The wife of a Conservative Party councillor has been jailed for two and half years after posting a tweet stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers on the day of the Southport attacks.

Lucy Connolly, the wife of Raymond Connolly, a West Northamptonshire Conservative councillor, was sentenced to 31 months imprisonment at Birmingham crown court on Thursday.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Connolly wrote: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f—ing hotels full of the b——s for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government politicians with them.”

She had previously pleaded guilty to one count of inciting racial hatred and was remanded in custody.

Connolly, who was a childminder at the time of the social media post, resigned her registration with Ofsted, the regulator, following her arrest.

She made the comments on July 29, the day on which three children were stabbed to death during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the Merseyside town.

The court heard how Connolly, 41, told someone on WhatsApp that she would “play the mental health card” if she was arrested. She sent another WhatsApp message on Aug 5 joking that the incendiary post to her 10,000 followers had “bitten me on the arse, lol.”

Naeem Valli, who opened the case for the prosecution, described how Connolly also sent a message saying she intended to work her notice period as a childminder “on the sly” despite being de-registered.

Mr Valli added: “She then goes on to say that if she were to get arrested she would play the mental health card.”

Connolly, who has no previous convictions, also sent another tweet commenting on a sword attack, which read: “I bet my house it was one of these boat invaders.”

Another post sent by Connolly – commenting on a video posted by Tommy Robinson on X – read “Somalian I guess” and was accompanied by a vomiting emoji.

Connolly appeared before the court via a video link to HMP Peterborough while her husband watched proceedings from the public gallery.

‘Didn’t expect violence that followed’

Liam Muir, defending, said in mitigation that Connolly had lost a child in horrific circumstances and was distinguished from other offenders using social media in that she had sent the tweet at the heart of the case before any violence against asylum seekers had started.

Mr Muir said: “The horrendous way in which she lost her son, being turned away from the health service, can only have a drastic detrimental effect on someone.

“Whatever her intention was in posting the offending tweet, it was short-lived, and she didn’t expect the violence that followed and she quickly tried to quell it.”

Judge Melbourne Inman KC, the Recorder of Birmingham, said in sentencing: “Some people used that tragedy as an opportunity to sow division and hatred, often using social media, leading to a number of towns and cities being disfigured.”

‘Mindless violence’

After noting that Connolly’s post on X inciting attacks on hotels had been viewed 310,000 times, the judge added: “When you published those words, you were well aware how volatile the situation was. That volatility led to serious disorder where mindless violence was used.”

The judge added that Connolly – who remained calm on the prison video-link – had encouraged activity that threatened or endangered life.

Det Ch Supt Rich Tompkins, the head of crime and justice at Northamptonshire Police, said: “This week is Hate Crime Awareness Week and although it is the courts who are responsible for sentencing, I hope this case demonstrates that the police take reports of this nature seriously and that we will do everything we can to help our communities feel safe and protected from fear of violence.

“If you have been a victim of a hate crime, please contact us so we can investigate it. No-one should be targeted for who they are.”

Mr Connolly declined to comment on the sentencing as he left Birmingham Crown Court.

Latest police figures reveal that 1,511 people have been arrested in connection with the riots, 960 of whom were charged.

On Aug 14, Julie Sweeney, 53, from Cheshire, was jailed for 15 months after writing in a local Facebook group that a mosque should be blown up.

Describing her as a “keyboard warrior”, Judge Steven Everett said “even people like you need to go to prison”.

Her husband David Sweeney, 76, called the sentence “well over the top” and said her outburst was caused by “an emotional breakdown”.

On Oct 8, Keith Edwards, 81, became the oldest person convicted in connection with the far-Right riots.

Edwards, from Nottingham, claims that he was arrested after standing on a protester’s leg to prevent him from getting away from police. He later admitted assault by beating and was spared jail with a 28-day suspended sentence.

His solicitor said Mr Edwards had “no involvement” in the pre-planned protest in Nottingham and was actually “assisting” the police by putting his foot on the leg of a man they were trying to arrest.

The Duke of Sussex has been filmed showing off his impressive surfing prowess.

Footage of Prince Harry, 40, catching a wave at a California surf school was published on social media by professional surfer Raimana Van Bastolaer.

It shows the Duke, wearing a long sleeved top and purple shorts, expertly navigating a wave as Mr Van Bastolaer shouts out instructions.

“In Tahiti we still call you Prince Harry but at surf ranch, we call you brother,” he wrote in the caption. “It was an honour to have you surf with me.”

The clip was filmed at a “surf ranch” in Lemoore, California, owned by surfing star Kelly Slater.

It starts with the Duke riding alongside Mr Van Bastolaer’s jet ski before he pulls away as a wave emerges.

Mr Van Bastolaer shouts “get up, get up!” before he gets to his knees and then stands up on his board. After carefully finding his balance, he then surfs the wave for around a minute before it petered out.

Mr Van Bastolaer can be heard shouting: “Yeah! keep going! yeah brother! Move your shoulders!” As the Duke veers away from the jet ski, he yells: “Come back to me! Come back, come back!”

The ranch, featuring a barrelling six-foot artificial wave that lasts for up to 2,300-feet is said to be the first of its kind.

It is the only one to hold World Surf League accreditation, meaning it is fit to stage elite level competitions.

The ranch promises to offer an “immersive surf lifestyle experience in the middle of farm fields in central California”, 100 metres from the coast.

The footage comes four years after it was claimed that the Duchess of Sussex had bought her husband surfing lessons for his 36th birthday, shortly after they had moved to the US and bought their home in Montecito.

In 2012, both Prince Harry and his brother, the Prince of Wales, were pictured bodyboarding on a beach in Cornwall.

After a year hunting its most wanted target in Hamas’s tunnels beneath Gaza, it appears Israel claimed its quarry during a chance encounter in the ruined streets of the coastal strip.

When Israeli troops saw Hamas fighters enter a building in Rafah, they had no reason to suspect one of them was their country’s most wanted man.

For months, a specialist elite taskforce had been seeking the terrorist leader behind the Oct 7 attacks and he was widely thought to be hidden deep beneath the ground.

The troops called for a tank to fire into the building, causing much of it to collapse, Israel’s Channel 12 reported.

It was only when afterwards soldiers found three bodies in the rubble, that they were struck by how familiar one dead man seemed.

The dead middle-aged man, wearing a military-style vest and lying half submerged beneath debris with the front of his head smashed in, had a familiar looking mole next to his left eye, troops noticed.

Troops entering the building decided he looked “very much like” Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader considered the architect of last year’s Oct 7 attack against Israel.

Prising open his lips with a piece of wood, troops also believed that his worn and chipped teeth matched photos of the Hamas leader’s mouth.

With the area where he was found littered with booby traps and his vest containing at least three grenades, soldiers were said to be unable to recover the body immediately.

Later, a picture was released of troops carrying the body wrapped in a black body bag and strapped into a stretcher.

DNA samples were recovered for testing and photographs of his teeth were taken to be checked against dental records.

The results were on Thursday night released by Israeli officials, confirming that they had killed the leader of Hamas.

As news of the killing spread, Yoav Gallant, the defence minister, said the country would “reach every terrorist and eliminate them”.

Quoting the biblical book of Leviticus, he added: “You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword.”

A video released by an Israeli newspaper, showed people on a Tel Aviv beach clapping and cheering after a man said “Bye bye, Sinwar” over a loudspeaker.

“Well done IDF. No [terrorists] will remain. Whoever harms Israeli citizens, that’ll be his end,” the man speaking over the loudspeaker added.

Sinwar’s death marked the end of a manhunt for the terrorist leader that Israel had declared a  “dead man walking”. The attacks on Oct 7 marked the deadliest single day for the state of Israel, when Hamas fighters rampaged into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 and taking some 250 hostages back to Gaza.

The attack provoked massive Israeli retaliation against Hamas in Gaza, in a campaign of air strikes and ground offensives which have killed more than 42,000 people, according to the strip’s Hamas-run health ministry. Much of the strip is destroyed and huge numbers have been forced from their homes.

Israel’s military called Sinwar the “face of evil” and vowed he would be eliminated after the attacks.

But while many of Hamas top leadership were killed in the months that followed, including deputies like Marwan Issa and Mohammed Deif, Sinwar himself remained more elusive.

The only image of him released in the past year was grainy black and white footage of him walking through a tunnel with his family on Oct 10 last year.

The clip showed Sinwar, carrying a bag and wearing flip flops, with his children and wife walking through a tunnel under a cemetery in the Bani Suheila area, in Khan Younis.

Yet the clip was only found four months later, when Israeli soldiers reached the scene.

At the time, the Israeli military said the tunnel contained “bedrooms of senior Hamas officials and the office of the commander of the Khan Younis Brigade’s Eastern Battalion, from where he directed the attack on Oct 7”.

Senior Hamas officials resided in the compound in “comfortable conditions” with food and bathrooms, along with safes with “personal funds of millions of shekels and dollars in cash”.

With Sinwar thought to be somewhere in the extensive network of tunnels that Israel said it had found beneath Gaza, the job of hunting him fell to a taskforce of intelligence officers, special operations units, military engineers and surveillance experts.

As the months went on, Israeli officials repeatedly said they had got close to him.

In December, Mr Netanyahu announced that Israeli troops had surrounded Mr Sinwar’s home in Khan Younis.

“I said last night that our forces could reach anywhere in the Gaza Strip. Now, they are encircling Sinwar’s home. His home is not his fortress, and while he may flee, it is only a matter of time until we get him,” Mr Netanyahu said.

In August, the outgoing commander of the IDF’s 98th Division, Brig Gen Dan Goldfus, told Channel 12 that the army was “minutes” away from catching the Hamas leader.

He said: “We were close. We were in his compound. We got to an underground compound.  We found a lot of money there. The coffee was still hot. Weapons strewn around.”

With little information emerging about him, rumours that he was already dead also swirled.

Speculation had heightened recently when it was noticed that a recent government picture of a high-level military meeting showed a Hamas organisational chart, with a question mark over Sinwar’s head.

But American officials earlier this month said that while his communications had gone quiet, there was no evidence he was dead and instead they thought he was alive and still making decisions.

Their assessment of the fugitive was that he was isolated and hiding in Gaza.

Concerned that communicating with an electronic device would quickly see him tracked down by electronic eavesdropping, he instead was resorting to a network of human couriers.

Aware that Israel was closing in on him, and after seeing several of his senior comrades killed by Israel, he had long decided he would not survive the war.

But just as he was more fatalistic, he was also judged to be increasingly inflexible.

Sinwar was determined to see Israel become embroiled in a wider regional conflict that would force  Benjamin Netanyahu to scale back his Gaza offensive.

As his attitude hardened, he was thought to have no intention of reaching any deal with Israel to stop the conflict.

Israeli hostages also said they had met him during their captivity, when he spoke to them in near-accentless Hebrew to reassure them after they were dragged into Gaza.

At other times, Israeli officials said they believed he was hiding in tunnels surrounded by hostages used as human shields to prevent air strikes.

Israel said there were no hostages found in the building where his body was recovered.

When the end came Hamas sources said he was surrounded by a security detail of no more than two or three people.

Israel has killed Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, in an assassination that marks the “beginning of the end” of the terror group’s rule of Gaza.

Benjamin Netanyahu urged Hamas’s remaining terrorists to lay down their arms, hand over the hostages and surrender as he hailed the death of Israel’s most wanted man.

The mastermind of the Oct 7 massacre was killed when an Israeli tank fired on a building in the southern city of Rafah on Wednesday.

Israeli forces happened upon Sinwar, who was thought to be hiding in the vast tunnel network underneath Gaza, by chance and were not immediately aware of the magnitude of the clash.

They discovered the body on Thursday after spotting the corpse in the rubble with a drone.

“This is the beginning of the day after Hamas,” Mr Netanyahu said in a video statement, confirming the death of the man behind the “worst massacre in our people’s history since the Holocaust”.

While Israel had “settled the score” with Sinwar, who plotted the Oct 7 attack in which 1,200 Israeli citizens were killed, Mr Netanyahu said more needed to be done to end the war.

Addressing Gazan civilians, he said: “Sinwar ruined your life. He told you he was a lion, but in reality he was hiding in a dark den. And he was killed when he fled in a panic from our soldiers.”

Hamas must release the remaining hostages they hold, he said, and any who return captives would be allowed to leave Gaza and live.

But amid fears in the Israeli security establishment that Hamas could kill hostages in revenge for Sinwar’s death, he threatened to kill any who harm the captives.

“We will not stop the war,” he said. “We will go into Rafah” to finish the job.

‘Opportunity to finally end the war’

But the killing of Hamas’ figurehead raised hopes that an end to more than 12-months of brutal fighting could be reached.

Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, urged Israel to use the death of Sinwar to seek peace.

“This moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war,” she said at a campaign stop in Milwaukee.

Joe Biden, the US president, said he would be discussing “ending the war once and for all” with Mr Netanyahu in the coming days.

The Biden administration has long pushed for Mr Netanyahu to restrain its operations in Gaza and Lebanon, although its efforts have had little effect as Israel pursues a definitive defeat of the Iran-backed terror groups on its borders.

Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said a ceasefire and the release of hostages were “long overdue.”

He said: “As the leader of the terrorist group Hamas, Yahya Sinwar was the mastermind behind the deadliest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust, as 1,200 people were slaughtered in Israel.

“Today my thoughts are with the families of those victims. The UK will not mourn his death.

“The release of all hostages, an immediate ceasefire and an increase in humanitarian aid are long overdue so we can move towards a long-term, sustainable peace in the Middle East.”

An Israeli official told The Telegraph the ceasefire negotiation team and the security establishment were on Thursday night holding “emergency discussions” in light of Sinwar’s assassination

In a joint statement on Thursday, the IDF and Shin Bet intelligence agency said soldiers from the 828 Bislamach Brigade killed three terrorists, including Sinwar, during a routine operation in Rafah.

Drone footage released by the IDF shows what is believed to be Sinwar’s final moments.

He is seen sitting in a chair inside a bombed-out building and appears to throw a wooden stick at the drone, which had swooped inside.

Photographs from the scene showed the corpse of Sinwar with a bloody hole in his skull.

Soldiers were reported to have fired shoulder-mounted rocket launchers at the small building where he was situated, causing part of the structure to collapse and cave in his head.

It was not clear if Sinwar, who was carrying grenades in the pockets of a military vest, was living in the building or passing through, Israeli officials said.

Early assessments noted the similarities between the dead terrorist’s teeth and those of Sinwar in earlier pictures. Israel confirmed the killing by matching DNA and dental records it holds from his time in Israeli prison.

Israel Katz, Israel’s foreign minister, was first to announce the killing on Thursday afternoon in a statement to the world media.

“The mass murderer Yahya Sinwar, responsible for the massacre and atrocities of October 7th, was eliminated today by IDF (Israeli military) soldiers,” he said.

“This is a great military and moral achievement for Israel and a victory for the entire free world against the evil axis of extreme Islam led by Iran.”

The assassination “creates a possibility” to free the rest of the 101 hostages still held by Hamas, he said, and create a Gaza free of Hamas.

Yair Lapid, the leader of Israel’s opposition, said Sinwar’s name “belongs alongside [Osama] Bin Laden and [Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali] al-Baghdadi for the terror and misery they have reaped on the world.”

On Thursday night, Iran’s mission to the United Nations warned that the killing of Sinwar would lead to the strengthening of “resistance” in the region.

“He will become a model for the youth and children who will carry forward his path toward the liberation of Palestine,” the mission said in a post on X.

News of the terrorist leader’s death was celebrated across Western capitals.

Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, said his killing was a moment of “relief” for the people of Israel.

“Sinwar’s life was the embodiment of evil and marked by hatred for all that is good in the world,” he said.

John Healey, the UK defence secretary, said he “would not mourn the death of a terror leader like Sinwar.”

General David Petraeus, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency who led the US army in Afghanistan, said the killing was “bigger than Osama bin Laden”.

Bin Laden was “massively symbolic but not that operational… This is both hugely symbolic… but also hugely operational,” he told the BBC.

Sinwar was named as Hamas’s overall leader after the assassination of political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July. He had pursued an apocalyptic vision of existential war with Israel throughout his life, plotting the Oct 7 massacre in secret for several years.

In the attack, Hamas terrorists burnt, raped and tortured civilians before taking 250 Israelis back into Gaza.

Fearful of being assassinated, Sinwar relied on a network of human couriers and hand-written notes as he led ceasefire and hostage-release negotiations with Israel.

Hamas is experiencing a “moral collapse” because of the death of its leader, a separate Israeli official told The Telegraph. “And as a result we might see local commanders in Gaza surrendering with the hostages. There’s still a lot of work to do, but it will be like in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) where we operate almost freely, killing and capturing terrorists. No hotel is safe and no country is safe, and we will continue to hunt the leaders of Hamas,” the official said.

They added that Sinwar’s brother, Muhammad, was likely to replace him as leader. Other contenders for the role are reported to be former chief Khaled Meshaal, who lives in Qatar.

When news of Sinwar’s death was announced over a loudspeaker on a beach in Tel Aviv, Israelis broke into cheers and applause.

Some hostage families last night urged the government of Mr Netanyahu to reach a deal with Hamas to free the remaining hostages.

“We’re calling on the Israeli government and the US administration to act swiftly and do whatever is needed to reach a deal with the captors. We are at an inflection point where the goals set for the war with Gaza have been achieved, all but the release of the hostages,” said Orna and Ronan  Neutra, parents of the Israeli-American hostage Omer.

This is Israel’s “we got him” moment, the chance finally to echo Barack Obama’s famous words as he announced the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011.

For there is no question that what bin Laden was to Americans, Yahya Sinwar has been to Israelis.

That the Hamas leader who conceived, planned and orchestrated the atrocity of Oct 7, 2023 is now dead will be both a moment of catharsis for the Israeli people and of unalloyed triumph for Benjamin Netanyahu, their prime minister.

In Washington, as well as in the capital cities of Europe and the Middle East, there will also be hope that this is the moment that marks the beginning of the end of the horrors of the past year in Gaza.

With neither Sinwar nor Netanyahu prepared to budge, the prospect of a ceasefire has looked as remote as ever in recent weeks.

But as John Kirby, the national security communications adviser at the White House, noted last month, “everything is unrealistic until all of a sudden it’s not any more”.

Such an opportunity is now there for the plucking, if Mr Netanyahu is so minded.

There are plenty of logical reasons to think that the prime minister would embrace the gift that has fallen into his lap.

With Israeli troops bogged down in an attritional war in Gaza, it had become difficult to define what victory might look like.

‘Dead man walking’

Yet the killing of Sinwar, one of Israel’s prime objectives in its Gaza offensive, represents a clear bookend to the war. Netanyahu had long called Sinwar a “dead man walking”. He is not walking any more and the Americans will be urging the prime minister to “take the win”.

Likewise, there is a domestic political victory in Mr Netanyahu’s grasp. 

Not long ago his survival as prime minister looked highly improbable. But Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, and many of his top lieutenants, boosted the prime minister’s poll ratings.

That Israeli forces have now managed to kill Sinwar less than three weeks later will magnify his popularity still further. It would also give him the mandate, should he wish to take it, to secure a deal with Hamas that would allow the return of the surviving Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza.

For Hamas, too, there will be greater incentives to revive ceasefire talks.

Even by Hamas standards, Sinwar was an extremist.

He not only oversaw the rebuilding of the movement’s military wing but also led a purge of suspected collaborators so brutally – at one point forcing a Hamas fighter to bury his own brother alive – that he earned the nickname “the butcher of Khan Younis”.

Such a man was never likely to compromise, an obduracy that only increased in recent months, according to US intelligence assessments, because he believed that Israel would kill him whatever he did.

Given who Sinwar was, whoever succeeds him can only be less hardline, less in the pocket of Iran and more open to compromise.

The most likely candidate, Khaled Meshaal, is regarded as a pragmatist who was passed over for the overall leadership of Hamas in August following the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the former leader, in an Israeli drone strike in Tehran.

Such an appointment would weaken Iranian influence over Hamas and bolster the sway of Turkey and Qatar, both of whom are anxious for a ceasefire. Iran may push for the position to be given to Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas figure who is seen as being close to Tehran but is also considered far more pragmatic and less pliable than Sinwar.

American pressure on Mr Netanyahu to enter into meaningful talks, already increasing in recent weeks, is now likely to grow significantly as well, with President Biden desperate to secure some kind of breakthrough before the US presidential election in November.

Yet just because logic dictates that the moment for a ceasefire has now arrived, it is a leap to suggest that peace is  preordained.

Those on the Right wing of Mr Netanyahu’s cabinet are unlikely to be assuaged so easily and will keep up the pressure on him to fulfil his promise of “total victory”, the full dismantling of Hamas and the long-term occupation of at least parts of Gaza.

On Thursday night, he said that he would continue the war until all the hostages are freed – but Israeli officials told The Telegraph that urgent meetings were being held between the security establishment and the ceasefire negotiation team.

There is also the issue of Iran, whose missile barrage of Oct 1 has so far gone unanswered. Israel is almost bound to retaliate and the scale of its response may well dictate whether hopes of a ceasefire are realised or whether the dogs of war remain unleashed.

It is arguably the oldest and simplest battlefield tactic out there: swarming, the attempt – usually by a side richer in numbers than firepower – to overwhelm the opposition not necessarily by precision or force, but by sheer numbers. 

In centuries gone by, those numbers might have comprised surging ground troops or volleys of ammunition. But today, as with so many aspects of modern warfare, the task can be done by drones. Dozens, or perhaps even hundreds or thousands, of cheap, devastating drones.

On Sunday evening it reportedly only took a few drones for Hezbollah to infiltrate Israel’s normally impregnable “Iron Dome” air defences, but the impact was vast: on one of the bloodiest days since October 7 2023, four Israeli soldiers and around 60 people were injured in a strike at a military base in the north of the country. 

Hezbollah said it targeted the camp using a “swarm of kamikaze drones”, which “broke through the Israel defence radars without detection.”

An Israeli military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said they are “studying and investigating the incident – how a drone infiltrated without warning and struck the base”. His conclusion was bashful. “We must provide better defence.”

Ruinous and deadly though they may be, drone swarms are no longer surprising in the modern theatre of war. The Israel-Gaza conflict is just one inevitable setting for the tactic. Another is the 600-mile frontline of the Ukraine-Russia war, where it has been estimated that up to 10,000 drones are in the air on any given day. 

In the Red Sea, Houthi rebels have also shown an increasing inclination towards using swarms of sea drones to threaten commercial ships and intimidate western warships. One evening in January, a group of 18 drones – thought to be the relatively inexpensive Iranian-designed Shahad 136 – were flown towards merchant vessels and US and British warships patrolling the region. HMS Diamond shot down seven.

“This isn’t revolutionary, but it is different. Drones have existed for a very long time, but when you think about them in the Afghanistan war [for example], they existed in small numbers because people thought of them as aeroplanes without pilots, and most were almost as big as that,” says Professor Michael Clarke, visiting professor in the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London.

“The Western powers were very slow to cop on to the idea that much smaller, cheaper drones could be used as weapons, and in numbers, that’s the point. Not three or four, [but] 40 or 50 potentially.” The “wake-up call”, Prof Clarke says, came during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, when Azerbaijani drones wrought havoc on the Armenian forces from the air.

“Their targets were Russian T-72 tanks. I remember even our own military said, ‘Bloody hell, this is what we need to prepare for.’ So it wasn’t the existence of the drone, it was the use of them, efficiently, and in numbers.” He returns to that maxim of swarming, the oldest trick in the book. “It doesn’t matter if it’s ballistic missiles or troops, if the numbers are high enough, you’ll always overwhelm the defence.”

The drones used in Armenia were not of the kamikaze kind, but rather raptors, meaning they came back and could be used again.

Increasingly that is not necessary, however, as drones the military can cheaply replace have entered the fray. In fact, the development of very affordable – between $300 and $500 – First Person View (FPV) drones, which are by far the most common on the Ukrainian battlefield, has arguably changed war forever.

Currently, FPVs have skilled human pilots to fly them to the right targets using headsets and controllers not at all dissimilar from a games console. In the future, even that pilot won’t be necessary. “It’s entirely plausible, and we’re embarking on it already, of letting artificial intelligence control the drones, and then you could have thousands of drones with just one person looking after them. And if enough are used, they’ll overpower any system. That’s what happened to the Israelis on Sunday.” 

For a few hundred dollars, then, a drone could feasibly wreak damage into the hundreds of millions. In swarms, they have an even better chance. Prof Clarke points out that Ukraine took delivery of over 1,000 small flat-packed Corvo drones from SYPAQ in Australia. Made from cardboard and invisible to radar, they are essentially toys, and fly too slowly for many modern radars to detect them. (“They’re essentially like birds,” he says.)

The Ukrainians fixed fragmentation bombs to them and sent a swarm of 16 to attack an enemy base in Pskov in Russia. They disabled at least five Russian fighter jets and some radar units, causing billions of rubles worth of damage. Unsurprisingly, President Zelensky wishes to up the ante: at the end of last year he said Ukraine aimed to produce a million drones in 2024.

Still, when most of us think of drone swarms, the image that comes to mind might well be a flock of hundreds of whirring machines with LEDs attached, creating a light display as an eco-friendly alternative to fireworks. Such displays are now commonplace at royal events, New Year’s Eve or at Glastonbury, but they’re also a familiar sight in heavily militarised societies, where they have come to replace the traditional military parade.

It doesn’t take a great leap of the imagination to picture a future in which those drones are used not to impress but kill. Indeed, a now-viral clip from the 2019 Gerard Butler film Angel Has Fallen has laid it out: small drones, en masse, can be like a giant swarm of bees. You could swat one, but not all of them.

“We enjoy these fabulous displays, with a cityscape or Spitfire or whatever being formed in the night sky, but it’s the same technology to make weapons of war, so who’s going to do it first?” Prof Clarke says. “In battle terms, the area below 5,000ft is a new section of aerial warfare: it’s the drone domain now.”

So how to defend against them? “Ultimately, the focus has got to be on electronic counter-measures. It’s an arms race. You see hapless Russian soldiers taking pot-shots at them, but you see over Ukraine and Gaza now, even the sound of a drone creates terror. Just like the Doodlebugs in the Second World War, the psychological phenomenon is a weapon in itself.”

There are almost as many potential defence tactics as there are drones, but one will surely win out. Traditional air defences are not only ill-suited but often too expensive: former US defence officials have said the best weapon against small drones is the Standard Missile-2, a medium-range air defence weapon. The latest version, the Block IV, is $2.1 million a shot. Even if a swarm attack wasn’t successful, then, it could be financially crippling.

The futuristic solutions vary from solid-state lasers, which are being used by the US to disable unmanned aerial vehicles, to guns that fire at all angles to snag as many drones as possible, to new AI-powered censors that could detect drones flying much lower and slower than traditional aerial weapons, allowing traditional weapons to take them down earlier. Perhaps due to haste, Israel is currently focusing on the latter.

The British Army is not ignorant to the matter. The much-debated, sixth-generation Tempest fighter jet, which will have its future revealed in the defence review early next year, may be fitted with its own drone swarms, known as the Autonomous Collaborative Platforms (ACP) or “loyal wingman”. The pilot would be able to send swarms just as they do missiles.

Prof Clarke believes this is a matter that only underlines how the soldiers of the future won’t necessarily need simply “belligerence and the ability to carry their luggage across the Brecon Beacons in terrible weather.” Instead, as foes unleash the drones of war, they’ll need to be technically proficient.

“The British are up with all this, conceptually, but they’re scratching their heads about it, what we can do about it, and whether we can afford to do anything about it. We’ll find out in the defence review,” he says. “But if Hezbollah can do it, we can be sure everyone we might find ourselves up against in the next 40 years certainly will.”

Australia’s prime minister has been accused of “diabolical optics” for buying a £2.2 million cliff-top villa while the country is in the grip of a housing crisis.

Anthony Albanese’s purchase of the beach house in the town of Copacabana on the coast of New South Wales could hurt his chances in the forthcoming general election, according to his party’s own MPs.

The purchase of the property was revealed on Tuesday, just as the leader of the centre-Left Labor Party was announcing measures, including building more homes, to deal with the housing crisis.

Millions of Australians have been struggling to afford to rent or buy property.

Mr Albanese, 61, was criticised by political opponents and mocked by media commentators for the timing of the purchase.

His decision to buy a property “with ocean views so expansive that they would challenge the visual field of an owl, right in the middle of a national housing crisis, right before an election campaign” was a “baffling strategic initiative”, commentator Annabel Crabb wrote for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

An estate agent listing says the A$4.3 million four-bedroom, three-bathroom house occupies “a premier location to enjoy sun, whale watching or spectacular sunsets year-round”.

It has “uninterrupted ocean views from all levels” and boasts “timber-lined cathedral ceilings” and “mesmerising ocean views”.

There is no suggestion that the prime minister has done anything wrong in buying the property.

But the purchase is not a good look at a time when so many Australians are struggling to pay their mortgages or to get onto the property ladder in the first place, critics said.

The next federal election, due to be held by May, will be fought in part on the issue of housing affordability.

Several MPs from Mr Albanese’s party said the timing of the purchase was disastrous from a political point of view.

‘Act of self-sabotage’

“I can’t think of a greater act of self-sabotage in my life. I am gobsmacked,” one unnamed MP told The Sydney Morning Herald.

“Some people [within Labor] were aware and tried to stop it. My instinct is this is f—ing terrible.”

The prime minister said he decided to buy a property on the Central Coast of NSW because that is where his fiancée, Jodie Haydon, is from.

He said she was a “proud coastie” (coastal dweller) and that three generations of her family had lived in the region.

But at least two Labor MPs said he should have delayed the purchase until after the election. “It’s not a good look,” said one.

“The optics are diabolical,” said Tony Barry, a political strategist. “One of the golden rules of leadership is that you just can’t do all the things you’d like to do. Like overseas holidays, like selling investment properties, like buying spectacular waterfront real estate.”

When quizzed about the property acquisition at a press conference in Queensland, Mr Albanese insisted he knew what it was like to struggle financially.

“My mum lived in the one public housing [home] that she was born in for all of her 65 years. I know what it is like, which is why I want to help all Australians into a home.”

“Of course, I am much better off as prime minister, I earn a good income, I understand that.”

Critics said it could turn out to be his “Hawaii moment” – a reference to the decision taken by the former prime minister, Scott Morrison, to take a family holiday in Hawaii in December 2019 during the Black Summer bushfires that engulfed large parts of the country.

The decision caused outrage, with many Australians accusing him of abandoning the country at a time of national emergency.

Mr Morrison, known by the nickname “ScoMo”, was forced to cut short his holiday and apologise for the “great anxiety” it had caused.

Iranian border guards have reportedly killed dozens of Afghans in a massacre as they attempted to enter the country.

The Islamic Republic’s border forces ambushed and opened fire on a group of about 300 migrants trying to reach Iran on Sunday night, multiple sources have reported.

“Dozens of Afghan nationals at the Saravan border were targeted,” said the Haalvsh human rights news agency, which monitors rights violations in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan region.

Border guards directly fired bullets and rockets at migrants, according to Haalvsh.

The alleged massacre follows a crackdown by the Iranian regime on migrants fleeing the Taliban.

The Islamic Republic has said it hopes to achieve two million deportations by March next year.

Survivors of the shooting reported out of the 300 Afghan migrants present, only about 60 to 70 were unhurt.

The rest were either killed or seriously injured.

The Telegraph cannot independently confirm the exact number of casualties. The shooting happened in a remote region with no internet access.

“We were at the Kalagan border when they ambushed us,” one survivor said. “We were around 300 people, maybe 50 or 60 people survived unscathed, everyone else was either martyred or injured. Twelve of my friends were also killed.”

Videos purportedly showing the aftermath of the massacre show a harrowing scene at the border.

The Telegraph has chosen not to publish the videos, which show the bodies of a number of migrants lying motionless in the desert and their clothes stained with blood.

One video, shot at night, shows a man desperately attempting to stem blood flowing from a severely wounded companion.

With only a scarf at his disposal, he wraps it around the victim’s legs but the fabric quickly becomes saturated with the amount of blood pouring from the wounds.

“He is my cousin and he was shot four times,” a man’s voice could be heard saying. “It happened when we were crossing into Iran.”

In another clip, a bloodied and injured man with signs of gunshots on his body reaches for water. He appears to be parched from the desert heat and trauma.

His companions, however, urgently caution him against drinking. “Don’t drink water,” they warn. “It will deteriorate your condition.”

Several wounded migrants were transferred to a clinic in a nearby Pakistani town. However, before the local police could arrive to document the necessary legal paperwork, the injured migrants left the centre.

A smuggler in Afghanistan’s Nimroz province, where the migrants began their journey, confirmed the shooting to The Telegraph.

The man said he had lost contact with several of the migrants he sent to the border.

“I don’t know whether they’re dead or alive,” he said. “They’re all desperate, poor people just trying to reach Iran, find work and send money back to their starving families.

“It doesn’t get worse than killing someone who is just trying to enter your country to work and help their family survive. Who knows what will happen to their families now.”

‘Crime against humanity’

However, the Islamic Republic’s special representative for Afghanistan denied the shooting.

“As of now, it has been confirmed that reports of dozens of illegal migrants dying at the Saravan border are false,” Hassan Kazemi Ghomi claimed.

“A legal response to the illegal entry of unauthorised migrants is a legitimate right of countries, and border forces are obligated to prevent the entry of illegal nationals,” he added.

He said the Islamic Republic “is determined to return unauthorised refugees and to take legal action against their illegal entry at all border points”.

Reports of the shooting have sparked outrage inside and outside Afghanistan with a former attorney general describing it as a “crime against humanity”.

“The brutal Iranian regime took out its frustrations with Israel on innocent Afghans,” one Taliban official said. “Our neighbours are far more savage and cruel than Israel.”

According to the UN, about 4.5 million Afghans live in Iran, with many having fled the country since the government takeover of the Taliban in 2021.

To prevent more migrants entering the country, Tehran is also building a 13ft-tall wall along a stretch of the 900km-long border with Afghanistan.

Afghans in Iran face severe restrictions after the Islamic Republic launched a crackdown aimed at deporting two million by March next year.

They are banned from buying groceries, renting homes and visiting certain areas.

The former prime minister of New Zealand has been made a dame by the Prince of Wales, despite being a republican.

Jacinda Ardern, 44, said she was conflicted about accepting the accolade when she was awarded her country’s second-highest honour last year for leading New Zealand through the Covid pandemic.

As prime minister, she was outspoken about her views that the country would become a republic within her lifetime, but did not make it a priority of her six years in government.

On Wednesday, Prince William made her a Dame Grand Commander of the New Zealand Order of Merit at Windsor Castle.

Dame Jacinda donned a traditional Maori cloak (Korowai), which is often worn during special ceremonies, after she was made a Dame.

Speaking after the ceremony, the former leader said receiving the damehood had been “particularly special” as the pair had got to know each other over recent years, particularly through their work on the Prince’s environmental Earthshot Prize.

Of the royal honour, Dame Jacinda said she was “incredibly honoured and very humbled” and that she felt it acknowledged her family, her former colleagues and New Zealanders who gave her the “extraordinary privilege of serving them for five years”.

Previously, when her damehood was announced, the former prime minister said she was “incredibly humbled” but “in two minds” about accepting the accolade.

She explained: “So many of the things we went through as a nation over the last five years were about all of us rather than one individual.

“But I have heard that said by so many Kiwis who I have encouraged to accept an honour over the years. And so for me this is a way to say thank you – to my family, to my colleagues, and to the people who supported me to take on the most challenging and rewarding role of my life.”

She served as prime minister from 2017 to 2023 and was recognised for her leadership during the pandemic and the 2019 Christchurch terror attacks.

Speaking during her premiership, she said she thought that New Zealand ditching the monarchy was an inevitability.

Dame Jacinda made clear she was personally in favour of the country becoming a republic, but while prime minister she insisted that she had other more pressing issues to deal with.

In her first comments on the issue of republicanism after Elizabeth II’s death, Dame Jacinda said: “I’ve made my view plain many times. I do believe that is where New Zealand will head, in time. I believe it is likely to occur in my lifetime.”

The New Zealand government announced in June 2023 that it would bestow the country’s second-highest honour on Ms Ardern to mark the King’s official birthday.

It marked the second time last year that Dame Jacinda had been recognised by the Royal family, with the King personally approving damehoods.

Ms Ardern, who claimed she did not have “enough in the tank” to stand for re-election when she resigned in 2023, was also appointed a trustee of the Prince of Wales’s Earthshot Prize last April.

Wednesday’s investiture comes ahead of the King’s tour of Australia and Samoa, where he will attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting with the Queen.

The tour – which marks his first to a realm as monarch – had been planned to include New Zealand, but the palace confirmed over the summer that the country would not be included in their itinerary while he undertook a “limited” programme as he continues his treatment for cancer.

The King was said to be “disappointed” not to be visiting New Zealand but both sides are said to be aware of the need to pace himself during his ongoing treatment.

A father hired a sex worker for his 13-year-old son then said “don’t be a p—y” when he said he did not want to have sex, a court has heard.

The man – who cannot be named to protect the boy’s identity – booked two rooms at a hotel in Bromley, south-east London, and arranged for a pair of sex workers to attend, Croydon Crown Court heard. The boy told his father he did not want to have sex with a 26-year-old.

The father also offered a line of cocaine to his son – who replied: “I’m f—ing 13, that’s ridiculous.”

The man pleaded guilty to arranging for a child to engage in sexual activity, as well as offering to supply cocaine.

Martin Ingle, prosecuting, said the man took his son to dinner then told him he had “bought a brass [prostitute]”.

When his son told him he didn’t want that, the father blamed it on the boy’s mother being “overprotective” and told him “don’t be a p—y”. 

The father added that the sex workers were already in a taxi so it was too late to cancel, the court heard.

When the two women arrived the boy was taken to a separate room where a 26-year-old sex worker performed a sex act on him, the court heard.

In a police statement the boy said he did not want to do it and he was left feeling disgusted.

The father then paid the women £150 each and they left.

When the boy’s mother found out what had happened she drove her son to the police station and the father was later arrested, Mr Ingle said.

The defendant appeared in court but chose not to be represented by a barrister. He said: “I can’t have this hanging over my head, I just need it over with.”

Tony Hyams-Parish, the judge, warned him the offence has a starting point of five years and that he faces “significant” prison time.

The case was adjourned for sentencing at a later date.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have bought a property in Portugal, it has been claimed.

It comes almost two years after the couple were asked by the King to give up their Windsor home, Frogmore Cottage.

The new home will give the Sussexes a base in Europe, enabling them to stay over whenever they make the transatlantic flight to visit friends or family.

It may also allow them to acquire a so-called Golden Visa, which allows visa-free access to the European Union’s Schengen area, the Daily Mail reported.

The couple spent several days in Portugal last September, when they are understood to have stayed with the Duke’s cousin, Princess Eugenie, 34, and her husband Jack Brooksbank, 38.

‘Mega-secret’ trips to Europe

The romantic three-night break came after they attended the Invictus Games in Germany and before heading back home to their children, Archie, now five, and Lilibet, three.

The couple were said to have flown from Dusseldorf to Lisbon before travelling an hour south to the coastal town of Melides, in the Alentejo region, in a “mega-secret” operation.

A source close to the Sussexes confirmed they had been to Portugal.

Princess Eugenie and Mr Brooksbank split their time between London and the CostaTerra Golf and Ocean Club in Melides where Mr Brooksbank works in marketing and sales at the resort in the Alentejo region

The Duke and Duchess have remained close to the couple, who have visited them at their home in Montecito, California. Like them, they have two young children, August, three, and Ernest, one.

Harry and Meghan were with Jack and Eugenie in Toronto when the news of their relationship became public knowledge in October 2016.

The foursome had dressed up for Halloween to enjoy “one final fun night out” before their relationship was revealed to the world.

In February 2022, Prince Harry was joined by Princess Eugenie at the Super Bowl in California. She was also the only member of the royal family to appear in new footage during their Netflix documentary series Harry and Meghan, released in December 2022.

The Duke and Duchess purchased their first home together, a sprawling, nine-bedroomed property in Montecito, California, in June 2020 for $14.6 million (£11.2 million).

Their office has been contacted for comment.

Landlords look set to be exempt from Rachel Reeves’s capital gains tax (CGT) raid after Telegraph Money campaigned for Labour to end its war on property investors. 

In a victory for this newspaper, second homeowners and buy-to-let investors will be spared any rises to the levy which instead will target shares and other assets. 

It comes after months of uncertainty over how the Chancellor would raise billions in taxes at the Budget, leading to fears landlords would be hit with higher CGT bills.

Reports previously suggested the tax could be increased in line with income levies which could have forced higher-earning property investors to hand over as much as 45pc of their profits on homes to the taxman. 

However, sources told The Times on Wednesday night that a rise in CGT would apply only to the sales of shares and other assets while second homes will be exempt.

It means the CGT rate paid by these homeowners will remain untouched at 24pc for higher-rate taxpayers.

Reeves is instead poised to raise the current 20pc rate levied on the sale of shares and could target other assets, while some reliefs in the current system are also expected to be axed. 

The move is expected to raise an amount in the “low billions”, a government source told the newspaper. 

When the last government cut the rate on second homes from 28pc to 24pc in its final budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility said that doing so would in fact raise almost £700m because the number of property transactions would increase. 

Revenues from capital gains tax can fluctuate widely because changes in the behaviour of a very small number of people can have a large impact. 

Just 12,000 people pay two thirds of the £15bn a year raised from capital gains tax.

HMRC has estimated that increasing capital gains tax by 10 points would reduce Treasury revenues. 

“Very large tax rate rises can reduce exchequer yield due to taxpayer behavioural impacts,” it said.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that any increases in capital gains tax should be accompanied by reforms to the system, such as by charging the levy on assets after people die.

Just 12,000 people pay two-thirds of the £15bn a year raised from capital gains tax.

The Telegraph has heard from dozens of buy-to-let investors planning to quit the property market altogether amid the threat of a tax raid and reams of new regulations under the Labour government.

There are signs an exodus of landlords has already begun, increasing demand for housing and driving up rents for tenants. Rightmove figures show that 18pc of homes currently on the market are former rental properties, compared with just 8pc in 2010.

A Conservative spokesman told The Telegraph: “The truth is that during the election we repeatedly warned that Labour’s sums didn’t add up and that they were planning to raise taxes.

“The real scandal is that despite planning these tax rises all along, they didn’t have the courage to front up to it to the public during the election campaign.”

More than half of all capital gains relates to the sale of shares, while just 12pc is from the sale of property.

Last month Lord Wolfson, the chief executive of Next, sold £29m of his shares in the homewares giant, leading City analysts to speculate that the sell-offs were an attempt to sell them before any raid. 

Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, has signalled that the Government will increase capital gains tax but rejected reports it could rise to as much as 39pc.

He said that the suggestions of such a big rise were “wide of the mark”.

It comes as Ms Reeves prepares to launch the biggest Budget tax raid in history in her maiden Budget later this month. 

It will involve as much as £35bn of tax rises – the most on record in cash terms – as she protects her commitment to ending “austerity” and attempts to ensure departments avoid real-terms cuts in spending.

There is also speculation that the budget will include the first increase in fuel duty for 13 years. 

Ministers have also refused to rule out raising employers national insurance in a move that is set to raise significant sums. 

Critics claim raising employer NICs would breach the spirit of Labour’s manifesto- which pledged not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT. 

This article contains images showing injured animals. 

A scandal-hit zoo where a keeper was mauled to death by a tiger is embroiled in further controversy after images revealed the scale of alleged animal abuse. 

South Lakes Safari Zoo in Dalton-in-Furness, Cumbria, is accused of failing to prevent avoidable animal deaths, neglecting animal welfare and breeding a hostile working environment.

The zoo’s past has been marked by a litany of safety issues, including the death of Sarah McClay, 24, who was attacked by a tiger; the escape of a white rhino that was later shot; and the deaths of 30 lemurs in a fire.

Former staff handed the BBC graphic photographs taken between 2017 and 2019 showing dead and injured animals.

One picture shows a zebra with its hoof stuck in the bars of a pen, with former employees claiming management ignored concerns that the animal was stressed from being kept indoors. The zebra was later put down. 

Other images display a capybara covered in cuts from fighting and a giraffe with a bloodied head after it threw itself against the bar of its enclosure. 

The zoo’s management denied “each and every allegation” and cited a history of positive independent inspections.

However, one former employee said that “fighting” and “inbreeding” had become commonplace because “animals were housed in inappropriate social groups”. She added that she had witnessed severe injuries and deaths that “could have been avoided”.

Another employee claimed: “A peacock flew into the giant otter enclosure and the two giant otters ripped its head off in front of a school group.”

The Captive Animals’ Protection Society called on the local council to revoke the South Lakes’ licence in 2017 after reports of nearly 500 animal deaths between 2013 and 2016.

The RSPCA also launched an investigation before David Gill, the zoo’s owner, was refused a licence, prompting the Cumbria Zoo Company Limited to take charge and promise widespread improvements.

“Nothing changed under this new management and animals suffered greatly,” a former employee said, adding: “I saw staff in tears, I saw staff leaving regularly.”

Another former staff member said: “Staff were broken at times, completely broken.

“There was shouting at people and belittling people. The morning meeting turned into isolating and humiliating people.”

Cumbria Zoo Company told the BBC that it “wholly denied and disputed” claims that it had ever “engaged in any practices which has led to the death, injury or poor treatment of animals”.

The company said: “We do not accept that there is a ‘bullying culture’ or that staff are overworked.

“We take any allegations of bullying extremely seriously, and when they are made they need to be fully investigated and dealt with.”

Karen Brewer, the company’s new chief executive, told the BBC: “The zoo is subject to regular inspections by local authority inspectors and if there were issues of the sorts described, they would have been addressed by the inspectors.

“We keep comprehensive records of all animal injuries. As a licensed zoo, animal welfare is our prime concern and we dispute these allegations.

“We find these claims to be outrageous and have no substance in fact. Our veterinary team are internationally recognised and unrivalled in their field.”

Westmorland and Furness Council conducted an unannounced inspection of the zoo in March and raised welfare concerns after finding a work experience student left unsupervised with dangerous animals.

Inspectors also found rhinos being kept indoors for more than 17 hours straight as “senior staff may be spread too thin”. They also said underinvestment could result in failure to manage animals properly, posing a “potential danger to animals, staff and the public”.

The council conducted a follow-up visit in June and reported that 26 of 28 improvement directions were being complied with.

In May 2013, zookeeper McClay was killed after a tiger escaped through an open door into the corridor where she was working, dragging her by the neck back into its enclosure. 

South Lakes has been approached for comment.

A British social media influencer who fell to his death as he climbed a Spanish bridge for an Instagram stunt has been pictured for the first time.

Lewis Stevenson, 26, fell from the 630ft (192m) Castilla-La Mancha bridge in Talavera de la Reina, 75 miles south-west of Madrid, on Sunday.

The freeclimber was attempting to scale the cable-stayed bridge without safety equipment when he died.

Speaking from his home in Derby, Clifford Stevenson, 70, confirmed that his grandson had died in the incident.

“We all tried to talk him out of it. We were always trying to talk him out of doing things but that was the way he was,” he told MailOnline.

“He loved doing it, always went out there believing he’d be all right. He did what he did for his own pleasure. He did not get any money for it, he was an adventurer.”

Savannah Parker, Mr Stevenson’s girlfriend, said that he slipped from the bridge after fainting.

“He didn’t just fall,” she said. “He lost consciousness because he wasn’t feeling well. His friend who he was with sent me over his police statement.

“He told his friend he wasn’t feeling well and he said: ‘Shall we go back down?’ Lewis said, ‘Give me a minute,’ and that’s when he lost consciousness and slipped.

“I suspect that he hadn’t eaten because he wouldn’t care if he was hungry or thirsty, he’d do something.”

Ms Parker, 25, said Mr Stevenson was due to return to Britain on Monday and that the last thing he told her was, “Good night, I love you,” on Saturday night.

She added: “Every time he went away I would tell him to be careful.

“As much as it worries me, I don’t look into things because I worry enough as it is and I just let him do his thing and generally he just comes back. This weekend he didn’t.”

Mr Stevenson’s social media profiles show him on top of skyscrapers in cities around the world, including London and New York.

Macarena Muñoz, the local councillor for citizen security, said Stevenson and another 24-year-old British man had “come to Talavera to climb the bridge and create content for social networks, which has resulted in this unfortunate and sad outcome”.

Climbing the bridge is “totally prohibited”, she added.

A spokesman for the national police in Toledo said: “He was about 40 to 50 metres up, about a quarter of the total height of the bridge, when he fell.”

The other climber, whose identity is not known, survived.

Donald Trump used his speech at the annual Al Smith dinner in New York to mock Kamala Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff over his affair during his first marriage.

Speaking at the star-studded white tie dinner in New York, the former president delivered a speech that was mostly good humoured and drew laughter from the crowd as he poked fun at his political opponents.

Trump advised his rival Ms Harris to keep her husband Doug Emhoff “away from the nannies”. 

Acknowledging that he had an affair during his first marriage with his daughter’s teacher, Mr Emhoff said in a statement in August: “During my first marriage, Kerstin and I went through some tough times on account of my actions. I took responsibility, and in the years since, we worked through things as a family and have come out stronger on the other side.” 

Trump also took aim at Ms Harris’s running mate Tim Walz, saying: “I used to think the Democrats were crazy for saying that men don’t have periods, but then I met Tim Walz” – a reference to Mr Walz’s progressive stances on sanitary products and transgender rights in his home state of Minnesota.

The glitzy dinner in New York raises millions of dollars for Catholic charities and has traditionally offered candidates from both parties the chance to trade light-hearted barbs, poke fun at themselves, and show that they can get along — or at least pretend to — for one night in the election’s final stretch.

Trump’s speech marked a stark contrast from his 2016 appearance, in which he was booed after unleashing a torrent of insults towards his then opponent Hillary Clinton whom he labelled “corrupt” and accused of “pretending not to hate Catholics”.

Instead, the former president drew whoops and cheers from the crowd for some of his jests, and even toyed with self-deprecation.

“Tradition holds I need to tell a few self-deprecating jokes,” he said. “So here it goes: Nope! I’ve got nothing, there is nothing to say.”

The seating plan threw up an awkward situation as Trump was sat just a few places away from Letitia James, the New York Attorney-General who last year filed a civil lawsuit against the Trump Organisation. The court found in September 2023 that Trump had committed fraud by over-inflating his wealth by as much as $2 billion (£1.6 billion), though he has brought an appeal.

Melania Trump made a rare appearance alongside her husband at the Catholic fundraiser. The pair appeared to laugh when Saturday Night Live comedian, Jim Gaffigan, joked that America was 19 days away from a “civil war” in reference to election day.

Gaffigan went on to criticise Ms Harris for not attending the traditional dinner but finding time to appear on the Call Her Daddy relationship and sex podcast. 

In her pre-recorded address aired at the gala Ms Harris said that making jokes about Catholics at the prestigious dinner would be like criticising Detroit while speaking at an event in Detroit, something Trump did on the campaign trail. 

Taking a swipe at the incumbent president, Trump joked: “Joe is almost disappeared from view, the only way he could be seen less is if he had a show on CNN.”

In a tonal change from the mostly good-natured speech, Trump went on to call former speaker Nancy Pelosi “crazy” and referred to “Barack Hussein Obama”. He went on to say Ms Harris has “the faculties of a child”. 

Eric Adams, the mayor of New York made an appearance at the dinner despite his mounting legal troubles. 

Trump joked about being happy to be in New York without being served a subpoena. Turning to Mr Adams he said: “you’re peanuts compared to what they’ve done for me”. 

He allied himself to Mr Adams saying they were both “persecuted” by the Department of Justice.

Mr Adams was charged last month with accepting illegal campaign contributions and lavish overseas trips from Turkish officials.

Kamala Harris campaigned on Thursday with Mark Cuban, the controversial billionaire and former Republican donor who was fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for admonishing players and referees on the basketball court.

The vice-president visited Milwaukee, Wisconsin, flanked by the Shark Tank investor and businessman who has caught headlines in recent years for alleged inappropriate behaviour.

Mr Cuban, 66, is a billionaire investor who rose to fame as one of the original “sharks” on ABC’s startup reality show.

But he has also been criticised for his conduct as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, when he racked up over one million dollars in fines by the NBA, largely for criticising players and referees.

He sold his controlling stake in the team in December 2023, following a period of instability at the organisation involving a sexual misconduct investigation against various members of staff. He was not personally accused of misconduct.

In September 2018, it was announced he would pay $10 million to women’s and domestic violence organisations after a month-long investigation into staff that included Terdema Ussery, Mr Cuban’s former chief executive.

Although he was not directly accused of sexual misconduct, the investigation criticised Mr Cuban’s handling of the scandal and negotiated his payment to the charities to avoid a fine.

Mr Cuban apologised, telling fans and staff he was sorry he “didn’t recognise it” in the 18 years he had been at the helm.

Mr Cuban was also accused personally of sexually assaulting a fan he posed with for a photo in a Portland bar in 2011.

An unnamed woman came forward to accuse Mr Cuban of touching her inappropriately in the bar, but Mr Cuban denied the charges and the charges were later dropped. He was also acquitted of charges of insider trading brought by the SEC in 2008.

Mr Cuban had considered his own presidential run, and has previously aligned himself with Republican candidates, but has come out in support of Ms Harris during the 2024 campaign.

In 2017, he said he would run for president as a Republican if he was single, describing himself as “socially a centrist but very fiscally conservative”, but criticised Donald Trump for his plans to lower taxes for wealthy Americans.

On Thursday, he and Ms Harris ran a version of the Shark Tank programme for business students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

The Harris-Walz campaign said he had appeared with her to “highlight vice-president Kamala Harris’s vision for investing in small businesses and encourage supporters to vote early for vice-president Harris and Governor Walz”.

The accusations of courtside misconduct by Mr Cuban date back to 2005, when he was fined $25,000 by the NBA for running onto the court during a Mavericks game and criticising officials.

The following year, he was fined a further $250,000 for repeated misconduct. His fines total more than $1 million, and Mr Cuban has said he donates the same value of his fines to charity.

PepsiCo has started adding more chips to bags following complaints about its portion sizes and “shrinkflation”.

Tostitos and Ruffles “bonus” bags will now contain 20 per cent more chips for the same price as standard bags, it said.

However, these will only be sold in select locations.

PepsiCo is also adding two additional small chip bags to its variety-pack option with 18 bags, a spokesman told CNN.

The company is said to be under pressure as customers increasingly opt for supermarket own-brands rather than its own big-brand products.

It has previously been accused of reducing the size of its products while raising prices by Joe Biden, the US president.

‘Snack companies think you won’t notice’

Manufacturers have increasingly cut their sizes of their products to stop prices spiking as grocery inflation soars – a process known as “shrinkflation”.

However, the issue has become politically-fraught after the intervention from Mr Biden earlier this year.

“Too many corporations raise prices to pad the profits, charging more and more for less and less,” the president said in his State of the Union Address in February.

“Snack companies think you won’t notice if they change the size of the bag and put a hell of a lot fewer – same size bag – put fewer chips in it.”

He specifically called out Tostitos in a video released by the White House the same month.

Although Mr Biden did not mention the brand by name, he complained that “a bag of chips has fewer chips” while the clip displayed an image of Tostitos.

Other products shown in the video were Doritos tortilla chips and Gatorade energy drinks, all of which are owned by PepsiCo.

Edgar Dworsky, the founder of the shrinkflation-tracking website Consumer World, said it was “about time” that PepsiCo was adding more chips to bags.

“Chip lovers have suffered through years of downsizings,” he told CNN.

The price per ounce of salty snacks has increased 36 per cent compared to 2020, compared to 21 per cent in overall grocery prices, analyst Robert Moskow said.