Ukraine’s borders must not be changed by force, EU leaders say
European leaders have warned against Ukrainian borders being redrawn by force – two days before a US-Russia summit on Ukraine is due to take place in Alaska.
In a statement, European leaders said “the people of Ukraine must have the freedom to decide their future”.
It added the principles of “territorial integrity” must be respected and “international borders must not be changed by force”.
The statement was signed by 26 of 27 leaders. Missing from the signatories was Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban, who has maintained friendly relations with Russia and has repeatedly tried to block European Union support for Ukraine.
The statement underscored the nervousness felt by Europeans about Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, which many countries – particularly those bordering Russia or those in which the memory of Soviet occupation still lingers – believe could pose a direct threat in the near future.
In recent years Sweden and Finland have joined Nato, Baltic countries have reinstated conscription, and Poland has set aside billions to build a barrier alongside its border with Russia.
European countries have a long history of borders being redrawn by bloody wars and are extremely concerned by the prospect of the US allowing that to happen in Ukraine. A legal recognition of Russia’s sovereignty over territories it conquered by force is unacceptable to the EU.
- Why are Trump and Putin meeting in Alaska?
- Why did Putin’s Russia invade Ukraine?
US President Donald Trump has insisted that any peace deal would involve “some swapping of territories” and could see Russia taking the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine and keeping Crimea. In exchange it would give up the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, which it partially occupies.
Last week, while admitting that some Ukrainian territory might end up being de facto controlled by Russia, Nato chief Mark Rutte stressed that this should not be formally recognised.
Formal recognition would entail a change to the Ukrainian constitution that needs to be approved by a national referendum, which in turn must be authorised by the Ukrainian parliament. This would be a considerable hurdle for President Volodymyr Zelensky and may lead to the end of his government.
This is why at present “no-one is talking about international formal recognition”, analyst Prof Mark Galeotti told the BBC’s Today programme.
“We would be recognising that for the moment Russia does control almost 20% of Ukraine but international borders remain what they are,” Prof Galeotti said, adding that Zelensky could accept de facto control without changing the constitution.
In their statement, European leaders said “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has wider implications for European and international security”, and stressed the need for a “just and lasting peace”.
They also said Ukraine should be capable of “defending itself effectively” and pledged to continue providing military support to Kyiv, which was “exercising its inherent right of self-defence”.
“The European Union underlines the inherent right of Ukraine to choose its own destiny and will continue supporting Ukraine on its path towards EU membership,” the statement concluded.
Denting the apparent unity of the declaration was a line in smaller print at the bottom of the page pointing out that “Hungary does not associate itself with this statement”.
In a post on social media its leader Viktor Orban said he had opted out of supporting the statement as it attempted to set conditions for a meeting to which the EU was not invited and warned leaders not to start “providing instructions from the bench”.
He also urged the EU to set up its own summit with Russia – though EU leaders have been shunning direct talks with Moscow since it launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
On Monday Trump revealed he had sought Orban’s advice over the chances of Ukraine winning against Russia on the battlefield. “He looked at me like, ‘What a stupid question’,” Trump said, suggesting that Orban felt Russia would continue to wage war until it beat its adversary.
Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are expected to meet in Alaska on Friday.
Before that, EU leaders are due to hold talks with Trump on Wednesday. UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will also join the call and said on Monday that peace would have to be “built with Ukraine, not imposed upon it”.
They will be hoping to put the security of the European continent and Ukrainian interests at the forefront of his mind – at a time when nervousness is growing that the peace imposed on Ukraine may end up being neither “just” nor “lasting”.
North Koreans tell BBC they are being sent to work ‘like slaves’ in Russia
Thousands of North Koreans are being sent to work in slave-like conditions in Russia to fill a huge labour shortage exacerbated by Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the BBC has learned.
Moscow has repeatedly turned to Pyongyang to help it fight the war, using its missiles, artillery shells and its soldiers.
Now, with many of Russia’s men either killed or tied up fighting – or having fled the country – South Korean intelligence officials have told the BBC that Moscow is increasingly relying on North Korean labourers.
We interviewed six North Korean workers who have fled Russia since the start of the war, along with South Korean government officials, researchers and those helping to rescue the labourers.
They detailed how the men are subjected to “abysmal” working conditions, and how the North Korean authorities are tightening their control over the workers to stop them escaping.
One of the workers, Jin, told the BBC that when he landed in Russia’s Far East, he was chaperoned from the airport to a construction site by a North Korean security agent, who ordered him not to talk to anyone or look at anything.
“The outside world is our enemy,” the agent told him. He was put straight to work building high-rise apartment blocks for more than 18 hours a day, he said.
All six workers we spoke to described the same punishing workdays – waking at 6am and being forced to build high-rise apartments until 2am the next morning, with just two days off a year.
We have changed their names to protect them.
“Waking up was terrifying, realising you had to repeat the same day over again,” said another construction worker, Tae, who managed to escape Russia last year. Tae recalled how his hands would seize up in the morning, unable to open, paralysed from the previous day’s work.
“Some people would leave their post to sleep in the day, or fall asleep standing up, but the supervisors would find them and beat them. It was truly like we were dying,” said another of the workers, Chan.
“The conditions are truly abysmal,” said Kang Dong-wan, a professor at South Korea’s Dong-A University who has travelled to Russia multiple times to interview North Korean labourers.
“The workers are exposed to very dangerous situations. At night the lights are turned out and they work in the dark, with little safety equipment.”
The escapees told us that the workers are confined to their construction sites day and night, where they are watched by agents from North Korea’s state security department. They sleep in dirty, overcrowded shipping containers, infested with bugs, or on the floor of unfinished apartment blocks, with tarps pulled over the door frames to try to keep out the cold.
One labourer, Nam, said he once fell four metres off his building site and “smashed up” his face, leaving him unable to work. Even then his supervisors would not let him leave the site to visit a hospital.
In the past, tens of thousands of North Koreans worked in Russia earning millions of pounds a year for the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, and his cash-strapped regime. Then in 2019, the UN banned countries from using these workers in an attempt to cut off Kim’s funds and stop him building nuclear weapons, meaning most were sent home.
But last year more than 10,000 labourers were sent to Russia, according to a South Korean intelligence official speaking to the BBC on the condition of anonymity. They told us that even more were expected to arrive this year, and in total Pyongyang would eventually dispatch more than 50,000 workers.
The sudden influx means North Korean workers are now “everywhere in Russia,” the official added. While most are working on large-scale construction projects, others have been assigned to clothing factories and IT centres, they said, in violation of the UN sanctions banning the use of North Korean labour.
Russian government figures show that more than 13,000 North Koreans entered the country in 2024, a 12-fold increase from the previous year. Nearly 8,000 of them entered on student visas but, according to the intelligence official and experts, this is a tactic used by Russia to bypass the UN ban.
In June, a senior Russian official, Sergei Shoigu, admitted for the first time that 5,000 North Koreans would be sent to rebuild Kursk, a Russian region seized by Ukrainian forces last year but who have since been pushed back.
The South Korean official told us it was also “highly likely” some North Koreans would soon be deployed to work on reconstruction projects in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.
“Russia is suffering a severe labour shortage right now and North Koreans offer the perfect solution. They are cheap, hard-working and don’t get into trouble,” said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul and a renowned expert in North Korea-Russia relations.
These overseas construction jobs are highly coveted in North Korea as they promise to pay better than the work at home. Most workers go hoping to escape poverty and be able to buy a house for their family or start a business when they return. Only the most trusted men are selected after being rigorously vetted, and they must leave their families behind.
But the bulk of their earnings is sent straight to the North Korean state as “loyalty fees”. The remaining fraction – usually between $100-200 (£74-£149) a month – is marked down on a ledger. The workers only receive this money when they return home – a recent tactic, experts say, to stop them running away.
Once the men realise the reality of the harsh work and lack of pay, it can be shattering. Tae said he was “ashamed” when he learnt that other construction workers from central Asia were being paid five times more than him for a third of the work. “I felt like I was in a labour camp; a prison without bars,” he said.
The labourer Jin still bristles when he remembers how the other workers would call them slaves. “You are not men, just machines that can speak,” they jeered. At one point, Jin’s manager told him he might not receive any money when he returned to North Korea because the state needed it instead. It was then he decided to risk his life to escape.
Tae made the decision to defect after watching YouTube videos showing how much workers in South Korea were paid. One night, he packed his belongings into a bin liner, stuffed a blanket under his bed sheets to make it look as if he was still sleeping, and crept out of his construction site. He hailed a taxi and travelled thousands of kilometres across the country to meet a lawyer who helped arrange his journey on to Seoul.
In recent years, a small number of workers have been able to orchestrate their escapes using forbidden second-hand smartphones, bought by saving the small daily allowance they received for cigarettes and alcohol.
In an attempt to prevent these escapes, multiple sources have told us that the North Korean authorities are now cracking down on workers’ already limited freedom.
According to Prof Kang from Dong-A University, one way the regime has tried to control the workers over the last year is by subjecting them to more frequent ideological training and self-criticism sessions, in which they are forced to declare their loyalty to Kim Jong Un and log their failings.
Rare opportunities to leave construction sites have also been cut. “The workers used to go out in groups once a month, but recently these trips have reduced to almost zero,” Prof Kang added.
Kim Seung-chul, a Seoul-based activist who helps rescue North Korean workers from Russia, said these outings were being more tightly controlled. “They used to be allowed to leave in pairs, but since 2023 they have had to travel in groups of five and are monitored more intensely.”
In this climate, fewer workers are managing to escape. The South Korean government told us the number of North Koreans making it out of Russia each year and arriving in Seoul had halved since 2022 – from around 20 a year to just 10.
Mr Lankov, the expert in North Korea-Russia relations, said the crackdowns were likely in preparation for many more workers arriving.
“These workers will be the lasting legacy of Kim and Putin’s wartime friendship,” he said, arguing the workers would continue arriving long after the war had ended, and the deployment of soldiers and weapons had ceased.
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Italian orienteer Mattia Debertolis has died after collapsing during the World Games in China last week.
The 29-year-old was found unconscious by organisers during an orienteering event last Friday in Chengdu.
The Italian died on Tuesday – four days after his collapse.
“Despite receiving immediate expert medical care at one of China’s leading medical institutions, he passed away,” World Games organisers said in a statement.
International Orienteering Federation (IOF) President Tom Hollowell said he was “not able to adequately describe the unfathomable depth of sadness in this tragic loss of life”.
Debertolis’ cause of death is unknown at this stage.
The World Games is a multi-sport event held every four years for events that are not listed in the Olympics.
Debertolis was taking part in the final of the men’s middle-distance event, which took place in temperatures above 30 degrees, when he collapsed.
Orienteering is an outdoor sport in which participants have to navigate between unmarked checkpoints using a map.
It combines physical activity with map-reading and problem-solving.
The Italian was one of 12 athletes listed as “Did Not Finish” in the official results.
He was part of the Italian national team and finished fifth in the 2022 World Cup final.
Debertolis, who was qualified as a civil engineer, resided in Sweden and was studying for a PhD at a university in Stockholm.
World Games organisers said they will “continue to support the family of Debertolis and the orienteering community in every possible way.”
Australia PM says Israel’s Netanyahu ‘in denial’ about Gaza war
Australia’s prime minister has accused his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu of being “in denial” over the consequences of the war in Gaza.
Anthony Albanese on Monday announced his country would recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September, following similar moves by the UK, France and Canada.
Albanese said frustration with the Israeli government had played a role in the move, saying Australians “want to see the killing and the cycle of violence stop”.
Israel, under increasing pressure to end the war in Gaza, has said recognising a Palestinian state “rewards terrorism” and Netanyahu called the decision taken by Australia and other allies “shameful”.
Netanyahu and his government have been facing growing condemnation over reports of starvation in Gaza.
Five people have died from malnutrition in the past 24 hours, including one child, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, bringing the total number of malnutrition deaths to 222 – including 101 children.
Israel denies there is starvation in Gaza and has accused UN agencies of not picking up aid at the borders and delivering it. The UN has rejected this, saying it faces obstacles and delays while collecting aid from Israeli-controlled border zones.
Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Tuesday, Albanese said he had spoken to PM Netanyahu last Thursday to inform him of Australia’s decision.
“The stopping of aid that we’ve seen and then the loss of life that we’re seeing around those aid distribution points, where people queuing for food and water are losing their lives, is just completely unacceptable. And we have said that,” he said.
“I spoke with PM Netanyahu. He again reiterated to me what he has said publicly as well, which is to be in denial about the consequences that are occurring for innocent people.”
Albanese had earlier said the decision to recognise a Palestinian state was made after receiving commitments from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which controls parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, that Hamas would play no role in any future state
The move has drawn a mixed response in Australia, with the Executive Council of Australian Jewry calling it a “betrayal”, and some Palestinian activists saying it doesn’t go far enough.
Right-leaning opposition leader Sussan Ley said the decision was “disrespectful” to the US, a key Australian ally.
Earlier this month, a pro-Palestinian protest drew at least 90,000 supporters who walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge, a day after a court ruling allowed the demonstration to happen.
Netanyahu said in a press conference over the weekend that it was “shameful” for countries including Australia to recognise a Palestinian state.
“They know what they would do if, right next to Melbourne or right next to Sydney, you had this horrific attack. I think you would do at least what we’re doing.”
More than 61,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s military campaign since 7 October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Israel launched the offensive in response to the Hamas-led attack on 7 October, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
Scores still missing a week after India flash floods
At least 66 people are still missing a week after flash floods hit the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, according to an official statement.
Only one body has been recovered so far, the statement added, revising an earlier death toll of four.
Nearly half of Dharali village was submerged on 5 August in a mudslide caused by heavy rains and flash floods. An army camp nearby also suffered extensive damage.
Rescue operations are continuing at the site of the disaster as workers search for missing people. The work has been affected by inclement weather and the blockage of a key highway near the site due to the mudslide.
Weeks of heavy rain have pounded Uttarakhand, with Uttarkashi region – home to Dharali village – among the worst hit by flooding.
Around 1,300 people have been rescued from near Dharali since last week, officials said.
Heavy rains last week had led to the swelling of the Kheerganga river in the region, sending tonnes of muddy waters gushing downwards on the hilly terrain, covering roads, buildings and shops in Dharali and nearby Harsil village.
Videos showed a giant wave of water gushing through the area, crumpling buildings in its path, giving little time for people to escape.
Uttarakhand’s chief minister and other officials initially said the flash floods were caused by a cloudburst, but India’s weather department has not confirmed this.
Vinay Shankar Pandey, a senior local official, said a team of 10 geologists has been sent to the village to determine the cause of the flash floods.
The sludge from Kheerganga blocked a part of the region’s main river Bhagirathi [which becomes India’s holiest river Ganges once it travels downstream] and created an artificial lake, submerging vast tracts of land, including a government helipad.
Rescue workers are still trying to drain the lake, which had initially receded but filled up again after more rains.
Mr Pandey said in a statement that a list of missing people included 24 Nepalese workers, 14 locals, nine army personnel and 13 and six individuals from the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, respectively.
Locals, however, have told reporters that more people from the area are still unaccounted for.
Rescue officials are using helicopters to reach Dharali, which is still blocked by debris.
A temporary bridge has also been built to allow easier access as workers continue to try and clear the blocked roads.
“Efforts are continuously being made to remove the debris and construct roads in Dharali to restore order,” Mr Pandey said.
Sniffer dogs and earth-moving machinery are searching for those trapped beneath the rubble.
A rescue worker told the Press Trust of India that they were manually digging through the debris where a hotel had stood before the disaster hit.
“There was some movement of people in front of it when the disaster struck. The debris here is being dug manually with the help of radar equipment as people might be buried here,” he said.
On Monday, a road-repair machine near Kheerganga plunged into a swollen river; its driver is missing, and the machine remains unrecovered.
India’s weather department has predicted heavy rains and thunderstorms for various parts of Uttarakhand till 14 August with high alerts issued for eight districts, including Garhwal.
Nepal offers free climbs to 97 peaks as tourism to Everest surges
Nepal will make 97 of its Himalayan mountains free to climb for the next two years in a bid to boost tourism in some of its more remote areas.
It comes as permit fees to summit Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, during peak season will go up to $15,000 (£11,170) from September – the first increase in nearly a decade.
Nepal’s tourism department said it hopes the initiative will highlight the country’s “unexplored tourism products and destinations”.
Mountaineering generates a significant source of revenue for Nepal, which is home to eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains. Climbing fees brought in $5.9m last year, with Everest accounting for more than three quarters of that.
The peaks for which fees will be waived are located in Nepal’s Karnali and Sudurpaschim provinces, standing between 5,970m (19,590 ft) and 7,132m high.
Both provinces, located in the far-western region of Nepal, are among the country’s poorest and least developed provinces.
“Despite their breathtaking beauty, the number of tourists and mountaineers here is very low as access is so difficult. We hope the new provision will help,” said Himal Gautam, director of Nepal’s Tourism Department.
“They can create jobs, generate income, and strengthen the local economy,” he said, as reported by The Kathmandu Post.
But it is unclear if authorities have plans to improve infrastructure and connectivity to these remote areas – and how well communities in these areas might cope with an influx of climbers, if the free-to-climb initiative does take off.
Climbers have historically shown little interest in these 97 remote peaks – only 68 of them have ventured there in the last two years. In contrast, some 421 climbing permits were issued for Everest in 2024 alone.
Everest, the world’s highest peak at over 8,849m, has in recent years been plagued by overcrowding, environmental concerns and a series of fatal climbing attempts.
In April 2024, Nepal’s Supreme Court ordered the government to limit the number of mountaineering permits issued for Everest and several other peaks, saying that the mountains’ capacity “must be respected”.
In January this year, authorities announced a 36% mark-up in permit fees. For those attempting the summit outside the peak April to May season, it will now cost $7,500 to climb Everest during September to November and $3,750 during December to February.
Nepal’s parliament is also debating a new law that will require anyone wanting to scale Everest to have first summited a mountain over 7,000m in the country.
This makes the peaks in Karnali and Sudurpaschim “ideal training grounds”, according to The Kathmandu Post.
Swift announces new album on boyfriend Kelce’s podcast
Taylor Swift has announced her 12th studio album The Life of a Showgirl, after an intense 24 hours of speculation from fans.
Rumours began on Monday morning, when the singer’s marketing team posted a carousel of 12 photos with the caption: “Thinking about when she said ‘see you next era’.”
In the hours that followed, Swift’s official website began a countdown to 00:12 ET (05:12 BST), when her boyfriend, NFL star Travis Kelce confirmed that she would be a guest this week on his podcast, New Heights.
The title of the album was revealed by Swift herself on a social media clip trailing Kelce’s podcast, and the record was simultaneously made available for pre-order on her website.
Fans who pre-ordered the album received a message which said it would ship before 13 October, but that “this is not the release date”.
The official release date for the new music is yet to be confirmed.
The pop star’s 11th album The Tortured Poets Department, released last year, broke the Spotify record for being the most-streamed album in a day.
A shift in approach?
Announcing her new album on her current boyfriend’s podcast is an interesting move for Swift, as so much of her songwriting and back catalogue has been about her previous relationships.
It was widely reported – though never confirmed – that her last album detailed her break-up from The 1975 singer Matty Healy. Other former beaus including Harry Styles, Jake Gyllenhaal and John Mayer are all long thought by fans to have been subjects of songs in the past.
The Guardian’s deputy music editor Laura Snapes told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday that the subject of relationships could be back on the agenda.
“There is a leaked photograph of, allegedly, the inside of the vinyl going around where you can see some blurry, out of focus lyrics,” noted Snapes. “And there seems to be some stuff about love.
“There might be something about the situation with her former label… it doesn’t seem like she’s done singing about that.”
The star, she stressed, “famously gives no interviews”. So everything her fans hear from her “is direct” , either via social media or comments made on stage inbetween songs at her gigs like during her all-conquering recent Eras tour.
A new album is therefore like “an update on her life – what she’s been thinking of, what she’s been feeling”, Snapes said, adding it’s “really interesting” that Swift delivered the update in this way.
“It seems quite loose – a way that we don’t really get to see her in public,” added the journalist.
“And I wonder if this is going to signal a shift in her media approach, or if it’s just her boyfriend’s podcast?”
Snapes said she will be “watching with interest” when the full podcast drops at 00:00 BST on Thursday.
After years of headlines during her record-breaking Eras tour, Swift appeared to have a relatively quiet start to 2025.
In May this year, it was announced that she had bought back the rights to her first six albums, ending a long-running and highly publicised battle over the ownership of her music.
After her original masters sold, she vowed to re-record all six albums, which became known as “Taylor’s Versions”. To date, she has re-released four of the original six.
Swift announced her purchase of her original masters with a heartfelt letter to fans, where she wrote that the final two albums would “have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right.”
The singer wrapped up the Eras tour in December 2024, after playing 149 shows in 53 cities.
In the UK alone, she played to almost 1.2 million people, including eight nights at Wembley Stadium. The tour generated an estimated £1bn for the country’s economy, and was the catalyst for Swift officially claiming billionaire status.
The star also has a suite of awards to her name; she has been named artist of the decade by the American Music Awards, is the most awarded artist of all time at MTV’s Video Music Awards and has won 14 Grammys, including an unprecedented four album of the year awards.
How did she get so big?
Her pandemic era albums Folklore and Evermore were a significant turning point, according to BBC Culture correspondent Mark Savage, with the subtle, indie-folk arrangements winning over critics and fans who had previously been unimpressed by her country and pop hits.
The rise of TikTok introduced her to a new audience, while the ongoing project of re-recording her first six albums rejuvenated her older hits.
“She is just one of those rare timeless artists who gets it right every time,” said fellow pop star Raye last year. “She’s an absolute powerhouse.”
“She’s such a fantastic role model,” added Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall.
“She’s got the resilience and the chutzpah to be the boss of an enormous machine, employing thousands of people. To be able to handle that and handle what’s coming at her publicly, you’ve just got to be a one-off.”
Lana Del Rey, who duetted with Swift on the 2022 song Snow On The Beach, had another theory about the star’s dominance.
“She wants it,” the singer told BBC News last year.
“She’s told me so many times that she wants it more than anyone. And how amazing – she’s getting exactly what she wants.
“She’s driven, and I think it’s really paid off.”
Man faces jail in US for shipping 850 turtles in socks to Hong Kong
A Chinese man has pleaded guilty in a US district court to exporting around 850 protected turtles wrapped in socks and falsely labelled as toys, the US Department of Justice said.
Between August 2023 and November 2024, Wei Qiang Lin exported to Hong Kong more than 200 parcels containing the turtles, according to a Justice Department statement on Monday.
The boxes packed with the turtles had been labelled as “containing ‘plastic animal toys’, among other things”, the authorities said.
Mr Lin primarily shipped eastern box turtles and three-toed box turtles. Both species are native to the US and highly prized by some pet owners.
The turtles have unique markings on their shells, and are seen as a status symbol in China where they are often kept as pets.
US authorities estimated that Mr Lin’s seized turtles had a combined market value of $1.4m (£1m). He was caught when the animals were intercepted by law enforcement during one border inspection.
Both species, which were smuggled in large quantities in the 1990s, are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Trade of the turtles can only be authorised with export permits or re-export certificates.
The eastern box turtle is also deemed vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Besides the turtles, Mr Lin also exported 11 other parcels filled with reptiles, including venomous snakes, according to the Justice Department.
Mr Lin, who is set to be sentenced on 23 December, faces up to five years in prison.
In March, another Chinese national was sentenced to 30 months in prison for smuggling more than 2,000 eastern box turtles.
The animals were also wrapped in socks and packed in boxes, which were labelled as containing almonds and chocolate cookies.
US authorities estimated at the time that each turtle could have been sold for $2,000 (£1,500).
Is crime in Washington DC ‘out of control’, as Trump claims?
President Donald Trump has said he will deploy hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington DC and is taking control of its police department to fight crime.
At a press conference, he declared “Liberation Day” for the city and pledged to “rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse”.
However, Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has said the city has “seen a huge decrease in crime” and that it was “at a 30-year violent crime low”.
BBC Verify looks at what the figures show about violent crime in the capital and how it compares to other cities in the US.
Is violent crime up in Washington DC?
Trump’s executive order declaring “a crime emergency in the District of Columbia” mentions “rising violence in the capital”. In his press conference he made repeated references to crime being “out of control”.
But according to crime figures published by Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police (MPDC), violent offences fell after peaking in 2023 and in 2024 hit their lowest level in 30 years.
They are continuing to fall, according to preliminary data for 2025.
Violent crime overall is down 26% this year compared to the same point in 2024, and robbery is down 28%, according to the MPDC.
Trump and the DC Police Union have questioned the veracity of the city police department’s crime figures.
- Trump deploys National Guard to Washington DC and pledges crime crackdown
Violent crime is reported differently by the MPDC and the FBI – another major source of US crime statistics.
MPDC public data showed a 35% fall for 2024, while the FBI data showed a 9% drop.
So the figures agree that crime is falling in DC, but differ on the level of that decline.
The downward trend is “unmistakable and large”, according to Adam Gelb, the CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ), a legal think tank.
“The numbers shift depending on what time period and what types of crime you examine,” said Mr Gelb.
“But overall there’s an unmistakable and large drop in violence since the summer of 2023, when there were peaks in homicide, gun assaults, robbery, and carjacking.”
What about murder rates?
Trump also claimed that “murders in 2023 reached the highest rate probably ever” in Washington DC – adding that numbers “just go back 25 years”.
When we asked the White House the source for the figures, they said it was “numbers provided by the FBI”.
The homicide rate did spike in 2023 to around 40 per 100,000 residents – the highest rate in 20 years, according to FBI data.
However, that was not the highest ever recorded – it was significantly higher in the 1990s and in the early 2000s.
The homicide rate dropped in 2024 and this year it is down 12% on the same point last year, according to the MPDC.
Studies have suggested that the capital’s homicide rate is higher than average, when compared to other major US cities.
As of 11 August, there have been 99 homicides so far this year in Washington DC – including a 21-year-old congressional intern shot dead in crossfire, a case Trump referred to in his press conference.
What about carjackings?
The president also mentioned the case of a 19-year-old former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) who was injured in an alleged attempted carjacking in the capital at the start of August.
Trump claimed “the number of carjackings has more than tripled” over the last five years.
So far this year, the MPDC has recorded 189 carjacking offences, down from 300 in the same period last year.
According to the CCJ, carjacking rose markedly from 2020 onward and spiked to a monthly peak of 140 reported incidents in June 2023.
Since July 2025, a citywide curfew has been in force for people under the age of 17 from 23:00 to 06:00.
It was introduced to combat juvenile crime – including carjacking – which often spikes in the summer months.
How does crime compare to other parts of the US?
“The level of violence in the District remains mostly higher than the average of three dozen cities in our sample,” Mr Gelb from the CCJ told us.
“Although its downward trend is consistent with what we’re seeing in other large cities across the country,” he added.
The CCJ looks at crime rates across 30 large US cities.
Its analysis suggests that the homicide rate in DC fell 19% in the first half of this year (January-June 2025), compared with the same period last year.
This is a slightly larger fall than the 17% average decline across the cities in the CCJ’s study sample.
However, if you take the first six months of 2025 and compare it to the same period in 2019 – before the Covid-19 pandemic – it shows only a 3% fall in homicides.
Across the 30 cities in the study, that decrease was 14% over the same timeframe.
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Worst bleaching on record for Western Australian coral reefs
World-famous coral reefs along Western Australia’s (WA) coast have suffered the worst bleaching on record after the state’s “longest, largest and most intense” marine heatwave, scientists say.
Between last August and this May, warmer water temperatures led to significant heat stress on the reefs, causing many of the coral to expel the algae which gives them life and colour – a process called bleaching, which is often fatal.
The damage – which will take months to assess – spans 1,500km (932 miles) and includes areas previously unscathed by climate change.
Coral reefs worldwide have been suffering from a two-year-long global coral bleaching event, due to record high ocean temperatures.
Eight weeks of heat stress is usually enough to kill coral, and early estimates showed many WA reefs suffered between 15 and 30, said Australia’s marine science agency.
“The length and intensity of the heat stress, and its footprint across multiple regions, is something we’ve never seen before on most of the reefs in Western Australia,” James Gilmour, from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (Aims), said.
In a new report, the Aims researchers found the 2024-25 season was the “most severe coral bleaching on record” for WA coral reefs across both the northwestern and central reefs.
“Areas which had given us hope because they’d rarely or not bleached before – like the Rowley Shoals, north Kimberley and Ningaloo – have been hit hard this time. Finally, climate heating has caught up with these reefs,” he said.
Ningaloo Reef is a World Heritage-listed site, just like the Great Barrier Reef on Australia’s east coast which has itself suffered from major coral bleaching in recent years.
Last week, a new report revealed the Great Barrier Reef – the world’s largest coral system stretching over 2,300km (1,429 miles) – experienced its biggest decline in coral in almost four decades.
Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the coral damage at Ningaloo “underlines the need for Australia and the world to take urgent action, including reaching net zero emissions”.
Climate change means bleaching events are becoming more frequent, more intense and more widespread, which Dr Gilmore says gives coral reefs – which need 10 to 15 years to recover – little time to bounce back.
“Climate change caused by carbon emissions remains the greatest threat to our coral reefs, and all reefs globally,” he said.
The UN has previously warned that even if the world limits global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, between 70 and 90% of the world’s tropical coral reefs will die.
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KPop Demon Hunters goes Golden with Billboard chart-topping hit
Golden, the breakout song from animated film KPop Demon Hunters, has clinched the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 – bagging yet another record for the Netflix summer flick.
The film, about K-pop girl band Huntr/x who uses music to protect humans from demons, has become Netflix’s most-watched animated film since its release in June.
It is the ninth song associated with K-pop to take the top spot on the Hot 100 – and the first by female singers.
The upbeat hit clocked nearly 32 million official streams in the first week of August, according to Billboard.
“Unlike other animated films, where songs are often added as a filler or commercial hook, the music here was woven into the narrative in a way that enhanced it rather than distracted,” Maggie Kang, the Korean-Canadian co-director of the film, previously told the BBC.
Golden is not the only track from the movie that has achieved commercial success. Coming in at number eight on the Hot 100 is the song Your Idol by Saja Boys, the fictional rivals of Huntr/x.
Both Golden and Your Idol topped US Spotify charts in July shortly after the film’s release, beating real life K-pop bands BTS and Blackpink.
Earlier this month, Golden climbed to the number one spot in the Official UK Singles Chart – becoming only the second K-pop single to do so, after South Korean rapper Psy’s Gangnam Style in 2012.
Official Charts CEO Martin Talbot said that this represented “another landmark moment for the globally dominating South Korean genre”.
“For the many music fans who have been to their enormous concerts, bought their merch and streamed their iconic songs, this will forever be the summer of Oasis – but K-pop’s superstars are certainly giving the Gallaghers a run for their money,” he said.
The track, sung by Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami, debuted at number 81 on the Hot 100 on 5 July, before steadily climbing to the top of the chart.
Ejae, who also co-wrote the track, previously told BBC Newsbeat the team had known Golden would be a “banger” – though the song’s massive success still came as a surprise.
“It’s like I’m surfing for the first time and a big wave just came through,” she said.
The film Kpop Demon Hunters has also become a massive hit for Netflix, becoming its fourth-most watched movie of all time within weeks of its release.
US reports say the streaming platform is considering turning it into a franchise with several sequels, hoping to replicate the success of Disney’s Frozen.
US and China extend trade truce to avoid tariffs hike
The US and China have extended their trade truce for another 90 days, just hours before the world’s two biggest economies were set to raise tariffs on imports of each other’s goods.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep the pause in place until 10 November, while Beijing also announced an extension.
It means the US will hold its levy on Chinese imports at 30%, while China will keep a 10% tariff on American goods.
Washington had threatened trade taxes as high as 145% on Chinese products earlier this year, with Beijing hitting back with 125% duties on US shipments. The rates for both countries were scaled back after a round of trade talks held in Geneva in May.
The latest extension will give more time for further negotiations about “remedying trade imbalances” and “unfair trade practices”, the White House said.
It cited a trade deficit of nearly $300bn (£223bn) with China in 2024 – the largest among any of its trading partner.
The talks will also aim to increase access for US exporters to China and address national security and economic issues, the statement said.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington said: “Win-win cooperation between China and the United States is the right path; suppression and containment will lead nowhere.”
China also called on the US to lift its “unreasonable” trade restrictions, work together to benefit companies on both sides and maintain the stability of global semiconductor production.
Tariffs – taxes charged on goods bought from other countries that are typically a percentage of a product’s value – have been a key focus of Trump since he returned to the White House in January.
He has repeatedly said tariffs will encourage US consumers to buy more American-made goods, increase the amount of tax raised and boost investment.
Referring to his trading partners around the world, the US presiden has argued that his country has been taken advantage of by “cheaters”, and “pillaged” by foreigners.
A return of higher duties would have risked further trade turmoil and uncertainty amid worries about the effect of tariffs on prices and the economy.
But one US business owner told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the extension just meant further uncertainty.
“There’s no way to plan for the future of the business,” said Beth Benike, founder of Busy Baby.
“Since I have no idea what the tariff is actually going to end up being I have no control or idea about the pricing that’s going to work for my business,” she said.
Tensions between the US and China reached fever pitch in April, after Trump unveiled sweeping new tariffs on goods from countries around the world, with China facing some of the highest levies.
Beijing retaliated with tariffs of its own, sparking a tit-for-tat fight that saw tariffs soar into the triple digits and nearly shut down trade between the two countries.
The two sides had agreed to set aside some of those measures in May.
That agreement left Chinese goods entering the US facing an additional 30% tariff compared with the start of the year, with US goods facing a new 10% tariff in China.
The two sides remain in discussions about issues including access to China’s rare earths, its purchases of Russian oil, and US curbs on sales of advanced technology, including chips to China.
Trump recently relaxed some of those export restrictions, allowing firms such as AMD and Nvidia to resume sales of certain chips to firms in China in exchange for sharing 15% of their revenues with the US government.
That “unprecedented” agreement has provoked criticism, with some calling it a “shakedown”.
The US is also pushing for the spin-off of TikTok from its Chinese owner ByteDance, a move that has been opposed by Beijing.
Earlier on Monday in remarks to reporters, Trump did not commit to extending the truce but said dealings had been going “nicely”. A day earlier he called on Beijing to increase its purchases of US soybeans.
Even with the pause, trade flows between the countries have been hit this year, with US government figures showing US imports of Chinese goods in June cut nearly in half compared with June 2024.
In the first six months of the year, the US imported $165bn worth of goods from China, down by about 15% from the same time last year.
American exports to China fell roughly 20% year-on-year for the same period.
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Tibetans in India long for identity and homeland
What does it mean to live in exile?
“When we were in school, our teachers used to say that there is an ‘R’ on our forehead – meaning refugees,” says Tibetan writer-activist Tenzin Tsundue.
Mr Tsundue is one of around 70,000 Tibetans living in India, spread across 35 designated settlements.
In 1959, thousands of Tibetans fled after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
Following their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, they crossed treacherous Himalayan passes and reached India, where they were accepted as refugees on humanitarian grounds and because of shared religious and cultural ties.
But living, or even being born, in India doesn’t make them Indians, says Mr Tsundue.
Tibetans in India live on renewable registration certificates issued every five years. Those born here can apply for passports if a parent was born in India between 1950 and 1987 – but must surrender the certificate to do so. Many hesitate, as it’s closely tied to their Tibetan identity.
In July, as the Dalai Lama turned 90, thousands of Tibetan Buddhists gathered in Dharamshala – a quiet town nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The town serves as the headquarters of Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) – the Tibetan government-in-exile.
Even as they prayed for their leader’s long life, many like Mr Tsundue found themselves reflecting on the uncertainty of living in exile.
The emotional weight of displacement, the legal limbo of statelessness and geopolitics around the Dalai Lama hung heavy on the birthday celebrations.
- Thousands turn out to mark Dalai Lama’s 90 birthday
Tibetans continued migrating to India for decades after 1959, fleeing China’s tightening grip on their homeland.
Dawa Sangbo, 85, reached Dharamshala in 1970 after a gruelling seven-day trek through Nepal. “We ran at night and hid by day,” he recalls.
With no place to stay in India, he survived by living in a tent for 12 years and selling spices in villages near Dharamshala. He now lives with his son and wife in a neighbourhood largely inhabited by Tibetans.
For many like Mr Sangbo, fleeing to India may have provided security – but they still yearn for their homeland.
“A home is a home, after all,” says Pasang Gyalpo, who fled Tibet to Nepal before settling in India in 1990.
Five years later, Mr Gyalpo bribed Nepalese guards and slipped into Tibet to bring his family to India. But Chinese police chased him soon after arrival, forcing him to flee. His family remains in Tibet.
“They are in their homeland, I am in a foreign land. What else can I feel but pain?” he asks.
For younger Tibetans like Mr Tsunde, who are born in India, the pain is more existential.
“The trauma for us is not that we lost our land,” he says. “It’s that we were not born in Tibet and don’t have the right to live in Tibet. It is also this great sense of deprivation that something so very essential of our land, culture, and language has been taken away from us.”
Lobsang Yangtso, a researcher on Tibet and Himalayan regions, explains that being stateless means lacking a sense of belonging.
“It’s painful,” she says. “I have lived all my life here [in India] but I still feel homeless.”
Tibetans in exile are grateful to India for refuge but lament their lack of rights – they cannot vote, own property or easily travel abroad without an Indian passport.
“We have the IC [an official travel document] which is given by the Indian government as an identity certificate,” says Phurbu Dolma. But airport immigration staff often don’t recognise it.
Dorjee Phuntsok, a Tibetan born in India, pointed out that many corporate jobs in India often require Indian passports. “Without one, we miss out on many opportunities.”
- Who is the Dalai Lama and why does he live in exile?
In recent years, thousands of Tibetans in India have emigrated to Western countries using the IC, which some nations accept for visa applications.
Many have left on student or work visas, resettled in countries like the US and Canada, or gone abroad on sponsorships from religious and humanitarian groups.
Penpa Tsering, the president of the CTA, believes that the reason is mainly economic. “Dollars and euros go further than what’s available here,” he says.
But for some like Thupten Wangchuk, 36, who crossed over to India as an eight-year-old, the motivation is more personal.
“For [almost] 30 long years, I haven’t met my parents and relatives. I’ve no one here,” he says. “The sole reason I want to go to a Western country is that I can become a citizen there. Then I can apply for a visa and go into Tibet to visit my parents.”
Some Tibetans acknowledge the need to be pragmatic given the geopolitical pulls and pressures.
“If you ask any Tibetan, they’ll say they want to go back,” says Kunchok Migmar, a CTA official. “But right now, there is no freedom in Tibet. No one wants to go back just to be beaten by the Chinese.”
The latest flashpoint emerged days before the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday. He said his successor would be chosen by a trust under his office – a move China rejected, insisting it would decide under its law. Beijing called the succession issue a “thorn” in its ties with India.
India’s official stance is that it “does not take any position concerning beliefs and practices of faith and religion”. Notably, two senior ministers of the Indian government shared the stage with Dalai Lama on his birthday.
The Dalai Lama’s announcement that he would have a successor brought relief among Tibetans. But there is uncertainty over what his death could mean for the Tibetan movement.
“If we prepare ourselves well from now, when His Holiness is alive and [if] the future leaders who will follow us can continue the same momentum, then I think it should not affect us as much as people think it could,” says Mr Tsering.
His optimism is not shared by all Tibetans.
“It’s thanks to the current Dalai Lama that we have these opportunities and resources,” says Mr Phuntsok. He adds many Tibetans fear that after his passing, the community may lose the long-standing support that has sustained them.
What we learnt from Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir
Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir Frankly is now on sale, slightly earlier than expected after newspaper serialisations and interviews teased some tantalising extracts.
True to its title, the book has Scotland’s former first minister writing candidly about the highs and lows of her time in office including challenges she says had a serious impact on her mental health.
So with the full text now available, what are the key things we have learned?
Transgender controversy
After more than eight years in power, and eight election victories, Sturgeon saw her final months in office marred by rows about trans issues.
It was, she writes in her memoir, a time of “rancour and division”.
Sturgeon now admits to having regrets about the process of trying to legislate to make it easier to legally change gender, saying she has asked herself whether she should have “hit the pause button” to try to reach consensus.
“With hindsight, I wish I had,” she writes, although she continues to argue in favour of the general principle of gender self-identification.
Sturgeon also addresses the case of double rapist Adam Graham, who was initially sent to a female prison after self-identifying as a woman called Isla Bryson.
It was, writes Sturgeon, a development “that gave a human face to fears that until then had been abstract for most people”.
As first minister she sometimes struggled to articulate her position on the case and to decide which, if any, pronoun to use to describe Bryson.
“When confronted with the question ‘Is Isla Bryson a woman?’ I was like a rabbit caught in the headlights,” she writes.
“Because I failed to answer ‘yes’, plain and simple… I seemed weak and evasive. Worst of all, I sounded like I didn’t have the courage to stand behind the logical conclusion of the self-identification system we had just legislated for.
“In football parlance, I lost the dressing room.”
Speaking to ITV News on Monday, Sturgeon said she now believed a rapist “probably forfeits the right” to identify as a woman.
The former first minister also criticises her highest-profile opponent on the gender issue, Harry Potter author JK Rowling, for posting a selfie in a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Nicola Sturgeon, destroyer of women’s rights”.
“It resulted in more abuse, of a much more vile nature, than I had ever encountered before. It made me feel less safe and more at risk of possible physical harm,” she writes.
Sturgeon adds that “it was deeply ironic that those who subjected me to this level of hatred and misogynistic abuse often claimed to be doing so in the interests of women’s safety”.
Rowling has been approached for comment.
Her relationship with Alex Salmond
Sturgeon’s mentor and predecessor as first minster, Alex Salmond, is mentioned dozens of times in the book, often in unflattering terms which reflect their estrangement after he was accused of sexual offences.
Salmond won a judicial review of the Scottish government’s handling of complaints against him and in 2020 was cleared of all 13 charges but his reputation was sullied by revelations in court about inappropriate behaviour with female staff.
Sturgeon lambasts Salmond’s claim that he was the victim of a conspiracy, saying there was no obvious motive for women to have concocted false allegations which would then have required “criminal collusion” with politicians, civil servants, police and prosecutors.
“He impugned the integrity of the institutions at the heart of Scottish democracy,” she writes, adding: “He was prepared to traumatise, time and again, the women at the centre of it all.” The claims have been angrily rejected by Salmond’s allies.
The former SNP leader died of a heart attack in North Macedonia last year, aged 69.
The independence referendum
Nicola Sturgeon recalls a “totally uncharacteristic sense of optimism” as Scotland prepared to vote on whether to become an independent nation on 18 September 2014.
It was arguably the defining event of her professional life and, in her view, a chance to “create a brighter future for generations to come”.
The campaign was tough, she says, partly because of what she calls unbalanced coverage by the British media including the BBC and partly because Salmond left her to do much of the heavy lifting.
“It felt like we were trying to push a boulder up hill,” she writes.
A key period in the lead-up to the poll was her preparation, as deputy first minister, of a white paper setting out the case for independence.
At one point, she says, the magnitude of the task left her in “utter despair” and “overcome by a feeling of sheer impossibility”.
“I ended up on the floor of my home office, crying and struggling to breathe. It was definitely some kind of panic attack,” she writes.
Sturgeon says Salmond “showed little interest in the detail” of the document and she was “incandescent” when he flew to China shortly before publication without having read it.
“He promised he would read it on the plane. I knew his good intention would not survive contact with the first glass of in-flight champagne,” she writes.
Operation Branchform
Sturgeon describes her “utter disbelief” and despair when police raided her home in Glasgow and arrested her husband, Peter Murrell, on 5 April 2023.
“With police tents all around it, it looked more like a murder scene than the place of safety it had always been for me. I was devastated, mortified, confused and terrified.”
In the weeks that followed she says she felt like she “had fallen into the plot of a dystopian novel”.
Sturgeon calls her own arrest two months later as part of the inquiry into SNP finances known as Operation Branchform “the worst day” of her life.
She was exonerated. Murrell, the former SNP chief executive, has been charged with embezzlement.
The couple announced they were separating earlier this year.
Leading Scotland during the pandemic
For Sturgeon, the coronavirus pandemic which struck the world five years ago still provokes “a torrent of emotion”.
Leading Scotland through Covid was “almost indescribably” hard and “took a heavy toll, physically and mentally”, writes the former first minister.
She says she will be haunted forever by the thought that going into lockdown earlier could have saved more lives and, in January 2024, after she wept while giving evidence to the UK Covid inquiry, she “came perilously close to a breakdown”.
“For the first time in my life, I sought professional help. It took several counselling sessions before I was able to pull myself back from the brink,” she writes.
Misogyny and sexism
Scathing comments about the inappropriate behaviour of men are scattered throughout the book.
“Like all women, since the dawn of time, I have faced misogyny and sexism so endemic that I didn’t always recognize it as such,” Sturgeon writes on the very first page.
One grim story, from the first term of the Scottish Parliament which ran from 1999 to 2003, stands out.
Sturgeon says a male MSP from a rival party taunted her with the nickname “gnasher” as he spread a false rumour that she had injured a boyfriend during oral sex.
“On the day I found out about the story, I cried in one of the toilets in the Parliament office complex,” she writes.
She said it was only years later, after #MeToo, that she realised this had been “bullying of an overtly sexual nature, designed to humiliate and intimidate, to cut a young woman down to size and put her in her place”.
Her personal life
Parts of the memoir are deeply personal.
Nicola Sturgeon says she may have appeared to be a confident and combative leader but underneath she is a “painfully shy” introvert who has “always struggled to believe in herself”.
She writes in detail about the “excruciating pain” and heartbreak of suffering a miscarriage after becoming pregnant at the age of 40.
“Later, what I would feel most guilty about were the days I had wished I wasn’t pregnant,” she says.
Sturgeon touches on the end of her marriage, saying “I love him” but the strain of the past couple of years was “impossible to bear”.
She also writes about her experience of the menopause, explaining that “one of my deepest anxieties was that I would suddenly forget my words midway through an answer” at First Minister’s Question Time.
“My heart would race whenever I was on my feet in the Chamber which was debilitating and stressful,” she says.
And she addresses “wild stories” about her having a torrid lesbian affair with a French diplomat by saying the rumours were rooted in homophobia.
“The nature of the insult was water off a duck’s back,” she writes.
“Long-term relationships with men have accounted for more than thirty years of my life, but I have never considered sexuality, my own included, to be binary. Moreover, sexual relationships should be private matters.”
What the future holds
Nicola Sturgeon has a few regrets.
These include pushing hard for a second independence referendum immediately after the UK voted – against Scotland’s wishes – to leave the EU, and branding the 2024 general election as a “de facto referendum” on independence.
But now, she says, she is “excited about the next phase” of her life which she jokingly refers to as her “delayed adolescence”.
“I might live outside of Scotland for a period,” Sturgeon writes.
“Suffocating is maybe putting it too strongly, but I feel sometimes I can’t breathe freely in Scotland,” she told the BBC’s Newscast podcast.
“This may shock many people to hear,” she continues, “but I love London.”
She is also considering writing a novel.
Nicola Sturgeon concludes her memoir by saying she believes Scotland will be independent within 20 years, insisting she will never stop fighting for that outcome and adding: “That, after all, is what my life has been about.”
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Published
Many football fans will be aware of the story of the volcanic ash cloud that scuppered Robert Lewandowski’s potential move to Blackburn Rovers – but there was another club in England the striker wishes he had joined.
“To Manchester United I decided and said yes,” he told BBC Sport. “I wanted to join Manchester United, to see Alex Ferguson.”
The prospect of a move to the Red Devils came in 2012, when Lewandowski was scoring prolifically at Borussia Dortmund – and two years after a volcanic eruption in Iceland had put paid to his Blackburn switch.
However, the German club simply did not want to let their talismanic striker go.
“They could not sell me,” Lewandowski said. “Because they knew if I stayed they could earn more money, and that I could wait maybe one or two more years.
“But it is true that I said yes to Manchester United.”
While that move failed to materialise, Lewandowski has enjoyed a stellar career at some of Europe’s biggest clubs, winning the Champions League with Bayern Munich and La Liga twice at his current club Barcelona.
At 37 he has no plans to retire any time soon, but accepts a Premier League opportunity has probably passed him by.
Speaking in an interview with Liam MacDevitt, Lewandowski added: “Maybe it could be a regret [not to play in the Premier League].
“But when I am looking back [having] played for Bayern Munich, Dortmund and now Barcelona I have to say I am very happy with my career.
“I don’t have this kind of feeling that I missed something, because every move or decision… I made because I wanted it.”
‘I learn a lot from the young players’
Lewandowski, who has scored more than 700 career goals for club and country, is preparing for his 22nd season as a professional.
He is now the old head in a young Barcelona team featuring supreme talents like Lamine Yamal, but the Poland international believes he still has plenty to offer.
“When I see that I still don’t have to catch the young guys, that they still have to catch me, it means this next season can also be very good,” he said.
“I am still there to show the best performance from myself.”
Lamine Yamal was not even born when Lewandowski’s career began, but despite being 19 years his senior, the striker believes he is still learning from younger players.
“I understood that I cannot fight with them but I can help them and they can also help me,” Lewandowski said.
“I learn from them a lot. I didn’t think it would happen like that.”
Lamine Yamal is widely viewed as a future superstar, and Lewandowski said he could see the winger was special from the moment he trained with the first team aged just 15.
“It is the first time in my life I saw after 50 minutes that he had something special,” he said.
“I didn’t believe it because I didn’t see this kind of player at this age – I thought this is impossible at 15.”
When Lewandowski came close to winning the Ballon d’Or
The latest nominees for the Ballon d’Or have been announced, and for Lewandowski this time of year will be a reminder of just how close he came to winning the award.
He was among the favourites for the 2020 edition which was cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A year later he finished runner-up to Lionel Messi for the main prize, and was named striker of the year after a record-breaking season when he scored 41 league goals.
“I was in the best moment of my career, I won everything with my club,” he said.
“I think the difficult thing with that case is until now I don’t know why.”
On who could win it this year, Lewandowski added: “You have so many players now who can [win the Ballon d’Or].
“Lamine Yamal’s season was incredible but in the end it depends what is most important. He still has a lot of time, if not this year maybe next year.
“Raphinha also had an amazing season. We have players who can be one of the favourites to win this kind of title.”
The conversation that changed Lewandowski’s career
Lewandowski has played under some leading managers during his career and is currently working under Hansi Flick, who was also in charge during his trophy-laden spell at Bayern Munich.
But it is former Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp – who Lewandowski played under at Dortmund – who had the biggest influence on the striker.
“When I moved to Dortmund I was a very young guy, I lost my father when I was 16,” he said.
“I for sure was a boy who was more closed, I didn’t want to speak about my emotion.
“However, after a few years I met someone who I don’t want to say was like a father but similar.
“Maybe after so many years the kind of conversation that I missed with my father, I had with Jurgen.
“I remember the conversation until now because it changed my life, it changed my football life. I put my emotion out, I put out the words I had kept in for a few years and after this I felt freedom.
“Maybe because of this I started to play better and better.”
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Published31 January
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Zelensky could still attend Trump-Putin meeting, but rest of Europe is shut out
It’s the bilateral summit every European leader wants to be at.
And for good reason. On Friday, Donald Trump is scheduled to meet Vladimir Putin in Alaska to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.
Territorial concessions are likely to be discussed, and Europe (not least Ukraine) doesn’t want its borders to be redrawn through force.
But, as things stand, there are no invites for the country being invaded, nor the continent it sits in.
“Brace ourselves for some pretty outrageous Russian demands,” warns Lord Simon McDonald, a former head of the UK Foreign Office.
“It will be theatrical,” he adds. “Putin is going to ask for things that nobody else would concede – with the possible exception of Donald Trump.”
- Trump says he will try to get back territory for Ukraine in talks with Putin
President Zelensky has said he won’t agree to the giving up of any land, or even freezing the conflict along the current front lines.
His argument is that it won’t slow a Russian war machine that has waged a full-scale war for more than three and a half years. Concessions, he claims, would only speed it up.
“It’s clear Putin wants a photo with the most influential people on Earth, which is President Trump, and he wants sanctions to be postponed, which he’ll probably get,” the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, tells me.
“The question is, what is success for the US in the meeting?” she asks. “If President Zelensky is there, it would be a clear success.”
But if Ukraine’s leader isn’t at the Alaskan table, how might the Kremlin’s proposals be challenged?
“He could go,” said the US president on that possibility. But Kyiv and Europe want it to go from a “maybe” to a “yes”.
Adding to their anxiety is the one-on-one format being a Kremlin idea the White House agreed to.
A European scramble
Brussels’ European Quarter isn’t its usual flurry of political activity during August, but these US-Russia talks have changed that.
On Monday, Kallas hosted a virtual meeting of foreign ministers where they called for an unconditional ceasefire before any deal. New sanctions for Moscow were announced as well.
I asked Kallas what she thought Donald Trump meant by suggesting some land could be swapped.
“We have to ask President Trump,” she says. “But it is clear an aggressor can’t be awarded for aggression. Otherwise, we will just see more aggression around the world because it pays off.”
Europe is trying to do two things: rally around Ukraine, as well as muscle in on this American-led peace process.
Whether or not Zelensky does make the trip, the door for Europe has firmly remained shut since Trump retook office at the start of the year.
At the time his envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said the bloc wouldn’t be involved in any peace talks. It’s a position the Europeans have been unable to change through diplomacy.
Their relationship with the US has still improved, not least with significant increases in their defence spending. But Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, believes they need a more central role.
“This is a matter of existential European security interest,” he explains.
“We appreciate Trump’s efforts but we’ll be taking our own decision in Europe too.
“A simple ceasefire would not resolve the problem.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has secured a remote sit down between European leaders, as well as Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump, this Wednesday.
They hope to be consulted on America’s plan to end Russia’s invasion, but ex-UK Foreign Office head Lord McDonald would be surprised to see a last-minute European invite for Friday.
“The end will be as protracted as the war has been long,” he warned.
“The meeting is a milestone, but it doesn’t actually mean it will lead anywhere.”
How a Red Bull can helped solve mystery of missing cyclist
It was two months into their relationship when Dr Caroline Muirhead’s new boyfriend confessed he had killed a man and left him in a shallow grave.
Alexander McKellar offered to take her to the spot where the body was buried – and her quick thinking was crucial in cracking a case which had baffled police for three years.
Caroline secretly dropped a can of Red Bull at the spot, in a remote estate in Argyll, then called police to tell them about the location.
The shallow grave contained the body of Tony Parsons, who had gone missing on a charity cycle ride three years earlier.
Tony’s son Mike said that without Caroline’s intervention, it was unlikely that his body would ever have been found – and expressed the family’s gratitude for what she had done.
The case is the subject of a new two-part documentary which reveals the twists and turns of the police investigation and the Parsons family’s long wait for justice.
Mike Parsons told BBC Scotland News that his dad was the kind of man who was always determined to complete any challenge he set himself.
Tony had previously been treated for prostate cancer and wanted to give something back.
So he planned a 104-mile charity cycle from Fort William to his home in Tillicoultry, setting off on Friday 29 September 2017 and cycling through the night.
Mike said his family started to become concerned when Tony had not contacted them by Saturday night.
“I actually texted him myself, with what is my dad and myself’s sense of humour, a simple text: ‘Are you still alive?’
“Looking back now, it’s not nice to know that was the very last thing I texted to him, knowing at this point he would have been passed away.”
Tony was subsequently reported missing, sparking a major search operation.
Police knew he passed through Glencoe Village at about 18:00 on Friday before going on to the Bridge of Orchy Hotel in Argyll.
The last known sighting of him was at the hotel at 23:30 that night, before he headed south on the A82 in the direction of Tyndrum.
As the days progressed, former police officer Mike and his family grew increasingly concerned about Tony.
“I knew the timescales that would be involved,” he said.
“The longer the days went on, I knew in my head that the chances of him being found alive would be pretty slim.
“But I basically had to convince my mum there was still a chance, and lying to somebody like that is not easy.”
Despite numerous public appeals including an appearance by Mike on Crimewatch, it seemed that Tony Parsons had vanished into thin air.
Then, in late 2020, police received a phone call that would change everything.
The female caller was distressed.
She said she had information about a crime that had been committed three years earlier at Bridge of Orchy.
It concerned a hit and run, the concealment of a body, and lying to police.
She said the victim’s name was Tony Parsons.
The caller was Dr Caroline Muirhead, the girlfriend of Alexander McKellar. Known as Sandy, he worked on a nearby estate with his twin brother Robert.
Police had spoken to the brothers after an anonymous letter in August 2018 said they were in the Bridge of Orchy Hotel the night Tony Parsons had vanished, but no further action was taken.
In June 2020, they were again questioned about Tony and confirmed being in the hotel with a hunting party that night. However, they said they had not seen the cyclist.
In November 2020, Caroline Muirhead and Alexander McKellar had been together for two months.
She asked her boyfriend if there was anything in his past which may affect their future together.
He told her he had hit Tony as he drove home from the hotel with his brother, but did not seek medical assistance.
It was later revealed that Tony’s injuries were so bad that he would only have survived for 20 or 30 minutes without help – but it was unlikely that he had died instantly.
The twins left the area and came back to the site in another car before taking Tony’s body to the Auch Estate, where they buried him.
Mike Parsons said: “What they did was inhumane and you wouldn’t do that to animals.
“They killed him by not seeking any medical treatment.”
After confessing to his girlfriend, Alexander McKellar led her to the shallow grave where Tony’s body had been buried.
Caroline secretly dropped a Red Bull can as a marker for the spot, before later calling police and telling them where to search for the body on the remote estate.
Mike Parsons said she had shown “remarkable foresight.”
“Being brutally honest, I’m not so sure if I was in the same situation I would have done and thought the same way.
“From my perspective, I have nothing but massive amounts of gratitude for that, because had she not done that and put herself into these positions, then we would never have found my dad’s body.”
Tony’s body was recovered from the grave in January 2021 after a two-day operation by specialist officers.
He was found to have suffered “catastrophic” rib, pelvic and spine fractures following the collision.
Tony’s funeral was held at Stirling Crematorium in April 2021.
The brothers were arrested and questioned twice by police, but were initially uncooperative, giving “no comment” interviews.
With the evidence against the twins mounting, police eventually charged the pair with murder.
In July 2023, shortly before their trial was due to begin at the High Court in Glasgow, Sandy McKellar admitted the reduced charge of culpable homicide.
His brother had his not guilty plea to murder accepted, but the pair both admitted attempting to defeat the ends of justice by covering up the crime.
Sandy McKellar was sentenced to 12 years in jail, while his brother was jailed for five years and three months.
Mike Parsons said that no sentence would ever be enough.
“They have left my mum without a husband and us without a father.”
Mike said he would like his dad remembered for the good he did in his life, rather than the circumstances of his death.
“For me, he was a grumpy old dad who you had your run-ins with every now and then,” he says, smiling.
“But, I’d like people to remember him as just the guy who wanted to help everybody.”
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Who were the Al Jazeera journalists killed by Israel in Gaza?
Five Al Jazeera journalists were killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza City on Sunday – among them 28-year-old correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who had reported prominently on the war since its outset.
The other four Al Jazeera journalists killed were correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Moamen Aliwa, and crew driver and cameraman Mohammed Noufal, Al Jazeera said.
Two others were also killed, the broadcaster said. Hospital officials named Mohammed al-Khaldi, a local freelance journalist, as one of them.
The targeted attack on a tent used by journalists has drawn strong international condemnation including from the UN, Qatar where Al Jazeera is based, and media freedom groups.
Israel says Sharif was “the head of a Hamas terrorist cell” but has produced little evidence to support that. Sharif previously denied it, and Al Jazeera and media rights groups have rejected the allegation.
The BBC understands Sharif worked for a Hamas media team in Gaza before the current conflict.
In some of his social media posts before his death, the journalist can be heard criticising Hamas.
Committee for the Protection of Journalists CEO Jodie Ginsberg told the BBC there was no justification for Sharif’s killing.
“International law is very clear on this point that the only individuals who are legitimate targets during a war are active combatants. Having worked as a media advisor for Hamas, or indeed for Hamas currently, does not make you an active combatant”, she said.
“And nothing that the Israeli forces has produced so far in terms of evidence gives us any kind of assurance that he was even an active member of Hamas.”
The ‘only voice’ left in Gaza City
Anas al-Sharif became one of Al Jazeera’s most prominent reporters in Gaza during the war.
Born in the densely populated Jabalia area in the north of the Strip, he worked for Al Jazeera for about two years, the broadcaster said.
“He worked for the whole length of the war inside Gaza reporting daily on the situation of people and the attacks which are committed in Gaza,” Salah Negm, director of news at Al Jazeera English, told the BBC.
Married with a four-year-old daughter, Sham, and a one-year-old son, Salah, he was separated from them for long stretches during the war while he continued to report from the north of the territory after refusing to follow Israeli evacuation orders.
A joint Instagram post on his official account along with his wife’s in January this year showed a picture of Sharif smiling with his two children. The caption said it was the first time he was meeting Salah, after 15 months of war.
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Sharif appeared frequently in live broadcasts, reporting extensively on the situation in Gaza.
He reported on the targeting of his colleagues, including prominent Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi, who were killed in 2024 in an air strike in Gaza City.
His father had already been killed in December 2023 when the family home was targeted in an Israeli strike. Hours before he himself was killed, he posted about an intense Israeli bombardment of Gaza City.
Mohamed Moawad, Al Jazeera’s managing editor, described him as the “only voice left in Gaza City” – which Israel now plans to militarily occupy.
Raed Fakih, input manager at Al Jazeera’s Arabic-language channel, told the BBC Sharif was “courageous, dedicated, and honest – that’s what made him successful as a journalist with hundreds of thousands of social media followers from all over the world”.
Fakih, who is in charge of the channel’s bureaux and correspondents, added: “His dedication took him to areas where no other reporter ventured to go, especially those that witnessed the worst massacres. His integrity kept him true to his message as a journalist.”
Fakih said he spoke to Sharif many times on the phone throughout the war.
“In our last conversations, he told me about the famine and starvation he was enduring, about how hard it is to survive with so little food,” he said.
“He felt he had no choice but to amplify the voice of the Gazans. He was living the same hardships they are living now, suffering from famine, mourning loved ones.
“His father was killed in an Israeli bombing. In that way, he was like all Gazans: carrying loss, pain, and resilience. And even in the face of death, he persisted, because this is a story that must be told.”
Who were the other journalists killed?
Mohammed Qreiqeh, 33, was a father of two from Gaza City. Like Sharif, he was separated from his family for months during the war as he reported from the front lines in northern Gaza.
Qreiqeh’s last live broadcast was on Sunday evening, minutes before he was targeted, Al Jazeera reported.
The broadcaster said his mother was killed in March 2024 when Israeli forces raided al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. He found his mother after searching for her body for two weeks, it said.
His brother was also killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City in March, Al Jazeera said.
Al Araby TV correspondent Islam Bader, who also reports from Gaza, said he had worked with Qreiqeh for years. In a post on Instagram he described Qreiqeh as having a very “calm” soul.
Cameraman Ibrahim Zaher, 25, was also from Jabalia, according to Al Jazeera. Bader said he had been a journalist from the beginning of the war, while also volunteering with medical services.
Cameraman Moamen Aliwa was described as “friendly, helpful, kind, polite” by Bader. He wrote on Instagram Aliwa had originally studied engineering but during the war became a journalist.
Mohammed Noufal, described as both a cameraman and crew driver by Al Jazeera, was also from Jabalia. The news outlet said the 29-year-old’s mother and brother were killed by Israeli attacks earlier in the war.
Freelance journalist Mohammed al-Khaldi posted a number of videos on social media documenting his life and that of others in war-torn Gaza. His last video posted on Instagram over the weekend showed an eight-year-old girl speaking about her struggle with hunger, and he appealed for his followers to help her.
Israel alleges Sharif led ‘terrorist cell’, with little evidence
The Israeli military accused Sharif of posing as a journalist, saying he had “served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas” and was responsible for launching rocket attacks at Israelis – but it has produced little evidence to support these claims.
In a statement, the IDF said it had documents which “unequivocally prove” his “military affiliation” with Hamas, including “personnel rosters, lists of terrorist training courses, phone directories, and salary documents”.
It has publicly released some screenshots of spreadsheets apparently listing Hamas operatives from the northern Gaza Strip, noting injuries to Hamas operatives and a section of what is said to be a phone directory for the armed group’s East Jabalia battalion.
Israel had previously accused Sharif of being a member of Hamas’s military wing – something he and his employer strongly denied.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a media freedom group, said the allegations against him were “baseless” and called on the international community to intervene.
“Without strong action from the international community to stop the Israeli army… we’re likely to witness more such extrajudicial murders of media professionals,” RSF said.
Nearly 200 journalists have been killed in the war Israel launched in response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023 assault, according to RSF.
Fakih from Al Jazeera accused the Israeli military of fabricating stories about journalists before killing them, to “hide what [it] is committing in Gaza”. Israel has previously denied targeting journalists.
He described this as a “longstanding pattern” and referred to the Israeli military’s killing of veteran Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Aqla, who was shot in the head during an Israeli army raid in the occupied West Bank in 2022.
The Israeli military concluded that one of its soldiers probably killed her, but called her death unintentional. Al Jazeera said its evidence showed it was a “deliberate killing”.
“Here is a crucial fact: had Israel been held accountable for Shireen’s assassination, it would not have dared to kill 200 journalists in Gaza,” said Fakih.
Sharif knew he risked being targeted by Israel after its Arabic-language spokesman posted a video of him in July and accused him of being a member of Hamas’ military wing.
In a post published on his X account, which was prewritten in the event of his death, Sharif said he “gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people… Do not forget Gaza.”
Grammy-winning Afropop star Tems: ‘Women are not respected in the industry’
Nigerian Afropop star Tems has told the BBC “people don’t really respect women” in her industry.
The two-time Grammy award-winner told the BBC that at the start of her career, she struggled to be taken seriously.
“I realised that there’s always a cost. There’s always a price that you pay. And a lot of those prices I wasn’t willing to pay and there wasn’t a lot of options,” Tems said.
Afropop has gained immense global popularity over the past decade, but despite this growth it remains notoriously male-dominated.
The industry’s so-called “Big Three” – Burna Boy, Davido and Wizkid – are all male – while their female counterparts, such as Tiwa Savage and Yemi Alade, have spoken out about the barriers they face because of their gender.
Earlier this year, Tems hit out following negative comments about her body, which were made online after a video of her performing was posted onto X.
She wrote on the social media platform: “It’s just a body, I will add and lose weight. I never once hid my body, I just didn’t feel the need to prove or disprove anyone. The more you don’t like my body the better for me actually.”
Tems told the BBC she wants “to change the way women see themselves in music”, and hopes to achieve this through her new platform, The Leading Vibe Initiative.
The project aims to provide opportunities for young women throughout Africa’s music industries.
“I promised myself that if I get to a place where I can do more, I will make this initiative for women like me and maybe make it easier for women to access platforms and access a wider audience and success,” Tems said.
The initiative kicked off on Friday in Tems’ hometown, Lagos. Vocalists, songwriters and producers were invited to a series of workshops, masterclasses and panel discussions, all with the aim of developing skills and connections.
Asked what advice she would give to young women wanting to crack the industry, she said: “I think it’s important to have an idea of what you want for yourself, what your brand is, what’s your boundary.
“What are the things that you wouldn’t do for fame and the things that you would do?”
Tems, who has scored hits with the likes of Love Me Jeje and Free Mind, said anyone trying to break into the industry must be passionate about their craft.
“It’s not everybody that sings that loves music. If I wasn’t famous, I would still be doing music. I would be in some kind of jazz club… randomly on a Friday night,” she said.
But this is far from Tems’ reality. Five years on from her debut EP, she has collaborated with the likes of Beyoncé and Rihanna, racked up more than 17m monthly listeners on Spotify and headlined international festivals.
And next month, she will be supporting British band Coldplay during their sold-out run of gigs at the UK’s Wembley Stadium.
Tems puts her success down to being “authentic” and “audacious”.
“Even when people tell you to change your sound, change your style, you look at them and you say: ‘No’. If it meant me not being signed, I was okay not being signed. I went to a couple of places that didn’t sign me and I was okay with that,” she said.
Music is not Tems’ only passion – she is an avid football fan and recently became part-owner of US football club San Diego FC.
“I never imagined myself owning or being in an ownership of any football team,” she said, adding that her brother initially got her into the sport.
Tems joined San Diego’s ownership with Pave Investments, a West African private investment firm which also helped raise funds for the NBA-linked African Basketball League.
Tems’ involvement with San Diego gives her hope that “people can be bold enough to try things that nobody ever thought was possible”.
She said: “I don’t see myself as just a singer, just a musician, just an artist. I’m much more than that.”
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Ronaldo engaged to long-term partner Georgina Rodríguez
Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has got engaged to his long-term partner Georgina Rodríguez.
She announced the news on social media alongside a picture of a large ring, writing “Yes I do. In this and in all my lives” in her native Spanish.
No further details have been shared. Ronaldo, who is the most followed person on Instagram, has not yet made a comment about their engagement.
The couple have been together for nine years, after they met at a Gucci shop in Madrid where Rodríguez was working. He was playing at the Spanish club Real Madrid at the time.
The Portugal and Al-Nassr player has five children in total, two of whom he shares with Rodríguez.
Their youngest daughter Bella was born in April 2022, alongside a baby boy who was stillborn.
Rodríguez has also helped to raise Ronaldo’s other three children.
The 31-year-old, who starred in her own Netflix reality show I Am Georgina, previously addressed speculation around her engagement status. On the programme, she said her friends were “always joking about the wedding.”
“Since Jennifer Lopez’s song ‘The Ring Or When’ came out, they started singing it to me. And well, this is not up to me,” she added.
Famous faces including Kim Kardashian have liked the engagement announcement on social media. Piers Morgan, who interviewed Ronaldo in 2022, wished them “as much success in their marriage as he’s had on the football pitch!”
Celebrity make-up artist Charlotte Tilbury commented that it was “fabulous news”. Lauren Sanchez-Bezos, who married Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in June, said she was “so happy” for the couple.
The family currently live in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh, where the Ronaldo plays for Al-Nassr. He joined the club in December 2022 for a reported annual salary of £177m ($238m).
In June 2025, it was announced that the 40-year-old’s contract had been extended until 2027 after speculation that he was preparing to retire.
In a post on X, Ronaldo wrote: “A new chapter begins. Same passion, same dream. Let’s make history together.”
Migrant sentenced to life for murdering Maryland mum in case invoked by Trump
An illegal immigrant from El Salvador has been sentenced to life without parole for killing an American mother of five – in a case invoked by President Donald Trump to support his border security crackdown.
Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 24, was found guilty this year in the rape and murder of Rachel Morin, 37, on a hiking trail in Bel Air, Maryland, in August 2023.
He assaulted her, bludgeoned her head with rocks and strangled her before hiding her body in a drainage culvert, the court heard.
The killer was also linked to a 2023 home invasion in Los Angeles and is wanted in El Salvador for the murder of another woman, according to prosecutors.
He showed little emotion as he learned his fate on Monday.
Judge Yolanda Curtin sentenced him to life for the first-degree murder conviction, life for the rape charge, and an additional 40 years for a third-degree sex offence and kidnapping. He will serve the entire sentence in a Maryland prison.
He was arrested in June 2024 after a 10-month manhunt in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“Arguably, Harford County has never seen a case or a defendant more deserving of every single day of the maximum sentences this court imposed,” prosecutor Alison Healey said outside the courthouse.
In a victim-impact statement before the sentence was handed down, the victim’s mother, Patty Morin, said: “The brutality of her murder will haunt us for the rest of our lives.”
Voice recordings of Ms Morin’s children, ranging in age from nine to 15, were played for the court.
In a message addressed to their mother, one of the children said: “Now I have to spend more time without you than I did with you.”
Rachel’s older brother, Michael Morin, told the court his Christian faith compelled him to offer the killer forgiveness.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the killer illegally entered the US and was sent back across the US-Mexico border three times in 2023.
During last year’s White House election campaign, Trump held up Ms Morin’s killing and other so-called angel families – those with loved ones who have been killed by illegal immigrants – as he pledged to close the US-Mexico border.
Most studies indicate undocumented immigrants are not more likely to engage in criminality than American citizens.
The Morin family has supported Trump’s campaign for border security.
Michael Morin addressed the Republican National Convention last summer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“Open borders are often portrayed as compassionate and virtuous, but there is nothing compassionate about allowing violent criminals into our country and robbing children of their mother,” he said.
In April, amid an escalating showdown between the president and the judiciary on immigration, the White House invited Ms Morin’s mother to address a media briefing.
Patty Morin shared graphic details of her daughter’s death.
Delhi given eight weeks to round up hundreds of thousands of stray dogs
India’s top court has ordered authorities in Delhi and its suburbs to move all stray dogs from streets to animal shelters.
The court expressed concerns over rising “menace of dog bites leading to rabies” and gave an eight-week deadline to officials to finish the task.
Delhi’s stray dog population is estimated at one million, with suburban Noida, Ghaziabad, and Gurugram also seeing a rise, municipal sources say.
India has millions of stray dogs and the country accounts for 36% of the total rabies-related deaths in the world, according to the World Health Organization.
- Do India’s stray dogs kill more people than terror attacks?
“Infants and young children, not at any cost, should fall prey to rabies. The action should inspire confidence that they can move freely without fear of being bitten by stray dogs,” legal news website Live Law quoted the court as saying on Monday.
The court took up the issue following reports of increasing dog bites in Delhi and other major cities.
The court directed that multiple shelters be established across Delhi and its suburbs, each capable of housing at least 5,000 dogs. These shelters should be equipped with sterilisation and vaccination facilities, as well as CCTV cameras.
The court ruled sterilised dogs must not be released in public areas, despite current rules requiring their return to the capture site.
It also ordered that a helpline should be set up within a week to report dog bites and rabies cases.
Animal welfare groups, however, have voiced strong concerns over the court’s directive. They said that the timeline set up by the court was unrealistic.
“Most Indian cities currently do not have even 1% of the capacity [needed] to rehabilitate stray dogs in shelters,” said Nilesh Bhanage, founder of PAWS, a prominent animal rights group.
“If the court and the authorities actually want to end the menace, they should focus on strengthening the implementation of the existing regulations to control dog population and rabies – they include vaccination, sterilisation and efficient garbage management.”
Government data shows that there were 3.7 million reported cases of dog bites across the country in 2024.
Activists say the true extent of rabies-related deaths is not fully known.
The World Health Organization says that “the true burden of rabies in India is not fully known; although as per available information, it causes 18,000-20,000 deaths every year”.
On the other hand, according to data submitted in the parliament by the Indian government, 54 rabies deaths were recorded in 2024, up from 50 in 2023.
Nvidia and AMD to pay 15% of China chip sales to US
Chip giants Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay the US government 15% of Chinese revenues as part of an “unprecedented” deal to secure export licences to China, the BBC has been told.
The US had previously banned the sale of powerful chips used in areas like artificial intelligence (AI) to China under export controls usually related to national security concerns.
Security experts, including some who served during President Donald Trump’s first term, recently wrote to the administration expressing “deep concern” that Nvidia’s H20 chip was “a potent accelerator” of China’s AI capabilities.
Trump on Monday dismissed security concerns, saying the chip in question was “old”.
Under the agreement, Nvidia will pay 15% of its revenues from H20 chip sales in China to the US government.
AMD will also give 15% of revenue generated from sales of its MI308 chip in China to the Trump administration, which was first reported by the Financial Times.
Nvidia told the BBC: “We follow rules the US government sets for our participation in worldwide markets.”
It added: “While we haven’t shipped H20 to China for months, we hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide.”
AMD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The deal sparked surprise and concern in the US, where critics said it raised security risks and questions about the Trump administration’s approach to dealing with private businesses.
“You either have a national security problem or you don’t,” said Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation.
“If you have a 15% payment, it doesn’t somehow eliminate the national security issue,” she added.
On social media, some investors called the arrangement a “shakedown“, while others compared the requirement to a tax on exports – which has long been considered illegal in the US.
“Regardless of whether you think Nvidia should be able to sell H20s in China, charging a fee in exchange for relaxing national security export controls is a terrible precedent,” wrote Peter Harrell, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who formerly worked for the Biden administration.
“In addition to the policy problems with just charging Nvidia and AMD a 15% share of revenues to sell advanced chips in China, the US Constitution flatly forbids export taxes,” he added.
Democratic congressman Jake Auchincloss said: “Now the US government is financially motivated to sell AI to China? Makes me shudder to think what a TikTok deal might look like.”
The H20 chip was developed specifically for the Chinese market after US export restrictions were imposed by the Biden administration in 2023.
Sales of the chip were effectively banned by Trump’s government in April this year.
Beijing has previously criticised the US government, accusing it of “abusing export control measures, and engaging in unilateral bullying”.
Nvidia’s chief executive Jensen Huang has spent months lobbying both sides for a resumption of sales of the chips in China. He reportedly met US President Donald Trump last week.
Charlie Dai, vice president and principal analyst at global research firm Forrester, said the agreement to hand over 15% of China chip sales to the US government in exchange for export licences was “unprecedented”.
“The arrangement underscores the high cost of market access amid escalating tech trade tensions, creating substantial financial pressure and strategic uncertainty for tech vendors,” he added.
In a letter last month to US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a group of 20 security specialists said that while the biggest buyers of Nvidia’s H20 chips were civilian companies in China, they expect them to be used by the military.
They wrote: “Chips optimized for AI inference will not simply power consumer products or factory logistics; they will enable autonomous weapons systems, intelligence surveillance platforms and rapid advances in battlefield decision-making.”
In a statement to the BBC, Nvidia said: “America cannot repeat 5G and lose telecommunication leadership. America’s AI tech stack can be the world’s standard if we race.”
Intel meeting
The Nvdia and AMD agreement comes as the boss of Intel, a rival chip maker, met with Trump at the White House on Monday after the president called for his immediate resignation due to his ties to China.
Intel said the pair had “a candid and constructive discussion on Intel’s commitment to strengthening U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership”.
Trump wrote on Truth Social the meeting was “a very interesting one”.
“Mr. Tan and my Cabinet members are going to spend time together, and bring suggestions to me during the next week,” Trump added.
Last week, Trump said on social media that Lip-Bu Tan was “highly conflicted”, apparently referring to his alleged investments in companies that the US said were tied to the Chinese military.
Mr Tan pushed back, stating it was “misinformation”.
Small boat crossings to hit 50,000 since Labour came to power
The number of migrants to cross the English Channel in small boats since Labour came to power last summer is expected to have reached 50,000.
Home Office data shows 49,797 people had made the journey as of Sunday, with Monday’s total due to be released later.
Government minister Baroness Smith told the BBC this was an “unacceptable number of people” but pointed to the “one in, one out” returns deal with France as a deterrent.
But the Conservative Party said the migrant crossing totals showed Labour had “surrendered our borders”.
The latest figures come as ministers continue to grapple with how to crack down on people-smuggling gangs – a key pledge of Sir Keir Starmer’s when he became prime minister.
Baroness Smith said: “We understand how concerning this is to people.”
She added that the migrant crossing figures showed people-smuggling gangs had taken an “absolute foothold in the tragic trafficking of people” in recent years but the government was now “making progress” on tackling this.
The “one in, one out” pilot will see the UK return some migrants to France in exchange for receiving the same number of asylum seekers who are believed to have legitimate claims.
Last week, a government source told the BBC several dozen migrants had been detained under the UK’s new agreement with France so far, but did not provide a specific number.
The first returns are due to happen within weeks – but the initial numbers are expected to be small.
Figures released on Tuesday are expected to confirm that the number of small boat crossings from the date that Labour came to power on 5 July last year had reached 50,000 by Monday, 11 August.
This is more than 13,000 higher than for the same period a year earlier – as between 5 July 2023 and 11 August 2024 there were 36,346 migrant crossings in small boats.
Government sources highlighted that this is not the first time 50,000 people have crossed the Channel during a 403-day period.
Between 8 October 2021 and 14 November 2022, under the previous Conservative government, there were 53,587 arrivals by small boat.
Government sources say there were an unusually high number of days with calm and warm weather at the start of this year, which partially contributed to the high number of crossings.
But the Tories accused Labour of overseeing the “worst illegal immigration crisis in our history”.
“This is a taxpayer-funded ferry service for the people-smuggling trade. Every illegal immigrant should be removed immediately upon arrival,” said shadow home secretary Chris Philp.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: “As I predicted five years ago, unless we deport illegal migrants the invasion will be huge. 50,000 since this weak prime minister took office and there is no sign of it stopping.”
The Home Office said it wants to end dangerous small boat crossings and had put together a “serious plan” to take down networks.
But politically the 50,000 milestone is deeply uncomfortable for the government, given its promise to smash the gangs that drive the small boat crossings.
More migrants crossed the Channel between January and August 2025 than in the same period last year.
Government sources argue there is no silver bullet to bring the numbers down but insist a series of practical changes, such as measures to tackle illegal working and deport foreign criminals more quickly, are planks in a wider plan to address the problem.
Baroness Smith said the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which is going through Parliament, would give ministers greater powers to “challenge the gangs”.
Other measures announced include prison sentences of up to five years for criminals advertising illegal Channel crossings online, and increased funding for more National Crime Agency officers.
Asked about the Tories’ suggestion that only a very small number of people will be deported under the “one in, one out” pilot scheme, Baroness Smith said the previous Conservative government’s Rwanda deportation scheme “cost £700m and was never designed for more than six people a week”.
The latest moves also come in the wake of a series of protests and counter demonstrations outside UK hotels which are used to house asylum seekers.
“People do not cross the Channel unless what lies behind them is more terrifying than what lies ahead,” said Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council charity.
The charity’s frontline workers say the men, women and children travelling in small boats are “often fleeing places like Sudan, where war has left them with nowhere else to turn”, he added.
“To stop smugglers for good, the government must expand safe and legal routes, such as allowing family members to travel to be with their loved ones who are already settled in the UK,” he said.
“Without these measures, desperate people will continue to take dangerous journeys, and the criminal gangs are likely to simply adapt their approaches.”
Charges dropped against teen pilot detained in Antarctica
Charges against an American influencer and teen pilot who has been stranded on a remote island in the Antarctic since June have been dropped.
Ethan Guo, 19, is alleged to have illegally landed his plane in Chilean territory after embarking on a solo trip to all seven continents to raise money for cancer research, according to local authorities.
They accused him of providing false flight plan information to officials who detained him and opened an investigation.
A judge has ordered him to leave the area, pay a $30,000 (£22,332) donation to a children’s cancer foundation and is banned from re-entering Chilean territory for three years.
Mr Guo made headlines last year when he began an attempt to become the youngest person to fly solo to all seven continents and collect donations for research into childhood cancer.
Having already visited six of seven continents, in June he flew his small Cessna 182Q aircraft from the city of Punta Arenas, near the southernmost point of Chile, to King George island off the Atlantic coast, which is claimed by Chile and named after the UK’s King George III.
He was taken into custody after landing on the island, which is home to a number of international research stations and their staff.
Authorities said he submitted a plan to fly over Punta Arenas, but not beyond that, according to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.
He was charged on 29 June with allegedly handing false information to ground control and landing without authorisation, but these were dropped by a judge on Monday.
“I remain in Antarctica awaiting approval for my departure flight,” Mr Guo told the Associated Press (AP) news agency following the judge’s ruling on Monday. “I sincerely hope they give it to me soon so that I and my plane can continue with my original mission.”
Mr Guo has been staying at a military base on the island for the last six weeks, AP reported. He was told he could travel to other parts of Chile but because of frigid temperatures was unable to leave the island, it added.
Mr Guo is hoping to become the first pilot to complete solo flights across all seven continents in the Cessna aircraft, and has already spent 140 days in the air on his travels.
He decided to raise money for cancer research after his cousin was diagnosed with cancer.
He is aiming to raise $1m for cancer research at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
Trump picks conservative economist to lead jobs data agency
US President Donald Trump has picked a conservative think tank economist to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), after firing its previous head following weaker-than-expected jobs data.
The president said he was nominating EJ Antoni, a federal budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, to be commissioner of the key economic institution.
“Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE,” he posted on Truth Social.
Earlier in August Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, claiming she had “rigged” jobs figures to make him look bad, an accusation that drew sharp criticism from economists across the political spectrum.
The US Senate, which is controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans, needs to confirm the appointment.
Antoni, who has a PhD in economics, has previously criticised the BLS, questioning its methodology and calling its statistics “phoney baloney”.
Last November, he said in a post on X that the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) “needs to take a chainsaw to the BLS”.
Influential Trump ally Steve Bannon had given his enthusiastic backing for Antoni to take over at the BLS.
The agency is currently led by Acting Commissioner Commissioner William Watrowski, who has worked there for decades.
McEntarfer was fired after BLS figures missed expectations in July, stoking alarm about Trump’s tariff policy.
The agency also lowered employment data for the previous two months in the largest such downward revision – apart from the Covid-era – since 1979.
Although the revisions were bigger than usual, it is normal for the initial monthly number to be changed as more data comes to light.
The unprecedented move sparked accusations that Trump was politicising economic data.
Willam Beach, who previously headed the agency during Trump’s first term, said the move set a “dangerous precedent”.
McEntarfer worked for the government for more than 20 years before being nominated by Biden to lead the BLS in 2023.
Antoni has worked as an economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank.
He has taught a variety of courses on labour economics, money and banking, according to the Heritage Foundation.
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.
North Koreans tell BBC they are being sent to work ‘like slaves’ in Russia
Thousands of North Koreans are being sent to work in slave-like conditions in Russia to fill a huge labour shortage exacerbated by Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the BBC has learned.
Moscow has repeatedly turned to Pyongyang to help it fight the war, using its missiles, artillery shells and its soldiers.
Now, with many of Russia’s men either killed or tied up fighting – or having fled the country – South Korean intelligence officials have told the BBC that Moscow is increasingly relying on North Korean labourers.
We interviewed six North Korean workers who have fled Russia since the start of the war, along with South Korean government officials, researchers and those helping to rescue the labourers.
They detailed how the men are subjected to “abysmal” working conditions, and how the North Korean authorities are tightening their control over the workers to stop them escaping.
One of the workers, Jin, told the BBC that when he landed in Russia’s Far East, he was chaperoned from the airport to a construction site by a North Korean security agent, who ordered him not to talk to anyone or look at anything.
“The outside world is our enemy,” the agent told him. He was put straight to work building high-rise apartment blocks for more than 18 hours a day, he said.
All six workers we spoke to described the same punishing workdays – waking at 6am and being forced to build high-rise apartments until 2am the next morning, with just two days off a year.
We have changed their names to protect them.
“Waking up was terrifying, realising you had to repeat the same day over again,” said another construction worker, Tae, who managed to escape Russia last year. Tae recalled how his hands would seize up in the morning, unable to open, paralysed from the previous day’s work.
“Some people would leave their post to sleep in the day, or fall asleep standing up, but the supervisors would find them and beat them. It was truly like we were dying,” said another of the workers, Chan.
“The conditions are truly abysmal,” said Kang Dong-wan, a professor at South Korea’s Dong-A University who has travelled to Russia multiple times to interview North Korean labourers.
“The workers are exposed to very dangerous situations. At night the lights are turned out and they work in the dark, with little safety equipment.”
The escapees told us that the workers are confined to their construction sites day and night, where they are watched by agents from North Korea’s state security department. They sleep in dirty, overcrowded shipping containers, infested with bugs, or on the floor of unfinished apartment blocks, with tarps pulled over the door frames to try to keep out the cold.
One labourer, Nam, said he once fell four metres off his building site and “smashed up” his face, leaving him unable to work. Even then his supervisors would not let him leave the site to visit a hospital.
In the past, tens of thousands of North Koreans worked in Russia earning millions of pounds a year for the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, and his cash-strapped regime. Then in 2019, the UN banned countries from using these workers in an attempt to cut off Kim’s funds and stop him building nuclear weapons, meaning most were sent home.
But last year more than 10,000 labourers were sent to Russia, according to a South Korean intelligence official speaking to the BBC on the condition of anonymity. They told us that even more were expected to arrive this year, and in total Pyongyang would eventually dispatch more than 50,000 workers.
The sudden influx means North Korean workers are now “everywhere in Russia,” the official added. While most are working on large-scale construction projects, others have been assigned to clothing factories and IT centres, they said, in violation of the UN sanctions banning the use of North Korean labour.
Russian government figures show that more than 13,000 North Koreans entered the country in 2024, a 12-fold increase from the previous year. Nearly 8,000 of them entered on student visas but, according to the intelligence official and experts, this is a tactic used by Russia to bypass the UN ban.
In June, a senior Russian official, Sergei Shoigu, admitted for the first time that 5,000 North Koreans would be sent to rebuild Kursk, a Russian region seized by Ukrainian forces last year but who have since been pushed back.
The South Korean official told us it was also “highly likely” some North Koreans would soon be deployed to work on reconstruction projects in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.
“Russia is suffering a severe labour shortage right now and North Koreans offer the perfect solution. They are cheap, hard-working and don’t get into trouble,” said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul and a renowned expert in North Korea-Russia relations.
These overseas construction jobs are highly coveted in North Korea as they promise to pay better than the work at home. Most workers go hoping to escape poverty and be able to buy a house for their family or start a business when they return. Only the most trusted men are selected after being rigorously vetted, and they must leave their families behind.
But the bulk of their earnings is sent straight to the North Korean state as “loyalty fees”. The remaining fraction – usually between $100-200 (£74-£149) a month – is marked down on a ledger. The workers only receive this money when they return home – a recent tactic, experts say, to stop them running away.
Once the men realise the reality of the harsh work and lack of pay, it can be shattering. Tae said he was “ashamed” when he learnt that other construction workers from central Asia were being paid five times more than him for a third of the work. “I felt like I was in a labour camp; a prison without bars,” he said.
The labourer Jin still bristles when he remembers how the other workers would call them slaves. “You are not men, just machines that can speak,” they jeered. At one point, Jin’s manager told him he might not receive any money when he returned to North Korea because the state needed it instead. It was then he decided to risk his life to escape.
Tae made the decision to defect after watching YouTube videos showing how much workers in South Korea were paid. One night, he packed his belongings into a bin liner, stuffed a blanket under his bed sheets to make it look as if he was still sleeping, and crept out of his construction site. He hailed a taxi and travelled thousands of kilometres across the country to meet a lawyer who helped arrange his journey on to Seoul.
In recent years, a small number of workers have been able to orchestrate their escapes using forbidden second-hand smartphones, bought by saving the small daily allowance they received for cigarettes and alcohol.
In an attempt to prevent these escapes, multiple sources have told us that the North Korean authorities are now cracking down on workers’ already limited freedom.
According to Prof Kang from Dong-A University, one way the regime has tried to control the workers over the last year is by subjecting them to more frequent ideological training and self-criticism sessions, in which they are forced to declare their loyalty to Kim Jong Un and log their failings.
Rare opportunities to leave construction sites have also been cut. “The workers used to go out in groups once a month, but recently these trips have reduced to almost zero,” Prof Kang added.
Kim Seung-chul, a Seoul-based activist who helps rescue North Korean workers from Russia, said these outings were being more tightly controlled. “They used to be allowed to leave in pairs, but since 2023 they have had to travel in groups of five and are monitored more intensely.”
In this climate, fewer workers are managing to escape. The South Korean government told us the number of North Koreans making it out of Russia each year and arriving in Seoul had halved since 2022 – from around 20 a year to just 10.
Mr Lankov, the expert in North Korea-Russia relations, said the crackdowns were likely in preparation for many more workers arriving.
“These workers will be the lasting legacy of Kim and Putin’s wartime friendship,” he said, arguing the workers would continue arriving long after the war had ended, and the deployment of soldiers and weapons had ceased.
Ukraine’s borders must not be changed by force, EU leaders say
European leaders have warned against Ukrainian borders being redrawn by force – two days before a US-Russia summit on Ukraine is due to take place in Alaska.
In a statement, European leaders said “the people of Ukraine must have the freedom to decide their future”.
It added the principles of “territorial integrity” must be respected and “international borders must not be changed by force”.
The statement was signed by 26 of 27 leaders. Missing from the signatories was Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban, who has maintained friendly relations with Russia and has repeatedly tried to block European Union support for Ukraine.
The statement underscored the nervousness felt by Europeans about Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, which many countries – particularly those bordering Russia or those in which the memory of Soviet occupation still lingers – believe could pose a direct threat in the near future.
In recent years Sweden and Finland have joined Nato, Baltic countries have reinstated conscription, and Poland has set aside billions to build a barrier alongside its border with Russia.
European countries have a long history of borders being redrawn by bloody wars and are extremely concerned by the prospect of the US allowing that to happen in Ukraine. A legal recognition of Russia’s sovereignty over territories it conquered by force is unacceptable to the EU.
- Why are Trump and Putin meeting in Alaska?
- Why did Putin’s Russia invade Ukraine?
US President Donald Trump has insisted that any peace deal would involve “some swapping of territories” and could see Russia taking the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine and keeping Crimea. In exchange it would give up the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, which it partially occupies.
Last week, while admitting that some Ukrainian territory might end up being de facto controlled by Russia, Nato chief Mark Rutte stressed that this should not be formally recognised.
Formal recognition would entail a change to the Ukrainian constitution that needs to be approved by a national referendum, which in turn must be authorised by the Ukrainian parliament. This would be a considerable hurdle for President Volodymyr Zelensky and may lead to the end of his government.
This is why at present “no-one is talking about international formal recognition”, analyst Prof Mark Galeotti told the BBC’s Today programme.
“We would be recognising that for the moment Russia does control almost 20% of Ukraine but international borders remain what they are,” Prof Galeotti said, adding that Zelensky could accept de facto control without changing the constitution.
In their statement, European leaders said “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has wider implications for European and international security”, and stressed the need for a “just and lasting peace”.
They also said Ukraine should be capable of “defending itself effectively” and pledged to continue providing military support to Kyiv, which was “exercising its inherent right of self-defence”.
“The European Union underlines the inherent right of Ukraine to choose its own destiny and will continue supporting Ukraine on its path towards EU membership,” the statement concluded.
Denting the apparent unity of the declaration was a line in smaller print at the bottom of the page pointing out that “Hungary does not associate itself with this statement”.
In a post on social media its leader Viktor Orban said he had opted out of supporting the statement as it attempted to set conditions for a meeting to which the EU was not invited and warned leaders not to start “providing instructions from the bench”.
He also urged the EU to set up its own summit with Russia – though EU leaders have been shunning direct talks with Moscow since it launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
On Monday Trump revealed he had sought Orban’s advice over the chances of Ukraine winning against Russia on the battlefield. “He looked at me like, ‘What a stupid question’,” Trump said, suggesting that Orban felt Russia would continue to wage war until it beat its adversary.
Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are expected to meet in Alaska on Friday.
Before that, EU leaders are due to hold talks with Trump on Wednesday. UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will also join the call and said on Monday that peace would have to be “built with Ukraine, not imposed upon it”.
They will be hoping to put the security of the European continent and Ukrainian interests at the forefront of his mind – at a time when nervousness is growing that the peace imposed on Ukraine may end up being neither “just” nor “lasting”.
Swift announces new album on boyfriend Kelce’s podcast
Taylor Swift has announced her 12th studio album The Life of a Showgirl, after an intense 24 hours of speculation from fans.
Rumours began on Monday morning, when the singer’s marketing team posted a carousel of 12 photos with the caption: “Thinking about when she said ‘see you next era’.”
In the hours that followed, Swift’s official website began a countdown to 00:12 ET (05:12 BST), when her boyfriend, NFL star Travis Kelce confirmed that she would be a guest this week on his podcast, New Heights.
The title of the album was revealed by Swift herself on a social media clip trailing Kelce’s podcast, and the record was simultaneously made available for pre-order on her website.
Fans who pre-ordered the album received a message which said it would ship before 13 October, but that “this is not the release date”.
The official release date for the new music is yet to be confirmed.
The pop star’s 11th album The Tortured Poets Department, released last year, broke the Spotify record for being the most-streamed album in a day.
A shift in approach?
Announcing her new album on her current boyfriend’s podcast is an interesting move for Swift, as so much of her songwriting and back catalogue has been about her previous relationships.
It was widely reported – though never confirmed – that her last album detailed her break-up from The 1975 singer Matty Healy. Other former beaus including Harry Styles, Jake Gyllenhaal and John Mayer are all long thought by fans to have been subjects of songs in the past.
The Guardian’s deputy music editor Laura Snapes told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday that the subject of relationships could be back on the agenda.
“There is a leaked photograph of, allegedly, the inside of the vinyl going around where you can see some blurry, out of focus lyrics,” noted Snapes. “And there seems to be some stuff about love.
“There might be something about the situation with her former label… it doesn’t seem like she’s done singing about that.”
The star, she stressed, “famously gives no interviews”. So everything her fans hear from her “is direct” , either via social media or comments made on stage inbetween songs at her gigs like during her all-conquering recent Eras tour.
A new album is therefore like “an update on her life – what she’s been thinking of, what she’s been feeling”, Snapes said, adding it’s “really interesting” that Swift delivered the update in this way.
“It seems quite loose – a way that we don’t really get to see her in public,” added the journalist.
“And I wonder if this is going to signal a shift in her media approach, or if it’s just her boyfriend’s podcast?”
Snapes said she will be “watching with interest” when the full podcast drops at 00:00 BST on Thursday.
After years of headlines during her record-breaking Eras tour, Swift appeared to have a relatively quiet start to 2025.
In May this year, it was announced that she had bought back the rights to her first six albums, ending a long-running and highly publicised battle over the ownership of her music.
After her original masters sold, she vowed to re-record all six albums, which became known as “Taylor’s Versions”. To date, she has re-released four of the original six.
Swift announced her purchase of her original masters with a heartfelt letter to fans, where she wrote that the final two albums would “have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right.”
The singer wrapped up the Eras tour in December 2024, after playing 149 shows in 53 cities.
In the UK alone, she played to almost 1.2 million people, including eight nights at Wembley Stadium. The tour generated an estimated £1bn for the country’s economy, and was the catalyst for Swift officially claiming billionaire status.
The star also has a suite of awards to her name; she has been named artist of the decade by the American Music Awards, is the most awarded artist of all time at MTV’s Video Music Awards and has won 14 Grammys, including an unprecedented four album of the year awards.
How did she get so big?
Her pandemic era albums Folklore and Evermore were a significant turning point, according to BBC Culture correspondent Mark Savage, with the subtle, indie-folk arrangements winning over critics and fans who had previously been unimpressed by her country and pop hits.
The rise of TikTok introduced her to a new audience, while the ongoing project of re-recording her first six albums rejuvenated her older hits.
“She is just one of those rare timeless artists who gets it right every time,” said fellow pop star Raye last year. “She’s an absolute powerhouse.”
“She’s such a fantastic role model,” added Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall.
“She’s got the resilience and the chutzpah to be the boss of an enormous machine, employing thousands of people. To be able to handle that and handle what’s coming at her publicly, you’ve just got to be a one-off.”
Lana Del Rey, who duetted with Swift on the 2022 song Snow On The Beach, had another theory about the star’s dominance.
“She wants it,” the singer told BBC News last year.
“She’s told me so many times that she wants it more than anyone. And how amazing – she’s getting exactly what she wants.
“She’s driven, and I think it’s really paid off.”
Australia PM says Israel’s Netanyahu ‘in denial’ about Gaza war
Australia’s prime minister has accused his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu of being “in denial” over the consequences of the war in Gaza.
Anthony Albanese on Monday announced his country would recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September, following similar moves by the UK, France and Canada.
Albanese said frustration with the Israeli government had played a role in the move, saying Australians “want to see the killing and the cycle of violence stop”.
Israel, under increasing pressure to end the war in Gaza, has said recognising a Palestinian state “rewards terrorism” and Netanyahu called the decision taken by Australia and other allies “shameful”.
Netanyahu and his government have been facing growing condemnation over reports of starvation in Gaza.
Five people have died from malnutrition in the past 24 hours, including one child, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, bringing the total number of malnutrition deaths to 222 – including 101 children.
Israel denies there is starvation in Gaza and has accused UN agencies of not picking up aid at the borders and delivering it. The UN has rejected this, saying it faces obstacles and delays while collecting aid from Israeli-controlled border zones.
Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Tuesday, Albanese said he had spoken to PM Netanyahu last Thursday to inform him of Australia’s decision.
“The stopping of aid that we’ve seen and then the loss of life that we’re seeing around those aid distribution points, where people queuing for food and water are losing their lives, is just completely unacceptable. And we have said that,” he said.
“I spoke with PM Netanyahu. He again reiterated to me what he has said publicly as well, which is to be in denial about the consequences that are occurring for innocent people.”
Albanese had earlier said the decision to recognise a Palestinian state was made after receiving commitments from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which controls parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, that Hamas would play no role in any future state
The move has drawn a mixed response in Australia, with the Executive Council of Australian Jewry calling it a “betrayal”, and some Palestinian activists saying it doesn’t go far enough.
Right-leaning opposition leader Sussan Ley said the decision was “disrespectful” to the US, a key Australian ally.
Earlier this month, a pro-Palestinian protest drew at least 90,000 supporters who walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge, a day after a court ruling allowed the demonstration to happen.
Netanyahu said in a press conference over the weekend that it was “shameful” for countries including Australia to recognise a Palestinian state.
“They know what they would do if, right next to Melbourne or right next to Sydney, you had this horrific attack. I think you would do at least what we’re doing.”
More than 61,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s military campaign since 7 October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Israel launched the offensive in response to the Hamas-led attack on 7 October, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
Nepal offers free climbs to 97 peaks as tourism to Everest surges
Nepal will make 97 of its Himalayan mountains free to climb for the next two years in a bid to boost tourism in some of its more remote areas.
It comes as permit fees to summit Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, during peak season will go up to $15,000 (£11,170) from September – the first increase in nearly a decade.
Nepal’s tourism department said it hopes the initiative will highlight the country’s “unexplored tourism products and destinations”.
Mountaineering generates a significant source of revenue for Nepal, which is home to eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains. Climbing fees brought in $5.9m last year, with Everest accounting for more than three quarters of that.
The peaks for which fees will be waived are located in Nepal’s Karnali and Sudurpaschim provinces, standing between 5,970m (19,590 ft) and 7,132m high.
Both provinces, located in the far-western region of Nepal, are among the country’s poorest and least developed provinces.
“Despite their breathtaking beauty, the number of tourists and mountaineers here is very low as access is so difficult. We hope the new provision will help,” said Himal Gautam, director of Nepal’s Tourism Department.
“They can create jobs, generate income, and strengthen the local economy,” he said, as reported by The Kathmandu Post.
But it is unclear if authorities have plans to improve infrastructure and connectivity to these remote areas – and how well communities in these areas might cope with an influx of climbers, if the free-to-climb initiative does take off.
Climbers have historically shown little interest in these 97 remote peaks – only 68 of them have ventured there in the last two years. In contrast, some 421 climbing permits were issued for Everest in 2024 alone.
Everest, the world’s highest peak at over 8,849m, has in recent years been plagued by overcrowding, environmental concerns and a series of fatal climbing attempts.
In April 2024, Nepal’s Supreme Court ordered the government to limit the number of mountaineering permits issued for Everest and several other peaks, saying that the mountains’ capacity “must be respected”.
In January this year, authorities announced a 36% mark-up in permit fees. For those attempting the summit outside the peak April to May season, it will now cost $7,500 to climb Everest during September to November and $3,750 during December to February.
Nepal’s parliament is also debating a new law that will require anyone wanting to scale Everest to have first summited a mountain over 7,000m in the country.
This makes the peaks in Karnali and Sudurpaschim “ideal training grounds”, according to The Kathmandu Post.
Is crime in Washington DC ‘out of control’, as Trump claims?
President Donald Trump has said he will deploy hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington DC and is taking control of its police department to fight crime.
At a press conference, he declared “Liberation Day” for the city and pledged to “rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse”.
However, Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has said the city has “seen a huge decrease in crime” and that it was “at a 30-year violent crime low”.
BBC Verify looks at what the figures show about violent crime in the capital and how it compares to other cities in the US.
Is violent crime up in Washington DC?
Trump’s executive order declaring “a crime emergency in the District of Columbia” mentions “rising violence in the capital”. In his press conference he made repeated references to crime being “out of control”.
But according to crime figures published by Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police (MPDC), violent offences fell after peaking in 2023 and in 2024 hit their lowest level in 30 years.
They are continuing to fall, according to preliminary data for 2025.
Violent crime overall is down 26% this year compared to the same point in 2024, and robbery is down 28%, according to the MPDC.
Trump and the DC Police Union have questioned the veracity of the city police department’s crime figures.
- Trump deploys National Guard to Washington DC and pledges crime crackdown
Violent crime is reported differently by the MPDC and the FBI – another major source of US crime statistics.
MPDC public data showed a 35% fall for 2024, while the FBI data showed a 9% drop.
So the figures agree that crime is falling in DC, but differ on the level of that decline.
The downward trend is “unmistakable and large”, according to Adam Gelb, the CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ), a legal think tank.
“The numbers shift depending on what time period and what types of crime you examine,” said Mr Gelb.
“But overall there’s an unmistakable and large drop in violence since the summer of 2023, when there were peaks in homicide, gun assaults, robbery, and carjacking.”
What about murder rates?
Trump also claimed that “murders in 2023 reached the highest rate probably ever” in Washington DC – adding that numbers “just go back 25 years”.
When we asked the White House the source for the figures, they said it was “numbers provided by the FBI”.
The homicide rate did spike in 2023 to around 40 per 100,000 residents – the highest rate in 20 years, according to FBI data.
However, that was not the highest ever recorded – it was significantly higher in the 1990s and in the early 2000s.
The homicide rate dropped in 2024 and this year it is down 12% on the same point last year, according to the MPDC.
Studies have suggested that the capital’s homicide rate is higher than average, when compared to other major US cities.
As of 11 August, there have been 99 homicides so far this year in Washington DC – including a 21-year-old congressional intern shot dead in crossfire, a case Trump referred to in his press conference.
What about carjackings?
The president also mentioned the case of a 19-year-old former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) who was injured in an alleged attempted carjacking in the capital at the start of August.
Trump claimed “the number of carjackings has more than tripled” over the last five years.
So far this year, the MPDC has recorded 189 carjacking offences, down from 300 in the same period last year.
According to the CCJ, carjacking rose markedly from 2020 onward and spiked to a monthly peak of 140 reported incidents in June 2023.
Since July 2025, a citywide curfew has been in force for people under the age of 17 from 23:00 to 06:00.
It was introduced to combat juvenile crime – including carjacking – which often spikes in the summer months.
How does crime compare to other parts of the US?
“The level of violence in the District remains mostly higher than the average of three dozen cities in our sample,” Mr Gelb from the CCJ told us.
“Although its downward trend is consistent with what we’re seeing in other large cities across the country,” he added.
The CCJ looks at crime rates across 30 large US cities.
Its analysis suggests that the homicide rate in DC fell 19% in the first half of this year (January-June 2025), compared with the same period last year.
This is a slightly larger fall than the 17% average decline across the cities in the CCJ’s study sample.
However, if you take the first six months of 2025 and compare it to the same period in 2019 – before the Covid-19 pandemic – it shows only a 3% fall in homicides.
Across the 30 cities in the study, that decrease was 14% over the same timeframe.
What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?
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Ronaldo engaged to long-term partner Georgina Rodríguez
Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has got engaged to his long-term partner Georgina Rodríguez.
She announced the news on social media alongside a picture of a large ring, writing “Yes I do. In this and in all my lives” in her native Spanish.
No further details have been shared. Ronaldo, who is the most followed person on Instagram, has not yet made a comment about their engagement.
The couple have been together for nine years, after they met at a Gucci shop in Madrid where Rodríguez was working. He was playing at the Spanish club Real Madrid at the time.
The Portugal and Al-Nassr player has five children in total, two of whom he shares with Rodríguez.
Their youngest daughter Bella was born in April 2022, alongside a baby boy who was stillborn.
Rodríguez has also helped to raise Ronaldo’s other three children.
The 31-year-old, who starred in her own Netflix reality show I Am Georgina, previously addressed speculation around her engagement status. On the programme, she said her friends were “always joking about the wedding.”
“Since Jennifer Lopez’s song ‘The Ring Or When’ came out, they started singing it to me. And well, this is not up to me,” she added.
Famous faces including Kim Kardashian have liked the engagement announcement on social media. Piers Morgan, who interviewed Ronaldo in 2022, wished them “as much success in their marriage as he’s had on the football pitch!”
Celebrity make-up artist Charlotte Tilbury commented that it was “fabulous news”. Lauren Sanchez-Bezos, who married Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in June, said she was “so happy” for the couple.
The family currently live in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh, where the Ronaldo plays for Al-Nassr. He joined the club in December 2022 for a reported annual salary of £177m ($238m).
In June 2025, it was announced that the 40-year-old’s contract had been extended until 2027 after speculation that he was preparing to retire.
In a post on X, Ronaldo wrote: “A new chapter begins. Same passion, same dream. Let’s make history together.”
Man faces jail in US for shipping 850 turtles in socks to Hong Kong
A Chinese man has pleaded guilty in a US district court to exporting around 850 protected turtles wrapped in socks and falsely labelled as toys, the US Department of Justice said.
Between August 2023 and November 2024, Wei Qiang Lin exported to Hong Kong more than 200 parcels containing the turtles, according to a Justice Department statement on Monday.
The boxes packed with the turtles had been labelled as “containing ‘plastic animal toys’, among other things”, the authorities said.
Mr Lin primarily shipped eastern box turtles and three-toed box turtles. Both species are native to the US and highly prized by some pet owners.
The turtles have unique markings on their shells, and are seen as a status symbol in China where they are often kept as pets.
US authorities estimated that Mr Lin’s seized turtles had a combined market value of $1.4m (£1m). He was caught when the animals were intercepted by law enforcement during one border inspection.
Both species, which were smuggled in large quantities in the 1990s, are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Trade of the turtles can only be authorised with export permits or re-export certificates.
The eastern box turtle is also deemed vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Besides the turtles, Mr Lin also exported 11 other parcels filled with reptiles, including venomous snakes, according to the Justice Department.
Mr Lin, who is set to be sentenced on 23 December, faces up to five years in prison.
In March, another Chinese national was sentenced to 30 months in prison for smuggling more than 2,000 eastern box turtles.
The animals were also wrapped in socks and packed in boxes, which were labelled as containing almonds and chocolate cookies.
US authorities estimated at the time that each turtle could have been sold for $2,000 (£1,500).
KPop Demon Hunters goes Golden with Billboard chart-topping hit
Golden, the breakout song from animated film KPop Demon Hunters, has clinched the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 – bagging yet another record for the Netflix summer flick.
The film, about K-pop girl band Huntr/x who uses music to protect humans from demons, has become Netflix’s most-watched animated film since its release in June.
It is the ninth song associated with K-pop to take the top spot on the Hot 100 – and the first by female singers.
The upbeat hit clocked nearly 32 million official streams in the first week of August, according to Billboard.
“Unlike other animated films, where songs are often added as a filler or commercial hook, the music here was woven into the narrative in a way that enhanced it rather than distracted,” Maggie Kang, the Korean-Canadian co-director of the film, previously told the BBC.
Golden is not the only track from the movie that has achieved commercial success. Coming in at number eight on the Hot 100 is the song Your Idol by Saja Boys, the fictional rivals of Huntr/x.
Both Golden and Your Idol topped US Spotify charts in July shortly after the film’s release, beating real life K-pop bands BTS and Blackpink.
Earlier this month, Golden climbed to the number one spot in the Official UK Singles Chart – becoming only the second K-pop single to do so, after South Korean rapper Psy’s Gangnam Style in 2012.
Official Charts CEO Martin Talbot said that this represented “another landmark moment for the globally dominating South Korean genre”.
“For the many music fans who have been to their enormous concerts, bought their merch and streamed their iconic songs, this will forever be the summer of Oasis – but K-pop’s superstars are certainly giving the Gallaghers a run for their money,” he said.
The track, sung by Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami, debuted at number 81 on the Hot 100 on 5 July, before steadily climbing to the top of the chart.
Ejae, who also co-wrote the track, previously told BBC Newsbeat the team had known Golden would be a “banger” – though the song’s massive success still came as a surprise.
“It’s like I’m surfing for the first time and a big wave just came through,” she said.
The film Kpop Demon Hunters has also become a massive hit for Netflix, becoming its fourth-most watched movie of all time within weeks of its release.
US reports say the streaming platform is considering turning it into a franchise with several sequels, hoping to replicate the success of Disney’s Frozen.
Who were the Al Jazeera journalists killed by Israel in Gaza?
Five Al Jazeera journalists were killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza City on Sunday – among them 28-year-old correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who had reported prominently on the war since its outset.
The other four Al Jazeera journalists killed were correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Moamen Aliwa, and crew driver and cameraman Mohammed Noufal, Al Jazeera said.
Two others were also killed, the broadcaster said. Hospital officials named Mohammed al-Khaldi, a local freelance journalist, as one of them.
The targeted attack on a tent used by journalists has drawn strong international condemnation including from the UN, Qatar where Al Jazeera is based, and media freedom groups.
Israel says Sharif was “the head of a Hamas terrorist cell” but has produced little evidence to support that. Sharif previously denied it, and Al Jazeera and media rights groups have rejected the allegation.
The BBC understands Sharif worked for a Hamas media team in Gaza before the current conflict.
In some of his social media posts before his death, the journalist can be heard criticising Hamas.
Committee for the Protection of Journalists CEO Jodie Ginsberg told the BBC there was no justification for Sharif’s killing.
“International law is very clear on this point that the only individuals who are legitimate targets during a war are active combatants. Having worked as a media advisor for Hamas, or indeed for Hamas currently, does not make you an active combatant”, she said.
“And nothing that the Israeli forces has produced so far in terms of evidence gives us any kind of assurance that he was even an active member of Hamas.”
The ‘only voice’ left in Gaza City
Anas al-Sharif became one of Al Jazeera’s most prominent reporters in Gaza during the war.
Born in the densely populated Jabalia area in the north of the Strip, he worked for Al Jazeera for about two years, the broadcaster said.
“He worked for the whole length of the war inside Gaza reporting daily on the situation of people and the attacks which are committed in Gaza,” Salah Negm, director of news at Al Jazeera English, told the BBC.
Married with a four-year-old daughter, Sham, and a one-year-old son, Salah, he was separated from them for long stretches during the war while he continued to report from the north of the territory after refusing to follow Israeli evacuation orders.
A joint Instagram post on his official account along with his wife’s in January this year showed a picture of Sharif smiling with his two children. The caption said it was the first time he was meeting Salah, after 15 months of war.
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Sharif appeared frequently in live broadcasts, reporting extensively on the situation in Gaza.
He reported on the targeting of his colleagues, including prominent Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi, who were killed in 2024 in an air strike in Gaza City.
His father had already been killed in December 2023 when the family home was targeted in an Israeli strike. Hours before he himself was killed, he posted about an intense Israeli bombardment of Gaza City.
Mohamed Moawad, Al Jazeera’s managing editor, described him as the “only voice left in Gaza City” – which Israel now plans to militarily occupy.
Raed Fakih, input manager at Al Jazeera’s Arabic-language channel, told the BBC Sharif was “courageous, dedicated, and honest – that’s what made him successful as a journalist with hundreds of thousands of social media followers from all over the world”.
Fakih, who is in charge of the channel’s bureaux and correspondents, added: “His dedication took him to areas where no other reporter ventured to go, especially those that witnessed the worst massacres. His integrity kept him true to his message as a journalist.”
Fakih said he spoke to Sharif many times on the phone throughout the war.
“In our last conversations, he told me about the famine and starvation he was enduring, about how hard it is to survive with so little food,” he said.
“He felt he had no choice but to amplify the voice of the Gazans. He was living the same hardships they are living now, suffering from famine, mourning loved ones.
“His father was killed in an Israeli bombing. In that way, he was like all Gazans: carrying loss, pain, and resilience. And even in the face of death, he persisted, because this is a story that must be told.”
Who were the other journalists killed?
Mohammed Qreiqeh, 33, was a father of two from Gaza City. Like Sharif, he was separated from his family for months during the war as he reported from the front lines in northern Gaza.
Qreiqeh’s last live broadcast was on Sunday evening, minutes before he was targeted, Al Jazeera reported.
The broadcaster said his mother was killed in March 2024 when Israeli forces raided al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. He found his mother after searching for her body for two weeks, it said.
His brother was also killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City in March, Al Jazeera said.
Al Araby TV correspondent Islam Bader, who also reports from Gaza, said he had worked with Qreiqeh for years. In a post on Instagram he described Qreiqeh as having a very “calm” soul.
Cameraman Ibrahim Zaher, 25, was also from Jabalia, according to Al Jazeera. Bader said he had been a journalist from the beginning of the war, while also volunteering with medical services.
Cameraman Moamen Aliwa was described as “friendly, helpful, kind, polite” by Bader. He wrote on Instagram Aliwa had originally studied engineering but during the war became a journalist.
Mohammed Noufal, described as both a cameraman and crew driver by Al Jazeera, was also from Jabalia. The news outlet said the 29-year-old’s mother and brother were killed by Israeli attacks earlier in the war.
Freelance journalist Mohammed al-Khaldi posted a number of videos on social media documenting his life and that of others in war-torn Gaza. His last video posted on Instagram over the weekend showed an eight-year-old girl speaking about her struggle with hunger, and he appealed for his followers to help her.
Israel alleges Sharif led ‘terrorist cell’, with little evidence
The Israeli military accused Sharif of posing as a journalist, saying he had “served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas” and was responsible for launching rocket attacks at Israelis – but it has produced little evidence to support these claims.
In a statement, the IDF said it had documents which “unequivocally prove” his “military affiliation” with Hamas, including “personnel rosters, lists of terrorist training courses, phone directories, and salary documents”.
It has publicly released some screenshots of spreadsheets apparently listing Hamas operatives from the northern Gaza Strip, noting injuries to Hamas operatives and a section of what is said to be a phone directory for the armed group’s East Jabalia battalion.
Israel had previously accused Sharif of being a member of Hamas’s military wing – something he and his employer strongly denied.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a media freedom group, said the allegations against him were “baseless” and called on the international community to intervene.
“Without strong action from the international community to stop the Israeli army… we’re likely to witness more such extrajudicial murders of media professionals,” RSF said.
Nearly 200 journalists have been killed in the war Israel launched in response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023 assault, according to RSF.
Fakih from Al Jazeera accused the Israeli military of fabricating stories about journalists before killing them, to “hide what [it] is committing in Gaza”. Israel has previously denied targeting journalists.
He described this as a “longstanding pattern” and referred to the Israeli military’s killing of veteran Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Aqla, who was shot in the head during an Israeli army raid in the occupied West Bank in 2022.
The Israeli military concluded that one of its soldiers probably killed her, but called her death unintentional. Al Jazeera said its evidence showed it was a “deliberate killing”.
“Here is a crucial fact: had Israel been held accountable for Shireen’s assassination, it would not have dared to kill 200 journalists in Gaza,” said Fakih.
Sharif knew he risked being targeted by Israel after its Arabic-language spokesman posted a video of him in July and accused him of being a member of Hamas’ military wing.
In a post published on his X account, which was prewritten in the event of his death, Sharif said he “gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people… Do not forget Gaza.”
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Alexander Isak is determined to leave Newcastle United and join Liverpool this summer.
BBC Sport has been told by several sources that it is the Sweden striker’s ambition to join the Premier League champions before the deadline closes on 1 September.
The Magpies rejected a £110m bid from Liverpool for Isak on 1 August, with the Reds subsequently claiming that they were prepared to walk away from a deal.
Newcastle manager Eddie Howe said following a pre-season friendly defeat by Atletico Madrid that “everything is in play” when it comes to Isak’s future but stressed it was “clear” he “cannot involve” the striker in his current plans.
As such, Isak is expected to miss Newcastle’s Premier League opener at Aston Villa on Saturday (12:30pm BST).
The former Dortmund forward missed Newcastle’s pre-season tour of the far-east with a “minor” thigh injury.
He then trained alone at former club Real Sociedad, before returning to the UK last week.
Isak, who scored 27 goals in 42 appearances across all competitions last season, has three years to run on his deal in the north east.
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Newcastle have failed with several moves for strikers this summer, with Liam Delap opting to join Chelsea, Benjamin Sesko choosing Manchester United and Hugo Ekitike moving to Liverpool.
Interest remains in Brentford striker Yoane Wissa, who left the Bees’ pre-season camp in Portugal in July because of his desire to join Newcastle.
The 28-year-old returned to first-team training last week following constructive talks with head coach Keith Andrews.
But the DR Congo striker remains keen on moving to Newcastle should a fee be agreed.
Howe’s side are closing in on the signing of AC Milan defender Malick Thiaw.
The centre-back is due to fly to Tyneside on Sunday night to finalise his £34.62m move to St James’ Park.
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Published26 July 2022
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Former Premier League referee David Coote has been given an eight-week suspension by the Football Association for comments made about ex-Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp on social media.
Coote, who was sacked by the Premier League in December 2024, has been further sanctioned by the FA for an “aggravated breach” of rule E3.2, because of the reference he made to Klopp’s nationality in the video.
The clip, which was filmed around July 2020, was leaked online in November 2024.
Coote admitted the charge.
The FA’s written reasons for the verdict said Coote expressed “deep remorse” and acknowledged his comments were “crass and inappropriate”.
As well as his suspension, Coote must undergo a mandatory face-to-face education programme.
The 42-year-old was initially suspended in November 2024 when the online clip showed him making derogatory comments about Klopp and Liverpool.
He was sacked a month later by Premier League referees’ body the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) following an investigation into his conduct.
Coote was also banned in February by Uefa from officiating in European competition until 30 June 2026.
A video – separate to the one in which he made reference to Klopp’s nationality – emerged in November of Coote sniffing a white powder when he was on duty at Euro 2024, which is organised by Uefa.
Coote revealed in January that he was gay, and had hidden his sexuality during his professional career through fear of abuse.
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Published31 January
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Italian orienteer Mattia Debertolis has died after collapsing during the World Games in China last week.
The 29-year-old was found unconscious by organisers during an orienteering event last Friday in Chengdu.
The Italian died on Tuesday – four days after his collapse.
“Despite receiving immediate expert medical care at one of China’s leading medical institutions, he passed away,” World Games organisers said in a statement.
International Orienteering Federation (IOF) President Tom Hollowell said he was “not able to adequately describe the unfathomable depth of sadness in this tragic loss of life”.
Debertolis’ cause of death is unknown at this stage.
The World Games is a multi-sport event held every four years for events that are not listed in the Olympics.
Debertolis was taking part in the final of the men’s middle-distance event, which took place in temperatures above 30 degrees, when he collapsed.
Orienteering is an outdoor sport in which participants have to navigate between unmarked checkpoints using a map.
It combines physical activity with map-reading and problem-solving.
The Italian was one of 12 athletes listed as “Did Not Finish” in the official results.
He was part of the Italian national team and finished fifth in the 2022 World Cup final.
Debertolis, who was qualified as a civil engineer, resided in Sweden and was studying for a PhD at a university in Stockholm.
World Games organisers said they will “continue to support the family of Debertolis and the orienteering community in every possible way.”
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Tottenham are exploring a deal for Crystal Palace and England forward Eberechi Eze.
Thomas Frank is looking to bolster his options in the final third after attacking midfielder James Maddison was ruled out for the majority of the season with an anterior cruciate ligament injury.
South Korea forward Son Heung-min left the club after 10 years earlier this month having scored 173 goals in 454 appearances, while midfielder Dejan Kulusevski is still out after knee surgery.
Eze scored 14 goals across all competitions for Palace last season, including in their 1-0 win against Manchester City in the FA Cup final.
The 27-year-old made his England debut in 2023 and has won 11 caps for the Three Lions, including three appearances at Euro 2024.
Tottenham are also in talks with Manchester City over a move for Savinho but multiple sources have indicated that Eze is now emerging as a player of serious interest for Spurs.
There is no confirmation whether Tottenham will look to progress with deals for both Brazil winger Savinho and Eze.
Arsenal also have an interest in Eze but are currently looking at trying to move players on, with the likes of Leandro Trossard, Reiss Nelson and Fabio Vieira set to leave.
It remains to be seen whether Tottenham’s active interest in Eze results in Arsenal accelerating a move for the England international.
Eze joined Palace from Queens Park Rangers in a deal worth £19.5m in 2020 and has scored 40 goals in 168 appearances.
His contract at Selhurst Park is due to expire in the summer of 2027.
How could Eze fit in at Spurs?
Eze has improved his total number of goals and assists in each of the past three seasons and scored or created 26 goals in all competitions last term, the highest figure of his career.
That growth has been aided by his switch from the left wing to a more central role as one of two attacking midfielders in the 3-4-2-1 formation used by Palace boss Oliver Glasner.
Eze finished last season with a flourish, becoming the first player to score in six consecutive appearances for Palace since Darren Ambrose in 2009.
If he moves to Tottenham, Eze could also play centrally as the attacking midfielder in Frank’s 4-2-3-1 system, filling the creative void left by Maddison’s knee injury.
Maddison and Eze both created two chances per 90 minutes in the most recent Premier League campaign, though Maddison’s passing range means he is perhaps better suited to stretching play.
He averaged 3.9 long passes and 8.6 passes into the final third per 90 last season, compared to corresponding figures of 2.3 and 4 for Eze. While Eze gets on the ball less because of Palace’s counter-attacking style, Maddison appears the more progressive passer. Eze, meanwhile, has the edge in terms of running with the ball, averaging 4.6 dribbles to Maddison’s 3.4, with a similar advantage when it comes to taking on players in the opposition half.
Another option would be to use Eze as a replacement for the departed Son on the wings, where he could compete for a starting spot with Mohammed Kudus, Wilson Odobert and Mathys Tel.
One of Son’s biggest strengths was his finishing ability with either foot. The South Korean attempted 33 shots with his right in the league last season and 24 with his left. Though not quite at that level, Eze is also relatively good with both feet, registering 72 right-footed efforts and 28 off his left.
Regardless of where Eze may operate, Spurs would be getting a player who excels in wriggling his way out of tight spaces and making things happen. Eze ranked highly for most combined shots and chances created in the Premier League last season, with only a handful of big names faring better.
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Published26 July 2022
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Paris St-Germain have signed Bournemouth defender Illia Zabarnyi in a deal worth 66m euros (£57m).
The Ukraine centre-back, who has penned a five-year deal, said he had joined “the best club in the world, with the best project”.
European champions PSG have paid an initial £54.5m plus £2.6m in performance-related add-ons.
Zabarnyi joined the Cherries in January 2023 from Dynamo Kyiv and made 86 appearances.
He played a key role in defence and was named 2023-24 Supporters’ Player of the Season.
The 22-year-old’s exit is the third major sale of a defender by Bournemouth this transfer window after Dean Huijsen joined Real Madrid for £50m and Liverpool signed Milos Kerkez in a deal worth £40m.
While the Cherries must rebuild their defence as a result, they are set to make a healthy profit on the trio.
Zabarnyi joined for a reported £24m, while Huijsen was signed from Juventus last summer for a fee of £12.6m and Kerkez cost a reported £15.5m from AZ Alkmaar.
Bournemouth agreed a deal for Zabarnyi’s replacement, Bafode Diakite, over the weekend, with the Lille player set to arrive for an initial fee of £30m that could rise to £34m with add-ons.
Transfers were ‘hard to turn down’
Bournemouth expected at least one defender to be sold this summer but to lose three has been a shock, according to sources inside the club.
Each move has been difficult to turn down though, with such high fees on offer from three of the world’s biggest clubs.
The Cherries, who more than tripled the £12.8m paid to sign Huijsen from Juventus six months earlier, did not expect his £50m release clause to be seen as value for money by suitors within a year.
Real Madrid won the race but Huijsen attracted a lot of other interest – including from Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea – after a brilliant season at Vitality Stadium.
Diakite fills one of the gaps at centre-back and £14.4m Frenchman Adrien Truffert has been signed to fill the Kerkez hole – and a further central defender is being sought.
Meanwhile, goalkeeper Djordje Petrovic has replaced Kepa Arrizabalaga – who opted to join Arsenal from Chelsea instead of Bournemouth – while they also signed teenage forward Eli Junior Kroupi in February.
Manager Andoni Iraola also wants a striker to add competition for Evanilson, given Enes Unal remains out having suffered a serious knee injury last season.
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Published26 July 2022
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Many football fans will be aware of the story of the volcanic ash cloud that scuppered Robert Lewandowski’s potential move to Blackburn Rovers – but there was another club in England the striker wishes he had joined.
“To Manchester United I decided and said yes,” he told BBC Sport. “I wanted to join Manchester United, to see Alex Ferguson.”
The prospect of a move to the Red Devils came in 2012, when Lewandowski was scoring prolifically at Borussia Dortmund – and two years after a volcanic eruption in Iceland had put paid to his Blackburn switch.
However, the German club simply did not want to let their talismanic striker go.
“They could not sell me,” Lewandowski said. “Because they knew if I stayed they could earn more money, and that I could wait maybe one or two more years.
“But it is true that I said yes to Manchester United.”
While that move failed to materialise, Lewandowski has enjoyed a stellar career at some of Europe’s biggest clubs, winning the Champions League with Bayern Munich and La Liga twice at his current club Barcelona.
At 37 he has no plans to retire any time soon, but accepts a Premier League opportunity has probably passed him by.
Speaking in an interview with Liam MacDevitt, Lewandowski added: “Maybe it could be a regret [not to play in the Premier League].
“But when I am looking back [having] played for Bayern Munich, Dortmund and now Barcelona I have to say I am very happy with my career.
“I don’t have this kind of feeling that I missed something, because every move or decision… I made because I wanted it.”
‘I learn a lot from the young players’
Lewandowski, who has scored more than 700 career goals for club and country, is preparing for his 22nd season as a professional.
He is now the old head in a young Barcelona team featuring supreme talents like Lamine Yamal, but the Poland international believes he still has plenty to offer.
“When I see that I still don’t have to catch the young guys, that they still have to catch me, it means this next season can also be very good,” he said.
“I am still there to show the best performance from myself.”
Lamine Yamal was not even born when Lewandowski’s career began, but despite being 19 years his senior, the striker believes he is still learning from younger players.
“I understood that I cannot fight with them but I can help them and they can also help me,” Lewandowski said.
“I learn from them a lot. I didn’t think it would happen like that.”
Lamine Yamal is widely viewed as a future superstar, and Lewandowski said he could see the winger was special from the moment he trained with the first team aged just 15.
“It is the first time in my life I saw after 50 minutes that he had something special,” he said.
“I didn’t believe it because I didn’t see this kind of player at this age – I thought this is impossible at 15.”
When Lewandowski came close to winning the Ballon d’Or
The latest nominees for the Ballon d’Or have been announced, and for Lewandowski this time of year will be a reminder of just how close he came to winning the award.
He was among the favourites for the 2020 edition which was cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A year later he finished runner-up to Lionel Messi for the main prize, and was named striker of the year after a record-breaking season when he scored 41 league goals.
“I was in the best moment of my career, I won everything with my club,” he said.
“I think the difficult thing with that case is until now I don’t know why.”
On who could win it this year, Lewandowski added: “You have so many players now who can [win the Ballon d’Or].
“Lamine Yamal’s season was incredible but in the end it depends what is most important. He still has a lot of time, if not this year maybe next year.
“Raphinha also had an amazing season. We have players who can be one of the favourites to win this kind of title.”
The conversation that changed Lewandowski’s career
Lewandowski has played under some leading managers during his career and is currently working under Hansi Flick, who was also in charge during his trophy-laden spell at Bayern Munich.
But it is former Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp – who Lewandowski played under at Dortmund – who had the biggest influence on the striker.
“When I moved to Dortmund I was a very young guy, I lost my father when I was 16,” he said.
“I for sure was a boy who was more closed, I didn’t want to speak about my emotion.
“However, after a few years I met someone who I don’t want to say was like a father but similar.
“Maybe after so many years the kind of conversation that I missed with my father, I had with Jurgen.
“I remember the conversation until now because it changed my life, it changed my football life. I put my emotion out, I put out the words I had kept in for a few years and after this I felt freedom.
“Maybe because of this I started to play better and better.”
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Published31 January
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