Police in India say a woman, who had gone missing after her husband was found brutally murdered during their honeymoon, is in custody after she surrendered.

The families of the couple had alleged that the bride had also either been killed or abducted and mounted a huge campaign to find her.

Police now allege that Sonam Raghuvanshi, 25, hired killers to murder her 30-year-old husband Raja during their trip to the tiny north-eastern state of Meghalaya. Four men have also been arrested.

Sonam’s father Devi Singh has defended his daughter saying “she is innocent and she cannot do this”.

The newly-wed couple from Indore city in the central state of Madhya Pradesh had chosen Meghalaya for their honeymoon because they had heard it had “very beautiful valleys”, Raja’s brother Sachin Raghuvanshi told the BBC at the weekend, before Sonam’s arrest.

The couple had married on 11 May in Indore in a ceremony blessed by both their families.

“Their marriage was arranged four months back and they were both happy and there had been no fights between the couple before or after marriage,” Raja’s other brother Vipin Raghuvanshi said.

The couple left for Meghalaya on 20 May. But four days into their trip, they went missing.

Police and disaster relief teams, accompanied by local people, searched for the couple. Videos from the area showed rescuers rappelling down hills and cliffs in valleys covered in mist. Officials said rain and low visibility were hampering the search operations.

A week later, Raja’s decomposed body was found in a gorge with his throat slit and his wallet, a gold ring and a chain missing. And Sonam had disappeared without a trace.

Their families mounted a huge campaign, accusing the Meghalaya police of not doing enough to solve Raja’s murder or find Sonam – an accusation contested by the state’s chief minister.

The couple’s families demanded that the case be handed over to the federal police for a proper investigation and met influential caste leaders and federal ministers in their home state to lobby for this.

Last Friday, they also wrote a letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to deliver justice for Raja and find Sonam.

But on Monday morning, Director General of Meghalaya police Idashisha Nongrang said Sonam had surrendered at a police station in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur district.

Three other suspects, who are also from the couple’s home state Madhya Pradesh, have been arrested in overnight raids, DGP Nongrang said.

“One person was picked up from Uttar Pradesh and another two accused were apprehended from Indore. Sonam surrendered at the Nandganj police station and was subsequently arrested.”

Later, addressing a press conference, Superintendent of Police Vivek Syiem said a fourth man had been arrested in Meghalaya in connection with the case on Monday morning.

He did not give any motive for Raja’s murder but described Sonam “as the main suspect”.

In response to a reporter’s question on “whether Sonam was in an extra-marital relationship with one of the arrested men”, Mr Syeim said “if you join the dots, then it would seem like it”. But he added that these details could be verified only after the two were questioned.

Sonam’s father Devi Singh told ANI news agency that his daughter had reached “a dhaba [roadside eatery] in Ghazipur last night where she borrowed a mobile phone and called her brother – who then called the police”.

Mr Singh said he had not been able to speak to his daughter but he believed that she had “somehow managed to escape her captors” and insisted that she was “innocent”.

Mr Singh also accused the Meghalaya police of “making up stories” and appealed to Home Minister Amit Shah to order a federal inquiry into the case for the truth to come out.

Raja’s brother Vipin Raghuvanshi initially told reporters he would “not accept Sonam’s involvement in the murder until she confessed”.

But he later said that one of the arrested men named by the police worked in Sonam’s office.

“Only Sonam can clarify,” he said. “If she’s guilty, she should be punished.”

Mr Raghuvanshi, who had repeatedly criticised Meghalaya’s police and government for not doing enough to solve the case, also said “I now believe that Meghalaya government was not lying. They were telling the truth”.

On Monday morning, after the news broke, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma complimented his state’s police force, saying that they had achieved a “major breakthrough” in seven days. Another minister, Alexander Laloo Hek, said that the state’s police, government and even ordinary people had been unfairly blamed while the search was going on.

“The truth has come out,” he said.

A new round of talks aimed at resolving the trade war between the US and China are set to take place in London on Monday.

A senior US delegation including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will meet with Chinese representatives such as Vice Premier He Lifeng to resolve tensions between the world’s two largest economies, which is threatening global growth.

Chinese exports of rare earths, which are crucial for modern technology, as well as Beijing’s access to US products, including computer chips, are expected to be high on the agenda.

Last month, Washington and Beijing agreed a temporary truce over trade tariffs but each country has since accused the other of breaching the deal.

The new round of negotiations follows a phone call between Donald Trump and China’s leader Xi Jinping last week which the US President described as a “very good talk”.

The call – the first between the two leaders since the trade war erupted in February – “resulted in a very positive conclusion for both countries”, Trump said.

According to Chinese state news agency Xinhua, Xi told Trump that the US should “withdraw the negative measures it has taken against China”.

While last month’s talks in Geneva reduced tariffs, they did not resolve a range of other issues including Chinese exports of rare earth metals and magnets which are essential for manufacturing everything from smartphones to electric vehicles.

Meanwhile, Washington has restricted China’s access to US goods such as semiconductors and other related technologies linked to artificial intelligence (AI).

The inclusion of Lutnick in this week’s meetings with China is “a welcome addition”, according to Swetha Ramachandran, fund manager at Artemis, since he is “behind some of the very harsh export controls of technology to China”.

She told the BBC’s Today programme: “Some of the focus certainly seems to be on rare earths where China, of course, has dominance in terms of producing.

“They mine 69% of the rare earths globally that are quite essential to technology development in the US so I think there are enough chips on the table here that could make it acceptable for both sides to walk away with desired outcomes.”

As well as Lutnick, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will meet Chinese officials in London.

When Trump announced sweeping tariffs on imports from a number of countries earlier this year, China was the hardest hit. Beijing responded with its own higher rates on US imports, and this triggered tit-for-tat increases that peaked at 145%.

In May, talks held in Switzerland led to a temporary truce that Trump called a “total reset”.

It brought US tariffs on Chinese products down to 30%, while Beijing slashed levies on US imports to 10% and promised to lift barriers on critical mineral exports. It gave both sides a 90-day deadline to try to reach a trade deal.

But the US and China have since claimed breaches on non-tariff pledges.

Greer said China had failed to roll-back restrictions on exports of rare earth magnets.

Beijing said US violations of the agreement included stopping sales of computer chip design software to Chinese companies, warning against using chips made by Chinese tech giant Huawei and cancelling visas for Chinese students.

On Saturday, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said it had approved some applications for rare earth export licences, although it did not provide details of which countries were involved.

Trump said on Friday that Xi had agreed to restart trade in rare earth materials.

But speaking on Sunday, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CBS News that “those exports of critical minerals have been getting released at a rate that is, you know, higher than it was, but not as high as we believe we agreed to in Geneva”.

Economists have warned that Trump’s trade policy will impact the global economy.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said it now expected worldwide economic growth to be a “modest” 2.9%, down from a previous forecast of 3.1%.

It blamed a “significant” rise in trade barriers and warned that “weakened economic prospects will be felt around the world, with almost no exception”.

New data released by Bejing on Monday showed China’s exports in May were lower than analysts expected.

China’s exports in dollar terms increased by 4.8% compared to the same time last year.

At the same time imports dropped by 3.4%, which was much worse than the 0.9% fall predicted.

Succession star Sarah Snook and singer Nicole Scherzinger were among the big winners at Sunday’s Tony Awards.

Scherzinger was named best actress in a musical for her role as faded film star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, Jamie Lloyd’s minimalist reboot of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical.

In an emotional acceptance speech, Scherzinger reflected on her recent Broadway success, which came two decades after shooting to fame with the Pussycat Dolls.

“Growing up, I always felt like I didn’t belong, but you all have made me feel like I belong and I have come home, at last,” she said. “If there’s anyone out there who feels like they don’t belong or your time hasn’t come, don’t give up.”

She added: “Just keep on giving and giving because the world needs your love and your light now more than ever. This is a testament that love always wins.”

The singer and former X Factor judge won the same prize at the UK equivalent of the Tonys, the Olivier Awards, for her performance in the show’s original West End run.

She said it had been an “honour” to work with composer Lord Lloyd Webber, and paid tribute to Lloyd, saying: “You saw in me what no one else did. You have given us all new ways to dream and you have changed my life forever.”

Scherzinger also sang As If We Never Said Goodbye during the ceremony, a performance that was introduced by Glenn Close, who played Desmond in Sunset Boulevard when it played on Broadway in 1995.

The Tony Awards, hosted by Wicked star Cynthia Erivo at Radio City Music Hall in New York, celebrate the best in US theatre, and particularly Broadway.

Snook also repeated her Olivier win, taking best leading actress in a play, for performing all 26 roles in a one-woman stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

In her acceptance speech, the actress said: “This means so much for a little Australian girl to be here on Broadway.

“[The Picture of Dorian Gray] is billed as a one-person show, but I don’t feel alone any night that I do this show. There are so many people on stage making it work and behind the stage making it work.”

Other winners included Maybe Happy Ending, about two outdated robots who find connection. It took home best musical, while its star Darren Criss, who previously appeared in Glee, also won an acting prize.

“I have such immense pride to get to be part of this notably diverse, exquisite Broadway season this year,” he said.

Paying tribute to his wife, he added: “Your love and your support for me and our beautiful children, combined with the miracle of working on something as magical as Maybe Happy Ending, has been and will always be award enough.”

Purpose, about an African-American family who reunite in Chicago, was named best play, a month after winning the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Meanwhile, Cole Escola was named best actor in a play for Oh Mary!, a one-act reimagining of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination through the eyes of his wife – a raging alcoholic who dreams of life as a cabaret star.

Sunset Boulevard also won best musical revival, while Eureka Day, about a school in California which must confront its vaccination policy after an outbreak of mumps among the pupils, won best revival of a play.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a stage adaptation of the hit Netflix show, and Buena Vista Social Club, which tells the story of the Cuban musical group, were among the other winners.

The biggest winners:

• 6 – Maybe Happy Ending
• 4 – Buena Vista Social Club
• 3 – Sunset Boulevard, Stranger Things: The First Shadow
• 2 – Purpose, Oh Mary!, The Picture of Dorian Gray

British actor Jak Malone was named best featured actor in a musical – the Tonys equivalent of the supporting actor prize – for Operation Mincemeat, the story of the British plot to fool the Nazis during World War Two.

Elsewhere in the ceremony, Erivo was joined on stage by singer Sara Bareilles for a rendition of Tomorrow from the musical Annie, in tribute to those in the theatre community who had died throughout the year. The song’s composer, Charles Strouse, died last month.

Presenters at the event included Samuel L Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Ben Stiller and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The original cast of Hamilton reunited to perform a rapturously received medley, to celebrate the show’s 10th anniversary.

In the last year, a string of new shows and stars drew 14.7 million people to Broadway performances, grossing $1.89bn (£1.39bn) at the box office.

Best musical

• WINNER: Maybe Happy Ending
• Buena Vista Social Club
• Dead Outlaw
• Death Becomes Her
• Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical

Best play

• WINNER: Purpose
• English
• The Hills of California
• John Proctor is the Villain
• Oh, Mary!

Best revival of a play

• WINNER: Eureka Day
• Romeo + Juliet
• Our Town
• Yellow Face

Best revival of a musical

• WINNER: Sunset Boulevard
• Floyd Collins
• Gypsy
• Pirates! The Penzance Musical

Best actress in a musical

• WINNER: Nicole Scherzinger, Sunset Boulevard
• Megan Hilty, Death Becomes Her
• Audra McDonald, Gypsy
• Jasmine Amy Rogers, BOOP! The Musical
• Jennifer Simard, Death Becomes Her

Best actor in a musical

• WINNER: Darren Criss, Maybe Happy Ending
• Andrew Durand, Dead Outlaw
• Tom Francis, Sunset Boulevard
• Jonathan Groff, Just in Time
• James Monroe Iglehart, A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical
• Jeremy Jordan, Floyd Collins

Best actress in a play

• WINNER: Sarah Snook, The Picture of Dorian Gray
• Laura Donnelly, The Hills of California
• Mia Farrow, The Roommate
• LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Purpose
• Sadie Sink, John Proctor is the Villain

Best actor in a play

• WINNER: Cole Escola, Oh, Mary!
• George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck
• Jon Michael Hill, Purpose
• Daniel Dae Kim, Yellow Face
• Harry Lennix, Purpose
• Louis McCartney, Stranger Things: The First Shadow

Best direction of a musical

• WINNER: Michael Arden, Maybe Happy Ending
• Saheem Ali, Buena Vista Social Club
• David Cromer, Dead Outlaw
• Christopher Gattelli, Death Becomes Her
• Jamie Lloyd, Sunset Boulevard

Best direction of a play

• WINNER: Sam Pinkleton, Oh, Mary!
• Knud Adams, English
• Sam Mendes, The Hills of California
• Danya Taymor, John Proctor is the Villain
• Kip Williams, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Best supporting actress in a musical

• WINNER: Natalie Venetia Belcon, Buena Vista Social Club
• Julia Knitel, Dead Outlaw
• Gracie Lawrence, Just in Time
• Justina Machado, Real Women Have Curves: The Musical
• Joy Woods, Gypsy

Best supporting actor in a musical

• WINNER: Jak Malone, Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical
• Brooks Ashmanskas, SMASH
• Jeb Brown, Dead Outlaw
• Danny Burstein, Gypsy
• Taylor Trensch, Floyd Collins

Best supporting actress in a play

• WINNER: Kara Young, Purpose
• Tala Ashe, English
• Jessica Hecht, Eureka Day
• Marjan Neshat, English
• Fina Strazza, John Proctor is the Villain

Best supporting actor in a play

• WINNER: Francis Jue, Yellow Face
• Glenn Davis, Purpose
• Gabriel Ebert, John Proctor is the Villain
• Bob Odenkirk, Glengarry Glen Ross
• Conrad Ricamora, Oh, Mary!

Authorities have imposed a curfew and shut down the internet in parts of the troubled north-eastern Indian state of Manipur after protests erupted over the arrest of leaders from an ethnic group.

On Sunday, police arrested five leaders of Arambai Tenggol, an armed Meitei radical group, including their chief Asem Kanan Singh.

India’s top investigation agency said Singh was arrested at Manipur’s Imphal airport for his involvement in “various criminal activities” related to the violence that broke out in the state in 2023.

Manipur has been rocked by periodic violence since 2023 after ethnic clashes between the two largest groups, the majority Meitei and minority Kuki, over land and influence.

More than 250 people have been killed in the conflict, with tens of thousands displaced.

Arambai Tenggol identifies itself as a social outfit and wields considerable influence in the state, enjoying support from the Meitei community.

The latest round of tensions began on 7 June, when India’s top investigation agency arrested Singh and four other leaders of Arambai Tenggol, following which he was taken to Guwahati city in the neighbouring state of Assam.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is investigating cases related to violence in Manipur, said that the trial for these had been shifted from Manipur to Guwahati in Assam “in view of the law and order situation in Manipur”.

After the arrests, protesters demanding the release of members of Arambai Tenggol stormed a police post, set fire to a bus and blocked roads in parts of Imphal.

Some protesters also clashed with security personnel, The Hindu newspaper reported.

A 13-year-old boy was injured after security forces fired tear gas shells and live rounds to disperse crowds, The Hindustan Times reported.

State lawmaker Okram Surjakumar said the arrests had thrown the state into chaos.

Following the violence, the state government suspended internet and mobile data services in five districts of the state for five days and imposed an indefinite curfew in one. Gatherings of four or more people has also been prohibited in the some parts.

Arambai Tenggol has also declared a 10-day shutdown in parts of the state since Saturday night.

Priyanka Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party, on Sunday questioned why the government was unable to bring to peace to the conflict-hit state.

Earlier this year, the Indian government brought the state under direct federal rule after the chief minister resigned following criticism from opposition groups.

Gandhi blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he had not met representatives from the state or made any efforts for peace.

“It is the prime minister’s responsibility to ensure peace and security for the citizens of the country. To step back from this is to turn away from one’s duty,” she wrote in a post on X.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been sharply criticised by opposition leaders and rights groups for its handling of the conflict. Opposition leaders have also criticised Modi for not visiting the state since the violence first began in 2023.

On Sunday, a multi-party delegation of state lawmakers met the state governor.

BJP lawmker Kh Ibomcha said the delegation had asked that the arrested leaders be released after they were questioned by the police.

South Koreans are celebrating their first win in the Tony Awards, which they say highlights their country’s status as a cultural powerhouse.

The acclaimed Broadway production of Maybe Happy Ending, which debuted in South Korea almost a decade ago, won six Tonys, including best musical.

Maybe Happy Ending is about the romance between two humanoid robots living in an apartment building on the outskirts of Seoul. It entered Sunday night’s awards ceremony with 10 nominations.

With the Tonys, South Koreans have now won the four most coveted awards in US entertainment. Squid Game won Emmy awards in 2022 while Parasite won four Oscars in 2020. Soprano Sumi Jo won a Grammy in 1993.

On Sunday, South Korean lyricist Hue Park and American composer Will Aronson took home the Tony for best original score and best book of a musical.

Before making their Broadway debut with Maybe Happy Ending in 2024, the pair, who met as students at New York University, had written the musical in both English and Korean.

“This is amazing!” one post on Threads reads. “I heard the Broadway version got even more polished. I’m so proud that Korea is becoming a true cultural powerhouse.”

“This feels like a dream come true for the Korean Wave,” reads another post. “I’m just as thrilled as when Parasite won the Oscars, Squid Game won the Emmys, and Han Kang received the Nobel Prize.”

Former Glee star Darren Criss, who played one of the robots, Oliver, won best lead actor in a musical. It was his first Tony win.

The musical, which also stars Helen J Shen as robot Claire, was already on a streak this awards season.

It bagged some of the top prizes at the Outer Critics Circle Awards and Drama League Awards this year.

First directed by Kim Dong-yeon, Maybe Happy Ending premiered in Seoul in 2016 to much critical acclaim. It has since been revived several times in South Korea and abroad – in both Korean and English.

Maybe Happy Ending’s success comes as South Korean artists continue to break ground in entertainment, especially with K-pop acts like BTS and Blackpink dominating music in the last few years.

It also serves as a window into Korean culture, some social media users say.

“It’s amazing that Korean elements like Jeju Island, fireflies, and hwabun (a plant pot) were kept in the Broadway version too,” reads one post on Threads.

“I already felt proud just seeing it nominated, but watching the local audience react so positively made it even more special.”

Iranian officials have expanded a ban on dog walking to a swathe of cities across the country, citing public order and health and safety concerns

The ban – which mirrors a 2019 police order that barred dog walking in the capital, Tehran – has been extended to at least 18 other cities in the past week. Transporting dogs in vehicles has also been outlawed.

Dog ownership has been frowned upon in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, with dogs viewed as “unclean” by authorities and a legacy of Western cultural influence.

But despite efforts to discourage it, dog ownership is rising, particularly among young people, and it is viewed as a form of rebellion against the restrictive Iranian regime.

Cities including Isfahan and Kerman have introduced bans in recent days, according to news agency AFP.

An official from the western city of Ilam, where a ban was implemented on Sunday, said “legal action” would be taken against people who violated the new rules, according to local media.

However, enforcing restrictions in the past has been patchy, while many dog owners continue to walk their dogs in public in Tehran and other parts of Iran.

There is no national law that outright bans dog ownership, but prosecutors often issue local restrictions that are enforced by police.

“Dog walking is a threat to public health, peace and comfort,” Abbas Najafi, prosecutor of the western city of Hamedan, told state newspaper Iran.

Owners have sometimes been arrested and dogs confiscated for being walked in public.

Many have taken to walking their dogs in secluded areas at night or driving them around to evade detection.

Politicians in the Islamic regime regard pet ownership as un-Islamic. Many religious scholars view petting dogs or coming into contact with their saliva as “najis” or ritually impure.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has previously described dog ownership – other than for the purposes of herding, hunting and security – as “reprehensible”.

In 2021, 75 lawmakers condemned dog ownership as a “destructive social problem” that could “gradually change the Iranian and Islamic way of life”.

Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance banned advertisements for pets or pet-related products in 2010 – and in 2014 there was a drive in parliament to fine and even flog dog-walkers, though the bill did not pass.

Following the recent crackdown, critics argue the police should focus on public safety at a time of growing concern over violent crime, rather than targeting dog owners and restricting personal freedoms.

Dog ownership, defying Iran’s mandatory hijab laws, attending underground parties and drinking alcohol have long been forms of quiet rebellion against Iran’s theocratic regime.

President Donald Trump’s sweeping new travel ban which bars citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States came into effect at 00:00 ET (05:00 BST) on Monday.

The order, which Trump signed last week, restricts the nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the US.

Nationals from a further seven countries – Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela – will face partial travel restrictions.

The US president said the list could be revised if “material improvements” were made, while other countries could be added as “threats emerge around the world”.

It is the second time Trump has ordered a ban on travel from certain countries. He signed a similar order in 2017 during his first term in office.

The White House said these “common sense restrictions” would “protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors”.

There are a number of people from affected countries who may still be able to enter the US due to a number of exceptions. The order does not apply to:

• “Lawful permanent” US residents
• Their immediate family members who hold immigrant visas
• US government employees with Special Immigrant Visas
• Adoptions
• Dual nationals when the individual is not travelling on a passport from one of the affected countries
• Afghan nationals holding Special Immigrant Visas
• Holders of “immigrant visas for ethnic and religious minorities facing persecution in Iran”
• Foreign nationals travelling with certain non-immigrant visas
• Athletes, their teams (including coaches and supporting staff), and their immediate family when travelling for major sporting events, such as the men’s football World Cup in 2026 and the Summer 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles
• In addition, the US Secretary of State may grant exemptions to individuals on a “case-by-case” basis, if “the individual would serve a United States national interest”.

In a video posted to his Truth Social website last week, Trump said the recent attack in Boulder, Colorado “underscored the extreme dangers” posed by foreign nationals who had not been “properly vetted”.

Twelve people were injured in Colorado on 1 June when a man attacked a group gathering in support of Israeli hostages. The FBI called it a suspected terror attack and said the suspect had used a makeshift flamethrower, Molotov cocktails and other incendiary devices.

The man accused of carrying out the attack was identified as an Egyptian national, but Egypt has not been included on the list of banned countries.

Trump’s latest order, which is likely to face legal challenges, drew a swift response, at home and abroad.

Chad retaliated by suspending all visas to US citizens while Somalia promised to work with the US to address security issues.

The African Union, which represents all countries on the continent, called on the US to “engage in constructive dialogue with the countries concerned”.

In the US, Democrats were quick to condemn the move.

“This ban, expanded from Trump’s Muslim ban in his first term, will only further isolate us on the world stage,” Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal wrote on social media.

But others support the ban.

Congressman Clay Higgins of Louisiana told the BBC that travel to the US was “a privilege, not a right”.

The Israeli military has said it has located and identified the body of Mohammed Sinwar, the military leader of Palestinian armed group Hamas in Gaza.

His body was discovered in a tunnel underneath the European Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Sunday.

It said it had verified the body’s identity through DNA checks – though Hamas has not publicly confirmed his death.

Sinwar, 49, was killed in an air strike on 13 May, which the Hamas-run civil defence agency said killed 28 people and injured dozens.

Sinwar’s body was found alongside that of Mohammad Sabaneh, the commander of Hamas’s Rafah Brigade, the IDF said.

It added that “several items belonging to Sinwar and Sabaneh were located, along with additional intelligence findings that were transferred for further investigation”.

The IDF said other bodies were found, which it was looking to identify.

It took a small group of foreign journalists into Gaza to Khan Younis to show them the tunnel on Sunday.

It also published video of the small entrance to the tunnel, accessible through freshly dug earth just in front of the European Hospital.

The footage shows a long, narrow underground corridor that leads to several rooms.

Inside some of them, piles of clothes and plastic chairs are visible, with a rifle leaning up against the wall. One video also shows a shrouded body being pulled from the tunnel by a rope.

IDF spokesperson Brig Gen Effie Defrin said that in one of the rooms they found the Sinwar’s body.

“This is another example of the cynical use by Hamas, using civilians as human shields, using civilian infrastructure, hospitals, again and again,” he said.

Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals as hiding places for weapons and command centres, which the group denies.

The IDF has mounted sieges and attacks on hospitals in Gaza, or ordered their evacuation, leaving the territory’s health system on the verge of total collapse.

Such attacks have caused widespread international concern, as many hospitals and medical facilities have been put out of action – and the lives of patients and staff put at risk.

In a statement after an Israeli strike on al-Ahli hospital in April, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres expressed his deep alarm and declared that, under international humanitarian law, the “wounded and sick, medical personnel and medical facilities, including hospitals, must be respected and protected”.

Hospital staff in Gaza have also repeatedly denied that Hamas is using their facilities as a base.

The IDF will point to this latest footage as vindication of its claims and its military strategy.

As with so much in Gaza, however, full independent verification is not possible.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023 , in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 54,880 people have been killed in Gaza since, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

The renewed fighting in Gaza comes following the collapse of a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal a few months ago.

Since then, Israel has restated its aim to destroy Hamas and recover the hostages, of whom 54 remain in captivity and 23 are thought to still be alive.

Mohammed Sinwar joined Hamas shortly after its founding in the late 1980s and became a member of the group’s military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades.

He rose through the ranks and by 2005 he was commander of the Khan Younis Brigade.

Sinwar was also reported to have been close to another of Hamas’s previous military chiefs, Mohammed Deif, and had been involved in the planning of the 7 October attack.

His brother and predecessor, Yahya Sinwar – believed to be the one of the masterminds behind the 7 October attack – was killed by Israeli troops last October.

Microsoft has finally revealed its highly-anticipated handheld console, years after it was first rumoured.

The ROG Xbox Ally will let gamers access their Game Pass subscription library on-the-go, in effect meaning members will start off with hundreds of games.

It is being made in partnership with Asus, which has been making handheld gaming devices since 2023, and will be released at the end of 2025 – though it is unknown what it will cost.

Speculation over Microsoft making a handheld Xbox has been widespread for more than a decade, with the company starting and scrapping various efforts over the years.

Microsoft’s announcement comes just three days after the launch of the Switch 2.

Much like its predecessor, the Switch 2 is a hybrid gaming device – meaning it can be both played on-the-go and connect to a TV.

Its success likely led to the design of Valve’s Steam Deck, a handheld PC which gives gamers access to the entire library of titles they’ve bought through game distribution service Steam – though not all the games work on the device.

It means Microsoft may be accused of being slightly late to the game when rivals already exist in the space, but the benefit of native support for Game Pass will likely address a lot of concerns for its 34 million subscribers.

Microsoft’s new handheld will comes in two flavours, the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X.

“Whether you’re at home or on the go, your favorite games should follow you,” said Xbox head of gaming devices Roanne Sones.

“Both handhelds allow players to play natively, via the cloud, or remotely with their Xbox console in another room.”

The two versions both share a 7 inch screen with 1080p resolution.

The base version comes with 16GB memory and 512GB storage, while the “X” version has 24GB memory and double the storage.

The more powerful version of the handheld also has a bigger battery and a more powerful processor.

In both cases, Xbox will be hoping to convince players that it offers something out of the box that its rivals don’t – Microsoft’s operating system.

“Because these handhelds run Windows, you have access to games you can’t get elsewhere, so you can enjoy the full freedom and versatility of PC gaming,” said Ms Sones.

In other words, gamers can leave the Xbox app and launch other gaming platforms – such as Steam and EA Play – through the device.

But all that capability comes at a cost when it comes to weight.

At 670g and 715g respectively, the base and X versions of the Xbox Ally may be heavier than handheld gamers are used to – with Nintendo’s new Switch 2 weighing a fair bit less at 534g.

And there remains one big unanswered question – the price.

Microsoft decided not to reveal how much its new handheld will cost, but it goes without saying the more powerful X version will also be more expensive.

The Switch 2, which has a similar screen, retails at £395 in the UK, while the Steam Deck costs between £349 and £569 depending on the specs.

Part of the success of Game Pass is many highly-anticipated new releases appear on the service on launch day, meaning gamers can save money by subscribing – though you lose access to a game if you cancel your subscription.

At its showcase event where it unveiled the new handheld, Microsoft announced several new games – including a reveal that 17 new titles will come to Game Pass PC & Ultimate on day one.

Many of these are highly-anticipated games such as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4, Ninja Gaiden 4 and Outer Worlds 2.

It also includes the new Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 when that releases – likely later this year.

The new game will be a sequel to the critically-acclaimed Black Ops 2, which first released in 2012.

Interestingly, while the game was confirmed for several consoles, there was no mention of the Switch 2 at the event – despite Nintendo previously signing a 10-year deal to bring the series to its consoles in 2022.

But there’s something else which many gaming fans will have been excited to finally see revealed.

The much-anticipated Persona 4 remake, subtitled Revival, is set to be remade 17 years after it was first released on PlayStation 2.

The original, which sees a group of friends investigate a series of murders in the Japanese countryside, is considered a gaming classic.

But fans of the series will have to wait, as Sega and Atlus did not share a release date for the remake.

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During the mid-1970s, under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s imposition of the Emergency, India entered a period where civil liberties were suspended and much of the political opposition was jailed.

Behind this authoritarian curtain, her Congress party government quietly began reimagining the country – not as a democracy rooted in checks and balances, but as a centralised state governed by command and control, historian Srinath Raghavan reveals in his new book.

In Indira Gandhi and the Years That Transformed India, Prof Raghavan shows how Gandhi’s top bureaucrats and party loyalists began pushing for a presidential system – one that would centralise executive power, sideline an “obstructionist” judiciary and reduce parliament to a symbolic chorus.

Inspired in part by Charles de Gaulle’s France, the push for a stronger presidency in India reflected a clear ambition to move beyond the constraints of parliamentary democracy – even if it never fully materialised.

It all began, writes Prof Raghavan, in September 1975, when BK Nehru, a seasoned diplomat and a close aide of Gandhi, wrote a letter hailing the Emergency as a “tour de force of immense courage and power produced by popular support” and urged Gandhi to seize the moment.

Parliamentary democracy had “not been able to provide the answer to our needs”, Nehru wrote. In this system the executive was continuously dependent on the support of an elected legislature “which is looking for popularity and stops any unpleasant measure”.

What India needed, Nehru said, was a directly elected president – freed from parliamentary dependence and capable of taking “tough, unpleasant and unpopular decisions” in the national interest, Prof Raghavan writes.

The model he pointed to was de Gaulle’s France – concentrating power in a strong presidency. Nehru imagined a single, seven-year presidential term, proportional representation in Parliament and state legislatures, a judiciary with curtailed powers and a press reined in by strict libel laws. He even proposed stripping fundamental rights – right to equality or freedom of speech, for example – of their justiciability.

Nehru urged Indira Gandhi to “make these fundamental changes in the Constitution now when you have two-thirds majority”. His ideas were “received with rapture” by the prime minister’s secretary PN Dhar. Gandhi then gave Nehru approval to discuss these ideas with her party leaders but said “very clearly and emphatically” that he should not convey the impression that they had the stamp of her approval.

Prof Raghavan writes that the ideas met with enthusiastic support from senior Congress leaders like Jagjivan Ram and foreign minister Swaran Singh. The chief minister of Haryana state was blunt: “Get rid of this election nonsense. If you ask me just make our sister [Indira Gandhi] President for life and there’s no need to do anything else”. M Karunanidhi of Tamil Nadu – one of two non-Congress chief ministers consulted – was unimpressed.

When Nehru reported back to Gandhi, she remained non-committal, Prof Raghavan writes. She instructed her closest aides to explore the proposals further.

What emerged was a document titled “A Fresh Look at Our Constitution: Some suggestions”, drafted in secrecy and circulated among trusted advisors. It proposed a president with powers greater than even their American counterpart, including control over judicial appointments and legislation. A new “Superior Council of Judiciary”, chaired by the president, would interpret “laws and the Constitution” – effectively neutering the Supreme Court.

Gandhi sent this document to Dhar, who recognised it “twisted the Constitution in an ambiguously authoritarian direction”. Congress president DK Barooah tested the waters by publicly calling for a “thorough re-examination” of the Constitution at the party’s 1975 annual session.

The idea never fully crystallised into a formal proposal. But its shadow loomed over the Forty-second Amendment Act, passed in 1976, which expanded Parliament’s powers, limited judicial review and further centralised executive authority.

The amendment made striking down laws harder by requiring supermajorities of five or seven judges, and aimed to dilute the Constitution’s ‘basic structure doctrine’ that limited parliament’s power.

It also handed the federal government sweeping authority to deploy armed forces in states, declare region-specific Emergencies, and extend President’s Rule – direct federal rule – from six months to a year. It also put election disputes out of the judiciary’s reach.

This was not yet a presidential system, but it carried its genetic imprint – a powerful executive, marginalised judiciary and weakened checks and balances. The Statesman newspaper warned that “by one sure stroke, the amendment tilts the constitutional balance in favour of the parliament.”

Meanwhile, Gandhi’s loyalists were going all in. Defence minister Bansi Lal urged “lifelong power” for her as prime minister, while Congress members in the northern states of Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh unanimously called for a new constituent assembly in October 1976.

“The prime minister was taken aback. She decided to snub these moves and hasten the passage of the amendment bill in the parliament,” writes Prof Raghavan.

By December 1976, the bill had been passed by both houses of parliament and ratified by 13 state legislatures and signed into law by the president.

After Gandhi’s shock defeat in 1977, the short-lived Janata Party – a patchwork of anti-Gandhi forces – moved quickly to undo the damage. Through the Forty-third and Forty-fourth Amendments, it rolled back key parts of the Forty Second, scrapping authoritarian provisions and restoring democratic checks and balances.

Gandhi was swept back to power in January 1980, after the Janata Party government collapsed due to internal divisions and leadership struggles. Curiously, two years later, prominent voices in the party again mooted the idea of a presidential system.

In 1982, with President Sanjiva Reddy’s term ending, Gandhi seriously considered stepping down as prime minister to become president of India.

Her principal secretary later revealed she was “very serious” about the move. She was tired of carrying the Congress party on her back and saw the presidency as a way to deliver a “shock treatment to her party, thereby giving it a new stimulus”.

Ultimately, she backed down. Instead, she elevated Zail Singh, her loyal home minister, to the presidency.

Despite serious flirtation, India never made the leap to a presidential system. Did Gandhi, a deeply tactical politician, hold herself back ? Or was there no national appetite for radical change and India’s parliamentary system proved sticky?

There was a hint of presidential drift in the early 1970s, as India’s parliamentary democracy – especially after 1967 – grew more competitive and unstable, marked by fragile coalitions, according to Prof Raghavan. Around this time, voices began suggesting that a presidential system might suit India better. The Emergency became the moment when these ideas crystallised into serious political thinking.

“The aim was to reshape the system in ways that immediately strengthened her hold on power. There was no grand long-term design – most of the lasting consequences of her [Gandhi’s] rule were likely unintended,” Prof Raghavan told the BBC.

“During the Emergency, her primary goal was short-term: to shield her office from any challenge. The Forty Second Amendment was crafted to ensure that even the judiciary couldn’t stand in her way.”

The itch for a presidential system within the Congress never quite faded. As late as April 1984, senior minister Vasant Sathe launched a nationwide debate advocating a shift to presidential governance – even while in power.

But six months later, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in Delhi, and with her, the conversation abruptly died. India stayed a parliamentary democracy.

It is 1am on 3 June. A near gale force wind is blasting into Scotland. Great weather for the Moray East and West offshore wind farms, you would have thought.

The two farms are 13 miles off the north-east coast of Scotland and include some of the biggest wind turbines in the UK, at 257m high. With winds like that they should be operating at maximum capacity, generating what the developer, Ocean Winds, claims is enough power to meet the electricity needs of well over a million homes.

Except they are not.

That’s because if you thought that once an electricity generator – whether it be a wind farm or a gas-powered plant – was connected to the national grid it could seamlessly send its electricity wherever it was needed in the country, you’d be wrong.

The electricity grid was built to deliver power generated by coal and gas plants near the country’s major cities and towns, and doesn’t always have sufficient capacity in the wires that carry electricity around the country to get the new renewable electricity generated way out in the wild seas and rural areas.

And this has major consequences.

The way the system currently works means a company like Ocean Winds gets what are effectively compensation payments if the system can’t take the power its wind turbines are generating and it has to turn down its output.

It means Ocean winds was paid £72,000 not to generate power from its wind farms in the Moray Firth during a half-hour period on 3 June because the system was overloaded – one of a number of occasions output was restricted that day.

At the same time, 44 miles (70km) east of London, the Grain gas-fired power station on the Thames Estuary was paid £43,000 to provide more electricity.

Payments like that happen virtually every day. Seagreen, Scotland’s largest wind farm, was paid £65 million last year to restrict its output 71% of the time, according to analysis by Octopus Energy.

Balancing the grid in this way has already cost the country more than £500 million this year alone, the company’s analysis shows. The total could reach almost £8bn a year by 2030, warns the National Electricity System Operator (NESO), the body in charge of the electricity network.

It’s pushing up all our energy bills and calling into question the government’s promise that net zero would end up delivering cheaper electricity.

Now, the government is considering a radical solution: instead of one big, national electricity market, there’ll be a number of smaller regional markets, with the government gambling that this could make the system more efficient and deliver cheaper bills.

But in reality, it’s not guaranteed that anyone will get cheaper bills. And even if some people do, many others elsewhere in the country could end up paying more.

The proposals have sparked such bitter debate that one senior energy industry executive called it “the most vicious policy fight” he has ever known. He has, he says, “lost friends” over it.

Meanwhile, political opponents who claim net zero is an expensive dead end are only too ready to pounce.

It is reported that the Prime Minister has asked to review the details of what some newspapers are calling a “postcode pricing” plan. So is the government really ready to risk the most radical shake-up of the UK electricity market since privatisation 35 years ago? And what will it really mean for our bills?

The Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, is certainly in a fix. His net zero policy is under attack like never before. The Tories have come out against it, green politicians say it isn’t delivering for ordinary people, and even Tony Blair has weighed in against it.

Meanwhile Reform UK has identified the policy as a major Achilles heel for the Labour government. “The next election will be fought on two issues, immigration and net stupid zero,” says Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice. “And we are going to win.”

Poll after poll says cost of living is a much more important for most people, and people often specifically cite concerns about rising energy prices.

Miliband sold his aggressive clean energy policies in part on cutting costs. He said that ensuring 95% of the country’s electricity comes from low-carbon sources by 2030 would slash the average electricity bill by £300.

But the potential for renewables to deliver lower costs just isn’t coming through to consumers.

Renewables now generate more than half the country’s electricity, but because of the limits to how much electricity can be moved around the system, even on windy days some gas generation is almost always needed to top the system up.

And because gas tends to be more expensive, it sets the wholesale price.

Supporters of the government’s plan argue that, as long as prices continue to be set at a national level, the hold gas has on the cost of electricity will be hard to break. Less so with regional – or, in the jargon, “zonal” – pricing.

Think of Scotland, blessed with vast wind resources but just 5.5 million people. The argument goes that if prices were set locally, it wouldn’t be necessary to pay wind farms to be turned down because there wasn’t enough capacity in the cables to carry all the electricity into England.

On a windy day like 3 June, they would have to sell that spare power to local people instead of into a national market. The theory is prices would fall dramatically – on some days Scottish customers might even get their electricity for free.

Other areas with lots of renewable power – such as Yorkshire and the North East, as well as parts of Wales – would stand to benefit too. And, as solar investment increases in Lincolnshire and other parts of the east of England, they could also see prices tumble.

All that cheap power could also transform the economics of industry. Supporters argue that it would attract energy-intensive businesses such as data centres, chemical companies and other manufacturing industries.

In London and much of the south of England, the price of electricity would sometimes be higher than in the windy north. But supporters say some of the hundreds of millions of pounds the system would save could be used to make sure no one pays more than they do now.

And those higher prices could also encourage investors to build new wind farms and solar plants closer to where the demand is. The argument is that would lower prices in the long run and bring another benefit – less electricity would need to be carried around the country, so we would need fewer new pylons, saving everyone money and meaning less clutter in the countryside.

“Zonal pricing would make the energy system as a whole dramatically more efficient, slashing this waste and cutting bills for every family and business in the country,” argues Greg Jackson, the CEO of Octopus Energy, one of the biggest energy suppliers in the UK.

Research commissioned by the company estimates the savings could top £55 billion by 2050 – which it claims could knock £50 to £100 a year off the average bill. Octopus points out Sweden made the switch to regional pricing in just 18 months.

The supporters of regional pricing include NESO, Citizens Advice and the head of the energy regulator, Ofgem. Last week a committee of the House of Lords recommended the country should switch to the system.

There are, however, many businesses involved in building and running renewable energy plants that oppose the move.

“We’re making billions of pounds of investments in renewable power in the UK every year,” says Tom Glover, the UK chair of the giant German power company RWE. “I can’t go to my board and say let’s take a bet on billions of pounds of investment.”

He’s worried changing the way energy is priced could undermine contracts and make revenues more uncertain. And he says it risks undermining the government’s big push to switch to green energy.

The main cost of wind and solar plants is in the build. It means the price of the energy they produce is very closely tied to the cost of building and, because developers borrow most of the money, that means the interest rates they are charged.

And we are talking a lot of money. The government is expecting power companies to spend £40bn pounds a year over the next five years on renewable projects in the UK.

Glover says even a very small change in interest rates could have dramatic effects on how much renewable infrastructure is built and how much the power from it costs.

“Those additional costs could quickly overwhelm any of the benefits of regional pricing,” says Stephen Woodhouse, an economist with the consultancy firm AFRY, which has studied the impact of regional pricing for the power companies.

That would come as already high interest rates have combined with rising prices for steel and other materials to push up the cost of renewables. Plans for a huge wind farm off the coast of Yorkshire were cancelled last month because the developer said it no longer made economic sense.

And there’s another consideration, he says. The National Grid, which owns the pylons, substations and cables that move electricity around the country, is already rolling out a huge investment programme – some £60bn over the next five years – to upgrade the system ready for the new world of clean power.

That new infrastructure will mean more capacity to bring electricity from our windy northern coasts down south, and therefore also mean fewer savings from a regional pricing system in the future.

There are other arguments too. Critics warn introducing regional pricing could take years, that energy-intensive businesses like British Steel can’t just up sticks and move, and that the system will be unfair because some customers will pay more than others.

But according to Greg Jackson of Octopus, the power companies and their backers just want to protect their profits. “Unsurprisingly, it’s the companies that enjoy attractive returns from this absurd system who are lobbying hard to maintain the status quo,” he says.

Yet the power companies say Octopus has a vested interest too. It is the UK’s biggest energy supplier with some seven million customers, and owns a sophisticated billing system it licenses to other suppliers, so could gain from changes to the way electricity is priced, they claim.

And the clock is ticking. Whether the government meets its clean power targets will depend on how many new wind farms and solar plants are built.

The companies who will build them say they need certainty around the future of the electricity market, so a decision must be taken soon.

It’s expected in the next couple of weeks. Over to you, Mr Miliband.

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Even wars have rules. They don’t stop soldiers killing each other but they’re intended to make sure that civilians caught up in the fighting are treated humanely and protected from as much danger as possible. The rules apply equally to all sides.

If one side has suffered a brutal surprise attack that killed hundreds of civilians, as Israel did on 7 October 2023, it does not get an exemption from the law. The protection of civilians is a legal requirement in a battle plan.

That, at least, is the theory behind the Geneva Conventions. The latest version, the fourth, was formulated and adopted after World War Two to stop such slaughter and cruelty to civilians from ever happening again.

At the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva (ICRC) the words “Even Wars Have Rules” are emblazoned in huge letters on a glass rotunda.

The reminder is timely because the rules are being broken.

Getting information from Gaza is difficult. It is a lethal warzone. At least 181 journalists and media workers have been killed since the war started, almost all Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Israel won’t let international news teams into Gaza.

Since the best way to check controversial and difficult stories is first hand, that means the fog of war, always hard to penetrate, is as thick as I have ever experienced in a lifetime of war reporting.

It is clear that Israel wants it to be that way. A few days into the war I was part of a convoy of journalists escorted by the army into the border communities that Hamas had attacked, while rescue workers were recovering the bodies of Israelis from smoking ruins of their homes, and Israeli paratroopers were still clearing buildings with bursts of gunfire.

Israel wanted us to see what Hamas had done. The conclusion has to be that it does not want foreign reporters to see what it is doing in Gaza.

To find an alternative route through that fog, we decided to approach it through the prism of laws that are supposed to regulate warfare and protect civilians. I went to the ICRC headquarters as it is the custodian of the Geneva Conventions.

I have also spoken to distinguished lawyers; to humanitarians with years of experience of working within the law to bring aid to Gaza and other warzones; and to senior Western diplomats about their governments’ growing impatience with Israel and nervousness that they might be seen as complicit in future criminal investigations if they do not speak up about the catastrophe inside Gaza.

In Europe there is also now a widely held belief, as in Israel, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is prolonging the war not to safeguard Israelis, but to preserve the ultra-nationalist coalition that keeps him in power.

As prime minister he can prevent a national inquiry into his role in security failures that gave Hamas its opportunity before 7 October and slow down his long-running trial on serious corruption charges that could land him in jail.

Netanyahu rarely gives interviews or news conferences. He prefers direct statements filmed and posted on social media. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar declined a request for an interview.

Boaz Bismuth, a parliamentarian from Netanyahu’s Likud party, repeated his leader’s positions: that there is no famine in Gaza, that Israel respects the laws of war and that unwarranted criticism of its conduct by countries including the UK, France and Canada incites antisemitic attacks on Jews, including murder.

Lawyers I have spoken to believe that there is evidence that Israel followed war crimes, committed by Hamas when it attacked Israel, with very many of its own, including the crime of genocide.

It is clear that Israel has hard questions to answer that will not go away.

It also faces a legal process alleging genocide at the International Court of Justice and has a prime minister with limited travel options as he faces a warrant for arrest on war crimes charges issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Rival politicians inside Israel accuse Netanyahu of presiding over war crimes and turning Israel into a pariah state.

He has pushed back hard, comparing himself – when the warrant was issued – to Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish officer wrongly convicted of treason in an antisemitic scandal that rocked France in the 1890s.

The evidence of what is happening in Gaza starts with the numbers. On 7 October 2023 Hamas broke into Israel, killing 1,200 people. More than 800 were Israeli civilians. The others were members of Israel’s security forces, first responders and foreign workers. Around 250 people, including non-Israelis, were dragged back into Gaza as hostages.

Figures vary slightly, but it is believed that 54 hostages remain in Gaza, of whom 31 are believed to be dead.

Collating the huge total of Palestinian casualties inside Gaza is much more difficult. Israel restricts movement inside Gaza and much of the north of the strip cannot be reached.

The latest figures from the ministry of health in Gaza record that Israel killed at least 54,607 Palestinians and wounded 125,341 between the 7 October attacks and 4 June this year. Its figures do not separate civilians from members of Hamas and other armed groups.

According to Unicef, by January this year 14,500 Palestinian children in Gaza had been killed by Israel; 17,000 are separated from their parents or orphaned; and Gaza has the highest percentage of child amputees in the world.

Israel and the US have tried to spread doubt about the casualty reports from the ministry, because like the rest of the fragments of governance left in Gaza, it is controlled by Hamas. But the ministry’s figures are used by the UN, foreign diplomats and even, according to reports in Israel, the country’s own intelligence services.

When the work of the ministry’s statisticians was checked after previous wars, it tallied with other estimates.

A study in medical journal The Lancet argues that the ministry underestimates the numbers killed by Israel, in part because its figures are incomplete. Thousands are buried under rubble of destroyed buildings and thousands more will die slowly of illnesses that would have been curable had they had access to medical care.

Gaza’s civilians had some respite during a ceasefire earlier this year. But when negotiations on a longer-term deal failed, Israel went back to war on 18 March with a series of huge air strikes and since then a new military offensive, which the prime minister says will finally deliver the elusive “total victory” over Hamas that he promised on 7 October 2023.

Israel has put severe restrictions on food and aid shipments into Gaza throughout the war and blocked them entirely from March to May this year. With Gaza on the brink of famine, it is clear that Israel has violated laws that say civilians should be protected, not starved.

A British government minister told the BBC that Israel was using hunger “as a weapon of war”. The Israeli Defence Minister, Israel Katz, said openly that the food blockade was a “main pressure lever” against Hamas to release the hostages and accept defeat.

Weaponising food is a war crime.

War is always savage. I was in Geneva to see Mirjana Spoljaric, the Swiss diplomat who is president of the ICRC. She believes it can get even worse; that there is no doubt that both parties are flouting the Geneva Conventions, and this sends a message that the rules of war can be ignored in conflicts across the world.

After we walked past glass cases displaying the ICRC’s three Nobel peace prizes and handwritten copperplate reproductions of the Geneva Conventions, she warned that “we are hollowing out the very rules that protect the fundamental rights of every human being”.

• Gaza now worse than hell on earth, humanitarian chief tells BBC

We sat down to talk in a room with one of Europe’s most serene views: the tranquillity of Lake Geneva and the magnificent sprawl of the Mont-Blanc massif.

But for Ms Spoljaric, constantly aware of the ICRC’s role as custodian of the Geneva Conventions, the view beyond the Alps and across the Mediterranean to Gaza is alarming. She has been in Gaza twice since 7 October and says that it is worse than hell on earth.

“Humanity is failing in Gaza,” Ms Spoljaric told me. “It is failing. We cannot continue to watch what is happening. It’s surpassing any acceptable, legal, moral, and humane standard. The level of destruction, the level of suffering.”

More importantly, she says, the world is watching an entire people, the Palestinians, being stripped of their human dignity.

“It should really shock our collective conscience… It will haunt us. We are seeing things happening that will make the world an unhappier place far beyond the region.”

I asked her about Israel’s justification that it is acting in self-defence to destroy a terrorist organisation that attacked and killed its people on 7 October.

“It is no justification for a disrespect or for a hollowing out of the Geneva Conventions,” she said. “Neither party is allowed to break the rules, no matter what, and this is important because, look, the same rules apply to every human being under the Geneva Convention.

“A child in Gaza has exactly the same protections under the Geneva Conventions as a child in Israel.”

Mirjana Spoljaric spoke quietly, with intense moral clarity. The ICRC considers itself a neutral organisation; in wars it tries to work even-handedly with all sides.

She was not neutral about the rights all human beings should enjoy, and is deeply concerned that those rights are being damaged by the disregard of the rules of war in Gaza.

On the evening of 7 October 2023, while Israel’s troops were still fighting to drive Hamas invaders out of its border communities, Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a brief video address to the Israeli people and the watching world.

Speaking from Israel’s military command centre in the heart of Tel Aviv, he chose words that would reassure Israelis and induce dread in their enemies. They were also a window into his thinking about the way that the war should be fought, and how Israel would defend its military choices against criticism.

The fate of Hamas was sealed, he promised. “We will destroy them and we will forcefully avenge this dark day that they have forced on the State of Israel and its citizens.

“All of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble.”

Netanyahu praised allies who were rallying around Israel, singling out the US, France and the UK for their “unreserved support”. He had spoken to them, he said, “to ensure freedom of action”.

But in war freedom of action has legal limits. States can fight, but it must be proportionate to the threat that they face, and civilian lives must be protected.

“You’re never entitled to break the law,” says Janina Dill, professor of global security at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School.

“How Israel conducts this war is an entirely separate legal analysis… The same, by the way, is true in terms of resistance to occupation. October 7 was not an appropriate exercise [by Hamas] of the right of resistance to occupation either.

“So, you can have the overall right of self-defence or resistance. And then how you exercise that right is subject to separate rules. And having a really good cause in war legally doesn’t give you additional licence to use additional violence.

“The rules on how wars are conducted are the rules for everybody regardless of why they are in the war.”

What a difference time and death make in war. Twenty months after Netanyahu’s speech, Israel has exhausted a deep reservoir of goodwill and support among many of its friends in Europe and Canada.

Israel always had its critics and enemies. The difference now is that some countries and individuals who consider themselves friends and allies no longer support the way Israel has been fighting the war. In particular, the restrictions on food aid that respected international assessments say have brought Gaza to the brink of famine, as well as a growing stack of evidence of war crimes against Palestinian civilians.

“I’m shaken to my core,” Jan Egeland, the veteran head of the Norwegian Refugee Council and former UN humanitarian chief, told me. “I haven’t seen a population like this being so trapped for such a long period of time in such a small, besieged area. Indiscriminate bombardment, denied journalism, denied healthcare.

“It is only comparable to the besieged areas of Syria during the Assad regime, which led to a uniform Western condemnation and massive sanctions. In this case, very little has happened.”

But now the UK, France and Canada want an immediate halt to Israel’s latest offensive.

On 19 May, prime ministers Sir Keir Starmer and Mark Carney, and President Emmanuel Macron, stated, “We have always supported Israel’s right to defend Israelis against terrorism. But this escalation is wholly disproportionate… We will not stand by while the Netanyahu Government pursues these egregious actions.”

Sanctions may be coming. The UK and France are actively discussing the circumstances in which they would be prepared to recognise Palestine as an independent state.

Netanyahu quoted from a poem by Hayim Nahman Bialik, Israel’s national poet, in his TV speech to the Israeli people on 7 October as they wrestled with fear, anger and trauma.

He chose the line: “Revenge for the blood of a little child has yet been devised by Satan.”

It comes from In the City of Slaughter, which is widely regarded as the most significant Hebrew poem of the 20th Century. Bialik wrote it as a young man in 1903, after he had visited the scene of a pogrom against Jews in Kishinev, a town then in imperial Russia and now called Chişinǎu, the capital of present-day Moldova. Over three days, Christian mobs murdered 49 Jews and raped at least 600 Jewish women.

Antisemitic brutality and killing in Europe was a major reason why Zionist Jews wanted to settle in Palestine to build their own state, in what they regarded as their historic homeland. Their ambition clashed with the desire of Palestinian Arabs to keep their land. Britain, the colonial power, did much to make their conflict worse.

By 1929 Vincent Sheean, an American journalist, was describing Jerusalem in a way that is grimly familiar to reporters there almost a century later. “The situation here is awful,” he wrote. “Every day I expect the worst.”

He added that violence was in the air, “The temperature rose – you could stick your hand out in the air and feel it rising.”

Sheean’s account of the 1920s illustrates the conflict’s deep root system in the land that Israelis and Palestinians both want and have not found a way, or a will, to share or separate.

Palestinians see a direct line between the Gaza war and the destruction of their society in 1948 when Israel became independent, which they call the Catastrophe. But Netanyahu, and many other Israelis and their supporters abroad connected the October attacks to the centuries of persecution Jews suffered in Europe, which culminated with Nazi Germany killing six million Jews in the Holocaust.

Netanyahu used the same references to hit back when Macron said in May that the Israeli blockade of Gaza was “shameful” and “unacceptable”.

Netanyahu said that Macron had “once again chosen to side with a murderous Islamist terrorist organisation and echo its despicable propaganda, accusing Israel of blood libels”.

The blood libel is a notorious antisemitic trope that goes back to medieval Europe, falsely accusing Jews of killing Christians, especially children, to use their blood in religious rituals.

After a couple who worked for the Israeli embassy in Washington DC were shot dead, the gunman told police, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.” Netanyahu connected the murders with the criticisms of Israel’s conduct made by the leaders of the UK, France and Canada.

In a video posted on X, he declared: “I say to President Macron, Prime Minister Carney and Prime Minister Starmer: When mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers thank you, you’re on the wrong side of justice. You’re on the wrong side of humanity, and you’re on the wrong side of history.

“For 18 years, we had a de facto Palestinian state. It’s called Gaza. And what did we get? Peace? No. We got the most savage slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.”

Netanyahu has also referred to the long history of antisemitism in Europe when warrants calling for his arrest, along with his former defence minister Yoav Gallant, who was defence minister for the first 13 months of the war, were issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

The court had also issued arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, considered the mastermind behind 7 October. All three have since been killed by Israel.

A panel of ICC judges decided that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant bore criminal responsibility. “As co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

In a defiant statement, Netanyahu rejected “false and absurd charges”. He compared the ICC to the antisemitic conspiracy that sent Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, to the penal colony on Devil’s Island for treason in 1894. Dreyfus, who was innocent, was eventually pardoned but the affair caused a major political crisis.

“The antisemitic decision of the International Criminal Court is a modern Dreyfus trial – and will end the same way,” the statement said.

“No war is more just than the war Israel has been waging in Gaza since October 7th 2023, when the Hamas terrorist organisation launched a murderous assault and perpetrated the largest massacre against the Jewish People since the Holocaust.”

British barrister Helena Kennedy KC was on a panel that was asked by the ICC’s chief prosecutor to assess the evidence against Netanyahu and Gallant. Baroness Kennedy and her colleagues, all distinguished jurists, decided that there were reasonable grounds to go ahead with the warrants. She rejects the accusation that the court and the prosecutor were motivated by antisemitism.

“We’ve got to always remember the horrors that the Jewish community have suffered over centuries,” she told me at her chambers in London. “The world is right to feel a great compassion for the Jewish experience.”

But a history of persecution did not, she said, give Israel licence to do what it’s doing in Gaza.

“The Holocaust has filled us all with a high sense of guilt, and so it should because we were complicit. But it also teaches us the lesson that we mustn’t be complicit now when we see crimes being committed.

“You have to conduct a war according to law, and I’m a firm believer that the only way that you ever create peace is by behaving in just ways, and justice is fundamental to all of this. And I’m afraid that we’re not seeing that.”

Stronger words came from Danny Blatman, an Israeli historian of the Holocaust and head of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Prof Blatman, who is the son of Holocaust survivors, says that Israeli politicians have for many years used the memory of the Holocaust as “a tool to attack governments and public opinion in the world, and warn them that accusing Israel of any atrocities towards the Palestinians is antisemitism”.

The result he says is that potential critics “shut their mouths because they’re afraid of being attacked by Israelis, by politicians as antisemites”.

Lord Sumption, a former justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, believes Israel should have learned from its own history.

“The terrible Jewish experience of persecution and mass killing in the past should give Israel a horror of inflicting the same things on other peoples.”

History is inescapable in the Middle East, always present, a storehouse of justification to be plundered.

Israel could not wage war in Gaza using its chosen tactics without American military, financial and diplomatic support. President Donald Trump has shown signs of impatience, forcing Netanyahu to allow a few cracks in the siege that has brought Gaza to the edge of famine.

Netanyahu himself continues to express support for Trump’s widely condemned proposal to turn Gaza into “the Riviera of the Mediterranean”, by emptying it of Palestinians and turning it over to the Americans for redevelopment. That is code for the mass expulsion of Palestinians, which would be a war crime. Netanyahu’s ultra-nationalist allies want to replace them with Jewish settlers.

Trump himself seems silent about the plan. But the Trump administration’s support for Israel, and its actions in Gaza, looks undiminished.

On 4 June, the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for an “unconditional and permanent” ceasefire, the release of all the hostages and the lifting of restrictions on humanitarian aid. The other 14 members voted in favour. The next day the Americans sanctioned four judges from the ICC in retaliation for the decision to issue arrest warrants.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was protecting the sovereignty of the US and Israel against “illegitimate actions”.

“I call on the countries that still support the ICC, many of whose freedom was purchased at the price of great American sacrifices to fight this disgraceful attack on our nation and Israel.”

Instead the ICC has had statements of support and solidarity from European leaders. A broad and increasingly bitter gap has opened up between the US and Europe over the Gaza war, and over the legitimacy of criticising Israel’s conduct.

Israel and the Trump administration reject the idea that the laws of war apply equally to all sides, because they claim it implies a false and wrong equivalence between Hamas and Israel.

Jan Egeland can see the split between Europe and the US growing.

“I hope now that Europe will grow a spine,” he says. “There have been new tones, finally, coming from London, from Berlin, from Paris, from Brussels, after all these months of industrial-scale hypocrisy where they didn’t see that there was a world record in killed aid workers, in killed nurses, in killed doctors, in killed teachers, in killed children, and all while journalists like yourself have been denied access, denied to be witnessing this.

“It’s something that the West will learn to regret really — that they were so spineless.”

The question of whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza outrages Israel and its supporters, led by the United States. Lawyers who believe the evidence does not support the accusation have stood up to oppose the case brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) alleging genocide against Palestinians.

But it will not go away.

The Netanyahu loyalist Boaz Bismuth answered the genocide question like this.

“How can you accuse us of genocide when the Palestinian population grew, I don’t know how many times more? How can you accuse me of ethnic cleansing when I’m moving [the] population inside Gaza to protect them? How can you accuse me when I lose soldiers in order to protect my enemies?”

It is hard to prove genocide has happened; the legal bar prosecutors have to clear has been set deliberately high. But leading lawyers who have spent decades assessing matters of legal fact to see if there is a case to answer believe it is not necessary to wait for the process started in January last year by South Africa to make a years-long progress through the ICJ.

We asked Lord Sumption, the former Supreme Court justice, for his opinion.

“Genocide is a question of intent,” he wrote. “It means killing, maiming or imposing intolerable conditions on a national or ethnic group with intent to destroy them in whole or in part.

“Statements by Netanyahu and his ministers suggest that the object of current operations is to force the Arab population of Gaza to leave by killing and starving them if they stay. These things make genocide the most plausible explanation for what is now happening.”

South Africa based much of its genocide case against Israel on inflammatory language used by Israeli leaders. One example was the biblical reference Netanyahu used when Israel sent troops into Gaza, comparing Hamas to Amalek. In the Bible God commands the Israelites to destroy their persecutors, the Amalekites.

Another was Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s declaration just after the Hamas attacks when he ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip: “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.”

Ralph Wilde, UCL professor of international law, also believes there is proof of genocide. “Unfortunately, yes, and there is now no doubt legally as to that, and indeed that has been the case for some time.”

He points out that an advisory opinion of the ICJ has already determined that Israel’s presence in Gaza and the West Bank was illegal. Prof Wilde compares Western governments’ responses to the war in Gaza to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“There has been no court decision as to the illegality of Russia’s action in Ukraine. Nonetheless, states have found it possible already to make public proclamations determining the illegality of that action. There is nothing stopping them doing that in this case.

“And so, if they are suggesting that they are going to wait, the question to ask them is, why are you waiting for a court to tell you what you already know?”

Helena Kennedy KC is “very anxious about the casual use of the word genocide and I avoid it myself because I do think that there has to be a very high level in law, a very high level of intent necessary to prove it”.

“Are we saying that it’s not genocide but it is crimes against humanity? You think that makes it sound okay? Terrible crimes against humanity? I think we’re in the process of seeing the most grievous kind of crimes taking place.

“I do think we’re on a trajectory that could very easily be towards genocide, and as a lawyer I think that there’s certainly an argument that is being made strongly for that.”

Baroness Kennedy says her advice to the British government if it was asked for would be, “We’ve got to be very careful about being complicit in grievous crimes ourselves.”

Eventually, a ceasefire will come. It will not end the conflict, or head off the certainty of a long and bitter epilogue. The genocide case at the ICJ guarantees that. So do the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.

Once journalists and war crimes investigators can get into the Gaza Strip, they will emerge with more hard facts about what has happened.

Those who have been into Gaza with the UN or medical teams say that even people who have seen many wars find it hard to grasp the extent of the damage; so many islands of human misery in an ocean of rubble.

I keep thinking about something an Israeli officer said the only time I’ve been into Gaza since the war started. I spent a few hours in the ruins with the Israeli army, one month into the war, when it had already made northern Gaza into a wasteland

He started telling me how they did their best to not to fire on Palestinian civilians. Then he trailed off, and paused, and told me no-one in Gaza could be innocent because they all supported Hamas.

Nearly two dozen paintings by one of the world’s most celebrated modern artists – once part of a record-breaking art deal – are set to hit the auction block for the first time next week.

On 12 June, 25 rare MF Husain paintings will go under the hammer at an art gallery in Mumbai city, more than two decades after he painted them.

This will be the first public glimpse of the paintings, locked away in bank vaults since 2008 after authorities seized them from a prominent businessman over an alleged loan default.

“It’s like the paintings have come full circle,” says Dadiba Pundole, director of Pundole Art Gallery, where the auction is set to be held.

Husain used the gallery as his studio for many of these works, part of an ambitious 100-painting series he never finished. Often called the “Picasso of India,” he was one of the country’s most celebrated – and controversial – artists. His works have fetched millions, but his bold themes often drew criticism. He died in 2011, aged 95.

Titled MF Husain: An Artist’s Vision of the XX Century, the 25 paintings at Pundole’a gallery offer a glimpse into his take on a transformative century shaped by leaps in technology, politics, and culture. Pundole has estimated that the auction could fetch up to $29m (£21m).

This comes months after another Husain painting, Untitled (Gram Yatra), sold for an unprecedented $13.8m at a Christie’s auction in New York, becoming the most expensive Indian artwork to be auctioned.

The oil-on-canvas masterpiece had adorned the walls of a Norwegian hospital for almost five decades, forgotten by the art world, until the auction house was alerted about its presence in 2013.

The latest paintings to be auctioned seem to follow a similar trajectory.

Husain began working on them in the early 2000s, with great excitement and vigour, recalls Pundole.

“When he was painting, nothing could disturb him. It didn’t matter what was happening around him,” he adds.

In 2004, Husain sold 25 paintings to a Mumbai businessman as the first instalment of a billion-rupee deal.

Kishore Singh, author of , wrote about this agreement in the Indian Express newspaper.

“He [Husain] wasn’t jealous of fellow artists, but he was competitive,” Singh writes, noting that Husain struck the deal soon after Tyeb Mehta’s Kali [an Indian goddess] set a new record for India’s most expensive painting in 2002, selling for 15 million rupees.

Husain struck a billion rupees deal with businessman Guru Swarup Srivastava for this series of paintings. Media dubbed it “India’s biggest art deal,” catapulting the little-known Srivastava into overnight fame as a celebrity collector.

But two years later, India’s top crime agency, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), began investigating Srivastava’s business, alleging he and associates had misused a loan from a government-backed agricultural body.

The CBI alleged Srivastava diverted the funds into real estate, mutual funds, and Husain paintings. He and his company deny all charges; the case remains in court.

In 2008, a tribunal allowed the government-backed agricultural body to seize one billion rupees in assets from Srivastava, including the 25 Husain paintings.

In February this year, a court cleared the way for the paintings to be auctioned to recover part of the loan. And so, after years locked away in bank vaults, the 25 paintings are finally stepping into the spotlight.

In a 2018 interview to author and journalist Tara Kaushal, Srivastava spoke about his stalled deal with the artist.

“I had planned to pay Husain for the rest of the paintings by selling the first 25. But legal complications meant that, when Husain called me in 2008 saying the paintings were ready in London and Paris, and to pick them up at the agreed price, my funds were not ready. He understood,” he said.

Asked why Husain had chosen to sell his paintings to a person who almost nobody knew in India’s elite art circles, Pundole says, “He didn’t care. As long as his paintings were sold.”

There’s no way to know how Husain felt about the failed deal or his unfinished 20th Century series – but the episode remains a striking footnote in his bold, eventful career.

The 25 paintings in this series, vibrant acrylics on canvas, showcase Husain’s bold style while reflecting key 20th-century events and social attitudes.

One painting shows an unlikely group chatting on a bench, symbolising Husain’s call for peaceful dialogue and coexistence among global powers.

Another painting honours Charlie Chaplin while juxtaposing a rocket launch to highlight the contrast between social and economic disparities and massive state spending.

Other paintings depict a world battling poverty, soldiers in trenches, and humanity confronting tragedies like World War Two, the Partition, and the Holocaust.

Sonny Olumati was born in Rome and has lived in Italy all his life but the country he calls home does not recognise him as its own.

To Italy, Sonny is Nigerian, like his passport, and the 39-year-old is only welcome as long as his latest residence permit.

“I’ve been born here. I will live here. I will die here,” the dancer and activist tells me in what he calls “macaroni” Italian-English beneath the palm trees of a scruffy Roman park.

“But not having citizenship is like… being rejected from your country. And I don’t think this is a feeling we should have”.

That is why Sonny and others have been campaigning for a “Yes” vote in a national referendum on Sunday and Monday that proposes halving the time required to apply for Italian citizenship.

Any children under 18 would automatically be naturalised along with their parents.

Cutting the wait from 10 years to five would bring this country in line with most others in Europe and, proponents argue, improve integration.

The referendum was initiated by a citizens’ initiative and is supported by civil society groups. But for such a referendum to be valid, 50% of all voters in Italy have to turn up.

Giorgia Meloni, the country’s hard-right prime minister, has announced she will boycott the vote, declaring the citizenship law already “excellent” and “very open”.

Other parties allied to her are calling on Italians to go to the beach instead of the polling station.

Sonny will not be taking part either. Without citizenship, he is not entitled to vote.

The question of who gets to be Italian is a sensitive one.

Large numbers of migrants and refugees arrive in the country each year helped across the Mediterranean from North Africa by smuggling gangs.

Meloni’s populist government has made a big deal about cutting the number of arrivals.

But this referendum is aimed at those who have travelled legally for work to a country with a rapidly shrinking and ageing population.

The aim is limited: to speed up the process for getting citizenship, not ease the strict criteria.

“Knowledge of the Italian language, not having criminal charges, continuous residence et cetera – all the various requirements remain the same,” explains Carla Taibi of the liberal party More Europe, one of several backers of the referendum.

The reform would affect long-term foreign residents already employed in Italy and their families: from those on factory production lines in the north to those caring for pensioners in plush Rome neighbourhoods.

Up to 1.4 million people could qualify for citizenship immediately, with some estimates ranging higher.

“These people live in Italy, study and work and contribute. This is about changing the perception of them so they are not strangers anymore – but Italian,” argues Taibi.

The reform would also have practical implications.

As a non-Italian, Sonny cannot apply for a public sector job, and even struggled to get a driving licence.

When he was booked for hit reality TV show Fame Island last year, he ended up arriving two weeks late on set in Honduras because he had had so many problems getting the right paperwork.

For a long time, Meloni ignored the referendum entirely. Italy’s publicly owned media, run by a close Meloni ally, have also paid scant attention to the vote.

There is no substantive “No” campaign, making it hard to have a balanced debate.

But the real reason appears strategic.

“They don’t want to raise awareness of the significance of the referendum,” Professor Roberto D’Alimonte of Luiss University in Rome explains. “That’s rational, to make sure that the 50% threshold won’t be reached.”

The prime minister eventually announced she would turn up at a polling station “to show respect for the ballot box” – but refuse to cast a vote.

“When you disagree, you also have the option of abstaining,” Meloni told a TV chat show this week, after critics accused her of disrespecting democracy.

Italy’s citizenship system was “excellent”, she argued, already granting citizenship to more foreign nationals than most countries in Europe: 217,000 last year, according to the national statistics agency, Istat.

But about 30,000 of those were Argentines with Italian ancestry on the other side of the world, unlikely even to visit.

Meanwhile, Meloni’s coalition partner, Roberto Vannacci of the far-right League, accused those behind the referendum of “selling off our citizenship and erasing our identity”.

I ask Sonny why he thinks his own application for citizenship has taken over two decades.

“It’s racism,” he replies immediately.

At one point his file was lost completely, and he has now been told his case is “pending”.

“We have ministers who talk about white supremacy – racial replacement of Italy,” the activist recalls a 2023 comment by the agriculture minister from Meloni’s own party.

“They don’t want black immigration and we know it. I was born here 39 years ago so I know what I say.”

It is an accusation the prime minister has denied repeatedly.

Insaf Dimassi, 28, defines herself as “Italian without citizenship”.

“Italy let me grow up and become the person I am today, so not being seen as a citizen is extremely painful and frustrating,” she explains from the northern city of Bologna where she is studying for a PhD.

Insaf’s father travelled to Italy for work when she was a baby, and she and her mother then joined him. Her parents finally got Italian citizenship 20 days after Insaf turned 18. That meant she had to apply for herself from scratch, including proving a steady income.

Insaf chose to study instead.

“I arrived here at nine months old, and maybe at 33 or 34 – if all goes well – I can finally be an Italian citizen,” she says, exasperated.

She remembers exactly when the significance of her “outsider” status hit home: it was when she was asked to run for election alongside a candidate for mayor in her hometown.

When she shared the news with her parents, full of excitement, they had to remind her she was not Italian and was not eligible.

“They say it’s a matter of meritocracy to be a citizen, that you have to earn it. But more than being myself, what do I have to demonstrate?” Insaf wants to know.

“Not being allowed to vote, or be represented, is being invisible.”

On the eve of the referendum, students in Rome wrote a call to the polls on the cobbles of a city square.

“Vote ‘YES’ on the 8th and 9th [of June],” they spelled out in giant cardboard letters.

With a government boycott and such meagre publicity, the chances of hitting the 50% turnout threshold seem slim.

But Sonny argues that this vote is just the beginning.

“Even if they vote ‘No’, we will stay here – and think about the next step,” he says. “We have to start to talk about the place of our community in this country.”

Joe is somewhat shorter than the average American man, at 5ft 6in (1.67m) – but when Ashley came across his Tinder profile last year, the last thing she was thinking about was Joe’s height.

“We were talking about our hobbies and passions,” Ashley says, “not superficial things.”

News that the dating app where Ashley and Joe found love is trialling a new feature – allowing some premium users to filter potential matches according to their height – was met with mixed reactions earlier this week.

While daters like Ashley worry it might stifle possible connections, others say the feature might actually help shorter men find a match.

Tinder’s trial is running in “limited” parts of the world, excluding the UK, with the feature only available to those who pay for its two highest subscription tiers. Tinder has not told the BBC which countries it is being trialled in.

It works by informing the app’s matching algorithm based on a user’s stated preference, rather than filtering out certain users altogether. But online reaction to its launch has ranged from amusement to outrage.

“Tinder just declared war on short kings,” wrote one social media user, while another said they’d be “using the Tinder height filter to filter out all men taller than 5ft 9in”.

Another commented: “I don’t care what Tinder says – short kings are elite.”

Ashley, from Wisconsin, says she understands why height can be a deal-breaker for some daters – but that wasn’t the case for her.

“I’ve heard people talk: ‘I can’t wear heels or my partner will look shorter,'” the 24-year-old says, “but that’s never mattered to me”.

Joe is “just such an amazing person”, she says, it wouldn’t matter to her “if he was six feet tall or five feet tall”.

Using a height filter might actually have prevented her and Joe from ever meeting, she adds – and she reckons others could be missing out too.

Joe, meanwhile, says Tinder’s height filtering feature could actually make dating harder for shorter men.

“Limiting yourself to physical things about someone will lessen your opportunities and chances of finding a partner,” he says. “Height shouldn’t matter when you’re looking for forever.”

The 27-year-old says his own dating experience hadn’t “all been so bad” and that his matches had judged him based on his personality, rather than his height.

But he thinks the new Tinder filter might affect other users’ chances of meaningful connections.

Tinder is not breaking new ground here – seasoned swipers will be familiar with various kinds of filter, which are now common features of dating apps including in the UK.

Hinge, a key Tinder competitor, already allows paying users to filter matches according to their height. Other filters include education level, religion, and checking whether potential matches smoke, drink or take drugs.

Bumble allows premium users to avoid matches with certain star signs, while paying Grindr users can filter by body type.

But as the world’s largest dating app, Tinder’s experiment with height filtering still has huge significance, and has sparked discussion in Britain too.

At 5ft 9in, Matt Heal, from Manchester, says he feels jaded about the online dating scene.

Matt’s around average height for a man in the UK, but says some daters’ preferences for taller men have disadvantaged him on the apps.

“As someone who is neither very tall nor financially well off, I have definitely felt desensitised about dating [using apps],” he says.

The 28-year-old thinks it’s understandable that apps like Tinder try to optimise their matching algorithms, though.

“People have preferences based on all sorts of things,” Matt says, adding these features help people “see others they are interested in, rather than swiping for hours on people you don’t consider compatible”.

However, he thinks daters shouldn’t be too rigid about what they’re looking for.

“If you were into people who are over six feet, would you really not date someone who’s 5ft 11in” – if they were good looking and had similar interests?”

Matt feels it’s easier for men his height to meet people offline, explaining that meeting someone in person, through mutual friends, for example, can mean a less prescriptive approach.

But Beth McColl, 31, thinks the Tinder height filter may offer shorter men some reassurance. The London-based writer and podcaster says it could help people avoid “women who only want to date really tall men”.

Whether or not women will actually use this feature, Beth is uncertain.

“Women typically don’t have a problem with dating a shorter man,” Beth says, “but they do, maybe, have a problem with dating a shorter man who is really hung up on it.”

Aside from the filters, Beth believes the real problem of modern dating lies with the dating apps themselves.

“It encourages us to treat dating like picking something from the menu,” she says, adding, “there’s nothing in being a little bit taller that will make that man a better partner – but I think we’ve tricked ourselves into thinking that there’s truth in that.”

As to whether the Tinder move will prove popular with users on a mass scale – that remains to be seen.

“Features like this capitalise on a well-known preference – some women desire taller partners,” says Lara Besbrode, managing director at The Matchmaker UK. “They don’t address the deeper issues at the heart of online dating fatigue.”

But, she says, attraction is “not static” and can evolve over time.

“A man who is 5ft 7in (1.7m), but confident, kind, and emotionally attuned can be far more attractive than someone who ticks the 6ft (1.8m) box but lacks substance,” Lara says.

Tinder told the BBC its new filter demonstrates it is “building with urgency, clarity, and focus” and that it is “part of a broader effort to help people connect more intentionally” on the app.

A spokesperson said: “Not every test becomes a permanent feature, but every test helps us learn how we can deliver smarter, more relevant experiences and push the category forward.”

And that fleeting moment when stumbling across each other’s profiles on a dating app can be vital, as Ashley and Joe know.

Ashley worries that people who use Tinder’s new filter “might be cutting themselves off from people who’re a potential match for them, rather than someone who’s their preferred height”.

But for now her swiping days are over, and her relationship with Joe is blossoming. He’s “phenomenal”, Ashley says, “super sweet”.

A wooden hunters’ toolbox inscribed with an ancient writing system from Zambia has been making waves on social media.

“We’ve grown up being told that Africans didn’t know how to read and write,” says Samba Yonga, one of the founders of the virtual Women’s History Museum of Zambia.

“But we had our own way of writing and transmitting knowledge that has been completely side-lined and overlooked,” she tells the BBC.

It was one of the artefacts that launched an online campaign to highlight women’s roles in pre-colonial communities – and revive cultural heritages almost erased by colonialism.

Another intriguing object is an intricately decorated leather cloak not seen in Zambia for more than 100 years.

“The artefacts signify a history that matters – and a history that is largely unknown,” says Yonga.

“Our relationship with our cultural heritage has been disrupted and obscured by the colonial experience.

“It’s also shocking just how much the role of women has been deliberately removed.”

But, says Yonga, “there’s a resurgence, a need and a hunger to connect with our cultural heritage – and reclaim who we are, whether through fashion, music or academic studies”.

“We had our own language of love, of beauty,” she says. “We had ways that we took care of our health and our environment. We had prosperity, union, respect, intellect.”

A total of 50 objects have been posted on social media – alongside information about their significance and purpose that shows that women were often at the heart of a society’s belief systems and understanding of the natural world.

The images of the objects are presented inside a frame – playing on the idea that a surround can influence how you look at and perceive a picture. In the same way that British colonialism distorted Zambian histories – through the systematic silencing and destruction of local wisdom and practices.

The Frame project is using social media to push back against the still-common idea that African societies did not have their own knowledge systems.

The objects were mostly collected during the colonial era and kept in storage in museums all over the world, including Sweden – where the journey for this current social media project began in 2019.

Yonga was visiting the capital, Stockholm, and a friend suggested that she meet Michael Barrett, one of the curators of the National Museums of World Cultures in Sweden.

She did – and when he asked her what country she was from, Yonga was surprised to hear him say that the museum had a lot of Zambian artefacts.

“It really blew my mind, so I asked: ‘How come a country that did not have a colonial past in Zambia had so many artefacts from Zambia in its collection?'”

In the 19th and early 20th Centuries Swedish explorers, ethnographers and botanists would pay to travel on British ships to Cape Town and then make their way inland by rail and foot.

There are close to 650 Zambian cultural objects in the museum, collected over the course of a century – as well as about 300 historical photographs.

When Yonga and her virtual museum co-founder Mulenga Kapwepwe explored the archives, they were astonished to find the Swedish collectors had travelled far and wide – some of the artefacts come from areas of Zambia that are still remote and hard to reach.

The collection includes reed fishing baskets, ceremonial masks, pots, a waist belt of cowry shells – and 20 leather cloaks in pristine condition collected during a 1911-1912 expedition.

They are made from the skin of a lechwe antelope by the Batwa men and worn by the women or used by the women to protect their babies from the elements.

On the fur outside are “geometric patterns, meticulously, delicately and beautifully designed”, Yonga says.

There are pictures of the women wearing the cloaks, and a 300-page notebook written by the person who brought the cloaks to Sweden – ethnographer Eric von Rosen.

He also drew illustrations showing how the cloaks were designed and took photographs of women wearing the cloaks in different ways.

“He took great pains to show the cloak being designed, all the angles and the tools that were used, and [the] geography and location of the region where it came from.”

The Swedish museum had not done any research on the cloaks – and the National Museums Board of Zambia was not even aware they existed.

So Yonga and Kapwepwe went to find out more from the community in the Bengweulu region in north-east of the country where the cloaks came from.

“There’s no memory of it,” says Yonga. “Everybody who held that knowledge of creating that particular textile – that leather cloak – or understood that history was no longer there.

“So it only existed in this frozen time, in this Swedish museum.”

One of Yonga’s personal favourites in the Frame project is Sona or Tusona, an ancient, sophisticated and now rarely used writing system.

It comes from the Chokwe, Luchazi and Luvale people, who live in the borderlands of Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Yonga’s own north-western region of Zambia.

Geometric patterns were made in the sand, on cloth and on people’s bodies. Or carved into furniture, wooden masks used in the Makishi ancestral masquerade – and a wooden box used to store tools when people were out hunting.

The patterns and symbols carry mathematical principles, references to the cosmos, messages about nature and the environment – as well as instructions on community life.

The original custodians and teachers of Sona were women – and there are still community elders alive who remember how it works.

They are a huge source of knowledge for Yonga’s ongoing corroboration of research done on Sona by scholars like Marcus Matthe and Paulus Gerdes.

“Sona’s been one of the most popular social media posts – with people expressing surprise and huge excitement, exclaiming: ‘Like, what, what? How is this possible?'”

The Queens in Code: Symbols of Women’s Power post includes a photograph of a woman from the Tonga community in southern Zambia.

She has her hands on a mealie grinder, a stone used to grind grain.

Researchers from the Women’s History Museum of Zambia discovered during a field trip that the grinding stone was more than just a kitchen tool.

It belonged only to the woman who used it – it was not passed down to her daughters. Instead, it was placed on her grave as a tombstone out of respect for the contribution the woman had made to the community’s food security.

“What might look like just a grinding stone is in fact a symbol of women’s power,” Yonga says.

The Women’s History Museum of Zambia was set up in 2016 to document and archive women’s histories and indigenous knowledge.

It is conducting research in communities and creating an online archive of items that have been taken out of Zambia.

“We’re trying to put together a jigsaw without even having all the pieces yet – we’re on a treasure hunt.”

A treasure hunt that has changed Yonga’s life – in a way that she hopes the Frame social media project will also do for other people.

“Having a sense of my community and understanding the context of who I am historically, politically, socially, emotionally – that has changed the way I interact in the world.”

• Grandma with chunky sunglasses becomes unlikely fashion icon
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Next year’s Brit Awards are to be held in Manchester – the first time the ceremony has taken place outside London since the awards began in 1977.

The ceremony will be held at the Co-op Live arena on Saturday 28 February.

A two-year deal means that the 2027 ceremony, which will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Brit Awards, will also be held at the same venue.

It is the second major music ceremony to announce plans to leave London. Last month the BPI, which represents the British music industry and runs the Brit Awards, also revealed that this year’s Mercury Prize will be held in Newcastle in September after 32 years in the capital.

Dr Jo Twist, CEO of the BPI, told the BBC: “We’ve had a fantastic history in London for nearly 50 years, and we just feel that now is the time to make a bold leap into other parts of the UK to the fans.

“Manchester has such a rich musical heritage and it has a fantastic ecosystem of support there on the ground, including lots of amazing grassroots venues.”

Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham described the move as “a massive coup” for the area.

Hailing the city’s “unparalleled music heritage,” Burnham said Manchester would “pull out all the stops” to prove the BPI had made the right decision.

The past 15 Brit Award ceremonies have taken place at London’s O2 Arena. This year’s awards were dominated by Charli XCX, who won five including best artist, album and song of the year.

Back in 1977, when the awards started, they were called The British Record Industry Britannia Awards. As part of the celebrations for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, they gave prizes to the best music released during her reign.

Best album went to Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles. Best single was a tie between Procul Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale and Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, who turned up to accept the award from host Michael Aspel.

The ceremony was held at the Wembley Conference Centre, which was demolished in 2006 and turned into flats.

The Brit Awards became an annual event in 1982, taking place at the Grosvenor House Hotel and other London venues including the Royal Albert Hall, the Dominion Theatre, Hammersmith Apollo, Alexandra Palace, Earls Court Exhibition Centre and London Arena.

Co-op Live has already held a major music award ceremony, the MTV Europe Music Awards (EMAs), in November last year, which attracted the likes of Teddy Swims, Benson Boone and Shawn Mendes.

Britain’s biggest indoor venue originally made headlines when its opening was delayed three times due to a series of highly-publicised problems.

These included part of a ventilation system falling from the ceiling, an event the boss of Co-op Live Tim Leiweke said could have been “catastrophic”.

Since then, the venue has held the only UK shows on The Eagles’ farewell tour, celebrated its first anniversary with three Bruce Springsteen gigs, and last November Charli XCX opened her Brat World Tour there.

Manchester has a serious Brit Awards pedigree.

Take That, who formed in the city, have won eight Brit Awards. Their former member Robbie Williams holds the record for the most Brit Award wins, with 18 including five while in the band.

Simply Red, Elbow and The 1975 have all been named best group. M People were best dance act in 1995 and The Chemical Brothers, who met at the University of Manchester, won the same award in 2000.

Two years ago, Aitch was named best hip hop, grime or rap act and in his acceptance speech said: “Not many people from my side of Manchester get the opportunity to stand up here and receive such an amazing gift or award.”

New Order, The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, The Bee Gees, 10CC, Morrissey, Johnny Marr, Ian Brown, Doves, James, Blossoms and Badly Drawn Boy have all been nominated for Brit Awards over the years, but none of those acts have ever won.

The Smiths, one of the most influential indie bands of all time, were never nominated at the Brits.

One interesting potential storyline for 2026 is that if the Brit Awards were to bring back the best live act category (last presented in 2013 to Coldplay) then a possible winner might be one of the biggest Manchester bands of all time.

Oasis will start their reunion tour in Cardiff on 4 July. The thought of the Gallagher brother picking up a Brit in their hometown, is one that would certainly help bring in audiences.

Twist has a twinkle in her eye when she says: “Our categories are always under review, so we will be looking at that. We’re very excited to be part of that whole buzz.”

It is exactly 30 years since Oasis won the first of their six Brit Awards – British breakthrough act, beating fellow nominees Echobelly, Eternal, Portishead and PJ & Duncan.

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A ban on a “destructive” type of fishing that drags large nets along the seafloor could be extended across English waters, the government has said.

The proposal would expand the ban on bottom trawling from 18,000km2 to 48,000km2 (around 18,500 sq miles) of the UK’s offshore areas that are already designated as protected. The plan is subject to a 12-week industry consultation.

A UN Ocean Conference begins in France today amid warnings from Sir David Attenborough that bottom trawling is destroying areas of the seabed and marine life.

A major goal of the conference is for more countries, including the UK, to ratify a treaty to put a third of international waters into protected areas by 2030.

Speaking before the summit, Sir David told Prince William he was “appalled” by the fishing method.

The naturalist’s latest documentary Ocean With David Attenborough showed new footage of a bottom trawling net bulldozing through silt on the seafloor and scooping up species indiscriminately.

Last week, MPs on the Environmental Audit Committee renewed calls to ban bottom trawling, dredging and mining for aggregates on the seabed in what are known as Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).

The extension proposed by the government would cover 41 of England’s 181 MPAs, and would protect rare marine animals and the delicate seabed they rely upon.

It says it has carried out detailed assessments into the harms caused to habitats and species.

Environment Secretary Steve Reed said “without urgent action our oceans will be irreversibly destroyed”.

The BBC has reached out to the UK’s National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations for comment.

Some fishing communities have pushed back on the assertion that bottom trawling needs to be banned in all MPAs. They say that it isn’t destructive unless done in the wrong place, and that it’s an efficient way to produce food.

A 12-week consultation will run until 1 September and will seek the views of the marine and fishing industry.

Ariana Densham, head of oceans at Greenpeace UK, said the consultation was “ultimately a long-overdue completion of a process started by the previous government”.

The Wildlife Trust said it hoped the extended ban would be put in place “rapidly”.

It would be a “win-win for both nature and the climate,” added the trust’s director of policy and public affairs, Joan Edwards.

Pressure is also building for more countries to ratify the High Seas Treaty at the Ocean Conference in Nice.

The treaty was agreed by 193 countries two years ago to put 30% of international waters into protected areas.

The treaty will not come into force until it is ratified by 60 countries. It was announced at the opening of the conference that an additional 15 countries had ratified the treaty on Monday, but that only brings the figure to 47. The UK is among those countries that has yet to ratify.

President Macron, whose country is co-hosting the conference with Costa Rica, shared the news with governments in attendance at the conference – it was met with cheers from the room.

He and his counterpart President Rodrigo Chaves both also spoke of their concern about deep sea mining, and called for a moratorium.

“The ocean is not for sale. We’re talking about a common shared good,” President Macron said.”I think it’s madness to launch predatory economic action that will disrupt the deep seabed, disrupt biodiversity, destroy it.”

He was speaking in reference to the decision made by President Trump in April to begin issuing permits to drill in the deep sea – in the hope that critical minerals could be retrieved.

This goes against a decade-long international negotiation to get global agreement on how any resources from the deep sea could be shared. China called the move, at the time, was a “violation” of international law.

More than 2,000 marine scientists have recommended that deep sea exploration is temporarily stopped until there is further research to understand the potential impacts on ecosystems.

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Kenya’s police chief has suspended the head of a police station and all officers who were on duty when a man who had been detained for “false publication” died in custody.

Albert Ojwang was arrested for a post on X in the western town of Homa Bay and then driven 350km (220 miles) to the capital, Nairobi, his father Meshack Opiyo told journalists.

“While in custody, the suspect sustained head injuries after hitting his head against a cell wall,” a police statement said. He was rushed to hospital “where he was pronounced dead on arrival”.

The director of rights group Amnesty International’s Kenya branch told the BBC that the death of Mr Ojwang was “very suspicious”.

Amnesty said in a statement that the death of the young man, described as a teacher and blogger, “raises serious questions that must be urgently, thoroughly, and independently investigated”.

Senior police officer Stephen Okal is quoted by the Star newspaper as saying what happened in the cell was “an attempted suicide”.

It is not clear what the charge of “false publication” referred to, but Mr Opiyo told online news site Citizen Digital that the arresting police officer said “Albert had insulted a senior person on X”, the social media platform.

A police statement said officers were suspended to allow Kenya’s independent oversight body to conduct an “impartial investigation”.

Speaking at a press conference, police chief Douglas Kanja said the police would give the investigators all “necessary support” to resolve the case.

He said Mr Ojwang was arrested in Homa Bay on Friday, then transferred to Nairobi for questioning and booked at the police station on Saturday.

According the police chief, Mr Ojwang was found unconscious during a routine inspection of the cells, and was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

He said the arrest had been prompted by a complaint by deputy police chief Eliud Lagat “about his name being tarnished”.

“It was on that basis that investigations were actually being carried out,” the police chief added.

The head of the Independent Police Oversight Commission (Ipoa), Ahmed Isaack Hassan, has said they will do “everything to ensure justice is served for the family and for all Kenyans”.

Mr Hassan, who attended the press conference, called on officers not to interfere with the investigations.

A post-mortem examination was scheduled to be carried out on Monday.

The death of Mr Ojwang, who was reported to have been 31, has sparked outrage online and calls for protests to demand police accountability.

Referring to the circumstances of his arrest, Amnesty Kenya director Irungu Houghton said it was “quite shocking” that Mr Ojwang was not booked in at the local police station after being detained, but was instead taken on a long journey.

He called on the independent investigators to secure what he described as “the crime scene” at the police station in Nairobi.

Ojwang’s detention and death comes at a time of rising concern about how some government critics are being treated.

Last week, software developer Rose Njeri – who created a tool to help people oppose a government finance bill – was charged with violating a cybercrime law.

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A British teenager jailed in Dubai for having sex with a 17-year-old girl has pleaded with the authorities for clemency.

Marcus Fakana, 19, of Tottenham, north London, was sentenced in December to a year’s imprisonment after a consensual relationship with the girl, who is also British, while on holiday in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The age of consent in the UAE is 18.

The girl’s mother reported Fakana – who was aged 18 at the time – to the UAE authorities after seeing messages between the two when she had returned to the UK.

Fakana has written to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, from Al Awir Prison asking to be released.

Radha Stirling, founder of Detained in Dubai said: “This has been the most traumatic and life-altering experience imaginable for Marcus.

“He is barely an adult himself, and never intended to break any law. What happened was legal in the UK and consensual. But now he is facing permanent damage to his mental health and future prospects because of it.”

Detained in Dubai said Fakana was only able to call his family sporadically for short periods, adding that the isolation had been mentally and emotionally devastating for both him and his loved ones.

His parents have been urgently appealing to Foreign Secretary David Lammy, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the British Embassy in Dubai for assistance in advocating for his release.

“If Marcus could go back in time, he would. He has shown remorse and fully respects the laws of the UAE. He only hopes the government will show compassion and allow him to return home to rebuild his life,” Ms Stirling added.

“He’s very young and this is a heart-breaking way to begin adulthood.”

“Parents need to be aware that teens can be charged in the UAE for behaviour that would not be considered criminal at home, whether that’s a relationship, social media activity, or even drinking alcohol,” Ms Stirling added.

Detained in Dubai warned that the case highlighted the need for increased awareness and diplomatic protections for citizens abroad.

“Marcus is struggling, and this experience will leave a permanent scar,” Ms Stirling said.

“We implore Sheikh Mohammed and the government of Dubai to hear his pleas and let him come home.”

The government of Dubai previously said: “Under UAE law, the girl is legally classified as a minor and, in accordance with procedures recognised internationally, her mother – being the legal guardian – filed the complaint.”

It added: “Dubai’s legal system is committed to protecting the rights of all individuals and ensuring impartial judicial proceedings.”

The FCDO has been approached for comment.

Police in India say a woman, who had gone missing after her husband was found brutally murdered during their honeymoon, is in custody after she surrendered.

The families of the couple had alleged that the bride had also either been killed or abducted and mounted a huge campaign to find her.

Police now allege that Sonam Raghuvanshi, 25, hired killers to murder her 30-year-old husband Raja during their trip to the tiny north-eastern state of Meghalaya. Four men have also been arrested.

Sonam’s father Devi Singh has defended his daughter saying “she is innocent and she cannot do this”.

The newly-wed couple from Indore city in the central state of Madhya Pradesh had chosen Meghalaya for their honeymoon because they had heard it had “very beautiful valleys”, Raja’s brother Sachin Raghuvanshi told the BBC at the weekend, before Sonam’s arrest.

The couple had married on 11 May in Indore in a ceremony blessed by both their families.

“Their marriage was arranged four months back and they were both happy and there had been no fights between the couple before or after marriage,” Raja’s other brother Vipin Raghuvanshi said.

The couple left for Meghalaya on 20 May. But four days into their trip, they went missing.

Police and disaster relief teams, accompanied by local people, searched for the couple. Videos from the area showed rescuers rappelling down hills and cliffs in valleys covered in mist. Officials said rain and low visibility were hampering the search operations.

A week later, Raja’s decomposed body was found in a gorge with his throat slit and his wallet, a gold ring and a chain missing. And Sonam had disappeared without a trace.

Their families mounted a huge campaign, accusing the Meghalaya police of not doing enough to solve Raja’s murder or find Sonam – an accusation contested by the state’s chief minister.

The couple’s families demanded that the case be handed over to the federal police for a proper investigation and met influential caste leaders and federal ministers in their home state to lobby for this.

Last Friday, they also wrote a letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to deliver justice for Raja and find Sonam.

But on Monday morning, Director General of Meghalaya police Idashisha Nongrang said Sonam had surrendered at a police station in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur district.

Three other suspects, who are also from the couple’s home state Madhya Pradesh, have been arrested in overnight raids, DGP Nongrang said.

“One person was picked up from Uttar Pradesh and another two accused were apprehended from Indore. Sonam surrendered at the Nandganj police station and was subsequently arrested.”

Later, addressing a press conference, Superintendent of Police Vivek Syiem said a fourth man had been arrested in Meghalaya in connection with the case on Monday morning.

He did not give any motive for Raja’s murder but described Sonam “as the main suspect”.

In response to a reporter’s question on “whether Sonam was in an extra-marital relationship with one of the arrested men”, Mr Syeim said “if you join the dots, then it would seem like it”. But he added that these details could be verified only after the two were questioned.

Sonam’s father Devi Singh told ANI news agency that his daughter had reached “a dhaba [roadside eatery] in Ghazipur last night where she borrowed a mobile phone and called her brother – who then called the police”.

Mr Singh said he had not been able to speak to his daughter but he believed that she had “somehow managed to escape her captors” and insisted that she was “innocent”.

Mr Singh also accused the Meghalaya police of “making up stories” and appealed to Home Minister Amit Shah to order a federal inquiry into the case for the truth to come out.

Raja’s brother Vipin Raghuvanshi initially told reporters he would “not accept Sonam’s involvement in the murder until she confessed”.

But he later said that one of the arrested men named by the police worked in Sonam’s office.

“Only Sonam can clarify,” he said. “If she’s guilty, she should be punished.”

Mr Raghuvanshi, who had repeatedly criticised Meghalaya’s police and government for not doing enough to solve the case, also said “I now believe that Meghalaya government was not lying. They were telling the truth”.

On Monday morning, after the news broke, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma complimented his state’s police force, saying that they had achieved a “major breakthrough” in seven days. Another minister, Alexander Laloo Hek, said that the state’s police, government and even ordinary people had been unfairly blamed while the search was going on.

“The truth has come out,” he said.

Iranian officials have expanded a ban on dog walking to a swathe of cities across the country, citing public order and health and safety concerns

The ban – which mirrors a 2019 police order that barred dog walking in the capital, Tehran – has been extended to at least 18 other cities in the past week. Transporting dogs in vehicles has also been outlawed.

Dog ownership has been frowned upon in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, with dogs viewed as “unclean” by authorities and a legacy of Western cultural influence.

But despite efforts to discourage it, dog ownership is rising, particularly among young people, and it is viewed as a form of rebellion against the restrictive Iranian regime.

Cities including Isfahan and Kerman have introduced bans in recent days, according to news agency AFP.

An official from the western city of Ilam, where a ban was implemented on Sunday, said “legal action” would be taken against people who violated the new rules, according to local media.

However, enforcing restrictions in the past has been patchy, while many dog owners continue to walk their dogs in public in Tehran and other parts of Iran.

There is no national law that outright bans dog ownership, but prosecutors often issue local restrictions that are enforced by police.

“Dog walking is a threat to public health, peace and comfort,” Abbas Najafi, prosecutor of the western city of Hamedan, told state newspaper Iran.

Owners have sometimes been arrested and dogs confiscated for being walked in public.

Many have taken to walking their dogs in secluded areas at night or driving them around to evade detection.

Politicians in the Islamic regime regard pet ownership as un-Islamic. Many religious scholars view petting dogs or coming into contact with their saliva as “najis” or ritually impure.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has previously described dog ownership – other than for the purposes of herding, hunting and security – as “reprehensible”.

In 2021, 75 lawmakers condemned dog ownership as a “destructive social problem” that could “gradually change the Iranian and Islamic way of life”.

Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance banned advertisements for pets or pet-related products in 2010 – and in 2014 there was a drive in parliament to fine and even flog dog-walkers, though the bill did not pass.

Following the recent crackdown, critics argue the police should focus on public safety at a time of growing concern over violent crime, rather than targeting dog owners and restricting personal freedoms.

Dog ownership, defying Iran’s mandatory hijab laws, attending underground parties and drinking alcohol have long been forms of quiet rebellion against Iran’s theocratic regime.

President Donald Trump’s sweeping new travel ban which bars citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States came into effect at 00:00 ET (05:00 BST) on Monday.

The order, which Trump signed last week, restricts the nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the US.

Nationals from a further seven countries – Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela – will face partial travel restrictions.

The US president said the list could be revised if “material improvements” were made, while other countries could be added as “threats emerge around the world”.

It is the second time Trump has ordered a ban on travel from certain countries. He signed a similar order in 2017 during his first term in office.

The White House said these “common sense restrictions” would “protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors”.

There are a number of people from affected countries who may still be able to enter the US due to a number of exceptions. The order does not apply to:

• “Lawful permanent” US residents
• Their immediate family members who hold immigrant visas
• US government employees with Special Immigrant Visas
• Adoptions
• Dual nationals when the individual is not travelling on a passport from one of the affected countries
• Afghan nationals holding Special Immigrant Visas
• Holders of “immigrant visas for ethnic and religious minorities facing persecution in Iran”
• Foreign nationals travelling with certain non-immigrant visas
• Athletes, their teams (including coaches and supporting staff), and their immediate family when travelling for major sporting events, such as the men’s football World Cup in 2026 and the Summer 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles
• In addition, the US Secretary of State may grant exemptions to individuals on a “case-by-case” basis, if “the individual would serve a United States national interest”.

In a video posted to his Truth Social website last week, Trump said the recent attack in Boulder, Colorado “underscored the extreme dangers” posed by foreign nationals who had not been “properly vetted”.

Twelve people were injured in Colorado on 1 June when a man attacked a group gathering in support of Israeli hostages. The FBI called it a suspected terror attack and said the suspect had used a makeshift flamethrower, Molotov cocktails and other incendiary devices.

The man accused of carrying out the attack was identified as an Egyptian national, but Egypt has not been included on the list of banned countries.

Trump’s latest order, which is likely to face legal challenges, drew a swift response, at home and abroad.

Chad retaliated by suspending all visas to US citizens while Somalia promised to work with the US to address security issues.

The African Union, which represents all countries on the continent, called on the US to “engage in constructive dialogue with the countries concerned”.

In the US, Democrats were quick to condemn the move.

“This ban, expanded from Trump’s Muslim ban in his first term, will only further isolate us on the world stage,” Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal wrote on social media.

But others support the ban.

Congressman Clay Higgins of Louisiana told the BBC that travel to the US was “a privilege, not a right”.

Juan and several friends huddled in the car park of a hardware store near Los Angeles, where protests have erupted against US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Typically, their gatherings include dozens of day labourers, many of whom are undocumented immigrants, seeking work from shoppers or contractors.

But on Sunday, only two small pickups advertised that they could help with roofing, repairs or paint jobs outside this branch of Home Depot in the suburb of Paramount, whose population is more than 82% Hispanic.

It was one day after the store became the centre of immigration protests, sparked by rumours that day labourers here had been rounded up and arrested.

Many who live in the community told the BBC they saw immigration enforcement vehicles in the area.

It caused instant fear and panic. Then came reports about raids and arrests of day labourers at Home Depot, a place where many undocumented migrants across the US go to find work.

Protests erupted in this Hispanic-majority city, turning violent as rocks and Molotov cocktails were thrown. Authorities used pepper spray, rubber bullets and smoke bombs to subdue the crowd.

But the demonstrations in Paramount appear to have spawned out of misinformation.

While dozens of migrants have been detained by authorities elsewhere in the area, the rumours of raids at the store were misinformation, according to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“Despite false reports, there was no ICE ‘raid’ at a Home Depot in LA,” the DHS told the BBC.

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• Full story: Unlawful assembly declared in downtown LA
• Everything we know about the protests
• Analayis: A political fight Trump is eager to have

As he leaned on the bed of a small Toyota pickup with his two friends, Juan said: “No-one really knows what happened. Everyone is afraid.”

The unrest in Paramount, which also saw a car set ablaze and businesses looted, became a catalyst for what federal authorities have described as riots throughout the Los Angeles area.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump used his authority to call in the California National Guard, something typically decided by a state’s governor, as a second day of protests convulsed the city.

As the protests flared up for a third day on Sunday, armed National Guard troops guarded a gated business park across the street from the hardware store.

They parked Humvees blocking the area and squared off with protesters hurling insults and waving Mexican flags and banners.

“You’re not welcome here!” one man with a Los Angeles Angels ball cap shouted to the soldiers as another protester uncapped spray paint and wrote an obscenity directed at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

DHS told the BBC that the guarded area is home to one of their offices and authorities were using it “as a staging area and rioters found it”.

The agency told the BBC they have arrested 118 illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area this week, including five they say are gang members.

The agency said some of these migrants had previous criminal histories that included drug trafficking, assault and robbery.

As he prepared to board Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, on Sunday, Trump told reporters there were “violent people” in Los Angeles “and they’re not gonna get away with it”.

Dora Sanchez was still in disbelief from the shocking images that transformed her city the night before.

She gathered on Sunday with others in the community at the Chapel of Change church, less than a block from the centre of protests the day before.

She and others at the church talked about how this Hispanic community was revitalised over the years and became a close-knit community where neighbours know and watch out for one another.

The protests felt like a “breaking point” for the immigrant community, she noted.

Los Angeles is one of the biggest minority-majority cities in the US.

Hispanics not only make up a larger share of the population than any other ethnic background, but immigrants, specifically those from just south in Mexico, are a core part of the history and culture here.

The city boasts its status as a sanctuary city, which means it does not co-operate with federal immigration enforcement.

Some here said they felt a bubbling tension that seemed to erupt when the Republican president’s administration targeted LA’s undocumented immigrants.

“It was time to stand up,” said Maria Gutierrez, who protested in Paramount. “These are my people.”

She said she was born in Mexico, but has lived here since she was a girl.

She – like many here – say they have family members who are in the US illegally.

“This is LA,” she said. “It touches us all.

“Everyone has family or knows someone who doesn’t have papers.”

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

Microsoft has finally revealed its highly-anticipated handheld console, years after it was first rumoured.

The ROG Xbox Ally will let gamers access their Game Pass subscription library on-the-go, in effect meaning members will start off with hundreds of games.

It is being made in partnership with Asus, which has been making handheld gaming devices since 2023, and will be released at the end of 2025 – though it is unknown what it will cost.

Speculation over Microsoft making a handheld Xbox has been widespread for more than a decade, with the company starting and scrapping various efforts over the years.

Microsoft’s announcement comes just three days after the launch of the Switch 2.

Much like its predecessor, the Switch 2 is a hybrid gaming device – meaning it can be both played on-the-go and connect to a TV.

Its success likely led to the design of Valve’s Steam Deck, a handheld PC which gives gamers access to the entire library of titles they’ve bought through game distribution service Steam – though not all the games work on the device.

It means Microsoft may be accused of being slightly late to the game when rivals already exist in the space, but the benefit of native support for Game Pass will likely address a lot of concerns for its 34 million subscribers.

Microsoft’s new handheld will comes in two flavours, the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X.

“Whether you’re at home or on the go, your favorite games should follow you,” said Xbox head of gaming devices Roanne Sones.

“Both handhelds allow players to play natively, via the cloud, or remotely with their Xbox console in another room.”

The two versions both share a 7 inch screen with 1080p resolution.

The base version comes with 16GB memory and 512GB storage, while the “X” version has 24GB memory and double the storage.

The more powerful version of the handheld also has a bigger battery and a more powerful processor.

In both cases, Xbox will be hoping to convince players that it offers something out of the box that its rivals don’t – Microsoft’s operating system.

“Because these handhelds run Windows, you have access to games you can’t get elsewhere, so you can enjoy the full freedom and versatility of PC gaming,” said Ms Sones.

In other words, gamers can leave the Xbox app and launch other gaming platforms – such as Steam and EA Play – through the device.

But all that capability comes at a cost when it comes to weight.

At 670g and 715g respectively, the base and X versions of the Xbox Ally may be heavier than handheld gamers are used to – with Nintendo’s new Switch 2 weighing a fair bit less at 534g.

And there remains one big unanswered question – the price.

Microsoft decided not to reveal how much its new handheld will cost, but it goes without saying the more powerful X version will also be more expensive.

The Switch 2, which has a similar screen, retails at £395 in the UK, while the Steam Deck costs between £349 and £569 depending on the specs.

Part of the success of Game Pass is many highly-anticipated new releases appear on the service on launch day, meaning gamers can save money by subscribing – though you lose access to a game if you cancel your subscription.

At its showcase event where it unveiled the new handheld, Microsoft announced several new games – including a reveal that 17 new titles will come to Game Pass PC & Ultimate on day one.

Many of these are highly-anticipated games such as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4, Ninja Gaiden 4 and Outer Worlds 2.

It also includes the new Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 when that releases – likely later this year.

The new game will be a sequel to the critically-acclaimed Black Ops 2, which first released in 2012.

Interestingly, while the game was confirmed for several consoles, there was no mention of the Switch 2 at the event – despite Nintendo previously signing a 10-year deal to bring the series to its consoles in 2022.

But there’s something else which many gaming fans will have been excited to finally see revealed.

The much-anticipated Persona 4 remake, subtitled Revival, is set to be remade 17 years after it was first released on PlayStation 2.

The original, which sees a group of friends investigate a series of murders in the Japanese countryside, is considered a gaming classic.

But fans of the series will have to wait, as Sega and Atlus did not share a release date for the remake.

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Succession star Sarah Snook and singer Nicole Scherzinger were among the big winners at Sunday’s Tony Awards.

Scherzinger was named best actress in a musical for her role as faded film star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, Jamie Lloyd’s minimalist reboot of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical.

In an emotional acceptance speech, Scherzinger reflected on her recent Broadway success, which came two decades after shooting to fame with the Pussycat Dolls.

“Growing up, I always felt like I didn’t belong, but you all have made me feel like I belong and I have come home, at last,” she said. “If there’s anyone out there who feels like they don’t belong or your time hasn’t come, don’t give up.”

She added: “Just keep on giving and giving because the world needs your love and your light now more than ever. This is a testament that love always wins.”

The singer and former X Factor judge won the same prize at the UK equivalent of the Tonys, the Olivier Awards, for her performance in the show’s original West End run.

She said it had been an “honour” to work with composer Lord Lloyd Webber, and paid tribute to Lloyd, saying: “You saw in me what no one else did. You have given us all new ways to dream and you have changed my life forever.”

Scherzinger also sang As If We Never Said Goodbye during the ceremony, a performance that was introduced by Glenn Close, who played Desmond in Sunset Boulevard when it played on Broadway in 1995.

The Tony Awards, hosted by Wicked star Cynthia Erivo at Radio City Music Hall in New York, celebrate the best in US theatre, and particularly Broadway.

Snook also repeated her Olivier win, taking best leading actress in a play, for performing all 26 roles in a one-woman stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

In her acceptance speech, the actress said: “This means so much for a little Australian girl to be here on Broadway.

“[The Picture of Dorian Gray] is billed as a one-person show, but I don’t feel alone any night that I do this show. There are so many people on stage making it work and behind the stage making it work.”

Other winners included Maybe Happy Ending, about two outdated robots who find connection. It took home best musical, while its star Darren Criss, who previously appeared in Glee, also won an acting prize.

“I have such immense pride to get to be part of this notably diverse, exquisite Broadway season this year,” he said.

Paying tribute to his wife, he added: “Your love and your support for me and our beautiful children, combined with the miracle of working on something as magical as Maybe Happy Ending, has been and will always be award enough.”

Purpose, about an African-American family who reunite in Chicago, was named best play, a month after winning the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Meanwhile, Cole Escola was named best actor in a play for Oh Mary!, a one-act reimagining of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination through the eyes of his wife – a raging alcoholic who dreams of life as a cabaret star.

Sunset Boulevard also won best musical revival, while Eureka Day, about a school in California which must confront its vaccination policy after an outbreak of mumps among the pupils, won best revival of a play.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a stage adaptation of the hit Netflix show, and Buena Vista Social Club, which tells the story of the Cuban musical group, were among the other winners.

The biggest winners:

• 6 – Maybe Happy Ending
• 4 – Buena Vista Social Club
• 3 – Sunset Boulevard, Stranger Things: The First Shadow
• 2 – Purpose, Oh Mary!, The Picture of Dorian Gray

British actor Jak Malone was named best featured actor in a musical – the Tonys equivalent of the supporting actor prize – for Operation Mincemeat, the story of the British plot to fool the Nazis during World War Two.

Elsewhere in the ceremony, Erivo was joined on stage by singer Sara Bareilles for a rendition of Tomorrow from the musical Annie, in tribute to those in the theatre community who had died throughout the year. The song’s composer, Charles Strouse, died last month.

Presenters at the event included Samuel L Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Ben Stiller and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The original cast of Hamilton reunited to perform a rapturously received medley, to celebrate the show’s 10th anniversary.

In the last year, a string of new shows and stars drew 14.7 million people to Broadway performances, grossing $1.89bn (£1.39bn) at the box office.

Best musical

• WINNER: Maybe Happy Ending
• Buena Vista Social Club
• Dead Outlaw
• Death Becomes Her
• Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical

Best play

• WINNER: Purpose
• English
• The Hills of California
• John Proctor is the Villain
• Oh, Mary!

Best revival of a play

• WINNER: Eureka Day
• Romeo + Juliet
• Our Town
• Yellow Face

Best revival of a musical

• WINNER: Sunset Boulevard
• Floyd Collins
• Gypsy
• Pirates! The Penzance Musical

Best actress in a musical

• WINNER: Nicole Scherzinger, Sunset Boulevard
• Megan Hilty, Death Becomes Her
• Audra McDonald, Gypsy
• Jasmine Amy Rogers, BOOP! The Musical
• Jennifer Simard, Death Becomes Her

Best actor in a musical

• WINNER: Darren Criss, Maybe Happy Ending
• Andrew Durand, Dead Outlaw
• Tom Francis, Sunset Boulevard
• Jonathan Groff, Just in Time
• James Monroe Iglehart, A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical
• Jeremy Jordan, Floyd Collins

Best actress in a play

• WINNER: Sarah Snook, The Picture of Dorian Gray
• Laura Donnelly, The Hills of California
• Mia Farrow, The Roommate
• LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Purpose
• Sadie Sink, John Proctor is the Villain

Best actor in a play

• WINNER: Cole Escola, Oh, Mary!
• George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck
• Jon Michael Hill, Purpose
• Daniel Dae Kim, Yellow Face
• Harry Lennix, Purpose
• Louis McCartney, Stranger Things: The First Shadow

Best direction of a musical

• WINNER: Michael Arden, Maybe Happy Ending
• Saheem Ali, Buena Vista Social Club
• David Cromer, Dead Outlaw
• Christopher Gattelli, Death Becomes Her
• Jamie Lloyd, Sunset Boulevard

Best direction of a play

• WINNER: Sam Pinkleton, Oh, Mary!
• Knud Adams, English
• Sam Mendes, The Hills of California
• Danya Taymor, John Proctor is the Villain
• Kip Williams, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Best supporting actress in a musical

• WINNER: Natalie Venetia Belcon, Buena Vista Social Club
• Julia Knitel, Dead Outlaw
• Gracie Lawrence, Just in Time
• Justina Machado, Real Women Have Curves: The Musical
• Joy Woods, Gypsy

Best supporting actor in a musical

• WINNER: Jak Malone, Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical
• Brooks Ashmanskas, SMASH
• Jeb Brown, Dead Outlaw
• Danny Burstein, Gypsy
• Taylor Trensch, Floyd Collins

Best supporting actress in a play

• WINNER: Kara Young, Purpose
• Tala Ashe, English
• Jessica Hecht, Eureka Day
• Marjan Neshat, English
• Fina Strazza, John Proctor is the Villain

Best supporting actor in a play

• WINNER: Francis Jue, Yellow Face
• Glenn Davis, Purpose
• Gabriel Ebert, John Proctor is the Villain
• Bob Odenkirk, Glengarry Glen Ross
• Conrad Ricamora, Oh, Mary!

Dozens of people have been arrested in Los Angeles after days of violent protests, which erupted following immigration raids.

US President Donald Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to the city, triggering a political row. He also condemned what he called “violent, insurrectionist mobs”.

Vehicles have been set on fire and there have been reports of looting in affected areas of America’s second largest city.

• Follow live coverage of the protests
• Full story: Unlawful assembly declared in downtown LA
• How city erupted over rumours of immigration raid at a hardware store
• Analysis: Trump’s intervention in LA may thrill his base but inflame tensions

The protests began on Friday after it emerged Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were carrying out raids in areas of the city with prominent Latino populations.

Raids have stepped up after Trump returned to the White House and pledged to crack down on illegal immigration.

The BBC’s US partner, CBS News, reported that recent operations took place in the Westlake district as well as in Paramount, south of LA – where the population is more than 82% Hispanic.

There were also reports of an ICE raid at a Home Depot shop in Paramount, which officials told the BBC were false.

ICE later told CBS that 44 unauthorised immigrants were arrested in a single operation at a job site on Friday. Another 77 were also arrested in the greater LA area on the same day.

The protests have been largely limited to downtown LA, which has been declared an “unlawful assembly” area by police after days of clashes.

• Vehicles were set alight on Sunday, and police accused protesters of using incendiary devices against horse patrols. Meanwhile, officers in riot gear have used flash-bang grenades and pepper spray to subdue crowds. The unrest temporarily brought the 101 freeway to a halt, and there were reports of looting
• The downtown Federal Building has become a flashpoint after it emerged that ICE detainees were allegedly being held there. On Saturday, ICE accused “over 1,000 rioters” of surrounding and attacking the building
• A Home Depot shop in Paramount, roughly 20 miles (32 km) south of downtown LA, has become another key protest site. Tear gas and flash-bangs were deployed against protesters who also gathered on Saturday, and armed National Guard troops guarded a nearby business park on Sunday
• The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said it made 29 arrests on Saturday. A further 27 people were arrested on Sunday
• Separately, about 60 people were arrested and three officers injured following unrest in San Francisco on Sunday, police there said

Elsewhere in the sprawling city of LA, life continues as normal – and some areas were closed off over the weekend for the LA Pride parade.

On Saturday, Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard members to the Los Angeles area, triggering a political row with state politicians.

The National Guard acts as a hybrid entity that serves both state and federal interests. Typically, a state’s force is activated at the request of the governor.

Trump circumvented that step by invoking a rarely-used federal law, arguing that the protests constituted “a form of rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States”.

This is reportedly the first time the National Guard has been activated without request of the state’s governor since 1965.

The move has been condemned by California Governor Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass, who said they believed local police could handle the situation.

Newsom accused Trump of an “illegal” act that was “putting fuel on this fire”, and has threatened to sue.

The role of the National Guard is to protect federal agents, including ICE and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel, as they carry out their duties.

The troops will not be conducting their own immigration raids or performing regular policing – which remains the role of the (LAPD).

The law generally prohibits domestic use of federal troops for civilian law enforcement, outside of some exceptions like the Insurrection Act.

Although Trump has threatened to invoke that act in the past, during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, for example, he has not done so here.

Trump’s allies have defended his decision to mobilise the National Guard. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth also said active-duty US marines stationed at nearby Camp Pendleton would be sent if needed and were on “high alert”.

The recent raids are part of the president’s aim to enact the “biggest deportation operation” in US history. Los Angeles, where over one-third of the population is born outside of the US, has been a key target for operations.

In early May, ICE announced it had arrested 239 undocumented migrants during a week-long operation in the LA area, as overall arrests and deportations lagged behind Trump’s expectations.

The following month, the White House increased its goal for ICE officials to make at least 3,000 arrests per day.

Authorities have expanded their search increasingly to include workplaces such as restaurants and retail shops.

The ambitious deportation campaign has included removing migrants to a mega-prison in El Salvador, including at least one who was in the US legally. Many of Trump’s actions have been met by legal challenges.

A new round of talks aimed at resolving the trade war between the US and China are set to take place in London on Monday.

A senior US delegation including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will meet with Chinese representatives such as Vice Premier He Lifeng to resolve tensions between the world’s two largest economies, which is threatening global growth.

Chinese exports of rare earths, which are crucial for modern technology, as well as Beijing’s access to US products, including computer chips, are expected to be high on the agenda.

Last month, Washington and Beijing agreed a temporary truce over trade tariffs but each country has since accused the other of breaching the deal.

The new round of negotiations follows a phone call between Donald Trump and China’s leader Xi Jinping last week which the US President described as a “very good talk”.

The call – the first between the two leaders since the trade war erupted in February – “resulted in a very positive conclusion for both countries”, Trump said.

According to Chinese state news agency Xinhua, Xi told Trump that the US should “withdraw the negative measures it has taken against China”.

While last month’s talks in Geneva reduced tariffs, they did not resolve a range of other issues including Chinese exports of rare earth metals and magnets which are essential for manufacturing everything from smartphones to electric vehicles.

Meanwhile, Washington has restricted China’s access to US goods such as semiconductors and other related technologies linked to artificial intelligence (AI).

The inclusion of Lutnick in this week’s meetings with China is “a welcome addition”, according to Swetha Ramachandran, fund manager at Artemis, since he is “behind some of the very harsh export controls of technology to China”.

She told the BBC’s Today programme: “Some of the focus certainly seems to be on rare earths where China, of course, has dominance in terms of producing.

“They mine 69% of the rare earths globally that are quite essential to technology development in the US so I think there are enough chips on the table here that could make it acceptable for both sides to walk away with desired outcomes.”

As well as Lutnick, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will meet Chinese officials in London.

When Trump announced sweeping tariffs on imports from a number of countries earlier this year, China was the hardest hit. Beijing responded with its own higher rates on US imports, and this triggered tit-for-tat increases that peaked at 145%.

In May, talks held in Switzerland led to a temporary truce that Trump called a “total reset”.

It brought US tariffs on Chinese products down to 30%, while Beijing slashed levies on US imports to 10% and promised to lift barriers on critical mineral exports. It gave both sides a 90-day deadline to try to reach a trade deal.

But the US and China have since claimed breaches on non-tariff pledges.

Greer said China had failed to roll-back restrictions on exports of rare earth magnets.

Beijing said US violations of the agreement included stopping sales of computer chip design software to Chinese companies, warning against using chips made by Chinese tech giant Huawei and cancelling visas for Chinese students.

On Saturday, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said it had approved some applications for rare earth export licences, although it did not provide details of which countries were involved.

Trump said on Friday that Xi had agreed to restart trade in rare earth materials.

But speaking on Sunday, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CBS News that “those exports of critical minerals have been getting released at a rate that is, you know, higher than it was, but not as high as we believe we agreed to in Geneva”.

Prior to talks with the US, He met with Chancellor Rachel Reeves on Sunday where the vice premier said China and the UK should maintain and deepen communication and cooperation across economics and finance, according to a report by state broadcaster CCTV.

China wants to build a new embassy at Royal Mint Court, a building complex close to the City of London which is home to the UK financial industry. Beijing bought the site in 2018.

The US has reportedly raised concerns about the proposed embassy’s proximity to sensitive infrastructure underpinning banks and institutions.

The UK is in talks to finalise an agreement with the US over tariffs, which must be signed by 9 July or British exports of steel will face higher taxes when they reach American ports.

Economists have warned that Trump’s trade policy will impact the global economy.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said it now expected worldwide economic growth to be a “modest” 2.9%, down from a previous forecast of 3.1%.

It blamed a “significant” rise in trade barriers and warned that “weakened economic prospects will be felt around the world, with almost no exception”.

New data released by Bejing on Monday showed China’s exports in May were lower than analysts expected.

China’s exports in dollar terms increased by 4.8% compared to the same time last year.

At the same time imports dropped by 3.4%, which was much worse than the 0.9% fall predicted.

Aylo, the company which runs a number of pornographic websites, including Pornhub, is to stop operating in France from Wednesday.

It is in reaction to a French law requiring porn sites to take extra steps to verify their users’ ages.

An Aylo spokesperson said the law was a privacy risk and assessing people’s ages should be done at a device level.

Pornhub is the most visited porn site in the world – with France its second biggest market, after the US.

Aylo – and other providers of sexually explicit material – find themselves under increasing regulatory pressure worldwide.

The EU recently announced an investigation into whether Pornhub and other sites were doing enough to protect children.

Aylo has also pulled out of a number of US states, again over the issue of checking the ages of its users.

All sites offering sexually explicit material in the UK will soon also have to offer more robust “age assurance.”

Aylo, formerly Mindgeek, also runs sites such as Youporn and RedTube, which will also become unavailable to French customers.

It is owned by Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners.

Their vice president for compliance, Solomon Friedman, called the French law “dangerous,” “potentially privacy-infringing” and “ineffective”.

“Google, Apple and Microsoft all have the capability built into their operating system to verify the age of the user at the operating system or device level,” he said on a video call reported by Agence France-Presse.

Another executive, Alex Kekesi, said the company was pro-age verification, but there were concerns over the privacy of users.

In some cases, users may have to enter credit cards or government ID details in order to prove their age.

French minister for gender equality, Aurore Bergé, wrote “au revoir” in response to the news that Pornhub was pulling out of France.

In a post on X [in French], she wrote: “There will be less violent, degrading and humiliating content accessible to minors in France.”

The UK has its own age verification law, with platforms required to have “robust” age checks by July, according to media regulator Ofcom.

These may include facial detection software which estimates a user’s age.

In April – in response to messaging platform Discord testing face scanning software – experts predicted it would be “the start of a bigger shift” in age checks in the UK, in which facial recognition tech played a bigger role.

BBC News has asked Aylo whether it will block its sites in the UK too when the laws come in.

In May, Ofcom announced it was investigating two pornography websites which had failed to detail how they were preventing children from accessing their platforms.

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Authorities have imposed a curfew and shut down the internet in parts of the troubled north-eastern Indian state of Manipur after protests erupted over the arrest of leaders from an ethnic group.

On Sunday, police arrested five leaders of Arambai Tenggol, an armed Meitei radical group, including their chief Asem Kanan Singh.

India’s top investigation agency said Singh was arrested at Manipur’s Imphal airport for his involvement in “various criminal activities” related to the violence that broke out in the state in 2023.

Manipur has been rocked by periodic violence since 2023 after ethnic clashes between the two largest groups, the majority Meitei and minority Kuki, over land and influence.

More than 250 people have been killed in the conflict, with tens of thousands displaced.

Arambai Tenggol identifies itself as a social outfit and wields considerable influence in the state, enjoying support from the Meitei community.

The latest round of tensions began on 7 June, when India’s top investigation agency arrested Singh and four other leaders of Arambai Tenggol, following which he was taken to Guwahati city in the neighbouring state of Assam.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is investigating cases related to violence in Manipur, said that the trial for these had been shifted from Manipur to Guwahati in Assam “in view of the law and order situation in Manipur”.

After the arrests, protesters demanding the release of members of Arambai Tenggol stormed a police post, set fire to a bus and blocked roads in parts of Imphal.

Some protesters also clashed with security personnel, The Hindu newspaper reported.

A 13-year-old boy was injured after security forces fired tear gas shells and live rounds to disperse crowds, The Hindustan Times reported.

State lawmaker Okram Surjakumar said the arrests had thrown the state into chaos.

Following the violence, the state government suspended internet and mobile data services in five districts of the state for five days and imposed an indefinite curfew in one. Gatherings of four or more people has also been prohibited in the some parts.

Arambai Tenggol has also declared a 10-day shutdown in parts of the state since Saturday night.

Priyanka Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party, on Sunday questioned why the government was unable to bring to peace to the conflict-hit state.

Earlier this year, the Indian government brought the state under direct federal rule after the chief minister resigned following criticism from opposition groups.

Gandhi blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he had not met representatives from the state or made any efforts for peace.

“It is the prime minister’s responsibility to ensure peace and security for the citizens of the country. To step back from this is to turn away from one’s duty,” she wrote in a post on X.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been sharply criticised by opposition leaders and rights groups for its handling of the conflict. Opposition leaders have also criticised Modi for not visiting the state since the violence first began in 2023.

On Sunday, a multi-party delegation of state lawmakers met the state governor.

BJP lawmker Kh Ibomcha said the delegation had asked that the arrested leaders be released after they were questioned by the police.