After spending nearly two weeks in a secret bunker somewhere in Iran during his country’s war with Israel, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, might want to use the opportunity of the ceasefire to venture out.

He is believed to be holed up, incommunicado, for the fear of being assassinated by Israel. Even top government officials apparently have had no contact with him.

He would be well advised to be cautious, despite the fragile ceasefire that the US President Donald Trump and the Emir of Qatar brokered. Though President Trump reportedly told Israel not to kill Iran’s supreme leader, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not rule it out.

When – or indeed if – he does emerge from hiding, he will see a landscape of death and destruction. He will no doubt still appear on state TV claiming victory in the conflict. He will plot to restore his image. But he will face new realities – even a new era.

The war has left the country significantly weakened and him a diminished man.

During the war, Israel quickly took control of much of Iran’s airspace, and attacked its military infrastructure. Top commanders of the Revolutionary Guard and the army were swiftly killed.

The extent of the damage to the military is still unclear and disputed, but the repeated bombings of the army and revolutionary guard bases and installations suggests substantial degradation of Iran’s military power. Militarisation had long consumed a vast amount of the nation’s resources.

Iran’s known nuclear facilities that earned the country nearly two decades of US and international sanctions, with an estimated cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, are now damaged from the air strikes, although the full extent of this has been hard to assess.

What was it all for, many are asking.

A vast number of Iranians will singularly hold Ayatollah Khamenei, who first became leader in 1989, responsible for setting Iran on a collision course with Israel and the US that ultimately brought considerable ruin to his country and people.

They will blame him for pursuing the ideological aim of destruction of Israel – something many Iranians don’t support. They will blame him for what they perceive as a folly – his belief that achieving nuclear status would render his regime invincible.

Sanctions have crippled the Iranian economy, reducing a top oil exporter to a poor and struggling shadow of its former self.

“It is difficult to estimate how much longer the Iranian regime can survive under such significant strain, but this looks like the beginning of the end,” says Professor Lina Khatib, a visiting scholar at Harvard University.

“Ali Khamenei is likely to become the Islamic Republic’s last ‘Supreme Leader’ in the full sense of the word.”

There have been murmurs of dissent at the top. At the height of the war, one semi-official Iranian news agency reported that some top former regime figures have been urging the country’s quieter religious scholars based in the holy city of Qom, who are separate to the ayatollah, to intervene and bring about a change in leadership.

“There will be a reckoning,” according to Professor Ali Ansari, the founding director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews.

“It’s quite clear that there are huge disagreements within the leadership, and there’s also huge unhappiness among ordinary people.”

During the last two weeks, many Iranians wrestled with conflicted feelings of the need to defend their country versus their deep hatred of the regime. They rallied for the country, not by coming out to defend the regime, but to look after each other. There have been reports of vast solidarity and closeness.

People in towns and villages outside urban areas opened their doors to those who had fled the bombardments in their cities, shopkeepers undercharged basic goods, neighbours knocked on each other’s doors to ask if they needed anything.

But many people were also aware that Israel was probably looking for a regime change in Iran. A regime change is what many Iranians wish for. They may draw the line on a regime change engineered and imposed by foreign powers, however.

In his nearly 40 years of his rule, Ayatollah Khamenei, one of the world’s longest reigning autocrats, has decimated any opposition in the country. Opposition political leaders are either in jail or have fled the country. Abroad, the opposition figures have been unable to formulate a stance that unites the opposition to the regime.

They have been ineffectual in the establishment of any semblance of an organisation able to take over inside the country if the opportunity arises.

And during the two weeks of war, when the collapse of the regime could have been a possibility, if the war went on relentlessly, many believed the likely scenario for the day after was not the takeover by the opposition, but the descent of the country into chaos and lawlessness.

“It is unlikely that the Iranian regime will be toppled through domestic opposition. The regime remains strong at home and will ramp up domestic oppression to crush dissent,” says Prof Khatib.

Iranians are now fearing further clampdown by the regime. At least six people have been executed in the past two weeks since the start of the war with Israel on charges of spying for Israel. Authorities say they have arrested around 700 people on this charge.

One Iranian woman told BBC Persian what she fears more than the death and destruction of the war is a regime that is wounded and humiliated turning its anger against its own people.

“If the regime is unable to supply basic goods and services, then there will be growing anger and frustration,” says Prof Ansari.

“I see it as a staged process. I don’t see it as something that, necessarily, in a popular sense, will take root until long after the bombing is over.”

Few people in Iran think that the ceasefire brokered on Monday will last – and many believe Israel is not yet finished now that it has total superiority in the sky over Iran.

One thing that seems to have escaped the destruction are Iran’s ballistic missile silos that Israel found hard to locate as they are placed in tunnels under mountains throughout the country.

The Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, said Israel launched its opening attack on Iran knowing that “Iran possessed around 2,500 surface-to-surface missiles”. The missiles that Iran fired caused considerable death and destruction in Israel.

Israel will be concerned about the remaining possible 1,500 still in the hands of the Iranian side.

There is also a serious concern in Tel Aviv, Washington and other Western and regional capitals that Iran may still rush to build a nuclear bomb, something it has continued to deny trying to do.

Although Iran’s nuclear facilities have almost certainly been set back, and possibly rendered useless during the bombings by Israel and the US, Iran said it had moved its stockpile of highly enriched Uranium to a safe secret place.

That stockpile of 60% Uranium, if enriched to 90%, which is a relatively easy step, is enough for about nine bombs, according to experts. Just before the war started, Iran announced that it had built another new secret facility for enrichment that was due to come on stream soon.

The Iranian parliament has voted to sharply reduce its cooperation with the UN’s atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This still requires approval, but if it passes Iran would be one step away from exiting the nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, the NPT – as hardliners supporting the supreme leader push for Iran’s breakout to build a bomb.

Ayatollah Khamenei may now be confident that his regime has survived, just. But at the age of 86 and ailing, he also knows that his own days may be numbered, and he may want to ensure continuity of the regime with an orderly transition of power – to another senior cleric or even a council of leadership.

In any case, the remaining top commanders of the Revolutionary Guard who have been loyal to the supreme leader may be seeking to wield power from behind the scenes.

BBC racing commentator John Hunt, whose wife and two of his daughters were murdered last July, describes in an emotional first interview the legacy of love they left behind.

It was this, John and his daughter Amy tell the BBC, that had helped sustain them through their trauma and grief.

Carol, Louise and Hannah remained such a constant presence in their lives that he still talks to them every day, almost a year on from their deaths, John says.

“From the moment I wake up, I say good morning to each of them,” he says.

“Sometimes I say out loud to Hannah and Louise, ‘girls, sorry I can’t be with you, I’m with your mum at the moment’. As I close my eyes at night, I chat to them as well. They’re very close to me all the time.”

John and Amy say they took the decision to talk publicly now because they did not want their loved ones to be defined by their deaths. They also feel much of the initial reporting after the murders was inaccurate and it added to their pain.

They’ve also shared previously unseen family photos with the BBC.

Kyle Clifford fatally stabbed 61-year-old Carol, raped his former partner, Louise, 25, then used a crossbow to shoot both her and her sister Hannah, 28 – all at their family home in Bushey, Hertfordshire, in July last year.

Amy says the minute Clifford left their home on the day of the incident, “my mum, Hannah and Louise became a statistic. They became victims of Kyle Clifford.”

“I want to breathe life back into my mum, Hannah and Louise as fully-rounded people.”

Amy and John tell the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire they also strongly reject reports there were clear signs of abuse by Clifford during his relationship with Louise.

“Did we have any indication that this man was capable of stabbing my mother, of tying Louise up, of raping Louise, of shooting Louise and shooting Hannah? Absolutely not,” says Amy.

• Watch: John and Amy Hunt’s interview with BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire

The Hunt family have always been extremely close.

In the early years of their marriage, Carol encouraged John – then a police officer – to pursue his dream of becoming a racing commentator.

That unending belief was inherited by their three daughters – Amy, the eldest, their middle daughter Hannah, and Louise, “the baby”. They talked all the time and shared everything with each other.

John, Carol, Hannah and Louise lived together in their home in Bushey, Hertfordshire. Louise ran a dog-grooming business from a pod in the garden and Hannah worked in aesthetics and beauty.

Their life, John says, was “one of complete happiness – awash with it, really”.

They remember one Friday night last May, two months before the murders, when the three sisters had gone out for sushi together.

“We were talking about how lucky we’d been as a family, to have had the parents we’ve had and the life we’ve had,” Amy says.

John agrees, and adds that when Hannah came home from the dinner, she was “typically effusive”.

“She came barnstorming through the door, and Carol said something like, ‘you had a lovely time?’ And she said, ‘do you know what, mum? We talked about how lucky we have been. We have been so lucky. We’ve not had a minute of concern or worry through the lives you’ve given us’,” he says.

“It’s a beautiful thing to recall. It was a beautiful thing to hear at the same time.”

While things were idyllic with the family, Louise and Clifford’s relationship had started to sour. At the end of June, Louise broke up with him.

Less than two weeks later, on 9 July, Clifford turned up at the family’s home on the pretext of returning some of Louise’s things.

Doorbell footage captured the moment Carol opened the door to Clifford, and greeted him with friendly advice.

“Maybe… maybe think in the next relationship,” she told him, “the way you are, maybe try and change. If you carry on like this you’ll end up on your own.” Clifford agreed, seemingly cordial, and told her he had started therapy.

Carol turned to go into the house, and Clifford followed her inside.

He then stabbed her multiple times, before waiting in the house for Louise to come back inside from her dog grooming pod. When she did, he restrained, raped, and killed her with a crossbow. When Hannah returned later, he shot her with the crossbow too.

In her dying moments, Hannah messaged her boyfriend, Alex, and managed to call 999. She was able to tell them what had happened and, crucially, who was responsible. John was in central London at the time. He believes Clifford intended to kill him too.

“Police officers of 30 years’ experience had their breath taken away by how brave she was, how she was able to think so clearly in that moment, to know what she needed to do,” John says.

Asked if Hannah’s actions saved his life, John adds: “That’s what I believe.

“I said it in court and I said many, many times, her doing that has given me life. And I’ve used that to re-ground myself on a daily basis.”

As the news of the murders spread, the narrative spun out of control.

John says “from day one” their family – and in particular, Louise – was “completely misrepresented in the media and on social media”, including false suggestions Louise was in a controlling and coercive relationship with Kyle Clifford.

He and Amy recall misinformation on news sites, including the claim that John had been the one to discover his wife and daughters’ bodies in their home.

They also remember photographs being lifted from their loved ones’ social media pages by sections of the media without consent, something John describes as “grave-robbing”.

Amy recalls one newspaper headline reading, “Crossbow maniac was jilted”, a framing she describes as “victim-blaming”.

But most painful, they say, were claims in the press that there were clear signs of abuse and misogyny in Clifford’s relationship with Louise.

John and Amy say the family had misgivings about Clifford – there were things about him they didn’t particularly warm to. He was immature and, at times, inconsiderate. They say he couldn’t deal with conflict, and was bad at taking criticism. The family, including Louise, would talk to each other about Clifford’s lack of consideration.

But their relationship also seemed unremarkable, they say. The two of them would giggle and cuddle in the house, watch films together, cook together, go on holidays to Europe and take weekend trips to the seaside.

They appeared happy, for a year at least – and even when things started to deteriorate in 2024, for those on the outside, the change was subtle.

A turning point came when the couple went away for a friend’s wedding. The night before the ceremony, Louise struggled to use the oven in their accommodation. The next day, when other wedding guests asked Louise what she did for a living, Clifford would interject with the barb that “one thing she doesn’t do is know how to work an oven properly”.

Clifford started to belittle her. When looking through the couple’s text messages after Louise’s death – something John says he found “very difficult to do” as the messages were personal to Louise – they noticed signs, from spring 2024, of “gentle manipulation”.

But did they notice anything at the time that suggested the relationship was abusive?

No, John says. Clifford never physically assaulted Louise when they were together. The family also never heard them raise their voices at each other.

“At the point of Louise ending [the relationship], there was absolutely evidence that he had turned out not to be a nice person,” Amy says.

“But I want to put it very bluntly now. Did we have any indication that this man was capable of stabbing my mother, of tying Louise up, of raping Louise, of shooting Louise and shooting Hannah? Absolutely not.

“He’s often been referred to as ‘crossbow killer’ and ‘crossbow maniac’ – but that takes away from the very real issue we know to be true. He was just a person, just a man… who went to the gym, had a family, had a relationship, watched TV.

“I know it sounds crass, but we often say we wish we’d had some hint that he was capable of this.”

In the months that followed the murders, John and Amy had to navigate a complex criminal justice system.

John makes a point of highlighting the “incredible people” who supported them – the police officers, their family liaison officers, their barrister, and the “compassionate” judge who oversaw the rape trial and sentenced Clifford. They were, they say, “very lucky to have met these people in these terrible circumstances”.

But, he adds, “each of them is working in a system that is clearly not fit for purpose”.

On the day Clifford appeared at magistrates’ court after being charged, John and Amy’s family liaison officers weren’t able to attend the hearing with them as they were at another murder in Luton.

“It just so happened that that morning in the magistrates’ court, they revealed aspects of the murders that we had not heard of at all, from anybody,” John says. “That was an awful day.”

Amy then found out the details of her sister Hannah’s final words on the phone to 999, from a newspaper headline.

When they spoke to the CPS about their concerns, they were given a complaint form and told to return it within 28 working days – “as if we’d had our bike stolen”.

On another day, when Clifford was due to enter his pleas, Amy says they were told the hearing needed to be postponed because the prison transport “didn’t turn up to take him to court”.

The proceedings were long and torturous for John and Amy. Clifford initially denied the charges against him, before pleading guilty to everything except the charge of rape. This meant the case had to go to trial. He was convicted in March.

Clifford refused to attend his sentencing later that month, meaning he did not hear the judge’s damning comments about him, or the devastating testimonies written by John and Amy.

“It’s consistently a system that prioritises the perpetrator,” Amy says. “That’s a traumatising thing for so many people.”

The Crown Prosecution Service says it has apologised, and it has “the utmost admiration for the Hunt family, who had the strength and courage to attend court every day and hear first-hand the devastating truth of what happened to Carol, Louise and Hannah.

“At the request of the judge during the first hearing of Kyle Clifford, we provided initial details of the prosecution’s case. We apologised to the Hunt family for the level of detail outlined at that stage and continued to meet with them throughout the criminal justice process.”

In the months since the sentencing, John and Amy say they’ve been trying to focus on living again.

“When it happened I thought, ‘how on earth am I ever going to be able to care about anything ever again’?” John says.

“It’s fine to sit with that thought in the wreckage of what was our personal disaster. But you come to realise that, with a little bit of work, you can find some light again.”

He says they’ve found comfort in good counsellors and support groups, mindfulness exercises, and the love and support they have for each other.

But above all, every day he remembers Hannah’s final act, and how it saved his life. “I get to live,” he says. “Hannah gave me that, and I’ve got to treat it as a gift from her.”

The BBC has introduced a paywall for people looking at parts of its website from the United States.

US-based visitors to BBC.com will now have to pay $49.99 (£36) a year or $8.99 (£6.50) a month for access to most BBC News stories and features, and to stream the BBC News channel.

Those who do not pay will still have ad-supported access to selected global breaking news stories, BBC Radio 4 and the World Service, as well as its language services and some newsletters and podcasts.

Rebecca Glashow, CEO of BBC Studios Global Media & Streaming, described the move as a “major milestone” that would “unlock new opportunities for growth”.

There will be no changes for the BBC’s UK audiences or for those elsewhere around the world.

The corporation hopes the offer will raise money to help fund the BBC’s services alongside revenue from UK households through the licence fee, which costs £174.50 a year and accounted for about two-thirds of its total income last year.

The BBC has said it expected to have a £492m budget deficit for the latest financial year.

The UK government is set to review the corporation’s funding model, but the BBC’s director general has said switching to a subscription system for UK audiences would not “pass the test of building a universal trusted public service”.

The BBC’s new US pay model follows similar subscription systems used by other publications including the New York Times, and the likes of the Telegraph and the Sun putting selected stories and content behind paywalls in the UK.

BBC.com reaches 139 million visitors globally, including almost 60 million in the US, the corporation said.

UK audiences will still be able to access BBC News when travelling to America if they have the latest version of the app.

Ms Glashow said the BBC wanted to “reimagine how we deliver” news and factual content to the US.

“Our goal? To serve our audiences better than ever before – and unlock new opportunities for growth,” she said.

“Today, the next phase of that vision becomes reality. We’re bringing more of the BBC’s trusted, high-quality content together in one powerful, easy-to-access destination.”

BBC News CEO Deborah Turness said: “Through our partnership with BBC Studios we are growing our audiences in North America – providing more people with news they can trust at a time of dramatic global uncertainty.”

More documentaries, podcasts and newsletters will be added to the subscription offer in the coming months.

The paywall will be launched for the BBC app in the US at a later date.

It comes after the BBC announced it was to block most stations on the BBC Sounds app for audiences outside the UK.

Three Palestinians have been shot dead after dozens of Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian authorities say.

Video footage from Kafr Malik, near Ramallah, on Wednesday night showed a car and a home on fire and Palestinians running away as gunfire is heard.

The Israeli military said forces deployed to the scene found settlers and villagers throwing stones at each other. It added that several “terrorists” opened fire and threw stones at the forces, who returned fire and identified hits. They also arrested five Israelis.

The Palestinian foreign ministry said settlers fired at villagers in their homes during what it called their “terrorist assault”.

The ministry also said Israeli forces prevented ambulance crews from reaching the wounded and obstructed fire crews from entering the village for several hours.

Another villager, a 13-year-old boy, was shot dead – reportedly by Israeli troops – earlier in the week.

Israel has built about 160 settlements housing some 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem – land Palestinians want, along with Gaza, for a hoped-for future state – in the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them.

The vast majority of the international community considers the settlements illegal under international law – a position supported by an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last year – although Israel disputes this.

“What do you expect us to do when our homes are being attacked by settlers with petrol bombs?” asked one elderly man, sitting quietly with hundreds of other mourners on Thursday after the funerals of the three men who were killed.

Kafr Malik has been attacked numerous times in recent weeks by settlers increasingly emboldened by Israeli government ministers who often support their actions and who have endorsed the building of many more settlements.

“They think they can take my land and force me to leave, but I’m not going anywhere,” said Hamdallah Bearat, a retired professor of engineering who has lived in Kfar Malik for most of his life.

For many younger Palestinians, though, the realities of an increasingly restrictive occupation and its economic consequences make life here more difficult by the day.

Shortly after the incident in Kafr Malik, there was another attack in the Palestinian community of Dar Fazaa, near the village of Taybeh.

Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said three people were injured and three cars were torched. It posted CCTV footage showing a group of at least 10 masked men setting one car on fire and throwing stones.

“The settler violence and rampage, under the protection of the occupation army, is a political decision by the Israeli government, implemented by the settlers,” Palestinian Vice-President Hussein al-Sheikh wrote on X.

“The Israeli government’s behaviour and decisions are pushing the region toward an explosion. We call on the international community to urgently intervene to protect our Palestinian people.”

Since Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza, more than 900 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank – a period in which more than 20 Israelis have also been killed.

There has also been a sharp increase in the number and severity of settler attacks in the West Bank over the same period.

The UN says there were 487 attacks by settlers resulting in casualties or property damage in the first four months of this year, including 122 in April. At least 181 Palestinians were reportedly injured by settlers in the attacks.

Human rights organisations and witnesses say the Israeli military and police frequently stand by while settlers attack Palestinian towns and villages.

Since the right-wing, pro-settler governing coalition headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office in late 2022, it has decided to establish 49 new settlements and begin the legalisation process for seven settler outposts which were built without government authorisation, according to the Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now.

Last month, Israeli ministers said 22 new settlements had been approved across the length and width of the West Bank, hailing it as a move that “prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel”.

In a separate incident on Wednesday, a 15-year-old Palestinian boy was shot and killed by Israeli forces in the town of al-Yamoun, near Jenin, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The Israeli military said “terrorists” threw explosive devices at its forces during an operation there. Afterwards, they approached while holding additional explosives and the forces responded by opening fire, it added.

In January, Israeli forces launched a large-scale operation against Palestinian armed groups in Jenin and two other governorates in the northern West Bank, which Netanyahu said aimed to “defeat terrorism”.

The UN’s human rights chief said in April that the operation had destroyed entire refugee camps and makeshift medical sites, and displaced more than 40,000 Palestinians, who had been told not to return to their homes for a year.

The head of Ukraine’s army, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, has said his troops have stopped Russian advances in the northeastern border region of Sumy.

During a visit to the front on Thursday, Syrskyi said the line of combat had been “stabilised” and that the Russian summer offensive in the area had been “choked off”.

However, Syrskyi also added that he had personally gone to check on fortifications in the region and that more were urgently needed.

Syrskyi’s comments on the successes of the Ukrainian troops in Sumy back recent statements by Ukrainian officials that Russia’s pressure on the region was declining.

However, the situation remained “volatile”, Border Guard spokesperson Andriy Demchenko said earlier this week.

Sumy borders the Russian region of Kursk, parts of which were seized and occupied last year by Ukrainian forces in a surprise offensive before being almost totally driven out months later.

The Kursk incursion was an embarrassment for Russia and in April President Vladimir Putin announced a plan to create “security buffer zones” along the border to provide “additional support” to areas in Russia which border Ukraine’s Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv regions.

Moscow has been pushing in the Sumy area with renewed effort since then. In late May Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky said 50,000 of Russia’s “largest, strongest” troops were concentrated along the border and were planning to create a 10km (6-mile) buffer zone.

• Ukraine in maps: Tracking the war with Russia

There has been criticism about the lack of fortifications in some areas of the Sumy region – and in his statement on Thursday Syrskyi tried to quell growing public concerns over delays in their construction.

“Additional fortifications, the establishment of ‘kill zones’, the construction of anti-drone corridors to protect our soldiers and ensure more reliable logistics for our troops are obvious tasks that are being carried out,” he said.

However, Syrskyi acknowledged that these improvements had to be done better and more efficiently.

In the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the lack of fortifications in certain parts of Ukraine allowed Moscow to make advances across the country – from its northern borders and from the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula.

The window of opportunity to build fortifications in Sumy safely and quickly was in autumn 2024, when Ukrainian troops were still advancing in the Russia’s border Kursk region and Sumy remained relatively unscathed.

Now may be too late, as Russia is undoubtedly well aware of the sections of the front line that lack strong fortifications.

In the last several months Moscow has claimed to have captured several villages while pummelling the city of Sumy with heavy missile strikes, killing dozens. A single ballistic missile attack on 13 April killed at least 34 people and injured 117.

DeepState, a group that monitors the latest frontline developments in Ukraine, has quoted sources as confirming that combat is raging in various unfortified areas of Sumy. The delays with erecting “much-needed fortifications” or the “low quality of some of the dugouts” could no longer be ignored, DeepState analysts said.

Asked about the summer offensive at a forum in St Petersburg last week, Putin said Russia did not “have the goal of capturing Sumy, but I don’t rule it out”. He said Russian forces had already established a buffer zone of 8-12km in depth.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022, is now well into its fourth year.

Large-scale Russian drone attacks on Ukrainian cities are on the rise. In recent weeks the capital Kyiv was targeted with record numbers of drones that overwhelm air defences and cause deadly explosions.

Recent rounds of talks between Ukraine and Russia resulted in large prisoner exchanges but have so far failed to produce any tangible progress towards a ceasefire.

Earlier this week Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said that European and Canadian allies had pledged €35bn (£30bn; $41bn) to Ukraine.

But there remains nervousness in Kyiv over the level of US President Donald Trump’s commitment to the Ukrainian cause and his volatile relationship with Zelensky.

However, Trump said on Wednesday a meeting he held with Zelensky on the sidelines of the Nato summit in The Hague “couldn’t have been nicer”.

He told BBC Ukraine’s Myroslava Petsa at a press conference afterwards that he was considering supplying Kyiv with US Patriot air defence missiles to defend itself against Russian strikes.

“We’re going to see if we could make some available. You know, they’re very hard to get,” he said.

Denis Villeneuve, the Oscar-nominated French-Canadian film-maker, will direct the next James Bond film, Amazon MGM Studios has announced.

The Dune director said in a statement released by the studio that he was a “die-hard James Bond fan” and intends to “honour the tradition” of the franchise.

Speculation has been swirling over the future of the 007 films after long-time Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson stepped down from their roles and handed control to Amazon in February.

Villeneuve will also serve as an executive producer of the new film, having received global acclaim for helming the Dune franchise, as well as Blade Runner 2049 and Arrival.

Amazon did not give any hints on the next actor to play James Bond in the announcement, after Daniel Craig stepped back from playing the most recent incarnation.

Villeneuve acknowledged the “massive responsibility” of helming the new film and expressed his excitement at the challenge.

“I grew up watching James Bond films with my father, ever since Dr No with Sean Connery. I’m a die-hard Bond fan. To me, he’s sacred territory,” he said.

“I intend to honour the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come.”

Head of Amazon MGM Studios Mike Hopkins hailed Villeneuve as a “cinematic master” and praised his ability to deliver “immersive storytelling” for global audiences.

The director has been known for films that marry grand stylish visuals with complex character-focused stories.

His characters, who are frequently loners, emotionally isolated from others, often wrestle with difficult moral dilemmas and concepts of identity. Villeneuve uses tension and emotion to build to impactful action sequences, which can be brutal and brief.

That suggests his version of Bond is likely to have more in common with the gritty realism seen in Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale than the fantastical fun some fans miss from Roger Moore’s days as 007.

Ajay Chowdhury, spokesman for the James Bond International Fan Club, thinks Villeneuve’s appointment is “the most artistically significant development of the future” of the franchise.

“It is testimony to the cultural weight of the nearly 70-year-old film series that a director of such critical and commercial weight wants to and has been chosen to direct the next instalment,” he told BBC News.

Chowdhury, who is also co-author of Darker Than The Sun: An Atlas of James Bond Movie Locations, added that the director had already “proved to be a powerful visualist” and “versatile in genre”.

“His team will executive produce the picture, a first for a Bond director,” he noted. “This is testimony to his status as a helmer with final cut and his position in the cinematic landscape as one the top practitioners of the craft.”

But it remains unclear when the next Bond film will be shot and released.

Villeneuve is expected to start shooting Dune Messiah, the third movie of the Dune franchise, later this year, with a potential release date in 2026.

He is also attached to direct a string of other movies – Nuclear War: A Scenario; a new version of Cleopatra; and Rendezvous with Rama.

“I have too many things right now,” he told Vanity Fair last September.

Villeneuve gained prominence with a series of critical successes including Sicario, Prisoners and Incendies.

His 2016 science fiction thriller Arrival earned him his first Oscar nomination for directing.

Most recently, blockbusters Dune and Dune: Part Two grossed a combined total of more than $1bn (£730m) worldwide, with both films nominated for best picture Oscars in their respective years.

The question on everyone’s lips now is, who will play Bond? Chowdhury suspects that the “screenplay and vision” would need to be completed first before agents are contacted for “the most sought after role in cinema”.

British actors Aaron Taylor-Johnson and James Norton have been rumoured as frontrunners for the part, while Irish actor Paul Mescal’s name has also been thrown into the mix.

Chowdhury said the new Bond actor must have “the Goldilocks amount of fame”. In other words, “not too much [or] too little – just the right amount”.

“Names like Callum Turner, Joe Alwyn, Jack Lowden spring to mind,” he offered.

“When the new 007 debuts, he will have to be young enough to believably sustain the franchise into the next decade. He must be hungry and ambitious.

“He will probably have to lead sponsorship campaigns from brand partners, appear in video games and perhaps guest star in any TV spin-offs.

“Taking over the mantle from Daniel Craig will be no easy feat.”

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North Korea is opening a beach resort that its leader Kim Jong Un hopes will boost tourism in the secretive communist regime, state media reports.

Wonsan Kalma on the east coast will open to domestic tourists on 1 July, six years after it was due to be completed. It is unclear when it will welcome foreigners.

Kim grew up in luxury in Wonsan, where many of the country’s elite have private villas, and has been trying to transform the town, which once hosted a missile testing site.

State media KCNA claims the resort can accomodate up to 20,000 visitors, occupying a 4km (2.5 mile) stretch of beach, with hotels, restaurants, shopping malls and a water park – none of which can be verified.

Heavily sanctioned for decades for its nuclear weapons programme, North Korea is among the poorest countries in the world. It pours most of its resources into its military, monuments and landmarks – often in Pyongyang – that embellish the image and cult of the Kim family that has run the country since 1948.

Some observers say this is an easy way for Pyongyang to earn money. While foreign tourists are allowed in, tour groups largely tend to come from China and Russia, countries with whom Pyongyang has long maintained friendly relations.

“I was hoping this might signal a broader reopening to international tourism, but unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case for now,” Rowan Beard, co-founder of Young Pioneer Tours, tells the BBC.

Tourism from overseas took a hit during the Covid pandemic, though, with the country closing its borders in early 2020. It did not scale back restrictions until the middle of 2023 and welcomed Russian visitors a year later.

It opened to more Western visitors in February, when tourists from the UK, France, Germany and Australia drove across the border from China. It abruptly halted tourism weeks later without saying why.

Some tour agencies are sceptical of Wonsan’s appeal to foreigners. It is “unlikely to be a major draw for most Western tourists”, Mr Beard says.

“Key sites like Pyongyang, the DMZ, and other brutalist or communist landmarks will continue to be the main highlights for international visitors once broader tourism resumes.”

However, Elliott Davies, director of Uri Tours, says North Korea holds a “niche appeal” for travellers drawn to unconventional destinations.

“It’s intriguing to experience something as familiar as a beach resort that’s been shaped within the unique cultural context of North Korea.”

KCNA described the Wonsan development as a “great, auspicious event of the whole country” and called it a “prelude to the new era” in tourism.

It was initially scheduled to open in October 2019, but ran into construction delays before the pandemic struck.

Kim attended a ceremony to celebrate its completion on 24 June, accompanied by his daughter, Kim Ju Ae, and wife Ri Sol Ju. It marked Ri’s first public appearance since a New Year’s Day event.

Russian ambassador Alexander Matsegora and embassy staff also attended.

Some tour operators expect the resort to be opened to Russian tourists, who are currently the only foreign nationals allowed into some parts of the country.

The resort’s opening comes as North Korea and Russia strengthened their partnership in the face of sanctions from the West.

North Korea has sent troops to fight for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.

On Thursday, the two countries also reopened a direct passenger train route between their capitals after a five-year suspension because of the pandemic.

Sabrina Carpenter has revealed alternative artwork “approved by God” for her new album after the original cover sparked controversy.

Earlier in June, the Espresso singer shared art for her album, Man’s Best Friend, which shows her on her hands and knees in a black minidress with a suited man grabbing her hair.

The photo prompted a heated debate, with some arguing that it pandered to the male gaze and promoted misogynistic stereotypes.

On Wednesday, the pop princess posted two less contentious black-and-white images of herself holding a suited man’s arm, with the caption: “Here is a new alternate cover approved by God.”

Users responding to Carpenter’s post on Instagram included fellow pop star Katy Perry, who simply replied: “Gahahahaha.”

Man’s Best Friend is Carpenter’s seventh studio album and will be released on 29 August. Fans can purchase the album with either set of artwork.

Those criticising the initial artwork included Glasgow Women’s Aid, a charity supporting victims of domestic abuse, which said it was “regressive” and “promotes an element of violence and control”.

Not everyone was against it, and some defended the singer, explaining that the image was satirical.

“There’s a deeper meaning, portraying how the public views her, believing she is just for the male gaze,” a fan wrote on X.

But Heather Binning of Women’s Rights Network, told the BBC that violence against women should “never be used as satire”.

Many of Carpenter’s fans are young women, and Ms Binning said the imagery “grooms girls to believe that it is a fun, casual, sexy thing to submit to men’s sexual (sometimes sexually violent) desires”.

On social media, some also criticised Carpenter for the timing, suggesting the image was not appropriate given the current political climate in the US.

“Women’s control over their bodies are being taken away in the US and this is kind of insensitive,” one user wrote on Instagram.

Professor Catherine Rottenberg from Goldsmiths University of London said that regardless of how the artwork should be interpreted, Carpenter was “fanning the flames of controversy in order to sell her brand”.

“Debates around representation that this album has already generated will likely mean more sales, more popularity, and more traction,” she told the BBC.

It is not the first time the 26-year-old’s music has sparked an outcry.

Carpenter has built her brand around fun and risque pop music, and her sexual lyrics, X-rated ad-lib Nonsense outros and provocative performances regularly cause a stir.

At the Brit Awards in March, media watchdog Ofcom received 825 complaints, with the majority involving Carpenter’s pre-watershed opening performance that saw her wearing a red sparkly military-style mini-dress with matching stockings and suspenders.

She was also seen having a close encounter with a dancer dressed as a soldier wearing a bearskin hat during the show, which was broadcast live on ITV.

Lucy Ford, a culture critic, previously told the BBC that Carpenter is “in on the joke” when she performs.

“Sabrina is being unabashedly horny in her music and it feels like an embrace of fun and silliness and not taking things too seriously.”

Venezuela’s former head of military intelligence, Hugo Carvajal – also known as “El Pollo”, or The Chicken – has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges in the US.

US officials accused the 65-year-old of forming part of a drug-smuggling organisation made up of high-ranking members of the Venezuelan military.

The guilty plea is the latest twist in Carvajal’s demise from feared spymaster to convict via his ignominious arrest in a hideout in Madrid, where he had been spotted despite donning a fake moustache and a wig.

Carvajal, who was a close ally of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, is thought to hold key information about Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro.

Carvajal was part of the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) – named after the suns which feature on the epaulettes of high-ranking officers in the Venezuelan military – according to a statement released by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where Carvajal was due to go on trial in the coming days.

“For years, he and other officials in the Cartel de Los Soles used cocaine as a weapon – flooding New York and other American cities with poison,” the statement read.

It added that he partnered with left-wing rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in neighbouring Colombia, whom he supplied with weapons and whose cocaine shipments to the US via Venezuela he protected.

Carvajal received millions of dollars in payment in exchange, according to US Attorney Jay Clayton.

The fact that Carvajal changed his plea to “guilty” two years after he denied all of the charges brought against him led to speculation he may have reached a deal for a lower sentence in exchange for providing incriminating information about the Maduro’s government.

The US charged Maduro with “narco-terrorism” five years ago and has imposed sanctions on him and his inner circle.

Maduro has long accused the US of trying to overthrow him in order to seize control of Venezuela’s oil reserves and has said that the charges against him are part of their efforts to remove him from office.

As former spy chief, Carvajal is thought to have access to a wealth of material about the current and past Venezuelan governments.

Relations between Carvajal and Maduro soured in 2017, when anti-government protests that Carvajal spoke out in favour of swept the country.

They broke down completely in 2019, when Carvajal urged the military to back opposition leader Juan Guaidó’s attempt to overthrow Maduro.

When the military remained loyal to Maduro, Carvajal fled to Spain.

Following several years during which he was on the run, he was finally tracked down to an apartment in Madrid and extradited to the US.

Kenya’s interior minister has denied that the police used excessive force during Wednesday’s protests in which at least 10 people were killed, describing them as “terrorism disguised as dissent” and an “unconstitutional attempt” to change the government.

Kipchumba Murkomen thanked security agencies for their “remarkable restraint amid extreme provocation” crediting them with helping to “foil an attempted coup”.

In addition to the 10 deaths, more than 400 others were injured, including about 300 police officers, he said.

“We condemn the criminal anarchists who in the name of peaceful demonstrations unleashed a wave of violence, looting, sexual assault and destruction upon our people,” he said.

Key government installations and offices were targeted in the protests, he added, with nine police stations attacked, five of which were torched – and five guns stolen.

Dozens of vehicles, belonging to the police, government and civilians, were destroyed, he said.

Murkomen said that investigations were under way into the exact number of casualties and the circumstances around the violence.

• Why the death of a blogger has put Kenya’s police on trial
• BBC identifies security forces who shot Kenya anti-tax protesters

Rights group Amnesty International has put the death toll at 16, saying that all those who died had gunshot wounds.

Nineteen-year-old David Mwangi, who lived in Nairobi’s Mukuru informal settlement, was one of those who was shot dead.

His mother told the BBC that he was a bystander who had gone to pick up his younger brother from a tuition class. A tearful Rachael Nyambura Mwangi said that a bullet had gone through her son’s head.

“I am in so much pain,” she said.

“David was hoping to go to college to become a mechanic. He was my first-born and he was my helper. If I needed to fetch water or get something I would send him. I sell sweet potatoes and whenever I needed to get my stock I would send him.”

Student Dennis Njuguna, 17, was shot dead in Molo, 170km (100 miles) north-west of Nairobi shortly after the end of the school day.

“I don’t know if he was in the midst of the protesters or a stray bullet him. I don’t know but I heard he was shot, fell down and died on the spot,” his mother Jecinta Gathoni said.

“My child was still young, he was in his final year of secondary school. He had his dreams, I also had a lot of hope in him. I have not even gathered the courage to go to the morgue to see his body.”

The protests marked the first anniversary of a previous wave of deadly anti-government demonstrations.

On Wednesday, thousands took to the streets across to voice anger with President William Ruto’s government, and to demand an end to police brutality.

Many of those demonstrating chanted “Ruto must go” and waved branches as a symbol of peaceful opposition to his rule.

The government banned live TV and radio coverage of the protests, although its decree was overturned by the Nairobi High Court. The ban has has since been lifted.

Rights groups have condemned the actions of the police and state.

The Law Society of Kenya said there had been “unnecessary aggression and brute force” by security officers, which it said had led to “senseless loss of life”.

On Wednesday, human rights groups said three police officers had been injured.

• El Chapo & Deputy Jesus – why Kenya’s president has so many nicknames
• Four Kenyan police officers charged over baby’s killing as others freed
• New faces of protest – Kenya’s Gen Z anti-tax revolutionaries

A study into potential serious side effects of weight loss jabs has been launched after hundreds of people reported problems with their pancreas.

The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and Genomics England are asking people on weight loss drugs who have been hospitalised by acute pancreatitis to get in touch.

There have been hundreds of reports of acute and chronic pancreatitis from people who have taken drugs such as Mounjaro, Ozempic and Wegovy, although none are confirmed as being caused by the medicines.

The aim is to “better predict those most at risk of adverse reactions”, said MHRA chief safety officer Dr Alison Cave.

The study is being run through the MHRA’s Yellow Card scheme, which allows anyone to report an issue with a medicine, vaccine or medical device to help identify safety issues as early as possible.

Patients aged 18 and over, with bad reactions to the weight loss jabs – which are also licensed for type 2 diabetes – are being asked to report the detail on the Yellow Card website.

They will then be asked if they would be willing to take part in the study, which will check whether some people are at a higher genetic risk of acute pancreatitis when taking these medicines.

Patients will be asked to submit more information and a saliva sample, with the overall aim of reducing the occurrence of the side effects in future, says the MHRA.

Cases recorded on the Yellow Card website up until 13 May this year include 10 in which patients, who were using weight loss drugs, died from the effects of pancreatitis – but it is not clear whether other factors also played a part.

It is impossible to know exactly how many people in the UK are on weight loss drugs as many users obtain them online through unregulated sources, rather than through their doctors.

Health officials have suggested the jabs could help turn the tide on obesity. However, they have also warned the drugs are not a silver bullet and often come with side effects, commonly including nausea, constipation and diarrhoea.

And the MHRA has also warned that Mounjaro could make the oral contraceptive pill less effective for some patients.

Dr Alison Cave, the MHRA’s chief safety officer said information from the study “will help us to better predict those most at risk of adverse reactions, enabling patients across the UK to receive the safest medicine for them, based on their genetic make-up”.

She said evidence showed almost a third of side effects to medicines could be prevented with genetic testing.

“It is predicted that adverse drug reactions could cost the NHS more than £2.2bn a year in hospital stays alone,” she added.

Prof Matt Brown, chief scientific officer at Genomics England, said: “GLP-1 medicines like Ozempic and Wegovy have been making headlines, but like all medicines there can be a risk of serious side effects.

“We believe there is real potential to minimise these, with many adverse reactions having a genetic cause.”

He said the next step would be to “generate data and evidence for safer and more effective treatment through more personalised approaches to prescription, supporting a shift towards an increasingly prevention-focused healthcare system”.

For the protesters waving Palestinian flags outside EU buildings in Brussels, it was the moment that everything might change.

An EU report presented to foreign ministers had found there were indications Israel had breached human rights obligations under the EU-Israel Association Agreement, ahead of Thursday’s European Union leaders’ summit.

The European Union is Israel’s biggest trading partner, and the protesters were demanding that the EU suspend its 25-year-old trade accord over Israel’s actions in Gaza.

But their hopes that EU leaders would agree to suspend the agreement with Israel were soon dashed, because despite the report deep divisions remain over the war in Gaza.

The protesters have been backed by more than 100 NGOs and charities.

In 20 months of Israeli military operations more than 55,000 Gazans have been killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Another 1.9 million people have been displaced.

Israel also imposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza at the start of March, which it partially eased after 11 weeks following pressure from US allies and warnings from global experts that half a million people were facing starvation.

Since then, the UN says more than 400 Palestinians are reported to have been killed by Israeli gunfire or shelling while trying to reach food distribution centres run by a US and Israeli-backed organisation. Another 90 have also reportedly been killed by Israeli forces while attempting to approach convoys of the UN and other aid groups.

“Every red line has been crossed in Gaza” Agnes Bertrand-Sanz from Oxfam told the BBC.

“Every rule has been breached. It really is high time that the European Union acts.”

As the report was made public, it fell to foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas to explain what the European Union would do next.

The EU’s first goal would be to “change the situation” on the ground in Gaza, she said. If that did not happen, “further measures” would be discussed next month on how to suspend the association agreement.

“We will contact Israel to, you know, present our finding,” she stumbled in an uncharacteristically faltering manner. “Because that is the focus of the member states, to really, you know… be very, very sure about the feelings that we have here.”

NGOs said the EU had missed an opportunity to take action and that the response was feeble.

The Israeli foreign ministry called the review “a complete moral and methodological failure.”

• UN condemns Gaza aid ‘death trap’ as dozens reported killed
• Gaza mediators intensifying ceasefire efforts, Hamas official says

For some of the EU’s critics, the episode was a vivid example of how the EU can talk a good game about being the biggest global humanitarian aid donor to Gaza, but badly struggles to present any coherent or powerful voice to match it.

As the world’s biggest market of 450 million people, the EU carries great economic weight but it is not translating into political clout.

“The fact that European countries and the UK are not doing more to put pressure on Israel and to enforce international humanitarian law, it makes it very difficult for these countries to be credible,” said Olivier De Schutter, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on human rights.

“War crimes are being committed at a very large scale In Gaza, there is debate about whether this amounts to genocide, but even if there’s no genocide there is a duty to act.”

De Schutter fears the EU’s soft power is being lost and its inaction makes it much harder for it to persuade to countries in Africa, Asia in Latin America to back Europe on condemning Russia’s war in Ukraine, for example.

Israel maintains it acts within international law and that its mission is to destroy Hamas and bring home the remaining hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023. About 1,200 people were killed in the attack, which triggered Israel’s offensive on Gaza.

As a union of 27 countries, the domestic political reality in Europe makes it unlikely that EU leaders will back the views of the majority of member states on Gaza.

Eleven EU countries have recognised Palestine as a state, and among them Ireland, Spain, Belgium, Slovenia and Sweden had pushed for the European Union’s agreement with Israel to be suspended.

At the heart of the EU’s foreign policy decision-making in Brussels is the fact that decisions have to be unanimous, and so just one dissenting voice can block the EU from taking action.

In this case Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are all opposed.

Austria hopes the EU’s review will spark action, but not necessarily a suspension of the treaty with Israel.

“Everything I’ve heard in this regard will not help the people in Gaza,” said Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger. “What it would however cause is a deterioration, if not a complete breakdown of the dialogue we currently have with Israel.”

Germany’s position on Israel has often been shaped by its role in the Holocaust and World War Two.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz says the “current level of attacks on Gaza can no longer be justified by the fight against Hamas”, but he has refused to consider suspending or terminating the agreement.

Slovakia and Hungary are considered more closely aligned politically to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu than many other EU countries.

Among the key players advocating tougher measures against Netanyahu’s government is Ireland.

Its foreign affairs minister, Simon Harris, condemned the EU’s handling of the review.

“Our response in relation to Gaza has been much too slow and far too many people have been left to die as genocide has been carried out,” he said.

Israel rejects the charge of genocide and when it closed its embassy in Dublin last December it accused Ireland of antisemitism.

Europe has recently found itself sidelined by Washington on big global issues, notably Ukraine and Iran – with President Donald Trump in favour of direct talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

The US may not be in listening mood, but on Gaza the EU has struggled to muster a unified voice on Gaza, let alone make it heard.

Elizabeth Butler goes from one supermarket to the next in her home town of Martinsburg, West Virginia, to ensure she gets the best price on each item on her grocery list.

Along with 42 million Americans, she pays for those groceries with federal food subsides. That cash doesn’t cover the whole bill for her family of three.

“Our food doesn’t even last the month,” she says. “I’m going to all these different places just to make sure that we have enough food to last us the whole month.”

But that money may soon run out, as Congress gears up to vote on what US President Donald Trump has coined his “big beautiful bill”.

The food subsidy programme that Ms Butler uses – called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP – is one of many items on the chopping block, as Congress tries to reconcile the president’s seemingly conflicting demands to both lower taxes and balance the budget.

The Senate is due to vote on their version of the bill by the end of the week. If it passes, it will then be voted on by the House, at which point it will be sent to Trump to sign. He has pressured both chambers of Congress, which the Republican Party controls, to pass the bill by 4 July.

• Four sticking points in Trump’s ‘big beautiful’ tax bill

SNAP offers low-income households, including older Americans, families with children and people who are disabled, money each month to buy groceries. In West Virginia, one of the states with the highest rates of poverty, 16% of the population depends on the benefit.

The state is also a reliable Republican stronghold and voted overwhelmingly for Trump in November, when he ran on the promise of reducing the cost of living for Americans, including the price of groceries.

“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One,” he said at an August news conference surrounded by packaged foods, milk, meats and eggs.

Months after the president made that pledge, the prices of commonly purchased groceries like orange juice, eggs and bacon are higher than they were the same time last year.

It’s a fact that has not gone unnoticed by Ms Butler: “The president hasn’t changed the food prices yet and he promised the people that he would do that.”

Trump has argued, without providing an explanation how, that spending cuts in the 1,000-page budget bill will help bring food prices down: “The cut is going to give everyone much more food, because prices are coming way down, groceries are down,” Trump said when asked specifically about cuts to SNAP.

“The One, Big, Beautiful Bill will ultimately strengthen SNAP through cost-sharing measures and common-sense work requirements,” a White House official told the BBC.

Republicans have long been divided on how to fund social welfare programmes like SNAP and Medicaid. While many think the government should prioritise balancing the budget, others, especially in impoverished regions, support programmes that directly help their constituents.

As the bill stands, Senate Republicans are proposing $211bn (£154bn) in cuts with states being partly responsible for making up the difference.

In theory, passing the bill should be an easy political lift, since Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House.

But since the bill includes cuts to programmes like SNAP and Medicaid, which are popular with everyday Americans, selling the bill to all factions within the Republican Party has not been an easy feat.

Reports of private frustration and dissent about potential cuts to Medicaid and SNAP have leaked in recent weeks, showing the internal wrestling happening within the party.

West Virginia Senator Jim Justice told Politico in June that he has warned fellow Republicans that cutting SNAP could cost the party their majority in Congress when voters head to the polls again in 2026.

“If we don’t watch out, people are going to get hurt, people are going to be upset. It’s going to be the number one thing on the nightly news all over the place,” Justice said. “And then, we could very well awaken to a situation in this country where the majority quickly becomes the minority.”

A recent poll by the Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 45% of Americans think food assistance programmes like SNAP are underfunded, while only 30% think the funding levels are adequate. About a quarter of respondents thought programmes were overfunded.

This is not the first time the party has wrestled with cuts to SNAP, said Tracy Roof, a University of Richmond professor who is currently writing a book on the political history of SNAP.

Under the Biden administration, Congress allowed expanded benefits implemented during Covid to be phased out, despite both Republicans and Democrats warning Americans could go hungry.

“One thing about [SNAP] is that it has bipartisan support, more than any other anti-poverty programme,” Prof Roof told the BBC.

But this time feels different, she said.

“One thing that kind of distinguishes this period from the previous efforts to cut social welfare programmes has been the willingness of congressional Republicans to vote for things many of them apparently off the record have many concerns about,” she said.

“Before, there were always moderate Republicans, particularly in the Senate, but in both Houses that held out for concessions.”

Prof Roof attributes that submission to two things: fear of getting on the wrong side of Trump and a lack of fear of public backlash for representatives who hold congressional seats they can easily get re-elected to.

The BBC contacted Congressman Riley Moore, who represents Martinsburg, West Virginia, about the impacts of the cuts to his constituents, but he did not respond.

Moore voted for the initial House bill, which included the cuts to SNAP.

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, who had been one of the more vocal critics of the cuts, has since softened: Hawley told the news outlet NOTUS he has “always supported” most of the Medicaid cuts and he would “be fine” with most of what’s in the bill.

Father of two Jordan, who asked that his last name not be used, has spent the past three years surviving on SNAP benefits.

He and his wife get about $700 a month to feed their family of four, but they still struggle.

The 26-year-old says his wife has struggled to get work and take care of their two children simultaneously, so if changes to SNAP impact his family, he is prepared to act and get a second job.

“I’m going to make sure that I can do whatever I can to feed my family,” he says.

He and other West Virginians are following what happens to the bill in Congress.

Cameron Whetzel, 25, grew up in a family dependent on SNAP. But when he and his wife tried to apply for SNAP, he learned that making $15 a hour was too much to qualify, he said.

“It’s not great the fact that I need to double my salary in order to be able to afford groceries,” Mr Whetzel says, adding “we have not bought any eggs in four months just cause they’re too expensive”.

He is frustrated that officials in Washington do not understand the impacts of the cuts they are backing in Congress, he says.

“To make a federal cut that then would be put onto the state that’s already struggling it just kind of feels like kicking a horse while its down,” Mr Whetzel adds. “Whether you believe in small government or big government, government has to provide for somebody, somehow.”

A convoy of trucks carrying tents, construction materials and portable toilets flows into a virtually abandoned airport in Florida’s picturesque Everglades, a Unesco World Heritage Site.

But they’re not helping build the region’s next big tourist attraction.

Instead they’re laying the foundations for a new migrant detention facility, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”.

The facility, in the middle of a Miami swamp, was proposed by state lawmakers to support US President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda.

“You don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter. If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons,” explains the state’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, a Republican, in a video set to rock music and posted on social media.

The new detention centre is being built on the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, about 43 miles (70km) from central Miami, in the middle of the Everglades, an ecologically important subtropical wetland.

The airfield where the detention centre will be based is mainly a pilot training runway surrounded by vast swamps.

In the stifling summer heat rife with mosquitoes, we managed to advance only a few metres into the compound when, as expected, a guard in a lorry blocked our way.

We hear sounds coming from a small canal next to the compound. We wonder whether it’s fish, snakes, or the hundreds of alligators that roam the wetland.

Although the airstrip belongs to Miami-Dade County, the decision to turn it into a detention centre was made following a 2023 executive order by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, invoking emergency powers to stem the flow of undocumented migrants.

The new centre, which according to authorities will have the capacity to accommodate around 1,000 detainees and will begin operations in July or August, is quickly becoming a controversial symbol of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, DeSantis hinted that the Alligator Alcatraz being built in the middle of a swamp might not be the last.

“We’ll probably also do something similar up at Camp Blanding,” DeSantis said, referring to the former US Army training facility over 300 miles north.

He said a state official was “working on that” and would have a formal announcement “very, very quickly”.

As Trump orders immigration authorities to carry out “the single largest mass deportation programme in history”, human rights organisations say detention centres are becoming overcrowded.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a record 59,000 detainees nationwide, 140% above its capacity, according to data obtained by CBS News.

Betty Osceola, a member of the Miccosukee Native American community, lives near the site and recently took part in a protest against the facility.

She suspects that rather than being a temporary site as authorities have stated, it will operate for months or even years.

“I have serious concerns about the environmental damage,” Ms Osceola tells us while we were talking next to a canal where an alligator was swimming.

She is also concerned about the living conditions that detainees may face in the new facility.

Those concerns are echoed by environmental organisations, such as Friends of the Everglades, and by human rights organisations in the U.S.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida told the BBC the proposed facility “is not just cruel and absurd. It underscores how our immigration system is increasingly being used to punish people rather than process them.”

Even ICE detention centres in populated areas, the ACLU said, “have well-documented histories of medical neglect, denial of legal access, and systemic mistreatment”.

BBC Mundo contacted the Florida attorney general’s office, but did not receive a response.

In the social media video, Uthmeier says the project is an “efficient” and “low-cost opportunity to build a temporary detention facility”.

With the “Alligator Alcatraz”, he says, there will be “nowhere to go, nowhere to hide”.

Expanding, adapting, or building new detention centres has been one of the Trump administration’s main challenges in accelerating deportations.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement to the BBC that Florida will receive federal funds to establish the new detention centre.

“We are working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens,” she added.

“We will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida.”

Noem says that the facility will be funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which is responsible for disaster co-ordination.

Daniella Levine Cava, the Democratic mayor of Miami-Dade County, which owns the airstrip land, says that she has requested information from state authorities.

The mayor “clearly laid out several concerns” regarding the proposed use of the airport, namely around funding and environmental impacts, her office said in a statement to the BBC.

While immigration raids have increased in cities like Los Angeles, the operations to detain migrants seem to be so far less widespread in Miami Dade County and South Florida.

Many undocumented Latinos prefer to stay at home because they are afraid of being arrested and sent to detention centres, according to testimonies gathered by BBC Mundo.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Fifty years after it first exploded on Indian screens, Sholay (Embers) – arguably the most iconic Hindi film ever made – is making a spectacular return.

In a landmark event for film lovers, the fully restored, uncut version of Ramesh Sippy’s 1975 magnum opus will have its world premiere at Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, Italy, on Friday. This version includes the film’s original ending – changed due to objection from the censors – and deleted scenes.

The screening will take place on the festival’s legendary open-air screen in Piazza Maggiore – one of the largest in Europe – offering a majestic setting for this long-awaited cinematic resurrection.

Crafted by writer duo Salim-Javed and featuring an all-star cast led by Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Jaya Bhaduri, Sanjeev Kumar and the unforgettable Amjad Khan as Gabbar Singh, Sholay draws cinematic inspiration from Western and samurai classics. Yet, it remains uniquely Indian.

The 204-minute film is a classic good-versus-evil tale set in the fictional village of Ramgarh, where two petty criminals, Jai and Veeru (Bachchan and Dharmendra), are hired by a former jailer, Thakur Baldev Singh, to take down the ruthless bandit Gabbar Singh – one of Indian cinema’s most iconic villains.

When it first released, Sholay ran for five uninterrupted years at Mumbai’s 1,500-seater Minerva theatre. It was later voted “Film of the Millennium” in a BBC India online poll and named the greatest Indian film in a British Film Institute poll. Half a million records and cassettes of RD Burman’s score and the film’s instantly recognisable dialogues were sold.

The film is also a cultural phenomenon: dialogues are quoted at weddings, referenced in political speeches and spoofed in adverts.

“Sholay is the eighth wonder of the world,” Dharmendra, who plays a small-town crook and is paired up with Bachchan in the film, said in a recent statement.

Shooting the film was an “unforgettable experience,” Bachchan said, “though I had no idea at the time that it would become a watershed moment in Indian cinema.”

This new restoration is the most faithful version of Sholay, complete with the original ending and never-before-seen deleted scenes, according to Shivendra Singh Dungarpur of the Film Heritage Foundation.

In the original version, Gabbar Singh dies – killed by Thakur, who crushes him with spiked shoes.

But the censors objected. They balked at the idea of a former police officer taking the law into his own hands. They also found the film’s stylised violence too excessive. The film faced unusually tough censors because it hit the theatres during the Emergency, when the ruling Congress government suspended civil liberties.

After failed attempts to reason with them, Sippy was forced to reshoot the ending. The cast and crew were rushed back to the rugged hills of Ramanagaram in southern India – transformed into the fictional village of Ramgarh. With the new, softened finale – where Gabbar Singh is captured, not killed – in place, the film finally cleared the censors.

The road to the three-year-long restoration of the epic was far from easy. The original 70mm prints had not survived, and the camera negatives were in a severely deteriorated condition.

But in 2022, Shehzad Sippy, son of Ramesh Sippy, approached the Mumbai-based Film Heritage Foundation with a proposal to restore the film.

He revealed that several film elements were being stored in a warehouse in Mumbai. What seemed like a gamble turned out to be a miracle: inside the unlabelled cans were the original 35mm camera and sound negatives.

The excitement didn’t end there.

Sippy Films also informed the Foundation about additional reels stored in the UK. With the support of the British Film Institute, the team gained access to archival materials. These were carefully shipped to L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna, one of the world’s premier film restoration facilities.

Despite the loss of the original 70mm prints and severely damaged negatives, archivists sourced elements from Mumbai and the UK, collaborating with the British Film Institute and Italy’s L’Immagine Ritrovata to painstakingly piece the film back together. The effort even uncovered the original camera used for shooting the film.

Interestingly, Sholay had a rocky start when it first hit the screens. Early reviews were harsh, the box office was shaky, and the 70mm print was delayed at customs.

India Today magazine called the film a “dead ember”. Filmfare’s Bikram Singh wrote that the major problem with the film was the “unsuccessful transplantation it attempts, grafting a western on the Indian milieu”.

“The film remains imitation western – neither here nor there”.

In initial screenings, audiences sat in silence – no laughter, no tears, no applause. “Just silence,” writes film writer Anupama Chopra in her book, Sholay: The Making of a Classic. By the weekend, theatres were full but the response remained uncertain – and panic had set in.

Over the next few weeks, audiences warmed up to the film, and word of mouth spread: “The visuals were epic, and the sound was a miracle…By the third week, the audience was repeating dialogues. It meant that at least some were coming in to see the film for the second time,” writes Chopra.

A month after Sholay hit screens, Polydor released a 48-minute dialogue record – and the tide had turned. The film’s characters became iconic, and Gabbar Singh – the “genuinely frightening, but widely popular” villain – emerged as a cultural phenomenon. Foreign critics called it India’s first “curry western”.

Sholay ran for over five years – three in regular shows and two as matinees at Mumbai’s Minerva. Even in its 240th week, shows were full. Sholay hit Pakistani screens on April 2015, and despite being 40 years old, it outperformed most Indian films over a decade old – including the 2002 hit Devdas starring Shah Rukh Khan.

As film distributor Shyam Shroff told Chopra: “As they used to say about the British Empire, the sun never sets on Sholay.”

Why does Sholay still resonate with audiences, half a century later? Amitabh Bachchan offers a simple yet profound answer: “The victory of good over evil and… most importantly, poetic justice in three hours! You and I shall not get it in a lifetime,” he told an interviewer.

Thailand is trying to rein in its free-wheeling marijuana market.

Its government has approved new measures that went into effect on Wednesday restricting the sale of the drug to those with a doctor’s prescription, in the hope of helping regulate an industry some describe as out of control.

The south-east Asian nation’s public health minister has also said that consumption of marijuana will be criminalised again, although it’s unclear when that could happen.

Ever since the drug was decriminalised in 2022, there has been a frenzy of investment.

There are now around 11,000 registered cannabis dispensaries in Thailand. In parts of the capital, Bangkok, it is impossible to escape the lurid green glare of their neon signs and the constant smell of people smoking their products.

In the famous backpacker district of Khao San Road, in the historic royal quarter, there is an entire shopping mall dedicated to selling hallucinogenic flower heads or marijuana accessories.

Derivative products like brownies and gummies are offered openly online – although this is technically illegal – and can be delivered to your door within an hour.

There has been talk of restricting the industry before. The largest party in the governing coalition wanted to put cannabis back on the list of proscribed narcotics after it took office in 2023, but its former coalition partner, which had made decriminalisation a signature election policy, blocked this plan.

The final straw appears to have been pressure from the UK, which has seen a flood of Thai marijuana being smuggled into the country.

It is often young travellers who are lured by drug syndicates in Britain into carrying suitcases filled with it on flights from Thailand.

Last month, two young British women were arrested in Georgia and Sri Lanka with large amounts of marijuana from Thailand. Both now face long prison sentences.

“It’s massively increased over the last couple of years,” says Beki Wright, spokesperson at the National Crime Agency in London. The NCA says 142 couriers carrying five tonnes were intercepted in 2023. This number shot up to 800 couriers in 2024 carrying 26 tonnes, and that number has continued to rise this year.

“We really want to stop people doing this,” Ms Wright says. “Because if you are stopped, in this country or many others, you face life-changing consequences, for something many of them think is low-risk. If you bring illicit drugs into the UK you might get through the first time, but you will eventually be found, and you will most likely go to jail.”

So far this year, 173 people accused of smuggling cannabis – nearly all from Thailand – have gone through the court system in the UK and received sentences totalling 230 years.

The NCA is working with Thai authorities to try to deter young people from being tempted to smuggle cannabis to Britain. But this has proved difficult, because of the very few regulations that exist in Thailand to control the drug.

“This is a loophole,” says Panthong Loykulnanta, spokesman for the Thai Customs Department.

“The profit is very high, but the penalties here are not high. Most of the time, when we catch people at the airport, they abandon their luggage. But then there is no punishment. If they insist on checking in the luggage, we can arrest them, but they just pay the fine and try again.”

The legalisation of cannabis in 2022 was supposed to be followed by the passing of a new regulatory framework by the Thai parliament.

But this never happened, partly, says one MP involved in the drafting process, because of obstruction by vested interests with links to the marijuana industry. A new cannabis law was drawn up last year, but it could be two years away from being passed.

The result has been a weed wild west, where almost anything that can make money out of marijuana is tolerated.

There has also been an influx of foreign drug syndicates hiding behind Thai nominees, growing huge quantities of potent marijuana strains in brightly lit, air-conditioned containers.

This has flooded the market and driven the price down, which is what has attracted the smugglers.

Even if more than half the people carrying marijuana get stopped, they can still make money from what gets through to the UK because of much higher prices.

“You cannot have a free-for-all, right? This became a bar fight rather than a boxing match,” says Tom Kruesopon, a businessman who was instrumental in legalising marijuana, but now thinks things have now gone too far.

“When there is a weed shop on every corner, when people are smoking as they’re walking down the street, when tourists are getting high on our beaches, other countries [are] being affected by our laws, with people shipping it illegally – these are negatives.”

He argues that the proposed new public health ministry regulations will restrict supply and demand, and restore the industry to what it was always intended to be, focused solely on the medical use of marijuana.

There is plenty of opposition to this notion from cannabis enthusiasts who believe the new rules will do nothing to curb smuggling or unlicensed growers.

They say the measures will wipe out small-scale businesses who are already struggling because of the glut caused by over-production.

Earlier this month, many of these smaller growers descended on the prime minister’s office in Bangkok to deliver a formal complaint to the government, calling for a more sensitively regulated industry, and not just what they believe is a knee-jerk reaction to foreign criticism.

“I totally understand that the government is probably getting yelled at during international meetings,” says Kitty Chopaka, the most vocal advocate for smaller producers.

“Countries saying ‘all your weed is getting smuggled into our country’, that is quite embarrassing. But right now they are not even enforcing the rules that already exist. If they did, that would probably mitigate a lot of the issues like smuggling, or sale without a licence.”

The collapse in prices forced her earlier this year to close down her cannabis dispensary, one of the first to open three years ago.

Parinya Sangprasert, one of the growers at the protest, argues that the illegal growers are already operating outside the law in Thailand – and will ignore the new regulations as well.

He is emphatic that people cannot come to his farm and just buy 46kg (101 lbs) of marijuana – the quantity typically carried in two suitcases by the “mules” trying to reach the UK.

On his phone, he showed a copy of the official form he has to fill in every time he makes a sale.

“If you want to buy or sell a large amount of cannabis, you need a licence, issued by our government. Every weed shop must obtain this to buy marijuana, and there are records kept of which farm it’s from and who it was sold to.”

In the meantime, Thai customs officers are continuing their efforts to stem the flood of cannabis though their airports.

They are using intelligence gathered on travel patterns to target potential smugglers and dissuade them from checking in their luggage.

They are increasingly using the requirement for a licence to buy, sell or export quantities of marijuana to prosecute those they intercept, but the punishment is rarely more than a fine.

And the confiscated suitcases, filled with vacuum-sealed packages of dried marijuana heads, with names like “Runtz” and “Zkittlez”, still pile up in backrooms at the airports. There were around 200 in one room the BBC was allowed into, containing between two to three tonnes, seized in just the past month.

Last year, in an unlikely development, I was booked to DJ at Glastonbury Festival. When I arrived on Thursday afternoon, one thing struck me straight away.

There was a very particular atmosphere. I’d best describe is as a sense of release – of a wait being over. I’d never seen or felt anything like it.

That Thursday feeling stayed with me. I kept thinking about it in the months afterwards

Though the main stages open on Friday and run all weekend, Glastonbury is a five-day festival.

To its organiser, Emily Eavis, the first two days are special. The festival was started by her parents, Michael and Jean, and her memories are intertwined with family life.

“Traditionally, it would be me and my dad who go down to open the gates on Wednesday,” she says.

“It’s like letting people into Christmas in a way, you know? It’s sort of like musical Christmas, because they’re in the best state of mind.”

Over the next two days, the site fills up. And, at some point, almost everyone is in.

“Normally Thursday afternoon is when we reach capacity,” Emily tells me. “I get a message when we know that the site is full.

“I love the Thursday. I love energy of the Thursday.”

She then describes the same phenomenon I noticed last year.

“There’s a palpable feeling of excitement, anticipation. People want to see everything and touch everything and be there together. It’s a feeling of community, and big gangs of friends all reuniting.’

“A palpable feeling of excitement,” is the perfect way of putting it.

The opening of the festival is something Emily has been witnessing her whole life – although it predates her by 10 years.

In 1970, her farmer parents organised the Pilton Pop, Folk and Blues Festival, with glam rocker Marc Bolan, ’60s pop star Wayne Fontana and singer-songwriter Al Stewart playing in his back garden.

“I think this is the quickest way of clearing my overdraft,” said Michael, when asked why he was staging a concert in the field where his dairy cows typically grazed.

• Rod Stewart on Glastonbury: ‘I wish they wouldn’t call it the tea-time slot’
• Glastonbury Festival: Five newcomers you don’t want to miss
• Glastonbury: Full line-up and stage times

With a few fits and starts, that event went on to become the UK’s most recognisable music festival.

And while it has changed over the years, some things have stayed the same.

‘When I was little, it was very different to how it is now because it was so much smaller, it was a very few people,” says Emily.

“But they still had the same look in their eyes which they have now, which is cheer, determination and commitment and joy and excitement and kind of magic.

“The look of, like, they’re going to make this five days the best five days of their life and it’s an amazing thing to witness.”

It was an amazing thing to witness first-hand last year. And as Emily once more sees the valley fill up, to my delight, I’m one of those who’s pitching their tent.

I’ll be DJing at Stonebridge on Thursday night and doing my best to capture the sense of expectation and possibility.

To do that, I’ve been getting some help from Radio 1’s Greg James and his listeners – and from Drum & Bass DJ and producer Crissy Criss.

Last week, I took the lift from the BBC newsroom all the way to the top of London’s Broadcasting House and joined Greg on his show.

We talked about Glastonbury – and Greg asked his listeners to send us voice notes describing the way they feel as the festival kicks off. A good number of them did.

We then sampled some of those messages – alongside my interview with Emily Eavis.

Crissy Criss has scattered those samples across a track that’s a celebration of what Thursday at Glastonbury is all about.

Greg will introduce the track at the Stonebridge venue where I’m DJing.

As you can probably tell, that Thursday last year had quite an impact on me.

As one of Greg’s listeners put it: “You set yourself up, you’ve got your drink. Life is good. You are where you’re meant to be.”

Or in the words of Emily Eavis: “They’re going to make this five days the best five days of their life.”

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Zohran Mamdani decided, in his quest to become New York City’s mayor, he would walk the entire length of Manhattan – starting at 19:00 one Friday evening in early June.

By the time he was done, it was 02:30.

Video of the feat on social media captures New Yorkers frame-by-frame giving him thumbs up and embracing him. Several clap for the “next mayor”. He’s doing it, he tells followers, because New Yorkers deserve a mayor they can see, hear and even yell at.

It takes only a quick scroll through 33-year-old Mamdani’s social media accounts to understand just how different his style is from that of a traditional politician, rejecting typical soundbites for a more unrehearsed feel. After he won the New York Democratic primary on Tuesday, that playbook is getting accolades for its ability to attract a large coalition.

• Who is Zohran Mamdani?
• Left-wing Democrat stuns former governor in NY mayor primary

This is a wakeup call for the Democratic Party, said pollster Frank Luntz. The big loser of the night wasn’t his main opponent, former governor Andrew Cuomo, he said, but the US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who represents the Democratic Party establishment.

Grassroots Democrats are demanding “a more ideological, confrontational approach to policy and politics” in the time of US President Donald Trump, Mr Luntz said.

Before Tuesday night’s win, Cuomo and several Democrats mocked Mamdani’s platform – including free public buses and city-run grocery shops – as unrealistic. Millions were spent attacking him.

But the millennial, left-wing state assemblyman, who represents the diverse neighbourhood of Astoria, Queens, clearly connected with social media-age voters who crave his brand of authenticity and accessibility.

Harris Krizmanich, 30, watched the Manhattan journey video three times. He started following the state lawmaker and democratic socialist in January, when Mamdani was polling at 1%. Krizmanich began canvassing for his campaign.

“I was blown away by his personable skills with the way he talks to people and the way he can relate to just the average person, and the way he humanises the voters that felt very frustrated with the way things were going,” Mr Krizmanich told the BBC. “It was really inspiring.”

Without Cuomo’s name recognition or wealthy donors, Mamdani relied on introducing himself to voters by flooding social media consistently with positive, even humorous, content that showcased his personality and positions.

Polling indicated he piqued the interest and admiration of Gen Z and disaffected voters, who ultimately contributed to his impressive grassroots ground game.

Nearly 50,000 volunteers helped door-knock, and small donors helped him break fundraising records in the race. He also used traditional settings to his advantage: Mamdani’s viral clip attacking Cuomo’s record and scandals at one of the Democratic debates was viewed over 10 million times on X and over a million more on TikTok.

His identity as an immigrant, unapologetic about his beliefs and faith as a Muslim, was refreshing to those who saw in him their own experiences. The current New York mayor, Eric Adams – far from Mamdani’s biggest fan – said earlier in June: “I don’t agree with his stance on many things, but I respect the fact he’s true to who he is.”

After Mamdani’s win, however, perhaps sensing a greater threat, Adams – who is running for mayor as an independent in November – called him a “snake oil salesman”.

Mamdani is laser focused on cost-of-living issues. He said his conversations with voters often came down to common-sense discussions about leading a dignified life and how city government can help ensure that.

But the results also show Mamdani’s appeal across the wealth divide – he polled worst among lower-income residents, at 38% to Cuomo’s 49%.

At a recent event, Mamdani told the BBC that “there’s a lot of understandable despair and disappointment with so-called leaders within our own party who have shown themselves unable or unwilling to fight Donald Trump”. He included Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams on that list.

“We need a mayor who can look authoritarianism in the eye and not see a reflection of themselves.”

In the wake of Trump’s victory, many left-wing Democrats have argued that the lesson of November’s defeat was not that Americans have moved further right, but that they want a new approach to politics.

Stephanie Taylor, of Progressive Change Campaign Committee, told the BBC that she hopes this is finally a wake-up call that the Democratic base is absolutely fed up.

“We’ve seen a Democratic Party establishment that has actively worked to undermine and defeat some of our best and brightest and most charismatic for ideological reasons, because they didn’t like their anti-corporate stances or anti-war stances or their anti-corruptions stances,” she said.

“Voters want to believe that you’re going to fight for them.”

Mamdani still has to win in the general election in November – and if he prevails, the pressure will be on to prove he can actually deliver on his big promises despite limited experience in government.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Twenty-nine children who were taking their school exams in the Central African Republic have been killed in a crush after a nearby explosion caused panic, a hospital director told the BBC.

The blast, on the second day of the high-school finals on Wednesday, occurred at an electricity transformer, said Abel Assaye from the Bangui community hospital.

“The noise of the explosion, combined with smoke” caused alarm among the almost 6,000 students sitting the baccalaureate at a school in the capital, Bangui, local radio station Ndeke Luka reported.

President Faustin-Archange Touadéra has declared a period of national mourning.

He also ordered that the more than 280 who were wounded in the crush get free treatment in hospital.

Students from five different schools in the capital had gone to the Lycée Barthélémy Boganda to sit the baccalaureate exam.

The education ministry said the explosion happened after power was restored at the electricity transformer, located on the ground floor of the main building, that had been undergoing repairs.

“I also offer our sincere condolences to the parents of the affected candidates and wish a speedy recovery to the injured candidates,” Education Minister Aurelien-Simplice Kongbelet-Zimgas said in a statement.

He also announced the suspension of further exams.

Radio France Internationale spoke to one of the survivors whose face was covered in blood after he had climbed out of a window.

Magloire explained that the blast happened during the history and geography exam.

“The students wanted to save their lives, and as they fled, they saw death because there were so many people and the door was really small. Not everyone could get out,” he told RFI.

The CAR continues to face political instability and security challenges.

Government forces, backed by Russian mercenaries, are battling armed groups threatening to overthrow Touadéra’s administration.

Police in Ecuador have recaptured the country’s most wanted fugitive, drug lord Adolfo Macías Villamar.

Macías, also known by the alias “Fito”, is the leader of Los Choneros, a powerful criminal gang which is blamed for Ecuador’s transformation from a tourist haven to a country with one of the highest murder rates in the region.

He is also suspected of having ordered the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in 2023.

Police tracked him down to what they described as an underground bunker below a luxury home in the city of Manta.

A police spokesman said no shots were fired in the 10-hour joint operation by police and the military.

A large number of officers first monitored and surrounded the three-storey home in the Monterrey neighbourhood of Manta, on the Ecuadorian coast.

When they stormed the building, they found a sliding trap door, disguised to look like part of the stone floor, from which metal stairs led to Fito’s underground hideout.

The “bunker” was fitted out with air conditioning, a bed, a fan and a fridge.

The house itself boasted a gym with a punching bag and a games room where he could play pool and table football.

Fito reportedly put up no resistance and was transferred by air to the port city of Guayaquil, where several of Ecuador’s largest prisons are located.

Footage of his arrival in Guayaquil shows him wearing shorts, a T-shirt and flip flops while being led by armed security officers to a parked SUV before being transfered to the La Roca maximum-security prison.

Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa praised the security forces for capturing Fito and said that he would be extradited to the US, where he has been charged with cocaine smuggling.

Fito escaped from La Regional prison in Guayaquil in January 2024 with the help of at least two guards, prompting global media attention.

It triggered a wave of deadly prison riots, in which guards were taken hostage and which prompted Noboa to declare a state of emergency.

But Fito was already notorious prior to his escape. During his time in prison – while serving a 34-year sentence for murder and drug trafficking – he rose to the top of the Los Choneros gang after its previous leader was killed.

From behind bars, he co-ordinated the gang’s activities, which include drug trafficking and extortion.

He is also suspected of having ordered the murder of politician Fernando Villavicencio, who was gunned down at a campaign rally just days before the 2023 election.

Under Fito’s leadership, Los Choneros forged links with Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, an alliance which experts say has led to the gruesome tactics commonly used by Mexican cartels – such as decapitations and mutilations – spreading to Ecuador.

Shortly before his prison escape, he also appeared in a narcocorrido – a slick music video in which his daughter glorifies her father’s criminal exploits.

The video, which was partly recorded inside the prison, shows him caressing a fighting cockerel and freely chatting to fellow inmates.

The gang leader’s escape in 2024 was a blow to Noboa’s government. The Ecuadorian leader had assumed office in November 2023 after being elected on a promise to combat the growing power of the gangs.

On Wednesday, Noboa said that the drug lord’s capture was proof his approach – which includes bringing in laws giving him sweeping powers to declare an “armed internal conflict”, and which allows police to conduct searches without a warrant – was working.

“More [drug lords] will fall, we will regain [control of] the country,” he posted on X.

Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla has created history by becoming the first Indian ever to set foot on the International Space Station (ISS).

A live broadcast showed the Axiom-4 (Ax-4) mission docking with the orbiting laboratory and its four-member crew crossing over to the ISS.

Led by former Nasa veteran Peggy Whitson and piloted by Group Captain Shukla, Ax-4 lifted off on Wednesday. The crew, including Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland and Tibor Kapu from Hungary, will spend two weeks on the ISS.

Group Captain Shukla is only the second Indian to travel to space. His trip comes 41 years after cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian to fly aboard a Russian Soyuz in 1984.

Ax-4 – a commercial flight operated by Houston-based private firm Axiom Space – lifted off from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 02:31 EDT (06:31 GMT; 12:01 India time) on Wednesday.

The docking on Thursday occurred at 06:31EDT (10:31 GMT; 16:01 India time). A pressurised vestibule was created between the spacecraft and the space station and then hatches were opened on both sides to allow the Ax-4 crew to make their way on board the ISS.

With their arrival, the total crew strength of ISS is now 11.

• The Indian pilot set for a historic space journey on Axiom-4
• Sweets to toy swan – what Indian astronaut will take on historic space voyage

The mission is a collaboration between Nasa, India’s space agency Isro, European Space Agency (Esa) and SpaceX. The two European astronauts will also be taking their countries back to space after more than four decades.

During their two-week mission, the crew would spend most of their time conducting 60 scientific experiments, including seven designed by Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro).

Isro, which has paid 5bn rupees ($59m; £43m) to secure a seat for Group Captain Shukla on Ax-4 and his training, says the hands-on experience he will gain during his trip to the ISS will help India in its human space flights.

Isro has said it wants to launch the country’s first-ever human space flight in 2027 and has announced ambitious plans to set up a space station by 2035 and send an astronaut to the Moon by 2040.

Earlier on Thursday, Axiom Space had a live uplink with the astronauts on board where Group Captain Shukla spoke about his first 24 hours in space.

“What a ride!,” he said, adding that it has been “an amazing feeling to be just floating in space” and that “it’s been fun time”.

“I was not feeling great when we got shot into vacuum, but I’m told I’ve been sleeping a lot, which is a great sign,” he said laughing.

“I’m enjoying the view, the experience and learning anew, like a baby, how to walk, to control yourself and to eat and read,” he added.

As Group Captain Shukla and other crew members spoke, Joy – a small, white toy swan described as Ax-4’s “fifth crew member” – floated in and out of vision.

Axiom has said Joy is “more than a cute companion for the Ax-4 crew” and is travelling to space as their “zero-G [zero-gravity] indicator”.

During Thursday’s broadcast, Group Captain Shukla said the baby swan “symbolises wisdom and ability to discern what is important and what is not” which made it “so important in this age of distractions”.

Soon after Wednesday’s launch, Commander Peggy Whitson revealed the name of their vehicle: Grace.

“Grace is more than a name,” she said. “It reflects the elegance with which we move through space against the backdrop of Earth. It speaks to the refinement of our mission, the harmony of science and spirit, and the unmerited favour we carry with humility.”

The name, she added, was a reminder “that spaceflight is not just a feat of engineering, but an act of goodwill – for the benefit of every human, everywhere”.

US President Donald Trump has called for Israel to “pardon” Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial for alleged corruption, or drop the case altogether.

He also claimed in a social media post that the US had saved Israel – alluding to its intervention in Israel’s war with Iran – and would now also “save” Netanyahu.

The Israeli prime minister denies charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, for which he has been on trial since 2020.

Netanyahu wrote his own post thanking Trump “for your moving support for me and your tremendous support for Israel”.

Israel’s main opposition leader Yair Lapid criticised Trump’s statement, saying he should not “intervene in a legal process of an independent state”.

Trump’s post comes days after he rebuked Israel for attacking Iran after he had announced a ceasefire deal between the two following a 12-day exchange of missiles.

Netanyahu has repeatedly praised Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities on Sunday, calling it a “bold” move.

Posting on his Truth Social platform, Trump described his long-time ally as a “great hero, who has done so much” for Israel, and a “warrior”.

He said Netanyahu’s trial should be “cancelled immediately” or he should be given a pardon, adding that he learned Netanyahu was due to appear in court on Monday. Netanyahu has appeared in court multiple times since the trial started.

Trump described the case against Netanyahu as a “witch hunt” – a term he repeatedly used to describe investigations into his own alleged wrongdoing in the US, adding: “This travesty of ‘justice cannot be allowed!”

After Trump said there was “no one that I know who could have worked in better harmony” with him, Netanyahu said: “We will continue to work together to defeat our common enemies, free our hostages, and quickly expand the circle of peace.”

But Yair Lapid suggested the attempted intervention might be part of a calculated move by Trump.

“I hope and suppose that this is a reward [Trump] is giving [Netanyahu] because he is planning to pressure him on Gaza and force, to force him into a hostage deal that will end the war,” Yair Lapid told Israeli news website Ynet.

Netanyahu’s trials have been taking place against the backdrop of the conflicts Israel has been engaged in since the deadly and unprecedented 7 October 2023 Hamas attack, leading to delays in the legal proceedings.

In particular, the length of the war against Hamas in Gaza has led to claims by some that Netanyahu wants to prolong the fighting to delay elections and the conclusion of his trials.

Work has begun on a controversial project to create the building blocks of human life from scratch, in what is believed to be a world first.

The research has been taboo until now because of concerns it could lead to designer babies or unforeseen changes for future generations.

But now the World’s largest medical charity, the Wellcome Trust, has given an initial £10m to start the project and says it has the potential to do more good than harm by accelerating treatments for many incurable diseases.

Dr Julian Sale, of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, who is part of the project, told BBC News the research was the next giant leap in biology.

“The sky is the limit. We are looking at therapies that will improve people’s lives as they age, that will lead to healthier aging with less disease as they get older.

“We are looking to use this approach to generate disease-resistant cells we can use to repopulate damaged organs, for example in the liver and the heart, even the immune system,” he said.

But critics fear the research opens the way for unscrupulous researchers seeking to create enhanced or modified humans.

Dr Pat Thomas, director of the campaign group Beyond GM, said: “We like to think that all scientists are there to do good, but the science can be repurposed to do harm and for warfare”.

Details of the project were given to BBC News on the 25th anniversary of the completion of the Human Genome Project, which mapped the molecules in human DNA and was also largely funded by Wellcome.

Every cell in our body contains a molecule called DNA which carries the genetic information it needs. DNA is built from just four much smaller blocks referred to as A, G, C and T, which are repeated over and over again in various combinations. Amazingly it contains all the genetic information that physically makes us who we are.

The Human Genome Project enabled scientists to read all human genes like a bar code. The new work that is getting under way, called the Synthetic Human Genome Project, potentially takes this a giant leap forward – it will allow researchers not just to read a molecule of DNA, but to create parts of it – maybe one day all of it – molecule by molecule from scratch.

The scientists’ first aim is to develop ways of building ever larger blocks of human DNA, up to the point when they have synthetically constructed a human chromosome. These contain the genes that govern our development, repair and maintenance.

These can then be studied and experimented on to learn more about how genes and DNA regulate our bodies.

Many diseases occur when these genes go wrong so the studies could lead to better treatments, according to Prof Matthew Hurles, director of the Wellcome Sanger Insititute which sequenced the largest proportion of the Human Genome.

“Building DNA from scratch allows us to test out how DNA really works and test out new theories, because currently we can only really do that by tweaking DNA in DNA that already exists in living systems”.

The project’s work will be confined to test tubes and dishes and there will be no attempt to create synthetic life. But the technology will give researchers unprecedented control over human living systems.

And although the project is hunting for medical benefits, there is nothing to stop unscrupulous scientists misusing the technology.

They could, for example, attempt to create biological weapons, enhanced humans or even creatures that have human DNA, according to Prof Bill Earnshaw, a highly respected genetic scientist at Edinburgh University who designed a method for creating artificial human chromosomes.

“The genie is out of the bottle,” he told BBC News. “We could have a set of restrictions now, but if an organisation who has access to appropriate machinery decided to start synthesising anything, I don’t think we could stop them”

Ms Thomas is concerned about how the technology will be commercialised by healthcare companies developing treatments emerging from the research.

“If we manage to create synthetic body parts or even synthetic people, then who owns them. And who owns the data from these creations? “

Given the potential misuse of the technology, the question for Wellcome is why they chose to fund it. The decision was not made lightly, according to Dr Tom Collins, who gave the funding go-ahead.

“We asked ourselves what was the cost of inaction,” he told BBC News.

“This technology is going to be developed one day, so by doing it now we are at least trying to do it in as responsible a way as possible and to confront the ethical and moral questions in as upfront way as possible”.

A dedicated social science programme will run in tandem with the project’s scientific development and will be led by Prof Joy Zhang, a sociologist, at the University of Kent.

“We want to get the views of experts, social scientists and especially the public about how they relate to the technology and how it can be beneficial to them and importantly what questions and concerns they have,” she said.

Pornhub and a number of other major adult websites have confirmed they will introduce enhanced age checks for users from next month.

Parent company Aylo says it is bringing in “government approved age assurance methods” but has not yet revealed how it will require users to prove they are over 18.

Regulator Ofcom has previously said simply clicking a button, which is all the adult site currently requires, is not enough.

Ofcom said the changes would “bring pornography into line with how we treat adult services in the real world.”

The Online Safety Act requires adult sites to introduce “robust” age checking techniques by this summer.

Approved measures include demanding photo ID or running credit card checks before users can view sexually explicit material.

“Society has long protected youngsters from products that aren’t suitable for them, from alcohol to smoking or gambling,” said Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom’s group director of online safety, in a statement.

“For too long children have been only a click away from harmful pornography online.”

Mr Griffiths said assurances from Aylo and several other porn providers, including Stripchat and Streamate, regarding the introduction of new age checks showed “change is happening”.

The regulator said its recent research indicated 8% of children aged 8-14 in the UK had visited an online porn site or app over a 28-day period.

This included about 3% of eight to nine year olds, its survey suggests.

Derek Ray-Hill, interim chief executive at the Internet Watch Foundation, warned that children’s’ exposure to online porn at a very young age, or to violent sexual material, could normalise harmful behaviour offline.

“We welcome platforms doing all they can to comply with the Online Safety Act and prevent children accessing pornography,” he said.

“We know that highly effective age assurance can play a vital role in protecting young users from accessing harmful and inappropriate material on social media and other platforms,” said Rani Govender, policy manager for child safety online at the NSPCC.

“It is time tech companies take responsibility for ensuring children have safe, age-appropriate experiences online, and we welcome the progress that Ofcom are making in this space.”

Pornhub is the most visited porn site in the UK and around the world, according to data from Similarweb.

It has been under scrutiny by regulators worldwide over its measures to prevent children accessing adult content.

The European Commission announced an investigation into Pornhub, along with two other adult platforms, at the end of May.

In the UK, Ofcom is probing several adult sites it believes may be failing to abide by its child safety rules.

• What is the Online Safety Act – and how can you keep your child safe online?

Aylo’s vice president of brand and community Alex Kekesi said Ofcom presented a variety of flexible methods of age assurance that were less intrusive than those it had seen in other jurisdictions.

“Ofcom recognises the scale of the challenge ahead and is approaching it with thorough consideration,” she said.

The regulator’s model is “the most robust in terms of actual and meaningful protection we’ve seen to date,” she added.

“When governments and regulators engage with industry in good faith, the outcome is not just better compliance, it’s smarter, more effective solutions”.

Aylo said it would introduce the new methods to check user ages on its sites by 25 July, but so far has not spelt out what techniques it will use to verify age.

It says it will detail the measures closer to the July enforcement date, but users will be offered a range of options.

Under the Online Safety Act, providers of platforms where children could encounter porn and harmful content must have measures in place to stop them accessing it.

The Act requires this to take place chiefly through the use of technology that is “highly effective” in determining whether a user is 18.

Ofcom said in January this could include solutions such as photo ID matching, digital identity services or facial age estimation.

Porn providers that fail to meet the Act’s requirements could face enforcement action such as huge fines.

Some experts and digital rights groups, as well as porn providers themselves, are concerned that regulators’ efforts to compel porn sites to verify the age of users could have privacy and security implications.

Civil liberties organisation the Open Rights Group is concerned the Online Safety Act age check requirements for platforms may introduce “a wide range of new cybersecurity risks for users,” or even push children towards more dangerous sites.

“Speaking as a parent I’m worried that children and young people who attempt to bypass age checks may inadvertently expose themselves to greater online harms,” said James Baker, its platform power and free expression program manager.

“These include stumbling across unregulated or underground sites, installing malware, or being targeted by exploitative actors in less moderated spaces,” he told the BBC.

“In trying to ‘protect’ them, we risk pushing them toward greater danger.”

The group said it also doubts the UK’s data protection regime or regulatory enforcement is “robust enough” to ensure user safety around possible collection of sensitive identity data or linking it to browsing habits.

The world’s oldest boomerang is older than previously thought, casting new light on the ingenuity of humans living at the time.

The tool, which was found in a cave in Poland in 1985, is now thought to be 40,000 years old.

Archaeologists say it was fashioned from a mammoth’s tusk with an astonishing level of skill.

Researchers worked out from its shape that it would have flown when thrown, but would not have come back to the thrower.

It was probably used in hunting, though it might have had cultural or artistic value, perhaps being used in some kind of ritual.

The mammoth ivory boomerang was unearthed in Oblazowa Cave in southern Poland.

It was originally thought to be about 30,000 years old. But new, more reliable radiocarbon dating of human and animal bones found at the site puts the age at between 39,000 and 42,000 years old.

“It’s the oldest boomerang in the world, and the only one in the world made of this shape and this long to be found in Poland,” said Dr Sahra Talamo of the University of Bologna, Italy.

It gives a “remarkable insight” into human behaviour, she said, particularly how Homo sapiens living as long as 42,000 years ago could shape “such a perfect object” with the knowledge it could be used to hunt animals.

The boomerang is exceptionally well preserved, with score marks suggesting it had been polished and carved for use by a right-handed individual.

Boomerangs are generally associated with Aboriginal culture in Australia.

However, rare finds in the historical record outside Australia suggest they were used across different continents.

The oldest known boomerang from Australia dates to about 10,500 years ago, made from wood. But the oldest images of boomerangs in Australia are rock art paintings 20,000 years old, according to National Museum Australia.

A wooden boomerang dating back 7,000 years has been found in Jutland, a peninsula between Denmark and Germany, while fragments of a 2,000-year-old oak boomerang – which does come back – has been found in The Netherlands.

The research by a team of scientists from Poland, Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland and the UK is published in the journal PLOS One.

Police in Ecuador have recaptured the country’s most wanted fugitive, drug lord Adolfo Macías Villamar.

Macías, also known by the alias “Fito”, is the leader of Los Choneros, a powerful criminal gang which is blamed for Ecuador’s transformation from a tourist haven to a country with one of the highest murder rates in the region.

He is also suspected of having ordered the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in 2023.

Police tracked him down to what they described as an underground bunker below a luxury home in the city of Manta.

A police spokesman said no shots were fired in the 10-hour joint operation by police and the military.

A large number of officers first monitored and surrounded the three-storey home in the Monterrey neighbourhood of Manta, on the Ecuadorian coast.

When they stormed the building, they found a sliding trap door, disguised to look like part of the stone floor, from which metal stairs led to Fito’s underground hideout.

The “bunker” was fitted out with air conditioning, a bed, a fan and a fridge.

The house itself boasted a gym with a punching bag and a games room where he could play pool and table football.

Fito reportedly put up no resistance and was transferred by air to the port city of Guayaquil, where several of Ecuador’s largest prisons are located.

Footage of his arrival in Guayaquil shows him wearing shorts, a T-shirt and flip flops while being led by armed security officers to a parked SUV before being transfered to the La Roca maximum-security prison.

Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa praised the security forces for capturing Fito and said that he would be extradited to the US, where he has been charged with cocaine smuggling.

Fito escaped from La Regional prison in Guayaquil in January 2024 with the help of at least two guards, prompting global media attention.

It triggered a wave of deadly prison riots, in which guards were taken hostage and which prompted Noboa to declare a state of emergency.

But Fito was already notorious prior to his escape. During his time in prison – while serving a 34-year sentence for murder and drug trafficking – he rose to the top of the Los Choneros gang after its previous leader was killed.

From behind bars, he co-ordinated the gang’s activities, which include drug trafficking and extortion.

He is also suspected of having ordered the murder of politician Fernando Villavicencio, who was gunned down at a campaign rally just days before the 2023 election.

Under Fito’s leadership, Los Choneros forged links with Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, an alliance which experts say has led to the gruesome tactics commonly used by Mexican cartels – such as decapitations and mutilations – spreading to Ecuador.

Shortly before his prison escape, he also appeared in a narcocorrido – a slick music video in which his daughter glorifies her father’s criminal exploits.

The video, which was partly recorded inside the prison, shows him caressing a fighting cockerel and freely chatting to fellow inmates.

The gang leader’s escape in 2024 was a blow to Noboa’s government. The Ecuadorian leader had assumed office in November 2023 after being elected on a promise to combat the growing power of the gangs.

On Wednesday, Noboa said that the drug lord’s capture was proof his approach – which includes bringing in laws giving him sweeping powers to declare an “armed internal conflict”, and which allows police to conduct searches without a warrant – was working.

“More [drug lords] will fall, we will regain [control of] the country,” he posted on X.

The pound briefly hit its highest level against the dollar for almost four years after markets were unnerved by a report that US President Donald Trump could bring forward the naming of the new head of the US central bank.

Sterling rose above $1.37, which is the strongest since October 2021.

The dollar weakened after the Wall Street Journal reported Trump had considered naming Jerome Powell’s replacement as head of the Federal Reserve by September or October.

The US Fed is independent from the government and Mr Powell chairs a committee that decides on interest rates which have remained unchanged this year, prompting a series of angry outbursts from Trump.

On Wednesday, Trump called Mr Powell “terrible” and said he was looking at “three or four people” who could replace him. Mr Powell’s term is due to end in May 2026.

There are concerns the US president could install someone who is sympathetic to his demands.

Earlier this week, Mr Powell told US lawmakers the Fed would wait and see how the American economy reacts if Trump’s so-called retaliatory tariffs against a range of countries come into force next month, after being paused until 9 July.

The Fed is concerned that the levies, which are paid by the businesses importing the goods, might push up inflation.

The US economy shrank in the first three months of this year – the first decline for three years – as government spending fell and imports rose as firms raced to get products into the country before the tariffs went live.

JP Morgan, the investment bank, has lowered the chance of the US economy falling into recession this year but at 40% the probability of a slowdown remains comparatively high.

Kaspar Hense, a senior portfolio manager at RBC BlueBay Asset Management, said traders were betting the dollar would fall “in this environment, where there is an erosion of institutions”.

While Kit Juckes, chief FX strategist at Societe Generale, said: “I think the market is pricing in President Trump appointing someone who at least at first sight appears more sympathetic to his cause.”

Academics have said that confidence in the Fed’s independence is key to maintaining financial markets’ faith that inflation will be controlled.

If this confidence is shaken, it could lead to higher borrowing costs for everyone if investors demand higher interest rates for holding debt.

There is speculation that Kevin Warsh, a former governor at the Fed, may be considered for the role.

Earlier this month, Trump was asked about whether Warsh could become the Fed’s chair, to which he replied: “He’s very highly thought of.”

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent could also be a candidate, according to reports.

He recently told lawmakers in the House of Representatives that he currently has “the best job” in Washington and is “happy to do what President Trump wants me to do”.

Mr Powell was himself a Trump appointee. During Trump’s first term in the White House, Mr Powell replaced the then Fed chair Janet Yellen.

Trump had criticised Ms Yellen for keeping interest rates too low, stating: “I think she should be ashamed of herself.”

Ms Yellen went on to become the US Treasury Secretary under President Joe Biden and said she did not think that Trump had a grasp of macroeconomic policy.

BBC racing commentator John Hunt, whose wife and two of his daughters were murdered last July, describes in an emotional first interview the legacy of love they left behind.

It was this, John and his daughter Amy tell the BBC, that had helped sustain them through their trauma and grief.

Carol, Louise and Hannah remained such a constant presence in their lives that he still talks to them every day, almost a year on from their deaths, John says.

“From the moment I wake up, I say good morning to each of them,” he says.

“Sometimes I say out loud to Hannah and Louise, ‘girls, sorry I can’t be with you, I’m with your mum at the moment’. As I close my eyes at night, I chat to them as well. They’re very close to me all the time.”

John and Amy say they took the decision to talk publicly now because they did not want their loved ones to be defined by their deaths. They also feel much of the initial reporting after the murders was inaccurate and it added to their pain.

They’ve also shared previously unseen family photos with the BBC.

Kyle Clifford fatally stabbed 61-year-old Carol, raped his former partner, Louise, 25, then used a crossbow to shoot both her and her sister Hannah, 28 – all at their family home in Bushey, Hertfordshire, in July last year.

Amy says the minute Clifford left their home on the day of the incident, “my mum, Hannah and Louise became a statistic. They became victims of Kyle Clifford.”

“I want to breathe life back into my mum, Hannah and Louise as fully-rounded people.”

Amy and John tell the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire they also strongly reject reports there were clear signs of abuse by Clifford during his relationship with Louise.

“Did we have any indication that this man was capable of stabbing my mother, of tying Louise up, of raping Louise, of shooting Louise and shooting Hannah? Absolutely not,” says Amy.

• Watch: John and Amy Hunt’s interview with BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire

The Hunt family have always been extremely close.

In the early years of their marriage, Carol encouraged John – then a police officer – to pursue his dream of becoming a racing commentator.

That unending belief was inherited by their three daughters – Amy, the eldest, their middle daughter Hannah, and Louise, “the baby”. They talked all the time and shared everything with each other.

John, Carol, Hannah and Louise lived together in their home in Bushey, Hertfordshire. Louise ran a dog-grooming business from a pod in the garden and Hannah worked in aesthetics and beauty.

Their life, John says, was “one of complete happiness – awash with it, really”.

They remember one Friday night last May, two months before the murders, when the three sisters had gone out for sushi together.

“We were talking about how lucky we’d been as a family, to have had the parents we’ve had and the life we’ve had,” Amy says.

John agrees, and adds that when Hannah came home from the dinner, she was “typically effusive”.

“She came barnstorming through the door, and Carol said something like, ‘you had a lovely time?’ And she said, ‘do you know what, mum? We talked about how lucky we have been. We have been so lucky. We’ve not had a minute of concern or worry through the lives you’ve given us’,” he says.

“It’s a beautiful thing to recall. It was a beautiful thing to hear at the same time.”

While things were idyllic with the family, Louise and Clifford’s relationship had started to sour. At the end of June, Louise broke up with him.

Less than two weeks later, on 9 July, Clifford turned up at the family’s home on the pretext of returning some of Louise’s things.

Doorbell footage captured the moment Carol opened the door to Clifford, and greeted him with friendly advice.

“Maybe… maybe think in the next relationship,” she told him, “the way you are, maybe try and change. If you carry on like this you’ll end up on your own.” Clifford agreed, seemingly cordial, and told her he had started therapy.

Carol turned to go into the house, and Clifford followed her inside.

He then stabbed her multiple times, before waiting in the house for Louise to come back inside from her dog grooming pod. When she did, he restrained, raped, and killed her with a crossbow. When Hannah returned later, he shot her with the crossbow too.

In her dying moments, Hannah messaged her boyfriend, Alex, and managed to call 999. She was able to tell them what had happened and, crucially, who was responsible. John was in central London at the time. He believes Clifford intended to kill him too.

“Police officers of 30 years’ experience had their breath taken away by how brave she was, how she was able to think so clearly in that moment, to know what she needed to do,” John says.

Asked if Hannah’s actions saved his life, John adds: “That’s what I believe.

“I said it in court and I said many, many times, her doing that has given me life. And I’ve used that to re-ground myself on a daily basis.”

As the news of the murders spread, the narrative spun out of control.

John says “from day one” their family – and in particular, Louise – was “completely misrepresented in the media and on social media”, including false suggestions Louise was in a controlling and coercive relationship with Kyle Clifford.

He and Amy recall misinformation on news sites, including the claim that John had been the one to discover his wife and daughters’ bodies in their home.

They also remember photographs being lifted from their loved ones’ social media pages by sections of the media without consent, something John describes as “grave-robbing”.

Amy recalls one newspaper headline reading, “Crossbow maniac was jilted”, a framing she describes as “victim-blaming”.

But most painful, they say, were claims in the press that there were clear signs of abuse and misogyny in Clifford’s relationship with Louise.

John and Amy say the family had misgivings about Clifford – there were things about him they didn’t particularly warm to. He was immature and, at times, inconsiderate. They say he couldn’t deal with conflict, and was bad at taking criticism. The family, including Louise, would talk to each other about Clifford’s lack of consideration.

But their relationship also seemed unremarkable, they say. The two of them would giggle and cuddle in the house, watch films together, cook together, go on holidays to Europe and take weekend trips to the seaside.

They appeared happy, for a year at least – and even when things started to deteriorate in 2024, for those on the outside, the change was subtle.

A turning point came when the couple went away for a friend’s wedding. The night before the ceremony, Louise struggled to use the oven in their accommodation. The next day, when other wedding guests asked Louise what she did for a living, Clifford would interject with the barb that “one thing she doesn’t do is know how to work an oven properly”.

Clifford started to belittle her. When looking through the couple’s text messages after Louise’s death – something John says he found “very difficult to do” as the messages were personal to Louise – they noticed signs, from spring 2024, of “gentle manipulation”.

But did they notice anything at the time that suggested the relationship was abusive?

No, John says. Clifford never physically assaulted Louise when they were together. The family also never heard them raise their voices at each other.

“At the point of Louise ending [the relationship], there was absolutely evidence that he had turned out not to be a nice person,” Amy says.

“But I want to put it very bluntly now. Did we have any indication that this man was capable of stabbing my mother, of tying Louise up, of raping Louise, of shooting Louise and shooting Hannah? Absolutely not.

“He’s often been referred to as ‘crossbow killer’ and ‘crossbow maniac’ – but that takes away from the very real issue we know to be true. He was just a person, just a man… who went to the gym, had a family, had a relationship, watched TV.

“I know it sounds crass, but we often say we wish we’d had some hint that he was capable of this.”

In the months that followed the murders, John and Amy had to navigate a complex criminal justice system.

John makes a point of highlighting the “incredible people” who supported them – the police officers, their family liaison officers, their barrister, and the “compassionate” judge who oversaw the rape trial and sentenced Clifford. They were, they say, “very lucky to have met these people in these terrible circumstances”.

But, he adds, “each of them is working in a system that is clearly not fit for purpose”.

On the day Clifford appeared at magistrates’ court after being charged, John and Amy’s family liaison officers weren’t able to attend the hearing with them as they were at another murder in Luton.

“It just so happened that that morning in the magistrates’ court, they revealed aspects of the murders that we had not heard of at all, from anybody,” John says. “That was an awful day.”

Amy then found out the details of her sister Hannah’s final words on the phone to 999, from a newspaper headline.

When they spoke to the CPS about their concerns, they were given a complaint form and told to return it within 28 working days – “as if we’d had our bike stolen”.

On another day, when Clifford was due to enter his pleas, Amy says they were told the hearing needed to be postponed because the prison transport “didn’t turn up to take him to court”.

The proceedings were long and torturous for John and Amy. Clifford initially denied the charges against him, before pleading guilty to everything except the charge of rape. This meant the case had to go to trial. He was convicted in March.

Clifford refused to attend his sentencing later that month, meaning he did not hear the judge’s damning comments about him, or the devastating testimonies written by John and Amy.

“It’s consistently a system that prioritises the perpetrator,” Amy says. “That’s a traumatising thing for so many people.”

The Crown Prosecution Service says it has apologised, and it has “the utmost admiration for the Hunt family, who had the strength and courage to attend court every day and hear first-hand the devastating truth of what happened to Carol, Louise and Hannah.

“At the request of the judge during the first hearing of Kyle Clifford, we provided initial details of the prosecution’s case. We apologised to the Hunt family for the level of detail outlined at that stage and continued to meet with them throughout the criminal justice process.”

In the months since the sentencing, John and Amy say they’ve been trying to focus on living again.

“When it happened I thought, ‘how on earth am I ever going to be able to care about anything ever again’?” John says.

“It’s fine to sit with that thought in the wreckage of what was our personal disaster. But you come to realise that, with a little bit of work, you can find some light again.”

He says they’ve found comfort in good counsellors and support groups, mindfulness exercises, and the love and support they have for each other.

But above all, every day he remembers Hannah’s final act, and how it saved his life. “I get to live,” he says. “Hannah gave me that, and I’ve got to treat it as a gift from her.”

Sabrina Carpenter has revealed alternative artwork “approved by God” for her new album after the original cover sparked controversy.

Earlier in June, the Espresso singer shared art for her album, Man’s Best Friend, which shows her on her hands and knees in a black minidress with a suited man grabbing her hair.

The photo prompted a heated debate, with some arguing that it pandered to the male gaze and promoted misogynistic stereotypes.

On Wednesday, the pop princess posted two less contentious black-and-white images of herself holding a suited man’s arm, with the caption: “Here is a new alternate cover approved by God.”

Users responding to Carpenter’s post on Instagram included fellow pop star Katy Perry, who simply replied: “Gahahahaha.”

Man’s Best Friend is Carpenter’s seventh studio album and will be released on 29 August. Fans can purchase the album with either set of artwork.

Those criticising the initial artwork included Glasgow Women’s Aid, a charity supporting victims of domestic abuse, which said it was “regressive” and “promotes an element of violence and control”.

Not everyone was against it, and some defended the singer, explaining that the image was satirical.

“There’s a deeper meaning, portraying how the public views her, believing she is just for the male gaze,” a fan wrote on X.

But Heather Binning of Women’s Rights Network, told the BBC that violence against women should “never be used as satire”.

Many of Carpenter’s fans are young women, and Ms Binning said the imagery “grooms girls to believe that it is a fun, casual, sexy thing to submit to men’s sexual (sometimes sexually violent) desires”.

On social media, some also criticised Carpenter for the timing, suggesting the image was not appropriate given the current political climate in the US.

“Women’s control over their bodies are being taken away in the US and this is kind of insensitive,” one user wrote on Instagram.

Professor Catherine Rottenberg from Goldsmiths University of London said that regardless of how the artwork should be interpreted, Carpenter was “fanning the flames of controversy in order to sell her brand”.

“Debates around representation that this album has already generated will likely mean more sales, more popularity, and more traction,” she told the BBC.

It is not the first time the 26-year-old’s music has sparked an outcry.

Carpenter has built her brand around fun and risque pop music, and her sexual lyrics, X-rated ad-lib Nonsense outros and provocative performances regularly cause a stir.

At the Brit Awards in March, media watchdog Ofcom received 825 complaints, with the majority involving Carpenter’s pre-watershed opening performance that saw her wearing a red sparkly military-style mini-dress with matching stockings and suspenders.

She was also seen having a close encounter with a dancer dressed as a soldier wearing a bearskin hat during the show, which was broadcast live on ITV.

Lucy Ford, a culture critic, previously told the BBC that Carpenter is “in on the joke” when she performs.

“Sabrina is being unabashedly horny in her music and it feels like an embrace of fun and silliness and not taking things too seriously.”

Denis Villeneuve, the Oscar-nominated French-Canadian film-maker, will direct the next James Bond film, Amazon MGM Studios has announced.

The Dune director said in a statement released by the studio that he was a “die-hard James Bond fan” and intends to “honour the tradition” of the franchise.

Speculation has been swirling over the future of the 007 films after long-time Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson stepped down from their roles and handed control to Amazon in February.

Villeneuve will also serve as an executive producer of the new film, having received global acclaim for helming the Dune franchise, as well as Blade Runner 2049 and Arrival.

Amazon did not give any hints on the next actor to play James Bond in the announcement, after Daniel Craig stepped back from playing the most recent incarnation.

Villeneuve acknowledged the “massive responsibility” of helming the new film and expressed his excitement at the challenge.

“I grew up watching James Bond films with my father, ever since Dr No with Sean Connery. I’m a die-hard Bond fan. To me, he’s sacred territory,” he said.

“I intend to honour the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come.”

Head of Amazon MGM Studios Mike Hopkins hailed Villeneuve as a “cinematic master” and praised his ability to deliver “immersive storytelling” for global audiences.

The director has been known for films that marry grand stylish visuals with complex character-focused stories.

His characters, who are frequently loners, emotionally isolated from others, often wrestle with difficult moral dilemmas and concepts of identity. Villeneuve uses tension and emotion to build to impactful action sequences, which can be brutal and brief.

That suggests his version of Bond is likely to have more in common with the gritty realism seen in Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale than the fantastical fun some fans miss from Roger Moore’s days as 007.

Ajay Chowdhury, spokesman for the James Bond International Fan Club, thinks Villeneuve’s appointment is “the most artistically significant development of the future” of the franchise.

“It is testimony to the cultural weight of the nearly 70-year-old film series that a director of such critical and commercial weight wants to and has been chosen to direct the next instalment,” he told BBC News.

Chowdhury, who is also co-author of Darker Than The Sun: An Atlas of James Bond Movie Locations, added that the director had already “proved to be a powerful visualist” and “versatile in genre”.

“His team will executive produce the picture, a first for a Bond director,” he noted. “This is testimony to his status as a helmer with final cut and his position in the cinematic landscape as one the top practitioners of the craft.”

But it remains unclear when the next Bond film will be shot and released.

Villeneuve is expected to start shooting Dune Messiah, the third movie of the Dune franchise, later this year, with a potential release date in 2026.

He is also attached to direct a string of other movies – Nuclear War: A Scenario; a new version of Cleopatra; and Rendezvous with Rama.

“I have too many things right now,” he told Vanity Fair last September.

Villeneuve gained prominence with a series of critical successes including Sicario, Prisoners and Incendies.

His 2016 science fiction thriller Arrival earned him his first Oscar nomination for directing.

Most recently, blockbusters Dune and Dune: Part Two grossed a combined total of more than $1bn (£730m) worldwide, with both films nominated for best picture Oscars in their respective years.

The question on everyone’s lips now is, who will play Bond? Chowdhury suspects that the “screenplay and vision” would need to be completed first before agents are contacted for “the most sought after role in cinema”.

British actors Aaron Taylor-Johnson and James Norton have been rumoured as frontrunners for the part, while Irish actor Paul Mescal’s name has also been thrown into the mix.

Chowdhury said the new Bond actor must have “the Goldilocks amount of fame”. In other words, “not too much [or] too little – just the right amount”.

“Names like Callum Turner, Joe Alwyn, Jack Lowden spring to mind,” he offered.

“When the new 007 debuts, he will have to be young enough to believably sustain the franchise into the next decade. He must be hungry and ambitious.

“He will probably have to lead sponsorship campaigns from brand partners, appear in video games and perhaps guest star in any TV spin-offs.

“Taking over the mantle from Daniel Craig will be no easy feat.”

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North Korea is opening a beach resort that its leader Kim Jong Un hopes will boost tourism in the secretive communist regime, state media reports.

Wonsan Kalma on the east coast will open to domestic tourists on 1 July, six years after it was due to be completed. It is unclear when it will welcome foreigners.

Kim grew up in luxury in Wonsan, where many of the country’s elite have private villas, and has been trying to transform the town, which once hosted a missile testing site.

State media KCNA claims the resort can accomodate up to 20,000 visitors, occupying a 4km (2.5 mile) stretch of beach, with hotels, restaurants, shopping malls and a water park – none of which can be verified.

Heavily sanctioned for decades for its nuclear weapons programme, North Korea is among the poorest countries in the world. It pours most of its resources into its military, monuments and landmarks – often in Pyongyang – that embellish the image and cult of the Kim family that has run the country since 1948.

Some observers say this is an easy way for Pyongyang to earn money. While foreign tourists are allowed in, tour groups largely tend to come from China and Russia, countries with whom Pyongyang has long maintained friendly relations.

“I was hoping this might signal a broader reopening to international tourism, but unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case for now,” Rowan Beard, co-founder of Young Pioneer Tours, tells the BBC.

Tourism from overseas took a hit during the Covid pandemic, though, with the country closing its borders in early 2020. It did not scale back restrictions until the middle of 2023 and welcomed Russian visitors a year later.

It opened to more Western visitors in February, when tourists from the UK, France, Germany and Australia drove across the border from China. It abruptly halted tourism weeks later without saying why.

Some tour agencies are sceptical of Wonsan’s appeal to foreigners. It is “unlikely to be a major draw for most Western tourists”, Mr Beard says.

“Key sites like Pyongyang, the DMZ, and other brutalist or communist landmarks will continue to be the main highlights for international visitors once broader tourism resumes.”

However, Elliott Davies, director of Uri Tours, says North Korea holds a “niche appeal” for travellers drawn to unconventional destinations.

“It’s intriguing to experience something as familiar as a beach resort that’s been shaped within the unique cultural context of North Korea.”

KCNA described the Wonsan development as a “great, auspicious event of the whole country” and called it a “prelude to the new era” in tourism.

It was initially scheduled to open in October 2019, but ran into construction delays before the pandemic struck.

Kim attended a ceremony to celebrate its completion on 24 June, accompanied by his daughter, Kim Ju Ae, and wife Ri Sol Ju. It marked Ri’s first public appearance since a New Year’s Day event.

Russian ambassador Alexander Matsegora and embassy staff also attended.

Some tour operators expect the resort to be opened to Russian tourists, who are currently the only foreign nationals allowed into some parts of the country.

The resort’s opening comes as North Korea and Russia strengthened their partnership in the face of sanctions from the West.

North Korea has sent troops to fight for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.

On Thursday, the two countries also reopened a direct passenger train route between their capitals after a five-year suspension because of the pandemic.

After spending nearly two weeks in a secret bunker somewhere in Iran during his country’s war with Israel, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, might want to use the opportunity of the ceasefire to venture out.

He is believed to be holed up, incommunicado, for the fear of being assassinated by Israel. Even top government officials apparently have had no contact with him.

He would be well advised to be cautious, despite the fragile ceasefire that the US President Donald Trump and the Emir of Qatar brokered. Though President Trump reportedly told Israel not to kill Iran’s supreme leader, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not rule it out.

When – or indeed if – he does emerge from hiding, he will see a landscape of death and destruction. He will no doubt still appear on state TV claiming victory in the conflict. He will plot to restore his image. But he will face new realities – even a new era.

The war has left the country significantly weakened and him a diminished man.

During the war, Israel quickly took control of much of Iran’s airspace, and attacked its military infrastructure. Top commanders of the Revolutionary Guard and the army were swiftly killed.

The extent of the damage to the military is still unclear and disputed, but the repeated bombings of the army and revolutionary guard bases and installations suggests substantial degradation of Iran’s military power. Militarisation had long consumed a vast amount of the nation’s resources.

Iran’s known nuclear facilities that earned the country nearly two decades of US and international sanctions, with an estimated cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, are now damaged from the air strikes, although the full extent of this has been hard to assess.

What was it all for, many are asking.

A vast number of Iranians will singularly hold Ayatollah Khamenei, who first became leader in 1989, responsible for setting Iran on a collision course with Israel and the US that ultimately brought considerable ruin to his country and people.

They will blame him for pursuing the ideological aim of destruction of Israel – something many Iranians don’t support. They will blame him for what they perceive as a folly – his belief that achieving nuclear status would render his regime invincible.

Sanctions have crippled the Iranian economy, reducing a top oil exporter to a poor and struggling shadow of its former self.

“It is difficult to estimate how much longer the Iranian regime can survive under such significant strain, but this looks like the beginning of the end,” says Professor Lina Khatib, a visiting scholar at Harvard University.

“Ali Khamenei is likely to become the Islamic Republic’s last ‘Supreme Leader’ in the full sense of the word.”

There have been murmurs of dissent at the top. At the height of the war, one semi-official Iranian news agency reported that some top former regime figures have been urging the country’s quieter religious scholars based in the holy city of Qom, who are separate to the ayatollah, to intervene and bring about a change in leadership.

“There will be a reckoning,” according to Professor Ali Ansari, the founding director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews.

“It’s quite clear that there are huge disagreements within the leadership, and there’s also huge unhappiness among ordinary people.”

During the last two weeks, many Iranians wrestled with conflicted feelings of the need to defend their country versus their deep hatred of the regime. They rallied for the country, not by coming out to defend the regime, but to look after each other. There have been reports of vast solidarity and closeness.

People in towns and villages outside urban areas opened their doors to those who had fled the bombardments in their cities, shopkeepers undercharged basic goods, neighbours knocked on each other’s doors to ask if they needed anything.

But many people were also aware that Israel was probably looking for a regime change in Iran. A regime change is what many Iranians wish for. They may draw the line on a regime change engineered and imposed by foreign powers, however.

In his nearly 40 years of his rule, Ayatollah Khamenei, one of the world’s longest reigning autocrats, has decimated any opposition in the country. Opposition political leaders are either in jail or have fled the country. Abroad, the opposition figures have been unable to formulate a stance that unites the opposition to the regime.

They have been ineffectual in the establishment of any semblance of an organisation able to take over inside the country if the opportunity arises.

And during the two weeks of war, when the collapse of the regime could have been a possibility, if the war went on relentlessly, many believed the likely scenario for the day after was not the takeover by the opposition, but the descent of the country into chaos and lawlessness.

“It is unlikely that the Iranian regime will be toppled through domestic opposition. The regime remains strong at home and will ramp up domestic oppression to crush dissent,” says Prof Khatib.

Iranians are now fearing further clampdown by the regime. At least six people have been executed in the past two weeks since the start of the war with Israel on charges of spying for Israel. Authorities say they have arrested around 700 people on this charge.

One Iranian woman told BBC Persian what she fears more than the death and destruction of the war is a regime that is wounded and humiliated turning its anger against its own people.

“If the regime is unable to supply basic goods and services, then there will be growing anger and frustration,” says Prof Ansari.

“I see it as a staged process. I don’t see it as something that, necessarily, in a popular sense, will take root until long after the bombing is over.”

Few people in Iran think that the ceasefire brokered on Monday will last – and many believe Israel is not yet finished now that it has total superiority in the sky over Iran.

One thing that seems to have escaped the destruction are Iran’s ballistic missile silos that Israel found hard to locate as they are placed in tunnels under mountains throughout the country.

The Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, said Israel launched its opening attack on Iran knowing that “Iran possessed around 2,500 surface-to-surface missiles”. The missiles that Iran fired caused considerable death and destruction in Israel.

Israel will be concerned about the remaining possible 1,500 still in the hands of the Iranian side.

There is also a serious concern in Tel Aviv, Washington and other Western and regional capitals that Iran may still rush to build a nuclear bomb, something it has continued to deny trying to do.

Although Iran’s nuclear facilities have almost certainly been set back, and possibly rendered useless during the bombings by Israel and the US, Iran said it had moved its stockpile of highly enriched Uranium to a safe secret place.

That stockpile of 60% Uranium, if enriched to 90%, which is a relatively easy step, is enough for about nine bombs, according to experts. Just before the war started, Iran announced that it had built another new secret facility for enrichment that was due to come on stream soon.

The Iranian parliament has voted to sharply reduce its cooperation with the UN’s atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This still requires approval, but if it passes Iran would be one step away from exiting the nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, the NPT – as hardliners supporting the supreme leader push for Iran’s breakout to build a bomb.

Ayatollah Khamenei may now be confident that his regime has survived, just. But at the age of 86 and ailing, he also knows that his own days may be numbered, and he may want to ensure continuity of the regime with an orderly transition of power – to another senior cleric or even a council of leadership.

In any case, the remaining top commanders of the Revolutionary Guard who have been loyal to the supreme leader may be seeking to wield power from behind the scenes.

The head of Ukraine’s army, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, has said his troops have stopped Russian advances in the northeastern border region of Sumy.

During a visit to the front on Thursday, Syrskyi said the line of combat had been “stabilised” and that the Russian summer offensive in the area had been “choked off”.

However, Syrskyi also added that he had personally gone to check on fortifications in the region and that more were urgently needed.

Syrskyi’s comments on the successes of the Ukrainian troops in Sumy back recent statements by Ukrainian officials that Russia’s pressure on the region was declining.

However, the situation remained “volatile”, Border Guard spokesperson Andriy Demchenko said earlier this week.

Sumy borders the Russian region of Kursk, parts of which were seized and occupied last year by Ukrainian forces in a surprise offensive before being almost totally driven out months later.

The Kursk incursion was an embarrassment for Russia and in April President Vladimir Putin announced a plan to create “security buffer zones” along the border to provide “additional support” to areas in Russia which border Ukraine’s Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv regions.

Moscow has been pushing in the Sumy area with renewed effort since then. In late May Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky said 50,000 of Russia’s “largest, strongest” troops were concentrated along the border and were planning to create a 10km (6-mile) buffer zone.

• Ukraine in maps: Tracking the war with Russia

There has been criticism about the lack of fortifications in some areas of the Sumy region – and in his statement on Thursday Syrskyi tried to quell growing public concerns over delays in their construction.

“Additional fortifications, the establishment of ‘kill zones’, the construction of anti-drone corridors to protect our soldiers and ensure more reliable logistics for our troops are obvious tasks that are being carried out,” he said.

However, Syrskyi acknowledged that these improvements had to be done better and more efficiently.

In the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the lack of fortifications in certain parts of Ukraine allowed Moscow to make advances across the country – from its northern borders and from the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula.

The window of opportunity to build fortifications in Sumy safely and quickly was in autumn 2024, when Ukrainian troops were still advancing in the Russia’s border Kursk region and Sumy remained relatively unscathed.

Now may be too late, as Russia is undoubtedly well aware of the sections of the front line that lack strong fortifications.

In the last several months Moscow has claimed to have captured several villages while pummelling the city of Sumy with heavy missile strikes, killing dozens. A single ballistic missile attack on 13 April killed at least 34 people and injured 117.

DeepState, a group that monitors the latest frontline developments in Ukraine, has quoted sources as confirming that combat is raging in various unfortified areas of Sumy. The delays with erecting “much-needed fortifications” or the “low quality of some of the dugouts” could no longer be ignored, DeepState analysts said.

Asked about the summer offensive at a forum in St Petersburg last week, Putin said Russia did not “have the goal of capturing Sumy, but I don’t rule it out”. He said Russian forces had already established a buffer zone of 8-12km in depth.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022, is now well into its fourth year.

Large-scale Russian drone attacks on Ukrainian cities are on the rise. In recent weeks the capital Kyiv was targeted with record numbers of drones that overwhelm air defences and cause deadly explosions.

Recent rounds of talks between Ukraine and Russia resulted in large prisoner exchanges but have so far failed to produce any tangible progress towards a ceasefire.

Earlier this week Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said that European and Canadian allies had pledged €35bn (£30bn; $41bn) to Ukraine.

But there remains nervousness in Kyiv over the level of US President Donald Trump’s commitment to the Ukrainian cause and his volatile relationship with Zelensky.

However, Trump said on Wednesday a meeting he held with Zelensky on the sidelines of the Nato summit in The Hague “couldn’t have been nicer”.

He told BBC Ukraine’s Myroslava Petsa at a press conference afterwards that he was considering supplying Kyiv with US Patriot air defence missiles to defend itself against Russian strikes.

“We’re going to see if we could make some available. You know, they’re very hard to get,” he said.

Amber heat health alerts have been issued for parts of England as temperatures are set to climb to more than 30C.

They will be in force from 12:00 BST on Friday until 18:00 BST on Tuesday, with the warmest weather expected on Sunday and Monday.

The amber alerts will be in place for five regions – East Midlands, South East, South West, East and London – while less serious yellow heat health alerts will be in force for two areas, Yorkshire and Humber and the West Midlands.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) warns that the hot weather is likely to bring increased pressures on health and social care services.

The new heat health alerts come as a second heatwave of 2025 is expected in parts of the UK. The first heatwave saw this year’s hottest day recorded – 33.2C in Charlwood, Surrey on 21 June.

Scotland and Northern Ireland will only have temperatures up to around 22C in the coming days but England and Wales will be much hotter.

The heat will start to build in East Anglia and South East England on Friday with temperatures reaching 27C.

Temperatures will continue to rise into the weekend with the heat spreading to all but the far west of England and Wales and the far north of England. In the Midlands, Lincolnshire, East Anglia and South East England the temperature will quickly reach 30C or more.

The peak of the heat is expected to be on Monday when a temperature of 34C or 35C could be reached around London or Cambridge.

The weather will also become humid again which will make the heat feel more uncomfortable, including at night.

Parts of the country could see a ‘tropical night’ on Sunday and Monday – a term used to describe a night when temperatures do not fall below 20C.

Met Office criteria says a heatwave is reached when locations reach a particular threshold temperature for at least three consecutive days.

That varies from 25C across the north and west of the UK, to 28C in parts of eastern England.

The UKHSA alert system works in conjunction with the Met Office but has a focus on health risks in a bid to provide early warnings for health and government services.

There are four levels of warning – green, yellow, amber and red – an amber warning means the whole health service is likely to be affected by the hot weather.

Among examples given by UKHSA are difficulties managing medicines, the ability of the workforce to deliver services and internal temperatures in care settings exceeding the recommended thresholds.

The agency also refers to a possible rise in deaths – particularly among those aged 65 or over or with health conditions – as well as health risks to the wider population.

• Hot weather: How to sleep in the heat
• How do heat health alerts work?
• What does hot weather do to the body?
• Six ways to keep your home and yourself cool in hot weather

Temperatures are forecast to fall on Tuesday although some parts of England will remain in heatwave territory – with temperatures of near 30C expected in East Anglia and South East England.

The residual heat could trigger thunderstorms on Tuesday night.

The possible heatwave coincides with some major events taking place in England.

Glastonbury could close with a temperature of 28C, though this would remain short of the highest temperature recorded at the event of 31.2C in 2017.

Wimbledon could see the hottest temperature ever recorded at the opening of the championships. A forecast of 34C would exceed the 29.3C that was measured at Kew in 2001.

Several factors are contributing to this temperature increase including hot air from the heatwave in the eastern side of the United States and hot humid air from the Azores, plus strong sunshine and building high pressure over England.

The forecast constitutes extreme heat and is not far away from the June record which stands at 35.6C and was recorded at Southampton during the summer of 1976.

Heatwaves are becoming more common due to climate change, with a greater chance of seeing extreme heat.

The Met Office said heatwaves were 30 times more likely to occur than before the industrial revolution – and were projected to become even more common, potentially occurring every other year by the 2050s as greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise.

A study into potential serious side effects of weight loss jabs has been launched after hundreds of people reported problems with their pancreas.

The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and Genomics England are asking people on weight loss drugs who have been hospitalised by acute pancreatitis to get in touch.

There have been hundreds of reports of acute and chronic pancreatitis from people who have taken drugs such as Mounjaro, Ozempic and Wegovy, although none are confirmed as being caused by the medicines.

The aim is to “better predict those most at risk of adverse reactions”, said MHRA chief safety officer Dr Alison Cave.

The study is being run through the MHRA’s Yellow Card scheme, which allows anyone to report an issue with a medicine, vaccine or medical device to help identify safety issues as early as possible.

Patients aged 18 and over, with bad reactions to the weight loss jabs – which are also licensed for type 2 diabetes – are being asked to report the detail on the Yellow Card website.

They will then be asked if they would be willing to take part in the study, which will check whether some people are at a higher genetic risk of acute pancreatitis when taking these medicines.

Patients will be asked to submit more information and a saliva sample, with the overall aim of reducing the occurrence of the side effects in future, says the MHRA.

Cases recorded on the Yellow Card website up until 13 May this year include 10 in which patients, who were using weight loss drugs, died from the effects of pancreatitis – but it is not clear whether other factors also played a part.

It is impossible to know exactly how many people in the UK are on weight loss drugs as many users obtain them online through unregulated sources, rather than through their doctors.

Health officials have suggested the jabs could help turn the tide on obesity. However, they have also warned the drugs are not a silver bullet and often come with side effects, commonly including nausea, constipation and diarrhoea.

And the MHRA has also warned that Mounjaro could make the oral contraceptive pill less effective for some patients.

Dr Alison Cave, the MHRA’s chief safety officer said information from the study “will help us to better predict those most at risk of adverse reactions, enabling patients across the UK to receive the safest medicine for them, based on their genetic make-up”.

She said evidence showed almost a third of side effects to medicines could be prevented with genetic testing.

“It is predicted that adverse drug reactions could cost the NHS more than £2.2bn a year in hospital stays alone,” she added.

Prof Matt Brown, chief scientific officer at Genomics England, said: “GLP-1 medicines like Ozempic and Wegovy have been making headlines, but like all medicines there can be a risk of serious side effects.

“We believe there is real potential to minimise these, with many adverse reactions having a genetic cause.”

He said the next step would be to “generate data and evidence for safer and more effective treatment through more personalised approaches to prescription, supporting a shift towards an increasingly prevention-focused healthcare system”.