Israel says it has killed a senior Iranian commander who helped plan Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in a strike on Saturday on the city of Qom.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the killing of Saeed Izadi marked a key point in the conflict. He was “one of the orchestrators” of the attack, which killed about 1,200 people and saw many others taken to Gaza as hostages, said IDF chief Eyal Zamir.

“The blood of thousands of Israelis is on his hands,” he said on Saturday, calling it a “tremendous intelligence and operational achievement.”

Iran is yet to confirm Izadi’s killing and has previously denied involvement in Hamas’s attack.

• Live updates
• Targeting of Quds Force shows growing security breach

The IDF said it had killed Izadi in a strike on an apartment in Qom, south of Tehran, in the early hours of Saturday. He had been in charge of the Palestine Corps of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’s (IRGC) Quds Force, responsible for handling ties with the Palestinian armed groups.

He was reportedly instrumental in arming and financing Hamas, and had been responsible for military co-ordination between senior IRGC commanders and Hamas leaders, the IDF said.

In April 2024, Izadi narrowly survived an Israeli air strike targeting the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria – an attack that killed several high-ranking Quds Force commanders.

Israel later on Saturday also claimed to have killed another Quds Force commander, Behnam Shahriyari in a drone strike as he was travelling in a car through western Iran.

Shahriyari had been responsible for transporting missiles and rockets to Iran’s proxy groups across the region, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, said the IDF.

If Israeli claims are confirmed, the assassinations of Izadi and Shahryari represent a major blow to the IRGC.

The attacks come as the conflict between the two countries entered its ninth day, with both launching new attacks on Saturday.

Iran said Israel had targeted a nuclear facility near the city of Isfahan. Israel said it was targeting military infrastructure in south-west Iran and reported at least one impact from Iranian drones that entered its airspace.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi meanwhile told reporters in Istanbul that any US involvement in the conflict would be “very very dangerous”. On Friday he told European envoys in Geneva on Friday that Iran would not resume talks over its nuclear programme until Israel’s strikes stopped.

Donald Trump has suggested US involvement in Israel’s strikes on Iran, saying Tehran had a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible American air strikes if they did not negotiate on their nuclear programme.

Iranian officials say least 430 people, including military commanders, have been killed and 3,500 injured in Iran since the conflict began on 13 June. A human rights group tracking Iran, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, put the unofficial death toll at 657 on Friday.

In Israel, officials say 25 people have been killed including one of a heart attack.

At the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, a Russian MP came up to me.

“Are you going to bomb Iran?” he asked.

“I’m not planning to bomb anyone!” I replied.

“I mean you, the British…”

“Don’t you mean Donald Trump?”

“He’s told what to do by Britain,” the man smiled. “And by the deep state.”

It was a brief, bizarre conversation. But it showed that in St Petersburg this week there was more on people’s minds than just the economy.

Take President Vladimir Putin.

On Friday, the Kremlin leader delivered the keynote speech at the forum’s plenary session. It focused on the economy.

But it’s what the Kremlin leader said in the panel discussion afterwards that made headlines.

“We have an old rule,” Putin declared. “Where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that’s ours.”

Imagine you’re the leader of a country that’s hosting an economic forum, seeking foreign investment and cooperation. Boasting about your army seizing foreign lands wouldn’t appear to be the most effective way to achieve this.

But that’s the point. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the state of the economy has been secondary to the goal of winning the war against Ukraine. That is the Kremlin’s overarching priority. True, Russia’s economy has been growing, but largely due to massive state spending on the defence sector and military-industrial complex.

• Russia fears another loss in Middle East from Iran’s conflict with Israel
• How the West is helping Russia to fund its war on Ukraine

And even this war-related growth is now petering out.

Putin didn’t sound overly concerned.

“As far as the ‘murder’ of the Russian economy is concerned, as a famous writer once said – ‘rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated,'” the Russian president declared.

But the Russian government is clearly nervous.

At the forum, Russia’s Minister for Economic Development, Maxim Reshetnikov, warned that the country’s economy was teetering “on the brink of recession”.

“We grew for two years at a fairly high pace because unused resources were activated,” said Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina. “We need to understand that many of those resources have truly been exhausted.”

The St Petersburg International Economic Forum was conceived as a shiny showcase for the Russian economy. A lot of that shine has faded due to the thousands of international sanctions imposed on Russia over the war in Ukraine. Many Western companies pulled out of Russia.

Might they return?

After all, US President Donald Trump has made it clear he wants better relations with Moscow.

“Today we had breakfast with the American Chamber of Commerce and lots of investors came from the US. We get a sense that lots of American companies want to come back,” Kirill Dmitriev, President Putin’s envoy on foreign investment, told me. We spoke on the sidelines of the St Petersburg forum.

“I think the American administration understands that dialogue and joint cooperation is better than sanctions that do not work and hurt your businesses.”

Western businesses, though, are unlikely to return in large numbers while Russia is waging war on Ukraine.

“I think it’s clear you have to have some sort of an end to the conflict before American companies are going to seriously consider going back,” said Robert Agee, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia.

“Have you asked the Trump administration to remove some sanctions from Russia?” I asked him.

“We’ve been to Washington,” he replied. “We have made an analysis of the impact of American sanctions on American businesses. We passed that on to the administration.”

“Do you accept that the idea of Western businesses returning is controversial in light of the war in Ukraine?” I asked.

“Western businesses have made decisions based on what happened three or four years ago,” replied Mr Agee. “And it’s up to them to decide whether it’s the right time to return.”

After more than three years of war and mass sanctions, Russia faces tough economic challenges: high inflation, high interest rates, reports of stagnation, recession. The problems in the economy are now openly discussed and debated.

It’s unclear how soon they will be resolved.

A photo of the Prince of Wales with another generation – this time of puppies – has been posted on social media by Kensington Palace to mark his 43rd birthday.

The picture, taken by the Princess of Wales, shows Prince William with their family’s Cocker spaniel, Orla, and three of her four recently-arrived puppies.

The message for Prince William was signed online “with love”, with the initials of Catherine and their children, George, Charlotte, Louis, and “the puppies”, plus a paw print emoji.

The picture was taken in Windsor earlier this month.

There was also a message online for Prince William from the official account of the Royal Family, saying “Happy Birthday to The Prince of Wales!”, plus some celebratory emojis.

An accompanying picture, of the prince sitting on a stone wall, was taken while he visited farmers and food producers on the Duchy of Cornwall – a parcel of land William now owns – in May.

Orla was given to the royal couple by Catherine’s brother, James Middleton, in 2020, shortly after the death of their previous dog Lupo.

The dog – seen walking behind William in the picture – gave birth to four puppies in May.

Spaniels are well known for their affectionate behaviour and the picture shows the puppies clambering around the prince.

In the puppy picture, the prince looks relaxed in a pair of jeans and trainers – an informal moment after recent showcase occasions, including Trooping the Colour and the Order of the Garter procession.

He also visited a project linked to his Earthshot environmental prize which creates a type of sustainable dye that can reduce the fashion industry’s use of harmful chemicals – so colours can really be green.

Catherine did not appear at Royal Ascot earlier this week, with royal aides saying she had to find a balance in how she returned to public events. In January, the princess revealed she was in remission after her cancer diagnosis last year.

On Friday, she sent out a message about her support for children’s hospices – saying they helped families who were “heartbroken, fearful of the future and often desperately isolated”.

And now her photo has marked her husband’s birthday.

While Prince William was born in mid-summer on the longest day of the year, his father King Charles has been praising those in Antarctica experiencing the shortest day of the year.

He recorded a special message for the BBC World Service’s Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast, which sends a morale-raising message to scientists working in remote research stations in the depths of their winter.

The King praised the work of researchers tracking climate change.

Tulsi Gabbard says Iran could produce nuclear weapons “within weeks”, months after she testified before Congress that the country was not building them.

The US Director of National Intelligence said her March testimony – in which she said Iran had a stock of materials but was not building these weapons – had been taken out of context by “dishonest media”.

Her change of position came after Donald Trump said she was “wrong” and that intelligence showed Iran had a “tremendous amount of material” and could have a nuclear weapon “within months”.

Iran has always said that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and that it has never sought to develop a nuclear weapon.

On Thursday Trump said he was giving Tehran the “maximum” of two weeks to reach a deal on its nuclear activities with Washington. He said he would soon decide whether the US should join Israel’s strikes on Iran.

Disagreement has been building within Trump’s “America First” movement over whether the US should enter the conflict.

On Saturday morning, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country was “absolutely ready for a negotiated solution” on their nuclear programme but that Iran “cannot go through negotiations with the US when our people are under bombardment”.

• Live updates
• Was Iran months away from producing a nuclear bomb?

In her post on social media, Gabbard said US intelligence showed Iran is “at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months”.

“President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree,” she added.

Gabbard shared a video of her full testimony before Congress in March, where she said US intelligence agencies had concluded Iran was not building nuclear weapons.

Experts also determined Iran had not resumed its suspended 2003 nuclear weapons programme, she added in the clip, even as the nation’s stockpile of enriched uranium – a component of such weapons – was at an all-time high.

In her testimony, she said Iran’s stock was “unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons”.

Earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – the global nuclear watchdog – expressed concern about Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, which can be used to make reactor fuel but also nuclear weapons.

Gabbard’s March testimony has been previously criticised by Trump, who earlier told reporters he did not “care what she said”.

The US president said he believes Iran were “very close to having a weapon” and his country would not allow that to happen.

In 2015, Iran agreed a long-term deal on its nuclear programme with a group of world powers after years of tension over the country’s alleged efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.

Iran had been engaging in talks with the US this year over its nuclear programme and was scheduled to hold a further round when Israel launched strikes on Iran on 13 June, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said targeted “the heart” of Iran’s nuclear programme.

“If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time,” Netanyahu claimed.

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

Iran’s health ministry said on Saturday that at least 430 people had been killed, while a human rights group, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, put the unofficial death toll at 657 on Friday.

Iran has retaliated with missile and drone strikes against Israel, killing 25 people including one who suffered a heart attack.

The husband of Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has been unexpectedly released from prison in Belarus, along with 13 other political prisoners.

Sergei Tikhanovsky – an opposition activist himself – has been moved to Lithuania and reunited with his wife, who is living in exile in capital Vilnius, after five years in prison.

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya announced her husband’s release by posting a 10-second video of their first hug since 2020. She said it was “hard to describe” the joy in her heart.

The sudden release came as US special envoy Keith Kellogg visited Minsk, Belarus’ capital, on Saturday and held a meeting with the country’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

In a statement on X, the Lithuanian foreign minister said 14 political prisoners were released and receiving care in Lithuania.

According to Tikhanovskaya’s office, five were Belarusian nationals and some were Japanese, Polish and Swedish citizens.

However, Tikhanovksy’s release is by far the most prominent.

A colourful, outspoken figure who once had a big following in Belarus on social media, he used to call on people to “stop the cockroach”, referring to Lukashenko.

Ignoring the risks from a repressive regime, the video blogger and activist would tour the country to meet people in town squares and villages to hear – and broadcast – their concerns.

In 2020, he was arrested as he began his campaign to challenge Lukashenko for the presidency in that summer’s elections.

• ‘A performance and a sham’: Belarusian opposition denounces election

He was jailed for 18 years in 2021 after a court convicted him of rallying mass protests against Lukashenko, among other charges.

His wife, Tikhanovskaya – a political novice and total unknown – stepped in to run for election in his place.

And when Lukashenko declared another landslide win, her supporters flooded the streets in the biggest protests Belarus has ever known.

They were crushed, ruthlessly, and Tikhanovskaya was forced into exile.

Maria Kolesnikova, another well-known opposition leader who was jailed after the mass protests of 2020, is still in prison, her sister confirmed.

“No, not this time,” she wrote to the BBC when asked whether Maria was among those set free. “Though it’s a huge progress. We need more releases and for that – more efforts and negotiations.”

In the video posted by Tikhanovskaya on Saturday, Tikhanovsky is smiling broadly but has lost so much weight that he is hard to recognise.

Well-built, even stocky before his arrest, he is now thin. In the video, the jacket he is wearing hangs loosely and his head has been shaved.

Franak Viacorka, senior adviser to Tikhanovskaya, described this as a “big day” and a very unexpected step.

“We didn’t expect his release, we were struggling – fighting – for his release, but it was a full surprise,” he told the BBC from Lithuania.

“We put his name on all the lists but we didn’t believe it was possible.”

He said that Tikhanovsky was “the same Sergei” he was before he was jailed.

“I felt the same energy, the same passion, though he was looking very thin,” he added.

Tikhanovskaya wrote on X “my husband is free” before thanking US President Donald Trump, Kellogg and “all European allies” for their efforts to get her husband released.

“We’re not done – 1,150 political prisoners remain behind bars,” she added. “All must be released.”

Viacorka said that as far as his team knows, nothing was offered to Belarus in return for Tikhanovsky’s release.

“I think he [Lukashenko] is in quite weak situation right now,” Viacorka said. “And he wants to improve relationship with the new American administration.”

Artyom Shraibman, of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, suggested that the meeting with Kellogg was reward enough for Lukashenko.

“It seems like the US asked for Tikhanovsky to be released as a significant concession in exchange for Kellogg’s visit and Lukashenko agreed,” he said.

The Belarusian leader has been isolated by Western politicians for many years. Neither his re-election in 2020 or this year were ever officially recognised and Belarus was placed under Western sanctions.

The freeze in relations deepened when Belarus aided Russia in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, allowing troops to cross its territory and missiles to be launched from its land.

“It’s a significant diplomatic breakthrough for Lukashenko. It helps to get him out of isolation,” Mr Shraibman said.

“I also think Lukashenko will like the opportunity to discuss issues of war and peace with such a top level envoy from the US.

“So in some form, this is a win-win.”

It is not clear whether the Trump administration is dangling the prospect of lifting some sanctions, though Lukashenko is certainly angling for that.

But this release does not mean the end of political repression in Belarus. Hundreds more people are still behind bars for nothing more than their opposition to Lukashenko’s rule.

• My opponents choose jail and exile, Lukashenko tells BBC

Other prisoners have been pardoned and released in recent months, but the repressions have not stopped.

The BBC knows of recent cases of the KGB security service demanding people collaborate with its agents and inform on others, or face arrest. They had to flee the country.

In the case of Tikhanovsky, it appears Lukashenko calculated that he had more to gain geopolitically by releasing a prominent prisoner than he would risk by letting him go.

Forced into exile in Lithuania, it’s not clear what role Tikhanovsky and his strong personality will now play within the democratic opposition, where his wife is now the internationally recognised leader.

“It introduces a certain confusion and possibly even some political mess to democratic forces”, Mr Shraibman said.

Among the other Belarusians freed on Saturday was 60-year-old Natalia Dulina, a professor of Italian at Minsk Linguistic University who has been in prison since 2022 on political charges.

On her way to a shelter in Lithuania on Saturday – now in forced exile – she told the BBC she had been moved suddenly from her prison on Friday by men in balaclavas and given no explanation.

She said they put a medical mask over her eyes and cuffed her hands before driving her to what she later learned was the KGB prison in Minsk.

“This morning, they put us in another bus – put a black balaclava on all of us, with no holes in it, and we didn’t know where they were taking us. It was really unpleasant,” Natalia said.

It was only at the border with Lithuania that she knew for sure she was being released.

“It was a total surprise. It still hasn’t sunk in,” she said.

Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians are estimated to have left their country since the brutal crackdown on widespread opposition protests in 2020.

Tens of thousands of people have been arrested in the country in the past five years for political reasons, according to human rights group Viasna.

At least eight people have died in a hot air balloon accident in Brazil, a state governor has said.

There were 21 people on board the balloon in the city of Praia Grande on Saturday morning, Governor of Santa Catarina Jorginho Mello said in a post on X.

Thirteen people, including the pilot, survived and no one is missing, the state government press office said.

It added that the balloon had crashed near a health centre.

“According to the pilot, who is one of the survivors, a fire started inside the basket, so he started to lower the balloon, and when the balloon was very close to the ground he told people to jump,” officer Tiago Luiz Lemos, from the Praia Grande police station, told reporters at the scene.

“They started to jump, but some people did not manage to. The flames started to grow and because of the weight, the balloon began to rise again.

“It later fell because of a loss of suspension.”

The state government press office said 13 survivors were taken to nearby hospitals.

In a video also posted on X, Mello, who is on an official mission in China, said he had sent “the entire state structure” to “rescue, help and comfort the families” and was continuing to monitor the situation.

“We are in mourning, what happened is a tragedy,” he added.

“We will investigate why this happened. But the important thing now is to do everything possible to reach out to the people and the families.”

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva posted on X expressing his “solidarity with the families of the victims”.

He said he had placed “the federal government at the disposal of the victims” and that “state and municipal forces ” were working on the rescue and care of the survivors.

Praia Grande is in southern Santa Catarina and is a popular tourist destination. The city is known for its ballooning activities.

Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil has said the Trump administration failed to suppress pro-Palestinian voices, following his release from more than three months in immigration detention.

“My existence is a message” to the Trump administration, he told the BBC after returning to New Jersey from a detention centre in Louisiana. “All these attempts to suppress Pro-Palestinian voices have failed now.”

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

The US government wants to deport him, arguing his activism is detrimental to foreign policy interests.

Speaking at the airport in Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday, Mr Khalil vowed to continue to advocate for Palestinian rights, and for the rights of the immigrants “who are left behind in that facility” where he was jailed in Louisiana.

He accused the White House of attempting to “dehumanise anyone who does not agree with the administration”.

He held flowers given to him by supporters, and shouted “free Palestine” as he ended his remarks. He was pushing a pram carrying his baby son, who was born while he was in prison, as he departed the news conference with his wife.

Mr Khalil was joined by New York Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said his release showed that the Trump administration was losing the legal battle to deport migrants in the US who advocate for Palestinians.

“The Trump administration knows that they are waging a losing legal battle,” she said.

“They are violating the law, and they know they are violating the law. And they are trying to use these one-off examples to intimidate everyone else.”

Mr Khalil’s remarks come a day after a judge ordered him released from jail after determining he was not a flight risk or threat to his community while his immigration proceedings continued.

The Trump administration has vowed to appeal against his release, as it continues its efforts to remove him from the US.

A British man has been arrested in Cyprus on suspicion of spying and terror-related offences.

The BBC understands he is thought to have carried out surveillance for Iran on the RAF Akrotiri base on the island.

Local media say he is of Azerbaijani descent and has connections to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

He appeared in a district court earlier on Saturday and was detained for a further eight days. The Foreign Office said it was in contact with Cypriot authorities.

RAF Akrotiri is the UK’s most significant base in the region and has previously been used to help defend Israeli skies from attack by Iran.

Last week, it was announced that further planes would be sent there to protect existing UK assets.

In a statement, the UK Foreign Office said: “We are in contact [with] the authorities in Cyprus regarding the arrest of a British man.”

The statement was provided to the BBC following a question regarding reports in Cypriot media about the counter-terror arrest.

Police on the island said a man had been arrested on suspicion of terror-related offences and espionage. They said they would not say more for reasons of national security.

Cyprus’s ANT1 news outlet said the suspect was thought to have had RAF Akrotiri under surveillance, as well as Cyprus’s own Andreas Papandreou Air Base in the western region of Paphos since mid-April.

RAF Akrotiri is home to fast jets, reconnaissance, transport and refuelling aircraft.

A superyacht has been raised from the seabed nearly a year after it sank off the coast of Sicily, killing seven of the 22 people on board.

Italian officials said the luxury yacht – known as the Bayesian – would be held up by a crane for a series of inspections requested by the public prosecutor’s office. It will later be fully removed from the water.

The Bayesian was owned by British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who died in the incident alongside his 18-year-old daughter Hannah and five others.

Last month, an ongoing investigation found that Mr Lynch and the crew were unaware of some of the boat’s vulnerabilities – including that wind speeds of over 73mph could topple it.

• Bayesian crew unaware wind speeds of over 73mph could topple yacht, report finds
• The 16 minutes that plunged the Bayesian yacht into a deadly spiral

Footage from the salvage operation shows the hull of the 56m (183ft) vessel – which looks badly damaged and covered in mud – being lifted up by cranes.

In some images, the ship’s name can be seen on the stern of the yacht as it is finally lifted above the water.

The vessel is expected to be taken to the nearby port of Termini Imerese on Monday, where Italian prosecutors investigating the sinking are based.

Previous salvage efforts to raise the boat were delayed after a diver died while working on the operation last month.

Also in May, an investigation led by the UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) found that gusts of over 73mph hitting the side of the Bayesian would “likely result” in its capsize. The MAIB used modelling commissioned after the disaster to aid in its preliminary report.

It said winds of over 80mph “violently” hit the vessel during the disaster, causing it to flood within seconds.

The MAIB said its report was based on a “limited amount of verified evidence” as they did not have access to the wreck at the time.

Investigators in the UK and Italy – where criminal investigations are also under way – have said raising the vessel is crucial to fully understanding what happened.

The Bayesian had been anchored off the port of a small fishing village, Porticello, when it sank in the early hours of 19 August last year.

Witnesses at the time recalled watching it disappear within “a few minutes” during freak weather.

Among the victims were Mr Lynch, 59, and his daughter Hannah; Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, 70, and his wife, Judy Bloomer, 71, who were all British nationals.

US lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo, and Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, who was working as a chef on the vessel, also died in the sinking.

Fifteen people, including Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, were rescued.

Pakistan has announced it plans to nominate US President Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, citing the role that Islamabad says he played in helping to negotiate a ceasefire last month between India and Pakistan.

On X, the Pakistani government said Trump deserved the award “in recognition of his decisive diplomatic intervention and pivotal leadership during the recent India-Pakistan crisis”.

India has denied the US served as a mediator to end the fighting last month, and says it does not want any diplomatic intervention from a third party.

Trump has often suggested he should receive the Nobel Peace Prize, whose winner this year will be named in October.

In May, Trump made a surprise announcement of a ceasefire between India and Pakistan following four days of fighting between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Pakistan’s government said in its post early on Saturday: “President Trump demonstrated great strategic foresight and stellar statesmanship through robust diplomatic engagement with both Islamabad and New Delhi, which de-escalated a rapidly deteriorating situation.

“This intervention stands as a testament to his role as a genuine peacemaker.”

There was no immediate response from Washington or New Delhi.

Trump has repeatedly said that India and Pakistan ended the conflict after a ceasefire brokered by the US, and also that he had used trade as a lever to make them agree.

Pakistan has corroborated US statements about brokering the ceasefire, but India has denied it.

Last month, Trump said he told India and Pakistan that a ceasefire was necessary in order for them to maintain trade with the US.

“I said, ‘Come on, we’re going to do a lot of trade with you guys [India and Pakistan]. Let’s stop it,” he told reporters.

The Nobel move was applauded by Mushahid Hussain, a former chair of the Senate Defence Committee in Pakistan’s parliament.

“Trump is good for Pakistan,” he told Reuters. “If this panders to Trump’s ego, so be it. All the European leaders have been sucking up to him big time.”

But Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, criticised the move as “unfortunate”.

“A man who has backed Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and called Israel’s attack on Iran as ‘excellent’,” she wrote on X.

“It compromises our national dignity,” she added.

On Friday, Trump posted on Truth Social that he had helped broker negotiations between multiple nations, but despite this: “No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do.”

Trump entered office vowing to quickly end the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza wars, although peace deals in both conflicts have eluded him so far.

He has frequently criticised Barack Obama for winning a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 after less than eight months as US president. In 2013, Trump called on the Norwegian Nobel Committee to rescind the award.

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.

Fashion legend Giorgio Armani will miss his two shows at Milan Fashion Week for the first time in his career.

The 90-year-old Italian designer is “currently recovering at home”, his company said in a statement. His recovery follows a brief hospital stay in Milan, Italian media reported.

He had “worked with usual dedication on the collections” and would follow the menswear shows on Saturday and Monday remotely, the company added.

It is thought to be the first time that Armani has missed one of his catwalk events, in a career that spans over five decades. Last year he said he could retire in coming years.

The shows next week will present the Spring-Summer 2026 collections of his self-titled luxury brand.

Armani’s long-time collaborator and head of menswear design, Leo Dell’Orco, is now set to give the closing bows.

Armani is said to be in good spirits and is expected to attend the brand’s upcoming shows in Paris at the end of June.

Founded in 1975, the brand celebrates its 50th anniversary next month – as Armani also celebrates his 91st birthday.

Armani, also known as ‘Re Giorgio’ – King Giorgio – has built an empire in the luxury fashion industry.

Born in the northern Italian town of Piacenza in 1934, he studied medicine before embarking on a career in fashion and eventually launching his label with his late partner, Sergio Galeotti.

His fashion house has several different lines which have also expanded into haute couture, ready-to-wear fashion, accessories, beauty products and make-up, jewellery, interior design and luxury hotels in cities such as Milan, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai.

The US military has sent American B-2 stealth bombers to the US island territory of Guam in the Pacific Ocean as President Donald Trump continues to weigh whether to join Israel in launching offensive air strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.

The large jets are considered to be the only aircraft capable of carrying weapons that can strike Iran’s most secure nuclear facility, which is buried deep underground below a mountain.

US officials have not commented on whether the deployment is linked to the conflict in the Middle East.

On Friday, Trump said he would give Iran a maximum of two weeks to make a deal to limit its nuclear programme in order to prevent US strikes.

The planes are being sent to Guam from the US state of Missouri. While the deployment is not being officially connected to discussions around the US joining Israel’s war on Iran, few will doubt the link.

The huge planes, which have wingspans of more than 50 metres, are the only aircraft capable of carrying the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30,000lb (13,608kg) bunker-busting bomb that experts say is required to destroy Iran’s deep nuclear facility at Fordo.

The facility is thought to be buried around 100m below the surface, protected by reinforced concrete. Despite their overwhelming aerial superiority, Israel lacks the munitions to damage the facility, hence requiring US support.

Around 9,500km (5,900m) to the east of Fordo, Guam is maybe not the most obvious base from which to launch any attack.

There had also been speculation that the UK facility, Diego Garcia, which is twice as close to Iran than Guam, might be used as a staging post.

That would have caused a potential political and diplomatic headache for the British government, as they would have to give their blessing to any US attack, which might in turn make UK bases a target for Iranian retaliation.

It is unclear why Guam was chosen as a destination for the bombers. US officials told the BBC’s US partner, CBS News, that it is thought that the Guam base would provide better operational secrecy than Diego Garcia.

Last week, at least 30 US military planes were moved from the US to Europe, according to flight tracking data reviewed by the BBC.

The planes in question are all US military tanker aircraft used to re-fuel fighter jets and bombers. According to Flightradar24, at least seven of these – all KC-135s – stopped off in US airbases in Spain, Scotland and England.

The jet movements come amid reports that the US has also moved an aircraft carrier – the USS Nimitz – from the South China Sea towards the Middle East. The Nimitz carries a contingent of fighter jets and is escorted by several guided missile destroyers.

The US has also moved F-16, F-22 and F-35 fighter jets to bases in the Middle East, three defence officials told Reuters on Tuesday. The tanker planes moved to Europe over the past several days can be used to re-fuel these jets.

If Israel’s recent claims are confirmed, the assassinations of Saeed Izadi and Behnam Shahryari represent a major blow to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the elite Quds Force, its overseas operations arm which has ties with armed groups in the region.

Izadi, a senior Quds Force commander responsible for coordination with Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, was reportedly killed in an apartment in the Shia holy city of Qom. Shahryari, the head of Unit 190 – responsible for smuggling weapons and funds to Iran’s regional proxies – was assassinated by a drone strike while traveling by car in western Iran.

Izadi played a central role in co-ordinating Tehran’s support for Palestinian armed groups and was reportedly instrumental in arming and financing Hamas, the Palestinian armed group which carried out the 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel.

The head of Israel’s military, Eyal Zamir, said Izadi’s assassination was “a key point in the multi-front war”.

“The blood of thousands of Israelis is on his hands,” Zamir said. “This is a tremendous intelligence and operational achievement.”

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Izadi previously narrowly survived an Israeli air strike in April 2024 that targeted the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria – an attack that killed several high-ranking Quds Force commanders.

The targeting of Izadi and Shahyari follow a wave of assassinations targeting senior Iranian military officials and highlight what many see as a growing breach within Iran’s intelligence community.

Iranian state TV last week broadcast images showing camouflaged lorries and vans that were allegedly used to transport drones, along with footage of makeshift FPV drone factories in the south of Tehran.

Scores of people have been arrested and accused of spying for Mossad, including some Afghan refugees. Human rights groups fear that the authorities may be using accusations of espionage as a pretext to arrest anyone who opposes the government or criticises the IRGC and the country’s leadership.

The officials were so concerned about the infiltration that several days ago they ordered all protection personnel not to use smartphones connected to the internet for communication. The police chief asked the public to report to the police if they have rented out any buildings to companies or individuals recently or in the past couple of years.

Israel attacked Iran on 13 June but a covert conflict has been simmering for over two decades, characterised by sabotage, cyber-attacks, and targeted killings.

Nuclear scientists and Quds Force commanders in Syria and inside Iran have frequently been targeted. Israel’s spy agency Mossad is widely believed to be behind many of these operations.

One of the most dramatic episodes occurred in 2018, when Mossad agents infiltrated a highly secured warehouse in a militarised suburb of Tehran. They broke into vaults and extracted thousands of top-secret Iranian nuclear documents, physically transporting them to Tel Aviv. The operation stunned Iran’s intelligence community.

To this day, Iranian authorities remain mystified. Earlier this year former Iranian intelligence minister Mahmoud Alavi admitted that Iranian services still had no idea how the secret nuclear documents storage was breached and how those behind it escaped undetected.

One name in the stolen documents stood out: Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who played a crucial role in Iran’s nuclear programme. Israel accused him of working on nuclear weapons. Iran denies the existence of any such project.

In 2020, Fakhrizadeh was assassinated near Tehran by a remote-controlled weapon, activated by agents. Despite warnings, including from Alavi, the intelligence failure was total.

The extent of Mossad infiltration into Iran’s intelligence services has long been a matter of speculation. In 2021, former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that the head of Iran’s counter-Mossad unit was himself an Israeli agent – that individual was later arrested and executed in secret.

The same year, former intelligence minister Ali Younesi warned that “Mossad is closer to us than our own ears”, underscoring the perceived depth of Israeli infiltration.

In recent years, Israel is also believed to have pre-positioned small drones and explosives inside Iran, trained operators and planted them near the homes of IRGC commanders and near radar and missile sites.

In its initial attack on 13 June, Israel killed top Iranian military figures including the Armed Forces Chief of Staff, the IRGC Chief of Staff and the head of IRGC missile and aerospace divisions, as well as a number of nuclear scientists.

Each successful operation points to a troubling truth for Iran’s leadership: their internal security has been deeply compromised.

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, a 100% increase in under a week.

It is one of 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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

“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.”

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.”

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.”

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!”

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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.

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

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.”

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 tracking 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.

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A Scottish schoolgirl’s message in a bottle has finally received a reply more than 30 years later – after being discovered in Norway.

Alaina Beresford, from Portknockie in Moray, sent the message in 1994 when she was 12 as part of a school project.

It washed up across the North Sea where it was found by a volunteer cleaning up a Norwegian island – who then dispatched a postcard to the delighted sender to let her know.

Alaina told BBC Scotland News she could not believe her original letter was in such good condition after three decades.

Her handwritten letter had been sent in an empty bottle of Moray Cup, a fizzy drink produced in the north east of Scotland.

It said: “Dear finder. My name is Alaina Stephen and I am 12 years of age. I come from Portknockie and I am doing a project on water so I decided to send a message in a bottle.

“My teacher’s husband took them and dropped them in the middle of the ocean.

“When you find this message, please write back with your name, hobbies, where you found the message, when, and if you could, a little information about your area. Yours sincerely, Alaina Stephen. PS I come from Scotland.”

Now, 31 years on, Alaina has received a postcard from Pia Brodtmann, telling her the good news, with pictures of the find.

It said: “My name is Pia and I am from Germany. Today I found your message in a bottle on Lisshelløya, a tiny island around Vega in Norway.

“I am here for beach cleaning as a volunteer for four months and today we cleaned Lisshelløya. On the front of the postcard you can see our workboat Nemo and our sailboat Fonn, where we live. You can also see the area around Vega. I wonder when and where your teacher’s husband threw your bottle in the ocean?”

It added: “PS I am 27 years old and I like rock climbing and sailing a lot!”

Alaina, now 42, said she was stunned when she picked up the post and noticed the postcard addressed to herself.

“I’m at the same address,” she said.

“I did live in Buckie, and another house in Portknockie for a while, but moved back in with my parents.

“I couldn’t believe it, as I had sent it when I was 12 years old, 31 years ago.”

Alaina was able to find Pia via social media, and messaged her asking to send a photo of her letter.

“I was shocked when she did, I couldn’t believe how legible it was,” she said.

“I can’t remember actually writing the message, but I do remember it was a Moray Cup bottle, and that my teacher’s husband had dropped it into the sea when he was a fisherman.

“According to my message, I had done it as part of a project on water. It was when I was in P7.”

She added: “Pia and I have been keeping in touch and hopefully we will continue to do so.”

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.

Hundreds of journalists for Voice of America (VOA) – most of its remaining staff – have been fired by President Donald Trump’s administration, effectively shutting down the US-funded news outlet.

The administration said the layoffs were because the agency was “riddled with dysfunction, bias and waste”.

Steve Herman, VOA’s chief national correspondent, called the dismantling of the outlet, which was set up during World War Two to counter Nazi propaganda, a “historic act of self-sabotage”.

Among those axed were Persian-language reporters who had been on administrative leave, but were called back to work last week after Israel attacked Iran.

According to the Associated Press news agency, the Persian reporters had left the office on Friday for a cigarette break, and were not allowed to re-enter the building after the termination notices went out.

“Today, we took decisive action to effectuate President Trump’s agenda to shrink the out-of-control federal bureaucracy,” Kari Lake, whom the president appointed to run VOA, said in a statement on Friday announcing the layoffs of 639 employees.

In total, more than 85% of the agency’s employees – about 1,400 staff – have lost their jobs since March.

She noted that 50 employees would remain employed across VOA, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and VOA’s parent company, the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).

A statement issued by three VOA journalists who have been suing to stop the elimination of the network said about the latest firings: “It spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds US ideals of democracy and freedom around the world.”

The move had been expected since March when Trump ordered VOA, as well as USAGM, which oversees VOA and funds outlets such as Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law”.

The agencies have won acclaim and international recognition for their reporting in places where press freedom is severely curtailed or non-existent, from China and Cambodia to Russia and North Korea.

But Dan Robinson, a former VOA news correspondent, wrote in an op-ed last year that the outlet had become a “hubris-filled rogue operation often reflecting a leftist bias aligned with partisan national media”.

Trump’s criticisms of VOA come as part of his broader attacks against the US media, which studies suggest American news consumers view as highly polarised.

The president has also urged his fellow Republicans to remove federal funding for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

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 female solo artist 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

Tulsi Gabbard says Iran could produce nuclear weapons “within weeks”, months after she testified before Congress that the country was not building them.

The US Director of National Intelligence said her March testimony – in which she said Iran had a stock of materials but was not building these weapons – had been taken out of context by “dishonest media”.

Her change of position came after Donald Trump said she was “wrong” and that intelligence showed Iran had a “tremendous amount of material” and could have a nuclear weapon “within months”.

Iran has always said that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and that it has never sought to develop a nuclear weapon.

On Thursday Trump said he was giving Tehran the “maximum” of two weeks to reach a deal on its nuclear activities with Washington. He said he would soon decide whether the US should join Israel’s strikes on Iran.

Disagreement has been building within Trump’s “America First” movement over whether the US should enter the conflict.

On Saturday morning, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country was “absolutely ready for a negotiated solution” on their nuclear programme but that Iran “cannot go through negotiations with the US when our people are under bombardment”.

• Live updates
• Was Iran months away from producing a nuclear bomb?

In her post on social media, Gabbard said US intelligence showed Iran is “at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months”.

“President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree,” she added.

Gabbard shared a video of her full testimony before Congress in March, where she said US intelligence agencies had concluded Iran was not building nuclear weapons.

Experts also determined Iran had not resumed its suspended 2003 nuclear weapons programme, she added in the clip, even as the nation’s stockpile of enriched uranium – a component of such weapons – was at an all-time high.

In her testimony, she said Iran’s stock was “unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons”.

Earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – the global nuclear watchdog – expressed concern about Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, which can be used to make reactor fuel but also nuclear weapons.

Gabbard’s March testimony has been previously criticised by Trump, who earlier told reporters he did not “care what she said”.

The US president said he believes Iran were “very close to having a weapon” and his country would not allow that to happen.

In 2015, Iran agreed a long-term deal on its nuclear programme with a group of world powers after years of tension over the country’s alleged efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.

Iran had been engaging in talks with the US this year over its nuclear programme and was scheduled to hold a further round when Israel launched strikes on Iran on 13 June, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said targeted “the heart” of Iran’s nuclear programme.

“If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time,” Netanyahu claimed.

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

Iran’s health ministry said on Saturday that at least 430 people had been killed, while a human rights group, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, put the unofficial death toll at 657 on Friday.

Iran has retaliated with missile and drone strikes against Israel, killing 25 people including one who suffered a heart attack.

A photo of the Prince of Wales with another generation – this time of puppies – has been posted on social media by Kensington Palace to mark his 43rd birthday.

The picture, taken by the Princess of Wales, shows Prince William with their family’s Cocker spaniel, Orla, and three of her four recently-arrived puppies.

The message for Prince William was signed online “with love”, with the initials of Catherine and their children, George, Charlotte, Louis, and “the puppies”, plus a paw print emoji.

The picture was taken in Windsor earlier this month.

There was also a message online for Prince William from the official account of the Royal Family, saying “Happy Birthday to The Prince of Wales!”, plus some celebratory emojis.

An accompanying picture, of the prince sitting on a stone wall, was taken while he visited farmers and food producers on the Duchy of Cornwall – a parcel of land William now owns – in May.

Orla was given to the royal couple by Catherine’s brother, James Middleton, in 2020, shortly after the death of their previous dog Lupo.

The dog – seen walking behind William in the picture – gave birth to four puppies in May.

Spaniels are well known for their affectionate behaviour and the picture shows the puppies clambering around the prince.

In the puppy picture, the prince looks relaxed in a pair of jeans and trainers – an informal moment after recent showcase occasions, including Trooping the Colour and the Order of the Garter procession.

He also visited a project linked to his Earthshot environmental prize which creates a type of sustainable dye that can reduce the fashion industry’s use of harmful chemicals – so colours can really be green.

Catherine did not appear at Royal Ascot earlier this week, with royal aides saying she had to find a balance in how she returned to public events. In January, the princess revealed she was in remission after her cancer diagnosis last year.

On Friday, she sent out a message about her support for children’s hospices – saying they helped families who were “heartbroken, fearful of the future and often desperately isolated”.

And now her photo has marked her husband’s birthday.

While Prince William was born in mid-summer on the longest day of the year, his father King Charles has been praising those in Antarctica experiencing the shortest day of the year.

He recorded a special message for the BBC World Service’s Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast, which sends a morale-raising message to scientists working in remote research stations in the depths of their winter.

The King praised the work of researchers tracking climate change.

The hottest day of the year so far has been recorded in the UK, as a Met Office warning for thunderstorms comes into force.

A temperature of 33.2C was recorded on Saturday afternoon in Charlwood, near Gatwick, beating the previous 2025 record set earlier this week.

Saturday is expected to be the peak of the recent hot weather, with temperatures expected to dip into Sunday.

The yellow weather warning is in place until 03:00 BST on Sunday for parts of northern England, the Scottish Borders, and north-east Wales.

Storms are expected because the humid weather means there is plenty of moisture in unstable atmospheric conditions. They could bring localised flash flooding, large hail and lightning.

An amber heat-health alert in England issued by the UK Health Security Agency remains in force until Monday, as fresh research suggests nearly 600 people could die in the next four days because of the heat in England and Wales.

Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Imperial College London predict there could be around 570 heat-related deaths, using decades of UK data, with the greatest number, 129, in London.

Prof Antonio Gasparrini, of the LSHTM, said: “Every fraction of a degree of warming will cause more hospital admissions and heat deaths, putting more strain on the NHS.”

• How do heat-health alerts work?
• What does hot weather do to the body?
• How to sleep in the heat
• Will heatwaves become our new normal?
• Do pricier sunglasses protect your eyes better?

Passengers were forced to evacuate a train in south London on Saturday as temperatures reached more than 30C in the capital.

A fault on a train near Loughborough Junction brought all services in the area to a halt, three of them outside station platforms, Thameslink and Network Rail said in a joint statement.

Passenger Angela Lewis said people onboard had been left on the train for about two hours before being removed, describing the incident as a “bloody nightmare”.

Thameslink and Network Rail apologised to affected passengers and said that “without power and air conditioning on such a hot day” it pulled resources from Sussex and Kent “to get personnel on site to safely evacuate passengers as quickly as possible along the track”.

By Friday afternoon, many regions met the criteria for a heatwave – meaning a temperature threshold was sustained for three consecutive days.

The threshold varies across different regions, from 25C in northern and western parts of the UK to 28C in south-eastern England. Suffolk became the first area to officially enter a heatwave on Thursday, when temperatures surpassed 27C for a third day.

Humidity has also been increasing, making the heat feel more uncomfortable, particularly at night.

On Saturday night, as cooler and fresher air pushes in from the west, the highest overnight temperatures will be restricted to eastern England, where they may fall no lower than 18C.

While heatwave conditions are likely to continue, some relief is anticipated on Sunday, when the south and east of England will dip to the high 20s. Elsewhere, cooler air will gradually sweep in from the west.

Temperatures will drop further into Monday – but could rise towards the heatwave threshold again in the latter half of next week.

The National Fire Chiefs Council is urging the public to be careful when lighting barbecues and handling objects, such as glass bottles, that can cause a fire outside.

There are currently no hosepipe bans in place, despite the Environment Agency warning water firms at the start of May that action would need to be taken to safeguard water supplies over the coming months.

This is because, while reservoir levels are relatively healthy, a very dry spring means there is a medium risk of drought.

While linking climate change with specific individual extreme weather events can be difficult, scientists say that climate change is generally making heatwaves hotter and longer.

The World Weather Attribution group says that the chance of reaching 32C in June has increased by 100 times since the pre-industrial era.

The chance of a three-day June heatwave had increased tenfold due to human-induced climate change, going from a one-in-50-year event to a one-in-five-year event.

Ben Clarke, a researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, said that with “every fraction of a degree of warming, the UK will experience hotter, more dangerous heatwaves”.

He added: “This means more heat deaths, more pressure on the NHS, more transport disruptions, tougher work conditions and poorer air quality.”

Meanwhile, people across the UK made the most of the early morning sun on Saturday to celebrate the summer solstice – the longest day of the year – at sites such as Stonehenge and Glastonbury Tor.

Originally a pagan tradition tied to agriculture, marking the solstice now has broad appeal.

“It’s just lovely breathing points throughout the year,” Morris dancer Grace told the BBC at Avebury henge, a neolithic stone circle in Wiltshire. “The sun stands still and it gives you a chance to stand still.”

Matthew Watkins, a Cardiff resident, described seeing the sun rise over Avebury as “glorious” and “a special moment”.

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At least eight people have died in a hot air balloon accident in Brazil, a state governor has said.

There were 21 people on board the balloon in the city of Praia Grande on Saturday morning, Governor of Santa Catarina Jorginho Mello said in a post on X.

Thirteen people, including the pilot, survived and no one is missing, the state government press office said.

It added that the balloon had crashed near a health centre.

“According to the pilot, who is one of the survivors, a fire started inside the basket, so he started to lower the balloon, and when the balloon was very close to the ground he told people to jump,” officer Tiago Luiz Lemos, from the Praia Grande police station, told reporters at the scene.

“They started to jump, but some people did not manage to. The flames started to grow and because of the weight, the balloon began to rise again.

“It later fell because of a loss of suspension.”

The state government press office said 13 survivors were taken to nearby hospitals.

In a video also posted on X, Mello, who is on an official mission in China, said he had sent “the entire state structure” to “rescue, help and comfort the families” and was continuing to monitor the situation.

“We are in mourning, what happened is a tragedy,” he added.

“We will investigate why this happened. But the important thing now is to do everything possible to reach out to the people and the families.”

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva posted on X expressing his “solidarity with the families of the victims”.

He said he had placed “the federal government at the disposal of the victims” and that “state and municipal forces ” were working on the rescue and care of the survivors.

Praia Grande is in southern Santa Catarina and is a popular tourist destination. The city is known for its ballooning activities.

Pakistan has announced it plans to nominate US President Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, citing the role that Islamabad says he played in helping to negotiate a ceasefire last month between India and Pakistan.

On X, the Pakistani government said Trump deserved the award “in recognition of his decisive diplomatic intervention and pivotal leadership during the recent India-Pakistan crisis”.

India has denied the US served as a mediator to end the fighting last month, and says it does not want any diplomatic intervention from a third party.

Trump has often suggested he should receive the Nobel Peace Prize, whose winner this year will be named in October.

In May, Trump made a surprise announcement of a ceasefire between India and Pakistan following four days of fighting between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Pakistan’s government said in its post early on Saturday: “President Trump demonstrated great strategic foresight and stellar statesmanship through robust diplomatic engagement with both Islamabad and New Delhi, which de-escalated a rapidly deteriorating situation.

“This intervention stands as a testament to his role as a genuine peacemaker.”

There was no immediate response from Washington or New Delhi.

Trump has repeatedly said that India and Pakistan ended the conflict after a ceasefire brokered by the US, and also that he had used trade as a lever to make them agree.

Pakistan has corroborated US statements about brokering the ceasefire, but India has denied it.

Last month, Trump said he told India and Pakistan that a ceasefire was necessary in order for them to maintain trade with the US.

“I said, ‘Come on, we’re going to do a lot of trade with you guys [India and Pakistan]. Let’s stop it,” he told reporters.

The Nobel move was applauded by Mushahid Hussain, a former chair of the Senate Defence Committee in Pakistan’s parliament.

“Trump is good for Pakistan,” he told Reuters. “If this panders to Trump’s ego, so be it. All the European leaders have been sucking up to him big time.”

But Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, criticised the move as “unfortunate”.

“A man who has backed Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and called Israel’s attack on Iran as ‘excellent’,” she wrote on X.

“It compromises our national dignity,” she added.

On Friday, Trump posted on Truth Social that he had helped broker negotiations between multiple nations, but despite this: “No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do.”

Trump entered office vowing to quickly end the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza wars, although peace deals in both conflicts have eluded him so far.

He has frequently criticised Barack Obama for winning a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 after less than eight months as US president. In 2013, Trump called on the Norwegian Nobel Committee to rescind the award.

Israel says it has killed a senior Iranian commander who helped plan Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in a strike on Saturday on the city of Qom.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the killing of Saeed Izadi marked a key point in the conflict. He was “one of the orchestrators” of the attack, which killed about 1,200 people and saw many others taken to Gaza as hostages, said IDF chief Eyal Zamir.

“The blood of thousands of Israelis is on his hands,” he said on Saturday, calling it a “tremendous intelligence and operational achievement.”

Iran is yet to confirm Izadi’s killing and has previously denied involvement in Hamas’s attack.

• Live updates
• Targeting of Quds Force shows growing security breach

The IDF said it had killed Izadi in a strike on an apartment in Qom, south of Tehran, in the early hours of Saturday. He had been in charge of the Palestine Corps of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’s (IRGC) Quds Force, responsible for handling ties with the Palestinian armed groups.

He was reportedly instrumental in arming and financing Hamas, and had been responsible for military co-ordination between senior IRGC commanders and Hamas leaders, the IDF said.

In April 2024, Izadi narrowly survived an Israeli air strike targeting the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria – an attack that killed several high-ranking Quds Force commanders.

Israel later on Saturday also claimed to have killed another Quds Force commander, Behnam Shahriyari in a drone strike as he was travelling in a car through western Iran.

Shahriyari had been responsible for transporting missiles and rockets to Iran’s proxy groups across the region, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, said the IDF.

If Israeli claims are confirmed, the assassinations of Izadi and Shahryari represent a major blow to the IRGC.

The attacks come as the conflict between the two countries entered its ninth day, with both launching new attacks on Saturday.

Iran said Israel had targeted a nuclear facility near the city of Isfahan. Israel said it was targeting military infrastructure in south-west Iran and reported at least one impact from Iranian drones that entered its airspace.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi meanwhile told reporters in Istanbul that any US involvement in the conflict would be “very very dangerous”. On Friday he told European envoys in Geneva on Friday that Iran would not resume talks over its nuclear programme until Israel’s strikes stopped.

Donald Trump has suggested US involvement in Israel’s strikes on Iran, saying Tehran had a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible American air strikes if they did not negotiate on their nuclear programme.

Iranian officials say least 430 people, including military commanders, have been killed and 3,500 injured in Iran since the conflict began on 13 June. A human rights group tracking Iran, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, put the unofficial death toll at 657 on Friday.

In Israel, officials say 25 people have been killed including one of a heart attack.

The US military has sent American B-2 stealth bombers to the US island territory of Guam in the Pacific Ocean as President Donald Trump continues to weigh whether to join Israel in launching offensive air strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.

The large jets are considered to be the only aircraft capable of carrying weapons that can strike Iran’s most secure nuclear facility, which is buried deep underground below a mountain.

US officials have not commented on whether the deployment is linked to the conflict in the Middle East.

On Friday, Trump said he would give Iran a maximum of two weeks to make a deal to limit its nuclear programme in order to prevent US strikes.

The planes are being sent to Guam from the US state of Missouri. While the deployment is not being officially connected to discussions around the US joining Israel’s war on Iran, few will doubt the link.

The huge planes, which have wingspans of more than 50 metres, are the only aircraft capable of carrying the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30,000lb (13,608kg) bunker-busting bomb that experts say is required to destroy Iran’s deep nuclear facility at Fordo.

The facility is thought to be buried around 100m below the surface, protected by reinforced concrete. Despite their overwhelming aerial superiority, Israel lacks the munitions to damage the facility, hence requiring US support.

Around 9,500km (5,900m) to the east of Fordo, Guam is maybe not the most obvious base from which to launch any attack.

There had also been speculation that the UK facility, Diego Garcia, which is twice as close to Iran than Guam, might be used as a staging post.

That would have caused a potential political and diplomatic headache for the British government, as they would have to give their blessing to any US attack, which might in turn make UK bases a target for Iranian retaliation.

It is unclear why Guam was chosen as a destination for the bombers. US officials told the BBC’s US partner, CBS News, that it is thought that the Guam base would provide better operational secrecy than Diego Garcia.

Last week, at least 30 US military planes were moved from the US to Europe, according to flight tracking data reviewed by the BBC.

The planes in question are all US military tanker aircraft used to re-fuel fighter jets and bombers. According to Flightradar24, at least seven of these – all KC-135s – stopped off in US airbases in Spain, Scotland and England.

The jet movements come amid reports that the US has also moved an aircraft carrier – the USS Nimitz – from the South China Sea towards the Middle East. The Nimitz carries a contingent of fighter jets and is escorted by several guided missile destroyers.

The US has also moved F-16, F-22 and F-35 fighter jets to bases in the Middle East, three defence officials told Reuters on Tuesday. The tanker planes moved to Europe over the past several days can be used to re-fuel these jets.

A British man has been arrested in Cyprus on suspicion of spying and terror-related offences.

The BBC understands he is thought to have carried out surveillance for Iran on the RAF Akrotiri base on the island.

Local media say he is of Azerbaijani descent and has connections to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

He appeared in a district court earlier on Saturday and was detained for a further eight days. The Foreign Office said it was in contact with Cypriot authorities.

RAF Akrotiri is the UK’s most significant base in the region and has previously been used to help defend Israeli skies from attack by Iran.

Last week, it was announced that further planes would be sent there to protect existing UK assets.

In a statement, the UK Foreign Office said: “We are in contact [with] the authorities in Cyprus regarding the arrest of a British man.”

The statement was provided to the BBC following a question regarding reports in Cypriot media about the counter-terror arrest.

Police on the island said a man had been arrested on suspicion of terror-related offences and espionage. They said they would not say more for reasons of national security.

Cyprus’s ANT1 news outlet said the suspect was thought to have had RAF Akrotiri under surveillance, as well as Cyprus’s own Andreas Papandreou Air Base in the western region of Paphos since mid-April.

RAF Akrotiri is home to fast jets, reconnaissance, transport and refuelling aircraft.

Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil has said the Trump administration failed to suppress pro-Palestinian voices, following his release from more than three months in immigration detention.

“My existence is a message” to the Trump administration, he told the BBC after returning to New Jersey from a detention centre in Louisiana. “All these attempts to suppress Pro-Palestinian voices have failed now.”

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

The US government wants to deport him, arguing his activism is detrimental to foreign policy interests.

Speaking at the airport in Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday, Mr Khalil vowed to continue to advocate for Palestinian rights, and for the rights of the immigrants “who are left behind in that facility” where he was jailed in Louisiana.

He accused the White House of attempting to “dehumanise anyone who does not agree with the administration”.

He held flowers given to him by supporters, and shouted “free Palestine” as he ended his remarks. He was pushing a pram carrying his baby son, who was born while he was in prison, as he departed the news conference with his wife.

Mr Khalil was joined by New York Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said his release showed that the Trump administration was losing the legal battle to deport migrants in the US who advocate for Palestinians.

“The Trump administration knows that they are waging a losing legal battle,” she said.

“They are violating the law, and they know they are violating the law. And they are trying to use these one-off examples to intimidate everyone else.”

Mr Khalil’s remarks come a day after a judge ordered him released from jail after determining he was not a flight risk or threat to his community while his immigration proceedings continued.

The Trump administration has vowed to appeal against his release, as it continues its efforts to remove him from the US.

The husband of Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has been unexpectedly released from prison in Belarus, along with 13 other political prisoners.

Sergei Tikhanovsky – an opposition activist himself – has been moved to Lithuania and reunited with his wife, who is living in exile in capital Vilnius, after five years in prison.

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya announced her husband’s release by posting a 10-second video of their first hug since 2020. She said it was “hard to describe” the joy in her heart.

The sudden release came as US special envoy Keith Kellogg visited Minsk, Belarus’ capital, on Saturday and held a meeting with the country’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

In a statement on X, the Lithuanian foreign minister said 14 political prisoners were released and receiving care in Lithuania.

According to Tikhanovskaya’s office, five were Belarusian nationals and some were Japanese, Polish and Swedish citizens.

However, Tikhanovksy’s release is by far the most prominent.

A colourful, outspoken figure who once had a big following in Belarus on social media, he used to call on people to “stop the cockroach”, referring to Lukashenko.

Ignoring the risks from a repressive regime, the video blogger and activist would tour the country to meet people in town squares and villages to hear – and broadcast – their concerns.

In 2020, he was arrested as he began his campaign to challenge Lukashenko for the presidency in that summer’s elections.

• ‘A performance and a sham’: Belarusian opposition denounces election

He was jailed for 18 years in 2021 after a court convicted him of rallying mass protests against Lukashenko, among other charges.

His wife, Tikhanovskaya – a political novice and total unknown – stepped in to run for election in his place.

And when Lukashenko declared another landslide win, her supporters flooded the streets in the biggest protests Belarus has ever known.

They were crushed, ruthlessly, and Tikhanovskaya was forced into exile.

Maria Kolesnikova, another well-known opposition leader who was jailed after the mass protests of 2020, is still in prison, her sister confirmed.

“No, not this time,” she wrote to the BBC when asked whether Maria was among those set free. “Though it’s a huge progress. We need more releases and for that – more efforts and negotiations.”

In the video posted by Tikhanovskaya on Saturday, Tikhanovsky is smiling broadly but has lost so much weight that he is hard to recognise.

Well-built, even stocky before his arrest, he is now thin. In the video, the jacket he is wearing hangs loosely and his head has been shaved.

Franak Viacorka, senior adviser to Tikhanovskaya, described this as a “big day” and a very unexpected step.

“We didn’t expect his release, we were struggling – fighting – for his release, but it was a full surprise,” he told the BBC from Lithuania.

“We put his name on all the lists but we didn’t believe it was possible.”

He said that Tikhanovsky was “the same Sergei” he was before he was jailed.

“I felt the same energy, the same passion, though he was looking very thin,” he added.

Tikhanovskaya wrote on X “my husband is free” before thanking US President Donald Trump, Kellogg and “all European allies” for their efforts to get her husband released.

“We’re not done – 1,150 political prisoners remain behind bars,” she added. “All must be released.”

Viacorka said that as far as his team knows, nothing was offered to Belarus in return for Tikhanovsky’s release.

“I think he [Lukashenko] is in quite weak situation right now,” Viacorka said. “And he wants to improve relationship with the new American administration.”

Artyom Shraibman, of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, suggested that the meeting with Kellogg was reward enough for Lukashenko.

“It seems like the US asked for Tikhanovsky to be released as a significant concession in exchange for Kellogg’s visit and Lukashenko agreed,” he said.

The Belarusian leader has been isolated by Western politicians for many years. Neither his re-election in 2020 or this year were ever officially recognised and Belarus was placed under Western sanctions.

The freeze in relations deepened when Belarus aided Russia in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, allowing troops to cross its territory and missiles to be launched from its land.

“It’s a significant diplomatic breakthrough for Lukashenko. It helps to get him out of isolation,” Mr Shraibman said.

“I also think Lukashenko will like the opportunity to discuss issues of war and peace with such a top level envoy from the US.

“So in some form, this is a win-win.”

It is not clear whether the Trump administration is dangling the prospect of lifting some sanctions, though Lukashenko is certainly angling for that.

But this release does not mean the end of political repression in Belarus. Hundreds more people are still behind bars for nothing more than their opposition to Lukashenko’s rule.

• My opponents choose jail and exile, Lukashenko tells BBC

Other prisoners have been pardoned and released in recent months, but the repressions have not stopped.

The BBC knows of recent cases of the KGB security service demanding people collaborate with its agents and inform on others, or face arrest. They had to flee the country.

In the case of Tikhanovsky, it appears Lukashenko calculated that he had more to gain geopolitically by releasing a prominent prisoner than he would risk by letting him go.

Forced into exile in Lithuania, it’s not clear what role Tikhanovsky and his strong personality will now play within the democratic opposition, where his wife is now the internationally recognised leader.

“It introduces a certain confusion and possibly even some political mess to democratic forces”, Mr Shraibman said.

Among the other Belarusians freed on Saturday was 60-year-old Natalia Dulina, a professor of Italian at Minsk Linguistic University who has been in prison since 2022 on political charges.

On her way to a shelter in Lithuania on Saturday – now in forced exile – she told the BBC she had been moved suddenly from her prison on Friday by men in balaclavas and given no explanation.

She said they put a medical mask over her eyes and cuffed her hands before driving her to what she later learned was the KGB prison in Minsk.

“This morning, they put us in another bus – put a black balaclava on all of us, with no holes in it, and we didn’t know where they were taking us. It was really unpleasant,” Natalia said.

It was only at the border with Lithuania that she knew for sure she was being released.

“It was a total surprise. It still hasn’t sunk in,” she said.

Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians are estimated to have left their country since the brutal crackdown on widespread opposition protests in 2020.

Tens of thousands of people have been arrested in the country in the past five years for political reasons, according to human rights group Viasna.