European leaders have warned against Ukrainian borders being redrawn by force – three days before Russia’s Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump are due to hold a summit on Ukraine 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?

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.

Zelensky meanwhile continued to express his scepticism that Russia was serious about ending the war. “On the contrary, they are making movements that indicate preparations for new offensive operations,” he said in a statement on social media.

Ukraine’s military has downplayed reports of a breakthrough by Russian forces to the north of the embattled logistics hub of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region – but acknowledged it is facing a “difficult and dynamic” situation.

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”.

When they speak to Trump, the leaders 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”.

Gaza City has come under intense air attack, the territory’s Hamas-run civil defence agency has said, as Israeli forces prepare to occupy the city.

Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman, said the residential areas of Zeitoun and Sabra had for three days been hit by bombs and drone strikes that “cause massive destruction to civilian homes”, with residents unable to recover the dead and injured.

Meanwhile the UK, EU, Australia, Canada and Japan issued a statement saying “famine is unfolding in front of our eyes” and urged action to “reverse starvation”.

They demanded “immediate, permanent and concrete steps” to facilitate the entry of aid to Gaza. Israel denies there is starvation in Gaza.

It has accused UN agencies of not picking up aid at the borders and delivering it.

The joint statement also demanded an end to the use of lethal force near aid distribution sites and lorry convoys, where the UN says more than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed, mostly by the Israeli military.

Separately, the World Health Organisation on Tuesday appealed to Israel to let it stock medical supplies to deal with a “catastrophic” health situation before it seizes control of Gaza City.

“We all hear about ‘more humanitarian supplies are allowed in’ – well it’s not happening yet, or it’s happening at a way too low a pace,” said Rik Peeperkorn, the agency’s representative in the Palestinian territories.

“We want to as quickly stock up hospitals,” he added. “We currently cannot do that. We need to be able to get all essential medicines and medical supplies in.”

Israel’s war cabinet voted on Monday to occupy Gaza City, a move condemned at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council later that day. On Tuesday the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was “at the beginning of a new state of combat”.

The Israeli government has not provided an exact timetable on when its forces would enter the area. On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s forces had been instructed to dismantle the “two remaining Hamas strongholds” in Gaza City and a central area around al-Mawasi.

He also outlined a three-step plan to increase aid in Gaza, including designating safe corridors for aid distribution, as well as more air drops by Israeli forces and other partners.

On the ground, however, residents of Gaza City said they had come under unrelenting attack from the air. Majed al-Hosary, a resident in Zeitoun in Gaza City, told AFP that the attacks had been “extremely intense for two days”.

“With every strike, the ground shakes. There are martyrs under the rubble that no one can reach because the shelling hasn’t stopped,” he said.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said that 100 dead had been brought to hospitals across Gaza over the past 24 hours, including 31 people who were killed at aid sites. Five more people had also died of malnutrition, it added.

Israel has faced mounting criticism over the 22-month-long war with Hamas, with UN-backed experts warning of widespread famine unfolding in the besieged territory.

On Tuesday members of an international group of former leaders known as “The Elders” for the first time called the war in Gaza an “unfolding genocide” and blamed Israel for causing famine among its population.

Following a visit to the Gaza border, Helen Clark and Mary Robinson, a former prime minister of New Zealand and a former president of Ireland, said in a joint statement: “What we saw and heard underlines our personal conviction that there is not only an unfolding, human-caused famine in Gaza. There is an unfolding genocide.”

The statement mirrors those of leading Israeli rights groups, including B’Tselem, which said it had reached an “unequivocal conclusion” that Israel was attempting to “destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip”.

Israel strongly rejects the accusations, saying its forces target terrorists and never civilians, and that Hamas was responsible for the suffering in Gaza.

On Sunday, the IDF killed five Al Jazeera journalists in a targeted attack on a media tent in Gaza City, sparking widespread international condemnation. It said it had killed well known reporter Anas al-Sharif, whom it alleged “served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas”, and made no mention of the others.

Media freedom groups said it had provided little evidence for its claims. Al Jazeera’s managing editor said Israel wanted to “silence the coverage of any channel of reporting from inside Gaza”.

Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in its attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. Israel’s response in Gaza has killed at least 61,599 Palestinians, according to the health ministry, whose toll the UN considers reliable.

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.

A US woman who was hired as a killer and tried to shoot a man in the UK at point-blank range has been found guilty of conspiracy to murder.

Would-be assassin Aimee Betro, from West Allis in Wisconsin, flew into the country as part of a plot to attack a British family in Birmingham in 2019, before going on the run for nearly five years.

Her co-conspirators had been involved in a feud with the family, her trial heard.

During the case at Birmingham Crown Court, jurors were told Betro hid her identity using a niqab when she tried to fire shots on Measham Grove, Yardley, but her gun jammed and the individual at whom she had aimed fled the scene unharmed.

Jurors deliberated for almost 21 hours before convicting Betro of conspiracy to murder, possessing a self-loading pistol with intent to cause fear of violence, and illegally importing ammunition.

During the trial, they heard the defendant had been involved in a conspiracy with two men – Mohammed Nazir and Mohammed Aslam – as part of their vendetta against Birmingham businessman Aslat Mahumad.

Prosecutors said revenge was the men’s motive after Nazir and Aslam were injured during disorder at Mr Mahumad’s clothing boutique in July 2018.

A plot was hatched, the court heard, to have someone kill Mr Mahumad or a member of his family. That person was Betro.

But despite the events in which she was a key player, detectives have suggested records point to Betro having virtually no criminal past prior to the murder plot.

She nevertheless produced a gun one September night six years ago, with Mr Mahumad’s son, Sikander Ali, the one to face the barrel after she lay in wait outside their family home.

Her convictions came after Nazir, 31, and his father Aslam, 59, both from Derby, were jailed last year having been convicted of conspiracy to murder.

As the jury returned its verdicts following Betro’s trial, the defendant, wearing a purple T-shirt and with her hair in space buns, showed no obvious reaction and stared towards the jury.

She was found guilty by a majority 11-1 verdict, on the conspiracy to murder and firearm charges, and by a unanimous verdict on the ammunition charge. She is due to be sentenced on 21 August.

On the night of the shooting, Betro lay in wait in a car she had bought earlier that day under a false name.

When Sikander Ali arrived at the property – and in CCTV scenes shown to the jury – Betro, with her face covered, approached him and fired at point-blank range.

After the gun jammed, Mr Ali managed to escape by reversing in his SUV.

Betro returned to the scene in a taxi in the early hours of the following day and fired three shots through the windows of the empty family home.

Prior to that return visit, jurors were told, Betro sent messages to Mr Mahumad, which included: “Where are you hiding?” “Stop playing hide and seek, you are lucky it jammed.”

Hannah Sidaway, from the Crown Prosecution Service in the West Midlands, said it was “sheer luck” that Mr Ali escaped unscathed.

Betro’s motive for becoming involved in the plot remains unclear.

Ms Sidaway said “only Betro” knew what drove her “or what she sought to gain from becoming embroiled in a crime that meant she travelled hundreds of miles from Wisconsin to Birmingham”.

Speaking after Betro was convicted, Det Ch Insp Alastair Orencas said only a malfunction of her pistol or a “rogue” bullet had prevented Betro from shooting Mr Ali.

Betro’s use of a niqab to hide her face “didn’t work very well” as “the footwear didn’t change, phones didn’t change” and various CCTV cameras caught her in the area of the shooting, Det Ch Insp Orencas said.

“It was a fairly poor attempt [at disguise] and again, whether or not the attitude was that the British police wouldn’t be up to it, I think she was fatally flawed, if that was ever the consideration in her mind,” he noted.

Denying the charges against her in court, Betro said she was in Birmingham city centre at the time of the first incident and with friends at the time of the second.

She maintained during the proceedings that a woman described as having an American accent who bought a vehicle linked to the plot was not her, and rejected the claims that Nazir or his father got her involved in a plan to kill, or that she was the person who actually wielded the gun.

While she was on the run, Betro spent several years in Armenia, before being detained by authorities and extradited to face trial, after being tracked down to a hideout by the Daily Mail newspaper.

Thanking the Mail for its investigation, Det Ch Insp Orencas said: “There were parallel inquiries going on but, without a doubt, the Daily Mail were of great assistance.

“And I’ll say thank you on record to the Mail with regard to that.”

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.

A scorching heatwave is fuelling dozens of wildfires across parts of southern Europe, forcing thousands of people from their homes and pushing temperatures above 40C (104F).

Red heat alerts have been issued in parts of Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and the Balkans, warning of significant risks to health.

Spain’s weather service Aemet said temperatures could reach 44C (111.2F) in Seville and Cordoba, while authorities in southern Portugal also warned of possible 44C highs.

In Italy, a child died of heatstroke on Monday, and in Tres Cantos, north of Spain’s capital Madrid, a man who suffered serious burns died in hospital, officials said.

Hundreds of Tres Cantos residents were forced to leave their homes amid Spain’s wildfires and the regional environment minister described the fire as having “explosive characteristics because of a dry storm that has brought winds of more than 70km/h (43.5mph)”.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez posted on X on Tuesday and said that rescue services “are working tirelessly to extinguish the fires”.

“We are at extreme risk of forest fires. Please be very cautious,” he added.

In Spain’s north-western region of Castile and Leon, almost 4,000 people were evacuated and more than 30 blazes were reported – with one threatening Las Medulas, a Unesco World Heritage site renowned for its ancient gold mines.

Another 2,000 people were evacuated from hotels and homes near the tourist hotspot of Tarifa in the southern region of Andalusia.

Almost 1,000 soldiers were deployed to battle wildfires around the country, Spain’s national military emergency unit said on Tuesday morning.

In neighbouring Portugal, firefighters battled three large wildfires, with the most serious near Trancoso contained in the centre of the country on Tuesday.

More than 1,300 firefighters and 14 aircraft were deployed, with Morocco sending two planes after Portuguese water bombers broke down, Reuters reported. Authorities warned southern regions could hit 44C, with the temperature not expected to dip below 25C.

One child died of heatstroke in Italy on Monday, where temperatures of 40C are expected to hit later this week and red heat alerts were in place for 16 cities including Rome, Milan and Florence.

The four-year-old Romanian boy, who was found unconscious in a car in Sardinia was airlifted to a hospital in Rome but died due to irreversible brain damage, reportedly caused by heatstroke, medical authorities told AFP.

Almost three-quarters of France was placed under heat alerts on Tuesday, with temperatures forecast to top 36C in the Paris region and 40C in the Rhône Valley.

French Health Minister Catherine Vautrin said hospitals were braced for fallout from the country’s second heatwave in just a few weeks. On Monday, 80 weather stations broke August records, 58 reaching all-time highs.

In Greece, gale-force winds fanned fires on tourist islands Zakynthos and Cephalonia, prompting village and hotel evacuations. Another blaze near the western Greek town Vonitsa threatened homes, while four areas of the mainland also faced evacuations.

Turkey’s northwestern Canakkale province saw a major fire force hundreds from their homes. Canakkale Governor Omer Toraman said in a post on X that seven planes and six helicopters were tackling the blaze on Tuesday.

He added the Dardanelles Strait, a waterway linking the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara, was closed to allow water-dropping planes and helicopters to operate safely.

Wildfires in Albania forced people to evacuate their homes on Monday, while in Croatia a large fire raged in Split and was contained on Tuesday. A major wildfire swept through Piperi village near Montenegro’s capital Podgorica, devastating houses in the area.

Parts of the UK are sweltering in its fourth heatwave of the year, with amber and yellow heat health alerts in place for all of England and potential highs of 34C forecast.

Scientists warn global warming is making Mediterranean summers hotter and drier, fuelling longer and more intense fire seasons.

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).

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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At least 40 people have been killed in an attack on a camp for displaced people in Sudan’s western Darfur region, according to an aid group that works there.

The Abu Shouk Emergency Response Room said Monday’s assault was carried out by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The resistance committee in nearby el-Fasher city, made up of local citizens and activists, also reported this.

El-Fasher, which came under intense attack as well, is the last major foothold in Darfur for the army and its allies, which have been fighting the paramilitary RSF in the two-year civil war.

The conflict has triggered a humanitarian crisis with the UN warning that families trapped in the besieged city faced starvation.

Sudanese media reported that the camp was caught in the crossfire of the fighting in el-Fasher.

But the aid group inside Abu Shouk, where at least 200,000 people live, said some of those killed in the attack were shot in their homes while others were gunned down in public.

• Sudan war: A simple guide to what is happening
• Sudan in danger of self-destructing as conflict and famine reign
• Sudanese eating charcoal and leaves to survive, aid agency warns

A US-based organisation that analyses satellite imagery and videos said that it identified a large grouping of 40 light vehicles in the north-west neighbourhoods of the camp, which appear to corroborate reports that the attack came from the north.

The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab added that it was investigating images and videos “allegedly showing RSF shooting at people crawling away from them and berating and using ethnic slurs”.

The camp was created more than two decades ago by people from non-Arab communities – including the Fur and Zaghawa – who were fleeing attacks by the Janjaweed militia.

The RSF has its origins in this notorious militia that was accused of carrying out a genocide.

The RSF has also been widely accused of ethnic cleansing in Darfur during this war, and the US has sanctioned it with allegations of genocide.

The RSF has previously denied such charges, saying it is not part of what it calls tribal conflicts.

Zaghawa fighters have joined the army in defending el-Fasher, so it is possible that the RSF was deliberately targeting Zaghawa civilians in the camp.

The camps for displaced people near el-Fasher have frequently come under attack during the war.

In April, more than 100 people died and thousands fled Zamzam camp as the RSF occupied it and took it over.

Since the conflict began in April 2023, tens of thousands of people have died, 12 million have been forced from their homes and famine has been declared in parts of the country.

• BBC smuggles in phones to reveal hunger and fear
• Last surgeons standing in Sudan’s siege city
• The mother and children trapped between two conflicts
• Will recapture of presidential palace change course of Sudan war?
• Sudan’s ‘invisible crisis’ – where more children are fleeing war than anywhere else

An investigation by the British Army has found that some soldiers stationed at a controversial base in Kenya continue to use sex workers despite being banned from doing so.

Soldiers at the British Army Training Unit Kenya (Batuk) used sex workers “at a low or moderate” level, a report said, adding that more work was needed to stamp out the practice.

The investigation covered a period of more than two years, examining conduct at the base dating back to July 2022.

It was commissioned in October 2024 following an investigation by British media outlet ITV into the behaviour of soldiers at Batuk, including allegations some army personnel were paying local women for sex.

The ITV documentary followed previous concerns raised about Batuk after the death in 2012 of a local woman Agnes Wanjiru, allegedly killed by a British soldier stationed at the base.

Since then a string of allegations have been made about the conduct of troops at the training site, which lies near the town of Nanyuki 200km (125 miles) north of Kenya’s capital Nairobi.

UK Chief of Defence Staff Gen Sir Roly Walker said in a statement that the army was committed to stopping sexual exploitation by those in its ranks.

“The findings of the Service Inquiry I commissioned conclude that transactional sex is still happening in Kenya at a low to moderate level. It should not be happening at all,” he said.

“There is absolutely no place for sexual exploitation and abuse by people in the British Army. It is at complete odds with what it means to be a British soldier. It preys on the vulnerable and benefits those who seek to profit from abuse and exploitation,” he added.

The service inquiry investigation was carried out by a panel of four people, including two serving officers, a civil servant and an independent adviser.

It investigated the behaviour of troops stationed at Batuk and assessed the army’s systems to prevent breaches of its regulation JSP 769 which bans soldiers from paying for sex.

The report details 35 instances in which Batuk soldiers were suspected to have paid for sex, since guidance for soldiers on the rule was published in July 2022. During that period 7,666 British soldiers served at the base.

It notes that of those, 26 cases happened before training on the new rule was initiated for all army staff in November of that year, with nine reported cases since then. In the majority of cases, the allegation that soldiers had paid for sex was never proven.

In addition to those detailed in the report, the Foreign Office told the BBC there was a small number – less than five – cases of alleged use of sex workers currently under investigation. The alleged incidents happened after the inquiry was concluded.

The report said that despite the training given by the Army and the control measures in place, the reality was that “transactional sexual activity” by UK personnel in Kenya was still happening, and that “the level is somewhere between low and moderate”.

“It is not out of control, but the best way for the Army to manage the risk is for the Army to assume it may be at the upper end of that scale between low and moderate,” the report added.

The report noted efforts by the Army to stamp out the practice, including regular training and the use of “sharkwatch” patrols with a senior officer of Sargeant rank or above deployed to monitor the conduct of junior personnel when they left the base for nights out.

The army said it would implement recommendations from the report, including making it easier to dismiss soldiers found to have used sex workers and the implementation of additional training.

The report follows years of controversy about the conduct of soldiers at Batuk sparked by an investigation by the Sunday Times in 2021 which revealed the alleged involvement of a British soldier in the murder of Ms Wanjiru, a mother of one whose body was found dumped in a septic tank near a hotel where she had been seen with soldiers on the night she vanished.

Separately in Kenya, MPs have been conducting an inquiry into wider allegations of mistreatment of local people by soldiers at Batuk and have heard claims at public hearings of injuries allegedly sustained through the behaviour of British troops and of soldiers fathering children to Kenyan mothers and then abandoning them when they returned home.

In June this year a soldier stationed at the base was sent back to the UK after being accused of rape.

The Service Inquiry behind the latest report said it had spoken to many local Kenyans and found “the vast majority” of local residents were happy with the presence of the Batuk camp.

• British soldier accused of rape in Kenya sent back to UK
• Agnes Wanjiru murder: Kenya family’s anger over UK army ‘cover-up
• Kenyans sue the British army over fire at wildlife sanctuary

Madonna has urged Pope Leo XIV to visit Gaza and bring his “light to the children before it is too late”.

The US queen of pop shared her plea on social media, saying the pontiff was “the only one of us who cannot be denied entry.”

Her intervention came as the UK, EU, Australia, Canada and Japan issued a statement saying “famine is unfolding in front of our eyes” and urged action to “reverse starvation”.

“Most Holy Father, please go to Gaza and bring your light to the children before it’s too late,” Madonna posted on Instagram. “As a mother, I cannot bear to watch their suffering.

“The children of the world belong to everyone.

“You are the only one of us who cannot be denied entry.”

Israel has faced mounting pressure over the humanitarian situation in Gaza, with UN-backed experts last month warning “the worst-case scenario of famine” was playing out in the besieged territory.

It has continued to deny there is starvation in Gaza and has accused UN agencies of not picking up aid at the borders and delivering it.

Last week the UN’s humanitarian agency said the amount of aid entering Gaza continued to be “far below the minimum required”. It said it continued to see impediments and delays as it tries to collect aid from Israeli-controlled border zones.

The Like a Prayer singer added: “We need the humanitarian gates to be fully opened to save these innocent children.”

She signed off by saying: “There is no more time. Please say you will go. Love, Madonna.”

In July, the new Pope renewed his call for a Gaza ceasefire after three people sheltering in the Catholic church in Gaza City were killed in an Israeli strike.

According to PA News, he said: “I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law and respect the obligation to protect civilians as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, the indiscriminate use of force, and the forced displacement of populations.”

Madonna – who last month released her long-rumoured remix album Veronica Electronica – has made impassioned speeches on stage about Gaza since the war began.

This includes while performing at London’s O2 in 2023, when she told fans: “It breaks my heart to see children suffering, teenagers suffering, elderly people suffering – all of it is heartbreaking, I’m sure you agree.

“But even though our hearts are broken our spirits cannot be broken.”

She urged fans to bring “light and love” into the world – both individually and collectively, via words and actions – in order to “bring peace to the Middle East” and beyond.

In the caption of her latest online post, she noted how it was her son Rocco’s birthday and “the best gift I can give to him as a mother – is to ask everyone to do what they can to help save the innocent children caught in the crossfire in Gaza.”

The star, who also asked for donations to three different organisations, continued: “I am not pointing fingers, placing blame or taking sides.

“Everyone is suffering. Including the mothers of the hostages. I pray that they are released as well.”

Madonna’s comments also come as U2 frontman Bono – along with the rest of his bandmates – also released a statement letting fans know where they stand on the matter.

While condemning the actions of both Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas, the Irish frontman offered: “Our band stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine who truly seek a path to peace and coexistence with Israel and with their rightful and legitimate demand for statehood.

“We stand in solidarity with the remaining hostages and plead that someone rational negotiate their release.”

Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in its attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. Israel’s response in Gaza has killed at least 61,599 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, whose toll the UN considers reliable.

On Tuesday the health ministry said five more people had died from malnutrition, bringing the total number of such deaths to 227 including 103 children.

US inflation held steady in July despite import tariffs, bolstering bets that the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates next month.

Latest official figures showed that consumer prices rose 2.7% in the year to July, the same pace as in June, as lower energy costs offset price rises for items such as coffee, tomatoes and tools.

Analysts said the relatively contained pace of price rises could bolster the case for the US central bank to lower borrowing costs to support the economy as job growth slows.

But an underlying inflation measure – which is seen as a better indicator of economic trends – showed prices rising at the fastest pace since February.

So-called core inflation, which strips out food and energy costs, rose by 3.1% which is the fastest pace in six months, according to Tuesday’s data.

Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, said she still expected the Federal Reserve to lower borrowing costs in September to give the US economy a boost.

“There is some sign of tariff pass through to consumer prices but, at this stage, it is not significant enough to ring alarm bells,” she said.

However, she warned the decision could grow more complicated in the months ahead, as firms start to run out of goods that they had brought into the country before the tariffs went into effect.

The US Federal Reserve wants to see inflation at 2%.

With the pace above its target, the Fed has held interest rates this year despite pressure by President Donald Trump to cut borrowing costs, fearing that tariffs, which are taxes on imports, could cause prices to accelerate.

Trump has dismissed concerns that the measures will drive up prices or weigh on the economy.

He recently fired Erika McEntarfer, head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after the agency – which also compiled the inflation figures – reported weaker-than expected jobs data which provoked alarm about the president’s tariff policy.

On Tuesday, he repeated his call for interest rates to fall and revived threats against Jerome Powell, the central bank’s chair.

The president threatened to “allow” a “major lawsuit” to go ahead against Mr Powell linked to a refurbishment of Federal Reserve properties.

“Jerome “Too Late” Powell must NOW lower the rate,” Trump wrote on social media.

The Fed was established by Congress and has powers to set policy independent of the White House.

Lindsay James, investment strategist at Quilter, said the latest inflation data was “messy” with “something to please all political persuasions”.

The report showed price jumps for the one month from June to July for typically imported items such as tomatoes, which rose 3.3%, and coffee, up 2.3%.

Over the same one-month period, prices for rugs and curtains climbed 1.2%, while tools and hardware rose 1.6%.

But many areas that pushed up inflation were in categories not directly affected by tariffs.

The price of air fares, for example, jumped 4% in the year to July while dental services rose 2.6%.

The price of clothing, one of the categories expected to be hardest hit from the new measures, rose just 0.1% over the month, cooling from June.

“In the short-term, markets will likely embrace these numbers because they should allow the Fed to focus on labor-market weakness and keep a September rate cut on the table,” said Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.

“Longer-term, we likely haven’t seen the end of rising prices as tariffs continue to work their way through the economy,” she added.

The average tariff rate in the US has surged this year, with a minimum tax of 10% in place for most goods since April and certain items, such as cars, hit with higher duties.

Since the latest measures went into effect this month, most goods entering the US are facing taxes of between 10% and 50%, depending on their origin.

Trump has, however, exempted key items including most imports from Canada and Mexico as well as other categories such as oil and smartphones.

US woman Aimee Betro has been found guilty of attempting to shoot a man dead in the UK. But the investigation into the Wisconsin native revealed her to be “fairly unexceptional” with virtually no “criminal footprint”. And it remains unclear why she became a would-be contract killer.

On an autumn night six years ago, Betro pointed a 9mm gun at Sikander Ali in a suburban cul-de-sac and pulled the trigger, as she had been hired to do.

But instead of firing, the weapon jammed – saving the man’s life.

It marked the mid-point of a plot more suited to a television drama, and one that eventually ended several years later and thousands of miles away with Betro’s capture in Armenia.

It started, however, the year before the botched shooting in 2019, at a clothes shop in Birmingham’s Alum Rock.

In 2018, Mohammed Aslam and his son Mohammed Nabil Nazir were injured during a fight at a shop owned by Mr Ali’s father, Aslat Mahumad.

The clash sparked a violent feud between the families, Birmingham Crown Court heard, which “clearly led Nazir and Aslam to conspire to have someone kill Aslat Mahumad or a member of his family”.

The pair, from Derby, turned to Betro – a woman not known by police “to have a huge footprint criminally” in the US or anywhere, according to Det Ch Insp Alastair Orencas from West Midlands Police’s major crime unit.

“[She was] a fairly unexceptional individual,” he said. “On the face of it, a normal-looking individual [but] prepared to do an outrageous, audacious and persistent murder.”

Betro, a childhood development and graphic design graduate from the US city of West Allis, arrived in the UK in August 2019 to carry out Aslam and Nazir’s vendetta.

The court heard she had previously met Nazir via a dating app and slept with him at an Airbnb in London’s Kings Cross during a visit to the UK between December 2018 and January 2019, although it remains unclear how she came to be hired to carry out the shooting.

Prior to the attack on 7 September, she stayed at hotels in London, Manchester, Derby and Birmingham and met her co-conspirators at various points, jurors heard.

This included an incident three days before the attempted murder when footage found on Nazir’s phone showed a gun being fired and jamming.

On the day of the shooting, Betro – wearing a summer dress, hoodie and flip-flops – bought a second-hand Mercedes from a garage in Alum Rock under the name Becky Booth.

Later that day, she was seen “driving in convoy” with Nazir and Aslam “scoping out” Measham Grove, where Mr Mahumad lived.

She then waited in the cul-de-sac for her victim and disguised herself with a niqab, jurors heard.

When Mr Ali pulled up, she got out and fired the gun directly at him but it did not discharge, prompting him to jump back in his car and flee.

The distance between the firearm and Mr Ali meant there would have been little-to-no chance of survival had it gone off, according to Det Ch Insp Orencas.

“It was absolute pure chance this didn’t culminate in a murder investigation,” he said.

Betro initially fled the scene but returned by taxi just after midnight and fired three shots at the family home.

By 13:30 BST, she was at Manchester Airport and flew to the US, prosecutors said.

Days later, Nazir followed and according to Betro, the pair rented a car and drove to Seattle “just for a road trip” with stops at an amusement park, Area 51 in Nevada, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

She told jurors she did not know there had been a shooting in Measham Grove and Nazir had not mentioned it during his time in the States.

The investigation to find Betro and bring her co-conspirators to justice not only spanned several years but was hampered by the pandemic and involved the FBI, National Crime Agency and two UK police forces.

Eventually, she was traced to a housing complex on the outskirts of Yerevan in Armenia and apprehended by police before she was extradited to the UK.

From the start, Betro denied her involvement and told the trial it was “all just a terrible coincidence” that she was around the corner from the scene of the attempted assassination six minutes later.

She claimed it was in fact the work of “another American woman” who sounded similar to her, used the same phone and wore the same sort of trainers.

Jurors found her guilty of conspiracy to murder by majority verdict after almost 21 hours of deliberation.

Det Ch Insp Orencas described Betro as someone who was “extremely dangerous and extremely motivated to cause the worst harm to people”.

Nor was her involvement “off-the-cuff… madness” but pre-planned with others across continents, he added.

“I think [she] has had a somewhat problematic relationship with the truth in not accepting what she was accused of.”

Asked if he believed Betro was paid or had acted out of loyalty to her partner Nazir, the officer said: “We’ve not seen evidence of payments.

“They met on a dating site, whether this is a partner doing something for another partner, again, there’s no clear evidence of that. I see it as a criminal association and a murderous plot.”

Aslam, 56, and Nazir, 31, were jailed for conspiracy to murder in November 2024.

Betro will be sentenced on 21 August.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

“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?

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.

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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The US and Russia have agreed to hold a meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on Friday 15 August, to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine.

Trump announced the meeting a week beforehand – the same day as his deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine or face more US sanctions.

Three rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine held at Trump’s behest this summer have yet to bring the two sides any closer to peace.

Here is what we know about the meeting between the two leaders, taking place in Alaska – which was once Russian territory.

The US purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, giving a historical significance to the meeting. It later became an American state in 1959.

Russian presidential assistant Yuri Ushakov pointed out that the two countries were neighbours, with only the Bering Strait separating them.

“It seems quite logical for our delegation simply to fly over the Bering Strait and for such an important and anticipated summit of the leaders of the two countries to be held in Alaska,” Ushakov said.

The last time Alaska took centre-stage in an American diplomatic event was in March 2021, when Joe Biden’s newly-minted diplomatic and national security team met their Chinese counterparts in Anchorage.

The sit-down turned acrimonious, with the Chinese accusing the Americans of “condescension and hypocrisy”.

The exact location has not been released.

When announcing the summit, Trump said it would take place in the “great state of Alaska”, and promised further details.

The location would be “a very popular one for a number of reasons”, he added.

Trump has been pushing hard – without much success – to end the war in Ukraine.

As a presidential candidate, he pledged that he could end the war within 24 hours of taking office. He has also repeatedly claimed that the war “never would have happened” if he had been president at the time of Russia’s invasion.

Last month, Trump told the BBC that he was “disappointed” by Putin.

Frustrations grew and Trump set an 8 August deadline for Putin to agree to an immediate ceasefire or face more severe US sanctions.

As the deadline hit, Trump instead announced he and Putin would meet in person on 15 August.

The meeting comes after US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff held “highly productive” talks with Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, according to Trump.

• Trump says he will try to get back territory for Ukraine in talks with Putin
• Zelensky could still join Trump and Putin, but rest of Europe is shut out

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not expected to attend. Trump said on Monday: “I would say he could go, but he’s been to a lot of meetings.”

Trump did, however, say that Zelensky would be the first person he would call afterwards.

Putin had requested that Zelensky be omitted, although the White House has previously said that Trump is willing to hold a trilateral meeting in which all three leaders are president.

When the Trump-Putin summit was announced, Zelensky said any agreements without input from his country would amount to “dead decisions”.

He has also spoken out against what Trump has called the “swapping of territories”. He said: “We will not reward Russia for what it has perpetrated.”

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump gave a mixed picture of what he would aim to take away from the meeting.

He said Russia had “occupied a big portion of Ukraine,” adding that he was “going to try to get some of that territory back for Ukraine”. But he also warned that there would be “some swapping, changes in land” – a comment likely to alarm Kyiv.

Trump said he viewed the summit as a “feel-out meeting” aimed at urging Putin to end the war – suggesting he may view the summit as just an initial encounter.

While both Russia and Ukraine have long said that they, too, want the war to end, both countries want things that the other harshly opposes.

Ukraine has been adamant that it will not accept Russian control of regions Moscow has seized, including Crimea.

Meanwhile, Putin has not budged from his territorial demands, Ukraine’s neutrality and the future size of its army.

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in part, over Putin’s belief the Western defensive alliance, Nato, was using the neighbouring country to gain a foothold to bring its troops closer to Russia’s borders.

The Trump administration has been attempting to sway European leaders on a ceasefire deal that would hand over swathes of Ukrainian territory to Russia, the BBC’s US partner CBS News has reported.

The deal would allow Russia to keep control of the Crimean peninsula, and take the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, which is made up of Donetsk and Luhansk, according to sources familiar with the talks.

Russia illegally occupied Crimea in 2014 and its forces control the majority of the Donbas region.

Under the deal, Russia would have to give up the Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where it currently has some military control.

Speaking to Fox News, US Vice-President JD Vance said any future deal was “not going to make anybody super happy”.

“You’ve got to make peace here… you can’t finger point,” he said. “The way to peace is to have a decisive leader to sit down and force people to come together.”

• ANALYSIS: Why Trump-Putin relationship has soured
• EXPLAINER: Why did Putin’s Russia invade Ukraine?
• VISUALS: Tracking the war in maps
• GLOBAL FALLOUT: How the global economy could be impacted
• VERIFY: Russian attacks on Ukraine double since Trump inauguration
• GROUND REPORT: On Ukraine’s front line, twisted wreckage shows sanctions haven’t yet stopped Russia

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?

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”.

She told BBC Newscast that the difference in “vitriol” she received before and after JK Rowling’s post “was quite stark” although she stressed she did not believe she should have been immune to criticism.

Asked specifically for a response to the Newscast interview, the author’s spokesperson said “JK Rowling won’t be commenting”.

Rowling has, however, posted on X that she is planning to review the memoir, and may auction an annotated copy – which features some strong language – to raise funds for a women’s charity.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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”.

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.”

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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As temperatures rise across much of the UK, it’s not just humans who feel the heat.

What can you do to make sure your pets are cool and comfortable?

• LIVE: UK braces for 34C temperatures

The RSPCA says that exercise is the most frequent trigger of heatstroke for dogs and advises adjusting your routine during hot weather.

It says there is no “safe” temperature for walks, as it depends on your dog’s breed, age, health and temperament.

The charity also recommends the pavement test: if you can’t comfortably hold your hand on the ground for five seconds, it’s too hot for your dog’s paws.

If you do walk your dog, go out in the early morning or late evening, look for shaded areas and walk on grass where possible.

The charity says these signs could mean your dog is suffering in the heat:

• limping or refusing to walk
• licking or chewing at their feet
• their foot pads are darker in colour or damaged
• they have visible blisters or redness

You should also avoid running or cycling with your dog when it is hot.

If your dog is getting less exercise than usual, the RSPCA suggests keeping them engaged at home with puzzle toys or training games.

• How dog walks can become deadly when the heat rises

Some dogs are more at risk of heatstroke than others.

This includes those with underlying health conditions or thick coats which can trap heat. Puppies or older dogs may also struggle to regulate their temperature.

Dogs pant to keep themselves cool, but the shorter snouts of certain flat-faced breeds like bulldogs and pugs make this difficult. This means they are at particular risk from overheating.

According to the PDSA, symptoms of heatstroke include:

• excessive panting
• drooling or foaming
• confusion
• shaking
• weakness and collapse
• vomiting or diarrhoea
• seizures

If you see these signs, first try to cool your dog down as quickly as possible.

Move them to a shaded area and slowly pour cold water over their body. Do not cover them in damp or wet towels as this can trap heat.

The faster you can bring their temperature down, the lower the risk of serious injury.

Once your pet has started to cool down, contact your vet for guidance and possible further treatment.

The RSPCA says it is essential that animals have access to shaded spaces inside and outside.

Provide plenty of clean water – you can add ice cubes to their water bowl. Pets may also enjoy frozen edible snacks.

Put wet or damp towels underneath their body – but don’t place them directly on top.

Several pet cooling mats and jackets are available, but make sure you follow the instructions. Products that need to be kept constantly wet can actually make your pet hotter if they dry out.

Some animals may enjoy playing with frozen toys, or cooling off in a paddling pool – although you should always supervise pets around water.

Keeping dogs and other furry animals like cats well-groomed prevents the build-up of matted fur, which can make it harder for them to stay cool.

Make sure any indoor animal cages or fish tanks are not in direct sunlight.

Never leave a pet in a locked car, caravan or other vehicle for any length of time, as temperatures can rise quickly to dangerous levels – which can be fatal.

Similarly, don’t leave animals shut inside conservatories, sheds or greenhouses.

You may also want to leave out extra water in your garden for birds, foxes and other wildlife creatures.

Dogs and cats can get sunburnt – especially if they are light-coloured or have thin patches of fur. Ears, noses, eyelids and bellies are also vulnerable.

Sunburn can be painful for pets, and in extreme cases can lead to skin cancer.

Some active ingredients in human sun cream are toxic to pets so vets recommend using a pet-safe waterproof sunscreen, with an SPF rating of 30 or higher. Some companies sell sunscreen with a bitter taste to stop animals licking it off.

The PDSA suggests you apply sunscreen to a small area of skin first, and leave it for 24 hours to ensure the animal does not react.

Once you know the sunscreen is safe, you can gently apply a thin layer of sunscreen on the exposed white and light patches of skin, plus their nose and ears.

The PDSA warns pet owners to look out for the following symptoms of sunburn:

• blisters
• crusting
• itching
• redness

The Dogs Trust advises owners to first check whether the beach they want to visit allows dogs.

If it does, the charity recommends taking plenty of fresh water and making sure your dog doesn’t drink sea water.

Check the temperature of the sand and, if there’s no natural shade, try to create some with a beach umbrella, sun tent or windbreak.

If your dog likes to go in the sea, check the tide times and make sure you understand any swimming hazards.

Keep your dog on a lead when you are near fast-flowing water or cliff edges.

When you leave the beach rinse any sand and seawater off their coat and paws with tap water to stop it causing any irritation.

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.

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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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.

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.

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.

Friends star Jennifer Aniston has said she and fellow actress Gwyneth Paltrow still discuss their mutual ex Brad Pitt, giving a rare glimpse into the Hollywood stars’ relationships.

Paltrow and Pitt were engaged for a few months during 1996 and 1997, and he was then married to Aniston from 2000 to 2005.

She was asked by Vanity Fair if she and her close friend Paltrow ever discuss their ex, and responded: “Oh, of course. How can we not? We’re girls.”

However, their actual conversations were left to the reader’s imagination, with the interviewer saying the pair “trade wellness intel more than gossip”.

Both women are known for being health-conscious, and Aniston added: “We’re always swapping advice – ‘What are you doing for this?’ ‘What are you doing for that?’ ‘Do you have a new doctor for that?'”

However, Aniston did refer to her hugely publicised split from Pitt 20 years ago as “such a vulnerable time”, adding: “Ironically, I went to her [Paltrow] and Brad’s engagement party.”

The actresses met when Paltrow and David Schwimmer, Aniston’s Friends co-star, were filming 1996 film The Pallbearer.

Aniston also touched on the 2023 death of Friends star Matthew Perry, whose addiction problems have been well-documented.

A post-mortem examination found a high concentration of ketamine in his blood, and determined that “acute effects” of the drug had killed him.

“We did everything we could when we could,” she said, referencing the Friends stars’ efforts to help him with his addictions.

“But it almost felt like we’d been mourning Matthew for a long time because his battle with that disease was a really hard one for him to fight.

“As hard as it was for all of us and for the fans, there’s a part of me that thinks this is better.

“I’m glad he’s out of that pain.”

Aniston and Perry played two of the six young friends living in New York City in the globally popular series, which ran from 1994 until 2004. The Emmy and Bafta-winning show had a sustained resurgence in popularity after it debuted on Netflix in 2015.

Aniston is most famous for playing Rachel Green in the show, but has also appeared in romantic comedy films with co-stars including Adam Sandler, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. She also stars in US TV series The Morning Show with Reese Witherspoon, about a network news morning programme.

During the Vanity Fair interview, she also touched on being the subject of tabloid rumours, such as one linking her romantically to President Barack Obama, which she scotched last year on the Jimmy Kimmel show.

She said she knows Michelle Obama better than the former president, adding: “I was lucky enough to have dinner with Michelle a month ago,” but said the rumour “wasn’t even brought up” during their time together.

“I don’t think anyone really pays attention to reports like that if you’re the subject of them,” she added.

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).

A US woman who was hired as a killer and tried to shoot a man in the UK at point-blank range has been found guilty of conspiracy to murder.

Would-be assassin Aimee Betro, from West Allis in Wisconsin, flew into the country as part of a plot to attack a British family in Birmingham in 2019, before going on the run for nearly five years.

Her co-conspirators had been involved in a feud with the family, her trial heard.

During the case at Birmingham Crown Court, jurors were told Betro hid her identity using a niqab when she tried to fire shots on Measham Grove, Yardley, but her gun jammed and the individual at whom she had aimed fled the scene unharmed.

Jurors deliberated for almost 21 hours before convicting Betro of conspiracy to murder, possessing a self-loading pistol with intent to cause fear of violence, and illegally importing ammunition.

During the trial, they heard the defendant had been involved in a conspiracy with two men – Mohammed Nazir and Mohammed Aslam – as part of their vendetta against Birmingham businessman Aslat Mahumad.

Prosecutors said revenge was the men’s motive after Nazir and Aslam were injured during disorder at Mr Mahumad’s clothing boutique in July 2018.

A plot was hatched, the court heard, to have someone kill Mr Mahumad or a member of his family. That person was Betro.

But despite the events in which she was a key player, detectives have suggested records point to Betro having virtually no criminal past prior to the murder plot.

She nevertheless produced a gun one September night six years ago, with Mr Mahumad’s son, Sikander Ali, the one to face the barrel after she lay in wait outside their family home.

Her convictions came after Nazir, 31, and his father Aslam, 59, both from Derby, were jailed last year having been convicted of conspiracy to murder.

As the jury returned its verdicts following Betro’s trial, the defendant, wearing a purple T-shirt and with her hair in space buns, showed no obvious reaction and stared towards the jury.

She was found guilty by a majority 11-1 verdict, on the conspiracy to murder and firearm charges, and by a unanimous verdict on the ammunition charge. She is due to be sentenced on 21 August.

On the night of the shooting, Betro lay in wait in a car she had bought earlier that day under a false name.

When Sikander Ali arrived at the property – and in CCTV scenes shown to the jury – Betro, with her face covered, approached him and fired at point-blank range.

After the gun jammed, Mr Ali managed to escape by reversing in his SUV.

Betro returned to the scene in a taxi in the early hours of the following day and fired three shots through the windows of the empty family home.

Prior to that return visit, jurors were told, Betro sent messages to Mr Mahumad, which included: “Where are you hiding?” “Stop playing hide and seek, you are lucky it jammed.”

Hannah Sidaway, from the Crown Prosecution Service in the West Midlands, said it was “sheer luck” that Mr Ali escaped unscathed.

Betro’s motive for becoming involved in the plot remains unclear.

Ms Sidaway said “only Betro” knew what drove her “or what she sought to gain from becoming embroiled in a crime that meant she travelled hundreds of miles from Wisconsin to Birmingham”.

Speaking after Betro was convicted, Det Ch Insp Alastair Orencas said only a malfunction of her pistol or a “rogue” bullet had prevented Betro from shooting Mr Ali.

Betro’s use of a niqab to hide her face “didn’t work very well” as “the footwear didn’t change, phones didn’t change” and various CCTV cameras caught her in the area of the shooting, Det Ch Insp Orencas said.

“It was a fairly poor attempt [at disguise] and again, whether or not the attitude was that the British police wouldn’t be up to it, I think she was fatally flawed, if that was ever the consideration in her mind,” he noted.

Denying the charges against her in court, Betro said she was in Birmingham city centre at the time of the first incident and with friends at the time of the second.

She maintained during the proceedings that a woman described as having an American accent who bought a vehicle linked to the plot was not her, and rejected the claims that Nazir or his father got her involved in a plan to kill, or that she was the person who actually wielded the gun.

While she was on the run, Betro spent several years in Armenia, before being detained by authorities and extradited to face trial, after being tracked down to a hideout by the Daily Mail newspaper.

Thanking the Mail for its investigation, Det Ch Insp Orencas said: “There were parallel inquiries going on but, without a doubt, the Daily Mail were of great assistance.

“And I’ll say thank you on record to the Mail with regard to that.”

European leaders have warned against Ukrainian borders being redrawn by force – three days before Russia’s Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump are due to hold a summit on Ukraine 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?

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.

Zelensky meanwhile continued to express his scepticism that Russia was serious about ending the war. “On the contrary, they are making movements that indicate preparations for new offensive operations,” he said in a statement on social media.

Ukraine’s military has downplayed reports of a breakthrough by Russian forces to the north of the embattled logistics hub of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region – but acknowledged it is facing a “difficult and dynamic” situation.

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”.

When they speak to Trump, the leaders 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”.

Gaza City has come under intense air attack, the territory’s Hamas-run civil defence agency has said, as Israeli forces prepare to occupy the city.

Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman, said the residential areas of Zeitoun and Sabra had for three days been hit by bombs and drone strikes that “cause massive destruction to civilian homes”, with residents unable to recover the dead and injured.

Meanwhile the UK, EU, Australia, Canada and Japan issued a statement saying “famine is unfolding in front of our eyes” and urged action to “reverse starvation”.

They demanded “immediate, permanent and concrete steps” to facilitate the entry of aid to Gaza. Israel denies there is starvation in Gaza.

It has accused UN agencies of not picking up aid at the borders and delivering it.

The joint statement also demanded an end to the use of lethal force near aid distribution sites and lorry convoys, where the UN says more than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed, mostly by the Israeli military.

Separately, the World Health Organisation on Tuesday appealed to Israel to let it stock medical supplies to deal with a “catastrophic” health situation before it seizes control of Gaza City.

“We all hear about ‘more humanitarian supplies are allowed in’ – well it’s not happening yet, or it’s happening at a way too low a pace,” said Rik Peeperkorn, the agency’s representative in the Palestinian territories.

“We want to as quickly stock up hospitals,” he added. “We currently cannot do that. We need to be able to get all essential medicines and medical supplies in.”

Israel’s war cabinet voted on Monday to occupy Gaza City, a move condemned at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council later that day. On Tuesday the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was “at the beginning of a new state of combat”.

The Israeli government has not provided an exact timetable on when its forces would enter the area. On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s forces had been instructed to dismantle the “two remaining Hamas strongholds” in Gaza City and a central area around al-Mawasi.

He also outlined a three-step plan to increase aid in Gaza, including designating safe corridors for aid distribution, as well as more air drops by Israeli forces and other partners.

On the ground, however, residents of Gaza City said they had come under unrelenting attack from the air. Majed al-Hosary, a resident in Zeitoun in Gaza City, told AFP that the attacks had been “extremely intense for two days”.

“With every strike, the ground shakes. There are martyrs under the rubble that no one can reach because the shelling hasn’t stopped,” he said.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said that 100 dead had been brought to hospitals across Gaza over the past 24 hours, including 31 people who were killed at aid sites. Five more people had also died of malnutrition, it added.

Israel has faced mounting criticism over the 22-month-long war with Hamas, with UN-backed experts warning of widespread famine unfolding in the besieged territory.

On Tuesday members of an international group of former leaders known as “The Elders” for the first time called the war in Gaza an “unfolding genocide” and blamed Israel for causing famine among its population.

Following a visit to the Gaza border, Helen Clark and Mary Robinson, a former prime minister of New Zealand and a former president of Ireland, said in a joint statement: “What we saw and heard underlines our personal conviction that there is not only an unfolding, human-caused famine in Gaza. There is an unfolding genocide.”

The statement mirrors those of leading Israeli rights groups, including B’Tselem, which said it had reached an “unequivocal conclusion” that Israel was attempting to “destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip”.

Israel strongly rejects the accusations, saying its forces target terrorists and never civilians, and that Hamas was responsible for the suffering in Gaza.

On Sunday, the IDF killed five Al Jazeera journalists in a targeted attack on a media tent in Gaza City, sparking widespread international condemnation. It said it had killed well known reporter Anas al-Sharif, whom it alleged “served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas”, and made no mention of the others.

Media freedom groups said it had provided little evidence for its claims. Al Jazeera’s managing editor said Israel wanted to “silence the coverage of any channel of reporting from inside Gaza”.

Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in its attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. Israel’s response in Gaza has killed at least 61,599 Palestinians, according to the health ministry, whose toll the UN considers reliable.

US woman Aimee Betro has been found guilty of attempting to shoot a man dead in the UK. But the investigation into the Wisconsin native revealed her to be “fairly unexceptional” with virtually no “criminal footprint”. And it remains unclear why she became a would-be contract killer.

On an autumn night six years ago, Betro pointed a 9mm gun at Sikander Ali in a suburban cul-de-sac and pulled the trigger, as she had been hired to do.

But instead of firing, the weapon jammed – saving the man’s life.

It marked the mid-point of a plot more suited to a television drama, and one that eventually ended several years later and thousands of miles away with Betro’s capture in Armenia.

It started, however, the year before the botched shooting in 2019, at a clothes shop in Birmingham’s Alum Rock.

In 2018, Mohammed Aslam and his son Mohammed Nabil Nazir were injured during a fight at a shop owned by Mr Ali’s father, Aslat Mahumad.

The clash sparked a violent feud between the families, Birmingham Crown Court heard, which “clearly led Nazir and Aslam to conspire to have someone kill Aslat Mahumad or a member of his family”.

The pair, from Derby, turned to Betro – a woman not known by police “to have a huge footprint criminally” in the US or anywhere, according to Det Ch Insp Alastair Orencas from West Midlands Police’s major crime unit.

“[She was] a fairly unexceptional individual,” he said. “On the face of it, a normal-looking individual [but] prepared to do an outrageous, audacious and persistent murder.”

Betro, a childhood development and graphic design graduate from the US city of West Allis, arrived in the UK in August 2019 to carry out Aslam and Nazir’s vendetta.

The court heard she had previously met Nazir via a dating app and slept with him at an Airbnb in London’s Kings Cross during a visit to the UK between December 2018 and January 2019, although it remains unclear how she came to be hired to carry out the shooting.

Prior to the attack on 7 September, she stayed at hotels in London, Manchester, Derby and Birmingham and met her co-conspirators at various points, jurors heard.

This included an incident three days before the attempted murder when footage found on Nazir’s phone showed a gun being fired and jamming.

On the day of the shooting, Betro – wearing a summer dress, hoodie and flip-flops – bought a second-hand Mercedes from a garage in Alum Rock under the name Becky Booth.

Later that day, she was seen “driving in convoy” with Nazir and Aslam “scoping out” Measham Grove, where Mr Mahumad lived.

She then waited in the cul-de-sac for her victim and disguised herself with a niqab, jurors heard.

When Mr Ali pulled up, she got out and fired the gun directly at him but it did not discharge, prompting him to jump back in his car and flee.

The distance between the firearm and Mr Ali meant there would have been little-to-no chance of survival had it gone off, according to Det Ch Insp Orencas.

“It was absolute pure chance this didn’t culminate in a murder investigation,” he said.

Betro initially fled the scene but returned by taxi just after midnight and fired three shots at the family home.

By 13:30 BST, she was at Manchester Airport and flew to the US, prosecutors said.

Days later, Nazir followed and according to Betro, the pair rented a car and drove to Seattle “just for a road trip” with stops at an amusement park, Area 51 in Nevada, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

She told jurors she did not know there had been a shooting in Measham Grove and Nazir had not mentioned it during his time in the States.

The investigation to find Betro and bring her co-conspirators to justice not only spanned several years but was hampered by the pandemic and involved the FBI, National Crime Agency and two UK police forces.

Eventually, she was traced to a housing complex on the outskirts of Yerevan in Armenia and apprehended by police before she was extradited to the UK.

From the start, Betro denied her involvement and told the trial it was “all just a terrible coincidence” that she was around the corner from the scene of the attempted assassination six minutes later.

She claimed it was in fact the work of “another American woman” who sounded similar to her, used the same phone and wore the same sort of trainers.

Jurors found her guilty of conspiracy to murder by majority verdict after almost 21 hours of deliberation.

Det Ch Insp Orencas described Betro as someone who was “extremely dangerous and extremely motivated to cause the worst harm to people”.

Nor was her involvement “off-the-cuff… madness” but pre-planned with others across continents, he added.

“I think [she] has had a somewhat problematic relationship with the truth in not accepting what she was accused of.”

Asked if he believed Betro was paid or had acted out of loyalty to her partner Nazir, the officer said: “We’ve not seen evidence of payments.

“They met on a dating site, whether this is a partner doing something for another partner, again, there’s no clear evidence of that. I see it as a criminal association and a murderous plot.”

Aslam, 56, and Nazir, 31, were jailed for conspiracy to murder in November 2024.

Betro will be sentenced on 21 August.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

An investigation by the British Army has found that some soldiers stationed at a controversial base in Kenya continue to use sex workers despite being banned from doing so.

Soldiers at the British Army Training Unit Kenya (Batuk) used sex workers “at a low or moderate” level, a report said, adding that more work was needed to stamp out the practice.

The investigation covered a period of more than two years, examining conduct at the base dating back to July 2022.

It was commissioned in October 2024 following an investigation by British media outlet ITV into the behaviour of soldiers at Batuk, including allegations some army personnel were paying local women for sex.

The ITV documentary followed previous concerns raised about Batuk after the death in 2012 of a local woman Agnes Wanjiru, allegedly killed by a British soldier stationed at the base.

Since then a string of allegations have been made about the conduct of troops at the training site, which lies near the town of Nanyuki 200km (125 miles) north of Kenya’s capital Nairobi.

UK Chief of Defence Staff Gen Sir Roly Walker said in a statement that the army was committed to stopping sexual exploitation by those in its ranks.

“The findings of the Service Inquiry I commissioned conclude that transactional sex is still happening in Kenya at a low to moderate level. It should not be happening at all,” he said.

“There is absolutely no place for sexual exploitation and abuse by people in the British Army. It is at complete odds with what it means to be a British soldier. It preys on the vulnerable and benefits those who seek to profit from abuse and exploitation,” he added.

The service inquiry investigation was carried out by a panel of four people, including two serving officers, a civil servant and an independent adviser.

It investigated the behaviour of troops stationed at Batuk and assessed the army’s systems to prevent breaches of its regulation JSP 769 which bans soldiers from paying for sex.

The report details 35 instances in which Batuk soldiers were suspected to have paid for sex, since guidance for soldiers on the rule was published in July 2022. During that period 7,666 British soldiers served at the base.

It notes that of those, 26 cases happened before training on the new rule was initiated for all army staff in November of that year, with nine reported cases since then. In the majority of cases, the allegation that soldiers had paid for sex was never proven.

In addition to those detailed in the report, the Foreign Office told the BBC there was a small number – less than five – cases of alleged use of sex workers currently under investigation. The alleged incidents happened after the inquiry was concluded.

The report said that despite the training given by the Army and the control measures in place, the reality was that “transactional sexual activity” by UK personnel in Kenya was still happening, and that “the level is somewhere between low and moderate”.

“It is not out of control, but the best way for the Army to manage the risk is for the Army to assume it may be at the upper end of that scale between low and moderate,” the report added.

The report noted efforts by the Army to stamp out the practice, including regular training and the use of “sharkwatch” patrols with a senior officer of Sargeant rank or above deployed to monitor the conduct of junior personnel when they left the base for nights out.

The army said it would implement recommendations from the report, including making it easier to dismiss soldiers found to have used sex workers and the implementation of additional training.

The report follows years of controversy about the conduct of soldiers at Batuk sparked by an investigation by the Sunday Times in 2021 which revealed the alleged involvement of a British soldier in the murder of Ms Wanjiru, a mother of one whose body was found dumped in a septic tank near a hotel where she had been seen with soldiers on the night she vanished.

Separately in Kenya, MPs have been conducting an inquiry into wider allegations of mistreatment of local people by soldiers at Batuk and have heard claims at public hearings of injuries allegedly sustained through the behaviour of British troops and of soldiers fathering children to Kenyan mothers and then abandoning them when they returned home.

In June this year a soldier stationed at the base was sent back to the UK after being accused of rape.

The Service Inquiry behind the latest report said it had spoken to many local Kenyans and found “the vast majority” of local residents were happy with the presence of the Batuk camp.

• British soldier accused of rape in Kenya sent back to UK
• Agnes Wanjiru murder: Kenya family’s anger over UK army ‘cover-up
• Kenyans sue the British army over fire at wildlife sanctuary

US inflation held steady in July despite import tariffs, bolstering bets that the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates next month.

Latest official figures showed that consumer prices rose 2.7% in the year to July, the same pace as in June, as lower energy costs offset price rises for items such as coffee, tomatoes and tools.

Analysts said the relatively contained pace of price rises could bolster the case for the US central bank to lower borrowing costs to support the economy as job growth slows.

But an underlying inflation measure – which is seen as a better indicator of economic trends – showed prices rising at the fastest pace since February.

So-called core inflation, which strips out food and energy costs, rose by 3.1% which is the fastest pace in six months, according to Tuesday’s data.

Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, said she still expected the Federal Reserve to lower borrowing costs in September to give the US economy a boost.

“There is some sign of tariff pass through to consumer prices but, at this stage, it is not significant enough to ring alarm bells,” she said.

However, she warned the decision could grow more complicated in the months ahead, as firms start to run out of goods that they had brought into the country before the tariffs went into effect.

The US Federal Reserve wants to see inflation at 2%.

With the pace above its target, the Fed has held interest rates this year despite pressure by President Donald Trump to cut borrowing costs, fearing that tariffs, which are taxes on imports, could cause prices to accelerate.

Trump has dismissed concerns that the measures will drive up prices or weigh on the economy.

He recently fired Erika McEntarfer, head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after the agency – which also compiled the inflation figures – reported weaker-than expected jobs data which provoked alarm about the president’s tariff policy.

On Tuesday, he repeated his call for interest rates to fall and revived threats against Jerome Powell, the central bank’s chair.

The president threatened to “allow” a “major lawsuit” to go ahead against Mr Powell linked to a refurbishment of Federal Reserve properties.

“Jerome “Too Late” Powell must NOW lower the rate,” Trump wrote on social media.

The Fed was established by Congress and has powers to set policy independent of the White House.

Lindsay James, investment strategist at Quilter, said the latest inflation data was “messy” with “something to please all political persuasions”.

The report showed price jumps for the one month from June to July for typically imported items such as tomatoes, which rose 3.3%, and coffee, up 2.3%.

Over the same one-month period, prices for rugs and curtains climbed 1.2%, while tools and hardware rose 1.6%.

But many areas that pushed up inflation were in categories not directly affected by tariffs.

The price of air fares, for example, jumped 4% in the year to July while dental services rose 2.6%.

The price of clothing, one of the categories expected to be hardest hit from the new measures, rose just 0.1% over the month, cooling from June.

“In the short-term, markets will likely embrace these numbers because they should allow the Fed to focus on labor-market weakness and keep a September rate cut on the table,” said Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.

“Longer-term, we likely haven’t seen the end of rising prices as tariffs continue to work their way through the economy,” she added.

The average tariff rate in the US has surged this year, with a minimum tax of 10% in place for most goods since April and certain items, such as cars, hit with higher duties.

Since the latest measures went into effect this month, most goods entering the US are facing taxes of between 10% and 50%, depending on their origin.

Trump has, however, exempted key items including most imports from Canada and Mexico as well as other categories such as oil and smartphones.

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.

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).