Iran has dismissed calls from the UK and other Western countries to refrain from retaliation against Israel for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month.

Amid a flurry of international diplomacy to de-escalate tensions, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to “stand down its ongoing threats of a military attack” in a rare telephone conversation on Monday.

But Mr Pezeshkian said retaliation was a “way to stop crime” and Iran’s “legal right”, according to Iranian state media.

Israel, which did not say it was involved in Haniyeh’s assassination, has meanwhile put its military on its highest alert level.

The US has warned that it is preparing for “a significant set of attacks” by Iran or its proxies as soon as this week, and has built up its military presence in the Middle East to help defend Israel.

The powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon is also threatening to retaliate over Israel’s killing of one of its top commanders in an air strike in Beirut.

On Monday evening, the leaders of the UK, France and Germany issued a joint statement urging Iran and its allies to “refrain from attacks that would further escalate regional tensions”.

“They will bear responsibility for actions that jeopardise this opportunity for peace and stability,” Sir Keir, President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Olaf Scholz said.

Later, the British prime minister also expressed his deep concerns directly to Iran’s president by telephone – the first such call since March 2021.

Sir Keir told Mr Pezeshkian that “there was a serious risk of miscalculation and now was the time for calm and careful consideration”, Downing Street said.

“He called on Iran to refrain from attacking Israel, adding that war was not in anyone’s interests,” it added.

On Tuesday morning, Iranian state news agency Irna reported that Mr Pezeshkian had told Sir Keir that Western countries’ support for Israel had encouraged it to “continue atrocities” and threatened peace and security.

“Pezeshkian stated that from the point of view of the Islamic Republic of Iran, war in any part of the world is not in the interest of any country, emphasizing that a punitive response to an aggressor is a legal right of states and a way to stop crime and aggression,” Irna added.

The Iranian foreign ministry separately rejected the call for restraint from London, Paris and Berlin.

“Such demands are void of political logic, in complete contradiction to the principles and rules of international law, and excessive,” spokesman Nasser Kaanani said.

The Israeli military said on Monday that it was taking Iran’s statements seriously.

“We are prepared at peak readiness in offence and defence, and we will act according to the directives of the government,” spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a briefing.

An Israeli government spokesman meanwhile warned Iran and its allies that Israel would “exact a heavy price for any aggression against us from any arena”.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters: “We share the same concerns and expectations that our Israeli counterparts have with respect to potential timing here. [It] could be this week.”

“It is difficult to ascertain at this particular time if there is an attack by Iran and or its proxies, what that could look like, but we have to be prepared,” he added.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has dispatched a second aircraft carrier strike group as well as a guided missile submarine to the Middle East to reinforce what the Pentagon said was the “United States’ commitment to taking every possible step to defend Israel”.

The US believes that a new deal for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages would be the best way to calm tensions in the region, and has called for talks to resume on Thursday.

Israel has said it will send a team of negotiators to finalise a deal, while Hamas has indicated an agreement in principle to participate despite the killing of its leader.

Hamas said on Sunday that any deal must be based on where talks were a month and a half ago, rather than any new rounds of negotiations.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

More than 39,920 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Hundreds of people have also been killed in the almost daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli military across the Israel-Lebanon border since the day after the start of the conflict.

A handbag made from alligator skin and tiny vials of perfume that still release a potent scent are just some of the precious artefacts recovered from the world’s most famous shipwreck – the Titanic.

The exact location of the warehouse where they are stored is a closely guarded secret, because of the value of its contents. All we can say is that it is somewhere in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States.

Inside, the shelves are packed with thousands of items: from an upturned bathtub and dented porthole, to intricately etched glassware and tiny buttons.

The BBC was given a rare chance to look around the storage facility and discover the stories behind some of these objects.

“It’s a really beautiful, fashionable little bag,” says Tomasina Ray, director of collections for RMS Titanic Inc, the company that has recovered these artefacts. The US firm has the salvage rights to the ship and over the years has retrieved 5,500 items from the wreck site, a selection of which are put on display around the world.

The bag is made from alligator skin, which has survived decades in the depths of the North Atlantic. The delicate items inside have been preserved too, revealing details of the life of its owner – a third-class passenger called Marian Meanwell.

“She was a 63-year-old milliner,” says Tomasina. “And she was travelling to the US to be with her daughter who was recently widowed.”

Among the mementos inside was a faded photograph, thought to be Marian Meanwell’s mother.

There was also paperwork she would need for her new life in America, including a handwritten reference letter from her former landlord in London. It states: “We have always found Miss Meanwell to be a good tenant, prompt with payment.”

Her medical inspection card was inside too, as all third-class passengers needed to prove they weren’t bringing disease into the US. But this water-stained document reveals a tragic twist of fate.

Marian Meanwell was booked on the Majestic – another White Star Line ship. But it didn’t sail, so on the card, Majestic is crossed out and her passage shows that she was transferred to the Titanic and became one of 1,500 people to lose their lives.

“Being able to tell her story and have these objects is really important,” says Tomasina.

“Otherwise she’s just another name on the list.”

Items that belonged to survivors have also been brought back from the deep.

Tomasina opens a plastic container and a sickly-sweet smell fills the air. “It’s very potent,” she admits.

Inside are tiny vials of perfume. They are sealed, but their strong aroma escapes, even after decades on the seafloor.

“There was a perfume salesman on board and he had over 90 of these little perfume vials,” Tomasina explains.

His name was Adolphe Saalfeld and he had been travelling as a second-class passenger.

Saalfeld was one of the 700 people who survived. But with women and children prioritised during the evacuation, some men who made it off the ship were left troubled.

“He had passed by the time we found this,” says Tomasina. “But it’s my understanding that he did live with a bit of guilt – survivor’s guilt.”

Also in the collection is a champagne bottle – complete with champagne inside and a cork in the top.

“A little bit of water probably would have gotten in through the cork as it compressed and equalised the pressure. And then it just sat on the bottom of the ocean,” says Tomasina.

When the Titanic sank in 1912, after striking an iceberg, the ship split apart and its contents spilled out, creating a vast debris field.

“There are a lot of bottles on the ocean floor and a lot of stock pots and kitchen pots too, because Titanic actually broke up around one of the kitchens,” says Tomasina.

There were thousands of bottles of champagne on board. The liner’s owner wanted its first-class passengers to experience the ultimate in opulence, with sumptuous surroundings and the finest food and drink.

“It was like a floating palace and Titanic was supposed to be the most luxurious liner,” says Tomasina.

“So having champagne, having a gym, having all these amenities and these great things for the passengers would have been really important to them.”

The Titanic was on her maiden voyage, travelling from Southampton to the US, when she hit the iceberg.

The ship had advanced safety features for the time and was famously said to be unsinkable.

Tomasina shows us some of the ship’s rivets, chunky metal pins that held its thick steel plates together. There would have been more than three million of them.

“When Titanic sank, there was a theory that they were using substandard materials perhaps, and that’s what caused it to sink faster,” Tomasina explains.

Some of these rivets have been tested to see if they contain any impurities.

“There were high concentrations of slag in these, which is a glass-like material that makes them maybe a little bit more brittle in the cold,” she says.

“If these rivets were brittle, and one of the rivet heads popped off more easily, then it could have allowed the seam to open up where the iceberg hit and made it bigger than it otherwise would have been.”

Tomasina says there is still much to learn about exactly how the ship sank.

“We’re able to help look into the theories, so being able to contribute to the science and that story behind it is something that we’re very happy to do.”

Life on board was different for the social classes – even down to the cups and plates they would drink from and eat off.

A white third-class mug is simple and sturdy, with a bright red White Star logo. A second-class plate has a pretty blue floral decoration and looks a little finer. But a first-class dinner plate is made of more delicate china. It has a gold trim and, under the light, you can catch a glimpse of an intricate garland pattern.

“That pattern would have been coloured but, because it was coloured over the glaze, it was able to wash away,” says Tomasina.

The wealthy first-class passengers were given silver service for their meals – but in third class, it was a different story.

“Third-class passengers would have probably handled the china themselves – it was definitely meant to be much more stable and much more roughly handled than the other china,” explains Tomasina.

RMS Titanic Inc is the only company legally allowed to recover items from the site – it was granted this right by a US court in 1994. But it has to do this under strict conditions – the items must always remain together, so they cannot be sold off separately, and they have to be properly conserved.

Until now, all of the artefacts have been collected from the debris field. But recently the firm has stirred up controversy stating its desire to retrieve an object from the ship itself – the Marconi radio equipment which transmitted the Titanic’s distress calls on the night of the sinking.

Some believe the wreck is a grave site and should be left alone.

“Titanic is something that we want to respect,” Tomasina says in response.

“We want to make sure that we’re preserving the memory, because not everyone can go down to Titanic, and we want to be able to bring that to the public.”

More room could soon be needed on the shelves of this secret warehouse.

The company’s latest expedition to the site has involved taking millions of images of the wreck to create a detailed 3D scan.

And, as well as surveying the current condition of the Marconi radio room, the team have also been identifying objects in the debris field that they would like to retrieve in future dives.

Who knows what they will find and what untold stories each item may reveal about the ill-fated Titanic and her passengers.

The partner of a mother killed while saving her baby from a stabbing rampage in a busy Sydney shopping centre has spoken out for the first time, saying the day she died will “never make sense”.

Ashlee Good, 38, was among six people killed by Joel Cauchi at Westfield Bondi Junction on 13 April. Her daughter Harriet, who was nine months old at the time of the attack, was also injured.

Australian authorities say the stabbing was “mental health” related, but they believe Cauchi targeted women.

Thanking those who had sent donations, Good’s partner Dan Flanagan said “the overwhelming support, kindness and generosity” his family had received has given them “strength”.

Mass killings are rare in Australia, and the attack – at one of the country’s biggest and most popular shopping centres – stunned the world.

Horrified witnesses have described how Good fled into a nearby store, desperately seeking help for her injured baby girl.

In a post to a GoFundMe page, which raised almost A$850,000 (£439,000;$560,000), Mr Flanagan said the loss of his partner – an osteopath who friends described as “full of life and love” – was “unimaginable”.

“The day our family of three became a family of two will never make sense to me, but countless people… have shown me that while tragic things do unfortunately happen, there is more good in this world, than bad,” he wrote.

“Nothing will ever dull the pain of losing Ash, but reading your messages and seeing what an impact Ash has had on so many people has provided a lot of comfort.”

He also sent his condolences to the other families, friends and communities dealing with the trauma of the attack.

“Our lives will never be the same, and I wish every one of you your own strength and hope you’re getting the support required to navigate such incomprehensible and difficult times,” he said.

Cauchi stabbed 17 people before he was chased down and shot by a lone police officer.

Along with Good, five others died – security guard Faraz Tahir, 30; Jade Young, 47; Pikria Darchia, 55; Dawn Singleton, 25; and Yixuan Cheng, who was believed to be in her 20s.

Baby Harriet – the youngest victim targeted – underwent surgery to treat her chest and arm injuries to survive.

A special strike force was created to investigate the incident, with New South Wales Police saying it could take months to present its findings.

Cauchi’s parents said the 40-year-old had battled with mental illness and had come off his medication shortly before carrying out the attack.

Some, including the family of Jade Young, have called for an immediate boost to mental health services to prevent similar violence from occurring in the future.

Mpox, the high infectious disease that used to be called monkeypox, has been declared a public health emergency in Africa by the continent’s top health body.

Scientists from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) say they are alarmed by the speed at which a new strand of mpox has been spreading.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 13,700 cases and 450 deaths have been recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The virus, which can cause lesions across the whole body, has spread to other African countries, including Burundi, the Central African Republic (CAR) Kenya and Rwanda.

• What is mpox and how is it spread?

The declaration of a public health emergency will help governments co-ordinate their response and potentially increase the flow of medical supplies and aid into affected areas.

Health chiefs outside Africa will also be monitoring the situation to assess the risk of the outbreak spreading further.

On 29 July, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said the risk from the mpox virus was “very low” in Europe.

Mpox spreads from animals to humans and between people through close contact with someone who is infected – including through sex, skin-to-skin contact and talking or breathing close to another person.

It can cause symptoms such as fever, muscle aches and lesions across the body. If left untreated, mpox can be deadly.

There are two main strains of the virus known to exist. The milder one caused the global outbreak in 2022 that affected Europe, Australia, the US and many other countries – and was mainly spread through sexual contact.

The second more deadly strain, endemic in central Africa, is behind the new recently discovered variant in DR Congo.

There are three vaccines that exist but only people at risk or who have been in close contact with an infected person are usually able to have it.

• New mpox strain in DR Congo ‘most dangerous yet’
• Monkeypox given new name by global health experts

A pilot who died after they crashed a stolen helicopter into a hotel in Australia had attended a party with staff members the night before, their employer has said.

The helicopter belonged to Queensland-based helicopter tour agency Nautilus Aviation who said the employee had been celebrating at a private send-off with colleagues hours before the crash.

Nautilus added that the individual was licensed to fly helicopters in New Zealand but had never flown in Australia.

The pilot was killed in the accident, while two hotel guests were taken to hospital in a stable condition.

In a statement to the BBC, Nautilus said the individual had recently been promoted to a “ground crew position” at another of the company’s bases.

On Sunday night, the pilot joined colleagues at a private send-off, which was also attended by off-duty pilots. Nautilus clarified that this was “not a work event and was coordinated by friends”.

Nautilus added that the individual later gained “unauthorised access to our helicopter hangar”.

The helicopter hit the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel in the northern Queensland city of Cairns at around 01:50 local time on Monday (16:50 BST Sunday), sparking a fire and forcing the evacuation of about 400 guests.

Authorities say the only occupant of the helicopter died at the scene, and two hotel guests – a man in his 80s and a woman in her 70s – were taken to hospital in a stable condition.

Amanda Kay, who was staying in the hotel on the main esplanade in Cairns, described seeing a helicopter flying “extra low”, without lights in rainy weather.

“[It] has turned round and hit the building,” she said, adding that the aircraft “blew up”.

Another bystander said she saw the helicopter fly past the hotel twice in the moments before the collision.

“Boy that was going fast, that helicopter. Unbelievable,” a woman said, in video showing the fiery aftermath of the crash.

“It was just going out of control, that thing was.”

Two of the helicopter’s rotor blades came off on impact, landing on the esplanade and in the hotel pool, according to Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS).

Nautilus Aviation said in its statement that it had completed interviews with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and the Queensland Police Service (QPS), and had cooperated with full transparency on its disclosure of the events leading up to and following the incident.

“We offer our heartfelt condolences to the individual’s family and all who have been affected by this tragedy and continue to offer our support to our employees during this very challenging period,” the statement said.

“We will continue to work very closely with QPS and the ATSB as they investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident.”

Located in northern Queensland, the city of Cairns is a popular tourist destination due to its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef.

Like his father and grandfather before him, Phool dev Shahni once made a living by diving to the bottom of 8ft-deep (2.4m), muddy ponds.

“I used to dive in 7 to 8ft of water for hours a day – coming to the surface to breathe after 8 to ten minutes,” explains Mr Shahni.

While down in those murky depths he was harvesting the seeds of a type of water lily called euryale ferox.

Known as makhanas, fox nuts or lotus seeds, they are prized for their nutritional value, being high in B vitamins, protein and fibre, with some touting them as a superfood.

Often eaten as a snack, makhanas are also used in various dishes, including the milk pudding kheer, as well as being ground into flour.

In the north-eastern Indian state of Bihar, where Mr Shahni lives, 90% of the world’s makhana is grown.

The leaves of the lily plant are large and circular and sit on the top of the pond. But the seeds form in pods under water and collecting them was an exhausting process.

“While we are at the bottom diving, mud enters our ears, eyes, nose and mouth. Lots of us have skin issues due to this. Also the plant is covered in thorns, which give us cuts all over our body during harvesting of the seeds,” Mr Shahni says.

But in recent years farmers have changed the cultivation process. The plants are now often grown in fields, in much shallower water.

Harvesting seeds in just a foot of water means Mr Shahni can make twice as much money in a day.

“It’s still hard work but I am proud of my tradition. I have three children and I will make sure that one of my sons continues the legacy of working in a fox nut field.”

Dr Manoj Kumar, is one of those behind the change in makhana cultivation.

About ten years ago he realised it would be difficult to expand its cultivation in deep ponds.

Now Senior Scientist at the National Research Centre for Makhana (NRCM), he helped to develop the cultivation of lilies in fields of shallow water.

Over the last four or five years that technique has been taking off.

“With our innovations, growing fox nuts is now as easy as any crop grown on land. The only amount of water needed is a foot. The workers don’t have to work for hours in deep water,” he explains.

And after experiments with different seeds, his centre found a more resilient and productive variety, which he says has tripled the income of farmers.

Dr Kumar says that makhana cultivation has helped some farmers cope with more uncertain weather conditions and floods that have hit Bihar in recent years.

Now NRCM is working on machines that can harvest the seeds.

All that innovation has attracted more and more farmers.

In 2022, the area used for fox nut farming was 35,224 hectares (87,000 acres), an almost threefold increase over 10 years.

Dhirendra Kumar is one farmer who has made a recent switch to makhana cultivation.

Although he grew up on a farm, he didn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps.

“As farmers we always grew wheat, lentils and mustard but ended up losing a lot of money.

“Most of the time floods destroyed the crops,” he says.

While studying for a PhD, he came into contact with a scientist working on makhana cultivation and decided to experiment with the crop on his family farm.

“The results were amazing. In the first year I made a profit of £340 [US$432],” he says.

Now he grows lilies on 17 acres (6.9 hectares) of land.

“In my wildest dreams I did not think that I would get into growing fox nuts, as it was a labour-intensive job, which was mostly carried out by fishermen.”

The change in crop has also opened up job opportunities for women. Mr Kumar now employs about 200 local women who sow the seeds.

“My aim is to provide jobs to as many farmers as possible so they don’t leave farming because of uncertainty in agriculture,” he says.

It’s not just in the field that innovations have been made.

As well as being one of the leading cultivators of makhana, Madhubani Makhana, processes it for export all over the world.

Traditionally, once the makhanas have been harvested, they are washed, roasted and then hit with a mallet-like tool to make them pop.

“The method is crude, unhygienic and risky. It is laborious, time-consuming and a number of times leads to injuries and burns,” says Shambhu Prasad, the founder and chief executive of Madhubani Makhana.

In partnership with the NRCM, his company has developed a machine which roasts and pops the fox seeds.

“This has helped us increase the quality and the production of fox nuts,” says Mr Prasad.

Three of the machines have been incorporated into his manufacturing plant in Madhubani, in the north of Bihar.

While innovation in the farming and processing of makhana is increasing production, Mr Prasad does not think that will be enough to see prices fall.

“Given the rising global demand for makhana, significant increases in production will be necessary to achieve any substantial reduction in prices,” he says.

Back on his farm, Dhirendra Kumar thinks that makhana cultivation will bring far-reaching change.

“It’s the beginning of innovation in Bihar when it comes to fox nut harvesting. It will change the landscape of the state,” he says.

The Australian city of Melbourne has banned rental electronic scooters with officials saying they posed unacceptable safety risks.

The U-turn by the city’s council comes after it first welcomed the scooters in February 2022, saying they would operate a two-year trial.

However, hundreds of accidents since then have sparked complaints and outrage from the public.

Melbourne’s mayor said he was “fed up” with the bad behaviour of some scooter users.

“Too many people [are] riding on footpaths. People don’t park them properly. They’re tipped, they’re scattered around the city like confetti, like rubbish, creating tripping hazards,” Nicholas Reece told local radio station 3AW.

Melbourne is just the latest city in the world to remove hire scooters – which can go at up to 26km/h (16mph) – after a brief period of operation. The French capital Paris outlawed them last September – Mr Reece said he wanted to copy “the Paris option”.

City councillors voted 6-4 on Tuesday evening local time to ban the scooters almost immediately.

Operators Lime and Neuron have been ordered to remove the scooters within 30 days.

The companies still had six months left on their contracts to operate the vehicles and had been campaigning heavily in recent weeks, urging users to petition the council.

Both companies said they had invested significantly in recent months to improve safety and regulations around the use of scooters – with Neuron saying it was planning on installing AI cameras on scooters to prevent misuse.

A spokesman for the company decried the city council’s blanket ban on Tuesday, saying they had been in discussions with city officials to introduce measures like restricting the scooter use to less congested parts of the city, or setting up riding zones.

“This goes over and above the reforms announced by the state government,” Jayden Bryant from Neuron had earlier told Australian media.

“It is very odd that [a different] tabled proposal for the introduction of new e-scooter technology can change to become a proposal for a ban.”

About 1,500 Lime and Neuron scooters had been distributed across the city since the trial’s inception in February 2022.

Melbourne city council had previously reported that scooters had cut the city’s carbon emissions by more than 400 tonnes and encouraged greater take-up of public transport.

But there has also been growing evidence of the scheme’s flaws. One of the city’s main hospitals, the Royal Melbourne hospital, published a report in December 2023 which found close to 250 scooter-riders presented at its emergency department with injuries in 2022. A majority of these involved factors such as intoxication, speeding and not wearing a helmet.

A hospital spokesman said e-scooter accidents had even caused deaths and brain damage, with injuries mainly among younger patients.

India’s stock market has been a hot topic of conversation for the past couple of days, with hashtags around it trending on social media.

The reason isn’t just investor interest, but has more to do with its regulator. Let’s break it down a bit.

It all started over the weekend when US-based activist-investor Hindenburg Research posted on X (formerly Twitter) that “something big” was coming.

Hours later, it released a report accusing Madhabi Puri Buch – the chief of market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) – of having links with offshore funds used by the controversial Adani group. Both Ms Buch and the Adanis have denied wrongdoing.

Now, Hindenburg had last year accused the Adani group – founded by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani – of decades of “brazen” stock manipulation and accounting fraud.

The group – which has 10 publicly traded companies, operating across a wide range of sectors, including commodities trading, airports, utilities, ports and renewable energy – had strongly denied the allegations.

But the controversy took billions off its market value – it has since mostly recovered – and Sebi is still investigating the allegations.

Hindenburg now say that Ms Buch’s links with the funds used by the Adanis have impacted the regulator’s investigation.

Ms Buch has denied any conflict of interest and said that the investment was made before she was associated with the regulator. Also, there is no direct evidence so far linking her investment in the funds with Adani Group stocks or Sebi’s investigation.

The fresh allegations wiped off $2.43bn (£1.9bn) off Adani Group’s market value at the end of trading on Monday, though it made a substantial recovery from losses earlier in the day.

In its report, Hindenburg referred to earlier articles by Financial Times and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project that linked obscure offshore funds in Bermuda and Mauritius to Mr Adani’s business associates.

Hindenburg alleged that Ms Buch and her husband, Dhaval Buch, invested in these sub-funds in 2015.

The firm said that weeks before Ms Buch became a whole-time member of Sebi in 2017, her husband wrote to the fund administrator, asking to be made the only person “authorised to operate the accounts”.

The report says Ms Buch used her personal email ID to write to a wealth management firm to seek the redemption of her husband’s entire investment in the fund.

“We suspect Sebi’s unwillingness to take meaningful action against suspect offshore shareholders in the Adani Group may stem from Chairperson Madhabi Buch’s complicity in using the exact same funds used by Vinod Adani, brother of Gautam Adani,” the firm alleged.

Hindenburg also flagged Ms Buch’s husband becoming an adviser in 2019 for US investment manager Blackstone, which has invested in Indian real estate investment trusts. Pointing to regulatory changes made by Sebi during Ms Buch’s tenure as member and chairperson, they alleged that it directly benefitted firms like Blackstone.

Ms Buch and her husband have said in a statement that the investments referred to in the Hindenburg report were made in 2015 when the couple were private citizens in Singapore, “almost two years before Madhabi joined Sebi, even as a Whole Time Member”.

They said their investment was made because of Mr Buch’s childhood friendship with the fund’s then chief investment officer Anil Ahuja, who also “had many decades of a strong investing career”.

“As confirmed by Mr Ahuja, the fund did not invest in any bond, equity or derivative of any Adani group company,” their statement said.

The statement added that the market regulator had “strong institutional mechanisms of disclosure and recusal norms”, which they had followed “diligently”.

It called the Hindenburg report an attack on the “credibility of Sebi” and an attempt at “character assassination of its chairperson”.

Regarding the allegation about Mr Buch’s role with Blackstone, the couple said the investment firm was part of Ms Buch’s “recusal list maintained with Sebi”.

The market regulator said in a statement that it had “duly investigated” Hindenburg’s allegations against the Adani Group.

It also said that its chairperson had made the required disclosures in “terms of holdings of securities and their transfers”, and that she had recused herself in matters involving “potential conflicts of interest”.

In a statement released on its website on Sunday, the conglomerate called the allegations “a recycling of discredited claims that have been thoroughly investigated [and] proven to be baseless”.

“Our overseas holding structure is fully transparent, with all relevant details disclosed regularly in numerous public documents,” it said.

The group said Anil Ahuja had been a nominee director of its 3i investment fund in Adani Power in 2007-2008 and a director of Adani Enterprises until 2017.

“The Adani Group has absolutely no commercial relationship with the individuals or matters mentioned in this calculated deliberate effort to malign our standing,” it added.

Hindenburg’s earlier report accusing the Adanis of stock manipulation and accounting fraud 18 months back had seen their companies lose almost $150bn off their market value, though it has mostly recovered the losses since then.

In January, in a major relief to the group, India’s top court rejected pleas for an additional investigation into the allegations. It also gave Sebi three months to complete its investigation – that deadline has long passed, but according to Sebi’s latest statement, it has completed 23 inquiries and the last one is “close to completion”.

In June, Sebi also issued a “show-cause notice” to Hindenburg Research, accusing it of violating US securities laws by colluding with an investor who made a short bet against the Adani group ahead of the report’s release. Hindenburg has dismissed the allegation.

Rahul Gandhi, the leader of opposition in India’s parliament, said that the allegations have “gravely compromised” the “integrity” of Sebi, “which is entrusted with safeguarding the wealth of small retail investors”.

His Congress party has called for a parliamentary inquiry into the accusations and has asked the government to “eliminate all conflicts of interest in the Sebi investigation of Adani”.

Mr Adani is perceived as being close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has long faced allegations from opposition politicians that he has benefitted from his political ties, which he denies.

Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in turn, has accused the Congress of being “involved in creating economic anarchy” and “hatred against India”.

A top finance ministry official said on Monday that the government had “nothing to add” on the issue as both Sebi and Ms Buch had given statements.

In its response to Ms Buch’s statement, Hindenburg has doubled down on its accusations, saying it raises “numerous new critical questions”.

Sebi, Ms Buch and the Adani Group haven’t reacted yet to the latest comments.

Opposition politicians are also expected to keep raising the issue – which means we haven’t heard the last of it yet.

An artwork appearing on the shutters of London Zoo has been confirmed as the latest and final image in Banksy’s surprise animal art trail across the capital.

It shows a gorilla lifting the shutter to release a sea lion and birds, while other animals appear to look on from the inside.

It is the ninth Banksy to appear in as many days in London and follows images that have popped up each morning since 5 August of a goat, elephants, monkeys, a wolf, pelicans, a cat, piranhas and a rhinoceros.

A London Zoo spokesperson said it was “absolutely brilliant” and said the work would be preserved.

Daniel Simmonds, London Zoo’s animal operations manager, said: “Banksy has become part of the London scene and it’s really nice to share his iconic status with, ultimately, one of the most iconic zoos in the entire world.

“We’re quite honoured he’s chosen to use our front shutters this morning to put one of his incredible artworks.

“I think it’s absolutely brilliant,” he told BBC News.

He said staff had no idea Banksy was planning the work at this location.

“That’s part of the amazing enigma of Banksy and that’s why it’s so exciting to come in this morning,” Mr Simmonds added.

Security guards have been brought in to secure a barrier that has been put up around the mural.

Mr Simmonds said the shutter would remain closed today and two others used instead, so that visitors could look at the work.

“It’s really important we share this with everybody.”

He added he was expecting extra people to visit on Tuesday in addition to the thousands who had already booked.

“It’s going to be a busy day.”

Mr Simmons later confirmed that the artwork would be protected.

“We’ll definitely preserve it. We might even look at putting some perspex around it.

“The last thing we want with typical London weather, having just come through one of the worst winters ever, is to see this damaged by the weather.”

He added it was likely to remain in the same location for the immediate future but might then be relocated to elsewhere on the site.

The pledge to protect the latest image follows the removal or partial defacing of several other works in the series.

Banksy’s depiction of a rhinoceros mounting a Nissan Micra with a traffic cone on its bonnet in Charlton was seen being sprayed with a white dollar and “v” sign on Monday, soon after it was unveiled.

Royal Borough of Greenwich said it was “a real shame that a mindless vandal has defaced the mural, which has already drawn visitors and brought so much joy to many.

“The council is now considering what would be reasonably possible for the future of the artwork and will be closely monitoring it.”

A worker has since been seen installing a protective cover over the mural on Westmoor Street.

The car and traffic cone have been removed. However, it is not known why or who was responsible.

Last week, a satellite dish with a picture of a howling wolf on it – the fourth image in the series – was apparently stolen from a garage roof in Peckham.

And a disused billboard in Cricklewood that featured Banksy’s image of a stretching cat – the sixth image of the series – was taken down for safety reasons.

The BBC has been told by Banksy’s team the latest work is the final piece of the series, which has captured the attention of Banksy followers for more than a week.

The artist appears to have installed the works overnight at each occasion.

Crowds have been seen gathering after passers-by have spotted the works each morning, with many posting photos on social media.

Typically, Banksy has confirmed he is behind the creations at 13:00 BST each day, however, he announced the latest work on his Instagram page on Tuesday morning.

Elon Musk’s much-anticipated discussion with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on the billionaire’s platform X was marred by technical issues.

The conversation, in which Mr Musk asked friendly questions on subjects such as immigration and inflation, began more than 40 minutes late as many users struggled to gain access.

The event was billed as an interview but Trump made a series of unsubstantiated claims that went without challenge.

Mr Musk repeated his endorsement of Trump, who faces a resurgent new Democratic candidate, Vice-President Kamala Harris, in November’s election.

He blamed the glitches on a cyber-attack but one expert told the BBC that was unlikely.

The conversation on X comes as Trump, the former president and Republican presidential nominee, is trying to reset his re-election campaign.

The entry of Ms Harris after President Joe Biden stepped aside has tightened the race for the White House.

Mr Musk meanwhile has become an increasingly influential voice in politics.

• Who is Elon Musk and what is his net worth?

He has recently become involved in a new political committee supporting Trump’s campaign.

“America is at a fork in the road and you are the path to prosperity and I think Kamala is the opposite,” said Mr Musk in one exchange.

The two men touched on a range of issues, from the assassination attempt on Trump last month at a Pennsylvania rally, to his wanting the US to get an “Iron Dome” missile defence system like the one in Israel as well as immigration, a key plank of his campaign.

Trump also mused about closing the federal Department of Education and moving that responsibility to the states as one of his first acts if he wins the election in November.

The relationship between Mr Musk and Trump has shifted over the years and they have traded online barbs in the past.

• How Musk and Trump put aside their differences

But Monday’s conversation between the two was chummy and there was a lot of mutual praise.

Trump, who has been sceptical of electric vehicles and previously vowed to roll back federal subsidies, praised car-maker Tesla, which Mr Musk also owns.

He recently said he had “no choice” but to support EVs because of Mr Musk’s endorsement and called the Tesla product “great” on Monday.

Many observers detected a difference in Trump’s voice which sounded like he had a lisp, but a spokesman for the Trump campaign said it was no different from normal.

However the Musk-Trump conversation got off to a less than auspicious start.

As many users struggled to access the livestream, Mr Musk blamed “a massive DDoS attack on X” for the problems in a post.

Distributed denial of services attacks – or DDoS attacks – are attempts to overload a website to make it hard to use or inaccessible.

“A DDoS attack sends a very large number of signals to an online target to disrupt it,” Anthony Lim, Director of the Centre for Strategic Cyberspace and International Studies in Singapore, told the BBC.

“It is unlikely it would affect only one single service or feature on a website.”

Mr Lim added that it is possible that a large number of people trying to listen could have temporarily crashed the service.

However, Andrew Hay from IT firm Damovo said the problems could have been caused by a cyber-attack.

The glitchy beginning was reminiscent of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ entry into the White House race in May 2023, which was held on X and saw the livestream malfunction.

Monday marked something of a return to X/Twitter for Trump, who was removed from the platform shortly after the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot.

Besides a flurry of campaign advertisements on Trump’s account on Monday, he had only posted once – his mug shot and a link to his campaign site – a year ago after Mr Musk reactivated his X account in 2022.

It’s not clear whether Trump, who frequently posts on his Truth Social site, would continue to post more frequently on X.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote

• ANALYSIS: Three ways Trump will try to end Harris honeymoon

• SWING STATES: Where the election could be won and lost

• POLICY: Why Trump and Harris both say ‘no tax on tips’

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Pakistan’s former spymaster – who was once tipped for the army’s top job – has been taken into military custody.

Lt Gen Faiz Hameed has been accused of abusing his power and raiding a private property development business during his time as head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

It is incredibly rare for someone of Gen Hameed’s rank to be arrested in Pakistan, and has sparked widespread speculation, with many linking the move to his close ties with former prime minister Imran Khan.

He led the ISI during Mr Khan’s administration, from 2019 to 2021, before taking early retirement in December 2022.

The two were understood to be very close during that period.

The army’s official statement said the arrest of Gen Hameed was ordered by the Supreme Court, and that the military had now started “the process of Field General Court Martial”.

A court martial is a legal military hearing.

It also noted there had also been “multiple instances of violation” of the Pakistan Army Act since his retirement.

In an interview with the BBC, retired officer Lt Gen Talat Hussain described the move as “unusual” and predicted that many more arrests could follow.

According to some analysts, the arrest could be seen as part of the military’s drive to hold people accountable within the institution.

The arrest of such a high-ranking officer signals that no one is beyond scrutiny, according to Senator Irfan Siddiqi, a close ally of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

However, others suggest that this may be more about settling old scores, with indications that the current army leadership and General Hameed did not see eye to eye.

There is also speculation that the arrest reflects a willingness to take action against those who were seen as backing Imran Khan, even if they were outside the political arena.

Mr Khan, who has been imprisoned for more than a year and is facing numerous charges, was once closely aligned with Pakistan’s military leadership.

Opposition figures have previously accused Gen Hameed of being responsible for “selecting” Mr Khan for office, and was apparently so confident he was going to be named army chief he boasted of it, according to the BBC’s former Pakistan correspondent.

Mr Khan’s PTI party has appeared to shrug off speculation the arrest could be linked to them, with chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan describing the military’s actions as an internal matter.

The government has welcomed the arrest.

Gen Hameed could not be reached for comment.

A new evacuation alert for the Greek seaside town of Nea Makri has been ordered on Tuesday, as fierce wildfires continue to affect the suburbs of Athens.

One person has died, with a body, believed to be of a woman, found inside a shop in the town of Vrilissia, northern Athens, a source from the fire service told the BBC.

Thousands of people have been evacuated after firefighters warned that homes, businesses and schools were under threat.

The huge smoke cloud that lingered over Athens cleared as Tuesday dawned, although the air is still hazy.

Helicopters were circling the skies after being grounded overnight for safety reasons.

Residents in areas of Athens that haven’t even been directly affected by the fire said they have found ash settling on their balconies.

Firefighters, who have told the BBC they are “exhausted”, appear to be focussing on hotspots rather than one major fire front.

Fire service spokesman Col Vassilios Vathrakogiannis said while there was no longer a single active fire front in the north-eastern Attica region, which includes parts of Athens, there were still “many active localised blazes”, mostly around the towns of Marathon and Penteli.

Conditions for new fires remain dangerous not only on Tuesday, but also for further into the week, he said in a statement released on Monday evening.

More than 700 firefighters, 199 fire engines and 35 waterbombing aircraft have been involved in efforts to extinguish the fires, which first broke out on Sunday afternoon around 35km (22 miles) north of the Greek capital.

Col Vathrakogiannis said two firefighters had received treatment for burns while fighting the blazes.

Officials said fires broke out in 40 different locations on Monday and that some areas saw flames as high as 25m (82ft).

In unprecedented scenes, people in Athens wore facemasks to protect themselves from the smoke, which blew into the city.

Greece’s National Observatory said on Monday evening satellite images showed that, by noon local time (10:00 BST), the fire had already affected around 100,000 acres (405 sq km; 156 sq miles) of land.

In Penteli, a wooded, hilly region, three hospitals had to be evacuated, and one of the sites of the National Observatory was at one stage feared to be under threat.

The blaze also engulfed a timber factory, and elsewhere in the area a number of explosions were heard, most likely from fuel tanks and residential gas cylinders.

Despite the danger, some Penteli residents chose to stay near their homes and tried to put out pockets of fire using hoses or tree branches.

“It hurts. We have grown up in the forest. We feel great sadness and anger,” 24-year-old resident Marina Kalogerakou told Reuters news agency as she poured water from a bucket onto a burning tree stump.

Pantelis Kyriazis, another resident, crashed his car as he tried to leave.

“I couldn’t see. I hit a pine tree and this is what happened,” he said, gesturing towards the car.

Further north, near the epicentre of the fire, 81-year-old Vassilis Stroubelis stood in the doorway of his damaged home.

“Thirty years I was building all this. Thirty years and bam,” he said.

European nations have announced assistance for Greece after its government activated the EU’s mutual civil protection mechanism.

Italy is providing two planes while France and Serbia are providing one helicopter each, Col Vathrakogiannis said.

Spain, the Czech Republic and Romania are sending further vehicles, personnel, and aid.

Neighbouring Turkey is also preparing to send two planes and a helicopter, Foreign Minister Öncü Keçeli said.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU would “stand with Greece as it battles devastating fires”.

Greece has just experienced its hottest June and July on record.

Climate change increases the risk of the hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires.

The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.

When a white van drew up next to the office of the Palestine Customs Police in Tubas, a town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Abdel Nasser Sarhan had no reason to be suspicious.

According to Abdel Nasser’s colleagues, the van’s driver got out and greeted him in Arabic.

It was early in the morning. The 24-year-old uniformed policeman had just come on shift.

CCTV pictures show him strolling out past a guard post, his rifle slung casually at his side.

Seconds later, a man in jeans and a dark T-shirt emerges from the direction of the white van, uniformed Israeli soldiers behind him.

He raises a handgun and shoots Abdel Nasser dead.

Soon, the street is full of Israeli soldiers. They retrieve Abdel Nasser’s rifle and, as his colleagues try to retrieve his body, continue to shoot – all captured on CCTV.

When we visited Tubas the following morning, in late July, we found a makeshift memorial of stones and wilting flowers on the ground where Abdel Nasser fell.

The guard post and adjacent walls were riddled with bullet holes, each marked with a yellow tag. Fading bloodstains smeared the ground and doorway.

In a statement released on the day of the incident, the Israeli army said the shooting occurred in the course of an operation to detain two wanted men.

Abdel Nasser’s colleagues in Tubas said those arrests took place at a nearby house.

The army said that soldiers had “encountered armed terrorists” and that “a customs officer of the Palestinian Authority was killed during exchanges of fire”.

From the evidence of the CCTV footage, this last statement is demonstrably false.

An Israeli security official contacted by the BBC two weeks later said the incident was “one of hundreds, if not thousands of special activities that are planned and carried out very precisely”.

This one was being reviewed, he said, “because it didn’t go as planned”.

It seems clear that this was an operation that went badly wrong.

No-one has suggested that Abdel Nasser or the customs office were the target of the operation.

The young guard appears to have had the misfortune to stumble across an undercover Israeli operation, during which he was shot and killed.

But for Abdel Nasser’s colleagues in the customs police, this tragic episode is part of a wider pattern of behaviour that is making it harder than ever for the Palestinian Authority – theoretically responsible for security in areas not under direct Israeli military control – to do its job.

“This rings a warning bell, especially for us in the security services,” Lt Ibrahim Ayyash, spokesman for the Palestine Customs Police, told us.

“How can we enforce law and order and offer services to the people and protect them while you’re obstructing my work and killing my officers?”

Customs officers, he said, were increasingly reluctant to pull over suspicious vehicles, for fear of stumbling across Israeli soldiers operating under cover.

“It now falls on you, as a custom officer, to take a decision about stopping a vehicle or not,” he said.

“If you stop it and it has Special Forces [inside], they could kill you.”

As fans of the Israeli TV show Fauda will know, undercover operations were already a regular feature of life in the West Bank long before the war in Gaza broke out last October.

Recent evidence suggests the frequency of such operations have increased, with multiple cases of CCTV pictures showing Israeli units, dressed as civilians, and even medics, snatching wanted Palestinians from city streets and hospital beds.

But such clandestine operations are part of a much bigger picture.

With all eyes focused on Gaza, another war is raging in the West Bank, as the Israeli military cracks down on armed groups that it says are being bankrolled by Iran.

“The situation on the ground is very, very complicated,” an Israeli security official told me, on condition of anonymity.

“You might say that it’s on the verge of an explosion.”

The emergence of a new generation of local armed groups, mostly in the refugee camps of the northern West Bank, dates back to about 2021, with the first group appearing in Jenin.

But the war in Gaza has fanned the flames of rebellion in other cities, from Tulkarem to Qalqilya and, more recently, Tubas.

Israel’s security crackdown, the actions of violent groups of Jewish settlers and the belief that the Palestinian Authority is powerless to protect them have all added to an atmosphere of mounting tension.

“They’re very frustrated with Israel, they’re very frustrated with the Palestinian Authority and they’re looking for an outlet to this frustration,” the Israeli security official said.

The PA health ministry says more than 600 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since last October. As many as 10,000 have been arrested, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society.

At least 18 Israelis, including 12 security forces personnel, have also been killed in the West Bank.

On Saturday, one Israeli was killed and another injured when Palestinian gunmen opened fire near the Israeli settlement of Mehola.

Later in the day, Hamas said it had carried out the attack in retaliation for the Israeli air strike which killed dozens of Palestinians sheltering in a school in Gaza City.

Some veteran observers fear that armed clashes could erupt into a full-scale uprising, or intifada.

“If it goes into an intifada, this is a much, much bigger problem,” Gen Israel Ziv, former head of the IDF’s Operations Division, told me.

“Militarily, we handle things better or worse. But when it goes into an intifada, it’s a totally different story. And it might go there.”

With the Israeli military still focused on the war in Gaza and its simmering conflict with Hezbollah along its northern border, Gen Ziv said there’s reluctance to recognise danger much closer to home.

“It’s a huge problem that can blow up in our face in a more sensitive area, [close] to the centres of population in Israel,” he said.

Meanwhile, in the Balata refugee camp, on the edge of Nablus, Abdel Nasser’s family is still grieving.

They’ve watched the CCTV pictures from Tubas and drawn their own conclusions about the actions of the Israeli army.

“He come to kill, just to kill,” Abdel Nasser’s uncle, Ismail Mohammed Sarhan, says.

Abdel Nasser’s father, Mohannad, can barely comprehend the loss of his son.

What was he like, I asked him.

“Ambitious, kind, always smiling,” he said, unable to hold back the tears.

Donald Trump has falsely claimed a crowd which gathered to see Vice President Kamala Harris speak in Michigan last week “didn’t exist” and an image showing it was AI generated.

The picture in question shows a large crowd at the Democratic presidential nominee’s rally in Detroit.

Mr Trump, the Republican taking on the vice-president in November’s election, said on his Truth Social platform that it was a fake and there was “nobody” there waiting for her.

However, in multiple other images and videos, some taken by people present but also by TV news teams and agency photographers, you can see a large crowd of people at the event.

BBC presenter Sumi Somaskanda took the picture below at the rally and says: “People were literally packed in and the crowd stretched out onto the airfield.”

Several of other photographs taken at the event by Getty Images show a large crowd there.

Video footage taken by several independent media organisations, including NBC News and PBS, show similar scenes.

Local media outlet MLive covered the event and estimated that about 15,000 people were at the rally which was held at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

Many people who were also there posted pictures on X which showed them in a big crowd, including a Michigan state Democrat lawmaker who said there were “throngs of people”.

The first version we could find of the photo Mr Trump has highlighted was posted on X by a Harris campaign staffer, Bhavik Lathia, on 7 August.

Mr Lathia says the picture was sent to him by another campaign official.

The Harris campaign confirmed this and sent us what they say was the original photo below.

BBC Verify checked the metadata of this image, which confirmed it was taken on an iPhone 12 Pro Max device on 7 August at 18:28 local time.

“I can confirm that this was taken by Harris campaign staff and not modified by AI in any way,” a campaign official told the BBC.

The campaign also sent us several other images taken by the same person at the same spot, including the one below.

This image was taken a minute earlier from the same angle, in which the same crowd is visible but covered in shadow.

We’ve asked the Harris campaign whether the image which was questioned by Mr Trump was brightened to expose the crowds covered by shadow or changed in any other way.

There’s no evidence that the Harris campaign edited the image to make the crowd appear larger.

There have also been suggestions online that several elements of the photo show it has been manipulated using AI.

These include the absence of a crowd in a reflection on the side of the plane, and that there is no identification number on the plane’s tail.

On the first point, other photos taken by news agencies show the same view in the reflection on the side of the plane without a visible crowd.

A Getty photograph taken from the reverse angle looking towards the crowd shows a clear area on the tarmac in front of the plane as Ms Harris and her running-mate Tim Walz walk away from it.

It is possible that the reflection on the side of the plane is mainly of this area of empty tarmac.

Questions have also been raised online about why there is no identification number on the tail of Air Force Two – the vice president’s plane.

However, the number is also absent from other pictures taken at the Detroit event, and footage of the plane at other events recently also show it without a number on its tail.

Prof Hany Farid, a specialist in image analysis at UC Berkeley, has examined the photograph using software designed to detect AI-generated images and says “we found no evidence that this image is AI-generated or digitally altered”.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

In a two-hour discussion with Elon Musk, on the billionaire’s platform X, Donald Trump made a number of questionable and false claims – which went largely unchallenged.

The Republican presidential candidate returned to some familiar campaign themes, such as illegal immigration and rising prices, but he also talked about climate change.

BBC Verify has been checking some of his claims.

CLAIM: “The biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean is going to rise one eighth of an inch over the next 400 years.”

VERDICT: According to climate projections, Trump is vastly underestimating the rise in sea levels.

In the decade 2014-2023, global average sea levels rose by an average of nearly 4.8mm per year (0.19in), according to the World Meteorological Organization.

That increase is already greater than the one eighth of an inch (0.13in) that Mr Trump predicts will happen over the next 400 years.

The magnitude of future rises is difficult to predict, because it is uncertain how quickly ice-sheets will melt, and future warming will depend on greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated a likely range of 0.28 to 1.01m of global sea-level rise by 2100 – although higher rises can’t be ruled out.

A sea-level rise of one metre would put hundreds of millions of people at risk of more regular coastal flooding, as well as submerging parts of low-lying countries such as the Maldives.

CLAIM: “I think 20 million people have come across the border… I think millions are coming every month.”

VERDICT: It isn’t possible to know exactly how many illegal immigrants have entered the US across its southern border during President Biden’s time in office. Official data suggests it did hit record levels but not the kinds of numbers Trump claims.

Since January 2021, the US Customs and Border Protection agency says there have been 10.1m encounters of illegal migrants by enforcement officers in the US, with more than 8m of those coming over the southern border.

These figures don’t necessarily mean all these people successfully entered the US – some may have been sent back and the same person could be “encountered” trying to cross the border multiple times.

The official figures do represent a significant increase on the four years under Trump, and it is also the highest figure recorded under any US administration.

The data doesn’t show “millions” coming every month either. US Border Patrol agents apprehended around 57,000 migrants along the southern border in July – the lowest recorded since September 2020.

The numbers are down significantly from the peak under Mr Biden in December 2023, when around 250,000 migrants were caught crossing the border.

• Musk hosts friendly chat with Trump on X after tech delays
• Why is Elon Musk’s X struggling with technical problems?

CLAIM: “I think we have the worst inflation we’ve had in 100 years… bacon costing four or five times more than it did a few years ago”.

VERDICT: This is false. Inflation peaked at 9.1% under President Biden – the highest in 41 years, not 100. The price of bacon is up 17% since Trump left office, not four or five times.

Inflation rose significantly during the first two years of the Biden administration, reaching the highest level since 1981.

This was comparable with many other Western countries, which experienced high inflation rates in 2021 and 2022, as global supply chain issues as a consequence of Covid and the war in Ukraine contributed to rising prices.

Some economists say Mr Biden’s $1.9tn (£1.5tn) spending plan in 2021 was a factor as well.

Since mid 2022, US inflation has fallen, with the latest monthly figure at 3% as of June.

In terms of bacon – the average price for a pound of sliced bacon was $5.83 in January 2021 when Trump left office, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. It now costs $6.83.

CLAIM: “I built hundreds of miles of wall” to protect the southern border.

VERDICT: The length of border wall built during Trump’s presidency depends on what you are measuring, but if you include new sections as well as parts that have been replaced or reinforced, he built more than 450 miles.

A report by US Customs and Border Protection puts the total at 458 miles. However, only 85 miles of entirely new sections of wall were built under Trump.

The rest has been either replacing or reinforcing existing barriers.

President Biden suspended construction when he came into office, but last year his administration allowed the building of a section of wall in an effort to stop rising levels of immigration.

The section approved by Mr Biden is for 20 miles of barriers along the border in southern Texas.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Telling hilarious or embarrassing stories from your personal life is something many stand-up comedians do night after night on stage.

But what about turning your periods into a laughing matter?

That’s what comedian Bella Humphries has done for her debut show at the Edinburgh Fringe, after being diagnosed with Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD).

Symptoms of the condition can include extreme mood swings, depression and anxiety.

But with another two weeks of the Fringe still to go, one of Bella’s jokes has already been named by the Times as among the festival’s best.

Living with suicidal thoughts every month was something Humphries had become used to.

These kinds of extreme symptoms started a week before her period when she was in what’s known as the luteal phase of her menstrual cycle and for years she had believed it was completely normal.

That is, until she was diagnosed with PMDD, which could affect up to 8% of people who have periods in the UK.

”I had a lot of thoughts of about hurting myself or not wanting to be alive anymore,” Humphries tells BBC News. “And I was, yeah, really in quite a dark place.”

The comedian says she didn’t know anything about the condition until she started to look up some of her symptoms online and was eventually diagnosed by a private doctor.

Now she’s turned her experiences of living with PMDD into a stand-up routine for her show Square Peg.

The 30-year-old says sharing her experiences of it on stage has felt ”very empowering” because she’s been ”able to find the funny in some really dark times”.

“It is very personal. It’s very honest, a bit raw at times, but still very funny, I think,” she reflects. “And I have been told that by lots of other people.”

One of the jokes, which referenced having suicidal thoughts, made it into a list of the Times’ top jokes from the Fringe.

The joke was: ”There are times I feel so low I think the only way out is to get in my car and drive as fast as I can into a tree. But I’d never go through with it because I’m a feminist and I wouldn’t want that legacy for female drivers.”

Humphries says she wants to raise awareness of her condition through her comedy, which she’s hoping could lead to more people being diagnosed sooner.

”I’ve had a lot of women come to the show of varying ages, but it had such positive responses,” says the comedian.

She suggests it’s relatable for many people, even if they haven’t heard of the condition.

”And it made a lot of people feel quite emotional which is really nice to hear, because, yeah, it’s been quite emotional for me making it.”

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is an extreme form of PMS (Premenstrual syndrome).

Symptoms can include:

• headaches and joint and muscle pain
• overeating and problems sleeping
• feeling very anxious, angry, depressed or suicidal

It’s not clear what causes PMDD, but it’s been linked to being very sensitive to changes in hormones, or certain differences in the genes you inherit from your parents.

Treatments can include hormonal medicine, such as the combined contraceptive pill, cognitive behavioural therapy and antidepressants.

Farah Raja, who was diagnosed with PMDD last year, says hearing it being spoken about it in a public setting is “really important” and she hopes it will help more young people to recognise their symptoms and get an earlier diagnosis.

‘’When I first started, experiencing symptoms, I had no idea like that I was actually dealing with a severe form of PMS,” Farah tells BBC News.

“And I feel like for so long, PMS has been mocked and kind of trivialized, and people don’t really take it seriously.”

The 27-year-old, who posts TikTok videos to raise awareness of the condition, says growing up in a South Asian culture meant periods were seen as a ”very taboo topic”.

“I think that’s what made it so hard for me to get a diagnosis in the first place, because I was just constantly under the impression that it’s like nobody should know. So there’s something that I just kind of kept to myself for a really long time, or just try to suffer through.”

Claire Phipps, a doctor specialising in women’s health, says health experts need more education on how to spot the signs that someone has PMDD.

“I think it’s misdiagnosed a lot of the time because women’s health has been neglected for generations,” she explains.

Dr Phipps believes it is much more common than figures suggest because there isn’t enough awareness around the issue.

“It’s something that’s not talked about enough and women are really suffering,” she says.

“When it’s spoken about in this way, like being turned into a comedy, it’s almost like a public health warning, showing people that these symptoms aren’t normal and you don’t have to just put up with them”.

Lottie Dickens says she knew something was wrong as soon as her periods started.

For two weeks out of her menstrual cycle, she would experience extreme fatigue, depression and feelings of hopelessness, like nothing is ever going to get better.

Eventually she ended up being signed off work because the symptoms had got so severe.

After seeing multiple doctors over seven years, Lottie was ultimately diagnosed with PMDD.

“I burst into tears because it just felt so validating to have someone listen to me,” says the 29-year-old.

More education is something she’s also calling for. “It’s crazy that we don’t get taught this in schools,” Lottie says. “It would’ve been so useful to know what is and isn’t normal when it comes to your hormones and your period.”

And she praises Humphries for bringing this topic to light.

“The more people are aware of it, the more acceptance there will be that we’re dealing with something completely out our control.”

Business owner Louis Ho remembers how so many of Hong Kong’s taxi drivers refused to take him and his mother – who was a wheelchair user – to hospital for routine check-ups.

“I didn’t even need the driver to carry my mum or the wheelchair. I did everything myself,” says the 64-year-old whose mother passed away in 2018.

He is one of many Hong Kongers who have a story to tell about their city’s infamous cabbies. Ask them what they like least about Hong Kong, and taxi drivers will likely be high on the list.

The most common complaints: drivers are rude, refuse to accept rides and often take longer routes so customers have to pay more.

But now the Hong Kong Taxi Council is on a mission to transform this image. They will despatch “courtesy ambassadors” armed with “best-practice” pamphlets to taxi stands.

Will that really help? That depends on who you ask.

A single campaign cannot school rude or misbehaving drivers overnight – there are about 46,000 cabbies in the city, cautions Ryan Wong, the chairman of the council.

But he is hopeful: “This is not the first time that we have done this, and the feedback from drivers has been positive.”

Hong Kongers are more sceptical. An interview clip of a taxi driver saying that passengers, rather than drivers, are the ones to be educated has gone viral in the city – many point to it as evidence that nothing will change.

Many of them are also still smarting from past experiences.

Amy Ho, in her 30s, said she stopped taking taxis a few years ago after an encounter that she found particularly unpleasant.

“I didn’t realise I had asked for a very short journey. As soon as I reached the destination, I scrambled for cash to pay,” she says.

“It was merely five seconds or so, and the driver said, ‘Can you stop dragging on, auntie? I can’t believe you need a ride for such a short distance and you can’t even afford it!’.”

IT worker Kenny Tong now only take a cab about three times a month, preferring to avoid the ordeal where he can. To hail one, he says, he often has to “bow, wait for the driver to lower the car window” and check if his destination is on the driver’s route for the day.

“Some taxi drivers grumble throughout the journey after I have boarded,” he adds.

He also finds it frustrating when drivers do not use GPS and ask him how to reach the destination – even though they have “multiple phones on the dashboard”.

Most disgruntled passengers do not file complaints because it’s time-consuming. Still, there there were about 11,500 complaints last year – a 11% increase from 2019, according to the Transport Advisory Committee. Only a tiny fraction were prosecuted.

Then there is the problem of dishonest drivers – with tourists especially vulnerable.

In early July, a visitor from the China’s eastern province of Zhejiang took to social media to complain that she was only given HK$44 ($5.6; £4.5) in change after giving a cabbie HK$1,000 for a HK$56 ride. She reported the incident to the police, but couldn’t get her money back because of insufficient evidence.

But poor behaviour is only a symptom of the deeper issues that beset the city’s taxi industry, which is struggling with high costs, increased competition and bureaucracy.

There are about 18,000 taxi licenses in the city, and this number has been largely capped since 1994, apart from 2016 when just 25 licenses were issued. Many holders see the licenses as an investment and rent them to drivers.

Leung Tat Chong – who has worked as a taxi driver for more than two decades – says the rent of the licenses has kept rising and a driver has to pay about HK$500 for a 12-hour daytime shift – which does not include fuel. On a typical day, a driver can make HK$500 to HK$800.

“We can only do more business during rush hours, and sometimes we wait for up to 25 minutes and there is not even one single passenger,” he says. “To make a living, some drivers are not as patient and they have no capacity to improve their services.”

This is not an excuse for poor behaviour, he adds, but the “reality” of the industry.

Taxis also face intense competition from Uber which has been hugely popular since its entry into the Hong Kong market in 2014. The company says half of the city’s 7.5 million population have used it at least once.

The taxi industry has called on the government to crack down on the platform, which remains officially illegal in the city, arguing that it is unfair because Uber drivers are not subjected to the same laws – including needing special licences to run.

In late May, some taxi drivers even launched a vigilante sting operation to expose Uber drivers – but that attracted backlash from the public, many of whom say they prefer the ride hailing app precisely because of the issues they have with cab drivers.

“We underestimated the impact of ride-hailing apps,” says Chau Kwok-keung, the chairman of the Hong Kong Taxi and Public Light Bus Association. “Passengers are willing to pay more for a better riding experience.”

While Mr Chau is against Uber, he concedes that there are fewer conflicts on that platform because drivers can pick the passengers and fares are agreed before the journey. He also admits that the industry has been slow to adapt to online hailing systems and digital payment. Most taxi drivers still only accept cash.

The taxi industry also struggles to attract new blood. The average age of drivers is close to 60. Mr Chau argues that the lack of prospects is an important factor, as taxi fare has only been raised four times in the past decade. In 2023, the average income of an urban taxi driver was about HK$22,000, about 10% higher than the city’s median income. Hong Kong ranks 45th in terms of taxi fare in the world, according to living-cost online database Numbeo. Mr Chau says it’s very low considering Hong Kong is an expensive city.

“Many think that only poor people become cabbies, and it’s the last resort when one meets financial difficulties,” says Mr Leung, who thinks that the government should tighten requirements and provide more training for taxi drivers to improve the profession’s image.

But big changes are afoot for the city’s taxi industry.

A demerit-point system will take effect in September, and misbehaviour could lead to a license suspension after a court conviction.

A taxi fleet system will be introduced and authorities have issued five new licenses. It will allow flexible pricing, but in return, these fleets, which include 3,500 taxis, have to provide online booking, personal rating systems and digital payment.

For now, drivers and passengers say they are waiting to see if these reforms can take hold.

“If we provide good service, the industry will grow and there will be more passengers,” says Mr Leung.

Pokémon voice actress Rachael Lillis, who starred in Pokémon TV series, films and video games dating back as far as the late 1990s, has died from breast cancer at the age of 46.

Lillis voiced the main characters of Misty and Jessie and many more on the beloved Japanese animated series.

Her death was announced by Veronica Taylor, who co-stars as Pokémon lead character Ash Ketchum.

Ms Taylor wrote: “Rachael was an extraordinary talent, a bright light that shone through her voice whether speaking or singing.”

“We all know Rachael Lillis from the many wonderful roles she played,” Ms Taylor wrote on social media on Monday.

“She filled our Saturday mornings and before/after school hours with her beautiful voice, her terrific comic timing, and her remarkable acting skills.”

She said Lillis was grateful for the support she received as she battled cancer.

“It truly made a positive difference,” Ms Taylor said.

Her sister also confirmed Lillis’s death on a GoFundMe set up earlier this year to raise money for her cancer treatment and to move her into a nursing home.

“This was unexpected and we are completely grief-stricken,” wrote Laurie Orr, adding that her sister’s health began to decline last week.

“My heart breaks losing my dear little sister, though I am comforted knowing she is free,” she said.

The page has raised more than $100,000 (£78,000) – including donations made by fans since her death was announced, who said she had “gone too soon and much too young” and her “light shined bright” through her work.

Ms Orr said the funds would now go towards paying off remaining medical bills, a memorial service and “efforts to combat cancer”.

Lillis was born in Niagara Falls, New York, in 1978 and trained in opera at university before becoming a voice actor.

Her voice appeared on 423 episodes of Pokémon between 1997 and 2015, according to IMDB.

She also voiced Pokémon character Jigglypuff, including in the 2019 film Detective Pikachu and in the Super Smash Bros video game series.

Banknotes with a face value of £78,430 have raised more than 11 times that amount for charity following a series of auctions.

New £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes featuring King Charles III entered circulation in June.

He received a full set of the first issues – each with a serial number ending 000001 – but hundreds of other low serial numbered banknotes went under the hammer.

One single £10 note with the serial number HB01 000002 sold for £17,000 during bidding.

During another lot, a sheet of 40 connected £50 notes – with a face value of £2,000 – sold for £26,000. That was a record for any Bank of England auction.

The four sales run by auctioneers Spink in London raised £914,127 in total.

Collectors seek banknotes which come as close to the 000001 serial number as possible, hence the large amounts raised.

When the notes entered circulation in June, the Post Office reported collectors visiting branches which had stocks of the notes during the first day. There was also an early queue outside the Bank of England in London.

Sarah John, the Bank’s chief cashier – whose signature is on the notes – said she was “thrilled” that such such a “remarkable” amount was raised.

The proceeds will be shared equally between 10 charities chosen by the Bank:

• Childhood Trust
• The Trussell Trust
• Shout
• Carers UK
• Demelza
• WWF-UK
• The Brain Tumour Charity
• London’s Air Ambulance Charity
• Child Bereavement UK
• The Samaritans

It is the first time the monarch has changed on Bank of England notes, because Queen Elizabeth II was the first to routinely appear on Bank of England banknotes from 1960. The monarch does not feature on banknotes in Scotland.

Although the use of notes and coins is declining, the number of people mainly using cash for day-to-day spending hit a four-year high during the cost of living crisis, according to banking trade body UK Finance.

Post offices also reported handling a record amount of cash in July, with transactions totalling £3.77bn.

And HSBC has promised it will not announce any new closures of its bank branches until at least 2026.

Bangladesh’s new leader is clear: this was not his revolution, and this was not his dream.

But Muhammad Yunus knew the second he took the call from the student on the other end of the phone last week that he would do whatever it took to see it through.

And the students had decided that what they needed was for Prof Yunus – an 84-year-old Nobel laureate – to step into the power vacuum left by the sudden resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and lead the new interim government. He accepted immediately.

“I’m doing this because this is what the youth of the country wanted, and I wanted to help them to do it,” he explains during a private briefing for select journalists at his office in the Jamuna State House.

“It’s not my dream, it’s their dream. So I’m kind of helping them to make it come true.”

Prof Yunus was sworn in on Thursday after months of student-led protests culminated in the fall of the government, and is still trying to gauge the scale of the job in front of him.

Most pressing, he says, is the security situation. In the wake of the violence which left more than 400 dead, the South Asian country’s police had all but disappeared – the country’s police union had announced a strike, and traffic was being guided by the students, while hundreds of police stations had been gutted by fires.

“Law and order is the first one so that people can sit down or get to work,” Prof Yunus says.

Monday saw the first glimmers of progress as officers returned to the streets. It is a first step, but security is far from the only problem.

The government entirely “disappeared” after Sheikh Hasina fled the country, Prof Yunus says.

What was left behind after 15 years of increasingly authoritarian rule is “a mess, complete mess”.

“Even the government, what they did, whatever they did, just simply doesn’t make sense to me… They didn’t have any idea what administration is all about.”

And yet in the face of the chaos is “lots of hope”, Prof Yunus emphasises.

“We are here: a fresh new face for them, for the country… Because finally, this moment, the monster is gone. So this is excitement.”

Reform is key, according to Prof Yunus. It was a simple demand for reform of a quota system which reserved some public sector jobs for the relatives of war heroes, who fought for the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971, that sparked the protest movement in the first place.

But it was the brutal and deadly crackdown by security services which followed that saw it grow into demands for Sheikh Hasina to stand aside.

Reform is desperately needed, says Prof Yunus, pointing to freedom of speech – heavily restricted under Sheikh Hasina’s government, the prisons filled with people who sought to speak out against her.

He himself alleges he was a victim of the crackdown on freedom of speech. An outspoken critic of Sheikh Hasina’s government, Prof Yunus – lauded for his pioneering use of micro-loans but regarded as a public enemy by the former prime minister – was sentenced to six months in jail in what he has called a politically motivated case.

But there are other, more radical, ideas in the pipeline.

Each ministry will have a student seat in it, an acknowledgement of the role they played in bringing the previous administration to an end.

Already, Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud, students who led the anti-government protests, sit in his cabinet.

And then there is reform of the judiciary. Already, the students have put pressure on the chief justice to resign.

Prof Yunus argues the judiciary was failing to act independently – instead allegedly taking orders from “some superior authority”.

“In the technical terms, he was the chief justice,” he says. “But actually, he was just a hangman.”

There will, he acknowledges, be decisions made that not everyone agrees with, but he hopes it will be better than what has come before.

“Whatever experience I have in my work… So I’m not saying I can run a government. I’m saying that I have some experience of running some organisations. I’ll bring that as much as I can. There will be people who like it, people who dislike it. But we have to go through with it.”

You can lead a horse to water and, it turns out, convince it to drink if the reward is great enough, researchers have found.

A new study has suggested horses are more intelligent than previously thought, having been observed to quickly adapt to a treat-based game with changing rules.

Researchers from Nottingham Trent University (NTU) said they were surprised by how the horses quickly grasped the game, busting previous theories that equine brains respond only to immediate stimuli and are not complex enough to strategise.

The new findings could lead to more humane horse training regimes and improvements to their welfare, researchers said.

The study involved 20 horses, who first were rewarded with a treat for touching a piece of card with their nose.

In the second stage, a “stop light” was introduced, and the rule was changed so that the reward was only given if they touched the card while the light was off.

This did not alter the behaviour of the horses, as they were observed touching the card regardless of the status of the light. That is, until the rules changed for a third time.

In the final stage, researchers introduced a penalty of a 10-second timeout for touching the card while the stop light was on.

The team observed a rapid adjustment to the horses’ behaviour now there was a cost to getting it wrong, all of them quickly learning to play by the rules to avoid the timeout, researchers said.

“We were expecting horses’ performance to improve when we introduced the time-out, but were surprised by how immediate and significant the improvement was,” lead researcher Louise Evans said.

The researchers believe the fact the horses adapted so quickly indicates they understood the rule of the stop light the entire time, but had no reason to follow the rule when there was no consequence for getting it wrong.

The study, published in the Applied Animal Behaviour Science journal shows that horses are more cognitively advanced than they are given credit for, Dr Carrie Ijichi, a senior equine researcher at NTU said.

“This teaches us that we shouldn’t make assumptions about animal intelligence or sentience based on whether they are ‘built’ just like us,” she said.

A mother of two has been left paraplegic after being shot by Iranian police over an alleged violation of the country’s strict hijab rules, a source with knowledge of the case has told the BBC.

“She is paralysed from the waist down, and doctors have said it will take months to determine whether she will be permanently paraplegic or not.”

Arezoo Badri, 31, was driving home with her sister in the northern city of Noor on 22 July when police attempted to pull her over to confiscate her car.

The driver did not comply with the order to stop, prompting the officers to shoot, the police commander in Noor told Iran’s state-run news agency, without naming Ms Badri.

The incident comes after Iranian police announced a clampdown on women defying the nation’s compulsory dress code.

The fresh measures included using CCTV to identify female drivers failing to cover their heads and the confiscation of vehicles found to be carrying female passengers with uncovered hair.

It followed prolonged public outcry over the law in the wake of the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 while being detained by Iran’s morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab, or headscarf, “improperly”.

It is unclear whether Ms Badri was wearing a headscarf when she was stopped by police, but her car had a confiscation notice against it – suggesting multiple alleged violations of the hijab law.

The BBC source said the police officer first shot at the car’s tyre before targeting her directly from the driver’s side.

“The bullet entered her lung and severely damaged her spinal cord.”

Colonel Ahmed Amini, Noor’s police chief, said the use of firearms was permitted under Iranian law.

After being initially taken to a hospital in Noor, Ms Badri was transferred to a hospital in Sari, the provincial capital, for lung surgery. A week later she was taken to the Iranian capital, Tehran.

The bullet was only removed after 10 days, the source said.

Both the police and the BBC source said that Ms Badri’s car windows were tinted.

Ms Badri is now in the intensive care unit of the police-owned Vali-e-Asr Hospital in Tehran and under tight security.

According to the source, her family is allowed only brief visits, during which their mobile phones are confiscated. Authorities have prohibited visitors from taking photos or video of Ms Badri – though some have emerged.

The heavy security measures surrounding Ms Badri’s hospitalisation are reminiscent of those of Armita Geravand, a 17-year-old who died in October after spending 28 days in a coma at Fajr Hospital in Tehran, following an alleged altercation with the morality police at an underground station.

Human rights activists said that she was assaulted for not wearing a hijab, an allegation that the Iranian government denies.

Women have been legally required to wear a hijab in Iran since the Islamic revolution of 1979. Penalties for infringements of the law include fines and imprisonment.

Incidents involving the morality police – who are tasked with enforcing the law – continue to be reported while the Women, Life, Freedom movement Ms Amini’s death sparked remains ongoing.

Iranian women have previously told the BBC they were still willing to defy the rule despite the increased risk of punishment.

Recently, CCTV footage showing the violent assault of a 14-year-old girl by hijab enforcement officers in Tehran ignited widespread outrage.

Nafas Hajisharif’s mother told Iran’s Ensaf News that she found her daughter at a morality police station with a “bruised face, swollen lips, a bruised neck, and torn clothes”.

Scientists have discovered a reservoir of liquid water on Mars – deep in the rocky outer crust of the planet.

The findings come from a new analysis of data from Nasa’s Mars Insight Lander, which touched down on the planet back in 2018.

The lander carried a seismometer, which recorded four years’ of vibrations – Mars quakes – from deep inside the Red Planet.

Analysing those quakes – and exactly how the planet moves – revealed “seismic signals” of liquid water.

While there is water frozen at the Martian poles and evidence of vapour in the atmosphere, this is the first time liquid water has been found on the planet.

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Insight’s scientific mission ended in December 2022, after the lander sat quietly listening to “the pulse of Mars” for four years.

In that time, the probe recorded more than 1,319 quakes.

By measuring how fast seismic waves travel, scientists have worked out what material they are most likely to be moving through.

“These are actually the same techniques we use to prospect for water on Earth, or to look for oil and gas,” explained Prof Michael Manga, from the University of California, Berkeley, who was involved in the research.

The analysis revealed reservoirs of water at depths of about six to 12 miles (10 to 20km) in the Martian crust.

“Understanding the Martian water cycle is critical for understanding the evolution of the climate, surface and interior,” said lead researcher Dr Vashan Wright, from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Prof Manga added that water was “the most important molecule in shaping the evolution of a planet”. This finding, he said, answers a big question of “where did all the Martian water go?”.

Studies of the surface of Mars – with its channels and ripples – show that, in ancient times, there were rivers and lakes on the planet.

But for three billion years, it has been a desert.

Some of that water was lost to space when Mars lost its atmosphere. But, said Prof Manga, here on Earth, “much of our water is underground and there’s no reason for that not to be the case on Mars too”.

The Insight probe was only able to record directly from the crust beneath its feet, but the researchers expect that there will be similar reservoirs across the planet. If that is the case, they estimate that there is enough liquid water on Mars to form a layer across the surface that would be more than half a mile deep.

However, they point out, the location of this Martian groundwater is not good news for billionaires with Mars colonisation plans who might want to tap into it.

“It’s sequestered 10-20km deep in the crust,” explained Prof Manga.

“Drilling a hole 10km deep on Mars – even for [Elon] Musk – would be difficult,” he told BBC News.

The discovery could also point to another target for the ongoing search for evidence of life on Mars.

“Without liquid water, you don’t have life,” said Prof Manga. “So if there are habitable environments on Mars, those may be now deep underground.”

Iran has dismissed calls from the UK and other Western countries to refrain from retaliation against Israel for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month.

Amid a flurry of international diplomacy to de-escalate tensions, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to “stand down its ongoing threats of a military attack” in a rare telephone conversation on Monday.

But Mr Pezeshkian said retaliation was a “way to stop crime” and Iran’s “legal right”, according to Iranian state media.

Israel, which did not say it was involved in Haniyeh’s assassination, has meanwhile put its military on its highest alert level.

The US has warned that it is preparing for “a significant set of attacks” by Iran or its proxies as soon as this week, and has built up its military presence in the Middle East to help defend Israel.

The powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon is also threatening to retaliate over Israel’s killing of one of its top commanders in an air strike in Beirut.

On Monday evening, the leaders of the UK, France and Germany issued a joint statement urging Iran and its allies to “refrain from attacks that would further escalate regional tensions”.

“They will bear responsibility for actions that jeopardise this opportunity for peace and stability,” Sir Keir, President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Olaf Scholz said.

Later, the British prime minister also expressed his deep concerns directly to Iran’s president by telephone – the first such call since March 2021.

Sir Keir told Mr Pezeshkian that “there was a serious risk of miscalculation and now was the time for calm and careful consideration”, Downing Street said.

“He called on Iran to refrain from attacking Israel, adding that war was not in anyone’s interests,” it added.

On Tuesday morning, Iranian state news agency Irna reported that Mr Pezeshkian had told Sir Keir that Western countries’ support for Israel had encouraged it to “continue atrocities” and threatened peace and security.

“Pezeshkian stated that from the point of view of the Islamic Republic of Iran, war in any part of the world is not in the interest of any country, emphasizing that a punitive response to an aggressor is a legal right of states and a way to stop crime and aggression,” Irna added.

The Iranian foreign ministry separately rejected the call for restraint from London, Paris and Berlin.

“Such demands are void of political logic, in complete contradiction to the principles and rules of international law, and excessive,” spokesman Nasser Kaanani said.

The Israeli military said on Monday that it was taking Iran’s statements seriously.

“We are prepared at peak readiness in offence and defence, and we will act according to the directives of the government,” spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a briefing.

An Israeli government spokesman meanwhile warned Iran and its allies that Israel would “exact a heavy price for any aggression against us from any arena”.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters: “We share the same concerns and expectations that our Israeli counterparts have with respect to potential timing here. [It] could be this week.”

“It is difficult to ascertain at this particular time if there is an attack by Iran and or its proxies, what that could look like, but we have to be prepared,” he added.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has dispatched a second aircraft carrier strike group as well as a guided missile submarine to the Middle East to reinforce what the Pentagon said was the “United States’ commitment to taking every possible step to defend Israel”.

The US believes that a new deal for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages would be the best way to calm tensions in the region, and has called for talks to resume on Thursday.

Israel has said it will send a team of negotiators to finalise a deal, while Hamas has indicated an agreement in principle to participate despite the killing of its leader.

Hamas said on Sunday that any deal must be based on where talks were a month and a half ago, rather than any new rounds of negotiations.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

More than 39,920 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Hundreds of people have also been killed in the almost daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli military across the Israel-Lebanon border since the day after the start of the conflict.

Like his father and grandfather before him, Phool dev Shahni once made a living by diving to the bottom of 8ft-deep (2.4m), muddy ponds.

“I used to dive in 7 to 8ft of water for hours a day – coming to the surface to breathe after 8 to ten minutes,” explains Mr Shahni.

While down in those murky depths he was harvesting the seeds of a type of water lily called euryale ferox.

Known as makhanas, fox nuts or lotus seeds, they are prized for their nutritional value, being high in B vitamins, protein and fibre, with some touting them as a superfood.

Often eaten as a snack, makhanas are also used in various dishes, including the milk pudding kheer, as well as being ground into flour.

In the north-eastern Indian state of Bihar, where Mr Shahni lives, 90% of the world’s makhana is grown.

The leaves of the lily plant are large and circular and sit on the top of the pond. But the seeds form in pods under water and collecting them was an exhausting process.

“While we are at the bottom diving, mud enters our ears, eyes, nose and mouth. Lots of us have skin issues due to this. Also the plant is covered in thorns, which give us cuts all over our body during harvesting of the seeds,” Mr Shahni says.

But in recent years farmers have changed the cultivation process. The plants are now often grown in fields, in much shallower water.

Harvesting seeds in just a foot of water means Mr Shahni can make twice as much money in a day.

“It’s still hard work but I am proud of my tradition. I have three children and I will make sure that one of my sons continues the legacy of working in a fox nut field.”

Dr Manoj Kumar, is one of those behind the change in makhana cultivation.

About ten years ago he realised it would be difficult to expand its cultivation in deep ponds.

Now Senior Scientist at the National Research Centre for Makhana (NRCM), he helped to develop the cultivation of lilies in fields of shallow water.

Over the last four or five years that technique has been taking off.

“With our innovations, growing fox nuts is now as easy as any crop grown on land. The only amount of water needed is a foot. The workers don’t have to work for hours in deep water,” he explains.

And after experiments with different seeds, his centre found a more resilient and productive variety, which he says has tripled the income of farmers.

Dr Kumar says that makhana cultivation has helped some farmers cope with more uncertain weather conditions and floods that have hit Bihar in recent years.

Now NRCM is working on machines that can harvest the seeds.

All that innovation has attracted more and more farmers.

In 2022, the area used for fox nut farming was 35,224 hectares (87,000 acres), an almost threefold increase over 10 years.

Dhirendra Kumar is one farmer who has made a recent switch to makhana cultivation.

Although he grew up on a farm, he didn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps.

“As farmers we always grew wheat, lentils and mustard but ended up losing a lot of money.

“Most of the time floods destroyed the crops,” he says.

While studying for a PhD, he came into contact with a scientist working on makhana cultivation and decided to experiment with the crop on his family farm.

“The results were amazing. In the first year I made a profit of £340 [US$432],” he says.

Now he grows lilies on 17 acres (6.9 hectares) of land.

“In my wildest dreams I did not think that I would get into growing fox nuts, as it was a labour-intensive job, which was mostly carried out by fishermen.”

The change in crop has also opened up job opportunities for women. Mr Kumar now employs about 200 local women who sow the seeds.

“My aim is to provide jobs to as many farmers as possible so they don’t leave farming because of uncertainty in agriculture,” he says.

It’s not just in the field that innovations have been made.

As well as being one of the leading cultivators of makhana, Madhubani Makhana, processes it for export all over the world.

Traditionally, once the makhanas have been harvested, they are washed, roasted and then hit with a mallet-like tool to make them pop.

“The method is crude, unhygienic and risky. It is laborious, time-consuming and a number of times leads to injuries and burns,” says Shambhu Prasad, the founder and chief executive of Madhubani Makhana.

In partnership with the NRCM, his company has developed a machine which roasts and pops the fox seeds.

“This has helped us increase the quality and the production of fox nuts,” says Mr Prasad.

Three of the machines have been incorporated into his manufacturing plant in Madhubani, in the north of Bihar.

While innovation in the farming and processing of makhana is increasing production, Mr Prasad does not think that will be enough to see prices fall.

“Given the rising global demand for makhana, significant increases in production will be necessary to achieve any substantial reduction in prices,” he says.

Back on his farm, Dhirendra Kumar thinks that makhana cultivation will bring far-reaching change.

“It’s the beginning of innovation in Bihar when it comes to fox nut harvesting. It will change the landscape of the state,” he says.

Mpox, the high infectious disease that used to be called monkeypox, has been declared a public health emergency in Africa by the continent’s top health body.

Scientists from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) say they are alarmed by the speed at which a new strand of mpox has been spreading.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 13,700 cases and 450 deaths have been recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The virus, which can cause lesions across the whole body, has spread to other African countries, including Burundi, the Central African Republic (CAR) Kenya and Rwanda.

• What is mpox and how is it spread?

The declaration of a public health emergency will help governments co-ordinate their response and potentially increase the flow of medical supplies and aid into affected areas.

Health chiefs outside Africa will also be monitoring the situation to assess the risk of the outbreak spreading further.

On 29 July, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said the risk from the mpox virus was “very low” in Europe.

Mpox spreads from animals to humans and between people through close contact with someone who is infected – including through sex, skin-to-skin contact and talking or breathing close to another person.

It can cause symptoms such as fever, muscle aches and lesions across the body. If left untreated, mpox can be deadly.

There are two main strains of the virus known to exist. The milder one caused the global outbreak in 2022 that affected Europe, Australia, the US and many other countries – and was mainly spread through sexual contact.

The second more deadly strain, endemic in central Africa, is behind the new recently discovered variant in DR Congo.

There are three vaccines that exist but only people at risk or who have been in close contact with an infected person are usually able to have it.

• New mpox strain in DR Congo ‘most dangerous yet’
• Monkeypox given new name by global health experts

In a two-hour discussion with Elon Musk, on the billionaire’s platform X, Donald Trump made a number of questionable and false claims – which went largely unchallenged.

The Republican presidential candidate returned to some familiar campaign themes, such as illegal immigration and rising prices, but he also talked about climate change.

BBC Verify has been checking some of his claims.

CLAIM: “The biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean is going to rise one eighth of an inch over the next 400 years.”

VERDICT: According to climate projections, Trump is vastly underestimating the rise in sea levels.

In the decade 2014-2023, global average sea levels rose by an average of nearly 4.8mm per year (0.19in), according to the World Meteorological Organization.

That increase is already greater than the one eighth of an inch (0.13in) that Mr Trump predicts will happen over the next 400 years.

The magnitude of future rises is difficult to predict, because it is uncertain how quickly ice-sheets will melt, and future warming will depend on greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated a likely range of 0.28 to 1.01m of global sea-level rise by 2100 – although higher rises can’t be ruled out.

A sea-level rise of one metre would put hundreds of millions of people at risk of more regular coastal flooding, as well as submerging parts of low-lying countries such as the Maldives.

CLAIM: “I think 20 million people have come across the border… I think millions are coming every month.”

VERDICT: It isn’t possible to know exactly how many illegal immigrants have entered the US across its southern border during President Biden’s time in office. Official data suggests it did hit record levels but not the kinds of numbers Trump claims.

Since January 2021, the US Customs and Border Protection agency says there have been 10.1m encounters of illegal migrants by enforcement officers in the US, with more than 8m of those coming over the southern border.

These figures don’t necessarily mean all these people successfully entered the US – some may have been sent back and the same person could be “encountered” trying to cross the border multiple times.

The official figures do represent a significant increase on the four years under Trump, and it is also the highest figure recorded under any US administration.

The data doesn’t show “millions” coming every month either. US Border Patrol agents apprehended around 57,000 migrants along the southern border in July – the lowest recorded since September 2020.

The numbers are down significantly from the peak under Mr Biden in December 2023, when around 250,000 migrants were caught crossing the border.

• Musk hosts friendly chat with Trump on X after tech delays
• Why is Elon Musk’s X struggling with technical problems?

CLAIM: “I think we have the worst inflation we’ve had in 100 years… bacon costing four or five times more than it did a few years ago”.

VERDICT: This is false. Inflation peaked at 9.1% under President Biden – the highest in 41 years, not 100. The price of bacon is up 17% since Trump left office, not four or five times.

Inflation rose significantly during the first two years of the Biden administration, reaching the highest level since 1981.

This was comparable with many other Western countries, which experienced high inflation rates in 2021 and 2022, as global supply chain issues as a consequence of Covid and the war in Ukraine contributed to rising prices.

Some economists say Mr Biden’s $1.9tn (£1.5tn) spending plan in 2021 was a factor as well.

Since mid 2022, US inflation has fallen, with the latest monthly figure at 3% as of June.

In terms of bacon – the average price for a pound of sliced bacon was $5.83 in January 2021 when Trump left office, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. It now costs $6.83.

CLAIM: “I built hundreds of miles of wall” to protect the southern border.

VERDICT: The length of border wall built during Trump’s presidency depends on what you are measuring, but if you include new sections as well as parts that have been replaced or reinforced, he built more than 450 miles.

A report by US Customs and Border Protection puts the total at 458 miles. However, only 85 miles of entirely new sections of wall were built under Trump.

The rest has been either replacing or reinforcing existing barriers.

President Biden suspended construction when he came into office, but last year his administration allowed the building of a section of wall in an effort to stop rising levels of immigration.

The section approved by Mr Biden is for 20 miles of barriers along the border in southern Texas.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

The Australian city of Melbourne has banned rental electronic scooters with officials saying they posed unacceptable safety risks.

The U-turn by the city’s council comes after it first welcomed the scooters in February 2022, saying they would operate a two-year trial.

However, hundreds of accidents since then have sparked complaints and outrage from the public.

Melbourne’s mayor said he was “fed up” with the bad behaviour of some scooter users.

“Too many people [are] riding on footpaths. People don’t park them properly. They’re tipped, they’re scattered around the city like confetti, like rubbish, creating tripping hazards,” Nicholas Reece told local radio station 3AW.

Melbourne is just the latest city in the world to remove hire scooters – which can go at up to 26km/h (16mph) – after a brief period of operation. The French capital Paris outlawed them last September – Mr Reece said he wanted to copy “the Paris option”.

City councillors voted 6-4 on Tuesday evening local time to ban the scooters almost immediately.

Operators Lime and Neuron have been ordered to remove the scooters within 30 days.

The companies still had six months left on their contracts to operate the vehicles and had been campaigning heavily in recent weeks, urging users to petition the council.

Both companies said they had invested significantly in recent months to improve safety and regulations around the use of scooters – with Neuron saying it was planning on installing AI cameras on scooters to prevent misuse.

A spokesman for the company decried the city council’s blanket ban on Tuesday, saying they had been in discussions with city officials to introduce measures like restricting the scooter use to less congested parts of the city, or setting up riding zones.

“This goes over and above the reforms announced by the state government,” Jayden Bryant from Neuron had earlier told Australian media.

“It is very odd that [a different] tabled proposal for the introduction of new e-scooter technology can change to become a proposal for a ban.”

About 1,500 Lime and Neuron scooters had been distributed across the city since the trial’s inception in February 2022.

Melbourne city council had previously reported that scooters had cut the city’s carbon emissions by more than 400 tonnes and encouraged greater take-up of public transport.

But there has also been growing evidence of the scheme’s flaws. One of the city’s main hospitals, the Royal Melbourne hospital, published a report in December 2023 which found close to 250 scooter-riders presented at its emergency department with injuries in 2022. A majority of these involved factors such as intoxication, speeding and not wearing a helmet.

A hospital spokesman said e-scooter accidents had even caused deaths and brain damage, with injuries mainly among younger patients.

Scientists have discovered a reservoir of liquid water on Mars – deep in the rocky outer crust of the planet.

The findings come from a new analysis of data from Nasa’s Mars Insight Lander, which touched down on the planet back in 2018.

The lander carried a seismometer, which recorded four years’ of vibrations – Mars quakes – from deep inside the Red Planet.

Analysing those quakes – and exactly how the planet moves – revealed “seismic signals” of liquid water.

While there is water frozen at the Martian poles and evidence of vapour in the atmosphere, this is the first time liquid water has been found on the planet.

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Insight’s scientific mission ended in December 2022, after the lander sat quietly listening to “the pulse of Mars” for four years.

In that time, the probe recorded more than 1,319 quakes.

By measuring how fast seismic waves travel, scientists have worked out what material they are most likely to be moving through.

“These are actually the same techniques we use to prospect for water on Earth, or to look for oil and gas,” explained Prof Michael Manga, from the University of California, Berkeley, who was involved in the research.

The analysis revealed reservoirs of water at depths of about six to 12 miles (10 to 20km) in the Martian crust.

“Understanding the Martian water cycle is critical for understanding the evolution of the climate, surface and interior,” said lead researcher Dr Vashan Wright, from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Prof Manga added that water was “the most important molecule in shaping the evolution of a planet”. This finding, he said, answers a big question of “where did all the Martian water go?”.

Studies of the surface of Mars – with its channels and ripples – show that, in ancient times, there were rivers and lakes on the planet.

But for three billion years, it has been a desert.

Some of that water was lost to space when Mars lost its atmosphere. But, said Prof Manga, here on Earth, “much of our water is underground and there’s no reason for that not to be the case on Mars too”.

The Insight probe was only able to record directly from the crust beneath its feet, but the researchers expect that there will be similar reservoirs across the planet. If that is the case, they estimate that there is enough liquid water on Mars to form a layer across the surface that would be more than half a mile deep.

However, they point out, the location of this Martian groundwater is not good news for billionaires with Mars colonisation plans who might want to tap into it.

“It’s sequestered 10-20km deep in the crust,” explained Prof Manga.

“Drilling a hole 10km deep on Mars – even for [Elon] Musk – would be difficult,” he told BBC News.

The discovery could also point to another target for the ongoing search for evidence of life on Mars.

“Without liquid water, you don’t have life,” said Prof Manga. “So if there are habitable environments on Mars, those may be now deep underground.”

Elon Musk’s much-anticipated discussion with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on the billionaire’s platform X was marred by technical issues.

The conversation, in which Mr Musk asked friendly questions on subjects such as immigration and inflation, began more than 40 minutes late as many users struggled to gain access.

The event was billed as an interview but Trump made a series of unsubstantiated claims that went without challenge.

Mr Musk repeated his endorsement of Trump, who faces a resurgent new Democratic candidate, Vice-President Kamala Harris, in November’s election.

He blamed the glitches on a cyber-attack but one expert told the BBC that was unlikely.

The conversation on X comes as Trump, the former president and Republican presidential nominee, is trying to reset his re-election campaign.

The entry of Ms Harris after President Joe Biden stepped aside has tightened the race for the White House.

Mr Musk meanwhile has become an increasingly influential voice in politics.

• Who is Elon Musk and what is his net worth?

He has recently become involved in a new political committee supporting Trump’s campaign.

“America is at a fork in the road and you are the path to prosperity and I think Kamala is the opposite,” said Mr Musk in one exchange.

The two men touched on a range of issues, from the assassination attempt on Trump last month at a Pennsylvania rally, to his wanting the US to get an “Iron Dome” missile defence system like the one in Israel as well as immigration, a key plank of his campaign.

Trump also mused about closing the federal Department of Education and moving that responsibility to the states as one of his first acts if he wins the election in November.

The relationship between Mr Musk and Trump has shifted over the years and they have traded online barbs in the past.

• How Musk and Trump put aside their differences

But Monday’s conversation between the two was chummy and there was a lot of mutual praise.

Trump, who has been sceptical of electric vehicles and previously vowed to roll back federal subsidies, praised car-maker Tesla, which Mr Musk also owns.

He recently said he had “no choice” but to support EVs because of Mr Musk’s endorsement and called the Tesla product “great” on Monday.

Many observers detected a difference in Trump’s voice which sounded like he had a lisp, but a spokesman for the Trump campaign said it was no different from normal.

However the Musk-Trump conversation got off to a less than auspicious start.

As many users struggled to access the livestream, Mr Musk blamed “a massive DDoS attack on X” for the problems in a post.

Distributed denial of services attacks – or DDoS attacks – are attempts to overload a website to make it hard to use or inaccessible.

“A DDoS attack sends a very large number of signals to an online target to disrupt it,” Anthony Lim, Director of the Centre for Strategic Cyberspace and International Studies in Singapore, told the BBC.

“It is unlikely it would affect only one single service or feature on a website.”

Mr Lim added that it is possible that a large number of people trying to listen could have temporarily crashed the service.

However, Andrew Hay from IT firm Damovo said the problems could have been caused by a cyber-attack.

The glitchy beginning was reminiscent of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ entry into the White House race in May 2023, which was held on X and saw the livestream malfunction.

Monday marked something of a return to X/Twitter for Trump, who was removed from the platform shortly after the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot.

Besides a flurry of campaign advertisements on Trump’s account on Monday, he had only posted once – his mug shot and a link to his campaign site – a year ago after Mr Musk reactivated his X account in 2022.

It’s not clear whether Trump, who frequently posts on his Truth Social site, would continue to post more frequently on X.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote

• ANALYSIS: Three ways Trump will try to end Harris honeymoon

• SWING STATES: Where the election could be won and lost

• POLICY: Why Trump and Harris both say ‘no tax on tips’

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

An artwork appearing on the shutters of London Zoo has been confirmed as the latest and final image in Banksy’s surprise animal art trail across the capital.

It shows a gorilla lifting the shutter to release a sea lion and birds, while other animals appear to look on from the inside.

It is the ninth Banksy to appear in as many days in London and follows images that have popped up each morning since 5 August of a goat, elephants, monkeys, a wolf, pelicans, a cat, piranhas and a rhinoceros.

A London Zoo spokesperson said it was “absolutely brilliant” and said the work would be preserved.

Daniel Simmonds, London Zoo’s animal operations manager, said: “Banksy has become part of the London scene and it’s really nice to share his iconic status with, ultimately, one of the most iconic zoos in the entire world.

“We’re quite honoured he’s chosen to use our front shutters this morning to put one of his incredible artworks.

“I think it’s absolutely brilliant,” he told BBC News.

He said staff had no idea Banksy was planning the work at this location.

“That’s part of the amazing enigma of Banksy and that’s why it’s so exciting to come in this morning,” Mr Simmonds added.

Security guards have been brought in to secure a barrier that has been put up around the mural.

Mr Simmonds said the shutter would remain closed today and two others used instead, so that visitors could look at the work.

“It’s really important we share this with everybody.”

He added he was expecting extra people to visit on Tuesday in addition to the thousands who had already booked.

“It’s going to be a busy day.”

Mr Simmons later confirmed that the artwork would be protected.

“We’ll definitely preserve it. We might even look at putting some perspex around it.

“The last thing we want with typical London weather, having just come through one of the worst winters ever, is to see this damaged by the weather.”

He added it was likely to remain in the same location for the immediate future but might then be relocated to elsewhere on the site.

The pledge to protect the latest image follows the removal or partial defacing of several other works in the series.

Banksy’s depiction of a rhinoceros mounting a Nissan Micra with a traffic cone on its bonnet in Charlton was seen being sprayed with a white dollar and “v” sign on Monday, soon after it was unveiled.

Royal Borough of Greenwich said it was “a real shame that a mindless vandal has defaced the mural, which has already drawn visitors and brought so much joy to many.

“The council is now considering what would be reasonably possible for the future of the artwork and will be closely monitoring it.”

A worker has since been seen installing a protective cover over the mural on Westmoor Street.

The car and traffic cone have been removed. However, it is not known why or who was responsible.

Last week, a satellite dish with a picture of a howling wolf on it – the fourth image in the series – was apparently stolen from a garage roof in Peckham.

And a disused billboard in Cricklewood that featured Banksy’s image of a stretching cat – the sixth image of the series – was taken down for safety reasons.

The BBC has been told by Banksy’s team the latest work is the final piece of the series, which has captured the attention of Banksy followers for more than a week.

The artist appears to have installed the works overnight at each occasion.

Crowds have been seen gathering after passers-by have spotted the works each morning, with many posting photos on social media.

Typically, Banksy has confirmed he is behind the creations at 13:00 BST each day, however, he announced the latest work on his Instagram page on Tuesday morning.

A handbag made from alligator skin and tiny vials of perfume that still release a potent scent are just some of the precious artefacts recovered from the world’s most famous shipwreck – the Titanic.

The exact location of the warehouse where they are stored is a closely guarded secret, because of the value of its contents. All we can say is that it is somewhere in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States.

Inside, the shelves are packed with thousands of items: from an upturned bathtub and dented porthole, to intricately etched glassware and tiny buttons.

The BBC was given a rare chance to look around the storage facility and discover the stories behind some of these objects.

“It’s a really beautiful, fashionable little bag,” says Tomasina Ray, director of collections for RMS Titanic Inc, the company that has recovered these artefacts. The US firm has the salvage rights to the ship and over the years has retrieved 5,500 items from the wreck site, a selection of which are put on display around the world.

The bag is made from alligator skin, which has survived decades in the depths of the North Atlantic. The delicate items inside have been preserved too, revealing details of the life of its owner – a third-class passenger called Marian Meanwell.

“She was a 63-year-old milliner,” says Tomasina. “And she was travelling to the US to be with her daughter who was recently widowed.”

Among the mementos inside was a faded photograph, thought to be Marian Meanwell’s mother.

There was also paperwork she would need for her new life in America, including a handwritten reference letter from her former landlord in London. It states: “We have always found Miss Meanwell to be a good tenant, prompt with payment.”

Her medical inspection card was inside too, as all third-class passengers needed to prove they weren’t bringing disease into the US. But this water-stained document reveals a tragic twist of fate.

Marian Meanwell was booked on the Majestic – another White Star Line ship. But it didn’t sail, so on the card, Majestic is crossed out and her passage shows that she was transferred to the Titanic and became one of 1,500 people to lose their lives.

“Being able to tell her story and have these objects is really important,” says Tomasina.

“Otherwise she’s just another name on the list.”

Items that belonged to survivors have also been brought back from the deep.

Tomasina opens a plastic container and a sickly-sweet smell fills the air. “It’s very potent,” she admits.

Inside are tiny vials of perfume. They are sealed, but their strong aroma escapes, even after decades on the seafloor.

“There was a perfume salesman on board and he had over 90 of these little perfume vials,” Tomasina explains.

His name was Adolphe Saalfeld and he had been travelling as a second-class passenger.

Saalfeld was one of the 700 people who survived. But with women and children prioritised during the evacuation, some men who made it off the ship were left troubled.

“He had passed by the time we found this,” says Tomasina. “But it’s my understanding that he did live with a bit of guilt – survivor’s guilt.”

Also in the collection is a champagne bottle – complete with champagne inside and a cork in the top.

“A little bit of water probably would have gotten in through the cork as it compressed and equalised the pressure. And then it just sat on the bottom of the ocean,” says Tomasina.

When the Titanic sank in 1912, after striking an iceberg, the ship split apart and its contents spilled out, creating a vast debris field.

“There are a lot of bottles on the ocean floor and a lot of stock pots and kitchen pots too, because Titanic actually broke up around one of the kitchens,” says Tomasina.

There were thousands of bottles of champagne on board. The liner’s owner wanted its first-class passengers to experience the ultimate in opulence, with sumptuous surroundings and the finest food and drink.

“It was like a floating palace and Titanic was supposed to be the most luxurious liner,” says Tomasina.

“So having champagne, having a gym, having all these amenities and these great things for the passengers would have been really important to them.”

The Titanic was on her maiden voyage, travelling from Southampton to the US, when she hit the iceberg.

The ship had advanced safety features for the time and was famously said to be unsinkable.

Tomasina shows us some of the ship’s rivets, chunky metal pins that held its thick steel plates together. There would have been more than three million of them.

“When Titanic sank, there was a theory that they were using substandard materials perhaps, and that’s what caused it to sink faster,” Tomasina explains.

Some of these rivets have been tested to see if they contain any impurities.

“There were high concentrations of slag in these, which is a glass-like material that makes them maybe a little bit more brittle in the cold,” she says.

“If these rivets were brittle, and one of the rivet heads popped off more easily, then it could have allowed the seam to open up where the iceberg hit and made it bigger than it otherwise would have been.”

Tomasina says there is still much to learn about exactly how the ship sank.

“We’re able to help look into the theories, so being able to contribute to the science and that story behind it is something that we’re very happy to do.”

Life on board was different for the social classes – even down to the cups and plates they would drink from and eat off.

A white third-class mug is simple and sturdy, with a bright red White Star logo. A second-class plate has a pretty blue floral decoration and looks a little finer. But a first-class dinner plate is made of more delicate china. It has a gold trim and, under the light, you can catch a glimpse of an intricate garland pattern.

“That pattern would have been coloured but, because it was coloured over the glaze, it was able to wash away,” says Tomasina.

The wealthy first-class passengers were given silver service for their meals – but in third class, it was a different story.

“Third-class passengers would have probably handled the china themselves – it was definitely meant to be much more stable and much more roughly handled than the other china,” explains Tomasina.

RMS Titanic Inc is the only company legally allowed to recover items from the site – it was granted this right by a US court in 1994. But it has to do this under strict conditions – the items must always remain together, so they cannot be sold off separately, and they have to be properly conserved.

Until now, all of the artefacts have been collected from the debris field. But recently the firm has stirred up controversy stating its desire to retrieve an object from the ship itself – the Marconi radio equipment which transmitted the Titanic’s distress calls on the night of the sinking.

Some believe the wreck is a grave site and should be left alone.

“Titanic is something that we want to respect,” Tomasina says in response.

“We want to make sure that we’re preserving the memory, because not everyone can go down to Titanic, and we want to be able to bring that to the public.”

More room could soon be needed on the shelves of this secret warehouse.

The company’s latest expedition to the site has involved taking millions of images of the wreck to create a detailed 3D scan.

And, as well as surveying the current condition of the Marconi radio room, the team have also been identifying objects in the debris field that they would like to retrieve in future dives.

Who knows what they will find and what untold stories each item may reveal about the ill-fated Titanic and her passengers.

A pilot who died after they crashed a stolen helicopter into a hotel in Australia had attended a party with staff members the night before, their employer has said.

The helicopter belonged to Queensland-based helicopter tour agency Nautilus Aviation who said the employee had been celebrating at a private send-off with colleagues hours before the crash.

Nautilus added that the individual was licensed to fly helicopters in New Zealand but had never flown in Australia.

The pilot was killed in the accident, while two hotel guests were taken to hospital in a stable condition.

In a statement to the BBC, Nautilus said the individual had recently been promoted to a “ground crew position” at another of the company’s bases.

On Sunday night, the pilot joined colleagues at a private send-off, which was also attended by off-duty pilots. Nautilus clarified that this was “not a work event and was coordinated by friends”.

Nautilus added that the individual later gained “unauthorised access to our helicopter hangar”.

The helicopter hit the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel in the northern Queensland city of Cairns at around 01:50 local time on Monday (16:50 BST Sunday), sparking a fire and forcing the evacuation of about 400 guests.

Authorities say the only occupant of the helicopter died at the scene, and two hotel guests – a man in his 80s and a woman in her 70s – were taken to hospital in a stable condition.

Amanda Kay, who was staying in the hotel on the main esplanade in Cairns, described seeing a helicopter flying “extra low”, without lights in rainy weather.

“[It] has turned round and hit the building,” she said, adding that the aircraft “blew up”.

Another bystander said she saw the helicopter fly past the hotel twice in the moments before the collision.

“Boy that was going fast, that helicopter. Unbelievable,” a woman said, in video showing the fiery aftermath of the crash.

“It was just going out of control, that thing was.”

Two of the helicopter’s rotor blades came off on impact, landing on the esplanade and in the hotel pool, according to Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS).

Nautilus Aviation said in its statement that it had completed interviews with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and the Queensland Police Service (QPS), and had cooperated with full transparency on its disclosure of the events leading up to and following the incident.

“We offer our heartfelt condolences to the individual’s family and all who have been affected by this tragedy and continue to offer our support to our employees during this very challenging period,” the statement said.

“We will continue to work very closely with QPS and the ATSB as they investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident.”

Located in northern Queensland, the city of Cairns is a popular tourist destination due to its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef.