and take it on the chin.

“The bottom line is justice has prevailed.”

Shiner brought thousands of criminal complaints to the Iraq Historic Investigations Team (Ihat), a body set up by the Ministry of Defence to investigate British soldiers. Nobody was charged and Ihat was shut down the same year.

‘Dishonest actions’

On Monday, Sir Michael Fallon, who as Defence Secretary in 2015, directed the MoD to submit evidence of wrongdoing by Shiner, told The Telegraph: “Shiner should have pleaded guilty long ago and apologised for traducing the integrity of our Armed Forces. Dozens of our brave servicemen and women have had to live under the shadow of the false accusations he helped to manufacture.”

Johnny Mercer, a former Cabinet minister who was recently credited by Bob Campbell, one of Shiner’s victims, as having  saved his life after he was hounded by Ihat, told The Telegraph: “I was entirely right to call out Shiner’s criminal enterprise.”

He added: “Today, I’m thinking of the lives he destroyed, about the ongoing hurt in veteran communities and the damage he did to the reputation of this nation’s finest people.

“Aided and abetted by complicit government departments, cowardly politicians and spineless generals more obsessed with their own careers than standing up for their men and women, he set out to discredit the courageous and selfless service of the overwhelmingly vast majority who served on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The NCA said that when Shiner made his application for legal aid in 2007, he failed to disclose that an agent acting on his behalf and with his knowledge had been cold calling and making unsolicited approaches to potential clients in Iraq. He also failed to disclose that he was paying referral fees.

He was also convicted for providing a witness statement to the Commission in support of his application which was again gained via an unsolicited approach.

The NCA said that this practice was not permitted as part of gaining a legal aid contract.

As a result of his failure to disclose this information, Shiner was able to gain a “valuable legal aid contract to enable him to pursue the judicial review”, the NCA said.

Andy Kelly, the head of the NCA’s international corruption unit, said: “This conviction is a milestone in what has been a thorough and complex domestic and international investigation. Shiner’s actions resulted in untold pressure and anxiety on members of the British Armed Forces, pursuing legal challenges funded through dishonest actions”.

Shiner, who was declared bankrupt in 2017, will be sentenced on Dec 2 following the investigation.

Giovanni Pernice, the Strictly dancer, has been cleared by the BBC of physical aggression against Amanda Abbington, his dance partner.

The BBC apologised to Abbington, saying it had assessed and “upheld some, but not all” of her complaints about Pernice’s behaviour during her time on the show.

In a statement, the BBC said: “We want to apologise to Amanda Abbington and to thank her for coming forward and taking part. We know this would not have been an easy thing to do.

“At the time, although the production team took steps to address the issues as they understood them, ultimately these were not enough.”

Charlotte Moore, the BBC’s chief content officer, said: “There were a number of complaints under our bullying and harassment policy and a number of those complaints have been upheld.”

Abbington claimed that Pernice’s behaviour towards her in the rehearsal room during last year’s series was “inappropriate, mean, nasty and bullying”.

The BBC is understood to have upheld six of 17 complaints. Pernice was cleared of intimidating or aggressive behaviour but was found to have used “belittling” language and given negative feedback.

There were instances of “inappropriate” sexual banter although this was said to have been done with humour.

Abbington withdrew from the show last year citing a medical issue, but later went public with her allegations about Pernice.

In a statement, Abbington said she felt vindicated by the findings. She said: “As the BBC has indicated today in its statement, my decision to come forward and complain about Giovanni Pernice’s conduct towards me was not an easy thing to do.

“In the days, weeks and months since I contacted the BBC, I’ve been accused of being a liar, a troublemaker and of being ‘mad and unstable’. I’ve also received rape and murder threats and a bomb threat was sent to my place of work. My family and children have also been subjected to threats and intimidation.

“Despite this vile abuse, I’ve never regretted coming forward, and today’s apology from the BBC is a vindication of my complaint. It’s not just a vindication for me, it’s a vindication for the other people who have contacted me since I made my complaint to express concerns about their own experiences on Strictly Come Dancing. I hope those who have felt unable to speak out now will be more confident that they will be listened to and believed.

Abbington said she would consider an invitation from the BBC to meet with senior management.

She added: “This apology means a great deal to me. So too does the fact that the BBC have acknowledged the steps that were put in place to support and protect me and past contestants were ‘not enough’.

“What matters most now is that lessons have been learned and that the BBC makes the changes they’ve promised, to ensure others don’t experience the same ordeal that I and others like me did.”

Pernice always protested his innocence, saying that he had never threatened or abused the actress, maintaining there was no evidence to support Abbington’s claims.

In a video message on Instagram, Pernice said he was happy that none of the serious allegations had been upheld.

He admitted to sometimes becoming “frustrated” while training but said that was because he cared about his craft, adding that dance is a sport and he wants to get the best out of his partner.

Pernice said: “It’s over. It’s finished. Six months, seven months of all of this. Seven months of reading every day things in the newspaper and not being able to respond because I wanted to keep the confidentiality and privacy of the review. It was a difficult time.

“It was difficult because reading stuff that was untrue wasn’t the nicest time of my life, let’s be honest.

“But today I’m happy because at the beginning there were very, very serious allegations thrown at me but today none of the serious allegations have been upheld.

“All the threatening, abusive, harassment behaviour allegations have been not upheld.”

He went on: “And today is a day when we can all reflect because I appreciate that dancing is a very difficult thing to do.

“It’s a sport. It’s something that is difficult in every possible way and sometimes you get frustrated as a teacher, as a dancer, as a performer, but the only reason why you get frustrated is because you care about what you do.

“As a professional, as a teacher, I want to get the best out of my partner and sometimes I do get frustrated, everybody around the world does the same thing. It’s called being professional and I love doing that.

“I think it’s a normal thing but then you get the best and the results come forward.”

Pernice told fans that “without your love, your messages, your constant support I don’t know if I’d even be able to make this message right now.

“I’m happy because today I can carry on doing what I love to do, which is entertain all of you. This is my life, this is what I do. So I’m always grateful to all of you and I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

Chaperones and formal exit interviews

Announcing the conclusion of the investigation, which has taken many months, the BBC said: “We take any allegations of bullying and harassment very seriously and this review has taken time due to its complex nature and our desire to ensure a rigorous and robust process was undertaken.

“Strictly Come Dancing is a family show and we rightly expect very high standards. While competition can be tough, rigorous and demanding, we want the show to ultimately be a joyous and transformative experience. It is a great shame if this hasn’t been the case for everyone who has appeared on the show.”

The broadcaster also released new details of the duty-of-care measures, which have been introduced in the wake of Abbington’s complaint.

A team of 15 chaperones monitor the rehearsals, completing daily training logs which are reviewed by senior executives.

Celebrities and dancers are also offered a psychological review and must complete a “wellbeing questionnaire” in which they talk about “the type of experience the celebrity would like on the show and expectations of training from both sides”.

There is a formal exit interview for each celebrity as they leave the show.

Everyone working on Strictly, in front of and behind the camera, has been required to attend workshops “addressing the culture of the show and expected behaviour”.

Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers could be trapped in a besieged town as Russian forces complete their encirclement and close in.

In a desperate plea, one Ukrainian soldier described how evacuation routes out of Vuhledar had been cut and food, ammunition and fuel were running low.

“The situation in Vuhledar is, to put it mildly, difficult,” the unnamed Ukrainian soldier told Stanislav Bunyatov, a Ukrainian soldier and blogger. “The attack is now coming from three sides.”

The soldier said that it was too dangerous for Ukrainian armoured personnel carriers to drive towards friendly lines because of Russian artillery and drone attacks.

Instead, he described how individual units were trying to quietly slip out of the Russian encirclement at night in fighting retreat formations.

“On average, if 10 people leave the city in groups, four to six make it out,” he said.

The soldiers’ complaints were published the day after senior Ukrainian commanders withdrew the commander of Ukraine’s 72nd Brigade that has been defending Vuhledar.

Colonel Ivan Vinnik is reportedly highly regarded and has been tipped for a promotion but some commentators said that he had been withdrawn because he needed to be “saved” before the town was lost.

Vuhledar, towards the southern edge of the front line that runs through Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, has been described as a Ukrainian “fortress” because it has never been captured.

Now, though, Russian military bloggers confirmed that the Kremlin’s forces have nearly surrounded it and have started to predict that Vuhledar will fall.

“The commander of the 72nd Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, responsible for the defence of the city, has been removed from office. Our troops are methodically destroying enemy firing points in the city,” said the Two Majors Telegram channel, which has almost 1.2 million subscribers.

Other Russian officials have said that 5,000 Russian soldiers have been transferred to the battle for Vuhledar and that a major push is planned.

Even Ukrainian and neutral information sources have said that Vuhledar, positioned on high ground overlooking an important east-west road, is likely to fall.

DeepState, a pro-Ukraine Telegram channel, confirmed that Russia has sent “regular forces and special forces” as reinforcements to the area and OSINT Aggregator said Ukraine “may have tried to hold Vuhledar longer than operationally feasible”.

The town had a pre-war population of about 14,000 people. If it falls, it will be Vladimir Putin’s most significant battlefield victory since he captured Avdiivka in February.

Mount Everest has grown up to 164ft taller because of the combined forces of erosion and upward pressure from beneath Earth’s crust, researchers have said.

Experts say that a nearby river is cutting into the landscape around the mountain, eroding away a large amount of rocks and soil.

This process is causes a section of Earth’s crust to float upwards because the intense pressure below is greater than the downward force of gravity.

Erosion from a river network about 46 miles from the mountain is carving away a substantial gorge, causing it to rise up by as much as two millimetres a year over the past 89,000 years.

Adam Smith, the study’s co-author and a PhD student at UCL Earth Sciences in London, said: “Mount Everest is a remarkable mountain of myth and legend and it’s still growing.

“Our research shows that as the nearby river system cuts deeper, the loss of material is causing the mountain to spring further upwards.”

Dr Xu Han, the lead author, from China University of Geosciences, said: “The changing height of Mount Everest really highlights the dynamic nature of the Earth’s surface.

“The interaction between the erosion of the Arun river and the upward pressure of the Earth’s mantle gives Mount Everest a boost, pushing it up higher than it would otherwise be.”

The tallest mountain on Earth, Mount Everest is 29,000ft high and towers about 820ft above the next tallest peak in the Himalayas.

However, it is considered to be an anomaly, because the next three tallest peaks – K2, Kangchenjunga and Lhotse – all differ only by about 390ft from each other.

Today, the Arun river runs to the east of Mount Everest and merges downstream with the larger Kosi river system.

Over millennia, the Arun has carved out a substantial gorge along its banks, washing away billions of tons of earth and sediment.

Dr Jin-Gen Dai, the study’s co-author, of UCL Earth Sciences, said: “An interesting river system exists in the Everest region. The upstream Arun river flows east at high altitude with a flat valley.

“It then abruptly turns south as the Kosi river, dropping in elevation and becoming steeper. This unique topography, indicative of an unsteady state, likely relates to Everest’s extreme height.”

The uplift also affects neighbouring peaks including Lhotse and Makalu, the world’s fourth and fifth highest peaks respectively.

Co-author Dr Matthew Fox, of UCL Earth Sciences, said: “Mount Everest and its neighbouring peaks are growing because the isostatic rebound is raising them up faster than erosion is wearing them down.

“We can see them growing by about two millimetres a year using GPS instruments and now we have a better understanding of what’s driving it.”

The study, published in the Nature Geoscience journal, looked at the erosion rates of the Arun, the Kosi and other rivers in the region.

The researchers were able to determine that about 89,000 years ago the Arun river joined and merged with the Kosi river network, causing more water to be funnelled through the Kosi and increasing its erosive power.

With more of the land washed away it triggered an increased rate of uplift, pushing the mountains’ peaks higher.

US military bases will be protected by attack drones, under Pentagon plans to repel Iran-linked groups in the Middle East.

On Monday, Lloyd Austin, the defence secretary, announced that the US would expand its Replicator programme, which has been developing American attack drones to be deployed against China.

A new phase of the programme will focus on defensive drones to be deployed at US installations at home and abroad.

It follows months of drone attacks on US bases in the Middle East by Iran-linked groups, with one killing three troops at a site in Jordan in January.

On Sunday, the latest strike took place at a base at Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria. No group has yet claimed responsibility.

US forces have a variety of defences against the so-called “suicide drones”, which are packed with high explosives and flown into military compounds.

The existing defences include electronic jamming devices and anti-aircraft machine guns.

Monday’s announcement suggests the Pentagon expects drone battles to become commonplace around US bases in the coming years.

The defensive drones could also be deployed around US Navy carrier groups, but a list of possible sites has not yet been compiled, a defence official told The Telegraph.

In a memo on Monday, Mr Austin said that “the next stage of Replicator will tackle the warfighter priority of countering the threat posed by small uncrewed aerial systems to our most critical installations and force concentrations”.

He added: “The expectation is that Replicator 2 will assist with overcoming challenges we face in the areas of production capacity, technology innovation, authorities, policies, open system architecture and system integration, and force structure.”

Mr Austin said that the first phase of Replicator, which was tasked with producing drone swarms that could be deployed against China in the event of an invasion of Taiwan, was “on track” to be completed next summer.

The second phase will begin after Congress has approved funding for the project in the Pentagon’s next budget request in March. The first drones could be deployed two years later, Mr Austin said.

Protecting US troops in the Middle East against attack drones has become one of the Pentagon’s top priorities, after a year of conflict that followed Hamas’s Oct 7 attack on Israel.

A variety of Iran-linked Islamist groups have targeted US forces in Syria, Iraq and Jordan since then, viewing the conflict as an opportunity to push Western forces out of those countries.

Following the death of three US troops in an attack in January, the US launched retaliatory strikes against several groups, launching 125 precision bombs in Iraq and Syria.

The White House said at the time that it “will not hesitate to defend our people and hold responsible all those who harm Americans at a time and place of our choosing”.

Production of a British film about the life of “Iceman” Wim Hof has been temporarily halted after accusations of domestic violence were made against the wellness guru.

The biopic was stopped after the Volkskrant newspaper reported that Mr Hof physically and verbally abused a former partner, their son and her two children from a previous marriage for about 13 years.

A spokesman for the London based company told The Telegraph: “Genesius Pictures can confirm that due to the severity of the allegations, this production, which was in development only and had not begun filming, is on hold.”

The production company had said that The Iceman, which was set to star Joseph Fiennes as the Dutch motivational speaker and extreme athlete, would be an “inspiring”, “moving” and “at times extremely funny” film. Promotional materials for the project were taken down from its website on Monday.

Caroline, Mr Hof’s ex-partner, contacted Volkskrant and spoke out about how she and her family had to endure his abusive behaviour as his fame grew. Mr Hof denies the allegations.

His Wim Hof method, famous for its use of cold showers and breathing exercises, has made him famous and brought him into contact with stars such as Oprah Winfrey and Jim Carrey.

In 2022, his cold exposure training of a group of celebrities was a central part of the BBC show Freeze the Fear with Wim Hof, hosted by Holly Willoughby and Lee Mack.

Caroline, whose last name is not given in the Volkskrant article, was in a relationship with Mr Hof for 10 years, but she and her family have not seen him for 11 years. They had a son, Noah, who is now 21 and is not in contact with his father.

They, and her two other children from a previous marriage, Christiaan and Nathalie, were horrified at the prospect of a film celebrating a man she says left them traumatised.

“For them the name Wim Hof is synonymous with years of aggression, physical violence, humiliation, manipulation and – in Caroline’s case – also sexual abuse,” Volkskrant reported.

“They know the Iceman, as Hof calls himself, as a mean drunk with an explosive character and delusions of grandeur. Someone of whom they had to be permanently wary.”

Mr Hof told the newspaper: “It is obvious that she’s on the warpath and now wants to make everything look different from how it was.

“Caroline always knew how to quickly get under my skin,” he said while answering a list of 44 questions from the newspaper. He added: “Because of her, I started drinking, yes”.

He insisted that he had never been violent.

Volkskrant said that it had corroborated the story with court rulings, a report from the Child Protection Board, medical reports, emails and other evidence.

Community service

It reported that Mr Hof was fined €350 (£291) and sentenced to 40 hours of community service in 2012 for assaulting Christiaan, Caroline’s oldest son.

A temporary restraining order to keep him away from the family was imposed.

The explanation for the order said that Mr Hof “used physical violence” against Caroline, Christiaan and Noah, and had “made death threats”.

In 2015, the Dutch Child Welfare Council decided that Mr Hof had forfeited the right of parental access to Noah because he had committed so much psychological violence against the boy.

Caroline said that Mr Hof attacked her for the first time in 2002 when she was a few months pregnant with Noah.

“He slapped my face,” she told the newspaper. “Then he dragged me through the room by my hair and tried to kick me in the belly. I was just about able to hide behind the couch, so his kick only grazed me. Then he left.”

“He grabbed me by the throat, cutting off my breath. I was very close to dying. Eventually, he let go, probably because Noah was around,” she said of another incident in 2006.

Nathalie said that he threw hot coffee in her face and often called her a pig.

‘Mrs Diabetes’

“He often called us ‘mediocre people’,” Caroline told Volkskrant, “And when I developed diabetes, he said: ‘You deserve this. You are Mrs Diabetes and I am the Iceman.’”

In 2010, matters came to a head after Caroline told Mr Hof to leave the home that they shared.

On May 8, after drinking all day, Mr Hof was arrested by police after threatening to break a plate over Caroline’s head, pushing Noah and attacking Christiaan.

The restraining order was imposed after this incident. Mr Hof had fortnightly access to Noah until 2015, when that was removed.

In its report removing parental access, the Child Protection Board said that Mr Hof would coerce Caroline to have sex with him “either by threatening to take Noah away from her, but also for money”.

Caroline told Volkskrant that Mr Hof would only pay alimony if she had sex with him.

“Only later, in therapy, I started to realise that what he was doing was actually rape,” she told the newspaper.

In response, Mr Hof said: “All lies.”

Volkskrant said that Mr Hof also sent numerous emails in which he called Caroline and the children “dirty bastards” and “monstrous a–holes”, and described himself as someone who “may win the Nobel prize”.

Israel has launched an invasion of Lebanon because it says it wants to restore security to Israeli communities living in the north, which were displaced because of constant incoming rocket fire from Hezbollah.

Why is Israel invading Lebanon?

The invasion could be an attempt to simply clear southern Lebanon of Hezbollah fighters and positions in order to restore calm to northern Israel and allow residents to return.

Israeli soldiers may immediately withdraw after completing their missions in southern Lebanon, as some US officials hinted in comments to The Washington Post.

But for Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, this could be part of a wider plan to fully invade Lebanon and remove Hezbollah from power entirely, rather than just kill its members in the south.

In that scenario, it is unclear whether Israel plans to occupy southern Lebanon, create a demilitarised zone, or simply leave the area completely after completing their objectives.

What triggered the war?

Israel has massively ramped up pressure on Hezbollah in recent weeks, setting off a wave of sabotage explosions in pagers carried by Hezbollah members, which injured more than 3,000 people.

Israeli air strikes on Lebanon also intensified, culminating in an attack on Beirut that killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah.

What is Hezbollah?

Hezbollah, which means “Party of God”, is a radical, Shia paramilitary group based in Lebanon.

It is politically and financially supported by Iran, and has been described as the most heavily armed non-state actor worldwide.

Nasrallah had previously claimed that the group has more than 100,000 trained fighters, though it is thought that the true figure is around 20,000 to 50,000.

What happens next?

It is unclear what happens next. Israel will inevitably face pressure from the United States to keep the scale of the invasion to a minimum.

However, there are growing doubts over whether Mr Netanyahu considers the views of the Biden administration in his decision-making.

Prince Harry has revealed that he has “at least six” spare versions of one of his three-year-old daughter Lilibet’s favourite toys.

The Duke of Sussex, 40, returned to London for the WellChild Awards, which honours seriously ill children, and met many of the young recipients, their parents and celebrity ambassadors including Beverley Knight and Oti Mabuse after the ceremony on Monday.

He was reunited with Noah Nicholson, six, and admired a photograph of their first meeting five years ago at Sheffield Children’s Hospital, noting that he was still clutching “Raffy”, the same giraffe toy attached to a soft blanket.

The comforter toys are known in the US as “loveys”.

He said: “Is this the same one? No way.

“Every parent has a spare. I’ve got at least six spare.”

He added: “My daughter Lili has these loveys.”

The Duke later presented an award to Noah and gave a speech to the children and parents gathered for the ceremony at the Royal Lancaster Hotel.

As he saluted the “little legends” gathered before him, he said: “Keep being you. You’ve got this, and we’ve got you.”

There was laughter and applause as someone in the crowd yelled: “We’ve got you too.”

The Duke has been patron of WellChild since 2007 and makes a point of attending its annual award ceremony.

He said: “The WellChild Awards is an event that never fails to inspire me, the stories of young people who battle against the odds, living lives filled with medical procedures, hospital stays, endless appointments, that remind us all of the strength of the human spirit.”

“As a parent, I know a little about the emotional roller coaster of parenting, but when I hear about the care that many of you, mums, dads or family members provide, the level of round the clock care that you offer, the skills you had to learn, the battles for support that you fight every single day, I am truly in awe.

“You are all incredible, and your love and dedication are nothing short of heroic.”

The Duke’s brief return to the UK fell in the middle of a hectic fortnight in which he is criss-crossing the globe, without the Duchess of Sussex, to promote his own charitable interests.

The award ceremony came after five high profile speeches in New York last week on behalf of his various charities, as well as a star turn in a skit on US comedy show The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

The Duke then flew back to California to be reunited with the Duchess and their two children, Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three, before flying to London this weekend.

He did not stay at a royal residence and was not expected to meet with his father, the King, who is in Scotland, or his brother, the Prince of Wales.

After the award ceremony, he was due to head to southern Africa, where he will visit Lesotho two decades after his first visit, which was made during his gap year, to promote Sentebale, the charity he founded in 2006.

At an event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York last week, he described the country as “a home away from home”.

He said the tiny landlocked nation, and its Royal family, had been “a pillar of strength” for him personally over the last 20 years and had welcomed him “with open arms and such kindness.”

Almost 1,000 British holidaymakers are taking legal action after being struck down with stomach bugs while on holiday in Cape Verde.

A total of 926 people over three years have been struck down with gastrointestinal infections while staying at luxury hotel resorts on the island.

Infections such as Shigella and Salmonella have been reported by holidaymakers with some unable to leave their room for several days.

Cordelia Plummer, 56, from Shard End, Birmingham, and partner Ian Waller, 56, from Kingston-Upon-Hull, are among a new group of holidaymakers to contact lawyers about their holiday.

They were both struck down with serious illness during a two-week stay at a 5-star hotel in Sal, Cape Verde in July this year.

The holiday was booked via tour operator Tui, and the couple paid almost £3,000 for their all-inclusive break.

‘Incredibly concerning’

Jatinder Paul, a specialist international serious injury lawyer at Irwin Mitchell who is representing the holidaymakers, said: “The sheer volume of clients we’re continuing to see coming forward having fallen ill during stays in Cape Verde over the last three years is incredibly concerning.

“The numbers involved show that these aren’t isolated incidents. The fact that significant numbers are still approaching us with similar first-hand accounts points towards a worrying picture of ongoing illness that shows no sign of ending.

“Those we represent rightly have a number of concerns over how such illnesses have occurred over such a period of time,” he said.

“Gastric illness can result in long-term health problems or even death, and the fear is this could end in tragedy if something isn’t done to address the underlying causes.”

It is thought that several different groups fell sick with similar issues at the same time and the lawyers are calling for more people to come forward.

Tui was approached for comment.

Plummer, a customer service assistant, was taken ill a week into the break with severe gastric symptoms, including vomiting and diarrhoea.

She was confined to her room for four days and consulted her GP upon returning to the UK, who initially said her symptoms could be a sign of Shigella.

Waller was struck down a few days later with the same symptoms which continued for the remainder of the holiday and upon his return to the UK.

‘I’ve never felt so ill’

The couple said they were shocked to read negative reviews of the resort online after returning home and had noticed that food was often served uncovered and lukewarm.

Plummer said: “What was meant to be a dream two weeks on a wonderful island turned into a holiday Ian and myself will now do our best to forget.

“What started as headaches and a feeling of nausea, became the worst sickness and diarrhoea I’ve ever known.

“I think everyone has probably had an upset stomach at one time or another, but I have never felt so ill.”

The couple are among a new group of ten holidaymakers who stayed at a five-star hotel this summer to instruct Irwin Mitchell.

Meanwhile, hundreds of other holidaymakers have instructed the firm following an illness at other Cape Verde hotels.

In 2022, a total of 806 people came forward followed by 65 in 2023 and 55 so far this year.

Cocaine thought to be worth up to £3.1 million has washed up on a beach in Cornwall.

A black bag, which appeared to be wrapped in a bin bag, was found on Trevaunance Cove in St Agnes on the north Cornish coast on Saturday.

An image said to have been taken outside Schooners bar overlooking the cove shows a police officer beside the bag.

Otis Robertson, 19, who works at Schooners bar, told The Telegraph that the bag had been found in a cave nearby.

He said: “In the morning, it was found in a cave by a dog walker. They instantly called the police. It was a big black carrier bag. The lifeguards said it was full of bricks [of cocaine].

“The police came down and searched to see if there was any more. They actually said it was around 40kg and valued at £3 million.”

Mr Robertson claimed that recent strong winds had brought the bag ashore.

An anonymous resident told the Daily Mail: “It’s been the talk of the village this weekend. It’s a very gossipy place anyway but when something unusual like this happens, even more so.

“I’m told the drugs were found washed up on Saturday morning and the police were called. The beach is popular with dog walkers and even out of the main holiday season there are always lots of people here.”

The National Crime Agency (NCA) has said that the domestic cocaine market is dominated by criminal gangs who make around £4 billion a year.

In February, the NCA and Border Force seized 5.7 tons of cocaine – one of its biggest-ever seizures of class-A drugs in the UK. The contraband was found hidden among bananas in a container at Southampton Port which had been transported from South America and was bound for Hamburg, Germany.

Based on UK street-level prices, this cocaine would have had an estimated value of over £450 million.

Last month, a Royal Navy patrol ship seized £40 million of cocaine from a speedboat in the Caribbean.

Royal Marines and US Coast Guard personnel on HMS Trent intercepted the vessel carrying 506kg of Class A narcotics south of the Dominican Republic.

The bust was the sixth made by the Royal Navy vessel this year, bringing the total amount of drugs seized to £551.5 million.

Devon and Cornwall Police was contacted for comment.

A 75-year-old grandfather choked to death on chicken nuggets after care home staff failed to cut up his food, an inquest has found.

Bob Buckley, who had dementia, was vulnerable to choking and required specialist care with meals while a resident at The Chase in Canterbury.

He was seen turning “blue in the face” after being left unsupervised at the care home, which was found by Kent and Medway coroner’s court to have caused his death through negligence.

When he was found choking, staff tried dislodging food from his throat by repeatedly slapping his back and using a thrusting technique.

A risk assessment from the care home had stressed that Buckley needed food to be cut into small pieces, and staff had to be nearby when he ate.

Despite two ambulance crews arriving in minutes, Buckley’s heart stopped and, because of a do-not-resuscitate order, paramedics did not attempt to revive him.

Medics discovered that he had eaten whole chicken nuggets and half a baby carrot. He died on Aug 11 2019.

‘Surprised at the size of the food’

Ian Brownhill, the coroner, said: “The food was not cut into small pieces, and paramedics were surprised at the size of the food removed from Bob’s airway.

“Carer one handed Bob the plate of food at tea time. She also plated the food, which he ate.

“She previously said the plates were pre-prepared, but this does not accord with what she told police after his death.”

Carer two was thought to have been responsible for monitoring Buckley as he ate, according to the manager.

But she was discovered to have left him, and other guests, unsupervised, the court heard.

“Carer two was aware they ought not to leave residents unsupervised but did so,” Mr Brownhill said.

Representatives for the care home previously argued that the factors of his death “was so unclear that you could not conclude this was unlawful killing”.

Mr Brownhill said that while The Chase breached its duty of care, the death did not meet the requirements for corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter.

Recording a narrative conclusion of neglect, he said: “Bob had been identified as a risk of choking despite the fact that those caring for Bob did not properly mitigate this risk.

“They did not cut up his food or monitor him closely enough. This led to his death.”

Buckley’s family had been forced to wait five years for the inquest to conclude because, in part, of criminal charges being lodged against a staff member.

In August 2022, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the charges.

Guilt ‘will never leave mum’

Lisa, Buckley’s step-daughter, told KentOnline: “My mum made it very clear on more than one occasion that Bob was a choking risk as he ate very quickly and tended to pouch food in his mouth.

“He had to have someone sit with him while eating.

“To hand over the care of your loved one to someone else is one of the hardest things you can do.

“The guilt of making that decision and what happened after will never leave mum.”

A spokesman for The Chase said: “We acknowledge the coroner’s findings and would like to offer our sincere condolences and apologies to Mr Buckley’s family for their loss.

“Due to the ongoing investigations, which have now concluded, we have been unable to comment on this matter previously.

“Since Mr Buckley’s death, a new management team has been put in place.

“We have implemented a number of new policies and procedures, specifically in relation to the management of risks around diet and nutrition and all staff have received further training.

“A further inspection was carried out at the home by the CQC [Care Quality Commission] in May 2023 and the home was assessed to be good, safe and well-led.

“We remain fully committed to maintaining this high standard of care to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of our residents at all times in the future.”

Local residents have accused the transgender owner of a £5 million castle of alienating them after she alleged that their attitudes to her were forcing her to sell up.

Samantha Kane, who was born male and now refers to herself as Lady Carbisdale, claimed that the rural community around her castle near Ardgay in Sutherland was “not ready” to accept someone who has changed their gender.

The barrister said that she had decided to sell Carbisdale Castle, which she has spent millions of pounds restoring, after “hurtful” gender identity comments were shared on social media.

But locals said that they were “delighted” she bought the castle two years ago with plans to bring the 29-bedroomed property back into use as a luxury hotel.

They alleged that the relationship only turned sour when she started putting up fences blocking access to public pathways they had helped clear around the 117-year-old castle.

Ms Kane, who is thought to be the only person in the UK to have changed gender three times, has put the property on the market for £5 million.

Anne Henderson, 69, who owns a farm that borders land with Carbisdale Castle, insisted that the row had nothing to do with Ms Kane’s gender.

She said: “We are a very welcoming and open community. We are happy to have anybody here.

“It is so beautiful and we want to share it. It’s almost like a safe haven – we have people of all persuasions who live here. We accept people at face value unless they prove themselves otherwise.”

Mrs Henderson alleged that her family felt “threatened” when Ms Kane turned up at her house following a meeting last November when her plans to bring public land into her private ownership were rejected.

She claimed: “She presented herself at our farmhouse the next day and I invited her into the kitchen. She then proceeded to accuse us of ruining her business.”

Mrs Henderson said her husband, Robert, eventually asked Ms Kane to leave, claiming: “She tried to get my husband to hit her, she kept saying: ‘Go on, you know you want to hit me.’” 

One local businesswoman, who did not want to be named, told the Scottish Daily Mail: “Sadly, she didn’t get the locals onboard. Everyone was delighted when she bought the castle and were really looking forward to it being used again. But unfortunately she alienated them by pushing them out instead of welcoming them.

“She stopped people getting to some of the accesses. A lot of locals helped clear paths away – they just wanted to use the area. But she alienated the locals, the locals didn’t alienate her.”

Another claimed: “She was stopping people walking on land that was supposed to belong to the forestry. Anyone can walk there but she was putting up fences and putting up signs saying it was private property. She was chasing people off the land and taking benches away.”

Paul Whittock, who owns Ardgay Garage, said that Ms Kane’s claims about the Highlands not being ready for someone who has changed gender were “absolute rubbish” and “it’s got more to do with her behaviour”.

But Ms Kane, 65, rejected the claims, and told the Scottish Daily Mail: “All of these people are obviously motivated by some sort of hate or jealousy or prejudice. It’s complete lies and utter nonsense.

“I try my very, very hardest to renovate the castle, I offer jobs to the local community, I open up the castle for the local community.

“I have done everything in my power to be friendly and nice. But the castle is being disrespected. I am leaving the place and I am still being hounded by lies and nonsense.”

Michael Baird, a local councillor, said that there was an “element of truth” to Ms Kane’s allegations as the “small community around the castle” had “hounded out” a previous developer.

The 19-bedroom, 29-acre castle comes complete with its own loch. Ms Kane bought the property for more than £1 million.

But police were called over a community council meeting at which homophobic remarks were allegedly made about her.

Ms Kane had attended the meeting to state her intention to restore the manor, but had to leave while a vote took place.

One resident, who did not want to be named, claimed that he heard a woman had been “abusive” towards a committee member understood to have been Ms Kane.

Police Scotland said it received a report of a disturbance in Carron Place, Ardgay, on Nov 23. Officers issued advice and a woman received a recorded warning in relation to an earlier disturbance on Nov 21.

At the time, Ms Kane described the police involvement as an “overreaction” despite claiming that some of what was said was “homophobic and racist”.

Ms Kane was born in Iraq and moved to the UK, later making a fortune as the head of investment at a Saudi-owned company. She transitioned to become Samantha in 1997 and in 2004 transitioned back to a man.

In 2018, she underwent further surgery and hormone replacement therapy to retransition into a woman.

Two people have died after a large wildfire burned through forestland near a popular holiday resort in Greece.

About 350 firefighters and eight water-dropping aircraft brought the blaze under control near Xylokastro in the southern region of Peloponnese, about 93 miles south-west of Athens.

Villages near the seaside town were evacuated overnight after the fire broke out on Sunday.

Reports suggested that the two men who died rode into danger on a motorbike to help a friend protect his flock of sheep from the wildfire.

Constantina Dimoglidou, a Greek police spokesman, said that the recovered bodies were severely burnt and laboratory tests were necessary for their identification.

The fire service has launched an investigation, the Greek Citizen’s Protection Ministry said.

Strong winds blew through woodland left tinder-dry by a warm spring and hot summer.

As summer temperatures continue to rise across Europe, wildfires are an annual blight to Greece.

In the past few months, authorities have had to cope with more than 4,500 wildfires.

Buildings in the suburbs of Athens were left gutted after deadly flames reached the capital in August.

Firefighters in Attica, central and western Greece and Peloponnese have been placed on red alert.

The Foreign Office has issued a warning to British holidaymakers in Greece to beware of wildfires.

Migrant border crossings are now at their lowest level in four years, in a boost to Kamala Harris ahead of November’s presidential election.

US Border Patrol recorded around 54,000 encounters along the southern US border in September, according to federal data obtained by CNN.

The figures show that the overall number of crossings has declined for six straight months, which includes the period since Joe Biden implemented an executive order that bans some illegal migrants from claiming asylum after crossing into Mexico.

The ban, which was implemented in June after Republicans blocked a bill to impose tighter border controls, sets a daily limit of 2,500 crossings before asylum services are no longer able to accept new applicants with the border not reopening until the figures are below 1,500 for a week.

Crossings on the southern US border, especially into Texas and Arizona, had previously reached record levels. The latest figures show the lowest number of crossings since 2020.

Illegal migration has become a significant dividing line between Ms Harris and Donald Trump, who has pledged to immediately deport up to a million people if he wins the presidency on Nov 5.

Ms Harris, who was once asked by Mr Biden to handle border control, has struggled to convince voters she has a plan to bring the numbers down. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have talked extensively about border control on the campaign trail.

The figures came as the Biden administration said it was making asylum restrictions at the southern border tougher again.

The new rules, which toughen the June restrictions, say the number of migrants trying to cross the border must be lower than 1,500 for more than a month before new asylum applications will be accepted.

The government is also counting all children towards that number for the first time. Previously, only Mexican children were included in the figures. The new rules come into force on Tuesday.

On Friday, Ms Harris visited the border for the first time since she began her campaign when Mr Biden dropped out of the race in July.

In a speech from Douglas, Arizona, she blamed Trump for the high number of crossings, pointing to his party’s decision to block Mr Biden’s border plan earlier in the year.

“He prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem,” she said.

“And the American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games and their personal political future.”

Polling shows that Trump is trusted much more by the public on border security than Ms Harris, who has been forced to repeatedly deny that she supports “open border” policies.

The Trump campaign has used specific examples of migrants committing violent crimes as evidence that the number of crossings is making the country more dangerous.

One example of so-called “migrant crime” is Trump’s claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were “eating cats and dogs” owned by local residents.

On Monday evening, the Texas Department of Public Safety announced it had encountered a group of more than 230 illegal migrants at Eagle Pass, a small border town that has become a national symbol of the immigration debate.

Israel has launched an invasion of Lebanon because it says it wants to restore security to Israeli communities living in the north, which were displaced because of constant incoming rocket fire from Hezbollah.

Why is Israel invading Lebanon?

The invasion could be an attempt to simply clear southern Lebanon of Hezbollah fighters and positions in order to restore calm to northern Israel and allow residents to return.

Israeli soldiers may immediately withdraw after completing their missions in southern Lebanon, as some US officials hinted in comments to The Washington Post.

But for Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, this could be part of a wider plan to fully invade Lebanon and remove Hezbollah from power entirely, rather than just kill its members in the south.

In that scenario, it is unclear whether Israel plans to occupy southern Lebanon, create a demilitarised zone, or simply leave the area completely after completing their objectives.

What triggered the war?

Israel has massively ramped up pressure on Hezbollah in recent weeks, setting off a wave of sabotage explosions in pagers carried by Hezbollah members, which injured more than 3,000 people.

Israeli air strikes on Lebanon also intensified, culminating in an attack on Beirut that killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah.

What is Hezbollah?

Hezbollah, which means “Party of God”, is a radical, Shia paramilitary group based in Lebanon.

It is politically and financially supported by Iran, and has been described as the most heavily armed non-state actor worldwide.

Nasrallah had previously claimed that the group has more than 100,000 trained fighters, though it is thought that the true figure is around 20,000 to 50,000.

What happens next?

It is unclear what happens next. Israel will inevitably face pressure from the United States to keep the scale of the invasion to a minimum.

However, there are growing doubts over whether Mr Netanyahu considers the views of the Biden administration in his decision-making.

A professor suspended for making comments deemed racially offensive has claimed she was targeted for expressing “anti-woke” opinions.

The University of Pennsylvania law school has suspended Amy Wax, a law professor, for a year with half pay after she was accused of making racist, sexist and homophobic remarks.

The allegations against Dr Wax include that she said that “on average, blacks have lower cognitive ability than whites”, that the country would be “better off with fewer Asians” and that “women, on average, are less knowledgeable than men”.

She is also alleged to have said that some non-Western countries are “s—holes” and that adverts depicting “black men married to white women in an upper-class picket-fence house” are unrealistic.

However, Dr Wax has dismissed the allegations of abuse or discrimination against students as “totally bogus and made up”, telling the New York Sun they have “been fabricated and tacked on as a cover for penalizing me for standard-issue, conservative anti-‘woke’ opinions and factual observations that are not allowed on campus.”

Dr Wax, who once invited a white nationalist to speak to her class, added that she was committed to exposing students to “opinions and viewpoints they don’t want to hear” and said she feared campuses like Penn were “raising a generation of students who can’t deal with disagreement”.

Disciplinary proceedings were first launched against Dr Wax in 2022, when Ted Ruger, the Penn Law School dean, demanded a “major sanction” be imposed against the professor for showing a “callous and flagrant disregard” for university standards with her “incessant racist, sexist, xenophobic, and homophobic actions and statements”.

White supremacist

The 12-page charge sheet noted that Dr Wax in 2021 invited “renowned white supremacist” Jared Taylor to speak to her class. It came after the professor gave an interview to the US journalist Tucker Carlson in which she claimed that black Americans and “non-Western groups” were resentful towards “Western people.”

Dr Wax’s views have long sparked controversy. In 2018, she was removed from teaching first-year students after the law school dean accused her of having spoken “disparagingly and inaccurately” about the performance of black students.

Then in 2021, a student petition calling for her to be sacked reached 2,500 signatures after she said that “the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration”.

Following nearly two years of deliberation, involving more than 700 pages of transcript and 70 exhibits, a five-member hearing board ruled in June 2023 that Dr Wax had “committed a major infraction of the university’s behavioural standards,” according to a letter from Liz Magill, the former Penn president.

The board said Dr Wax had displayed “flagrant unprofessional conduct that breached her responsibilities as a teacher to offer an equal opportunity to all students to learn from her”.

‘Discriminatory and disparaging’

It found she had a history of making “sweeping, blithe, and derogatory generalizations about groups by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status”.

In addition, Dr Wax was accused of breaching student-teacher confidentiality by publicly speaking about the average grades of law students by race, and making “discriminatory and disparaging statements,” some in the classroom, “targeting specific racial, ethnic, and other groups with which many students identify”.

Dr Wax, a multi-award-winning professor with degrees from Yale, Oxford, Harvard and Columbia, appealed the decision, claiming that the sanctions were based on “vague, novel, and undefined allegations of offences”.

However, the university said last week in a notice posted in its almanac that the board’s ruling had been upheld.

Responding to the ruling, Provost John L Jackson Jr said that academic freedom “is and should be very broad” but teachers must convey “a willingness to assess all students fairly” and must not engage in “unprofessional conduct that creates an unequal educational environment”.

Mr Jackson added that Dr Wax’s conduct left many students “understandably concerned” about her being able to impartially judge their academic performance.

David Shapiro, Dr Wax’s lawyer, told the campus newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvanian, in November last year that officials propped up their case against Wax by throwing in “a handful of isolated, years-old allegations [which are highly contested]” about alleged interactions with “a few minority students”.

The law professor has not been fired or stripped of her tenure, but has been told she will lose her named chair and summer pay, and must note in public appearances that she speaks for herself, not as a university or law school member. The decision will come into effect from 2025.

Following the announcement, Dr Wax said she intended to stay at the school as a “conservative presence on campus”, adding that her treatment amounted to “performance art” that underscores the fact that the university “doesn’t want conservatives like me on campus”.

Alex Morey, a campus advocacy lead from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said the ruling against Dr Wax represented a dangerous erosion of academic freedom.

“Faculty nationwide may now pay a heavy price for Penn’s willingness to undercut academic freedom for all to get at this one professor.” Mr Morey said. “After today, any university under pressure to censor a controversial faculty member need only follow Penn’s playbook.”

Penn State’s treatment of Dr Wax will fuel allegations of double standards, after the university hosted a Palestine Writes literature festival in September, which critics say included speakers with a history of making anti-Semitic remarks.

The university also came under fire last year for resisting calls to discipline faculty members for allegedly making anti-Semitic remarks in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, and for its delay in removing a pro-Palestinian encampment that was allowed to remain in situ for more than two weeks.

Virginia Foxx, the Republican congresswoman who leads the House Education and Workforce Committee, previously said: “Penn has demonstrated a clear double standard by tolerating anti-Semitic … harassment, and intimidation, but suppressing and penalising other expression it deemed problematic.”

A military base hosting US forces in Baghdad was hit by a rocket attack on Monday evening.

At least two rockets were fired at the Victoria military base, which hosts American forces near Baghdad International Airport, according to the Reuters news agency, citing two Iraqi military officials.

It was reported that the base had activated its air defences, intercepting the rockets.

“All military personnel are accounted for and military forces were not targeted as had been reported,” a US defence official said.

Two security sources told the AFP news agency that the base was “targeted with three rockets”, including two that were “shot down by the base’s special defences”.

“The third fell near the headquarters of the Counter Terrorism Service Command,” one source said. A second source confirmed the report, the agency said, and noted that there were no casualties and that the rockets did not affect air traffic.

In a video posted on X, explosions and sirens could be heard at the base.

The Victoria military base is a compound at Baghdad International Airport, used as the headquarters of US forces in Iraq from 2003 until 2011, when it was handed over to the Iraqi government. It still hosts US forces, and has previously been a target of Islamist forces in Iraq. 

Following the attack, the next scheduled flight to leave Baghdad airport, a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul, has been cancelled.

The munitions used in the attack were reportedly Katyusha rockets, a weapon first fielded by the Soviet Union that has recently been used in the Middle East by Hezbollah and other Iranian-linked groups in Iraq.

Several US military installations have been targeted by a loose alliance of Islamist groups backed by Tehran since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out in October.

In January, three US troops were killed at a base in northern Jordan, prompting a US retaliation.

The attack came amid heightened tension in the region ahead of an expected Israeli invasion of Lebanon, after months of conflict between the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah.

The Government is buying seats on flights out of Lebanon to help British people flee over fears that the Middle East is teetering on the brink of all-out war.

Officials are in talks with Middle East Airlines – the only company still flying out of Beirut – to try to increase capacity.

Although it is believed that fewer than 100 seats will be available to buy, the Foreign Office does not believe there are a large number of UK citizens who want to escape.

The Government said on Monday night that it has chartered a commercial flight out of Lebanon for Britons wanting to leave amid escalating violence.

The flight is set to leave Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport on Wednesday and vulnerable British nationals and their spouses, partners and children under 18 will be prioritised, the Foreign Office said. 

The Government will pay to charter the flight but Britons will be expected to pay a fee of £350 per seat, the BBC reported.

On Monday, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “We’re doing everything we can to work with commercial airlines to maximise capacity because we want people to leave, and I understand that there have been extra Middle East Airlines flights leaving Lebanon over the weekend, another scheduled for Tuesday, and we have secured seats for British nationals on those flights.”

It comes as Israeli troops gather on the border of Lebanon and Hezbollah demands revenge for the assassination of its leader.

The available flights will not be direct to London, but will go to other locations such as Athens or Istanbul.

The UK hopes to buy the seats and sell them on to Britons wishing to evacuate, acting as guarantors.

The Foreign Office is also investigating options for “assisted departure” via a chartered flight.

Officials believe that there are not hundreds of British people desperate to get out. Many have stayed for good reasons, such as having family or other ties in the area.

It means there are fewer Britons in the country than in the summer, when many were there on holiday.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman reiterated the Government’s call for Britons to leave the country.

He said: “The Prime Minister has been very, very clear that British nationals should leave now, particularly whilst commercial flights are still available.

“What we’re focused on at the moment is securing extra spaces on commercial flights for those who do want to leave and reiterating our calls for those to leave and to register their presence with us and book the first available flights.

“We’re also working to send a rapid deployment team to bolster the efforts of our embassy in supporting British nationals who want to leave.”

Asked why an evacuation has not started, the spokesman said: “We’ve been clear, whilst there are commercial flights available, British nationals can and, indeed, should leave.”

The spokesman also pointed to the deployment of 700 troops, alongside Border Force and Foreign Office officials, to Cyprus to continue work on “all contingency options and plan for a range of scenarios in the region”.

James Cleverly will tell the Tories on Tuesday that they must promise to “build, build, build” if the party is to find a way back to power.

In a speech to the Conservative conference, the former home secretary will argue that the party has to be “for” things again, rather than always appearing to be against change.

He will argue that the Tories need to remake the argument for conservatism and capitalism, support people to build a family, and build more homes.

They must also cut red tape to enable Britain to build vital infrastructure to inculcate a “new generation of optimism in the tradition of Macmillan and Thatcher”.

The policy on housing could prove a dividing line with other leadership candidates, who may accuse him of putting the green belt at risk.

Labour has pledged to “bulldoze” the planning system and build 1.5 million homes in five years to enable younger people to get a foot on the housing ladder.

While Mr Cleverly will not get into figures, he will argue that a promise to “build, build, build” is necessary to overturn the view that the Tories are the “grumpy” party for always opposing things.

He will say: “How do we face up to the great challenges of our time? How we have always done it. Be for stuff again. British science and engineering shaped the modern world.

“We are the country that gave the world the vaccine (twice), the steam engine, the light bulb, the World Wide Web, the bicycle, the tank, the people that split the atom.

“We need more ‘yes we can’, both from our party and our country.

“Remake the argument for conservatism and capitalism by our actions, not just our words.

“Build more homes so we can build a new generation of optimism in the tradition of Macmillan and Thatcher.

“Cut the cost of childcare, so people can afford to build a family. Cut red tape so we can build the energy and transport infrastructure we need more cheaply.

“Build, build, build.”

He will add: “And let’s get rid of bad taxes like stamp duty. Make sure that work always pays – and the state never takes more than half your earnings.

“And be the party of free markets and freedom. Of business and entrepreneurs. Get on their side, and out of their way. These are my values.”

On Monday, Tom Tugendhat, his leadership rival, said he was a believer in “building the right things in the right places” when asked about planning.

Asked if he was a “yimby”, a “nimby” or a “banana” (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything), the former security minister was cheered when he said: “It sounds disgusting and yellow, so it must be Lib Dem.”

Kemi Badenoch suggested on Monday that she would like to see more housing built to make it easier for people to start a family.

She told an event with the Conservative Women’s Organisation that a shortage of housing could be affecting the birth rate.

“I think that there are things that we have to do to make sure that we make life comfortable for those people who are… starting families,” she said, listing examples such as maternity pay, childcare provision and housing.

“A lot of people have fewer children because they start having children later,” she said.

‘Covid-19 lockdowns were wrong’

Speaking at the conference on Monday, Mr Cleverly said the worst thing about 14 years of Tory government was the response to the Covid-19 pandemic – but he would not commit to never supporting a lockdown again.

“The lockdowns were wrong. We got it badly, badly, badly wrong,” he said.

“We cancelled Christmas. We became fearful and as a society, introspective, and it brought out all the worst.”

When asked if that meant he would never support another lockdown, he said: “Well look, you can’t say that, because if something like the bubonic plague was coming out… what we know now, which we didn’t know at the time, was the risk profile of Covid-19.”

The former home secretary also said children should not be allowed to “dictate” their gender identity to adults.

“I clearly missed the memo when we collectively decided that children dictate to adults and adults don’t teach children, because that strikes me as a bit of a recipe for disaster,” he said.

“We know, and this is not a criticism, it is just a statement of biological fact, human children are born with not fully developed brains.

“It is how we get an animal with a very large skull through the pelvic bone of a woman.”

Mr Cleverly also urged the Tories to stop “behaving like bloody children”.

“The first thing we need to do is win back the trust and support of the voters,” he said. “We behaved appallingly.”

Asked how the party could do this, he replied: “Um, stop behaving like bloody children.”