Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial plans for a new military push in the Gaza Strip have raised warnings from the army leadership, opposition from hostage families and concerns that more Palestinians will be killed.

They also risk isolating his country even further.

In a meeting of the security cabinet that lasted 10 hours, ministers approved proposals for the “takeover of Gaza City”, which is likely to be the first phase for the Israeli military to assume full control of Gaza, as Netanyahu says it is his intention.

A statement released by his office did not use the word “occupation” but, effectively, that is what the plans mean.

It is not clear when the operations, which could take months, will start, as the military will have to call up thousands of reservists, exhausted after serving multiple times, and allow for the forced evacuation of residents from an area where around 800,000 Palestinians live.

Many, if not most, have already been repeatedly displaced in this war.

The plans will spark fresh condemnation from countries which have expressed anger over the situation in Gaza and urged Israel to end the war, which started as a response to the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has described the decision as “wrong” and called on Israel to reconsider it “immediately”.

But international pressure is unlikely to force Netanyahu change his course.

There is discontent at home, too. Polls suggest most of the Israeli public favour a deal with Hamas for the release of the 50 hostages, 20 of whom are thought to be alive, and the end of the war.

The threat of a full occupation could be part of a strategy to try to force the group into making concessions in stalled ceasefire talks.

Israeli leaders say Hamas, for now, is not interested in negotiating as, in their view, the group is feeling emboldened, a view that seems to be shared by the Trump administration which has not expressed opposition to Israel’s plans.

• LIVE: Security cabinet approved Gaza City plan

Many here believe that Netanyahu is prolonging the conflict to guarantee the survival of his coalition, which relies on the support of ultranationalist ministers who have threatened to quit the government if the war ends.

Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have also publicly defended what they describe as the voluntary migration of Palestinians from Gaza – which could amount to the forced displacement of civilians, a war crime – and resettling it with Jews.

Netanyahu’s ideas have faced strong opposition from the army’s Chief of Staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir who, according to reports in the Israeli media, had warned the prime minister that a full occupation Gaza was “tantamount to walking into a trap” and would endanger the living hostages.

Many of the hostages’ families share those concerns, and say the only way to guarantee the release of the hostages is through a negotiated deal with Hamas and ending the war.

According to the Maariv newspaper, the “prevailing assessment is that most and possibly all of the living hostages [will] die” during an expanded offensive, either killed by their captors or accidentally by Israeli soldiers.

Ahead of the security cabinet meeting, Netanyahu gave an interview to Fox News in which he said Israel intended to take full control of Gaza.

The decision of the cabinet appeared to stop short of officially endorsing that.

In the Fox interview, Netanyahu suggested that Israel did not want to keep the territory. “We don’t want to govern it,” he said. “We don’t want to be there as a governing body. We want to hand it over to Arab forces.”

He did not give details about possible arrangements or which countries could be involved. Still, this was a rare indication of what he might be envisioning for a post-war Gaza.

Netanyahu has, so far, failed to offer a vision for Gaza after the war apart from refusing to accept a governing role for the Palestinian Authority, the body that governs the occupied West Bank and recognises Israel.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas. The Hamas 7 October attacks on Israel killed about 1,200 people, while 251 were taken to Gaza as hostages.

France’s multi-billion euro mineral water companies are under the spotlight because of climate change and growing concerns about the industry’s environmental impact.

At issue is whether some world-famous brands, notably the iconic Perrier label, can even continue calling themselves “natural mineral water”.

A decision in the Perrier case is due in the coming months. It follows revelations in the French media about illicit filtration systems that have been widely used in the industry, apparently because of worries about water contamination, after years of drought linked to climate change.

“This really is our Water-gate,” says Stéphane Mandard, who has led investigations at Le Monde newspaper. “It’s a combination of industrial fraud and state collusion.”

“And now there is a real Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of Perrier.”

According to hydrologist Emma Haziza, “the commercial model of the big producers has worked very well. But it is absolutely not sustainable at a time of global climate change”.

“When you have big brands that feel they have no choice but to treat their water – that means they know there is a problem with the quality.”

The story hit the headlines a year ago in France after an investigation by Le Monde and Radio France revealed that at least a third of mineral water sold in France had been illegally treated, either with ultra-violet light, carbon filters or ultra-fine micro-meshes commonly used to screen out bacteria.

The issue was not one of public health. The treated water was by definition safe to drink.

The problem was that under EU law, “natural mineral water” – which sells at a huge premium over tap water – is supposed to be unaltered between the underground source and the bottle. That is the whole point of it.

If brands like Evian, Vichy and Perrier have been so successful in France and around the world, it is thanks to an appealing image of mountain-sides, rushing streams, purity and health-giving minerals.

Admit filtering the water, and the industry risks breaking the market spell. Consumers might begin to ask what they’d been paying for.

Complicating matters for Perrier and its parent company Nestlé – as well as President Emmanuel Macron’s government – is the charge that executives and ministers conspired to keep the affair quiet, covered up reports of contamination, and re-wrote the rules so that Perrier could continue using micro-filtration.

In their investigations, Le Monde and Radio France alleged that the government considered the mineral water industry so strategic that it agreed to suppress damaging information. A senate inquiry into the affair accused the government of a “deliberate strategy” of “dissimulation”.

Responding to the allegations, the government has asked the European Commission to rule on what level of micro-filtration is permissible for “natural mineral water”. Aurelien Rousseau, who was head of Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne’s cabinet at the time, admitted there had been an “error of appreciation” but insisted there was never any risk to public health.

Earlier this year, at the senate hearing into the industry, Nestlé’s CEO Laurent Freixe admitted that Perrier had indeed used illicit methods to treat its water.

But he also had another admission: that an official hydrologists’ report into the company’s historic site in the Gard department in southern France had recommended against renewing “natural mineral water” status for the company’s output.

It raises the possibility that for the first time in its 160-year history, Perrier water may soon not be labelled as what people assume it to be.

According to the hydrologist Emma Haziza, “the link to climate change and global warming is absolutely established”. And if Perrier is feeling the impact ahead of other companies, it is probably because its geographical location sets it apart.

Far from the remote mountain landscape you might imagine, Perrier’s water is pumped from deep aquifers in the coastal plain between Nîmes and Montpellier, a short drive from the Mediterranean. The area is populous, heavily-farmed, and very hot.

“There has been a big climatic shift since 2017,” says Haziza. “For five years there was a succession of droughts, which were particularly badly felt in the south.”

“All the aquifers were affected. This means not just the upper water-table, which is where everyday tap water comes from. We can now see that the deeper aquifers – which the companies thought were protected – are also being hit.

“The unforeseen is taking place. We are moving from a period in which companies could draw water from the deep aquifers and be sure they would be replenished, to a period in which it’s obvious the whole system cannot go on.”

The analysis made by Haziza and other hydrologists is that there is now a clear link between deeper and surface aquifers. Contaminants (farm chemicals or human waste) that drain off the land in the increasingly frequent flash floods, can now make their way into the lower aquifers.

At the same time, the effects of long-term drought and over-pumping mean these lower aquifers contain less volume, so any contamination will be more concentrated, the experts say.

“We can foresee that what has happened first at Perrier’s site will happen to other producers in the years to come. That’s why we need to move away from our current model of consumption,” says Haziza.

Last year at the Perrier site, three million bottles had to be destroyed because of a contamination. But the company insists that any problems are swiftly detected; and it disputes the claim that contaminants are entering the deep aquifers.

“We are pumping water from 130 metres underground, beneath layers of limestone,” says Perrier hydrologist Jérémie Pralong. “We are 100% convinced of the purity of the water. And its mineral make-up is constant.”

Perrier says there is no EU ruling that specifically bans micro-filtration. The relevant text simply says that nothing must be done to disinfect or alter the mineral make-up of the water. The argument is over at what measure of micro-filtration alteration begins.

The original Perrier source was first tapped by a local doctor in the 1860s, but it was under British management that the brand took off 50 years later.

St John Harmsworth – brother of newspaper magnates Lords Northcliffe and Rothermere – made Perrier a byword for mineral water across the British empire.

According to company lore, Harmsworth took inspiration for the bottles’ bulbous shape from the Indian clubs he used for exercise following a crippling car accident.

Today the bottling plant at Vergèze is still next to Harmsworth’s residence and the original source. The plant has been heavily automated. A rail track connects with the SNCF network to bring hundreds of millions of cans and bottles every year to Marseille for export.

The focus for the last year has been on a new brand: Maison Perrier. These energy and flavoured drinks are proving highly successful in France and around the world.

The advantage for Perrier is that the new beverages do not claim to be “natural mineral water”. They can be treated and filtered without difficulty.

Perrier says the new brand is part of the mix, and that it has no intention of abandoning its original Source Perrier natural mineral water. It has stopped the ultra-fine (0.2 micron) microfiltration, and now uses a 0.45 micron system which has been agreed with government.

It has applied for “natural mineral water” status for just two out of the five drilling wells it was using for Perrier mineral water. A decision is due later this year.

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Convicted triple-murderer Erin Patterson allegedly tried to repeatedly poison her husband, including with cookies she claimed their daughter had baked him, a court was told.

The Australian woman was last month found guilty of murdering three relatives – and attempting to kill another – with a toxic mushroom-laced beef Wellington.

The 50-year-old was originally charged with three counts of attempted murder against her estranged husband Simon Patterson, but these charges were dropped without explanation on the eve of her trial.

The details of the allegations, which Patterson denied, were suppressed to protect the proceedings, but can now be made public for the first time.

Three people died in hospital in the days after the lunch on 29 July 2023: Patterson’s former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.

Local pastor Ian Wilkinson – Heather’s husband – recovered after weeks of treatment in hospital.

In lengthy pre-trial hearings last year, Mr Patterson had detailed what he suspected was a years-long campaign to kill him with tainted food – including one episode which had left him so ill he spent weeks in a coma and his family was twice told to say their goodbyes.

In a quiet moment during the early days of Patterson’s trial, her estranged husband choked up as he explained his sorrow to a near empty courtroom.

Mr Patterson’s parents and his aunt had been killed, and his uncle almost died too, after eating the toxic meal prepared by his wife. He had narrowly avoided the same fate, pulling out of the lunch gathering the day before.

“I have a lot to grieve,” he said to the judge, sitting in the witness box as the jury prepared to return from a break.

“The legal process has been very difficult… especially the way it’s progressed in terms of the charges relating to me and my evidence about that – or non-evidence now, I guess.”

“I’m sitting here, half thinking about the things I’m not allowed to talk about and… I don’t actually understand why. It seems bizarre to me, but it is what it is.”

What he wasn’t allowed to talk about – the elephant in the room throughout the trial – was his claim that Patterson had been trying to poison him long before the fatal lunch that destroyed his family on 29 July 2023.

Mr Patterson gave evidence during pre-trial hearings, which are a standard part of the court process and allow judges to determine what evidence is admissible – or allowed to be presented to a jury.

As the charges relating to Mr Patterson were dropped, his evidence on the matter was excluded from the raft of information presented at the nine-week trial this year.

But he had explained that, as far as he knows, it all began with a Tupperware container of Bolognese penne in November 2021.

Mr Patterson and his wife had separated in 2015 – though they still aren’t divorced – and he thought they remained on amicable terms.

Under questioning from Patterson’s lawyer, Mr Patterson confirmed he had noticed “nothing untoward” in their relationship at that point: “If by ‘nothing untoward’, you mean anything that would make me think she would try and kill me, correct.”

But after eating that meal, he began suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea, and spent a night in hospital.

“I had the idea I got sick from Erin’s food. I did not give it too much thought,” he said in his police statement, according to The Age newspaper.

Months later, in May 2022, he fell ill again after eating a chicken korma curry prepared by Patterson on a camping trip in the rugged mountains and alpine scruff of Victoria’s High Country region.

“While Erin was preparing food I was getting the fire going so I didn’t watch her prepare it,” he told the court.

Within days, he was in a coma in a Melbourne hospital, and a large part of his bowel was surgically removed in a bid to save his life.

“My family were asked to come and say goodbye to me twice, as I was not expected to live,” he said in a 2022 Facebook post, reported by The South Gippsland Sentinel Times two years ago.

In September 2022, while visiting a stunning, isolated stretch of Victorian coastline, he would become desperately unwell again after eating a vegetable wrap.

At first, he felt nausea and diarrhoea coming on, the court heard, before his symptoms escalated. He started slurring his speech, gradually lost control of his muscles, and began “fitting”.

“By the end of the journey [to hospital], all I could move was my neck, my tongue and lips,” he told the court.

A family friend who was a doctor, Christopher Ford, suggested Mr Patterson start a food diary so they could try to figure out what was making him so sick.

“I couldn’t understand why these things kept on happening to him in such a way that he had essentially three near-death experiences,” Dr Ford told the court.

Mr Patterson returned to see him in February 2023, five months before the fatal lunch, revealing he’d come to believe his estranged wife was responsible.

He told Dr Ford about a batch of cookies supposedly baked by his daughter, which he feared were treats tainted – possibly with antifreeze chemicals – by his wife, who had called repeatedly to check whether he had eaten any.

The court would hear investigators never figured out what Patterson had allegedly been feeding him, though they suspected rat poison may have been used on at least one occasion, and had found a file on Patterson’s computer with information about the toxin.

After this discovery, Mr Patterson changed his medical power of attorney, removing his wife, and quietly told a handful of family members of his fears.

The court heard that his father Don Patterson responded diplomatically, but his sister Anna Terrington told the pre-trial hearings she had believed her brother, and was anxious when she learned about the lunch Patterson had planned.

Ms Terrington called her parents the night before to warn them.

“Dad said, ‘No, we’ll be ok’,” she said.

Five days later, she gathered in a Melbourne hospital chapel alongside her brother and other worried relatives. Down the hall, deteriorating in their beds, were Don and Gail Patterson and Heather and Ian Wilkinson.

Ruth Dubois, the Wilkinsons’ daughter, told the pre-trial hearings Simon Patterson had assembled the group to tell them he suspected his previous grave illnesses were the work of his wife.

“[He said] he had stopped eating food than Erin had prepared, because he suspected Erin had been messing with it,” she said.

“He was really sorry that he hadn’t told our family before this… but he thought he was the only person she was targeting, and that they’d be safe.”

It was also revealed that Patterson had visited a local tip the afternoon of the lunch at her house, though it is unknown what, if anything, she disposed of there.

The jury heard that she had travelled to the same dump days after the lunch to get rid of a food dehydrator used to prepare the meal, but the judge ruled they couldn’t be told about the first visit.

Other bizarre evidence which was ultimately left out of the trial included a 2020 post to a poisons help forum on Facebook, in which Patterson claimed her cat had eaten some mushrooms under a tree and had vomited, alongside pictures of fungi.

Patterson had never owned a cat, prosecutors said, arguing the post was evidence of a long-standing interest in the poisonous properties of mushrooms.

On Friday, Justice Christopher Beale set down a sentencing hearing for 25 August, where those connected to the case will have the opportunity to give victim impact statements.

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In Gurugram, an upscale suburb just outside Delhi, gleaming SUVs, futuristic skyscrapers and neat apartments stand in stark contrast to nearby mosquito swarms, trash heaps and tarpaulin shanties.

Inside the gated compounds live some of India’s richest, while in the slums nearby live poor migrant workers – mostly domestic helpers, garbage-pickers and daily-wage workers – who keep the affluence going.

Last month, local authorities rounded up hundreds of these workers, most of whom say they are Bengali-speaking Muslims from India’s West Bengal state, in a “verification” drive targeting illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.

The suspects were detained and kept at “holding centres” where they were asked to provide documents to prove their citizenship. Many allege they were beaten and mistreated by police during the process. Police officials deny these allegations.

“I had my voter and national ID cards, but they told me they were fake. I spent six days not knowing my fate before I was finally released,” said Ather Ali Sheikh, a daily-wage worker, who has lived in the city for 15 years.

The action has left indelible scars on the social fabric of the city, which prides itself on its cosmopolitan culture. Hundreds of workers have fled overnight – abandoning jobs, homes and, in some cases, even families in their haste to escape.

“I still don’t understand why they suddenly came after me,” Mr Sheikh said. Behind him, his wife hurriedly packed their belongings – torn clothes, old utensils and school books – into flimsy boxes.

“Was it because of my language, my religion or because I am poor? ” Mr Sheikh continued, his face hardening with anger. “Why weren’t the rich Bengali residents held up?”

Police in Gurugram deny targeting any particular community. “Neither religion nor class has anything to do with the drive,” public relations officer Sandeep Kumar told the BBC.

He added that out of the 250 people picked up, only 10 have been identified as illegal migrants and will actually be deported.

“Everyone else was released. No one was mistreated at the centres. We have been completely fair and objective.”

Meanwhile, trepidation is being felt on other side of the city as well.

With no workers left, heaps of trash have been overflowing from public bins and dump yards on to the streets, inconveniencing residents.

“Our house help and her husband, who worked as a driver, both left and now we have no help,” said Tabassum Bano, who lives in one of the complexes.

Crackdowns on alleged illegal immigrants from Muslim-majority Bangladesh are not new in India. The countries are divided by a porous border 4,096km (2,545-mile) long, and have seen waves of movement of people on both sides.

But these efforts seem to have intensified under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

In recent months, hundreds of people, including a veteran Muslim officer of the Indian Army, have been arrested on suspicion of being illegal migrants.

In the north-eastern state of Assam, where the issue has been a potent flashpoint for decades, authorities have been “pushing back” hundreds of Bengali-Muslims into Bangladesh on suspicion of them being “illegal Bangladeshis”.

Deportations are also under way in Delhi, where some 700 people were picked up and flown out to border states in the last six months.

This has had a chilling impact on the marginalised community.

In Gurugram, a sense of shock prevailed over their dust-blanketed colonies.

“For years, we have cleaned and collected their garbage. Now we are being treated like it ourselves,” said Rauna Bibi.

A domestic help, Rauna’s husband had returned from West Bengal the same day the detentions began. When he heard about it, he was so terrified he left again – this time, without informing his wife.

“For three days, I wondered if he was picked up; whether he was even alive,” Rauna said. “When we finally spoke, he said he didn’t call because he did not want any trouble.”

But it was not her husband’s behaviour that bothered Rauna, or the fact that he was now jobless. It was the theft of her pride – and the comfort of belonging to a place – that hurt her the most, making her feel absurdly insignificant.

“Unlike poverty, I can’t fight this with my hard work,” she said. “If they pick us, I wouldn’t know how to survive. This slum, the work we do and the houses we clean – this is our entire life.”

Mr Kumar says the recent action is based on a home ministry notice from May that lays down new guidelines for deporting illegal immigrants.

Under the order, all states are required to set up a special task force along with holding centres to “detect, identify and deport/send back illegal immigrants settled from Bangladesh and Myanmar”.

Each person would be given 30 days to prove their citizenship, during which authorities would send their documents back to their home districts for verification.

If they fail to confirm the details, the suspects would be taken by the police “under proper escort, in groups as far as possible”, and handed over to the border forces for deportation.

Critics, however, have questioned the order, saying it does not specify the basis on which a person is made a suspect.

“On the face of it, it’s nothing other than the fact that you speak Bengali, have a Muslim name and live in shanty,” said Aakash Bhattacharya, of the national council of the All India Central Council of Trade Unions which advocates for workers’ rights.

What is worse is that none of the suspects are being given certificates confirming their citizenship had already been verified, he added.

“This means they can be put through the same process again, making them extremely vulnerable.”

Mr Kumar says the detentions in Gurugram were made on the basis of strong preliminary evidence.

“We checked their phones and found suspicious contacts from Bangladesh. Some of them also failed to answer questions about their ancestry during interrogation,” he said.

Suhas Chakma, a human rights worker, says that the policy is not necessarily religious-specific.

“The arrest of the Muslims appears to be more as they constitute about 95% of Bangladesh’s population,” he explained.

But for a country that has seen an influx of refugees for decades, India does need a wider refugee law to address many of these complex issues, he added.

For now, Bengali-Muslims are living with a deep sense of foreboding.

Many of them have been sleeping with documents tucked under the pillow in case misfortune strikes.

“We were already fighting the harsh reality of our lives. Now we have to fight this too,” said Rabi-ul-Hassan, a resident of Jai Hind camp, a massive slum located in one of the poshest corners of Delhi.

Three weeks ago, authorities cut off electricity in the area, instantly plunging some 400 people into darkness.

The action came after a court ruled that the slum-dwellers, who say they have lived there for generations, were squatting on private land.

“They did this even when the area is recognised as a legal slum by the city’s own urban planning organisation,” said Abhik Chimni, a lawyer who is challenging the order.

Since then residents have been in some kind of stupor, dazed, angry and tired. “The heat is unbearable. The food keeps rotting and the children don’t stop crying. At night, we try to sleep outside but then mosquitoes bite us,” said Baijan Bibi.

“I am so exhausted,” she continued, “that sometimes I wonder if it’s better to live in a holding centre. At least there will be a fan there, right?”

An Australian politician and convicted rapist has resigned from parliament moments before he was to be kicked out, after losing a legal challenge to remain.

Gareth Ward, 44, was last month found guilty of sexually assaulting two young men, aged 18 and 24, between 2013 and 2015, and is now in custody pending sentencing.

Earlier this week, Ward launched a legal bid to stop the New South Wales (NSW) parliament from expelling him, but it was dismissed on Thursday after the court rejected arguments that the move was an “affront” to democracy.

Plans to expel him on Friday were thwarted when, less than two hours before a vote to remove him was due, Ward quit as the independent member for Kiama.

Ward’s resignation letter was received by parliament at 09:08 local time on Friday (00:08 GMT), shortly before a vote at 10:30 was due to expel him.

His resignation – which comes years after the sexual assault accusations first emerged – means Ward will no longer receive a parliamentary salary.

It also triggers a by-election in the south-coast NSW electorate Ward has held since 2011.

In 2021, Ward quit as a state government minister and left the Liberal Party, but refused to leave parliament and was re-elected in 2023.

During his legal challenge, Ward’s lawyers argued that attempts to kick him out of parliament before the appeals process was finished was “an affront to the foundations of representative democracy”.

NSW Premier Chris Minns told the media on Friday that Ward’s resignation “should have come earlier”.

“If you are convicted of some of the most serious charges – sexual assault in NSW – you can’t sit as a serving member of parliament drawing a parliamentary salary,” the Labor leader said.

“How can you represent your community from behind bars?”

Opposition leader Mark Speakman labelled Ward’s legal bid to stay in parliament “disgraceful”, and accused the former MP of “playing games” with the public and parliament.

Ward, due to be sentenced next month, has said he intends to appeal the guilty verdict.

A new robot shop has opened in Beijing selling everything from mechanical butlers to human-like replicas of Albert Einstein.

More than 100 types of products will be on sale at Robot Mall, which launched in the Chinese capital on Friday. The store is one of the first in the country to sell humanoid and consumer-oriented robots.

The outlet has been compared to a car dealership as it offers services including sales, spare parts and maintenance.

China has invested heavily in the robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) as it looks to overcome challenges such as slowing economic growth and an ageing population.

“If robots are to enter thousands of households, relying solely on robotics companies is not enough,” Wang Yifan, a store director, told Reuters.

The robots on sale range in price from 2,000 yuan ($278, £207) to several million yuan.

Visitors will be able to interact with a wide range of robots, including dogs and chess players, organisers said.

There is also a separate section offering replacement parts and robot maintenance services.

Robot Mall is located next to a themed restaurant, where diners are served by robots and the food is cooked by mechanical chefs.

China has increasingly prioritised the robotics industry, with subsidies topping $20bn over the past year.

The Chinese government is also planning a 1 trillion yuan fund for AI and robotics start ups.

The opening of Robot Mall coincides with the start of the five-day World Robot Conference, which started in Beijing on Friday.

Chinese state media said this year’s event will see more than 1,500 exhibits from over 200 local and overseas robotic companies.

Beijing is also preparing to host the inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games from 14 to 17 August.

Teams from more than 20 countries will compete in events including track and field, dance and football.

Actress Gina Carano has settled her lawsuit against Disney and Lucasfilm after she was fired from Star Wars franchise spin-off The Mandalorian.

She was dropped from the cast in 2021 following comments she made comparing being a Republican in the US to being a Jew during the Holocaust.

Ms Carano, a former MMA fighter who played Cara Dune in the Disney+ series, shared the news of the settlement on X, writing “I hope this brings some healing to the force.”

The agreement, which has not been made public, comes after her case gained support and funding from Elon Musk.

Ms Carano described the settlement as the “best outcome for all parties involved,” adding she was “excited to flip the page and move onto the next chapter”.

She also thanked Musk, saying she’d never met the tech billionaire but he stepped in to do this “Good Samaritan deed for me in funding my lawsuit”.

“Yes, I’m smiling”, she signed off.

The actress originally sued for wrongful termination and sexual discrimination, claiming that two of her male co-stars had made similar posts and faced no penalty.

She had sought $75,000 (£60,000) in damages and to be recast in the popular series.

Lucasfilm had condemned her comments in 2021 for “denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities”.

In a statement released since the settlement, the production company said that it looks forward to “identifying opportunities to work together”.

The company described Ms Carano as someone who “was always well respected by her directors, co-stars, and staff. She worked hard to perfect her craft while treating her colleagues with kindness and respect,” it added.

Ms Carano is a former mixed martial arts fighter and has faced pushback in the past for deriding mask-wearing policies during the Covid pandemic and making false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 US presidential election, which Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden.

The US has doubled a reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to $50m (£37.2m), accusing him of being “one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world”.

US President Donald Trump is a long-time critic of Maduro, who returned to office in January following an election marred by vote-rigging allegations. The results were widely rejected by the international community.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the US would double its already announced reward of $25m (£18.6m), and said Maduro was directly linked to drug smuggling operations.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said the new reward was “pathetic” and labelled it “political propaganda”.

“We’re not surprised, coming from whom it comes from,” Gil said, accusing Bondi of attempting a “desperate distraction” from headlines related to backlash over the handling of the case of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

During Trump’s first term, the US government charged Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan officials with a range of offences, including narco-terrorism, corruption and drug trafficking.

At the time, the US Department of Justice claimed Maduro had worked with the Colombian rebel group Farc to “use cocaine as a weapon to ‘flood’ the United States”.

In a video posted on X on Thursday, Bondi accused Maduro of coordinating with groups like Tren de Aragua – a Venezuelan gang that the Trump administration has declared a terrorist organisation – and the Sinaloa Cartel, a powerful criminal network based in Mexico.

She claimed the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had “seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Maduro and his associates, with nearly seven tons linked to Maduro himself”.

Maduro has previously rejected US claims he has direct involvement in drug trafficking.

Bondi’s comments are an extension of long-running tensions between the US and Venezuelan government – but the attorney general did not provide any further indication over how the government envisioned the renewed appeal and cash incentive would yield results.

Maduro – who is leader of the United Socialist Party and succeeded Hugo Chavez in 2013 – has been repeatedly accused of repressing opposition groups and silencing dissent in Venezuela, including with the use of violence.

He weathered protests in the wake of last year’s contested election and has retained his grip on power.

But in June, Hugo Carvajal – formerly the head of Venezuela’s military intelligence – was convicted of several drug trafficking charges after being arrested in Madrid and put on trial in the US.

Carvajal had been a feared spymaster who went by the name El Pollo, or The Chicken, but fled Venezuela after calling on the army to back an opposition candidate and overthrow Maduro.

He initially denied the drug charges but later changed his plea to guilty, fuelling speculation he had cut a deal with US authorities for a lesser sentence in exchange for incriminating information about Maduro.

The UK and EU announced sanctions against Maduro’s government following his return to office earlier this year.

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has beaten Elon Musk’s Grok in the final of a tournament to crown the best artificial intelligence (AI) chess player.

Historically, tech companies have often used chess to assess the progress and abilities of a computer, with modern chess machines virtually unbeatable against even the top human players.

But this competition did not involve computers designed for chess – instead it was held between AI programs designed for everyday use.

OpenAI’s o3 model emerged unbeaten in the tournament and defeated xAI’s model Grok 4 in the final, adding fuel to the fire of an ongoing rivalry between the two firms.

Musk and Sam Altman, both co-founders of OpenAI, claim their latest models are the smartest in the world.

Google’s model Gemini claimed third place in the tournament, after beating a different OpenAI model.

But these AI, while talented at many everyday tasks, are still improving at chess – with Grok making a number of errors during its final games including losing its queen repeatedly.

“Up until the semi finals, it seemed like nothing would be able to stop Grok 4 on its way to winning the event,” Pedro Pinhata, a writer for Chess.com, said in its coverage.

“Despite a few moments of weakness, X’s AI seemed to be by far the strongest chess player… But the illusion fell through on the last day of the tournament.”

He said Grok’s “unrecognizable” and “blundering” play enabled o3 to claim a succession of “convincing wins”.

“Grok made so many mistakes in these games, but OpenAI did not,” said chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura during his livestream on the final.

Before Thursday’s final, Musk had said in a post on X that xAI’s prior success in the tournament had been a “side effect” and it “spent almost no effort on chess”.

The AI chess tournament took place on Google-owned platform Kaggle, which allows data scientists to evaluate their systems through competitions.

Eight large language models from Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, xAI, as well as chinese developers DeepSeek and Moonshot AI, battled against each other during Kaggle’s three day tournament.

AI developers use tests known as benchmarks to examine their models’ skills in areas such as reasoning or coding.

As complex rule-based, strategy games, chess and Go have often been used to assess a model’s ability to learn how to best achieve a certain outcome – in this case, outmaneuvering opponents to win.

AlphaGo, a computer program developed by Google’s AI lab DeepMind to play the Chinese two-player strategy game Go, claimed a series of victories against human Go champions in the late 2010s.

South Korean Go master Lee Se-dol retired after several defeats by AlphaGo in 2019.

“There is an entity that cannot be defeated,” he told the Yonhap news agency.

Sir Demis Hassabis, one of DeepMind’s co-founders, is himself a former chess prodigy.

Meanwhile in the late 1990s, chess champions were pitted against powerful computers.

Deep Blue’s victory was considered a landmark moment in demonstrating the power of computers to match certain human skills.

Speaking 20 years later, Mr Kasparov likened its intelligence to that of an alarm clock – but said “losing to a $10m (£7.6m) alarm clock did not make me feel any better”.

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Israel’s security cabinet has approved a plan to take control of Gaza City, in a controversial escalation of its war in Gaza.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians live in the city in the north of the Gaza Strip. It was the enclave’s most populous city before the war.

The plan faces fierce opposition within Israel – including from military officials and hostages’ families – and from the international community.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told Fox News earlier that Israel planned to occupy the entire Gaza Strip and eventually “hand it over to Arab forces”. Much is still very unclear, but here’s what we know about the new plan.

The plan – or the “five principles for ending the war” includes:

• The disarmament of Hamas
• The return of all hostages, both living and dead
• The demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip
• Israeli security control over the Gaza Strip
• The establishment of an alternative civilian administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.

The IDF said the military would prepare to take control of Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the “civilian population outside the combat zones”.

It is unclear if this is new aid, and if it will be delivered by the controversial Israel and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation or another mechanism.

Before the cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said he wanted Israel to control all of Gaza.

In the new plan, only Gaza City is mentioned.

Israel has said it currently controls 75% of Gaza, while the UN estimates some 86% of the territory is either in militarised zones or under evacuation orders.

The plan aims to have Israeli forces move to take control of the largest city in the enclave for the first time during this conflict.

It is home to one million residents and is surrounded by land that has already been under the IDF’s control or subject to an evacuation order.

Control over the city is likely to be the first phase of a full scale takeover of the Gaza Strip, our Middle East correspondent Hugo Bachega has said.

There has also been some speculation that the threat of full occupation could be part of a strategy to put pressure on Hamas to make concessions in stalled talks.

Netanyahu told Fox News Israel does ” not want to keep it” and intends to hand it over to “Arab forces”.

“We want to have a security perimeter. We don’t want to govern it,” he told the outlet.

Israel has not said when the takeover will begin but reports in Israeli media suggest the military will not move into Gaza City immediately – and residents will need to be evacuated first.

Israel said it believed that the “alternative plan” presented to its cabinet would not “achieve the defeat of Hamas or the return of the abductees”.

However it it not clear what the alternative plan was or who had submitted it. Israeli media reports it was a more limited proposal from the army’s chief of staff.

Netanyahu is being “intentionally vague” over who the Arab forces he names may be, according to the BBC’s chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet, as he has been in the past with his plans for Gaza.

He may be referring to the Jordanians and the Egyptians, who have said they are willing to work with Israel – but they have made it clear that they will not go into Gaza on the back of an Israeli occupation.

No more details have been shared regarding a timeline for Gaza’s post-takeover government, and Hamas not yet responded to the plan.

Netanyahu is facing mounting criticism from hostage families and from world leaders.

For some time now, Israel’s military leadership has been saying that their job in Gaza is done as Hamas no longer poses a threat as an organised military force.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has called Israel’s escalation “wrong” and that it “will only bring more bloodshed”.

Israel’s decision to expand military operations in Gaza is a “declaration of a war crime”, Palestinian National Initiative President Mustafa Barghouti said.

Turkey’s foreign ministry said Israel aims to “forcibly displace Palestinians from their own land”, while Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said she hopes for an immediate Gaza ceasefire and immediate release of Israeli hostages.

Australia has also urged restraint, with Foreign Minister Penny Wong saying a Gaza City takeover “will only worsen the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”.

The UN’s human rights chief Volker Türk says “the war in Gaza must end now” and warns that further escalation “will result in more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering, senseless destruction and atrocity crimes”.

The Hostages Families Forum Headquarters said the decision “is leading us toward a colossal catastrophe for both the hostages and our soldiers”.

There have been some reports that the Americans had given Netanyahu the go-ahead to take over Gaza City.

But it is worth noting that NBC News reported a fiery phone conversation between US President Donald Trump and Netanyahu at the end of July – something the president called “fake news”.

Israel’s plans to take over Gaza City are “wrong” and “will only bring more bloodshed”, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

The prime minister urged the Israeli government to immediately reconsider its decision “to further escalate its offensive in Gaza”, after Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet approved the plans overnight by a majority vote.

Netanyahu had earlier said he wanted to take control of the whole of the Gaza strip but the approved plan focuses specifically on Gaza City, the largest city in the enclave.

The move has also prompted warnings from the army leadership and family members of hostages held in Gaza, who fear the offensive would endanger the 20 captives believed to still be alive.

In a statement, Sir Keir said: “This action will do nothing to bring an end to this conflict or to help secure the release of the hostages. It will only bring more bloodshed.

“Every day the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens and hostages taken by Hamas are being held in appalling and inhuman conditions.

“What we need is a ceasefire, a surge in humanitarian aid, the release of all hostages by Hamas and a negotiated solution. Hamas can play no part in the future of Gaza and must leave as well as disarm.”

He added: “Our message is clear: a diplomatic solution is possible, but both parties must step away from the path of destruction.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said the plans were “utterly abhorrent” and “it’s increasingly clear [Netanyahu’s] goal is ethnic cleansing”.

“This plan will only serve to wreak more devastation on the lives of millions of Gazans – whose homes and communities have already been destroyed – while endangering the lives of those hostages still held by Hamas,” he said.

“Rather than sitting on its hands and issuing strongly worded statements, the UK government needs to take decisive action.

“Keir Starmer needs to stop the export of all UK arms to Israel – today – and sanction Netanyahu and his cabinet.”

It comes as Foreign Secretary David Lammy is due to meet US Vice President JD Vance at his official country residence of Chevening House, in Kent, later.

Vance and his family are in the UK for a private family holiday.

However, the pair are also expected to hold a bilateral meeting, with the White House saying they will discuss “a variety of topics pertaining to the US-UK relationship”.

Last week, the UK announced it would recognise a Palestinian state in September unless Israel takes “substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza”, including agreeing to a ceasefire and committing to a two-state solution.

The move was strongly criticised by Israel who said it “rewards Hamas’s monstrous terrorism”.

It also puts the UK at odds with the US, which, like Israel, has suggested recognition would reward Hamas.

Lammy and Vance agree that Israel must open up aid deliveries, they differ on Israel’s military actions and on what pressure it should face.

But Vance has said “we’ve also got to wage war on Hamas so that those folks stop preventing food from coming into this territory”.

The United Nations has warned that a complete military takeover would risk “catastrophic consequences” for Palestinian civilians and Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

The Israeli military currently controls about three-quarters of Gaza, and almost all of its 2.1 million citizens are situated in the quarter of the territory that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) do not control.

In a statement released on Friday morning, Netanyahu’s office detailed a five-point plan for “defeating Hamas” and “concluding the war”.

“The IDF will prepare to take control of Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones,” it said.

The plan lists five objectives: disarming Hamas, returning all hostages, demilitarising the Gaza Strip, taking security control of the territory, and establishing “an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority”.

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The Israeli prime minister’s announcement of plans to take control of Gaza City has been met with concern in Israel, particularly by families of hostages still being held by Hamas.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum: Bring Them Home Now has said the plan “means abandoning hostages”.

“By choosing military escalation over negotiation, we are leaving our loved ones at the mercy of Hamas,” the group said in a statement.

“The only way to bring the hostages home is through a comprehensive deal.”

• Follow live: Israeli security cabinet approves Gaza City takeover as UK’s Starmer calls escalation ‘wrong’
• Israel approves plan to take control of Gaza City, signalling major escalation
• US shrugs off Gaza escalation – drifting further away from allies

The move was decided by majority vote at a security cabinet meeting which lasted 10 hours.

While the meeting was taking place, some protesters chained themselves together outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

Anat Angrest, the mother of hostage Matan Angrest, said at the time: “For a year and 10 months we’ve been trying to believe that everything is being done to bring them back – you have failed.”

The group’s collective statement, published on Friday following the announcement, accused the government of “leading us toward a colossal catastrophe”.

Fifty hostages are still being held by Hamas – 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.

Yehuda Cohen, whose son, Nimrod, is one of t he captives, told the BBC World Service’s Newsday programme that Netanyahu’s decision is “endangering my son and other living hostages”.

“It is endangering the hostages and prolonging their suffering,” he added.

More widely within the country Tal Schneider, political correspondent at the Times of Israel, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday there had been a “huge public backlash” in Israel against the plans.

“All public polling suggests that the public is very much against this step,” she explained.

A hotelier in Tel Aviv, Danny Bukovsky, told Reuters news agency: “I think it’s a death sentence to all the hostages that are still being held there. And it’s the wrong decision to do it at this time.

“I think that we have to bring all the hostages back home safely.

“Afterwards, if they decide to take over the entire Gaza Strip – it’s their decision. I think we should do something about […] Hamas anyway, but not at this time.”

Israeli resident Talya Saltzman also told Reuters bringing the hostages home should be “first and foremost”.

“I know the plan is to get rid of Hamas, but we’ve been trying for two whole years,” she told the news agency.

“It just doesn’t seem that there’s any real forward movement with this plan and unless we can get rid of all of Hamas in one go [I] just think that the hostages need to be top priority and then we need to stop all of our soldiers from dying.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration that Israel intends to take control of all of the Gaza Strip signals an escalation that flies in the face of some emphatic international warnings.

But it is one that, at least so far, the US government has greeted with a telling and collective shrug.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said it was “pretty much up to Israel” whether to fully occupy Gaza. And when asked the following day whether he was giving Israel a “green light”, he instead spoke about the US strikes on Iran earlier this year.

Washington’s Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee was even more direct – and his answer was that Netanyahu’s Gaza plan is not America’s concern.

“It’s not our job to tell them what they should or should not do,” he said. “Certainly, if they ask for wisdom, counsel, advice, I’m sure the president would offer it. But ultimately, it’s the decision that the Israelis and only the Israelis can make.”

Netanyahu has faced some opposition to his plan – notably from the Chief of Staff Lt Gen Eyal Zamir who, according to Israeli media, had argued against a full-scale occupation.

In the event, an announcement after a meeting of Israel’s security cabinet did not say Israel would take control of the entire territory of the Gaza Strip, but rather that it would “prepare for taking control of Gaza City”.

It did, however, mention that one of five principles for ending the war was “Israeli security control in the Gaza Strip”.

Some have suggested a full takeover of Gaza has always been on the table.

“Netanyahu had always planned to take over Gaza, he just was waiting for the right moment,” Amin Saikal, emeritus professor of Middle Eastern, Central Asian and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University, told the BBC.

Netanyahu has suggested Israel does not want to keep the territory, however, but “hand it over to Arab forces” – without specifying which.

Whatever the plan, however, the Trump administration is not giving Netanyahu any public indication that he is wrong.

That represents a marked change in White House policy. Trump previously had been more than willing to outline his views on Gaza’s future – even when it caught Netanyahu and the Israelis by surprise.

• LIVE UPDATES: Israel’s security cabinet approves plan to take control of Gaza City
• Netanyahu divides Israelis and allies with plan to occupy Gaza
• Hundreds of Israeli ex-officials appeal to Trump to help end Gaza war

In February, just weeks into his second presidential term, he said the US could be deeply involved in the reconstruction of Gaza as a global resort and suggested Palestinians might have to be relocated outside of the territory.

And while the US joined Israel in attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities in the brief clash between the two nations in June, Trump publicly and forcefully pressured Israel to abide by the ceasefire that ended that conflict.

The Americans also expressed their unhappiness with Israeli attacks on Syria last month – publicly disapproving, while offering even sharper criticism in private.

“Bibi acted like a madman,” a White House official told the news website Axios. “He bombs everything all the time.”

The White House has also been invested in ending the Gaza War, even pressuring Netanyahu for a ceasefire before Trump took office in January.

Steve Witkoff, the real estate magnate with a broad diplomatic portfolio in the Trump White House, has been the point person for these negotiations, seeking to broker a permanent ceasefire along with the release of the remaining hostages taken by Hamas in its 7 October 2023 attack.

As recently as a month ago, the White House was optimistic that a deal was within reach.

“We are hopeful that by the end of this week, we will have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day ceasefire,” Witkoff said on 8 July, adding that it could lead to a “lasting peace in Gaza”.

But just over two weeks later, ceasefire talks had collapsed, and Witkoff was publicly accusing Hamas of being selfish and not acting in good faith.

“Hamas didn’t really want to make a deal,” Trump said on 25 July. “I think they want to die, and it’s very, very bad.”

Trump’s comments – and his decision to abandon talks with Hamas and stay ambivalent about what could represent a massive new Israeli military operation – could be a ploy designed to force the Palestinian group to make new concessions at the negotiating table.

If so, that will become apparent soon enough.

“The Trump administration has got a lot of leverage, ” said Prof Saikal of the Australian National University. “I think Netanyahu would not make this move unless he had some sort of consent or tacit support from Washington.”

This American change of course from public disapproval to obvious distancing could, however, also be part of an effort by the president to return to his non-interventionist outlook – a position he temporarily abandoned during the Iranian strikes, much to the consternation of parts of his political base.

“There’s increasing concern that this is inconsistent with an America-first policy, getting the United States deeper and deeper into this horrible war is not something that the president ran for office on,” Frank Lowenstein, special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during the Barack Obama administration, told the BBC.

“But for the time being, anyway, I think Trump is going to let Netanyahu do whatever he wants.”

If so, Trump’s position stands in stark contrast to the recent statements by France, the UK and Canada on recognising a Palestinian state. These moves were designed to bring additional pressure on Israel to wind down its military operations and reach a negotiated settlement with Hamas.

That diplomatic recognition, as well as America’s studied indifference to the prospect of a long – and possibly indefinite – Israeli military occupation, take the US and its allies in markedly different directions.

But both represent a tacit acknowledgement that the current situation is untenable, and that a negotiated peace is further away than ever.

With Trump, there is no telling how long this trend will last. But by the time Trump changes course again, Israel could be well down a path in Gaza that will be very difficult to reverse.

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

The war in Ukraine, sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, shows no sign of abating.

In the east of Ukraine, Russia presses on in a grinding and bloody advance. Deadly aerial strikes are a nightly occurrence across the country, while Russia’s refineries and energy facilities come under regular attack from Kyiv’s drones.

It is against this backdrop that the Kremlin confirmed a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin was being planned and due to take place soon. “I’m here to get [the war] over with,” the US leader said on Wednesday.

Three rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine held at his behest between May and July have failed to bring the two sides any closer to peace, and Trump may hope that taking the situation into his own hands could finally result in a ceasefire.

But the gulf between Kyiv and Moscow is so large that even Trump-mediated talks could make it difficult to bridge.

In a memorandum presented to the Ukrainians by Russia in June, Moscow outlined its maximalist demands for a “final settlement” of the conflict. They include the recognition of Russian sovereignty over the Ukrainian regions of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson as well as Ukraine agreeing to demilitarisation, neutrality, no foreign military involvement and new elections.

“The Russian side can frame this in a dozen different ways, creating the impression that Moscow is open to concessions and serious negotiation,” wrote Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya. “But the core position remains unchanged: Russia wants Kyiv to surrender.”

• Why did Putin’s Russia invade Ukraine?

Following a meeting between Putin and US envoy Steve Witkoff, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that Washington had a better understanding of the conditions under which Russia would be prepared to end the war.

We don’t know if those conditions have changed. However, only last week Putin – likely referencing the memorandum – said Russia had made its goals known in June, and that those goals had stayed the same.

Therefore, despite the Kremlin agreeing to a Trump-Putin meeting, there is no reason to believe Moscow is ready to budge on its tough preconditions.

So why would Putin be agreeing to talks at this stage?

One possibility is that it hopes engaging in dialogue could fend off the secondary sanctions Trump has threatened to impose on Moscow’s trading partners as soon as Friday. The Kremlin may also feel it could convince Trump of the merits of its conditions to end the war.

At the start of his second term in office, Trump appeared to be more aligned with Russia than Ukraine, labelling Zelensky a “dictator” and suggesting he was to blame for the war with Russia.

Although he has since signalled his impatience with Putin – “he’s just tapping me along”, he said in April – Trump has also refused to say whether he felt the Russian leader had been lying to him over his readiness to move towards a ceasefire.

Whether because of personal affinity or an aligned worldview, Trump has been reluctant to ever fully condemn Putin for his actions.

When the two met in Helsinki in 2018 – during Trump’s first term as president – many were left stunned to see Trump side with the Kremlin over accusations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election and take responsibility for the tense state of US-Russia relations.

It is perhaps partly to fend off the possibility of Trump being swayed by Putin that Kyiv wants to be involved in any ceasefire talks.

Through his envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump has also suggested holding a trilateral with Putin and Zelensky. But the Russian president has batted off these suggestions, saying the conditions for a meeting are still far off.

Now some in Ukraine are concerned a Trump-Putin meeting may result in the US president giving in to Putin’s demands.

Ukrainian MP Iryna Herashchenko said it was becoming evident that demands for territorial concessions by Ukraine would be made and added being absent from the negotiating table would be “very dangerous” for Kyiv.

“Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same bold approach from the Russian side,” Zelensky said on Thursday.

But the gulf between Russia and Ukraine remains.

And should the Kremlin eventually agree to a trilateral meeting, Moscow’s demands for a ceasefire have proven so intractable that it is unclear what bringing Zelensky and Putin face-to-face might achieve.

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

This week saw Donald Trump’s oft-threatened tariffs finally come into force, the US Coast Guard publish its report into the Titan submersible disaster, and two women denied an AirBnB booking because they were Welsh.

But how much attention did you pay to what else happened in the world over the past seven days?

Quiz collated by Ben Fell.

Fancy testing your memory? Try last week’s quiz, or have a go at something from the archives.

Cameroon’s constitutional council has upheld the decision by the country’s electoral body to exclude opposition leader Maurice Kamto from the 12 October presidential election.

While the firebrand political figure was sidelined, 92-year-old President Paul Biya whose candidacy also faced opposition, was cleared to run for what would be his eighth term in the oil-rich Central African nation.

If he were elected for another seven-year term, he could remain in power until he was almost 100.

Kamto was ruled out because a rival faction of the Manidem party which endorsed him presented another individual as a candidate, highlighting an internal squabble.

In his first public comments, Kamto on Thursday evening said the decision was “arbitrary” and taken for political reasons.

Of the 83 candidates who submitted their applications to the electoral body, only 12 have been approved.

The reasons given by Elections Cameroon (Elecam) for the disqualification of the 71 range from incomplete files, non-payment of the required deposit, to multiple candidacies from the same party.

Of all the contestants, six are seen as the main contenders:

1. Paul Biya

At 92, Paul Biya is the world’s oldest serving head of state. He has been in power for nearly 43 years since 1982. Biya leads the ruling CPDM party which dominates the political scene. He is widely considered the favourite, now that his main rival, Kamto, is out of the way.

The veteran politician has never lost an election since the return of multi-party politics in 1990. However, his victories have been marred by allegations of vote rigging – claims which his party and the government have continuously denied.

Announcing his intention to run, Biya said his eighth mandate would focus on the wellbeing of women and young people.

2. Bello Bouba Maigari

Bello Bouba Maigari, 78, is an experienced politician who hails from Cameroon’s vote-rich northern region.

He is the president of the National Union for Democracy and Progress (NUDP) party founded in 1990. He served in the governments of both of Cameroon’s presidents -Ahmadou Ahidjo and Paul Biya.

In fact, he was Biya’s first prime minister between 1982 and 1983. Since 1997, Maigari has forged an alliance with Biya’s CPDM party that helped the latter clinch significant votes from the north.

However, this political marriage ended in June following pressure from within his party to run independently.

While serving as Minister of State for Tourism and Leisure, Maigari announced his resignation and declared himself a candidate against Biya, who he also faced in the 1992 presidential election.

3. Issa Tchiroma Bakary

Another former Biya ally whose candidacy came as a surprise is 75-year-old Issa Tchiroma Bakary. Like Maigari, he is from the country’s north and has been influential in helping Biya secure the region’s votes.

After a 20-year stint in different government roles, Tchiroma finally pulled the plug on his time with the 92-year-old leader, resigning from his role as Minister of Employment and Vocational Training to announce his candidacy.

Tchiroma, who heads the Cameroon National Salvation Front (CNSF) party, criticised Biya’s governance style and hinged his presidential bid on a promise to overhaul the system, which he described as “suffocating”.

4. Cabral Libii

Cabral Libii, president of the Cameroon Party for National Reconciliation (PCRN), is a vibrant member of parliament who is making his second attempt at getting the country’s top job.

In 2018, he was the youngest of the nine presidential candidates, aged just 38, coming third with 6% of the vote.

Libii’s candidature in this year’s election was challenged by PCRN founder Robert Kona, who disputed the lawmaker’s legitimacy to lead the party.

However, the Constitutional Council rejected Kona’s petition and upheld the electoral body’s decision to allow Libii to stand.

5. Akere Muna

Akere Muna was a candidate in the 2018 presidential election but pulled out at the last minute and threw his weight behind Kamto. This time around, Muna, a staunch international anti-corruption lawyer, says he wants to challenge Biya himself.

The 72-year-old is from a family of politicians – his late father Solomon Tandeng Muna served as Prime Minister of West Cameroon after independence, Vice-President of the then Federal Republic of Cameroon and Speaker of the National Assembly.

As Speaker, Solomon Muna swore in Biya when he took over as president after Ahmadou Ahidjo resigned.

Muna is promising to rid the bilingual country of the corruption and bad governance that he says have soiled its image at the international scene.

6. Joshua Osih

Joshua Osih is jumping into the presidential race for the second time after his first attempt in 2018 proved futile.

He heads the Social Democratic Front (SDF) party, succeeding the iconic late opposition leader John Fru Ndi. The SDF used to be the country’s main opposition outfit, but its influence later dwindled, exacerbated by infighting and the expulsion of several party members in 2023.

Osih, 56, came fourth in the 2018 polls with 3%, but is hoping to defeat Biya through a promise of social and institutional reforms.

• Social media revamp by 92-year-old president struggles to woo young Cameroonians

For many decades, President Biya has succeeded in maintaining a firm grip on power, making it difficult for him to lose elections.

The decision of political heavyweights Bello Bouba Maigari and Issa Tchiroma Bakary to challenge him appeared to make life more difficult, but some analysts believe they do not pose a significant threat to Biya.

Dr Pippie Hugues, a policy analyst with Cameroonian think-tank Nkafu Policy Institute, argues that their alliance with the current regime lessens their credibility with opposition voters.

“Cameroonians need more than just a resignation to trust them,” he told the BBC. “Both have been with the system and watched the nation suffer.”

Dr Hugues further suggested that the two northern candidates might be part of a political plot staged by the regime.

However, ruling party officials have portrayed the rupture as genuine, acknowledging that the CPDM could struggle to obtain as many votes from the north as before.

Given Kamto’s exclusion, Biya’s strongest challenger in 2018, third-placed Libii could arguably claim to be his main threat this year.

Although he got just 6% of the vote, Libii’s political evolution since then has been praised.

He led his party to win five seats in parliament and seven local councils during the 2020 legislative and municipal elections. Since becoming a member of parliament in the process, he has challenged the government on key policy issues, promising sweeping changes if he takes over the reins of power.

However, Dr Hugues says Libii’s vision is opaque, citing Akere Muna as a more convincing candidate with a much clearer project for the nation of nearly 30 million people.

“Muna has a wealth of international experience and diplomatic character, and that is what the nation needs now,” he said, while praising the renowned lawyer’s five-year transition plan to “put the nation back on track”.

Historically, Cameroon’s opposition has been fragmented especially during elections, with analysts saying this has disadvantaged them.

Ahead of this year’s presidential election, there has been much talk about the need for the opposition to unite and harmonise strategies to take on Biya. But with each candidate prioritising their own interests, it remains unclear if most – let alone all – of them would work together, despite the risk this could help the president.

“It might be the end of their political careers, or their parties, if they don’t come together,” said civil society leader Felix Agbor Balla.

“Kamto and the others must look for someone in the opposition who can carry the baton – and they must put the nation first, rise above their personal ego to look for a consensual candidate that can give the CPDM a run on the 12th of October,” he told the BBC.

Dr Hugues agrees that Kamto should use his influence to drum up support for an opposition coalition since he is now out of the race.

He insists “change must not [only] come with him [Kamto], but change can come through him”.

Kamto did not address these calls on Thursday, but said: “I’m on my feet and will remain at your side. The struggle continues.”

Dr Hugues says that an opposition coalition is possible and made reference to a meeting attended by opposition figures on 2 August in Foumban town in the West region.

Prince Michael Ekosso, president of the United Socialist Democratic Party (USDP), who took part in the meeting, told the BBC the aim was to lay the groundwork for a “consensual candidate”.

While no specific candidate has been designated yet, the criteria for consideration were laid down.

“We want a figure who is going to be responding to the aspirations of Cameroonians, someone who is flexible to work with others, someone who is bilingual and able to mobilise other candidates and political actors,” Ekosso said.

In the 1992 presidential election, firebrand opposition leader John Fru Ndi was backed by the Union for Change, a coalition of political parties and civil society organisations.

Although he was not the only opposition candidate, analysts say the coalition helped him get 36% of the vote – just shy of Biya’s 40%.

That was the closest anyone has ever got to beating Biya. Fru Ndi even claimed victory, but the authorities rejected allegations of vote rigging and confirmed Biya as the winner.

Many believe if the opposition doesn’t band together as it did in 1992, Biya might have an easy ride to the presidency.

“He has the experience, the human resources and the system to his advantage,” says Dr Hugues.

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Crocs’ share price plunged after the rubber clog-maker revealed a fall in US sales as shoppers chose to spend on trainers ahead of the World Cup and the Olympics.

The footwear became a stay-at-home staple during the Covid pandemic and has remained relevant as celebrities embraced the “ugly” shoe aesthetic.

However, North American consumers are buying into a “clear athletic trend” ahead of next year’s football World Cup in the US, Mexico and Canada and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, said Crocs’ boss Andrew Rees.

He also warned that US customers were being “super cautious” due to the high cost of living and the potential impact of Trump tariffs.

“They’re not purchasing, they’re not even going to the stores, and we see traffic down,” Mr Rees said.

US sales fell by 6.5% between April and June. Crocs cautioned on a “concerning” second half of the year as it reported a pre-tax loss. Its share price plunged by 30% to a three-year low of $73.

Mr Rees said Crocs appealed to a “particularly broad consumer base” and other brands were performing better “because they are focused exclusively on a high-end consumer”.

Crocs’ low-end consumer “is most sensitive to increases, is most nervous and in some cases, is not leaving the house,” he said.

He said these people were not buying new Crocs as they were worried how their personal finances would be hit by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs across imports to the US.

Susan Healy, finance director at Crocs, said the company would take a $40m (£29.8m) hit for the remainder of 2025 due to tariffs.

Mr Rees said: “I think we can over the medium-term mitigate the impact of tariffs. That will come from cost savings in our supply chain.”

Crocs said it will continue to pull back on discounting its products, cautioning that this could have a further impact on sales.

In China, where consumer purchasing is “not strong”, according to Mr Rees, Crocs was “bucking that trend”.

“That brand heat has been driven by a set of social-first digital marketing tactics using key Chinese celebrities,” he said.

It is working with three of China’s biggest influencers Liu Yuxin, Tan Jianci and Bai Lu to push its rubber shoes.

It is also collaborating with designer Simone Rocha, whose sparkly take on the Croc were recently seen on the feet of actress Michelle Yeoh.

While sales rose in China and fell in the US, overall revenue grew by 3.4% to $1.1bn over the three months to 30 June.

However, it reported a $448.6m pre-tax loss for the period, compared to a $296m profit last year.

The company’s share price suffered the worst single-day drop in almost 15 years after the results emerged.

Crocs also owns casual footwear brand HEYDUDE, following a $2.5bn takeover in late 2021.

Ghana’s President John Mahama has promised a full investigation into Wednesday’s helicopter crash that killed two government ministers and six other people.

Defence Minister Edward Omane Boamah and Environment, Science and Technology Minister Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, both 50, were among those killed when a military aircraft crashed in the central Ashanti region.

In a televised address to the nation, Mahama said the crash represented “a personal loss” for him.

The president confirmed that the flight data and cockpit voice recorders – often referred to as the “black boxes” – had been retrieved and that the armed forces had “initiated a full and transparent investigation”.

“I shared a bond with many of those who died. Our nation is grieving,” Mahama told Ghanaians.

The Z9 helicopter, carrying three crew and five passengers, came down in a dense forest as it was flying from the capital, Accra, to the town of Obuasi for an event to tackle illegal mining. There were no survivors.

The bodies of the eight deceased have been recovered from the crash site, and samples have been sent to South Africa for forensic identification and analysis.

Ghana’s Deputy National Security Coordinator and former Agriculture Minister Alhaji Muniru Mohammed was also among the dead, along with Samuel Sarpong, Vice-Chairman of the governing National Democratic Congress party.

A state funeral will be held on 15 August for the victims, AFP reported.

Authorities have not confirmed the cause of the crash.

Ghana’s meteorological agency had forecast unusually cold weather for August, with recent rains and light showers causing foggy conditions in many forest areas. Local farmers near the crash site reported morning fog as the helicopter flew overhead.

One eyewitness told the BBC the helicopter was flying at an “unusually low altitude” and the weather was bad.

He said he heard the sound of the helicopter passing by, followed by a “loud sound” and then a “bang”.

“That’s when I realised that the helicopter had exploded. So I hurried to the place to see if I could find survivors,” he said.

The farmer said when he got to the scene there was “no-one to be rescued”.

This is the most deadly of three separate emergency incidents involving Ghana Air Force helicopters in recent years.

In 2020, a Ghana Air Force Harbin Z-9 helicopter made an emergency landing near Tamale Airport, and last year, another Ghana Air Force helicopter made an emergency landing at Bonsukrom in Ghana’s Western Region.

Many Ghanaians are shocked by the news and are still struggling to come to terms with the news. Images purportedly showing the charred remains of the helicopter have been circulating on social media.

President Mahama has suspended all his scheduled activities for the rest of the week and declared three days of mourning starting from Thursday.

The country’s flags are flying at half-mast.

The crew members were named as Squadron Leader Peter Bafemi Anala, Flying Officer Manin Twum-Ampadu, and Sergeant Ernest Addo Mensah.

Boamah served under Mahama’s previous government as communications minister and before that he was minister of environment. As defence minster he tackled jihadist activity that was brewing in the northern border in Burkina Faso.

In 2022, a France-based NGO, Promediation, said its research showed that jihadist groups had recruited between 200 and 300 young Ghanaians.

Violence in the area has also been on the rise, with concerns that jihadists may be trying to exploit communal in-fighting between rival communities in northern Ghana.

Boamah’s book A Peaceful Man In An African Democracy, about former president John Atta Mills, was due to come out later in the year.

Muhammed was at the forefront of the battle against illegal gold mining, which has wrecked the environment and contaminated rivers and lakes.

Protests against the practice, known locally as Galamsey, peaked during Mahama’s run for the presidency last year.

Trials of a daily obesity pill have shown it can help patients lose around 12% of their body weight over 72 weeks.

The manufacturer, Eli Lilly, says the drug, which is not yet licensed, could be available next year.

The daily pill, called orforglipron, works by suppressing appetite and making you feel more full.

Preliminary results of a major trial show those on the highest dose lost an average of 12 kilos (nearly two stone) over 16 months but about one in 10 stopped taking the pills due to side effects, including nausea and vomiting.

In addition to weight loss, participants also benefited from reductions in cholesterol, blood fats and blood pressure.

Dr Kenneth Custer of Eli Lilly said the company was planning to submit the drug for licensing before the end of the year and preparing for a “global launch to address this urgent public health need”.

So where might this weight loss pill fit in to the blockbuster multi-billion pound market dominated by injectable drugs like Mounjaro, Wegovy and Ozempic?

The pill is much less effective than injectables.

The 12% weight loss achieved by those taking orforglipron compares to 22% weight loss for patients on Mounjaro, given by weekly injection. Both drugs are made by Eli Lilly.

Despite being less effective, there is likely to be a significant market for weight loss pills, as a needle-free means of cutting obesity levels.

Obesity experts hope the oral drug will be far cheaper than current injectables which would make it available to many more patients.

The full results of the trial will be presented next month at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes annual meeting and published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Rival manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, also has an oral version of its injectable drug Wegovy which it has already submitted for approval in the US.

In trials, patients on the highest dose of the Novo Nordisk daily pill lost around 15% of their bodyweight after 64 weeks.

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has unveiled the long-awaited latest version of its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, GPT-5, saying it can provide PhD-level expertise.

Billed as “smarter, faster, and more useful,” OpenAI co-founder and chief executive Sam Altman lauded the company’s new model as ushering in a new era of ChatGPT.

“I think having something like GPT-5 would be pretty much unimaginable at any previous time in human history,” he said ahead of Thursday’s launch.

GPT-5’s release and claims of its “PhD-level” abilities in areas such as coding and writing come as tech firms continue to compete to have the most advanced AI chatbot.

Elon Musk recently made similar claims of his own AI chatbot, Grok, which has been plugged into X (formerly Twitter).

During the launch of Grok’s latest iteration last month, Musk said it was “better than PhD level in everything” and called it the world’s “smartest AI”.

Meanwhile, Altman said OpenAI’s new model would suffer from fewer hallucinations – the phenomenon whereby large language models make up answers – and be less deceptive.

OpenAI is also pitching GPT-5 to coders as a proficient assistant, following a trend among major American AI developers, including Anthropic whose Claude Code targets the same market.

OpenAI has highlighted GPT-5’s ability to create software in its entirety and demonstrate better reasoning capabilities – with answers that show workings, logic and inference.

The company claims it has been trained to be more honest, provide users with more accurate responses and says that, overall, it feels more human.

According to Altman, the model is “significantly better” than its predecessors.

“GPT-3 sort of felt to me like talking to a high school student… 4 felt like you’re kind of talking to a college student,” he said in a briefing ahead of Thursday’s launch.

“GPT-5 is the first time that it really feels like talking to an expert in any topic, like a PhD-level expert.”

For Prof Carissa Véliz of the Institute for Ethics in AI, however, GPT-5’s launch may not be as significant as its marketing may suggest.

“These systems, as impressive as they are, haven’t been able to be really profitable,” she said, also noting that they can only mimic – rather than truly emulate – human reasoning abilities.

“There is a fear that we need to keep up the hype, or else the bubble might burst, and so it might be that it’s mostly marketing.”

One ethics expert said the launch of GPT-5 reinforced the growing gap between AI’s capabilities and our ability to govern it in the way the public expects.

“As these models become more capable, the need for comprehensive regulation becomes even more urgent,” said Gaia Marcus, Director of the Ada Lovelace Institute.

The BBC’s AI Correspondent Marc Cieslak gained exclusive access to GPT-5 before its official launch.

“Apart from minor cosmetic differences the experience was similar to using the older chatbot: give it tasks or ask it questions by typing a text prompt.

It’s now powered by what’s called a reasoning model which essentially means it thinks harder about solving problems, but this seems more like an evolution than revolution for the tech.”

GPT-5’s rollout also has implications for commercial enterprises concerned about the use of their content.

“As AI content becomes more convincing, we need to ask ourselves – are we protecting the people and creativity behind what we see every day?”, said Grant Farhall, chief product officer at Getty Images. “Authenticity matters – but it doesn’t come for free.”

Farhall said it was important to scrutinize exactly how AI models are being trained, and ensure that creators are being compensated if their work is being used.

The company will roll out the model to all users from Thursday.

In the coming days it will become a lot clearer whether it really is as good as Sam Altman claims it is.

Anthropic recently revoked OpenAI’s access to its application programming interface (API), claiming the company was violating its terms of service by using its coding tools ahead of GPT-5’s launch.

An OpenAI spokesperson said it was “industry standard” to evaluate other AI systems to assess their own progress and safety.

“While we respect Anthropic’s decision to cut off our API access, it’s disappointing considering our API remains available to them,” they added.

With a free tier for its new model, the company may be signalling a potential move away from the proprietary models that have previously dominated its offerings.

On Monday, OpenAI revealed it was making changes to promote a healthier relationship between users and ChatGPT.

In a blog post, it said: “AI can feel more responsive and personal than prior technologies, especially for vulnerable individuals experiencing mental or emotional distress.”

It said it would not give a definitive answer to questions such as, “Should I break up with my boyfriend?”

Instead, it would “help you think it through – asking questions, weighing pros and cons”, according to the blog post.

In May, OpenAI pulled a heavily-criticised update which made ChatGPT “overly flattering”, according to Sam Altman.

On a recent episode of OpenAI’s own podcast, Mr Altman said he was thinking about how people interact with his products.

“This is not all going to be good, there will still be problems,” he said.

“People will develop these somewhat problematic, or maybe very problematic, parasocial relationships [with AI]. Society will have to figure out new guardrails. But the upsides will be tremendous.”

Mr Altman is known to be a fan of the 2013 film Her, where a man develops a relationship with an AI companion.

In 2024, actress Scarlett Johansson, who voiced the AI companion in the film, said she was left “shocked” and “angered” after OpenAI launched a chatbot with an “eerily similar” voice to her own.

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Ex-Superman actor Dean Cain has announced he is planning to join the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE.

In an interview on Wednesday, Cain, who is already a sworn law enforcement officer, said, “I will be sworn in as an ICE agent asap”.

It comes after he released a video encouraging members of the public to join following a recruitment drive by the agency, which is behind the Trump administration’s ramped-up immigrant deportation efforts.

Cain played the role of Superman between 1993 and 1997 in the TV series, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

Cain has gone on to star in a number of other films and TV shows, and has also directed.

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Cain would be sworn in as an “honorary ICE Officer” in the coming month.

“Superman is encouraging Americans to become real-life superheroes by answering their country’s call to join the brave men and women of ICE to help protect our communities to arrest the worst of the worst,” said DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin.

In late July, ICE announced it was aiming to recruit an additional 10,000 new personnel, doubling the agency’s headcount as it ramps up deportations across the country.

It is specifically hoping to recruit deportation officers, along with attorneys, criminal investigators, student visa adjudicators and other roles.

Speaking on Fox News on Wednesday, Cain said: “I put out a recruitment video yesterday – I’m actually a sworn deputy sheriff and a reserve police officer – I wasn’t part of ICE, but once I put that out there and you put a little blurb on your show, it went crazy”.

“So now I’ve spoken with some officials over at ICE, and I will be sworn in as an ICE agent asap.”

“People have to step up. I’m stepping up. Hopefully a whole bunch of other former officers, former ICE agents will step up, and we’ll meet those recruitment goals immediately and we’ll help protect this country,” Cain added.

US President Donald Trump has vowed to ramp up the pace of deportations from the US to one million per year.

Part of that effort has included increased immigration raids since Trump became president.

They have sparked protests in cities across the US, with critics calling the raids unlawful.

On 29 July, ICE announced it was offering recruitment bonuses of up to $50,000 (£37,700) and student loan help to Americans interested in helping with the Trump administration’s deportation drive.

As part of the recruitment drive, the DHS unveiled recruitment posters akin to those used during World War Two, with the words “America Needs You” and “Defend the Homeland” with images of Uncle Sam, US President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other officials.

By Wednesday the agency said it had received more than 80,000 applicants for the 10,000 positions. Speaking on Fox News, Noem said they had removed age limits for how old applicants could be.

ICE currently has 20,000 officers and support personnel, spread across the country at 400 offices.

The recruitment drive comes just weeks after Trump signed his sweeping spending bill into law.

The bill included more than $76bn allocated to ICE – almost 10 times what it had been receiving previously – and making it the highest funded federal law enforcement agency.

Rushanara Ali has resigned as homelessness minister, Downing Street has confirmed.

The move comes after she was accused of hypocrisy over the way she handled rent increases on a house she owns in east London.

There were calls for her to step down from homelessness charities and opposition politicians.

In a letter to the prime minister she said “at all times I have followed all relevant legal requirements” but that remaining in the role would be a “distraction from the ambitious work of this government”.

The row was sparked after Ali ended her tenants’ fixed-term contract in order to sell up, but then re-listed the house for rent at a higher price within six months, which is something she is currently trying to outlaw under the Renters’ Rights Bill.

In a story first broken by the the i Paper, a former tenant said she was sent an email in November giving four months’ notice the lease would not be renewed.

She said shortly after she and the three other tenants had moved out, the house in east London had been re-listed at a rent £700 a month higher.

In a letter to the prime minister, Ali wrote: “It is with a heavy heart that I offer you my resignation as a minister.”

Insisting that “at all times I have followed all relevant legal requirements” she added: “I believe I took my responsibilities and duties seriously, and the facts demonstrate this.

“However, it is clear that continuing in my role will be a distraction from the ambitious work of the government.

“I have therefore decided to resign from my ministerial position.”

Responding to her resignation, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer thanked her for her work, which he called “diligent”.

The PM praised her work to repeal the Vagrancy Act and added: “I know you will continue to support the government from the backbenches and represent the best interests of your constituents in Bethnal Green and Stepney.”

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A source close to Ali said the previous fixed-term contract had been ended because the house was being put up for sale and the tenants had been told they could stay on a rolling basis while the house was on the market, but they had chosen to go.

The house was put on the market in November 2024 with an asking price of £914,995 but that was reduced in February by £20,000 and the i Paper said it had only been re-listed as a rental because it had not sold.

Ali’s resignation is particularly awkward because of the subject matter, as Labour went into the election promising to strengthen the rights of private tenants.

The very rules they are taking through Parliament at the moment would have stopped what Ali has been accused of.

The government’s Renters’ Rights Bill is in its final stages in Parliament, and will ban landlords re-listing a property for rent, if they have ended a tenancy in order to sell, for six months.

Landlords must also give four months’ notice to tenants when the legislation is passed, which is not expected to be until at least next year.

London Renters Union spokesperson Siân Smith said Ali’s actions were “indefensible” and she “must step down” due to a “clear conflict of interest” with the Bill in its final stages.

The Renters’ Reform Coalition, which represents private renters, said her resignation was “the right decision”.

“Her position was completely untenable,” said director Tom Darling.

“The government must get on now and end no-fault evictions urgently so that no more tenants are subject to the kind of behaviour Rushanara Ali engaged in.”

Tory Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake was among other opposition politicians accusing Ali of “staggering hypocrisy” over the handling of the property.

After she quit, he added: “It is right that Rushanara Ali has now quit the government following our calls for her to go.

“Keir Starmer promised a government of integrity but has instead presided over a government of hypocrisy and self-service.”

Also welcoming her resignation, a Liberal Democrat spokesperson said: “Rushanara Ali fundamentally misunderstood her role.”

They said her actions “only added insult to injury after years of delay for renters’ rights reform under the Conservatives”.

Since Ali has quit quickly, the story is unlikely to drag on, but it marks another embarrassing departure for the government.

Ali is the sixth MP who has quit Starmer’s government over policy or because of allegations made against them.

That is not the sort of number that threatens the government. But it is embarrassing for a government that had a long time in opposition to get its house in order.

This was also not the first time Ali has been criticised. She had to give up part of her ministerial portfolio last year, when she attended a conference linked to the parent company of one of the firms heavily criticised in the recent Grenfell inquiry.

Giving up her duties managing building safety and the government’s response to the Grenfell Tower fire, she said she was relinquishing her building safety brief because “perception matters”.

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Convicted triple-murderer Erin Patterson allegedly tried to repeatedly poison her husband, including with cookies she claimed their daughter had baked him, a court was told.

The Australian woman was last month found guilty of murdering three relatives – and attempting to kill another – with a toxic mushroom-laced beef Wellington.

The 50-year-old was originally charged with three counts of attempted murder against her estranged husband Simon Patterson, but these charges were dropped without explanation on the eve of her trial.

The details of the allegations, which Patterson denied, were suppressed to protect the proceedings, but can now be made public for the first time.

Three people died in hospital in the days after the lunch on 29 July 2023: Patterson’s former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.

Local pastor Ian Wilkinson – Heather’s husband – recovered after weeks of treatment in hospital.

In lengthy pre-trial hearings last year, Mr Patterson had detailed what he suspected was a years-long campaign to kill him with tainted food – including one episode which had left him so ill he spent weeks in a coma and his family was twice told to say their goodbyes.

In a quiet moment during the early days of Patterson’s trial, her estranged husband choked up as he explained his sorrow to a near empty courtroom.

Mr Patterson’s parents and his aunt had been killed, and his uncle almost died too, after eating the toxic meal prepared by his wife. He had narrowly avoided the same fate, pulling out of the lunch gathering the day before.

“I have a lot to grieve,” he said to the judge, sitting in the witness box as the jury prepared to return from a break.

“The legal process has been very difficult… especially the way it’s progressed in terms of the charges relating to me and my evidence about that – or non-evidence now, I guess.”

“I’m sitting here, half thinking about the things I’m not allowed to talk about and… I don’t actually understand why. It seems bizarre to me, but it is what it is.”

What he wasn’t allowed to talk about – the elephant in the room throughout the trial – was his claim that Patterson had been trying to poison him long before the fatal lunch that destroyed his family on 29 July 2023.

Mr Patterson gave evidence during pre-trial hearings, which are a standard part of the court process and allow judges to determine what evidence is admissible – or allowed to be presented to a jury.

As the charges relating to Mr Patterson were dropped, his evidence on the matter was excluded from the raft of information presented at the nine-week trial this year.

But he had explained that, as far as he knows, it all began with a Tupperware container of Bolognese penne in November 2021.

Mr Patterson and his wife had separated in 2015 – though they still aren’t divorced – and he thought they remained on amicable terms.

Under questioning from Patterson’s lawyer, Mr Patterson confirmed he had noticed “nothing untoward” in their relationship at that point: “If by ‘nothing untoward’, you mean anything that would make me think she would try and kill me, correct.”

But after eating that meal, he began suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea, and spent a night in hospital.

“I had the idea I got sick from Erin’s food. I did not give it too much thought,” he said in his police statement, according to The Age newspaper.

Months later, in May 2022, he fell ill again after eating a chicken korma curry prepared by Patterson on a camping trip in the rugged mountains and alpine scruff of Victoria’s High Country region.

“While Erin was preparing food I was getting the fire going so I didn’t watch her prepare it,” he told the court.

Within days, he was in a coma in a Melbourne hospital, and a large part of his bowel was surgically removed in a bid to save his life.

“My family were asked to come and say goodbye to me twice, as I was not expected to live,” he said in a 2022 Facebook post, reported by The South Gippsland Sentinel Times two years ago.

In September 2022, while visiting a stunning, isolated stretch of Victorian coastline, he would become desperately unwell again after eating a vegetable wrap.

At first, he felt nausea and diarrhoea coming on, the court heard, before his symptoms escalated. He started slurring his speech, gradually lost control of his muscles, and began “fitting”.

“By the end of the journey [to hospital], all I could move was my neck, my tongue and lips,” he told the court.

A family friend who was a doctor, Christopher Ford, suggested Mr Patterson start a food diary so they could try to figure out what was making him so sick.

“I couldn’t understand why these things kept on happening to him in such a way that he had essentially three near-death experiences,” Dr Ford told the court.

Mr Patterson returned to see him in February 2023, five months before the fatal lunch, revealing he’d come to believe his estranged wife was responsible.

He told Dr Ford about a batch of cookies supposedly baked by his daughter, which he feared were treats tainted – possibly with antifreeze chemicals – by his wife, who had called repeatedly to check whether he had eaten any.

The court would hear investigators never figured out what Patterson had allegedly been feeding him, though they suspected rat poison may have been used on at least one occasion, and had found a file on Patterson’s computer with information about the toxin.

After this discovery, Mr Patterson changed his medical power of attorney, removing his wife, and quietly told a handful of family members of his fears.

The court heard that his father Don Patterson responded diplomatically, but his sister Anna Terrington told the pre-trial hearings she had believed her brother, and was anxious when she learned about the lunch Patterson had planned.

Ms Terrington called her parents the night before to warn them.

“Dad said, ‘No, we’ll be ok’,” she said.

Five days later, she gathered in a Melbourne hospital chapel alongside her brother and other worried relatives. Down the hall, deteriorating in their beds, were Don and Gail Patterson and Heather and Ian Wilkinson.

Ruth Dubois, the Wilkinsons’ daughter, told the pre-trial hearings Simon Patterson had assembled the group to tell them he suspected his previous grave illnesses were the work of his wife.

“[He said] he had stopped eating food than Erin had prepared, because he suspected Erin had been messing with it,” she said.

“He was really sorry that he hadn’t told our family before this… but he thought he was the only person she was targeting, and that they’d be safe.”

It was also revealed that Patterson had visited a local tip the afternoon of the lunch at her house, though it is unknown what, if anything, she disposed of there.

The jury heard that she had travelled to the same dump days after the lunch to get rid of a food dehydrator used to prepare the meal, but the judge ruled they couldn’t be told about the first visit.

Other bizarre evidence which was ultimately left out of the trial included a 2020 post to a poisons help forum on Facebook, in which Patterson claimed her cat had eaten some mushrooms under a tree and had vomited, alongside pictures of fungi.

Patterson had never owned a cat, prosecutors said, arguing the post was evidence of a long-standing interest in the poisonous properties of mushrooms.

On Friday, Justice Christopher Beale set down a sentencing hearing for 25 August, where those connected to the case will have the opportunity to give victim impact statements.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration that Israel intends to take control of all of the Gaza Strip signals an escalation that flies in the face of some emphatic international warnings.

But it is one that, at least so far, the US government has greeted with a telling and collective shrug.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said it was “pretty much up to Israel” whether to fully occupy Gaza. And when asked the following day whether he was giving Israel a “green light”, he instead spoke about the US strikes on Iran earlier this year.

Washington’s Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee was even more direct – and his answer was that Netanyahu’s Gaza plan is not America’s concern.

“It’s not our job to tell them what they should or should not do,” he said. “Certainly, if they ask for wisdom, counsel, advice, I’m sure the president would offer it. But ultimately, it’s the decision that the Israelis and only the Israelis can make.”

Netanyahu has faced some opposition to his plan – notably from the Chief of Staff Lt Gen Eyal Zamir who, according to Israeli media, had argued against a full-scale occupation.

In the event, an announcement after a meeting of Israel’s security cabinet did not say Israel would take control of the entire territory of the Gaza Strip, but rather that it would “prepare for taking control of Gaza City”.

It did, however, mention that one of five principles for ending the war was “Israeli security control in the Gaza Strip”.

Some have suggested a full takeover of Gaza has always been on the table.

“Netanyahu had always planned to take over Gaza, he just was waiting for the right moment,” Amin Saikal, emeritus professor of Middle Eastern, Central Asian and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University, told the BBC.

Netanyahu has suggested Israel does not want to keep the territory, however, but “hand it over to Arab forces” – without specifying which.

Whatever the plan, however, the Trump administration is not giving Netanyahu any public indication that he is wrong.

That represents a marked change in White House policy. Trump previously had been more than willing to outline his views on Gaza’s future – even when it caught Netanyahu and the Israelis by surprise.

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In February, just weeks into his second presidential term, he said the US could be deeply involved in the reconstruction of Gaza as a global resort and suggested Palestinians might have to be relocated outside of the territory.

And while the US joined Israel in attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities in the brief clash between the two nations in June, Trump publicly and forcefully pressured Israel to abide by the ceasefire that ended that conflict.

The Americans also expressed their unhappiness with Israeli attacks on Syria last month – publicly disapproving, while offering even sharper criticism in private.

“Bibi acted like a madman,” a White House official told the news website Axios. “He bombs everything all the time.”

The White House has also been invested in ending the Gaza War, even pressuring Netanyahu for a ceasefire before Trump took office in January.

Steve Witkoff, the real estate magnate with a broad diplomatic portfolio in the Trump White House, has been the point person for these negotiations, seeking to broker a permanent ceasefire along with the release of the remaining hostages taken by Hamas in its 7 October 2023 attack.

As recently as a month ago, the White House was optimistic that a deal was within reach.

“We are hopeful that by the end of this week, we will have an agreement that will bring us into a 60-day ceasefire,” Witkoff said on 8 July, adding that it could lead to a “lasting peace in Gaza”.

But just over two weeks later, ceasefire talks had collapsed, and Witkoff was publicly accusing Hamas of being selfish and not acting in good faith.

“Hamas didn’t really want to make a deal,” Trump said on 25 July. “I think they want to die, and it’s very, very bad.”

Trump’s comments – and his decision to abandon talks with Hamas and stay ambivalent about what could represent a massive new Israeli military operation – could be a ploy designed to force the Palestinian group to make new concessions at the negotiating table.

If so, that will become apparent soon enough.

“The Trump administration has got a lot of leverage, ” said Prof Saikal of the Australian National University. “I think Netanyahu would not make this move unless he had some sort of consent or tacit support from Washington.”

This American change of course from public disapproval to obvious distancing could, however, also be part of an effort by the president to return to his non-interventionist outlook – a position he temporarily abandoned during the Iranian strikes, much to the consternation of parts of his political base.

“There’s increasing concern that this is inconsistent with an America-first policy, getting the United States deeper and deeper into this horrible war is not something that the president ran for office on,” Frank Lowenstein, special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during the Barack Obama administration, told the BBC.

“But for the time being, anyway, I think Trump is going to let Netanyahu do whatever he wants.”

If so, Trump’s position stands in stark contrast to the recent statements by France, the UK and Canada on recognising a Palestinian state. These moves were designed to bring additional pressure on Israel to wind down its military operations and reach a negotiated settlement with Hamas.

That diplomatic recognition, as well as America’s studied indifference to the prospect of a long – and possibly indefinite – Israeli military occupation, take the US and its allies in markedly different directions.

But both represent a tacit acknowledgement that the current situation is untenable, and that a negotiated peace is further away than ever.

With Trump, there is no telling how long this trend will last. But by the time Trump changes course again, Israel could be well down a path in Gaza that will be very difficult to reverse.

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

France’s multi-billion euro mineral water companies are under the spotlight because of climate change and growing concerns about the industry’s environmental impact.

At issue is whether some world-famous brands, notably the iconic Perrier label, can even continue calling themselves “natural mineral water”.

A decision in the Perrier case is due in the coming months. It follows revelations in the French media about illicit filtration systems that have been widely used in the industry, apparently because of worries about water contamination, after years of drought linked to climate change.

“This really is our Water-gate,” says Stéphane Mandard, who has led investigations at Le Monde newspaper. “It’s a combination of industrial fraud and state collusion.”

“And now there is a real Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of Perrier.”

According to hydrologist Emma Haziza, “the commercial model of the big producers has worked very well. But it is absolutely not sustainable at a time of global climate change”.

“When you have big brands that feel they have no choice but to treat their water – that means they know there is a problem with the quality.”

The story hit the headlines a year ago in France after an investigation by Le Monde and Radio France revealed that at least a third of mineral water sold in France had been illegally treated, either with ultra-violet light, carbon filters or ultra-fine micro-meshes commonly used to screen out bacteria.

The issue was not one of public health. The treated water was by definition safe to drink.

The problem was that under EU law, “natural mineral water” – which sells at a huge premium over tap water – is supposed to be unaltered between the underground source and the bottle. That is the whole point of it.

If brands like Evian, Vichy and Perrier have been so successful in France and around the world, it is thanks to an appealing image of mountain-sides, rushing streams, purity and health-giving minerals.

Admit filtering the water, and the industry risks breaking the market spell. Consumers might begin to ask what they’d been paying for.

Complicating matters for Perrier and its parent company Nestlé – as well as President Emmanuel Macron’s government – is the charge that executives and ministers conspired to keep the affair quiet, covered up reports of contamination, and re-wrote the rules so that Perrier could continue using micro-filtration.

In their investigations, Le Monde and Radio France alleged that the government considered the mineral water industry so strategic that it agreed to suppress damaging information. A senate inquiry into the affair accused the government of a “deliberate strategy” of “dissimulation”.

Responding to the allegations, the government has asked the European Commission to rule on what level of micro-filtration is permissible for “natural mineral water”. Aurelien Rousseau, who was head of Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne’s cabinet at the time, admitted there had been an “error of appreciation” but insisted there was never any risk to public health.

Earlier this year, at the senate hearing into the industry, Nestlé’s CEO Laurent Freixe admitted that Perrier had indeed used illicit methods to treat its water.

But he also had another admission: that an official hydrologists’ report into the company’s historic site in the Gard department in southern France had recommended against renewing “natural mineral water” status for the company’s output.

It raises the possibility that for the first time in its 160-year history, Perrier water may soon not be labelled as what people assume it to be.

According to the hydrologist Emma Haziza, “the link to climate change and global warming is absolutely established”. And if Perrier is feeling the impact ahead of other companies, it is probably because its geographical location sets it apart.

Far from the remote mountain landscape you might imagine, Perrier’s water is pumped from deep aquifers in the coastal plain between Nîmes and Montpellier, a short drive from the Mediterranean. The area is populous, heavily-farmed, and very hot.

“There has been a big climatic shift since 2017,” says Haziza. “For five years there was a succession of droughts, which were particularly badly felt in the south.”

“All the aquifers were affected. This means not just the upper water-table, which is where everyday tap water comes from. We can now see that the deeper aquifers – which the companies thought were protected – are also being hit.

“The unforeseen is taking place. We are moving from a period in which companies could draw water from the deep aquifers and be sure they would be replenished, to a period in which it’s obvious the whole system cannot go on.”

The analysis made by Haziza and other hydrologists is that there is now a clear link between deeper and surface aquifers. Contaminants (farm chemicals or human waste) that drain off the land in the increasingly frequent flash floods, can now make their way into the lower aquifers.

At the same time, the effects of long-term drought and over-pumping mean these lower aquifers contain less volume, so any contamination will be more concentrated, the experts say.

“We can foresee that what has happened first at Perrier’s site will happen to other producers in the years to come. That’s why we need to move away from our current model of consumption,” says Haziza.

Last year at the Perrier site, three million bottles had to be destroyed because of a contamination. But the company insists that any problems are swiftly detected; and it disputes the claim that contaminants are entering the deep aquifers.

“We are pumping water from 130 metres underground, beneath layers of limestone,” says Perrier hydrologist Jérémie Pralong. “We are 100% convinced of the purity of the water. And its mineral make-up is constant.”

Perrier says there is no EU ruling that specifically bans micro-filtration. The relevant text simply says that nothing must be done to disinfect or alter the mineral make-up of the water. The argument is over at what measure of micro-filtration alteration begins.

The original Perrier source was first tapped by a local doctor in the 1860s, but it was under British management that the brand took off 50 years later.

St John Harmsworth – brother of newspaper magnates Lords Northcliffe and Rothermere – made Perrier a byword for mineral water across the British empire.

According to company lore, Harmsworth took inspiration for the bottles’ bulbous shape from the Indian clubs he used for exercise following a crippling car accident.

Today the bottling plant at Vergèze is still next to Harmsworth’s residence and the original source. The plant has been heavily automated. A rail track connects with the SNCF network to bring hundreds of millions of cans and bottles every year to Marseille for export.

The focus for the last year has been on a new brand: Maison Perrier. These energy and flavoured drinks are proving highly successful in France and around the world.

The advantage for Perrier is that the new beverages do not claim to be “natural mineral water”. They can be treated and filtered without difficulty.

Perrier says the new brand is part of the mix, and that it has no intention of abandoning its original Source Perrier natural mineral water. It has stopped the ultra-fine (0.2 micron) microfiltration, and now uses a 0.45 micron system which has been agreed with government.

It has applied for “natural mineral water” status for just two out of the five drilling wells it was using for Perrier mineral water. A decision is due later this year.

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Actress Gina Carano has settled her lawsuit against Disney and Lucasfilm after she was fired from Star Wars franchise spin-off The Mandalorian.

She was dropped from the cast in 2021 following comments she made comparing being a Republican in the US to being a Jew during the Holocaust.

Ms Carano, a former MMA fighter who played Cara Dune in the Disney+ series, shared the news of the settlement on X, writing “I hope this brings some healing to the force.”

The agreement, which has not been made public, comes after her case gained support and funding from Elon Musk.

Ms Carano described the settlement as the “best outcome for all parties involved,” adding she was “excited to flip the page and move onto the next chapter”.

She also thanked Musk, saying she’d never met the tech billionaire but he stepped in to do this “Good Samaritan deed for me in funding my lawsuit”.

“Yes, I’m smiling”, she signed off.

The actress originally sued for wrongful termination and sexual discrimination, claiming that two of her male co-stars had made similar posts and faced no penalty.

She had sought $75,000 (£60,000) in damages and to be recast in the popular series.

Lucasfilm had condemned her comments in 2021 for “denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities”.

In a statement released since the settlement, the production company said that it looks forward to “identifying opportunities to work together”.

The company described Ms Carano as someone who “was always well respected by her directors, co-stars, and staff. She worked hard to perfect her craft while treating her colleagues with kindness and respect,” it added.

Ms Carano is a former mixed martial arts fighter and has faced pushback in the past for deriding mask-wearing policies during the Covid pandemic and making false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 US presidential election, which Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial plans for a new military push in the Gaza Strip have raised warnings from the army leadership, opposition from hostage families and concerns that more Palestinians will be killed.

They also risk isolating his country even further.

In a meeting of the security cabinet that lasted 10 hours, ministers approved proposals for the “takeover of Gaza City”, which is likely to be the first phase for the Israeli military to assume full control of Gaza, as Netanyahu says it is his intention.

A statement released by his office did not use the word “occupation” but, effectively, that is what the plans mean.

It is not clear when the operations, which could take months, will start, as the military will have to call up thousands of reservists, exhausted after serving multiple times, and allow for the forced evacuation of residents from an area where around 800,000 Palestinians live.

Many, if not most, have already been repeatedly displaced in this war.

The plans will spark fresh condemnation from countries which have expressed anger over the situation in Gaza and urged Israel to end the war, which started as a response to the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has described the decision as “wrong” and called on Israel to reconsider it “immediately”.

But international pressure is unlikely to force Netanyahu change his course.

There is discontent at home, too. Polls suggest most of the Israeli public favour a deal with Hamas for the release of the 50 hostages, 20 of whom are thought to be alive, and the end of the war.

The threat of a full occupation could be part of a strategy to try to force the group into making concessions in stalled ceasefire talks.

Israeli leaders say Hamas, for now, is not interested in negotiating as, in their view, the group is feeling emboldened, a view that seems to be shared by the Trump administration which has not expressed opposition to Israel’s plans.

• LIVE: Security cabinet approved Gaza City plan

Many here believe that Netanyahu is prolonging the conflict to guarantee the survival of his coalition, which relies on the support of ultranationalist ministers who have threatened to quit the government if the war ends.

Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have also publicly defended what they describe as the voluntary migration of Palestinians from Gaza – which could amount to the forced displacement of civilians, a war crime – and resettling it with Jews.

Netanyahu’s ideas have faced strong opposition from the army’s Chief of Staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir who, according to reports in the Israeli media, had warned the prime minister that a full occupation Gaza was “tantamount to walking into a trap” and would endanger the living hostages.

Many of the hostages’ families share those concerns, and say the only way to guarantee the release of the hostages is through a negotiated deal with Hamas and ending the war.

According to the Maariv newspaper, the “prevailing assessment is that most and possibly all of the living hostages [will] die” during an expanded offensive, either killed by their captors or accidentally by Israeli soldiers.

Ahead of the security cabinet meeting, Netanyahu gave an interview to Fox News in which he said Israel intended to take full control of Gaza.

The decision of the cabinet appeared to stop short of officially endorsing that.

In the Fox interview, Netanyahu suggested that Israel did not want to keep the territory. “We don’t want to govern it,” he said. “We don’t want to be there as a governing body. We want to hand it over to Arab forces.”

He did not give details about possible arrangements or which countries could be involved. Still, this was a rare indication of what he might be envisioning for a post-war Gaza.

Netanyahu has, so far, failed to offer a vision for Gaza after the war apart from refusing to accept a governing role for the Palestinian Authority, the body that governs the occupied West Bank and recognises Israel.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas. The Hamas 7 October attacks on Israel killed about 1,200 people, while 251 were taken to Gaza as hostages.

In Gurugram, an upscale suburb just outside Delhi, gleaming SUVs, futuristic skyscrapers and neat apartments stand in stark contrast to nearby mosquito swarms, trash heaps and tarpaulin shanties.

Inside the gated compounds live some of India’s richest, while in the slums nearby live poor migrant workers – mostly domestic helpers, garbage-pickers and daily-wage workers – who keep the affluence going.

Last month, local authorities rounded up hundreds of these workers, most of whom say they are Bengali-speaking Muslims from India’s West Bengal state, in a “verification” drive targeting illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.

The suspects were detained and kept at “holding centres” where they were asked to provide documents to prove their citizenship. Many allege they were beaten and mistreated by police during the process. Police officials deny these allegations.

“I had my voter and national ID cards, but they told me they were fake. I spent six days not knowing my fate before I was finally released,” said Ather Ali Sheikh, a daily-wage worker, who has lived in the city for 15 years.

The action has left indelible scars on the social fabric of the city, which prides itself on its cosmopolitan culture. Hundreds of workers have fled overnight – abandoning jobs, homes and, in some cases, even families in their haste to escape.

“I still don’t understand why they suddenly came after me,” Mr Sheikh said. Behind him, his wife hurriedly packed their belongings – torn clothes, old utensils and school books – into flimsy boxes.

“Was it because of my language, my religion or because I am poor? ” Mr Sheikh continued, his face hardening with anger. “Why weren’t the rich Bengali residents held up?”

Police in Gurugram deny targeting any particular community. “Neither religion nor class has anything to do with the drive,” public relations officer Sandeep Kumar told the BBC.

He added that out of the 250 people picked up, only 10 have been identified as illegal migrants and will actually be deported.

“Everyone else was released. No one was mistreated at the centres. We have been completely fair and objective.”

Meanwhile, trepidation is being felt on other side of the city as well.

With no workers left, heaps of trash have been overflowing from public bins and dump yards on to the streets, inconveniencing residents.

“Our house help and her husband, who worked as a driver, both left and now we have no help,” said Tabassum Bano, who lives in one of the complexes.

Crackdowns on alleged illegal immigrants from Muslim-majority Bangladesh are not new in India. The countries are divided by a porous border 4,096km (2,545-mile) long, and have seen waves of movement of people on both sides.

But these efforts seem to have intensified under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

In recent months, hundreds of people, including a veteran Muslim officer of the Indian Army, have been arrested on suspicion of being illegal migrants.

In the north-eastern state of Assam, where the issue has been a potent flashpoint for decades, authorities have been “pushing back” hundreds of Bengali-Muslims into Bangladesh on suspicion of them being “illegal Bangladeshis”.

Deportations are also under way in Delhi, where some 700 people were picked up and flown out to border states in the last six months.

This has had a chilling impact on the marginalised community.

In Gurugram, a sense of shock prevailed over their dust-blanketed colonies.

“For years, we have cleaned and collected their garbage. Now we are being treated like it ourselves,” said Rauna Bibi.

A domestic help, Rauna’s husband had returned from West Bengal the same day the detentions began. When he heard about it, he was so terrified he left again – this time, without informing his wife.

“For three days, I wondered if he was picked up; whether he was even alive,” Rauna said. “When we finally spoke, he said he didn’t call because he did not want any trouble.”

But it was not her husband’s behaviour that bothered Rauna, or the fact that he was now jobless. It was the theft of her pride – and the comfort of belonging to a place – that hurt her the most, making her feel absurdly insignificant.

“Unlike poverty, I can’t fight this with my hard work,” she said. “If they pick us, I wouldn’t know how to survive. This slum, the work we do and the houses we clean – this is our entire life.”

Mr Kumar says the recent action is based on a home ministry notice from May that lays down new guidelines for deporting illegal immigrants.

Under the order, all states are required to set up a special task force along with holding centres to “detect, identify and deport/send back illegal immigrants settled from Bangladesh and Myanmar”.

Each person would be given 30 days to prove their citizenship, during which authorities would send their documents back to their home districts for verification.

If they fail to confirm the details, the suspects would be taken by the police “under proper escort, in groups as far as possible”, and handed over to the border forces for deportation.

Critics, however, have questioned the order, saying it does not specify the basis on which a person is made a suspect.

“On the face of it, it’s nothing other than the fact that you speak Bengali, have a Muslim name and live in shanty,” said Aakash Bhattacharya, of the national council of the All India Central Council of Trade Unions which advocates for workers’ rights.

What is worse is that none of the suspects are being given certificates confirming their citizenship had already been verified, he added.

“This means they can be put through the same process again, making them extremely vulnerable.”

Mr Kumar says the detentions in Gurugram were made on the basis of strong preliminary evidence.

“We checked their phones and found suspicious contacts from Bangladesh. Some of them also failed to answer questions about their ancestry during interrogation,” he said.

Suhas Chakma, a human rights worker, says that the policy is not necessarily religious-specific.

“The arrest of the Muslims appears to be more as they constitute about 95% of Bangladesh’s population,” he explained.

But for a country that has seen an influx of refugees for decades, India does need a wider refugee law to address many of these complex issues, he added.

For now, Bengali-Muslims are living with a deep sense of foreboding.

Many of them have been sleeping with documents tucked under the pillow in case misfortune strikes.

“We were already fighting the harsh reality of our lives. Now we have to fight this too,” said Rabi-ul-Hassan, a resident of Jai Hind camp, a massive slum located in one of the poshest corners of Delhi.

Three weeks ago, authorities cut off electricity in the area, instantly plunging some 400 people into darkness.

The action came after a court ruled that the slum-dwellers, who say they have lived there for generations, were squatting on private land.

“They did this even when the area is recognised as a legal slum by the city’s own urban planning organisation,” said Abhik Chimni, a lawyer who is challenging the order.

Since then residents have been in some kind of stupor, dazed, angry and tired. “The heat is unbearable. The food keeps rotting and the children don’t stop crying. At night, we try to sleep outside but then mosquitoes bite us,” said Baijan Bibi.

“I am so exhausted,” she continued, “that sometimes I wonder if it’s better to live in a holding centre. At least there will be a fan there, right?”

A new robot shop has opened in Beijing selling everything from mechanical butlers to human-like replicas of Albert Einstein.

More than 100 types of products will be on sale at Robot Mall, which launched in the Chinese capital on Friday. The store is one of the first in the country to sell humanoid and consumer-oriented robots.

The outlet has been compared to a car dealership as it offers services including sales, spare parts and maintenance.

China has invested heavily in the robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) as it looks to overcome challenges such as slowing economic growth and an ageing population.

“If robots are to enter thousands of households, relying solely on robotics companies is not enough,” Wang Yifan, a store director, told Reuters.

The robots on sale range in price from 2,000 yuan ($278, £207) to several million yuan.

Visitors will be able to interact with a wide range of robots, including dogs and chess players, organisers said.

There is also a separate section offering replacement parts and robot maintenance services.

Robot Mall is located next to a themed restaurant, where diners are served by robots and the food is cooked by mechanical chefs.

China has increasingly prioritised the robotics industry, with subsidies topping $20bn over the past year.

The Chinese government is also planning a 1 trillion yuan fund for AI and robotics start ups.

The opening of Robot Mall coincides with the start of the five-day World Robot Conference, which started in Beijing on Friday.

Chinese state media said this year’s event will see more than 1,500 exhibits from over 200 local and overseas robotic companies.

Beijing is also preparing to host the inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games from 14 to 17 August.

Teams from more than 20 countries will compete in events including track and field, dance and football.

The US has doubled a reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to $50m (£37.2m), accusing him of being “one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world”.

US President Donald Trump is a long-time critic of Maduro, who returned to office in January following an election marred by vote-rigging allegations. The results were widely rejected by the international community.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the US would double its already announced reward of $25m (£18.6m), and said Maduro was directly linked to drug smuggling operations.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said the new reward was “pathetic” and labelled it “political propaganda”.

“We’re not surprised, coming from whom it comes from,” Gil said, accusing Bondi of attempting a “desperate distraction” from headlines related to backlash over the handling of the case of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

During Trump’s first term, the US government charged Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan officials with a range of offences, including narco-terrorism, corruption and drug trafficking.

At the time, the US Department of Justice claimed Maduro had worked with the Colombian rebel group Farc to “use cocaine as a weapon to ‘flood’ the United States”.

In a video posted on X on Thursday, Bondi accused Maduro of coordinating with groups like Tren de Aragua – a Venezuelan gang that the Trump administration has declared a terrorist organisation – and the Sinaloa Cartel, a powerful criminal network based in Mexico.

She claimed the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had “seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Maduro and his associates, with nearly seven tons linked to Maduro himself”.

Maduro has previously rejected US claims he has direct involvement in drug trafficking.

Bondi’s comments are an extension of long-running tensions between the US and Venezuelan government – but the attorney general did not provide any further indication over how the government envisioned the renewed appeal and cash incentive would yield results.

Maduro – who is leader of the United Socialist Party and succeeded Hugo Chavez in 2013 – has been repeatedly accused of repressing opposition groups and silencing dissent in Venezuela, including with the use of violence.

He weathered protests in the wake of last year’s contested election and has retained his grip on power.

But in June, Hugo Carvajal – formerly the head of Venezuela’s military intelligence – was convicted of several drug trafficking charges after being arrested in Madrid and put on trial in the US.

Carvajal had been a feared spymaster who went by the name El Pollo, or The Chicken, but fled Venezuela after calling on the army to back an opposition candidate and overthrow Maduro.

He initially denied the drug charges but later changed his plea to guilty, fuelling speculation he had cut a deal with US authorities for a lesser sentence in exchange for incriminating information about Maduro.

The UK and EU announced sanctions against Maduro’s government following his return to office earlier this year.

A 16-year-old boy who described himself in a TikTok video as a “serial rapist” has been sentenced after raping three teenage girls and sexually assaulting a fourth.

In what police described as “heinous” crimes, the boy used social media to contact the girls – who were between 13 and 15 – and convinced them to meet him, before sexually assaulting them.

He was sentenced at Salisbury Crown Court on Friday to eight years to be spent firstly at a secure training centre and then at a young offender’s institution. He cannot be named for legal reasons.

Det Con Dan England said the case highlighted “the troubling issue of toxic sexual behaviours in some young men”.

The teenager – from south Wiltshire – was found guilty following a Southampton Youth Court trial in January.

Police said the crimes took place on four separate occasions between May 2023 and December 2024.

Speaking after the sentencing, Det Con England said: “[Toxic sexual behaviours], which can stem from a variety of societal influences, must be addressed through education and open dialogue, in the home, at school, workplaces and throughout our entire community.”

The teenager will spend a further six years on licence after his release.

He will be placed on the sex offenders register for life and will be the subject of an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

Det Con England continued: “My thoughts are firmly with the victims, who have shown remarkable courage and resilience throughout this ordeal.

“It is their bravery in coming forward that has brought this perpetrator to justice. I applaud their strength in the face of such unimaginable trauma and thank them for putting their trust in us.”

The teenager was also given an indefinite restraining order against the victims.

The body of a man missing for 28 years has been found in a melting glacier in Pakistan’s remote and mountainous Kohistan region.

A shepherd stumbled upon the body, which was remarkably well-preserved, with its clothing intact, in the so-called Lady Valley in the country’s east.

Along with the body was an ID card with the name Naseeruddin. Police were able to trace it to a man who disappeared in the area in June 1997 after falling into a glacier crack.

The region has seen decreased snowfall in recent years, exposing glaciers to direct sunlight, making them melt faster. Experts said the body’s discovery shows how changing climate has accelerated glacial melt.

“What I saw was unbelievable,” the shepherd who found the body, Omar Khan, told BBC Urdu. “The body was intact. The clothes were not even torn.”

As soon as police confirmed that it was Naseeruddin, locals began offering more information, Mr Khan added.

Naseeruddin had a wife and two children. He was travelling with his brother, Kathiruddin, on horseback on the day he went missing. Police said a family feud had forced the two men to leave their home.

Kathiruddin told BBC Urdu that they had arrived in the valley that morning, and sometime around afternoon, his brother stepped into a cave. When he did not return, Kathiruddin says he looked for him inside the cave – and went and got help from others in the area to search further. But they never found him.

When a human body falls into a glacier, the extreme cold freezes it fast, preventing decomposition, said Prof Muhammad Bilal, head of the Department of Environment at Comsats University Islamabad.

The body is then mummified due to a lack of moisture and oxygen in the glacier.