A pall of acrid smoke hung over Kyiv on Friday morning following a night of intensive Russian strikes that hit almost every district of the Ukrainian capital, injuring 23 people, officials say.

The hours of darkness were punctuated by the staccato of air defence guns, buzz of drones and large explosions. Ukraine said Russia fired a record 550 drones and 11 missiles.

The strikes came hours after a call between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, after which Trump said he was “disappointed” that Putin was not ready to end the war against Ukraine.

Moscow says war will continue for as long as it is necessary to reach its objectives.

Russia’s overnight air strikes broke another record, Ukraine’s air force said, with 72 of the 550 drones penetrating air defences – up from a previous record of 537 launched last Saturday night.

Air raid alerts sounded for more than eight hours asseveral waves of attacks struck Kyiv, the “main target of the strikes”, the air force said on the messaging app Telegram.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned one of the most “demonstratively significant and cynical” attacks of the war, describing a “harsh, sleepless night”.

Noting that it came directly after Putin’s call with Trump, Zelensky added in a post on Telegram: “Russia once again demonstrates that it does not intend to end the war”.

He called on international allies – particularly the US – to increase pressure on Moscow and impose greater sanctions.

Footage shared on social media by Ukraine’s state emergency service showed firefighters battling to extinguish fires in Kyiv after Russia’s large-scale overnight attack.

According to Ukrainian authorities, railway infrastructure was damaged and schools, buildings and cars set ablaze across the capital.

Poland’s Foreign Minister, Radosław Sikorski, said the Polish consulate had also been damaged.

The Russian strikes also hit the regions of Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Chernihiv.

Russia’s defence ministry said the “massive strike” had been launched in response to the “terrorist acts of the Kyiv regime”.

The acting governor of Russia’s southern Rostov region said a woman was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a village not far from the border on Friday night.

Friday’s attacks were the latest in a string of major Russian air strikes on Ukraine that have intensified in recent weeks as ceasefire talks have largely stalled.

War in Ukraine has been raging for more than three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Following his conversation with Putin on Thursday, Trump said that “no progress” to end the fighting had been made.

“I’m very disappointed with the conversation I had today with President Putin, because I don’t think he’s there, and I’m very disappointed,” Trump said.

“I’m just saying I don’t think he’s looking to stop, and that’s too bad.”

The Kremlin reiterated that it would continue to seek to remove “the root causes of the war in Ukraine”. Putin has sought to return Ukraine to Russia’s sphere of influence and said last week that “the whole of Ukraine is ours”.

Responding to Trump’s comments on Friday, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the BBC that as long as it was not possible to secure Russia’s aims through political-diplomatic means, “we are continuing our Special Military Operation” – Russia’s preferred name for the invasion.

Meanwhile, President Zelensky said that he hoped to speak to Trump about the supply of US weapons after a decision in Washington to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine, including those used for air defences.

Kyiv has warned that the move would impede its ability to defend Ukraine against escalating airstrikes and Russian advances on the frontlines.

Speaking to reporters, Trump said “we’re giving weapons” and “we haven’t” completely paused the flow of weapons. He blamed former President Joe Biden for “emptying out our whole country giving them weapons, and we have to make sure that we have enough for ourselves”.

Amid chaotic scenes, French police waded into shallow waters off a beach south of Boulogne early on Friday morning and used knives to slash an inflatable small boat – packed with men, women and children – that was wallowing, dangerously, in the waves.

All those onboard clambered to safety as the boat collapsed.

The intervention was highly unusual.

French police usually follow strict rules that bar them from going into the sea in case they put lives at risk.

“Let’s go in,” said one of the gendarmes, pulling off his body armour, and taking out a small knife. His colleagues took their heavy armour off, too, placing equipment in the back of a nearby police car before rushing into the water.

It is possible to see this rare incident as evidence that the French police – under growing pressure to stop a surge of small boat migrant crossings to the UK – are changing their tactics.

But well-placed sources in France have told us that the procedural changes now being considered will almost certainly focus on the use of patrol boats at sea to intercept the “taxi-boats” before they’re fully loaded, rather than on approving more aggressive interventions from police on the beaches.

A few metres offshore, the boat itself was clearly in trouble. People were crowded around the outboard motor, which had briefly stalled but was being restarted.

Waves were breaking underneath the boat, causing it to lurch wildly, and there were loud screams from several children who were in danger of being crushed onboard.

Earlier, two large groups of people already wearing orange life jackets had emerged from the nearby dunes and rushed towards the sea.

In all there were probably 80 or 100 people. But when the first “taxi-boat” – used by the smuggling gangs to collect passengers from various points along the French coast – sped past perhaps 100m from the shore, it was clearly full already and did not stop to pick anyone else up.

A few minutes later, a second boat, with almost no passengers, came towards the shore, watched by a French coastguard boat further into the English Channel.

Initially, people were ushered forwards in organised groups, holding hands, and directed by one man who appeared to be leading events.

But as the inflatable boat turned and reversed towards the shore, there was a scrum as dozens of people scrambled to climb aboard in water that was at least waist deep.

At first the gendarmes declined to intervene and stood watching from the shore.

One officer repeated a now-familiar explanation to me – that they were barred from going into the water except to rescue people.

But as the situation became increasingly chaotic, the officers at the scene clearly felt that a line had been crossed, that those on board were now in danger, and that there was a brief opportunity to disable the boat in relative safety and while any smugglers – who might have fought back – were distracted by their attempts to restart the engine.

As a policeman slashed repeatedly at the rubber, there were cries and shouts of anger and frustration from some of those onboard.

A young girl, who had been in the middle of the scrum, squashed at the stern of the boat close to the engine, was plucked to safety as others scrambled on to the nearby sand.

Moments later the boat was dragged ashore by the police as the migrants began collecting items they had dropped on the beach and then headed inland, up the sandy paths through the dunes towards the nearest village and a bus-ride back to the migrant camps further north.

Hamas says it is consulting other Palestinian groups before giving a formal response to the latest proposal for a new Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal put forward by the US.

President Donald Trump said on Friday morning that expected to know within 24 hours whether Hamas has agreed to the plan.

On Tuesday, Trump said Israel had accepted the conditions necessary for a 60-day ceasefire, during which the parties would work to end the 20-month war.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military is continuing to bomb targets across the Gaza Strip.

Local journalists reported hearing explosions and gunfire as Israeli helicopter gunships and artillery struck the southern Khan Younis area on Friday morning.

Overnight, at least 15 Palestinians were killed in strikes on two tents housing displaced people in Khan Younis, the local Nasser hospital said.

The Israeli military has not yet commented on the strikes, but it did say its forces were “operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities”.

In a statement issued early on Friday, Hamas said it was discussing with the leaders of other Palestinian factions the ceasefire proposal that it had received from regional mediators Qatar and Egypt.

Hamas said it would deliver a “final decision” to the mediators once the consultations had ended and then announce it officially.

The proposal is believed to include the staggered release of 10 living Israeli hostages and the bodies of 18 other hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Fifty hostages are still being held in Gaza, at least 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

One of Hamas’s key demands is the resumption of unrestricted food and medical aid into Gaza, and the proposal reportedly says sufficient quantities would enter the territory immediately with the involvement of the United Nations and Red Cross.

It is said the plan would also include a phased Israeli military withdrawal from parts of Gaza.

Above all, Hamas wants a guarantee that Israeli air and ground operations will not resume after the end of the 60-day ceasefire.

The proposal is believed to say that negotiations on an end to the war and the release of the remaining hostages would begin on day one.

Donald Trump told reporters early on Friday that he expected to know “over the next 24 hours” whether the proposals would be accepted by Hamas.

The hope then would be the resumption of formal, indirect, talks ahead of a planned visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington next week.

“We sure hope it’s a done deal, but I think it’s all going to be what Hamas is willing to accept,” US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told Israel’s Channel 12 TV on Thursday.

“One thing is clear: The president wants it to be over. The prime minister wants it to be over. The American people, the Israeli people, want it to be over.”

Netanyahu meanwhile promised to secure the release of all the remaining hostages during a visit to Kibbutz Nir Oz, a community near the Israel-Gaza border where a total of 76 residents were abducted during the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023 that triggered the war.

“I feel a deep commitment, first of all, to ensure the return of all of our hostages, all of them,” he said. “We will bring them all back.”

He did not, however, commit to ending the war. He has insisted that will not happen until the hostages are freed and Hamas’s military and governing capabilities are destroyed.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 57,130 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

A former security contractor for Gaza’s controversial new Israel- and US-backed aid distribution sites has told the BBC that he witnessed colleagues opening fire several times on hungry Palestinians who had posed no threat, including with machine guns.

On one occasion, he said, a guard had opened fire from a watchtower with a machine gun because a group of women, children and elderly people was moving too slowly away from the site.

When asked to respond the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said the allegations were categorically false.

They referred us to a statement saying that no civilians ever came under fire at the GHF distribution sites.

The GHF began its operations in Gaza at the end of May, distributing limited aid from several sites in southern and central Gaza. That followed an 11-week total blockade of Gaza by Israel during which no food entered the territory.

The system has been widely criticised for forcing vast numbers of people to walk through active combat zones to a handful of sites. Since the GHF started up, Israeli forces have killed more than 400 Palestinians trying to retrieve food aid from its sites, the UN and local doctors say. Israel says the new distribution system stops aid going to Hamas.

Continuing his description of the incident at one of the GHF sites – in which he said guards fired on a group of Palestinians – the former contractor said: “As that happened, another contractor on location, standing on the berm overlooking the exit, opened up with 15 to 20 shots of repetitive weapons fire at the crowd.

“A Palestinian man dropped to the ground motionless. And then the other contractor who was standing there was like, ‘damn, I think you got one’. And then they laughed about it.”

The contractor, who spoke to us on condition of anonymity, said GHF managers had brushed off his report as a coincidence, suggesting that the Palestinian man could have “tripped” or been “tired and passed out”.

The GHF claimed the man who made these allegations is a “disgruntled former contractor” who they had terminated for misconduct, which he denies. He showed us evidence that he left the post on good terms.

The man we spoke to, who said he had worked at all four of the GHF distribution sites, described a culture of impunity with few rules or controls.

He said contractors were given no clear rules of engagement or standard operating procedures, and were told by one team leader: “if you feel threatened, shoot – shoot to kill and ask questions later”.

The culture in the company, he said, felt like “we’re going into Gaza so it’s no rules. Do what you want.”

“If a Palestinian is walking away from the site and not demonstrating any hostile intent, and we’re shooting warning shots at them regardless, we are wrong, we are criminally negligent,” he told me.

He told us that each site had CCTV monitoring the activity in the area, and GHF insistence that no one there had been hurt or shot at was “an absolute bare-faced lie”.

GHF said that gunfire heard in footage shared with the BBC was coming from Israeli forces.

Team leaders referred to Gazans as “zombie hordes”, the former contractor said, “insinuating that these people have no value.”

The man also said Palestinians were coming to harm in other ways at GHF sites, for example by being hit by debris from stun grenades, being sprayed with mace or being pushed by the crowds into razor wire.

He said he had witnessed several occasions in which Palestinians appeared to have been seriously hurt, including one man who had a full can of pepper spray in his face, and a woman who he said was hit with the metal part of a stun grenade, improperly fired into a crowd.

“This metal piece hit her directly in the head and she dropped to the ground, not moving,” he said. “I don’t know if she was dead. I know for a fact she was unconscious and completely limp.”

Earlier this week more than 170 charities and other NGOs called for the GHF to be shut down. The organisations, including Oxfam and Save the Children, say Israeli forces and armed groups “routinely” open fire on Palestinians seeking aid.

Israel denies its soldiers deliberately shoot at aid recipients and says the GHF’s system provides direct assistance to people who need it, bypassing Hamas interference.

The GHF says it had delivered more than 52 million meals in five weeks and that other organisations “stand by helplessly as their aid is looted”.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 57,130 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Donald Trump has his first major legislative victory of his second presidential term.

The “big, beautiful bill”, as he calls it, is a sprawling package that includes many key pieces of his agenda – delivering on promises he made on the campaign trail.

It also, however, contains the seeds of political peril for the president and his party.

That Trump and his team were able to shepherd the legislation through Congress despite narrow majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate is no small achievement.

His success required him and his allies to win over budget hawks within his Republican Party who were intent on slashing government spending, as well as centrists who were wary of cuts to social programmes.

When this congressional session started in January, there were doubts about whether House Republicans could even agree to return Congressman Mike Johnson to the speaker’s chair, let alone agree on major pieces of legislation.

Agree they did, however – as did Republicans in the Senate, a notoriously unwieldy chamber.

• Congress passes Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’
• A look at the key items in the legislation
• BBC Verify: Fact-checking three claims about the bill

The spending package approved by lawmakers directs about $150bn (£110bn) in new spending for border security, detention centres and immigration enforcement officers. Another $150bn is allocated for military expenditures, including the president’s “gold dome” missile defence programme.

The really big numbers, however, are in the tax cuts in this legislation. They amount to more than $4.5tn over 10 years.

Some of these are cuts that were first enacted in Trump’s first term, and were set to expire before the bill makes them permanent. Others, like ending taxes on tips and overtime, where 2024 campaign promises that are implemented by will end in 2028.

All this adds up to massive new debt for the US. The White House contends that the tax cuts will spur economic growth that will generate sufficient new revenue, when taken alongside tariff collections.

But outside projections suggest that this legislation will add more than $3tn in new US debt.

As critics like Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky have pointed out, the legislation raises the amount of new debt the federal government can issue by $5tn – a step that would not be necessary if the White House truly believed their budget projections.

Paul and others like tech multibillionaire Elon Musk have warned that this massive amount of debt will be growing burden on the federal government, as interest payments crowd out other spending and drive up interest rates. A fiscal reckoning is coming, they warn.

Another senator who voted against the legislation, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, had a different warning for Trump and his party. In a fiery speech on the floor of the chamber, he accused the president of breaking a promise to those who supported him – citing the bill’s cuts worth approximately $1tn to Medicaid, a government-run health insurance programme for low-income Americans.

“Republicans are about to make a mistake on healthcare and betray a promise,” he said, declaring that more than 660,000 people in North Carolina would be “pushed off” Medicaid.

A year after Trump made inroads with working-class Americans, including minority voters who traditionally have supported opposing Democrats, his legislation will cause nearly 12 million Americans to lose Medicaid coverage in the next 10 years, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

Democrats are already preparing an onslaught of attacks against Republicans for what they say is legislation that cuts social service in order to provide tax cuts to wealthier Americans.

Although those cuts won’t come into effect until after next year’s congressional midterm elections, Democrats will try to remind American voters of the consequences the decisions Republicans made over the past few weeks.

Trump is preparing what should be a celebratory bill signing ceremony on 4 July – American Independence Day – and will tout his ability to govern not just through executive order, but also through enacting new law.

But the fight to define the benefits – and consequences – of this bill is just beginning.

Sir Keir Starmer has said he “understands what anchors” US President Donald Trump, having built a relationship on shared family values.

Despite “different political backgrounds” the prime minister said he found common ground with Trump, and that their “good personal relationship” helped land a vital US tariff deal.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Political Thinking programme, Sir Keir revealed Trump reached out to console him after the death of his younger brother Nick Starmer on Boxing Day.

“For both of us, we really care about family and there’s a point of connection there,” he said.

“I think I do understand what anchors the president, what he really cares about.”

Sir Keir revealed he first spoke to Trump as prime minister after the then-presidential candidate was shot at a rally in July last year.

“That was a phone call really to ask him how it was, and in particular I wanted to know how it impacted on his family,” he said.

He added that Trump later called him after the death of his brother.

“We talked about my brother, and he was asking about him,” Sir Keir said.

Sir Keir denied this week’s painful series of U-turns on welfare reforms were because he had been too focused on foreign affairs and “taken his eye off the ball” domestically.

On Tuesday, the government avoided defeat on its proposals to overhaul disability benefits by offering late concessions to Labour MPs threatening to rebel.

The prime minister said he took responsibility for the episode, admitting it had been a “tough” few days but insisting the government would “come through this stronger” after a period of reflection.

The prime minister said forging close ties with figures such as Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron were “always in the national interest”.

“Building those relationships with international leaders is hugely important,” he said.

The prime minister said the personal rapport had helped secure a deal removing UK industries from some of the sweeping tariffs announced by Trump.

Before the deal he said he had seen “anxiety writ large” on the faces of British factory workers at Jaguar Land Rover in Solihull.

“After the deal, the relief was palpable,” he said.

Sir Keir said discussions “over a glass of wine” with Macron on a train to Kyiv had also paved the way for a new agreement with the EU, which he claimed would lead to lower food prices in British supermarkets.

“That is a good thing for millions of people across the country,” he said.

Sir Keir is due to meet Macron again next week as the French president comes to the UK for a state visit.

Tackling small boat crossings will be a key point of discussion, after Downing Street said last month the situation in the English Channel was “deteriorating”.

Official figures released this week showed nearly 20,000 people arrived in the UK in the first half of this year by crossing the Channel in small boats – up 48% on the same period last year.

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Plans for a futuristic city in Senegal dreamt up by the singer Akon have been scrapped and instead he will work on something more realistic, officials say.

“The Akon City project no longer exists,” Serigne Mamadou Mboup, the head of Senegal’s tourism development body, Sapco, told the BBC.

“Fortunately, an agreement has been reached between Sapco and the entrepreneur Alioune Badara Thiam [aka Akon]. What he’s preparing with us is a realistic project, which Sapco will fully support.”

Known for his string of noughties chart hits, Akon – who was born in the US but partly raised in Senegal – announced two ambitious projects in 2018 that were supposed to represent the future of African society.

The first was Akon City – reportedly costed at $6bn (£5bn). It was to run on the second initiative – a brand new cryptocurrency called Akoin.

Initial designs for Akon City, with its boldly curvaceous skyscrapers, were compared by commentators to the awe-inspiring fictional city of Wakanda in Marvel’s Black Panther films and comic books.

But after five years of setbacks, the 800-hectare site in Mbodiène – about 100km (60 miles) south of the capital, Dakar – remains mostly empty. The only structure is an incomplete reception building. There are no roads, no housing, no power grid.

“We were promised jobs and development,” one local resident told the BBC. “Instead, nothing has changed.”

Meanwhile the star’s Akoin cryptocurrency has struggled to repay its investors over the years, with Akon himself conceding: “It wasn’t being managed properly – I take full responsibility for that.”

There had also been questions over whether it would even be legal for Akoin to operate as the primary payment method for would-be residents of Akon City. Senegal uses the CFA franc, which is regulated and issued by the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), and like many central banks has expressed opposition to cryptocurrency.

The plans for Akon City had been sweeping.

Phase one alone was to include a hospital, a shopping mall, a school, a police station, a waste centre, and a solar plant – all by the end of 2023.

Sitting on Senegal’s Atlantic Coast, Akon’s high-tech, eco-friendly city was supposed to run entirely on renewable energy.

But despite Akon’s insistence in a 2022 BBC interview that the project was “100,000% moving”, no significant construction followed the initial launch ceremony.

Now the Senegalese government has confirmed what many suspected – the project had stalled beyond recovery. Officials cited a lack of funding and halted construction efforts as key reasons for the decision.

Although Akon City as it was originally imagined has been shelved, the government says it is now working with Akon on a more “realistic” development project for the same site.

The land near Mbodiène remains of high strategic value, especially with the 2026 Youth Olympic Games approaching and increased tourism activity expected.

• Akon’s Wakanda, grazing goats and a crumbling crypto dream
• Born in France but searching for a future in Africa
• US basketball training for Senegal cancelled after visas rejected
• Senegal starts producing oil as president promises benefits

Russia has become the first country to formally recognise the Taliban government in Afghanistan, sparking outrage from opposition figures.

The decision marks a major milestone for the Taliban almost four years after they swept into Kabul and took power.

Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said he hoped it would serve as an example to other countries, which have been reluctant to recognise a regime which implements a version of Sharia law along with severe restrictions on women and girls.

Others have decried the move, with former Afghan politician Fawzia Koofi saying “any move by any country to normalise relations with the Taliban will not bring peace it will legitimise impunity”.

Koofi went on to warn “such steps risk endangering not just the people of Afghanistan, but global security”.

Meanwhile, the Afghan Women’s Political Participation Network said it legitimised “a regime that is authoritarian, anti-women, and actively dismantling basic civil rights”.

The Taliban government has previously said it respects women’s rights in accordance with their interpretation of Afghan culture and Islamic law.

But since 2021, girls over the age of 12 have been prevented from getting an education, and women from many jobs. There have also been restrictions on how far a woman can travel without a male chaperone, and decrees on them raising their voices in public.

Foreign Minister Muttaqi said Moscow’s recognition, which came on Thursday, was “a new phase of positive relations, mutual respect, and constructive engagement”, describing the decision as “courageous”.

Russia’s foreign ministry said it saw the potential for “commercial and economic” co-operation in “energy, transportation, agriculture and infrastructure”, and that it would continue to help Kabul to fight against the threats of terrorism and drug trafficking.

Russia was one of very few countries that did not close down their embassy in Afghanistan in 2021 – as the Taliban swept across Afghanistan following the withdrawal of US troop.

The country was also the first to sign an international economic deal with the Taliban in 2022, where they agreed to supply oil, gas and wheat to Afghanistan.

The Taliban was removed from Russia’s list of terrorist organisations in April this year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also referred to the Taliban as an “ally” in fighting terrorism in July last year. Taliban representatives had visited Moscow for talks as early as 2018.

However, the two countries have a complex history. The Soviet Union – which included Russia – invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and fought a nine-year war that cost them 15,000 personnel.

Their decision to install a Soviet-backed government in Kabul turned the Soviets into an international pariah, and eventually led to their withdrawal in February 1989.

In its statement, the Afghan Women’s Political Participation Network noted it had not forgotten “Russia’s role in the destruction of Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion”.

“Today, its political interference and direct support for the Taliban represent a continuation of those same destructive strategies, now under the banner of diplomacy,” it said.

Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta, a former Afghan national security adviser under the predceding Western-backed government, described Russia’s decision as “regrettable”, adding: “This is just the beginning; in the absence of widespread resistance, others will follow Russia.”

Strict sanctions were placed on Afghanistan in 2021 by the United Nations Security Council, most notably the freezing of approximately $9bn (£6.6bn) in assets.

The UN has said the rules impacting women amount to “gender apartheid”, while also reporting public floggings and brutal attacks on former government officials.

Most countries closed their embassies after 2021. However, China, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Pakistan have all designated ambassadors to Kabul.

Two female tourists, including a British pensioner, have been killed by a charging elephant while on safari in Zambia, police have told the BBC.

Easton Taylor, 68, from the UK and 67-year-old Alison Taylor from New Zealand were attacked by a female elephant that was with a calf at the South Luangwa National Park, said local police chief Robertson Mweemba.

The two tourists were trampled to death by the nursing elephant after efforts by tour guides to stop it by firing shots failed. Both women died at the scene, he said.

The British Foreign Office said it was supporting the family of a British woman who had died in Zambia and was liaising with local authorities.

Mr Mweemba said the two women were part of a guided safari group who were walking in the park on Thursday when the elephant charged towards them at high speed.

The two tourists had stayed for four days at the Big Lagoon Camp, about 600 km (370 miles) from the capital, Lusaka, where the attack happened.

“They were moving to other camps when the elephant charged from behind. We are really sorry that we have lost our visitors,” Mr Mweemba said.

“They both died on the spot,” he added.

It is not clear whether the pair were related.

Female elephants are very protective of their calves and Zambian authorities have previously called on tourists to exercise extreme caution while observing wildlife around the country.

“It is very difficult to control the animals and tourists like feeding them,” Mr Mweemba said.

Last year, two American tourists were killed in separate attacks by elephants in the southern African country. Both cases involved elderly tourists who were in a safari vehicle when they were attacked.

• ‘I’m afraid that elephants will kill me’
• Elephant corridors – where locals take care to cross
• Zimbabwe’s dilemma over deadly elephant attacks

It’s pitch black and we’re crawling along a secret underground tunnel beneath a high street in Hull. We pass rotting beams propped up precariously by stacked breeze blocks. A rusty car jack is helping prevent the shop floor above from falling in.

Through the rubble, we follow a Trading Standards Officer, his torch swinging back and forth in the darkness until it rests on a hidden stash of thousands of illegal cigarettes.

This is just one such surreal experience while investigating the sale of illegal cigarettes in Hull. In one week we repeatedly witnessed counterfeit and smuggled tobacco being sold in high street mini marts – and were threatened by shop workers who grabbed our cameras when we tried to film them.

This is now a familiar story being repeated across Britain. In April, the National Crime Agency (NCA) raided hundreds of high street businesses, many suspected of being supplied by international crime gangs. Trading Standards teams have also found a thriving trade in illicit tobacco.

One leading criminology expert called the networks behind the supply of illegal cigarettes the “golden thread for understanding serious organised crime”, because of its links to people trafficking and, in some cases, illegal immigration.

So, in some ways, these high street shop fronts connect the various domestic problems facing Britain today.

Political researchers claim it’s also damaging trust in police and the government – and turning our high streets into symbols of national decline.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Friday, the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, described the illegal cigarette trade uncovered by our report as “disgraceful”. She said it shows the need to get neighbourhood police “back into the high streets and town centres”.

Alan, a former detective and now a Trading Standards officer, searches for counterfeit and smuggled cigarettes sold under the counter in mini marts, barber shops and takeaways around Hull, which he says have spread across the city at an alarming rate.

Under the floorboards of a mini mart called Ezee Shop, a network of these secret tunnels hide contraband stock. As battered suitcases and black sacks stuffed full of cigarettes are heaved up through the makeshift trap door, a man who we’re told helps out in the shop watches on laughing.

“It’s not something dangerous, it’s only cigarettes,” he says. “Everywhere has it; barber shops, takeaways.” Some shops, he adds, are selling drugs including crack cocaine.

Alan estimates that there are about £20,000 worth of illegal cigarettes in this haul, a tiny proportion of a crime that HMRC says costs the country at least £2.2 billion in lost revenue.

Today’s raid won’t change what’s happening on Hull’s high streets, he says. He has been to some shops at least 20 times and he estimates that there are some 80 shops selling illegal cigarettes in the city.

“We’re losing the war,” he says.

He has been with Trading Standards for many years but didn’t want to be fully identified because he’s worried about the organised crime gangs often supplying these shops.

It’s not long before someone claiming to be Ezee Shop’s owner turns up. Alan says he is a Kurd from Iran. He is furious with us filming his illicit stock being taken away.

Some of the illegal cigarettes sold across Britain are made in this country. Others are produced cheaply in countries like Poland or Belgium. Some are designed to imitate established brands. Illegal cigarettes are sold without the necessary taxes and duties, and many do not conform to safety standards.

Previously the Local Government Association warned that some black market cigarettes contained “human excrement, dead flies and asbestos”.

We went undercover, visiting 12 shops in Hull, some multiple times, to try and buy these cheap cigarettes, and secretly filmed the responses.

The windows of many of these shops are covered with large pictures of fizzy drinks, sweets and vapes, obscuring what’s going on inside.

Nine sold us illegal cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco. Two told us where we could buy cheap packs. We were openly offered a selection of brands with packets costing between £3 and £7 – instead of the average UK price of about £16.

None of the businesses we bought illegal cigarettes from in Hull responded to our request for a comment. But this is not only a Hull problem.

Data shared with the BBC from investigators working for an international tobacco company say that last year they identified more than 600 shops selling illegal packets, with several cities including Bradford, Coventry and Nottingham flagged as hotspots. The BBC is unable to verify these figures.

In Bradford alone, they say they found 49 stores selling fake products in just two days. In the end, they had to stop the test purchases because they didn’t have enough test bags to put the items in.

All of this is a growing problem – but it is also one with specific causes: profits, a lack of resources to enforce the law, a complex criminal supply network and in some cases organised immigration crime.

Professor Georgios Antonopoulos, criminologist at Northumbria University Newcastle, believes money is at the heart of it. “Legal tobacco products in the UK are subject to some of the highest excise taxes in the world,” he says.

Illegal cigarettes are sometimes sold for as little as £3 to £5 per pack – compelling for some customers during a cost of living crisis.

In some cases, the financial penalties issued to criminals may be much lower than the profits they can make.

In the case of Ezee Shop in Hull, the shop owner had been convicted for selling illegal cigarettes in the past and was fined £80, plus costs and a £34 victim surcharge.

Tougher rules introduced in 2023 mean those convicted now can face higher fines of up to £10,000 – but this may still be lower than the value of the stash.

After the raid, we went back to the shop, covertly. Within a few hours it had reopened, restocked – and was selling illegal cigarettes once again.

Leading criminologists tell the BBC that UK authorities are struggling to deal with the problem.

Prof Antonopoulos says teams are “chronically underfunded”. He claims that police prioritise violent crimes and drug trafficking – “which is understandable,” he adds.

Some Trading Standards officers are frustrated with the powers available to them. “The general public don’t understand why they can’t be closed down,” Alan says.

They can use anti-social behaviour legislation to close shops for up to three months – but it can require statements from other businesses and members of the public.

We were told that after some shops shut down, the criminals simply reopen nearby. Alan wants a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy to permanently close law-breaking businesses.

Last year, the previous government provided £100 million across five years to support HMRC and Border Force to tackle the illicit tobacco trade. But since then, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute warned that some broader forms of organised crime – including scammers and rogue traders – could effectively become decriminalised, due to a lack of funding.

As for the suppliers, HMRC says there are so many organised crime groups operating across borders that it is hard to limit the flow of goods into the UK.

In May, Hungarian authorities raided a factory where they found warehouses full of fake cigarettes. And there’s even production in Ukraine, according to legitimate tobacco firms, with authorities there stretched because of the war.

There is also a “significant production” of illicit tobacco here in the UK, says Prof Antonopoulos.

A Trading Standards team in south Wales told us that counterfeit hand-rolling tobacco is often sold cheaply. They claimed that some of it was made using forced labour, controlled by Chinese gangs.

Dave McKelvey, managing director of TM Eye private investigators, which works with tobacco firms to gather evidence on the illicit trade, claims that Fujian-based Chinese triads operate a “vast business” here in the UK.

And trying to track down the people in charge of these criminal enterprises is a challenge.

Trading Standards told the BBC that those named as the company director often have no real involvement in the company. Instead, they may be paid a small sum each month to be listed as the director on official documents.

Later this year, Companies House will receive new powers to better identify business owners.

Authorities are trying to clean up British high streets. Just this year, we joined dozens of raids led by the NCA in barber shops and mini marts, in a month-long operation.

But the former senior detectives who worked with the BBC’s undercover team said they need more time to fully expose the organised crime supplying some of the shop fronts.

Throughout our time with Trading Standards in Hull and in the dozens of raids we’ve been on with police in Shrewsbury and across Greater Manchester, officers claimed that tobacco operations are often staffed by Kurds from Iran and Iraq. Some may not have had the right to work.

In Hull, Alan believes that some people working in the shops he visits may be recruited from asylum seeker hotels. “They’re expendable, if they get caught they just replace them with another.

Rochdale Trading Standards has made similar observations.

Criminology professor Emmeline Taylor argues that these criminal supply chains behind the supply of illegal tobacco are linked to other forms of crime – and the damage can’t be overestimated.

“They’re not just dealing in tobacco,” she says. “It’s firearms, it’s drugs, it’s people trafficking, it’s illegal immigration.”

The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, told us that “criminal gangs” are “trying to abuse our high streets by using shops as a front for organised crime”.

She also accused gangs of “undermining our border and immigration systems by employing illegal workers”.

Of course, there have long been pockets of criminality on the UK high street. But now experts tell us that this illicit trade is harming people’s trust in authority – and, at a basic level, their sense of fairness.

“If you’re a law abiding business following the rules, you’re jeopardising your own livelihood and the viability of your own business,” argues Prof Taylor. “And to me that’s not fair that someone can succeed by not playing by the rules.”

Josh Nicholson, a researcher at the Centre for Social Justice, believes that perceptions of crime are worse than ever. “From research we have done there is a feeling of powerlessness, a lack of respect for authority like the police,” he says.

“Are the police… seen to be tackling low level offences? When they don’t see it tackled, people’s perception is that things are getting a lot worse.”

And people tend to trust the government less when they think access to good shops has declined in their area, says Will Jennings, a political science professor at the University of Southampton, based on studies he has done.

Nick Plumb, a director at the Power to Change charity, says his research shows that declining high streets boosts support for parties that were once considered outside of the political mainstream.

“Reform UK, for example, is doing better in places with declining high streets when compared to the rest of England,” he says. “There’s a sense that … mainstream politics, local authorities have all tried to tackle this issue, and [residents] haven’t seen any change. It’s that sense of ‘the status quo hasn’t solved these things, and therefore we want to try something new’.”

Ultimately, what people see in the places they call home matters.

“People find a sense of local identity in the quality of the streets where they’ve grown up,” adds Mr Nicholson.

“When the quality … dramatically declines, and they feel they can’t even go there – what that does to a sense of community is unquantifiable.”

US President Donald Trump’s budget mega-bill is set to become law after it passed a final vote in the House of Representatives.

The president is now poised to sign the bill into law during a ceremony on Friday.

Its advancement has not been easy. The legislation has stoked disputes among lawmakers from Trump’s own Republican Party, who control both chambers of Congress, over social programmes and spending levels.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill could add $3.3tn to federal deficits over the next 10 years and leave millions without health coverage – a forecast that the White House disputes.

During a vote in the US Senate earlier this week, Vice-President JD Vance was forced to cast the tie-breaking vote in order to pass the bill.

The legislation’s prospects in the House appeared precarious, however Republican rebels eventually got on board to support it following hours of wrangling on Thursday.

Here is a look at some of the key items and hotly-debated issues in the bill.

During his first term, Trump had signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which lowered taxes for corporations and for individuals across most income brackets.

Trump had touted the law as one that would stimulate economic growth, but experts have argued that it has benefited wealthy Americans the most.

Key provisions of that law are set to expire in December, but the sprawling budget bill currently before lawmakers aims to make those tax cuts permanent. It also increases standard deductions by $1,000 (£736) for individuals and $2,000 for married couples until 2028.

To help finance tax cuts elsewhere, Republicans have added additional restrictions to Medicaid, the healthcare programme relied upon by millions of disabled and low-income Americans.

One of the changes is a new work requirement for childless adults without disabilities. Another change to Medicaid is shifting re-enrolment from once a year to every six months, and adding income and residency verifications.

There are also lower provider taxes – which states use to help fund their share of Medicaid costs – from 6% to 3.5% by 2032.

Complaints from some Republicans in states that draw funding from these taxes, especially for rural hospitals, led the Senate to delay the cuts and add a $50bn rural hospital fund.

The Senate bill also proposes tightening eligibility requirements so that able-bodied adults with children aged 15 and over would need to work or volunteer at least 80 hours a month.

The Senate Medicaid work requirement is said to be the strictest ever proposed by Republicans, raising the odds that large numbers of Americans could lose medical coverage as they will not keep up with the new paperwork.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that nearly 12 million Americans could lose their health coverage by the end of the next decade as a result of these changes.

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to eliminate taxes on Social Security income – monthly payments to Americans of retirement age and people with disabilities.

The House bill fell short of delivering on that promise, but it did temporarily increase the standard deduction of up to $4,000 for individuals 65 and over. That deduction would be in place from 2025-28.

Senate Republicans approved an extension of Social Security tax breaks and an increase that would grant a $6,000 tax deduction for older Americans who earn no more than $75,000 a year.

The bill increases the deduction limit for state and local taxes (Salt).

There is currently a $10,000 cap on how much taxpayers can deduct from the amount they owe in federal taxes. That expires this year.

The Senate’s approved bill raises it from $10,000 to $40,000 – but after five years, it would return to $10,000.

Salt taxes were a big sticking point in the House, especially Republican holdouts in some Democratic-controlled urban areas. The House’s version of the spending bill did not include a five-year limit, so the Senate’s changes could pose a problem for some House Republicans.

Reforms have also been added to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which is used by over 40 million low-income Americans.

The Senate bill requires states to contribute more to the programme, which is currently fully funded by the federal government.

The government would continue to fully fund the benefits for states that have an error payment rate below 6%, but states with higher error rates would be on the hook for anywhere from 5% to 15% of the programme’s costs.

The change would start in 2028.

The Senate bill also adds work requirements for able-bodied Snap enrollees who do not have dependents.

The “no tax on tips” provision in the budget bill would mark a win for one of Trump’s promises during the campaign.

The Senate bill being considered by the House would allow individuals to deduct a certain amount of tip wages and overtime from their taxes. However, they propose gradually phasing out those benefits based on annual income, starting at $150,000 for individuals and $300,000 for joint filers.

It would expire in 2028.

The Senate legislation would also permanently increase a child tax credit to $2,200 – which is $300 less than what House lawmakers had eyed. The House version required both parents have a Social Security number, but the Senate OK’d a requirement of only one parent.

The upper chamber’s bill also proposes raising the debt ceiling by $5tn – more than the $4tn approved by the House last month. The debt ceiling is the limit on the amount of money the US government can borrow to pay its bills.

Lifting the debt limit allows the government to pay for programmes already approved by Congress.

One of the most notable divisions between House and Senate Republicans is the Senate’s proposal for clean energy tax breaks.

Although both call for an end to the Biden-era federal clean energy tax credits, Senate Republicans approved phasing them out more slowly.

For instance, the Senate has extended the runway for businesses that build wind and solar farms to still benefit from the tax credits. However, both the House and Senate version seek to deny the credits to companies whose supply chains may have ties to a “foreign entity of concern”, such China.

Companies that begin construction this year could qualify for the full tax break. That drops to 60% if they begin construction in 2026 and 20% if they begin in 2027. The credit would disappear in 2028.

The House version of the bill sought to end the tax breaks for those companies almost immediately.

Now that the bill has passed the House, its next stop is the president’s desk to be officially signed into law.

The White House says President Trump will sign it at a ceremony on 4 July at 17:00 EDT (22:00 BTS).

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reacted to the bill’s passing with a one word message on social media. “VICTORY!” she said, alongside an American flag image.

After the verdicts were delivered in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ trial in New York on Wednesday, emotions boiled over outside court in heated confrontations between fans and protesters who voiced opposing views about the outcome.

Some thought the rap star should have been found guilty on the more serious counts, not just the two lesser charges on which he was convicted.

But they were outnumbered by pro-Diddy influencers and fans who were chanting “free Diddy” and “let him go” and spraying each other in baby oil in celebration.

The jury’s mixed verdicts did not present a clear-cut result – but it was seen as a better-than-expected outcome for the star.

He still faces significant jail time and dozens of civil legal cases, though. His reputation will forever be tarnished by months of ugly allegations and revelations – and the two convictions.

But some observers believe that’s unlikely to stop him trying to mount a comeback.

As a songwriter, rapper, producer and record label impresario, Combs – formerly known as Puff Daddy – was one of the driving forces in hip-hop and R&B in the 1990s.

He launched the careers of Notorious BIG and Mary J Blige, signed acts such as Faith Evans, 112, Mase and Janelle Monae to his Bad Boy Records label, and worked with stars including Mariah Carey, Usher and Busta Rhymes.

He won three Grammy Awards as an artist and scored his biggest pop hit with I’ll Be Missing You, sampling The Police’s Every Breath You Take, in 1997 – his tribute after BIG’s murder.

Combs “was one of the most famous people in hip-hop”, says Los Angeles Times music writer August Brown.

“He was an incredibly important figure in evolving both that genre and the music industry as a whole into a commercial juggernaut.”

Like many at the peak of the music industry, he also threw lavish parties. But sordid details emerged during the legal cases, revealing a darker side.

These so-called “freak offs” were hotel sex encounters which could last for days, involving multiple male escorts, routine violence and copious amounts of drugs and baby oil.

The question for the jury was whether this was a criminal enterprise designed to force two alleged victims into sex against their will or whether, as Combs claimed, the women willingly took part.

The defence argued that these orgies were “kinky” but consensual – and that organising them was not criminal.

In the end, the jury agreed and he was found not guilty of the most serious charge of racketeering conspiracy, as well as two charges of sex trafficking.

“The jury was just unpersuaded that what amounted to an extremely baroque and violent and drug-stoked sex life on Diddy’s behalf amounted to a criminal organisation on the racketeering charge, or trafficking in the way that we understand it now,” Mr Brown told the BBC World Service.

“This isn’t to say that it wasn’t possible, but they just didn’t think it rose to ‘beyond a shadow of a doubt’.”

Combs was, however, convicted on two counts of transporting two former girlfriends, including singer Cassie, to participate in sex acts and prostitution.

He will face up to 10 years in jail for each charge when he’s sentenced in October. But the sentences are likely to be lower than the maximum and to run simultaneously, with the year he will have already spent in jail to be deducted. So it’s quite possible he could be free in several years.

His supporters will be waiting – but most people will be unwilling to accept a comeback, Mr Brown says.

“I cannot imagine any kind of redemption arc as far as him [remaining] as an artist or a music mogul in light of this.

“I think the public will remember him as an important figure whose name is now permanently associated with this very-difficult-to-process range of charges, even if he’s not been convicted on the worst of it.”

Alvin Blanco, content director of Hiphopwired.com, agrees that Combs is too tarnished to make a successful comeback. “He’s definitely going to try, but I think the damage is just too irreparable at this point.”

Mark Anthony Neal, professor of African American Studies at Duke University in North Carolina, also believes there’s “no doubt” the revelations have tarnished Combs’ legacy as the man who helped take hip-hop “from the ghettos to the mainstream of America to the global mainstream”.

However, his influence on music had diminished even before the allegations, says Jem Aswad, executive editor of music at Variety.

“He doesn’t really have much of a music career any more, and he hasn’t for about 15 years,” Mr Aswad told BBC News.

“It’s not that he was unpopular, although he wasn’t enormously popular recently – he just moved on to other businesses. He got into beverages, he got into apparel, he got into lots of other businesses.

“Anything he did in music over the last 15 years was almost just for fun. I think he’s released two, maybe three albums in that time period, and they just did OK, and frankly they just were OK.”

His stock was still pretty high, though. His last LP, The Love Album: Off The Grid, was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2024. The previous year, he was named a Global Icon at the MTV Awards.

And he wouldn’t be the first star to retain support despite facing allegations.

Michael Jackson was cleared of child abuse in court in 2005 but persuasive claims about him have persisted, and many people still wrestle with how to reconcile those with the brilliance of the King of Pop’s catalogue.

R&B star R. Kelly was jailed for 30 years in 2022 for racketeering and sex trafficking. He still has five million monthly listeners on Spotify at the last count.

Some in hip-hop may be willing to work with Combs. Kanye West last week released a song called Diddy Free – although Kanye himself is ostracised by large parts of the industry for making antisemitic and Nazi statements.

Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty, host of the BBC’s Diddy on Trial podcast, has seen the support outside court and suggests there may be a way back.

“We’ll see what happens with his career after this,” she told the BBC’s Newscast.

“I feel like he will be able to reclaim a top spot in hip-hop just because of the sheer amount of support we’ve seen online and here at the courthouse from his fans, and from people who feel he was being unjustly targeted by the federal government.

“He won’t be the first musician to be a convicted criminal who carries on having a music career, especially in hip-hop.”

For many, the details of the case will be hard to shake from the memory, though.

Angela Star, one of the content creators outside court on Wednesday, told BBC News that “his image is tainted, and when you think of Diddy now, you think of…” before finishing her point by holding up a bottle of baby oil.

A state-of-the-art British fighter jet stuck at an airport in India for nearly three weeks now has sparked curiosity and raised questions about how such a modern aircraft could get stranded for days in a foreign country.

The F-35B landed at Thiruvananthapuram airport in the southern state of Kerala on 14 June.

The aircraft was diverted there after it ran into bad weather during a sortie in the Indian ocean and was unable to return to HMS Prince of Wales, the Royal Navy’s flagship carrier.

It landed safely but it has since developed a technical snag and is unable to return to the carrier.

Since the jet’s landing, engineers from HMS Prince of Wales have assessed the aircraft, but the visiting teams have been unable to fix it so far.

On Thursday, the British High Commission said in a statement to the BBC: “The UK has accepted an offer to move the aircraft to the Maintenance Repair and Overhaul facility at the airport. It will be moved to the hangar once UK engineering teams arrive with specialist equipment, thereby ensuring there is minimal disruption to scheduled maintenance of other aircraft.

“The aircraft will return to active service once repairs and safety checks have been completed,” it added. “Ground teams continue to work closely with Indian authorities to ensure safety and security precautions are observed.”

Authorities at Thiruvananthapuram airport told the BBC they were expecting technicians from the UK to arrive on Saturday.

The $110m (£80m) jet is being guarded around the clock by six officers from the RAF.

Dr Sameer Patil, director of the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation in Mumbai, told the BBC the Royal Navy had only two options: “They can repair it and make it fly-worthy or they can fly it out in a bigger cargo plane such as a C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft.”

The case of the stranded jet has also been raised in the House of Commons.

On Monday, opposition Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty asked the government to clarify what was being done to secure it and return it to operational service, the UK Defence Journal reported.

“What steps are the government taking to recover the plane, how much longer will that take, and how will the government ensure the security of protected technologies on the jet while it is in the hangar and out of view?” he was quoted as saying.

The British armed forces minister, Luke Pollard, confirmed the aircraft remained under close UK control.

“We continue to work with our Indian friends who provided first-class support when the F-35B was unable to return to the carrier,” he said. “I am certain that the security of the jet is in good hands because Royal Air Force crew are with it at all times.”

F-35Bs are highly advanced stealth jets, built by Lockheed Martin, and are prized for their short take-off and vertical landing capability.

So images of the “lonely F-35B”, parked on the tarmac and soaked by the Kerala monsoon rains, have spawned memes on social media.

One viral post joked that the jet had been put up for sale at an online site at a hugely competitive price of $4m. The listing claimed the jet included features like “automatic parking, brand-new tyres, a new battery and an automatic gun to destroy traffic violators”.

One user on X said the jet deserved Indian citizenship as it had been in the country long enough, while another suggested that India should start charging rent and that the Kohinoor diamond would be the most appropriate payment.

On Wednesday, Kerala government’s tourism department also joined in the fun with a post on X that said “Kerala, the destination you’ll never want to leave.”

The post included an AI-generated photograph of an F-35B standing on the runway with coconut palm trees in the background. The text suggested that, like most visitors to the state described in tourism brochures as “God’s own country” for its scenic beauty, the jet too was finding it hard to leave.

Dr Patil says that each passing day that the jet remains stranded, “it adversely affects the image of the F-35Bs and the Royal Navy”.

“The jokes and memes and rumours and conspiracy theories are affecting the image and credibility of the British Royal Navy. The longer the jet stays stranded, the more disinformation will come out.”

The engineering issues “seem of a much more serious nature” than it was originally thought, he says.

But most militaries, he adds, prepare for “a worst-case scenario” – and it is one since a jet is stranded on foreign soil.

“Most militaries would have a standard operating procedure [SOP] on how to respond when something like this happens. So does the Royal Navy not have an SOP?”

The optics of this, he says, are really bad.

“If such a thing had happened in enemy territory, would they have taken this much time? This makes for very bad PR for a professional navy.”

Tens of thousands of passengers have been affected by a strike by French air traffic control staff, meaning cancelled flights in France have had a knock-on effect elsewhere in Europe, including the UK.

What are your rights if your journey has been disrupted and can you get your money back?

When flights are delayed or cancelled, airlines have a duty to look after you.

That includes providing meals and accommodation, if necessary, and getting you to your destination. The airline should organise putting you on an alternative flight, at no extra cost.

Additional losses – such as unused accommodation – might require a claim to a credit card provider, if that was the payment option used.

After that, a claim may need to go to your travel insurance provider. But there is no standard definition of what is covered.

While 94% of policies cover travel abandonment as standard, only 30% include wider travel disruption as standard, according to analysts Defaqto.

If your flight is covered by UK law, your airline must let you choose between either getting a refund or being booked on to an alternative flight.

That’s regardless of how far in advance the cancellation was made.

You can get your money back for any part of the ticket you have not used.

So, if you booked a return flight and the outbound leg is cancelled, you can get the full cost of the return ticket refunded.

If you still want to travel, your airline must find you an alternative flight.

If another airline is flying to your destination significantly sooner, or there are other suitable modes of transport, then you have a right to be booked on to that alternative transport instead.

If your flight was coming into the UK on a non-UK airline, then you should check the terms and conditions of your booking.

• How do I renew my UK passport and what is the 10-year rule?

Disruption caused by things like a fire, bad weather, strikes by airport or air traffic control staff, or other “extraordinary circumstances” does not entitle you to extra compensation.

However, in other circumstances – when it is considered to be the airline’s fault – you have a number of rights under UK law.

These apply as long as you are flying from a UK airport on any airline, arriving at a UK airport on an EU or UK airline, or arriving at an airport in the EU on a UK airline.

What you are entitled to depends on what caused the cancellation and how much notice you are given.

If your flight is cancelled with less than two weeks’ notice, you may be able to claim compensation based on the timings of the alternative flight you are offered.

The amount you are entitled to also depends on how far you were travelling:

• for flights under 1,500km, such as Glasgow to Amsterdam, you can claim up to £220 per person

• for flights of 1,500km to 3,500km, such as East Midlands to Marrakesh, you can claim up to £350 per person

• for flights over 3,500km, such as London to New York, you can claim up to £520 per person

If you are stuck abroad or at the airport because of a flight cancellation, airlines must also provide you with other assistance.

This includes:

• a reasonable amount of food and drink (often in the form of vouchers)

• a way for you to communicate (often by refunding the cost of calls)

• free accommodation, if you have to stay overnight to fly the next day

• transport to and from the accommodation

If your airline is unable to arrange assistance, you have the right to organise this yourself and claim back the cost later.

The Civil Aviation Authority advises people to keep receipts and not spend more than necessary.

• Civil Aviation Authority: Delays and cancellations

You are entitled to the same assistance as for a cancellation if your flight is delayed by more than two hours for a short-haul flight, three hours for a medium-haul, or four hours for a long-haul.

If you are delayed by more than five hours and no longer want to travel, you can get a full refund.

If you booked a package holiday with a company that is an ABTA member and your flight is cancelled, you are entitled to a suitable alternative flight or a full refund.

• ABTA: What are your rights?

Airlines will not refund you for loss of earnings.

Travel insurance policies will not usually cover loss of earnings either.

If you think you’re going to be late back at work because of flight delays, you have a responsibility to let your employer know, legal experts say.

You should agree with your employer how to deal with the absence – for example, by using annual leave or taking unpaid leave.

Employers have no legal obligation to pay employees who are absent in this situation, experts say, unless it is stated in their contract.

An American teenager has been detained on an Antarctic island, creating a major delay in his attempt to fly his small plane to every continent that is being followed online by more than a million people.

Chilean authorities stopped Ethan Guo, 19, after he submitted a false flight plan, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

His deviation from that plan in the air had “activated alert protocols”, Chile’s General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics said in a statement.

Mr Guo was taken into custody after landing on King George Island, home to a number of international research stations and their staffs, where July temperatures typically stay well below freezing.

Mr Guo’s small Cessna 182 aircraft took off from the city of Punta Arenas, near the southernmost point of Chile, and flew to the island off the Atlantic coast, which is claimed by Chile. It is named after England’s King George III.

He was detained at Teniente R. Marsh airport.

Mr Guo had allegedly submitted a plan to fly over Punta Arenas, but not beyond that, according to regional prosecutor Cristian Cristoso Rifo, as cited by CBS.

He has been charged for violating two articles of the country’s aeronautical code, including one that could lead to short-term imprisonment.

In the statement, Chile’s General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics said Mr Guo had also allegedly violated the Antarctic Treaty, which regulates international relations with respect to the uninhabited continent.

Mr Guo posted an update on X on Wednesday, saying: “I’m alive everyone, I’ll make an update soon.”

Ethan Guo has flown his Cessna aircraft to all the other six continents in his journey spanning more than 140 days, according to his social media feed.

He is hoping to become the first pilot to complete solo flights across all seven continents in the Cessna aircraft, and simultaneously aims to raise $1m (£ 731,000) for cancer research at the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Pop star Katy Perry and actor Orlando Bloom have officially confirmed they have split, US media outlets say, six years after getting engaged.

The couple have been romantically linked since 2016 and have a four-year-old daughter.

In a joint statement issued to US media outlets, representatives for the couple said the pair “have been shifting their relationship over the past many months to focus on co-parenting”.

“They will continue to be seen together as a family, as their shared priority is – and always will be – raising their daughter with love, stability and mutual respect.”

The statement was being released due to the “abundance of recent interest and conversation” surrounding their relationship, it added.

The pop star, 40, and the 48-year-old actor split in 2017 but got back together shortly afterwards. They got engaged on Valentine’s Day in 2019.

A year later Perry revealed she was pregnant in the music video for her single Never Worn White.

Their daughter Daisy Dove was born later that year, with Unicef announcing the news on its Instagram account. Both Perry and Bloom are goodwill ambassadors for the United Nations agency that helps children.

The couple’s split follows a tough year for Perry. Her most recent album, 143, and its lead single Woman’s World, were not as well received as her previous music.

The singer is currently on tour, but ticket sales have reportedly been slower than earlier in her career.

Perry and a group of other female celebrities also faced backlash after their Blue Origin space trip in in April, a reaction which Perry said left her feeling “battered and bruised”.

The US singer, who was previously married to Russell Brand, shot to fame in 2008 with the single I Kissed A Girl, which reached number one in the UK.

Her hits since then have included Roar, California Gurls, Firework and Never Really Over.

Bloom was previously married to Australian model Miranda Kerr, and they have a son, 14-year-old Flynn.

The British actor has starred in Pirates Of The Caribbean, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

Experts believe pieces of a small meteor that lit up the night sky over parts of the UK on Thursday have landed on and around Ben Nevis.

Dozens of people in the west Highlands reported an orange glow and a “bang”, and the meteor was captured streaking across the sky on doorbell security cameras.

UK Meteor Network (UKMON), which played a part finding Gloucestershire’s Winchcombe meteorite in 2021, said the small meteor had travelled from between Mars and Jupiter.

UKMON said it was observed descending to about 12 miles (20km) above the ground and pieces could be scattered across a vast area between lochs Treig and Etricht.

The network, which started in 2012, involves more than 200 amateur astronomers.

The group uses observations, captured footage and computer programs to calculate orbits and trajectories to figure out the location of meteorites.

Meteorite is the term for a piece of meteor that hits the ground, after it survives coming through the atmosphere.

The sightings of the small meteor were made after midnight.

UKMON said potential locations for the meteorites could be around Ben Nevis – the UK’s highest mountain.

Toni Hanlon told BBC Scotland News she felt her house in nearby Fort William shake.

She added: “My husband and kids slept through it though.”

Ray Whyte was staying in a static caravan with his dog Rocky while working in Glen Nevis near Ben Nevis when he was startled by the meteor.

He said: “I couldn’t sleep after a hard day so got up for a coffee.

“Me and the dog jumped out our skin with the bang.

“I missed the light as the curtains were drawn, but the whole static shook like it had been used as a drum or a vehicle had hit the side.

“Left us both pretty scared and confused.”

UKMON said the meteor was travelling at about 12,427mph (20,000kmh) when it entered Earth’s atmosphere.

It was seen burning as brightly as a full moon before “going dark”.

Wind and other weather data, as well as any information gathered by the UK Fireball Alliance, is used to help work out where meteorites land.

UKMON has appealed to hillwalkers to keep a lookout for pieces of meteorite and has advice on its website on how to identify the space rock.

But the organisation said finding meteorites would be difficult in a vast area of mountains and glens.

The Winchcombe meteorite was the first to be found on UK soil for 30 years.

Experts said the rock travelled for millions of years before reaching Earth.

A meteorite will typically resemble a charcoal briquette and have a very dark black or brown colour and a smooth, rounded surface.

It will usually have a glossy crust, which may have broken away in places, and sometimes the interior will be lighter in colour.

The UK Fireball Alliance (UKFAII) has published a guide of what to do if you find one.

You should take photos of the rock, ideally with a ruler in the photo, and avoid touching it with bare hands.

Use Google maps to document the location – longitude and latitude.

Place it in a clean, dry sandwich bag or tin foil, ideally using clean tongs.

Close and seal the bag and place this in another sandwich bag to keep it dry. Report the sample to the UK Fireball Alliance.

A band called The Velvet Sundown has had its tracks played hundreds of thousands of times on Spotify since appearing several weeks ago – without anyone knowing for sure what it is.

The band has a verified page on the music streaming platform, with more than 850,000 monthly listeners.

However, none of the four named musicians in the band have given any interviews or appear to have individual social media accounts, and there are no records of any live performances.

It has prompted accusations that they and their music are artificial intelligence (AI) generated – something the band denies on social media.

It did not respond to the BBC’s request for an interview.

Further confusing the story, Rolling Stone US reported that the band’s spokesman had admitted The Velvet Sundown’s music had been generated using an AI tool called Suno – only for the magazine to report shortly afterwards that the spokesman was himself a hoax.

The man, who goes by the name of Andrew Frelon, said it was a deliberate plot to hoax the media.

A statement on the band’s Spotify page says that the group has “no affiliation with this individual, nor any evidence confirming their identity or existence.”

An account on X which claims to be the band’s official channel, is also fake, it added.

Professor Gina Neff, from the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge, says it points to a problem which affects much more than just one band.

“Whether this is an AI band may not seem important,” she told me.

“But increasingly, our collective grip on reality seems shaky. The Velvet Sundown story plays into the fears we have of losing control of AI and shows how important protecting online information is.”

The Velvet Sundown’s indie ballads, with guitar music and male vocals, is fairly easy, if bland, on the ear.

With lyrics such as “eyes like film in faded light, dreams walk barefoot into the night” and “ash and velvet, smoke and flame, calling out in freedom’s name”, it could all feasibly be either AI-generated or penned by humans.

Deezer, a rival music streaming platform, said that its AI detector tool had flagged the music as being “100% AI generated”.

Spotify did not respond to a request for comment.

CEO Daniel Ek has previously told the BBC that he did not intend to ban AI-generated music from the platform but added that he did not agree with using the tech to mimic real artists.

Many in the creative arts industry are deeply concerned about the impact of AI.

Hundreds of musicians have protested about the use of their content in the training of AI tools to create music.

Sir Elton John and Dua Lipa joined many members of the House of Lords in fighting for the UK government to include AI and copyright in a new set of laws regarding data use and access. Their campaign was ultimately unsuccessful.

The government says it is carrying out a separate consultation about AI and copyright.

Ed Newton Rex, founder of Fairly Trained, which campaigns for AI firms to respect creators’ rights, said the questions around the The Velvet Sundown bore out musicians’ concerns.

“This is exactly what artists have been worried about, it’s theft dressed up as competition,” he said.

“AI companies steal artists’ work to build their products, then flood the market with knock-offs, meaning less money goes to human musicians.”

Sophie Jones, chief strategy officer at BPI, said it illustrated the need for government action.

“This discussion reinforces many of the concerns raised by the music industry and artist community in recent months on the critical issues of AI and music rights.

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The White House will host a UFC bout next year as part of events to mark 250 years of American independence, US President Donald Trump has announced.

The event will be a “championship fight” with an audience of 20,000-25,000, Trump told a crowd in Iowa on Thursday.

The president, who is a friend of UFC president Dana White, said: “We are going to have some incredible events, some professional events, some amateur events.”

Trump has attended several UFC events, including UFC 316 in Newark, New Jersey, last month, where he was pictured watching a fight with White.

Addressing the crowd during an appearance at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, Trump said: “Does anybody watch UFC? The great Dana White? We’re going to have a UFC fight. We’re going to have a UFC fight – think of this – on the grounds of the White House. We have a lot of land there.”

• UFC boss to promote Trump’s ‘fighter’ image at RNC finale
• Listen: Donald Trump, UFC and WWE: The love affair

Following Trump’s announcement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the plans on X, writing: “It’s going to be EPIC!”

Trump’s links to UFC date back more than 20 years. In 2001, he hosted a UFC fight at Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City when White was struggling to find a venue.

White has backed the president’s political career from the beginning, endorsing his presidential bid in 2016, calling Trump a “fighter”.

Following a failed assassination attempt on Trump last year, White described Trump as a “tough guy” and “the legitimate, ultimate, American badass of all time”.

Trump suggested the UFC event would be one of many to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence on 4 July next year.

He said: “Every one of our national parks, battlefields and historic sites are going to have special events in honour of America250.”

Mali’s military leader Gen Assimi Goïta has been granted a five-year presidential term by the transitional parliament, which is renewable without elections.

The junta leader, who has seized power twice, had promised the return of democracy last year, but it never materialised.

The bill granting his new mandate said it could be renewed “as many times as necessary” and until Mali was “pacified”.

It clears Gen Goïta to lead the West African country until at least 2030, with many fearing the move could lead to the repression of the opposition or dissenting opinions.

The 41-year-old military leader was named transitional president after his last coup in 2021.

At the time he promised to hold elections the following year – but has since reneged, in a blow to efforts to restore multi-party rule.

• The region with more ‘terror deaths’ than rest of world combined
• How ‘blood gold’ is fuelling conflict in West Africa
• Mali signs trade deal with Russia as ties strengthen

The transitional bill was on Thursday unanimously approved by 131 members of the National Transitional Council, which is composed of 147 legislators.

The council had already adopted the measure in April.

The president of the legislative body, Malick Diaw, called the development “a major step forward in the rebuilding of Mali”.

“The adoption of this text is in accordance with the popular will,” he said.

The bill also allows the transitional president, government and legislative members to stand in presidential and general elections.

In May, the junta banned all political parties in the country amid a growing crackdown on dissent since the army seized power.

The military government has been trying to quell jihadist violence unleashed by groups linked with the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda.

On Tuesday, jihadist fighters launched a series of simultaneous attacks on military posts across numerous towns in Mali – the third major assault on the army over the last month.

Since taking power, the junta leader has formed an alliance with coup leaders in neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger, pivoting the region towards Russia after cutting ties with former colonial power France.

Gen Goïta has also withdrawn Mali from the regional grouping Ecowas over its demands to restore democratic rule. Burkina Faso and Niger have also left the grouping.

He first staged a coup in August 2020 overthrowing then-President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta after huge anti-government protests against his rule and his handling of the jihadist insurgency.

However, these attacks have continued and even intensified since he took power.

Gen Goïta handed power to an interim government that was to oversee the transition to elections within 18 months.

He had sought to lead that government, but Ecowas insisted on a civilian leader.

Unhappy with the performance of the civilian transitional arrangement, he seized power again in May 2021.

• Why Burkina Faso’s junta leader has captured hearts and minds around the world
• Three military-run states leave West African bloc – what will change?
• Why young Africans are celebrating military takeovers

A hugely popular K-pop musical animation has seen songs by its fictional bands zoom to the top 10 of music charts, rivalling the success of real-life K-pop groups.

KPop Demon Hunters is currently the most streamed movie on Netflix globally, clocking up more than 33 million views in just two weeks.

The song Your Idol by a boy band in the film, Saja Boys, has reached number two on Spotify in the US. This makes them the highest charting male K-pop group in US Spotify history, according to reports – surpassing kings of K-pop BTS.

Golden, a track by the film’s fictional girl group Huntr/x, hit number three on the chart, equalling Blackpink as the highest-charting female K-pop group.

The film’s soundtrack shot into the top 10 of the Billboard 200 in the US, making it the highest debut for a soundtrack so far this year.

Golden is being released as an official single by Republic Records, and Netflix is submitting it for awards consideration, according to Variety.

KPop Demon Hunters follows the adventures of superstar band Huntr/x.

The three members of the all-female group – Rumi, Mira, and Zoey – are secretly “badass demon hunters” who protect their legions of fans from supernatural dangers.

During Huntr/x concerts, their music is used to protect the human world from the forces of darkness.

But rival band the Saja Boys, who are demons in disguise, are their arch enemies.

Jinu, Abbs, Romance, Baby, and Mystery have been sent by demon king Gwi-ma to steal the souls of Huntr/x’s fans.

KPop Demon Hunters, which was produced by Sony Pictures Animation, was directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans and was based on a story by Ms Kang.

Its success should perhaps not be too surprising as top producers including Teddy Park, who has worked with Blackpink, and BTS collaborator Lindgren were part of the team that created the album.

The popularity of KPop Demon Hunters comes as South Korean mega-stars BTS are set to make their highly-anticipated comeback.

The seven-strong group announced this week that it will head to the US this month to start working on new music.

The band is due to release a new album and go on tour next year after all of its members completed their mandatory military service.

Meanwhile, Blackpink is set to start its first all-stadium world tour on 5 July.

The band, which has not released an album together since 2022’s Born Pink, is due to reveal a new song at the start of the Deadline World Tour.

A pall of acrid smoke hung over Kyiv on Friday morning following a night of intensive Russian strikes that hit almost every district of the Ukrainian capital, injuring 23 people, officials say.

The hours of darkness were punctuated by the staccato of air defence guns, buzz of drones and large explosions. Ukraine said Russia fired a record 550 drones and 11 missiles.

The strikes came hours after a call between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, after which Trump said he was “disappointed” that Putin was not ready to end the war against Ukraine.

Moscow says war will continue for as long as it is necessary to reach its objectives.

Russia’s overnight air strikes broke another record, Ukraine’s air force said, with 72 of the 550 drones penetrating air defences – up from a previous record of 537 launched last Saturday night.

Air raid alerts sounded for more than eight hours asseveral waves of attacks struck Kyiv, the “main target of the strikes”, the air force said on the messaging app Telegram.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned one of the most “demonstratively significant and cynical” attacks of the war, describing a “harsh, sleepless night”.

Noting that it came directly after Putin’s call with Trump, Zelensky added in a post on Telegram: “Russia once again demonstrates that it does not intend to end the war”.

He called on international allies – particularly the US – to increase pressure on Moscow and impose greater sanctions.

Footage shared on social media by Ukraine’s state emergency service showed firefighters battling to extinguish fires in Kyiv after Russia’s large-scale overnight attack.

According to Ukrainian authorities, railway infrastructure was damaged and schools, buildings and cars set ablaze across the capital.

Poland’s Foreign Minister, Radosław Sikorski, said the Polish consulate had also been damaged.

The Russian strikes also hit the regions of Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Chernihiv.

Russia’s defence ministry said the “massive strike” had been launched in response to the “terrorist acts of the Kyiv regime”.

The acting governor of Russia’s southern Rostov region said a woman was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a village not far from the border on Friday night.

Friday’s attacks were the latest in a string of major Russian air strikes on Ukraine that have intensified in recent weeks as ceasefire talks have largely stalled.

War in Ukraine has been raging for more than three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Following his conversation with Putin on Thursday, Trump said that “no progress” to end the fighting had been made.

“I’m very disappointed with the conversation I had today with President Putin, because I don’t think he’s there, and I’m very disappointed,” Trump said.

“I’m just saying I don’t think he’s looking to stop, and that’s too bad.”

The Kremlin reiterated that it would continue to seek to remove “the root causes of the war in Ukraine”. Putin has sought to return Ukraine to Russia’s sphere of influence and said last week that “the whole of Ukraine is ours”.

Responding to Trump’s comments on Friday, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the BBC that as long as it was not possible to secure Russia’s aims through political-diplomatic means, “we are continuing our Special Military Operation” – Russia’s preferred name for the invasion.

Meanwhile, President Zelensky said that he hoped to speak to Trump about the supply of US weapons after a decision in Washington to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine, including those used for air defences.

Kyiv has warned that the move would impede its ability to defend Ukraine against escalating airstrikes and Russian advances on the frontlines.

Speaking to reporters, Trump said “we’re giving weapons” and “we haven’t” completely paused the flow of weapons. He blamed former President Joe Biden for “emptying out our whole country giving them weapons, and we have to make sure that we have enough for ourselves”.

An American teenager has been detained on an Antarctic island, creating a major delay in his attempt to fly his small plane to every continent that is being followed online by more than a million people.

Chilean authorities stopped Ethan Guo, 19, after he submitted a false flight plan, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

His deviation from that plan in the air had “activated alert protocols”, Chile’s General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics said in a statement.

Mr Guo was taken into custody after landing on King George Island, home to a number of international research stations and their staffs, where July temperatures typically stay well below freezing.

Mr Guo’s small Cessna 182 aircraft took off from the city of Punta Arenas, near the southernmost point of Chile, and flew to the island off the Atlantic coast, which is claimed by Chile. It is named after England’s King George III.

He was detained at Teniente R. Marsh airport.

Mr Guo had allegedly submitted a plan to fly over Punta Arenas, but not beyond that, according to regional prosecutor Cristian Cristoso Rifo, as cited by CBS.

He has been charged for violating two articles of the country’s aeronautical code, including one that could lead to short-term imprisonment.

In the statement, Chile’s General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics said Mr Guo had also allegedly violated the Antarctic Treaty, which regulates international relations with respect to the uninhabited continent.

Mr Guo posted an update on X on Wednesday, saying: “I’m alive everyone, I’ll make an update soon.”

Ethan Guo has flown his Cessna aircraft to all the other six continents in his journey spanning more than 140 days, according to his social media feed.

He is hoping to become the first pilot to complete solo flights across all seven continents in the Cessna aircraft, and simultaneously aims to raise $1m (£ 731,000) for cancer research at the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Two female tourists, including a British pensioner, have been killed by a charging elephant while on safari in Zambia, police have told the BBC.

Easton Taylor, 68, from the UK and 67-year-old Alison Taylor from New Zealand were attacked by a female elephant that was with a calf at the South Luangwa National Park, said local police chief Robertson Mweemba.

The two tourists were trampled to death by the nursing elephant after efforts by tour guides to stop it by firing shots failed. Both women died at the scene, he said.

The British Foreign Office said it was supporting the family of a British woman who had died in Zambia and was liaising with local authorities.

Mr Mweemba said the two women were part of a guided safari group who were walking in the park on Thursday when the elephant charged towards them at high speed.

The two tourists had stayed for four days at the Big Lagoon Camp, about 600 km (370 miles) from the capital, Lusaka, where the attack happened.

“They were moving to other camps when the elephant charged from behind. We are really sorry that we have lost our visitors,” Mr Mweemba said.

“They both died on the spot,” he added.

It is not clear whether the pair were related.

Female elephants are very protective of their calves and Zambian authorities have previously called on tourists to exercise extreme caution while observing wildlife around the country.

“It is very difficult to control the animals and tourists like feeding them,” Mr Mweemba said.

Last year, two American tourists were killed in separate attacks by elephants in the southern African country. Both cases involved elderly tourists who were in a safari vehicle when they were attacked.

• Akon’s futuristic $6bn city project in Senegal abandoned, BBC told
• ‘I’m afraid that elephants will kill me’
• Elephant corridors – where locals take care to cross
• Zimbabwe’s dilemma over deadly elephant attacks

A state-of-the-art British fighter jet stuck at an airport in India for nearly three weeks now has sparked curiosity and raised questions about how such a modern aircraft could get stranded for days in a foreign country.

The F-35B landed at Thiruvananthapuram airport in the southern state of Kerala on 14 June.

The aircraft was diverted there after it ran into bad weather during a sortie in the Indian ocean and was unable to return to HMS Prince of Wales, the Royal Navy’s flagship carrier.

It landed safely but it has since developed a technical snag and is unable to return to the carrier.

Since the jet’s landing, engineers from HMS Prince of Wales have assessed the aircraft, but the visiting teams have been unable to fix it so far.

On Thursday, the British High Commission said in a statement to the BBC: “The UK has accepted an offer to move the aircraft to the Maintenance Repair and Overhaul facility at the airport. It will be moved to the hangar once UK engineering teams arrive with specialist equipment, thereby ensuring there is minimal disruption to scheduled maintenance of other aircraft.

“The aircraft will return to active service once repairs and safety checks have been completed,” it added. “Ground teams continue to work closely with Indian authorities to ensure safety and security precautions are observed.”

Authorities at Thiruvananthapuram airport told the BBC they were expecting technicians from the UK to arrive on Saturday.

The $110m (£80m) jet is being guarded around the clock by six officers from the RAF.

Dr Sameer Patil, director of the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation in Mumbai, told the BBC the Royal Navy had only two options: “They can repair it and make it fly-worthy or they can fly it out in a bigger cargo plane such as a C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft.”

The case of the stranded jet has also been raised in the House of Commons.

On Monday, opposition Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty asked the government to clarify what was being done to secure it and return it to operational service, the UK Defence Journal reported.

“What steps are the government taking to recover the plane, how much longer will that take, and how will the government ensure the security of protected technologies on the jet while it is in the hangar and out of view?” he was quoted as saying.

The British armed forces minister, Luke Pollard, confirmed the aircraft remained under close UK control.

“We continue to work with our Indian friends who provided first-class support when the F-35B was unable to return to the carrier,” he said. “I am certain that the security of the jet is in good hands because Royal Air Force crew are with it at all times.”

F-35Bs are highly advanced stealth jets, built by Lockheed Martin, and are prized for their short take-off and vertical landing capability.

So images of the “lonely F-35B”, parked on the tarmac and soaked by the Kerala monsoon rains, have spawned memes on social media.

One viral post joked that the jet had been put up for sale at an online site at a hugely competitive price of $4m. The listing claimed the jet included features like “automatic parking, brand-new tyres, a new battery and an automatic gun to destroy traffic violators”.

One user on X said the jet deserved Indian citizenship as it had been in the country long enough, while another suggested that India should start charging rent and that the Kohinoor diamond would be the most appropriate payment.

On Wednesday, Kerala government’s tourism department also joined in the fun with a post on X that said “Kerala, the destination you’ll never want to leave.”

The post included an AI-generated photograph of an F-35B standing on the runway with coconut palm trees in the background. The text suggested that, like most visitors to the state described in tourism brochures as “God’s own country” for its scenic beauty, the jet too was finding it hard to leave.

Dr Patil says that each passing day that the jet remains stranded, “it adversely affects the image of the F-35Bs and the Royal Navy”.

“The jokes and memes and rumours and conspiracy theories are affecting the image and credibility of the British Royal Navy. The longer the jet stays stranded, the more disinformation will come out.”

The engineering issues “seem of a much more serious nature” than it was originally thought, he says.

But most militaries, he adds, prepare for “a worst-case scenario” – and it is one since a jet is stranded on foreign soil.

“Most militaries would have a standard operating procedure [SOP] on how to respond when something like this happens. So does the Royal Navy not have an SOP?”

The optics of this, he says, are really bad.

“If such a thing had happened in enemy territory, would they have taken this much time? This makes for very bad PR for a professional navy.”

Donald Trump has his first major legislative victory of his second presidential term.

The “big, beautiful bill”, as he calls it, is a sprawling package that includes many key pieces of his agenda – delivering on promises he made on the campaign trail.

It also, however, contains the seeds of political peril for the president and his party.

That Trump and his team were able to shepherd the legislation through Congress despite narrow majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate is no small achievement.

His success required him and his allies to win over budget hawks within his Republican Party who were intent on slashing government spending, as well as centrists who were wary of cuts to social programmes.

When this congressional session started in January, there were doubts about whether House Republicans could even agree to return Congressman Mike Johnson to the speaker’s chair, let alone agree on major pieces of legislation.

Agree they did, however – as did Republicans in the Senate, a notoriously unwieldy chamber.

• Congress passes Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’
• A look at the key items in the legislation
• BBC Verify: Fact-checking three claims about the bill

The spending package approved by lawmakers directs about $150bn (£110bn) in new spending for border security, detention centres and immigration enforcement officers. Another $150bn is allocated for military expenditures, including the president’s “gold dome” missile defence programme.

The really big numbers, however, are in the tax cuts in this legislation. They amount to more than $4.5tn over 10 years.

Some of these are cuts that were first enacted in Trump’s first term, and were set to expire before the bill makes them permanent. Others, like ending taxes on tips and overtime, where 2024 campaign promises that are implemented by will end in 2028.

All this adds up to massive new debt for the US. The White House contends that the tax cuts will spur economic growth that will generate sufficient new revenue, when taken alongside tariff collections.

But outside projections suggest that this legislation will add more than $3tn in new US debt.

As critics like Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky have pointed out, the legislation raises the amount of new debt the federal government can issue by $5tn – a step that would not be necessary if the White House truly believed their budget projections.

Paul and others like tech multibillionaire Elon Musk have warned that this massive amount of debt will be growing burden on the federal government, as interest payments crowd out other spending and drive up interest rates. A fiscal reckoning is coming, they warn.

Another senator who voted against the legislation, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, had a different warning for Trump and his party. In a fiery speech on the floor of the chamber, he accused the president of breaking a promise to those who supported him – citing the bill’s cuts worth approximately $1tn to Medicaid, a government-run health insurance programme for low-income Americans.

“Republicans are about to make a mistake on healthcare and betray a promise,” he said, declaring that more than 660,000 people in North Carolina would be “pushed off” Medicaid.

A year after Trump made inroads with working-class Americans, including minority voters who traditionally have supported opposing Democrats, his legislation will cause nearly 12 million Americans to lose Medicaid coverage in the next 10 years, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

Democrats are already preparing an onslaught of attacks against Republicans for what they say is legislation that cuts social service in order to provide tax cuts to wealthier Americans.

Although those cuts won’t come into effect until after next year’s congressional midterm elections, Democrats will try to remind American voters of the consequences the decisions Republicans made over the past few weeks.

Trump is preparing what should be a celebratory bill signing ceremony on 4 July – American Independence Day – and will tout his ability to govern not just through executive order, but also through enacting new law.

But the fight to define the benefits – and consequences – of this bill is just beginning.

A former security contractor for Gaza’s controversial new Israel- and US-backed aid distribution sites has told the BBC that he witnessed colleagues opening fire several times on hungry Palestinians who had posed no threat, including with machine guns.

On one occasion, he said, a guard had opened fire from a watchtower with a machine gun because a group of women, children and elderly people was moving too slowly away from the site.

When asked to respond the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said the allegations were categorically false.

They referred us to a statement saying that no civilians ever came under fire at the GHF distribution sites.

The GHF began its operations in Gaza at the end of May, distributing limited aid from several sites in southern and central Gaza. That followed an 11-week total blockade of Gaza by Israel during which no food entered the territory.

The system has been widely criticised for forcing vast numbers of people to walk through active combat zones to a handful of sites. Since the GHF started up, Israeli forces have killed more than 400 Palestinians trying to retrieve food aid from its sites, the UN and local doctors say. Israel says the new distribution system stops aid going to Hamas.

Continuing his description of the incident at one of the GHF sites – in which he said guards fired on a group of Palestinians – the former contractor said: “As that happened, another contractor on location, standing on the berm overlooking the exit, opened up with 15 to 20 shots of repetitive weapons fire at the crowd.

“A Palestinian man dropped to the ground motionless. And then the other contractor who was standing there was like, ‘damn, I think you got one’. And then they laughed about it.”

The contractor, who spoke to us on condition of anonymity, said GHF managers had brushed off his report as a coincidence, suggesting that the Palestinian man could have “tripped” or been “tired and passed out”.

The GHF claimed the man who made these allegations is a “disgruntled former contractor” who they had terminated for misconduct, which he denies. He showed us evidence that he left the post on good terms.

The man we spoke to, who said he had worked at all four of the GHF distribution sites, described a culture of impunity with few rules or controls.

He said contractors were given no clear rules of engagement or standard operating procedures, and were told by one team leader: “if you feel threatened, shoot – shoot to kill and ask questions later”.

The culture in the company, he said, felt like “we’re going into Gaza so it’s no rules. Do what you want.”

“If a Palestinian is walking away from the site and not demonstrating any hostile intent, and we’re shooting warning shots at them regardless, we are wrong, we are criminally negligent,” he told me.

He told us that each site had CCTV monitoring the activity in the area, and GHF insistence that no one there had been hurt or shot at was “an absolute bare-faced lie”.

GHF said that gunfire heard in footage shared with the BBC was coming from Israeli forces.

Team leaders referred to Gazans as “zombie hordes”, the former contractor said, “insinuating that these people have no value.”

The man also said Palestinians were coming to harm in other ways at GHF sites, for example by being hit by debris from stun grenades, being sprayed with mace or being pushed by the crowds into razor wire.

He said he had witnessed several occasions in which Palestinians appeared to have been seriously hurt, including one man who had a full can of pepper spray in his face, and a woman who he said was hit with the metal part of a stun grenade, improperly fired into a crowd.

“This metal piece hit her directly in the head and she dropped to the ground, not moving,” he said. “I don’t know if she was dead. I know for a fact she was unconscious and completely limp.”

Earlier this week more than 170 charities and other NGOs called for the GHF to be shut down. The organisations, including Oxfam and Save the Children, say Israeli forces and armed groups “routinely” open fire on Palestinians seeking aid.

Israel denies its soldiers deliberately shoot at aid recipients and says the GHF’s system provides direct assistance to people who need it, bypassing Hamas interference.

The GHF says it had delivered more than 52 million meals in five weeks and that other organisations “stand by helplessly as their aid is looted”.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 57,130 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Plans for a futuristic city in Senegal dreamt up by the singer Akon have been scrapped and instead he will work on something more realistic, officials say.

“The Akon City project no longer exists,” Serigne Mamadou Mboup, the head of Senegal’s tourism development body, Sapco, told the BBC.

“Fortunately, an agreement has been reached between Sapco and the entrepreneur Alioune Badara Thiam [aka Akon]. What he’s preparing with us is a realistic project, which Sapco will fully support.”

Known for his string of noughties chart hits, Akon – who was born in the US but partly raised in Senegal – announced two ambitious projects in 2018 that were supposed to represent the future of African society.

The first was Akon City – reportedly costed at $6bn (£5bn). It was to run on the second initiative – a brand new cryptocurrency called Akoin.

Initial designs for Akon City, with its boldly curvaceous skyscrapers, were compared by commentators to the awe-inspiring fictional city of Wakanda in Marvel’s Black Panther films and comic books.

But after five years of setbacks, the 800-hectare site in Mbodiène – about 100km (60 miles) south of the capital, Dakar – remains mostly empty. The only structure is an incomplete reception building. There are no roads, no housing, no power grid.

“We were promised jobs and development,” one local resident told the BBC. “Instead, nothing has changed.”

Meanwhile the star’s Akoin cryptocurrency has struggled to repay its investors over the years, with Akon himself conceding: “It wasn’t being managed properly – I take full responsibility for that.”

There had also been questions over whether it would even be legal for Akoin to operate as the primary payment method for would-be residents of Akon City. Senegal uses the CFA franc, which is regulated and issued by the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), and like many central banks has expressed opposition to cryptocurrency.

The plans for Akon City had been sweeping.

Phase one alone was to include a hospital, a shopping mall, a school, a police station, a waste centre, and a solar plant – all by the end of 2023.

Sitting on Senegal’s Atlantic Coast, Akon’s high-tech, eco-friendly city was supposed to run entirely on renewable energy.

But despite Akon’s insistence in a 2022 BBC interview that the project was “100,000% moving”, no significant construction followed the initial launch ceremony.

Now the Senegalese government has confirmed what many suspected – the project had stalled beyond recovery. Officials cited a lack of funding and halted construction efforts as key reasons for the decision.

Although Akon City as it was originally imagined has been shelved, the government says it is now working with Akon on a more “realistic” development project for the same site.

The land near Mbodiène remains of high strategic value, especially with the 2026 Youth Olympic Games approaching and increased tourism activity expected.

• Akon’s Wakanda, grazing goats and a crumbling crypto dream
• Born in France but searching for a future in Africa
• US basketball training for Senegal cancelled after visas rejected
• Senegal starts producing oil as president promises benefits

Budget airline Ryanair is planning to increase its “personal bag” size by 20% as the EU brings in a new standard.

Passengers will be allowed to take an item such as a handbag or laptop bag measuring up to 40cm x 30cm x 20cm in the cabin without paying an extra fee. It should weigh less than 10kg, and fit “under the seat in front you.”

The new size represents a 20% increase in volume from the current maximum dimensions.

This will mean that Ryanair accepts free bags one third bigger than the new EU minimum size limit.

Ryanair said the new free bag size would come into effect in the coming weeks as its bag size measuring devices were adjusted to the new standard.

Its current maximum bag size is 40cm x 25cm x 20cm, which already has a greater volume than the new European standard of 40cm x 30cm x 15cm.

Ryanair declined to say why it was giving passengers a larger carry-on bag allowance.

The size is still less generous than rival budget airline Easyjet, which allows a free underseat bag of 45cm x 36cm x 20cm (including wheels and handles) weighing up to 10kg.

Wizz Air allows one cabin bag as big as Ryanair’s new limits – 40cm x 30cm x 20cm, with the same weight limit of 10kg.

BA has a slightly smaller limit for an under-seat laptop bag or handbag of 40cm x 30cm x 15cm, but passengers are allowed to take a larger cabin bag as well free of charge, subject to a maximum weight of 23kg.

The EU has been working with airlines to agree a minimum free bag size, so that frequent travellers can purchase one piece of luggage and be confident it would be accepted by multiple airlines.

The rule applies to airlines based in the EU – which includes Easyjet, Ryanair and Wizz Air – but airlines are of course free to accept larger bags if they choose.

Confusion about the different minimum sizes has caused problems for passengers, who have sometimes been faced with unexpected extra fees when airlines said their bags didn’t match the specified dimensions.

Last month the transport committee of the European parliament voted to give passengers the right to an extra piece of free hand luggage weighing up to 7kg. The proposed rule would still have to be passed by the wider European parliament.

Passengers should confirm baggage rules with their airlines directly.

Russia has become the first country to formally recognise the Taliban government in Afghanistan, sparking outrage from opposition figures.

The decision marks a major milestone for the Taliban almost four years after they swept into Kabul and took power.

Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said he hoped it would serve as an example to other countries, which have been reluctant to recognise a regime which implements a version of Sharia law along with severe restrictions on women and girls.

Others have decried the move, with former Afghan politician Fawzia Koofi saying “any move by any country to normalise relations with the Taliban will not bring peace it will legitimise impunity”.

Koofi went on to warn “such steps risk endangering not just the people of Afghanistan, but global security”.

Meanwhile, the Afghan Women’s Political Participation Network said it legitimised “a regime that is authoritarian, anti-women, and actively dismantling basic civil rights”.

The Taliban government has previously said it respects women’s rights in accordance with their interpretation of Afghan culture and Islamic law.

But since 2021, girls over the age of 12 have been prevented from getting an education, and women from many jobs. There have also been restrictions on how far a woman can travel without a male chaperone, and decrees on them raising their voices in public.

Foreign Minister Muttaqi said Moscow’s recognition, which came on Thursday, was “a new phase of positive relations, mutual respect, and constructive engagement”, describing the decision as “courageous”.

Russia’s foreign ministry said it saw the potential for “commercial and economic” co-operation in “energy, transportation, agriculture and infrastructure”, and that it would continue to help Kabul to fight against the threats of terrorism and drug trafficking.

Russia was one of very few countries that did not close down their embassy in Afghanistan in 2021 – as the Taliban swept across Afghanistan following the withdrawal of US troop.

The country was also the first to sign an international economic deal with the Taliban in 2022, where they agreed to supply oil, gas and wheat to Afghanistan.

The Taliban was removed from Russia’s list of terrorist organisations in April this year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also referred to the Taliban as an “ally” in fighting terrorism in July last year. Taliban representatives had visited Moscow for talks as early as 2018.

However, the two countries have a complex history. The Soviet Union – which included Russia – invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and fought a nine-year war that cost them 15,000 personnel.

Their decision to install a Soviet-backed government in Kabul turned the Soviets into an international pariah, and eventually led to their withdrawal in February 1989.

In its statement, the Afghan Women’s Political Participation Network noted it had not forgotten “Russia’s role in the destruction of Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion”.

“Today, its political interference and direct support for the Taliban represent a continuation of those same destructive strategies, now under the banner of diplomacy,” it said.

Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta, a former Afghan national security adviser under the predceding Western-backed government, described Russia’s decision as “regrettable”, adding: “This is just the beginning; in the absence of widespread resistance, others will follow Russia.”

Strict sanctions were placed on Afghanistan in 2021 by the United Nations Security Council, most notably the freezing of approximately $9bn (£6.6bn) in assets.

The UN has said the rules impacting women amount to “gender apartheid”, while also reporting public floggings and brutal attacks on former government officials.

Most countries closed their embassies after 2021. However, China, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Pakistan have all designated ambassadors to Kabul.

Pop star Katy Perry and actor Orlando Bloom have officially confirmed they have split, US media outlets say, six years after getting engaged.

The couple have been romantically linked since 2016 and have a four-year-old daughter.

In a joint statement issued to US media outlets, representatives for the couple said the pair “have been shifting their relationship over the past many months to focus on co-parenting”.

“They will continue to be seen together as a family, as their shared priority is – and always will be – raising their daughter with love, stability and mutual respect.”

The statement was being released due to the “abundance of recent interest and conversation” surrounding their relationship, it added.

The pop star, 40, and the 48-year-old actor split in 2017 but got back together shortly afterwards. They got engaged on Valentine’s Day in 2019.

A year later Perry revealed she was pregnant in the music video for her single Never Worn White.

Their daughter Daisy Dove was born later that year, with Unicef announcing the news on its Instagram account. Both Perry and Bloom are goodwill ambassadors for the United Nations agency that helps children.

The couple’s split follows a tough year for Perry. Her most recent album, 143, and its lead single Woman’s World, were not as well received as her previous music.

The singer is currently on tour, but ticket sales have reportedly been slower than earlier in her career.

Perry and a group of other female celebrities also faced backlash after their Blue Origin space trip in in April, a reaction which Perry said left her feeling “battered and bruised”.

The US singer, who was previously married to Russell Brand, shot to fame in 2008 with the single I Kissed A Girl, which reached number one in the UK.

Her hits since then have included Roar, California Gurls, Firework and Never Really Over.

Bloom was previously married to Australian model Miranda Kerr, and they have a son, 14-year-old Flynn.

The British actor has starred in Pirates Of The Caribbean, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.