Israel has strongly rejected criticism from world leaders after its security cabinet approved a plan to take control of Gaza City.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said countries that condemned Israel and threatened sanctions would “not weaken our resolve”.

“Our enemies will find us as one strong, united fist that will strike them with great force,” he added.

Israel’s decision to expand its war in Gaza sparked condemnation from the UN and several countries including the UK, France and Canada, and prompted Germany to halt military exports to Israel.

The plan, approved by the Israeli security cabinet, lists five “principles” for ending the war: disarming Hamas, returning all hostages, demilitarising the Gaza Strip, taking security control of the territory, and establishing “an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority”.

Reports in Israeli media say the plan initially focuses on taking full control of Gaza City, relocating its estimated one million residents further south. Forces would also take control of refugee camps in central Gaza and areas where hostages are thought to be held.

A second offensive would follow weeks later in parallel with a boost in humanitarian aid, media say.

The move to escalate the conflict has drawn fierce opposition from some within Israel, including from military officials and the families of hostages being held in Gaza.

Hamas has said the plan to occupy Gaza City “constitutes a new war crime” and will “cost [Israel] dearly”.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk warned that further escalation would “result in more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering, senseless destruction and atrocity crimes”.

In other reaction:

• UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer called the move “wrong”, saying it would “only bring more bloodshed”

• Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong urged Israel “not to go down this path”, saying it would “only worsen the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”

• Turkey’s foreign ministry urged the world community to prevent Israel’s plan which aimed to “forcibly displace Palestinians from their own land”

• In China, a foreign ministry spokesperson told AFP news agency: “Gaza belongs to the Palestinian people and is an inseparable part of Palestinian territory”.

Netanyahu told German Chancellor Friedrich Merz he was disappointed with Berlin’s decision to suspend arms exports to Israel, saying it was “rewarding Hamas terrorism”.

In Israel itself, families of the remaining hostages in Gaza have warned that the lives of the 20 believed to have survived will be put in peril.

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

The US has been less critical. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said it was “pretty much up to Israel” whether to fully occupy the Gaza Strip.

The IDF currently controls about three-quarters of Gaza, and almost all of its 2.1 million citizens are situated in the quarter of the territory that the military does not control.

The UN estimates some 87% of Gaza is either in militarised zones or under evacuation orders.

There are areas in central Gaza and along the Mediterranean coast that Israel does not occupy, according to the UN.

These include refugee camps, where much of Gaza’s population is now living after their homes were destroyed by Israel’s military action.

The vast majority of Gaza’s population has already been displaced by the war, many people several times over.

The war has created a humanitarian disaster in Gaza, most of which UN-backed experts say is at the point of famine.

The territory is also experiencing mass deprivation as a result of heavy restrictions imposed by Israel on what is allowed in – something it says is aimed at weakening Hamas.

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said July was the worst month for cases of acute malnutrition in children in Gaza, affecting nearly 12,000 under the age of five.

The war began after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 back to Gaza as hostages. Israel launched a massive military offensive in response, which has killed at least 61,158 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

Eleven domestic workers have been arrested in Hong Kong on suspicion of “child destruction” and illegal abortions, police have said.

The women, in their 30s and 40s, were rounded up after one was found at her employer’s home with a dead foetus, later confirmed to be at least 28 weeks old.

Police also found drugs they suspected were abortion pills – which eventually led them to the 10 other women.

Five have since been charged, while five are on bail and one has been remanded in custody for further investigation. If found guilty of the most serious charge, child destruction, they could face a life sentence.

The investigation began in June after paramedics were called to help a 39-year-old domestic worker, who had collapsed at her employer’s home.

Paramedics then found the foetus hidden in a laundry basket in her room, police said, which had not been born alive.

When questioned, the woman admitted buying the pills from a friend – another foreign domestic worker.

She was arrested in July, with police eventually carrying out a series of raids between 29 July and 8 August, during which another eight domestic workers were detained.

Inspector Lam Ho-yin, of the Yuen Long district crime squad, said it did not appear to be a crime syndicate. Instead, preliminary findings showed “the 32-year-old foreign domestic helper… brought them back from another country” and had been allegedly selling them on.

It is not clear what each woman – whose nationalities police would not reveal – has been accused of.

Abortion is legal in Hong Kong, but only under strict conditions – under 24 weeks when continuing with the pregnancy would damage the mother’s life, or if health is at risk, or in the case of severe foetal abnormality. Over 24 weeks, abortions can only be carried out if the mother’s life is in danger.

People found guilty of supplying or using drugs for abortion can face up to seven years of jail time.

On Friday, police asked employers to get their domestic workers to speak to a medical professional if they were pregnant.

Hong Kong hosts some 368,000 foreign domestic workers, according to government statistics. Most – some 55% – come from the Philippines, while 42% are from Indonesia.

Most earn a government-fixed monthly minimum wage of HK$4,990 (US$636; £473).

A fast-growing wildfire northwest of Los Angeles has prompted mandatory evacuations for thousands of residents, as extreme heat and dry conditions fuel its rapid spread.

The blaze, named the Canyon Fire, ignited on Thursday afternoon along the border of Ventura and Los Angeles counties. By Friday morning, it had expanded from 30 acres to nearly 5,000 acres.

More than 2,700 residents have been asked to evacuate, while a further 14,000 people have been given evacuation warnings, the Ventura County Fire Department said in a statement.

The fire has been partially contained, with 25% of its perimeter under control as of Friday, officials said.

Extreme heat and dry conditions are complicating firefighting efforts. The National Weather Service forecasts temperatures to soar to 100°F (37.7°C) in the coming days.

The city of Santa Clarita, one of the closest to the blaze, is on high alert. City officials have urged residents to stay away from fire-affected areas.

“The #CanyonFire is spreading fast under extreme heat & dry conditions near Ventura–LA County line,” LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger wrote on X.

“If you’re in Santa Clarita, Hasley Canyon, or Val Verde, take evacuation orders seriously – when first responders say GO, leave immediately. Keep aware–please don’t risk lives.”

As of Thursday evening, there were no reported injuries or residences damaged by the blaze, the LA County Fire Department said.

The Canyon Fire is one of several active wildfires across the state, according to California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

The Gifford Fire, the largest active blaze in the state, has engulfed almost 100,000 acres and is burning across the San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.

Wildfires have become more frequent in California, with experts citing climate change as a key factor. Hotter, drier conditions have made fire seasons longer and more destructive.

In January this year, the Eaton Fire tore through the Altadena neighbourhood just north of Los Angeles, killing at least 31 people and destroying thousands of structures.

Hee-kyung giggles as she steps into Seoul’s new “warm-hearted convenience store”.

At 29, she is perhaps not the person most would have imagined wanting to take advantage of the South Korean capital’s latest efforts to combat loneliness.

But Hee-Kyung visits every day to grab the free instant ramen noodles and spend hours chatting with other visitors and social workers.

“I tell myself, ‘another day, another escape from feeling lonely’,” Hee-kyung says.

A teenage runaway, she no longer talks to anyone from her family. The friends she has she met online, through the shared love of K-pop group SuperJunior, and they live far away. Currently unemployed, she has no work mates to chat to.

She lives alone, and whiles away the time watching cute animal videos on her phone as she lies on the floor.

“I have no other place to go if it weren’t for [the store].”

Hee-Kyung is one of 20,000 people to visit the four stores since they were opened in March. The city had been expecting just 5,000 in the first year.

This particular location, in the city’s north-eastern district of Dongdaemun, sees around 70 to 80 visitors each day.

Most are in their 40s and 50s, but Hee-Kyung is far from being the only young person to access the store’s services.

A 2022 study revealed an estimated 130,000 young people in the city – those aged between 19 and 39 – are either socially isolated or shut in. That same study also found the share of single-person households in the capital had reached nearly 40% – that alarmed a government that has been trying to reverse plummeting birth and marriage rates.

The day the BBC visited, around a dozen visitors – men and women, young and old – were sitting on benches or burrowed into beanbags, watching a film together.

“We have movie days to encourage low-level bonding,” whispers Kim Se-heon, the manager of the city’s Loneliness Countermeasure Division.

The stores are designed to offer a warm, cafe-like atmosphere. In one corner, an older woman closed her eyes as she sank into the automatic massage chair that hummed. In another, there are stacks of noodles.

“Ramen is a symbol of comfort and warmth in South Korea,” Kim explains.

While waiting for the noodles to cook, visitors are asked to fill out a brief survey on their mood and living conditions.

These are just a handful of the growing number of socially isolated people that the city is trying to reach.

The change South Korea has undergone is seismic: in a generation, it has gone from a war-torn agrarian society to a developed economy.

A few decades ago, it was common to see large families with six to eight children, living under the same roof. But years of migration to cities have shrunk families and turned places like Seoul into sprawling metropolises.

Unaffordable housing, rising costs and gruelling working hours have led more and more young people to reject marriage or parenthood, or both. On the other end is an ageing population that feels neglected by children who are racing to keep up.

“You know the saying that the least tasty meal is the one you are having alone? I ask older people who come in if they were eating okay. They would tear up, just being asked that question,” says Lee In-sook, the counsellor at the store.

After a divorce and her grown-up children leaving home, she understands how it feels to be alone.

The first time Hee-kyung – who is around the age of In-sook’s daughter – arrived at the store, she immediately caught her eye.

Like many visitors, Hee-kyung was quiet on the first day, barely speaking to others. The second time she came, she began to speak to In-sook.

It was the growing number of “lonely deaths” that worried Seoul officials enough to act. Older people were dying alone at home, and their bodies were not discovered until days or weeks later.

That mission soon expanded to tackling loneliness itself. But Seoul is not the first to do this.

In 2018, the UK appointed a Minister for Loneliness. Japan followed the example, establishing an agency to address the problem which it said had become more pronounced in the Covid-19 pandemic.

The phenomenon of withdrawing from society altogether is common enough in Japan that it has a name: hikikomori. In South Korea too, a rising number of young people have been voluntarily cutting themselves off from a highly competitive and exacting society.

“Perhaps it was the pandemic that led to this,” muses Lee Yu-jeong, who manages one of Seoul’s anti-loneliness programmes.

She points out how her children remain buried in their smartphones when their friends visit. “People today express how difficult it is to have a network of friends. Loneliness has become something that needs to be tackled as a society.”

The first step was opening a hotline for people who need someone to speak to. A nationwide survey in 2023 found that a third of Korean adults have either no one to ask for help with housework or speak to when feeling sad.

Its counselors offer a 40-minute call to discuss any topic. Park Seung-ah has been making three calls a day from her cubicle.

“I was surprised to see that many young people wanted these sessions. They want to share the burden on their chest but there is often a power dynamic with parents or their friends. So they come to us.”

The “warm-hearted convenience stores” followed swiftly, a physical location where the lonely were welcome.

The Dongdaemun location was picked due to its proximity to low-income housing, where residents live in tiny, subdivided apartments alone.

Sohn, 68, visits the store once a week to watch films, and to escape his cramped home.

“[The stores] should have opened before I was born. It’s good to spend even just two to three hours,” he says.

Sohn has spent more than five decades of his life caring for his mother, who suffered a brain aneurism when he was a child. As a result, he never married or had children.

The cost of the dedication became clear when she died.

Penniless and walking with a cane since suffering a brain haemorrhage himself several years ago, he says there aren’t many places for him.

“Places cost money, going to the cinema costs money,” he says.

The stores were created specially to welcome those who aren’t welcome in other places, explains store manager Lee Bo-hyun.

They go beyond a bit of room and a film – offering air-conditioning during the hottest summer months to those on low incomes who cannot afford it at home.

It is also supposed to be a space where the lonely can sidestep the stigma of asking for help. The choice of name – “convenience stores” – was a deliberate attempt to distance them from psychiatric clinics, important in a country where there is still a stigma against asking for help for mental health – especially among older residents.

And yet, some of their reservations can still be seen when they walk through the door for the first time, compounded by their experience of isolation.

Visitors are often uncomfortable speaking to another person or eating together initially, store manager Lee says.

“The typical loneliness, if that repeats for days, months, and half year, that is now more than a feeling,” Lee explains.

“Those folks start to avoid places with people. So many people ask us if they can take the ramen to go because they won’t eat with others.”

Lee would tell them that they don’t need to talk. They can simply sit at the same table and have noodles.

It has been months since Hee-kyung was one of the quiet new arrivals.

So, has it made a difference? In-sook recalls a conversation she was having with a local paper. When she brought up her daughter, she felt a sudden pang and her voice broke.

“I am going to hug you,” Hee-kyung declared.

She walked over from the other side of the room and embraced In-sook.

Astronaut Jim Lovell, who guided the Apollo 13 mission safely back to Earth in 1970, has died aged 97.

Nasa said he had “turned a potential tragedy into a success” after an attempt to land on the Moon was aborted because of an explosion onboard the spacecraft while it was hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth.

Tens of millions watched on television as Lovell and two other astronauts splashed back down into the Pacific Ocean, a moment which has become one of the most iconic in the history of space travel.

Lovell, who was also part of the Apollo 8 mission, was the first man to go to the Moon twice – but never actually landed.

Acting Nasa head Sean Duffy said Lovell had helped the US space programme to “forge a historic path”.

In a statement, Lovell’s family said: “We will miss his unshakeable optimism, his sense of humor, and the way he made each of us feel we could do the impossible. He was truly one of a kind.”

One Saturday, a 16-year-old hauled a heavy, three-foot tube into the middle of a large field in Wisconsin.

He had persuaded his science teacher to help him make a makeshift rocket. Somehow, he had managed to get his hands on the ingredients for gunpowder – potassium nitrate, sulphur and charcoal.

He pulled on a welder’s helmet for protection. He packed it with powder, struck a match and ran like hell.

The rocket rose 80 feet into the air and exploded. Had the chemicals been packed slightly differently, he would have been blown to pieces.

For Jim Lovell, this was more than a childish lark.

In achieving his dream to be a rocket scientist, he would become an American hero. But it was not going to be easy.

James Arthur Lovell Jr was born on 25 March 1928 – just a year after Charles Lindbergh made his historic trip across the Atlantic.

“Boys like either dinosaurs or airplanes,” he said. “I was very much an airplane boy.”

When he was five years old, his father died in a car accident.

His mother, Blanche, worked all hours, struggling to keep food on the table. University was well beyond their financial reach.

The answer was the US Navy, which was hungry for new pilots after World War Two. It was not building rockets but at least it involved flying.

Lovell signed up to a programme that sent him to college at the military’s expense while training as a fighter pilot.

Two years in, he gambled and switched to the Navy Academy at Annapolis, on Chesapeake Bay, in the hope of working with his beloved rockets.

It was a lucky decision.

A few months later, the Korean War broke out and his former fellow apprentice pilots were sent to South East Asia. Many never got to finish their education.

Marriage was banned at Annapolis and girlfriends discouraged. The navy did not want its midshipmen wasting their time on such frivolities.

But Lovell had a sweetheart. Marilyn Gerlach was the high school girl he had shyly asked to the prom.

Women were not allowed on campus and trips outside were limited to 45 minutes. Somehow the relationship survived.

Just hours after his graduation in 1952, the newly commissioned Ensign Lovell married her.

They would be together for more than 70 years, until Marilyn’s death in 2023.

He did everything he could to advertise his love of rocketry.

His thesis at the Navy Academy was in the unheard-of topic of liquid-fuel engines. After graduation, he hoped to specialise in this pioneering new technology.

But the navy had other ideas.

Lovell was assigned to an aircraft carrier group flying Banshee jets off ships at night. It was a white-knuckle, high-wire business fit only for daredevils. But for Lovell, it was not enough.

In 1958, he applied to Nasa.

Project Mercury was America’s attempt to place a man in orbit around the Earth. Jim Lovell was one of the 110 test pilots considered for selection but a temporary liver condition put paid to his chances.

Four years later, he tried again.

In June 1962, after gruelling medical tests, Nasa announced its “New Nine”. These would be the men to deliver on President Kennedy’s pledge to put American boots on the Moon.

It was the most elite group of flying men ever assembled. They included Neil Armstrong, John Young and, fulfilling his childhood dream, Jim Lovell.

Three years later he was ready.

His first trip into space was aboard the two-man Gemini 7. Lovell and fellow astronaut Frank Borman ate a steak-and-eggs breakfast and blasted off.

Their mission: to find out if men could survive two weeks in space. If not, the Moon was out of reach.

With the endurance record complete, Lovell’s next flight was in command of Gemini 12 alongside space rookie Buzz Aldrin.

This time they proved that man could work outside a spacecraft. Aldrin clambered awkwardly into the void, spending five hours photographing star fields.

Now for the Moon itself.

The crew of Apollo 8 would be the first to travel beyond low Earth orbit and enter the gravitational pull of another celestial body.

It was Nasa’s most dangerous mission yet.

The Saturn V rocket that shot Lovell, Borman and William Anders out of our atmosphere at 25,000mph (40,233km/h) was huge – three times larger than anything seen on the Gemini programme.

As navigator, Lovell took with him a sextant to take star readings – in case the computers failed and they had to find their own way home.

Sixty-eight hours after take-off, they made it.

The engines fired and Apollo 8 slid silently behind the Moon. The men heard a crackle in their headsets as the radio signal to Mission Control faltered and then failed.

The spellbound astronauts pinned themselves to the windows, the first humans to see the far side of our nearest celestial neighbour. And then, from over the advancing horizon, an incredible sight.

“Earthrise,” gasped Borman.

“Get the camera, quick,” said Lovell.

It was Christmas Eve 1968.

America was mired in Vietnam abroad and civil unrest at home. But at that moment, it seemed that humanity was united.

The people of the world saw their planet as the astronauts saw it – fragile and beautiful, shining in the desolation of space.

Lovell read from the Book of Genesis, the basis of many of the world’s great religions, to the people of the Earth.

“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”

For him, it was an image that changed our world forever. He put his thumb against the window and the whole world disappeared behind it. It was the most moving experience of his life.

As the spacecraft re-emerged from the darkness, Lovell was first to announce the good news. “Please be advised,” he said as the radio crackled back into life, “there is a Santa Claus.”

At that very moment, 239,000 miles away, a man in a blue Rolls-Royce pulled up outside Lovell’s house in Houston.

He walked past the dozens of reporters camped outside and handed a box to Marilyn.

She opened the star-patterned tissue paper and pulled out a mink jacket. “Happy Christmas,” said the card that came with it, “and love from the Man in the Moon.”

They went up as astronauts and came down celebrities. The people of the Earth had followed their every move on TV.

There were ticker tape parades, congressional honours and a place on the cover of Time Magazine. And they had not even set foot on the Moon.

That honour went, of course, to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

A year later, Kennedy’s dream was posthumously seen to fruition. A small step was taken and mankind took its giant leap. The New Nine had done their job.

In April 1970, it was Jim Lovell’s turn. Fortunately, the crew of Apollo 13 did not believe in unlucky numbers.

Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise were men of science – highly trained and determined to follow Armstrong and Aldrin to the lunar surface. But things went badly wrong.

They were 200,000 miles above the Earth and closing in on their target when they spotted low pressure in a hydrogen tank. It needed a stir to stop the super cold gas settling into layers.

Swigert flicked the switch. It should have been a routine procedure but the command module, Odyssey, shuddered. Oxygen pressure fell and power shut down.

“I believe we’ve had a problem here,” said Swigert. Lovell had to repeat the message to a stunned Mission Control: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

It was one of the greatest understatements of all time. The crew were in big trouble – a dramatic explosion had disabled their craft.

Haise and Lovell worked frantically to boot up the lunar module, Aquarius.

It was not supposed to be used until they got to the Moon. It had no heat shield, so could not be used to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. But it could keep them alive until they got there.

The world stopped breathing and watched.

For a second time, Jim Lovell had brought the world together as one. The first time it had been for Earthrise, the second would be to witness his fight to survive.

“For four days,” said Marilyn, “I didn’t know if I was a wife or a widow.”

Temperatures fell to freezing, food and water were rationed. It was days before they limped back to the fringes of Earth’s atmosphere. They climbed back aboard the Odyssey and prayed the heat shield had not been damaged.

The radio silence that accompanies re-entry went on far longer than normal. Millions watched on TV, many convinced that all was lost.

After six agonising minutes, Jack Swigert’s voice cut through the silence.

The team on the ground held its breath until the parachutes deployed and the crew was safely down.

The mission was Nasa’s greatest failure and, without question, its finest hour.

Lovell retired from the navy in 1973 and opted for a the quiet life, working for the Bay-Houston Towing Company, giving speeches and serving as president of the National Eagle Scout Association.

His book, Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, became the famous 1995 movie, starring Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell.

For the film, the director asked him to dress up as an admiral. It was for a cameo scene, shaking hands with Hanks when the crew were rescued from the sea.

But the old American hero was not having it.

Jim Lovell had been to the Moon twice, witnessed Earthrise and narrowly avoided a cold death in space – and saw no reason to falsely burnish his .

He took out his old navy uniform, dusted it down and put it on for the cameo appearance.

“I retired as a captain,” he insisted, “and a captain I will be.”

This searing biography of Prince Andrew crackles with scandals about sex and money on almost every page, two subjects that have always caused problems for the royals.

Andrew Lownie’s book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, is an unrelentingly unflattering portrait of Prince Andrew. It depicts him as arrogant, self-seeking and in denial about his links to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The author’s best-selling biographies have a habit of changing the reputation of famous figures, such as establishing the Nazi intrigues around the Duke of Windsor, the former Edward VIII.

Although in the case of Entitled, he hasn’t so much cemented Prince Andrew’s reputation, as put it in concrete boots and thrown it in the river. It is hard to see how he might come back from this.

This account, more than 450 pages, is said to have taken four years to research, involving hundreds of interviews. And for anyone thinking they have heard much of this story before, it is the extra and sometimes unexpected, throwaway details that will make this a fascinating read.

Like comedian Billy Connolly and Sir Elton John being at Prince Andrew’s stag night. Or film maker Woody Allen being at the same dinner with Prince Andrew at Epstein’s house in Manhattan.

This detail tallies with a piece in the New York Times this week that quotes a birthday greeting written by Allen to Epstein, which references “even royalty” being at one of Epstein’s dinners.

To rapidly lose some mid-life weight, when he was going out with a younger woman, the book records that Prince Andrew lived on a crash diet of “stewed prunes for breakfast, raw vegetables for lunch and soup for supper”.

About their academic ability, the book says that Prince Andrew and Sarah passed two O-levels at their respective expensive private schools. Andrew had to re-take exams the following year before going on to take A-levels.

Now in disgrace, Prince Andrew is claimed to spend his time, when not riding or golfing, cooped up watching aviation videos and reading thrillers, with The Talented Mr Ripley said to be his favourite. It is about a con-man taking on the identity of a wealthy playboy.

There are some more gentle anecdotes about him, such as when he was a helicopter pilot and ferried a group of soldiers from a rifle range and decided to put down on the Sandringham estate.

Queen Elizabeth II, who was in residence, was said to have looked at the guns being toted by these unexpected arrivals. “You can put those in there if you like,” she said, pointing to an umbrella stand.

But the biography is much more crowded with anecdotes about his rudeness and his acute lack of self awareness, not to mention a prodigious number of quick-fire affairs.

It is claimed he swore at and insulted staff, bawling someone out as an “imbecile” for not using the Queen Mother’s full title. Protection officers were despatched to collect golf balls and private jets seemed to be hired as casually as an Uber on a night out.

The Paris-based journalist Peter Allen, among the sources for the book, says many of Andrew’s problems reflect on his “flawed character”.

“He’s been afforded every type of privilege, all his life, while displaying very poor judgement and getting into highly compromising situations.”

Known as “Baby Grumpling” in his early years, Andrew was claimed to have moved people from jobs because one was wearing a nylon tie, and another because he had a mole on his face.

Diplomats, whose cause Andrew was meant to be advancing, nicknamed him “His Buffoon Highness” because of all the gaffes.

There are details of his unhappy knack of getting involved with all the wrong people in his money-making ventures, from Libyan gun runners and relations of dictators to a Chinese spy.

“This book appears to seal the fate of Andrew if he was ever hoping to be reinstated officially into the working royals,” says royal commentator Pauline Maclaran.

“The public will be wanting to see some clear action on the King’s part I think – particularly as Andrew’s connections to Epstein are raked over again,” says Prof Maclaran.

If this seems like a torrent of bad news, the book also raises some deeper questions about what lies behind Prince Andrew’s character.

There are suggestions of an often lonely and isolated figure, obsessed with sex but much weaker at relationships. Sources from his time in the navy saw his “bombastic” exterior as concealing a much more vulnerable and socially awkward figure, whose upbringing had made him unsure how to behave.

He showed authentic courage when he flew helicopters in the Falklands war and he was remembered as being willing to “muck in” during that stressful time, when crews were living on canned food rather than fine dining.

On his fascination for sex, an unnamed source claims Andrew lost his virginity at the age of 11, which the same source likens to a form of abuse.

One of his former naval colleagues went from seeing Andrew as “immature, privileged, entitled” to having a more sympathetic view of a character of “loneliness and insecurity”, a public figure who was uncertain about how he fitted in with other people, and had ended up with the “wrong sort of friends”.

Top of that list must be Jeffrey Epstein. Lownie’s book offers meticulous detail of the connections between Prince Andrew and the US financier and sex offender, establishing links that went back to the early 1990s, earlier than had previously been established.

It is also strong on the unbalanced nature of their relationship, with a friend of Andrew’s describing the prince’s dealings with Epstein as “like putting a rattlesnake in an aquarium with a mouse”.

Epstein’s sleazy and abusive world, with its mix of easy money and exploitative sex, was ultimately a form of blackmail operation, claims Lownie’s book. It gave him something to hold over the many powerful people who came into his orbit.

The book is a reminder of the scale and seediness of Epstein’s exploitation of girls. It is also an account of the destruction that followed.

The famous photograph showing Virginia Giuffre with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell in London was supposedly taken by Jeffrey Epstein. Prince Andrew is the only one of them not to be either dead or in prison.

And Lownie’s sources cast doubt on whether Epstein did take his own life, questioning the medical evidence and the series of unfortunate gaps in supervision in the jail where he was being held.

After his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview and the court case with Virginia Giuffre – which he settled with a rejection of any wrongdoing – Prince Andrew has been pushed out of public life, no longer a “working royal”.

Historian Ed Owens says it is almost six years since that Newsnight interview, but Prince Andrew is still appearing in news stories “for all the wrong reasons”.

“This isn’t good for the monarchy,” he says, even though “King Charles and Prince William have sought to limit the reputational damage Andrew can have on ‘brand Windsor’,” says Owens.

Standing loyally beside Prince Andrew has been Sarah Ferguson, who describes their relationship as being “divorced to each other, not from each other”, still living together at Royal Lodge.

The book depicts her as being in an endless loop of binge spending, debt and then convoluted deals, sponsorships and freebies, to try to get her finances on track, before the cycle begins again.

But there is no doubting her remarkable capacity to keep bouncing back and to keep on plugging away, when others would have been down and out years ago.

She has a sense of fun that appeals to people. The book tells how successful she was at boosting sales as an ambassador for Waterford Wedgwood, then owned by Tony O’Reilly. She was described by staff as “brilliant at working a room, fresh, chic and wasn’t stuffy”.

The book is already riding high in the best-seller charts and royal commentator Richard Palmer says it raises difficult topical questions.

“It puts Andrew back at the front and centre of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal at a time when Donald Trump is facing serious questions about his own friendship with the late paedophile,” says Palmer.

“It’s a scandal that just won’t go away for the Royal Family, even though they’ve tried to distance themselves from Andrew,” he says.

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US Vice President JD Vance is taking his holiday in the UK – a trip which will include visits to the Cotswolds, Scotland and, to kick it all off, a few days staying with Foreign Secretary David Lammy at his grace-and-favour country home, Chevening House in Kent.

It would seem an unlikely friendship on the face of it. One grew up in north London, the other in rust-belt Ohio.

One is a left-wing advocate of multi-culturalism, the other a conservative who has, albeit jokingly, referred to the UK as “the first truly Islamist country” with a nuclear bomb.

Yet, despite their differences Lammy and Vance appear to be the best of friends.

As he settled in for a brief chat with the media in the drawing room at Chevening alongside the foreign secretary, Vance spoke warmly of their relationship.

“I have to say that I really have become a good friend, and David has become a good friend of mine,” he said. “Our families enjoy each other’s company very much, which always helps.”

Chevening is set in 3,000 acres of land, including a maze and lake, which was the first destination for the two families on Friday morning, for a spot of fishing.

Vance joked this activity put “a strain on the special relationship” with his children all catching carp, while the foreign secretary came away empty-handed.

Lammy didn’t seem bitter, telling the vice president he was “delighted” to welcome him and his family to 115-room Chevening, which he described as “my home”.

Strictly speaking, the 17th century manor house belongs to the nation, but cabinet ministers, particularly foreign secretaries, are allowed to use it for family getaways or meetings with foreign dignitaries.

The vice president seemed suitably impressed with his friend’s weekend retreat.

Vance acknowledged the two men come from “different political spectrums” but said Lammy had been “kind enough to make time on a visit to [Washington] DC, we got to know each other a little bit then”.

Since that first meeting, when Lammy was in opposition and Vance had just been elected to the US Senate, they have met regularly including at the new Pope’s inauguration in May.

Last week, Lammy told the Guardian he, Vance and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner bonded over drinks in the Villa Taverna, the US ambassador’s residence in Rome.

“I had this great sense that JD completely relates to me and he completely relates to Angela. So it was a wonderful hour and a half,” he said. “I was probably the shyest of the three.”

He said that, like Vance, Rayner and himself were “not just working-class politicians, but people with dysfunctional childhoods”.

Lammy’s parents split up during his teens. His father went to the US and Lammy never saw him again.

Vance told the story of his own upbringing – including an absent father and a mother with a drug addiction – in his bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy.

Despite their trickier starts in life, both ended up at prestigious US colleges. Lammy studied at Harvard, where he met and befriended Barack Obama. Vance went to Harvard’s rival Yale – “not quite as good,” Lammy joked at Chevening.

The two men have also bonded over their Christian faith. Vance converted to Catholicism as an adult and took mass with Lammy when he visited Washington DC earlier this year.

The pair have something else in common, although neither want to to draw attention to it: their previous less-than-flattering comments about Donald Trump.

JD Vance’s past verdict – “reprehensible”, “an idiot”, “I never liked him”.

And Lammy’s? “A tyrant” and “a woman-hating, neo Nazi sympathising sociopath”.

Be it political expediency or a genuine change of heart, both have since revised their opinions.

But how far do personal relations matter, when there are so many other factors at play – be it national self interest in the case of tariffs, or differences of opinion such as over the situation in Gaza?

Bronwen Maddox the CEO of the Chatham House international affairs think tank says they do, “particularly under this administration”.

“Trump has deliberately personalised these things,” she adds.

That is why Lammy – despite his natural affiliation with the Democratic Party in the US – was tasked with building bridges with their Republican opponents, even before the general election.

Although that might have appeared a tall order, Chair of Republicans Overseas Greg Swenson says his party tend to feel fonder towards the UK than the Democrats.

Vance and Trump have criticised the UK in the past, but Swenson says it “comes from a good place”.

“Both want what’s best for the UK… you never want to see your friend make a mistake.”

However, if Lammy thinks his friendship with Vance is exclusive he may be disappointed.

The vice president is also meeting Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform UK’s Nigel Farage has hinted that he may be as well.

In between meeting UK politicians, Vance will be squeezing in a trip to the Cotswolds – something that may infuriate those Americans, such as TV chat show host Ellen DeGeneres, who fled to the area specifically to escape Trump and his acolytes.

There have also been reports that singer-rapper couple Beyonce and Jay-Z have been house-hunting in the area.

Explaining the appeal of the region to wealthy Americans, writer Plum Sykes told the BBC’s PM programme it combines the desire for countryside with the need for glamour.

“Americans can’t go to Wales and survive in the same way they can in the Cotswolds where you can get a matcha latte and go to a gyrotonics class.

“The business of the private jet people at Cotswolds airport has gone through the roof.”

Vance is reported to be staying in a house, very close to Diddly Squat – the farm and pub belonging to broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson.

That sets up the possibility of an awkward encounter between the two. Clarkson has previously lambasted Vance, with “a bearded god-botherer” being among his more printable insults.

But a friendship might still flower, after all forming unlikely relationships seems to be as fashionable as the Cotswolds at the moment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Scientists have found strong evidence of a giant gas planet in the nearest star system to our own.

At four-and-a-half light years away, the lifeless planet would be a close neighbour to Earth in astronomical terms and could have moons that sustain life.

The signs were found in the star system Alpha Centauri by the powerful James Webb Space Telescope.

The potential planet was detected last year, but it had disappeared in follow-up observations. Astronomers must now look again to prove it definitely exists.

Scientists are particularly excited about this discovery because of the similarities between the exoplanet’s star and our Sun.

“Four years is a long way but in galaxy terms, it’s very close – it’s in our neighbourhood,” said Dr Carly Howett, associate professor of space instrumentation at the University of Oxford.

“It is around a star that is Sun-like and about the same temperature and brightness. That’s really important if we want to think about habitable worlds,” she added.

The planet would be similar to our solar system’s gas giants, Saturn and Jupiter, and would be enveloped in a thick gas cloud.

That means it could not support life itself, but it could have moons that are habitable.

Jupiter and some other planets in our solar system have icy moons, which researchers believe could support life.

Scientists are currently investigating that possibility on missions called Europa Clipper and Juice.

But those planets are far away from our life-giving Sun. The potential “new” planet is comparatively close to its star.

The signs were found in direct imaging by the James Webb Space Telescope, which is the closest thing scientists have to taking photographs of distant objects.

“These are incredibly challenging observations to make, even with the world’s most powerful space telescope, because these stars are so bright, close, and move across the sky quickly,” said Charles Beichman from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and co-first author of the new discoveries.

Those stars create huge amounts of bright light that can block out nearby objects.

That could be why the planet was detected once, in August 2024, but then seemingly disappeared when scientists looked for it again.

“Probably the planet was either behind the star or too close to be able to see it. You need an element of luck,” said Dr Howett.

Astronomers will now look for more signs of the planet. They hope to use a new Nasa telescope – the Grace Roman Space Telescope – which is due to start operating in 2027.

Future observations by the James Webb Space Telescope should also be able to tell us what the planet is made up of, using something called spectral imaging.

That will build up a more detailed picture of what it looks like, and how habitable any orbiting Moons could be.

Elon Musk’s AI video generator has been accused of making “a deliberate choice” to create sexually explicit clips of Taylor Swift without prompting, says an expert in online abuse.

“This is not misogyny by accident, it is by design,” said Clare McGlynn, a law professor who has helped draft a law which would make pornographic deepfakes illegal.

According to a report by The Verge, Grok Imagine’s new “spicy” mode “didn’t hesitate to spit out fully uncensored topless videos” of the pop star without being asked to make explicit content.

The report also said proper age verification methods – which became law in July – were not in place.

XAI, the company behind Grok, has been approached for comment.

XAI’s own acceptable use policy prohibits “depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner”.

“That this content is produced without prompting demonstrates the misogynistic bias of much AI technology,” said Prof McGlynn of Durham University.

“Platforms like X could have prevented this if they had chosen to, but they have made a deliberate choice not to,” she added.

This is not the first time Taylor Swift’s image has been used in this way.

Sexually explicit deepfakes using her face went viral and were viewed millions of times on X and Telegram in January 2024.

Deepfakes are computer-generated images which replace the face of one person with another.

In testing the guardrails of Grok Imagine, The Verge news writer Jess Weatherbed entered the prompt: “Taylor Swift celebrating Coachella with the boys”.

Grok generated still images of Swift wearing a dress with a group of men behind her.

This could then be animated into short video clips under four different settings: “normal”, “fun”, “custom” or “spicy”.

“She ripped [the dress] off immediately, had nothing but a tasselled thong underneath, and started dancing, completely uncensored, completely exposed,” Ms Weatherbed told BBC News.

She added: “It was shocking how fast I was just met with it – I in no way asked it to remove her clothing, all I did was select the ‘spicy’ option.”

Gizmodo reported similarly explicit results of famous women, though some searches also returned blurred videos or with a “video moderated” message.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify the results of the AI video generations.

Ms Weatherbed said she signed up to the paid version of Grok Imagine, which cost £30, using a brand new Apple account.

Grok asked for her date of birth but there was no other age verification in place, she said.

Under new UK laws which entered into force at the end of July, platforms which show explicit images must verify users’ ages using methods which are “technically accurate, robust, reliable and fair”.

“Sites and apps that include Generative AI tools that can generate pornographic material are regulated under the Act,” the media regulator Ofcom told BBC News.

“We are aware of the increasing and fast-developing risk GenAI tools may pose in the online space, especially to children, and we are working to ensure platforms put appropriate safeguards in place to mitigate these risks,” it said in a statement.

Currently, generating pornographic deepfakes is illegal when used in revenge porn or depicts children.

Prof McGlynn helped draft an amendment to the law which would make generating or requesting all non-consensual pornographic deepfakes illegal.

The government has committed to making this amendment law, but it is yet to come into force.

“Every woman should have the right to choose who owns intimate images of her,” said Baroness Owen, who proposed the amendment in the House of Lords.

“It is essential that these models are not used in such a way that violates a woman’s right to consent whether she be a celebrity or not,” Lady Owen continued in a statement given to BBC News.

“This case is a clear example of why the Government must not delay any further in its implementation of the Lords amendments,” she added.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Sexually explicit deepfakes created without consent are degrading and harmful.

“We refuse to tolerate the violence against women and girls that stains our society which is why we have passed legislation to ban their creation as quickly as possible.”

When pornographic deepfakes using Taylor Swift’s face went viral in 2024, X temporarily blocked searches for her name on the platform.

At the time, X said it was “actively removing” the images and taking “appropriate actions” against the accounts involved in spreading them.

Ms Weatherbed said the team at The Verge chose Taylor Swift to test the Grok Imagine feature because of this incident.

“We assumed – wrongly now – that if they had put any kind of safeguards in place to prevent them from emulating the likeness of celebrities, that she would be first on the list, given the issues that they’ve had,” she said.

Taylor Swift’s representatives have been contacted for comment.

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News of the Israeli government’s decision to take over Gaza City is being met not surprisingly with despair in Gaza. Gaza City, its capital, is on a countdown to oblivion.

Assuming that Hamas does not capitulate in the coming weeks – and there are currently few signs of this happening – then the Israeli military is set to embark on a devastating new phase of the war.

For Gaza City, where an estimated one million civilians still live, the prospects are bleak.

Hundreds of thousands are people who were forced to flee during the early months of the war but who returned in January when a ceasefire raised hopes of an end to the fighting.

They spent more than a year away from their homes, driven from one location to another, living in increasingly desperate conditions.

When they returned to the north, many found their homes destroyed and their neighbourhoods erased. But they settled down where they could, believing the war might finally be over.

But life in the city, hard enough already, deteriorated rapidly after Israel broke the ceasefire in mid-March and cut off aid supplies, triggering the worst humanitarian crisis of the conflict.

Now it seems a new cycle is about to unfold.

The Israeli government is once again going to attempt to force Gaza City’s entire population to move south, a process which reports suggest could be completed in two months.

Expect to see curfews, evacuation orders and convoys of exhausted civilians on the road once more.

Last time, evacuees were able to seek shelter in cities like Khan Younis and Rafah. But those cities have been almost entirely obliterated, raising serious questions about where fleeing civilians will live.

Israel says more aid will be available, but has given few details.

Meanwhile, the story of Gaza City may soon echo that of Rafah.

In May 2024, Israel cut off the southern city and ordered its civilian population – around one million people – to leave. Most fled northwest to the coastal area known as al-Mawasi.

The US president at the time, Joe Biden, said an invasion of Rafah would represent a “red line” for his administration.

But with the civilian population mostly gone, the Israeli military proceeded to destroy Rafah, arguing that the presence of Hamas fighters and infrastructure made it necessary to cleanse the city.

A year on, a once-bustling city barely exists.

Unless there’s a diplomatic breakthrough before early October, what remains of Gaza City may go the same way.

That will leave the fate of the Gaza Strip’s “middle camps” – Nuseirat, Bureij and Deir-el-Balah – hanging in the balance.

Israeli officials say there is no current plan to invade and occupy the camps, which, though they have been attacked multiple times, have yet to experience the worst of the war.

But if Hamas remains a presence there, especially if it still holds hostages, then there’s no reason to think the same story won’t unfold there too.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, believes he can, and must, achieve all this in pursuit of total victory over Hamas.

A civilian population of two million people can still be forced to move out of the way, ordered this way and that and more or less kept alive through the chaotic – and in the case of distribution points frequently lethal – provision of minimal amounts of aid, while the places they call home are systematically destroyed.

A majority of Israelis oppose it for what it means for the fate of the remaining 50 hostages, around 20 of whom are thought to be alive.

Much of the world is looking on in horror. Israel’s diplomatic isolation looks set to deepen.

Netanyahu’s conquest of Gaza could even test the patience of his loyal ally in the White House.

But after defeating Hezbollah in Lebanon, helping to bring about the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and delivering a devastating set of blows against its arch enemy Iran, Israel has confirmed its status as a regional superpower, capable of taking on and defeating multiple enemies.

After the brutal humiliation inflicted by Hamas in October 2023, Netanyahu now seems emboldened and ready to take risks.

Who, he may be wondering, is going to stop him?

Residents of Gaza City have told the BBC they are living in fear after the Israeli government announced plans to takeover the territory’s largest city.

“We are peaceful civilians. We have nothing to do with what is happening. Netanyahu knows that,” said resident Abu Mohammad.

“All this pressure is on us, not on Hamas. The movement’s leaders and their families are abroad. They’re not here among us.”

Under the plans announced last night – and agreed by Israel’s security cabinet – the Israeli military would take control of Gaza City, home to hundreds of thousands of people, with a view, it says, to disarming Hamas, freeing the hostages, and establishing security control over the Strip.

The plan has been met with heavy condemnation by much of the international community, with United Nations (UN) human rights chief Volker Türk saying it would “result in more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering, senseless destruction and atrocity crimes”.

One woman, speaking to a BBC team on a busy Gaza City street, said it was “going to be totally disastrous”.

“And it’s going to be a death sentence to every Palestinian, I think the whole population in Gaza will be killed, either by bombardment or by hunger.”

Local resident Dr Hatem Qanoua said: “We’re collapsing across every aspect of life: food, education, healthcare. Even if the war ends, we’ll suffer for years.”

He added: “I’m very afraid for my children and all the innocent people who may die. I’m over fifty, if I die, it doesn’t matter. But what about the children? They’ve never lived a normal life. They’ve only known death, destruction, and deprivation.”

More than 61,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the Israeli military began its operation, in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Since the start of 2025, at least 99 people, including 29 children under the age of five, have died of malnutrition, according to the World Health Organization – which says its figures are likely underestimates.

Many residents told the BBC they were fearful of being displaced from their homes – or the temporary shelters they are staying in – if the plan goes ahead.

Sabrine Mahmoud said: “I will not leave my house. We will not live through displacement again. We left Gaza City for a whole year and endured the harshest humiliation in al-Mawasi. We will not repeat the mistake. Let them destroy the house over our heads – we will not leave.”

Abu Mustafa said Israel has “turned evacuation into a game: ‘Leave here, now go there.'”

Another resident, Um Ahmad Shalah, said: “We won’t evacuate, because when we did, we saw torture.

“We want the Arab countries, Trump, and all other nations to have mercy on us and stand with us, and feel for us. We cannot provide a kilo of flour for our children. We cannot afford to buy it.”

But some Palestinians also directed anger at Hamas, for what they said was a failure to negotiate an end to the war.

Ehab al-Helou, Gaza City resident and social media influencer, wrote online: “I swear to God, Hamas leaders are living in a science fiction world. Have mercy on the people. Who are you to decide to sacrifice us?”

Activist and resident Khalil Abu Shammala accused the group of “choosing suicide” and taking Gaza’s population with it, saying Hamas was “clinging to power over our dead bodies”.

Other residents said they were indifferent to the new plan, saying the Israeli military already had control over their lives.

“What are they threatening? Gaza is occupied. We are in a cage, they are surrounding the cage, and we are inside it,” said one man.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

US Vice-President JD Vance has raised questions about the UK’s plans to recognise a Palestinian state, in a meeting with Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

The UK has said it will formally recognise a Palestinian state in September if Israel does not meet certain conditions.

But US President Donald Trump has not followed suit and believes that recognising Palestinian statehood would be rewarding Hamas.

The difference in approach to the war in Gaza is among the issues being discussed by Vance and Lammy at the foreign secretary’s official country residence, Chevening House, in Kent on Friday.

Speaking alongside Lammy, Vance said: “The United Kingdom is going to make its decision.

“We have no plans to recognise a Palestinian state.

“I don’t know what it would mean to really recognise a Palestinian state – given the lack of a functional government there.”

The vice-president said the US administration wanted to see Hamas eradicated so Israeli civilians were not attacked again, but also to solve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Vance said while the UK and US shared focus and goals, there were “disagreements” which would be discussed at Chevening.

Lammy said he was concerned about Israel’s intention to take over more of Gaza.

The foreign secretary said: “What we all want to see is a ceasefire – what we all want to see are the hostages come out.

“We are hugely concerned by the humanitarian suffering that we are seeing in Gaza particularly.”

Striking a warm tone, Vance spoke of his love for England and praised his “good friend” the foreign secretary.

He said Britain and the US should work together to “bring greater peace” to the world as the two countries “have a lot in common”.

The pair are meeting for talks at the residence during Vance’s family holiday to the UK.

The two men went carp fishing in a pond near the 17th century house on Friday morning. Vance said he and his children caught fish but Lammy did not.

“Unfortunately, the one strain on the special relationship is that all of my kids caught fish, but the foreign secretary did not,” the vice-president said.

The Vance family is expected to spend most of their break in the Cotswolds and are also planning to visit Scotland.

Lammy and Vance have been meeting regularly on official trips since the foreign secretary started in his role last year, and they have bonded over their difficult childhoods and shared Christian faith.

But Vance has been critical of the UK over free-speech issues.

In a speech in February, Vance accused European governments – including the UK’s – of retreating from their values, and ignoring voter concerns on migration and free speech.

He claimed that a “backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons” under threat, and attacked the use of laws to enforce buffer zones around abortion clinics.

When asked about those criticisms, he said his concerns related more widely to “the entire collective West”.

Vance said: “Obviously, I’ve raised some criticism and concerns about our friends on this side of the Atlantic, but the thing that I say to the people of England, or anybody else, to David, is many of the things that I worry most about were happening in the United States from 2020 to 2024.

“I just don’t want other countries to follow us down what I think is a very dark path under the Biden administration.”

The other major area for discussion this weekend is Ukraine and the possibility of a meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to discuss the conflict.

Lammy has insisted there can’t be talks unless there is a ceasefire to end Russia’s war against Ukraine.

What Lammy, and other European nations, fear is that Putin will seek to use Trump to force terms on Ukraine without its presence at the table, and in a way that seriously undermines Europe’s security.

The vice president’s UK visit comes a few weeks after Trump travelled to Scotland, on a private visit to his golf courses.

Trump met Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as well as EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, agreeing a trade deal with the bloc, and will return for a full state visit in September.

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

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

Several world leaders have condemned the plan, and the UN has warned it would lead to “more massive forced displacement” and “more killing”.

Hamas warned of “fierce resistance” to the move.

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

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

A statement released by the office of the Israeli prime minister said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would “prepare for taking control of Gaza city”.

It also outlined what it said were five “principles” for ending the war:

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

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

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

Hamas has said the approval of plans to occupy Gaza “constitutes a new war crime”.

“We warn the criminal occupation that this criminal adventure will cost it dearly and will not be an easy journey,” it said in a statement on Friday.

Before the cabinet meeting Netanyahu said he wanted Israel to control all of Gaza, but in the new plan only Gaza City is mentioned.

Reports in Israeli media suggest there were heated exchanges with the army’s chief of staff, who voiced his strong opposition to a full takeover of Gaza.

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

The plan aims to have Israeli forces move to take control of the largest city in the enclave, which has already been heavily damaged by Israeli bombing and ground offensives.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Netanyahu is being “intentionally vague” over which “Arab forces” he believes could run Gaza, according to the BBC’s chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet, as he has been in the past with his plans for the territory.

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

No more details have been shared regarding a timeline for Gaza’s post-takeover government.

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

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

On Friday Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz said his government will not approve any exports of military equipment to Israel that could be used in Gaza until further notice.

He said it was “increasingly difficult to understand” how the Israeli military plan would help achieve legitimate aims. Historically, Germany has been one of the largest arms suppliers to Israel.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas has described the move as a “fully-fledged crime”.

Turkey’s foreign ministry said Israel aims to “forcibly displace Palestinians from their own land”.

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

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

However, the US has been much less critical. On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said it was “pretty much up to Israel” whether to fully occupy Gaza, and Washington’s Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said that the plan is not America’s concern.

“It’s not our job to tell them what they should or should not do,” he said.

The banning of high street fashion adverts which featured models who looked “unhealthily thin” has led industry experts to warn of a return to the super skinny trend.

The aesthetic characterised by models with hollow faces and protruding bones was seen in the 1990s and early 2000s but in more recent years been pushed aside to allow space for the body positive movement which embraced curves.

However Zara, Next and Marks & Spencer have all had adverts banned in recent months over models who “appeared unhealthily thin”. The advertising watchdog has told the BBC it has seen a “definite uptick” in complaints about such ads.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said in 2025 it had received five or six of these complaints a week but in the two weeks after July’s M&S ad ban it had more than 20.

In 2024 it received 61 complaints about models’ weight but it only had grounds to investigate eight.

The figures are tiny but it is something the watchdog is keeping a close eye on, along with cracking down on illegal adverts for prescription-only weight loss drugs.

ASA guidelines state that advertisers should ensure that they don’t present an unhealthy body image as aspirational.

Model and activist Charli Howard wrote a viral open letter after being dropped by her modelling agency for being “too big” despite being a UK size six to eight.

A decade on she says: “I think we’re on the cusp of seeing heroin chic return.”

The phrase heroin chic was used in the early 1990s, when some models were extremely thin, pale and had dark under eye circles reminiscent of drug use.

Ms Howard says the high street adverts are as worrying as images being shared on social media as “thinspiration”.

In June, TikTok blocked search results for “skinnytok” – a hashtag which critics say directs people towards content which “idolises extreme thinness.”

“Some women are naturally thin, and that’s absolutely fine. But deliberately hiring models who appear unwell is deeply disturbing,” she said.

The ASA in all its recent rulings, did not deem any models to be unhealthy. In the case of Next it acknowledged that in other shots of the same model she appeared healthy. Instead it said the pose, styling and camera angles made each of the models in the retailers adverts appear thinner.

M&S said the model’s pose was chosen to portray confidence and ease and not to convey slimness. Next said the model, while slim, had a “healthy and toned physique”.

Zara, which had two adverts banned last week, said that both models had medical certification proving they were in good health.

The ASA said that shadows, poses, and a slick back bun hairstyle had been used to make the models appear thinner.

“Lighting definitely plays a role – it can bring out cheekbones, collarbones, and ribcages,” Ms Howard said.

“After the body positivity movement of the 2010s, it was sadly inevitable fashion might swing back… and we know just how harmful it can be,” she said.

For model and yoga teacher Charlotte Holmes, the demand for thinner models is nothing new.

During her 20-year career she noticed “a brief moment of increased inclusivity” but was still turned down for jobs for “not being thin enough.”

“The body positivity movement raised awareness, but it didn’t fully change the system. Now, it feels like we’re back where we started,” she says.

The 36-year-old was crowned Miss England in 2012 and came fourth in Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model in 2010.

She believes “ultra-thin” has always remained the “silent standard” for models.

“Terms like ‘heroin chic’ and trends like ‘skinnytok’ show how quickly harmful ideals can resurface. It’s not progress, it’s repetition,” she says.

Fashion journalist and consultant Victoria Moss does not think we are facing “heroin chic” but instead connects the trend to the rise of weight loss injections.

“What’s happening at the moment across broader culture is about thinness being held up as a moral health imperative, driven by the fervour over GLP-1 weight loss medication,” she says.

Ms Moss acknowledged many celebrities, like Kim Kardashian and Oprah Winfrey, have visibly shrunk before our eyes.

But she still thinks it is unusual to see very slim models in High Street fashion campaigns, saying it is “more a catwalk phenomenon”.

“I think in all these cases the models have been very young, it must be incredibly upsetting for them to become the focus of these banned adverts. Many women are naturally very slim and it is wrong to cast aspersions,” she says.

Simone Konu-Rae stylist and senior lecturer in fashion communication at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London says while it is important to “appreciate that the human body comes in a range of shapes and sizes”, being thin is not necessarily back in fashion “it simply never went away”.

“High Street brands use runway models to elevate their collections,” she reckons.

“The High Street is saying ‘look, we have the same model as your favourite luxury brand, and our products look just as good at a fraction of the price’,” she adds.

Ms Konu-Rae says the problem is not that the models aren’t healthy but that this is “not the norm for many people, and trying to achieve this body type can be harmful.

“Showing more body diversity is key to showing people they can be fashionable and stylish without having to change who they are,” she says.

Personal stylist Keren Beaumont says the comeback of nineties fashion – such as ultra-low rise jeans and strappy slip tops – could be to blame.

“With these re-emerging trends in silhouettes, we see hip bones and chests exposed and in keeping with the original presentations of these silhouettes, these are being shown on very, very thin models,” she says.

“My hope is that the recent imagery from Next, M&S and Zara will be a reminder to brands to maintain the diversity we have seen in models in recent years and not to regress back to outdated standards.”

Matt Wilson at the ASA says the issue highlighted brands’ responsibilities and “the thoughtfulness they need to take”.

“Societally we know there’s a problem with eating disorders and we must continue to ban adverts that may cause harm.”

Climbing into a 1965 Ford Transit is like stepping into a time capsule on wheels.

Forget your modern high-tech nicknacks like satnavs and touchscreens. All you get here is a steering wheel, a big chrome-lined speedometer dial and a chunky heater control. There isn’t even a radio.

Out on the road, it rattles and bangs and occasionally jumps out of gear.

Disconcertingly, there’s no seatbelt, the seat itself has an alarming tendency to move around, and the brakes don’t seem to do very much at all.

Beautiful as it is, it’s hard to imagine that this elderly machine was ever state of the art.

Yet when the original Transit first rolled off the production line at Ford’s plant in Langley, Berkshire, on 9 August 1965, it was a revelation.

By the standards of the day, it was remarkably spacious, powerful and practical. It was comfortable, had sharp handling, and put existing vans such as the Morris J4 firmly in the shade.

Sixty years later, the Transit has been redesigned many times, but the brand itself is still going strong. It remains a staple for many small businesses, even in an age when “white vans” are ten a penny, and the market is rife with competition.

It is the world’s best-selling van – and more than 13 million have been built so far.

“There are lots of iconic cars: the Morris Minor, the Mini, the Land Rover, the VW Beetle, but there’s only one iconic van, and that’s the Transit,” says Edmund King, president of the AA.

“It’s probably the only van that people really know”.

Originally a collaboration between Ford’s engineers in the UK and Germany, and primarily aimed at the British and European markets, the Transit was designed to be as versatile as possible.

It rapidly became a staple for tradespeople, including builders, carpenters, electricians and delivery drivers.

But it also appealed to others looking for spacious, cheap transport – including aspiring rock bands. It was almost a rite of passage. Among those who spent time on the road in one were Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, the Small Faces and Slade.

“It was the freedom to go where you want, when you want. Petrol was a lot cheaper than it is now,” says Peter Lee, founder of the Transit Van Club.

“I ended up in Spain, lived in one for 13 months as a hippy on a strawberry farm, then came back and started a business. Before you know it, I had 180 workers in 28 Transit vans driving around London.”

The Transit’s speed and loading space also appealed to people on the wrong side of the law.

In 1972, so the story goes, a Metropolitan Police spokesman claimed Transits were being used in 95% of bank raids, adding that its speed and loading space meant it had become the perfect getaway vehicle. This, he commented drily, made it “Britain’s most wanted van”.

Meanwhile the stereotype of the bullying “white van man”, defined by Sunday Times reporter Jonathan Leake in 1997 as “a tattooed species, often with a cigarette in his mouth, who is prone to flashing his lights as he descends on his prey”, did not specifically target Transit drivers.

But given how many of them were on the road by then, it is a fair bet they were implicated.

For nearly half a century, Transits were built in Britain – first at Langley, then at a factory just outside Southampton. But this closed in 2013, as Ford removed production to Turkey, where it said costs were “significantly lower”. It was a controversial move that put hundreds of employees out of work. It was described by unions as a ‘betrayal’.

Today, Ford continues to highlight both the Transit’s British heritage and the work that still takes place here, especially at its UK headquarters in Dunton, Essex.

“Dunton is the home of the Transit,” insists Ford of Britain’s managing director, Lisa Brankin

“It’s where we manage all the engineering and design work for the new vans. But we also build our diesel engines in Dagenham, just down the road, and we make power packs for electric vans in Halewood, near Liverpool.”

Most of the company’s European production remains in Turkey, and that looks unlikely to change.

“It’s about efficiency and just centring manufacturing into one place, rather than having multiple sites across Europe,” Ms Brankin explains.

Much of the activity at Dunton now is focused on what the next generation of Transit vans will bring. But will there ever be another radical game-changer like the original model?

“We’re working on it,” says director of commercial vehicle development Seamus McDermott, when I ask him that question.

He believes that what customers want from a van has not really changed in 60 years. It is still all about having a reliable set of wheels that is versatile and cheap to run. But the way that goal is achieved is now very different.

“Electric vehicles are cheaper to run and cheaper to repair,” he says.

“Also, when we bring in more software defined, ‘smarter’ vehicles, the ability to manage fleets remotely will help bring down costs as well. So the revolution will be about propulsion and software.”

But while the Transit brand has already endured for 60 years, today it is heading into an uncertain future, according to AA president Edmund King.

“In the 60s, 70s and 80s, if someone’s father had a Transit, they would get a Transit,” he says.

“I think that’s changing now. There’s more competition across the van market, and therefore brand loyalty is certainly not as strong as it used to be.”

Hee-kyung giggles as she steps into Seoul’s new “warm-hearted convenience store”.

At 29, she is perhaps not the person most would have imagined wanting to take advantage of the South Korean capital’s latest efforts to combat loneliness.

But Hee-Kyung visits every day to grab the free instant ramen noodles and spend hours chatting with other visitors and social workers.

“I tell myself, ‘another day, another escape from feeling lonely’,” Hee-kyung says.

A teenage runaway, she no longer talks to anyone from her family. The friends she has she met online, through the shared love of K-pop group SuperJunior, and they live far away. Currently unemployed, she has no work mates to chat to.

She lives alone, and whiles away the time watching cute animal videos on her phone as she lies on the floor.

“I have no other place to go if it weren’t for [the store].”

Hee-Kyung is one of 20,000 people to visit the four stores since they were opened in March. The city had been expecting just 5,000 in the first year.

This particular location, in the city’s north-eastern district of Dongdaemun, sees around 70 to 80 visitors each day.

Most are in their 40s and 50s, but Hee-Kyung is far from being the only young person to access the store’s services.

A 2022 study revealed an estimated 130,000 young people in the city – those aged between 19 and 39 – are either socially isolated or shut in. That same study also found the share of single-person households in the capital had reached nearly 40% – that alarmed a government that has been trying to reverse plummeting birth and marriage rates.

The day the BBC visited, around a dozen visitors – men and women, young and old – were sitting on benches or burrowed into beanbags, watching a film together.

“We have movie days to encourage low-level bonding,” whispers Kim Se-heon, the manager of the city’s Loneliness Countermeasure Division.

The stores are designed to offer a warm, cafe-like atmosphere. In one corner, an older woman closed her eyes as she sank into the automatic massage chair that hummed. In another, there are stacks of noodles.

“Ramen is a symbol of comfort and warmth in South Korea,” Kim explains.

While waiting for the noodles to cook, visitors are asked to fill out a brief survey on their mood and living conditions.

These are just a handful of the growing number of socially isolated people that the city is trying to reach.

The change South Korea has undergone is seismic: in a generation, it has gone from a war-torn agrarian society to a developed economy.

A few decades ago, it was common to see large families with six to eight children, living under the same roof. But years of migration to cities have shrunk families and turned places like Seoul into sprawling metropolises.

Unaffordable housing, rising costs and gruelling working hours have led more and more young people to reject marriage or parenthood, or both. On the other end is an ageing population that feels neglected by children who are racing to keep up.

“You know the saying that the least tasty meal is the one you are having alone? I ask older people who come in if they were eating okay. They would tear up, just being asked that question,” says Lee In-sook, the counsellor at the store.

After a divorce and her grown-up children leaving home, she understands how it feels to be alone.

The first time Hee-kyung – who is around the age of In-sook’s daughter – arrived at the store, she immediately caught her eye.

Like many visitors, Hee-kyung was quiet on the first day, barely speaking to others. The second time she came, she began to speak to In-sook.

It was the growing number of “lonely deaths” that worried Seoul officials enough to act. Older people were dying alone at home, and their bodies were not discovered until days or weeks later.

That mission soon expanded to tackling loneliness itself. But Seoul is not the first to do this.

In 2018, the UK appointed a Minister for Loneliness. Japan followed the example, establishing an agency to address the problem which it said had become more pronounced in the Covid-19 pandemic.

The phenomenon of withdrawing from society altogether is common enough in Japan that it has a name: hikikomori. In South Korea too, a rising number of young people have been voluntarily cutting themselves off from a highly competitive and exacting society.

“Perhaps it was the pandemic that led to this,” muses Lee Yu-jeong, who manages one of Seoul’s anti-loneliness programmes.

She points out how her children remain buried in their smartphones when their friends visit. “People today express how difficult it is to have a network of friends. Loneliness has become something that needs to be tackled as a society.”

The first step was opening a hotline for people who need someone to speak to. A nationwide survey in 2023 found that a third of Korean adults have either no one to ask for help with housework or speak to when feeling sad.

Its counselors offer a 40-minute call to discuss any topic. Park Seung-ah has been making three calls a day from her cubicle.

“I was surprised to see that many young people wanted these sessions. They want to share the burden on their chest but there is often a power dynamic with parents or their friends. So they come to us.”

The “warm-hearted convenience stores” followed swiftly, a physical location where the lonely were welcome.

The Dongdaemun location was picked due to its proximity to low-income housing, where residents live in tiny, subdivided apartments alone.

Sohn, 68, visits the store once a week to watch films, and to escape his cramped home.

“[The stores] should have opened before I was born. It’s good to spend even just two to three hours,” he says.

Sohn has spent more than five decades of his life caring for his mother, who suffered a brain aneurism when he was a child. As a result, he never married or had children.

The cost of the dedication became clear when she died.

Penniless and walking with a cane since suffering a brain haemorrhage himself several years ago, he says there aren’t many places for him.

“Places cost money, going to the cinema costs money,” he says.

The stores were created specially to welcome those who aren’t welcome in other places, explains store manager Lee Bo-hyun.

They go beyond a bit of room and a film – offering air-conditioning during the hottest summer months to those on low incomes who cannot afford it at home.

It is also supposed to be a space where the lonely can sidestep the stigma of asking for help. The choice of name – “convenience stores” – was a deliberate attempt to distance them from psychiatric clinics, important in a country where there is still a stigma against asking for help for mental health – especially among older residents.

And yet, some of their reservations can still be seen when they walk through the door for the first time, compounded by their experience of isolation.

Visitors are often uncomfortable speaking to another person or eating together initially, store manager Lee says.

“The typical loneliness, if that repeats for days, months, and half year, that is now more than a feeling,” Lee explains.

“Those folks start to avoid places with people. So many people ask us if they can take the ramen to go because they won’t eat with others.”

Lee would tell them that they don’t need to talk. They can simply sit at the same table and have noodles.

It has been months since Hee-kyung was one of the quiet new arrivals.

So, has it made a difference? In-sook recalls a conversation she was having with a local paper. When she brought up her daughter, she felt a sudden pang and her voice broke.

“I am going to hug you,” Hee-kyung declared.

She walked over from the other side of the room and embraced In-sook.

Multiple pro-women’s basketball games were interrupted in the past several days after sex toys were thrown onto courts, leaving players and coaches frustrated and fans puzzled.

Two of the instigators are now facing criminal charges and the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) has condemned such behaviour.

This week, members of a meme-coin group reportedly claimed responsibility for some of the incidents in which brightly coloured dildos were thrown onto the court or bench area during games.

Players and coaches are concerned about safety, and the meaning and hostility behind the incidents.

The game between the Atlanta Dream and the Chicago Sky was paused in the closing seconds Thursday night after a purple sex toy was tossed from the stands onto the court.

While individuals in the stands were reportedly questioned, no one was arrested. The WNBA has said any fan caught throwing sex toys onto the court would be banned from the league and would face prosecution.

The exact number of incidents is unclear because in some instances, items are thrown but do not reach the court or the bench.

“It’s super disrespectful,” Chicago Sky player Elizabeth Williams said after a similar incident last week. “I don’t really get the point of it. It’s really immature. Whoever is doing it needs to grow up.”

Minnesota Lynx Head Coach Cheryl Reeve called the increasing number of incidents a “distraction”.

“This has been going on for centuries,” she told reporters on Thursday. “The sexualization of women. This is the latest version of that. And it’s not funny and it should not be the butt of jokes on radio shows, or in print or any comments.”

On Tuesday, as the Indiana Fever played the Los Angeles Sparks, a green sex toy landed on the court near Indiana player Sophie Cunningham.

She had posted on social media days before, asking the culprits to stop throwing the objects saying, “you’re going to hurt one of us”.

“Everyone’s trying to make sure the W is not a joke and it’s taken seriously, and then that happens,” Cunningham said, on her podcast episode on Tuesday.

So far, two arrests have been made. In Atlanta, Delbert Carver, 23, was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, public indecency/indecent exposure, and criminal trespass after he was accused of throwing a sex toy at a game on 29 July.

The WNBA responded in a statement: “The safety and well-being of everyone in our arenas is a top priority for our league. Objects of any kind thrown onto the court or in the seating area can pose a safety risk for players, game officials, and fans.”

The second arrest was Kaden Lopez, 18, also accused of throwing a sex toy at a 5 August game in Phoenix and hitting a man watching the game on the head.

Since the incidents have increased, community members from a meme-coin called Green Dildo Coin have taken responsibility for some of the disruptions.

A spokesperson for the group told USA Today that members started throwing green sex toys to coincide with the launch of the meme-coin, which was created the day before the first incident. The group wanted to use the “viral stunts” to garner attention, they said.

“We didn’t do this because like we dislike women’s sports or, like, some of the narratives that are trending right now are ridiculous,” the spokesperson said anonymously in a Thursday article.

They added that the two arrested were not associated with the group.

While many of the incidents included green toys, some were other colours, indicating that not all of the incidents were linked to the meme-coin.

Italians have reacted with fury after the UK Good Food website published a recipe for a traditional Roman dish that did not include the correct original ingredients and appeared to belittle it as a quick eat.

Good Food’s recipe described cacio e pepe as a meal that could be whipped up for “a speedy lunch” using “four simple ingredients – spaghetti, pepper, parmesan and butter”.

Fiepet Confesercenti, an association representing restaurants in Italy, said it was “astonished” to see the recipe on such an esteemed food site, owned by the BBC until 2018, adding: “There are not four ingredients, but three: pasta, pepper and pecorino.”

Its president Claudio Pica said letters had been sent to Immediate Media, the site’s owner, and UK ambassador Edward Llewellyn.

In a statement, Good Food said it has been in touch with Fiepet Confesercenti to “explain that our recipe is designed to be easy to use for home cooks using readily available ingredients in the UK”.

It added that it has invited the Roman restaurant association to “supply us with an authentic Italian version that we would love to upload and credit to them”.

The furore has been widely covered in Italian media, with a journalist at public broadcaster RAI saying: “We are always told, you are not as good as the BBC… and then they go and do this. Such a grave mistake. The suggestion of adding some cream gave me goosebumps.”

The Good Food food brand was owned by BBC Studios, the BBC’s commercial wing, before it was sold to Immediate Media Co. The BBC prefix was dropped from its name last year.

In a tongue-and-cheek Instagram post, Good Food referred to the recipe as having caused an “international incident” in a video showing Keith Kendrick, its Magazines Editor, walking out of the office with a box filled with his belongings.

While some chefs may experiment with the dish, the main concern was that the website misled readers by presenting its version as the original.

Italians often mock foreigners for their interpretation of their recipes, but the indignation in this case was about something deeper: tampering with tradition.

Maurizio and Loredana run a hotel in central Rome – it’s been in their family for four generations.

“You can do all the variations in the world – but you cannot use the original Italian name for them, said Maurizio. “You cannot say it is cacio e pepe if you put butter, oil and cream in it. Then it becomes something else.”

He added: “You have to yield to Caesar that which is Caesar’s!”

Giorgio Eramo runs a fresh pasta restaurant near St Peter’s square – serving up cacio e pepe and other traditional pasta dishes.

“It’s terrible. It’s not cacio e pepe… What Good Food published, with butter and parmesan, is called ‘pasta Alfredo’. It’s another kind of pasta,” he said.

On his restaurant’s board of pastas, he offers cacio e pepe with lime – a variation. But he says that’s ok.

“It’s different, it’s for the summer, to make the pasta more fresh. But it doesn’t impact the tradition. It’s not like cream or butter. Lime is just a small change.”

Nicola, who runs a sandwich shop near the Vatican, took particular issue with the inclusion of cream.

“Cacio e pepe should not be made with cream; cream is for desserts. For heaven’s sake. Whoever uses cream does not know what cooking means.”

Italians often get angry when foreigners tinker with their food recipes – pizza with pineapple, cappuccino after midday or carbonara with cream, for example.

Eleonora, who works at a busy cafe in central Rome, thinks it is probably not necessary for Italians to get so angry about something like this, but understands why they do.

“Our tradition is based on food. So if you touch the only thing that we have, in all over the world… that can make us feel a bit sad.”

Good Food owners Immediate Media has been approached for comment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Authorities in Brussels are considering using ferrets to tackle the city’s longstanding issue with rats.

The rodents have become a major problem in the Belgian capital, prompting the council to set up a rat task force.

Under the proposals, a professional rat catcher would use trained ferrets to hunt out the animals and chase them towards traps.

“Since the rat is a natural prey for the ferret, the ferret is able to drive the rats out of their hiding places and bring them closer to traps,” a spokesperson for Anas Ben Adelmoumen, the councillor in charge of public cleanliness, said.

Ferrets have already been used in some instances in Brussels, the spokesperson said, and now the council is proposing extending the method across the city. A decision on their use is expected in the coming months.

One district, Etterbeek, has been using ferrets for some time with positive results. Rats that manage to escape the traps are usually scared off by the scent of the ferrets, allowing an area to be clear of rodents for several months.

Brussels has seen its brown rat population almost double in the last 10 years, according to the Brussels Times.

It is thought to be down to milder winters, which make ideal mating conditions. The popularity of compost bins is also thought to have boosted the city’s rat numbers.

Since January, the rat task force says it has carried out more than 600 “interventions” in people’s homes.

It has called on residents to contact the council as soon as they see the signs of a rat infestation. It has also boosted its budget by 20% to a total of 65,000 euros (£56,332, $75,766) and invested in smart traps to capture the animals.

The UK would have lost World War Two if Sir Keir Starmer had been its leader at the time, the US ambassador to Israel has suggested in an attack on the prime minister’s response to Israel’s Gaza City takeover plan.

In a post on social media, Mike Huckabee wrote: “So Israel is expected to surrender to Hamas & feed them even though Israeli hostages are being starved?”

“Did UK surrender to Nazis and drop food to them? … If you had been PM then UK would be speaking German!” he said.

His comments come after Starmer condemned Israel’s plans to take over Gaza City as “wrong” and urged its government to immediately reconsider its decision “to further escalate its offensive”.

A spokesperson for No 10 said they had nothing to add to Starmer’s comments.

In his post on X on Friday, in which he reposted a statement by Starmer, Huckabee said: “Ever heard of Dresden, PM Starmer?

“That wasn’t food you dropped. If you had been PM then UK would be speaking German!”

During World War Two, British and American forces dropped 4,000 tons of bombs on the eastern German city over two days, killing tens of thousands of civilians.

Starmer’s earlier statement said: “The Israeli Government’s decision to further escalate its offensive in Gaza is wrong, and we urge it to reconsider immediately.

“This action will do nothing to bring an end to this conflict or to help secure the release of the hostages. It will only bring more bloodshed,” he added.

In the early hours of Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet approved plans to take over Gaza’s capital, in a controversial escalation of its war in the territory.

Netanyahu has previously said he wants to take control of the whole of the Gaza Strip but the approved plan focuses specifically on Gaza City in the territory’s north, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians live.

Israel’s move has been staunchly opposed, including from within Israel, such as by members of the country’s army leadership and the families of hostages being held in Gaza.

The plan has also been heavily criticised internationally. The United Nations’ human rights chief Volker Türk warned further escalation of the war would cause “more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering”.

Following the announcement of Israel’s plan, Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the country would suspend the export of arms to Israel, which could be used in Gaza, saying it was “increasingly difficult to understand” how Israel’s military plan would achieve legitimate aims.

However, the US has not condemned the move. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said it was “pretty much up to Israel” whether to fully occupy Gaza.

During a meeting with the UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy in Kent on Friday, US Vice-President JD Vance refused to disclose whether the US government knew about Israel’s plans to take over Gaza City.

He added that Trump would address the issue, saying their aim is to stop Hamas “attacking innocent people” and to solve humanitarian problems in Gaza.

Netanyahu and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have outlined five “principles” for ending the war.

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

More than 61,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the IDF began its military operation, in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

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

Eleven domestic workers have been arrested in Hong Kong on suspicion of “child destruction” and illegal abortions, police have said.

The women, in their 30s and 40s, were rounded up after one was found at her employer’s home with a dead foetus, later confirmed to be at least 28 weeks old.

Police also found drugs they suspected were abortion pills – which eventually led them to the 10 other women.

Five have since been charged, while five are on bail and one has been remanded in custody for further investigation. If found guilty of the most serious charge, child destruction, they could face a life sentence.

The investigation began in June after paramedics were called to help a 39-year-old domestic worker, who had collapsed at her employer’s home.

Paramedics then found the foetus hidden in a laundry basket in her room, police said, which had not been born alive.

When questioned, the woman admitted buying the pills from a friend – another foreign domestic worker.

She was arrested in July, with police eventually carrying out a series of raids between 29 July and 8 August, during which another eight domestic workers were detained.

Inspector Lam Ho-yin, of the Yuen Long district crime squad, said it did not appear to be a crime syndicate. Instead, preliminary findings showed “the 32-year-old foreign domestic helper… brought them back from another country” and had been allegedly selling them on.

It is not clear what each woman – whose nationalities police would not reveal – has been accused of.

Abortion is legal in Hong Kong, but only under strict conditions – under 24 weeks when continuing with the pregnancy would damage the mother’s life, or if health is at risk, or in the case of severe foetal abnormality. Over 24 weeks, abortions can only be carried out if the mother’s life is in danger.

People found guilty of supplying or using drugs for abortion can face up to seven years of jail time.

On Friday, police asked employers to get their domestic workers to speak to a medical professional if they were pregnant.

Hong Kong hosts some 368,000 foreign domestic workers, according to government statistics. Most – some 55% – come from the Philippines, while 42% are from Indonesia.

Most earn a government-fixed monthly minimum wage of HK$4,990 (US$636; £473).

This searing biography of Prince Andrew crackles with scandals about sex and money on almost every page, two subjects that have always caused problems for the royals.

Andrew Lownie’s book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, is an unrelentingly unflattering portrait of Prince Andrew. It depicts him as arrogant, self-seeking and in denial about his links to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The author’s best-selling biographies have a habit of changing the reputation of famous figures, such as establishing the Nazi intrigues around the Duke of Windsor, the former Edward VIII.

Although in the case of Entitled, he hasn’t so much cemented Prince Andrew’s reputation, as put it in concrete boots and thrown it in the river. It is hard to see how he might come back from this.

This account, more than 450 pages, is said to have taken four years to research, involving hundreds of interviews. And for anyone thinking they have heard much of this story before, it is the extra and sometimes unexpected, throwaway details that will make this a fascinating read.

Like comedian Billy Connolly and Sir Elton John being at Prince Andrew’s stag night. Or film maker Woody Allen being at the same dinner with Prince Andrew at Epstein’s house in Manhattan.

This detail tallies with a piece in the New York Times this week that quotes a birthday greeting written by Allen to Epstein, which references “even royalty” being at one of Epstein’s dinners.

To rapidly lose some mid-life weight, when he was going out with a younger woman, the book records that Prince Andrew lived on a crash diet of “stewed prunes for breakfast, raw vegetables for lunch and soup for supper”.

About their academic ability, the book says that Prince Andrew and Sarah passed two O-levels at their respective expensive private schools. Andrew had to re-take exams the following year before going on to take A-levels.

Now in disgrace, Prince Andrew is claimed to spend his time, when not riding or golfing, cooped up watching aviation videos and reading thrillers, with The Talented Mr Ripley said to be his favourite. It is about a con-man taking on the identity of a wealthy playboy.

There are some more gentle anecdotes about him, such as when he was a helicopter pilot and ferried a group of soldiers from a rifle range and decided to put down on the Sandringham estate.

Queen Elizabeth II, who was in residence, was said to have looked at the guns being toted by these unexpected arrivals. “You can put those in there if you like,” she said, pointing to an umbrella stand.

But the biography is much more crowded with anecdotes about his rudeness and his acute lack of self awareness, not to mention a prodigious number of quick-fire affairs.

It is claimed he swore at and insulted staff, bawling someone out as an “imbecile” for not using the Queen Mother’s full title. Protection officers were despatched to collect golf balls and private jets seemed to be hired as casually as an Uber on a night out.

The Paris-based journalist Peter Allen, among the sources for the book, says many of Andrew’s problems reflect on his “flawed character”.

“He’s been afforded every type of privilege, all his life, while displaying very poor judgement and getting into highly compromising situations.”

Known as “Baby Grumpling” in his early years, Andrew was claimed to have moved people from jobs because one was wearing a nylon tie, and another because he had a mole on his face.

Diplomats, whose cause Andrew was meant to be advancing, nicknamed him “His Buffoon Highness” because of all the gaffes.

There are details of his unhappy knack of getting involved with all the wrong people in his money-making ventures, from Libyan gun runners and relations of dictators to a Chinese spy.

“This book appears to seal the fate of Andrew if he was ever hoping to be reinstated officially into the working royals,” says royal commentator Pauline Maclaran.

“The public will be wanting to see some clear action on the King’s part I think – particularly as Andrew’s connections to Epstein are raked over again,” says Prof Maclaran.

If this seems like a torrent of bad news, the book also raises some deeper questions about what lies behind Prince Andrew’s character.

There are suggestions of an often lonely and isolated figure, obsessed with sex but much weaker at relationships. Sources from his time in the navy saw his “bombastic” exterior as concealing a much more vulnerable and socially awkward figure, whose upbringing had made him unsure how to behave.

He showed authentic courage when he flew helicopters in the Falklands war and he was remembered as being willing to “muck in” during that stressful time, when crews were living on canned food rather than fine dining.

On his fascination for sex, an unnamed source claims Andrew lost his virginity at the age of 11, which the same source likens to a form of abuse.

One of his former naval colleagues went from seeing Andrew as “immature, privileged, entitled” to having a more sympathetic view of a character of “loneliness and insecurity”, a public figure who was uncertain about how he fitted in with other people, and had ended up with the “wrong sort of friends”.

Top of that list must be Jeffrey Epstein. Lownie’s book offers meticulous detail of the connections between Prince Andrew and the US financier and sex offender, establishing links that went back to the early 1990s, earlier than had previously been established.

It is also strong on the unbalanced nature of their relationship, with a friend of Andrew’s describing the prince’s dealings with Epstein as “like putting a rattlesnake in an aquarium with a mouse”.

Epstein’s sleazy and abusive world, with its mix of easy money and exploitative sex, was ultimately a form of blackmail operation, claims Lownie’s book. It gave him something to hold over the many powerful people who came into his orbit.

The book is a reminder of the scale and seediness of Epstein’s exploitation of girls. It is also an account of the destruction that followed.

The famous photograph showing Virginia Giuffre with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell in London was supposedly taken by Jeffrey Epstein. Prince Andrew is the only one of them not to be either dead or in prison.

And Lownie’s sources cast doubt on whether Epstein did take his own life, questioning the medical evidence and the series of unfortunate gaps in supervision in the jail where he was being held.

After his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview and the court case with Virginia Giuffre – which he settled with a rejection of any wrongdoing – Prince Andrew has been pushed out of public life, no longer a “working royal”.

Historian Ed Owens says it is almost six years since that Newsnight interview, but Prince Andrew is still appearing in news stories “for all the wrong reasons”.

“This isn’t good for the monarchy,” he says, even though “King Charles and Prince William have sought to limit the reputational damage Andrew can have on ‘brand Windsor’,” says Owens.

Standing loyally beside Prince Andrew has been Sarah Ferguson, who describes their relationship as being “divorced to each other, not from each other”, still living together at Royal Lodge.

The book depicts her as being in an endless loop of binge spending, debt and then convoluted deals, sponsorships and freebies, to try to get her finances on track, before the cycle begins again.

But there is no doubting her remarkable capacity to keep bouncing back and to keep on plugging away, when others would have been down and out years ago.

She has a sense of fun that appeals to people. The book tells how successful she was at boosting sales as an ambassador for Waterford Wedgwood, then owned by Tony O’Reilly. She was described by staff as “brilliant at working a room, fresh, chic and wasn’t stuffy”.

The book is already riding high in the best-seller charts and royal commentator Richard Palmer says it raises difficult topical questions.

“It puts Andrew back at the front and centre of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal at a time when Donald Trump is facing serious questions about his own friendship with the late paedophile,” says Palmer.

“It’s a scandal that just won’t go away for the Royal Family, even though they’ve tried to distance themselves from Andrew,” he says.

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Multiple pro-women’s basketball games were interrupted in the past several days after sex toys were thrown onto courts, leaving players and coaches frustrated and fans puzzled.

Two of the instigators are now facing criminal charges and the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) has condemned such behaviour.

This week, members of a meme-coin group reportedly claimed responsibility for some of the incidents in which brightly coloured dildos were thrown onto the court or bench area during games.

Players and coaches are concerned about safety, and the meaning and hostility behind the incidents.

The game between the Atlanta Dream and the Chicago Sky was paused in the closing seconds Thursday night after a purple sex toy was tossed from the stands onto the court.

While individuals in the stands were reportedly questioned, no one was arrested. The WNBA has said any fan caught throwing sex toys onto the court would be banned from the league and would face prosecution.

The exact number of incidents is unclear because in some instances, items are thrown but do not reach the court or the bench.

“It’s super disrespectful,” Chicago Sky player Elizabeth Williams said after a similar incident last week. “I don’t really get the point of it. It’s really immature. Whoever is doing it needs to grow up.”

Minnesota Lynx Head Coach Cheryl Reeve called the increasing number of incidents a “distraction”.

“This has been going on for centuries,” she told reporters on Thursday. “The sexualization of women. This is the latest version of that. And it’s not funny and it should not be the butt of jokes on radio shows, or in print or any comments.”

On Tuesday, as the Indiana Fever played the Los Angeles Sparks, a green sex toy landed on the court near Indiana player Sophie Cunningham.

She had posted on social media days before, asking the culprits to stop throwing the objects saying, “you’re going to hurt one of us”.

“Everyone’s trying to make sure the W is not a joke and it’s taken seriously, and then that happens,” Cunningham said, on her podcast episode on Tuesday.

So far, two arrests have been made. In Atlanta, Delbert Carver, 23, was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, public indecency/indecent exposure, and criminal trespass after he was accused of throwing a sex toy at a game on 29 July.

The WNBA responded in a statement: “The safety and well-being of everyone in our arenas is a top priority for our league. Objects of any kind thrown onto the court or in the seating area can pose a safety risk for players, game officials, and fans.”

The second arrest was Kaden Lopez, 18, also accused of throwing a sex toy at a 5 August game in Phoenix and hitting a man watching the game on the head.

Since the incidents have increased, community members from a meme-coin called Green Dildo Coin have taken responsibility for some of the disruptions.

A spokesperson for the group told USA Today that members started throwing green sex toys to coincide with the launch of the meme-coin, which was created the day before the first incident. The group wanted to use the “viral stunts” to garner attention, they said.

“We didn’t do this because like we dislike women’s sports or, like, some of the narratives that are trending right now are ridiculous,” the spokesperson said anonymously in a Thursday article.

They added that the two arrested were not associated with the group.

While many of the incidents included green toys, some were other colours, indicating that not all of the incidents were linked to the meme-coin.

Astronaut Jim Lovell, who guided the Apollo 13 mission safely back to Earth in 1970, has died aged 97.

Nasa said he had “turned a potential tragedy into a success” after an attempt to land on the Moon was aborted because of an explosion onboard the spacecraft while it was hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth.

Tens of millions watched on television as Lovell and two other astronauts splashed back down into the Pacific Ocean, a moment which has become one of the most iconic in the history of space travel.

Lovell, who was also part of the Apollo 8 mission, was the first man to go to the Moon twice – but never actually landed.

Acting Nasa head Sean Duffy said Lovell had helped the US space programme to “forge a historic path”.

In a statement, Lovell’s family said: “We will miss his unshakeable optimism, his sense of humor, and the way he made each of us feel we could do the impossible. He was truly one of a kind.”

One Saturday, a 16-year-old hauled a heavy, three-foot tube into the middle of a large field in Wisconsin.

He had persuaded his science teacher to help him make a makeshift rocket. Somehow, he had managed to get his hands on the ingredients for gunpowder – potassium nitrate, sulphur and charcoal.

He pulled on a welder’s helmet for protection. He packed it with powder, struck a match and ran like hell.

The rocket rose 80 feet into the air and exploded. Had the chemicals been packed slightly differently, he would have been blown to pieces.

For Jim Lovell, this was more than a childish lark.

In achieving his dream to be a rocket scientist, he would become an American hero. But it was not going to be easy.

James Arthur Lovell Jr was born on 25 March 1928 – just a year after Charles Lindbergh made his historic trip across the Atlantic.

“Boys like either dinosaurs or airplanes,” he said. “I was very much an airplane boy.”

When he was five years old, his father died in a car accident.

His mother, Blanche, worked all hours, struggling to keep food on the table. University was well beyond their financial reach.

The answer was the US Navy, which was hungry for new pilots after World War Two. It was not building rockets but at least it involved flying.

Lovell signed up to a programme that sent him to college at the military’s expense while training as a fighter pilot.

Two years in, he gambled and switched to the Navy Academy at Annapolis, on Chesapeake Bay, in the hope of working with his beloved rockets.

It was a lucky decision.

A few months later, the Korean War broke out and his former fellow apprentice pilots were sent to South East Asia. Many never got to finish their education.

Marriage was banned at Annapolis and girlfriends discouraged. The navy did not want its midshipmen wasting their time on such frivolities.

But Lovell had a sweetheart. Marilyn Gerlach was the high school girl he had shyly asked to the prom.

Women were not allowed on campus and trips outside were limited to 45 minutes. Somehow the relationship survived.

Just hours after his graduation in 1952, the newly commissioned Ensign Lovell married her.

They would be together for more than 70 years, until Marilyn’s death in 2023.

He did everything he could to advertise his love of rocketry.

His thesis at the Navy Academy was in the unheard-of topic of liquid-fuel engines. After graduation, he hoped to specialise in this pioneering new technology.

But the navy had other ideas.

Lovell was assigned to an aircraft carrier group flying Banshee jets off ships at night. It was a white-knuckle, high-wire business fit only for daredevils. But for Lovell, it was not enough.

In 1958, he applied to Nasa.

Project Mercury was America’s attempt to place a man in orbit around the Earth. Jim Lovell was one of the 110 test pilots considered for selection but a temporary liver condition put paid to his chances.

Four years later, he tried again.

In June 1962, after gruelling medical tests, Nasa announced its “New Nine”. These would be the men to deliver on President Kennedy’s pledge to put American boots on the Moon.

It was the most elite group of flying men ever assembled. They included Neil Armstrong, John Young and, fulfilling his childhood dream, Jim Lovell.

Three years later he was ready.

His first trip into space was aboard the two-man Gemini 7. Lovell and fellow astronaut Frank Borman ate a steak-and-eggs breakfast and blasted off.

Their mission: to find out if men could survive two weeks in space. If not, the Moon was out of reach.

With the endurance record complete, Lovell’s next flight was in command of Gemini 12 alongside space rookie Buzz Aldrin.

This time they proved that man could work outside a spacecraft. Aldrin clambered awkwardly into the void, spending five hours photographing star fields.

Now for the Moon itself.

The crew of Apollo 8 would be the first to travel beyond low Earth orbit and enter the gravitational pull of another celestial body.

It was Nasa’s most dangerous mission yet.

The Saturn V rocket that shot Lovell, Borman and William Anders out of our atmosphere at 25,000mph (40,233km/h) was huge – three times larger than anything seen on the Gemini programme.

As navigator, Lovell took with him a sextant to take star readings – in case the computers failed and they had to find their own way home.

Sixty-eight hours after take-off, they made it.

The engines fired and Apollo 8 slid silently behind the Moon. The men heard a crackle in their headsets as the radio signal to Mission Control faltered and then failed.

The spellbound astronauts pinned themselves to the windows, the first humans to see the far side of our nearest celestial neighbour. And then, from over the advancing horizon, an incredible sight.

“Earthrise,” gasped Borman.

“Get the camera, quick,” said Lovell.

It was Christmas Eve 1968.

America was mired in Vietnam abroad and civil unrest at home. But at that moment, it seemed that humanity was united.

The people of the world saw their planet as the astronauts saw it – fragile and beautiful, shining in the desolation of space.

Lovell read from the Book of Genesis, the basis of many of the world’s great religions, to the people of the Earth.

“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”

For him, it was an image that changed our world forever. He put his thumb against the window and the whole world disappeared behind it. It was the most moving experience of his life.

As the spacecraft re-emerged from the darkness, Lovell was first to announce the good news. “Please be advised,” he said as the radio crackled back into life, “there is a Santa Claus.”

At that very moment, 239,000 miles away, a man in a blue Rolls-Royce pulled up outside Lovell’s house in Houston.

He walked past the dozens of reporters camped outside and handed a box to Marilyn.

She opened the star-patterned tissue paper and pulled out a mink jacket. “Happy Christmas,” said the card that came with it, “and love from the Man in the Moon.”

They went up as astronauts and came down celebrities. The people of the Earth had followed their every move on TV.

There were ticker tape parades, congressional honours and a place on the cover of Time Magazine. And they had not even set foot on the Moon.

That honour went, of course, to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

A year later, Kennedy’s dream was posthumously seen to fruition. A small step was taken and mankind took its giant leap. The New Nine had done their job.

In April 1970, it was Jim Lovell’s turn. Fortunately, the crew of Apollo 13 did not believe in unlucky numbers.

Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise were men of science – highly trained and determined to follow Armstrong and Aldrin to the lunar surface. But things went badly wrong.

They were 200,000 miles above the Earth and closing in on their target when they spotted low pressure in a hydrogen tank. It needed a stir to stop the super cold gas settling into layers.

Swigert flicked the switch. It should have been a routine procedure but the command module, Odyssey, shuddered. Oxygen pressure fell and power shut down.

“I believe we’ve had a problem here,” said Swigert. Lovell had to repeat the message to a stunned Mission Control: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

It was one of the greatest understatements of all time. The crew were in big trouble – a dramatic explosion had disabled their craft.

Haise and Lovell worked frantically to boot up the lunar module, Aquarius.

It was not supposed to be used until they got to the Moon. It had no heat shield, so could not be used to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. But it could keep them alive until they got there.

The world stopped breathing and watched.

For a second time, Jim Lovell had brought the world together as one. The first time it had been for Earthrise, the second would be to witness his fight to survive.

“For four days,” said Marilyn, “I didn’t know if I was a wife or a widow.”

Temperatures fell to freezing, food and water were rationed. It was days before they limped back to the fringes of Earth’s atmosphere. They climbed back aboard the Odyssey and prayed the heat shield had not been damaged.

The radio silence that accompanies re-entry went on far longer than normal. Millions watched on TV, many convinced that all was lost.

After six agonising minutes, Jack Swigert’s voice cut through the silence.

The team on the ground held its breath until the parachutes deployed and the crew was safely down.

The mission was Nasa’s greatest failure and, without question, its finest hour.

Lovell retired from the navy in 1973 and opted for a the quiet life, working for the Bay-Houston Towing Company, giving speeches and serving as president of the National Eagle Scout Association.

His book, Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, became the famous 1995 movie, starring Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell.

For the film, the director asked him to dress up as an admiral. It was for a cameo scene, shaking hands with Hanks when the crew were rescued from the sea.

But the old American hero was not having it.

Jim Lovell had been to the Moon twice, witnessed Earthrise and narrowly avoided a cold death in space – and saw no reason to falsely burnish his .

He took out his old navy uniform, dusted it down and put it on for the cameo appearance.

“I retired as a captain,” he insisted, “and a captain I will be.”

Israel has strongly rejected criticism from world leaders after its security cabinet approved a plan to take control of Gaza City.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said countries that condemned Israel and threatened sanctions would “not weaken our resolve”.

“Our enemies will find us as one strong, united fist that will strike them with great force,” he added.

Israel’s decision to expand its war in Gaza sparked condemnation from the UN and several countries including the UK, France and Canada, and prompted Germany to halt military exports to Israel.

The plan, approved by the Israeli security cabinet, lists five “principles” for ending the war: disarming Hamas, returning all hostages, demilitarising the Gaza Strip, taking security control of the territory, and establishing “an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority”.

Reports in Israeli media say the plan initially focuses on taking full control of Gaza City, relocating its estimated one million residents further south. Forces would also take control of refugee camps in central Gaza and areas where hostages are thought to be held.

A second offensive would follow weeks later in parallel with a boost in humanitarian aid, media say.

The move to escalate the conflict has drawn fierce opposition from some within Israel, including from military officials and the families of hostages being held in Gaza.

Hamas has said the plan to occupy Gaza City “constitutes a new war crime” and will “cost [Israel] dearly”.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk warned that further escalation would “result in more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering, senseless destruction and atrocity crimes”.

In other reaction:

• UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer called the move “wrong”, saying it would “only bring more bloodshed”

• Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong urged Israel “not to go down this path”, saying it would “only worsen the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”

• Turkey’s foreign ministry urged the world community to prevent Israel’s plan which aimed to “forcibly displace Palestinians from their own land”

• In China, a foreign ministry spokesperson told AFP news agency: “Gaza belongs to the Palestinian people and is an inseparable part of Palestinian territory”.

Netanyahu told German Chancellor Friedrich Merz he was disappointed with Berlin’s decision to suspend arms exports to Israel, saying it was “rewarding Hamas terrorism”.

In Israel itself, families of the remaining hostages in Gaza have warned that the lives of the 20 believed to have survived will be put in peril.

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

The US has been less critical. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said it was “pretty much up to Israel” whether to fully occupy the Gaza Strip.

The IDF currently controls about three-quarters of Gaza, and almost all of its 2.1 million citizens are situated in the quarter of the territory that the military does not control.

The UN estimates some 87% of Gaza is either in militarised zones or under evacuation orders.

There are areas in central Gaza and along the Mediterranean coast that Israel does not occupy, according to the UN.

These include refugee camps, where much of Gaza’s population is now living after their homes were destroyed by Israel’s military action.

The vast majority of Gaza’s population has already been displaced by the war, many people several times over.

The war has created a humanitarian disaster in Gaza, most of which UN-backed experts say is at the point of famine.

The territory is also experiencing mass deprivation as a result of heavy restrictions imposed by Israel on what is allowed in – something it says is aimed at weakening Hamas.

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said July was the worst month for cases of acute malnutrition in children in Gaza, affecting nearly 12,000 under the age of five.

The war began after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 back to Gaza as hostages. Israel launched a massive military offensive in response, which has killed at least 61,158 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

Hee-kyung giggles as she steps into Seoul’s new “warm-hearted convenience store”.

At 29, she is perhaps not the person most would have imagined wanting to take advantage of the South Korean capital’s latest efforts to combat loneliness.

But Hee-Kyung visits every day to grab the free instant ramen noodles and spend hours chatting with other visitors and social workers.

“I tell myself, ‘another day, another escape from feeling lonely’,” Hee-kyung says.

A teenage runaway, she no longer talks to anyone from her family. The friends she has she met online, through the shared love of K-pop group SuperJunior, and they live far away. Currently unemployed, she has no work mates to chat to.

She lives alone, and whiles away the time watching cute animal videos on her phone as she lies on the floor.

“I have no other place to go if it weren’t for [the store].”

Hee-Kyung is one of 20,000 people to visit the four stores since they were opened in March. The city had been expecting just 5,000 in the first year.

This particular location, in the city’s north-eastern district of Dongdaemun, sees around 70 to 80 visitors each day.

Most are in their 40s and 50s, but Hee-Kyung is far from being the only young person to access the store’s services.

A 2022 study revealed an estimated 130,000 young people in the city – those aged between 19 and 39 – are either socially isolated or shut in. That same study also found the share of single-person households in the capital had reached nearly 40% – that alarmed a government that has been trying to reverse plummeting birth and marriage rates.

The day the BBC visited, around a dozen visitors – men and women, young and old – were sitting on benches or burrowed into beanbags, watching a film together.

“We have movie days to encourage low-level bonding,” whispers Kim Se-heon, the manager of the city’s Loneliness Countermeasure Division.

The stores are designed to offer a warm, cafe-like atmosphere. In one corner, an older woman closed her eyes as she sank into the automatic massage chair that hummed. In another, there are stacks of noodles.

“Ramen is a symbol of comfort and warmth in South Korea,” Kim explains.

While waiting for the noodles to cook, visitors are asked to fill out a brief survey on their mood and living conditions.

These are just a handful of the growing number of socially isolated people that the city is trying to reach.

The change South Korea has undergone is seismic: in a generation, it has gone from a war-torn agrarian society to a developed economy.

A few decades ago, it was common to see large families with six to eight children, living under the same roof. But years of migration to cities have shrunk families and turned places like Seoul into sprawling metropolises.

Unaffordable housing, rising costs and gruelling working hours have led more and more young people to reject marriage or parenthood, or both. On the other end is an ageing population that feels neglected by children who are racing to keep up.

“You know the saying that the least tasty meal is the one you are having alone? I ask older people who come in if they were eating okay. They would tear up, just being asked that question,” says Lee In-sook, the counsellor at the store.

After a divorce and her grown-up children leaving home, she understands how it feels to be alone.

The first time Hee-kyung – who is around the age of In-sook’s daughter – arrived at the store, she immediately caught her eye.

Like many visitors, Hee-kyung was quiet on the first day, barely speaking to others. The second time she came, she began to speak to In-sook.

It was the growing number of “lonely deaths” that worried Seoul officials enough to act. Older people were dying alone at home, and their bodies were not discovered until days or weeks later.

That mission soon expanded to tackling loneliness itself. But Seoul is not the first to do this.

In 2018, the UK appointed a Minister for Loneliness. Japan followed the example, establishing an agency to address the problem which it said had become more pronounced in the Covid-19 pandemic.

The phenomenon of withdrawing from society altogether is common enough in Japan that it has a name: hikikomori. In South Korea too, a rising number of young people have been voluntarily cutting themselves off from a highly competitive and exacting society.

“Perhaps it was the pandemic that led to this,” muses Lee Yu-jeong, who manages one of Seoul’s anti-loneliness programmes.

She points out how her children remain buried in their smartphones when their friends visit. “People today express how difficult it is to have a network of friends. Loneliness has become something that needs to be tackled as a society.”

The first step was opening a hotline for people who need someone to speak to. A nationwide survey in 2023 found that a third of Korean adults have either no one to ask for help with housework or speak to when feeling sad.

Its counselors offer a 40-minute call to discuss any topic. Park Seung-ah has been making three calls a day from her cubicle.

“I was surprised to see that many young people wanted these sessions. They want to share the burden on their chest but there is often a power dynamic with parents or their friends. So they come to us.”

The “warm-hearted convenience stores” followed swiftly, a physical location where the lonely were welcome.

The Dongdaemun location was picked due to its proximity to low-income housing, where residents live in tiny, subdivided apartments alone.

Sohn, 68, visits the store once a week to watch films, and to escape his cramped home.

“[The stores] should have opened before I was born. It’s good to spend even just two to three hours,” he says.

Sohn has spent more than five decades of his life caring for his mother, who suffered a brain aneurism when he was a child. As a result, he never married or had children.

The cost of the dedication became clear when she died.

Penniless and walking with a cane since suffering a brain haemorrhage himself several years ago, he says there aren’t many places for him.

“Places cost money, going to the cinema costs money,” he says.

The stores were created specially to welcome those who aren’t welcome in other places, explains store manager Lee Bo-hyun.

They go beyond a bit of room and a film – offering air-conditioning during the hottest summer months to those on low incomes who cannot afford it at home.

It is also supposed to be a space where the lonely can sidestep the stigma of asking for help. The choice of name – “convenience stores” – was a deliberate attempt to distance them from psychiatric clinics, important in a country where there is still a stigma against asking for help for mental health – especially among older residents.

And yet, some of their reservations can still be seen when they walk through the door for the first time, compounded by their experience of isolation.

Visitors are often uncomfortable speaking to another person or eating together initially, store manager Lee says.

“The typical loneliness, if that repeats for days, months, and half year, that is now more than a feeling,” Lee explains.

“Those folks start to avoid places with people. So many people ask us if they can take the ramen to go because they won’t eat with others.”

Lee would tell them that they don’t need to talk. They can simply sit at the same table and have noodles.

It has been months since Hee-kyung was one of the quiet new arrivals.

So, has it made a difference? In-sook recalls a conversation she was having with a local paper. When she brought up her daughter, she felt a sudden pang and her voice broke.

“I am going to hug you,” Hee-kyung declared.

She walked over from the other side of the room and embraced In-sook.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Elon Musk’s AI video generator has been accused of making “a deliberate choice” to create sexually explicit clips of Taylor Swift without prompting, says an expert in online abuse.

“This is not misogyny by accident, it is by design,” said Clare McGlynn, a law professor who has helped draft a law which would make pornographic deepfakes illegal.

According to a report by The Verge, Grok Imagine’s new “spicy” mode “didn’t hesitate to spit out fully uncensored topless videos” of the pop star without being asked to make explicit content.

The report also said proper age verification methods – which became law in July – were not in place.

XAI, the company behind Grok, has been approached for comment.

XAI’s own acceptable use policy prohibits “depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner”.

“That this content is produced without prompting demonstrates the misogynistic bias of much AI technology,” said Prof McGlynn of Durham University.

“Platforms like X could have prevented this if they had chosen to, but they have made a deliberate choice not to,” she added.

This is not the first time Taylor Swift’s image has been used in this way.

Sexually explicit deepfakes using her face went viral and were viewed millions of times on X and Telegram in January 2024.

Deepfakes are computer-generated images which replace the face of one person with another.

In testing the guardrails of Grok Imagine, The Verge news writer Jess Weatherbed entered the prompt: “Taylor Swift celebrating Coachella with the boys”.

Grok generated still images of Swift wearing a dress with a group of men behind her.

This could then be animated into short video clips under four different settings: “normal”, “fun”, “custom” or “spicy”.

“She ripped [the dress] off immediately, had nothing but a tasselled thong underneath, and started dancing, completely uncensored, completely exposed,” Ms Weatherbed told BBC News.

She added: “It was shocking how fast I was just met with it – I in no way asked it to remove her clothing, all I did was select the ‘spicy’ option.”

Gizmodo reported similarly explicit results of famous women, though some searches also returned blurred videos or with a “video moderated” message.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify the results of the AI video generations.

Ms Weatherbed said she signed up to the paid version of Grok Imagine, which cost £30, using a brand new Apple account.

Grok asked for her date of birth but there was no other age verification in place, she said.

Under new UK laws which entered into force at the end of July, platforms which show explicit images must verify users’ ages using methods which are “technically accurate, robust, reliable and fair”.

“Sites and apps that include Generative AI tools that can generate pornographic material are regulated under the Act,” the media regulator Ofcom told BBC News.

“We are aware of the increasing and fast-developing risk GenAI tools may pose in the online space, especially to children, and we are working to ensure platforms put appropriate safeguards in place to mitigate these risks,” it said in a statement.

Currently, generating pornographic deepfakes is illegal when used in revenge porn or depicts children.

Prof McGlynn helped draft an amendment to the law which would make generating or requesting all non-consensual pornographic deepfakes illegal.

The government has committed to making this amendment law, but it is yet to come into force.

“Every woman should have the right to choose who owns intimate images of her,” said Baroness Owen, who proposed the amendment in the House of Lords.

“It is essential that these models are not used in such a way that violates a woman’s right to consent whether she be a celebrity or not,” Lady Owen continued in a statement given to BBC News.

“This case is a clear example of why the Government must not delay any further in its implementation of the Lords amendments,” she added.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Sexually explicit deepfakes created without consent are degrading and harmful.

“We refuse to tolerate the violence against women and girls that stains our society which is why we have passed legislation to ban their creation as quickly as possible.”

When pornographic deepfakes using Taylor Swift’s face went viral in 2024, X temporarily blocked searches for her name on the platform.

At the time, X said it was “actively removing” the images and taking “appropriate actions” against the accounts involved in spreading them.

Ms Weatherbed said the team at The Verge chose Taylor Swift to test the Grok Imagine feature because of this incident.

“We assumed – wrongly now – that if they had put any kind of safeguards in place to prevent them from emulating the likeness of celebrities, that she would be first on the list, given the issues that they’ve had,” she said.

Taylor Swift’s representatives have been contacted for comment.

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Eleven domestic workers have been arrested in Hong Kong on suspicion of “child destruction” and illegal abortions, police have said.

The women, in their 30s and 40s, were rounded up after one was found at her employer’s home with a dead foetus, later confirmed to be at least 28 weeks old.

Police also found drugs they suspected were abortion pills – which eventually led them to the 10 other women.

Five have since been charged, while five are on bail and one has been remanded in custody for further investigation. If found guilty of the most serious charge, child destruction, they could face a life sentence.

The investigation began in June after paramedics were called to help a 39-year-old domestic worker, who had collapsed at her employer’s home.

Paramedics then found the foetus hidden in a laundry basket in her room, police said, which had not been born alive.

When questioned, the woman admitted buying the pills from a friend – another foreign domestic worker.

She was arrested in July, with police eventually carrying out a series of raids between 29 July and 8 August, during which another eight domestic workers were detained.

Inspector Lam Ho-yin, of the Yuen Long district crime squad, said it did not appear to be a crime syndicate. Instead, preliminary findings showed “the 32-year-old foreign domestic helper… brought them back from another country” and had been allegedly selling them on.

It is not clear what each woman – whose nationalities police would not reveal – has been accused of.

Abortion is legal in Hong Kong, but only under strict conditions – under 24 weeks when continuing with the pregnancy would damage the mother’s life, or if health is at risk, or in the case of severe foetal abnormality. Over 24 weeks, abortions can only be carried out if the mother’s life is in danger.

People found guilty of supplying or using drugs for abortion can face up to seven years of jail time.

On Friday, police asked employers to get their domestic workers to speak to a medical professional if they were pregnant.

Hong Kong hosts some 368,000 foreign domestic workers, according to government statistics. Most – some 55% – come from the Philippines, while 42% are from Indonesia.

Most earn a government-fixed monthly minimum wage of HK$4,990 (US$636; £473).

Scientists have found strong evidence of a giant gas planet in the nearest star system to our own.

At four-and-a-half light years away, the lifeless planet would be a close neighbour to Earth in astronomical terms and could have moons that sustain life.

The signs were found in the star system Alpha Centauri by the powerful James Webb Space Telescope.

The potential planet was detected last year, but it had disappeared in follow-up observations. Astronomers must now look again to prove it definitely exists.

Scientists are particularly excited about this discovery because of the similarities between the exoplanet’s star and our Sun.

“Four years is a long way but in galaxy terms, it’s very close – it’s in our neighbourhood,” said Dr Carly Howett, associate professor of space instrumentation at the University of Oxford.

“It is around a star that is Sun-like and about the same temperature and brightness. That’s really important if we want to think about habitable worlds,” she added.

The planet would be similar to our solar system’s gas giants, Saturn and Jupiter, and would be enveloped in a thick gas cloud.

That means it could not support life itself, but it could have moons that are habitable.

Jupiter and some other planets in our solar system have icy moons, which researchers believe could support life.

Scientists are currently investigating that possibility on missions called Europa Clipper and Juice.

But those planets are far away from our life-giving Sun. The potential “new” planet is comparatively close to its star.

The signs were found in direct imaging by the James Webb Space Telescope, which is the closest thing scientists have to taking photographs of distant objects.

“These are incredibly challenging observations to make, even with the world’s most powerful space telescope, because these stars are so bright, close, and move across the sky quickly,” said Charles Beichman from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and co-first author of the new discoveries.

Those stars create huge amounts of bright light that can block out nearby objects.

That could be why the planet was detected once, in August 2024, but then seemingly disappeared when scientists looked for it again.

“Probably the planet was either behind the star or too close to be able to see it. You need an element of luck,” said Dr Howett.

Astronomers will now look for more signs of the planet. They hope to use a new Nasa telescope – the Grace Roman Space Telescope – which is due to start operating in 2027.

Future observations by the James Webb Space Telescope should also be able to tell us what the planet is made up of, using something called spectral imaging.

That will build up a more detailed picture of what it looks like, and how habitable any orbiting Moons could be.