A wave of disinformation has been unleashed online since Israel began strikes on Iran last week, with dozens of posts reviewed by BBC Verify seeking to amplify the effectiveness of Tehran’s response.

Our analysis found a number of videos – created using artificial intelligence – boasting of Iran’s military capabilities, alongside fake clips showing the aftermath of strikes on Israeli targets. The three most viewed fake videos BBC Verify found have collectively amassed over 100 million views across multiple platforms.

Pro-Israeli accounts have also shared disinformation online, mainly by recirculating old clips of protests and gatherings in Iran, falsely claiming that they show mounting dissent against the government and support among Iranians for Israel’s military campaign.

Israel launched strikes in Iran on 13 June, leading to several rounds of Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel.

One organisation that analyses open-source imagery described the volume of disinformation online as “astonishing” and accused some “engagement farmers” of seeking to profit from the conflict by sharing misleading content designed to attract attention online.

“We are seeing everything from unrelated footage from Pakistan, to recycled videos from the October 2024 strikes—some of which have amassed over 20 million views—as well as game clips and AI-generated content being passed off as real events,” Geoconfirmed, the online verification group, wrote on X.

Certain accounts have become “super-spreaders” of disinformation, being rewarded with significant growth in their follower count. One pro-Iranian account with no obvious ties to authorities in Tehran – Daily Iran Military – has seen its followers on X grow from just over 700,000 on 13 June to 1.4m by 19 June, an 85% increase in under a week.

It is one many obscure accounts that have appeared in people’s feeds recently. All have blue ticks, are prolific in messaging and have repeatedly posted disinformation. Because some use seemingly official names, some people have assumed they are authentic accounts, but it is unclear who is actually running the profiles.

The torrent of disinformation marked “the first time we’ve seen generative AI be used at scale during a conflict,” Emmanuelle Saliba, Chief Investigative Officer with the analyst group Get Real, told BBC Verify.

• Iran’s secretive nuclear site that only a US bomb could hit
• US moves 30 jets as Iran attack speculation grows
• Is the UK about to get dragged into Iran-Israel conflict?

Accounts reviewed by BBC Verify frequently shared AI-generated images that appear to be seeking to exaggerate the success of Iran’s response to Israel’s strikes. One image, which has 27m views, depicted dozens of missiles falling on the city of Tel Aviv.

Another video purported to show a missile strike on a building in the Israeli city late at night. Ms Saliba said the clips often depict night-time attacks, making them especially difficult to verify.

AI fakes have also focussed on claims of destruction of Israeli F-35 fighter jets, a state-of-the art US-made plane capable of striking ground and air targets. If the barrage of clips were real Iran would have destroyed 15% of Israel’s fleet of the fighters, Lisa Kaplan, CEO of the Alethea analyst group, told BBC Verify. We have yet to authenticate any footage of F-35s being shot down.

One widely shared post claimed to show a jet damaged after being shot down in the Iranian desert. However, signs of AI manipulation were evident: civilians around the jet were the same size as nearby vehicles, and the sand showed no signs of impact.

Another video with 21.1 million views on TikTok claimed to show an Israeli F-35 being shot down by air defences, but the footage actually came from a flight simulator video game. TikTok removed the footage after being approached by BBC Verify.

Ms Kaplan said that some of the focus on F-35s was being driven by a network of accounts that Alethea has previously linked to Russian influence operations.

She noted that Russian influence operations have recently shifted course from trying to undermine support for the war in Ukraine to sowing doubts about the capability of Western – especially American – weaponry.

“Russia doesn’t really have a response to the F-35. So what it can it do? It can seek to undermine support for it within certain countries,” Ms Kaplan said.

Disinformation is also being spread by well-known accounts that have previously weighed in on the Israel-Gaza war and other conflicts.

Their motivations vary, but experts said some may be attempting to monetise the conflict, with some major social media platforms offering pay-outs to accounts achieving large numbers of views.

By contrast, pro-Israeli posts have largely focussed on suggestions that the Iranian government is facing mounting dissent as the strikes continuer

Among them is a widely shared AI-generated video falsely purporting to show Iranians chant “we love Israel” on the streets of Tehran.

However, in recent days – and as speculation about US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites grows – some accounts have started to post AI-generated images of B-2 bombers over Tehran. The B-2 has attracted close attention since Israel’s strikes on Iran started, because it is the only aircraft capable of effectively carrying out an attack on Iran’s subterranean nuclear sites.

Official sources in Iran and Israel have shared some of the fake images. State media in Tehran has shared fake footage of strikes and an AI-generated image of a downed F-35 jet, while a post shared by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) received a community note on X for using old, unrelated footage of missile barrages.

A lot of the Disinformation reviewed by BBC Verify has been shared on X, with users frequently turning to the platform’s AI chatbot – Grok – to establish posts’ veracity.

However, in some cases Grok insisted that the AI videos were real. One such video showed an endless stream of trucks carrying ballistic missiles emerging from a mountainside complex. Tell-tale signs of AI content included rocks in the video moving of their own accord, Ms Saliba said.

But in response to X users, Grok insisted repeatedly that the video was real and cited reports by media outlets including Newsweek and Reuters. “Check trusted news for clarity,” the chatbot concluded in several messages.

X did not respond to a request from BBC Verify for comment on the Chatbot’s actions.

Many videos have also appeared on TikTok and Instagram. In a statement to BBC Verify, TikTok said it proactively enforces community guidelines “which prohibit inaccurate, misleading, or false content” and that it works with independent fact checkers to “verify misleading content”.

Instagram owner Meta did not respond to a request for comment.

While the motivations of those creating online fakes vary, many are shared by ordinary social media users.

Matthew Facciani, a researcher at the University of Notre Dame, suggested that disinformation can spread more quickly online when people are faced with binary choices, such as those raised by conflict and politics.

“That speaks to the broader social and psychological issue of people wanting to re-share things if it aligns with their political identity, and also just in general, more sensationalist emotional content will spread more quickly online.”

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

To say China’s women are outnumbered would be an understatement.

With a staggering 30 million more men than women, one of the world’s most populous countries has a deluge of unattached males.

The odds are heavily stacked against them finding a date, let alone a wife – something many feel pressured to do.

To make matters worse, it’s even harder if you’re from a lower social class, according to Chinese dating coach Hao, who has over 3,000 clients.

“Most of them are working class – they’re the least likely to find wives,” he says.

We see this first-hand in Violet Du Feng’s documentary, The Dating Game, where we watch Hao and three of his clients throughout his week-long dating camp.

All of them, including Hao, have come from poor, rural backgrounds, and were part of the generation growing up after the 90s in China, when many parents left their toddlers with other family members, to go and work in the cities.

That generation are now adults, and are going to the cities themselves to try to find a wife and boost their status.

Du Feng, who is based in the US, wants her film to highlight what life is like for younger generations in her home country.

“In a time when gender divide is so extreme, particularly in China, it’s about how we can bridge a gap and create dialogue,” she tells the BBC.

Hao’s three clients – Li, 24, Wu, 27 and Zhou, 36 – are battling the aftermath of China’s one-child policy.

Set up by the government in 1980 when the population approached one billion, the policy was introduced amid fears that having too many people would affect the country’s economic growth.

But a traditional preference for male children led to large numbers of girls being abandoned, placed in orphanages, sex-selective abortions or even cases of female infanticide. The result is today’s huge gender imbalance.

China is now so concerned about its plummeting birth rate and ageing population that it ended the policy in 2016, and holds regular matchmaking events.

Wu, Li and Zhou want Hao to help them find a girlfriend at the very least.

He is someone they can aspire to be, having already succeeded in finding a wife, Wen, who is also a dating coach.

The men let Hao give them makeovers and haircuts, while he tells them his questionable “techniques” for attracting women – both online and in person.

But while everyone tries their best, not everything goes to plan.

Hao constructs an online image for each man, but he stretches a few boundaries in how he describes them, and Zhou thinks it feels “fake”.

“I feel guilty deceiving others,” he says, clearly uncomfortable with being portrayed as someone he can’t match in reality.

Du Feng thinks this is a wider problem.

“It’s a unique China story, but also it’s a universal story of how in this digital landscape, we’re all struggling and wrestling with the price of being fake in the digital world, and then the cost that we have to pay to be authentic and honest,” she says.

Hao may be one of China’s “most popular dating coaches”, but we see his wife question some of his methods.

Undeterred, he sends his proteges out to meet women, spraying their armpits with deodorant, declaring: “It’s showtime!”

The men have to approach potential dates in a busy night-time shopping centre in Chongqing, one of the world’s biggest cities.

It’s almost painful to watch as they ask women to link up via the messaging app WeChat.

But it does teach them to dig into their inner confidence, which, up until now, has been hidden from view.

Dr Zheng Mu, from the National University of Singapore’s sociology department, tells the BBC how pressure to marry can impact single men.

“In China, marriage or the ability, financially and socially, to get married as the primary breadwinner, is still largely expected from men,” she says.

“As a result, the difficulty of being considered marriageable can be a social stigma, indicating they’re not capable and deserving of the role, which leads to great pressures and mental strains.”

Zhou is despondent about how much dates cost him, including paying for matchmakers, dinner and new clothes.

“I only make $600 (£440) a month,” he says, noting a date costs about $300.

“In the end our fate is determined by society,” he adds, deciding that he needs to “build up my status”.

Du Feng explains: “This is a generation in which a lot of these surplus men are defined as failures because of their economic status.

“They’re seen as the bottom of society, the working class, and so somehow getting married is another indicator that they can succeed.”

We learn that one way for men in China to “break social class” is to join the army, and see a big recruitment drive taking place in the film.

The film notably does not explore what life is like for gay men in China.

Du Feng agrees that Chines society is less accepting of gay men, while Dr Mu adds: “In China, heteronormativity largely rules.

“Therefore, men are expected to marry women to fulfill the norms… to support the nuclear family and develop it into bigger families by becoming parents.”

Technology also features in the documentary, which explores the increasing popularity of virtual boyfriends, saying that over 10 million women in China play online dating games.

We even get to see a virtual boyfriend in action – he’s understanding, undemanding and undeniably handsome.

One woman says real-life dating costs “time, money, emotional energy – it’s so exhausting”.

She adds that “virtual men are different – they have great temperaments, they’re just perfect”.

Dr Mu sees this trend as “indicative of social problems” in China, citing “long work hours, greedy work culture and competitive environment, along with entrenched gender role expectations”.

“Virtual boyfriends, who can behave better aligned with women’s expected ideals, may be a way for them to fulfil their romantic imaginations.”

Du Feng adds: “The thing universally that’s been mentioned is that the women with virtual boyfriends felt men in China are not emotionally stable.”

Her film digs into the men’s backgrounds, including their often fractured relationships with their parents and families.

“These men are coming from this, and there’s so much negative pressure on them – how could you expect them to be stable emotionally?”

Reuters reported last year that “long-term single lifestyles are gradually becoming more widespread in China”.

“I’m worried about how we connect with each other nowadays, especially the younger generation,” Du Feng says.

“Dating is just a device for us to talk about this. But I am really worried.

“My film is about how we live in this epidemic of loneliness, with all of us trying to find connections with each other.”

So by the end of the documentary, which has many comical moments, we see it has been something of a realistic journey of self-discovery for all of the men, including Hao.

“I think that it’s about the warmth as they find each other, knowing that it’s a collective crisis that they’re all facing, and how they still find hope,” Du Feng says.

“For them, it’s more about finding themselves and finding someone to pat their shoulders, saying, ‘I see you, and there’s a way you can make it’.”

Screen Daily’s Allan Hunter says the film is “sustained by the humanity that Du Feng finds in each of the individuals we come to know and understand a little better”, adding it “ultimately salutes the virtue of being true to yourself”.

Hao concludes: “Once you like yourself, it’s easier to get girls to like you.”

Nato summits tend to be “pre-cooked”, not least to present a united front.

Secretary General Mark Rutte has already settled on the menu for their meeting at The Hague: one that will avoid a row with Nato’s most powerful member, the US.

A commitment to increase defence spending by European allies is the dish that President Donald Trump wants served – and that’s exactly what he’ll be getting. Though there will inevitably be the added ingredients of compromise and fudge.

Nor will the summit be able to paper over the cracks between Trump and many of his European allies on trade, Russia and the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

The US president, whose mantra is America First, is not a huge fan of multinational organisations.

He has been highly critical of Nato too – even questioning its very foundation of collective defence. In Trump’s first term, at his first Nato summit, he berated European allies for not spending enough and owing the US “massive amounts of money”.

On that message he has at least been consistent.

Mark Rutte, who has a good relationship with the US president, has worked hard to give him a win.

The summit takes place at the World Forum in The Hague over two days, on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

Now the main discussions will last just three hours and the summit statement is being reduced to five paragraphs, reportedly because of the US president’s demands.

Trump is one of 32 leaders from the Western defensive alliance who are coming, along with the heads of more than a dozen partner countries.

Dutch police have mounted their biggest ever security operation for the most expensive Nato summit so far, at a cost of €183.4m (£155m; $210m).

Some have suggested the brevity of the summit is in part to cater to the US president’s attention span and dislike of long meetings. But a shorter summit with fewer subjects discussed will, more importantly, help hide divisions.

Ed Arnold, of the defence think tank Rusi, says Trump likes to be the star of the show and predicts he’ll be able to claim that he’s forced European nations to act.

In truth he’s not the first US president to criticise allies’ defence spending. But he’s had more success than most. Kurt Volker, a former US ambassador to Nato, admits that some European governments do not like the way Trump’s gone about it – demanding that allies spend 5% of their GDP on defence.

Europe still only accounts for 30% of Nato’s total military spending. Volker says many Europeans now admit they that “we needed to do this, even if it’s unfortunate that it took such a kick in the pants”.

Some European nations are already boosting their defence spending to 5% of their GDP. Most are the countries living in close proximity to Russia – such as Poland, Estonia and Lithuania.

It’s not just Trump who’s been piling on the pressure. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is forcing a response.

But in reality many Nato members will struggle to meet the new target. A few haven’t met the goal of 2%, set more than a decade ago.

Rutte’s compromise formula is for allies to increase their core defence spending to 3.5% of GDP, with an additional 1.5% towards defence-related expenditure.

But the definition of defence-related expenditure appears to be so vague that it might be rendered meaningless. Rutte says it could include the cost of industry of infrastructure – building bridges, roads and railways. Ed Arnold, of Rusi, says it’ll inevitably lead to more “creative accounting”.

Even if, as expected, the new spending target is approved, some nations may have little intent of reaching it – by 2032 or 2035. The timescale’s still unclear. Spain’s prime minister has already called it unreasonable and counterproductive. Sir Keir Starmer hasn’t even been able to say when the UK will spend 3% of its GDP of defence. The UK prime minister only said that it was an ambition some time in the next parliament. However, given the UK government’s stated policy of putting Nato at the heart of the UK’s defence policy, Sir Keir will have to back the new plan.

The real danger is to interpret the demand for an increase in defence spending as arbitrary, a symbolic gesture – or just bowing to US pressure. It’s also driven by Nato’s own defence plans on how it would respond to an attack by Russia. Rutte himself has said that Russia could attack a Nato country within five years.

Those defence plans remain secret. But Rutte’s already set out what the Alliance is lacking. In a speech earlier this month he said Nato needed a 400% increase in its air and missile defences: thousands more armoured vehicles and tanks, and millions more artillery shells.

Most member states, including the UK, do not yet meet their Nato capability commitments. It’s why Sweden plans to double the size of its army and Germany is looking to boost its troop numbers by 60,000.

The plans go into granular detail as to how the Alliance will defend its Eastern flank should Russia invade. In a recent speech, the head of the US Army in Europe, General Christopher Donahue, highlighted the need to defend Polish and Lithuanian territory near the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. He said the Alliance had looked at its existing capabilities and “realised very quickly they are not sufficient”.

Yet, strangely, specific discussions about Russia and the war in Ukraine will be muted. It’s the one big issue that now divides Europe and America. Kurt Volker says, under Trump, the US “does not see Ukrainian security as essential to European security but our European allies do”.

Trump has already shattered Nato’s united front by talking to Putin and withholding military support to Ukraine.

Ed Arnold says contentious issues have been stripped from the summit. Not least to avoid a schism with Trump. Leaders were supposed to discuss a new Russia strategy, but it’s not on the agenda.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been invited to the summit dinner, but he won’t be taking part in the main discussions of the North Atlantic Council.

Rutte will be hoping that his first summit as secretary general will be short and sweet. But with Trump at odds with most of his allies on Russia, the greatest threat facing the Alliance, there’s no guarantee it’ll go according to plan.

Dua Lipa treated fans to a surprise appearance by Jamiroquai, as she played her first ever show at Wembley Stadium.

Bringing out the band’s frontman Jay Kay for a one-off performance of his 1996 hit Virtual Insanity, the star said he was “a massive trailblazer for British music”.

Their performance came half-way through a stunning two-hour show, that saw Lipa tear through hits like Physical, One Kiss, New Rules and Levitating.

”This is such a massive, massive milestone for me,” she told her 70,000 fans. “I’ve had a lump in my throat from the moment this show started.”

Some dedicated fans had camped out since Thursday to see the singer’s UK stadium debut, braving temperatures that exceeded 31C.

“It means the absolute world to me that you’re here tonight,” she told them during the show. “It feels like I’ve waited my whole life for this moment.”

Reflecting on her ascent to the top tier of pop music, the 29-year-old added: ”It’s been 10 years since our first ever London show, which happened to be about 350 people, and I dreamt of a night like this.“

“To be in front of 70,000 people. I’m so, so blown away.”

She then introduced one of her earliest singles, Hotter Than Hell, telling fans it was the track that had earned her a recording contract.

Since then, she has stockpiled an enviable selection of armour-plated hits, most of which got an airing on Friday night.

The show began with a new-agey wash of ocean sounds, that segued seamlessly into her 2024 single, Training Season.

Lipa sang the first verse slowly, over a sultry orchestral backing. But before long, the band kicked into gear, and the disco pulse barely let up for the next two hours.

In many respects, the set played like an extended remix of her triumphant Glastonbury performance last year – full of pin-sharp choreography and fiercely futuristic pop.

Her voice remains a strong point – resonant and flexible, with a hint of the rasp she inherited from her father, Albanian rock singer Dukajin Lipa.

It was particularly effective on the cascading vocal runs of Falling Forever, and the Flamenco-flavoured Maria.

Somehow, Lipa managed not to lose her breath, despite demanding, body-rolling dance routines that only occasionally recalled Jane Fonda’s 1980s keep fit videos. She leaned into the schtick with an interlude instructing her fans to “move those hips” over the intro to Physical.

Jay Kay arrived to a scream of recognition from older members of the audience, suited up in a tasseled white cowboy jacket and pink jeans.

“What a privilege and an honour to be on stage with you,” said the singer, before launching into Virtual Insanity – a song that became a hit when Dua was just one year old.

Between songs, the star spent time getting personal with fans in the front row – borrowing their phones to pose for selfies, signing records (side note: who on earth brings a vinyl record to the front row of a stadium concert?) and even appropriating one person’s scarf to accentuate her own stage outfit.

It was a simple, but personal, touch that helped to illustrate why the star has become only the second British woman after Adele to headline Wembley Stadium.

Watched from the stands by her family, including fiancé Callum Turner, she wrapped up the show with a flawless four-song encore that included some of her biggest hits: New Rules, Don’t Start Now and Dance The Night.

Lipa finished with the psychedelic pop smash Houdini, ratcheting up the tension with a flurry of fireworks as she head-banged to a shredding guitar solo. Then the music suddenly stopped and she vanished in a cloud of smoke.

A powerhouse performance from a star at the top of their game, it was proof that you don’t need giant mechanical props or cutting edge video technology to pull off a compelling stadium show.

Sometimes, the right songs, the right choreography and a generous helping of feel-good energy are enough.

As an added bonus, that keeps the tickets affordable: The most expensive seats cost £155, compared to some stadium shows this summer, where prices have topped £900.

Lipa continues her Radical Optimism tour with a second night at Wembley on Saturday, followed by dates in Liverpool and London before the North American leg kicks off in September.

• Training Season
• End of an Era
• Break My Heart
• One Kiss
• Whatcha Doing
• Levitating
• These Walls
• Hotter Than Hell
• Virtual Insanity (with Jamiroquai)
• Maria
• Physical
• Electricity
• Hallucinate
• Illusion
• Falling Forever
• Happy for You
• Love Again
• Anything For Love
• Be the One

• New Rules
• Dance the Night
• Don’t Start Now
• Houdini

Columbia University graduate and activist Mahmoud Khalil said the Trump administration “chose the wrong person” to target in its crackdown on student protesters as he was released on bail after more than three months in detention.

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the Palestinian was not a flight risk or threat to his community and could be released as his immigration proceedings continue.

Mr Khalil was a prominent voice in Columbia’s pro-Palestinian protests last year, and his 8 March arrest sparked demonstrations in New York and Washington DC.

The government has argued his activism impedes on US foreign policy and moved to have him deported.

Speaking to journalists before heading to New York from Louisiana, where he was held, he said he was most eager to see his wife and his son, who was born during his 104 days in detention.

“The only time I spent [with] my son was a specified one-hour limit that the government had imposed on us,” he said.

“So that means that now I can actually hug him and Noor, my wife, without looking at the clock.”

He also criticised the Trump administration for targeting him for protesting against Israel’s military actions in Gaza: “There’s no right person that should be detained for actually protesting a genocide.”

He did not specifically mention Israel, which emphatically denies accusations of genocide in Gaza, or Jewish people.

In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson accused Mr Khalil of engaging in “fraud and misrepresentation” and “conduct detrimental to American foreign policy interests”.

The White House maintains that Judge Michael Farbiarz did not have jurisdiction to order Mr Khalil’s release.

“We expect to be vindicated on appeal, and look forward to removing Khalil from the United States,” Ms Jackson said.

Mr Khalil, a permanent resident, graduated from Columbia while he was in detention. His wife took his place during the ceremony and accepted his diploma on his behalf.

The government has not accused Mr Khalil of a specific crime.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked a rarely used portion of the Immigration and Nationality Act to argue Mr Khalil’s presence in the US could pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences”.

Last week, Judge Farbiarz ruled Rubio’s justification for detaining Mr Khalil was probably unconstitutional and said the US government could not detain or deport the 30-year-old legal US resident under that reasoning.

Attorneys for the Trump administration then said Mr Khalil was being held for a different charge, failing to disclose information when he applied for lawful permanent residency in 2024.

Mr Khalil’s attorneys had argued that the government violated their client’s free speech rights and the administration targeted him because of his role in protests. They also asked a New Jersey federal court to free him on bail or transfer him closer to his wife and baby.

Throughout Friday’s nearly two-hour hearing, Judge Farbiarz, who presides in the District of New Jersey, expressed scepticism about the government’s requests to hold Mr Khalil while his case moved forward.

He also said Mr Khalil’s arrest and detention on the second charge were “highly unusual”.

• Who is Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian student activist facing US deportation?
• US resumes student visas but orders enhanced social media vetting

“It’s overwhelmingly unlikely that a lawful permanent resident would be held on the remaining charge here,” Judge Farbiarz said, according to CBS News.

He added that there had been an “effort to use the immigration charge here to punish the petitioner” for his protests.

Under the conditions of his release, Mr Khalil will not have to wear electronic monitoring, and will be given certified copies of his passport and green card so he can return home.

The government will retain his physical passport. The court barred Mr Khalil from international travel, but he will be permitted some domestic travel to New York and Michigan, as well as New Jersey and Louisiana for court appearances and attorney visits. He will also be permitted to travel to Washington for lobbying and legislative purposes.

“No one should fear being jailed for speaking out in this country,” said Alina Das, co-director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at New York University School of Law, who appeared in court to argue for his release on Friday.

“We are overjoyed that Mr Khalil will finally be reunited with his family while we continue to fight his case in court.”

“After more than three months, we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home to me and Deen, who never should have been separated from his father,” said Mr Khalil’s wife, Dr Noor Abdalla, in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Panama has declared an emergency in its main banana-producing region, after shops were looted and buildings vandalised in ongoing protests over a pension reform.

The government says constitutional rights will be suspended for the next five days in the north-western Bocas del Toro province.

The measure restricts freedom of movement and allows the police to make arrests without a warrant.

Troubles in the region began a month ago, when the local banana workers union joined a nationwide protest against proposed pension cuts and declared a strike.

“In the face of the disruption of order and acts of systematic violence, the state will enforce its constitutional mandate to guarantee peace,” said Juan Carlos Orillac, minister of the presidency.

The measure, he added, would allow to “rescue the province” from radicals.

Protests across the Latin American nation erupted back in March over the pension reform.

In Bocas del Toro, the unrest has been largely led by workers at a Chiquita Brands banana plantation.

The confrontation escalated last month after the company sacked thousands of striking employees.

Protesters have been setting up roadblocks in the province, often clashing with police.

Earlier this week, crowds damaged one of Chiquita Brands’ facilities as well as a local airport.

In a historic vote, MPs have approved a bill which would pave the way for huge social change by giving terminally ill adults in England and Wales the right to end their own lives.

The Terminally Ill Adults Bill, which was backed by 314 votes to 291, will now go to the House of Lords for further scrutiny.

The bill was approved with a majority of 23 MPs, representing a drop from the first time it was debated in November, when it passed by a margin of 55.

The vote came after an emotionally charged debate which saw MPs recount personal stories of seeing friends and relatives die.

It is likely, although not guaranteed, that the House of Lords will approve the bill later this year.

If that happens, ministers would have a maximum of four years to implement the measures, meaning it could be 2029 before assisted dying becomes available.

MPs were allowed a free vote on the bill, meaning they did not have to follow a party policy.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer backed the measure, while Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Health Secretary Wes Streeting voted against.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater has shepherded the bill through the Commons and speaking to the BBC after the vote she said she was “over the moon”.

“I know what this means for terminally ill people and their loved ones.”

She added it had been a “particularly emotional week” because it marked nine years since the murder of her sister Jo Cox, who had been a Labour MP at the time.

“Jo used to say if good people don’t step forward and come into politics then what do we end up with?

“And even though some of us feel quite out of place in this place at times we are here to make a difference and we’re here to make positive change that society has asked us to do.”

Critics have argued the bill risks people being coerced into seeking an assisted death but Leadbeater said she was “100% confident” sufficient safeguards were in place.

Conservative MP Danny Kruger, who has been a prominent opponent of the bill, said the majority had been cut in half adding: “It is clear support for this bill is ebbing away fast.”

He said he hoped the House of Lords would either reject the proposed legislation or “substantially strengthen it”.

He argued it would not be unconstitutional for peers to block a bill approved by the democratically elected House of Commons, pointing out that the proposal had not appeared in Labour’s election manifesto.

However, supporters of the bill have said that they are confident that, although the Lords are likely to amend the bill, it will not be rejected outright.

Any changes made in the House of Lords would have to be approved by MPs, before the bill could become law.

Dame Esther Rantzen, a broadcaster and prominent supporter of the bill, said: “This will make a huge positive difference, protecting millions of terminally ill patients and their families from the agony and loss of dignity created by a bad death.

“Thank you, Parliament.”

On the other side, Baroness and former Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson said she had heard from “disabled people [who] are absolutely terrified” about the bill.

Grey-Thompson, who will get a vote on the bill in the Lords, said she would put forward amendments to make it “as tight as possible” to ensure people could not be coerced.

Jan Noble, head of the hospice charity St Christopher’s, said it was now “vital” the government ensured “high-quality end-of-life care was available for everyone”.

“For that we need a better funding model for hospices,” she said.

Hundreds of campaigners gathered outside Parliament in the blazing heat to make sure their voices were heard as MPs made up their minds.

Those in favour of the bill had united under the Dignity in Dying campaign, wearing flamingo pink t-shirts, and there were smiles and tears as they shared hugs following the vote.

Pamela Fisher, a lay preacher from the Church of England who supports assisted dying, welcomed the narrow vote in favour, saying she believed the vote was “a major step forward to the creation of a more compassionate society”.

The family of Keith Fenton had been standing on Parliament Square with a placard of the former Squadron Major in his Royal Engineers regalia all morning and were “absolutely delighted” with the result.

Earlier, his widow Sara had explained she told Keith she didn’t want him to go to a Dignitas clinic in Switzerland when he became very ill with Huntington’s disease – but realised she was “being selfish” after Keith tried to take his life.

Reflecting the split among MPs on this issue of conscience, there were also large numbers of people campaigning against the Bill, many with concerns over how to protect vulnerable people.

Sister Doreen Cunningham had been sitting by Westminster Abbey alongside other nuns from the Sisters of Nazareth mission, and said she hoped the Lords would be able to introduce stronger safeguards.

“The MPs did talk about safeguards but they’re far from what we would call safeguards,” she added, as fellow disappointed campaigners consoled themselves by singing quiet hymns.

George Fielding from the secular Not Dead Yet campaign said the vote was “incredibly disappointing” as he believes it will “endanger, foreshorten and I would say kill the most vulnerable people in our society”.

As someone with cerebral palsy, he believes the bill is “ableist” and many of those who end their own lives when they become disabled are experiencing “unprocessed hurt and trauma”.

Sitting by a mock graveside in his wheelchair, George said: “We must ask the Lords to scrutinise this bill line by line to promote other alternatives – palliative care, social care, a better benefits system — to ensure everyone has the right to live a joyful life.”

Before the vote, the House of Commons spent more than three hours debating the general principles of the bill.

Conservative MP James Cleverly said he was struck by the number of medical professional bodies who were neutral on the principle of assisted dying but were opposed to the specific measures in the bill.

“When the people upon whom we rely to deliver this say we are not ready… we should listen,” he said.

Speaking in favour, Labour MP Peter Prinsley said: “There is an absolute sanctity of human life, but we are not dealing with life or death – we are dealing with death or death.

“For there is also a sanctity of human dignity and fundamental to that is surely choice – who are we to deny that to the dying?”

At the start of the day, MPs voted on a series of amendments that had been debated last week.

These included a measure to close the so-called “anorexia loophole” which would stop people qualifying for assisted dying on the basis of life-threatening malnutrition.

MPs backed that amendment as well as one requiring the government to publish a review of palliative care services within a year of the bill passing.

An attempt to block access to assisted dying for people suffering mental health problems or because they feel “burdensome” was defeated by a majority of 53.

Romanian authorities have launched an investigation into British-American influencer Tristan Tate over allegations he broke election laws by posting political content on social media during the country’s recent presidential elections.

The probe, confirmed by police sources, is centred on a social media post that Tate is alleged to have shared on election day and included direct or implicit political messaging, which is illegal in Romania.

Tate, 36, is the younger brother of controversial influencer Andrew Tate, 38, a self-described misogynist. The pair have a combined social media following of over 13 million.

Both are being investigated by Romanian authorities in a separate case in relation to a number of charges, which they deny.

The latest investigation was opened by Ilfov county police after it received an official complaint.

It is alleged that Tate may have tried to influence voters through the social media post, which may constitute offences of foreign election interference and campaigning during restricted periods.

He has been summoned for questioning on Tuesday. Andrew is not involved in this case, according to official sources.

The BBC has contacted Tate’s representatives for comment. He has not issued any public statement regarding the investigation.

But in a video post apparently published on X on the day of the election, Tate says he is “not campaigning” and that as “an American man, using an American platform, in Dubai, to talk about political issues” he is “not subject to Romania’s ‘no campaigning’ law”.

In recent years, the Tate brothers have built a massive online presence on social media. They have attracted frequent criticism over offensive statements about women.

Both were arrested in Romania in December 2022, with Andrew accused of rape and human trafficking and Tristan suspected of human trafficking.

They both denied the charges and spent several months under house arrest. A year and a half later, in August 2024, they faced new allegations in Romania including sex with a minor and trafficking underage persons, all of which they deny.

They are also facing 21 charges in the UK, including rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking.

At the time of an arrest warrant obtained by Bedfordshire Police in March 2024, the Tates said they “categorically reject all charges” and were “very innocent men”.

A Romanian court ruled that they could be extradited to the UK only once the separate proceedings against them in Romania concluded.

Prosecutors unexpectedly lifted a two-year travel ban earlier this year, after which the brothers travelled from Romania to the US state of Florida by private jet in February 2025.

They returned to Romania in March 2025, telling reporters that “innocent men don’t run from anything”.

The Los Angeles Dodgers say they blocked federal agents from entering their stadium on Thursday, as immigration enforcement continues in the city.

In a post on social media, the baseball team said “ICE agents came to Dodger Stadium and requested permission to access the parking lots”, and were subsequently turned away.

Los Angeles is among the cities where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have ramped up raids to find undocumented migrants, which has caused protests in the region and across the US.

ICE denied that its agents were at the stadium. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, said other personnel were in the stadium parking lot “very briefly”.

Dozens of federal agents arrived near one of the main stadium entrances on Thursday morning. Several protesters arrived shortly after, according to local media reports.

When asked by the BBC whether their agents were at the scene, ICE responded saying: “False. ICE was never there.”

In a separate statement, the DHS said that vehicles belonging to a different agency that it oversees – Customs and Border Protection (CBP) – were at the stadium “unrelated to any operation or enforcement” and that the agents’ presence “had nothing to do with the Dodgers”.

BBC Verify examined the images of the agents and concluded that some appear to be wearing CBP badges. They note that some agents do not appear to be wearing badges or any identifying clothes. CBP officers have been involved in several of the immigration enforcement operations across the region, which many locals have called “Ice raids” no matter that agency is involved.

It is unclear exactly why the officials were at the stadium. The Dodgers hosted a game against the San Diego Padres, which went ahead as scheduled later on Thursday.

On Friday, the Dodgers announced $1m (£743,000) to help families of “immigrants impacted by recent events in the region” – marking the team’s first official response to the ongoing raids and protests in the city. The team said more community efforts would be announced in coming days.

The team has a large Latino fan base, and according to a 2023 Major League Baseball study, about 30% of players in the league have Hispanic heritage.

One of them, Dodgers player Kiké Hernández, took to Instagram to voice his criticism of the raids on Los Angeles, saying he is “saddened and infuriated by what’s happening in our country and our city”.

“This is my second home. And I cannot stand to see our community being violated, profiled, abused and ripped apart,” he said.

Recent intensified ICE activity in Los Angeles is part of President Donald Trump’s wider crackdown on immigration.

The move has sparked massive protests, prompting Trump to send 700 US Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops to the Los Angeles area to support the federal response to the unrest.

The raids in America’s second-biggest city are unfolding against the backdrop of an aggressive push to raise arrest and deportation numbers.

ICE made more than 66,000 arrests in the first 100 days of Trump’s second term, according agency statistics, but on the campaign trail Trump promised to deport millions of immigrants.

Meanwhile, White House border czar Tom Homan said on Thursday that the Trump administration will resume immigration raids at workplaces.

“The message is clear: we’re going to continue conducting worksite enforcement operations, including on farms and in hotels, but on a prioritised basis. Criminals come first,” Homan told reporters.

The statement comes days after DHS announced reversing recent guidance that called for a pause on operations at farms, restaurants and hotels, which employ large numbers of immigrant workers.

Shooting, chasing, exploring – hit video games tend to have themes that set the pulse racing.

One of the world’s most popular new titles, however, is about something considerably more sedate – gardening.

Grow a Garden involves players slowly developing a little patch of virtual land. It’s something that, earlier this month, more than 16m people – many of them children – chose to spend their weekend doing.

That smashed a record for concurrent players set by the somewhat more adrenalin-filled Fortnite.

What is it about this plant-growing simulation that has got so many people hooked – and could it persuade more people into real-life gardens?

Players of Grow a Garden, which features on the online gaming platform, Roblox, do exactly what the title suggests.

When I gave the game a go, I was presented with my own little brown patch of land.

To the sounds of some relaxing music, I bought seeds from the local shop, and watched them as they grew, something that continues even when you are offline.

Once your garden produces a harvest, you can sell your items. You can also steal from the gardens of others.

“It’s a really fun game,” says eight-year-old Eric Watson Teire, from Edinburgh. He and his 10-year-old brother, Owen, are massive fans.

Eric said “a lot” of his friends at school are playing it too.

“We can do competitions with each other – like, who’s got the most Sheckles [the in-game currency], who’s got the best plant.”

They are not the only ones. According to Roblox, the game has had about 9bn visits since it was created in March. It says 35% of the Garden’s players up until now have been aged 13 and under.

It’s fair to say the premise does not appeal to everyone – there are online forums puzzling at the popularity of a game which its detractors say is “the equivalent of watching paint dry.”

Eric says the slowness of the game has an appeal. “There’s a bit of patience to it,” he explains.

Owen told the BBC he enjoyed the competitive element of it – but its virtual produce also caught his attention.

“Could there be a sugar apple – which is the best plant you can get? Or will there be a carrot, which is the worst?”

The gameplay can be sped up if you use Robux, the Roblox currency, which is paid for with real money.

Some players are very willing to do that. On eBay, it is possible to buy some of the most sought-after items – such as a mutated candy blossom tree or a dragonfly – for hundreds of pounds.

US-based Roblox is one of the world’s largest games platforms. In the early months of this year, it had 97.8m daily users.

Its vast empire includes some 40 million user-generated games and experiences, and Roblox is the most popular site in the UK for gamers aged eight to 12.

While many love the platform, there have also been reports of young people being groomed on it and becoming addicted.

Roblox told the BBC earlier this year it was confident in its safety tools, and took the approach that “even one bad incident is one too many”.

If people discover they love virtual gardening, might they be encouraged to take up the real thing?

Andrew K. Przybylski, a professor of human behaviour and technology at the University of Oxford, said it was possible the game could “plant a seed” that could lead to a passion for plants. But, overall, he’s sceptical.

“It is unlikely that a game like this will encourage real world gardening any more than Super Mario Wonder encourages plumbing,” he told the BBC.

Prof Sarah Mills of Loughborough University has carried out research into the experience of young people and gaming. She highlights a key appeal of Grow a Graden is it is free to play, but the in-game currency is important.

“This wider landscape of paid reward systems in digital games can impact children and young people’s experiences of gaming and financial literacy,” she said.

“It can also cause challenges for many families to navigate, changing the nature of pocket money.”

Gardening podcaster and BBC presenter Thordis Fridriksson, meanwhile, is hopeful that any interest in gardening is a good thing.

“Obviously the whole process is pretty different to real life, but it taps into the same thing which makes gardening so addictive, and that’s planting seeds and watching your garden grow.

“Fingers crossed some of the people who love the game will try growing something at home.”

Outside the living room in Edinburgh where they play the game is Owen and Eric’s actual garden, which both boys help in.

“I like gardening – and gardening in Grow a Garden,” says Owen.

But asked which one he prefers, he’s emphatic: “Grow a Garden!”

Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world’s top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.

“I missed them so much,” says Stephanie Prado, a die-hard BTS fan who has been desperately waiting for the group to reunite after a two-and-a-half-year hiatus.

Her love for the boy band inspired her to move from Brazil to South Korea – so it was no surprise that she turned up last Friday for “BTS Festa”, a big party held every year near Seoul on the group’s anniversary.

The time she has spent waiting has moved “both slowly and really quickly”, Stephanie says, waving an ARMY bomb, the official lightstick used by BTS fans, who call themselves the ARMY.

Behind her is a huge sculpture of the lightstick, a must-have in the K-pop world.

This year’s event is special because a reunion is finally around the corner. The countdown peaked last week, when four of the seven members, RM, V, Jimin and Jung Kook, completed their military service. And the wait ends on Saturday when the last of them, Suga, is discharged.

“I hope they rest now,” Stephanie says, before adding, “but of course I also want albums, concerts, everything”.

The 18 months in the military that are mandatory for all South Korean men forced the world’s most successful boy band in recent years to hit pause in 2022. Now they are returning, some say, to a K-pop industry that is quite different to the one they knew: faced with stalled album sales, shaken by scandals and increasingly scrutinised over the excessive pressure it puts on stars.

The absence of a leading band, industry watchers say, was deeply felt.

“Without BTS, a core pillar was missing,” says Kim Young-dae, music critic and author of BTS: The Review.

“There have been concerns recently that K-pop is losing momentum. True or not, BTS could change that perception.”

There are no plans yet for all seven members to appear together, but that didn’t stop the ARMY from gathering early on a humid morning in Goyang.

The long, restless queue stretched to the subway station an hour before the gates for the BTS Festa opened. The snippets of English, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish alongside Korean threw off a local walking past who asked, “Why are there so many foreigners here?”

Inside were more queues – some people were hopping with excitement and others were sobbing after entering the “voice zone”, a phone booth where you could listen to BTS members’ messages. About half of the fans the BBC spoke to teared up talking about how much they missed BTS.

“It felt like the 18 months lasted forever,” said Vuyo Matiwane, a South African who had been visiting BTS-themed venues in Seoul, like their favourite restaurant. “I was crying at every location – it was so emotional.”

And then she watched the livestream of them being discharged, which was “overwhelming”.

Being surrounded by all things BTS made a trip halfway across the world worth it, says Fara Ala, who travelled from the Netherlands: “Breathing the same air, drinking the same water, eating the same food as BTS – that’s enough for ARMY. If you ask other ARMY, they’d say the same.”

South Korean military service is a major test for male celebrities, many of whom have to enlist at the peak of their success. In the past, it has proved fatal for some careers.

BTS is believed to have staggered it so that all seven members were missing from action for no more than six months. J-Hope, who was discharged last October, has since wrapped up a solo world tour. But the so-called curse can be hard to break.

For one, the loyalty of fans could wane as new groups debut almost every week, competing for their attention. Returning idols also face a tough transition because a military stint and a touch of maturity could dampen the essence of K-pop appeal: youthful energy.

But if anyone can break the curse, it’s BTS, Mr Kim says.

Each of them announced solo projects in the past two and half years, he explains, without hurting their popularity as a group: “It feels like their military hiatus passed by naturally. Their return feels smooth.”

Still, the industry beyond the ARMY can pose a challenge.

While BTS was on a break, the other K-pop sensation, Blackpink, has not dropped an album since September 2022, opting instead for solo releases. These were the leaders of K-pop’s third generation.

But they have been succeeded by fourth and fifth generations that have brought fresh style to the genre. The newer acts – which debuted after 2018 – lack a standout name like BTS because K-pop has become more diverse than ever. The result is a range of very popular and experimental groups.

“Most people my age like fourth generation idols these days,” says a 13-year-old fan of girl group IVE.

“Some still like third generation groups, but for teens, BTS kind of feels like they belong to an older generation. A lot of new idols debuted while BTS was away, and they have become popular.”

But the biggest challenge to BTS’ superstar status is what some see as a slowdown in K-pop.

Revenue from concerts remains strong, but album sales – a key market metric – have been declining since a peak in 2023. The slump coincides with when BTS and Blackpink were not releasing albums.

South Korean pop culture critic Park Hee Ah agrees that K-pop went through “some difficult times” while BTS was away.

There have also been several controversies, such as the headline-making dispute between hit girl group NewJeans and their agency, allegations of mistreatment by all-powerful agencies and harassment of stars by fans and trolls.

“Album sales started to drop, and some problems – like questions about companies doing the right thing – came up,” Ms Park said. Because of all of this, she adds, we did see more “deeper problems in the K-pop industry”.

That’s also why so many are looking forward to BTS’ return, hoping it will bring renewed energy – and maybe even a path forward for the industry.

“Their return will help people focus on Korea’s music scene again,” Ms Park says, adding that a BTS reunion is great not just for their fans but also for Korean soft power.

All eyes are now on the band’s next song.

“I will quickly make an album and return to the stage,” RM, the group’s leader, said on the day he was discharged.

But a new group album may not come until early next year because J-Hope still has domestic concerts scheduled, and Jin is set to hold concerts for fans across the world over the next few months. It’s also possible Suga, who landed in controversy after he was caught drunk-driving a scooter last year, may want to lie low for a little while.

For millions of fans like Stephanie though, simply knowing BTS is back together is enough – for now.

“It’ll feel like nothing ever changed. The kings are back.”

The personal has become very political in Zambia.

Mourning and the build-up to a funeral is never an easy time, but throw in the fallout from a long-standing feud between the country’s two top politicians – President Hakainde Hichilema and his now-late predecessor Edgar Lungu – and you have an explosive mix.

The animosity was such that Lungu’s family said one of his dying wishes was that Hichilema should not go anywhere near his body.

The row has scuppered government plans to honour the former head of state, created a distressing rift in the country and left people wondering how things got this bad.

Sunday was supposed to see the state funeral for the 68-year-old who governed for six years from 2015. But there will be no visiting dignitaries and the venue – a huge conference centre in the heart of the capital, Lusaka – will lie empty.

There was already a hint of possible trouble ahead immediately after Lungu’s death on 5 June, in the video message shared by his daughter on Facebook.

Dressed in a thick, black jacket and holding back tears, Tasila Lungu said that her father had died in a hospital in South Africa where he was being treated with “dignity and privacy”.

She rounded off the one-minute announcement saying that “in this moment of grief, we invoke the spirit of ‘One Zambia, One Nation’ – the timeless creed that guided President Lungu’s service to our country”.

To highlight the need for unity at a time when tradition suggested that the nation should naturally come together was a clue that all was not well.

And there was another issue: where was the president’s announcement?

Ms Lungu’s statement confirmed social media rumours of her father’s death, condolence messages were already being sent, including from Kenya’s president, but there was no word from Hichilema.

While independent outlets were reporting the news, the national broadcaster, ZNBC, remained silent.

Then, three hours after the daughter’s post, Zambia’s head of state shared his thoughts in a text post on Facebook. He made his own appeal for unity, asking people to “uphold the values of peace, dignity and togetherness that define us as Zambians”.

Information Minister Cornelius Mweetwa dismissed concerns about the delay in Hichilema talking about the death. He told the the BBC that based on precedent it was not the head of state’s role to be the first to announce the passing of a predecessor.

Nevertheless, Lungu’s supporters felt that Hichilema’s message of “togetherness” rang hollow.

Hichilema finally became president at his sixth attempt after soundly beating Lungu at the polls in 2021. It was their third electoral match-up but the enmity went beyond ballot-box rivalry.

The key to understanding this was the more than 100 days that Hichilema, opposition leader at the time, spent in detention in 2017, awaiting trial on treason charges.

He was accused of endangering the life of then-President Lungu after his motorcade allegedly refused to give way to the one transporting the head of state.

The charges were only dropped after the intervention of the secretary general of the Commonwealth.

Later that year, Hichilema told the BBC that he had been held in solitary confinement for the first eight days in degrading and inhumane conditions “without electricity, without water, without a toilet”. He blamed Lungu personally for his imprisonment.

This was only one of 17 occasions that Hichilema was arrested. Supporters of his United Party for National Development were also harassed by supporters of the governing Patriotic Front (PF).

The 2021 election could have drawn a line under things.

Lungu, who had been rejected by a margin of almost a million votes by an electorate fed up with corruption allegations and concerns about apparent anti-democratic behaviour, went into political retirement.

But as disillusionment with the Hichilema presidency grew because of continued economic hardships, Lungu sensed an opportunity and announced in October 2023 that he was returning to frontline politics.

Soon after that announcement, Lungu was stripped of his retirement benefits and privileges by the state as he had returned to active politics.

This decision rankled with the former president and his family.

Lungu also complained of police harassment. At one point last year he said he was “virtually under house arrest”.

In 2023, the police warned him against jogging in public, describing his weekly workouts as “political activism”.

“I cannot move out of my house without being accosted and challenged by the police and driving me back home,” Lungu told the BBC in May 2024.

In that interview, he also alleged that he had been barred from attending a conference overseas and from travelling abroad for medical treatment.

The information minister vehemently denied that there was ever a travel ban and described the idea that his movement was restricted in Zambia as a “fiction and a figment of the imagination of politically charged mindsets”.

Mweetwa added that despite Hichilema’s treatment when he was in opposition, he was determined not to do the same to Lungu.

There are also accusations that the president’s anti-corruption crusade targeted those close to the former governing PF, including Lungu’s family.

His widow, who continues to be investigated, has been taken to court and lost properties. Some of his children, including Tasila, have also faced similar treatment – they all deny wrongdoing.

Then at the end of last year the Constitutional Court barred him from running for president again, ruling that he had already served the maximum two terms allowed by law.

The former head of state was angry about the way he felt he had been treated.

“There was no love between the two men and [Lungu] was of the view that: ‘I don’t want people to pretend in my death that they cared about me when in fact, not’,” the family’s lawyer Makebi Zulu said.

Lungu eventually managed to get to South Africa in January, but Mr Zulu said that he was told by his doctors, after a series of tests, that had he gone for a check-up earlier, the treatment would have had a greater chance of success.

It was not disclosed what he was suffering from.

It was, in part, in light of this that Lungu said he “wouldn’t want the current president to attend his funeral”.

The government has rejected the idea that Lungu was stopped from going to see his doctors in South Africa.

Following his death, the family wanted to be in charge of the funeral arrangements, but the Zambian authorities sought to take control.

Despite the ill-feeling, last weekend it looked like a compromise had been reached and plans were made for a state funeral.

But relations once again broke down as the family said the government had reneged on the agreement after releasing a programme showing more involvement by Hichilema than had been planned.

In a message on Thursday, the president thanked Zambians for their “resilience, patience, solidarity and calmness during this time” but after doing “everything possible to engage the family… we have reached a point where a clear decision has to be made”.

With that, the funeral arrangements in Zambia were put on hold and the national period of mourning was abruptly cut short.

The burial is now set to take place in South Africa and it seems unlikely that Hichilema will attend.

Zambians had been hoping for both Hichilema and Lungu to bury their differences, but this death and the events that followed, have denied people the closure and reconciliation they desperately wanted to see between the two.

Those differences have also denied many millions of Zambians the opportunity to mourn and pay their last respects to a man who once ruled them.

• ‘My son is a drug addict, please help’ – the actor breaking a Zambian taboo
• An ancient writing system confounding myths about Africa
• Zambia president orders ministers to stop sleeping in cabinet

When I call Tony Hardy, it’s a sunny day. As he often does during the summer months, he’s wearing a pair of shorts in the office.

“We wear shorts all the time,” he says.

Tony runs a branding agency in Northumberland, with nine employees. His company, Canny Creative, doesn’t have a dress code. Instead he encourages staff to dress professionally but comfortably – especially because the air conditioning in their office has recently broken.

“Imagine sweating buckets all day and being really uncomfortable and then expecting them to also turn out great work,” Tony says.

With summer upon us, and much of Britain set to be basking in a heatwave this week and next, keeping cool in the office and during the commute can be a challenge. Take one look at TikTok, and you’ll see that the topic of whether or not shorts are ever appropriate for the office remains highly contentious.

And in a 2022 YouGov poll, 66% of Britons said that it was acceptable for men to wear shorts in the office, up from 37% in 2016 – though the 2022 poll was conducted on the UK’s hottest-ever day.

What people wear to the office has “just gone so casual” in the past few years, with more people wearing jeans and trainers to work, says personal stylist Karina Taylor. She attributes that largely to the Covid pandemic, when people could dress much more casually to work from home.

This included people wearing shorts as they worked from their kitchens or home offices, says Carmen Bellot, style editor at Esquire magazine – they no longer had to think about the bottom half of their outfits while on video-call meetings.

But wearing shorts to the office is still “very much a grey area”, Karina says, describing them as “the ultimate casual piece of clothing”.

Stylists agree that whether or not you can wear shorts to the office is overwhelmingly based on context – and they’re often too casual for client-facing roles such as law and finance.

The professionals advise that if your company has no explicit dress code, you should monitor what your colleagues are wearing and decide whether shorts would look out of place.

Otherwise “you may be pushing the boundaries,” warns Nick Hems, a personal stylist in London.

The BBC contacted a range of companies to ask if they had a formal dress code and whether shorts would be acceptable to wear to the office, if styled professionally.

Many companies, including consultancy Accenture and British American Tobacco, told the BBC they don’t have explicit dress codes but expect staff to dress both comfortably and professionally, and to take extra care to dress appropriately when meeting clients or attending events.

Accounting giant PwC says it trusts staff to make “appropriate decisions” about what to wear to work. “We don’t list items that people can and can’t wear,” a spokesperson said.

Santander says both casual and business dress is acceptable for staff who aren’t required to wear a uniform, but noted “anything that could be beachwear isn’t okay for the office”.

So if your company does allow you to wear shorts to the office, what sort of shorts should you go for?

There’s a clear consensus among the experts: keep it formal – ideally tailored – and don’t go too short. Beach, sports, cargo and denim shorts are generally all no-gos.

But this isn’t the case for all companies.

At social media marketing agency We Are Social, some employees have even worn hot pants to work, according to managing director, Lucy Doubleday.

“You can wear what you want,” she says, with the company seeing clothing as an expression of creativity.

It’s a similar story for CEO Tony and his team, who even wear shorts to client meetings, including when they visited London to meet staff at a major bank’s headquarters in Canary Wharf.

“We did get really strange looks,” Tony says. “Everybody there was in suits and it was boiling hot. But we’re a creative agency and we went as we would go to our regular meetings.”

He argues that if another company has a problem with how his staff dress, they probably aren’t the right fit to work together.

Shorts might be perceived differently on men and women, stylists suggest. Carmen says that even outside the office, shorts can be “quite divisive among men,” she says.

“When I speak to men about their opinions on shorts, they tend to say that they don’t feel comfortable wearing them when not on holiday,” Carmen says. “I don’t think there’s this type of sentiment in womenswear.”

Some men embrace the opportunity to get out of long trousers, though – including 46-year-old primary school headteacher, Dave McPartlin.

At his school in Lancashire he spends most of the final weeks of term before the summer holidays wearing shorts.

Dave thinks it’s “ridiculous” people are still discussing whether it’s appropriate to wear shorts for work – and the students don’t treat him any differently based on what he wears, he says. “I don’t think they could care less.”

Diane Brander wears shorts to work sometimes, too. She says her performance in her account administration job “would probably suffer” if she was too hot in the office and unable to wear shorts, and says she finds them more comfortable than skirts and dresses.

So what should you do? Karina’s best advice is to only wear shorts to work if you’re confident about your company’s dress code and how to style them.

“If in doubt, probably avoid,” Karina says, “because it will cause you far too much stress to get the look right and you maybe won’t feel confident about pulling it off.”

Inside London’s first romance-only bookshop, Sarah Maxwell stands in the “smut hut” – a section dedicated to her store’s more erotic titles.

Surrounded by shelves stacked with brightly coloured paperbacks – with titles including Just For the Summer, Swept Away and The Friendship Fling – young women are milling around, chatting and flicking through books.

Sarah says she wants to challenge the critics of romance fiction – often men – who diminish what she describes as “really high-quality writing” by saying “it’s just smut”.

“A lot of these books have strong world-building, amazing character development and a really good plot,” Sarah says.

A surge in romance and fantasy sales last year pushed UK fiction revenue above £1bn for the first time, according to a report released last week.

As its popularity grows, some readers and industry experts say attitudes towards romance are changing for the better, but others believe sexism keeps the genre from the mainstream.

Romance fiction spans a dizzying range of sub-genres and moods, all centred around heady love stories with a guaranteed happily ever after – or HEA to fans – lending the books a comforting, cosy atmosphere.

Romantasy – a blend of romance and fantasy – has become a reliable fixture on best-seller lists, largely due to the cult-like following it has gained among TikTok’s reading community, BookTok.

Major series like Fourth Wing and A Court of Thorns and Roses see female protagonists enter high-stakes relationships set against magical, fantastic worlds.

Many readers pick what to read based on tropes such as “enemies to lovers” and “second-chance romance”, with books marketed under these banners.

A book’s “spice level” – or how much sex can be found between the covers – is also a major factor, often focused on female pleasure, power and emotional connection.

“I’m into cowboys at the moment,” says Sky, 23 from London – a reference to “cowboy romances”, a growing sub-genre whose books take place in a western setting – often the American frontier.

Sky and another fan, Chantelle, 24 describe themselves as “very proud romance readers”. They trace their love of the genre to reading fanfiction under their desks at school, and now get their recommendations through BookTok.

But Sky and Chantelle admit not everyone reacts positively when they talk about their favourite books.

“Some people do turn their nose up, roll their eyes sometimes,” says Chantelle, “but I just don’t really care”.

Caroline, 29, admits she “sneered a bit” at romance in her early twenties.

“I used to read romances when I was a teenager,” she recalls, “but I got away from it and started reading stuff I thought was really smart.”

Then last year, Caroline picked up Emily Henry’s bestseller Book Lovers – an “enemies to lovers” story about a literary agent and a book editor, set in a picturesque small town.

“I realised I hadn’t consumed something guilt-free in my reading for a really long time,” Caroline says, “and it was just really fun”.

She’s since devoured the entire series of A Court of Thorns and Roses, a stalwart of bestseller lists and many readers’ first taste of romantasy.

“It’s nice to feel all the feelings with something that’s just going to really entertain you,” Caroline says.

Victoria, 31, has long read both romance and fantasy for much-needed escapism: “Sometimes I think we all need a little bit of a happily ever after in life.”

She says “chick-lit” stigma is still strong, but thinks attitudes are starting to change as people speak openly about their love of the genre online.

“We’re talking about it in a different way,” Victoria says. “Guilty pleasures? Do I need to feel guilty for loving something?”

Both romance and fantasy saw record sales last year, according to data gathered from more than 7,000 UK booksellers.

Romance & Sagas, as they are officially categorised, increased from £62m in 2023 to £69m in 2024, while Science Fiction & Fantasy saw an even bigger bump – from £59m to £83m.

Both categories have seen these numbers skyrocket since the pandemic, growing year-on-year – back in 2019, romance’s sales sat at £24m, and fantasy at £29m.

Women under 35 years old make up more than half of romantasy purchases, figures show.

Literary agent Rebeka Finch, 28, says the “voracious” appetite among this demographic, largely driven by BookTok, reflects broader consumer habits.

She likens romance readers to Swifties – Taylor Swift fans – known for owning multiple copies of the same album and wanting to feel a tangible connection to their favourite artist.

“They are the people that are so obsessive about books that they will buy a Kindle edition, they will have a hard back edition, they will have a paperback edition.

“They will have so many different volumes of the same book because they love it so much.”

Bookshop owner Sarah Maxwell says the demographic gave her the confidence to open Saucy Books in the middle of a high street downturn that has seen many independent bookshops suffer.

“People have this perception that’s it’s not good business,” Sarah says, but the community is “strong” and the authors prolific, providing plenty of stock.

“Millennial women have the most disposable income,” she adds. “Romance is serious business.”

Despite this commercial growth, Rebeka says broader attitudes remain derisive – particularly when it comes to “spicy” titles.

“‘That’s fairy porn’ – the amount of times that I have heard that!” Rebeka exclaims.

“Part of me wants to be like, ‘So what?’ This industry has been made for the male gaze for so long.

“It’s such a small percentage of the book and actually… it’s largely portraying fairly healthy sexual relationships.”

Within the publishing industry, attitudes are changing but mainly for commercial reasons, according to Katie Fraser, who writes for publishing magazine, The Bookseller.

Romance has been a “maligned genre” within the industry that “some people just didn’t want to be associated with,” she says. But as romance readers become an “economic force,” publishers have had to take it more seriously and invest.

“Publishing is an industry, so that’s what it ultimately boils down to,” Katie says.

Author Bea Fitzgerald, 28, says she benefitted from this commercial shift, selling her young adult fantasy rom-com Girl Goddess Queen at the peak of the romance boom.

“That sort of space opening up is what allowed me to move into the market,” she says.

Bea previously worked in publishing, and recalls seeing “a lot of books that could have been published as romance [instead] published in other literary genres because they think that it will not appeal to a certain type of audience”.

The genre is nothing new, she quips, having long been “championed” by publishers such as Mills & Boon. The difference now is that young people “like things really unapologetically”.

“They won’t just read a romance, they’ll go shout about it online, and then they’ll go to a romance convention, and they’ll talk to their friends about it.”

While the community has grown, Bea thinks critical appraisal of the genre is still lacking.

“Do we see broadsheets reviewing romance books? No. And they are just as important, literary books.”

Bea believes this is both because “the good majority” of the readers are women, and simply because the stories are happy.

“It goes in line with this sort of academic elitism that for something to be serious, it has to be a Shakespearean tragedy,” she says. “Whereas if it’s happy, it’s not serious, it hasn’t got literary merit. It obviously does – of course it does.”

It’s hot, dusty and feels like a desert at the Agarak border crossing between Armenia and Iran.

There are dry, rocky mountains surrounding the area – no trees, no shade. It’s not the most welcoming terrain, especially for those who have travelled long hours to reach Armenia.

A woman with a fashionable haircut, with the lower half of her head shaven, is holding her baby, while her husband negotiates a price with taxi drivers. There’s another family of three with a little boy travelling back to their country of residence, Austria.

Most of those crossing into Armenia appeared to have residency or citizenship in other countries. Many were leaving because of the conflict between Israel and Iran, now in its eighth day.

“Today I saw one site where the bombing happened,” said a father standing with a small child near the minivan that they just hired. They had travelled from the north-western town of Tabriz.

“All the people are scared, every place is dangerous, it’s not normal,” he added.

• Live updates

The conflict began on 13 June, when Israel attacked nuclear and military sites as well as some populated areas.

The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – a Washington-based human rights organisation that has long tracked Iran – says 657 people have so far been killed. Iran has retaliated with missile attacks on Israel, killing at least 24 people.

Israel says it has established air superiority over Tehran and has told people to leave some of its districts. In recent days, heavy traffic jams have formed on roads out of the city as some of its 10 million residents seek safety elsewhere.

Those who drove to Armenia from Tehran said the journey had taken at least 12 hours. Several told us that they did not see the Israeli strikes – but heard the sound of explosions they caused.

“It was troubling there. Every night, attacks from Israel. I just escaped from there by very hard way. There were no flights, not any other ways come from there,” said a young Afghan man with a single suitcase, who did not want to be named.

He described the situation in Tehran as “very bad”.

“People who have somewhere to go, they are leaving. Every night is like attacking, people cannot sleep, because of the sounds of explosions, the situation is not good at all,” he said.

A young woman with white headscarf and thick fake lashes said she was heading back to her country of residence, Australia.

“I saw something that is very hard, I don’t want to talk about it,” she said as she boarded a car with several others for the onward journey to the Armenian capital Yerevan.

“Someone comes and attacks your country, would you feel normal?”

Some Israeli ministers have talked up the possibility that the conflict could lead to regime collapse in Iran.

But Javad – who had been visiting the north-eastern city of Sabzevar for the summer holidays and was heading back to Germany – said he thought this was unlikely.

“Israel has no chance. Israel is not a friend for us, it’s an enemy,” he said. “Israel cannot come to our home to help us. Israel needs to change something for itself not for us.”

Some Iranians at the border however were crossing were travelling in the other direction. The previous evening, Ali Ansaye, who had been holidaying in Armenia with his family, was heading back to Tehran.

“I have no concerns, and I am not scared at all. If I am supposed to die, I will die in my country,” he said.

He said Israel was “harassing the entire world – Gaza, Lebanon and other countries”.

“How can such a small country have nuclear weapons?” he asked. “Based on which law can this country have a bomb, and Iran, which has only focused on peaceful nuclear energy and not a bomb, cannot?”

Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons, although it neither confirms nor denies this.

A new exhibition at the British Museum in London showcases the rich journey of India’s spiritual art. Titled Ancient India: Living Traditions, it brings together 189 remarkable objects spanning centuries.

Visitors can explore everything from 2,000-year-old sculptures and paintings to intricate narrative panels and manuscripts, revealing the stunning evolution of spiritual expression in India.

Art from the Indian subcontinent underwent a profound transformation between 200BC and AD600. The imagery which depicted gods, goddesses, supreme preachers and enlightened souls of three ancient religions – Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism – was reimagined from symbolic to more recognisably deriving from human form.

While the three religions shared common cultural roots – worshipping ancient nature spirits such as potent serpents or the feisty peafowl – they negotiated dramatic shifts in religious iconography during this pivotal period which continues to have contemporary relevance two millennia apart.

“Today we can’t imagine the veneration of Hindu, Jain or Buddhist divine spirits or deities without a human form, can we? Which is what makes this transition so interesting,” says Sushma Jansari, the exhibition’s curator.

The exhibition explores both the continuity and change in India’s sacred art through five sections, starting with the nature spirits, followed by sub-sections dedicated to each of the three religions, and concluding with the spread of the faiths and their art beyond India to other parts of the world like Cambodia and China.

The centrepiece of the Buddhist section of the exhibition – a striking two-sided sandstone panel that shows the evolution of the Buddha – is perhaps the most distinguishable in depicting this great transition.

One side, carved in about AD250, reveals the Buddha in human form with intricate embellishments, while on the other – carved earlier in about 50-1BC – he’s represented symbolically through a tree, an empty throne and footprints.

The sculpture – from a sacred shrine in Amaravati (in India’s south-east) – was once part of the decorative circular base of a stupa, or a Buddhist monument.

To have this transformation showcased on “one single panel from one single shrine is quite extraordinary”, says Ms Jansari.

In the Hindu section, another early bronze statue reflects the gradual evolution of sacred visual imagery through the depiction of goddesses.

The figure resembles a yakshi – a powerful primordial nature spirit that can bestow both “abundance and fertility, as well as death and disease” – recognisable through her floral headdress, jewellery and full figure.

But it also incorporates multiple arms holding specific sacred objects which became characteristic of how Hindu female deities were represented in later centuries.

On display also are captivating examples of Jain religious art, which largely focus on its 24 enlightened teachers called tirthankaras.

The earliest such representations were found on a mottled pink sandstone dating back about 2,000 years and began to be recognised through the sacred symbol of an endless knot on the teachers’ chest.

The sculptures commissioned across these religions were often made in common workshops in the ancient city of Mathura which the curators say explains why there are marked similarities between them.

Unlike other shows on South Asia, the exhibition is unique because it is the “first ever” look at the origins of all three religious artistic traditions together, rather than separately, says Ms Jansari.

In addition, it carefully calls attention to the provenance of every object on display, with brief explanations on the object’s journey through various hands, its acquisition by museums and so on.

The show highlights intriguing detail such as the fact that many of the donors of Buddhist art in particular were women. But it fails to answer why the material transformation in the visual language took place.

“That remains a million-dollar question. Scholars are still debating this,” says Ms Jansari. “Unless more evidence comes through, we aren’t going to know. But the extraordinary flourishing of figurative art tells us that people really took to the idea of imagining the divine as human.”

The show is a multi-sensory experience – with scents, drapes, nature sounds, and vibrant colours designed to evoke the atmospherics of active Hindu, Buddhist and Jain religious shrines.

“There’s so much going on in these sacred spaces, and yet there’s an innate calm and serenity. I wanted to bring that out,” says Ms Jansari, who collaborated with several designers, artists and community partners to put it together.

Punctuating the displays are screens displaying short films of practising worshipers from each of the religions in Britain. These underscore the point that this isn’t just about “ancient art but also living tradition” that’s continuously relevant to millions of people in the UK and other parts of the globe, far beyond modern India’s borders.

The exhibition draws from the British Museum’s South Asian collection with 37 loans from private lenders and national and international museums and libraries in the UK, Europe and India.

King Charles has recorded a warm personal message to researchers in Antarctica celebrating a frozen Midwinter’s Day – the first time a monarch has given the annual broadcast.

Marking the BBC Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast‘s 70th anniversary, which sends a morale-raising message to remote research stations in the depths of their winter, the King praised the work of scientists to better understand climate change.

“Each observation, measurement and calculation you undertake adds to the world’s understanding of the Earth’s fragile systems,” the King said.

Alex Rootes, who leads the UK’s Rothera research base, said it was an honour to be recognised for their work “at the cutting edge of science in a really difficult part of the world”.

While much of the UK swelters in the summer heat, Antarctica is celebrating an icy Midwinter’s Day without any sun and with driving snow.

“With the sun shying away from your horizon today, I particularly wanted to send my warmest good wishes,” said the King, who praises the researchers’ “critically important work”.

The King, a longstanding environmental campaigner, spoke of his appreciation for the scientists’ “resilience and commitment” as they tracked changes in the ice in Antarctica, examining the “role humanity plays, as we struggle to live in harmony with nature”.

The broadcast from the BBC World Service is part of the traditional Midwinter celebrations for scientists at these isolated bases.

Previous contributions have included a message from Sir David Attenborough, a quirky song from Bill Bailey – “There’s rock and roll at the South Pole” – and a comedy sketch from the cast of W1A, which claims “they’re actually moving a glacier from one place to another”.

King Charles is the first monarch to be part of this annual broadcast – with a message praising the British Antarctic Survey, which he said was “more vital than ever, telling us stories of the past, the present and possible futures”.

• Isolated for six months, scientists in Antarctica began to develop their own accent

The British Antarctic Survey has described Antarctica as a “barometer of environmental change”, as its researchers extract and analyse ice cores to see changes in climate over hundreds of thousands of years.

Mr Rootes is one of 41 researchers at Rothera who will be listening to the broadcast in Antarctica – a location so remote that it’s a thousand miles to the nearest hospital. Also in this very bespoke audience have been researchers at bases in Bird Island and South Georgia.

Mr Rootes told the BBC it was currently warmer than usual in Antarctica, at -2C, but that it can be tough to cope without any daylight, which makes it even more important to have a community celebration for Midwinter.

“At this time of year when the darkness has really closed in, it’s very easy psychologically for people to withdraw into themselves,” he said.

“It’s a really vital part of our mental health provision that people have something like this, which people really look forward to.”

The traditions for Midwinter Day are something similar to having Christmas in June, including giving presents, a big dinner and watching the same film each year.

The seasonal favourite is The Thing, a 1980s sci-fi horror film about a group of scientists in Antarctica under threat from an unknown presence. Mr Rootes says it’s now part of the ritual of the day.

This is the southern winter solstice, the shortest day in their location, more than 1,000 miles south of the southern tip of South America.

This year, there are plans at the Rothera base for a 10km (6.2 miles) fun run, if the conditions allow. It’s one way of chilling out.

The annual BBC broadcast becomes a connection with home, with messages sent by the researchers’ families and selections of their favourite music.

But Mr Rootes said the King’s message will be an important endorsement of their work, as they measure changes in marine life and the ice linked to climate change.

“It’s lovely to feel like we have the King talking to us and recognising us in this remote community,” he said.

Sign up here to get the latest royal stories and analysis every week with our Royal Watch newsletter. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is yet to decide whether flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the Air India flight that crashed last Thursday will be sent overseas for decoding and analysis.

At least 270 people, most of them passengers, were killed when the London-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed less than a minute after taking off from Ahmedabad airport in western India.

Some media outlets reported that the black boxes are being sent abroad, but the ministry of civil aviation clarified that no final decision has been made.

The ministry said the AAIB will determine the location for analysis after a “due assessment of technical, safety, and security factors”.

Investigators have recovered both sets of Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorders (EAFRs) – the “black boxes” – from the Boeing 787 crash site.

These combined units, which record flight data and cockpit audio, were found on 13 and 16 June. The aircraft model carries two such sets to aid in thorough analysis.

Data recorders track with high precision the position of gear and flap levers, thrust settings, engine performance, fuel flow and even fire handle activation.

The data in the plane’s “black boxes” can be used to reconstruct the flight’s final moments and determine the cause of the incident.

However, some media outlets reported that the recorders had been badly damaged in the fire that engulfed the plane after the crash, making it difficult to extract the data in India and that the government was planning to send the recorders to the US.

Captain Kishore Chinta, a former accident investigator with the AAIB, told the BBC one set of recorders could be also sent to the US “to compare the data downloaded in India with that provided to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)”.

He said although the new AAIB lab in Delhi was inaugurated in April, “it’s unclear whether it is fully operational for EAFR data downloads”.

Meanwhile, Air India’s chairman has said that one of the engines of the Air India plane that crashed last week was new, while the other was not due for servicing until December.

In an interview with Times Now news channel, N Chandrasekaran said that both engines of the aircraft had “clean” histories.

Separately, the airline said that inspections have been completed on 26 of its 33 Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 aircraft, all of which have been “cleared for service”.

India’s aviation regulator had ordered additional safety checks on Air India’s Boeing 787 fleet after the deadly crash as a “preventive measure”.

On Thursday, the airline announced that its flights will be reduced on 16 international routes and suspended on three overseas destinations between 21 June and 15 July.

“The reductions arise from the decision to voluntarily undertake enhanced pre-flight safety checks, as well as accommodate additional flight durations arising from airspace closures in the Middle East,” the airline said in a statement.

The announcement came a day after the carrier said it would temporarily reduce flights operated with wide-body planes by 15%.

More than 200 gunmen on motorbikes have attacked a Niger army base near the border with Mali, leaving at least 34 soldiers dead, the country’s defence ministry said.

The attackers – described by the ministry as “mercenaries” – raided the base in the western town of Banibangou on Thursday, injuring 14 other soldiers.

The ministry said that its forces killed “dozens of terrorists” in the battle.

Niger’s military is under pressure for failing to curb militant attacks, one of its justifications for deposing democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum in 2023.

“This Thursday, June 19, a cowardly and barbaric attack was carried out against [the town of] Banibangou by a horde of several hundred mercenaries aboard eight vehicles and more than 200 motorbikes,” the ministry said in a statement read out on state TV.

It added that the troops were conducting search operations in Banibangou to track down the attackers.

• The region with more ‘terror deaths’ than rest of world combined
• Niger military leaders to nationalise uranium firm

The town, which lies close to the three-way border between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, is prone to jihadist attacks from Islamist groups.

Niger’s ruling junta has expelled French and US forces that had been heavily involved in the fight against jihadists.

West African neighbours Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali are facing an insurgency from different jihadist groups which operate across the Sahel region.

The three countries have formed an alliance to fight the jihadists and scaled back ties with the West, turning to Russia and Turkey instead for their security needs.

But the violence has continued.

• WATCH: How has Niger changed since the coup?
• Three military-run states leave West African bloc – what will change?
• ‘I thought I would die’ – freed captive tells BBC of life in West African jihadist base
• PODCAST: The Sahel’s coup contagion

Two people are dead after a rockfall struck several hikers in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies.

One has been identified by the University of Alberta as retired professor Jutta Hinrichs, who was found on Thursday. The second was recovered on Friday, according to Parks Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

Another three people were injured and treated at a hospital, a spokesman for Parks Canada said. Officials believe everyone else in the area is accounted for and have called off rescue efforts.

The Bow Glacier Falls hiking trail is six miles (9 km) long and runs along Bow Lake. It is classified as a moderate hiking challenge.

The rockfall happened on Thursday afternoon north of Lake Louise, a tourist town 124 miles (200 km) northwest of Calgary, Alberta.

In a statement, the University of Alberta said Henrichs was a “dedicated leader and educator” who worked in the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine’s Department of Occupational Therapy.

“As an educator, Jutta nurtured many students, preceptors and clinicians to flourish and grow. That her work continues to enrich the tapestry of occupational therapy in Alberta is her legacy,” the statement continued.

Corporal Gina Slaney with RCMP said that information about the second victim will be released after their family is notified.

Videos of the incident shared online show a large rock falling down a mountainside and large clouds of dust rising up.

Francois Masse, the Parks Canada Superintendent of the Lake Louise, Yoho, and Kootenay Field Unit, said the rockfall was an “extremely rare event” that was “neither predictable nor preventable”.

Rockfalls are fairly common in the Rockies, he said, but “what was exceptional was the size of the slab that detached” from the mountain.

The trail to Bow Glacier Falls has been closed for the foreseeable future, he added.

Niclas Brundell witnessed the incident as he was hiking in the area with his wife.

“We heard this like ‘chunk’ noise and the whole roof of the wall came loose,” he told CBC News. “And we just started sprinting down. I was yelling at my wife, ‘Go, go, go! We need to run as fast as we can.

“We just kept sprinting and I couldn’t see the people behind us anymore because they were all in that cloud of rock. And I saw rocks coming tumbling out of that. So it was big. It was, like, the full mountainside.”

Ron Hallman, president and CEO of Parks Canada, expressed heartbreak over the incident. “My thoughts are with the families and friends of those who are affected,” he said.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney also offered his condolences.

“I want to address the tragedy at Bow Glacier Falls, and offer my condolences to the loved ones of those who have lost their lives in this tragic accident. And wish a full recovery to all those injured,” he told reporters in Ottawa during a news conference on Friday.

The BBC is threatening to take legal action against an artificial intelligence (AI) firm whose chatbot the corporation says is reproducing BBC content “verbatim” without its permission.

The BBC has written to Perplexity, which is based in the US, demanding it immediately stops using BBC content, deletes any it holds, and proposes financial compensation for the material it has already used.

It is the first time that the BBC – one of the world’s largest news organisations – has taken such action against an AI company.

In a statement, Perplexity said: “The BBC’s claims are just one more part of the overwhelming evidence that the BBC will do anything to preserve Google’s illegal monopoly.”

It did not explain what it believed the relevance of Google was to the BBC’s position, or offer any further comment.

The BBC’s legal threat has been made in a letter to Perplexity’s boss Aravind Srinivas.

“This constitutes copyright infringement in the UK and breach of the BBC’s terms of use,” the letter says.

The BBC also cited its research published earlier this year that found four popular AI chatbots – including Perplexity AI – were inaccurately summarising news stories, including some BBC content.

Pointing to findings of significant issues with representation of BBC content in some Perplexity AI responses analysed, it said such output fell short of BBC Editorial Guidelines around the provision of impartial and accurate news.

“It is therefore highly damaging to the BBC, injuring the BBC’s reputation with audiences – including UK licence fee payers who fund the BBC – and undermining their trust in the BBC,” it added.

Chatbots and image generators that can generate content response to simple text or voice prompts in seconds have swelled in popularity since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022.

But their rapid growth and improving capabilities has prompted questions about their use of existing material without permission.

Much of the material used to develop generative AI models has been pulled from a massive range of web sources using bots and crawlers, which automatically extract site data.

The rise in this activity, known as web scraping, recently prompted British media publishers to join calls by creatives for the UK government to uphold protections around copyrighted content.

• What is AI, and how do chatbots like ChatGPT and DeepSeek work?

In response to the BBC’s letter, the Professional Publishers Association (PPA) – which represents over 300 media brands – said it was “deeply concerned that AI platforms are currently failing to uphold UK copyright law.”

It said bots were being used to “illegally scrape publishers’ content to train their models without permission or payment.”

It added: “This practice directly threatens the UK’s £4.4 billion publishing industry and the 55,000 people it employs.”

Many organisations, including the BBC, use a file called “robots.txt” in their website code to try to block bots and automated tools from extracting data en masse for AI.

It instructs bots and web crawlers to not access certain pages and material, where present.

But compliance with the directive remains voluntary and, according to some reports, bots do not always respect it.

The BBC said in its letter that while it disallowed two of Perplexity’s crawlers, the company “is clearly not respecting robots.txt”.

Mr Srinivas denied accusations that its crawlers ignored robots.txt instructions in an interview with Fast Company last June.

Perplexity also says that because it does not build foundation models, it does not use website content for AI model pre-training.

The company’s AI chatbot has become a popular destination for people looking for answers to common or complex questions, describing itself as an “answer engine”.

It says on its website that it does this by “searching the web, identifying trusted sources and synthesising information into clear, up-to-date responses”.

It also advises users to double check responses for accuracy – a common caveat accompanying AI chatbots, which can be known to state false information in a matter of fact, convincing way.

In January Apple suspended an AI feature that generated false headlines for BBC News app notifications when summarising groups of them for iPhones users, following BBC complaints.

Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world’s top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.

Dua Lipa treated fans to a surprise appearance by Jamiroquai, as she played her first ever show at Wembley Stadium.

Bringing out the band’s frontman Jay Kay for a one-off performance of his 1996 hit Virtual Insanity, the star said he was “a massive trailblazer for British music”.

Their performance came half-way through a stunning two-hour show, that saw Lipa tear through hits like Physical, One Kiss, New Rules and Levitating.

”This is such a massive, massive milestone for me,” she told her 70,000 fans. “I’ve had a lump in my throat from the moment this show started.”

Some dedicated fans had camped out since Thursday to see the singer’s UK stadium debut, braving temperatures that exceeded 31C.

“It means the absolute world to me that you’re here tonight,” she told them during the show. “It feels like I’ve waited my whole life for this moment.”

Reflecting on her ascent to the top tier of pop music, the 29-year-old added: ”It’s been 10 years since our first ever London show, which happened to be about 350 people, and I dreamt of a night like this.“

“To be in front of 70,000 people. I’m so, so blown away.”

She then introduced one of her earliest singles, Hotter Than Hell, telling fans it was the track that had earned her a recording contract.

Since then, she has stockpiled an enviable selection of armour-plated hits, most of which got an airing on Friday night.

The show began with a new-agey wash of ocean sounds, that segued seamlessly into her 2024 single, Training Season.

Lipa sang the first verse slowly, over a sultry orchestral backing. But before long, the band kicked into gear, and the disco pulse barely let up for the next two hours.

In many respects, the set played like an extended remix of her triumphant Glastonbury performance last year – full of pin-sharp choreography and fiercely futuristic pop.

Her voice remains a strong point – resonant and flexible, with a hint of the rasp she inherited from her father, Albanian rock singer Dukajin Lipa.

It was particularly effective on the cascading vocal runs of Falling Forever, and the Flamenco-flavoured Maria.

Somehow, Lipa managed not to lose her breath, despite demanding, body-rolling dance routines that only occasionally recalled Jane Fonda’s 1980s keep fit videos. She leaned into the schtick with an interlude instructing her fans to “move those hips” over the intro to Physical.

Jay Kay arrived to a scream of recognition from older members of the audience, suited up in a tasseled white cowboy jacket and pink jeans.

“What a privilege and an honour to be on stage with you,” said the singer, before launching into Virtual Insanity – a song that became a hit when Dua was just one year old.

Between songs, the star spent time getting personal with fans in the front row – borrowing their phones to pose for selfies, signing records (side note: who on earth brings a vinyl record to the front row of a stadium concert?) and even appropriating one person’s scarf to accentuate her own stage outfit.

It was a simple, but personal, touch that helped to illustrate why the star has become only the second British woman after Adele to headline Wembley Stadium.

Watched from the stands by her family, including fiancé Callum Turner, she wrapped up the show with a flawless four-song encore that included some of her biggest hits: New Rules, Don’t Start Now and Dance The Night.

Lipa finished with the psychedelic pop smash Houdini, ratcheting up the tension with a flurry of fireworks as she head-banged to a shredding guitar solo. Then the music suddenly stopped and she vanished in a cloud of smoke.

A powerhouse performance from a star at the top of their game, it was proof that you don’t need giant mechanical props or cutting edge video technology to pull off a compelling stadium show.

Sometimes, the right songs, the right choreography and a generous helping of feel-good energy are enough.

As an added bonus, that keeps the tickets affordable: The most expensive seats cost £155, compared to some stadium shows this summer, where prices have topped £900.

Lipa continues her Radical Optimism tour with a second night at Wembley on Saturday, followed by dates in Liverpool and London before the North American leg kicks off in September.

• Training Season
• End of an Era
• Break My Heart
• One Kiss
• Whatcha Doing
• Levitating
• These Walls
• Hotter Than Hell
• Virtual Insanity (with Jamiroquai)
• Maria
• Physical
• Electricity
• Hallucinate
• Illusion
• Falling Forever
• Happy for You
• Love Again
• Anything For Love
• Be the One

• New Rules
• Dance the Night
• Don’t Start Now
• Houdini

Nato summits tend to be “pre-cooked”, not least to present a united front.

Secretary General Mark Rutte has already settled on the menu for their meeting at The Hague: one that will avoid a row with Nato’s most powerful member, the US.

A commitment to increase defence spending by European allies is the dish that President Donald Trump wants served – and that’s exactly what he’ll be getting. Though there will inevitably be the added ingredients of compromise and fudge.

Nor will the summit be able to paper over the cracks between Trump and many of his European allies on trade, Russia and the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

The US president, whose mantra is America First, is not a huge fan of multinational organisations.

He has been highly critical of Nato too – even questioning its very foundation of collective defence. In Trump’s first term, at his first Nato summit, he berated European allies for not spending enough and owing the US “massive amounts of money”.

On that message he has at least been consistent.

Mark Rutte, who has a good relationship with the US president, has worked hard to give him a win.

The summit takes place at the World Forum in The Hague over two days, on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

Now the main discussions will last just three hours and the summit statement is being reduced to five paragraphs, reportedly because of the US president’s demands.

Trump is one of 32 leaders from the Western defensive alliance who are coming, along with the heads of more than a dozen partner countries.

Dutch police have mounted their biggest ever security operation for the most expensive Nato summit so far, at a cost of €183.4m (£155m; $210m).

Some have suggested the brevity of the summit is in part to cater to the US president’s attention span and dislike of long meetings. But a shorter summit with fewer subjects discussed will, more importantly, help hide divisions.

Ed Arnold, of the defence think tank Rusi, says Trump likes to be the star of the show and predicts he’ll be able to claim that he’s forced European nations to act.

In truth he’s not the first US president to criticise allies’ defence spending. But he’s had more success than most. Kurt Volker, a former US ambassador to Nato, admits that some European governments do not like the way Trump’s gone about it – demanding that allies spend 5% of their GDP on defence.

Europe still only accounts for 30% of Nato’s total military spending. Volker says many Europeans now admit they that “we needed to do this, even if it’s unfortunate that it took such a kick in the pants”.

Some European nations are already boosting their defence spending to 5% of their GDP. Most are the countries living in close proximity to Russia – such as Poland, Estonia and Lithuania.

It’s not just Trump who’s been piling on the pressure. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is forcing a response.

But in reality many Nato members will struggle to meet the new target. A few haven’t met the goal of 2%, set more than a decade ago.

Rutte’s compromise formula is for allies to increase their core defence spending to 3.5% of GDP, with an additional 1.5% towards defence-related expenditure.

But the definition of defence-related expenditure appears to be so vague that it might be rendered meaningless. Rutte says it could include the cost of industry of infrastructure – building bridges, roads and railways. Ed Arnold, of Rusi, says it’ll inevitably lead to more “creative accounting”.

Even if, as expected, the new spending target is approved, some nations may have little intent of reaching it – by 2032 or 2035. The timescale’s still unclear. Spain’s prime minister has already called it unreasonable and counterproductive. Sir Keir Starmer hasn’t even been able to say when the UK will spend 3% of its GDP of defence. The UK prime minister only said that it was an ambition some time in the next parliament. However, given the UK government’s stated policy of putting Nato at the heart of the UK’s defence policy, Sir Keir will have to back the new plan.

The real danger is to interpret the demand for an increase in defence spending as arbitrary, a symbolic gesture – or just bowing to US pressure. It’s also driven by Nato’s own defence plans on how it would respond to an attack by Russia. Rutte himself has said that Russia could attack a Nato country within five years.

Those defence plans remain secret. But Rutte’s already set out what the Alliance is lacking. In a speech earlier this month he said Nato needed a 400% increase in its air and missile defences: thousands more armoured vehicles and tanks, and millions more artillery shells.

Most member states, including the UK, do not yet meet their Nato capability commitments. It’s why Sweden plans to double the size of its army and Germany is looking to boost its troop numbers by 60,000.

The plans go into granular detail as to how the Alliance will defend its Eastern flank should Russia invade. In a recent speech, the head of the US Army in Europe, General Christopher Donahue, highlighted the need to defend Polish and Lithuanian territory near the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. He said the Alliance had looked at its existing capabilities and “realised very quickly they are not sufficient”.

Yet, strangely, specific discussions about Russia and the war in Ukraine will be muted. It’s the one big issue that now divides Europe and America. Kurt Volker says, under Trump, the US “does not see Ukrainian security as essential to European security but our European allies do”.

Trump has already shattered Nato’s united front by talking to Putin and withholding military support to Ukraine.

Ed Arnold says contentious issues have been stripped from the summit. Not least to avoid a schism with Trump. Leaders were supposed to discuss a new Russia strategy, but it’s not on the agenda.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been invited to the summit dinner, but he won’t be taking part in the main discussions of the North Atlantic Council.

Rutte will be hoping that his first summit as secretary general will be short and sweet. But with Trump at odds with most of his allies on Russia, the greatest threat facing the Alliance, there’s no guarantee it’ll go according to plan.

A wave of disinformation has been unleashed online since Israel began strikes on Iran last week, with dozens of posts reviewed by BBC Verify seeking to amplify the effectiveness of Tehran’s response.

Our analysis found a number of videos – created using artificial intelligence – boasting of Iran’s military capabilities, alongside fake clips showing the aftermath of strikes on Israeli targets. The three most viewed fake videos BBC Verify found have collectively amassed over 100 million views across multiple platforms.

Pro-Israeli accounts have also shared disinformation online, mainly by recirculating old clips of protests and gatherings in Iran, falsely claiming that they show mounting dissent against the government and support among Iranians for Israel’s military campaign.

Israel launched strikes in Iran on 13 June, leading to several rounds of Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel.

One organisation that analyses open-source imagery described the volume of disinformation online as “astonishing” and accused some “engagement farmers” of seeking to profit from the conflict by sharing misleading content designed to attract attention online.

“We are seeing everything from unrelated footage from Pakistan, to recycled videos from the October 2024 strikes—some of which have amassed over 20 million views—as well as game clips and AI-generated content being passed off as real events,” Geoconfirmed, the online verification group, wrote on X.

Certain accounts have become “super-spreaders” of disinformation, being rewarded with significant growth in their follower count. One pro-Iranian account with no obvious ties to authorities in Tehran – Daily Iran Military – has seen its followers on X grow from just over 700,000 on 13 June to 1.4m by 19 June, an 85% increase in under a week.

It is one many obscure accounts that have appeared in people’s feeds recently. All have blue ticks, are prolific in messaging and have repeatedly posted disinformation. Because some use seemingly official names, some people have assumed they are authentic accounts, but it is unclear who is actually running the profiles.

The torrent of disinformation marked “the first time we’ve seen generative AI be used at scale during a conflict,” Emmanuelle Saliba, Chief Investigative Officer with the analyst group Get Real, told BBC Verify.

• Iran’s secretive nuclear site that only a US bomb could hit
• US moves 30 jets as Iran attack speculation grows
• Is the UK about to get dragged into Iran-Israel conflict?

Accounts reviewed by BBC Verify frequently shared AI-generated images that appear to be seeking to exaggerate the success of Iran’s response to Israel’s strikes. One image, which has 27m views, depicted dozens of missiles falling on the city of Tel Aviv.

Another video purported to show a missile strike on a building in the Israeli city late at night. Ms Saliba said the clips often depict night-time attacks, making them especially difficult to verify.

AI fakes have also focussed on claims of destruction of Israeli F-35 fighter jets, a state-of-the art US-made plane capable of striking ground and air targets. If the barrage of clips were real Iran would have destroyed 15% of Israel’s fleet of the fighters, Lisa Kaplan, CEO of the Alethea analyst group, told BBC Verify. We have yet to authenticate any footage of F-35s being shot down.

One widely shared post claimed to show a jet damaged after being shot down in the Iranian desert. However, signs of AI manipulation were evident: civilians around the jet were the same size as nearby vehicles, and the sand showed no signs of impact.

Another video with 21.1 million views on TikTok claimed to show an Israeli F-35 being shot down by air defences, but the footage actually came from a flight simulator video game. TikTok removed the footage after being approached by BBC Verify.

Ms Kaplan said that some of the focus on F-35s was being driven by a network of accounts that Alethea has previously linked to Russian influence operations.

She noted that Russian influence operations have recently shifted course from trying to undermine support for the war in Ukraine to sowing doubts about the capability of Western – especially American – weaponry.

“Russia doesn’t really have a response to the F-35. So what it can it do? It can seek to undermine support for it within certain countries,” Ms Kaplan said.

Disinformation is also being spread by well-known accounts that have previously weighed in on the Israel-Gaza war and other conflicts.

Their motivations vary, but experts said some may be attempting to monetise the conflict, with some major social media platforms offering pay-outs to accounts achieving large numbers of views.

By contrast, pro-Israeli posts have largely focussed on suggestions that the Iranian government is facing mounting dissent as the strikes continuer

Among them is a widely shared AI-generated video falsely purporting to show Iranians chant “we love Israel” on the streets of Tehran.

However, in recent days – and as speculation about US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites grows – some accounts have started to post AI-generated images of B-2 bombers over Tehran. The B-2 has attracted close attention since Israel’s strikes on Iran started, because it is the only aircraft capable of effectively carrying out an attack on Iran’s subterranean nuclear sites.

Official sources in Iran and Israel have shared some of the fake images. State media in Tehran has shared fake footage of strikes and an AI-generated image of a downed F-35 jet, while a post shared by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) received a community note on X for using old, unrelated footage of missile barrages.

A lot of the Disinformation reviewed by BBC Verify has been shared on X, with users frequently turning to the platform’s AI chatbot – Grok – to establish posts’ veracity.

However, in some cases Grok insisted that the AI videos were real. One such video showed an endless stream of trucks carrying ballistic missiles emerging from a mountainside complex. Tell-tale signs of AI content included rocks in the video moving of their own accord, Ms Saliba said.

But in response to X users, Grok insisted repeatedly that the video was real and cited reports by media outlets including Newsweek and Reuters. “Check trusted news for clarity,” the chatbot concluded in several messages.

X did not respond to a request from BBC Verify for comment on the Chatbot’s actions.

Many videos have also appeared on TikTok and Instagram. In a statement to BBC Verify, TikTok said it proactively enforces community guidelines “which prohibit inaccurate, misleading, or false content” and that it works with independent fact checkers to “verify misleading content”.

Instagram owner Meta did not respond to a request for comment.

While the motivations of those creating online fakes vary, many are shared by ordinary social media users.

Matthew Facciani, a researcher at the University of Notre Dame, suggested that disinformation can spread more quickly online when people are faced with binary choices, such as those raised by conflict and politics.

“That speaks to the broader social and psychological issue of people wanting to re-share things if it aligns with their political identity, and also just in general, more sensationalist emotional content will spread more quickly online.”

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Panama has declared an emergency in its main banana-producing region, after shops were looted and buildings vandalised in ongoing protests over a pension reform.

The government says constitutional rights will be suspended for the next five days in the north-western Bocas del Toro province.

The measure restricts freedom of movement and allows the police to make arrests without a warrant.

Troubles in the region began a month ago, when the local banana workers union joined a nationwide protest against proposed pension cuts and declared a strike.

“In the face of the disruption of order and acts of systematic violence, the state will enforce its constitutional mandate to guarantee peace,” said Juan Carlos Orillac, minister of the presidency.

The measure, he added, would allow to “rescue the province” from radicals.

Protests across the Latin American nation erupted back in March over the pension reform.

In Bocas del Toro, the unrest has been largely led by workers at a Chiquita Brands banana plantation.

The confrontation escalated last month after the company sacked thousands of striking employees.

Protesters have been setting up roadblocks in the province, often clashing with police.

Earlier this week, crowds damaged one of Chiquita Brands’ facilities as well as a local airport.

Iran has said it will not resume talks over its nuclear programme while under attack, hours after Israel’s defence minister warned of a “prolonged” conflict with the Islamic Republic.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Friday met European diplomats in Geneva who urged him to revive diplomatic efforts with the US over his country’s nuclear programme.

His Israeli counterpart, Eyal Zamir, said in a video address that his country should be ready for a “prolonged campaign”.

Fighting has raged into the night with the Israeli military announcing a new wave of attacks against Iranian missile storage and launch sites after Iran launched missiles towards central Israel.

Explosions were heard close to Tel Aviv, with missile interceptions visible over Israel’s second-largest city. Reports say a building was set on fire in central Israel by falling shrapnel.

Meanwhile, a 16-year-old was killed and two others were injured in a Israeli strike on the city of Qom, south of Tehran, Iranian state media reported early on Saturday.

They reported Israeli strikes also again targeted a nuclear facility in the city of Isfahan.

• Live coverage

On Friday, Araghchi said Iran was ready to consider diplomacy only once Israel’s “aggression is stopped”.

Iran’s nuclear programme was peaceful, he insisted, and Israel’s attacks violated international law. Iran, he added, would continue to “exercise its legitimate right of self-defence”.

“I make it crystal clear that Iran’s defence capabilities are non-negotiable,” he said.

Araghchi is set to attend another round of talks on Saturday, in Istanbul, with representatives of the Arab League over the weekend.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN accused Iran of having a “genocidal agenda” and posing an ongoing threat, adding that Israel would not stop targeting nuclear facilities until they were “dismantled”.

In an interview with German newspaper Bild published on Saturday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said his country had set back Iran’s nuclear capabilities by at least two years.

He added that strikes would continue.

US President Donald Trump said Iran had a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible American air strikes, suggesting that he could take a decision before the 14-day deadline he set on Thursday.

“I’m giving them a period of time, and I would say two weeks would be the maximum,” Trump told reporters.

The aim, he said, was to “see whether or not people come to their senses”.

The US president was also dismissive of the Geneva talks between Araghchi and foreign ministers from the UK, France, Germany and the EU.

“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe,” Trump said. “They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this.”

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that the US had provided a “short window of time” to resolve the crisis in the Middle East which was “perilous and deadly serious”.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the ministers had invited the Iranian minister to “consider negotiations with all sides, including the United States, without awaiting the cessation of strikes”.

Barrot added that there could be “no definitive solution through military means to the Iran nuclear problem” and warned that it was “dangerous to want to impose a regime change” in Iran.

Israel was also hit by a new round of Iranian strikes on Friday with the Israeli military reporting an attack of 20 missiles targeting Haifa.

One Israeli woman died of a heart attack, bringing the Israeli death toll since the conflict began to 25.

The Israel Defense Forces said they had attacked ballistic missile storage and launch sites in western Iran.

Over the past week, Israeli air strikes have destroyed Iranian military facilities and weapons, and killed senior military commanders and nuclear scientists.

Iran’s health ministry said on Sunday that at least 224 people had been killed, while a human rights group, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, put the unofficial death toll at 657 on Friday.

Israel launched strikes in Iran on 13 June, leading to several rounds of Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel.

In a historic vote, MPs have approved a bill which would pave the way for huge social change by giving terminally ill adults in England and Wales the right to end their own lives.

The Terminally Ill Adults Bill, which was backed by 314 votes to 291, will now go to the House of Lords for further scrutiny.

The bill was approved with a majority of 23 MPs, representing a drop from the first time it was debated in November, when it passed by a margin of 55.

The vote came after an emotionally charged debate which saw MPs recount personal stories of seeing friends and relatives die.

It is likely, although not guaranteed, that the House of Lords will approve the bill later this year.

If that happens, ministers would have a maximum of four years to implement the measures, meaning it could be 2029 before assisted dying becomes available.

MPs were allowed a free vote on the bill, meaning they did not have to follow a party policy.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer backed the measure, while Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Health Secretary Wes Streeting voted against.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater has shepherded the bill through the Commons and speaking to the BBC after the vote she said she was “over the moon”.

“I know what this means for terminally ill people and their loved ones.”

She added it had been a “particularly emotional week” because it marked nine years since the murder of her sister Jo Cox, who had been a Labour MP at the time.

“Jo used to say if good people don’t step forward and come into politics then what do we end up with?

“And even though some of us feel quite out of place in this place at times we are here to make a difference and we’re here to make positive change that society has asked us to do.”

Critics have argued the bill risks people being coerced into seeking an assisted death but Leadbeater said she was “100% confident” sufficient safeguards were in place.

Conservative MP Danny Kruger, who has been a prominent opponent of the bill, said the majority had been cut in half adding: “It is clear support for this bill is ebbing away fast.”

He said he hoped the House of Lords would either reject the proposed legislation or “substantially strengthen it”.

He argued it would not be unconstitutional for peers to block a bill approved by the democratically elected House of Commons, pointing out that the proposal had not appeared in Labour’s election manifesto.

However, supporters of the bill have said that they are confident that, although the Lords are likely to amend the bill, it will not be rejected outright.

Any changes made in the House of Lords would have to be approved by MPs, before the bill could become law.

Dame Esther Rantzen, a broadcaster and prominent supporter of the bill, said: “This will make a huge positive difference, protecting millions of terminally ill patients and their families from the agony and loss of dignity created by a bad death.

“Thank you, Parliament.”

On the other side, Baroness and former Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson said she had heard from “disabled people [who] are absolutely terrified” about the bill.

Grey-Thompson, who will get a vote on the bill in the Lords, said she would put forward amendments to make it “as tight as possible” to ensure people could not be coerced.

Jan Noble, head of the hospice charity St Christopher’s, said it was now “vital” the government ensured “high-quality end-of-life care was available for everyone”.

“For that we need a better funding model for hospices,” she said.

Hundreds of campaigners gathered outside Parliament in the blazing heat to make sure their voices were heard as MPs made up their minds.

Those in favour of the bill had united under the Dignity in Dying campaign, wearing flamingo pink t-shirts, and there were smiles and tears as they shared hugs following the vote.

Pamela Fisher, a lay preacher from the Church of England who supports assisted dying, welcomed the narrow vote in favour, saying she believed the vote was “a major step forward to the creation of a more compassionate society”.

The family of Keith Fenton had been standing on Parliament Square with a placard of the former Squadron Major in his Royal Engineers regalia all morning and were “absolutely delighted” with the result.

Earlier, his widow Sara had explained she told Keith she didn’t want him to go to a Dignitas clinic in Switzerland when he became very ill with Huntington’s disease – but realised she was “being selfish” after Keith tried to take his life.

Reflecting the split among MPs on this issue of conscience, there were also large numbers of people campaigning against the Bill, many with concerns over how to protect vulnerable people.

Sister Doreen Cunningham had been sitting by Westminster Abbey alongside other nuns from the Sisters of Nazareth mission, and said she hoped the Lords would be able to introduce stronger safeguards.

“The MPs did talk about safeguards but they’re far from what we would call safeguards,” she added, as fellow disappointed campaigners consoled themselves by singing quiet hymns.

George Fielding from the secular Not Dead Yet campaign said the vote was “incredibly disappointing” as he believes it will “endanger, foreshorten and I would say kill the most vulnerable people in our society”.

As someone with cerebral palsy, he believes the bill is “ableist” and many of those who end their own lives when they become disabled are experiencing “unprocessed hurt and trauma”.

Sitting by a mock graveside in his wheelchair, George said: “We must ask the Lords to scrutinise this bill line by line to promote other alternatives – palliative care, social care, a better benefits system — to ensure everyone has the right to live a joyful life.”

Before the vote, the House of Commons spent more than three hours debating the general principles of the bill.

Conservative MP James Cleverly said he was struck by the number of medical professional bodies who were neutral on the principle of assisted dying but were opposed to the specific measures in the bill.

“When the people upon whom we rely to deliver this say we are not ready… we should listen,” he said.

Speaking in favour, Labour MP Peter Prinsley said: “There is an absolute sanctity of human life, but we are not dealing with life or death – we are dealing with death or death.

“For there is also a sanctity of human dignity and fundamental to that is surely choice – who are we to deny that to the dying?”

At the start of the day, MPs voted on a series of amendments that had been debated last week.

These included a measure to close the so-called “anorexia loophole” which would stop people qualifying for assisted dying on the basis of life-threatening malnutrition.

MPs backed that amendment as well as one requiring the government to publish a review of palliative care services within a year of the bill passing.

An attempt to block access to assisted dying for people suffering mental health problems or because they feel “burdensome” was defeated by a majority of 53.

To say China’s women are outnumbered would be an understatement.

With a staggering 30 million more men than women, one of the world’s most populous countries has a deluge of unattached males.

The odds are heavily stacked against them finding a date, let alone a wife – something many feel pressured to do.

To make matters worse, it’s even harder if you’re from a lower social class, according to Chinese dating coach Hao, who has over 3,000 clients.

“Most of them are working class – they’re the least likely to find wives,” he says.

We see this first-hand in Violet Du Feng’s documentary, The Dating Game, where we watch Hao and three of his clients throughout his week-long dating camp.

All of them, including Hao, have come from poor, rural backgrounds, and were part of the generation growing up after the 90s in China, when many parents left their toddlers with other family members, to go and work in the cities.

That generation are now adults, and are going to the cities themselves to try to find a wife and boost their status.

Du Feng, who is based in the US, wants her film to highlight what life is like for younger generations in her home country.

“In a time when gender divide is so extreme, particularly in China, it’s about how we can bridge a gap and create dialogue,” she tells the BBC.

Hao’s three clients – Li, 24, Wu, 27 and Zhou, 36 – are battling the aftermath of China’s one-child policy.

Set up by the government in 1980 when the population approached one billion, the policy was introduced amid fears that having too many people would affect the country’s economic growth.

But a traditional preference for male children led to large numbers of girls being abandoned, placed in orphanages, sex-selective abortions or even cases of female infanticide. The result is today’s huge gender imbalance.

China is now so concerned about its plummeting birth rate and ageing population that it ended the policy in 2016, and holds regular matchmaking events.

Wu, Li and Zhou want Hao to help them find a girlfriend at the very least.

He is someone they can aspire to be, having already succeeded in finding a wife, Wen, who is also a dating coach.

The men let Hao give them makeovers and haircuts, while he tells them his questionable “techniques” for attracting women – both online and in person.

But while everyone tries their best, not everything goes to plan.

Hao constructs an online image for each man, but he stretches a few boundaries in how he describes them, and Zhou thinks it feels “fake”.

“I feel guilty deceiving others,” he says, clearly uncomfortable with being portrayed as someone he can’t match in reality.

Du Feng thinks this is a wider problem.

“It’s a unique China story, but also it’s a universal story of how in this digital landscape, we’re all struggling and wrestling with the price of being fake in the digital world, and then the cost that we have to pay to be authentic and honest,” she says.

Hao may be one of China’s “most popular dating coaches”, but we see his wife question some of his methods.

Undeterred, he sends his proteges out to meet women, spraying their armpits with deodorant, declaring: “It’s showtime!”

The men have to approach potential dates in a busy night-time shopping centre in Chongqing, one of the world’s biggest cities.

It’s almost painful to watch as they ask women to link up via the messaging app WeChat.

But it does teach them to dig into their inner confidence, which, up until now, has been hidden from view.

Dr Zheng Mu, from the National University of Singapore’s sociology department, tells the BBC how pressure to marry can impact single men.

“In China, marriage or the ability, financially and socially, to get married as the primary breadwinner, is still largely expected from men,” she says.

“As a result, the difficulty of being considered marriageable can be a social stigma, indicating they’re not capable and deserving of the role, which leads to great pressures and mental strains.”

Zhou is despondent about how much dates cost him, including paying for matchmakers, dinner and new clothes.

“I only make $600 (£440) a month,” he says, noting a date costs about $300.

“In the end our fate is determined by society,” he adds, deciding that he needs to “build up my status”.

Du Feng explains: “This is a generation in which a lot of these surplus men are defined as failures because of their economic status.

“They’re seen as the bottom of society, the working class, and so somehow getting married is another indicator that they can succeed.”

We learn that one way for men in China to “break social class” is to join the army, and see a big recruitment drive taking place in the film.

The film notably does not explore what life is like for gay men in China.

Du Feng agrees that Chines society is less accepting of gay men, while Dr Mu adds: “In China, heteronormativity largely rules.

“Therefore, men are expected to marry women to fulfill the norms… to support the nuclear family and develop it into bigger families by becoming parents.”

Technology also features in the documentary, which explores the increasing popularity of virtual boyfriends, saying that over 10 million women in China play online dating games.

We even get to see a virtual boyfriend in action – he’s understanding, undemanding and undeniably handsome.

One woman says real-life dating costs “time, money, emotional energy – it’s so exhausting”.

She adds that “virtual men are different – they have great temperaments, they’re just perfect”.

Dr Mu sees this trend as “indicative of social problems” in China, citing “long work hours, greedy work culture and competitive environment, along with entrenched gender role expectations”.

“Virtual boyfriends, who can behave better aligned with women’s expected ideals, may be a way for them to fulfil their romantic imaginations.”

Du Feng adds: “The thing universally that’s been mentioned is that the women with virtual boyfriends felt men in China are not emotionally stable.”

Her film digs into the men’s backgrounds, including their often fractured relationships with their parents and families.

“These men are coming from this, and there’s so much negative pressure on them – how could you expect them to be stable emotionally?”

Reuters reported last year that “long-term single lifestyles are gradually becoming more widespread in China”.

“I’m worried about how we connect with each other nowadays, especially the younger generation,” Du Feng says.

“Dating is just a device for us to talk about this. But I am really worried.

“My film is about how we live in this epidemic of loneliness, with all of us trying to find connections with each other.”

So by the end of the documentary, which has many comical moments, we see it has been something of a realistic journey of self-discovery for all of the men, including Hao.

“I think that it’s about the warmth as they find each other, knowing that it’s a collective crisis that they’re all facing, and how they still find hope,” Du Feng says.

“For them, it’s more about finding themselves and finding someone to pat their shoulders, saying, ‘I see you, and there’s a way you can make it’.”

Screen Daily’s Allan Hunter says the film is “sustained by the humanity that Du Feng finds in each of the individuals we come to know and understand a little better”, adding it “ultimately salutes the virtue of being true to yourself”.

Hao concludes: “Once you like yourself, it’s easier to get girls to like you.”

“I missed them so much,” says Stephanie Prado, a die-hard BTS fan who has been desperately waiting for the group to reunite after a two-and-a-half-year hiatus.

Her love for the boy band inspired her to move from Brazil to South Korea – so it was no surprise that she turned up last Friday for “BTS Festa”, a big party held every year near Seoul on the group’s anniversary.

The time she has spent waiting has moved “both slowly and really quickly”, Stephanie says, waving an ARMY bomb, the official lightstick used by BTS fans, who call themselves the ARMY.

Behind her is a huge sculpture of the lightstick, a must-have in the K-pop world.

This year’s event is special because a reunion is finally around the corner. The countdown peaked last week, when four of the seven members, RM, V, Jimin and Jung Kook, completed their military service. And the wait ends on Saturday when the last of them, Suga, is discharged.

“I hope they rest now,” Stephanie says, before adding, “but of course I also want albums, concerts, everything”.

The 18 months in the military that are mandatory for all South Korean men forced the world’s most successful boy band in recent years to hit pause in 2022. Now they are returning, some say, to a K-pop industry that is quite different to the one they knew: faced with stalled album sales, shaken by scandals and increasingly scrutinised over the excessive pressure it puts on stars.

The absence of a leading band, industry watchers say, was deeply felt.

“Without BTS, a core pillar was missing,” says Kim Young-dae, music critic and author of BTS: The Review.

“There have been concerns recently that K-pop is losing momentum. True or not, BTS could change that perception.”

There are no plans yet for all seven members to appear together, but that didn’t stop the ARMY from gathering early on a humid morning in Goyang.

The long, restless queue stretched to the subway station an hour before the gates for the BTS Festa opened. The snippets of English, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish alongside Korean threw off a local walking past who asked, “Why are there so many foreigners here?”

Inside were more queues – some people were hopping with excitement and others were sobbing after entering the “voice zone”, a phone booth where you could listen to BTS members’ messages. About half of the fans the BBC spoke to teared up talking about how much they missed BTS.

“It felt like the 18 months lasted forever,” said Vuyo Matiwane, a South African who had been visiting BTS-themed venues in Seoul, like their favourite restaurant. “I was crying at every location – it was so emotional.”

And then she watched the livestream of them being discharged, which was “overwhelming”.

Being surrounded by all things BTS made a trip halfway across the world worth it, says Fara Ala, who travelled from the Netherlands: “Breathing the same air, drinking the same water, eating the same food as BTS – that’s enough for ARMY. If you ask other ARMY, they’d say the same.”

South Korean military service is a major test for male celebrities, many of whom have to enlist at the peak of their success. In the past, it has proved fatal for some careers.

BTS is believed to have staggered it so that all seven members were missing from action for no more than six months. J-Hope, who was discharged last October, has since wrapped up a solo world tour. But the so-called curse can be hard to break.

For one, the loyalty of fans could wane as new groups debut almost every week, competing for their attention. Returning idols also face a tough transition because a military stint and a touch of maturity could dampen the essence of K-pop appeal: youthful energy.

But if anyone can break the curse, it’s BTS, Mr Kim says.

Each of them announced solo projects in the past two and half years, he explains, without hurting their popularity as a group: “It feels like their military hiatus passed by naturally. Their return feels smooth.”

Still, the industry beyond the ARMY can pose a challenge.

While BTS was on a break, the other K-pop sensation, Blackpink, has not dropped an album since September 2022, opting instead for solo releases. These were the leaders of K-pop’s third generation.

But they have been succeeded by fourth and fifth generations that have brought fresh style to the genre. The newer acts – which debuted after 2018 – lack a standout name like BTS because K-pop has become more diverse than ever. The result is a range of very popular and experimental groups.

“Most people my age like fourth generation idols these days,” says a 13-year-old fan of girl group IVE.

“Some still like third generation groups, but for teens, BTS kind of feels like they belong to an older generation. A lot of new idols debuted while BTS was away, and they have become popular.”

But the biggest challenge to BTS’ superstar status is what some see as a slowdown in K-pop.

Revenue from concerts remains strong, but album sales – a key market metric – have been declining since a peak in 2023. The slump coincides with when BTS and Blackpink were not releasing albums.

South Korean pop culture critic Park Hee Ah agrees that K-pop went through “some difficult times” while BTS was away.

There have also been several controversies, such as the headline-making dispute between hit girl group NewJeans and their agency, allegations of mistreatment by all-powerful agencies and harassment of stars by fans and trolls.

“Album sales started to drop, and some problems – like questions about companies doing the right thing – came up,” Ms Park said. Because of all of this, she adds, we did see more “deeper problems in the K-pop industry”.

That’s also why so many are looking forward to BTS’ return, hoping it will bring renewed energy – and maybe even a path forward for the industry.

“Their return will help people focus on Korea’s music scene again,” Ms Park says, adding that a BTS reunion is great not just for their fans but also for Korean soft power.

All eyes are now on the band’s next song.

“I will quickly make an album and return to the stage,” RM, the group’s leader, said on the day he was discharged.

But a new group album may not come until early next year because J-Hope still has domestic concerts scheduled, and Jin is set to hold concerts for fans across the world over the next few months. It’s also possible Suga, who landed in controversy after he was caught drunk-driving a scooter last year, may want to lie low for a little while.

For millions of fans like Stephanie though, simply knowing BTS is back together is enough – for now.

“It’ll feel like nothing ever changed. The kings are back.”

Columbia University graduate and activist Mahmoud Khalil said the Trump administration “chose the wrong person” to target in its crackdown on student protesters as he was released on bail after more than three months in detention.

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the Palestinian was not a flight risk or threat to his community and could be released as his immigration proceedings continue.

Mr Khalil was a prominent voice in Columbia’s pro-Palestinian protests last year, and his 8 March arrest sparked demonstrations in New York and Washington DC.

The government has argued his activism impedes on US foreign policy and moved to have him deported.

Speaking to journalists before heading to New York from Louisiana, where he was held, he said he was most eager to see his wife and his son, who was born during his 104 days in detention.

“The only time I spent [with] my son was a specified one-hour limit that the government had imposed on us,” he said.

“So that means that now I can actually hug him and Noor, my wife, without looking at the clock.”

He also criticised the Trump administration for targeting him for protesting against Israel’s military actions in Gaza: “There’s no right person that should be detained for actually protesting a genocide.”

He did not specifically mention Israel, which emphatically denies accusations of genocide in Gaza, or Jewish people.

In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson accused Mr Khalil of engaging in “fraud and misrepresentation” and “conduct detrimental to American foreign policy interests”.

The White House maintains that Judge Michael Farbiarz did not have jurisdiction to order Mr Khalil’s release.

“We expect to be vindicated on appeal, and look forward to removing Khalil from the United States,” Ms Jackson said.

Mr Khalil, a permanent resident, graduated from Columbia while he was in detention. His wife took his place during the ceremony and accepted his diploma on his behalf.

The government has not accused Mr Khalil of a specific crime.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked a rarely used portion of the Immigration and Nationality Act to argue Mr Khalil’s presence in the US could pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences”.

Last week, Judge Farbiarz ruled Rubio’s justification for detaining Mr Khalil was probably unconstitutional and said the US government could not detain or deport the 30-year-old legal US resident under that reasoning.

Attorneys for the Trump administration then said Mr Khalil was being held for a different charge, failing to disclose information when he applied for lawful permanent residency in 2024.

Mr Khalil’s attorneys had argued that the government violated their client’s free speech rights and the administration targeted him because of his role in protests. They also asked a New Jersey federal court to free him on bail or transfer him closer to his wife and baby.

Throughout Friday’s nearly two-hour hearing, Judge Farbiarz, who presides in the District of New Jersey, expressed scepticism about the government’s requests to hold Mr Khalil while his case moved forward.

He also said Mr Khalil’s arrest and detention on the second charge were “highly unusual”.

• Who is Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian student activist facing US deportation?
• US resumes student visas but orders enhanced social media vetting

“It’s overwhelmingly unlikely that a lawful permanent resident would be held on the remaining charge here,” Judge Farbiarz said, according to CBS News.

He added that there had been an “effort to use the immigration charge here to punish the petitioner” for his protests.

Under the conditions of his release, Mr Khalil will not have to wear electronic monitoring, and will be given certified copies of his passport and green card so he can return home.

The government will retain his physical passport. The court barred Mr Khalil from international travel, but he will be permitted some domestic travel to New York and Michigan, as well as New Jersey and Louisiana for court appearances and attorney visits. He will also be permitted to travel to Washington for lobbying and legislative purposes.

“No one should fear being jailed for speaking out in this country,” said Alina Das, co-director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at New York University School of Law, who appeared in court to argue for his release on Friday.

“We are overjoyed that Mr Khalil will finally be reunited with his family while we continue to fight his case in court.”

“After more than three months, we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home to me and Deen, who never should have been separated from his father,” said Mr Khalil’s wife, Dr Noor Abdalla, in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Inside London’s first romance-only bookshop, Sarah Maxwell stands in the “smut hut” – a section dedicated to her store’s more erotic titles.

Surrounded by shelves stacked with brightly coloured paperbacks – with titles including Just For the Summer, Swept Away and The Friendship Fling – young women are milling around, chatting and flicking through books.

Sarah says she wants to challenge the critics of romance fiction – often men – who diminish what she describes as “really high-quality writing” by saying “it’s just smut”.

“A lot of these books have strong world-building, amazing character development and a really good plot,” Sarah says.

A surge in romance and fantasy sales last year pushed UK fiction revenue above £1bn for the first time, according to a report released last week.

As its popularity grows, some readers and industry experts say attitudes towards romance are changing for the better, but others believe sexism keeps the genre from the mainstream.

Romance fiction spans a dizzying range of sub-genres and moods, all centred around heady love stories with a guaranteed happily ever after – or HEA to fans – lending the books a comforting, cosy atmosphere.

Romantasy – a blend of romance and fantasy – has become a reliable fixture on best-seller lists, largely due to the cult-like following it has gained among TikTok’s reading community, BookTok.

Major series like Fourth Wing and A Court of Thorns and Roses see female protagonists enter high-stakes relationships set against magical, fantastic worlds.

Many readers pick what to read based on tropes such as “enemies to lovers” and “second-chance romance”, with books marketed under these banners.

A book’s “spice level” – or how much sex can be found between the covers – is also a major factor, often focused on female pleasure, power and emotional connection.

“I’m into cowboys at the moment,” says Sky, 23 from London – a reference to “cowboy romances”, a growing sub-genre whose books take place in a western setting – often the American frontier.

Sky and another fan, Chantelle, 24 describe themselves as “very proud romance readers”. They trace their love of the genre to reading fanfiction under their desks at school, and now get their recommendations through BookTok.

But Sky and Chantelle admit not everyone reacts positively when they talk about their favourite books.

“Some people do turn their nose up, roll their eyes sometimes,” says Chantelle, “but I just don’t really care”.

Caroline, 29, admits she “sneered a bit” at romance in her early twenties.

“I used to read romances when I was a teenager,” she recalls, “but I got away from it and started reading stuff I thought was really smart.”

Then last year, Caroline picked up Emily Henry’s bestseller Book Lovers – an “enemies to lovers” story about a literary agent and a book editor, set in a picturesque small town.

“I realised I hadn’t consumed something guilt-free in my reading for a really long time,” Caroline says, “and it was just really fun”.

She’s since devoured the entire series of A Court of Thorns and Roses, a stalwart of bestseller lists and many readers’ first taste of romantasy.

“It’s nice to feel all the feelings with something that’s just going to really entertain you,” Caroline says.

Victoria, 31, has long read both romance and fantasy for much-needed escapism: “Sometimes I think we all need a little bit of a happily ever after in life.”

She says “chick-lit” stigma is still strong, but thinks attitudes are starting to change as people speak openly about their love of the genre online.

“We’re talking about it in a different way,” Victoria says. “Guilty pleasures? Do I need to feel guilty for loving something?”

Both romance and fantasy saw record sales last year, according to data gathered from more than 7,000 UK booksellers.

Romance & Sagas, as they are officially categorised, increased from £62m in 2023 to £69m in 2024, while Science Fiction & Fantasy saw an even bigger bump – from £59m to £83m.

Both categories have seen these numbers skyrocket since the pandemic, growing year-on-year – back in 2019, romance’s sales sat at £24m, and fantasy at £29m.

Women under 35 years old make up more than half of romantasy purchases, figures show.

Literary agent Rebeka Finch, 28, says the “voracious” appetite among this demographic, largely driven by BookTok, reflects broader consumer habits.

She likens romance readers to Swifties – Taylor Swift fans – known for owning multiple copies of the same album and wanting to feel a tangible connection to their favourite artist.

“They are the people that are so obsessive about books that they will buy a Kindle edition, they will have a hard back edition, they will have a paperback edition.

“They will have so many different volumes of the same book because they love it so much.”

Bookshop owner Sarah Maxwell says the demographic gave her the confidence to open Saucy Books in the middle of a high street downturn that has seen many independent bookshops suffer.

“People have this perception that’s it’s not good business,” Sarah says, but the community is “strong” and the authors prolific, providing plenty of stock.

“Millennial women have the most disposable income,” she adds. “Romance is serious business.”

Despite this commercial growth, Rebeka says broader attitudes remain derisive – particularly when it comes to “spicy” titles.

“‘That’s fairy porn’ – the amount of times that I have heard that!” Rebeka exclaims.

“Part of me wants to be like, ‘So what?’ This industry has been made for the male gaze for so long.

“It’s such a small percentage of the book and actually… it’s largely portraying fairly healthy sexual relationships.”

Within the publishing industry, attitudes are changing but mainly for commercial reasons, according to Katie Fraser, who writes for publishing magazine, The Bookseller.

Romance has been a “maligned genre” within the industry that “some people just didn’t want to be associated with,” she says. But as romance readers become an “economic force,” publishers have had to take it more seriously and invest.

“Publishing is an industry, so that’s what it ultimately boils down to,” Katie says.

Author Bea Fitzgerald, 28, says she benefitted from this commercial shift, selling her young adult fantasy rom-com Girl Goddess Queen at the peak of the romance boom.

“That sort of space opening up is what allowed me to move into the market,” she says.

Bea previously worked in publishing, and recalls seeing “a lot of books that could have been published as romance [instead] published in other literary genres because they think that it will not appeal to a certain type of audience”.

The genre is nothing new, she quips, having long been “championed” by publishers such as Mills & Boon. The difference now is that young people “like things really unapologetically”.

“They won’t just read a romance, they’ll go shout about it online, and then they’ll go to a romance convention, and they’ll talk to their friends about it.”

While the community has grown, Bea thinks critical appraisal of the genre is still lacking.

“Do we see broadsheets reviewing romance books? No. And they are just as important, literary books.”

Bea believes this is both because “the good majority” of the readers are women, and simply because the stories are happy.

“It goes in line with this sort of academic elitism that for something to be serious, it has to be a Shakespearean tragedy,” she says. “Whereas if it’s happy, it’s not serious, it hasn’t got literary merit. It obviously does – of course it does.”